For residents of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Meah Shearim neighborhood, the holiday of Sukkot is a highlight of the entire year. Referred to by the rabbis as “the time of our joy,” music pours through the storied commercial streets as families walk out in their finest clothing — men in black coats, women in long dresses, and children in matching outfits. Many clutch the four species, including tall palm branches and bright yellow citrons, used in the holiday prayers.

And of course, sukkot, the festive booths for which the holiday is named, are hanging off balconies everywhere.

With a biblical commandment to eat and sleep in these outdoor huts for seven days, and with space at a premium in crowded urban areas like this, having a sukkah on your balcony is the ultimate luxury for the holiday. The stipulation that the roof of the sukkah must look directly up to the sky, with no other balconies or other interferences between it and the heavens, adds a level of complexity to the holiday and a fascinating engineering challenge.

“Every building has its own footprint, and when you are designing a building for construction, any balcony reduces the amount of space that is available inside apartments,” explained Josh Skarf, a Jerusalem-based architect and author of a book investigating biblical concepts through the lens of architecture. “If you are concerned about leaving balconies open to the sky above, then every space that you’re using for a balcony eliminates not only that space but also the space above it. You end up building in tiers, getting narrower toward the top like a wedding cake, and that reduces the number of apartments that you can sell.”

But not everyone lives in an apartment optimized for Sukkot dwellings. Around Israel, and particularly in dense Haredi communities like those around Meah Shearim, sukkot built on unauthorized jerry-rigged temporary balconies are everywhere, often constructed with crude techniques........

© The Times of Israel