What, Raf is STILL in Tel Aviv?
I know, I know. The plan was to go back to Jerusalem today. Two factors kept me another night:
Still have a package to collect
I'm a little under the weather
Tel Aviv is quiet. Not dead. Quiet. In the fancy areas (Dizengoff square, the Old North) I estimate that about half or more of the cafes are open. All food stores and drugstores are open. Traffic is light. Quite. I went to the gym. It was well attended, but the schedule is partial. There was a Red Alert at 2:30 this afternoon. I was home. Two booms rattled the windows. I discussed with my neighbor the safe room options in our building. She (with two small kids and a dog) uses her bathroom.
Errands took me on a tour across a big chunk of the city. Spent an hour and a half on an e-scooter. Up to HaZafon HaChadash (north of Arlozorov) then down to Old Jaffa. First to pick up a textbook (for the Hebrew class I started), then to pick up a package. (Woofing Post Office has me pick up packages at a different location every time. Today at a hardware store in Jaffa. Not close. I walk in. People are buying tile cleaner. It's a long discussion! I finally but in: "Where are the packages from the post office?" "In the back."
"In the back" a thirteen year old boy sucking 7-Up through a straw is physically knee deep in packages. I realize I don't have my ID card, and pray they release the package on the basis of a debit card. The guy ahead of me gets his package without seeming to show anything. I ask for mine. The kid sucks some soda and pokes the pile. "Come back tomorrow," he says. They have to get organized. The shopkeeper says there's been no staff the past number of days.
Jaffa is deader than Tel Aviv. Maybe 20% of non-food/drug stores are open. By my place in Tel Aviv, the "Israeli" (southern) part of Shuk HaCarmel is 80% open. The northern, touristy part, is at most 20% open. You can ride a bike through the shuk--normally not possible during the day. 80% of the food stands are open.
I buy lunch. (Note to self: The working class Shawarma place on the south end of the shuk is tastier than my son Noah's favorite shuk Shawarma place. But look, wherever you go, get the half-serving--they have it, even if not on the menu.) I get a pomegranate juice (anything to feel a little better). Here is what I consider second-best Shawarma (Sorry [not sorry] Noah):
Did I go to the beach? Why yes. Thank you for asking! When I was asked: Did you go to the beach? I went! (Thank you, A.K!)
Electric buses are increasingly seen in Tel Aviv. I even saw a couple in Jerusalem last week. Business is slow today:
Thoughts
Alef
Near City Hall was this caption under a picture of a Sephardic looking woman:
אין ימין שמאל לא יפרדו בנינו יותר
There is no right or left. They won't divide us any more!
This is a slogan of the center/left working to combat the divisive language of Likud and other right wing groups who blame the "Preserve Judicial Status Quo" demonstrations (and now the war) on an Israeli equivalent of "privileged whites" (aka “leftists”). (Hebrew language clip for this campaign. It emphasizes the damage the labels “right” and “left” do and suggests calling it out and making such speech inappropriate.)
The above appears right next to Tel Aviv City Hall (see below), which, today (and for months already), has this adornment:
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, a centerpiece of the protests against the judicial hijack. (Also prominent on the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where the declaration was signed.)
Bet
Which brings us to racial profiling/stereotyping/tribalism. The events of the past twelve days have inflamed hatreds in directions various. This paragraph is to touch the hatred within the Israeli Jewish community, directed at itself. Leaving the Haredim to the side for the moment, a primary effort of the Likud during 2023 was stoking resentment among Sephardic Israelis. The politics of division. If you listen, this sense shows up in the oddest places….such as:
Just before the October 7 attack, (on October 5) I was at a music festival in a different desert. At the base of Masada.
It was mostly big Sephardic stars (and some rockin female rappers, one of whom [Noga Erez-check her out]) broke her leg performing the day before and was on stage
bouncing around with a crutch and big boot on one foot.
Sorry, back to the thread (remember the thread? The agitprop of Israeli-Sephardic resentment): The point is, that from the stage, a giant of Israeli pop music (THE giant?), Omer Adam asked the audience not once, but twice: "What do they mean we aren't united? We have no differences! We are united!" This felt like a stealth political statement, and not from the left. It felt like “you don’t need to go to demonstrations because we are a united people.”
(The observation that the architects of pumping Israeli Sephardic resentment [Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu] are all themselves Ashkenazim is, from Raf's chair, an observation of cynical political opportunism. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." [groan])
Relief Area
Alef
More Noga Erez (she rocks, and seems to be 100% in English)
Bet
Who is Omar Adam? Here is one clip, and here is his channel. (You’ve heard him. He is, to Raf’s ears, the Voice of Israel these years.)
Gimmel
ברגעי אסון אנחנו שולחים לעולם ציוד הומניטרי רופאים והנה הם שולחים אלינו מנהיגים. כל מדינה מקבלת את מה שחסר לה
When there are disasters we [Israel] send humanitarian aid and doctors. Now the world sends us leaders (President Biden, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany). Each country gets what it lacks.
That is the news today from Tel Aviv.
Raf
(Thank you A.K. for assistance.)