Tweet
The Times (London), UK
April7, 2012 Saturday
Edition 1;Ireland
The other side of Jerusalem
Most visitors stay in the West of the Holy City. But stay in the East
and you'll find a different world, says Matthew Teller
Matthew Teller
Jerusalem looked simple from atop the Mount of Olives. At the back of
the panorama jostle cranes and office blocks. In the midground I
picked out steeples and arched windows. At the front your eyes glue
themselves to the Dome of the Rock, glittering gold above the Old
City's battlements.
"Do you read the Bible?" In among the tour groups oohing and aahing, a
local guide introduced himself as Bassam. "If you read the Bible," he
said, "you'll know Jerusalem is in Heaven. This one [he gestured] is
the Jerusalem in Hell."
We traced the invisible line - fixed in international law, but
disputed by Israel - that slices across the view, demarcating West
Jerusalem from East Jerusalem. We walked down the hill into the Old
City together, passing the gnarled olive trees of the Garden of
Gethsemane.
Voices rose at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is said
to have died. At the Western Wall, lips murmured under knotted brows.
But even when we reached the Zion Gate on Jerusalem's invisible border
line, its Ottoman stonework punctured with bullet holes, Bassam did
not mention East or West. You rarely hear locals make the distinction.
Many Palestinians feel that the whole city is under occupation. To
most Israelis the city has been liberated. Neither, linguistically,
acknowledges the other. But the distinction is important.
All the key religious sites are in the Old City, which is part of East
Jerusalem, an area annexed by Israel after the Six Day War in 1967.
Most tourists stay elsewhere: of the city's 9,335 hotel rooms, almost
8,000 are in West Jerusalem. Stay in the East and you find another
city, Arabic in language and Palestinian in culture.
Sultan Suleiman Street is the anchor, its minibuses and fruit barrows
laid against the Old City walls like keepsakes on a forgotten shelf.
To one side the elegant curve of Salah ad Din now holds mostly ladies'
fashion shops and pizza parlours, between decaying 19th-century
mansions of golden Jerusalem stone.
Round the corner on Nablus Road, I filled a morning at the serene
Garden Tomb, an alternative site for the Crucifixion, before hooking
up with an old friend. Bald, round and twinkling, Khalil has Jerusalem
roots going back centuries. When I asked for culinary advice, he was
unequivocal: "You should go for a Zalatimo. Come on, I'll take you."
Sunbeams in flagstoned lanes split and '' reformed as Khalil gave me
the back story. In 1860 a Jerusalem merchant named Mohammed Zalatimo
opened a shop selling mutabbaq, a sweet pastry. It became so famous
that, like Mr Hoover and Mr Biro, man and product merged. In the
crowded, fragrant souks, beside a stall blaring Arabic pop, we halted
in front of an unmarked aluminium-framed glass door. Zalatimo's dim,
tiled interior, wedged under the walls of the Holy Sepulchre, held
four small tables beneath stone cross-vaults.
A family group was just leaving, their silk scarves and jewellery
incongruous under the dangling light bulbs. They were going back to
Jordan, they said. When they arrived, they came straight to
Zalatimo's. They had returned for another before departing. It was the
taste of Jerusalem.
With generations of knowledge in his fingers, preparation took seconds
for Hani Zalatimo, a great-great-grandson of Mohammed. Dough thrown by
hand ended up so thin that you could see the speckled counter beneath.
A crumble of sheep's cheese preluded four folds. After a few minutes
in the oven, each crispy bite was both sweet and savoury, the melted
cheese and pastry combining masterfully.
It energised Khalil. He whisked me through the Old City's alleys,
calling out greetings every few metres. I remember anArmenianbakery
without a sign, where a customer told us that he had travelled three
hours to buy sfiha, an open-faced meat pasty. At the 19th-century
Izhiman coffee shop, Khalil joked about old Mr Izhiman, who in the
1920s used to drive between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, selling coffee
out of his car window.
In the butchers' souk we dodged the severed heads and buckets of offal
to dine on flavourful, almost winey, kofte at Abu Shaheen's renowned
kebab restaurant, the lamb chopped by hand with a secret family spice
mixture. Khalil said: "You see? The Holy Sepulchre, the mosque, the
Western Wall - it's just decoration for the real Jerusalem. Some
people want the city as a museum. But we are alive."
In the afternoons, when the Old City tour groups began streaming back
to the buzz of West Jerusalem, I passed sage sellers and money
changers into gentler East Jerusalem. Salah ad Din felt like a
provincial high street. I browsed with a frothy coffee at bookshops
and galleries, and ate zingy over-lemoned Lebanese mezze among quiet
diners.
Off Salah ad Din stands the St George Hotel, opened in 1965, when East
Jerusalem was Jordanian. Photos show King Hussein striding through the
lobby, only 29-years-old, his smile as tight as his buttoned suit.
The hotel survived a generation. Last month, after a top-to-toe
renovation by a consortium of Palestinian investors, it opened again -
without royalty this time. It is a snazzy refit, featuring acres of
rosy wood panelling, chunky designer furniture, fabrics in chocolate
and burgundy and a rooftop pool offering a domes-and-steeples
panorama. The manager of the hotel, Tareq Al Naser, is proud as Punch.
"This is the first new luxury hotel in East Jerusalem since, well,
since the last time it was," he grinned, showing me an old olive tree,
around which the ground-floor courtyard has been rebuilt. "And it's
the only one that is Palestinian owned and operated."
Another original feature is the marble flooring, swirling pinkish
stone quarried at nearby Beit Fajjar. As Tareq guides me under the
lobby lights for a better view, I realise that I am striding where
Hussein strode, 47 years ago.
Back then Arab Jerusalem was another country. It still feels like it today.
A guide to Arab Jerusalem Stay At the St George Landmark (00 972 2627
7232, stgeorgelandmark.com) double rooms with breakfast cost from
£110. Until it launches fully on May 31, rates are reduced by about 30
per cent.
Eat Askadinya, in an atmospheric 19th-century mansion at 11 Samaan Al
Siddiq (00 972 2532 4590), serves upmarket Palestinian and
contemporary European cuisine. For Arabic fine dining head to
Arabesque at the American Colony hotel, 1 Louis Vincent (00 972 2627
9777). Shop Browse for Jerusalem's famous hand-paintedArmenian
ceramics at PalestinianArmenianPottery, 14 Nablus Road (Mon-Sat,
9am-4pm, palestinianpottery.com).
For fair-trade crafts, visit Sunbula, 7 Nablus Road (Mon-Sat 10am-6pm;
sunbula.org). Educational Bookshop, 22 Salah Eddin (daily, 8am-8pm,
www.educationalbookshop.
com). Visit The Alternative Tourism Group (atg.ps) and Siraj Center
(sirajcenter.org), Palestinian NGOs for sustainable tourism, can
organise guides, tailored itineraries and home stays. Al-Quds
University (www.jerusalem-studies.alquds.edu) runs regular half-day
walking tours, guided by academics. Green Olive Tours
(greenolivetours.com) also offers walks.
Some people '' want this city as a museum. But we are alive
April7, 2012 Saturday
Edition 1;Ireland
The other side of Jerusalem
Most visitors stay in the West of the Holy City. But stay in the East
and you'll find a different world, says Matthew Teller
Matthew Teller
Jerusalem looked simple from atop the Mount of Olives. At the back of
the panorama jostle cranes and office blocks. In the midground I
picked out steeples and arched windows. At the front your eyes glue
themselves to the Dome of the Rock, glittering gold above the Old
City's battlements.
"Do you read the Bible?" In among the tour groups oohing and aahing, a
local guide introduced himself as Bassam. "If you read the Bible," he
said, "you'll know Jerusalem is in Heaven. This one [he gestured] is
the Jerusalem in Hell."
We traced the invisible line - fixed in international law, but
disputed by Israel - that slices across the view, demarcating West
Jerusalem from East Jerusalem. We walked down the hill into the Old
City together, passing the gnarled olive trees of the Garden of
Gethsemane.
Voices rose at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is said
to have died. At the Western Wall, lips murmured under knotted brows.
But even when we reached the Zion Gate on Jerusalem's invisible border
line, its Ottoman stonework punctured with bullet holes, Bassam did
not mention East or West. You rarely hear locals make the distinction.
Many Palestinians feel that the whole city is under occupation. To
most Israelis the city has been liberated. Neither, linguistically,
acknowledges the other. But the distinction is important.
All the key religious sites are in the Old City, which is part of East
Jerusalem, an area annexed by Israel after the Six Day War in 1967.
Most tourists stay elsewhere: of the city's 9,335 hotel rooms, almost
8,000 are in West Jerusalem. Stay in the East and you find another
city, Arabic in language and Palestinian in culture.
Sultan Suleiman Street is the anchor, its minibuses and fruit barrows
laid against the Old City walls like keepsakes on a forgotten shelf.
To one side the elegant curve of Salah ad Din now holds mostly ladies'
fashion shops and pizza parlours, between decaying 19th-century
mansions of golden Jerusalem stone.
Round the corner on Nablus Road, I filled a morning at the serene
Garden Tomb, an alternative site for the Crucifixion, before hooking
up with an old friend. Bald, round and twinkling, Khalil has Jerusalem
roots going back centuries. When I asked for culinary advice, he was
unequivocal: "You should go for a Zalatimo. Come on, I'll take you."
Sunbeams in flagstoned lanes split and '' reformed as Khalil gave me
the back story. In 1860 a Jerusalem merchant named Mohammed Zalatimo
opened a shop selling mutabbaq, a sweet pastry. It became so famous
that, like Mr Hoover and Mr Biro, man and product merged. In the
crowded, fragrant souks, beside a stall blaring Arabic pop, we halted
in front of an unmarked aluminium-framed glass door. Zalatimo's dim,
tiled interior, wedged under the walls of the Holy Sepulchre, held
four small tables beneath stone cross-vaults.
A family group was just leaving, their silk scarves and jewellery
incongruous under the dangling light bulbs. They were going back to
Jordan, they said. When they arrived, they came straight to
Zalatimo's. They had returned for another before departing. It was the
taste of Jerusalem.
With generations of knowledge in his fingers, preparation took seconds
for Hani Zalatimo, a great-great-grandson of Mohammed. Dough thrown by
hand ended up so thin that you could see the speckled counter beneath.
A crumble of sheep's cheese preluded four folds. After a few minutes
in the oven, each crispy bite was both sweet and savoury, the melted
cheese and pastry combining masterfully.
It energised Khalil. He whisked me through the Old City's alleys,
calling out greetings every few metres. I remember anArmenianbakery
without a sign, where a customer told us that he had travelled three
hours to buy sfiha, an open-faced meat pasty. At the 19th-century
Izhiman coffee shop, Khalil joked about old Mr Izhiman, who in the
1920s used to drive between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, selling coffee
out of his car window.
In the butchers' souk we dodged the severed heads and buckets of offal
to dine on flavourful, almost winey, kofte at Abu Shaheen's renowned
kebab restaurant, the lamb chopped by hand with a secret family spice
mixture. Khalil said: "You see? The Holy Sepulchre, the mosque, the
Western Wall - it's just decoration for the real Jerusalem. Some
people want the city as a museum. But we are alive."
In the afternoons, when the Old City tour groups began streaming back
to the buzz of West Jerusalem, I passed sage sellers and money
changers into gentler East Jerusalem. Salah ad Din felt like a
provincial high street. I browsed with a frothy coffee at bookshops
and galleries, and ate zingy over-lemoned Lebanese mezze among quiet
diners.
Off Salah ad Din stands the St George Hotel, opened in 1965, when East
Jerusalem was Jordanian. Photos show King Hussein striding through the
lobby, only 29-years-old, his smile as tight as his buttoned suit.
The hotel survived a generation. Last month, after a top-to-toe
renovation by a consortium of Palestinian investors, it opened again -
without royalty this time. It is a snazzy refit, featuring acres of
rosy wood panelling, chunky designer furniture, fabrics in chocolate
and burgundy and a rooftop pool offering a domes-and-steeples
panorama. The manager of the hotel, Tareq Al Naser, is proud as Punch.
"This is the first new luxury hotel in East Jerusalem since, well,
since the last time it was," he grinned, showing me an old olive tree,
around which the ground-floor courtyard has been rebuilt. "And it's
the only one that is Palestinian owned and operated."
Another original feature is the marble flooring, swirling pinkish
stone quarried at nearby Beit Fajjar. As Tareq guides me under the
lobby lights for a better view, I realise that I am striding where
Hussein strode, 47 years ago.
Back then Arab Jerusalem was another country. It still feels like it today.
A guide to Arab Jerusalem Stay At the St George Landmark (00 972 2627
7232, stgeorgelandmark.com) double rooms with breakfast cost from
£110. Until it launches fully on May 31, rates are reduced by about 30
per cent.
Eat Askadinya, in an atmospheric 19th-century mansion at 11 Samaan Al
Siddiq (00 972 2532 4590), serves upmarket Palestinian and
contemporary European cuisine. For Arabic fine dining head to
Arabesque at the American Colony hotel, 1 Louis Vincent (00 972 2627
9777). Shop Browse for Jerusalem's famous hand-paintedArmenian
ceramics at PalestinianArmenianPottery, 14 Nablus Road (Mon-Sat,
9am-4pm, palestinianpottery.com).
For fair-trade crafts, visit Sunbula, 7 Nablus Road (Mon-Sat 10am-6pm;
sunbula.org). Educational Bookshop, 22 Salah Eddin (daily, 8am-8pm,
www.educationalbookshop.
com). Visit The Alternative Tourism Group (atg.ps) and Siraj Center
(sirajcenter.org), Palestinian NGOs for sustainable tourism, can
organise guides, tailored itineraries and home stays. Al-Quds
University (www.jerusalem-studies.alquds.edu) runs regular half-day
walking tours, guided by academics. Green Olive Tours
(greenolivetours.com) also offers walks.
Some people '' want this city as a museum. But we are alive