Como é um SÁBADO EM JERUSALEM?! Vamos caminhar em Jerusalem e ver como é um shabbat na terra santa!

Shabbat Shalom! Today I am going to walk through the streets of Jerusalem and show you how Jerusalem works on Saturday, on Shabbat. Is it open, isn’t it, what do people really do on this day? So let’s find out! And for those who don’t know me, I am Aline, a Brazilian guide here in Israel. But what is Shabbat? God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh; and because of this until today the seventh day of the week which is Saturday is a day of rest here in Israel. But it is not a Saturday like in Brazil in reality, Shabbat is from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday and that means that today on Saturday night when the sun goes down, things will start to reopen already. And when we talk about Shabbat it is important to remember that it varies a lot from city to city, cities like Tel Aviv, Eilat, the Dead Sea area, many things are open seven days a week, but today we are going to talk about Jerusalem. Now we are walking through my neighborhood which is called Rasco, and it is a Jewish neighborhood, so we can see that practically everything is closed. Schools, restaurants, banks, supermarkets, everything is closed for Shabbat, but obviously the essential services are still open, for example, hospitals are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And now we are walking through the Rehavia neighborhood and you can see that there is little traffic, but some things are open, as this cafe is here on the left. Another important thing to know is that there is no public transportation in most parts of Israel on Saturdays, that means for example now I want to go to Old Town, I have the option to either walk like we are doing together now, or take a cab. There are some cities that have a little bit, for example, Tel Aviv has the ‘monit sherut’ which are the little yellow vans, and there are some cities that actually have public transportation buses but they are few; one of the exceptions is the city of Haifa, a beautiful and wonderful city on the edge of Mount Carmel, in the north of Israel. And so here is the bus stop you can see empty, and the electronic board that indicates the schedules is written in Hebrew and in a little while it will also appear in English, that is, there are no upcoming trips, I mean, now it is Saturday afternoon the buses will only start to work again around eight or nine o’clock at night. But if you decide to use a car, just pay attention that part of the neighborhoods in Jerusalem have signs like this one saying that cars are not allowed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays, usually in Orthodox neighborhoods. What do people do on Shabbat? We can see here, people come to the squares, people read books, children play, so the Sabbath is a day of rest, it is a family day even for the non-religious people in Israel, many people enjoy this day to rest, to visit friends, to have family meals, so it is a very nice day and very beautiful to see here in Israel as well. And here in the center of Jerusalem is the Osvaldo Aranha Square, he was a Brazilian who presided the UN meeting on November 29th of 1947, and this meeting was the one that allowed the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel. So he is very dear here in Israel, and this square is a tribute to him and to all the Brazilian people. We are now entering together in the Mamilla Shopping Mall, this place that is super lively during the week, full of bars, stores, restaurants, both during the day and at night there are usually people here. But look how the place is on Shabbat! Practically nobody walking around and all the stores are closed. Another thing I want you to notice is how safe Israel is; look at this store full of super expensive things and there’s no grid, there’s nothing, I mean there’s just a glass protecting things and you will see that most of the stores are like that too. And this building here on our left that all the stones are marked and enumerated, why? Because it is a building that has been listed as a historic heritage site and when they decided to renovate the mall, they took the building apart stone by stone as if it were lego, built all the infrastructure, and put each stone back in its original place, so the historic buildings were preserved. And also the Mamilla Mall, it is full of works of art along the way; this one has “Shalom” written in Hebrew. We can already see behind me the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, and this point on the way is very important, because back here we can see the train tracks, and everything that is on that side of the railroad tracks is West Jerusalem, which is the Jewish majority side of the city. And I mean that’s the side of the city where most things are closed on Shabbat. And to our front, to the direction we are going is East Jerusalem which means that most of Jerusalem on that side is Christian and Muslim and so the city on that side is open on Saturday. Obviously, it is a democratic country, each one opens when they want, each one closes when they want, each one lives where they want. But there is a Jewish majority side and an Arab majority side. So let’s now get to know the part of Jerusalem that is open on Shabbat. And the first thing that we see here, beside the train tracks, is this minibus station with buses running on Shabbat, on Saturday and from here you have buses that go to the main Arab zones in Israel but also to the Palestinian Authority, for example from here, there are buses to Bethlehem. And now let’s enter the Old City of Jerusalem through my favorite gate here, the Damascus Gate, and look how busy this place is! Seven days a week there is movement here and one interesting thing is that many Arabs who have Saturday as a day of rest, they take advantage of it to shop and to walk around and to do a lot of things that they don’t have time to do during the week. And so, if you are on a Saturday in Jerusalem and you need to buy things, here is a great place, the Damascus Gate market has clothes, food, things for the home, just about everything you can imagine they sell here! This one is a cafe here in the Old City, they don’t open on Saturday so as you can see there is no one there, but they leave cups of water here, for anyone who wants to take it for free and go on their walk. In a short story guys, there are many places that do work on Shabbat in Jerusalem, you have to know where to go, one of the places is here in part of the Old City of Jerusalem. Thank you very very very much to everybody for the almost two thousand subscribers in our first two months here on the channel, if you are not yet subscribed for any reason now is the time, click here below and subscribe to the channel, and also to everybody, comment here below what kind of videos you want to see here on the channel if you have any questions about Israel, about Judaism, someplace you want to see then comment here below that I will choose the next videos to be made according to the comments here below, a kiss to everyone and until next time, I will leave here for you videos about other places in Israel!