A break from being a student: Gazelle Valley, Israel Museum

After my day of being in the Old City, and in particular my visits to the Western Wall and the Church of Holy Sepulchre, I decided that I needed a day without so much religion. I set off over the hill for the Gazelle Valley — Emek HaTzeva’im. This small nature reserve is located in a valley in the middle of a lot of development. It was once fruit orchards, and wildlife, including gazelles, roamed there freely. According to the Reerve’s website, “This valley was once a home to a herd of over 30 wild  gazelles. In the year 1993 their passage to the mountains surrounding  Jerusalem was blocked by a new highway, and those gazelles were trapped in the valley. In the following years the herd gradually disappeared due to the threats of feral dogs, jackals and even humans, who chased the gazelles to the highway, where most lost their lives. A decade later, the area was designated to become a luxurious housing project, and the gazelle’s fate seemed doomed. Luckily for them, their human neighbors came to their aid. For more than 12 years the inhabitants of the neighboring streets fought to save the valley,and in the year 2015 Gazelle Valley Park was established.”

As you will see from the pictures I took, the Gazelle Valley does not feel very much like wild nature. Nonetheless, it is a valiant attempt to create hateva ba’ir — nature in the city. I spent several happy hours wandering around, looking at birds (I had brought my binoculars) and eating my lunch. Let me take you on a tour…

I sat for a some time in the bird blind, looking into the swampy area at some birds. Then I sat on a bench and ate my lunch. I moved a chair close to the largest are of water, and observed many interesting water birds, including some I’d never seen before. Here’s a list of birds I saw in the Gazelle Valley: White Wagtail, European Marsh Hen, two or three different unidentified warblers, European Goldfinch (as seen on the cover of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch), Northern Shoveler, European Stonechat, some kind of Lark, Feruginous Duck, Garganey, Common Coot, Jackdaw, and a flash of yellow in the reeds that was probably either a Yellow or a Citrine Wagtail.

And finally, I saw a gazelle, ambling placidly across the picnic area.

I finally left the Gazelle Valley preserve and set off for the Israel Museum. It was a moderately long uphill walk, through some nice neighborhoods. At last I approached the back of the museum. It was such a nice day that I could hardly bear to go inside. I lingered outdoors, mostly in the sculpture garden, which I had not bothered to see on previous visits. Here is some of what I saw:

According to the website of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), “Few Pop images are more widely recognized than Indiana’s LOVE. Originally designed as a Christmas card commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in 1965, LOVE has appeared in prints, paintings, sculptures, banners, rings, tapestries, and stamps. Full of erotic, religious, autobiographical, and political underpinnings—especially when it was co-opted as an emblem of 1960s idealism—LOVE is both accessible and complex in meaning. In printed works, Indiana has rendered LOVE in a variety of colors, compositions, and techniques. He even translated it into Hebrew for a print and a sculpture at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.” From Wikipedia: “Love‘s original rendering in sculpture was made in 1970 and is displayed in Indiana at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.”

I ended my afternoon at the museum with a delicious late lunch in the restaurant. I started my meal with “The hot dish – green, red, zhug, chickpeas and tahini”, and finished it with Apricot Kebab on a bed of lentils. Then I made my way out to the bus stop, where I waited in the cold evening for my ride back to my neighborhood. It had been a good day.