Yesh Matsav

Yesterday evening we held a small day after birthday celebration for Michal at our small place. To get ready for the event, I ran around trying to locate all those traditional birthday party necessities, such as decent goat cheese, charcuterie, wine, and of course some birthday candles for the gateau au chocolat that I bought from the French baker in Neve Tzedek.

To get the candles, I went to the local branch of a supermarket called AM/PM. It’s one of the few chains in Israel that is open all the time, and in our neighborhood, the branches are primarily staffed by Russians. I approached the young Russian woman working behind the counter and told her in my minimal Hebrew,

“Ani lo yodaa ech l’hagid b’ivrit, aval ani tzarich “candles” (I don’t know how to say it in Hebrew, but I need candles.” While saying this, I simultaneously made an up and down motion with my thumb and index fingers that, for some strange reason, I thought conveyed the cylindrical shape of a candle. The young Russian cashier thought for a second and responded, “ah, yes!”

She walked over to a wall, reached up, and, looking satisfied, showed me the “candles” which came in two varieties: extra sensitive, and flavored. Deeply confused for a moment, I soon realized that she had mistaken candles (along with my weird hand gesture) to mean condoms. So I told her, “oh no, that’s for something different.” She giggled, turned a little red, and after I found the burning variety of candles we had a good laugh as I paid for them on my way out.

We drove south from Tel Aviv for about two hours, and every few kilometers the land turned drier. The whole country is a desert, but certain areas look the part more than others, and it was clear when we had arrived in the Negev, as Israel’s southern strip is called. We pulled into the goat farm where we had reserved a room for two nights at around noon, too early. The room wouldn’t be ready for another few hours we were told. But in the small cheese store where they sell the farm’s products—an array of goat cheeses, yogurt and wine—Ram, a man in his late 40s who was traveling with his 10-year old son Omri and their dog Chickli, offered to show us where to hike. We followed them in their pickup truck first for a quick bite, and later down into the Mitzpe Ramon crater, one of the largest in the world. With them we hiked the Ein Saharonim trail. Ram amused us with tales from his life and travels around the world while his son was busy climbing every canyon edifice. We would look up after one of Ram’s stories, and there was Omri high above us on some cliff. On our way out we stopped at a Bedouin tent for tea, coffee and some traditional bread with Labane and more stories from Ram. After a life of business, engineering, a few patents and much travel, he has settled on a piece of land (60 dunams) in the Northern Negev where he runs a zimmer—the Israeli version of a bed and breakfast. (Ram’s story is much like that of the owners of Naot Farm, who in 2003 also decided to “fulfill their dream” and start a goat farm together with their six kids.) Ram is happy to be out of the rat race, and told us he hoped for our sake that in a few years we will have left New York. Truth be told after a few days in the desert, eating goat cheese, cooking meat on a grill and hiking in some of the most beautiful landscapes, we hoped for the same. In fact we even contemplated leaving Tel Aviv for a while and renting a house for a month or two in the “real” Israel, surrounded by land and nature. Who knows, maybe one of these days we too will end up with six kids and a goat farm.

This week Michal and I took an amazing trip to the Negev. We will write more about this soon, but I thought I’d share a short anecdote about the process of renting our car for the journey.

We booked a car online with El Dan, one of the major car rental chains in Israel. When we arrived at the rental agency, a young woman with about zero sense of humor assisted us with the reservation. Let’s call her Tzipi. During our brief discussion about the reservation details, I thought I had made clear to Tzipi that I wanted only the basic insurance on our basic little car. She generated the paperwork, I signed, and we were out the door. We walked to a nearby place for a pre-journey bite, but as we walked back to get the car, I looked again at the contract and noticed that there was a strange $60 surcharge for the “extra special insurance” (called an excess damage waiver) whereby you can return your car as a piece of scrap metal (or have your next of kin do so) and have no obligation at all to the rental company. I had never asked for this, however, as I was happy to take my chances with the $500 standard deductible. So as Michal stayed in the car outside, I went in to tell them that they had made a mistake. I looked for Tzipi, the humorless rental agent, but she had already left, so I spoke to another agent. We’ll call him Itzi. [Read more →]

It’s about 5 pm in Jerusalem, an hour before the fast officially ends. But I chose to end my fast early this year. I have taken a cup of Nescafe and a few honey cookies to the garden across the street from where Uzi and Esti live and where Kevin and I have been staying. When I arrive one man draped in a talit is sitting on a bench and he watches me take my coffee to another bench, book in hand. He leaves minutes later and I am alone in the small neighborhood park with a sandbox and a few benches. The light is on it’s way out and there seem to be an endless number of birds hovering above. The city is quiet, but for these birds. I listen and watch them fly overhead. Usually the break fast feels incredibly anticlimactic. You have waited more than 24 hours to finally put something in your mouth, but by the time you do, the desire is gone, the routine has already been broken, and there is no way of gaining what you have lost. [Read more →]

Here is the latest piece I wrote for the Forward.

Two years ago, in the midst of the Second Lebanon War, the popular French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was sent to Israel by The New York Times Magazine to “ponder, discuss and travel,” as the title of his piece suggested. The result, an essay defending the country’s military action against vociferous critics, was published alongside two photographs by the still relatively unknown Israeli photographer Shai Kremer, who had also been sent by the Times. One photo showed a helicopter about to land, with a flock of birds trailing at its tail. The other featured a soldier atop a tank on duty near the border with Lebanon, with large, white ammunition shells piled on the soil and a distant view of a cemetery.

In August 2006, most readers were probably unfamiliar with Kremer’s work. But Kremer’s reputation was already growing. At the time, the photographer was immersed in a seven-year project documenting the effects of war on Israel’s landscape. His subjects ranged from abandoned military outposts, borders and barriers to nature reserves dotted with military detritus. That collection, Infected Landscape, recently published in art-book format by Dewi Lewis Publishing in Manchester, England, was released to American and European markets last month. To mark its release, a selection of photographs is on display at several galleries around Israel.

The pairing of Levy and Kremer was an interesting choice, given that their views on the war could not have been more different: One launched a verbal defense, while the other sought to present a visual counterpoint. But that’s exactly what photography editor Kathy Ryan had in mind when she paired the two, Kremer told the Forward in a recent interview. “I don’t want to speak in her name, but I believe she looked for a visual opinion that would somehow balance the words of Bernard-Henri Lévy,” Kremer said.

[Read more →]

Recently, Ulf, Gabriela, Michal, and I went to a wedding of Gabriela’s first cousin’s son, Daniel, which would make him Michal’s second cousin. For Israelis, the wedding probably just blended into some of the approximately 2000 that they go to in the course of an Israeli lifetime. For me, however, it was a small peek into the masala – the diversity and mixture – that makes up Israeli society.

[Read more →]

Yesterday was my first day of Ulpan (language class) at Ulpan Gordon. I was told to come in the morning for the placement test, and when I arrived I joined the teeming masses of seekers of Hebrew knowledge, and was given an exam to assess my reading and writing skills. Needless to say, they’re rather limited, but not so limited to place me in a complete beginner’s class. However, as the examinatrix informed me, there wasn’t a great placement available for me in the evening classes, but if I wanted I could join the beginner’s class which had started last week and be the “class genius.”

I decided to go for genius status (I take it where I can) and start from aleph bet. So last night I showed up for class expecting to sit next to Adam, Rebecca, and Lisa. But instead, it was Muhammad, Ming, Lu Tau, and Paola. In fact, I appeared to be in the seemingly paradoxical situation of being one of the few Jews taking a course in Hebrew language. My colleagues were a motley crew of workers, refugees, diplomats and others from around the world who were in Israel for a variety of reasons, many as of yet to be determined. Sitting next to me, for example, was a woman from Brazil that came from a town I had never heard of. When I asked her what brought her to Israel (in my rudimentary but comparatively brilliant Hebrew) she pointed to the gold ring on her finger. She married a guy named Moishe, and now she’s in Tel Aviv. Go figure. There was also Muhammad, a refugee from Sudan (I’d definitely like to talk to him about his story), a Philipina worker, a young Thai hipster, and a pale faced chain smoking Swede, to name but a few.

And then there was the Chinese guy in the back of the class who was trying to challenge my status as class genius. When I entered he was chatting away on the phone in Hebrew, causing a student in front of him to nervously enquire out loud if this was indeed the beginner’s class. And when Rachel, our teacher, would ask the class, for example, “eizeh yom hayom?” (what day is it today), perhaps reflecting China’s aspirations for dominant world status he would yell out loud before anyone else had a chance, “hayom yom sheni!” (today is Monday). Rachel felt compelled to tell him to slow down a little so as not to make the other students feel bad. Then, sharing a cultural lesson about proud Jewish mothers to the Israel newcomers, she informed him that her daughter spoke fluent Chinese and had spent a year in university in Taipei. So there.

The name of this cafe is : “Coffee, Food…Come on, Food”

(It reminds me a bit of the Little Engine that Could.)

Street graffiti is one way of getting to know a country and Israel’s wall art is no exception. It reflects a country that is self-reflecting, deeply irreverant, and often despairing; a country divided and torn about how they see themselves and the world outside.  The lower image features one of the country’s most popular street symbols that has laid the groundworks for an existential conversation  among Israel’s graffiti artists. The phrase, taken from an old song, means “The people of Israel lives,” and has long been a patriotic anthem. But for years graffiti artists have distorted the phrase, turning “chai,” which means “life,” into other words such as “chayot,” meaning “animals,” such that the phrase reads “The people of Israel are animals,” or “The people of Israel live in a dream,” (Am Israel chai be’chalom) one of my favorite variations on the theme.

Here’s my latest review:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1220526711485&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull