Farewells and Katamon, Pt. 2

Today Toby and I said a tearful farewell to Kara and Beruria at Ben Gurion, who will be returning to the 'States for a few months. We're both extremely bummed out, needless to say. Although you prepare and prepare, when the time comes to say goodbye, it's just never easy at all.

On a happier note, Toby's friend from New York, Ari Jesselson, was in town today, and they had a nice long playdate this afternoon. I am very grateful, as I really think it took Toby's mind off everything else for a good while.

So, to take my mind off since Toby's gone to bed (and snoring away, I'm happy to say), a little about the neighborhood we live in in Jerusalem, Katamon. (By the way, the photo at left is a beautiful shot of the sunset near on a street between Nahlaot and Rehavia that we just happened to see as we were walking from Machane Yehuda market home on Sunday evening.)

Katamon, sometimes (although not usually) referred to as Gonen (the name the "powers that be" attempted to change it to but which never stuck) is a fascinating area. It is basically bounded by a ridgeline from Rehavia to the northwest, by a series of schools and diplomatic buildings to the southeast form the German Colony (Hamoshava ha-germanit) to the southwest by a kind of industrial/high density housing, and to the Northeast by a hill, the top of which is the street leading to the president's residence and other large institutional campuses.

The neighborhood was one of the parts of the city that saw serious fighting in the '48 war, and had been before the conflict a largely Arab neighborhood. In fact, in the years immediately preceding the war, most of the Arab national consulates were located here, just down the hill from our apartment (obviously no longer). In fact, the yeshiva of the Erlau (see last post) was at one time the Syrian consulate -- although I believe the eventually knocked down the original building for the sake of space.

Because, I think, of the centrality of the neighborhood to the fight for Jerusalem in '48, a number of the streets have names which refer to the War for Independence. Our street, Bilu, is not one of them; it refers to an early agrarian-utopian Jewish nationalist group who made aliyah in 1882. But we are on the corner of Bilu and Mishmor ha-am on one side, and Hayl Nashim on the other, both of which refer to fighters in the war (mishmor ha-am=guardians of the city, Hayl Nashim= women soldiers of the Haganah). A block away, and the location of one of our favorite ice cream places is "Ha-lamed-heh" (הל"ה), which refers to 35 fighters in the Haganah who were killed in their attempt to aid the besieged Gush Etzion bloc in 1948. The main street that runs along the northern ridge/boundary of the neighborhood, Ha-palmah, is named for the elite unit of the Haganah in the pre-48 and '48 period. And so on.

One of the most interesting spots in the 'hood, and one that I intend to devote much more time looking in to, is San Simon. Currently, it is our favorite Shabbat park; two playgrounds, three large lawns -- it is great for both kids; Beruria loves the playground toys, Toby's finally gotten up the courage to join in to the pickup soccer games on the lawn. But hidden in the corner of the park, completely ignored by the dozens of Jews out for a Shabbat tiul (stroll), is a walled monastery, the namesake of the area. According to the father of one of Toby's friends, the monastery saw some rather disturbing action in the '48 conflict. It is located on a very strategic hilltop, one that the Haganah attempted to seize early in the fighting, and which gave them a strategic advantage. Unfortunately, in the process of securing the area, some of the nuns living at the place (which was then, it seems, a convent), were mistaken for Arabs and shot -- a very inauspicious moment.

As it turns out, Meir Shalev, one of Israel's most important "serious" writers, has written a novel about the neighborhood and San Simon entitled יונה ונער (Dove and Boy), which I just picked up to read today. I've heard it's pretty good; we'll see.

One other very interesting thing about the monastery: it is apparently the site of the death of Shaul Tchernikovsky (link to brief bio). Tchernikovsky was one of the great poets of (what I would call) the "second" generation of modern Hebrew literary figures. His poetry was epic and aspired towards the classics -- he drew from Greek epic and German idylls (I wrote a paper while at Oxford comparing Tchernikovsky with Goethe). He was, to put it another way, a good old fashioned Russian-Jewish-Zionist pagan (God bless 'em) -- a type of which sadly has all but disappeared. Anyhow, the $64,000 question: there is a rumor that when he died, he was interred in San Simon (it seems that now there is a grave in Tel Aviv with his name on it), but what happened when he died there? So I have heard one of two things: one that he scandalously converted to Christianity in secret at the end of his life; second that he died, was cared for by the convent (which would be surprising), and was baptised by them on his deathbed, perhaps against his will.

I'll be interested if I can find out more about this little local mystery.