When did Succos in Yerushalayim turn into a luxury show?
I was pushing an overloaded stroller up the hill, shopping bags spilling out of the basket and straining my wrists, when I saw the truck. It was half-parked in front of the building next door, jutting awkwardly into the road as if it realized too late that the bumpy chanayah was not quite large enough.
A moving truck?
Two men were unloading, heaving huge panels out and into the building. I caught a glimpse of several bubble-wrapped cartons of glassware and silverware waiting at the building’s entrance, alongside rolled-up rugs and an oversized carton printed with a picture of a chandelier dripping crystals.
“They’re building a succah on the top floor,” I heard one of the neighbor’s kids saying, knowledgeably. “Markowitz’s apartment. They’re renting it out for, like, $30,000 or something. Dollars, can you imagine?”
“That’s crazy,” one of the other kids replied. He was watching the movers in fascination. Now they were unloading a portable air conditioning unit and — was that a surround sound system?
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