Grapevine: Touch of Chelm

It’s an unfortunate fact that events demanding the closure of various streets in Jerusalem are almost always within the Talbiyeh and Rehavia neighborhoods, and occasionally those adjoining them. This causes considerable discomfort to residents of the area, especially when such events take place on a Thursday or Friday when most people do their weekend shopping.

The general rule is that barricades are placed along the main streets, which makes life difficult for motorists but slightly less so for pedestrians.

Moreover, the barricades are usually manned by people who are either municipal employees or who have been hired for the occasion.

Not so last week, when every side street leading off Keren Hayesod Street was not only barricaded but manned by at least three members of the police force. On my own street, in which there are only three residential buildings that are currently occupied and a fourth that has been gutted, residents were permitted to enter from Keren Hayesod but not to exit.

My press card, issued by the Government Press Office, is usually an effective passport for most places, including those that are off limits to the general public. Not on this occasion, when some 2,000 police personnel were present along the route of the annual Gay Pride march – to ensure that there would be no similar tragedy to that of nine years ago, when 16-year-old Shira Banki was stabbed to death by mentally ill religious zealot Yishai Schlissel, who also managed to wound six other people.

Returning home from the Inbal Hotel, it was impossible to ignore the barricades and police clusters at the entrance to every side street and along Keren Hayesod. There were also barricades across the sidewalk of Keren Hayesod, which police kindly moved to allow me to pass after first ascertaining my address, which provided the legitimacy required to get past the barricade. But when I reached my street, which was barricaded at the entrance with several more police on hand, my upstairs neighbor Varda Borowski was standing on the other side and yelled out to me, “They’ll let you in, but they won’t let you out.”

“I won’t have a problem,” I replied airily. “I have a press card.”

This time, the press card did not work its magic. After spending a few minutes arguing with a policeman, he called his supervisor, who carefully examined the press card while I kept repeating that it was issued by the Government Press Office – but to no avail.

Finally, he told me that I could exit from the other end of the street and walk from the end of Balfour to France Square, from where I could join the marchers who were heading for Independence Park.

If I could exit from a rear entrance, it was entirely illogical to prevent me from exiting from an entrance that was closer to both my home and my destination.

Oh well, Jerusalem has always had a touch of Chelm.

The bright spot was that the police were extremely polite, and in most cases very helpful, which was in sharp contrast to the stories of police violence that emanate from Tel Aviv.

Balfour and Smolenskin streets today

■ GETTING back to the unoccupied house on my street, it was home to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family for many years. One of the security regulations at that time was that cars and other vehicles that did not belong to residents could not park beyond security installations set up halfway on both Balfour and Smolenskin streets. 

These days, even though the installations are still there, and security officers are occasionally seen in one of the booths on Balfour, cars can park freely. On Smolenskin Street, which is very short and narrow with housing on only one side of the street, there are on average 20 parked vehicles, not all of which belong to residents, and more than a dozen parked vehicles in the previous non-parking zone on Balfour. Some vehicles are actually parked on the pavement, and their owners abuse traffic regulations with impunity.

Home for the chief justice

■ ON THE subject of security, whoever is eventually elected or appointed to serve as the next president of the Supreme Court will not occupy the apartment on Balfour that was vacated last October by former president Esther Hayut. The security booth inside the gate of the complex has been removed, indicating that it is no longer needed.

Curiously, the security booth at the entrance to the building where the late deputy prime minister Yigael Yadin lived remained there for years after his departure from politics and his death in 1984 and was removed only when the building underwent major renovation.

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