Oh, the irony!

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Tom G

Sometimes life is more ironic than fiction. This is certainly true about today’s walking tour. Today we’re visiting the Muslim cemetery in Mamillah. Mamilla is a stone’s through from Jaffa Gate in the Old City and has been of use to Jerusalem residents since biblical times.

The cemetery was founded in the 13th century and remained in use until 1927. The word “Mamillah” is actually the mispronunciation of the Arabic “maman Allah” – “comes from Allah.”

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Despite the fact that most Jerusalemites have walked through the cemetery at some point, very few actually know the story of the area.

According to tradition, the first people to be buried in the cemetery were soldiers who fought against the Crusaders. Perhaps the most famous was Sheikh Dia A-Din Abu Muhamad Al-Alami who commanded the siege of Acre in 1291.

Today, the cemetery is absolutely filthy, it is a repository for trash and is neglected by all. How embarrassing. If anybody around the world would treat a Jewish cemetery this way, all Hell would pay.

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A beautiful tomb is that of the governor of Safed, Al-Kubki who was buried here in the 13th century.

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Built in the traditional Muslim style, it is covered with graffiti, and as I tried to look in to the tomb, I saw that it was filled with trash. Shame!

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Over the last century, there were lots of different plans to build here. Actually, the cemetery was much larger, and at some point (1927) the Mufti Amin Al-Husseini wrote a fatwa making burial in the cemetery forbidden. Haj Amin wanted to change the purpose of the area to allow for commercial development, and the Waqf sold part of the land to the city. If you cross the street to Hillel street, you will see a lone tomb in the street.

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But, we still haven’t gotten to the most ironic part of the story. The city of Jerusalem has been actively trying to develop this land. It’s expensive real estate, after all. Smack in the center of the city.

Some genius got the idea that it would be a good place for a museum. A museum for what you may ask? What sort of museum could one build on a Muslim cemetery? Wait for it —

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That’s it! Who would build a “Museum of Tolerance” on a Muslim cemetery??

Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

Monastery of St. John the Baptist Prodomos

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Tom G

It really never ceases to amaze me. I will be walking through the Old City, I’ll see an alley way and venture in, and I’ll discover something new that I didn’t know existed until then. This is exactly what happened when I came across the Monastery of St. John the Baptist Prodomos on Shouk Abtimous Street of the Christian Quarter.

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The monastery is owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and is OLD. Today’s church is built on a much older structure. I initially fell in love with the courtyard. Stunning. I loved the blue colors (reminds me of Greece) and the drinking wells.

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The church, built in the 5th century was demolished by the Persians in 614. During Crusader times, it was known as the “Knights of St. John Hospital.” The Crusaders renovated the current structure. It was purchased in 1674 by the Franciscan Order.

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Perhaps most interesting is what’s below the modern church. If you ask one of the Sisters, and give a small donation, they will open the iron door to the Byzantine church. It is was discovered and excavated in 1890. The excavators found a reliquary and a piece of the Holy Cross and other relics of St. John, Peter, and other Apostles.

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It’s amazing to be standing in a structure that was used 1500 years ago!

So many surprises on Agron St.

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Tom G

I think that I must drive on Agron St. about twice a week. It’s a major road between anywhere and everywhere. Usually, I don’t pay too much attention to the buildings, although I know that there is the American consulate, the beautiful new Waldorf Astoria hotel, and a monastery or two. This week I decided to explore two buildings along the eastern (or bottom) part of the street.

My first stop is a beautiful and old building called Beit Habib Bshara, at Agron 22. This is a one floor square building with a ceramic roof and has four apartments. Habib Bshara was a Christian-Arab who worked as an architect in Jerusalem and designed this beautiful building at the beginning of the 20th century.

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It’s perfectly symmetrical, and you can see the beautiful arched entrance. Notice the beautiful art deco iron works. You can also see that the stone has a reddish tint to it. The store on the bottom left is the oldest bicycle shop in Jerusalem (Yedidya). Everyone bought a bike from them at some point (I bought a few!)

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The building is on a corner of an alley way (Zamenhof street), and it you go down the alley, you’re in for a treat. For those of you who are interested who Zamenhof was … he invented the language Esperanto (aka “Doktoro Esperanto”). We come to some lovely residential buildings.

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Walking a bit further, we find more beautiful buildings and a small and lovely community garden. Hidden from view, unknown to many, but lovely!

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We go back to Agron St and turn right. The next building is a gem (Agron 24). This two floor building was built in the 1920s and 1930s and is called Beit Lorenzo, after the Christian-Arab family (Lorenzo).

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Here the red stone is very pronounced. Notice on the top right, there is a balcony floor. I see that they intended to add another floor, but the war (1948) got in the way, and the family fled (or were chased out).

If you walk through the central gate, you come into another hidden Jerusalem gem. You will see that there are actually two buildings – one on Agron street and another recessed in from the street. Separating them is an amazing garden.

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And as you walk further in, you see the courtyard in all its splendor.

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The original owners were a Christian-Arab family; you can see the Madonna on the roof of the central building. I spoke with a resident (Yisrael) who has lived there since 1949 (after the 1948 war, the building was abandoned and taken by the state and then re-sold), and he told me that despite one of the residents being a very orthodox Jew, they all decided to leave the Madonna intact, out of respect for this beautiful building.

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There’s a lot of construction going on around the area (that’s what you are seeing behind the Madonna).

There are so many other beautiful buildings on Agron St., and I’ll write about them at some point. It’s just wonderful to really explore the area after passing it by so often. How many other gems are there in the city?

Mark Twain and Herman Melville in Jerusalem

Posted on February 1, 2015 by Tom G

This week I took a day hike through the Old City looking for the two primary hotels used by travelers from the in the 19th century. Of note, Mark Twain was in Jerusalem in 1867 and he wrote about his experience in “Innocents Abroad.”

Finding Mark Twain’s hotel was easy, as it is an infamous building just inside the Damascus Gate. Twain stayed in the Mediterranean Hotel for only two days. The building was then purchased from a Christian owner in the 1880s by Moshe Wittenberg who renamed it as Wittenberg House. In the 1980s Ariel Sharon purchased one of the apartments – a thorn in the side of the local Palestinian residents as he didn’t actually live there – it was simply to create a provocation to have a settlement in the Arab section of the Old City. The apartment was eventually sold to the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish group, Ateret Cohanim.

I specially like the windows in the building. It took me a few minutes to find a good angle.

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Actually, there were three versions of the famous Mediterranean Hotel. Twain stayed in the one near the Damascus Gate. Herman Melville stayed in the one at the Patriarch’s Pool not far from Jaffa Gate. It is almost impossible to get a shot of the front of the building of the one at the Patriarch’s Pool, as the road in front of the building is narrow. But the angle makes for an interesting shot. I still haven’t found the third incarnation of the hotel. But I will!

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However, the back side of the building faces the Patriarch’s Pool. This ancient reservoir has many names: Hezekiah’s Pool, the Pool of Pillars, or the Pool of the Patriarch’s Bath. It is 73 m by 43 m and can hold about 11,356,235 liters! Today, it is impossible to get to the pool, except through the good graces of Al Quds University.

Walking to the pool, we enter a beautiful courtyard and walk through a sort of ante-room, with a beautiful vaulted ceiling.

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You’ve got to love the couches!

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Unfortunately, it is a filthy! Here in this shot you can see the back of Melville’s Mediterranean Hotel. I hope that for him it wasn’t so disgusting.

But, there’s still a great view of the city from the pool (looking north – west).

1/1600 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

	Tom G on Going, going, gone
	Tia on Going, going, gone
	Antoine R. Rahil on So many surprises on Agron…
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J-TTL: Photography and History in Jerusalem

A photographer's guide to Jerusalem

Monthly Archives: February 2015

Oh, the irony!

Monastery of St. John the Baptist Prodomos

So many surprises on Agron St.

Mark Twain and Herman Melville in Jerusalem