Within the Walls of the Old City: Stories About Life in Ancient Jerusalem
Miss Toba Grossman
fered heavenward between the
The camel is made to kneel,
When I went back to the old
By MOSHE BEN-SHAUL
to Marry David Ruben
cracks of its stones. For a long
the peasant loads a sack of char-
Special Feature Released
city, my heart said "slowly .

by Tallinn!' Foundation

For a long time to come people
will be writing about Jerusalem,
the ancient city of David—about
its lanes, its old-timers, its treas-
ures, and whispered prayers of-

MISS TOBA GROSSMAN

At a recent cocktail-dinner party,
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph A. Grossman
of Ohio Ave., announced the en-
gagement of their daughter Toba
to David L. Rubin, of Evergreen
Rd., son of the late Mr. and Mrs
Morris Rubin.
A June wedding is planned.

Italian Jewish Communities
Would Reform Law to Give
Women Members the Vote
ROME (JTA)—A special session
of the Unibn of Italian Jewish
Communities has been summoned
for next April to consider revision
of the Law On Jewish Communities
under which the union operates.
An immediate objective will be to
make the component community
organizations more democratic in
their nature, and to give women
members of hte community the
right to vote in community coun-
cils and in the union. Renzo Levi,
a vice-president of the organiza-
tion, was elected to the presidency,
which had been left vacant by the
death of Ruggero Di Segni.

time past I have been writing about
Jerusalem, both the ancient and the
modern, upon the tablets of my
heart.
As a child I would run along its
walls, quench my thirst at its
wells, watch the Arab craftsmen
who carved Little Towers of David
and tiny Rachel's Tombs out of
limestone. .. .

Later there were many years
when I wrote of Jerusalem in story
and verse, telling tales which I
heard from my father, who had
heard them from his.. . . And now
I remember vignettes of the Jeru-
salem that was.
• * •
The charcoal dealers who sup-
plied the Old City of Jerusalem
were three in number. In the
old days charcoal was used for
cooking and for heating, and
would be purchased twice a
year: after Pesach and after
Sukkot. The three brokers (that

Miss Cha rnes ngaged

Orthodox Religious Center

JOHANNESBURG (JTA) — A
new Orthodox religious center that
will serve as headquarters of the
Federation of Synagogues of South
Africa, was formally dedicated
here by Chief Rabbi Bernard Cas-
per of Johannesburg. It has been
named the Isaac E. Goldberg Re-
ligious Center, in honor of its
chief donor.

Suburban
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Sat. 9:30 to 9 p.m.
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Sun. 12 to 5 p.m.
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Greenfield-8 Mile Rd. N
SATURDAY and SUNDAY, *
DEC. 30 and 31
YEAR-END CLEAN UP!
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Shown: Blouse was $14

Skirt was $17.

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& SUNDAY,
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Sat., 9:30-9 p.m. •
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AND HIS ORCHESTRA

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is what dealers were called in
the old days) were known as Ma- IN
tya ben-Noah, Itche Belcher and
Bakr the Arab. They were part-
ners and divided the districts N
within and without the Old City
walls among them. Arab peas-
ants would bring the charcoal
on camels from Hebron and the
MLSS BARBARA CHARNESS
nearby villages, packed in sacks
hanging
down on either side of
At an engagement party, Mr.
the hump, with one little sack N
and Mrs. Sidney Charness of Aber-
N
perched above in the middle.
deen Rd., Southfield, announced
The peasants would arrive in the N
the engagement of their daughter
middle of the night and wait out-
Barbara to Ronald Blackman, son
N
side the Jaffa Gate until surise,
of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer Blackman
when the dealers would come N
of St. Johns, Mich.
and lead them through the city N
A March 31 wedding is planned.
quarters.
N
And this is how the sale would
Construction Worker
be made. The broker calls the
Recalls Yeshiva in Will housewife to come see the chair-
NEW YORK (JTA) — Construc- coal, and strikes the sacks with
tion supervisor George Kahnt, a
N
Lutheran known as the "old man
in the helmet." bequeathed more
than $100,000 to Yeshiva Univer-
sity, the school he helped to build.
N
Mr. Kahnt, who lived in the
N
Bronx, died in October at the age
N
of 76.
He joined Yeshiva in 1953. and
liked to recall fondly that, as a
construction worker in 1928, he
helped build Yeshiva College, the
first structure on what is now a
multibuilding campus.

TEL AVIV (ZINS)—"You will
be the eyes of your husband," said his hand till they resound, to show
the army chaplain, Shlomo Goren, her that the sacks contain long,
to the pretty nurse who had mar- properly burnt sticks of charcoal,
ried the blinded lieutenant, Ra- and not little embers or half-
phael Pelov. lie lost his sight while burned smoky brands which only
dismantling mines near the Syrian give off a dull sound.
border. 'Pesie ach had met
The housewife, and her husband
him before the accident.
r of officers and too, inspect the bags carefully —
A large nu
soldiers had atte ded the wedding. are they large and full, and is the
price a fair one? (For charcoal
was purchased by appraisal alone,
Labor Zionist Celebration and not by weight.) After a price
Branch Thre of Poale Zion is mutually agreed upon, the bro-
and Branch 79 of Farband will ker tells the peasant a lower sum,
hold their Hanuka celebration 8 so that he can earn a few piasters
p.m. Wednesday at the Labor as a broker's fee. If the peasant
Zionist Institute.
agrees — well and good. If be
doesn't agree?—The dealer pulls
Israel Gold Deficit
him into- a corner and whispers in
Israel's gold reserves and his ear: "I know that in your sack,
foreign currency have reached a on the bottom, there are a lot of
total of $721,000,000, or $34,000,000 embers and half-burned sticks."
less compared with last Septem- The peasant swears by his beard
ber. In the meantime, Israel's vice- and his prophet that the sack con-
minister for finance, Dr. Dinstein, tains only fine charcoal — pure
announced that the deficit of gold. Then the dealer whispers or
Israel's business balance for 1967, rather shouts: "I'll add a few
will reach $400,000,000 or $170,000,- grUsh of my own; let's get the sale
000 less than compared with 1964. over with !"

SAM BARNETT

1 BLOUSE
6-9 SKIRT
SALE !
Exactl y
1 /
2 OFF!

..-

Love Disregards Handicap

MUSIC BY

juI let

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(Copyright 1967, JTA Inc.)

THE DETROIT JEWISHNEWS ",
Friday, December 29, 1967-27

° •* • • 11 • • NOM MU

ji THE NEW in

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By RABBI SAMUEL J. FOX

slowly" . . . . First, I resolved, I
shall stand on Mount Scopus and
gaze upon it at length, at evening
time, when it is bathed in a violet
light, and a golden haze rises
from the Temple Mount. Then I
shall go down, go down, until the
city is all mine....

Then the dealer is angry at the
peasant, and the peasant is angry
at the housewife, and the house-
wife is angry at the dealer—and
the camel opens its big mouth and
yawns, and yawns. . . .
That is how charcoal was sold
in the Old City.

II

`Sinai' History to Mr. Ronald Blackman

Many sources connect the name
Sinai with the Hebrew word "Sne"
(a bush) because they identify the
location of Sinai with the place
where Moses observed the burning
bush where the Almighty first
spoke to him (Exodus 3:2). Some
trace the word Sinai to a semitic
word meaning- a "stone." This is
regarded so because of the stones
supposedly ejected by the moun-
tain during its volcanic eruption
which spot stones all around the
area. This is in accordance with
those who claim that the Moun-
tain of Sinai was a volcano and
that the smoke and fire which is
described by the Bible during the
course of the revelation at Sinai
were the effects of this volcanic
eruption. Some claim that the term
Sinai expresses the concept of en-
tangled branches of wood such as
would be evidenced by the brush
or the bushes which Moses ob-
served there. One of the commen-
taries on the Koran claims that the
term "Sinai" may be derived from
a root meaning "to be exalted" and
that the Mountain was called Sinai
because tradition "exalted" this
location by referring to it as the
place upon which the revelation
took place.
Of course, In Jewish tradition,
the location of the mountain is
of little religious interest. What
was important was what took
place there and not the physical
location of the site.
Modern scholarship finds its ex-
act location to be uncertain. From
about the 6th Century there was
a tradition that this is the moun-
tain now c alled "Jebel Musa"
which lies towards the southern
tip of the Sinai peninsula. This
location is still preferred by many;
although it cannot be ascertained
with full accuracy. Some scholars
like to feel that Sinai was located
In Northwestern Arabia east of the
Gulf of Aqaba. They choose this
location because the Bible suggests
that Sinai was a volcanic mountain
and that is where extinct volcanos
have been found. This does not
seem to fit the description of the
Bible which tells us of places near
Sinai which are definitely not in
the northwest section. Some seek
a location due North because there
seems to have been the location
of the Amalakites with whom the
Israelites fought at about that time.
This is not sufficient proof because
the Amalekites, being a nomadic
people then, could have wandered
from one location to another.

coal on his back, hauls it to the
chest in the kitchen, and empties
the charcoal into it.
If the charcoal is of good qual-
ity, the dealer says, "Nu, what do
you say ! Did I deceive you?" And
if it is not of good quality, and the
housewife scolds at him, the peas-
ant lowers the price, grush by
grush, and promises that next time
he will bring only good charcoal

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