Barood is a unique venture. That isn’t just PR hype and hyperbole for cheap thrill’s sake. The restaurant-bar nestles in a charming hideaway spot in downtown Jerusalem called Feingold Yard. You get a palpable sense of bygone times in this troubled part of the world, which has seen its fair share of existential challenges. But Barood is still here with us, packing ‘em in, six days a week.
Barood opened for business in March 1995, which naturally means it is currently gearing up for its 30th anniversary. That’s quite some going.
“You could say we’ve been through the mill – two intifadas, the light rail construction, the coronavirus, and Oct. 7 – and there was a construction site right here, so we couldn’t have tables outside for two years. It hasn’t been easy,” Daniella Lehrer sighs. Indeed, many a local business has gone under in the interim. “And things are so complicated with the municipality.”
But Barood is still very much alive and kicking, and pumping out delightful musical and interpersonal vibes. The former, in fact, is core to the very existence, nay, inception of the watering hole-eatery. “It really all started with Arnie,” Lehrer recalls.
The gent in question, a looming caricature of whom hangs on the wall by the bandstand corner near the bar, is Arnie Lawrence. He was a colorful character, a jazz saxophonist who had played with many of the giants before making aliyah from the United States in the late 1990s and introduced budding Israeli jazz artists to the real McCoy from the discipline’s birthplace.
Lawrence, who passed away 20 years ago, was also a much beloved teacher. “It all started from Arnie,” Lehrer reiterates vis-à-vis the bar’s musical entertainment offerings. “He brought all these little kids [whom he taught] to play here. That includes [bassist] Hagai [Bilitzky], [pianist] Omri Mor, and [saxophonist] Yuval Cohen, who admired Arnie so much.”
Today, all three are not only highly respected artists, but they also teach at major educational institutions and perform around the globe. That’s quite some legacy.
It is an ongoing tale of jazz and jazz-oriented joy dished up for the Barood faithfuls. “Years later, after they all became teachers at academies, they told me they want to do what Arnie did for them.” Now Lawrence’s students come back to play – and not for sackloads of cash – and give their own students an opportunity to perform in public. “Arnie started all of this [live music at Barood].”
Who is Daniella Lehrer, and how did Barood get going?
Lehrer says she sort of fell into the business unwittingly. “I was an impresario. I produced shows for TV, etc. Someone was going to open the bar, together with a partner who dropped out at the last moment.”
She deliberated for a while before taking it on. Indeed, opening an eatery, with live entertainment, is quite a responsibility. More so now than ever, Lehrer says. “Back then, it was simpler. I wouldn’t do it today. There’s the municipality and all the permits you need to get. And there was a wonderful audience then. All the Jerusalemites have left Jerusalem,” she sighs.
“All the TV people, who were friends of mine, used to drop by. There were journalists and artists. It was a bohemian place. It was a hit right from the start.”
Judging by the attendance there, particularly when there are musicians doing their thing live, Barood is still very much a going concern.
The name
Considering the alcohol that flows merrily at Barood, one could be forgiven for reading everything into the first syllable of the name. Lehrer, whose family has lived in Jerusalem for generations, opens my eyes to some local vernacular.
“‘Barood’ (with the accent on the first syllable) refers to the rocks you have to blow up in order to build in Jerusalem,” she explains. “It is a word in Arabic and Turkish and other languages. Before a detonation, the Arab workers would shout ‘Barood!’ It means ‘explosion.’ It’s like shouting ‘Timber!’”
That infers a homey local ethos. “I didn’t choose the name because it means explosion,” Lehrer adds. “I chose it because it is a Jerusalem word.”
Lehrer is fiercely local. I get a quick lesson in the home-based lingo of yore. “Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are only 45 minutes apart, but we have different names for the same things. There is a game they call Klass, and here we call it Aretz. Here we say ‘silkim’ [bicycle wheel spokes], and there they say ‘shpitzim,’” she says.
“‘Barood’ is a very Jerusalemite word.”
That is only fitting for a quintessentially Jerusalemite act.