Ben Yehudah: Ode to a Street That Won’t Die
The movers had difficulty getting to the apartment, as only delivery trucks are allowed nearby, and then only early in the morning. It took them an hour to remove all my stuff from the room and carry it across the stone street into the truck. Thus ended two years of living in a small bachelor pad above Jerusalem’s storied street mall on Ben Yehuda Street, about a decade of living in roommate-filled bachelor pads around the city, and my last time living alone as a single man when I leave my parents’ home to be with my wife when we marry in November.
I didn’t originally intend to live there. I’d tried to move to other apartments, but living with roommates (renting alone is too expensive for most) means getting their approval, and most wanted someone younger than 39. A financial crunch I knew was coming also forced me to compromise and live in a place that was functional in terms of room for a bed and some furniture, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a wifi connection – but little else.
I didn’t care for the dirty entrance or the shabby stairwell. The small size of the apartment meant my property taxes would not be insane as they usually are in this city, but it also felt confining for obvious reasons. Having to catch mice wasn’t in my rental contract, but I found myself forced to do just that more than once. Turns out that contra Tom and Jerry, they like peanut butter a lot more than cheese; I had a whole jar just for that purpose, and the “clang” of a rodent activating the trap was a familiar sound to my ears.
But the place had massive advantages, as well. First and foremost, I was in the center of the city, with public transportation access to pretty much everywhere in Jerusalem. As a commercial center, anything I wanted or needed was within seconds’ walking distance of buying, without any need for much effort or travel.
As I take leave of the place, I think the most important part of living here was witnessing first hand the importance of human institutions that know how to take heavy blows and keep coming back, and the Ben Yehudah mall is unquestionably such an institution.
Where Crowds Give Life
Along with the Machaneh Yehudah market on the other side of the hill, the Ben Yehudah pedestrian mall is one of the most well-known spots in the Holy City, a magnet for shoppers and tourists despite many other places competing for their dollars. In Hebrew it is known simply as the Midrechov, a portmanteau word that translates roughly as streetwalk (combo of sidewalk and street).
Walking is the key word here. Cars and trucks need to park elsewhere; this “street” is for foot traffic, lots of it. Even more than any store, the presence of lots of people out for food, music, books, or just meeting up with friends or family is what makes Ben Yehudah Ben Yehudah. The Machaneh Yehudah market has even learned this, and after decades of being a massive open-air pedestrian food market, it now sports a nice collection of bars for people to socialize after the vegetable shops have closed.
* * *
I usually hate crowds. And I mean hate. I rarely go to concerts or games or other such things because I don’t care at all for the experience of being pushed around or cramped for any length of time, or having to schmooze with strangers I don’t know or end up in the corner because everyone else knows each other. Give me one-on-ones or small group meetings with friends and acquaintances, and I’m good.
Ben Yehudah is an exception. Here, crowds belong. They are its oxygen. They calm even me. Even when alone in my apartment, I felt safe and comfortable knowing there are so many people down there. I still remember walking down the street in 2003, after a suicide bomber had tried to murder folks who walk around here, and being absolutely shocked.
A man came up to me with wide open eyes and told me he’d never seen the place this empty. Neither had I. It was terrifying. Small towns, residential areas that are entirely quiet with no-one walking around are nothing to fear. But at a place like Ben Yehudah, no-one walking around makes the place more terrifying than a cemetery or an abandoned house. Life is gone where it should be. Zombies walking around would be less scary than this howling silence.
To this day, I tell people when going with them to Ben Yehudah that it is so wonderful to see the street full of people again, a daily and perhaps even unthinking act of defiance against those who wished to kill it and them.
* * *
What human killers failed to do, a viral killer came close to achieving. I moved into the apartment in the fall of 2021, when covid (mostly called corona here) had led to repeat shutdowns and lockdowns and restrictions of all kinds.
It led to all sorts of tragic and sometimes comic scenes: a worker at a fast food restaurant serving to enforce the two meter rule inside the open space for ordering. Me going on a date (not with my current fiancée) wearing masks in the open street. Constantly trying to order food through a mask.
I mentioned tragic: There were many businesses that simply could not handle the shutdown of tourist traffic and being closed down all the time, including businesses that have been around for decades. If you didn’t serve food or clothing, you were “inessential” and disposable. A jazz bar that existed below me that made nice music, and which served food outside, was ultimately forced to close. My roommate did not like the noise, but I found it comforting as the crowds, and missed it terribly when I saw the FOR RENT sign.
And yet, the virus failed, too. The street today throngs with crowds again, and I bet most are vaccinated or healed. New stores are opening up selling all sorts of goods, and I wish them well. We can mourn the loss of what was destroyed while always remembering the possibility of renewal – and witnessing it for ourselves.
This is the most important lesson the street taught me, and it’s one I intend to heed.
