STREET SHENANIGANS

The cover story, “What’s in a Tel Aviv street name?” (August 12), touched upon the difference between displaying detailed street signs explaining the history of the person, place or event behind a street name (still in practice in Jerusalem) versus modern street signs (in Tel Aviv) which leave the uneducated person at a loss regarding the meaning behind the street’s name.

I lived in a town near Jerusalem where streets were often given their official name only sometime after residents moved into a new neighborhood, and the street signs were often put up even later. As a result, the usual manner of giving directions to a particular house was: “Go this way until you reach the Cohens, turn right, and continue ‘such and such a distance’ until you reach the Levys.” (This of course was long before the invention of the now ubiquitous Waze application.)

Among the various recurring local last names (Cohen, Levy and others), there were two Dreyfus families (unrelated to each other and located at opposite ends of the town). Despite the naming of streets and placing of signs, the habit of giving directions remained the same: family names were used as geographical “markers.”

On one of my walks in the town, which now had street signs galore, I happened to notice a street sign that was a different color than the others. Upon closer inspection, the street sign (next to one of the Dreyfus homes) said: “Mishpat Dreyfus” (the Dreyfus Affair) and it was attached by string over the official street sign.

My guess is that a Dreyfus teenager (that’s the age for such shenanigans) or another witty neighbor found the discarded sign in or near Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood – where there’s a street with this name – and that the sign was most likely cast off during the construction and upgrading of roads and infrastructure that occurs constantly in Israel. Thus this “souvenir” was hung at the street corner of said home.

During a walk past this street corner not long after, I noticed that the sign had been removed and the “proper” street sign was again in view. Because the township is populated by Jews who have a Zionist education, and many of the youth belong to Zionist youth organizations, I’m certain that the finder of the cast-off street sign was fully aware of the importance of the Dreyfus Affair and how it affected the thinking, writing, actions and accomplishments of Theodor Herzl.

The rest, of course, is... history!

LEAH YERUSHALMI

Jerusalem