For more than 60 years, the grocery store stood at the corner of Rashi and HaTurim streets in Jerusalem. Now, it has closed its doors for the final time. It was a grocery store that served as a meeting point, a place to pause, somewhere every child was known by name and every customer was greeted with a smile and a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, without ceremony and in its characteristically quiet way, its door closed for the last time, bringing another chapter in Jerusalem\u2019s history to an end. The blue tarpaulin covering the storefront and the metal gate, layered over the years with graffiti and scribbles, had become its identifying features. This week, an iron lock joined its two doors, which for decades had guarded everything the grocery store\u2019s customers needed in their daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, the grocery store in the Makor Baruch neighborhood passed from father to son, who is now over 70 years old. As a child, he would spend time on the doorstep of his father\u2019s shop, handing out sweets to his friends and learning the secrets of the trade, long before he knew that he would one day continue the family business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what was not sold there? Fresh bread, milk, margarine, Canaan cheese, eggs, tins of sardines, cleaning products, newspapers, soft drinks, and Silon and Ascot cigarettes. Children bought Bazooka chewing gum and a variety of sweets that have long since disappeared from today\u2019s shelves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pupils from Jerusalem\u2019s Katznelson School, located at the end of HaTurim Street, would run there during breaks to buy a bread roll and chocolate milk. Students from Brandeis High School, where printing and lithography were taught, would stop for an ice pop on their way home. On Fridays, girls from \u201cYoung Mizrachi\u201d would enter carrying the shopping list their mothers had prepared, with a fresh challah for Shabbat at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grocery store\u2019s old stone floor was never replaced. Had it been able to speak, it would have told thousands of stories about children who became grandparents, about the austerity years and the simplicity of everyday Jerusalem life. Over time, shopping habits changed. Supermarket chains and minimarkets took the place of family-run grocery stores, while home deliveries became part of daily life. In recent years, the shop\u2019s shelves gradually emptied. Very few products remained for sale. Contact with most suppliers ended, and the owner bought the limited stock he still sold from the nearby minimarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, he no longer opened the store to earn a living. He opened it simply to be there. The grocery store had become a kind of private sheltered home for him. Here he grew up, worked and grew old. Every stage of his life passed through this place. He never renovated the shop, just as he never sought to alter the course of his life. It seemed that he and the grocery store aged together, at the same pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A large sign now hangs on the front of the building, announcing that the entire property is available for rent. No one yet knows what will become of the grocery store space on the ground floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for anyone who grew up in Jerusalem\u2019s Makor Baruch neighborhood, or once passed the corner of Rashi and HaTurim streets, the void left behind is considerable. It was not only a grocery store that closed here. A small piece of old Jerusalem also disappeared, the Jerusalem that believed a grocery store could also be a home, a neighborhood and a family. A whole circle of life has now come to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For more than 60 years, the grocery store stood at the corner of Rashi and HaTurim streets in Jerusalem. Now, it has closed its doors for the final time. It was a grocery store that served as a meeting point, a place to pause, somewhere every child was known by name and every customer was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":183484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"10329","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,26,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-26","category-68"],"acf":{"subtitle":"The longtime grocery store in Jerusalem\u2019s Makor Baruch neighborhood is shutting its doors after more than 60 years, leaving behind a different city"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183483"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":183486,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183483\/revisions\/183486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}