A New Deal at the Shuk

From down and dirty to class act, Jerusalem’s market undergoes a renaissance
 
It is one of Jerusalem’s last bastions of gritty Israeli culture, the real bustle and chaos of Middle Eastern life. But now even the shuk has been swept up in the city’s continuing development and modernization.
 
Once the calling card for loud heckling, surly shopkeepers, harried shoppers—and bargains—the outdoor market has been invaded by swank cafes and gourmet food shops. It’s a twist as surprising as the imported specialties that now appear at every turn. Some even deign to describe the shuk, called Mahane Yehuda, as “yuppie.”
 
“It’s more like a yuppie destination now,” Ada Spitz, a Jerusalem native, told Israel Today. “They started selling sushi in the shuk. Who would’ve thought they’d sell sushi in the shuk?”
 
Spitz herself works in one of the new designer clothing shops surfacing in the market with designer—not shuk—prices.  
 
New and old are now side by side: designer clothing, imported cheese, eclectic wine collections, cozy cafes and haute cuisine restaurants are interspersed between the traditional colorful arrays of fruits and vegetables, raw meat and fish, stacks of pitas and other breads, pastries, dried fruits and nuts, olives of all colors, and of course shwarma (meat roasted on a spit) and falafel shops, among many other things.
 
Woven together by alleys and nooks, the three lengthwise shuk streets off of Jerusalem’s main Jaffa Road are about a half a mile west of downtown. The new delicacy and designer shops combined with the city’s aesthetic renovations contributed to an upsurge in customers this past year, merchants say. They also credit a decline in terrorist attacks since the last one there on April 12th, 2002. The shuk was one of Jerusalem’s recurring targets for terrorism in the early years of the intifada (Palestinian uprising).
 
These “yuppie” changes seem to be welcomed by all so far, if not with a sniff of sarcasm from some old-timers. “We call that part ‘North Tel Aviv,’” said Yossi Ankona, a lifelong shop owner, making a dig at the new shops’ trendy ambiance not typically associated with the gruff shuk.
 
But Eli Mizrahi, considered by many the pioneer of this renaissance, resists that label. “Is it like France? Italy? Is it like Barcelona? No, it’s Mahane Yehuda!” he said, insisting that there was nothing out of place with a classy café in the midst of a grimy market.
 
Mizrahi, who grew up in the family’s shop at the shuk, took a risk four years ago when he opened up his gourmet coffee shop. “Fifty percent of the people thought I was a genius, 50 percent thought I was a lunatic,” he said. “But I knew this is something that was missing in the market. It changed the market totally.”
 
Considering the renewed busyness of the shuk and copious media coverage, Mizrahi proved genius. He has been followed by other “hip” shops including his own high end restaurant, Zahko, on the perimeter of the shuk. Mizrahi believes the time was right for attracting a younger generation of customers.
 
“Customers have gone, some died or they’re too old to make it here,” Mizrahi said, standing outside the narrow porch of Café Mizrahi which overhangs one of the shuk’s lanes. “We get more young people now, and—I hate this word—‘yuppie’ people.”
 
Indeed, the shuk now rivals the ultra-popular Jerusalem mall for convenience and surpasses it for connoisseurs seeking specialty items. “There’s no need to go to the mall. You can find everything here,” said Yitzhak Cohen, a shuk veteran selling Syrian olive oil and halva (a sesame sweet) for more than 20 years.
 
In fact, shuk regulars have marveled at the tour groups of Israelis that have traipsed through the market lately, with guides even. Regulars, unruffled by all the attention and modernization, are almost as much tourists as the real sightseers. “If I don’t come here to shop, I come to tour,” said Mordechai Maloun, an Orthodox Jew and regular customer.
 
Shopper Ze’ev Mizrachi said the new shops and tourist pilgrimages add color to the market: “It’s about the experience,” he said. “We have friends here, we talk to people. It’s a meeting place.”
 
Meanwhile, one of the so-called yuppies, Asher Kravitz, was studying mathematics while enjoying coffee and apple strudel at JD Cafe, which serves beer on tap, another shuk novelty. “It’s a big innovation,” he said. “We live nearby so we come here all the time,” he said. “It’s a new voice, it’s a new spirit and it sounds good.”