The Eretz Israel Museum

Recently I took a tour of the Eretz Israel Museum which has a spectacular location on the hill overlooking Tel Aviv. To start off with, nobody does nation building like the Israelis. You can take the Kurds, the Checians, the Tamalians, the Armenians, whatever nationalistic group you support, but the Israelis really have their shit together on this one. If someone finds a butt hair from King David, the Israelis will first bulldoze all the houses within a 100 yards of the site, then the Biblical legend of the “hair” will be discovered, then a monument with a plaque (donated by an American Jew) will be built, and then a national holiday will be established, celebrated and culminating in a food festival. The Eretz Museum epitomizes this obsession for a national identity.

Generally an anthropology museum of this kind would not be that interesting, but I was mesmerized, the layout was so logical, so easy to follow, I spent 3 hours wandering through that expansive grounds. Here goes:

The Israeli archaeologists are considered some of the best in the world and everytime anything of ancient origin is found it is cataloged, here is a vase that has been painstakingly put together, its part of an exhibit with hundreds of such ceramic pieces, what kind of people spend their whole lives putting together the pieces of vases that were broken 3ooo years ago, jigsaw puzzle enthusiasts, Israel calls you!

First, a really cute café, as always filled with young IDF soldiers who get to do all this museum stuff for free, I had toast, three kinds of cheese, 3 kinds of jelly and a view of the city. Numimatic Pavillion: there was one of every ancient coin ever minted that had been found in Israel, displayed by time period each with a full description of the who/what/why of each stupid coin. There was a whole mini-room just for the coins of the period of Persian King Cyrus who freed the Jews in 500 BCE and about 30 different coins of the period. Man and His Work Center: there was an old reconstructed market setting with a completely equipped scene (circa BCE) of a shop for metal work, weaving, glass blowing, leather work, and about 10 other crafts. Copper Pavillion, fascinating history of the cooper production from Southern Israel, especially the techniques of mining cooper before modern devices. Postal Museum: In May, 1948 the British left Israel and they took with them the postal service; within 2 days, new Israeli stamps were issued and a fully functioning postal system was operational. Rothschild Center: an incredibly detailed history of the Rothschild’s involvement with Israel which started out as a wine growing venture and then just kept going for several generations. It isn’t often that one family, actually one person, can provide the money to fund the creation of an entire country. The genius of this contribution is not that the money was given to develop and then exploit the country as might have been the case with King Leopold in the Congo, this is money given by Baron Rothchild because he believe there should be a Jewish homeland, although it should be said he did not initially believe this and came to the conclusion later in his life.

Here is an example from the Postal Museum of the kinds of letters sent to whomever will read them.

Finally, there was a huge archaeological dig called Tel Qasile which is supposed to be one of the first such projects in Israel and is dated at around 12^th century BCE (in Israel that is known as Before the Common Era, they don’t say Before Christ, dah)

I'm standing of a pile of rubble from 3500 years ago, photographing the Tel Aviv modern landscape, really far out imagery when you think of it.

It’s hard to know what goes on in the mind of an archeologist. To the casual tourist you look down on a pile of rubble which is undistinguished from any other pile of rubble that you would see along the side of the road; then you see a plaque which says “3500 years ago this was a thriving metropolis which had a city square, homes, sophisticated water system, temple and many more things.” Damn, it sure looks like rubble to me. But the point of this analysis is that someone has decided that it is more important to fence off about one square mile of absolutely prime real estate property for a pile of 3500 year old rubble rather than turn it into high income producing property. You have to admire that, it’s an integral part of the Israeli experience.

There are many, many people who honestly give a shit about this stuff. What is so interesting and tragic from a political perspective is that the Israelis would level a Palestinian town in a heartbeat, wiping out any trace of Palestinian presence or history and yet if they found a coin from the Old Temple, they would go nuts and preserve that site forever. It’s a subtle, actually not so subtle form, of racism which goes to the heart of Israeli nation building.

Here is a really cool telecom tower, that top is a metal palm tree branch and from a distance this almost looks like a palm tree.

IN THE NEWS: I’ve started reading the headlines in the English version of the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz and will add a brief commentary in my blog when there is something of interest.

Gilad Shalit is a household name in Israel, he is the IDF soldier who was kidnapped in Gaza and seems to be driving so much of the Gaza policy. (There’s a similar situation on the Lebanese border but in that case the two soldiers, Goldwasser and Regev, are thought to be dead and yet there is intense demand for the return of their bodies.) To me this is more like William 'Old Shoe" Schumann from Wag the Dog. Olmert, the Israeli prime minister met with Mubarak the Egyptian prime minister today in the Sinai and what did they discuss, Egypt’s efforts to get free Shalit. That’s it! The current math is 450 Hamas prisoners for one Israeli soldier, but the talks broke down because 30 of the Hamasians are really heavy duty killers. Generally when I have an argument with an Israeli over policy, it always comes down to, “but you didn’t have someone who died in an Israeli war.” Part of the engine that drives policy here is the fact that in a small country everyone knows someone who has died in a war, unlike in Berkeley, where nobody knows anyone who is even in the Army, let along killed. In some ways this makes a mother like Cindy Sheehan so much more heroic, because she took the experience of the loss and chose to ask for the end of the war. I’m sure there are Sheehan mothers in Israel and if I see such an article I’ll mention it, but until then this image of one soldier justifying so much time and effort in favor of war is disturbing to me.

The Israeli government will give almost $1 million to any Israeli (there are 38) athlete who gets a gold medal at the Olympics. Only one Israeli has ever gotten a gold medal at the Olympics and that was in Sailing in 2004.

Scraps 1

Beach: The beach in Tel Aviv is of course a big deal; I guess it’s a big deal everywhere except maybe Gaza. Someone joked to me about how much the Israelis could do with Gaza’s beachfront property. There is nothing that bugs real estate people more than underutilized property. It’s amazing how brown all the young people are; half from genetics and have from sunbathing. You would think that was a skin cancer concern, but it doesn’t seem to deter people. The first thing that strikes you is the lack of litter, I’ve seem beaches with tens of thousands of people and almost no litter. Another observation is cigarette smoking sunbathers. A beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini rushes into the ocean, comes out refreshed, sprawls out on her blanket in the blazing sun and lights up a cigarette. Incredible. Still, always lurking in my mind is that these beaches are only for Jews, within miles of the sea are millions of people who can smell the sea (well probably not) and yet swelter without access.

Sunset on the beach, an hour earlier there were thousands of people sunbathing and notice that now the beach is absolutely clean, I think that shows a high level of social responsibility.

Teenagers using showers to wash off the sand, if there are water shortages here (it hasn't rains since I've arrived), these kids didn’t seem to be affected.

Weddings: Here is an area where the religious meets and defeats the secular; it is yet another area that is incomprehensible to me. For reasons which people I’ve talked to don’t know, or if they did know, they no longer remember, Lag Bahomer is a time when there can be no marriages under Jewish biblical law. Recently that waiting period has ended and I see women in wedding dresses everywhere, just walking down the street. Along the Old Port section which at midnight turns into a dance frenzy, there are $40,000 weddings with lavish receptions. The cost of the wedding is supposedly financed by the gifts given by the guests. I was told every guest is expected to give a present equal to or larger than their share of the food/entertainment they received at the reception. This ability to quantify everything, feels Jewish to me. But the really interesting part is that if you don’ want to get married in a Jewish ceremony, ie both parties aren’t Jewish, or aren’t religious, the only alternative is to leave the country! Fortunately, a whole industry has developed on Cyprus to address exactly this problem. Thus, when the Rabbis make unconventional marriage extremely difficult (and don’t even think about same-sex marriage), there are numerous and expensive ways around the prohibition, as long as they don’t happen on Israeli soil.

A bridal party at the Bahia Gardens, I assume these are Bahians and wonder if non-Jews come under Rabbinical Law, this is so complicated I don’t know how people keep up.

Film Festival: I went to what was call the largest international student film festival in the world with 50 countries and over 200 films and thousands of participants. I bought all day tickets and just sat and watch student films from noon to late at night; it was glorious. Conspicuous by their absence were Iranian and Palestinian movies both of which have an excellent reputation; I don’t know if they refused to participate or were barred by the Israeli government. The themes were much less political and much more about human and young people angst and all the screenings ended with lively discussions. These kinds of events raise a really interesting question, can a country which supposedly is on a permanent war footing and pursuing extremely controversial policies against Palestinians still have freedom of expression. You would think the answer is no, and cite to some place like China/Tibet, but Israel seems to feel comfortable with freedom of expression and doing terrible things at the same time. One would have to believe at some point these two activities would clash and only one of them survive.

Tables and tables of current and classic DVD’s with Hebrew packaging and subtitles on sale at the festival. .

Book Faire: I stumbled across the most incredible book faire the other day. Rabin Square which is in the center of town and about a quarter of a mile square was for 10 days turned into a colossal book faire. There must have been at least 100 booths and thousands of people going late into the night. There were no or very few English books, but every imaginable book in Hebrew. Most of the titles I couldn’t recognize, but I certainly saw all the popular sci fi, mystery, non-fiction and best sellers from the United States. Who translates all this stuff? I saw books that had just come out in the states which already had a Hebrew edition. Hebrew might be easy to learn to speak, but it is a bear to read and write, yet there must be rooms full of translators who are cranking out English to Hebrew books by the thousands. Equally impressive was that people were definitely buying books in large quantities, unlike at the Barnes and Nobles where I worked where there are many more lookers than buyers.

A night-time view of the Book Faire packed with lookers and buyers.

Along these lines it is interesting to see that on many public TV broadcasts there is a small box in the corner of the screen where a person is doing sign language for deaf listeners of the program. So what you have is a very boring political speech which people who can hear don’t even listen to and then you have a person who converts Hebrew, a fast-spoken language that relies heavily on intonation and hand gestures, into sign language. Does that mean that every major language in the world has an equivalent sign language for the deaf? Incredible!!

Haifa and Acre (Akko)

I had heard a lot about the charm of Haifa, its diversity, its beauty and in fact my initial plan was to live there and get myself acclimated to Israel. One day I spontaneously decided to take the train up the coast and check it out. Unfortunately, I have lost my Lonely Planet book and was using the Fodors to guide me. The one hour trip was uneventful and as I had observed previously, there are a lot of open spaces in Israel. This continues to bug me, because I’ve been convinced that Israel is packed tight with people and the only way to expand is into the occupied territories, but honestly I just don’t get that feeling riding through the empty distances between the major towns.

Initially, all my reactions to Haifa were generally negative, I feel badly about that and am determined to do another trip with a more positive result. First of all, if I complained about the lack of signs, maps and English directions in Tel Aviv, the situation is infinitely worse in Haifa. I literally walked back and forth in front of what is called the “only subway in Israel” ten times and finally asked a security officer, “where’s the subway” and he pointed 5 feet in front of me where there was an unadorned door which served as the subway entrance. I took the 5-stop ride to the top of the hill which must have been at a 45 degree angle and when I emerged there was a truly spectacular view of the city. I wandered around desperately looking for the bus to Haifa University and when nothing appears for about a half an hour I jumped on the first bus I saw and it promptly went straight back down the hill and deposited me at exactly the point where I had started.

The Haifa City Hall a huge modern building which dwarfs an old Muslim mosque.

Eventually, I wandered around and stumbled across the Bahia Gardens which dominates the city. As you can see from the pictures, the grounds were beautiful and serene; if one can judge a religion by its gardens, the Bahia’s have done a nice job of depicting their philosophy, as opposed to the craziness that characterizes the Old City in Jerusalem.

A view of the Bahia gardens from below and a couple of Bahians doing garden work.

The gardens appeared to be deserted, but the guard at the gate said, there was a 3 day waiting list to get on a free tour, I felt kind of foolish because the place was really empty and he made it seem like they just couldn’t fit one more person in the place before it would become a mad house. Again I thought of the Wailing Wall and its surrounding chaos, but who am I to pick a fight with a Bahian, I’m not sure they even fight, I think that’s the point of the religion.

A panoramic view of Haifa from the top of Mt. Carmel with the Bahia gardens in the foreground and the harbor and in the distance Acre.

Anyway to make the story of a long trip shorter, I waited and waited for a bus, walked the hills up and down searching for a bathroom which I fortunately found in an expensive hotel where I ate a great American-style hamburger. I eventually returned discouraged to the train station which was packed with IDF soldiers all heading North towards the Lebanese border. That always gives me pause, do these kids know something I don’t know about the start of WWIII? But, not to worry, it was just the normal weekend furlough to home. Instead of returning to Tel Avi, however, I decided to continue going north to Akko which turned out to be a smart decision.

One of the disturbing Israeli characteristics is to take the original name of a place, in this case, the famous city of Acre, and rename it Akko. This is a classic strategy of “invading” peoples designed to wipe out the preceding culture and the hebrewization of names is found everywhere in Israel. For the historian, Acre is a gold mine, Alexander the Great built a mint there, the Roman governor Pontius Pilot got his start in Acre, the Crusaders occupied it as the tour book says, “only temporarily for several centuries” and finally Napoleon suffered a major defeat at its shores. I'M SO EMBARRASSED I JUST LEARNED THAT AKKO WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME AND THE CRUSADERS CHANGED TO ACRE AND THEN IT WAS CHANGED BACK. I still think the Israelis do employ this "classic strategy of invading peoples", but not with Akko.

I think this is the most interesting picture I've taken so far, the walls were built in 1180 by the Crusaders, the basketball courts are Israeli circa 1990's.

Unfortunately, my Fodors didn’t have a map from the train station to the Old City but I decided if I pretended I was an invader attacking from the sea, I could just follow the coast line and run into the fortress. This plan didn’t seem to work very well as I got lost once again in a modern, but small Israeli shopping center. I wandered for about an hour with my MP3 player cranked up listening to the Simon and Garfunkel Central Park album and just as I was about ready to give up and I swear at exactly the moment Simon sang the worlds, “and walked off to look for America…” I turned the corner and ran right into the wall of the Crusaders’ battlements.

The Crusaders' Fortress occupied by both Saladin and King Richard the Lion Heart.

From then on the trip was a breathtaking journey through a truly historical site. I don’t say this often, but the place was dripping with history. I took a wrong turn and found myself hopelessly lost in the warrens of clearly an all Arab (Israeli) neighborhood. The alleys were about 4 feet wide and I kept trying to go left/left/left/left which should have exactly retraced me steps back to my starting place, but of course it only got me deeper into the tenements. The signs, the smells, the music all become Arab, it was getting dark, I was getting very hungry and even though I wasn’t scared I was apprehensive. All along the way signs identified the names of a British officer killed fighting the French in 1820, or a Church that some Crusader Commander had slept at in 1200. Suddenly an Arab boy appeared, gave me a cold look and started walking away. On the back of his jersey was the name “Ronaldo” (the star soccer player for Manchester United), I was so relieved. I thought of the book “How Soccer Unites the World” and tried to search my mind for every bit of Ronaldo trivia I could think of in case I was challenged.

Roman-styled arena located in the middle of an Arab-Israeli neighborhood.

Shortly I emerged into a huge Roman styled arena and on the other side was a wonderful Arab market where I found a sweets shop, ate a dinner made up exclusively of different kinds of baklava. I felt so sick, but every time I said I was full the owner gave me another piece of baklava to try, it would have been impolite to refuse. I finally got away, found the train station and headed by to Tel Aviv, totally exhausted.

I saw this photographer and his model wandering farther and farther out to sea to capture the wind in her face and the surf on her gown, it was a weird image.

One Month Anniversary

It’s been exactly one month since I came to Israel and I need to shift gears from tourist to resident. I think that means it’s a good time to put my blog on something other than a daily basis and as you probably have noticed my insights, if any, have started to wind down. The following are a couple of thoughts I need to think about and develop more fully over time.

All Jews…All the Time: I asked a person who had been in Israel for many years if he had any non-Jewish friends and he was actually bewildered by the question. Not only is the answer “no”, but he acted like it was a non-issue. His response, if he had had one, might have been something like this: there are Asian Jews, Spanish Jews, Persian Jews, even African-American Jews, since Jews come in all nationalities why would one ever have to go outside of the Jewish race to meet different peoples. That's a fairly harsh response to accept for a Californian like myself who has many diverse friends.

Tel Avivians vs Zealots: I like Tel Aviv and the people who live here, I’m not sure I feel that comfortable with the beliefs of the Ultra-Religious groups. But in Israel it doesn’t seem like you get to pick and chose who you defend, because an attack on any one group is perceived as an attack on the right of Israel to exist. So the Tel Avivians have kind of hooked their wagon to the fate of the Settlers' star. Put another way, I think a Tel Avivian might have more in common with an educated, upper-middle class Palestinian than they have with a religious, ultra-conservative fanatic, but, of course, it's not possible for moderate Jews and Palestinians to hang out together in Tel Aviv.

A False Premise Results in a Comfortable Society: I am inclined to believe that the underlying premise of Israel generally and Zionism specifically may be false. I don’t believe Jews are the Chosen People, I certainly don’t believe they are better than other peoples, and I’m not even sure there is such a thing as a “Jew.” I mean, how can a small town Midwestern boy like me be more Jewish than my Puerto Rican ex-wife who grew up in the Bronx, went to a Jewish-styled high school and looks more Israeli than I ever will. Despite this underlying false premise however, I feel really comfortable in Tel Aviv. I like the Jewish way people look, the Jewish way people think and the Jewish way people live here. But I also liked the way people looked, thought and lived in Berkeley and that was not an especially Jewish town.

Missing My Dad: Finally, I realized for one of the first times in many years that I missed my Dad who died in 1971 and would have had an absolute ball in Israel. When you've done fathering as I have for 35+ years, there isn't much need or time to reflect on one's own father. But as I walk around the streets of Tel Aviv, I often fiind myself engaged in a mental dialog with my Dad about so many things that he would have enjoyed seeing and talking about. I suppose that is one of the special qualities of this place that it spans generations and taps historical connections that Americans, especially those like me who have moved around a lot don't really get to develop and despite what I've said above, that's a good thing.

Ok, enough amateur sociology and psychology for now. Below are a few pictures I couldn’t fit into the previous blogs, but I thought were pretty interesting.

This toilet has two buttons on the top, a little one for flushing a little and a big one for flushing a lot, you can draw your own conclusions as to its purpose.

This peddler drives by my window every couple of days and picks up old junk from people. He yells out something in Hebrew, I think its "Junk Man."

Neat cafe with hundreds of old hard cover books from ceiling to floor on all the walls.

Anti-war poster on a wall

24 Hours in the Tel Aviv Bubble

I had a busy 24 hours in what I now like to call Tel Aviv: The Disneyland for Jews. Thought you might like to go through a day with me.

8:00 pm: Turned on the TV and they were playing The Al Jolson Story. For those who don’t know him, Jolson was an incredibly popular Jewish singer of the 20’s and 30’s, (He made the first taking movie The Jazz Singer.) I’m sure my mother listened to him while I was in utero, it was probably the first 78 record I ever had and I have all his songs on my MP3 player. I haven’t seen this movie in years and it brought tears to my eyes.

9:00 pm: Got a call from my NBF (new best friend) that she was having friends over for coffee and invited me. I put on my headphones, cranked up my Al Jolson songs and ran out the door singing and whistling all my favorites. When I got to the apartment I eagerly tell my experience of the movie and of course everyone had heard of Jolson and we all shared our memories. I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened in Aurora, Illinois or even Berkeley, CA, so that was a nice Israel experience, an instantly shared memory.

10:00 pm: Got into my first real Israeli/Palestinian discussion which then turned into an argument with an American born, now Israeli attorney. He was from Morton Grove, IL and kept saying, “in YOUR America.” He didn’t want to make a defense of settlers and my sense is that the Tel Avivians and the settlers live in different world. But the symbolism of a Tel Aviv café/bus being blown up by a suicide bomber was a recurring theme. The real argument centered on the fate of Jerusalem and even though he said, “Jerusalem was a nice city to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” it was the kind of place/symbol whose control by the Israelis was not negotiable.

12:00 am: Returned home, just in time to watch Blood Diamonds on TV, movies on Israeli cable are wall to wall American Blockbusters and Classics.

8:00 am: I spend my first hours in the morning checking email (while I’m sleeping, America is emailing) as well as getting up to speed on the campaign news, South Dakota was still counting votes. Thank god for the BBC and Sky News otherwise I would have to listen to Fox all day.

9:00 am: Write my blog, plan my day, and think thoughts great and small, mostly small.

10:00 am: Take a nap, planning one’s day is hard work.

11:00 am: I am awaken by the sounds of the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. I think I’m dreaming, but go to the window and sure enough someone in my building is playing the music full blast. Cool! I go up the stairs and put my ear to each door until I find the source. A woman answers my knock and I compliment her on her good taste. She admits she has never seen Rocky Horror at a movie theater. That makes me feel old. Then I tell her stories about dressing up in black lipstick and taking my kids to RH at the Berkeley UC Theater when they were 5 years old, lighting candles, throwing toilet paper rolls and yelling out the lines. She admits that would have been fun to do.

12:00 pm: Go to the bank to change some money. Have insight that “banks suck”, but realize that I didn’t have to come all the way to Israel to discover that. Although it must be said that my customer service person is really, really nice. Here is the secret, when they ask how you like Israel, say you are thinking about moving here. That drives people wild; doing “Aliya”, or moving permanently to Israel is considered the greatest “mitzvah” of all time. Israeli’s consider it a validation of their vision. This contrasts to how Americans think of Guatemalans who walk a thousand miles to sneak into America so their kids can have a better life.

1:00 pm: Hop on the bus to find a Jewish restaurant that serves matzo ball soup. I just bought my first monthly bus pass, unlimited travel for 200 shekels, or $60, it was a big step from touristing to residencing. When I get to the address listed in the Fodor’s Travel Guide, I find the restaurant which is identified as a Tel Aviv landmark has become a Thai Restaurant, so much for tradition.

2:00 pm: Jump on another bus (I love this unlimited ticket) and end up at Tal Bagels where I order a huge egg salad sandwich on a fresh onion bagel. I set up at an outside table, reading my Portnoy’s Complaint (the greatest novel ever written about a dysfunctional Jewish boy), people [girl]-watching and generally chilling. Across the street is the huge Cinematique and it is filling up with young people for what I discover is the International Student Film Festival, the largest in the world.

At the film festival there were many tables of film books in Hebrew/English and lots of classic film DVDs converted for the Hebrew market. A film lovers dream.

3:00 pm: Buy a ticket for a series of student films and watch for several hours. They were really great! A selection from China/Cuba/Germany/Peru/Spain. I decide to get an all-day ticket tomorrow and just spend the entire day watching student movies. Lots of really interesting kids hanging out talking about their crafts.

I can not tell you how cool these buildings are. There is a circle/triangle/rectangle, they are packed with workers/shoppers and lit up at night.

5:00 pm: Walked over to the Azrieli Center which are those interesting buildings I have previously photograph. On the first floor is the largest Mall I have ever seen except of course The Great Mall of America in Minneapolis. I’ll spare you yet another Mall photo, but this one was 3 levels, lots of food courts and it was absolutely packed with what else, YOUNG PEOPLE. So much shopping so little time.

Right in the middle of the roof is a kids amusement park with spiderman (very appropriate image for the tall buildings and dinosaurs (?)

6:00 pm: Went up to a roof top plateau, but not to the top of the buildings (that’s 40 stories and 30 shekels). On this level which was about 2 city blocks square there were lots of sculptures.

The ubiquitous old Jew guy hanging out as a bronze statute.

Not many people and of course breath-taking views of Tel Aviv PLUS a great sunset. I’ll let my photos do the talking.

I know this is hard to see, but this is the first time I saw two soldiers (boy/girl) necking and I couldn't resist, I'd love to read an article on how the Army controls the interaction of the sexes.

7:00 pm: Finally a security guard comes up to me (Ethiopian) and asks me what I am doing, (jump or bombing??) I give him the dumb, old American Jew who’s come to Israel to die look and as always that melts his heart. By this time the sun has almost gone done and there isn’t much reason to stay, so the guard and I share a moment, I look at the setting sun, tap my heart like Sammy Sosa does when he hits a homerun and we smile at each other.

Here's a 360 degree look at Tel Aviv from the roof top with another great sunset.

8:00 pm: Stop at the grocery store, get one apple, one peach, one can of pineapples, one banana, bunch of grapes, a bag of raisins and almond, container of yogurt and go home.

9:00 pm: Turn on TV and there is Lawrence of Arabia, so sit back with my home-made fruit salad and enjoy the movie. All and all a good day’s work!

As I write this an ice cream truck playing Hatikva drives buy, go figure.

DAY TRIPPING

This morning I decided to venture outside the Tel Aviv “bubble” and explore some other venues. I hopped on a train to Askelon which is about an hour directly south and the scene of a recent rocket attack from Gaza. (Interesting, the rocket firing was identified as an “attack” and the IDF action is called a “response.”) The train is great, it seems to always be on time, clean and unlike the bus there is leg room. The seating on the bus is set up for people 5’9” and under, if you are taller, it is very uncomfortable; I think that is called heightism.

The first really significant insight of the trip which confirms a feeling I had when I went to Jerusalem is that there is a lot of empty space in Israel, miles and miles of it. Why is that important, because as I understand the argument for settlements in the West Bank, there wasn’t enough room in Israel for the new immigrants. But I feel I just spent a day riding through so much empty space and I’m not talking desolate Montana or mountainous Sierras space, I mean large, flat, buildable space.

Arrived in Askelon and immediately was hit by my second major insight: the Israelis have figured out a formula for creating cities out of almost nothing. As mentioned earlier it seems like the person when invented Sim City was an adviser to the Israeli government. Here’s how I see it working. Start by finding a generally suitable place, probably some town that is 5,000 years old and probably inhabited by Palestinians. Then move about 100 yards to the side of that “Old Town” and start building your “Sim City.” There is always a major, paved highway in and out which then connects to the national highway grid, add excellent bus coverage, if possible a train stop is a nice touch and of course complete internet, cell phone and TV cable coverage. Then lots of standardized housing and most important of all a couple of really nice hotels for the tourists. As I walk the streets of these towns I find myself clicking on a mouse going, “hotel over there” click, “one bank, one gas station, one post office, one school” click, and them “houses, houses, houses” click, click, click. The hub of the city becomes a very modern, fully furnished shopping mall, surrounded by hundreds of little hanger-on shops for the residual Jewish petite bourgeois store owners, lots of bakeries, cheap clothing outlets and peddler stores. The final piece of the puzzle is hordes of Jewish immigrants “urning to be free” of which there seems to be no shortage. My sense is that some of this has a nice socialist component, ie lots of hospitals, schools, old people services, immigrant services and some kind of safety net while at the same time there is a solid capitalist component, ie banks, tourism, technology sector. It feels like the Israelis can knock this “insta-city” thing out almost anywhere and anytime they want (even if someone else already lives there.) Everywhere one goes there is the feeling that things are either about 20 years old OR 5,000 years old depending on what side of the road you are looking at.

One of many, many building/housing projects which you see everywhere, I have yet to be in a city that does not have major construction going on.

I think I found the targeted shopping mall, but if so the debris was cleaned up pretty quickly and the shoppers didn’t appear to be looking over their shoulders in worry, or at least not more than usual, timeless Jewish worry about the Cossacks coming. I can tell you that the thought of a random rocket hitting a shopping center is a really efficient use of limited military resources, it is the maximum “bang for the buck.” One last point about the coastal towns, it’s really nice having a beach! I saw a movie once that had a bus load of Muslim women covered from head to foot drive up to an Israel beach, walk to the sea, slosh around with their feet in the surf, go back to the bus and drive away, much to the shock of the hundreds of semi-naked Israeli sunbathers. The commentary said this was the first time that the Palestinians had seen the ocean/beach in person. It was a very powerful and sad comment/image.

But, moving on, I jumped on a bus to Sederot, about 5 miles from Gaza, which is more regularly shelled and I could have written the exact same commentary as above, except no beach. Then on to another bus to Be’er Sheva. To give you an idea of time/distance, I left Tel Aviv exactly at 10a.m. and arrived in Be’er Sheva at 2p.m. despite having walked around the towns along the way. Be’er Sheva is a really fascinating study. To get there you drive through miles of solid agricultural land, I felt like I was on I-5 going to Fresno. Miles and miles of sunflowers, fruit and nut trees (nuts grow on trees, right?), corn, wheat and lots of weird experimental thingies with nets, tents and such.

This video from the bus window seems boring, but it is miles of wheat and fruit trees, it made me realize that Israeli's roots are agricultural.

What was missing and very conspicuous by its absence was WATER. Unlike the Central Valley, I didn’t see any aqueducts, irrigation canals, sprinklers, absolutely nothing, not even clouds in the sky. I simply couldn’t figure out how they water this place.

The bus station is run down as usually seems to be the case and as you come out your are hit by the dichotomy of a modern, thriving city to the left and a teeming, vibrant “Old City” to the right. Initially I went left and walked into one of the largest, most modern Malls I’ve seen in Israel. I’ll spare you another Mall photo, but we are talking hundreds of high end stores, lots and lots of food courts, air conditioning, of course and lots of people shopping and hanging out. For the first time I saw a large number of Moslem women in full garb, covered from head to foot mixed in with the Israelis.

Moslem women getting ready to take money out of the ATM about 10% of the University seem Moslem.

Having gotten my fill of yet another modern Israeli city (did I mention unlimited food concessions) I walk across the street to the “Bedouin Market” and will once again spare you another photo of rows and rows of an old time Middle Eastern market. I think I was the only tourist, or at least I was the only person with an REI fanny pack and clicking pictures with my cell phone. (I can run, but I can’t hide) And once again, I sound like a broken record, there was fruit, vegetables, meat and clothing stalls for as far as the eye could see. Question: What happens to all that produce that doesn’t get sold? There is no way that these vendors could ever sell all the fruits/vegetables on display and in the heat of the day, there must be incredible spoilage. Here also were lots of Moslem dressed women. I don’t really know what/who they were. The guide book said they were Bedouin, whatever that is in 2008, I think they are all Israeli citizens, because we were too far away from a Palestinian town.

So, here is the topic for the day: Whatever “message” the young Israel girls in the modern mall were trying to send with their skimpy outfits, long curly hair and naked legs, the young Arab girls in the bazaar with their covered outfits and deeply penetrating, heavily made-up eyes were more than capable of sending that exact same “message” with equal effectiveness. Sorry, about that being a complicated question, but you get my drift. I got a brief (and I mean brief) look from one of the Arab girls that was like a hot metal spear into the cold butter of my soul. (ok, I’m a lawyer, not an English major) Anyway, discuss this topic among yourselves, while I move on to other matters.

Main building of BGN seen upon entering the campus.

Finally, I hiked up to the Ben Gurion University of the Negev which was really awesome. I am convinced that every person in this country between the ages of 18 and 25 is either in the army or the university. As usual, the campus was awash in kids hanging out, talking the talk, and so many food courts and areas to just lie around and be a student.

Yet another view of students hanging out and thinking deep thoughts, kind of.

I’ll let my pictures describe the place, but this is the heart of how Israel intends to tame the Negev Desert, it kind of reminded me of UC Davis with its orientation towards agriculture and husbandry.

This was such a very cool sculpture it is a tiny ribbon of water that flows through the entire BG campus, it is only about 2 feet wide, but I think it is a metaphor for making the desert bloom or some such thing, you can walk along it for a very long distance.

I think I have one more University to visit in Haifa and then I’m done, but each one of these visits has been very emotional and inspiring.

Every square inch of every wall at the University was covered with donors names. As I have mentioned before, I'm conflicted on how I feel about this, but it is really incredible how many people from all over the world have given money to build these schools and hospitals.

By this time it was almost 5 p.m. and I found a train station and bought a ticket to of all places Dimona, which is the town with the Israeli atomic bombs and about a half an hour into the dessert, I was so excited to make the trip. Unfortunately, as I waited on the platform a guy told me that there was some kind of union strike and that Dimona was closed. I asked three people for an explanation and each said that it was too complicated to explain to me in English, curious! Suddenly, a train to Tel Aviv appeared and I jumped on board and was home by 5:30. Bottom line, I did get out of Tel Aviv, the bad news is that I still have not “seen” a Palestinian, but the good news is that somewhere in the middle of the Negev Desert there is a Bedouin woman who is my life-long soul mate and wants to have my child (I didn’t have time to tell her about my vasectomy, but I’m sure she will understand, we have that kind of non-verbal relationship.)

SOCCER FEVER, UGH!

Every Saturday there are two opposing forces at work in Tel Aviv. On the one hand there are major soccer events attracting tens of thousands of fans in outlying stadiums and at the same time there is no public bus service because of the Sabbath. Israelis don’t seem to think this is a contradiction or even an absurdity, which of course I do. Anyway, I bought a ticket to a big match at the Bloomfield Stadium on the south edge of the city where the game will start at 7:00p.m. (before sunset) but will end at 10p.m. (after sunset) I figured if I got an early start I could walk the 5 miles and take the bus home.

It does not take a great Marxian theoretician to figure out that if one area of the City has lots of great sidewalk cafes filled with beautiful people eating their hearts out all day, there is probably a section of the City which is piss poor. The best way to test this analysis is to take the proposed walk from my apartment to the soccer field. After about an hour walking through the cutesy sections of town, I suddenly found myself in a drab tenement section with mostly Asian looking women and African men on the streets. I would have to honestly say, it didn’t feel like a slum, it was definitely run down, but not dirty and the buildings looked in disrepair, but were clearly habitable. I stood out as different, but felt safe.

A weird store in the run-down neighborhood, I think it sold manikins.

This section of town seemed to extend endlessly and the treeless streets magnified the hot summer sun. I don’t understand why it doesn’t rain here, one can see the ocean in the distance and you would think with the heat the water evaporation would be significant, so where does that water get dumped? Anyway, I was told there probably wouldn’t be any rain until the fall, which gives the City a permanent dusty quality.

One of many drab tenement buildings, this was better than most, but there were rows and rows of them.

When I arrived at Bloomfield I was disappointed. It holds only about 15,000 fans and hardly compares to the 100K soccer stadiums in other major international cities. But no matter, it was the roar of the crowd and the excitement of the game which held my attention. Today was Youth Soccer Appreciation Day and I sat in a section with about 2,500 boys between the ages of about 8-14, a group I generally feel comfortable around. Unfortunately, I had two grown male idiots on either side of me who worst of all smoked cigarettes. I should note at this point, that my clothes are starting to smell like smoke which is the first time in about 20 years that I have had to think about that problem. I feel like I am in a scene from Back to the Future, because I know what is going to happen to this arrogant group of cigarette smokers, at some point they will be turned on by the non-smokers and stoned to death. I’m not exactly sure when that will happen, but I am absolutely convinced it will happen. I want to tell the smokers that “the times they are a changing and the first ones now will later be last” but they are so self-assured that I’m sure they wouldn’t hear a word I have to say or if they heard me, they wouldn’t care and certainly wouldn’t quit. So I just need to be patient and let the historical forces claim their victims.

The game was exactly as I expected and this is after I have worked really, really hard to understand what it is that makes this sport so appealing. Let me jump right to the heart of the matter, in the 83 minute, out of the middle of nowhere, the underdog team scored a goal on a header and as they say, “the crowd went wild.” So to make a very long story short, that was 1 goal in a total of about 93 minutes. I will spare you the endless runnings up and back, the dirty tackles and arguments with the refs, and the repetitious singing of the teams’ fight songs accompanied by non-stop drumming. Every time a shot was attempted and missed, which even as a non-math person you can figure out happened all the time, EXCEPT ONCE, the two guys next to me lit up a cigarette. (But they didn’t light up after the goal, interesting!) This was followed by a heated sports analysis in Hebrew. I simply couldn't understand how there could be so much analysis to a stupid missed shot, but these two guys could go at it for hours if they hadn't been interrupted by another missed shot.

What was most telling to me was how quickly the kids got bored with the game and started horsing around. Here was a group of boys who definitely loved soccer because they were all picked from teams that had won championships, but they were bored watching the game. They didn’t show any great appreciation for all the special nuances that I have been told make the sport so interesting to watch. But in all fairness, I have to admit that everyone (except me) had a great old time. A missed shot was just as exciting as a goal and even when a shot went astray, if the play leading up to the miss was good, the crowd showed their appreciation by cheering (and of course lighting up a cigarette)

My one Bend it Like Beckham moment on a penalty kick.

Here are my few suggestions for making soccer more interesting: The obvious thing is to make the goal higher and wider, I could even deal with a goal the whole length of the field even if it means scores similar to the ones in basketball. On a more serious note, get rid of the off-side rule, (it’s too hard to explain to my non-soccer readers, but my sport friends know what I am talking about.) There are a lot of players (I was one of them) who don’t like to run up and down the field, so they should be allowed to just hang around the goal for the whole game and wait for what we call in basketball “garbage shots.” The opposite of this rule is that the goalie should be required to run around like an idiot like all the other players and maybe not be allowed to use his hands, then we will see what Mr. Stand in One Place all Game is really made of. As a finally observation which kind of captures my whole feeling about the sport, why would you encourage a player to use his head to hit a ball but penalize him for using his hands? That makes no sense! You would think that after about a million generations of soccer players they would evolve into a species with huge neck muscles, enormous thighs and calves and little tiny arms that were only good for scratching their crotches. Who wants athletes who look and act like that?