Children Playing with Wooden Carts Down Bezalel Street, Nachlaot, 1962
— Another “Once Upon a Time in Jeruslaem”
In the photo: Children from the Nachlaot neighborhood sliding down Bezalel Street on wooden carts with ball bearing wheels, heading toward Sacher Park, which appears neglected and abandoned at the far end. To the right of the building at the end of the street stands what is today the Paz gas station.
It feels like it was from another lifetime—or perhaps a parallel universe—but it was long, long ago, when kids were just kids. No smartphones, no tablets, no TVs or screens of any kind. Our only entertainment during school breaks or after school was out in the street with friends.
There was no television at home. The personal computer was still science fiction. Parents hadn’t been through Adler Institute training on how to “contain” their children, and our only refuge was street games with the other kids in the neighborhood.
We built carts out of wood with ball bearing wheels, or later, with large rubber wheels we’d “borrow” from trash bins placed along the streets. We’d race downhill in those carts at speeds worthy of race cars, flying down the hills of Jerusalem’s streets — in days when barely any cars or buses passed — wearing shorts and sandals.
Any loss of control or fall from the speeding cart meant a direct meeting with the asphalt: bleeding knees, scraped skin, and broken bones grinding against the hot, rough pavement.
Those games would today cause a full-blown earthquake in the Child Protection Council and probably lead to parents being arrested, featured in the nightly news hiding behind a hoodie and a large white kippah — as the occasion demands.
We played “stanga” with one-touch ball rules, earning 2 points if you hit the goalpost, pausing only when a car happened to pass once an hour. Sidewalk games, dodgeball, and “long donkey” (a local game) filled our days.
We ate apricots just to collect the hard pits (called “ajuyim” — for those not yet updated), which we gathered in large bags to play with during school recess. We played “five stones,” hopscotch, rubber band games with the girls, “hold-up” left over from the British Mandate days, “Abu-YoYo” (a flour sack game for those who had trouble keeping up), and an endless array of creative games invented by bored children.
We collected the wrappers from Alma bubble gum, rounded them out, and flipped them during recess using cupped hands and loud claps. Anyone whose parents or relatives had just returned from abroad walked around like an Oscar nominee — flaunting unfamiliar bubble gum wrappers printed with magical American letters.
In the brutal heat of July–August, no one told us to wear hats. We didn’t carry branded stainless steel water bottles. When we were thirsty, we stood on tiptoe, lips pressed to the fountain spout, sipping a trickle of sun-boiled water while fighting off buzzing wasps that, equally parched, tried (unsuccessfully) to press the button with their wings.
Sunscreen was just a rumor. Extracurricular activities were merely a suggestion. Air conditioning was a dream. But time passed quickly — until nightfall.
As the sun began to set, the voices of mothers rang out from windows all around, each shouting her child’s name with her own unique melody. And just like that, we scattered back home — like baby penguins recognizing the calls of their mothers.
It was the Stone Age, before screens, mobile phones, WhatsApp every 20 seconds, AirTags, and electronic tracking.
We came home sunburnt, with scraped knees and near-dehydration — but happy, content, and feeling like kings of the world.
Almost none of us had much, but we all felt equal, like we had everything.
Our “brand names” were bought in the Old City market — fake Adidos shoes with four stripes and nylon Steve Austin T-shirts that reeked of sweat and failed to absorb anything in the sweltering heat. But we didn’t know any different, and we felt like royalty in a magical kingdom.
Those were the days — and they’re not coming back.
Today, mothers beg their kids to put down their screens, just for an hour, go outside, meet a friend, and see the sun — not through an app.
Shabbat Shalom — to those far and near from Jerusalem. 
May our kidnapped brothers return home together with our IDF soldiers. May we merit peace and quiet. And may we preserve the true unity among us — the unity we so deeply deserve.
Photo by Werner Braun, Yad Ben Zvi Archives
