Jerusalem: Follow the smell
Tour guide Oded Amitai smelled the aroma of delicacies emanating from the local kitchens and decided to give tours in a variety of flavors in the multi-cultural capital
Ronit Svirsky Published on Ynet, August 21, 2006
Where to eat is a question that comes up on every hike, walking tour, or trip around the country. Sandwiches and water canteens are a thing of the past, and even when the meal is eaten in the area, gourmet or at least “authentic” is the preferred choice.
Jerusalem tour guide Oded Amitai usually takes groups around Jerusalem’s colorful neighborhoods. One day he smelled the aroma of delicacies emanating from the local kitchens, and he decided to give walking tours in a variety of flavors in the multi-cultural capital.
In Ein Karem you’ll find a combination of French, Russian, British, and Italian culture, so when you take a tour of the village you end with an Italian or French cooking workshop.
After a visit to the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Makor Baruch and Meah Shea’rim you’ll be introduced to kugel, cholent, matzoh balls, and gefilte fish. The tour along Jaffa Road will introduce you to Ethiopian cooking, and a tour of the alleyways of Nahlaot will acquaint you with the cuisine of Kurdistan, Aleppo, Urfa, and the Ashkenazi lands.
Kurds vs. Urfals
The tour of Nahlaot starts at the “Ta’amim” cooking school at 88 Agrippas Street. The school was established by Guy Tuchman and is under the direction of Chef Yufal Attias. After a small cup of coffee and cake you go out to the street, next to the Mahaneh Yehuda market, and stop across from a building with a large wall painting (mural), one of several in the city.
A group of French artists from Lyons is responsible for these paintings. They select cities all over the world where there are conflicts and seek to bring beauty to the residents of these cities. They take a prominent building, restore it, and decide on the theme. In this case they took their inspiration from Mahane Yehuda and painted the shoppers, residents of Nahlaot, and scenes from daily life.
The market
Cross Agrippas Street and enter the cobblestone streets of Nahlaot. The area is over 100 years old, and has fascinating stories, human dramas, and unique architecture. When the neighborhood was built every street or two was its own separate neighborhood, but Jerusalemites preferred to call them all “Nahlaot.”
Nahlaot is spread out between two main roads that are parallel to each other, Bezalel and Agrippas. Just a few steps take you away from a noisy main road and bring you to one of the tranquil houses, redolent with the smells of cooking and baking.
Go along the alleyways, feel the cool stone, peek into the arched windows with iron shutters, stop in front of the courtyards full of greenery, and meet Jerusalemites from all of the various ethnic groups.
It's all about the food
The Kurds are cooking hamousta soup with white kubeh balls; matfunia kubeh, a reddish soup made from beets; grilled beef in okra soup; and stuffed vine leaves. The Persians serve rice with chopped meat with an egg inside. The Sephardim cook bourekas with spinach that are rolled up like a snail.
The food makes its way to every heart, and love stories are also part of Nahlaot’s lore. Marriages between different ethnic groups were not welcomed, but it’s hard to make rules when it comes to love, so Sephardim fell in love with Ashkenazim, Yemenites with Aleppans, and most problematic of all, Urfals with Kurds.
According to Amitai’s stories, the Urfals were known for their ability to have sons, while the Kurds had mostly daughters. The Urfals did not like the Kurds’ stinginess, to put it mildly, and the battles between them were intense and bitter.
The accursed house and the blessed house stand next to each other in the heart of Nahlaot. The accursed house was built in the 1970s, near the Rabbi Shalom Sharabi yeshiva, for residential and commercial purposes. While it was being built the rabbi asked the contractor not to take over part of the yeshiva’s courtyard, but he refused. Since then, no business has managed to survive in the large "marble" building.
On the other hand, the small building next door, with a red tile roof, is known to increase fertility. Every childless woman who has gone to live there has become a mother of many children.
The underground widow
In 1882 Moses Montefiore founded the Ohel Moshe neighborhood, which inspired the play “Bustan Sepharadi” (Spanish Garden). Ohel Moshe has a stone entrance gate and courtyards filled with fruit trees and vegetable gardens. The Sephardic neighborhood provides love stories, stories of food brought on Fridays to the communal oven, and stories of a social life that revolved around the well (cistern).
The tour continues through Mahane Yehuda. Alongside the stalls and the singing vendors you can now find cafes serving short espresso and latte, gourmet restaurants, fashion designers’ boutiques, and jewelry stores. Ronnie, a vegetable vendor, stands behind piles of parsley and cilantro, reading rhyming poems he has written; while a pair of designers seated on retro metal chairs sip coffee.
The end of the tour is the closing of a circle for Oded Amitai. On the wall of a house in the Mazkeret Moshe neighborhood is a sign saying “Kramer-Rechtman House.” Chaya and Alexander Kramer, Amitai’s grandparents, lived in this house until 1986. His mother Rachel, their only daughter, fought with the Lehi pre-state underground movement, and was engaged to Meir Feinstein, who was a member of the Irgun, another pre-state underground group.
They met in 1946 at the height of anti-British underground activity. Rachel wanted to join the Irgun but her parents were vehemently opposed, and she ran away from home. Eventually it was agreed that she would come home and content herself with posting announcements made by the underground.
Meir Feinstein was caught blowing up a British train two weeks after the engagement. During his trial Rachel tried to convince him to ask for a pardon, which the Irgun was opposed to. He was sentenced to death, and on the day he was scheduled to be executed, Feinstein and his friend Moshe Barazani blew themselves up with a hand grenade that was smuggled into their cell.
Rachel joined the Lehi, became a fighter, and later married Efraim Rechtman, who was in the Palmach.
The tour began with a wall painting, and ends at a painting that is only several months old. The artists from Lyons returned to Mahaneh Yehuda and created a wall painting in the back parking area showing class pictures and school activities from the Alliance Israélite Universelle school. The school, which to this day is located next to the parking lot (but not in use), was once the first educational institution in the city.
It’s time to eat
Hungry and tired, we return to the Ta’amim school, where cold watermelon, kubeh, fresh laffa (flatbread), and homemade hummus await. Chef Yuval Attias explains how grandmothers chop beef to prepare fried kubeh nablusiyah, and demonstrates the use of jerish (not regular bulgur wheat) to prepare the dough.
The recipes are placed before the guests on stainless steel tables arranged in a horseshoe, and Attias now prepares the white kubeh balls for the soup. The matfunia soup is already boiling, and everyone on the tour receives a steaming bowl with a thick red liquid, like what you eat at stone houses in Nahlaot.
Ta’mim Cooking School, 88 Agrippas Street. Tour with workshop and meal: NIS 135. Call Oded Amitai at 972-50-630-0928.
