R £ a/ x C K
Down On Skid Row: An Adventure In Lower Resnick There is a growing problem spreading around the campus of the Hebrew University; If this situation continues to spread, it will surely rock the very foundations of this fine institution. No, it’s not the internal left-right struggle currently strangling Israeli society; Unlike that problem, this one knows no political boundaries. No, it’s not the “Tastes Great-Less Filling” match either; Unlike that classic debate, this one has nothing to do with beer. (Well, everything has something to do with beer, but let’s not get carried away.) The debate up for discussion is the ever-increasing polarity between the two dormitory projects currently housing One Year Program students: Upper and Lower Resnick. Upper Resnick (UR), encompassing buildings 1-12, is closer and more accessible to amenities such as Goldsmith High School, all e-mail rooms, and the main campus of the Hebrew University. Lower Resnickians, as they like to call themselves, argue that they have made a “pragmatic lifestyle decision,” whereby they can live in relative peace, quiet, and harmony without the excessive noise found in Upper Resnick. Hey, wait a second before I go on. I ask any of you UR’s: 1) Have you ever actually seen or been to Lower Resnick? 2) Do you know Lower Resnick’s ugly history? Let me explain by chronicling my brief visit and study of the site. Lower Resnick is the quintessential example of urban decay. Roaming its dark, labyrinthine alleyways, I encountered things that one would only expect to find in inner-city American ghettos: women of the night, used syringes littering the streets (barely visible beneath all of the other garbage defecating the area), bums rummaging through dumpsters to find a discarded morsel of a Bonker’s bagel. Coming from the lush greenery and beautiful courtyards of sunny Upper Resnick, the gross entanglements of barbed wire and innumerable oversized rats and alley cats took me by surprise and horror. The people I encountered reflected the environment. Despots and ne’er do wells [sic] filled the streets, joined by Night of the Living Dead-ish zombies-tumed-students, or vies versa. Finally, in the distance I saw a beacon of light... the sweet, sweet staircase back home to Upper Resnick. My horrifying and haunting visit to Lower Resnick, not unlike an episode of Saved By the Bell: The College Years, brought a tear to my eye. How could 100 meters make such a difference between two seemingly similar housing projects? The answer, my friends, is not blowing in the wind, but in the history of the Lower Resnick site. I discovered that in the history of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem (Post 70 CE), the site was used exclusively as a pagan sacrifice and burial site; As recently as 1966, the same site housed a Jordanian mental asylum. It is no wonder that Lower Resnick has become the bleak nightmare it is today. I urge all of you Upper Resnick residents to stay where you are and not to make any drastic “pragmatic lifestyle decisions”; Stay in Upper Resnick, land of peace, harmony, and the Amer. .. I mean the Israeli dream. by Josh Tizel