The merchants get fresh

Mahaneh Yehuda is now big tourist attraction, but many vendors wish it would go back to being regular fruit, vegetable market.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Mahaneh Yehuda 521 (photo credit: www.goisrael.com)
Mahaneh Yehuda 521
(photo credit: www.goisrael.com)
Yonatan Levy and Itzik Licha, two merchants at the Mahaneh Yehuda market in their late 50s, are in the middle of a hasty noon break, sharing a fresh salad and a cup of black coffee in Levy’s shop. As if anticipating a question, Levy remarks that these days, the atmosphere in the famous open-air market is so gloomy that he can even allow himself a break in the middle of the day on a Tuesday – usually a busy day at the market.
Asked to elaborate, the two men mention a long list of reasons – the tourists (“Tourism is fine, but their numbers should be compatible with the market’s capacity”), the lack of parking and never-ending traffic jam on Agrippas Street (“We have been sacrificed to the light rail”), and above all, the feeling among many of the merchants that this municipality and this mayor have used them to enhance tourism and then abandoned them without solving their most urgent problems.
“Next elections, I’d rather vote for a member of Natorei Karta than for any other candidate,” declares Levy.
Is the Mahaneh Yehuda shuk still a vegetable, fruit and meat market, or has it become a tourist site? According to many of the shuk’s merchants, there is a significant difference between the two, and it has a crucial impact on their situation.
“We are tired of being treated as an attraction in a zoo,” says Licha, the owner of a vegetable basta, or market stall, for the last 40 years. Levy, his neighbor in the shuk’s main lane, adds that he is so frustrated and angry that some days he can hardly do his job.
The two are not alone – whether they agree to be quoted or not, the vast majority of the shuk’s merchants say they are tired of the municipality’s attitude toward them, of the lack of services, of the shaky infrastructure, and they all feel nobody wants to listen to them.
“I think it’s all aimed at one goal,” says Licha, “to bring us to our knees so we leave here, enabling them to shut down the Mahaneh Yehuda market. They don’t want a market here, they want a fancy tourist site, and our presence here just bothers them.”
HOW H A S the central market of Jerusalem, which managed to be transformed from a scene of terror attacks less than 10 years ago to a “must” on every tourist route – Israeli or foreign – in the city, become a field of frustration, suspicion, and battle between the veteran merchants and the municipality? In today’s shuk, vendors disregard and even boycott outdoor tourism events that city hall has arranged. The “Balabasta” festival, which started three years ago amid much enthusiasm, was canceled a month ago for this summer, then rescheduled (Levy prefers to use the term “forced on us”). The event aims to bring artists and musicians to perform in and around the shuk, but in the lanes of the market, it is a sign of the disconnect between the merchants and the municipality.
Haim, a merchant whose shop is located just one row above Levy’s on the main lane, bluntly says he couldn’t care less about the success of Balabasta, and as far as he is concerned, “they can all go to hell.”
“I’ll close my shop even earlier [on the days of the festival], I don’t owe them a thing,” he declares.
About a year ago, a decision was made to separate the market vendors from the neighborhood local council (Lev Ha’ir), mostly following financial difficulties in the council. That decision called to form a committee to represent the merchants at the municipality and any other governmental body.
Lev Ha’ir Council director Uri Amedi, the man behind most of the renovations – both physical and cultural – in the market and the nearby Nahlaot neighborhood, promoted the establishment of such an association for the merchants, whose interests, he explained, “do not always fit the residents of the Nahlaot [Lev Ha’ir] neighborhood.”
Amedi, long considered the “brains” behind the various successful projects to develop the city center (including the market area), was also seen for a long time as a kind of local chief. With the support of the two previous mayors, Ehud Olmert and Uri Lupolianski, he succeeded in raising sizable funds from foundations, the first – and by far the most generous – being the Jerusalem Foundation. The foundation’s then-president, Ruth Cheshin, had full confidence in Amedi’s ideas and projects, and helped him fund-raise among other groups, including the United Jewish Appeal. He greatly transformed the city center and the Mahaneh Yehuda area in terms of cleanliness, cultural events and residential organizations. His basic credo was that things had to be done slowly, calmly, with minimal fuss and in full cooperation with the residents and market vendors.
This worked well as long as money was coming into the council, but the international financial crisis of the past three years has almost completely killed most of the projects. Today, Amedi is still involved in some of the major projects downtown – particularly the Youth Center established to bring young people back to live and work in the city center – but the lack of money has taken a toll on his ability to promote the market’s needs, and he is hardly if at all involved in the shuk’s affairs.
“I thought, and I still believe, that free elections among the merchants would be the best and fairest solution,” he said this week.
So far, the elections have been postponed twice, and now one of the candidates, Shimon Darwish, has proclaimed himself interim president of the merchants’ committee.
However, since there were no elections, not all the vendors agree to follow him, and according to Levy, even those who apparently agree don’t really consider him their leader.
“Sometimes they just agree with him to get rid of him, and also because there isn’t anyone else anyway,” he says.
Meanwhile, Amedi, who has apparently acquired some enemies, “or at least some opponents,” over the years as director of the neighborhood council, cannot intervene anymore, according to Yaron Tzidkiyahu – one of the well-known vendors in the shuk and a close friend of Amedi’s.
“Amedi’s system, which cared first about the people here, no longer works here,” adds Tzidkiyahu.
“Today, everyone, and that includes the municipality and the mayor, is only interested in photoops or in promoting their interests, which are far from ours, the merchants, or the residents of this neighborhood.”
One might think the lack of satisfaction stems from a need for more funds, but Levy disagrees.
“On the contrary,” he says, “we think too much money has been spilled here, but on the wrong things. It’s nice to bring tourists, but nobody ever paid attention to the situation on the ground. There are no toilets, no facilities for so many visitors. Most of the shuk is not accessible to the handicapped. [The tourists] come here to take a look, they won’t buy vegetables or fish – so our customers can’t walk here; it’s so packed that it becomes a burden and not an advantage.”
Licha becomes angry. “We are not monkeys in a zoo! We work hard to make a living here. They want to bring tourists? Okay, but in realistic numbers and in cooperation with us – we exist, we have a say here. What happens in reality is that someone in Safra Square gets the credit, while we suffer and lose income.”
Another issue that bothers quite a few of the merchants is the relationship with the haredi (ultra- Orthodox) community. Haredi representatives on the city council tried hard to cancel the Balabasta festival, following their rabbis’ concern over the lack of modesty at the packed public event.
“We shouldn’t forget that they are a large part of our customers, we can’t cause them to feel uncomfortable,” says Levy. “They will go elsewhere, and what will we do then? Sell vegetables to the American tourists who visit here once in their lives?” For Tzidkiyahu, things are simple: “Fun, events, attractions – that’s fine. But that has to be done cleverly, without forgetting that this is, first and foremost, a market. All these things can come in addition to, not instead of, what this place is – a market, not a circus.”
Elram Shlaper, the son of the founder of the Azura restaurant in the Iraqi shuk – on the left side of the main open lane when one is coming from Agrippas Street – says he is also tired of all the events at the shuk. The restaurant, which has been around for about 60 years, has turned into a popular place for tourists, as it appears on the guided tours of the market.
“But some days, my old, faithful customers can hardly get inside for lack of room,” he explains, adding that whenever this happens, he tries to take care of his regular customers first, “for they will always come here to eat, even when and if this place ceases to be such a fancy location.”
Shlaper says that if it were up to him, he wouldn’t hold the Balabasta event at all, though he agrees that “a little attraction here and there can be nice.” However, he says that in any case, “appropriate infrastructure should be provided and assured first, before we invite people from across the country and the world to come here.”
He adds that the problem is not only the lack of toilets, but also the lack of cleaners, which results in the shuk being so dirty that he feels ashamed in front of visitors.
“It is clear that we are not so well organized here,” he adds with a deep sigh, “and the proof is that despite a lot of opposition among us, the mayor won because he is stronger than us and Darwish, and so we will have a Balabasta, though reduced, this year, too.”
FOLLOWING THE terrible destruction that resulted from the repeated bomb blasts of the second intifada, the shuk underwent major renovations and infrastructure work that transformed its appearance and functionality. But that was almost 10 years ago, and today there is a lot of work that needs to be done but hasn’t even been planned. While the financial situation of most of the vendors has improved over the last few years, there is a general feeling that this improvement has reached a turning point.
“The development, the transformation of a small, ugly and neglected place into a tourist attraction has perhaps gone too far,” says Amedi. “We are witnessing a process that, in my opinion, was not planned in advance but seems to overwhelm us all – there is no compatibility between the magnitude of the events scheduled here and the location itself and its real capacities.
These are natural processes, but they have a price, and no wonder the merchants feel they are being used and then abandoned, as no one gives them serious answers to their legitimate needs.”
The council director adds that he has the feeling these might be the last years of Mahaneh Yehuda as Jerusalemites have known it for decades. “The market is paying the price of its own success,” he says.
One of the most sensitive issues among the merchants is the parking, or the lack thereof. For the vendors, the impending closure of the parking lot behind the market, on Kiah Street, and the reduction of parking spaces in the private lots on Agrippas Street are no less than a disaster.
“The policemen and the municipality supervisors are sometimes so tense and nervous, they don’t even let us, the merchants who have the right to drive onto Agrippas and park there, to enter the street. What kind of a situation is that?” asks Levy bitterly.
In response to the merchants’ claims, a spokesman for the municipality says that the city’s large investment of money and effort in developing and improving Mahaneh Yehuda has made business flourish there and has enhanced tourism and trade in that area for the benefit of everyone. According to the spokesman, the municipality works hard to develop, maintain and transform the shuk into a strategic location for the ongoing development of the city’s economy, together with the merchants and with their interests in mind. He insists that the events are planned so as not to become too much of a burden on the market’s economic life.
As for the parking, the spokesman continues, there are 850 parking spaces in the surrounding area, in addition to the paid parking garages at the Clal and Shukanyon buildings, and there is bus and light rail service to the shuk. He adds that there are four bathrooms in the compound and that the municipality has been making a special effort to keep the market clean, as it is a preferred tourist target.
FOR DARWISH, meanwhile, who was No. 14 on Mayor Nir Barkat’s list for the city council, there is no doubt things will improve – if only he could get a vote of confidence from the merchants he purportedly represents. He was – and still is, according to quite a few of the merchants – a natural link between the market and the municipality. But many of the vendors have come to the conclusion that it just isn’t working.
“I don’t know if Darwish sold us out, or if he is just incapable,” says Levy, “but he hasn’t delivered the goods – this mayor just doesn’t take us into account.”
Today, the merchants are divided – those who sell vegetables, fruit, meat and fish are strongly against most of the highly publicized cultural events scheduled in the shuk, while the owners of the recently opened coffee shops, restaurants and clothing and accessory stores are more in favor of these events.
Tzidkiyahu, for his part, understands that the shuk has reached a sensitive point. Besides his openly expressed disappointment with Barkat’s attitude, the veteran vendor believes that a real change in the market’s leadership could induce a greater change in the political life of the city.
“This is our city, our responsibility,” he says. “I understand that this mayor’s priorities are not ours, so we will work out a plan and promote our interests. We should all remember that nobody is irreplaceable.”


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