“Like why is this second-rate living? It’s three beautiful bedrooms, a great living room, a stunning porch…" 

December 1999

Chavi walks past the watercooler, past the coffee tray, to the photocopier at the end of the room. The printout is speckled from years of being photocopied; perhaps somewhere in the country the original document does exist. But time-honored custom has it that thousands of dollars are signed away every year on speckled paper, and Chavi is just weeks away from the deadline.

Ronit runs black nails through her hair. “Mah zeh? You’re moving?” She looks down at the papers hanging limply from Chavi’s hand.

“No.” Chavi’s smile is polite. “Just renewing my contract.”

Ronit’s sharp eyes grow round. “Ima'le! $750 for your apartment? Crazy!”

Chavi shrugs. “I know, it’s expensive, but I want to be in Yerushalayim.”

“B’seder,” Ronit intones slowly, as if explaining something to a two-year-old. “Yes, Yerushalayim. But Ramot, Ramat Eshkol… That’s also Yerushalayim, no?” She gives Chavi a shove that’s somewhere between authoritative and playful.

Chavi goes back to her desk. Some things are too complicated to explain. Like why an American who grew up in a three-story house would choose two undersize bedrooms, a bathroom from the 1960s, and a sponja hole in the middle of the living room. Could Ronit ever understand a life informed by the huge tome her husband carries under his arm, and the need he has to be near an aging building where voices swell in timeless chorus?

Yet, when Daddy calls her later that night and tells her she should look for something bigger, you know, with the impending news, something niggles. Maybe he’s right.

Chana Miriam is in a three-bedroom on Sorotzkin, with a panoramic view through her sliding glass doors. And Ita is her neighbor in Ezras Torah, one building over, accordion door in her living room partitioning off her baby’s bedroom. But Chana Miriam is fully supported, and Ita is unspoiled, almost needless. Chavi is neither.

And neither of them has a widowed father who comes to visit four times a year.

Where exactly would she go? Arzei, Maalot Dafna, Sanhedria Murchevet — the rent keeps on jumping in all the frum neighborhoods.

Ramat Eshkol? It’s a joke. She went there once in seminary to pick up a package Aunt Vivian had sent (feeling bad that no one would send packages), and all she remembered were dogs and dark buildings and quiet parking lots with 50 entrances at the same address. It didn’t feel like the Yerushalayim she’d grown to love.

She usually pays her bills at the tiny post office in Har Hotzvim right near work. Today something pulls her in another direction, up Sderot Eshkol. Just to see. She walks, past the sprawling buildings, the whoosh of buses, all the way to Paran.

Another world. Banks, cafés, a newsstand. Old men in straw hats, Filipino aides, teenagers on skateboards. She’s stumbled into another existence, one of quiet buildings and manicured lawns, far away from the crowded laundry lines and ancient holiness that surround her back in Ezras Torah.