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!!