Get out of town!

On Thursday I caught a bus to Tel Aviv. I have a friend from camp many summers ago who lives in Herzeliya, which is a 15 minute drive north of Tel Aviv. The first thing I thought in the bus station in Jerusalem was "Geez, I haven't done this in a long time" Traveling, going somewhere new, exploring the sights etc. I feel less like I'm traveling when I plan to stay in one place for the year. For some reason it feels different than when I lived in Spain. I'm not traveling in Israel unless I go somewhere outside of Jerusalem.

My Israeli friend disagreed with me when I expressed my jealousy of his fast approaching post army trip to South America. I'm so jealous that he gets to see a new place and try new foods and have crazy stories. He pointed out that I'm traveling in Israel for this whole year. But for some reason it doesn't feel the same to me. I've participated in Taglit-Birthright Israel 3 times now in some capacity and I feel like I've seen the sights. This time around felt even a little like overkill. So when I went to Tel Aviv this weekend and I pulled out my guide book, I realized I had already seen and done the suggestions in the book.

I decided to wander around while I waited for my Israeli friend to finish work. I found an Ethiopian restaurant (there are lots of Ethiopian immigrants in Israel, but Tel Aviv is the only city with any significant Ethiopian culture, ie. good food) and enjoyed myself for two hours. It's pretty difficult to eat a meal for two hours by yourself. I ordered something which turned out to be not what I expected (but definitely still good) and then I watched a large party that was sitting behind me.

Half their table was Ethiopian and the other half a mix of English speakers. The Ethiopian half was definitely the most interesting. I watched what they ordered and how they ate it. It's possible that the reason I like Ethiopian food so much is because you traditionally eat with your hands. There is a special bread that you use to scoop up the bits of meat and vegetables (which are spread out on a plate of the same bread, about the size of a large pizza) and then you just shove it in your mouth. The food is quite tasty, with a lot of different spices and I thoroughly enjoy it. (Apparently I have to give Indian food a second chance, but don't keep your fingers crossed)

After they finished eating they got the waitress to put on a traditional Ethiopian CD and one of the guys started dancing. All of the other patrons in the restaurant were quite entertained and he started to teach the English speakers at his table how to dance Ethiopian style. All I can say is its a lot of shoulder popping. While I watched the dancers I noticed I had a huge smile on my face. As a side note, it's difficult to travel by oneself, I guess something about shared experience and the human condition. But the good time that this group was having radiated itself throughout the restaurant and had everyone enjoying themselves.

After that I walked to the beach where I sat in the sand staring at the almost full moon until my friend picked me up.

It was interesting to spend Shabbat with an Israeli family. It was just a weekend for them. They ate lunch all together on Friday because they were all home. They did their own things on Friday night. His mother lit candles at some point, but when we sat down to eat our pita and hummus, he was surprised when I asked for wine. "But wine doesn't go with hummus!" I questioned him further on his Jewish observance. He doesn't go to synagogue, not even on Yom Kippur. He doesn't even fast, although his family does. I made a comment that he would have to raise his children in Israel, because if not they wouldn't even be Jewish. Many Israelis (the secular kind) take Judaism for granted. They are Jewish because they are Israeli and that is that. They don't understand liberal Judaism and why it has such an important place in the diaspora. I asked if he had enjoyed services when we were at camp and his response was "those weren't services, they were a concert" I think it's interesting that in order for Judaism to be engaging for a vast majority of American Jews it has to stray from tradition, or at least reinvent it.

Going away for the weekend illustrated another point which I'll have to check out as I interact with more Israelis. Throughout the weekend when we would drive somewhere, the Israelis would put their things in the trunk as a safety precaution. This is normal in my opinion, especially when you are traveling in another country. However, at one point on Saturday, we went to the Tel Aviv art museum and when I requested to put my bag in the trunk I was told, "Why? There are no Arabs here." I started a conversation about this.

It appears to me that while there is a lot of ethnic diversity in Israel, these ethnicities are pretty segregated. Ethiopians generally hang out with Ethiopians, Russians definitely with Russians, Filipino with Filipino, Arabs with Arabs and so on. The thing that these ethnic groups have in common is that they are generally poor. The Arabs however, are the only group that aren't recent immigrants. I understand that people are segregated by social class in the US, but it just seems like there is a lot more cross over. I just spent a year working at a university with every imaginable ethnicity you could think of. If you wanted to make friends who were not just like you it was totally possible. And now I understand what Muslim-Jewish dialog is really about. How can you understand the other side if you never interact with them on a personal level? The person selling you your vegetables or driving your cab is not the same as the person you hang out with at the beach or go the movies with. If you can't see them as real people who are very similar to you, then they will always be just "the other."

It was eye-opening to spend a few days outside of Jerusalem and with some Israelis. Hopefully I'll continue to see new things and get a clearer picture of what Israel is really like. And maybe if you're lucky I'll even sit down and write about it!

P.s. I took my friend back to the Ethiopian restaurant because he had never tasted Ethiopian food before, and he told me he thought it was the next new trend. He even planned to bring his friends because it was so good and he was sure none of them had ever heard of an Ethiopian restaurant let alone tried the food, despite the large Ethiopian community living in their backyard!