Wandering In Tel Aviv With a Mustache

Channel Two news here had an interview exclusive:

Speaking this week to Israel’s Channel 2, the only Israeli news channel to get an exclusive interview with him, the president reiterated that all options were on the table. But he also seemed to imply he would rather come to Israel as a tourist. He told the news channel he wished he could “sit at a cafe and just hang out, wear a mustache, wander through Tel Aviv, meet with students at a university in an informal setting."
 

"Wandering in Tel Aviv"?

Tel Aviv crowned world’s Best Gay City

With a whopping 43 percent of votes, Tel Aviv has been crowned the world’s Best Gay City in an international contest run by American Airlines. New York was the runner-up with just 14% of votes.

Oops.

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Tel Aviv's Female Fashion

Nothing has changed in 70 years:

There did not appear to be much poverty in Tel-aviv itself and most people walked around very smartly dressed and some very smartly undressed. It was nothing out of the ordinary to see women strolling along the main streets in very pretty two-piece suits, while on the beach itself everything between 9 and 90 appeared to enjoy the habit of sunbathing — old women and two year olds plus all the young belles of Tel-aviv. Quite a place...

That was from a letter by Corporal Allan Stoddart home on 29 July 1944.

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More Missionary Activity

I was in Tel Aviv yesterday (and how I got there is another story*) and two observations.

One is this pamphelt that I took, if only to make sure that it would go directly to genizah:

It's the latest issue of The Watchtower in Hebrew. Seems the Jehovah's Witnesses are active in the first Hebrew city. POB 29345 Tel Aviv 61293.  You'll notice I altered a bit the name of God, as the Tetragrammaton there.

Note:

Rutherford in his book 'Enemies' writes about Jews “ultra-selfish men called 'Jews' who look only for personal gain.”(19)

In the same book he writes that the Jews “practice religion, of which the Devil is the author.”(20) In another book he again writes about the Jews: “Be it known once and for all that those profiteering, conscienceless, selfish men who call themselves Jews, and who control the greater portion of the finances of the world and the business of the world...”(21)

Speaking at 'Bible Students'(22) convention in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the early 1920’s, Rutherford described a Jew as “the hooked-nosed, stooped-shouldered little individual who stands on the street corner trying to gyp you out of every nickel you’ve got.”(23) We see here clear examples of vulgar and primitive anti-Semitism. In yet another book he wrote that Jews lost favor with God when they murdered Jesus.(24)

Why is it so important for people like these to go out there and convert?

The second was the bike lanes on the sidewalks:

They take up as much room, almost, as the pedestrian walking space and - I noticed - many bikers ride on the sidewalks outside the bike lane area and that included motorized bicycles.

What a city.

_____________

*

I left Shiloh at 6:40 AM via a tremp for a 9:30 Tel Aviv appointment but when I got out of the car at Ariel, I discovered that, having changed pants twice this week for a wedding and a Bar Mitzvah, I had left my wallet at home so, I turned around and presumed that I'd have to cancel and from Shiloh continue to Jerusalem.  I returned home by 8 and with the encouragement from my wife, went back down the hill and sure enough, 5 minutes latyer was on another tremp which brought me by 9:15 to the Azrielly Buildings which are a 20 minute walk from the Tel Aviv Municipality where I had my meeting.  Wonder of wonders.

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South Tel Aviv Today

I attended a meeting today at the Shalom Tower and here are some scenes I spotted along the way:

 a) Foreign workers or illegal immigrants

 b) the old Turkish Railway line being preserved

c) a Tel Aviv Heritage Museum

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New York Times Almost Finds A New Israeli "Settlement"

Almost, but not quite.

It's an architecture article on Tel Aviv:

Letting in the Light in Tel Aviv

DESIGN buffs may swoon over Tel Aviv’s legendary Bauhaus architecture, but most of the city’s apartment buildings are like the one where Idit Barak, a fashion designer, and her husband, Ron Reinfeld, an executive at a high-tech company, live — big, boxy and boring.

Ms. Barak and Mr. Reinfeld’s six-story building, which was constructed in the 1950s, is on the south side of Rabin Square, one of the city’s biggest public spaces. And their 1,100-square-foot apartment, bought in 2008 for $540,000, “was dark and gloomy when we first found it,” Ms. Barak said. It was also on the second floor, overlooking busy Malchei Yisrael Street, so it offered passers-by an irresistible opportunity for voyeurism.

Still, she added, it was “about 40 percent larger than other apartments I’d seen for the same price.” [she decided] to turn the apartment’s “small, obscure and unusable rooms” into a bright, unified space that felt more like a loft.

...The renovation, which was completed in 2009 for $90,000, focused on creating a sense of transparency. Several internal walls and beams were removed to create two sizable bedrooms on one side of the apartment and an open kitchen, living and dining area on the other. Heavy plate-glass panels were used in lieu of conventional sheetrock walls to define the living area and the master bedroom; in between the two rooms is an interior courtyard that faces the street. With no drapes and what amounts to a glass facade, the apartment glows from within at night, offering an illuminated view of its inhabitants.

...White walls accentuate the brightness of the space and provide a simple backdrop for the couple’s modern furnishings...The bathroom sink looks modern, but it is original to the apartment. Ms. Barak calls it “the fish sink,” because she imagines it was once used for laundry “or to store live fish before they were made into gefilte fish for Shabbat.” Now it is where she gives Sophia a bath...

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My Trip to Tel Aviv Today

This morning I had to be in Tel Aviv for a 9:30 AM appointment. So I decided that I would take the 6 AM bus in to Jerusalem, get a breakfast at Holy Bagel and then travel by bus to the Old New Central Bus Station in south Tel Aviv and walk for a quarter of an hour to the office where I had to be. But my plans went awry.

Despite grabbing a ride down the hill that would have brought me to Ariel, I didn't proceed as that would really have gotten me to Tel Aviv way too early. However, the Egged bus never made it. We saw it approach but it didn't come in. I was in a bind as the next bus was at 6:35 and I doubted if I could make it to Tel Aviv in time.

Five minutes later, the sister of my previous driver came by, headed for Bar Ilan University and in I jumped. We arrived at the Geha Junction at 7:10 and after figuring out which bus to take, I was in downtown Tel Aviv by 7:40 and alighted at Dizengoff Center. But it was empty and no cafe open as yet. I walked up Dizengoff but no luck.

So, I headed west along Frischman and the sea appeared in the distance:


Walking slowly, I began paying attention. If you read this storefront display on Frischman Street slowly, you'll grasp a phonetic problem of the French. The proper pronunciation of the real estate project is Shirat HaYam but I guess someone swallowed it:


When I told one of my neighbors I was going to Tel Aviv but would probably be there way too early for my appointment, he told me "so go to the beach". So, I got as far as the esplanade off HaYarkon Street:



Tel Aviv has a lot of missionary activity it appears. This sticker reads: Yeishu - Yshua - Yeshu'ah which translates as Jesus-Yeshua-Salvation (a play of words)

This storefront is clear:

This sticker I found funny: Returning the color to the Leftists and is signed the National Left which illustrates the problems the Israeli Left has:

I continued south, looking for a place to munch something. Here's one of the restored old houses of Tel Aviv in the 1920s behind Allenby opposite the junction with King George St.:


I reached the new section of Nachalat Binyamin which is a pedestrian mall looking for a breakfast place. This one was seemingly Kosher but closed.

It reads "kosher", the sign in the window, but the sign doesn't look kosher:

Open but empty:

Finally, way down on Allenby near Montifiore St. I found this place. Kosher. Open.
Mirage.
Coffee and cheese cake. 25 NIS.
And a newspaper to read.

Stayed to 9:20 and walked over, right on time.

Forgettable Words or Israel's Internal Two-State Solution

Here:

Tel Aviv is, in fact, the most politically liberal city in Israel and offers a sharp contrast to the spirit of religious conservatism that informs Jerusalem. It votes to the left and looks to Europe. Many inhabitants yearn for nothing more than to live the life of a hot Mediterranean city, to be, say, the Barcelona of the Middle East and forget the conflict a dozen miles away.

And to a large extent, they succeed.

And that's the trouble.

Two state solution?

We have it: state of Tel Aviv and the state of Jerusalem.

It's all in the head and a matter of belonging, identification, historical resonance vs. the 'here-and-now'.

See what I mean:

Having a drink nearby is Gadi Shalom, 38, who a few weeks ago left his rented apartment in the city center to move into one he bought in a nearby suburb. He had wanted to stay in the city, but prices were out of reach.

“I think people here would prefer to live in another country,” he said, trying to describe the demand to live here. “And living in Tel Aviv is the closet thing to living abroad.”

Jeremy, J Street Jew

J Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami has an op-ed in The Forward: For Israel's Sake, Moderate American Jews Must Find Their Voice (and a similar one in the ‘International Herald Tribune’ of April 10, under the headline: “Tel-Aviv, Then and Now”.

Its essence:

For the sake of Israel, the United States and the world, it is time for American political discourse to re-engage with reality. Voices of reason need to reclaim what it means to be pro-Israel and to establish in American political discourse that Israel’s core security interest is to achieve a negotiated two-state solution and to define once and for all permanent, internationally recognized borders...In early 21st-century America, the rules of politics are being rewritten, and conventional political orthodoxy is clearly open to once-inconceivable challenges.

It is time for the broad, sensible mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews and their allies to challenge those on the extreme right who claim to speak for all American Jews in the national debate about Israel and the Middle East — and who, through the use of fear and intimidation, have cut off reasonable debate on the topic.

Why should this silly approach be adopted?

Well, Jeremy asserts:

By and large, we are a progressive community, among the most liberal in the United States.

and what really bothers him is:

In the name of protecting Israel, some of our community’s leaders became linked with neoconservatives...Some of our leaders have struck up fast friendships with far-right Christian Zionists...many of these are people with whom we disagree profoundly on values and beliefs that our community holds dear...

In Washington today, these voices are seen to speak for the entire American Jewish community. But they don’t speak for me. And I don’t believe they speak for the majority of the American Jews with whom I have lived and worked.

So, Jeremy's personal beliefs andwhat he perceives personally to be the majority of American Jewish beliefs is what counts. And if the majority of Jew werre arch-conservatives, would Jeremy be quiet? By the by, if that is true that Jews are progressive, how come for over 60 years the vast majority of America's Jews support what Jeremy would consider "extreme right views"? Well, simple, really. Because in the Middle East, there is no balance nor logic nor rationality on the Arab side and you can't compare to the political atmosphere in democratic America. To apply "Washington rules" of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to the Arab-Israel conflict is not only wrong but stupid. Jeremy, though, would blame the "Jewish establishment", as if he were an antisemite, which he isn't.

The J Street poll was destroyed by Rosner (and see my comments below) and the J Street interference on that Iran rally, getting Sarah Palin dis-invited gto please Hillary Clinton to the detriment of Israel is a matter of anti-Israel record.

At that Forward op-ed, some commented that they presumed to know what Jeremy's grandparents and parents would be doing in their graves - rolling over. I don't know for sure but since Jeremy does invoke his ancestry ("I support Israel. My family history ingrains in me the belief that the Jewish people need and deserve a home. I know that that nation must be strong and secure and that a deep bond between Israel and America is essential to its survival."), I am going to take a guess that with his current policies, if Jeremy had been his grandfather, Tel Aviv would not have been purchased and established. It would have been considered Arab land, Jewish expansion and needlessly causing friction with the neighbors. Sometimes, chronology does work - Jeremy is not his grandfather, although I am sure his proud display of genealogy is as empty as his political aptitude.

On April 17, next week, the descendants of the founders will gather in Tel Aviv at the ‘old’ Manshia Train Station (border Neve-Tsedek/Yafa) on April 17th, at 10:30 to reenact the famous photograph,



together with descendants of the city builders and prominent figures alongside thousands of residents.

Jeremy Ben-Ami will be there.

I wonder, will anyone be there holding up a placard reading:

Jeremy J Street Jew:
If this was 1909,
You'd Be Opposing The Purchase

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In that poll, I searched for the section on revenant Jewish communities and found this:

American Jews Oppose Settlement Expansion: By a 60 to 40 percent margin, American Jews oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank based on “what they know” and after receiving short statements by supporters and opponents of settlement expansion. Simply put, attitudes toward settlements are highly negative and firmly held. Not surprisingly, opposition to settlements is higher among Reform (64 percent oppose) and unaffiliated Jews (69 percent oppose), in contrast to Orthodox Jews who strongly support settlements (80 percent support). But one very interesting demographic finding is the strong opposition (72 percent oppose) among Jews who give money to political campaigns.

And here is the raw material:-

Q.60 From what you know about Israeli settlements in the West Bank, do you support or oppose expanding these settlements?

Total:

Strongly support..... 14

Somewhat support..... 25

Somewhat oppose..... 28

Strongly oppose..... 32

which sums up as Total Support..... 40 vs. Total Oppose..... 60.

Support - Oppose..... -21


Q.61 Supporters of expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank say this is the biblical Land of Israel, Jews have the right to live there, and settlement expansion is necessary to accommodate natural growth.

Opponents of expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank say the settlements break agreements with the United States, violate international law, and prevent Arab-Israeli peace because they establish Israeli population centers in the middle of a future Palestinian state.

After hearing these statements, do you support or oppose expanding these settlements?

Total

Strongly support..... 16

Somewhat support..... 24

Somewhat oppose..... 29

Strongly oppose..... 30



Total Support..... 40

Total Oppose..... 60

Support - Oppose..... -19

And remember:

Gerstein | Agne Strategic Communications designed the questionnaire for this survey of 800 self-identified adult American Jews, conducted February 28-March 8, 2009. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent; the margin of error in the split samples is +/- 4.9 percent.

Now, my comments:

1. Question #60 is phrased as "From what you know about Israeli settlements in the West Bank, do you support or oppose expanding these settlements?" What would have happened result-wise if I had composed the question so:

From what you know about Jewish communities established in Judea and Samaria, what is also referred to as the "West Bank", do you support or oppose these communities, towns and villages?

2. I would then add:

From what you know about Jewish communities established in Judea and Samaria, what is also referred to as the "West Bank", do you support or oppose the expanding of these communities, towns and villages within their official zoned areas, what is called "organic growth"?

3. As regards Question #61, I would have composed it so:-

Supporters of expanding the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, what is also referred to as the West Bank, say this is the biblical Land of Israel, Jews have the natural right to live there just as Arabs can live in Israel, that the international community assigned all this territory to have it become the Jewish national home before being partitioned and expansion is necessary to accommodate natural growth as well as contribute to Israel's security.

Opponents of expanding Israeli settlements in there claim the communities break agreements with the United States, violate international law, harm Israel's security and moral fibre and prevent Arab-Israeli peace because they establish Israeli population centers in the middle of a future Palestinian state.

After hearing these statements, do you support or oppose expanding these communities?

4. And notice, that while overall this is no change in negative responses from #60 to #61, actually the strongly opposed to #61 is reduced. In other words, the explanation within the question contributed to a doubt which reduced opposition from 32 to 30!

Ah, Israel

“That’s the separated beach,” James tells me matter-of-factly, pointing at a group of some 30 Orthodox men on the edge of a placid, gorgeous Mediterranean not far from the Hilton. I read a sign that states: “The Separated Beach. Bathing days for women: Sun, Tues, Thurs. Bathing days for men: Mon, Wed, Fri.” Then, pointing at a different group of men just 50 yards down the sand, James adds, “And that’s the gay beach.”

Source

Funny What Things Jewish You Can Find

She’s also trying to put type on the right side of the cover instead of the left. “Perhaps it would sell well to the dyslexic,” Magnolia cattily thinks, “or in Tel Aviv.”

“If celebrity worship were religion,” Ms. Koslow writes, “this was Jerusalem.”

Found in a review of “Little Pink Slips” by Sally Koslow

Tel Aviv As Seen By the Arabs

The Tel Aviv skyline as viewed from Chomesh.