Last chance for non-hummus-related fun in Abu Ghosh
Okay, yeah, we've been throwing a lot of events at you lately. We can't help it - Jerusalem is just exploding with stuff to do. Be grateful. But to avoid beating a dead horse, this week's events roundup will focus only on post-Sukkot events. If you're looking for something to do during the remaining days of Chol HaMoed, well, we wrote about it last week.
On Tuesday, when Sukkot is gone, the lulav is wilting and the etrog is actually turning yellow, you can get over your post-holiday blues by dancing your go-go boots off at the Jewish Music Marathon at Beit Avi Chai. You'll have even more fun when you remember that all those Diasporaniks still can't flick a light switch.
Tuesday is also your last chance to catch the choral hijinks at the Abu Ghosh Music Festival - at least until Shavuot.
And if you have small children, you can entertain them Tuesday with the last of the Train Theater's daily Sukkot shows, Dan and Sheleg Move.
On Wednesday, the perennial favorite Move My Heart is back once again at the Jerusalem Theatre. Don't miss your twentieth (or so) chance to see it.
Everybody loves plays about the sensitive relationship that blossoms between a race-murder-accused skinhead and his Jewish lawyer. So why not see Skinhead at the Ma'abada on Wednesday?
Rea Mochiach and Yali Sobol. Between them, they've got a well-regarded novel and well-regarded collaborations with the likes of David Byrne and Gogol Bordello. So hustle over to the Yellow Submarine to catch their act.
We'll be back on our normal events schedule next week. Until then, make the most of your remaining holiday days, and try not to dwell on the fact that we won't have another proper holiday until 2009's traditional Purim riots (Chanukah doesn't really count).
Image courtesy of Whistling in the Darkfrom Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Prefers Passion of the Christ to Fiddler on the Roof
They're back to steal our souls! Among many things, Sukkot is also known as the Feast of the Tabernacles, though you probably shouldn’t go around calling it that unless you want to get weird looks. Which is exactly what happens to the throngs of Christian Zionist Evangelicals who descend on our fair semi-heathen city every year to celebrate the one time of year when gentiles were allowed to worship in the holy temple.
Last year, Haredi rabbis were none too pleased to see the Sarah Palins of the world run amok in their town and possibly missionizing, and called on Jews to stay away from the Tzeadat Yerushalayim (Jerusalem March). Some 70,000 ignored the directive and marched or stood on the sidelines, watching the festivities, which seemed at times like Saddleback Church does Burning Man. In the end three American Christians were detained for carrying their cross a little too convincingly.
This year the parade will be Wednesday October 15, the first day of Chol Hamoed. The day long hiking festivity is called Tzeadat Yerushalayim (Jerusalem March) and includes people from all walks of life, including soldiers, business people and other delegations streaming into the city from the surrounding hills. The Christians will of course be back and this year the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem will be promoting the Lion King of Judah (Jesus, not Simba) as their theme.
So far, it seems the rabbis have stayed away from issuing a new warning for this year's parade, though we wouldn't go so far as to say they’ve washed their hands of the matter. Haredim usually seem to have a protest at hand for any occasion, and even some blogs are revving up the anti parade rhetoric. What did Christian evangelicals ever do to them? Oh yeah.
Photo of parade by Harry Rubenstein for Jerusalemite.
Pomegranate festivals and other Chol HaMoed madness
Greetings Jerusalemites. Now that your conscience is hopefully clear (and your belly hopefully full) in the wake of Yom Kippur, it's time to kick off your repentin' shoes and get in the Chol HaMoed Sukkot spirit. After a couple of sparse weeks for culture in the Holy City, fun times return for the holiday's intermediary days, and Jerusalemite is making sure you don't miss a minute:
And if it's educational fun for the whole family you seek, don't miss the Bible Lands Museum's activities on Wednesday and Sunday.
Or perhaps you're of a more environmental bent? Hustle on down to the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens for three days of special Sukkot events starting Wednesday.
For a more intellectual Sukkot experience, stop by Beit Avi Chai's sukkah for a series of holiday-themed lectures. Thursday's covers Hannah Szenes and more.
Hear a little religiously-inclined Israeli pop at the Ma'abada when up-and-coming singer Erez Lev Ari plays a set at the Ma'abada.
Sukkot is all about the harvest, and what better way to celebrate it than to attend Ein Yael's tribute to one of Israel's signature fruits? The Pomegranate Festival runs from Wednesday to Monday.
More in-depth lectures will take place at venues all over the city as part of the Gateways festival, including lectures in English, from Thursday through Sunday.
Put down the pipe, pick up your knitted kippah and get down to the Old City for a bunch of crunchy-religious, English-language spiritual Sukkot party events at the Jerusalem Soul Center Sukkah every day of the holiday and Chol HaMoed.
The Train Theater is running a daily schedule of kids' puppet theater productions during Chol HaMoed - At Night I Dreamt of Animals on Friday is a sure winner.
The beginning of the Targ Music Center's season happens to be during Chol HaMoed, and it all kicks off with some Schubert on Saturday.
Saturday sees the beginning of the much-beloved yearly Abu Ghosh Music Festival in hummus capital Abu Ghosh, which runs through Tuesday.
Can you believe there's more? Check out our full listing of Chol HaMoed events, and have a chag sameach. We'll be back after the weekend with more special Sukkot content.
Image courtesy of chany14from Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
Apples, honey, good times: the New Year approaches
Are you feeling duly penitent? Did you say sorry like we told you to? Good! With that ritual chest-beating out of the way, you've earned a bit of fun in these few remaining days before fall holiday season officially kicks off with Rosh Hashana this Monday. And as usual, we have the good leads:
It might help your Rosh Hashana penitence to remind yourself how insignificant you are in the cosmic scheme of things, and for that, there's nothing better than stargazing at the Hebrew University tonight.
Don't feel like paying 500 NIS to hear Paul McCartney spend 20 endless minutes going "na-na-na-nananana"? Then just swing by Stardust tonight for a night of Beatles nostalgia at a much friendlier price.
The Front Stage series of outdoor concerts light up Jerusalem for the last time (this year) tomorrow, with much rootickal riddims inna Zion.
Let your kids clamber about the alleyways of Yemin Moshe to the sounds of singing and stories Saturday as "Where Is Mrs. Gabbai?" runs once again.
Are you a Christian? Are you feeling a little left out by all this Jewish and Muslim holiday bustle? Don't worry: you've still got the Feast of the Cross to look forward to, and Beit Shmuel is going on a Saturday church tour in its honor.
Jews symbolically cast away their sins on Rosh Hashana by throwing bread into water in a ceremony called Tashlikh - but with no real flowing water in the city, Jerusalemites have to get creative. See the city's tashlikh solutions in a Beit Shmuel tour on Tuesday.
And of course, the end of a holiday calls for only one kind of celebration: a Big Tisch. Join Moshe Lahav at the Yellow Submarine on Wednesday night.
Expect things to start picking up once the crush of holidays passes, and in the meantime, don't forget to check out the complete listings for the week in our Events section. And don't miss our special holiday content in the coming days and weeks. Shanah tovah!
Image courtesy of stu_spivack from Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
Jerusalem is usually thought of as that place you go to when you're sick of all those waterfalls and mountains that make up Israel's nature reserve scene. Though the city is known for its holiness to three religions, its kicking nightlife (if you're into drunk yeshiva kids) and the fact that it's made out of gold, it is actually also home to some decent hiking. And unlike many of the world's Walden Ponds, much of Jerusalem's varied nature zones are accessible by public transportation.
If you're looking to feel like you're in nature -but not too much - head over to the Gazelle Valley, a 260 dunam reserve within spitting distance of the Trump Towers-esque Holyland. Take buses 19, 31 or 32 to Tzomet Pat, and it will be hard to miss the large plot of (hard fought for) undeveloped land. The Jerusalem Post has a nice play by play of the hike - and we do the same - with nearby Valley of the Cross.
One of the few convenient things about Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital (really, who sticks a hospital on the edge of town?) is that it backs up to the Jerusalem Forest, meaning that any of the plethora of buses (12,27,42,19 or 153) that ferry people to the hospital and attached Hebrew University campus will also get you to a number of trailheads. From the parking lot of the hospital, hikers can take one of three trails, taking them to Hindak Spring, the quaint village of Ein Kerem (and requisite spring) or for just a quick jaunt around the mountains. Getting off before the hospital at Yad Kennedy is also the start of a 5.5 kilometer hike through a number of springs.
Though technically not a city bus, Egged's #183 from Binyanei Hauma to Kibbutz Tzuba will take you yet deeper into the heart of the Jerusalem Forest for a bevy of hikes around Sataf and Har Eitan.
Across town, the Ramot Forest also offers hiking trails up and down the pine treed mountains that surround Western Jerusalem. Buses 11, 7, 35 and 39 all end up at the Ramot Forest entrance in Ramot and from there you can traverse the large open spaces between Ramot and Mevaseret Zion, through Emek Ha'arazim and the recently saved mountaintop lookout of Mitzpe Naphtoach.
Bus 155 from the Central Bus Station will get passengers to the Harel interchange in Mevaseret, which is home to not only a mall, but the beginning of a 3 hour hike through the hills to Ein Harak, a small spring popular with groups.
Jerusalem's unique location and the extensiveness of the city's public transport system means that a few slices of nature are no more than an hour bus ride and 5.60 NIS out of your pocket, a fact that could make even the granoliest hippie (even with their crazy acid trip buses) green - with envy.
Happy trails!
Special thanks to the SPNI for research help - a full list of nature spots around Jerusalem can be found here. Photo of Evan Sapir courtesy of alexkon from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
The unrefined swamp dwellers in that grungy little port town down the highway like to claim they offer the best food in Israel, but up here in the mountains, where the clear air is not choked with the smog of heavy industry and heavier pretentiousness, we know the za'atar-sprinkled truth. From hummus to kubbeh to nouveau-Mediterranean haute cuisine, the real local epicurean culture is in Jerusalem.
And if you need evidence without the hassle of choosing among dozens of restaurants (although our restaurant guides spare you at least some of that), hie yourself down to the Ta'amei Yerushalayim (Tastes of Jerusalem) festival taking place from Tuesday to Thursday this week in the Old Train Station Plaza.
One of the Train Station's signature yearly events (since 2006, anyway), Ta'amei Yerushalayim gathers representatives from dozens of Jerusalem's most beloved restaurants in one central location, each restaurant crew manning a booth overflowing with authentic kosher Yerushalmi cuisine. Whether you get South American from La Boca (or, uh, at El Gaucho or Vaqueiro), kubbeh from Mordoch, olives and grape leaves from famous Machane Yehuda deli stall Ma'adanei Tzidkiyahu, Italian from Pera e Mela, hummus from beloved workingman's lunch joint Rachmo or French-Med fusion from Eldad V'Zehu, you'll leave with your belly full and eyes opened.
The festivities start each evening at 18:00 and run until 23:00. Children's performers entertain during the early evening, and at 19:00 the stage is yielded to B- and C-list musical performers, including crunchy-religious reggae band Acharit HaYamim, rock outfit Sigma, and the Jerusalem Blues Band. Come hungry.
Plumb the depths of the Kidron Valley this week in Jerusalem
Less than three weeks until the High Holidays begin, and the city is all aflutter with the activity of hundreds of thousands of people preparing for the most enjoyable holiday since... uh... Purim? But just because everyone's busy doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do this week:
And once the aforementioned kids are safely tucked in, have some more adult fun at the Yellow Submarine with Aya Korem - the pop singer behind the immortal line, "Yonatan Shapira, make me babies."
A lot is going on religiously in Jerusalem lately - Ramadan for Muslims and Elul for Jews. Find out what makes the faiths tick by joining Beit Shmuel Friday on an English-language walking tour of religion in Jerusalem.
Special-needs children know how to take a pretty compelling photograph - see for yourself Friday at the newly-opened Children's Photography Exhibit at the Naggar School in Musrara.
Walk through the valley of the shadow of death (in a sense) with the Jerusalem Municipality on Shabbat as an expert guide takes a group on a free English-language tour of the Kidron Valley.
Canaanites get the blues too - hear the proof at "Canaanite Blues," a Saturday night Beit Shmuel concert covering Levantine shepherd, cowboy and farmer folk songs. Just like Willie Nelson, only with more glottal stops.
Thank God for those Mormons - without Brigham Young's concerts, Jerusalem would be totally dead on Sunday. This week, see the Gropius Ensemble play Bach, Debussy and some originals, all for free.
Nobody does self-flagellation like the aesthetes of Israeli theater. The politically charged Holy Ground, a localization of an Algerian play, is running at the Khan. Catch it Sunday night.
Even if you're from that country where they don't play football "soccer", now that you're in the wider world, there's no excuse for you not to put down a pint and let out your inner hooligan Monday night when HaTaklit broadcasts the Tottenham match.
Speaking of theater aesthetes, if you fancy yourself one, don't miss out on the opportunity to audition Tuesday evening for the Merkaz's English-language staging of the one, the only Rent!
And to atone for that audition, join the Tower of David Museum Tuesday on a nighttime tour of the Old City that ties the city's holy sites to the slichot, special prayers of penitence sung by Jews during the month of Elul.
Like wine? Like art? Then join the good people at the Merkaz Wednesday for an up-close encounter with the artists of Chutzot HaYotzer, with lectures, discounted art prices and wine - all in English.
It may not quite feel like it yet, but summer is winding down. And with festival season ending and the nonstop fall blowout of Jewish holidays still a month off, the late-summer doldrums have descended on the Holy City. But even during these languorous days, Jerusalem still offers plenty of ways to keep yourself entertained:
Tonight is your last chance to give a toast to Jerusalem at the Beer Festival. By Friday, all the beer vendors will be gone, and it'll be nothing but Goldstar and Tuborg 'til next summer.
Even the Municipality is on the end-of-summer tip, and they've organized a free outdoor concert to commemorate it tonight in Independence Park. Sagol 59, HaYehudim and other big names will perform.
Of all man's institutions, none is as ripe for parody as marriage. Nikolai Gogol knew it, and so does the Khan Theater, currently staging a Hebrew adaptation of his famous comedy Marriage. See it Monday night.
Let the Israel Museum mess with your head a little Tuesday by checking out Secrets and Ties, an avant-garde exhibit slapped together from the museum's deep archives.
Like Stomp, but Israeli: the Jerusalem Theatre's end of summer party
As the high holidays become visible on the horizon (they're closer than it seems), summer festival season continues in earnest in the city, with Jerusalemites trying to cram in as much freewheeling good times as possible before the rigor of days of rest and days of fasting. Weather aside, it's a good time to be out and about, because, as it so happens, there will be beer...
X chromosomes go wild at Zimrat Isha, a one-night women-only mini-festival of religiously-inclined music tonight way out in the wilds of Har Nof.
If you want to sing in classic old-school Israeli fashion - that is, in a large group and in homage to greatness of the Land of Israel - head down to Mamilla tonight for the first session of Singing in Mamilla, a Municipality series of public singalong concerts.
Try something different for a wholesome Friday family activity by renting a family-sized bike at the Haas Promenade and seeing if you and your kids can manage to get the thing moving.
Friday also sees Dorot HaRishonim Street downtown taken over by Israeli pop-rockers as part of the ongoing Front Stage series of outdoor summer concerts.
Witness the reunion of '80s-era Israeli rock gods and longtime collaborators Miki Shaviv and Dan Toren at Beit Avi Chai after Shabbat makes a timely exit.
If you haven't been to Chutzot HaYotzer yet, Saturday night is your last chance 'til next year.
And all that was only a lead-up: the real fun this week begins Wednesday night when the Jerusalem Beer Festival opens its gates. Barrels of good beer, live music, fascinating demonstrations and, uh...barrels of good beer. More on that later this week.
The wilderness of Judea: a perfect setting for the night of Tu B'Av
The three weeks, the nine days and the ninth of Av are behind us - and with all the gloom out of the way, a Jerusalemite is free to turn to thoughts of luvvvvvvv. It's time for Tu B'Av, the Jewish holiday of love-or-something. The holiday's roots and proper celebrations are hazy, so Israelis have made it their equivalent of Valentine's Day - so this weekend is made for lovin'. Crank up the Marvin, pour the red wine and get ready for yet another week in Jerusalem.
The Italian Jewish community in Jerusalem is throwing a three-day celebration of Italian culture at the foot of Hillel Street starting this evening. Three words: pasta eating contest. Also art, opera, music, plays, food vendors and more.
Ladies can start getting into the Tu B'Av spirit by attending a females-only benefit concert for the displaced young brides of the Gaza evacuation tonight at the Pargod Theater.
In case you've soured on love, you can wallow in misery Friday at the Museum on the Seam, which recently opened a new multimedia exhibit on the Tu B'Av-appropriate themes of fear and trauma.
Lovers should take note of the Full Moon Festival at Beit Shmuel, a Tu B'Av revue of classic love songs on the theater's outdoor patio under the moonlight.
More love songs ring out in the Judean Hills outside Jerusalem in Nataf on Saturday night, when singer Yael Badihi delivers a set of the Bible's hottest love songs. Hell yes, the Bible has hot love songs.
With Tu B'Av in the past, take in a more cynical take on love Sunday with Hanoch Levin's classic play Move My Heart at the Jerusalem Theatre.
The Train Theater is ready to entertain your kids Monday with Operation Soda, the story of a boy and a donkey who save Tel Aviv's secret treasure from a band of robbers.
Get your fifths flatted Tuesday at the German Colony Jazz Festival, a weekly celebration of jazz music featuring arts and crafts merchants, food stalls and, of course, much jazz hot.