Last update - 00:00 29/09/2006
Undiscovered Jerusalem
By Tali Herdevall
"Sodot beyerushalayim" ("Secrets in Jerusalem") by Tzvia Dobrish-Fried, photographs by Uriel Messa, Modan, 216 pages, NIS 128
The tiny San Simon monastery is hidden among trees in the veteran and well-known Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, and has contributed to it a wonderful-sounding name - Katamonis in Greek means "close to the monastery." Quite a poetic reason to give a name to an entire neighborhood. In its past, this miniature and forgotten monastery served as the summer home of the Greek patriarch, the residence of the scholar and high priest Shimon Hatzaddik, and the temporary home of contemporary poet Shaul Tchernikovsky, who died there. A piece of history concealed from the eye and from public knowledge, revealed in the story and pictures in "Sodot b'yerushalayim" ("Secrets in Jerusalem") .
The author, Tzvia Dobrish-Fried, is also able to discover the sublime in a place that looks banal. In her previous book, "Batim b'yerushalayim" ("Houses in Jerusalem - a Look Inside"), she visited special homes in the city, and this time too she sings a song of praise to the capital and the special style of building used there. However, this time Dobrish-Fried spreads the canvas in an original way, as the book visits familiar sites, like the Mahaneh Yehuda market, Zion Square and even the Malha Mall, but reveals hidden corners and sites that are known only to the initiated, which enable a new and different kind of visit. Some of the secrets are revealed here for the first time, promising a visit with an aura of foreignness about it that brings to mind a journey to a distant country with a native of the place, who takes you to special sites that you would not have found with a "Lonely Planet" guide.
For example, take the clothing shop with the dull facade at 98 Street of the Christians in the Old City market. When you enter and walk up to the second floor, you come upon endless meters of natural hand-woven oriental fabrics shot with gold, personally and carefully imported from the lands of the East.
However, the book does not function as a guidebook, but rather as a photograph album in which much has been invested, in hard cover and with a "jacket" of parchment paper, so that it is pleasant to read even if one is not planning a visit to Jerusalem. But for a Tel Avivian like me, for whom a trip to Jerusalem is a kind of annual outing, the book lacks a map with the places mentioned, to give an idea of their location in the city, and perhaps to help in planning a visit to them.
On the cover is a photograph of stone steps that look like many soles have worn them down over hundreds of years, and they invite the viewer to peek inside: an excellent and alluring choice for the outside of this volume. The names of the chapters are given as questions, as part of the aim to reveal the secrets of the city, for example: "What is Buddha doing in the Givat Hamivtar neighborhood?" This does indeed stimulate curiosity. It is obvious that the writer loves the city and its history with all her soul: She reconstructs British parties in the romantic hall at Armon Hanatziv, imagines the emperors of Ethiopia, Rachel the poetess, and Baron Rothschild wandering the streets of the city and so forth.
Internal and external aesthetics
Dobrish-Fried's writing is poetic to a certain extent and sometimes succeeds in moving the reader when she tells a story, such as that of the nuns who paint icons in a small church on the Via Dolorosa, through which the little anecdote about Veronica, who wiped a tear from Jesus' eye, is told. Her angle of vision is inquiring, with a clear tendency to seek the internal and external aesthetics: She also describes well the outline of a clay oven, is precise in writing about the Japanese garden at Beit Makoya, and her acuity is evident in her definition of "the true Jerusalemite: He builds a beautiful stone house but adds to it an ugly water tank on the roof in case Jerusalem is ever under siege again."
It is amazing to discover just how many treasures are hidden in Jerusalem. Some of the places simply beckon you to come and feast your eyes on the local wonder as described in the chapter (whose heading is formulated rather clumsily), "What is hiding in the bridge on the way to the Western Wall?" In the Greek patriarch's residence, which is concealed in the bridge, there is a sitting room with large crystal chandeliers, heavy English carpets and splendor the likes of which I have seen in Saint Petersburg palaces. It is too bad that only a photograph, though a particularly successful one, of the interior is included, while a picture of the outside of the house is missing. According to what is written there, this is a spacious house that is built, surprisingly, inside a bridge that looks to be narrow and of small dimensions.
Photographer Uriel Messa has done his work well, in harmonious photographs of broad scope that succeed in giving a rich picture. The color photographs are granted an entire page and sometimes spread onto the facing page inviting you to dive in; indeed, the eye does not tire of gazing at the seductive places. However, the proportion of text to image is not balanced: Whereas the text is usually sufficient and includes relevant information about each of the sites, every chapter contains only one or two large pictures, but lack photos of details that could enrich the photographic experience.
The graphics from Studio Rotem-Ada Vardi are excellent, the way the graphics for a book of this sort should be: very clean, leaving a broad white frame around the text. This makes it possible to relate to the text seriously, without getting confused by ornaments and decoration.
Indeed it is good and beautiful, but you get a gnawing feeling as you read the book: Jerusalem, with its occupied parts, its ancient quarters that are divided according to peoples and religions, is depicted in such a beautiful and pastoral way. Only two chapters relate to the divided city. The one describes the concrete security wall in the neighborhood of Gilo, which was erected in 2000 to protect the area from the inhabitants of Beit Jalla and has become a site of pilgrimage because of the pastoral landscape paintings on it. However, the paintings are presented as a kind of idyll, and there is no picture of the village itself that is behind the paintings that, in the author's words, have made the concrete transparent.
At long last, toward the end of the book, the conflict is clearly expressed in a chapter devoted to the original works of art of Micha Ullman: two manhole covers with hand-made designs on them - the one at Zion Square and the other in East Jerusalem. This is a genuine secret, which would be unnoticeable to someone walking along the busy streets unless attention were drawn to it. The manhole covers are very moving sculptures that link the underground system that provides water to both sides of the city. Beneath the surface everything flows calmly, but it is a pity that on the surface dams have been erected.
Tali Herdevall is a designer and design journalist