SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TAKES A DETOUR

I need to write this paragraph now while it is fresh in my mind. Initially when I decided to come to Israel I was told by a friend, unless you want to see just another European city avoid Tel Aviv. Which made sense and so my goal was to live in Jerusalem. But finding housing there was a bit more complicated, especially considering that there are many distinctive neighborhoods from very religious to very dangerous and I became confused. That’s when I turned to the Yiddish word, “Beshert” which kind of is a combination of “destiny” and “good luck”; it might even be a variation of the Arabic word “enshalla.” I decided to let God decide where I should live or in this case his/her agent Craig’s List where upon I found an apartment listing in Tel Aviv for May 6^th the exact day I was to arrive. Last week I found a listing in Tel Aviv beginning on June 10^th, the exact day the first apartment expires. So I took it. For those of you following my blog, Tel Aviv is a spiritual place more in the model of Sodom and Gomorrah than Mt. Sinai.

There is an interesting Hebrew expression for people who are traveling to Jerusalem, they are said to be “going to the ANSWER” and for those who are leaving Jerusalem they are said to be “going to the QUESTION.” I’m not sure I know where that leaves me except I find myself constantly having to “go to the BATHROOM” an issue that I wrestle with a lot here in Israel. I mean, how can you have a fresh juice bar every twenty feet on the street and yet no visible signs of a public bathroom. If this is the question God has posed for me then it seems to me that I can search for an answer here in Tel Aviv just as easily as anywhere else. I am reminded of a sermon I once heard at the First Presbyterian church in Berkeley. There was a Pastor who said he was laboring away on his ministry in Calcutta and not feeling like he was “making a difference” so he asked God to show him the place where he could better use his talents and you know what God said in his/her infinite wisdom, “Go to Berkeley.” Cool advice, don’t you think? Makes you pity the poor schmuck who asks God the same question and unfortunately gets the cyclone ravaged area in Burma as the answer. Anyway, so I am here for awhile in Tel Aviv and as the saying goes, when you are given Jaffa Oranges, make smoothies.

Today was a slow “shopping day.” Because tomorrow is the Sabbath, everyone around noon must do last minute shopping because the stores close at about 3:30. Even though technically one is only shopping for one storeless day, people act like Hurricane Katrina (or when in Israel we prefer to say “Armageddon”) is coming at sundown. There is the most incredible shopping frenzy at the markets. I found myself buying a packet of new sox, a new shirt sleeve shirt, a book and a bunch of pastries eaten on the spot, all because the stores were closed tomorrow, but none of which I had any urgent need for (except the pastries). Curious!

I’ll let some of my pictures and their captions tell my story today, but I want to describe an image I saw while waiting for the bus, I couldn’t get my cell phone out fast enough to take the picture. There were a lot of cars on the street and a cute young woman was riding her bicycle in and out of traffic. One hand was on the handle bars steering, one hand was trying (unsuccessfully) to keep her dress from blowing up over her face, wedged in her neck between her head and her shoulder was a cell phone on which she was talking furiously and as she passed me all I heard her say was, “but I think he really likes me” (what's not to like, I thought) and then she was gone weaving deftly in and out of traffic. She should have been in a Sprint commercial.

Real Jews teaching less real Jews how to put on traditional garb and pray, these guys are everywhere. Generally speaking Jews are not evangelical and in fact Rabbis are supposed to try and talk potential converts out of being Jewish, but I think it’s OK for a Jew who believes a lot to teach a Jew who believes a little, thankless of a job in Tel Aviv as that might be.

A bronze statue on the street of a guy hanging out with (live) old man sitting beside him also hanging out.

Table filled with old tools at the antique market, there were rows and rows of these tables.

This woman suddenly appeared out of a fashionable store in her formal gown and then spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how she was going to get all of that puffy stuff inside the tiny little car her date had driven up in. It was funny to watch and about 10 people immediately started taking cellphone pictures of her; she was really embarrassed.

A scene from in front of the huge, packed Carmel Market filled with musicians and thousands of Birthright travelers who are pouring into the City for their 10 day free tour of Israel. The guitar player on the right looks like an Israeli with his hair in dreadlocks, then there is a young girl who was zoned out, then an American hippie on drums and finally an African man doing some kind of percussion with his mouth.

Basketball Fever - Catch It!

Sorry about another basketball review, but this was the championship game and I had a ticket as part of the package I bought yesterday. This was too huge an event to miss. Except for an upset in 1993, Maccabbi T.A. had won every tournament in the last 14 years, Holon was set to dethrone them. I called ahead and was told the game started at 6 p.m., but when I arrived at the Arena, nobody was there.

World's best job, there are these guys who just walk their bomb sniffing dogs around and around smelling all the parked motorcycles, some even get pee'd on, but I wasn't fast enough to take that picture.

Really, nobody. (except the cops/army). I entered at game time and I swear there were no more than 200 people in a stadium that holds 12,000. I couldn’t believe I had screwed up the timing. Then it hit me, this was the consolation game for third place. Now I’m really at a loss to explain this; admittedly the two teams were from out of town (about an hour away), but were the fans so disappoint at not being in the finals that they didn’t even show up. Perhaps this is what happens when you don’t have an underlying college base. It was very curious, even die hard basketball fans interested in the championship game didn't attend.

Only a handful of die hard fans clumped together showed up for the consolation game, their cheers echoed around the empty area.

By 8:00, however, the stands were packed for the final game. Whatever women were there for the semis, they decided to stay home, because honestly I did not see more than 100 women in the entire stands. This was the most intensely male event I’ve ever been to except maybe the huge communal urinal at the Oakland Coliseum. The game began with the singing of Hatikva, the national anthem. I’ve included the complete video and hope that you can down load it. If not, it was incredibly emotional; I’m sure I’m romanticizing the experience and to the average Israeli this is nothing more than a perfunctory pre-game irritant, but to me it was simply overwhelming. By the end of the song, tears were running down my cheeks and I was shaking. I don’t know how to explain it, it felt like for a brief moment everyone put the basketball game on a back burner and focused all their attention on the importance of the survival of the country. It was such an intense, collective experience and then suddenly it was over and the game was on.

Here is the Hatkiva video, I hope you can download it; I wonder if there are Americans (other than ex-POWs) who get emotional at hearing the Star Spangled Banner.

The game did not disappoint. Cheering started about a half hour in advance and continued until a half hour afterwards. I have never been in a stadium as loud as this, it was like Sears Point during an car race. The video doesn’t even do justice to the noise level and enthusiasm. The teams were never more than 4 points apart and with 2 seconds to go Malik (not his slave name) Dixon an American from Arkansas State made an incredible layout to win. And as they say, “the crowd went wild.” I made a couple of instant friends who explained to me that there is a “2 Jew” rule, namely there must be 2 Israelis per team on the floor at all times. I observed that one of the teams was all black and was told that many American players come over, get married have kids and become Israeli citizens and then they are counted as Israeli for the rule. At half-time Rick Barry and Dr. J (Erving) were introduced for some charity they have that teaches basketball to Israelis and Palestinians and the crowd really ate that up.

I took this video just as the final buzzer sounded, but honestly the noise level didn't really increase, it was out of control for almost 3 hours.

Special Note: It's really refreshing to see that none of the athletes thank Jesus for their win, although some of the managers do wear yarmulkes. Also, there was a sprinkling of LA Laker jerseys, but nobody else.

After the game I walked home through kind of a shanty town around midnight. More on this later, but I felt safe and I kept thinking that most, actually all of the people here have for different reasons actively chosen to be here. Either they were running away (Russians), were thrown out (Ethiopians) or were hired to work (Pilipinos). As has been often observed that’s kind of the American model, except for African-Americans who did not choose to come voluntarily. I really don’t know how big a difference it makes, but if you make a conscious decision to come to Israel, I think you tend to have a vested interest in fitting into the society as opposed to being anti-social, all other things being equal. Anyway, I know I’m probably being naïve, but (getting back to the Hatikva observation) there is clearly a social fabric here and if you are Jewish (I know that’s a big IF) then you are automatically part of it, which translates for me into feeling safe. Ok, no more basketball (except I’m going down to Holon tomorrow (Friday) and see if I can catch the parade, since there can be no parades on the Sabbath, but you already knew that, right?!

And don't forget, there's no 'HAM" in "HABURGER"

Basketball Jones

Finally I found a sporting event I could enjoy without sitting for 90 or 120 minutes waiting for one stupid goal. If you read my blogs for their deep penetrating political and social analysis, you might want to skip today’s entry, because I just came back from a basketball game extravaganza. Once again my journey was the result of a mistake in translation. I went to the local ticket agency to buy a ticket to the big soccer championship game on Saturday and the agent kept thinking I was asking for basketball tickets. I guess she couldn't understand my English because the louder I shouted SOCCER, the more persistently she answered BASKETBALL. So finally I gave up and said, “Yes, I want a basketball ticket.” And she said, “We are all sold out!” But she had the good sense to advise me to go to the Arena directly and try and get a ticket at the box office. So I immediate jumped on a bus and headed to Noika Arena.

Once again I bonded with the bus driver, who was a huge basketball fan. He filled me in as follows: Israel has just gone over to a Final 4 championship format to end their basketball season. They used to have a tournament like the NBA where you play 3 out of 5 games, but this is the first time they have gone to a one game and out format. Fans are a little freaked by this. The home team Macabbi T.A. has enjoyed some international success and at times Israel is thought of as a basketball powerhouse, but not often. I asked if the players were professionals and he said they were and that one American was being paid $2M. I asked if they have college basketball and he said they didn't, certainly not like in the U.S. This, of course, is a HUGE, issue. In general, I think the US is the only place in the world where colleges are responsible for producing the professional athletes, but that might be changing. Finally, I asked the driver if he had heard of Amit Tamir who was the Israeli center for the Cal Bears basketball team in Berkeley and he smiled in acknowledgment. The claim is that Amit was the only Israeli to ever play in the NBA, but then I looked it up and he never really played, just worked out with the Miami Heat.

Here is the best money scam ever. In front of the stadium two "Rabbi's" show up with a Torah looking thing and a cup. If you put money in the cup, you can kiss the Torah and presumably pray for your team to win. I assume for an extra shekel you can also pray for peace. In the background is Zebra a fancy women's clothing store located just under the Area, you can even enter the Area from the store. Just before I took this picture I saw 2 women go in and I swear they kissed the Mezzusa (a little prayer thingy on the doors of Jewish homes) So bizzarre.

When I got to the stadium I was told the tickets were sold out and I would have to buy one on the black market; nobody understood the word “scalper.” I said to a guy, “In the US, black guys sell those tickets” and he said in Israel everyone does it. I said, “Jews selling tickets to Jews, cool. Is that better or worse than black guys?” He laughed and said “Worse, blacks are at least honest!” I thought that was a pretty cute reversal of stereotypes. So I spent about an hour walking around with my one finger in the air looking like a Grateful Dead fan trying to score a miracle ticket, but couldn’t find anyone until I saw the ticket booth open, and just like that I bought a real ticket.

I was in the absolute top row, far away, but the view was great.

The inside of the area was everything I thought it would be. Really noisy, lots of intensity. It was kind of a combination of the excitement of a college crowd, but with the organization of a pro-event. Here are some things I noticed, they aren’t especially profound, but they really jumped out at me. The most jarring image was whenever there was a stoppage of play and the ball was laid down on the floor or rolled to a ref or (non-US) player, the person did not pick up the ball with their hands, but did a soccer-thing with their feet to make the ball bounce up to their hands. I know for you non-sports readers that doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but to an American like me that is inconceivable. I was speechless when I saw it happen. There are lots of black players, at one point there were 8 out of 10 on the floor. This is another huge issue, there just aren’t that many 7 foot Israeli Jewish boys; but that said there were two great white point guards who stereotypically could hit a 3-point shot. Neither team had cheerleaders, but there was a fantastic dance group that I think worked for the Arena and they were so good it made me think that they might even have been paid a living wage. Oh, one more thing similar to the “picking up the ball with your feet” observation, occasionally when a player got decked, an opposing player, usually the “decker” would reach down and help pull up the “deckee.” I don’t see that much in the NBA.

This is the loudest area I have ever been in, although I'm told the Warriors in Oakland can compete with anyone. The noise goes on for the entire game even when its a blow-out, especially when its a blow-out.

Best of all, the fans were really knowledgeable, they booed unfair calls, mercilessly jeered missed free throws, and rewarded brilliant plays. At some point it hit me that I was sitting in the middle of about 12,000 Jewish male basketball fans, how cool is that. Of course at the exact same time there were 12,000 beautiful Jewish women attending the Food Faire on the other side of town. As I previously observed at the Food Faire about a third of the fans were always on their cell phone, presumably talking to their women at the Faire, (not!) I did notice that there seemed to be about 5% women, unlike a game in the States, which I think could have as many as 30% women. I don’t fully understand the implications of not having a college sports program, but for most of these fans, their pro-team is the only team they will ever know and cheer for. That’s kind of weird. Maybe that’s why the University’s don’t have sweatshirts with their names on it or a dedicated following of die-hard alumni. I really can’t imagine a world in which there are no college teams with which to associate; it would feel like something important was missing on a Saturday afternoon, oh, right that’s the Sabbath and things are supposed to be missing. In conclusion Maccabi’s won by 2 points, the crowd went wild and even though I didn’t have a “dog in that fight” I had a great time.

The cheerleaders performed about 20 separate very professional routines at each intermission, the music for this one was the Village People singing. YMCA. (enjoy)

FOOD FAIRE

I must start with yet another expression of guilt. I assumed that today would be quiet so I planned to write my first political analysis of my recent visit to 3 military history museums. In preparation I listened to several hours of Alan Dershowitz’ book The Case for Peace and spent some time thinking about the plight of the dispossessed on both sides of the war. As I sat down to my laptop at about 7:30 p.m., I caught a reference on the news to a Food Faire in a nearby park. Since I hadn’t eaten, I thought I would saunter over, grab a bite and return to my best (and only friend) my blog. After walking for about 45 minutes (I misjudged the distance) through an almost deserted park, I turned the corner and was overwhelmed by the spectacle before me.

I’ll let the captions on my photos tell the rest of the story, but here are the simple facts. The area set aside for the faire was about a quarter of a mile square and when I got there it must have held about 5,000 people, almost all of whom were under 30 and as I’ve mentioned before about 3 to 1 single women. In the center of the square were four stages each with a band playing full blast. One side was all meat serving booths, another was just pastas, rice and lentil dishes, the third was ice cream and deserts and the fourth drinks, including fresh fruit juice, some beer, and soda. I did a full walk around, about 125 booths, passed on all the skewers of meat and weird stuff I couldn't identify, had a large dish of pesto pasta, had a huge dish of cherry ice cream with fresh cherries and finished it off with a Pepsi MAX. Total cost about $15, not cheap, but not expensive either.

I don't know if this photo can captures the size and intensity of the crowd, it's the best I could do with my cell phone camera, the only one I use.

It was about 10pm and I was really tired so I leaned up against a light pole and just stood there in front of one of the music speakers for an hour. I folded my arms like a plain clothes security guard, put an earphone from my MP3 player in my ear to make it seem like I was receiving my instructions from headquarters and then just stared menacingly (as opposed to lecherously) at all the party goers. By 11pm the crowd had easily tripled in size and there must have been at least 15,000 kids, everyone eating and drinking something and gyrating to the music. Again, I’m going to try to contain my ethnocentrism, but except for the tight security getting into the fair, there was not a policeperson or solider anywhere to be seen. There were hundreds of trash cans and a minimum of litter and NO BATHROOMS!! About 25% of the crowd seemed to be on their cell phones at all times. Except for me, there seemed to be almost no adult supervision, so you can imagine the amount of responsibility I felt on my shoulders; good thing they were broad enough to handle it. There was no smell of pot or people acting drunk. Incredibly, I did not see "hooliganism" of any kind, this was definitely not a British soccer tailgate party. Finally my Pepsi MAX kicked in and I had the energy to leave my light pole (which to my relief did not fall over in my absence) and mercifully found a bus that took me back to my apartment around 12:30p.m. It’s hard to believe but this was the first night of the faire and it will continue all week. Honestly, I have been to many Renaissance Faires and even the Gourmet Food Show at the Moscone Center in S.F., but I have never seen anything like this before. Again, my apologies to my Palestinian brothers and sisters whose story will once again be put on the back burner of my blog.

There were at least 3 crepe stands with 20 griddles each, here a woman is making two crepes and spreading Nutella on them.

Rows and rows of spaghetti and pasta as well as strawberry shortcakes ready for whip cream.

Four really cute female drummers doing that Japanese Taiko drummming thing with lots and lots of energy and volume. May take a moment to load, hit the play arrow button in the middle and or lower left corner.

Day Trip Gone Astray: Part Two

Before I continue with my Jerusalem odyssey, I’d like to comment on the issue of where to pee. Either Israeli’s have big bladders or I have a small bladder (who says size doesn’t matter) because there never seems to be a bathroom anywhere when I need it. So I’ve gotten really good at remembering places to pee. Bus stations are great (don’t take a wide stance or tap your feet), Universities are nice, City Hall is good, and a few restaurants and luxury hotels also come to mind. And of course rushing back to my apartment is always the fall back location. I’m going to have to ask a few Israelis that I’ve met how the natives solve this problem.

So my new best bus driver friend (NBF in textese) dropped me off very near Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus. The bus is stopped at the front gate and a soldier comes on board, looks everyone directly in the eye and then the bus proceeds to an underground drop off point. (BTW: Everyone on the bus is also always looking everyone else directly in the eye) We then proceed to another inspection and then we are inside the University. I see a veranda and it overlooks Jerusalem and the dome of the Golden Mosque, it’s a breathtaking image.

Picture of the Golden Dome from Mt. Scopus.

I wander the campus for about two hours and it was like being in paradise. Thousands of kids everywhere, lots of English being spoken, every building has a different kind of food court and everywhere you turn there is another spectacular view of Jerusalem. I finally found a t-shirt that said Hebrew University of Jerusalem to send to Eli, but not sure whether the political climate at UCLA will permit him to wear it except maybe on the High Holidays.

Photo of Arab woman, with her shoes off reading alone on the grass.

Again as with Tel Aviv University there are literally hundreds if not thousands of names of contributors. Honestly, is there a Jew anywhere in America who has not at some point in his life made a contribution to Israel? I remember so clearly in1949 (I would have been 5) going to Temple and putting a coin in a little blue metal box and being told that a tree would be planted in my name in Israel for each victim of Holocaust. But every park, every garden, every classroom, even every bench in the courtyard is named after somebody. There was a time, not so long ago, where I would have found this incredibly self-centered or self-congratulatory, but frankly, I was really touched by those gestures today. Somehow the idea that a Jew who has made it in one part of the world would send money to a Jew in another part of the world who has not made it, gave me a real sense of pride. I’m sure all ethnic groups do this, whether its Latin workers sending money home, Iranians buying wheel chairs, Armenians setting up memorials, the list must be endless, but the scale of the American Jewish contribution to hospitals, schools etc. in Israel is really impressive. If there is an argument as to why this is a bad thing, I’m open to hearing it, but I can’t come up with it on my own.

This large sculpture (about 15'x12') which I think is some peace and dove symbol was made entirely out of legos, sorry about the sun flare, but it was really cool

After taking a leisurely bathroom break in the plush stalls of the Hebrew University library and having a nice fresh salad at the Rosenberg Café, I jump on a #26 bus which I am told is heading back to the Central Bus Station. This bus takes a different route directly through the super religious section where everyone is a “penguin.” There is a Hassidic Girls’ High School letting out, lots of old men arguing doctrine on the street and many really young religious boys at what seems to be 7 or 8 years old. On the bus, men are silently reading little tiny books and moving their lips and rocking back and forth. My first thought is “how long does it take to read a little book like that.” An hour at most and you would think that after the first one hundred times, you would either know what it says, or you will never know and maybe instead of reading it, you should just wait for the movie to come out so you can really understand it better. And what’s with the moving the lips, isn’t God supposed to be listening to your heart and not the inaudible whispers coming out of your mouth. Very, very curious.

Finally, I get off at Jaffe Street and go to a bakery that I found which has for lack of a better word, “pigs in a blanket.” Okay, I know there really aren’t “pigs” in those rolls, but they are really good and I can dream can’t I. I buy a nice cotton shirt which started out at 70 shekels, I walked away and by the time I finished I was at 40 shekels, but I really hate that process.

There is a huge sculpture made out of wire strands in front of the Bus Station that can be seen for miles and is a great way of orienting oneself.

Got to the Central Bus Station, peed in the less than perfect bathroom and sat down next to a nice woman soldier who was writing furiously in what I think was her diary. We started to chat and next week she is on her way to St. Paul, Minnesota of all places. I asked her if she liked being a soldier and she said she hates it, but added that all soldiers hate it, to which I added, all soldiers everywhere hate it. She gets out in October, she explained to me why some soldiers get to carry Uzi’s and some don’t, her English was really pretty good, but she was really scared about using it. (Tell me about it, at least she can talk with her captivating Israeli eyes, which is more than I can say for me.) Anyway, she quickly wrote the English alphabet without missing a letter and I laboriously wrote the Hebrew alphabet leaving out about 4 letters. But even though she didn’t have her Uzi with her, I was still too nervous to get it right. I gave her the name of my blog and told her I would give her an honorable mention at the end of it today. All in all, for a mistaken trip, I think it was a full day, certainly more interesting than picking through the rubble in Askelon.

Day Trip Gone Astray: Part One

The day started off so positively. Last week a rocket fired from Gaza hit a mall in Askelon, killing a person and injuring a hundred others. I looked on a map and was surprised to see that Askelon is only a one hour train ride from Tel Aviv, so I thought that would make an interesting day trip. I got to the station early and found hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, which I took to mean that on the Sabbath they come home to be with their families and on Sunday go back to “work.” Sitting in my little area of the train were 7 teenage soldiers all except one with Uzi’s. They looked in their very early 20’s and one was a very cute woman soldier. I asked why everyone had a gun, except the one guy and they told me they were all on the same “team” and the odd man out couldn’t be trusted with a weapon. They all thought this was very funny, except the guy without a gun. One guy started taking pictures of the woman with his cell phone and she tried to grab it away from him and then everyone started horsing around, Uzi’s bouncing all over the place. She finally got the phone but then he grabbed her magazine of bullets and then she threw the phone back at him and he threw the magazine back at her and “pop” bullets flew out all over the floor. Although nothing went off, this was apparently a bad thing to happen and everyone scrambled around all over the floor trying to pick up the stray bullets. They spent a lot of time counting and one was temporarily missing until it was found in a seat cushion. The guy who “can’t be trusted with a gun” seemed to feel vindicated with an attitude like, “and I’m supposed to be the irresponsible one here.” Finally their stop came and I swear at least 500 soldiers got off the train in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. After they left, I quickly looked around for a misplaced bullet which I could keep for a souvenir, but no such luck.

An hour passed and I couldn’t seem to locate any of the stations on my map leading to Askelon. Then another half hour passed and I starting getting worried because we were very late and hadn’t made any unscheduled stops, when suddenly we pulled into the station, JERUSALEM! Damn, wrong train! To give you an idea as to how stupid a mistake this was, it would be the equivalent of leaving San Francisco for a nice vacation in Eugene, Oregon and ending up in Los Angeles. I mean, these two cities are on completely different ends of the country. It occurred to me that this is probably a good reason not to elect McCain, at his age he'll never figure out what train/plane to take to any of those summits. But anyway, when God gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So I walked out of the train station and discovered that it was one of the places (like Dulles Airport) where if you build it in the middle of nowhere, eventually people will chose to live near it, but not today. In front of me was a huge soccer stadium called “Teddy” and about a quarter of a mile down the road I could kind of made out the sign that said Jerusalem Mall. So I went to the Mall. The Mall was quite upscale, I would say at the level of the ones in Marin County, lots and lots of fancy boutique stores, a couple of supersized box stores and of course lots of food.

(Here is a picture from a huge bakery)

Prices were all pretty high and it was crowded and except for the Hebrew words, I would have thought I was in any nice American mall. But I didn’t stay long and jumped on a #6 bus which I was told was going to the Central Bus Station.

This trip was the sole adventure of my morning; I stayed on this one bus for an hour and half. First it went through large areas of emptiness, then it went straight down Jaffe Street, the most crowded, even teeming, in Jerusalem, then it wrapped around the Old City walls (built by Salidin in the 13^th century) and then kept going higher and farther out. At some point all the Uzi carrying soldiers got off which I considered a bad sign, but they were replaced with lots of Hassidic people (affectionate called “penguins” by secular Jews) which I considered a good sign, then the street names changed from Weisman and Rothchild to Sultan Shalidin, which I considered a bad sign. Pretty soon there was nobody on the bus but me and driver. He asked me where I was going and I said, “I’m going wherever you’re going,” which he thought funny. The houses all began to look alike as did the town (actually “settlement”) It reminded me of a Sim City game where you make a copy of a standard house and then just rubber stamp them over and over again. There were lots of little kids around, but no yards, just boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all looked just the same.

I was starting to get a little worried and then a thought struck me. At some point we are going to run into THE WALL.

(The Wall snaked for miles in all directions)

It almost felt like a scene from the Truman Story, the neighborhood was completely antiseptic, and I don’t remember any trees or trash. I kept thinking, “isn’t Jerusalem an enclave; aren’t we surrounded by Palestinians.” Just at that moment, the bus turned into a cul de sac and sure enough there was the Wall. I couldn’t believe it, it was like coming to the end of the known universe. I took a couple of pictures; to my back was the neat little Israeli box houses and to my front was a mass of Palestinian buildings many looking in disrepair, without windows or landscape and of course separated by the Wall.

Photos of Israeli tract home on left and Palestinian buildings on the right.

The bus driver invited me for coffee into the employee’s rest area and we got to chat. He’s been driving a bus for 30 years, most of it on exactly the #6’s run which goes all the way from the southwest corner of Jerusalem to the northeast corner in just under 2 hours. I don’t know if you can imagine what it’s like to have irritating passengers and car drivers going at you for 2 hour per run for 30 years, but I kept thinking there isn’t enough Zantac in the world to make that tolerable. Then we got into a great argument about which city had the most beautiful Israeli women, I, of course, claimed Tel Aviv, not having been anywhere else, he claimed Haifa. I tried to make my point in broken Hebrew, he in broken English, but we both settled on universally understood male hand gestures to emphasize our arguments. I told him I was too old to be having a discussion like this and he laughed saying one is never too old for such an argument. We shared a moment, but I think you had to be there to appreciate it. I got back on the bus at about 12:00 and it had just been 3 hours since I left Tel Aviv and I felt I had gone through the entire spectrum of the human experience from the Jerusalem Mall to a decrepit neighborhood in the Occupied Territories. Next stop the Hebrew University. (to be continued)

Lag Ba'omer

Photo Caption: Fires in the park celebrating Lag Ba’ Omer.

For those of who are keeping track, last night was Lag Ba’ Omer. Don’t remember what that holiday represents? Well neither does anyone else I spoke to around here, but it is a school holiday and that seems to be sufficient reason to celebrate. The holiday is actually 33 days after the 2^nd day of Passover, (my how time flies when you are no longer a slave building the pyramids) and is composed of the letter “lamed” which represents 30 and a “gimel” which represents 3. This nomenclature is often given as an example of why Hebrew is so easy to learn, you just use letters like building blocks and you can end up with the name of a holiday on which there is no school. What is distinctive is the method of celebration. For the last (presumably) 33 days, kids (mostly boys) have been collecting wood for making bonfires on Lag Ba’Omer night. Why this is,was not explained to me in the Wikipedia entry and certainly none of the boys I talked to who were having a great time lighting fires had any explanation. I live near the huge Kikar Ha-Madenia square and there must have been 100 fires and about a thousand people. For those of you who are gender sensitive, there were a lot of pre-teen boys having a great old time making fire and an equal number of Jewish mothers going absolutely berserk. This holiday is a Jew mother’s nightmare, there are sticks to put out eyes everywhere, flames to catch clothes on fire and young boys and girls running off into the night in packs. I couldn’t understand the Hebrew, but clearly words of caution were being screamed everywhere.

Sabbath Shopping: Finally, I figured out that if you need to do grocery shopping you better do it before 3p.m. on Friday. I heard a great explanation for the Sabbath from an ecologist. The bible orders people once a week to take no action against nature. It is really not just a day of rest for people, but more importantly a day of no human mucking around with nature; put another way, this is the day that nature gets to heal itself without cars, electricity, farming, slaughtering, etc. Kind of cool way to look at it, (not that Tel Aviv gives a shit)

Cell Phones: This is absolutely a fact, when God made cell phones, he/she had the Israeli people in mind. Apologies for the racism, but when you take a race of people who already are a bit noisy and don’t really have a very good concept of personal space and you give them a cell phone, you are basically putting a knife in the hands of a child. Here’s a true story and you can draw your own conclusions.

I am sitting in the café of the Tel Aviv Museum eating a very nice, over priced pastry (like every museum café) with people sitting around quietly discussing art. A middle aged husband and wife are sitting next to me and his cell phone goes off, but unlike Vienna with a Chopin sonnet, the ring tone is a jarring sound that gets louder and louder the longer it goes unanswered. So the man fumbles around and finally gets the phone out, but can’t figure out how to answer it. The wife, obviously the technophile in the family, grabs it and goes to turn it off, the husband not to be outdone, grabs it back, there is a lot of shooting in Hebrew. The gist seems to be (I’m projecting) that the wife keeps telling him and pointing to the key that turns it off and he keeps yelling back that he knows what he’s doing and doesn’t need her help, while at the same time pushing every key on the phone. Suddenly, the irritating ringing which has now gotten really loud, stops. The husband gives his wife a cocky look, as if to say, “see I figured it out, without your meddling.” Of course the call stopped automatically when it went into voice mail, but the husband is undeterred and start softly with “Shalom, (no response) shalom (this time louder imitating the ring tone cycle), finally SHALOM!, and still nothing. The wife then starts explaining to him that he now has to check voice mail (or at least I hope that is what she was saying.) and their fighting and grabbing resumes over how to access voice mail. Ok I think you get the picture, since all of this is happening in a very pleasant, esthetically pleasing museum café you can imagine what happens on the street or on a bus. I assume there are cities that are more cell phone oriented (I think Tokyo might be one), but Tel Aviv must surely be in the top 5 of irritating users.

Cigarette smoking: I’m not going to say much since I come from Berkeley where cigarette smokers are stoned (literally and metaphorically) or at the very least publicly humiliated. My sense is that Tel Aviv is not as bad as say Eastern Europe, but I have been sitting in a café and a person comes in and sits right next to me and lights up a cigarette without any awareness of my presence and when finished they throw the butts anywhere on the ground. This is not noteworthy other than to say it is an earlier stage of human evolution and I assume these people will start to die out, it’s not a question of “if”, but only “when.”

I’m starting to learn my numbers from 10-100 which as you can imagine is opening up all kinds of new things that I can now buy, there goes the budget!

FOX update: I was just told that CNN was dropped from the cable and replaced with FOX because CNN was considered "too pro-Palestinian." Go figure!!

Tel Aviv Art Museum

Photo Captions: Metal sculpture in front of the museum, more tall buildings, my favorite painting in the museum, a cute young Jewish girl (Olga) thinking deep thoughts, be still my heart.

I set aside the full day for the Tel Aviv Art Museum and was not disappointed. Admission was reasonable ($11) and soldiers in uniform are free. I’ve started noticing that a lot, there are the standard, seniors, adults, students, and children fares and then a “soldiers in uniform” price. I couldn’t think of an equivalent situation in the U.S. unless you count PX’s, which of course is significant. Also the museum had quite a few soldiers and I also couldn’t think of an American equivalent of that, maybe a NASCAR race.

The collection was really enjoyable. The nicest part is that there were lots of paintings of pretty Jewish women and very few paintings (1) of Madonna’s with Child. You know that wing of every Western museum that has a thousand Jesus Going to the Cross, On the Cross, and Coming Down from the Cross, well the TA Museum doesn’t have that wing. It does have a large collection of paintings with Bible story themes, but really that was fun. There were Judith with Someone’s Head, Abraham, Isaac and an Angel, actually there were lots of Somebody, Somebody and an Angel paintings. The theme was mainly upbeat or as we used to call it, “bourgeois art” and mercifully no Holocaust paintings. One noteworthy sculpture was of a man about 8 feet high who was bent over forward with his head between his legs and his face very nearly up his butt and clumps of brown paint splattered all over. It was some kind of metaphor about the human condition and was a great visual imagery. I wanted to take a picture, but the guard stopped me. I guess I should have pulled out my ATM card and said it was official bank business.

Downstairs was a movie theater and they were showing The Counterfeiters which is the fascinating, true (?) story of the German project to reproduce the British pound and the American dollar using Jewish concentration camp prisoners. There were about 50 patrons in the theater and I’ve got to tell you that watching a concentration camp movie in Israel is a trip, there is nothing overtly different from any other movie theater, but the vibrations in the air were really heavy. What is an especially interesting insight for me is that no matter what the subject, I always find the philosophical issues and moral dilemmas of Holocaust movies so incredibly thought-provoking. I recently saw another such movie, Grey Zone, where a little girl was found alive at the bottom of the gas chamber and the entire movie was devoted to the question of saving one life in the midst of the killing of thousands of others. I have a good friend who argues against the obsession with the Holocaust to the exclusion of the other genocides of history and I don’t disagree with that point. But for me personally, I really understand and wrestle with the issues raised by the German Holocaust. Honestly, I don’t “get” Darfur, Kosovo, Kurds, Pol Pot, Rwanda, Armenia, etc.; I grieve for them and share the world’s indignation, but frankly I just don’t understand their causes, solutions, or implications. But a Holocaust movie, I’m right there, as Heinlein would say, I “grok” it. Maybe it’s easier for me to see myself hearing the knock on the door at 3 a.m. or being forced to make a Sophie’s Choice, but the deep intellectual issues raised in that genre of movies is never lost on me. My friend accuses me of “ranking” genocides in order of importance, but I don’t think I’m ranking; I know this sounds racist and even shallow, but some genocides I get and some I don’t. (Sorry)

One Line liners: I got my ATM card yesterday and as I walk around the street I find myself no longer looking at people, but instead memorizing the most convenient bank machines. I was stopped by a tough guard at the Haganah Museum and asked for my passport, which I didn’t have. He then asked if I had any official ID and all I had was my new ATM card without a picture. As soon as I produced it, his demeanor changed, he smiled and immediately waved me through the barrier. Sounds like a great Mastercard commercial. Didn't the 9/11 hijackers get their money from ATM machines, maybe Bush should have outlawed those.

Cable TV: I get over 200 channels. The good news is that there are very few commercials. The movies, sporting events and news programs have almost no commercials. It’s a very interesting feeling, there’s a continuity of watching TV that is never broken up with junk interruptions. On the other hand, you have to plan bathroom and snack breaks much more carefully. There are 6 English movie channels, last night for example the Truman Show, Little Miss Sunshine, A Beautiful Mind, and Hotel New Hampshire were all on within a couple of hours of each other. The bad news is the only American news channel is Fox. I just don’t get that, it is so dreadful and I miss Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart desperately. There is the British Sky News and BBC which does take up the slack. Fox has a dilemma they can’t decide if they hate Obama or Hillary more, but they feel like that have to choose and are terribly conflicted over it.

Internet: A very curious development. My pop-ads and the little advertising video windows that I get in my news websites are starting to appear in Hebrew. Also my Google search window is starting to come up in Hebrew. How do they know I'm here?

Jaffa

Photo Captions: The view of the ruins which are dated at 1200BC and a view of the current Tel Aviv seashore. Couldn't resist this cute, if a little corny, sculpture of the whale that swallowed Jonah over the coast of Jaffa.

I had other plans today, but got on the wrong bus. By the way, there is no current bus map and believe me I have looked. One driver told me it was because there are so many buses and they go everywhere, that the company decided there was no need for a map. I agree with the first two premises, it’s the conclusion that I didn’t get. So when you go to the information booth and ask for a map, the lady asks, “Where do you want to go and I’ll tell you which bus to take.” I respond, “I don’t know where I want to go until I see a map.” This then starts a heavy philosophical discussion of what comes first the map or the journey. Remember this is Israel, everything becomes a major argument.

Anyway, I digress, so I’m on the wrong bus and have lost track of where I am, but when I look around I notice that I am the youngest person on the bus. (I remember my first week in New York, I got on the wrong subway late at night and when I looked around I was the only white person. A very nice elderly black man came up to me and said, “Son, I think you might want to get off at the next stop and go back to where you came from.) But in this case, I take this to be a good sign that we are at least on our way to a safe place, like a nursing home. Suddenly, I recognized the Jaffe Clock Tower and decided to turn the day into a tourist visit and jump off the bus, leaving the senior citizens to travel on; I did think of the movie Cocoon and hoped they were going to another planet to have fun.

If you like history Jaffa is your kind of town and it has been fixed up to appeal to a tourist so inclined. I don’t know the accuracy of any of the information I received, my sense is that the Israelis do pay attention to this stuff and this city isn’t just another “George Washington Slept Here” kind of hype. Until I am convinced otherwise, I believe the archaeological narratives are correct. In a nutshell, Jaffe goes back about 3000 maybe 4000 years, in fact Noah’s son built it after the flood, Jonah returned from the whale and Peter rose Tabitha/Dorcus from the dead there. Those are the first facts that really give one some perspective on time-line. What follows is an unbelievable series of sackings. One is reminded of those people who continually build their homes in a flood plain or a landslide area or (for my California friends) on an earthquake fault. The looting, pillaging and killing story goes like this, Egyptians, Macabees, Romans, Saladin, Richard the Lion Heart, Napoleon, Ottomans and finally it is one of the first battles of the 1948 Israeli war. On a brighter note, Jaffa used to be known for its oranges, conveniently call (even today when there are no more of them) Jaffa Oranges. How one place can repeatedly grow be wiped out, regrow, be wiped out over and over again is mind-boggling. As a kid growing up in Jaffa reading your history books, don’t you think you would be saying to yourself, “as soon as I’m old enough, I’m leaving this town.” But no, people kept staying and keep being wiped out. Curious.

There is a nice image of looking at the pile of rocks identified as the remains of old Jaffa, circa 1000 BC and then turning 180 degrees and seeing the modern Tel Aviv skyscape. (see attached photos) Also at some point the morning Moslem prayers are broadcast from the mosque. I’ve heard that before in Morocco, but was a little shocked to hear them in Israel especially as about about 50 old Jewish tourists suddenly freaked out when the speakers started blaring.

There is also a large government subsidized artist colony and a number of expensive seafood restaurants along the sea, none of which interested me. I then carefully retraced my steps back to the bus stop that I had mistakenly taken and returned exactly to my point of origin. That’s the nice thing about taking the wrong bus somewhere; you can always take the wrong bus back. There’s a life’s lesson here which I will teach my kids once I figure it out better.

Here’s a couple of one-liners: I saw my first fat soldier, it was shocking, they must tease the hell out of this guy. Did I already comment on the fact that the only teenagers I see who don’t look fit are the religious boys who go to the Yeshiva and avoid the army and they seem to grow up to be those overweight religious men in the black coats and hats, weird. I also saw a woman soldier in a long dress and I figured this one out on my own. (can you?) Somewhere in the Bible it says women shouldn’t wear pants (sorry Hillary, if you are President, don’t wear the pantsuits to Israel) so the very religious women are allowed to go to battle in a dress and combat boots. In addition to controlling the sexual urges of a million teenage boys and girls, the Israeli army also has to keep track of religious customs. Is this the first army in history that doesn’t live on Spam? (for my younger readers that a kind of food, not an unsolicited email)

OK, peace-out! (I heard my son’s friend say that and it sounded cool, I think you do something with your two fingers and your heart along with it, but not sure. But until my son tells me to stop using (or misusing) it, I think I’m going to end my blogs that way.)

A Day of Extremes

Photo Captions: Attendees at the Tel Aviv Spirit Film Festival enjoy rose water lemonade and reclining in bean bag chairs in the festivals café.

One of the many unusual high rise buildings in the Tel Aviv business district.

Today was a day of extremes. Several days ago, I met a German film maker on the train who invited me to a showing of his latest work on Buddhist Painting in Mongolia at the Tel Aviv Spirit Film Festival. This was his first visit to Israel and he had no special thoughts about Jews and their Holocaust experience, but he did have a lot to say about Buddhism, which I found refreshing. So I got up Saturday morning intent on hearing him speak at the Cinemateque and suddenly realized there are no buses on Saturday. Its hard getting used the the fact that Saturday is not a good day to get a lot of projects done, that’s reserved for Sunday.

I arrived early at the theater and was surprised to see a crowd of about 200 “spirit” people. I felt like I was in a Mill Valley higher consciousness gathering. The air was filled with incense, there were booths selling “hippy” clothes, CD’s of Tibetan bonging, books in Hebrew on the Dali Lama, and lots and lots of beautiful mellow people. I think it was about 5 to 1 women all of whom had that Moonie glow that you generally don’t associate with the Jewish women soldiers.

There was a nice café set up with a lemonade that smelled like roses and a great lentil and rice dish for about $6. After buying lunch, there were no tables but about 20 bean bag chairs where everyone laid down to eat, sleep and yes smoke a cigarette, really? (I’ll save cigarette smoking for another time, but suffice it to say, higher consciousness and the anti-smoking movement have not embraced each other in Israel yet.

Absolutely true story. I was standing by the lotions table and an attractive Israeli man with a Jack Bower “murse” slung over his shoulder, was rubbing different creams on the back of his hands and smelling them. He was exchanging Hebrew with the saleswoman in a low, soft voice while looking meaningfully into her eyes and I swear to god, in the middle of an unintelligible Hebrew sentence I heard him clearly say the word, “metrosexual.” And it seems to me she melted at the word. I thought of the Jerry McGuire line, “you had me at metrosexual.”

Since I had a couple of hours to kill, I decided to walk to the New Bus Station and hang out with the “the other” people. On the way I was befriended by a nice young Israeli couple coming from the movies. They had seen an Amazon Indian film but the Indian voices were dubbed over in English which upset them. They both spoke Spanish and they found it incomprehensible that the movie maker would dub in an irritating American voice every time an Indian spoke. They kind of wanted me, as an American, to defend that or at least explain it. I couldn’t. As we walked I suddenly realized that everyone around me appeared to be Asian of some kind. We went through a park that was solid with people and the best way I can explain it was, the couple and I were the only Jews.

Here is the political analysis the couple gave me, which was excellent and really thought-provoking. They said the basic problem was that (exact words) “There are jobs Israeli’s won’t do.” (So much for Grandpa Abe, coming off the boat and working 12 hour days in a sweat shop.) It used to be that Palestinians did those jobs, but after the Intifada, the government sealed the borders so new workers were found in the Philippines, Thailand as well as Ethiopians. The different groups do not mix at all and eat, sleep and hang out in different areas. On Saturday the Bus Station has no busses but the immigrants use it as a shopping mall because it has long banks of phones where they can call home. The workers are all underpaid, work extremely long hours, and of course for the women there is sexploitation.. When I got to the Bus Station, there were hundreds of Asians and Africans wandering around with long lines in front of all the phones. The Israeli couple agreed with me that this was a huge problem and given the circumstances of Israel there was no way these groups were ever going to integrate themselves into the society. I thought, “great, having found the Palestinian problem insoluble, the Israelis have chosen to introduce a more complex immigrant problem.”

I then walked back to the movie which was attended by about 100 people and featured a hour of really spectacular Mongolian landscapes and Buddhist art. Unlike the Amazon movie the participants all spoke Mongolese (?) which sounds a lot like a Slavic language played backwards (if that makes any sense) and of course the subtitles were in Hebrew. So I just sat there bombarded by the two most impossible languages on the planet. One really cute image, however, stuck out in my mind. The scene is of a lone sheep herder in the middle of a huge valley with no signs of civilization for hundreds of miles. The man is obviously cold and takes one of the sheep, turns it upside down and with his knife cuts a hole in its stomach where he plunges his hands for warmth. The audience, of course, gasps as much as the sheep. Then as the camera pans up to the man’s face, I notice he is wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball hat. Go figure!!

Unfortunately, the director never showed up, which was the whole point of the trip. Luckily by the time the movie got out at around 7 p.m., the Sabbath was over and the buses were running again. As I sat on the bus all I could think of was the poor sheep who most likely was an S.F. Giants fan.

The Numbered Days Are Ending

Photo Caption: This blow-up figure sits atop of the Tel Aviv City Hill. I have no idea what it is or anything of its history or symbolism. I only know that when I am lost, which is often, I look up and orient myself, IT has become my geographic compass, perhaps when I learn its meaning, it will become my moral compass.

Starting with my next blog I will discontinue the numbering of the days. I am doing this in deference to my friends who still get up every morning and are the bitter hard-working people who presumably support Hillary, unlike us more highly educated latte-sipping Obama supporters. So for those of you who might have been thinking, “I guess its another day that Howard didn’t do anything,” you will no longer be able to keep track.

Today I woke up and turned on the TV and discovered a wonderful educational experience. It was an exercise class with 5 beautiful Israeli women and a good looking Israeli male instructor. I lounged back in my chair to enjoy and suddenly the women were exercising all around and the man was going: ahat, shtime, shahlosh, arbah, hahmesh, sesh, shevah, shmohneh, taysha, esair. And he kept doing this over and over again. Then I realized, I know these words, they must be numbers. So I sat there (mentally) exercising for about a half hour until I was exhausted. I’ve decided this is some kind of Sesame Street for old Jewish guys. The only problem is when I go to the store to buy something I find myself trying to keep the cost under esair shekels so I can speak in Hebrew, once we get in the teens or god forbid the 20+ I get nervous and start babbling in English. But you would be surprised how much you can buy for esair shekels ($3)

I’m going to spare you a blog for days 13 and 14 which I was going to entitle: The Search for the Perfect T-Shirt and The Search for the Perfect Cereal Bowl. Suffice it to say both projects were very successful on a practical level, but not that interesting as a blog.

BTW: I just noticed that my Blog has been picked up on Google. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, I think that means I can’t joke about some things like knowing were Osama bin Laden lives. Isn’t this exactly the kind of “internet chatter” that the CIA and Homeland Security moniter and causes changes in the security warning light colors?

Day 8 or 9? The Diaspora Museum

Note: I’ve gotten several responses commenting on the lack of a blog for Days 8 and 9. Damn, give me a break, this writing stuff isn’t that easy. For all you guys know, I’m just sitting naked in my Berkeley apartment in my fluffy slippers making all this stuff up. The fact of the matter is that I’m not that resourceful and life isn’t that interesting, but I will try to keep trucking, I mean blogging, on.

Photo Caption: The imposing Diaspora Museum building

My topic today is my visit to the Disaspora Museum. It doesn’t take much insight to recognize that below the surface of everything in Israel is a very deep river or lake of emotional angst. Tel Aviv does a good job of hiding it, ignoring it or just plain covering it up. Jerusalem is obviously less successful. One can go on a simple search for a stalk of celery and just an inadvertent glance at a bookshelf and suddenly you are transported down into that river. Whether it’s the Holocaust, the progroms, or even Moses at the Red Sea, there is always lurking the story of why this place is called Israel and not Ali Babaland. That “story” is what the Diaspora Museum is about.

The building is a huge block structure in the middle of Tel Aviv University so to get to it, you have to pass through thousands of beautiful, young students all hanging out on the lawn talking about matters of consequence. (actually I’m guessing at that part) A sign in the lobby says something like, “This exhibit takes 4 or 5 hours if you don’t have the time to do that, come back another time when you can.” And since I only had about an hour to spend, I left and actually came back the next day.

There are several paths to take on this journey. For right brained people (or is it left) you can go down the chronology wing, which is what I did. It starts with an excellent video and then rooms and rooms starting with the destruction of the temples (500BC? and 70AD) through the Babylonian exile, Spanish Inquisition, Russia, Germany and back to Israel. Or if you are a left brained person (or is it right) you can follow the religious path which follows the Torah as it is schlepped all over the world, more on a geographic odyssey rather than by time. Finally, there is a cultural path which goes by subject, family, community, art, philosophy and music. The music room was great; there was a long video of Itzhak Perlman and a group of Klezmer musicians jamming for about an hour. It was mesmerizing.

The highlight for me was the journey from Vilna, Lithuania to the streets of New York around the turn of the century. That was the trip my mother’s dad took. I know this is corny, I know the story has been told ad nauseam, and I’ve already done the Elis Island trip, but this was different. Why? Because I was in Israel. There I said it and I’m sure that is one of the reasons the Museum was set up in the way it was, so that I could feel that exact emotion. The entire tour came down to this one epiphany which was watching my grandfather Abe, who lived with us for 10 years and almost never spoke a word climbing on a boat in Eastern Europe and dragging his sorry butt to America. (Actually, not specifically my Grandpa Abe but someone’s Grandpa Abe) Because of the 4 hour prelude, I was prepared to feel his fear of the Cossacks, his bundling up of his possessions, his saying goodbyes, seasickness on the ocean and landing in New York with nothing and finally making his way to of all places Aurora, Illinois. What was he thinking? This was not a brilliant man or a man with incredible drive, he was just a poor Jew running away from danger. He came to America, opened a small furniture store, married a dynamo of a woman, had 4 daughters and from then on the cycle took its natural course. As I walked out of the Museum I had shed some tears for Grandpa Abe and really kicked myself for never having sat down with him and asked him to tell the story in his own words. He never spoke of his youth and not only did I never ask him, but I never even had curiosity about it until today. Honestly, how could I have missed that chance.

I’m not sure what this Diaspora journey has to do with Israel. I’m sure the story is a good one and worth telling whether or not it has a Zionist ending. Personally, I think I would have preferred that Jews ended up spread out all over the world as a small but enlightened minority. The point being that as a Jew I don’t need Israel to give the story a happy ending. The enduring lesson, if there is one, is that it is possible to start with nothing and end up with something. But that lesson can easily apply to almost any dot-com entrepreneur, as well as its associated lesson of going from something to nothing. There’s another level to the “lesson” and that is that not only is there a Jewish way to go through this process, but that Jews have done this over and over again for the last 3000 years. So depending on your philosophy on life, Jews are either doing something really, really right or something really, really wrong. I think to some people (probably not me at this point) the ultimate fate of Israel will determine what side of those competing philosophies you agree with. For myself as a good Jewish Dad, I think I taught my kids whatever the Jewish “secret” was as best as I understood it and as it was handed down to me. It’s too early in my trip for me to know what Israel has to do with that process, I’m sure it can play a role, but it doesn’t have to. I’m sure I’ll know more about how I feel after a few months in Jerusalem, but at the moment of leaving the Museum, I was both happy and proud to be Jewish, but didn’t need Israel one way or the other to validate that feeling. Still, it was an awesome feeling to come out of the darkened museum into the bright sun light of a Jewish center of higher learning and even the McDonald’s sign in Hebrew and the smell of kosher French fries made me feel proud.

Day 10: In Search of the Perfect Celery

Picture Caption: These two young soldiers were guarding the market place along with another 10-15 female soldiers. As soon as I took the picture they noticed me and I went over and told them I had a son their age in California and his boyfriends would probably consider this picture pretty cool. They started laughing and giggling (really) and then another soldier came over and asked if I wanted my picture taken with them. I was really embarrassed at this point and agreed. I have not included that picture because at the time it seemed pretty cute, but as I kept thinking about it, having my picture taken with soldiers and all of us laughing, is not really something I want to encourage. Later on when I went to Jerusalem the next day, I realized that the “real” army made up of older and meaner looking men had been deployed to protect President Bush. I’m starting to think these cute teenage solider girls are being dropped off at various tourist spots because they know that old Jews like me think this is really cute and will send the pictures back to the States. Is that too cynical?

One of the advantages of being a (semi) retired person is that you can take an entire day off just to pursue a stupid goal. This morning I woke up and realized that I had not seen any celery in the grocery store or at least nothing that looked like American celery. This is exactly what my home made salad was missing, so I decided to go on a mission to find the perfect celery stalk. The guide book suggested the Carmel Market. (see attached photo)

For those of you who have seen a Middle Eastern market before, this place would probably not surprise you, but it overwhelmed me. The main aisle was probably a mile long and about two feet wide. The unofficial theme seemed to be food, but there were sprinklings of clothes. The smells were clearly Middle Eastern and Hebrew was spoken exclusively. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but it felt Jewish. More like an old-time Lower East side of New York rather than a food market in Mexico City. Maybe it was the lack of meat and pork, the look of many European Jews or just the sound of Hebrew, I’m not sure. There was a decent mix of real shoppers and tourists and the vendors were so busy filling real orders that they didn’t seem to have time to hassle the tourists. That was a relief.

For those of you who know my eating habits, I can’t tell the difference between a fresh ripened peach with the stem still in place and a can of Del Monte peaches backed in syrup, so on that level I’m sorry to say the significance of the market was lost on me. On the other hand as a social experience I did get it all. The spices and nuts were especially noteworthy. I’m not sure Israel grows all those different varieties, I don’t thinkit does, but they must be grown within the surrounding area. Unfortunately, nothing is in English so as much as I wanted to buy some spices, I was apprehensive, although I think I should be able to follow my nose to a few of them. I’ll have to study how they are sold, because I could easily end up with 2 pounds of saffron which could last me several lifetimes; like I would know what to put saffron in or on or with! Have I mentioned “olives” before, goodness, how many kinds of olives can there possibly be and how high can you stack them before they collapse all over the market floor. And finally, literally miles of fruit and vegetables. It must be cherry season because they were everywhere. And finally, CELERY, not quite American but very close and what I think is iceberg lettuce, again not quite American, but close enough for my uncultured tastes. I’m sure most of you know this, but when you buy vegetables at a market like this, there is no such thing as “Hearts of Celery” where a clerk from Safeway has carefully cut away all the esthetically unpleasing parts of the celery. It looks as though no human hands have touch the celery from the moment it was pulled from the ground (or however celery grows) to the minute it ended up in my bag. BTW: what are you supposed to do with all those “extra’ parts of vegetables which the farmers tend to leave on the plant and the grocery stores tend to take off? When I got home, I cut them off and threw them away, is that bad, don’t tell me that is where all the vitamins are, damn. Finally, the last bit of information was that everything was really cheap, or at least much cheaper than a grocery store. The best that I could figure maybe 1/3 the price.

Moving on, I found a really cute little bookstore café, which I suspected was a bit of a lesbian hang out. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with old and new books, most in Hebrew, many in English, some in every other language. There were a lot of plants not only in a garden, but hanging from the ceiling and couples of women staring meaningfully into each other’s eyes and obviously processing something very deeply. Oh and cats running around or sleeping sprawled out in the sun. I’m from Berkeley, I figured this out pretty quickly. Still, I got waited on, which doesn’t always happen at women owned restaurants in Berkeley and I order the only Hebrew drink word I know, “Limonade.” What one gets when they say that, is a really, really sour lemonade, with real specks of pulp. I’m too embarrassed to put sugar in it, that would be a dead giveaway that I’m an American, and secretly I really wish it has more (or any) caffeine. But I joke, its really tasty as is, (actually I wasn’t joking about the caffeine.) But it was the books (not the lesbians) that were made the scene. I could have spent my entire life just sitting there and reading every single one of them. After about two hours and 3 Limonades I got up to leave and about 4 of the couples were still at it meaningfully processing their relationships. What guy could ever compete with that?

One last observation as I hopped on the bus to return to my apartment to make my incredible home-made salad. The bus was fairly crowded and there were four teenagers sitting in 4 seats which faced each other, 2 girls and 2 boys. They were clearly Arab (and Israeli) although I’m not sure exactly what that would mean. They were talking Hebrew and acting as very typical teenagers, flirting, the boys punching each other, the girls laughing and blushing, and playing what I’m almost sure was Arab music on a small radio. They weren’t threatening in any way, but they were obviously four 16 year olds with a lot of energy on a bus with a lot of 30 something and older Jews. My sense is that people were freaked out. Kind of like people are on a bus in San Francisco if 4 black teenagers sudden came on board and started playing rap music. I’m not sure what was more interesting, the fact that the Arab-Israeli kids appeared so culturally out of place on the bus or the fact that I saw this as an American white vs Afro-American situation. You can just imagine what this situation would be like if the kids had a huge backpack or gave any hint of being a threat. There were a couple of soldiers on the bus and they gave the appearance of being vigilant, but I’m not sure they cared or were inclined to do anything. Are those Uzi's really load, why can't they just carry a pistol, it seems so unnecessary unless it's for show.

I have no great insight here, just acknowledging that when you have a very homogeneous society as Tel Aviv is in certain places, differences in people are really perceived as troublesome. I remember riding on the subway in Mexico with Eli and his friend Jager (who is 6’2”) and as we looked around a very crowded car I said, “Does it appear that we are the tallest people on this train?” It was true and not only were we the tallest, we were the only whites and there were no Asians or African-Americans. That would be unheard of in California. It made me realize how diverse California really is and even though I’m a pretty cynical person, I did think about whether America, or at least California is probably pretty good at accommodating and integrating lots of very different kinds of people into the system without being torn apart. After all isn’t that one of the things that America has kind of figured out that many other places in the world have not. Ok, enough philosophy, the salad was great, just like I made in America only fresher, tastier and cheaper.

Day 7: Housecleaning

Images from Tel Aviv University: I tried the MacDonald’s chicken sandwich, but need to be a little more desperate before I have a hamburger. One can only hope that God is not a cow, because I don’t think it will make much difference to him/her that the killing was done in a kosher way.

I’m planning a trip to the Diaspora Museum today so before I bring everyone down with that report, I thought it might be time to discuss some housekeeping issues.

Bank/post office: You know that dread everyone in the States has when they have to go in front of a customer service person and get something done, like at DMV, parking permits and the like. Well in Israel when you walk into the post office all the clerks look like my Uncle Lou and in the bank all the tellers look like my Aunt Dorothy. Initially, that’s a great comfort to me. So far, I don’t have enough experience to say whether I can get more or less out of these people, but it never feels like an adversary relationship. I’m sure there’s some racism in my attitude but since my aunts and uncles always liked me, I tend to project that feeling back to whomever is waiting on me. Maybe there is such a great difference between my fairly patient (Berkeley) attitude and the bullying that the other customers exhibit that the clerks tend to reward my attitude. It’s great always talking to a landsman.

Laundry: When I packed for the trip I made a big decision; if I assumed I would do laundry once a week, then I could get by with one suitcase. Seemed like a great idea at the time. Well today was laundry day, damn that week went quickly. So the decision had to be made to either wash clothes or buy more underwear; at least for this week laundry won out, but I can see this decision is going to get revisited on a weekly basis. I have a washer, but no dryer so like a good hausfrau I hung everything up on a clothes line with clothes pins to dry. Well not everything, I needed a shirt so I put on one that was a little damp and by the time I walked to the bus stop it had dried in the heat of the day. Pretty clever, I wonder if everyone does that.

Food: There are three foods I really don’t like to eat: tomatoes, mushrooms and olives. Guess what every sandwich and salad automatically comes with. My Hebrew is certainly not good enough to ask that they be withheld and it’s too much work to pick them off. So I’m still in the falafel/rice/pita bread stage when I eat on the street. Of course to my friends who love those items (which includes almost everyone I’ve ever gone out to eat with) this place is a culinary heaven.

Soccer: I fear I’ll learn Hebrew before I learn to love soccer. It’s on TV all the time starting with the Saudi Arabia matches and going all the way across Europe to England throughout the day and then over to South America. I watched an important game with Chelsea who was up 1-0 and in the 92nd minute (that’s 2 minutes into injury time for those who don’t know that a game is 90 minutes long) I had to pee and left the room for 10 damn seconds and of course there was a tying goal. Suddenly the game was over with the score 1-1. Some fans were screaming and some were crying, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was who. But can you imagine walking away after a game that ends 1-1 in the last 20 seconds. It’s about the most un-American sports experience that I can imagine.

Library: Finally I made a stop at the public library, which as expected was a joy. My daughter reminded me of the book Portnoy’s Complaint written by Philip Roth in 1969. That was a golden age for Jewish writers, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Bob Dylan, Alan Ginzburg, Barbra Streisand (well maybe she doesn’t write her own songs, but you get the idea) so I re-read the last chapter and it was as painful now as it was when I read it in 1969. Roth comes to Israel and what’s his first observation, “everyone is Jewish” from the pilot to the taxi driver. (Was my earlier blog that trite?) And the next observation was that the female soldiers were all so beautiful and fit. (Damn, was my earlier blog that transparent?) Anyway for those who don’t know the story, Roth meets and instantly falls in love with a Sabra (native born Israeli) who berates him for being a self-deprecating, jew-hating American Jew and demands that he “go back home.” (I haven’t written that in a blog yet, so Roth might be getting a bit ahead of me on that point.) I suppose I should be honored that I am channeling Philip Roth, but I would have hoped I had learned something in the last 38 years. Come to think of it, that cute Sabra is about 65 years old today, I wonder if she’s still breaking young Jewish boys’ hearts.

Day 6: Pridefulness

Image of the Day: I saw this picture of two women bathing at the beach at a Tel Aviv University art exhibit. Standing next to me were two female Arab students dressed in traditional garb pointing and laughing at the picture. I wish I could have also gotten them in the camera range, but I think I scared them off. If you can't figure it out, the woman on the left is Moslem and dumping the shower water all over her clothes, the woman on the right is self-explanatory. Those Israeli girls have no shame. :-)

Let me start out with my recurring apology and once again let everyone know that I am aware that Tel Aviv lives in a bubble. There seems to be no recognition of anything beyond this town and if it wasn’t for the BBC and Fox News, I don’t think I would have known that Lebanon has just had a coup. I might add that I am no stranger to “bubble towns” since San Francisco and Berkeley both qualify. I’ll deal with this topic latter when I venture outside of the bubble, but just so you realize, I do know that on the other side of the “wall” there is human misery.

Today, I took a very prideful trip and although I am usually a critical person I can’t think of anything negative to say. First I visited the huge Weizman Medical Complex which has about 5 enormous hospital buildings and is not only state of the art, but at the cutting edge of the art. The place was a bee hive of patients, doctors, nurses, technicians and huge (did I already say that.) Of course everywhere you look there is a sign that says “Zal and Ethel Goodman Memorial Patio”, there was even sign on the outside of one of the restrooms. Personally, I think the government should fund all of this stuff, but if that isn’t going to happen and it doesn’t really seem like its ever going to happen, the idea that thousands of Jews all over the world have taken their wealth (both earned and unearned, honest and dishonest) and decided to fund a hospital with it, seems impressive.

Next it was up to Tel Aviv University and once again a very prideful experience. The place felt a lot like Westwood and UCLA (without Asians and black athletes, if that’s possible to imagine); built away from the city, a bubble inside another bubble. Again, name after name of contributors and a bookstore and library to die for. I went into the library, just walked randomly into the shelves, grabbed the first book I saw, and sat down on the big soft chairs to read for an hour. It was an analysis of why the Allies refused to bomb the railroad tracks leading to the concentration camps. It was fascinating and I was so impressed that within seconds of entering the building I could become engrossed in a subject which I knew little about, but wanted to learn so much more.

And of course there were all the other perks that go with any big university, young beautiful people sitting outside talking matters of consequence and flirting their heads off. My advice to my kids and young people everywhere: STAY IN SCHOOL! Stay as long as you can, because it never gets any better than this. I am reminded of a professor I had (deGrazia) who wrote a book Time, Work and Leisure whose thesis was that we bring our kids up as socialists, (each according to his needs from each according to his ability) or basically parents give their kids everything they have and then as soon as they get to be 18, we suddenly expect them to be capitalists, dog eat dog, hording the surplus, etc. I’ve often said to Eli as we sat for the "all you can eat buffet" at the student dorms, “this has nothing to do with how the world runs, don’t get used to it.” Even my mother in the nursing home (another socialist based institution) used to steal bread rolls at dinner and she would have bags of them in her room. I would say, “Mom there is no shortage of rolls, that’s why we pay $4500/month.” But she never got it and I’m sure nobody else in that nursing home ever got it either, which is probably the real reason we paid $4500/month.

I tried to by a t-shirt that said UTA, but they had nothing like that anywhere on campus and when I asked, they couldn’t understand why someone would want a t-shirt that said that. (Is it idol worship?) Curious. I also picked up a glossy magazine with a gorgeous Israeli man on the cover which I was going to try and scan for my female readers who complain that I am obsessed with Israeli cleavages. So I sat on a crowded bus reading the magazine (which was all in Hebrew) and something didn’t seem right. I don’t think my “gay-dar” is quite calibrated yet but there sure seemed like a lot of cute men getting massages from other cute men. The person sitting next to me, gave me a funny look as did one of the people standing in the aisle. Then I turned the page and there was a full page ad for male thongs, with a single strap going up the butt crack and a tiny, tiny pouch in the front. I think it dawned on me at that point what was going on, but when I turned the page again it was nothing but personal ads all in Hebrew. I guess I now have one more reason to learn the language.

A quick word about Hebrew. I think I want to revisit my earlier trashing of the language. I think it’s obvious that Jews want or need to dramatically distinguish themselves from other people and historically this has meant circumcision. I believe that Hebrew serves that function in Israel, kind of a circumcision of the mind, to mix a metaphor. This is one tough language that everyone who comes to live in Israel learns to speak and which nobody else in the world would ever speak except Jews. Then to look at the books in the bookstore is really staggering. It almost seems that every single book of any importance has been translated into Hebrew and the prices seem incredibly low. Rather than being a really dumb idea, Hebrew is actually part of the miracle of Israel. In less than 100 years, 7 million people (6,999,999 if you count me) learned a foreign language from scratch, filled whole libraries with books in that language and expect everyone who steps on Israel soil for the first time to speak it. Hebrew (Ulpan) lessons are generally free for everyone who decides to stay. But the interesting part is that everyone will effortless speak English if you ask them to, but it is almost a matter of national pride that they prefer Hebrew. In the spirit of the moment, I do go around saying “schlicha” (excuse me) a lot, since I’m always either bumping into people, getting in the wrong line, suddenly wanted to get off the bus and always miscounting my shekels.