FASHION HAS returned to Ahad Ha’am Street. For several years, there were two stores selling women’s attire, plus a hat store. All three were well patronized. The hat store closed first, followed some years later by the larger of the two dress shops, and then a year or two later by the remaining dress shop. That was a few years back.
Their premises were subsequently occupied by proprietors of other business ventures. But recently, the only florist on the street downsized and split his store in two. One half was taken up by Racheli Peretz, who stocks some very interesting merchandise ranging from casual to semi-formal. Although the store is very small and narrow, Peretz has managed to fit in a lot of variety. As the new Alef Hotel across the road is in an advanced stage of construction, the re-introduction of fashion into Ahad Ha’am is very timely.
Hess family anniversary
■ SHAVUOT MEANS different things to different people. But for retired restaurateur Marcel Hess and his wife, Suzanne, it is more than one of the three pilgrimage festivals, especially this year, when they celebrated the 50th anniversary of their engagement.
Born in the Netherlands but living most of his life in Switzerland, Hess, in 1985 welcomed the young Suzanne Scharf from Antwerp, who had gone to Basel to celebrate the festival, but more importantly, for the official announcement of her engagement to Hess.
The Great Synagogue of Basel was decorated with large bouquets of flowers – not only on either side of the ark but on every row of the synagogue chamber and the women’s gallery. Suzanne said she’d never seen anything like that in Antwerp. Hess jokingly told her that the flowers were in her honor.
A sixth-generation master butcher, in addition to his culinary skills Hess is also a qualified paramedic who served in the Swiss Army and in medical aid organizations in Israel. Before moving to Israel approximately a quarter of a century ago, Hess was a 10-year member of the parliament in the Basel Canton, which has its own independent parliament.
In that capacity, he proposed that Basel officially celebrate the 100th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress. The proposal was approved, and Hess, together with Pierre Monod, who was then the Swiss ambassador to Israel, personally invited then-president Chaim Herzog, who, like many before and after him, emulated the iconic Herzlian pose on the balcony of the Basel Stadtcasino.
After moving to Israel, Hess and his wife opened a very successful restaurant and delicatessen in Ra’anana, relocating to Jerusalem after a few years, where they opened a similar enterprise. Now that they’re retired, the couple haven’t given up on cooking and often prepare a sumptuous kiddush for congregants of the Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue on Washington Street, a five-minute walk from their apartment.
Hess was a member of the synagogue’s first minyan. From time to time he goes into Mea She’arim, where he is well known by proprietors of eateries. Sometimes he even goes behind the counter and serves food to the needy, then pays for it out of his own pocket. He also supports the charitable endeavors of his grandchildren.
Cleaning up Jerusalem
■ JERUSALEM MAYOR Moshe Lion is known to be an advocate for urban aesthetics. One of his early endeavors after first taking office was to clean up the city, which now has more garbage receptacles, but it would help if street cleaners did their job at dawn instead of at 9 a.m. when their vans are spraying either dust or water on people rushing to their jobs.
Another pleasant change, and perhaps some form of compensation for all the construction that is impeding traffic, is the number of chairs and benches all over the city and an increase in public toilets, but not the kind that has more than two cubicles – one for him and one for her. There are also several new mini gardens in places where there were no gardens previously, and more plaques on the exterior of buildings that were famous in their own right or were the residences of famous people.
greerfc@gmail.com