Horowitz Travel-Israel-Lost in
Jerusalem-February 1, 2017,
The garbage strike is over. We could tell by the men wearing kippot & hauling trash.
As I was eating delicious butternut squash soup for lunch, I thought about the lack of chicken soup on menus here. Of course, it would have to be in a meat restaurant. But even only one of the Shabbat carry out places has it, & it's tasteless. Since everyone here is sick, I thought that would be a thriving business.
We made a valiant effort to find the Museum on the Seam today. It's in an old house formerly owned by a Palestinian Arab & appropriated by Israel in 1948. It sits on what used to be the border with Jordan. The house had been fortified then converted into a museum in 1999.
When we got off the bus, my directional GPS failed, & we got turned around. Two men seemed to know exactly what we were looking for so we went where they told us. Nope! We walked into a large building & interrupted a lovely woman's desk lunch. She spoke English & Googled where we needed to go. Then she pointed out we were in a municipal building with a Bureau of Tourism. We headed for that office only to walk in the wrong door & be in a synagogue in the midst of an Orthodox prayer service. Actually, it wasn't surprising. There are synagogues in office buildings in NYC. We did find the tourism office. It was closed for lunch.
We hit the streets again still following my errant internal GPS further confused by Google. Now it was 2pm & 40 degrees. Lunch became more important. To our surprise, we'd reached familiar territory. The Old City. We were really off track, but knew where to go for lunch. We opted for the aforementioned soup & pizza. Our server was chatty & wanted to know if she could help us find where we were going. In all the bonding , she forgot to put in our pizza order. We were actually satisfied with the huge bowls of soup & ate all the lovely rolls before we began our quest anew.
David had sorted out the Google info, the server's input, & we found the correct street. Some kind of police guy figured out which way the addresses ran & we were home free. It turned out not to be what we thought. It was not a museum of the socio-politically marginalized. It was a museum of socio-political contemporary art. We took in what we could. It was extremely interpretive. We spent most time watching three videos. One was about 9/11. Another was about an experiment with mock prisoners & guards in Russia. It documented how the guards who knew it was an experiment turned against the prisoners who were also clued in. It ended when the guards found their humanity, met with the prisoners as humans, & a halt was called to the charade.
The other video was about leadership & how an effective leader is similar whether business or political. What I took away was that people are looking for heroes. Heroes are the ones who come on the scene and do the unexpected & somewhat outrageous. Hello!
We were in new territory so had new transportation needs back to the apartment. We needed to take a train to a bus. It was frigid, & we had to figure out what side of the street on which to wait, but with help & persistence we got to our street. We really wanted pizza so went to a local carry out. When we got back to the apartment we set the oven on warm & popped the pizza, box & all, in until we were ready to eat. David smelled something funny, & when he opened the oven, we'd started a fire. The box had come in contact with the heating element. We grabbed it out, closed the oven, ran the flaming cover under water, & opened the window. At least the smoke alarm didn't go off if it even has batteries. The pizza was unscathed but average.
The garbage strike is over. We could tell by the men wearing kippot & hauling trash.
As I was eating delicious butternut squash soup for lunch, I thought about the lack of chicken soup on menus here. Of course, it would have to be in a meat restaurant. But even only one of the Shabbat carry out places has it, & it's tasteless. Since everyone here is sick, I thought that would be a thriving business.
We made a valiant effort to find the Museum on the Seam today. It's in an old house formerly owned by a Palestinian Arab & appropriated by Israel in 1948. It sits on what used to be the border with Jordan. The house had been fortified then converted into a museum in 1999.
When we got off the bus, my directional GPS failed, & we got turned around. Two men seemed to know exactly what we were looking for so we went where they told us. Nope! We walked into a large building & interrupted a lovely woman's desk lunch. She spoke English & Googled where we needed to go. Then she pointed out we were in a municipal building with a Bureau of Tourism. We headed for that office only to walk in the wrong door & be in a synagogue in the midst of an Orthodox prayer service. Actually, it wasn't surprising. There are synagogues in office buildings in NYC. We did find the tourism office. It was closed for lunch.
We hit the streets again still following my errant internal GPS further confused by Google. Now it was 2pm & 40 degrees. Lunch became more important. To our surprise, we'd reached familiar territory. The Old City. We were really off track, but knew where to go for lunch. We opted for the aforementioned soup & pizza. Our server was chatty & wanted to know if she could help us find where we were going. In all the bonding , she forgot to put in our pizza order. We were actually satisfied with the huge bowls of soup & ate all the lovely rolls before we began our quest anew.
David had sorted out the Google info, the server's input, & we found the correct street. Some kind of police guy figured out which way the addresses ran & we were home free. It turned out not to be what we thought. It was not a museum of the socio-politically marginalized. It was a museum of socio-political contemporary art. We took in what we could. It was extremely interpretive. We spent most time watching three videos. One was about 9/11. Another was about an experiment with mock prisoners & guards in Russia. It documented how the guards who knew it was an experiment turned against the prisoners who were also clued in. It ended when the guards found their humanity, met with the prisoners as humans, & a halt was called to the charade.
The other video was about leadership & how an effective leader is similar whether business or political. What I took away was that people are looking for heroes. Heroes are the ones who come on the scene and do the unexpected & somewhat outrageous. Hello!
We were in new territory so had new transportation needs back to the apartment. We needed to take a train to a bus. It was frigid, & we had to figure out what side of the street on which to wait, but with help & persistence we got to our street. We really wanted pizza so went to a local carry out. When we got back to the apartment we set the oven on warm & popped the pizza, box & all, in until we were ready to eat. David smelled something funny, & when he opened the oven, we'd started a fire. The box had come in contact with the heating element. We grabbed it out, closed the oven, ran the flaming cover under water, & opened the window. At least the smoke alarm didn't go off if it even has batteries. The pizza was unscathed but average.
An observation in closing: Jewish hair. There have been plays written on the subject. It's long, curly, & bushy. Mine is the antithesis. It abounds here. If you know of an enterprising plumber, I'm sure there are career opportunities in Israel.
Tomorrow we're going to the LGBT Open House (community center) to meet with a woman to get a better sense of that community.
Toby
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| Museum on the Seam |
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