City - Jerusalem

The #9 bus line in Jerusalem was established to connect the two campuses of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - the Mt. Scopus campus and the Givat Ram campus (shown here). When war prevented access to the Mt. Scopus campus, classes were held at the Terra Sancta building rented from the Franciscan Custodians of the Latin Holy Places until the new campus was built at Givat Ram. The recapture of Mt. Scopus led to rebuilding of the campus there, thus creating two separate campuses and the #9 line to run between them.

Departing the Givat Ram campus in the southwest corner of this map, The Nine Line runs through many neighborhoods and cultures on its way to the Mt. Scopus campus on the northeast corner of the map. Sedate Rehavia, bustling downtown, orthodox Meah Shearim, modern Ramot Eshkol, and the Arab village of Sheikh Jarach are all along the route.

... which also passes the first Knesset building. While the original Knesset was built on Jewish-purchased land, the new building sits on the site of the Arab village of Sheikh Badr. Owner, conqueror, occupier, liberator - these are the tensions that are built into the landscape along the #9 route.

The Nine Line in Jerusalem symbolizes much about the country. The modernistic Israel Museum sits atop the hill to the right, while the ancient Monastery of the Cross sits below to the left. Connecting the two sites is an olive grove, valued and beloved in the ancient days as much as today. Old and new, and what's between them, is an everyday dynamic that can be vibrant or tense but always gives the feeling of alive.

The Jerusalem #9 route speaks to the essence of the country and its people. The name "Israel" comes the phrase "Ki Sarita ... Vetuchal" (Genesis 32:29) which means "because you have struggled and were able to make the conflict productive". The conflict, both productive and destructive, that is felt all along the Jerusalem Nine Line portrays the history, and the future, of the people who live here.

The Meah Shearim neighborhood along the #9 route is populated mainly by Orthodox Jews. Two ways of viewing the residents represent polar opposites of thinking - either guardians of the faith who are vitually alone in preserving the true value system of the people, or freeloaders who continually take from but do little to contribute to the nation around them. This difference is one of the central ongoing themes of the country's political and social life.

This monument in Sheikh Jarrah, looking toward the Mt. Scopus campus, commemorates a convoy of doctors and nurses that was attacked on the way to the hospital there. Massacre, healing, blood, life, death, all mix at the locations along Jerusalem's #9 bus route.

Nature itself speaks to the conflict and extremes along the Nine Line. The line ends near the University Tower on Mt. Scopus which is itself the dividing point between two completely different natural worlds: