Jerusalem 1913 by Amy Dockser Marcus

Author:Amy Dockser Marcus [Marcus, Amy Dockser]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-02-28T23:00:00+00:00

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Throughout 1913 the violence only continued all around Palestine. Within the Old City, the heart of Jerusalem, life at first seemed to go on much as it always had. Homes were still stocked with flour and chickpeas, green beans and cracked wheat, lentils and spaghetti, olives and cheese, awaiting any guest who turned up unexpectedly wanting to share the afternoon meal. On the rooftops large metal cages filled with pigeons were turned toward the east so the birds could enjoy the Jerusalem sun. Pairs of pigeons could be seen flying around the city all day long before returning to their sanctuaries for food and drink, their cooing blending in with the cacophony of the city’s streets.

In the courtyards of the apartment buildings, women stood in the sun, bending to hang their laundry on the lines that were strung up, neighbors’ towels and wet clothing drying in the mild afternoon air. The children sat, hunched on their knees, about to tip over, whiling away the time playing games, staring at piles of cards or marbles or jacks. Sometimes they borrowed an older relative’s backgammon set and competed against one another, shaking the dice inside the cup with a furtive glance at their mothers to see if they noticed that they were betting small sums of money. Older men and a few younger ones who could not find jobs sat outside smoking water pipes, gossiping and chatting, passing the day’s newspaper around between them. And there was always a young child who could be counted on to find a board and set up a seesaw in the yard, his friends all pushing to take a turn on the makeshift attraction.

The smell of baking often filled the courtyard, and the children jostled in anticipation, because the unspoken rule was that if you were baking and your neighbor could smell what was cooking—and in these closed quarters, with the windows open trying to catch a breeze, it was rare that aromas from the local ovens would not waft through the streets—then a portion of whatever was being prepared was sent over, so that every neighbor could share in the other’s good fortune. In this way, even when people did not sit down together formally at a meal, they were in a real sense always guests at their neighbors’ tables.

Even in the face of the news from Rehovot the rituals that had always bound Jerusalem’s neighborhoods together seemed to be holding. During Ramadan, the monthlong fast, that year every evening at sunset a cannon would sound to announce the end of the day’s fasting, its report seeming to shake the very walls of the city. The cannon was the signal for all the children of the neighborhood to gather in the courtyard with their instruments—flutes and recorders, cymbals, a small oud, even a stick to bang against a pot— and make their way down the street, playing and singing, stopping at each neighbor’s house to demand sweets.

In the market, the merchants sat patiently waiting for

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