The Jerusalem Light Rail - a Jerusalemite story

The Jerusalem Light Rail (in Hebrew: "Harakevet hakalla") is still quite new in town: although construction works began in 2002, it was completed only by 2010 and began to be actually in use in August 2011. The construction process was lengthy and very painful for all Jerusalemites concerned: more than one shopkeeper had to file bankruptcy in central western Jerusalem as access to the shops was as good as barred due to the endless construction site.


Then came the archaeological findings in course of the digging - a very typical "plague" of Jerusalem: indeed, all building owners in this historical city know only too well that digging under one's one floor may have dire consequences: you incur the risk of ending up with a whole team of archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquity Authorities digging for several months on your own backyard and at your expenses ... and on the other end, if the authorities find out that you made archaeological findings without reporting them, you may be sued and heavily fined.

Once the archaeological diggings were sorted out and done with, a new controversy raised around the Jerusalem Chords Bridge by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava: the idea and initiative came from then Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, who wished to leave a grandiose signature on the city's landscape. The bridge stands as monumental and audaciously elegant construction taken out of a futuristic designers catalog, placed in a dull and somewhat sterile setting.



The bridge was ready by 2008 and stood empty and desolate for 3 years. The costs: almost twice its original estimation - and Jerusalem city is one of the poorer municipalities in the country. New issues rose: the external pedestrian path was designed with a transparent glass bottom - little did the designer know about one of the most eminent citizens of that area of Jerusalem: it was absolutely unthinkable for them to have women walk on a glass bottom - as they were convinced that this would deprave the young men in the Orthodox society! So the municipality had to seek a compromise solution and eventually permission was granted to cover the glass bottom to make sure that no one would be able to see anything from underneath.

Another issue was a highly political one: a legal insurrection began in 2007 against three French firms that took part in the construction, claiming the whole project to be racist and to make illegal use of "occupied territory". In March 2013, a French court ruled out all the claims.

Today the Jerusalem Light Train is perhaps the first and utmost tool of genuine social integration. The way it works is very simple: Its path goes from East to West (South West-North East). Everybody can use it - provided he or she has a valid ticket (not such an obvious thing in Jerusalem, one of the poorest municipalities in the country). It has stops at a distance of 1-2 km each. From the Damascus Gate stop further north, its path corresponds to the "Partition Line" drawn by Israel and Jordan in 1949 as part of the armistice agreement.

It now creates a physical link between very different neighborhoods - either Jewish or Arab. Its most important cultural asset is perhaps the message coming out of the speakers - in 3 languages: in Hebrew, in English and in Arabic. At each time, it gently reminds people not to forget anything in the train and announces the name of the station - an absolutely new urban phenomenon. For the first time in decades, one can see standing or sitting next to each other: Muslim, Jewish Orthodox or secular Israeli mothers with their children, talking in Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, French or English, next to Israeli soldiers, Jewish Yeshiva students next to Palestinian laborers, all mixed with tourists and visitors - all polite and even helping each other. Living next to each other is not only possible, it actually is happening right now, no matter how many open and unresolved issues remain to be tackled.

A few insights about the human geography in Israel

I recently happened to overhear a conversation while travelling by train from central Haifa - in the north of Israel - to Herzliya, which is located in the central area of Israel, about 15 km north to Tel Aviv. A woman sitting in front of me had a conversation with a relative or friend of hers, obviously a woman too. The conversation was held in local Arabic. My knowledge of Arabic was not enough to understand every bit of that casual conversation, but enough though to notice several interesting characteristics - with the schooled ear of a linguist. The woman in the train was around 35-40 years old, she was wearing a western style dress, like an average Israeli woman at the end of a day's work - she seemed to work as a school teacher - a bit tired, making several phone calls one after the other, to take advantage of the available time while travelling in the train - typical of many Israelis.

What caught my attention was the fact that, while talking in Arabic, the woman used various Hebrew terms, such as "Bituach Leumi" (national social care), "tachanat rakevet" (train station), "kupat cholim" (health care), all perfectly inserted into the flow of her speech. Obviously her partner did not seem to find this odd, rather this seemed the normal thing to do and probably the other woman would do the same. They didn't seem to notice even.

This reminded me of other conversations in Arabic I had overheard over the years in Israel, such as two waitors in a hotel in Israel, two young men from the same "village", who would use Hebrew terms for objects such as the table cloth ("mapa") - which then seemed so odd to me (I had been living in Israel only 2 or 3 years then) that I interfered in their conversation and asked them about this - they laughed sheepeshly and said "We don't even notice that, it's a habit, we use the Hebrew terms for things at work".

The woman in the train had to stop the flow of her conversation after she had mentioned that she just had to switch trains at the Binyamina train station: obviously her partner had never heard about this city in Israel. For a Hebrew speaking Israeli, this would seem rather odd - almost like an American citizen asking "What is New York? Where is it?".

Binyamina founders street

 

Binyamina is a Jewish town in Israel, which was founded in 1922 by Jewish settlers. By 1947 it had a population of 2000, in 2009, it had a population of 6000. Among Jewish Israelis, Binyamina was the hometown of famous songwriter Ehud Manor, who mentioned this town in numerous songs, where is appears to have been heaven on earth. It now has several famous wineries and is one of the major highplaces of wine tourism in the country.

I was surprised to realize that there was an Israeli Arab woman out there who seemingly had never heard before of the town of Binyamina. The woman in the train had to repeat the name at least 3 times and made at least 2 attempts to explain its geographical location: obviously the other woman was unable to even grasp that name or to imagine its location: it was a black hole in her mind, it did not exist.

This brought me to the thought about myself, that even after more than 30 years in this country, there are numerous Arab villages that I don't know anything about - and even if I do, they are not part of my world. I feel like a perfect stranger there - so I actually could understand now that woman's reaction.