Azura’s Juice Stand, 1953
Another Once Upon a Time in Jerusalem.
The legendary juice stand of Azura still stands until this day on the main street of the market, at 18 Mahane Yehuda Street.
Not far from there, inside the market, there’s also Azura, the famous restaurant with the little kerosene stoves that became a true Jerusalem institution, and about which I’ve written before –https://tinyurl.com/mdhz9fbf
But this story is about Azura with an Alef, another long-standing Jerusalem establishment, well known to local Jerusalemites.
Azura’s stand was the first stop for just about anyone who came to “do the Shuk shop,” to gather a bit of strength and energy before hauling heavy baskets and bags, fingers turning purple from the weight, and beginning the long shopping journey through the simple, open-air stalls of Mahane Yehuda in the old days.
And anyone who was there and drank, could never forget the taste of those juices, poured from big glass jars with a chunk of ice inside and a little tap at the bottom: grape juice, green mint juice, and lemon juice years before anyone cared about sugar or artificial coloring, which today would probably horrify the Public Health Council.
There was also a wonderfully tart tamarind juice (I haven’t tasted anything like it since, and only those who tasted it would understand) and a tasteful creamy almond drink, for a few extra coins.
The juices were poured into glass cups, and when you were done, the cups went straight into a quick three-second hand rinse, then placed back, dripping wet, on the shelf for the next customer.
A kind of “sterile disinfection” worthy of an operating room, or maybe a bit less so…
The shop was founded in 1952 by the owner, Ezra Nakash, of blessed memory, who’s also seen in the photo.
Ezra, or Azura, as Jerusalemites called him, began with a small juice cart that stood at the corner of the market, which he would push each morning through the alleys from his home in Zikhron Tuvia.
Later, he moved the cart into the shop’s current location.
In the harsh Jerusalem winters, you could warm up with a steaming, delicious cup of Sahlab, and maybe a Boureka with cheese, spinach, or both, topped with tahini and a hard-boiled egg, and that would keep you going for the rest of the day.
Azura was also a die-hard Beitar Jerusalem fan, and when the team lost, his mood at the start of the week matched the score.
Even Yossi Banai, the great artist from the old Jerusalemite Banai family, who grew up right there in the market on 1 Ha’Agas Street before leaving the city for the temptations of Tel Aviv, wrote a special song about that same Azura:
If spring shows signs of a beautiful day,
And if the heart, from thirst, feels choked,
I sit at Azura’s café,
In the middle of Mahane Yehuda, inside the shuk.
I drink his sweet, sweet Turkish coffee,
Or a glass of lemonade, floral and fragrant.
For me, Azura is like a distant dream,
Like a story that never ends.
Azura, for my sake, puts on a cassette right away,
And from the transistor come the sounds
Of the one and only cantor Nissim Shalom,
Pouring out his heart in trembling prayer.
All around, everything’s familiar – so familiar –
The light, the shade, the low Jerusalem sky.
Azura talks, and I remember,
Like a story that never ends.
“When will you wise up,” Azura says to me,
“When will you come back to your city, like a man?”
“Look at me,” he says, “take me as an example,
I’m not leaving this place alive.”
And he’s right, Azura, truly right.
From shame and longing, I sigh.
I sit at Azura’s, silent,
Like a story that never ends.
That old Jerusalem institution still stands in the same spot, now run by the sons of the late Ezra Nakash, a living reminder of what once was, and probably will never be again.
This is Our Jerusalem, a city like no other in the world.
Those who were there, who tasted it, will never forget, and their taste buds could still take them back fifty years through the tunnel of time.
Wishing a peaceful Shabbat to those far and near from Jerusalem.
May we hear only good news.
Photographer unknown.
