Strike! When one goes on strike- be it the bus company, teachers, or even a mom who is annoyed that her kids won’t all eat the same dinner..it disrupts the order. Order. Something we are used to.

This week, in Jerusalem, there is a garbage strike. A disgusting, messy, smelly strike not to take out the garbage. I am all too familiar with that when I ask my son to bring the trash to the building’s garbage room and he says, “no”. Really?!

Today, I went to see the mess for myself. I couldn’t believe that the holy city of Jerusalem could possibly be covered in garbage. I didn’t want to believe it. When the bus I was riding on couldn’t make it through the street, I had to come to terms with it. The cars were literally crawling through the streets trying to let the traffic from the other direction pass.

Garbage. Cartons. Boxes. Bags. Food. Trash. Oh My Goodness! My heart literally couldn’t take it.

Now, for all of you that have been following me for some time, first let me say thank you for that. Secondly, you must know I’m about to put a positive spin on this. You must be asking- “How? How can you possibly think there is something positive about this?”

Well, besides garbage, I saw store owners working together to take matters into their own hands. They came together to help clean up the Shuk. It was evident because the actual market was clean- all the garbage was pushed to the outskirts. It also made me happy to see that even while they were dealing with garbage, they were still welcoming and smiling at the customers.

I’m hoping for the sake of Jerusalem and for the spirit of the store owners, the Jerusalem’s municipality and the finance department will come to some sort of agreement and work this out. Also, it would be nice to walk on Agripas and Yafo and not have to trip over soggy cardboard boxes that once contained beautiful ripe lemons, oranges, and apples. I’d like to see the colors of Machane Yehuda from the spices, fruits, vegetables, candies, and shopping carts, and not from the designs on the boxes that once contained all those items.

Until then, don’t stay away from the Shuk- go and continue to support the store owners. This isn’t their fault and they don’t deserve to be punished. You can even tell them that I sent you!

Here’s to keeping the streets clean and smiles on everyone’s faces!