ABSTRACT
The management, realizing that gearing the place to the standards of the haredim would diminish its economic feasibility, created a balance between the “spending-time-and-money” mall atmosphere and the haredi prohibitions. The Jerusalem Biblical Zoo opened its gates in 1950 on the northernmost part of the city where a new haredi neighborhood now stands. The north end is bordered by Jaffa Road, which divides the ultraorthodox neighborhoods from the inner city. For years researchers considered it a barrier, but following the footsteps of the ultraorthodox flaneur reveals a different story. Benjamin was actually trying to understand the same questions a century later, when “progress” had turned into “modernity” and the independent flaneur was lost in the crowd of consumers. The pre-progress moment allowed resistance to what modernity eventually did to the crowds and to the flaneur.
