Hurry up and get there! Only one more Monday night left!
Every Monday in July, shuk Machaneh Yehudah throws a huge street party. It’s the rowdy Balabasta festival. The punning name celebrates basta (produce stand), ba’al ha’basta (owner of the stand), balabusta (housewife), and the culture of the open market in Jerusalem.
I went to see it for myself this week, just me and my camera. The shops and vendors were doing great business.
Here and there bands played and people gathered to listen. In one little space, youngsters sang old songs of aliyah and Eretz Israel. I loved this red-haired girl, who sang in a fresh alto and blew a mean trombone too.
A rooftop concert rocked the crowd (pictured above).The band is called Acharit HaYamin, and sounds were rock, reggae, psalms set to heart-banging Yemenite/jazz fusion – all Israeli, punctuated at intervals by enthusiastic ululations from the crowd or the rooftop stage.
Yes, it was crowded. But it was a friendly crowd, everyone giving way to old folks or women pushing strollers, everyone intent on just having fun. It felt safe, it felt homey.
This band was playing an amusing, cool-jazz version of the “Pink Panther” theme.
Something for everyone: whimsical fairytale figures to entertain the kids
I stood slightly to one side, taking photos and moving with the music and watching the people.
One delicatessen intelligently set up a stand of cheeses and wine by the glass. It was fun to stand in the middle of the shuk and the noise and the surging crowd, savoring Cabernet Sauvignon.
I felt an multi-layered emotion I couldn’t describe.When the musicians sang of peace, of our longing for peace one day, and the people shouted “Amen!” I stood like a fool among all those people, with tears in my eyes.
Sweaty heat and the cooling Jerusalem breeze as the evening set in. Loud, cheerful music, Jerusalemites dancing in the ancient street, the stone buildings that have seen so much of struggle, war, and the everlasting everyday. Smells of fresh bread, sewage, something acrid and smoky, grilled meat.
I longed to suspend the moving, living moment like a scene in a movie. Soon it would dissolve into memory, and our transient wonder and enjoyment, placed fleetingly over the eternal, were already becoming the past.
It came to me so clearly then, how we are born, live, and die, and Jerusalem – Jerusalem is forever.
Get an excellent, printable, English map of the shuk here.
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