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Published: December 7th 2005
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Tel Aviv Beachfront
Now on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean In Israel, it always seems everything is touched in some way by the underlying history and politics of the area. From the little exhibits in Jaffa of the spot where they brought the cedar trees for the temple of Solomon or where Noah's son settled after the flood or where Napolean's troops laid siege to the memorial for the 20+ youth killed in the disco bombing in Tel Aviv to the questions about why no English guidebooks have been updated on Israel since 2000 or why no credit card company will insure rental cars here, everything seems to have historical or political overtones.
We are staying with our friends Dov and Shoshi in their quiet neighborhood near the sleek new Ben Gurion Airport. If we keep them talking long enough, we learn a lot, as like most Israelis, they tend to be quite frank and honest and also to have fascinating histories themselves of how they came to be in Israel and how much change they have seen in their lives. Like many Israelis, they are religious and not religious. Their religion is basically their lives as Israelis—they keep kosher at home, but only go to temple for the
Sort of Historical Spot
Cheesy stature near "another" 4 or 5 thousand year old site in Jaffa high holidays. They view organized religions quite critically, especially the most observant Jews, but also can quote the bible and follow much of its ideas. To them, the religion is how they live their lives and the fact that they are live in a Jewish state, even without all the trappings of going to services or practicing many religious rituals.
And their daily lives look very much like that of Americans—driving nice, new cars, having a big TV with satellite and DVD and all the same stuff as you see in the US (although they have a nationalistic pride in the stuff that comes from Israel—as they said about our gifts from Spain we thought they might not have here, "We have everything in Israel, everything. The best chocolate and the best olive oil…"). But then their first response to me at the airport to the usually perfunctory question about how are things is, "Great, everything has been wonderful and peaceful, but there was a problem (bombing) in Netanya today." Or to the simple question, have you ever been to Petra (the famous tourist site closeby in Jordan), they hem and haw a bit before explaining (and arguing together)
Spanish League Football
Espanyol vs. Valencia at the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona about the reasons they haven't gone where they know they are hated (their words) and the value of spending money there or just giving it to Jordan to help its economic development. Or a discussion of gas prices that becomes an exploration of world trade and complex channels and the biblical punishment in Eden to assure Jews would have to sweat for their bread. Somehow, it is all appears a bit less complicated in the US.
We have only been here a couple days, just enough time to eat at the best falafel in Israel (everyone has a place they think is the best) and to sample the new hit food here of gelato that really is about as good as Italy. I still have trouble realizing that everything is written in Hebrew because this is their only language. Since just about everyone can speak English, I keep expected everything to be written in Hebrew and English, like in Catalunya where everything was Spanish and Catalan.But really, only the barest of English is used—for some road signs, a few store names, and where they know tourists will be. Elsewise, even for the Champions League football scores, it really helps
Unnecessary Art
One of the many human statues in Barcelona showing off this most unessential of talents to at least be able to read Hebrew letters to get a little sense of what is going on around you.Even the computer is a bit hard to negotiate even with the traditional windows look—with only Hebrew menus, it is hard to switch it to English, although we have obviously overcome that by now.
The weather here is warmish—70's—more of the unusual for this time of year weather patterns that seems the case around the globe. I guess it is supposed to be rainy and much cooler here at this time, but we are pleased to have sunshine to enjoy the fine sandy beach and watch kite surfers (it would be hard to find a sport to choose that would be more alien to the average US voter).
Since we are near a computer, I will leave this for now with a quick and final update for those who have been fascinated with the saga of the tandem bikes. After deciding $400 per bike was a bit steep, we desperately asked my parents to take them to NY, even if this meant locking them at JFK and paying some needy New Yorker to try to transport them into Manhattan. I brought them out to the Granada airport when we had a rent a car (and amazingly, tandem bikes can almost fit inside a tiny Citroen C3 with the back seat down) and locked them there til my parents' flight. I went to the airport with them and checked the bikes in (without any boxes or covering), so my parents never had to touch them to this point. Then through the good fortune of bad weather and airline delays, they didn’t arrive in NY with my parents' flight, thereby leaving it to Iberia to pay for them to be shipped to Albany, arriving intact without ever needing to be handled by my parents. Not too shabby.
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