Famous “Shuk” Market

September 13th 2016

The “shuk” has transformed from Jerusalem’s veggie market to a hot-spot of gourmet food, bars, and shopping.

The shuk is well known all throughout Israel. It contains within its assorted narrow passageways 250 vendors all beckoning at you to buy their precious merchandise. This merchandise includes everything from juices believed to enhance your concentration, to diamonds ( yes, there is now a diamond store!) to assorted knick knacks, kitchenware, clothing, bistros, boutique wines and cheeses.. you name it. And lots and lots of choices for fresh fruits and meats.

The infamous “Marzipan” dessert store is located on Agripas, about a hundred feet away from the opening of the shuk.  It’s rugales, hot and oozing chocolate, are enough to make you think that you have reached the highest possible place separating Heaven from Earth.

The shuk, or Machane Yehuda, has been in existence since the late 1900s.  Three business partners decided to get together and establish a neighborhood that they called Mahene Yehuda ( the tribe of Yehuda) after one of the partner’s brothers. The neighborhood consisted of, in its infancy,  162 families. The marketplace established there, between Machene Yehuda and the adjacent neighborhood Beit Yaakov, was originally called Shuk Beit Yaakov. When the British in their cleanliness decided that the Shuk needed to be sanitized and reconstructed in the 1920s, the newly renovated marketplace complete with more permanent stalls and roofing was given a new name; henceforth the place was known as Mahane Yehuda. All types of people from the rich to the poor to all of Israel’s ethnic groups and the spectrum of Israeli’s tourists, including families on Israel bar mitzvah tours and Israel bat mitzvah tours, frequent the shuk.