Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, Has Sure Changed

We lived in Bayit Vegan, and even owned an apartment there, before moving to Shiloh. When we bought our apartment in early 1971, Bayit Vegan was a stronghold of Mizrachi, Mafdal, National Religious Party neighborhood. Rabbi Min-Hahar was the official Chief Rabbi of the neighborhood. There was a large mamlachti dati, state religious elementary school, Neve Etzion, Most of the men wore crocheted kippot and the women some sort of scarf or hat. Admittedly there was a sizable Chareidi population, too, and they had their educational institutions. There were also quite a few non-religious residents, mostly on Rechov Uziel and the beginning of Rechov Bayit Vegan. Our building was mixed. There were a few non-religious among the twenty apartments.

By the time we moved to Shiloh in 1981, things were changing, and it was pretty clear that the chareidim would be the majority. Many of the dati le'umi, national religious, like ourselves moved to yishuvim in Judea and Samaria and even Gush Katif, like Rachel and Moshe Saperstein.

I hadn't taken a walk around Bayit Vegan for a very long time, decades. I've only been on Rechov Uziel to visit a friend in the Shalom Hotel. Actually, that was my destination last Wednesday. But since there no longer is an easy to take #21 bus from downtown Jerusalem to the hotel, I took the train to Mt. Herzl aka Rechov Hapisga, the main drag of Bayit Vegan. I had time, so I took a leisurely stroll by my old haunts.

I just want to make things clear. I believe in free enterprise and don't consider us as being pushed out of the neighborhood. We wanted to move to a small community in Land liberated in the 1967 Six Days War. There are natural dynamics in how populations change. The fact that today's Bayit Vegan is not the Bayit Vegan I enjoyed living in forty years ago doesn't bother me. I find it interesting. One of the reasons we sold our apartment was that there was no market for rentals on the third floor in the early 1980's. If we had been making good money  on rent, then we probably would have kept it. We used the money to build a house using a quality contractor. 

Here are some pictures:

The Calder is familiar, overlooking Mt. Herzl, Yad Veshem, but there weren't trains way back when.

None of this was here. At most there was some felafel, small grocers, a stationery store, butcher shop. There weren't enough customers for the chains to care.

This sign protests internet. Hmm sure not my neighborhood.

Migdal, the old NRP shul looks the same, but I've been told that it's now Chareidi. There isn't much of a dati leumi synagogue left in the neighborhood.

There were hundred of kids exiting the old Neve Etzion school, which is no longer a state religious school. There is now a chareidi school, actually two. I could see the campus divided by a wall for girls and boys. It's also full of caravans or prefab classrooms. 

The only familiar site was a friend who was volunteering as a crossing guard. There are so many children, cars and buses, that they have to use adults to conduct the traffic. I stayed an spoke to her for awhile to get more information about the changes in the neighborhood.

Two of my daughters went to a small private gan, nursery school on Rechov Hachida. It was then a very quiet, sleepy street. 

Just across from our apartment was a large private home, the size of an apartment house, with a big beautiful garden facing us. I was shocked to see it surrounded by a fence, and then I peeked in and saw that the house and garden are gone, and apparently there will be some new building there.

And here it is, our building. There's now a fourth floor, and the people in our apartment closed off the front merpeset, balcony. My kids and their friends had so much fun playing there. I thought it was the best thing about the apartment. 

a view from the side
The building was known for its green and white trissim, shades. Not too many are left.

There had been, all the years we were there, an empty lot next to us. And next to the empty lot was a playground. Building had begun on the lot when we were planning our move.

This ugly thing is what they built.

The playground is being redone. We used to go there every day.

I used to be able to see it from my kitchen balcony.

I'm truly glad that today Bayit Vegan is thriving. And I'm even happier that I live in Shiloh.

Jerusalem Night View

I took this picture last Thursday night while walking on Rechov Uziel, Bayit V'Gan, towards the train on Sederot Herzl. 

This picture doesn't do the view justice.  I was in a rush and using my smartphone.

Way back when, well over forty years ago, when we had first moved to Bayit V'Gan on the street above, there used to be nighttime bus tours to our street to see the views.  It wasn't all that built up then, and the trees were shorter and thinner.  There wasn't all that much of Jerusalem then either.

Even though I was rushing the other night.  I kept stopping to look.  It really was gorgeous.

Memories...

Last week I took a different route to the Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem old age home where my friend has been living this past decade.  We used to live in Bayit Vegan and saw the Shalom Hotel going up from our apartment on Rechov Bayit Vegan.  I haven't been back to that building, but last week I walked from Sha'are Tzedek to my friend's apartment on Rechov Uziel.

The first building there, which now looks absolutely awful is a building I used to visit.

That's where the mikvah (ritual bath) was.  Even then in the early to late 1970's when they built a new fancier and more modern one on Rechov Sha'arei Torah (is my memory correct?) the building wasn't kept up. There was an old lady who ran the mikvah on her own.  I don't think she ever smiled. We'd wait in a small crowded waiting room until there was a bath free.  It was the type of place we'd rush through preparations in order to leave as quickly as possible.

I remember the lines and wait at the new one being much longer.  After moving to Shiloh, I once had to "dunk" there before a wedding, and it took absolutely ages.

My only good memory of going to that old mikvah was that on the way I'd pass some fragrant bushes. The flowers put me in just the right mood and helped make up for the unpleasant old mikvah.

Our Purim Tree

No, this is not a food-laden version of the XMAS tree...

I'd say that either

• G-d played a joke on us
• there's a power in words
• or maybe it's both the above?

When we lived in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, on Rechov Bayit Vegan there was a large shekadiya, almond tree in the empty lot right next to our apartment.  Every year during the beginning of the Jewish Month of Shvat, late winter, the local gannim, preschools would march the kids over to serenade it, when it was in full bloom:
השקידיה פורחת HaShekaydia Porachat, The Amond Tree is in Bloom

מילים: ישראל דושמן
לחן: מנשה רבינא

השקדיה פורחת
ושמש פז זורחת,
צפורים מראש כל גג
מבשרות את בוא החג.

ט"ו בשבט הגיע
חג לאילנות.
ט"ו בשבט הגיע
חג לאילנות.

הארץ משוועת
הגיעה עת לטעת,
כל אחד יקח לו עץ
באתים נצא חוצץ.

ט"ו בשבט הגיע...
The almond tree is blooming
and the golden sun is shining,
birds atop each roof
brush (bless) the arrival of the festival.
Tu bishvat has arrived
(it’s) the festival of trees.
Tu bishvat has arrived
(it’s) the festival of trees.
The land is crying out
the time of planting has arrived
each person shall take a tree
we’ll stride out with spades.
Tu bishvat has arrived…
We planted every hill and valley,
From Dan to Beer – Sheva:
And our land we will return and inherit -
A land of refined fresh olive oil (Yitzhar) and honey.
Tu bishvat has arrived… (translation from  My Western Wall)

That almond tree was an "institution" in Bayit Vegan. Nobody could imagine the neighborhood with it. I used to say to myself if we ever moved, we'd have to plant one. I just couldn't imagine living without those gorgeous late winter flowers.

A few months before we moved to Shiloh, a contractor broke ground in the empty lot next to our apartment and destroyed, uprooted the tree. People came from all over the neighborhood to cry and protest. A wealthy resident sent his gardener to try to transplant it next to his home, but the attempt failed.  The tree had been too seriously damaged to be saved.

We moved to Shiloh that following summer.  Gardening isn't my specialty, and we first lived in a small prefabricated cement home around which I planted simple flowers and bulbs.  The year after we moved out, a summer fruit tree was discovered by the front door.

My sons used to root the willow branches, of my husband's Arba Minim, Four Species after Succot.  One year we planted the "willow tree" right next to the front door, because willows need a lot of water I figured that the rainwater from the nearby drain pipe would make it grow well.  We kept waiting, and no big willow tree ever appeared. At best there were some pathetic skinny leaves. Then one Purim, after a very snowy winter, a full month after TU B'Shvat, we suddenly noticed a strange sight.  Almond blossoms on what had been our "willow tree."  Willow and almond leaves are very similar.  And if you look carefully at the bottom of the tree, you'll see what appears to be two tree trunks growing side by side. 

It took a while, but the almond tree began getting much stronger than the willow.  And here's a picture of the tree blooming this year.

Tu B'Shvat cheer and Memories

Watch that almond tree grow and bloom!
thanks to Sara Layah

When we lived in Bayit V'Gan, Jerusalem, there was a large, old almond tree in an empty lot right near our apartment. Every year between Rosh Chodesh Shvat and Tu B'Shvat the gannim, nursery schools used to walk over to see the flowers blooming. It was a "neighborhood institution."

The winter before we left they started construction in that lot. The contractor destroyed the tree. People of all ages came from all over the neighborhood to protest and even cry.

"Hashkaidiya porachat," the blooming almond tree has never seemed the same to me since then.