25 August 2008
You know it’s getting towards the end of summer here when there are reports of rain in the North, pomegranates slowly reenter the markets, and the newspaper has a report on how many kilograms of books the average child carries per day.
The end of the summer is also the height of the French tourism import industry. There are stretches of town and hours of the day in which one only hears the language of Zola, Sartre and Truffaut, albeit screamed aloud by family clans from Marseilles wearing v-neck t-shirts and tanned to ‘racial profiling’ levels. The Israelis complain about the annual influx of French Jews, who supposedly numbered around 100,000 this summer, complaining that they’re rude and obnoxious tourists, who care nothing about their surroundings and only about themselves; the French call their hosts inhospitable and barbaric, reminding them they continue to come here even when American Jews get scared; and everyone else laughs at their respective accusations since both nationalities fare pretty low on the Most Affable Tourist scale, somewhere near American tourists in DC.
Alongside the swarms of French downtown is the demolition of Jaffa Street, the main thoroughfare that connects the western entrance to town and the Old City. Except for one lane, the entirely of the street has been torn up in order to lay tracks for the light rail that someday will arrive and give old ladies another venue to push otherwise hospitable people like me. Tractors roam the blocks-long ditch, separated from pedestrians and incoming traffic by a chain link fence, that for those with a short-term memory of the past two attacks in Jerusalem leave little to the imagination.
The most recent attack in Jerusalem had more to do with the French than some would like to admit, as the man operating the bulldozer was working on a massive apartment complex near the King David Hotel. Luxury apartment buildings are sprouting up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, intended not for the locals but largely for the French and American Jews who come here twice a year (Passover and Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot). These people have no intention of renting their homes while abroad, evidenced by my downstairs neighbors whom I’ve never met in person, but am well acquainted with their alarm system that goes off with every cat in heat that finds its mate alongside their flat’s side entrance. When Haaretz.com showed live video of the bulldozer driver being shot to death by a civilian, it was introduced by an ad for one of these luxury apartment buildings.
There seem to be three connected results of all this construction, two awful and one still up in the air. There is very little housing available in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that can be considered livable and affordable (I’m staying in my apartment, despite just being able to afford it). I know at least five different people looking for apartments that began their searches months ago. These massive buildings, since dependent on foreign investment, often stay vacant. With the dollar relatively weak against the shekel (who’da thunk that’d happen?), Americans are more reluctant than usual to invest in real estate. Huge buildings are being built with potentially few tenants, creating luxury ghost-towns in the middle of town. As if terrorism wasn’t bad enough, soon enough we might be facing crime-waves of burglaries.
The third result is related to yet-to-be-described picture up top. The picture is of a Help Wanted sign at the upscale shopping mall near the Old City for a store that will sell the clothes of the companies listed in English. I chanced upon it one day and almost fell over. Sure enough it has opened, and except for the lack softcore art on the walls, it’s a store that could be in any mediocre American mall. The store, like the mall in general, caters to the out-of-towners, but nonetheless pulls in a local crowd.
Slight digression: The other week I went with a friend for a self-guided night tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a spooky enough of a place in daylight. Aside for very dim lighting, some unseen organist was tuning his church’s organ, holding each key down for five minutes apiece until it began to screech. After our early encounter with Halloween we walked back into town through the aforementioned mall, heartened to see it both full with people in general, and especially with so many Arab families.
If the change we need here, which can only come from North Americans (government accountability, quality of life, etc.), starts with Abercrombie and Fitch next to the Old City walls, then reluctantly so be it. At least the Help Wanted sign wants applicants who have already done their service in the Israeli army.
You know it’s getting towards the end of summer here when there are reports of rain in the North, pomegranates slowly reenter the markets, and the newspaper has a report on how many kilograms of books the average child carries per day.
The end of the summer is also the height of the French tourism import industry. There are stretches of town and hours of the day in which one only hears the language of Zola, Sartre and Truffaut, albeit screamed aloud by family clans from Marseilles wearing v-neck t-shirts and tanned to ‘racial profiling’ levels. The Israelis complain about the annual influx of French Jews, who supposedly numbered around 100,000 this summer, complaining that they’re rude and obnoxious tourists, who care nothing about their surroundings and only about themselves; the French call their hosts inhospitable and barbaric, reminding them they continue to come here even when American Jews get scared; and everyone else laughs at their respective accusations since both nationalities fare pretty low on the Most Affable Tourist scale, somewhere near American tourists in DC.
Alongside the swarms of French downtown is the demolition of Jaffa Street, the main thoroughfare that connects the western entrance to town and the Old City. Except for one lane, the entirely of the street has been torn up in order to lay tracks for the light rail that someday will arrive and give old ladies another venue to push otherwise hospitable people like me. Tractors roam the blocks-long ditch, separated from pedestrians and incoming traffic by a chain link fence, that for those with a short-term memory of the past two attacks in Jerusalem leave little to the imagination.
The most recent attack in Jerusalem had more to do with the French than some would like to admit, as the man operating the bulldozer was working on a massive apartment complex near the King David Hotel. Luxury apartment buildings are sprouting up in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, intended not for the locals but largely for the French and American Jews who come here twice a year (Passover and Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot). These people have no intention of renting their homes while abroad, evidenced by my downstairs neighbors whom I’ve never met in person, but am well acquainted with their alarm system that goes off with every cat in heat that finds its mate alongside their flat’s side entrance. When Haaretz.com showed live video of the bulldozer driver being shot to death by a civilian, it was introduced by an ad for one of these luxury apartment buildings.
There seem to be three connected results of all this construction, two awful and one still up in the air. There is very little housing available in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that can be considered livable and affordable (I’m staying in my apartment, despite just being able to afford it). I know at least five different people looking for apartments that began their searches months ago. These massive buildings, since dependent on foreign investment, often stay vacant. With the dollar relatively weak against the shekel (who’da thunk that’d happen?), Americans are more reluctant than usual to invest in real estate. Huge buildings are being built with potentially few tenants, creating luxury ghost-towns in the middle of town. As if terrorism wasn’t bad enough, soon enough we might be facing crime-waves of burglaries.
The third result is related to yet-to-be-described picture up top. The picture is of a Help Wanted sign at the upscale shopping mall near the Old City for a store that will sell the clothes of the companies listed in English. I chanced upon it one day and almost fell over. Sure enough it has opened, and except for the lack softcore art on the walls, it’s a store that could be in any mediocre American mall. The store, like the mall in general, caters to the out-of-towners, but nonetheless pulls in a local crowd.
Slight digression: The other week I went with a friend for a self-guided night tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a spooky enough of a place in daylight. Aside for very dim lighting, some unseen organist was tuning his church’s organ, holding each key down for five minutes apiece until it began to screech. After our early encounter with Halloween we walked back into town through the aforementioned mall, heartened to see it both full with people in general, and especially with so many Arab families.
If the change we need here, which can only come from North Americans (government accountability, quality of life, etc.), starts with Abercrombie and Fitch next to the Old City walls, then reluctantly so be it. At least the Help Wanted sign wants applicants who have already done their service in the Israeli army.
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