12 Nov
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Nir Barkat Elected Mayor of Jerusalem

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler We had a preview of Jerusalem's mayoral election earlier this week. Now we can declare software entrepreneur Nir Barkat the winner. Barkat embodies a bit of a contradiction, doesn't he? "The great hope of the city's secular Jewish community," as BBC describes him, will not consider dividing Jerusalem and plans to build Jewish housing in Arab East Jerusalem. From Ynet (which also has a video): He announced his victory early Wednesday morning. "Tonight Jerusalem has won, tonight Israel has won, tonight the Jewish people have won," the soon-to-be mayor declared. "Victory belongs to all those who love and cherish this special and amazing city of ours, the Jewish people's eternal capital. It belongs to the Right and the Left, it belongs to the religious and the secular." Barkat called on the city's residents to unite. "As of this...

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10 Nov
Latest

Post-Obama Fix: Jerusalem's Mayoral Election

In a haze of post-Obamania deflation this week, I turned for a political fix to Jerusalem and the hotly contested mayoral election taking place tomorrow. For a city beset by race wars, poverty and a middle class exodus, it can be a grim business, but not without flashes of color. Today's Washington Post offers a sober rundown of how the contest reflects the city's ortho-secular culture wars. But, for more local analysis and also a whiff of fringe politics circa 1973, inhale the latest on Jerusalemite.net. If London can elect offbeat politicos like "Red Ken" Livingstone and blustering Boris Johnson, why shouldn't Jerusalem enjoy its rainbow-hued candidates? Jerusalemite offers a Q&A with Dan Birron, long-locked pub owner and Green Leaf Party candidate (you read that right: not "Green," but "Green Leaf")—sort of Ralph Nader meets Richard...

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09 Aug
Latest

Jerusalem Gets Botoxed s

Senior Editor Mandy Katz reports from Israel: Jerusalem's had work done. Well, not the Old City, which changes little from day t--- er, century to century. In the Old City, it can take 500 years for a new layer of architecture and culture to pile itself atop a previous one: Hebrews to Romans to Byzantines and Crusaders to the hodge-podge that prevails today. It's the areas around Jerusalem's original precincts that are getting The Treatment. Take the formerly gritty and non-descript Mamilla neighborhood that faces the Old City's Yafo Gate entrance. Less than five years ago, you needed the courage of a Maccabee to cross the dusty Yafo Road raceway to reach the gate. Two years ago, street traffic was diverted to a tunnel below but the area was still a mess. Passing too...

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