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| Picture of the Top of the Entrance to the Lights Festival |
In many ways, Thursday night was a full circle….. of something. Perhaps of the last year in Israel? My hopes? My dreams?
The
night started off at the Jerusalem Lights Festival. I went last year with a
dear friend and really loved it so I was excited to go again. It takes place inside
and on top of the walls of the Old City throughout in the different quarters. At
the entrance to the festival, right outside of the Mamilla Mall, there is an
enormous dome made out of lights, quite beautiful to admire from within or
outside of it.
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| Part of a Series of Shadow Projections |
And I
knew just the place, or so I thought. There were two places (bars) I had passed
the other day and that night on the way to the Old City and wanted to check
out—a pink bar and a grungier bar next door. At this point, the pink bar had
already filled up completely and may have had a bouncer and a velvet rope, so
it wasn’t so appealing to the male half of the group. And the grungier bar
apparently wasn’t grungy, just an irish pub, and being Thursday night at 11 pm,
it was pretty full already and not appealing either to everyone. So we were
just going to give up and go to another Irish pub which I had frequented all too
often during my days as a MASA participant, but beseder. We took a shortcut down a road less traveled road to get
to the Irish pub when low and behold, a beacon of light, incidentally a salmon
and dark brown beacon of light with outdoor seating that was unusually empty of
the time of night, and unusually non-Irish pubby for Jerusalem standards. We
went to that bar and it was nice—spacious, interesting decor, good selections
of drinks. The only problem was, they seemed to be short on ice. But no matter,
it was definitely a place I would go to again, out of the hustle and bustle
that is downtown Jerusalem.
After
the drinks, some wanted a little nibble and as we were walking up the hill to
get back to downtown Jerusalem, we see it—Hummus Ben Sira, what I call a
“hummuseria” that sells…. Hummus. Hummus with toppings, hummus with falafel,
hummus with pita. Hummus Ben Sira is open late and fairly inexpensive (NIS22 or
about $6 for a bowl of hummus topped with chickpeas, a small bowl of fafelal
balls and two pitas), and supposedly the best hummus in Jerusalem. So while I
was not super hungry per say, I jumped at the chance to eat there, having
wanted to pay Hummus Ben Sira a visit for over a year. And eat there we did.
After ordering for my friends and being made fun of for my Hebrew and its
glorious/somewhat mysterious argentine accent (I still have yet to learn to
deal with the Israeli good-natured-but-at-times-harsh teasing), the moment of
truth arrived. My friend got a falafel sandwich in a pita, which she described
as the best of her life. I split an order of hummus and pita with a friend
which came with falafel balls, as described above. The falafel was a bit fried
for my taste, but the hummus was very good—creamy and flavorful and topped with
warm chickpeas, just the way I like. My friend who has worked in the food
industry and makes his own hummus said Ben Sira’s hummus was just the way he
liked it and that he was inspired to use more tehina next time to mimic the
hummus’ texture. Impressive review! I can’t say that this was the best hummus
of my life, only that it was very tasty.
So to
conclude, thursday night, I took a trip down memory lane, as they say, found a
new hangout (a must as a New Yorker in need of endless options) and visited a
place I have been wanting to find for over a year. Oh, Jerusalem!
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| View of Entrance to Lights Festival from Outside |
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