Home Again

All went well in the end. I got on the midnight flight to New York on Sunday night. When I landed at JFK I had some trouble with U.S. immigration. The agent asked me all sorts of questions; including if I was really born in Sweden.

Then he tells me “I’m sorry I can’t let you in.” Huh? Wha? It was 5 in the morning and I was in no mood to get deported. My first sleepy thought was, “But who will feed my cats if I don’t get back in?”

I was transferred to “the room” where they question you further. The agent there was much nicer and just asked a few questions about employment etc. Then stamped the stamp and I was in. For the record, yes I am completely legal and all my papers are in order and up to date.

North Jersey never looked so beautiful.

At least I am infinitely better off than the U.S. born Palestinian guy who sat next to me on the plane. He had flown to Israel from L.A. to visit his cousin on the West Bank who had just had a baby. He wasn’t even let into Israel. They just put him on the next plane back. Just like that. Sayonara.

Ok. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading my friends.

As some old hippie once said. What a long strange trip it’s been.

And, since there are barely any pics of me on this blog, here are a few shots of me in Israel, courtesy of Emma:

At A Bar

Taking Photos in Haifa

In Yaffo/ Tel Aviv with Emma, Two hours before missing my plane

What’s In a Street Name

Much like in the U.S. most cities here seem to have the same set of street names. This is what happens in a young country in love with its founding mythology, I suppose. So, there’s Ben Gurion, Herzl, Jabotinsky, Olei Zion etc.

This extends to Arab neighborhoods too. I can only imagine how galling it must be for a Palestinian to live on Olei Zion or Ben Gurion.

On a side note, it is amusing to see many of the same street names here as in Berlin — the only city outside Israel with a large number of streets named for dead Jewish thinkers. Heine, Rabin and Ben Gurion come to mind.

Quite a Day to Be in Jerusalem

Today was the day we finally made it to Jerusalem. As it turns out it was also the day a Palestinian construction worker lost his marbles and plowed down pedestrians with a tractor, killing 3 and wounding upwards of 40 people. When we walked out of the central bus station we walked head first into the aftermath. It happened right outside the station an hour and a half before we got there.

It was hard to tell if this had affected the mood in the city. I understand from what people tell me that the atmosphere is tense in Jerusalem at the best of times. A native Jerusalemite and former professor of mine once summed up Jerusalem of today as “a playground for bigots.” Besides benign religious people the place is overrun with gun-toting settler types and other wild-eyed fanatics. This is a shame because it is a beautiful city. There were far fewer tourists than what I remember from the last time I was there, in 1995. I was surprised at how empty the Arab shouk in the Old City was.

Emma and I set out for the Western Wall in the lat afternoon, just in time to catch a veritable flood of people, mostly Hasidim and various other Haredi types going there for evening prayers. Coming down the road we heard cracks of some kind of gun fire in the distance and saw flashes of it over the West Bank. It may have been just someone shooting into the air, then again, it may not. In the end we didn’t go all the way up to the Wall. We were put off by the very skittish atmosphere, heavy security and the fact that we were the only non-ultra-orthodox people there. Sad, but what can you do.

We ended our evening in Ein Kerem. An amazingly beautiful village/ neighborhood in Jerusalem with a nice-seeming population. The experience was somewhat soured by the information that it used to be a Palestinian village before 1948.

Jerusalem Pics.
As usual you click the photos for more Jerusalem photos on my Flickr.

Aftermath of the tractor attack:

In the Old City:

Emma & Dimi Walking in Ein Kerem:

Unwinding in Ein Kerem:

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: