I make my way to Jerusalem's Central Bus Station on foot from the three bedroom apartment of my wife's parents. We're here in Israel for the Passover vacation to bring the grand children to see their Saba and Savta. But while I'm here, I also get to ingest copious amounts of kosher meat from the many restaurants that are available to me. In Jerusalem alone, there are literally hundreds of restaurants I can go to and eat everything on the menu. In Denver Colorado, there is one kosher meat restaurant. It's in the back of a Supermarket. It is, how should I say this? Not exceptional. Unless the height of cuisine for you is putting grilled pastrami in between two potato pancakes. Or tasting fajitas in week-old tortillas with freezer burned meat.
The walk takes fifteen minutes, through the newer part of Jerusalem, the western part, built between 1900 and today. The older part, called ‘The Old City', is within the medieval ramparts of Suleiman the Magnificent, built in 1535 as a stronghold of the Ottoman Empire. It has buildings that go back to 1000 BCE. Nonetheless, the modern city took a hint from its ancient fore-bearers and made a rule: any building constructed anywhere must be composed mostly of Jerusalem stone. It gives the city its golden color in the late afternoon as I set out for the bus station. The walk takes me past half a dozen middle eastern restaurants, selling meats spinning slowly on a spit deeply seasoned with turmeric and hyssop. It goes past stores that sell religious articles like the fringed waist-shirt of the ultra-orthodox, called tzit-tzit. One store is ‘THE Watermelon Center'. They sell nothing but watermelons. Think about that as a business model in the US.
The bus station itself is a new-ish building, five stories high, with a blue-green glass clock face at the center. Outside, three orthodox men on keyboard, guitar and alto sax are playing a not-terrible but heavily accented rendition of Frank Sinatra's ‘I did it my way' across from where the light rail train drops off. Security - which, sometimes in Israel, can require wanding and bag checks of every patron to every location: supermarkets, movie theaters, the bus station, is somewhat relaxed. I walk into the central lobby with its long book stand and it's cellphone kiosk, overshadowed by a series of escalators rising above like scaffolding. Shops and fast food can be found on the first two floors, and buses on the third and fourth.
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