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IBP southern 18IAILITI
A Mother in Israel—By Anita Engle
Herzl’s Hot Water Bottle
For three weeks, recently, in
the midst of a real cold spell, 1
had to borrow a hot water bot
tle from my neighbor. There’s no
shortage of hot water bottles in
Jerusalem. 1 could have bought
one anywhere. But I wanted to
have one that came from
"Herzl’s” shop.
This is a musty little shop in
an old Turkish building in Ma-
millah Road, which was once
the main thoroughfare leading
into the Old City. I don’t know
whether Herzl ever bought any
thing there. But he did stay in
the two-story house behind the
shop when he made his memor
able visit to Palestine in 1898,
to meet the Kaiser. He hoped to
induce the all-powerful Wilhelm
II to become the patron of a
Jewish National Home.
The Stern House, as it is call
ed,. wasn’t a hotel. Michael Stern,
father of the present owner of
the shop and the house, was a
man of substance, as the heavy
antique furniture, and other
family heirlooms from Frankfort
still indicate. It was as a special
favor that he accommodated
Herzl and the five friends who
had come from Germany with
him. They stayed at the Stern
House for eight days. Days of
terrific excitement, anicipation-
and anti-Climax.
Kerri, the only one of the
group who was undaunted by
the rebuff, recorded In his diary:
"The fact that the Kaiser has
not taken over the protectorate
is excellent for the later de
velopment of our enterprise . . .
The protectorate would have
•no,
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been a clear Immediate advant
age, but not a long-range one.
We should later have had to pay
the most usurious interest for
this protectorate.”
Behind the shop, in the origi
nal sitting room of the house,
you can buy copies of the faded
old pictures recording this epi
sode. Faded relics of a Kafka-
like period, turned into ancient
history by the vigorous reality
of the Jewish State. Michael
Stem’s son Mordechai, who runs
the shop, is a man of about 60,
with brown, wrinkled face and
a far-away look in his eyes.
There is something Dickensian
about the shop, and Mordechai
Stern, and the sitting room, with
its heavy old furniture, and the
squeaky old music box, squeez
ing the songs of a past age out
of records faded and turning up
at the edges.
The little- shop is confused,
and you can hardly believe that
there is anything of our genera
tion in it. Certainly the hot wa
ter bottles were of no recent
vintage. That is what caused the
hold up. Mordechai Stern wanted,
me to wait until he gbt new ones
in. Every week or so I would go
down to ask about my hot water
bottle. I was glad to have an
excuse to go down to Mamillah
Road, which is fascinating. Along
the short space that is on the
Israeli side, the buildings are
massive and imposing, but some
how weird. In the middle of the
street are gathered the great
cones of cement which served as
road blocks against invasion
from the Old City during the
seige of Jerusalem.
Only a few yards from Herzl’s
shop a great concrete wall cuts
off Mamillah Road, barring it
from the Old City, and marking
the end of Israel territory.
Through a doorway cut Into this
wall you can walk into No-Man's
Land—a jungle of destroyed
buildings and broken walls.
There is something insane, mani
acal about that ugly, confused de
struction. Children play casually
on either side of the concrete
wall. After 6, when Mamillah
Road is halflit, it is a setting
worthy of “The Third Man.”
The hot water bottle that
Mordechai Stern had in mind
for me never seemed to arrive,
which was quite in keeping
with the general atmosphere of
the shop. Then, the othr day,
whn I was walking along very
business-like on every-day Jaffa
Road, a well-turned-out man ap
proached me, and said "You can
come and get your hot water
bottle.” I looked at him in aston
ishment. Then I recognized, un
der the smart Homburg, the far
away eyes of Michael Stern.
The next day I went to collect
“Herzl’s hot water bottle," as we
now call it. At the same time
I heard from Mordechai Stem
the story of how his family left
Germany to settle in Eretz Israel
80 years ago. It’s a story that
requires re telling and I’ll pass
it on to you as soon as I can.
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