Jerusalem Chai
Kids
Adventures in the Kotel Quarter
Story # 1: Moving to the Kotel Quarter
“David, where are you going? The movers are almost finished putting everything on the truck, and soon we’ll be leaving for our new home in the Old City,” Ima said.
“Just going outside for a minute,” David answered, looking away, and hoping no one would notice the tears running down his face. He couldn’t even remember the last time he felt so sad. “I’ll be right back,” he said, still holding on to the idea, that maybe he would find out it was all just a bad dream. Just maybe, his family wouldn’t be moving to the Old City of Jerusalem after all. Maybe, they would stay in Efrat, the yishuv (“settlement”) he had lived in his whole life, where he could go anywhere he wanted to go at any time of day, and where he knew almost every family that lived there. David sat on a bench in park, remembering how happy he was the first time he climbed up a tree in the park to reach the pine nuts, and how exciting it was to be on stage in the park every year, blowing the shofar with other kids in front of thousands of people at the exact moment when Yom HaZikaron turned into Yom Ha’atzmaut. He thought about the late night Lag B’Omer bon fires in the park with the close group of friends he had known since kindergarten.
“David,” his Aba called from across the street, “It’s time to go,” he said very definitely.
Realizing there was nothing he could do, and still not understanding why the rest of the family was happy about the move, he walked back to the house, and quietly got in the car.
After they had been driving for a while, David broke his silence. “I don’t understand why you all are so excited about moving to the Muslim Quarter.”
Yehuda, age 8, always pleased to seem smarter than others, said, “Ima said it’s not the
Once in Jerusalem, moving day turned out to be more fun than David had expected. As the oldest of the five kids, he was in charge of taking everyone out for lunch in the Jewish Quarter. Dina, next in line at age 10, did the ordering because she was the only one who could remember who wanted ketchup and pickles, and more importantly, who did not want onions on their burgers. Sara, age 7, was responsible for holding the table while everyone else went to get the food.
“There are so many people here,” Sara said, “Do they all live here? How will we ever get to know them all?”
“Seriously, Sara? Do you think all these people live here? This is Jerusalem! Tons of people come here to visit every day,” Dina told her.
“So, we get to live here, and they only come to visit? Not bad,” answered Sara, trying to change the subject, so she wouldn’t feel embarresed about her mistake. After lunch, Yehuda, who had spent a good amount of time with Ima and Aba walking around the Old City, took the other kids to see his new school.
“It’s actually kind of fun here…but why can’t we live here in the Jewish Quarter?” David asked out loud to himself, not actually wanting an answer from his younger siblings. He should have realized that Yehuda always had an answer, “First of all, remember that guide who took us on a tour? He said it’s really not a Jewish ‘Quarter’ it’s a ‘Jewish Eighth.’”
“What’s an eighth?! What’s an eighth!?” Zohar, age 5, started screaming. She liked to know everything the big kids were talking about, and couldn’t let something go if she didn’t understand.
“A quarter means a part of a city, but it also means one fourth. But actually, the Jewish area is much smaller than 1/4th of the Old City, it’s more like 1/8th of the Old City,” said Dina.
"Huh?" said Zohar.
“Zohar, you didn’t learn fractions yet. You’ll understand in a few years,” explained Sara who was proud of herself for knowing about fractions.
“Fine, genius,” said David to Yehuda, “So why can’t we live in the Jewish Eighth? We are also near the Kotel over here, and lots of great Jews lived here in the past, just like in the other areas.”
“You know, it's only a five minute walk from here to the Muslim Quarter,” reminded Yehuda.
“What?” said Dina, “Really? But it looks so different there.”
“Ima said that one day the Kotel Quarter will be just as pretty and nice as the Jewish Quarter,” remembered Sara.
“A text message just came in,” said David looking at his phone, “Ok, guys, it’s time to see our new home,” said David, sadly, but still curious to see it.
The kids walked up Chabad Street toward the Arab Market, where they were met by their parents and a guard who would escort them to their new place. Yehuda noticed right away that the guard had a special radio. “Hey, what’s that? Do I get one too?”
“Wow, we get guards to walk with us,” Sara said starting into a new thought.
“Cool, like the Prime Minister,” continued Yehuda. Being so close in age, they often could easily enter into the same imaginary worlds together.
“Right, or even like a movie star!” interrupted Sara.
Walking into the apartment, David was now completely sure this was a mistake, “This place is old. Look at it.”
“Did you forget it’s called the ‘Old City?’ What did you expect?” answered Yehuda, pleased with his quick answer.
“Come over here kids,” Aba called everyone into another room, “Read what it says here.”
“Let me read it! Please! Please!” shouted Zohar. She started to read, paused, then started again from the beginning. “Well, it says, that someone named Moshe. Well, actually, I’m not really sure what it says.” Sara thought Zohar was cute and funny, and started laughing, but everyone else was getting impatient. Sara took out her Ipod and took pictures of the stone inscription, and all the kids thought that was a good idea.
Aba helped, “It says that house belonged to Moshe someone in 1890.”
“That’s what I said!” said Zohar excitedly.
“Who is that?” Dina wanted to know.
“I don’t know exactly," said Aba, "but it reminds us that this house was built by Jews over 100 years ago. Actually, many houses around here, were owned by Jews. If you look very carefully on this entrance, you can see where there used to be a place to put the mezzuzah. Someone filled it in trying to hide it." David didn’t want to look too excited, but he took a few pictures of the sign when everyone left the room, and then slipped his Ipod back into his pocket.
“I’m going on a walk,” said David, feeling he needed to be on his own.
“I know you are 12, and you are used to going everywhere by yourself, but we need to be a bit more careful here. Some of the neighbors don’t want more Jews to move in. We’ll call someone to go with you,” said his mother.
“No, I’m going now.” And before anyone could say anything, he walked out.
“Do you think it’s ok?” asked his mother quietly to his father.
“Oh, it’s fine. There are thousands of tourists walking through here all the time and hundreds of security cameras. Nothing to worry about,” his father reassured her.
Rushing out the door, David didn’t notice the street was uneven. He tripped, and almost fell into a dirty puddle of water. “What’s with this place? What am I doing here?” said David to himself, starting to feel really upset again.
After walking a few more minutes, David was surprised to see some Israeli flags and a sign in Hebrew that said something about a yeshiva. Without reading it carefully, he felt drawn to go inside, so he followed another boy up the stairs into the yeshiva. The guys there looked much older than he was, but no one seemed to mind if he just sat down and started learning. On the table in front of him, was a book by Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook. David had heard of him often in school. Rav Tzvi Yehuda was a great rabbi and leader who encouraged Jews to build communities in Yehuda and Shomron. He had died in 1982, which was 18 years before David was born; since 18 is a special number, David had remembered it. He started to read with a greater intensity than he had ever experienced before, “Eretz Yisrael…” he read. And then suddenly, something incredible happened.
The room was the same room, and the noises from outside the window were the same noises. There were still guys learning all around him, but something was very different. Netanel looked around.
The tables were older, and the clothes everyone was wearing looked strange. A man walked into the room and all the rabbis ran over to greet him, “Rav Tzvi Yehuda, shalom aleichem! How are you? What brings you here today?” Some spoke in Yiddish, others in Hebrew, but they were using some old style Hebrew words and had heavy European accents. “I just came back to see how things are doing. I heard there have been some problems here near the Western Wall. I haven’t been to the yeshiva in a very long time, but the years I learned here when I was younger were very special to me…”
Before David could even begin to understand what was going on, he heard loud noises from outside. There was screaming in Arabic and screaming in Yiddish. Something was going on, and it did not sound good.
David ran to hide with some of the other students. “What’s happening? Did someone call the police or the army? Are there some guards around here somewhere?”
“Police or army?” another boy replied, “You want to call the British? What will they do? They will just tell us we should live somewhere else, and they will probably just say that we started the problem.”
“British? Huh? I don’t understand.” But then suddenly, David did understand. Well, sort of. He realized that by reading Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook’s book, he had somehow gone back in time to when Rav Tzvi had been in this very same place. He started to realize where he was, or, rather, when he was. He realized that he had first wandered into the Ateret Yerushalyim Yeshiva where he had sat down to learn, and then ended up in the time when it was called the Torat Chaim Yeshiva where Rav Tzvi Yehuda, Rav Aryeh Levin, Rav Shalom Eliyashiv and others had learned many years before. He remembered the story from a tour his family did when they were deciding to move here.
"What's the name of this yeshiva?" David asked the boy, to double check that what he was thinking was actually true.
"Torat Chaim? But why is that so important right now?" He couldn't understand what it should matter when they were in such danger.
David thought for a minute, and then he started to remember the whole story he had heard about this yeshiva. In the 20s and 30s, there were a lot of pogroms against Jews living in Eretz Yisrael. In 1938, the British told the Jews living in the Old City of Jerusalem to leave their homes for their safety. No one realized it would be over 30 years before it would even be possible to consider returning. The Torat Chaim Yeshiva paid an Arab man who lived in the same building to take care of the yeshiva. In 1948, Arab mobs and the Jordanian army went through the Old City and destroyed every single synagogue and Beit Midrash – 58 holy places. But, in this yeshiva, a great miracle occured. The Arab family who was taking care of the yeshiva, hid the entrance behind a fake wall, and protected it until 1967 when Jerusalem was re-united under the State of Israel.
“Rav Tzvi Yehuda,” said David nervously approaching the rabbi he had heard so much about, and now found himself standing next to. At first, David didn’t know where to even begin. But then, hearing noise from outside the door, he realized he needed to talk fast, and straight to the point. “Rabbi, we are right now in the ‘meora’ot Tarpat’ the events of the Hebrew Year 5689,” he said.
"Well, we are in the Hebrew year 'Tarpat,' but I'm not sure which events you are speaking about, " answered Rav Tzvi Yehuda.
David suddenly felt badly that he had been fascinated about being in a time he had learned about, and hadn't been thinking about how he could help everyone with the terrible things that he knew were about to happen, and they didn't yet know about. He had learned about the riots of “Tarpat”, in school, where many Jews were killed throughout the Land of Israel, starting with the Old City of Jerusalem in August 1929. Rav Tzvi Yehuda looked at him a little confused, but curious to hear what he had to say.
“It will be very difficult here. Many Jews will be killed. We can't yet defend ourselves very well, but one day soon, we will have our own army and police. You will see,” he said wanting to offer some hope.
Rav Tzvi Yehuda continued listening, realizing this young boy in strange looking clothes was telling him something very important.
“Make sure to tell them to pay someone to protect the yeshiva, if they have to leave it,” David added, not sure if he should say that or not, but decided to say it just in case they wouldn’t think of it. Rav Tzvi Yehuda didn't reply, but looked with interest at the boy, and glanced at his school shirt logo that said, "Orot Etzion," perhaps thinking how his father, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook liked to name his books "Orot."
“This is the most incredible thing I have ever done in my life. I have to tell Dina and the other kids about this!” thought David. “But, wait, how do I get back to their time? What if I'm stuck here?”
Just then, there was pounding on the door, and a group of Arab men broke through.
“I have to get out of here, now! But, how?” Netanel was really scared. His heart was racing. His hands were shaking, but was able to think to himself, “Hmm…if I got here by reading, I guess I can get back by reading too. But what can I read here from the future? Everything around here is from the past. Wait. My ipod! Just before we went to the new house, I was reading my email. It should save a copy even if the internet doesn't work. Quick, come on, Ipod, work.” David turned it on, and it worked! He found an email dated August 22, 2013 and started to read it, and before he knew what happened, he found himself sitting at the table in the same yeshiva in 2013. Feeling a bit relieved, many thoughts rushed into his mind, “Phew,” he said to himself quietly, still shaking, “I am so happy to be here today, and not in 1929. It's really too bad I didn't have more time to talk with Rav Tzvi Yehuda. I didn't get to ask him anything at all. I have to try to go back to see him again. Or maybe, I could go back in time to meet other great people? I wonder if I need to go back to that same yeshiva, or if I can try this again from somewhere else...”
David realized he must have looked like he was having a whole conversation with himself, so he quickly asked one of the guys, "When did this yeshiva start? I can't remember exactly."
The student next to him answered, "Oh, it's a great story -"
David interrupted, "Oh, I know, it's a lot more than just a story. Believe me. I know about Torat Chaim that used to be here, but how did it get back into Jewish hands?"
The student continued, "Not too long after Jerusalem was re-united in 1967, Zerach Epstein - a soldier serving in the Old City and grandson of the former Rosh Yeshiva - went to find the building. He asked an Arab man sitting in the market if he knew where there was place where Jews used to learn nearby. He said, 'shh..' and rushed them into the building. Then he started pounding on what seemed to be a wall of his apartment with a hammer, revealing the entire yeshiva, including over 3,000 books, just as the Jews had left it in 1938. He said, 'More than I protected your holy books, the books protected me and my family.'"
David walked back outside and looked up at the Israeli flags flying over the yeshiva. “This is the best place to live,” he thought to himself. He ran back to his new home to tell his family about his great adventure in the Kotel Quarter.
© 2013, Leah Bowman
All Rights Reserved
“I don’t understand why you all are so excited about moving to the Muslim Quarter.”
He said, 'shh..' and rushed them into the building. Then he started pounding on what seemed to be a wall of his apartment with a hammer...
‘Muslim Quarter’; it’s called the ‘Kotel Quarter’. Not so many years ago, there were more Jews living there than anyone else.”
“Well, whatever you want to call it, there are a lot of Muslims there now. If you all like them so much, just open the window at 5am here. We have plenty of Muslim neighbors, and you can hear their call to prayer perfectly. I’m just not sure Ima and Aba have thought this through enough,” David said.
“This has nothing to do with Muslims. It’s a great privilege to move to Jerusalem, and especially to live so close to the Kotel,” Sara said, remembering her parents had answered exactly like that when they talked about it before, and it seemed to her to be a good answer.
