Is there biking in Jerusalem?: Judah the Lion and his cousins

Those of you well acquainted with the Bible will know that the Lion is the symbol of Judah (4th son of Jacob the Israelite) -- see Genesis and Revelations. Or, you may know the lion appears frequently in Jewish art. At one point (like so many other species!) lions did live in the Middle East - actually their range extended out of Africa north to Europe and east to India. They were extinguished from Palestine before the 1400s (according to, yes, Wikipedia!).

In 1950, the Israeli part of Jerusalem adopted as its official symbol the lion to represent and remind Jewish people of their heritage. Here's the municipal "logo" - the Hebrew letters read Yerushalayim - Jerusalem.

You can find the lion symbol on anything the City does (of course) including trail markers, and at the centre of a water fountain at Bloomfield Park that was a gift from the German people (and that I can't find my photo of).

When it comes to felines in the flesh, though, about all Jerusalem can offer these days is cats. Lots and lots of cats. I've been told that there are so many cats in Jerusalem because during the Mandate, the Brits brought them in to manage an exploding rat population. This could be an urban myth, but there really are hoards of cats here.

At the university they can be found everywhere in the gardens (sorta like rabbits used to be at UVic), and if you dare to eat outside (which obviously you do frequently because of the climate), you have to be on guard for your meal or at least tolerate a good amount of attention from the four-legged furry lunch patrol. It's as if they are constantly asking, "Hey, you gonna finish that?" They also come inside the uni and cruise the coffee shop hoping for treats and generally looking to be adopted. Most folks who have cats have more than two. They've adopted them off the street and had them dewormed and spayed/neutered (typically evidenced by a clipped ear or a collar). It's a tough life for cats that don't get adopted -- competition is stiff for food and even if you've staked out good territory you could get caught in a drought. For example, if you are cat that lives at the university, you will probably do well enough from mid-October until late July; August and September are lean months when few people are on campus. And, if you don't have a collar or a clipped ear, you are subject to the semi-annual feline roundup that the city conducts.