Saturday, December 17, 2005

Pilpul - Part 2

16 December 2005
Haifa 14:08


It’s Shabbat in Haifa. We drove up here from Tel Aviv yesterday (Friday 15 Dec.) and experienced something entirely new to us. It was raining in Israel. Squalls and thunderstorms all along the coast. It will rain intensely for a while and then the sun will come out. This weather cycle has been going on for over 24 hours now. Having only been here in non-rainy seasons (or during what everyone swears is an unusual December heat wave) it’s quite a novelty to listen to rain hitting the windows.

Packing and moving got a bit intense so I’m a few days behind with the blogs. But, your luck has run out. I’m going to catch up on a few items.

Back to Rehovot

Last Monday, we (Liz, cousins Marcia and David Chamovitz and I) got a VIP tour of Weizmann Institute. Turns out that Jay Leipzig, the Senior Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Science Institute, and I share a Rabbi or two. Before we left home Liz and I visited with Rabbi Jehiel and Sylvia Orenstein to get tips on what would be good, off beat places to visit in Israel. Rabbi Orenstein said we should get a tour of Weizmann and suggested I contacted Jay Leipzig, who arranged a tour for him. I don’t know Jay so I asked how to find Jay. The Rabbi says, get his e-mail off the synagogue membership list. Fortunately Jay has a sense of humor about these things (I suspect we are not the first people sent his way like this) and arranged for our tour.

Weizmann is one of the world’s foremost research institutes. They work on everything, often using multidisciplinary approaches to extremely high tech (like nanotechnology and alternate energy sources). Next to a field of huge, movable mirrors stands a building with labs used to investigate the uses of sunlight (grow things, make more powerful lasers, etc). The building is set up to have the mirrors focus sunlight into various laboratories or a giant mirror on the side of the building used to step-up the light to get a beam of up to 20,000 suns. Turns out the particle accelerator is obsolete and Weizmann uses the Cern accelerator for its sub-molecular experiments. But a lot of cutting edge research goes on on site.

What’s really notable about Weizmann is that it looks like a college campus, only flat and beautiful. The campus includes Chaim Weizmann’s house. Long before he became the first President of Israel, Weizmann was a research chemist who developed a better way to produce acetone, which, in turn, was used for explosives during World War I. He lived then in the UK and made his discovery available to the British for their war effort. This made him both very rich and very well connected. Which led to him becoming a major instigator of the Balfour Declaration (in which the British recognized the right of Jews to establish a homeland in the Palestine Mandate). Weizmann helped create the State and a research institute in Rehovot.

Weizmann had one of the 30’s hot architects design a home for he and his wife on land that is now part of the Institute. The house itself is worth the tour (and we got to look into closets of art nouveau crystal and wander around the kitchen, both usually off limits but we got the VIP tour). It’s a variation of the International School. For example it has a three-story spiral staircase enclosed inside a curved wall of rows and rows of thermometer windows. The building itself is a work of art and contains a number of wonderful art pieces. It can’t buy you love but money can most certainly buy you a great house.

We Wuz Robbed

The talent show at Beit Noar Kadima was a hoot. My kids did not win but had a good time just showing off. The winner was a young lady who did a hip-hop belly dance to some Israeli pop song. I liked the four kids who used chairs as props and danced to a really strange version of Echad Mi Yodea. * Here are pictures of the girls and me. The first shows me and, from left to right, Keren (9 ½), Orli (11) and Illenit (9 ½), while rehearsing out back. The second shows us on stage and finally a picture of us while I was being thanked.
Carmel, one of the teachers, asked us to come up and said she was going to “talk about me.” I only caught a few words but when she introduced me as Liz’ husband lots of eyes lit up. Liz is well known and very popular here.** So I got thanked for playing guitar, for helping with English and for bringing one large bag of peanut M&Ms. (Israelis love M&Ms. If you want to cheer up someone in the Army just send a couple of pounds of the stuff. The kids inhaled a large bag.)

Jewish Geography with a Vengeance

Friday, 15 Dec, we pack up and leave Tel Aviv. For the rest of December we are going to be bouncing around between Haifa, Jerusalem and, possibly, points north. Yossi the cab driver Deena the real estate agent arranged for us is a friendly guy who was born in Hatikvah. His parents emigrated from Persia many years ago. Liz keeps up a running conversation in Hebrew all the way up the coast to Haifa (a little over an hour in moderate traffic). Yossi is very patient as he conjugates some verbs for her. Though at one point he said, its OK to say it in English. But Liz kept right on. Its good to have a wife who can speak with cabbies and plumbers.

Driving up the coast from Tel Aviv, we pass a number of towns and Kibbutzim. Then, suddenly, we come upon the first mountain range we have seen. So far we’ve been in the coastal plain or northern edge of the dessert. Now we are looking at Zichron Yaakov, once of the earliest Jewish settlements and a wine making center. The city sits on the first mountain you see driving north from Tel Aviv to Haifa. Haifa itself is a modern city built on a mountain. The US equivalent would be San Francisco. At the foot of the hill are great beaches and Israel’s major port. Haifa is a commercial center and does not have the nightlife of Tel Aviv. The old saying is you go to Jerusalem to pray, to Tel Aviv to play and to Haifa to work. Like all stereotypes there’s a lot of truth in the saying. Haifa is a beautiful city. It doesn’t have the run down areas of Tel Aviv. It’s also a city where Jews and Arabs have lived peacefully together for longer than anyone can remember.

Yael Paley, an Israeli friend from back home, has lent us her apartment. Yael spends most of her time working in the US (where her daughters and grandchildren all live) but comes back to Israel for vacations. She inherited her Mother’s apartment and has held on to it. Given what’s been going on with Israeli real estate this has proven to be a good move, even if she doesn’t eventually retire here. But for the next few days Liz and I have free run of a tastefully decorated, cavernous apartment (3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms; 2 bathrooms approaches my definition of civilized which is 1 ½ bathrooms per person). As we stretched out on a giant corner couch, sipping a really good Israeli wine *** , Liz said, “We aren’t really on vacation, neither of us work so we have nothing to be on vacation from. The fact is that we live like this. And we deserve to live like this.” I knew there was a reason I dated her in college.

So today, 16 Dec, is Shabbat and we decided to do the one thing that we routinely do at home but have never done in Israel – we decided to so to services in a synagogue. So far this trip we even walked into a church (St. Peter’s in Old Jaffa – as in raising Tabitha from the dead St. Peter) but have done nothing overtly theologically Jewish. Thanks to the internet we have a list of every Masorti congregation in Israel. Masorti is the Conservative movement in Israel. So off we go to Kehillath Moriya, the oldest Masorti congregation in Israel. We have called in advance so we know that they start at 09:00 (Jewish time, of course) and today is a bar mitzvah. So we get there by a quarter to ten or so and they are just at the end of repeating the Amidah (the Shemona Esreh to the hard core). Everything is in Hebrew but the service is your basic Ashkenazi, Conservative service (with a few Sephardic melodies thrown in with the mostly familiar melodies and a few words added or inverted in some of the prayers), so we can follow along. For the full Torah reading we are handed an English-Hebrew Soncino, a familiar book from back home. Take note Beth El people, these folks start at 9 and finished at 11:30, with a bar mitzvah, with the Rabbi and the bar mitzvah boy discussing the Torah reading and a full Torah reading. They did do the shortened Shemoneh Esreh for Musaf (the concluding prayers) but all in all you had a full service, without responsive readings in English.

Then, at the end came the announcements. Remember my blog about playing Jewish Geography in Busi? Well, here’s proof how small the Jewish world really is. In the middle of announcements I hear the President tell the congregation that Debbie Block-Temin will be back on Tuesday. Turns out her father, Samuel Block, died and she went home to the US for the funeral but will sit shiva one night at home in Haifa. Deborah and David Block-Temin were, back in 1984, members of Park Slope Jewish Center in Brooklyn. Back then they were newly weds who left Park Slope to make Aliyah. When I last heard of them (Andy Fair, do you still have contact?), he landed a job as an attorney in Haifa. Today I learned that he is now general counsel for Elbit, which I think is a major Israeli defense contractor. She became a social worker and works at a hospital for disabled children. They have 5 children. Back in 1984, Liz and I lived in Park Slope in Brooklyn and spent many Saturday mornings at services with the Block-Temins. They live a short walk from Kehillath Moriya. But for the unfortunate passing of her father, they would probably have been in synagogue today. Liz is proud of having found them in the phone book (quick, spell Block-Temin in Hebrew). We’ll try to make contact.

As I write this we are listening to the web cast of NPR (WNYC-FM, a New York City public radio station). Apparently we are not only missing snow and ice storms but also a transit strike. Even raining its reasonably warm here (60s to 70s by day; high 40s to low 50s at night). Winter in Haifa is like summer in San Francisco. So all I can say is, be jealous, be very jealous. And remember that, come January, we are back in Tel Aviv with a spare bedroom.
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*”Who Knows One” a counting song sung at Passover Seders in which each number stands for a different aspect of Jewish life, lore or theology. For the Christians in the crowd, think of Partridge in a Pear Tree.

**Digression – Learning English here is very serious business. A lot of technical and professional work gets done in English. Your ability to get into a top rated university hinges, among other things, on how well you do on an English test. Opportunities for advancement in the Army, government jobs and civilian life increase markedly with one’s fluency in English. So getting help with your English homework from someone who came all the way from New Jersey, America to help you is a big deal.

***Barkan Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon – about $18 retail in the USA; $12 in the duty free shop at Ben Gurion Airport. Anyone traveling through there with room in his or her bags, grab as many as you can carry and I’ll pay you back when you hand them over in Millburn. If they still have the 4 for the price of 3 sale it drops the price to under $10 a bottle.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Have Guitar, Will Travel - David Gets A Gig


After 35+ years I still have the touch. Just show up with the guitar and you become a chick magnet. Of course, the ones I am now attracting are mostly 10 or 11 years old and don’t speak English. My college roommates would probably tell you that this is an improvement over my past efforts. The bottom line is that David, and Jeff’s Backpacker guitar, have a gig.

Liz does volunteer work a couple of days a week at Beit Noar Kadima, a children’s after school center in the northern end of Shapira. Shapira makes Hatikvah look like a well-to-do suburb. Liz helps the children (who look to be in the 9 to 12 year old range) with their English; they try to teach her Hebrew. Liz has become obsessed with learning Hebrew. She stops whatever she is doing an hour or two before her 5-day-a-week Ulpan to study and prepare for the day’s work. This is more effort than went into college or law school (I know, I was there). Maybe its because this time she really wants to learn. She is also saying that two months is really not long enough to get into the flow of life here. Last spring, 9 days was not enough and we had to come back and try two months. You can see where this is heading. I don’t think she’s ready for Aliyah, yet, but this is a land where people will say one thing and then do another. If the Prime Minister can so indulge, why not my wife?

Anyway, Liz decided that I should come to the after school center and play guitar. I don’t speak Hebrew, I know only a handful of songs in Hebrew and those are used in a Sabbath service for 2 to 5 year olds. Also, I rarely play in front of more than 2 or 3 very close friends who will love me in spite of what they hear. So the concept was a bit daunting. Then again, I’ve shlepped Jeff Canter’s Backpacker Guitar this far, I may as well take it out of its case. The Backpacker is a small-bodied instrument designed by Martin to fit into or onto backpacks and airplane overheads. You lose the base but you do wind up with enough of a guitar to keep you going while far away from home. Jeff lends it to me during my hospital stays and the guitar (plus a good hit of Zanax) keeps me calm while they commit medicine on me. I’ve also brought two songbooks. One is my personal collection (Gino – maybe I’ll do Beautiful Day) and the other is “Rise Up Singing” a book of 1200 songs with guitar chords and political commentary from the folks at Sing Out magazine. Think of it as a massive, though physically compact, Pete Seeger cheat book. So, armed with my traveling folksinger weapons I head off to make myself useful.

To get to Beit Noar Kadima we take a sherut to the “New” Central Bus Station (a place that deserves and will get a blog of its own). Liz already knows the neighborhood and the shortcuts. So we walk around to the rear of the “New” Bus Station, cross a street with no crosswalk and head up an alley toward what looks for all the world like a chop shop in a particularly seedy (the kids now say, sketchy) neighborhood in Queens. We went left, past the chop shop and came out onto a park. Whoever designed this city thought to put green spaces and playgrounds in the middle of houses and alleyways in every neighborhood, rich or poor or whatever. Just off the park is Beit Noar Kadima. The center has a single story building holding a couple of classrooms (one set up with books, TV, chairs and couches, another packed with computers with high speed internet connections), a kitchen/dining hall (this is a Jewish country – no child goes unfed nor do the caretakers) and a couple of tiny offices for the staff. On one side of the building is a small basketball/soccer court. On the other side is an alley with a concrete ledge good for sitting. The kids can also move various pieces of furniture outside in nice weather. Its run down but serviceable and clearly a safe haven run by a caring staff.

Yael is the head teacher (or at least the teacher with the best English so she gets to be in charge of us). Carmel and Hagit are both young (about 20) and work here as an alternative to Army service. There may be a couple of other teachers but I did not get to meet them this trip. There is also one middle aged man who seems to be in charge of maintenance, cooking and, probably, security.

I haven’t a clue what to do. Yael and Liz sit me down next to Carmel, who is preparing her lesson, and we talk about what songs the kids might like. Liz suggests that any old folks songs and some simple stuff will do. I tune up and get my fingers working. Carmel recognizes Dylan’s Tambourine Man and Blowin’ in the Wind. (I told you a guitar is a chick magnet.) We work on a Hanukah song and discover that the words are different in Israel from what we sing in the Disapora (the Galut to you fans of Talmudic terms). In the Galut we sing Sive Von with the words A Great Miracle Happened There (Nes Gadol Haya Sham). In Israel they sing “Nes Gadol Haya Po” (A Great Miracle Happened Here). A few other words change to get the whole thing to rhyme but you get the idea.

Soon the kids start to arrive. I just sit on a couch, picking out a couple of songs and occasionally getting some company. Still clueless, I get invited out into the alley to play and help an 11-year-old friend of Liz with the alphabet. Now, in America, I am an Ivy League graduate and a Law Review Editor. In Tel Aviv, I am the Village Idiot.*** But in Beit Noar Kadima, I am a novelty act. I’m like having a demented but funny uncle. With children, a bit of music, a smile and some body language can translate into a good time. Liz suggests that we all sing the alphabet song. Since virtually all songs can be faked with three cowboy chords (root, 4th, 5th) and a cloud of dust, I launch into the alphabet song, which proves to be a big, sing-a-long hit. So much so that I have to repeat it a number of times. Some things are truly universal as the Israeli kids get stuck on that old favorite, the “elemeno p.” Soon I have requests from the kids to let them play (a couple of them claimed to have touched a guitar before). So I passed the guitar around, tried to teach them the chords to the alphabet song and, finally, put the instrument into open, drop D tuning so that no matter what got strummed it sounded musical. Don’t worry Jeff, the guitar survived though it may have a few sticky fingerprints.

Just about then Hagit comes out and asks me if I know “The Sound of Music.” It sounded to me like the children learned it in Hebrew as a group and she wanted me to accompany them. So I looked into Rise Up Singing and, sonofagun, it’s in there. So I start to learn the chords and sing a bit. One of what are now “my” kids starts to sing the Do, Re, Me song from the show, in Hebrew. Now I’m worried that I’ve learned the wrong song. Not to worry. It turns out that three other kids have learned Sound of Music in Hebrew, worked out some choreography and are planning to perform in a talent contest to be held at the center this Thursday. Hagit wanted me to help them rehearse and then accompany them for their performance. The three girls were very happy to have me and, after a few run-throughs, things were getting on key and tight. So, it appears that I now have a gig and, if I don’t screw up too badly, will get to do this a couple of times a week through January.

Right now I’m feeling great. We are getting into life here. You most definitely do not get to do this stuff on the typical Federation Missions or the commercial tours (in fact, I’m sure the government would rather not have American tourists wandering around back alleys in sketchy neighborhoods). But Liz is right, two months is not going to be long enough.
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Saturday, December 10, 2005

Two Jews Are Talking

As Members of the Tribe ("MOTs") know, it often appears to the Gentile world that we all know each other. ("Six Degrees of Separation" is nothing more than a variation on what I know as "Jewish Geography.") This stereotype persists mainly because it’s true. Also, time and distance do nothing to mitigate our ability to play Jewish geography. After all, as an MOT once said, its all relative (or was that relatives?).

So I’m in Busi, a grill restaurant in the Hatikvah neighborhood, with Liz and Becky. Busi is a real neighborhood place and, this being a mostly Yemenite and North African neighborhood, it is not unfair to say that we are the only white folks in the place, though everyone is Jewish.

Our waiter knows enough English and the two women at my table know enough Hebrew, for me to feast on salads and grilled meat. Grill at its best is subtly seasoned and melts in your mouth. Tonight I went for the lamb chops, chicken hearts and your basic kabob (seasoned mystery meat). Another young waitress got curious as to where we were from. She had blond streaks in her naturally wavy hair. Hers are waves you’d pay $100 in the States to get put in as a perm – hers are just in her DNA. She asks Becky where we are from and what we’re doing in the neighborhood. Becky explains (in Hebrew) that she’s been living in Hatikvah, volunteering at local schools and we, her parents, are being allowed to buy her dinner on her last night in the neighborhood.

Becky then leaves us to go spend a quiet evening packing, going to a party at 2200 in a nearby park and then on to a bar on a Tel Aviv side street that the kids, but not the tour guides, have discovered (i.e., a good bar whose location is not to be given up to parents, straight friends or other drags). She will then be “up” at 0730 for a final house inspection and to get on a bus to Jerusalem as she starts her travels to her next location (see “Year Course – Young Judaeans Take Hatikvah”).

After Beck is gone I sip a Turkish coffee. Turkish coffee is your basic sludge that needs at least three ounces of sugar to be drinkable by a westerner. I get the check and, without looking at it, ask the waiter if he’ll take a credit card. He says Visa or Diner’s Club (don’t ask, its Israel). I give him the card and the check without looking at it. Now I realize I haven’t looked to see if a service charge was included or not. The last thing I want to do is stiff a waiter after an excellent meal and great service. But I also don’t want to tip excessively. (I’m already going to give 20% which is too-New York in a town where 10% is the norm but less than 20% and my Father reaches out from the grave and whacks upside the head.) So now we need to find out if a service charge was added to the check or not. I also need change of a 100-shekel note as tips cannot be written onto credit card slips in Israel (I don’t know why, ask Burt Solomon, he’s the international bank lawyer among The Usual Suspects). This would not be a problem except my Hebrew consists of phrases like, “Vayomer Adonai al Moshe l’aymor” (And G-d spoke unto Moses, saying…) which is not going to settle the matter of a tip in a neighborhood restaurant where a half dozen languages are being spoken, none of them English.

So Liz gets the attention of the pretty young waitress and in Hebrish (Hebrew and English mixed up in ways that would horrify your high school teachers) explains our dilemma. It turns out that Hebrew for tip is, wait for it, tip, pronounced “teep.” She gets the check back and sure enough, they added 10%. So I leave another 10% on the table. Now the waitress asks us where we are from. It turns out she has relations who live in Brooklyn and New Jersey. So I proudly announce that I am from Brooklyn. She unfortunately does not know Brooklyn neighborhoods so the conversation is winding down when a voice booms out from two tables over, in clear, New York English. I then engage in the following classic exchange of two Jews talking:

First Jew: Hey, I’m from Queens and I’d like to pay my check too. Let’s go, I’ve got to get to work.
(Waitress takes check and money, David walks over to First Jew.)

Second Jew: So how do you get from Queens to here.

First Jew: I was born here, moved to Queens and now I’m back visiting the Mishbuchah (extended family, freinds and hangers-on). Where in Brooklyn are you from?

Second Jew: Sheepshead Bay.

First Jew: Really, you don’t look Russian.

Second Jew: Hey, I got there long before the Russians.

First Jews Young Male Dinner Partner: I used to work in Sheepshead Bay. I did valet parking at the synagogue on Ocean and Shore Road.

Second Jew: No kidding? Manhattan Beach Jewish Center. Remember the benches along the bay? (Young Dinner Partner nods “yes.”) Well, two benches past the footbridge, which was my office during high school. (Turning back to First Jew…) So, where in Queens?

First Jew: Fresh Meadows, after some time in Forest Hills.

Second Jew: Shavuah Tov.

First Jew: Shavuah Tov. Have a good trip.

Shavuah Tov
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Friday, December 9, 2005

Hadassh Ladies, Hip Hop Lubavitchers and Homicide Bombers

Liz has just walked in with an ecstatic smile on her face. Today was the Hadassah-Israel Annual Special Gifts Event; the big luncheon for the big donors. One of cousin Marcia’s friends is one of the big donors and is not feeling well. So Liz got her ticket. The food was very good and very plentiful (served up at the Dan Tel Aviv a big hotel on the beach). The entertainment was David Broza. Broza is the Israeli sensitive singer, song writer and, according to Liz, has guitar licks that would make Patty Larkin jealous (if you don’t know Patty Larkin, close this e-mail, surf to your favorite music buying web site and get Live at Harvard Square, listen to it a few times, then go back and gorge out on the rest of her recordings). In the USA, Jewish music fans know Broza as the Bruce Springstein of Israel. Here, The Boss is the David Broza of the USA. Meanwhile, back at the Dan Hotel, patients, parents and doctors from the Neonatal Pavilion at Hadassah Hospital are thanking the Hadassah ladies. Liz thinks it’s really cool to go to a Hadassah meeting that is conducted as much in Hebrew as in English.

I spent the morning shopping for food and winding up in the shouk where I met Becky. As a reward for having behaved myself and not infringed on her Year Course I got to pay for some clothes and lunch. Turns out you can get a really good burger at the shouk. Becky enjoyed the Matisyahu concert at Club Barbie, except the part when one of the guys doing stage dives landed on her head. Her Mom and Dad, who discovered Matisyahu first also went. But we discreetly sat up in the balcony with the handful of other old folks and the guys who preferred groping their girlfriends to moshing other guys in front of the stage. Beside liking Matisyahu our other excuse to go is that the drummer, Jonah David, is the son of Harris David, a co-congregant from Congregation Beth El.

OK, for those of you who do not follow the underground reggae/religious rock scene, Matisyahu, born Matthew Paul Miller, is “born again” as a Lubavitcher Hassid. At 26 he spends his time studying religious texts, praying and touring with a really hot reggae band. Say what? Word up, Baruch Hashem. Want a definition of “cognitive dissonance?” Try this: 6’7’’ of Hassidic Jew, rapping to a reggae beat, using lyrics from the Psalms, doing a stage dive into a crowd of rowdy drunken Yeshiva boys in a club that looks like the bombed out remains of an abandoned warehouse. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

This week we started Ulpan classes. Ulpan is an intense immersion in Hebrew designed to get immigrants into the workforce as quickly as possible. Think Berlitz on viagra. We were tested and placed. Liz was put in an advanced class where they are just about up to the future tense. The future tense is what separates the real men from the kiddies. She now sits in the apartment studying for her next class. I meanwhile have been put into the Hebrew for Dummies class. Long ago there was a very funny book called “The Education of H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n.” Its takes place in a class of new immigrants to the US who have come from all over the world to seek the streets of gold. Well, I am now in that class. There are people from Latin America, Turkey, South Africa and the USA. I am sitting next to Anish who is from India. Anish, whose English is very good, is learning his third language (at least). He works in the diamond market. The two major centers for diamonds and jewelry manufacturing are now Tel Aviv and Bombay. I also met Eric who has moved his computer chip design company from Texas to Herzliya (just up the coast from Tel Aviv). Eric’s family is mainly from Silver Spring MD and West Orange NJ (my corner of the continent).

The class is still learning things like the alphabet, singular vs plural, masculine vs feminine (there is no neutral gender in Hebrew – Why? Because the name of G-d is “I am that I am” and so there is no use of the verb “to be” in the present tense as only G-d is). My own Hebrew is the typical “Hebrew school” Hebrew. I can “decode” the Torah (Bible) and various prayer books to get the right sounds without necessarily knowing, word for word, what I am reading or singing. What I can’t do is order breakfast. Ulpan is designed to fix this. Liz and I will be going while in Tel Aviv in the first half of December and all of January. After five days a week of Ulpan I hope to return to New Jersey with at least the vocabulary of a Golden Retriever.

A few days ago a homicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the mall in Netanya. This is the third bombing at that mall in four years. Netanya’s proximity to Tulkarm (a major center for hate mongers in the Arab West Bank) and the various ways around or though the security fence make it an available target for the bombers. We were going to stay in Netanya until Liz decided that Becky and her friends may not be allowed to travel to that city (in fact they are banned from the mall but not the rest of Netanya). So we are in Tel Aviv. Where you can’t tell that anything untoward has been happening (other than an unusual heat wave for December). This makes four times that the bastards have missed me (I count the World Trade Center on 9/11as two shots, one per plane). As three were in New York City I do not feel wrong about feeling safer in Tel Aviv. Besides, who would you rather have covering your rear end: Ariel Sharon and the IDF or George Bush and the Neocons?

The Jerusalem Post editorial writer made a good point. Yes, the Palestinian Authority “condemns” the homicide bombings, as do a lot of Europeans, the US, and the UN etc. But the Arabs only condemn this stuff in the sense that Abbas feels it is a bad tactic tat hurts the cause more than helps. It does not seem to cross his (or most other Arab, UN and European) minds that this stuff is just morally wrong. In other words, its not OK to murder Jews if it does not have a positive effect on your political agenda. The same people are, of course, morally outraged that Israel would carefully seek out the leaders who recruit the bombers and try to neatly put a missile into their cars or apartments or simply try to arrest them (something the Palestinian Authority does not have the intestinal fortitude to do). And for you fans of high tech warfare, this week the leadership of Islamic Jihad stopped using their cell phones. Can you guess why? And no cheating by going on the web.
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Tuesday, December 6, 2005

The View From Ammunition Hill

28 November 2005
Rehovot


We are standing on a hill overlooking Rehovot. Rehovot 100 years ago was sand dunes. Then and now the northern edge of the Negev. We are looking at a tower topped by an egg-like structure with oval windows; a tall, windowless building shaped like a giant cereal box with gently sloping sides; and a large tent covering a pavilion at the edge of a what appears to be an orchard.

My guide is Amit. A nice young man in his early to mid twenties. Amit says I am looking at the particle accelerator and the “sun building” (a building in which scientists can control the amount of sun light and every other environmental factor to discover what makes stuff grow or not in say a desert – you Cornellians can think Bradfield Hall on viagra). The two buildings are part of the Weitzmann Institute, one of the world’s preeminent high tech research centers. The tent marks the oldest orange orchard in Rehovot (grapes were too much trouble to grow so the local Jewish immigrants switched to oranges).

Amit belongs to an urban kibbutz that works on educational projects. His great-grandmother on his mother’s side came to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel, Palestine to you fans of the British Mandate) in 1899. A good 8 to 10 years before my grandparents came to America. The rest of his grand parents came in the Aliyahs of the ‘20s and ‘30s with the most recent to arrive after WW II. 100 years ago Rehovot was sand dunes and the occasional Bedouin tent. Kibbutzniks began to settle there about 80 years ago.

Behind us is a restoration of Kibbutz Hill, also known by the code name given to it by the TAS division of the Haganah – the Ayalon Institute. TAS was responsible for supplying the Haganah with tools of war and constructing whatever had to be built to create the state. Haganah would eventually morph into the first government and army of Israel. Its political wing is became part of the Labor party and ruled Israel until 1977 (see blog of 29 Nov).

From 1945 through 1948, a group of kids no older than Amit and my daughters manufactured around 2.25 million 9mm bullets in a secret underground factory. The bullets found their way into Sten guns, the standard weapon used by Israel in its War of Independence. Above the factory stand a few single story structures that formed the Kibbutz Hill training facility. Here groups of people would come in the years from the late 20s to 1948 to learn how to be a kibbutz. They were trained in communal living, decision-making, agriculture and basic industrial skills. This particular training center had a dining hall, laundry, bakery, gan (a combination of school and childrens’ living quarters), barracks-like residence hall and a dining hall. All earmarks of a typical kibbutz.

In 1945, Scout Group A came to Kibbutz Hill to transform themselves from a youth group into a kibbutz. Representatives of TAS, a division of the Haganah, asked Scout Group A to postpone the establishment of their own kibbutz and stay on Kibbutz Hill to establish the Ayalon Institute. After the sort of cacophonous meeting that only a group of ardent leftists can hold, they agreed to put off their dreams to build and operate a bullet factory. Oh yeah, the penalty under the British Mandate for the importation or manufacture of weapons was death.

So, under the direction of a few “responsible adults” they excavated the factory space 8 meters underground. The laundry and bakery were used to hide entrances to the ammunition factory. The chimneys for the oven and laundry boiler served as ventilation shafts. To make this even more fun, the kibbutz sold bread and laundry services to local residents including British soldiers stationed in Rehovot.

The members of Ayalon Institute succeeded in keeping the factory a secret, not just from the British but also from newer members of the kibbutz including a spouse or two. Neil Stephenson fans will appreciate that to maintain a cover story that 45 kibbutz members were working “in the fields” the women (who spent the most time underground) had to sit under a quartz radiation tanning lamp and take lots of vitamin D and calcium supplements so they would look like they worked in the fields. After the 1948 war the factory was moved and combined with another TAS operation. The Ayalon Institute members went on to found Kibbutz Magan Michael.

As you leave Ammunition Hill you drive through the Tamar Rabin Science and Industrial Park, passing corporate and laboratory facilities for organizations such as Objet, a nanotechnology company. In 100 years, Rehovot has gone from nothing to training the people who created a nation to providing the world with cutting edge technologies. Some would say that this is evidence of a miracle from G-d. Others would point out that this happens when people work together for a common cause and subordinate their personal desires for the greater good of the group. Either way it’s impressive and inspiring.

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Year Course - Young Judaeans Take Hatikvah

I was going to assault you all with a description of Year Course and how fabulous my daughter, Becky, and her YC friends are. We had 8 for dinner, Becky, her 6 roommates and a friend of Becky's from summer camp who is also on YC. In Becky's tiny house in the Hatikvah neighborhood of Tel Aviv (mostly lower class immigrant workers from Yemen and Russia), 7 spoiled kids, 6 from the suburbs and college towns of the US plus one Israeli Scout from North Tel Aviv, have to share a slum dwelling with one skuzzy bathroom and a kitchen ill-equipped for eating left over carry out ("take away" in this hemisphere). Young Judaeans have been trained for years to work as a group under onerous conditions (gets them ready to make Aliyah - the act of going up to Israel, of returning from the Diaspora). I think just making them live like this is worth the cost of the entire year. (I also thought the Chinese had the right idea when they forced professors and lawyers to shovel shit.) So what happened? Our kids became local folk heroes and have been having the time of their lives. Of course, doing volunteer work in local schools leaves them lots of time to discover Tel Aviv's 24/7 club scene (at 18+ these kids are all street legal). But rather than bore you with my ramblings I'm going to give you a treat and let you read Becky's description of where she is now and what she is going to do next.

So here's Becky:

Subject: The Next Three Months of My Life

Hello everyone!!!

sorry for such an extreme mass email, but this is definitely the quickest way to let everyone know what is going on!

so,its been probably about 3 months since the last mass email that i sent out. in those three months i can see that i have noticably changed. not only in the way i look (still tan...a little, more piercings) but in the way i experience the world. my hebrew is yoter tov (better) but not quite good enough. i can definately get my way around now, and i am still proud of myself when i can have a conversation with an israeli, all in broken hebrew. i am much more confident being on my own, and having my parents in israel with me now is a little strange because i am not used to being taken care of by real parents or having my favorite foods cooked for me the right way. i will have been in israel for exactly 3 months tomorrow, but it feels like its been a year already. and in 6 more days i will be leaving shchunat hatikvah, tel aviv and my wonderful apartment, and great roommates and new comfort zone, for something that i have never before experienced and probably never again will: The Israeli Army.

Yes, thats right. you may not be able to imagine me in uniform, with a gun, but i will send you pictures. On sunday i begin the first part of the Marva Program. The first week and a half we will be doing volunteering for the army in a program called Sar-El. Essentially we will be living on a base during the week, in full uniform, but scrubbing floors and cleaning dishes and shining boots. Doesnt sound like too much work, huh? After Sar-El we have winter break for 10 days (December 22-Jan 1- please tell me if you are going to be in israel during that time!!!!) and as soon break is over, on Jan 2, we get shipped down to an army base at Sde Boker, which is in the middle of the desert, where we begin Marva.

This is the basic itinerary for the program:
Week One: Introduction
This week will be spent in the home base of Sde Boker becoming familiar with army discipline and codes, learning first aid and topography and basic information about the IDF. In addition, participants will undergo weapons training during which they will learn how to use and M-16 rifle and at the end of th week they will experience their first shooting range and first march/hike(approx. 5 km/2.5 mi).
Week Two: Field Training
This week will be spent outside of the base in field conditions (no bathrooms or showers!) Participants will leanr how to be a soldier in the field through lessons on topics such as camouflage, ambushes, training exercises and survival training in both day and night.
Week Three: Negev Week
This week Marva moces from Sde Boker to the Youth Village of Nitzana. Throughout the week there will be a variety of activities in the Negev area including a visit to an infantry base, a joint exercise with the soldiers there, and intense walking and biking tours. At the end of the week Marva climbs Masada at sunrise.
Week Four: Navigation and Galilee/Golan Week
Marva stays at a bas in the north this week. Participants have the opportunity to implement what they have learned in topography lessons through day and night navigation in small groups. In addition there will be tours in the north of Israel.
Week Five: Sport
This week is spent on an army base. There, participants undergo intensive physical training including fitness, obstacle courses, seld-defense and more.
Week Six: Women in the Army/Infantry Week
During this week the men and women will be separate for the first and only time in the program.
Women: The week will be spent visiting several army bases and learning about the opportunities for the female soldier in the IDF.
Men: This week will be spent doing infantry training at a base in the South. Training includes learning to use heavy weaponry as well as group exercises.
Week Seven: Jerusalem Week
This week is spent learning about the three different religions in Jerusalem and exploring the old and new city.
Week Eight: Summation
This week is dedicated to ending the lessons and discussions, a final 22 km (about 12 mi) march and military graduation ceremony.

ok, thats it...i guess....im REALLY excited. i get nervous every once in a while when i think too much about, but i know it is going to be an incredible experience. we have off every other weekend so if you are going to be here after Jan 2, please let me know what dates you are going to be here and i will let you know whether it is an on or off base weekend.

i hope all is well with everyone!! wish me luck!!

all my love,
~becky
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Pilpul - Part 1

Pilpul, as used in a Jewish house of study, literally means bits of pepper. Its bit of sayings or teachings. A tool for Rabbis who write sermons in their heads wile walking to synagogue. Its also a bunch of disconnected thoughts that have to be dumped somewhere to make room for other clumps of pilpul.

28 November 2005
Tel Aviv


At sun down Liz, cousin Marcia and I are sitting on Bograshav Beach in the beach café area. Drinking café afuk and watching the sun go down over the Mediterranean Sea. Its sunny and in the ‘80s. As Car Talk aficionados know, everything works when it’s warm. I feel great. I love this city.

30 November 2005
Tel Aviv


The streets are named for dead Zionists, a few relevant Kings (David, Solomon, Saul, and George) and even, in this mostly secular town, some prophets and selected dead Rabbis.

Our apartment is on Zlatapolsky Street. Our friends the Mallachs tell us that Zlatapolsky was a Ukrainian industrialist who lived from 1868 to 1932. After the revolution he moved to Paris. Zlatapolsky was a benefactor of arts and culture in Israel. He does not appear to have emigrated nor do we know if he ever came here. He must have sent enough money though to get a street, albeit a sort one. Of course, there is the definition of a Zionist in the Diaspora: A person who solicits money from a second person so a third person can move to Israel.

The neighborhood is a quiet, residential area tucked between the big hotels and embassies (we are a block from the Hilton and the British) and Ben-Yehuda. Liz points out the irony of several large Israelis now stand guard protecting the British embassy. Ben-Yehuda and its parallel street, Dizengoff are major shopping and eating roads. So many cafes and galleries, so little time.

1 December 2005
Tel Aviv

If, instead of going out the front gate of our building, we go around back we can walk through a small park in the middle of the block, out an alleyway, and arrive on Ben Yehuda next to Barbunia. Barbunia is a fabulous fish restaurant with tables out on the street. Our waitress helpfully advises us that all of their fish is kosher, except for the shrimp. Barbunia also has the mark of a great grill restaurant – the salads. Salatim (in Hebrew) are small plates of different dips and slaws that one noshes on while waiting for the main course to arrive. The waitress will keep bringing salatim as long as you keep eating them. This can become a meal in itself. But no one I know has such discipline. There are the expected eggplant (in several varieties), houmous, tahina, babaganoushe, cole slaw and red cabbage. But also a couple of things that I still don’t know what they were but they were good. Another thing Israelis do very well is bake bread and rolls.

The architecture in Tel Aviv is predominantly Bauhaus. Zionists may have liberated the land but Mies Van Der Rohe and the rest of that crew inspired the builders. Much of Tel Aviv was getting pretty shabby when we were here in 1992. But since then the town has gotten gentrified with a vengeance. Old buildings have been restored with their insides gutted and modernized. New buildings retain the Bauhaus flavor with curved corners and balconies but large, double hung windows. Automated shutters replace the hand/rope-controlled variety.

Someone who went for sleek, top of the line stuff restored our apartment. He then couldn’t meet the payments and sold to a woman who lives in Belgium and only uses the place for her vacations. She rents it out the rest of the year. Those of you who are used to the hand-held shower head (saves water but also saves on plumbing) while in Israel will be most impressed that we have a Grohe full body shower system in the corner, glass walled shower. This is something we passed on when doing our Millburn bathroom (which as you know is our proudest achievement except, maybe, for the children). Well, next bathroom……… The small bedroom has a built in closet with multiple types of storage areas, from the different areas to hang clothes to the deep drawers and the stack of narrow, glass-fronted pull out shelves on which you can lay two sweaters side by side. Deena, the real estate agent, says the owner who did the restoration was gay. Either that or he had OCD, or both.

Meanwhile, the living room wall facing the street (we’d see the beach if not for the buildings in the way) consists of three almost floor to ceiling window panels. Open the automated shutters (they roll up -- as they start to move they first expose slots between the shutters – then they open – it’s a bit like Morbius’ house on Altair 4) and you have a giant picture window. Slide the windows to the side and your living room is also your balcony. Sit on the couch and watch the trees and clouds or the cable TV. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

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Monday, December 5, 2005

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

29 November 2005
Tel Aviv


I find the best way to understand Middle Eastern politics is to remember that not much has really changed over the past 3000 years or so. Faces, allegiances, religions and the like may shift here and there but the basic dynamic of the region is pretty much the same.

Today is the anniversary of the United Nations’ vote to partition the British Mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. (No one heard of a “Palestinian Arab” until the ‘60s when Arafat backed by the usual gang of anti-Semites from the European and American left invented the total myth of a Palestinian people with an identifiable history going back before the Jews came in from Mesopotamia and Egypt.) Back then the Israelis were divided among a number of under and above ground organizations. All of them Zionist but all of them representing a broad spectrum of views as to just what a Jewish state should look like and where its borders should be. Among these groups were the Stern gang, Etzel and other underground, terrorist organizations (oops, sorry, I forgot, these guys won the war so they get to be remembered as national liberation fighters) that would regularly blow up both military and civilian targets in an effort to make “normal” life for the British and the Arabs impossible. This in turn would cause the “others” to pull up stakes and leave. Yes, the scientific use of terror to achieve a political goal against a militarily superior enemy was developed in the last century by Jews. The technique has since been used by the Liberation Fronts of Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba and Palestine. Also by Al Queda and its various offshoots. Better we should have taught them how to grow oranges in the desert.

The Stern gang and similar groups were also philosophically tied to the right wing, revisionist thought of Jabotinsky. (I do not mean to imply that there were not lots of Socialists, Anarchists, Stalinists and Trotskyites who were more than happy to go out and blow stuff up. I just want to focus on the “right wing” to make my point.) Among Jabotinsky’s beliefs was the refusal to accept any borders less than the Biblical land of Israel. Those of you with a decent Hebrew or Sunday school education know that the Biblical boundaries of Israel are vague, ill-defined, constantly shifting and, oh yes, way east of the Jordan river. Nevertheless, since the original British Mandate from the League of Nations included the Sinai Peninsula and what is now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, their line was a hard but not impossible line to follow. Consider it the Israeli equivalent of the Arab hard line (moderate line and popular line) of driving the Jews into the sea. A line basically followed by the Arab world to this day.

OK, so Jabotinsky died young enough to die young but his flag was carried forward by the likes of Manachem Begin, who many suspect of (or, credit with) having blown up the King David Hotel one sunny Sunday morning plus a few other nasty escapades. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations partitioned what was left of the British Mandate (Sinai and what is now Jordan having already been given to Egypt and the Hashemite Kingdom). The Jews are given about 10% of the original Mandate. The Arabs, meanwhile, feel so demeaned, depressed and threatened by a postage stamp sized Jewish state that they declare war. Israel wins the war and winds up with a lot more territory than the partition but a lot less than Biblical Israel. David Ben Gurion and the rest of the Haganah leadership decide to play the hand they’ve been dealt and declare an independent State of Israel. Ben Gurion, et al, manage to persuade the Stern gang, Etzel and other “hard line” Jabotinskyites to morph into political parties. The underground military units either joined the Haganah-led Israeli army or disarmed.

As a result parties, including Herut, whose leadership included, yup, you got it, Menachem Begin, came into being as the not-so-loyal opposition to Labor. Herut would over time morph into the Likud. In 1977, Begin becomes Prime Minister and, in 1979, negotiates the first peace treaty with an Arab state. For this Begin will be given a Nobel Peace Prize.

So now we have Aboud Abbas, the current President of Palestine. Abbas is trying to persuade terrorists (er, ah, liberation fighters) in Hamas, Islamic Jihad and similar “bunches of folks” to morph into political parties and either disarm or merge their military wings into the Palestinian security forces (ie, the Palestinian Army). In the end, he argues, running the state will distract and deter them from their terrorist (er, ah, liberation fighter) ways and put their leaders inexporably on the road to making peace with Israel. Now where in the hell did he get such a ridiculous notion?
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Getting Wired

22 Zlatopolsky Street
Tel Aviv


As we will be in Israel for two months we cannot survive without high speed internet access. This required getting a cable modem installed in our apartment (the wire was in the wall but needed to be hooked up). For years I have listened to the horror stories about trying to get a telephone connected or plumbing fixed in Israel. When I told my cousins that the installer was scheduled for Monday between 9 and 11, cousin David the Elder (I am David the Younger) assured me that it would be Wednesday between 3 and 5, if at all.

Now some say that Israel has changed greatly in recent years. As evidence they point to the disengagement from Gaza or the election of a Mizrachi* to head both the Histadrut** and the Labor Party as major shifts in Israeli life. Well, I've got evidence that hits close to daily life. Maybe its a function of competition and globalization but the internet installer (a young Russian emigre) arrived on Monday a few minutes before 10 (after having called around 9:25 to say he'd be here in about 25 minutes). By 11 I was back on line and ready to intrude on your privacy. Those of you who have lived in Israel have to concede that either times change or miracles still happen in the Holy Land.

For those unfamiliar with some of the terms I use or those who can't figure out what I'm saying due to my diminishing ability to spell, I'll add endnotes to my blogs (yes, I know the phonetics are open to conflicting approaches, you'll just have to hang in there and feel free to post comments correcting my usage):

* Mizrachi - Israeli Jews who immigrated, or are descended from immigrants from, North Africa, Middle East or Asia. The term literally means "from the East." Sometimes also called Sephardic Jews though the Sephardim also include Jews from the European side of the Mediterranean. Until now Israel has been ruled mainly by Ashkenazim (Jews from northeastern Europe).

** Histadrut is the main federation of labor unions in Israel. Unlike AFL-CIO, this group still wields significant political and social power, to say nothing of its ownership interests in a number of businesses, a remnant of the days when socialists dominated the Zionist project.
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Saturday, December 3, 2005

Shabbos in a “Secular” City

Oh, you poor bastards. I have decided to try keeping a journal or, in the current vernacular and medium, a blog, of my Israel trip. The good news is that I am not particularly prolific so this will probably be an infrequent intrusion on your lives. Israel is a much more cosmopolitan, high tech, 24/7 place today than it was on my first visit in 1992. The speed of development is part of the subject matter of the first blog. Also, this is my first trip without the burden of having to amuse children and even getting time on my own as Liz has found some volunteer work to do. So call this “Dave’s I-get-to-do-what-I-want-to-do Winter Tour.

Yesterday (Friday 2 December) I went in search of bread, newspapers and real orange juice. The latter is not easy to come by. In a land where the produce is uniformly excellent, Israelis seem incapable of making and packing orange juice. The juices and drinks sold in the stores generally suck. But, if you walk the streets a bit, you’ll soon come to a stand or a hole-in-the-wall shop where you can get fresh squeezed fruit juices. Pick your fruit, or some combination of fruits, and your craving is cured.

Israel is, stereotypically, described as being divided into the religious and the secular. Well, this is sort of accurate but only if you look at the world through Jewish eyes. Secular Israel is not the assimilated, Protestant, McCulture of the US. For starters, the weekend here is Friday and Saturday. I walked out on the street Friday morning and immediately sensed the change in rhythm. Most residents have begun the weekend. Cafes that had been mostly empty on Wednesday and Thursday were full for brunch. The English-language version of the Jerusalem Post was thick with a magazine, entertainment guide for the next week and advertisements. The local bakery has 3 or 4 varieties of challah and fabulous four-grain bread. The little old man who squeezes my orange juice insists that I sit down at his one table and read my newspaper. Everyone and everything was slowing and relaxing. Everyone (neighbors, cabbies, newsies, everyone) says “Shabbat Shalom.” There are no “snowflakes” or other “generic, seasonal, constitutional” displays. Tel Aviv may be more “secular” than “religious” but it is unmistakably Jewish.

Becky came to spend her weekend off sleeping, eating and showering. Liz deliberately found a two-bedroom apartment for this purpose. She missed her baby. Becky is not homesick but does miss the comforts of home (more on that in another blog). On Friday, about mid-day, we head south to the Carmel Market and Sheinkin Street.

The Carmel Market is the largest shouk in Tel Aviv. There are local or neighborhood shouks in Jaffa and Hatikvah but this is the shouk for the central part of the city. A shouk is Ebay using virtual, old technology. If you need clothing, utensils, household supplies, food, drink, anything, its here. Friday is the shopping day. The shouk is wall-to-wall people. The narrow streets are almost impassable. One baby carriage and anyone stopping to go through a pile of tee shirts and traffic backs up for two blocks. Added to this are the merchants screaming out their latest closing-soon-for-Shabbos bargains and my illiteracy in Hebrew, Russian and Arabic and the scene gets really intense.

Liz, who can shop anywhere in a combination of Hebrew, French, English and pointing, gets us through. I don’t do too badly either as most sellers know enough English to tell me that that socks I am looking at will fit me and how much I need to hand over. The juice squeezing guys insisted that I have a mixture of orange and grapefruit when I thought I asked just for grapefruit. In a Jewish state you can’t tell if this is a language problem or they simply decided that they knew how I should drink my juice. We come out with bags of socks, spices (this is, after all, a major stop on the spice routes sold by a woman whose sales style was to scoop a handful and make us smell each type while saying it was for rice, pizza, kibbeh, soup), olives (you only think you know how many kinds of olives there are), chard, tomatoes, challah, cookies and chocolate. The chocolate is dark and from boxes marked parve, kosher but we have no idea what’s inside. Turns out the round ones have chocolate rum cake in the center. The additions to our coming Shabbos feast (and the haberdashery) cost about 150 shekels, all in, which these days is a little over $30. The shouk is still the center of the world’s best bargains. And if you don’t like the price try hondling (a Yiddush phrase for negotiating while gesturing with your hands).

We then go back to the shouk main entrance, a plaza where there is often a street musician. Today it’s a woman with a synthesizer doing Israeli songs. Last March it was Andean musicians who I am prepared to swear were the same guys who play in the subway at Times Square. Must have been their world tour.

We cross Ben Yehuda, which has become Allenby and head down Sheinken. Sheinken and its side streets are the Tel Aviv equivalent of the West Village. Clothing stores, cafes, head shops and all. A group of local rock/punk/alternative bands are playing in a park next to a school. We spend an hour or two drinking coffee and just watching the passing street scene. I love this town.
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