24h Jerusalem

Every morning, 90-year-old Ruth Bach feeds the birds on her balcony in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehavia. She was born in Halberstadt, Germany, in the early 1920s. She has now lived in Rehavia for 73 years - still in the same apartment her parents rented when the family reached Jerusalem in 1940 after fleeing persecution by German Nazis. At 11 a.m. on the day of filming in Jerusalem, the thermometer reads fourteen degrees Celsius. Sun and clouds alternate. More than 800,000 people live in East and West Jerusalem together. Two thirds are Israelis, one third Palestinians. Many of them are refugees or emigrants, or come from families marked by such experiences. For the Palestinians, the reasons are mostly the wars Israel has waged in the region. Many Jewish families have come to Israel because of persecution in the Middle East and Europe. More recently, Jewish immigrants often come from the U.S. or France to be closer to the Temple Mount. Fifteen-year-old Mahmud lives with his parents and 13 siblings in Shuafat, a camp for Palestinian refugees. It still belongs to Jerusalem, but is separated from the city by the wall. Mahmud no longer goes to school because he had trouble with the teachers. Paramedic Meymun drives his family's ambulance mainly through the east of the city. Jim Hollander lives in Jerusalem as a press photographer for the European Press Agency. Ruth Bach is still spry. But she needs help in her daily life. Mariebelle, who like many elderly caregivers in Israel is Philippine, provides it.