The Real Jerusalem Streets

No doubt that Jerusalem is the City of Lights from June 15-22, 2011.

 Each night thousands of people flock to the Old City for the Jerusalem Light Festival,

 the Jaffa Gate Plaza starts to fill up long before the official start time.

 Information and color coded maps of the sites are easy to get in the Plaza.

The 11 meter high ‘Echinodermus’ light structure towers above the Plaza.

While below, TILT has two benches each with three 10 meter ‘Pissenlits’

on which many people sit not realizing they were sitting on a work of art.

Not all of the electric light designs are stationary,

‘Meir Panim, Light Faces’ arrives for show time.

‘Organi’ an Israeli project hangs inside the Jaffa Gate.

The orange lights strung along the Tower of David

show the route of the Orange path.

‘Blazing Agelux’ by French group PITAYA lights up the road to the Armenian Quarter

and ‘The Art of Listening’ adds color to the Old City Wall,

the usually dark road is transformed by a series of lights.

In the Rova, Jewish Quarter in Hurva Square, stands ‘The Field of Light’

which changes colors several times every few minutes to soothing music.

‘Fantasia’ which also changes colors, is on the way to

the Davidson Archeological Garden and ‘OVO’ from Bulgaria.

In the Cardo is ‘Garden of Light’.

Not all light is electric

and this couple’s fiery dance routine impressed a large crowd.

‘Human tiles’ from Portugal show on the Lutheran Church.

In the dark, the blue path is hard to follow on the map…

 this was not the ‘lighting up” I was looking for and

there are no information people in the Christian Quarter if you are lost and need them.

Finally, a familiar face in the crowd!

Beautiful, colorful, unusual  lights,

 inside and outside the walls of the Old City,

and then, the familiar lights of all the visitors trying to get home.

For more photos… please see The Real Jerusalem Streets on Facebook.

There usually are no clouds in the sky over Jerusalem in the summer.

A volcanic eruption occurred in East Africa on Monday night, June 13, 2011.

News reports were of high clouds from the Eritrean Ash,

but the Tuesday sky looked like winter had returned to Jerusalem.

Dark, stormy-looking clouds hovered over the Knesset

and the Israel Museum.

 

Clouds did not result in rain, but provided shade and much cooler streets than usual.

Clear skies returned in time for the end of the Israel Festival,

 the start of Hebrew Book Week, Shavua HaSefer,

 beginning of the Jerusalem Light Festival and Wednesday night’s lunar eclipse.

It is possible to protect oneself from the sun when there are no clouds.

 Now if we could just get protection from the clouds of cigarette smoke!

With the season of many holidays at an end and summer on the way,

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu took his government members and their spouses

to the cool mountains of Safed for a get away on Friday and Saturday.

It was good timing as Jerusalem was hit with a heat wave.

The streets by the Tayalet were much quieter than usual,

the Haas Promenade, a popular tourist spot with one of the best views of the Old City,

 was nearly deserted, all seemed so quiet,  I did not take more zoom shots.

So it is impossible to see the rock throwers and policemen on the Temple Mount

who made of all day’s the headlines.

The real action on the streets was…a few Segway riders.

Children’s playgrounds were empty in the afternoon sun,

good only for finishing up a frozen ice cream treat.

Tel Aviv has the beach… in Jerusalem, when the temperature rises,

people flock to the air-conditioned shopping malls

to keep cool and have fun.

 

Every car waiting to park is searched, causing traffic backups;

every package, bag and pocket contents are examined.

There was one occasion when security was called into action and came running..

 when a couple of Chabad young men pulled tefillin out of a bag to put on a solider.

Inside the large Jerusalem Mall,

one can find everything from a colorful bird in a noisy passage way

to a quiet reading room in a book store.

Food establishments fill whole sections of the malls,

and are popular as a place for families

and friends to meet and sit for hours.

 

Large signs may announce the season of culture,

but this is also the beginning of the season of the mall.

The Prime Minister left for Rome today, the doctors strike is dragging on

 and borders all around are heating up.

Keeping cool, and a comfortable spot to sit in a mall…

could be more important than ever this summer.