After a deceptive respite, the former President Hotel is again in the news and a source of anxiety to residents of Talbiyeh. The former owners restored part of the building and allowed it to be used as a social space while formulating and altering its plans in reaction to the views of residents of the area.
When something better and less of a headache came along, the owners sold out, and the new buyers allowed the social space to continue while they got their act together.
It appears to be a case of getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. The current owners have a plan for 250 apartments and a 138-room hotel. One of the buildings on the corner of Ahad Ha’am and Keren Hayesod streets will be 17 or 18 floors, blocking out sunlight for much of both streets.
But that’s not all. Another property development company has plans for building a large estate directly across the road on Ahad Ha’am and extending around the corner to Smolenskin Street. Ahad Ha’am is already a traffic nightmare, and what will happen when its population is multiplied 20 times and more is beyond belief.
How can the safety of small children crossing the road by Sokolov Park be guaranteed with so much traffic coming not only to two hotels (one next door to the President is in the process of construction) but also from the owners of several hundred apartments?
There’s also a lot of construction on King David Street, which runs parallel to Keren Hayesod.
The Hebrew media reports that of the new apartments built around the country and ready for occupancy, 77,000 remain unsold. So why is there such an urgent need for urban renewal when money is so tight for so many people who suffered financial loss since Oct. 7, 2023?
How many people in City Hall or on the District Planning Committee are victims of the Evacuate and Build urban renewal projects? Apparently not enough, if any, to force a slowdown.
Meanwhile, proprietors of storage areas are advertising space for rent, knowing that evacuees who are leaving their homes while high-rise towers are being built in their stead are given interim apartments that are seldom large enough to store their belongings of a lifetime.
In most cases, people don’t want to pack and unpack again and again, within what is promised as a short space of time, such as two or three years.
Very often that short space of time stretches out due to bankruptcy, war, change of government – any number of reasons – and evacuees are left in limbo, never knowing when they can once again claim their own homes, which are not at all the homes they left.
Apparently, we are forever doomed to be wandering Jews – even in our own homeland.
Purim at the Sofer-Schroeder home
■ THE PURIM feast at the home of Gerald (Yaakov) Schroeder and his wife, Barbara Sofer, is always an interesting occasion in that it’s an annual reunion for veteran invitees, and there are always new guests who have something to contribute.
Everybody gets to say something, and more often than not they can’t get away with just mumbling their names. They have to say something about themselves.
This year, for some reason, nearly everyone had something to say about Queen Esther. Talk about two Jews who have three opinions. It was quite fascinating to hear the variety of views.
Later this year, Schroeder and Sofer will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. In the early years of their marriage they produced five children, each of whom is a source of pride.
One of their sons, Josh Schroeder, is a highly respected spine surgeon at Hadassah Medical Center and was chosen to accompany the returnees from Hamas captivity, who went to Washington, to thank President Donald Trump for saving their lives.
One of their daughters, Yael, recently passed the bar exam on the first try, prompting theater personality Myra Gutterman, whose talents include spontaneous comedy, to remark: “I never passed a bar; I always went inside.”
Meanwhile, one of their granddaughters is currently in New York to sing at Carnegie Hall.
80 years since Tmol Shilshom
■ THE MIND works in strange ways, which is why there are a myriad of interpretations of biblical and classical texts and lesser works. For instance, Nobel laureate Shai (S.Y.) Agnon’s magnum opus Tmol Shilshom, which was completed in 1945, translates as “the day before yesterday.”
But Agnon scholar Rabbi Jeffrey Saks prefers to call it “only yesterday,” which changes the meaning by more than the concept of 24 hours.
Be that as it may, as a lead-up to the 80th anniversary of Tmol Shilshom, Saks will deliver a lecture in English titled “Bridging the Divide between Religion and Modernity,” in which he will speak about the author, the struggle between faith and doubt, and between tradition and modernity in Jewish life and literature.
The lecture will take place on Sunday, March 23, at 7 p.m. at Agnon House, which was the author’s home. The address is 16 Klausner Street in Old Talpiot.
Musical events in Jerusalem
■ THERE ARE lots of musical events in Jerusalem these days, many of them supported by the Jerusalem Municipality and graced by the presence of Mayor Moshe Lion, who will be attending the Andalusian concert in the Ussishkin hall of the Jerusalem International Convention Center on Wednesday, March 26.
Also in attendance will be Deputy Mayor Arieh King. Singers Ouriel Elbilia, Moshe Luk, Shimon Siboni, Eliya Moyal, Elad Levi, and Omri Mor will be accompanied by the Andalusian Orchestra, under the artistic direction of Mordechai Azran.
Tickets are NIS 60.
■ EARLIER IN the week, on Monday, March 24, there will be a concert, free of charge, by the Rinat Jerusalem Men’s Choir, which will perform at Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue in Talbiyeh.
The choir, under the direction of Jason Rosenblatt, was launched in the summer of 2021 to foster fraternity and to showcase the beauty of Jewish music.
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