Passover/Pesach Visit to Jerusalem

Yesterday we met with cousins in Jerusalem. The plan was to go to the new Plugat Hakotel Museum in the former Maon Betar, Old City Jerusalem, where we had lived for almost a year after making aliyah in 1970. But when we got there we discovered that too many other people had the same idea. It's a very small museum, and you have to reserve a specific time slot to see the exhibits and movie. Since we're all retirees, we decided to do it another time.

Instead we found a place for lunch and just walked around a bit. Jerusalem was full of visitors from near and far.  We made our way out of the Old City through Mamilla Mall and then to the lobby of the Jerusalem Waldorf Astoria, where we sat and chatted. After that we made our separate ways.

Here are some photos:

Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem #5, Mamilla Mall Where Modern Stinks

This is a continuation in my ongoing series about public toilets in Jerusalem. See Saved by The First Station aka #4a, #4, #3, #2 and #1.

Jerusalem's upscale Mamilla Mall has the strangest toilet seats I've ever seen. Obviously they were designed and purchased by a male, since there's no way any female would find them comfortable or attractive.

Apparently, the restaurants have their own out of the way, rather hidden, toilets for their customers, but on the most part, mall visitors are expected to use the main Public Toilets in the mini-mall towards the King David Street end of the main walkway. That's where you'll find FOX, Bugg, , The GAP, Doreen Frankfurt and lots of other nice stores. For now there is also a free Lego play area for kids.

Every time I have to use their facilities, I enter hopefully. I keep hoping that they will replace those very masculine and uncomfortable rectangular toilet seats with classic ovals, which fit our bottoms. But since they are the only game in town, we have no choice but use them.

And that gets me to another of my pet peeves:

Women who not only won't sit on public toilet seats, but they don't raise them up either!

They leave us messes like this! My message to those ladies:

If you won't sit, then please leave the rest of us with clean, dry seats!! You can cover your hands with toiletpaper to touch the seat to lift it up and then wash with soap afterwards. I trust that if you're that fussy, you'd anyhow use lots of soap. 

Was this post helpful? Which Jerusalem public toilets do you recommend or hate? Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Topped 20,000 Steps!!

I'm going to be honest. I sometimes have trouble even reaching 5,000 steps and am overjoyed to hit the 10,000 benchmark. So, my topping 20,000 steps may never be repeated, though I wouldn't mind doing it on occasion, though without a heavy backpack. My cellphone is set up to count my steps via Walklogger.  

The occasion was the visit of my niece from america who had just finished Birthright and  was staying a few days here in Israel to visit us and see a bit more of the country. I had my usual "Tuesday backpack," since I usually stay over on Tuesday night for an easy trip to Matan on Wednesday morning. The walk would have had been pure pleasure if I hadn't been schepping that bag on my back. All I really needed was a bottle of water.

We walked all over. The only touristy things were the Supreme Court and Yemin Moshe. Here are some photos:

Delicious Salad at Mamilla Mall and Memories of Mamilla of Old

When my cousin, his wife and I were looking for a place for lunch in Mamilla Mall, which was perfectly convenient after walking through the Old City and their first visit to the Kotel, We noticed Roladin Bakery Café, phone 972 2-623-1553. I had never eaten there before. But most Israeli dairy places offer fantastic salads which was what we had wanted.

Following the principle of ordering something I wouldn't/couldn't make at home, I took salad that featured string-beans, mushrooms and cheese. It didn't disappoint, not one bite. It was as tasty as it looked.

They ate a lighter meal, sharing the Israeli Salad which had felafel. It seemed just right to suggest that to him, since I knew that his late father loved to go to the felafel places on Main Street, Flushing, NY. Of course the felafel they had was nothing like what my Uncle Izzy would have remembered from his days here in the Palmach, but he was on my mind that lunch.

Honestly, the Mamilla Street of today isn't the one I remember from our early days in Israel in 1970-71 when we lived in the Old City.  From our vantage on the restaurant's terrace, I could see the super-posh apartments but strained my memory for Levi's Makolet where we used to shop. I explained how during the nineteen years that the Old City and eastern Jerusalem were occupied by the Jordanians, 1948-67, this area had been a dangerous slum. The dangers were from the Jordanian snipers who periodically shot at the Jewish Israeli neighborhood. And no, the United Nations never established "fact-finding commissions" to investigate the Jordanian violence against innocent Israeli civilians.

The prices were standard for this sort of restaurant, but the menu was more interesting. Yes, I recommend it.

Interesting Views and Sights in The Mamilla Mall, Jerusalem

I remember Richov Mamilla when it was a partially destroyed hovel of a street, one of the "spokes" originating from Sha'ar Yaffo, Jaffa Gate. During the nineteen years from the War of Independence until the 1967 Six Days War, Mamilla was on the border.  Only the poor, those without much choice lived there.  After the war, it, like Yemin Moshe which was even more exposed and vulnerable to Jordanian snipers, was suddenly earmarked for luxury housing and commercial development.  The hapless residents were shuffled off aka "urban renewal" to live in quickly built tiny apartments in the more outlying neighborhoods.

When my husband and I made aliyah in 1970, we lived in the Old City and did some of our shopping in a small grocery store, Levi's, on Rechov Mamilla.  Closer to the King David Street end was the best Conditoria in Jerusalem. We continued patronizing it for years.

So I must admit a certain ambivalence when it comes to the very upscale Mamilla Mall.

Very Nice, But...

Jerusalem's Mamilla Mall is upscale, but not too much. Many of the stores are the standard Israeli Mall chains, the ones you find on the better main streets and all the malls. I think it was designed to be a modern "Cardo," the ancient shopping street discovered and repopulated in Jerusalem's Old City. There's no roof, meaning, chilly, rainy, sunny--depending on the seasons.

When we first made aliyah, we shopped on Mamilla Street, before it was taken down to be rebuilt and modernized and all "poshed up." Pre-1967, only poor people lived there. It was right on the border between Israel and Jordan. In 1970, when we began shopping at Levi's little grocery store, most of the residents had been relocated to poorly built public housing in what was then the outskirts of Jerusalem. The only other store we patronized, and continued to for a few years after moving to Bayit V'Gan, was a fantastic "conditoria," fancy bakery.

For over 35 years, I had nothing to do on Mamilla Street. Now they've opened a mall.

In theory, it's nice, but...

• unless you enter in a car via the parking lot, there are a lot of steps to go up from most of the street entrances.
• and, there are two parking lots. The first you pass charges ns10 per hour or ns50 for the day. There is no sign indicating that there's a second parking lot for those shopping in the mall. That parking lot is free for the first three hours and then ns10 per additional hour. If my daughter hadn't been sure that it was supposed to be free, we would have paid to park.
• The public toilets can only be accessed via stairs

lots and lots of stairs. Lots more than you can see in these pictures. We asked some workers lounging around if there was any elevator access, and the answer was:

NO!!