Love of the land has been infused in Shuki’s blood since birth; he’s the right man for our challenge

The assignment: Find the route, site, or scene that best captures the beauty and charm of Jerusalem.

The driver: Shuki Atias of Ramot Alon Taxis

The theme: Nothing like peace to showcase a city’s true charm

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huki Atias reminds me of my childhood. Not because I’ve ever met the man before, but because he makes me feel like I’m about to experience Jerusalem for the first time, like back when I was eleven and spent my first summer jeeping through Midbar Yehudah, visiting unknown cousins, and buying potato kugel from Hadar Geula.

We slide into his cab and make room for Elchanan, the photographer.

“Welcome, welcome,” Shuki says, grizzled head nodding regally.

And we're off.

I’d challenged Shuki to take us on the route he’d take a tourist visiting Jerusalem for the first time. With an intimate knowledge of the city’s every nook and cranny – he’s a born and bred Yerushalmi and a cab driver for Ramot Alon Taxis for the past 20 years -- what part of the Holy City would he share with a newcomer?

Now, I’ve lived in Yerushalayim eight years, and my husband fifteen, and we love it in the way you can only love the world’s holiest, most beautiful city. But we wanted Shuki to make us fall in love with it all over again, to remind us of why we came here, of all places, to build a home.

Shuki is just a “regular” cab driver, but this challenge is right up his alley.

“I was born in Bikur Cholim hospital in 1962, the eldest of ten siblings,” he shares. He jerks his head to the right, indicating the hospital only a few blocks away. “There I grew up in the Morashah neighborhood, right near Meah Shearim. It’s where we Moroccan Jews lived, we called it Musrara back then. Moroccan Jews were put there, right on the old border between Jordan and Israel, before the Six Day War.”

Today, it’s considered a trendy haven for artists and musicians.

“After the Six Day War,” says Shuki, “our neighborhood wasn’t on the seamline anymore. It became part of a unified Jerusalem.”

Unity should be the key quality of the City of Peace, but too many elections, late night dumpster burning, and protests that block traffic for hours have taught me that it’s still elusive.

“Does it bother you,” I ask, leaning forward, “that the city of peace is anything but?”

“Mah pitom!” he exclaims. “It is an Ir shel Shalom, a City of Peace, no question! Any machlokes that isn’t lSheim Shamayim will never last.”

Well, then. I sit back in my seat.