Once upon a time in Jerusalem,
Queuing for the bus after shopping in Mahane Yehuda market, early 1970s.
Following the many reactions to the neighborhood grocery that warmed the heart and brought up memories and nostalgia for many Jerusalemites, we will move forward a step in the consumer evolution of Jerusalem of the old days.
In the picture, shoppers are waiting for the bus to take them back home from the Mahane Yehuda market, loaded with fruits, vegetables, fish and meat, and all the good things that the land of milk and honey has to offer.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays, the Mahane Yehuda market was filled with new and fresh goods in honor of the approaching Queen’s Sabbath.
As mentioned, the neighborhood containers had a limited stock of goods, supermarkets and innovative shopping centers were just a rumor at the time and for the serious shopping for Shabbat, the city’s residents went down to the Mahane Yehuda market.
Stalls loaded to exhaustion with the best fruits and vegetables that the country had to offer, and there was much to offer-
It was in the days when the tomato tasted like a tomato and so did the other fruits, long before the scientific and genetic intervention of the last decades in the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, which indeed made them look more beautiful and they had a longer shelf life, but almost all of them have the same bland plastic taste, and if you eat the fruit with your eyes petitions, it is difficult to distinguish between the types of fruit. The magical journey through the alleys of the market is an unforgettable experience- From the Iraqi market and the greengrocers, the backgammon players with a bottle of Extra Fine or 777 on the table, among glasses and full ashtrays.
The fish shops where the fish swam in a plastic tank full of water, practicing their last breaths before they rose to their fate and were brought out as butterflies on the work surface, where they met the seller wood staff that descended on their heads and delivered them with a precise blow to a world full of cooked fish sauce.
Stalls selling loofah sponges for the bathroom – the SPA treatments of those days, next to crackers, dried fruits and broken olives shops.
The smell of the bakeries with the fresh pitas opened the salivary glands, Azura’s borax and juice for the half-starved, or a portion of Sofrito at the second Azura for those who were really hungry.
Salesmen with woolen hats with pom poms and yellow-black scarves who shouted at the passersby and the deaf about today’s sale, and butchers who cut meat for soup and sofrito with a hand of faith and a sharp knife.
Usually one of the children who was free at that time joined the mother or father on the shopping trip, in the role of a guest taster and bearer of the plastic baskets that were filled with products that slowly turned the palms into purple from the excess weight in the basket and the lack of oxygen to the fingers.
A family car was a luxury in those days, taxis were the share of the rich of that time and the journey to and from the market was made in red, stuttering buses with smokestacks of the Egad company.
The arrival times of the buses were unknown, and a long line stretched near the station. The bus was often slow to arrive, and the one that had already arrived was sometimes full of passengers and would stop 50 meters after the station.
For the nimble among those waiting, a 50-meter running competition with baskets awaited, which in a reformed world should have long been an additional sport in the Olympic Games, and perhaps would have finally earned us medals.
When the happy passengers crowded in and boarded the bus, which had a manual transmission and a 6-slot shifter, as was later shamelessly copied by manufacturers of sports cars such as Ferrari and Porsche, the driver closed the doors with pressure on the last passenger, turned the huge steering wheel with two hands and two long pinky fingernails, and with a circular movement of the whole body, the bus left the station onto the dilapidated road.
At the same time, the passenger had to take out a small change for the ticket or a crumpled paper card from his pants pocket or bag, while both hands were holding baskets that threatened to explode and scatter on the bus floor, an action that later became a test of coordination and improvisation for admission to the air force flight course (according to foreign publications).
The passengers stood crowded and sweating like sardines in a box, years before the era of air conditioning and deodorant, one hand holding the baskets and the other hand holding the handle bar of the smoky, stuttering bus that jumped with every gear change and strained and sweated on the climbs to the mountainous neighborhoods.
Before arriving at the station, the height-challenged children or adults would ask the responsible (and tall) adult to pull one of the strings that ran along the ceiling of the bus to ring the bell and signal the driver to stop at the nearest stop.
It is said in the city that to this day there are short people still riding around in red and smokey buses, who failed to pull the string and were condemned to continue the journey to infinity.
When the loaded baskets arrived home at the end of the journey, the house and the street were quickly filled with the smells of fresh dishes and spices, and then everyone knew that the Sabbath was approaching, and a cloud of holiness and silence was about to descend on the Holy City.
This was our Jerusalem, with simplicity and innocence, in an era where everyone seemingly had nothing, but we had everything.
A Shabbat of peace to the far and near from Jerusalem, and may all the soldiers and hostages return safely to their homes.
Amen.
Unknown photographer.
