Cats of Jerusalem

 

Jerusalem cats are not for the most part kept in private, they are community pets, shared by whole neighborhoods. There are people who feed them leaving food for them all over the place, and then there are people who are strongly against feeding them. It’s a similar case in Istanbul, except there there seems to be a consensus that cats are to be loved (unless, of course, they are caught stealing). But comparison may not be entirely fair, since Istanbul is next to the water, with many fish restaurants, and as we know There is no sea in Jerusalem.*

(*It sounds better in Hebrew, Ain yam b'Yerushalayim.)

The term feral cats has a frightful ring, but not all the outdoor cats are all that wild, and many will, if approached with good intentions (yes, they can read you!), purr as you stroke their fur. This has beneficial results for both humans and felines for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. They will, if drawn by a tempting aroma, jump into trash containers, and I suppose this is one reason some people treat them with such disdain. 

Once I was walking near Nahalat Shiv’a neighborhood and noticed a stencil graffiti on an otherwise bare cement wall. I found it amusing. It said “Feed the Cats!” I mean, in other places and other times one might miss the fact that here in Jerusalem this is a bold expression of anti-speciesist politics more-or-less on the level of “Meat is Murder!”

I think of an incident last year. In the heat of argument, one Knesset legislator called another one a “cat feeder,” a term with a sharply contemptuous sting it wouldn’t have in the U.S.

Cats and other living beings on the planet are not here just for our amusement, they’re serious business, worthy of our thoughtful consideration and care, and for a lot of varied reasons, not just because they’re so cute and pet-able. They are sentient and for sure emotional beings who sometimes unnecessarily suffer as we all do.

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Wanna read about ’em, or maybe see some more photos or even videos?

Livia Gershon, “How Street Dogs Spend their Days,” at JSTOR Daily (June 7, 2022). I wish someone would do a similar study of Jerusalem street cats. I could do it myself if it weren’t for all the statistical analysis. They do seem to spend a great deal of their time stretching and yawning.

Idit Gunther, Tal Raz, Yehonatan Even Zor, Yuval Bachowski, Eyal Klement, “Feeders of Free-Roaming Cats: Personal Characteristics, Feeding Practices, and Data on Cat Health and Welfare in an Urban Setting of Israel,” Frontiers of Veterinary Science (March 7, 2016). Especially about that much-neglected group of “heavy cat feeders.” Some papers listed in its bibliography appear to be even more interesting than this one.

Itamar Katzir, “Israelis Are at War. Over Cats,” Haaretz, English edition (January 31, 2022). Unfortunately, I think this informative essay is locked behind a pay wall. Shame on them.

N., “Cats in Israel: Overview” (posted on May 25, 2012).

Basem Ra’ad, “Cats of Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Quarterly, vol. 41 (Spring 2010), pp. 73-78.  The author is a professor in Al Quds University and the University of Toronto. This essay also appears as a chapter in his book Hidden Histories.

Sara Toth Stubb, “Jerusalem’s Controversial Cats: In Israel's Divided City, a New Split Emerges over What to Do about Stray Cats,” US News & World Report (February 5, 2019).

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If you tire of reading, do a video search for “Cats of Jerusalem” and let me know which one you like the most. There are so many. One report by National Geographic is bound to show up in your results, and I have to say, it’s very professionally done.

Unluckily for us it may be impossible to view the movie Kedi online for free. But you can see a lot of teasers and trailers for it, and brief videos about Istanbul cats. See for example this TRT news story about the making of the documentary. Then search for “kedi” (or kediler in the plural) on YouTube and forget about all those things you were supposed to be doing with your life.

Spring Wildflowers in the Valley of the Cross

the small native iris

Not a poppy, they’re called kalaniyot in Hebrew.
Still, everyone confuses them so why not us?

Just to get a feel for the grounds surrounding these beautiful flowers, take some time to take a video walk through a big part of the Valley of the Cross by clicking HERE (Virtual Jerusalem web channel) and HERE (Shai the Walker). You will hear more and more about this place as time goes by, so you may as well get acquainted. No rush.

Cyclamen (rakefot) love to grow in the cracks in the rocks

 

Anglophones shouldn’t fear 

they will be made to hear 

all that much talking in Hebrew 

without translation if they go to view  

THIS splendid and very new video by Uri Jana.

The Musical Sublime of Our Time (my take)

 

Dhafer Youssef

Tell me it isn’t only me. I was just thinking what a strange new millennium it’s been so far, with so many things of great importance we used to take for granted shrinking away and under threat. The birds and the bees are two examples. Already the world’s humanly fashioned mess literally outweighs earth’s biomass.(1) Privacy, quiet, room to breathe, the sense of personal freedom and music are several more. But let’s get off this doomsday trip, shall we? 

We can turn in a different direction, take a small detour. Instead of going on to fret some more we’ll highlight what is well, high enough to highlight. In the field of music only this time. I’d like to share something about a couple of musicians that have most captured my spirit and soul during these two-plus decades, their music can bring your mind to complete focus, that then leads quickly and with evident effortlessness to elevation, to soaring above it all.

But, and this is an important but, without the least denial or dishonor to the sufferings and disappointments that give a life its depths — These are grownup tastes, I’m afraid. So send the children off to bed.

I won’t talk about my own musical past, these musicians are all young according to me. And they are not for narrow nationalists or strict traditionalists.  Not that they lack traditions. They’re filled with them.

What I think can be safely said about all these artists is that they fit more comfortably in the category of jazz than anything else, but even that can be a problem. They have all undergone rigorous training in their instruments and in music in general, including strong influences from European classical and folk music. But they also all share, in unequal measures and in parts of their repertoires, strong foundations in a Middle East that includes North Africa and al-Andalus.

I’ve sometimes encountered strong prejudices against Middle Eastern music, in North America in particular. If you live in the Mideast you don’t really need to justify anything to yourself, you just absorb the sense of it, it feels you. Still, I might put out the argument that jazz in particular, the classics of Miles Davis and David Brubeck (think “Unsquare Dance”), experimented with tempos and timbres entirely untypical of earlier Euro-American music genres. I like to point out that adventurous openness of theirs to people who believe they are into jazz even while looking down their noses at the oudh or kanum music that I have come to favor. 

There is really no such thing as “ethnic jazz,” unless you believe those arbiters of culture we hear from far too much. And there is a danger of dismissing these geniuses as a part of “world music’ — such a flat, flattening and uninspiring term — when what they are is trans-worldly music, music that extends out into the larger universe at the very least, if not some universe next door to it. No, please, not music that can be cranked out of some small box with a thin glue of ethnic authenticity stuck on. If you hear it and it moves you, just forget the rest. Turn off the noise.

The three featured instrumentalists excel in different instruments: oudh, double-bass, trumpet, piano and human voice. In the case of the voices that means lyrical voices without the lyrics. As Dhafer Youssef explained in an interview (linked below), he started performing as a musician in coffee houses while he was studying musicology in Vienna. He didn’t want lyrics, text in a language that might not be shared, to get in the way of communication. I get that.

I like to imagine what could happen if Dhafer Youssef, Renaud Garcia-Fons and Ibrahim Maalouf were forming a real trio, or a quartet with an added percussionist... I think it would work, even work wonders. I think RG-F has already played bass on a piece by DY, so there is a precedent.

Looking around to better inform this blog I learned for the first time that Renaud Garcia-Fons studied with a famous Syrian teacher named François Rabbath. I plan to look into this more. I had imagined Garcia-Fons as a lonely Spaniard in exile in Paris, I had no idea, just name-based assumptions. When I am listening to his music swirling about and then relentlessly pressing on, I think sometimes of western classical or folk music, sometimes late Ottoman, or flamenco, or even Celtic revival. One thing Garcia-Fons shares with the other two is this: They can be pure old-school jazz when they want to be, that and a lot besides.

I do have an odd personal tale to tell about Garcia-Fons. It was a few years after I first heard him when, living as I do in Jerusalem, I found out he had a webpage devoted to his music. So I went there for the very first time and quickly noticed he was giving a concert that very same night in Jerusalem. (I know, What are the chances?) I called and ordered a ticket right away, fearing it would be too late to get one. But when I got there a few hours later the hall was less than half full, so I could move up to the 4th row close to center when the show began. It was a night of duets with Garcia-Fons on his huge bass and the Turkish musician Derya Türkan playing a tiny upright fiddle that at first seemed absurdly small, but with immensely rich tones. It’s called a kemenche. Chosen for being well recorded, even if not the same concert, this video will give you a good idea how it was.*

(*In case the link goes stale, “Silk Moon” is the name of their collaborative album. It may be possible to hear the entire album with an internet connection, just search for it.)

Renaud Garcia-Fons

Entremundo. I think it’s the best of his best, but I do love
some of the more recent collaborations, also.

Ibrahim Maalouf

Remember the Bataclan
performance with Sting in 2016?
You must!

I think real live adherents of traditions, and even people who just like to think they are, will find music to appreciate here. After all, if we think about it traditions are not passed on to us as part of an effort to pull us down with their drag and make everything ho-hum and predictable. Not really. Fresh creations have been cropping up all along since time began. And these artists do often dare to rise above the solemnified stability of past categories into new and engaging aesthetic forms that don’t require a label. They don’t even ask for one. And they are skilled enough at their craft to innovate on the fly in ways that hardly ever let us down. 

Do a Youtube search for his concerts,
his “music videos” I don’t care for.

(1) Stephanie Pappas, “Human-Made Stuff Now Outweighs All Life on Earth,” Scientific American (Dec. 2020).

PS: I was told that, given my taste in these three particular musicians I might like Tigran Hamasyan. I’ll get back with you on that.

Web resources

TRT made an interview with Dhafer Youssef that I recommend. Just that they shouldn’t have ended on that note of complacency.

https://www.songlines.co.uk/features/a-beginner-s-guide/renaud-garcia-fons-a-beginner-s-guide

Renaud Garcia-Fons Official Youtube Channel, where you can hear a lot of high-quality recordings.

And there’s a whole lot more if you surf for it.

A disclaimer: Written with not the least bit of financial incentive or commercial motive. My intention is that, even when there are music and book recommendations there ought to be a way for you to enjoy them without payment... A visit to your local library might be a very good way to do it... I won’t ever display or embed links devoted to taking your money, definitely not. That’s what I intend when I say (see the sidebar) this is a non-commercial blog.

Alte Sachen in the Bukharan Quarter, Jerusalem

 

I was looking forward to visiting the old Bukharan Quarter with a guide who could explain a thing or two about it. My main motivation was a longtime interest in the Moussaieff family’s history, for some reasons I won’t go into right now. So I went on a tour a few years ago, just before the corona hit us. It was quite an interesting place to walk around. Near the oldest synagogues there I saw a group of religious men loudly urging people passing by to shun the evils of cell phones.* I agree with them on this particular issue. I do dislike the constant bother cell phones always bring with them when you bring them along. I like to find my way without following their every dictate.

(*I should say there are stripped down versions of cell phones the Haredi have no problem using.)

Today I’m just going to share a few photographs I took — with a digital camera that is not a cell phone — while I was there. I didn’t take pictures of people, because people in this side of town often object to being photographed, and I’m way too shy to ask. I really want to go back again when the virus days are behind us. These days I’m going nowhere more than four blocks from home, for exercise, and order all my food for delivery to my front door. All too predictable. Enough with all that predictability.  Nimaas-li* as the Hebrew speakers say, especially the children when there isn't anything fun to do. If an older person says it expresses a pathetic world weariness. That’s my understanding.

*נמאס לי

Yehudayoff Palace (circa 1905)

To read a short piece about the Bukharan Quarter and its history, try this web page.

Domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

 

Taken from the rooftop of St. Saviour, at New Gate, within the Latin Quarter of Jerusalem’s walled city. Notice the scaffolding on the dome of the Catholicon. The large dome covers the Edicule.

Today’s brief photo blog is supposed to start up a set of records of things learned (and unlearned) over a three decades long stay in the Holy City, understandings of my own illustrated in photographs to share with family and friends. I’m thinking it will include developing musical tastes, a fascination for eight-sided objects, and a love of spring wildflowers. It will be noncommercial with no advertisements anywhere in sight.

But it can hardly ever be forgotten for long that Jerusalem is a city enjoyed and venerated by followers of three Abrahamic religions, and if you are going to live here happily you have to learn to respect them or at least come to terms with them. I would say the first step is to pay attention, learn about them, and then you’ll see how interesting they can be and maybe even recognize what they might be good at and good for.

Nothing will ever be required of you, my dears, but if you are human and would like to comment in the comment box, please do. And bear in mind, if the captchas are turned on there is good reason — I detest spam — so please be patient with them, and be prepared to wait a day or two before seeing your comment on the screen.

Blogging is my social medium. I won’t ever go back to Facebook and I’ve never felt tempted to tweet or twitter. I prefer to talk awhile without feeling hurried. I’ve never been a slogan shouter or placard waver, as much as I would like to change the world and clear the way for every peaceful and beneficial pursuit.

Okay, let’s get this going! 

There, done.

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A book I wish I could loan to you

David Stephenson, Visions of Heaven: The Dome in European Architecture, Princeton Architecture Press (New York 2005). Awe inspiring and sometimes gasp-worthy photographs of dome interiors. It’s almost as if you’re standing beneath them.