On Wednesday night, our group took a bakery tour of an orthodox community called Meah Sha’arim . The neighborhood that we went to was a very intimate neighborhood. They didn’t like to be bothered. So that our group would stand out less, the women walked in the front and the men walked behind us. First, we went to Avichail bakery. It is the last secular bakery in the neighborhood. Not only did the people of the orthodox community burn down the store once, they also burned the owner’s car twice. But, the owner didn’t give up. Here, we got to try sweets. We got bagels, rugelach, cinnamon rolls, and a chocolate croissant like thing. They were all really good.My favorite were the cinnamon rolls, they were to die for. We then went to Nechama bakery, which is open 24/6, except they close on Shabbat. It was a Persian bakery and they made eastern bread. But, they do not use yeast in their bread. Here, we tried three different kinds of bread, a Jerusalem bagel dipped in Za’atar, a Persian cracker, and North African bread. They were all good, but my favorite was the North African bread.
While walking through the neighborhood, our tour guide, Toby Abrams, who was amazing, told us about all the different people who live in the neighborhood. She told us about all the different types of orthodox people and how to tell which sect they were by looking at them. First, there are the Hasids. You can tell a man is Hasid because he will be wearing a long black jacket, have Payos, and be wearing a hat. All Hasidic groups have different clothing distinguishments. They might have black socks or white socks, pants tucked into their socks or not tucked into their socks, a ribbon on the left side of their hat or on the right side of their hat. Next, there are the ultra-orthodox. They ultrafy their lives so they don’t fall into sin. The ultra-orthodox men aren’t required to serve in the army, but there are special groups in the army that help educate ultra-orthodox men that want to be in the army. Ultra-orthodox women don’t go to the army, they go to university and get jobs. Ultra-orthodox in Israel is different from ultra-orthodox in the United States. The ultra-orthodox men wear short black jackets instead of long black jackets. There are also striped black and white jackets. The people that wear the striped black and white jackets are anti-Zionists. The women of the anti-Zionist group wear a specific type of black hat. Toby also showed us the local Mikvah that purifies and Kosherizes kitchen tools and other things.
This neighborhood wasn’t always an orthodox neighborhood, it was originally a mostly secular neighborhood. There were outbreaks and arguments about the main road and the government ended up closing the main road on the sabbath. Then, the ultra-orthodox bought all of the properties surrounding it. This neighborhood was very different than any neighborhood I have ever seen. At 9:20 at night, there were people everywhere. The streets and sidewalks were packed. Also, people don’t really care about safety in the streets and around and driving cars. People walk in the middle of the street while there are cars and cars don’t bother to stop. Little kids run up and down the sidewalks without their parents. We were also called Gentiles three times because we looked like we didn’t belong. There were also lots of little ally ways that we walked through. Overall, it was a very cool experience to both see how the ultra-orthodox live and try all of the baked goods.