Jerusalem Diary

By: Larry Gordon

In the aftermath of the Sukkos yom tov here in Jerusalem, there is a shift of sorts, at least in the touristy areas. Familiar faces from back home are replaced by new ones, still recognizable but nevertheless new from the last two weeks.

What do you do in Jerusalem on an average weekday with the sun shining brightly, burning your neck as you traipse up and down the hills with unfamiliar street names and crosswalks?

The rules of the road here are that at an intersection the drivers have to come to a full stop to allow pedestrians to cross at their leisure. We have the same type of pedestrian crossings in New York, but it’s best not to take a chance that drivers will be alert enough to understand that the people crossing have the right of way and not the cars.

Here in Jerusalem, and probably in other cities in Israel, the idea of coming to a full stop even if you’re speeding down a long bumpy street appears to be elective, but most drivers apply the brakes and come to a full and definitive stop.

So, in a way, walking the streets here you can tell which ones are most likely the New Yorkers by the way they approach those faded white lines that warn drivers to come to a full stop.

Some say that the driving here is somewhat wilder than it is for example in New York or other large American cities. Let’s just say in colloquial language that’s pretty much an understatement. For many years, one of the first things I did when I arrived in Israel was to rent a car. But I stopped doing that once the roadways became so congested that it began to look and feel like parts of New York, where the best you can do at certain hours of the day is to inch along while making hand gestures to the other drivers expressing your umbrage and frustration with the fact that you need to roll along at less than 2 mph.

I don’t really believe that driving here is more challenging than in New York. What is mostly different here is that you really and truly need to know the rules of the road and exactly where your destination is. There’s no tolerance here for people driving with their foot over the brake trying to read street signs while figuring out where they are. In New York, you almost expect slow drivers perusing the streets, looking for a house number. If that holds up traffic then it’s just too bad.

In Israel, while you don’t really need to know where you are, the one rule of the road is that whatever you want to do, do it quickly.

If you’re a competent driver in New York, you might be here too, but there are certain fundamental differences that you have to be aware of. The most important one is the way the traffic lights change. Unlike in New York, a traffic light goes from green to yellow for a very brief moment before it turns to red, which means you come to a full stop.

Here, when a light is red it doesn’t just switch suddenly to green. The red stays illuminated and then the yellow lights up and then after about five seconds, those lights go off and the green lights up and the cars get going.

And there’s really no such thing in Israel as being in a rush. Everyone here in Israel is in a rush to get someplace, so you’re really nothing special. Also, you see more than your fair share of road accidents, but not as many as you see in New York. Most don’t use turn signals, check their mirrors, and will cut in front of you because… well, they’re in a hurry. Didn’t you know? Even though we’re in the back seat of a taxi or a friend’s car, I like to track our movements via Waze. The Waze talks to us in Hebrew and based on my past experience, it’s going to continue speaking Hebrew until one of my grandchildren program the Waze voice to speak English once we’re back in New York.

Seatbelts are strictly enforced here as they should be. In Israel, however, they are also enforced for people sitting in the backseat. A driver once told me that if people in the front seats of a car are caught without their seatbelt, there’s a fine of 1,000 shekels. For passengers in the backseat, they have to pay a NIS 700 fine if they’re not strapped in. I’m not sure who has to pay it, the passenger or the driver, but I tend to think that it is the driver’s responsibility to pay those fines as well as enforce the use of seatbelts.

Over yom tov and the Shabbos in between and the one that followed, we were invited to a number of kiddushim and then to two bar mitzvas over Shabbos Bereishis. They were great simchas, but beyond all the excellent heimish food, wine, and other spirits, the experience pretty much added up to a great deal of walking.

The stones that the streets are made of always feel tough on my feet. I don’t know if it’s the shoes I wear or the way I walk, but the walking just does damage that makes walking the next day even more difficult. I don’t have a podiatric explanation, but I have to pace myself when it comes to walking around in my dress shoes on those hard stones on the sidewalks that are meant to last forever.

As to the matter of an easy way to get to the Kotel, there is still no elevator or cable car to take you there, something they’ve been talking about for almost 20 years. The hundreds of stairs getting down to the Kotel and then walking back up are easy to do so long as it doesn’t rain or freeze, which can happen here in winter.

So far, the weather has been fabulous and it looks like it’s going to be that way for a while. But sometime during the next month or so, the clouds and rain are going to show us the meaning of a true Israeli winter.

Things are very tense here though there’s supposed to be peace or at least a ceasefire in Gaza, but on Sunday earlier this week, two young soldiers were killed by a Hamas sniper. Israeli planes retaliated by bombing Rafah, but interestingly enough, the Trump administration announced that the ceasefire was holding and being maintained.

We love Israel and hope to spend more time here in the coming years. There’s so much of the country that I haven’t spent time in or explored. There are places mentioned prominently in Tanach and so many other places to visit aside from the kevarim of so many great people who lived here over the last several thousand years.

I don’t know if we’re going to need a miracle to have real peace in this part of the world. Whatever it is, we’re going to need something extraordinary. If it is a miracle that’s required, I think we might all be ready for that. We’ve waited long enough. All we need to do now is find the right shoes and get moving.

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