Yaffa x 2 Narratives

So, it turns out the beach we were at yesterday used to be a cemetery. Literally.

Today we got up earlier than we have so far to meet up with a friend of Emma’s. His name is Dimi and he is part of a Arab-Jewish coexistence organization in Yaffa. This week the organization was going for a tour of Yaffa. The tour incorporated two narratives of the city history; the Palestinian one and the official Zionist version. We tagged along with the tour and the subsequent discussions and lunch.

Again, it felt very strange returning to central Tel Aviv after having been in a more organic (albeit disrupted) urban setting. There is a lot I could say. For now I just give you some pics. As usual you can click the photos to see more on my flickr page.

Pausing for shade and a discussion of the historical part of the tour in the Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Yaffa:

Sami, the Palestinian tour guide briefs us on gentrification and displacement in modern day Yaffa:

Getting the Zionist narrative:

A razed house; most likely Palestinian:

Building new luxury developments:

Yaffa Cafe; a Hebrew-Arabic bookstore in Yaffa. Also excellent mint lemonade:

Picture This

My sister tanning on the beach in Tel Aviv. But wait, what is she reading? Could it be “The Tragedy of Zionism.” Well yes. It could.

What am I reading? “The Pity of It All: A portrait of the German Jewish epoch.” Heh. I know, I know.

Over and out, am going to try to be a bit productive now.

Farewell to Berlin. Hello Tel Aviv

So, I’ve arrived in Israel. Flying from Berlin, over central Europe I’ve got to say: Damn it’s flat. Just fields all the way from Berlin to Bulgaria basically. Talk about West Asian steppe.

When I got off the plane the 60-ish man who had been sitting one seat down from me on the flight asked me where I was from. “Sweden,” I said. “Sweden? no, no, no! Hair not blonde.”

I’ve had this conversation in many varied forms before, good to know it never fails. Actually, never had it in Berlin this time. Not sure if they

A.) Just assumed I was American. B.) Are too P.C. to ask.

My taxi driver was a friendly Buhkaran Jew from Tasjkent. He didn’t speak much English and I speak virtually no Hebrew, but that didn’t stop us from yammering away all the way in to Tel Aviv.

I usually don’t initiate conversations with taxi drivers. It can be a bit of a crapshot, more often than not you find yourself fending off questions about your love life. This guy was 100% appropriate. I learned he had three kids, got to see a cellphone pic of his newborn son and learned that he had family in Queens, NYC (holla!) and Phoenix, Arizona. Also he once drove a tank in Gaza and used to be a photographer in Uzbekistan.

I didn’t want to pigeon hole him and talk about Queens, sheep roasts and diamonds. He had no such qualms. He talked diamond merchants and Lev Leviev with great pride. Also, he waxed poetic about the fine culture of Ukraine, Uzbekistan and other FSRs.

View from our Tel Aviv window. (Click for more pics on my Flickr page.)

Narcissism in Tel Aviv Bedroom:

Our Tel Aviv Bedroom:

One last pic from Berlin (me and my Berliner Weisse)

But Wha-ay?

Questions after visiting the Jewish Museum (in no particular order):

- Why were several, presumably Bavarian, high-schoolers wearing dirndls and lederhosen on their visit to the museum?

- Why does the cafeteria go to the trouble of being “kosher style,” but not certified kosher, or even plain old vegetarian?

- Are the refugees from Germany to Israel in the 1930s among the exiles commemorated in the “Garden of Exiles?”

- Is Amos Elon’s book title “The Pity of It All” really an appropriate way to sum up 2000 years of German-Jewish history?

- The Mendelssohn-Bartholdys aside: Why is a Christmas tree part of the exhibition?

Art in the void:

Wienukkah rules: