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.
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