During the 150 years of its existence, Jaffa Street has served as a main artery, running across Jerusalem from East to West. Traffic originally consisted of camels and mules before vehicles of all types gradually took over, and Jaffa Street—in the heart of the city—became  clogged with heavy traffic. The municipality ended up launching an ambitious development plan transforming Jaffa Street and its neighboring streets into a pedestrian area accessible by light train.

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In 1990 the project for a light train network was actually laid out. Construction lasted forever, costs rose sky-high and its opening was postponed four times. In despair, Jerusalemites adopted a caustic play-on-words for this rather elusive means of transport and its interminable construction, referring to it as “Rakevet Hatakala” instead of “Rakevet Hakala”, Hebrew for “train of failure” instead of “light train”.

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At the end of 2011 Jaffa Street finally came back to life and the project is now considered a real success. Like many other Jerusalemites I have now accepted the presence of the light train.

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​In this series I try to inquire if the soul of Jaffa Street has been preserved in its previous glory, in the heart of the city and in the hearts of Jerusalemites, following the introduction of the light train, despite this far reaching concession to modernity in a city nearly five thousand years old.