\u201cTarzan\u201d is no longer showing on the screen of Jerusalem\u2019s Eden Cinema, which itself no longer exists, but the roars from the film still seem to echo. What is really happening on Saturday in Jerusalem\u2019s \u201cEven Israel\u201d neighborhood, the first Jewish neighborhood built in the Nahlaot area in 1875? A quiet neighborhood where, for years, no one could have imagined the transformation it would undergo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone arriving today at 8 Agripas Street in Jerusalem can hardly imagine what once stood here. On those same steps, which look almost like a small amphitheater, neighborhood children played hide-and-seek, jumped rope, ran between the houses and ate \u201chamla malana\u201d and Bimblik candies. In this vast courtyard, neighbors were part of the family and shared their Saturday cholent with one another. These were people who lived modestly and saw their neighborhood as an entire world. Ashkenazim and Sephardim, craftsmen, rich and poor, all lived here side by side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, that little pocket of tranquility in Jerusalem has undergone an almost unimaginable change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through a narrow alley named after Haim Elboher, one of the founders of the Sephardic orphanage, or from the direction of Jaffa Street, visitors enter a modern and surprising complex. Parisian-style boutique shops, an artists\u2019 gallery, independent specialist clinics, real estate offices and a huge residential tower overlooking Jerusalem. And on the edges of all this new development, small islands of the past still remain: a watchmaker, a second-hand bookshop, a grocery store, a shop selling plants and wicker goods, and a picture-framing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the \u201cHasimta\u201d caf\u00e9 opened in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the caf\u00e9 that quickly became a permanent point of friction on Saturdays. On one side are ultra-orthodox protesters demonstrating against its operation on Saturday, which they regard as desecration of the holy day. On the other side, Israelis from across the country gather every Saturday, patiently waiting not only to enjoy an Israeli breakfast, pastries and a varied menu at affordable prices, but above all to defend individual freedom and identify with the clich\u00e9: live and let live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All that is missing, in the eyes of the ultra-orthodox protesters in Jerusalem, is a \u201cstrictly kosher\u201d sign at the entrance. Such a sign would keep the caf\u00e9 closed on Saturday. In its absence, the argument returns to the street again and again.
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