Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda shuk: Back with a smile and a whimper

HOW is the good old shuk doing, as the country tries to free itself of the pandemic lockdown and economy go-slow shackles?

By BARRY DAVIS
SARA, A local resident and shuk employee, is glad just to be back at work. (photo credit: BARRY DAVIS)
SARA, A local resident and shuk employee, is glad just to be back at work.
(photo credit: BARRY DAVIS)
Whichever major city you visit around the globe, markets always make for a fascinating and stirring introduction to local mores and codes of behavior. They generally offer a microcosmic vignette of life in the relevant locale and, hopefully, a plethora of reasonably priced wares.
The same could be said for our very own Mahaneh Yehuda market – aka the shuk. For many, it is the pulsating polychromic aromatic heartbeat of this ancient part of the world. Whether you are looking to stock up on fruit and vegetables, find yourself a basement-priced cellphone, or grab a mouthful of something tasty, the shuk provides all of the above – and then some.
Thus, as I was cycling along a deserted Agrippas Street a month or so ago, I looked on despondently as I passed the main entrance to the market with its shuttered stalls and stores, and hardly a living soul in sight.
But around three weeks ago, after a protracted round of negotiations between the municipality, the Ministry of Health and the market traders’ committee, Mahaneh Yehuda finally reopened for business.
To say the place roared back to life would be to err on the far side of hyperbole. At the time – May 7 – one local observed that the longest line was the one with people waiting to get in, as they had their temperature checked by the security personnel and donned their masks.
THE MARKET may be open again, but attendance and sales are taking time to recover. (Photo Credit: Barry Davis)
THE MARKET may be open again, but attendance and sales are taking time to recover. (Photo Credit: Barry Davis)
SO, HOW is the good old shuk doing, as the country tries to free itself of the pandemic lockdown and economy go-slow shackles?
My initial impression when I got myself over there earlier this week proved to be misleading. The first couple of meters or so of the main market thoroughfare, at the Agrippas Street end, was pretty crowded and I was hopeful the place was back to its hustling, bustling self. But, as the post-temperature check stream of visitors thinned, I could see far more empty spaces than peopled paving stones.
“We’re not doing much business,” said Elad, a longtime employee of the Amedi nuts, dried fruit and candies stall. “Even on a Friday, say last Thursday before Shavuot, there was maybe 50% of the normal number of shoppers here. We are just about breaking even.”
While we chatted, around half a dozen customers dropped by the corner store, a far cry from the usual hefty flow of clientele at the popular enterprise. And on Fridays, you generally need to steel yourself for a pretty lengthy wait there, to get your nutty nibbles in for Shabbat.
Elad says he is not expecting any significant rise in turnover in the near future.
“People are afraid to come out into open spaces and shop in the shuk. And they are being told scary things [by politicians].”
Presumably, though, overall people are happy to come back to Mahaneh Yehuda, I ventured.
“Yes, they are happy, but a lot of them come here just to walk around and be here. Look, we all spent two months, or more, without work or income. People don’t have money to spend right now. This is a tough period. It will take time – a long time – for things, and people, to recover.”
Sara, who works at one of Amedi’s competitors, Moreno, over the other side of the market offshoot, said she was just happy to be back in full-time employment.
“I have to eat, too,” she notes with a bright smile. “I live near here, so I saw the shuk almost every day. It wasn’t nice to see the place empty, and it’s great everything is open and the shoppers are back, but it’s not like it was before the corona. I hope it doesn’t take too long to get back to that.”
Actually, not everything is open.
“There is a pizza place down at the end of the shuk that closed down, permanently,” Elad advised. “Some people just couldn’t hang on.”
There were other stores with their shutters still closed, seemingly for good.
BARRY, A native of San Francisco who made aliyah seven years ago, was more concerned about the general state of discipline than getting his vittles in.
“Before the corona, I used to come here once a week, at least. While the shuk was closed, I only went to the grocery store near my house. That was a different experience,” he says, adding that he wasn’t entirely happy with the way things were panning out at Mahaneh Yehuda. “It’s a little stressful coming back, because a lot of Israelis, native-born sabras, don’t wear masks.”
Point taken. Mine had slipped off my mouth and I took the opportunity to reinstate it to its proper, public domain health-conscious position.
“I think it’s a little early to have non-social distancing happening, which you see on buses and stuff,” Barry added, although it wasn’t all doom and gloom for him. He was, after all, back in the shuk. “It also feels nice to have things back to normal,” he offers.
Well, not entirely normal. Granted it was only Monday, and the pre-Shabbat rush was still a few days off, but the place was palpably underpopulated. Normally, I have to gingerly meander my way betwixt furtive shoppers, trying to make sure my bike handlebars don’t snag on some passerby’s bag or coat. Sadly, I had no such navigational problems. There was plenty of room – far too much – for my trusty carbon steed and me to proceed the length and breadth of the main market artery; even the lateral alleyways presented me with few spatial orientation challenges.
While some vendors are managing to keep their financial checks and balances in a modicum of equilibrium, others, primarily those who don’t sell edibles, are finding things really tough. Rafi, who runs a cellphone and accessories store on the main market throughway, started the lead in to the pandemic crisis on the wrong foot.
“We had just come back from abroad – myself, my wife and my kids – and we had to self-isolate for 14 days.” Before he could reopen his store, the lockdown restrictions came into effect.
It was particularly galling for Rafi when he was told that his line of business was considered an “essential profession” and, thus, he could reopen his shuk store after a month-long vacation-isolation furlough. He duly drove over from his rented Holon apartment only to be told he would not be allowed into the shuk.
“They told me that only food vendors could work from the shuk,” Rafi recalls. “I couldn’t believe it! I told them that the Ministry of Health said I was in the essential profession category, but they didn’t care. They just kept repeating that, as I didn’t sell food, I wasn’t allowed to work from the shuk. That’s crazy.”
SOME Shuk stores did not survive the lockdown period. (Photo Credit: Barry Davis)
SOME Shuk stores did not survive the lockdown period. (Photo Credit: Barry Davis)
Rafi enlightened me about some of the financial considerations he, and his fellow store operators, have to contend with.
“I pay monthly rent of NIS 17,500,” he says. Anyone who rents an apartment in Jerusalem will know that affordable accommodation is generally at a premium around here. But the sum Rafi shells out, monthly, for a 14-sq.m. spot in the shuk would suffice for a palatial residence, even in the city’s swankiest neighborhoods.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep going for more than a month or so,” he says. “I sell things at cost price currently, because people have little money now and it is better to shift merchandise, even without making anything on it, than to be stuck with it.”
Rafi doesn’t see any silver linings any time soon to the corona-driven dark clouds hanging over him and the rest of Mahaneh Yehuda.
“You’ll see more restaurants and other places in the shuk closing down,” he intones. “I can’t see how they can survive. If you’re not selling fruit and vegetables – and they worked during the lockdown, sending out deliveries, you know, people still have to eat – you’re going to struggle to get through this.”
AVRAHAM, A smiley bearded senior citizen with a pronounced Moroccan accent took a sunnier view of market survival matters.
“I live here,” he says. “I came here and bought my food here during the lockdown, too.”
Unburdened by the financial obligations of Rafi and his fellow shuk tenants, Avraham allowed himself to extol the unique virtues of his neighborhood open-air shopping precinct.
“This is the shuk. There is no shuk like this in the whole of Israel. Anyone who comes here has a good feeling, a new feeling, every single day. Baruch hashem. I come here and drink my coffee every day. There’s nothing like this shuk.”
Meanwhile, Yechezkel, who has been here from London to attend a local yeshiva for the past nine months, has a very special angle on the street-level dynamics of the market.
“I used to come here a lot. I’m a street performer. I’m a magician and I used to perform in the shuk,” he explains.
That is, in between immersing himself in the mysteries of the Talmud.
“I used to come here once or twice a week to do some street performing, you know, make a few shekels,” he adds with a smile. “It’s nice to see that’s come back. I have read some reports that it’s not so good that things are coming back to life. I’m not an economist and I don’t understand anything about viruses, but it does give you some sort of nice feeling to see life, society, coming back.”
Nothing like British understatement.
While most of his essentials are provided by the yeshiva he attends, Yechezkel also trots over to the market on Fridays to buy wine for Shabbat and get in a few tricks.
“I love doing magic here,” he says. “It’s also a great way to meet people.”
Still, there are some cultural barriers to be vaunted.
“I used to perform around London, in places like Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square. In England, you can just stick to your own persona, but in Israel you have to get personal with people. Israelis are emotionally charged. You can do the coolest magic tricks, but if you don’t click with the people, they’ll ignore you,” he laughs.
The vendor where I bought some avocados was in no laughing mood.
“This isn’t called doing business,” he railed. “So they opened the shuk. Big deal. Look how few people there are here. I don’t know how I’m going to make a living. It’s really hard going.”
Daniel, a fellow Jerusalemite road cyclist, says he kept on coming to the shuk through the lockdown.
“I’d just pop in, but I bought my fruit and vegetables from my local supermarket.”
He says he doesn’t know how, or when, the place will be back to full speed but, for now, he was just happy to be there and soak up some of the atmosphere.
“When the shuk was officially reopened, it was wonderful,” he said raising his head heavenward with a look of pure bliss on his face. “It’s just great to be back.”


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