Plants attack the Holy City and Tolerant Cemetery

This is a little assignment for my mother, a further consideration of the flora of Jerusalem in addition to being a standard blog entry. (She has been a good resource, having sent me the sending me the link for the Jerusalem Botanical Garden) As I was walking through the park on the way to Lev's daycare today, we saw what Lev calls the alien plants which is a very good description of them since they look like something you'd see on Mars. These are two giant (probably 5 – 6 meters or fifteen to twenty feet?) high things that look sort of like giant caraway pants, the central stalk probably six or eight inches in diameter, with a thin upreaching crown. They are in the amidst of aloes that are themselves as tall as my head. Now – and this is where you come in, AMY -- these giant alien plants remind me of the brief glimpse I had of some weeds I saw at your co-op, which if I am not mistaken you told me are highly invasive, EXPLODE when you try to cut them and spew some kind of CORROSIVE ACID? Am I crazy? Do I remember aright? I am deeply concerned. Of course in Israel/Palestine one is always worried that the end of the world will come at the end of a warhead. People are probably not sufficiently attuned to the possibility that plants may be working to destroy us. I am not kidding when I say that these things -- which dwarf the ones I saw in Vancouver -- are aimed right at the heart of the Old City. I will try to get a picture, but mother I would be grateful if you would corroborate about those weird plants you guys had out by the rail-road tracks.

And in other strange Jerusalem news I walked through the Mamilla cemetery yesterday. Of course, I didn't know it was the Mamilla cemetery because there is no way to figure that out from anything so pedestrian as a sign. It's not really indicated on our maps of the city either. And you sort of can't figure out that its a cemetery either unless you really poke around. It is part garbage can, with trash swirling everywhere and part archaeological ruin. If you really take a look and stroll between the high weeds then you start to see that the old stones vaguely look like grave markers. Almost none have inscriptions that I could spot. There is one pretty mausoleum that has stood up to time.

Mamilla was a mixed Arab and Jewish neighbourhood until independence and the war when it was largely abandoned by both groups and shelled heavily, standing as it did on the border between the two halves of the city. The whole area lay largely underdeveloped, poor and run down after that. Now it is one of the hottest sights for development in the real estate hungry city. I think I read that an apprtment in Mamilla sold for 9 million dollars recently.

One of the last undeveloped spots is the old Muslim cemetery which I had stumbled on. Part of it was excavated in 1964 to build Independence Park and at that time there was some kind of permission given by Muslim religious authorities for development and even back in the Mandate period it seems that the Mufti of Jerusalem had said the cemetery had lost its sanctity although all of this is of course in dispute now. Why in dispute? Because the Simon Weisenthal foundation was given the green light by the city to develop on part of the remaining un-excavated land to build a Frank Gehry-designed Museum of Tolerance there. The museum plan is on hold while everybody has a kick at the can about the cemetery's status as Muslim holy site and/or area of archaeological significance. While the museum has stuck to its guns, mustering all sorts of arguments why it is okay for them to build there, I am guessing that somebody at Tolerance HQ was taken out back and given a good spanking, if not for the bad PR, at least for the millions and millions of dollars they have lost waiting for the whole thing to go through.

Meanwhile the cemetery is a weed-farm in the middle of the city. It is, according to one web site, a big spot for gay men to cruise. The waaqf which is responsible for Muslim religious sites in Jerusalem says that it is not allowed to operate in Western Jerusalem so they can't do anything to care for it. I have to say I kind of like it the way it is, a complete derelict surprise in the middle of the busy high-rising city, though I suppose leaving it as it is would satisfy nobody, not land hungry developers, not curious archeologists, not angry Palestinian protesters. No one except me.