Exotic Foods
Think of all the amazing ethnic foods of the world. Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Thai, German, Mexican, French, Spanish, Korean . . . the list goes on and on . . . but, curiously (and be honest): did the word “Israeli” pop up in your mind?
I have never been somewhere with as rich and unique of a culture as Israel that had such an . . . uninteresting . . . cuisine. You’d think that with all the Jewish dietary laws and the uniqueness of the things that grow in that area, the food would be unique, too. My experience was otherwise. Kebabs and shawarma (Middle Eastern, sure, but not known as Jewish) abound, as do burgers, salads of chopped tomatoes and cucumbers with beans, hummus, fish, meatballs (no pork), stew, what am I missing? Oh yes, don’t forget the fried chicken, also known as schnitzel (curious note: there is a sizeable German influence in Israel, which includes Bauhaus-style architecture and, as you can see, schnitzel. I even learned that there is a Yiddish word, Yekke, which roughly means “German Jew” . . . and which like many Yiddish words you hear today can be offensive if used incorrectly, so be careful what you do with this information).
Okay, let’s return from that rabbit trail. The point is, I found myself a little bored with the menus in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, most of which seemed to have the same dozen items on them. This is just as well, as I find myself tempted to overeat wherever there are new flavors for me to try. No problem there; I actually lost 2 or 3 pounds in Israel.
Speaking of losing weight, my American classmates also noticed that they were either losing weight or, more likely, failing to gain weight even though they were eating like hungry, hungry hippos. This was especially odd considering that most of the food available was greasy and full of carbs. Sweet and cheesy pastries abounded, as did all kinds of meat dripping with fat. Typically, vegetables were limited to salads or some pickled vegetables that you put on your carb-wrapped greasy meat. Yet we weren’t gaining weight and, as I mentioned previously, the Israelis were in notably great shape.
Eh? How’s that work? I have no idea, other than to report to you that the prevailing theory I kept hearing is that the food in Israel, though high in calories and low in greens, is largely fresh and unprocessed. I have no rebuttal, and for now, I’m going to rest my case. Maybe it’s true; I certainly don’t remember seeing much bologna and Wonder Bread on offer.
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| Pastries. Everywhere in Israel. And oh so yummy. |
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| Enough halva to sink a ship, choke a horse, and . . . water a mouth, I guess. |
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| Special hazy effect made possible by -- oops -- grease on my camera lens. I blame the pastries. |
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| I wish I could get this for breakfast at home! At Cafe Bograshov in Tel Aviv. Washed down with a couple of Turkish Coffees, mmmm..... |
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| These places are also everywhere, which may account for the health of the locals |
Hardy People Partying Hard?
Smoking, drinking, and junk food: a recipe for health?
To replay this broken record, I also want to share another non sequitur. In Tel Aviv, by far the most prevalent kinds of stores were tobacco shops, liquor stores, pastry shops, and corner stores selling little more than [what I would call] junk food. Yet the people were so gorgeous!! I just don’t get it.
JERUSALEM
This part gets its name in all caps because, hey, it’s JERUSALEM. The most important city in the world. Some may scoff at this assertion, but really: consult the annals of the United Nations. Consult the news headlines. Consult Biblical prophecy. Jerusalem is where it’s at. Let’s talk Jerusalem. In no order:
The Golden City
Jerusalem’s architecture is unique. All buildings must be constructed, at least on the outside, of “Jerusalem stone”, a yellowish and pretty stone.
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| Jerusalem stone in the foreground, Jerusalem in the background. And I am smiling! On the inside. |
In the right light, with the sun at the right angle, you wind up with a city on a hill (many hills, actually—see below), reflecting warm, yellow sunbeams from warm, yellow stones. It’s a actually a pretty good argument for city zoning, because the results are stunning. At times, it is the most beautiful city you can think of.
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| I'm digging the flag and menorah on top |
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| Getting a little more golden in the evening light |
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| Even indoors, beautiful stone abounds |
The stones paving the streets are also intriguing. They are very rough looking, but they wear to a very slick consistency. I actually got some great sidewalk surfs in while visiting. Unfamiliar with sidewalk surfing? It’s easy in Jerusalem: take several steps accelerating to a running speed, then lock your feet as if on a skateboard and see how far you can slide along the sidewalk of widely-spaced stones. Yes, it’s fun, and yes, they are that well worn; I could slide for several feet at a time and never once got enough traction to land me on my face. I’m told that when it rains the streets are especially treacherous to walk upon. If only it had rained while I was there, the distance I could have gotten!
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| May I distract you for a moment from looking at all the beautiful artwork and direct your attention to the very rough looking but delightfully slick paving stones on the ground. |
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| Just a cool looking spot in the Old City |
But How Golden is it?
I visited Jerusalem three times, encompassing part of five different calendar days. I was prepared for it to be the most specialest [sic]city in the world, but I found it, to tell the truth, underwhelming. Skip this next part if you want to avoid politics, but I surmised that Jerusalem was not nearly as special as you would imagine. It is pretty in many ways, it is as ancient as cities come, and it is in many ways wonderful. But the fact remains: it’s not that remarkable of a city. If you were able to forget that it is OMG! Jerusalem!, you might just think it was an interesting and sometime beautiful place, but not a Wonder of the World. I mean, even some cities in the American Midwest are, truth be told, a fair bit cooler, as far as city coolness goes.
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| This if off topic, but something I love about this picture is that, at a large city park, Arab and Israeli people are all picnicking and getting along just fine. |
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| This and the next few pictures are actually of some of the cooler neighborhoods in Jerusalem |
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| This spot is pretty sweet, no matter where you're from |
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| A little Old City for you |
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| Apparently somebody's unworried about trademark law |
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| Fun times!! It's somebody's Bar Mitzvah! Being carried in a procession through the entire Old City on your way down to the Western Wall certainly makes for a special day. |
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| Especially with these guys blowing the shofar for you!! |
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| And these guys keeping everyone safe |
Where am I going with this?
Visiting Jerusalem opened (I hope that’s the word) my eyes a little bit to what’s going on in the Middle East. Jerusalem is a humble city. Why do the Jews want is as their capital? Probably because it was always their capital, and it is essential to their identity and to the existence of the state of Israel to have it as their capital. Why do the Palestinians want it? I can’t help but think that the only reason is because . . . I know I’m treading on thin ice here . . . because the Jews want it. I can see no other [legitimate] reason for it other than to think that the enemies of Israel want Jerusalem only because they can’t stand the thought of the Jews being content to reside in and rule Jerusalem as their capitol. I have to conclude that they simply dislike the Jews and want them to be unhappy.
So sad. I would be happy to be wrong and I hope I am.
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| The market, or at least a fraction of it, in Jerusalem |
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| The outdoor mall, or at least a fraction of it, etc. . . |
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| Pretty sweet new condos, actually |
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| An ice cream spot just a block from where I stayed in Jerusalem, in the Rehavya neighborhood. |
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| . . . with many satisfied customers |
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| This is sweet. In the Old City, an ancient spot. The mural in the background is what this very spot would have looked like in the old days. |
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| Just a piece of Jerusalem, carved into a piece of Jerusalem |
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| The happy face building is actually a sundial. A protruding bar casts a shadow on the "smile", telling you what time it is. Accurate to within . . . oh, about an hour and a half at the moment I took this picture. |
And Why is it Called the City on a Hill?
When I think of a city on a hill, I think of something shaped perhaps like a bell curve or camel’s hump or some such other “hilly” thing. Jerusalem is, however, on many hills upon other hills, all of which are at something of a raised altitude, which one could, I suppose, call a hill. Jerusalem is the City on a Hill in the same way that Los Angeles is considered a “city” but it consists of many individual cities.
The upside of this? It seems like every home is built on a hillside of sorts. It’s really cool. The streets are a mess, but the views are amazing.
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| Warm summer night, view of East Jerusalem. Magical. |
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| How about this for a lovely cafe view? |
Underneath it All
In case you were unaware, the modern methods of demolishing buildings and clearing away rubble before rebuilding is just that: a “modern” invention. In days of old, cities actually built new buildings upon the old remains of the city. Jerusalem itself sits on, if I remember correctly, six different layers of city, from different eras. Dig straight down anywhere in Jerusalem, and you’re going to find a huge glimpse into history. This holds true, naturally, for such a spot as the Temple Mount.
We (the law students) took a guided tour beneath Jerusalem, next to the Temple Mount. We walked hundreds of meters underground, going along the length of the Western Wall that, previously, I didn’t even know existed. I am pleased to report that it is doing just fine. Solid as a . . . never mind, that would be too cheap a cliché.
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| This is a scale model of the Temple Mount. The lighter colored area inside the oval is the entire visible outside part of the Western Wall that you see people praying at today. This picture only shows a fraction of the length of the wall. We walked all the way to the end. |
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| I'm standing, taking this picture, at one end of a single stone in the wall. Sam (white shirt) is standing at the other end. We are deep underground. |
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| Just more buried Jerusalem |
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| And again. |
Our (Jewish) tour guide shared an interesting anecdote. She had been giving the tour to some BBC News folks, and at one spot she told them of the ancient ritual baths that archaeologists had discovered deep within the site. When asked how we could know what we were looking at, she replied that, among other reasons, the baths were of the perfect dimensions required for ceremonial use under Jewish law, etcetera, etcetera, and that, especially considering the baths’ location near the old Temple, it’s beyond doubt what they were.
The BBC folks responded with a fascinating story. The day before, they had toured the same archaeological site, only a Palestinian guide had led them. When at the baths they asked what they were looking at, the guide replied that it was nothing, and that they could clearly see that it was no more than random archaeological rubble.
I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions. <-- HINT: refresh yourself on Middle Eastern politics, and the claims Israel’s enemies like to make, before you do.
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| Looking down into a deep dig site, examining the "rubble" in question |
The “Holy City”
Tel Aviv—kosher food and certain stores closing on Shabbat aside—is a very secular city. Not so Jerusalem. This town virtually shuts down on the Sabbath. It gets so, so quiet. Should you be inclined to try to find even a restaurant open during Shabbat, your options are very limited. The places you find, however, will have a very lively crowd of non-religious folk, or at least non-Jewish folk. Or not-that-religiously-observant Jewish folk. Such interesting demographics.
Another thing unique (in my travels, anyway) about Jerusalem is that you can almost get away with judging by appearances—and in so doing, being correct in your judgment. I mean by this that in Jerusalem, you can actually tell how liberal or conservative someone is in their religion just by observing how they dress. I became no expert in the subtleties of it, but I observed that the men with no kippah (little round head piece worn on the crown of the head) were the least religious, and those wearing one were more religious. A pure black kippah (especially a larger one) is more religious than is a colored one. Wearing black pants and a white shirt is more religious still. Black suit, hat, beard, hair locks on the sides of the head (I forget the name, and no internet right now to look it up) . . . any or all of these mean more religious still. Some dress so religiously that you’d think they are in costume, headed to a cultural heritage event. So interesting!
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| Probably among the less religious kippah |
Likewise the women: jeans and t-shirt: not [very] religious. Skirt past the knees, getting warmer (even the girls in the army can wear skirts if they want to). Long sleeves and skirt, darker colors, even more so. I found an interesting thing: it was summer, and the religious women (and girls) would wear summery dresses and tops, but no matter what, their dresses were always long enough to cover the knees, and if their top had short sleeves, their arms were still covered past the elbows because they would wear ¾-length undershirts. It was not something I’ve seen elsewhere: white undershirts just long enough to cover the elbows everywhere you look. I actually thought it was pretty cool: the women were dressed very modestly, but they still looked feminine and pretty, unlike in some other religions you may have seen where the women are so thickly covered that you can’t even tell who is underneath the clothing . . . and whether or not they are happy about it.
Now, of course, it’s not just Jews who consider Jerusalem holy; Christians and Muslims usually consider Jerusalem a special place, too. In the “Muslim Quarter” of the city, I failed to notice anything all that Muslim about it other than that the shops carried more Arabic-looking items and trinkets. The “Christian Quarter” was similar in that the trinkets being sold tended more toward the Catholic-looking side of things.
I really didn’t spend long enough in Jerusalem, in any part of it, to really be able to say that I put my thumb on the pulse of the city, especially not in spiritual things. I think I noticed something sad, however: the more religious-looking somebody was, whether I made this observation based on their attire or by their behavior (e.g., standing in line to enter a shrine, carrying a cross up a pilgrimage route, or visiting the Western Wall), the more dismal was their appearance. I thought that Jerusalem, being such a holy place, would make people glad to be there. Perhaps they were glad to be there. But it just seemed so unhappy a city so much of the time.
Holy, some City!
As for me, I actually had some great spiritual times while visiting Jerusalem (and now I have to chuckle as I wonder if I looked unhappy during these times!), only none of these times was while visiting one of the religious sites. My last two and a half days in Israel were spent visiting Jerusalem alone. I had tired of Tel Aviv and I wanted to give Jerusalem one more chance to grow on me (since my first two times there had been such hurried tours with classmates). I decided to skip class and get on the bus.
What did I do that made my visit such a profound time? I went for a walk.
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| Well, truth be told, I had breakfast, too :) |
I walked all day, even in the heat of the day. No friends to distract me, just me taking it all in, filtered only through my own thoughts and prayers. The timing was perfect: I was wrapping up the most amazing summer of my life, preparing to leave my fantasy nomadic life behind and return to the USA. To be able to have such a time of self-reflection and solitude (seriously, I was the only person on foot in some areas, as it was too hot for most people to be out) in such an important and historic place was one of my sweetest memories. Ever. I will never forget calmly walking, watching the city slowly drifting past me, as I said my goodbyes to Israel and added my footprints to the millions of others left there over the past thousands of years. Never have I been so troubled (sad to be leaving) and so tranquil (glad to be there) at once.
My last hour was spent lying on the grass in the shade of a tree, at a park near the bus station. I remember it so vividly I can still smell the air, still feel the sunlight peeking through the branches of the tree, still describe the twigs and leaves that stuck to me, still remember the thoughts I was thinking. It has been six weeks since then, but when I look back at that time, it’s like I am Right There.
I wish I was.
Shalom, Yisrael
After writing that last bit, I feel it’s almost profane to continue typing, but, as in real life, I must keep moving forward, even with just finishing this account of my travels.
That night, my last in Israel, my friends Josh and Lindsey took me out for a farewell dinner. We went for a long walk, stopping at three different restaurants (well, one was a wine bar, not exactly a restaurant, but we did have olives—the best I’ve ever had—and cheese), including one on the rooftop of an old building at what used to be a train station but is now a vibrant cultural, dining, art, and historical center. I had very little appetite, actually, because I was wishing I didn't have to leave. But, having already said goodbye to Jerusalem, I found this a particularly sweet way to say goodbye to Tel Aviv.
Flying the Friendly Skies
The Tel Aviv airport was incomparably better organized than was the Budapest airport. What a difference some professionalism can make. In fact, it was less than a minute after entering the line for security (which is the first line you get to in the airport, even before picking up your boarding pass . . . and by the way, you must first go through a separate metal detector before even entering the airport . . . oh, and don’t forget: they also check your car before they let you drive onto the airport property) before I was pulled aside for questioning.
45 minutes later, they decided that I wasn’t a bad guy, and they let me go get my boarding pass. Wow, what fun! Seriously, though, it was: two ladies questioned me (one was still in training, the other her trainer) about almost every facet of my visit to Israel. Each question I answered prompted them to ask me more questions in more detail. What was I doing in Israel? Studying law. Where? Bar Ilan University. What classes did I take? Which was my favorite? Who was the professor? What was the most interesting case? What was the holding of that case? Show us your laptop computer and the notes you took in class. Seriously, I don’t know how someone could have successfully lied their way through it, had they been there for shady purposes. I found it fascinating and actually had a good time, and congratulated the ladies on doing such a great job.
I asked if they had chosen me from the crowd for any particular reason, or if it was random. Random, they said. Not that they would have told me if it wasn’t. I suspect, however, that it was my attire that drew their attention (or perhaps because I look Russian, as someone in Israel told me?): wearing long pants, dress shoes, and a blazer, I was the only person dressed in an outfit that didn’t involve at least one item of shorts, t-shirts, or sandals. Regardless, it was another sweet glimpse into what makes Israel special, and another experience that I would not have had back home.
Flying the Even Friendlier Skies
Do you remember my writing, back when I was in Norway, about wearing my wedding ring on my right hand? I was still doing this in Israel, where it is also common for men to wear their ring thusly. I wondered, however, what people back home would make of this. While traveling, none of the locals ever commented on my ring hand choice, but American students frequently asked me why I wore it on the right. From reading online, I knew that in some cases, in North America, a ring on the right can mean something other than “I’m married”, whether it be “I’m a widower,” “I’m separated / divorced,” or “I’m homosexual.”
Curiously enough, I flew Air Canada on the way home. Shortly, I came to wonder if perhaps I was inadvertently sending one of the above messages to the Canadian crewmembers, because I received some boldly flirtatious comments, including a comment about me buying someone a drink once we landed. Yikes, was I blushing! Thankfully, I never had to actually tell the steward that I was uninterested, as he(!) moved on to pour the next row’s drinks and left me to consider his proposal. Moments later, my ring was back on my left hand.
I received no further solicitations.
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| Somewhere over Europe (Germany, I think), fending off advances. |
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| When you see an "anvil-shaped" cloud like this, it's storm time. I wish I could have caught a picture showing the electrical storm lighting up the cloud. |
