I am going to go to Jerusalem and then on to Jordan.
I am suddenly aware that I am leaving a very comfortable world and heading into a world of distrust, religion, politics and people different from me.
Wondering about the ash. What might the volcano do?
Getting ready to start my trip. I want to try doing this by putting it in a journal format.
Contemplating a long trip to a far place for a short time
Religion is god circumscribed.
Is circumscrision a word?
The lovely, wonderful clouds of Oregon And the rising sun.
Photo
Arrived in SFO
In an out of beautiful SF.
Watching the movie "Victoria and Albert" , I think only of my love for my wife Deb. There' s not so much difference between them and us. I don't know if I've seen a movie that evokes such identity and tears of identification. Except for all the jewelry, of course.
I can't get the weight of the little baby out of the crook of my arm.
Santa mike came into the lobby of the motel to ask me whether it was a boy or a girl. I said, flustered, how was I to know. Oh, then I just held him up, like a puppy, and we looked. He did have really long hair.
I did imagine that he might pee on me, me heading to the airport. Unforgettable.
I'm on the plane to Tel Aviv, sitting next to Ehud, an Israeli from near the old city and, while explaining why I am going to Israel, I tell him that my one daughter is marrying a Jew, he asks if that is alright with me.
Flight reminiscent of a trip across the English channel in a hovercraft with the choppy sea and the rattled teeth.
Returning to the child running down the street, it so reminds me of the famous picture from Vietnam , of the naked little girl running too, escaping the horror from napalm.
An hour outside tel aviv, definity groggy.
I arrive in the afternoon and start walking. I collapse in an outdoor restaurant adjacent to the beach and the Mediterranean Sea , eating labane eggplant.
Photo of sunset
Listening to the muezzin, the Muslim call to prayers, texting Deb, staring at the Mediterranean
Labane is an Arabic style cheese, not unlike a cheese version of hummus, served in a circle with the tomatoes and eggplant and spices an olive oil in the center. While, on the sound system in the backkgroumd, "I give him all my love, that's all I do", just these words, go on an on and on, techno style.
Civilized little restaurant, as the sun goes down and the wind rises, they hand out blankets.
Columbia crest, an Oregon wine, is on the menu.
Is that important to israelis, the feeling that they need to be able to distinguish good from bad? Right from evil? Do they feel that they have that ability?
I am suddenly aware that I am leaving a very comfortable world and heading into a world of distrust, religion, politics and people different from me.
Wondering about the ash. What might the volcano do?
Getting ready to start my trip. I want to try doing this by putting it in a journal format.
Contemplating a long trip to a far place for a short time
I expect this trip to be, to a significant extent, about religion.
Jerusalem, from the beginning, has been the beginning. Why not begin here?
I consider religion suspect, for those who choose to have the challenge of Eternity figured out for them. God is bigger than religion.
Religion is god circumscribed.
Is circumscrision a word?
On the way to the airport in the taxi, I and the taxi driver find a baby running down the middle of the street. I yell at him to stop. He didn't see him, it being 4:30 in the morning and completely dark. There are no other cars on the road. I jump out of the taxi and pick up the child and, while the driver (mike the santa man, he gave me his card) calls 911, I bang on the door of a motel nearby. A Pakistani couple appears and helps out. They are as freaked as I am.
Mike runs into the motel lobby, where I am holding the child (wondering if I am going to be peed upon) and asks me if it's a boy or a girl? How am I supposed to know, I wonder for a moment, then I just hold him (as it turns out) up and look.
The police arrive minutes later.
As we leave, I tell the officer to wrap the little guy up. He was shivering and crying and very tiny and as we drove away the cabbie yells out, " Getta a blanket!".
None of this seems real to me as we head to to airport.
I share all this with the woman at the newsstand who tells me that she has seen enough CSI to know that both the parents are dead and the door had been left unlocked and the child found his way out that way. There really is no other explanation. I am no position to counter her suggestion. I promise myself to find out what happened when i return.
I share all this with the woman at the newsstand who tells me that she has seen enough CSI to know that both the parents are dead and the door had been left unlocked and the child found his way out that way. There really is no other explanation. I am no position to counter her suggestion. I promise myself to find out what happened when i return.
Unnerving way to begin.
The lovely, wonderful clouds of Oregon And the rising sun.
Photo
Arrived in SFO
In an out of beautiful SF.
Watching the movie "Victoria and Albert" , I think only of my love for my wife Deb. There' s not so much difference between them and us. I don't know if I've seen a movie that evokes such identity and tears of identification. Except for all the jewelry, of course.
I can't get the weight of the little baby out of the crook of my arm.
Santa mike came into the lobby of the motel to ask me whether it was a boy or a girl. I said, flustered, how was I to know. Oh, then I just held him up, like a puppy, and we looked. He did have really long hair.
I did imagine that he might pee on me, me heading to the airport. Unforgettable.
I'm on the plane to Tel Aviv, sitting next to Ehud, an Israeli from near the old city and, while explaining why I am going to Israel, I tell him that my one daughter is marrying a Jew, he asks if that is alright with me.
I have to shake my head at that comment. Whatever makes the Middle East the complicated place that I have always suspected is already becoming apparent.
I say that that is only the half of it, that another daughter has married a Muslim. That slowed the conservation down a bit, but over dinner we agreed that a glass of wine solves many problems.
Flight reminiscent of a trip across the English channel in a hovercraft with the choppy sea and the rattled teeth.
Returning to the child running down the street, it so reminds me of the famous picture from Vietnam , of the naked little girl running too, escaping the horror from napalm.
An hour outside tel aviv, definity groggy.
I arrive in the afternoon and start walking. I collapse in an outdoor restaurant adjacent to the beach and the Mediterranean Sea , eating labane eggplant.
Photo of sunset
Listening to the muezzin, the Muslim call to prayers, texting Deb, staring at the Mediterranean
Labane is an Arabic style cheese, not unlike a cheese version of hummus, served in a circle with the tomatoes and eggplant and spices an olive oil in the center. While, on the sound system in the backkgroumd, "I give him all my love, that's all I do", just these words, go on an on and on, techno style.
Civilized little restaurant, as the sun goes down and the wind rises, they hand out blankets.
Columbia crest, an Oregon wine, is on the menu.
Is that important to israelis, the feeling that they need to be able to distinguish good from bad? Right from evil? Do they feel that they have that ability?
Infallibly, like the Pope?
Is it possible to have the ability to tell a good poem from a bad poem and not be able to tell good from evil itself?
Amazing for the middle east, young people hanging on each other, lying on top of one another in the sand, kissing.
Do Israelis feel that they are exceptional? Because they are Israelis , or Jewish or immigrants or outcasts or democatic or what?
What about the exceptionalism of America? Immigration. ? Wide open spaces ? Room to dream? Do we still believe in all that?
In the Carmel market in Tel Aviv, to see how hard people have to work to make a living in what is probably the most successful city in the most successful country in the middle east makes me realize how independently we, as Americans, can live as family, whereas here, hanging together is a survival exigency.
Bit of luck with the visa to Jordan. If I hadn't got there today, they wouldn't have been open again until Sunday. Whew. And there are no more hotel rooms to be had in Tel Aviv.
I actually find the "hassle" of trying to get a visa as interesting as going to a museum or seeing old buildings. I enjoy seeing how countries work. Tours deprive a traveller of that.
5/6
Having lunch in front of my hotel
Photo
Waiter say "enjoy"
How can I not?
"I realize the view is a bit 'arsh but we are working on it"
Here, instead of lookig west and imagining chIna or japan, I look over the horizon and see rhodes,malta and Venice, and crusader shIPs arrivingore than a thousand years ago for some ungodly godly reason.
It borders on the inconceivable that Israelis aren't trying harder to solve the mess that they are in; the country is so pivotally wonderful, as an example of the resiliency of the human spirit. But for a people this dedicated to survival not to figure out an answer to this conundrum Is ridiculous. While I sit here in a streetside cafe and read the Jerusalem post, with story after story of rockets smuggled and nuclear weapons debated and settlements built, though ordered dimantled, it's hard to believe that it's not some sort of trumpet call. Gideon, where are you? There are certainly walls that need bringing down.
Arak and grapefruit Good stuff
A distinct feeling of being in brooklyn , with palm trees.
The Palestinians are like the people in Orlando who sold their land to disney and then resented how well walt did with it. If only the Israelis had paid for it.
What will be the price?
A beautiful spring evening
In tel aviv,
Why abandon the strawberries ?
Photo
Cats. Cats everywhere. In fact, one of them just pooped in the potted plant near me in restaurant. Downwind. Fortunately
A big, hulking guy walks by on the promenade, with an armfull of roses, maybe for his girlfriend and the next persons to pass by,a couple, looked very disappointed in each other. We all live side by side, but so far away from each other.
Debbie , I am indulging my penchant for interrogating waiters.
I guess that it comes down to: who wants this land more?
Are Palestinians more of this land than they are Arab ? Who is most of this land?
Walking awAy from the beach, it's hard to leave this sybaritic outpost for the ascetic interior.
Who are the Israelis who deny the Israeli-Arabs the vote, refuse to give any tax money that the state collects from the Palestinians back to their community and will not allow some of the most common goods, like cilantro into the occupied areas on the excuse that it might compromise national security and then are perplexed when some people condemn them as oppressors. I haven't met those Israelis.
To paraphrase an old rabbi, l'haim 's a beach.
Had the best cappuccino since Italy.
Okaaay. I am now in Jerusalem.
Hotel iffy.
Cab driver says I should try to do better.
Deb, you would not want to be here.
Inside the walls, there seem to be hordes of people coming from somewhere and no matter which way I walk, swimming upstream.
Arabs,I think, praying.
Actually, Ossis , clerk at the Armenian hospice, says that they are christians, on the via dolorosa.
They look Arab to me.
I changed hotels and now inside the walls of the old city.
I Am completely lost.
But it is said that to lost is to be close to god.
I'm nozt sure I have ever seen a place quite like jerusalem.
For one thing, the noise is deafening.
This place is teeming with life. For a little solitude , I just have to go into a church. Funny.
What is it that makes this place different from, say, piazza San mArco on similar dAy? There is the same crush of people, there is not the same grittiness Nd intensity of purpose. Nonone is going to let go here.
Everyone's fingernails here are hard, dirty, and unpullable.
Stopped for a beer. 0.0 percent. Surprise. No alcohol inside the old city.
Walking down, or up it's kind of hard to tell, I helped a Bedouin write a "going out of business" sign. When I asked where he was going, he said "Basle". We shared a glass of orange juice, but I had to leave, feeling claustrophobic. It's going to take some to crack this city open.
I got into a long discussion with an Israeli named shimon levy about the Jews and the Arabs ("garbage") and whether Obama is a friend of the Jews or not. He thinks not. He says that he has a lot of American friends and I asked him if they agreed with me or him. They all seemed to work for Goldman Sachs and were, surprise, on his side. I told him that most of the people at the country club were on his side too. I told him that I had a lot of opinions, my wife thinks too many. He liked that. He feels that Obama is weak. I tried to make the point that it difficult to assure someone who doubts that you would die for them, without dying for them.
My little, funky hotel in east Jerusalem has an edearing characteristic in that of all the hotel people I've run into, they speak the best English.
Everywhere is stone; everywhere is hard.
Shimon asked me " why can't they just leave us alone?" That seems so naive. I couldn't decide if he thought that Arabs were evil, or just stupid. And right after this discussion, I walk into the alcazar hotel and meet the Arab proprietor and he is perfectly reasonable amd accomodating. The mind boggles.
Sitting outside the old city walls, having a salad, considering a return to my hotel by going back into the ancientness, but afraid I will again get lost.
How many peoples have Jews feared?
How many have Americans?
Just had a nice walk with this guy who wanted to be my tourguide (it's ok Deb, I didn't pay him a cent nor buy him a drink- remember , no al ohol in the old city!) . He's Armenian but an american citizen, from Edina , Minnesota no less. Good guy, we parted best of friends.
It's shabat, Friday. Haredim day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Is it possible to have the ability to tell a good poem from a bad poem and not be able to tell good from evil itself?
Amazing for the middle east, young people hanging on each other, lying on top of one another in the sand, kissing.
Do Israelis feel that they are exceptional? Because they are Israelis , or Jewish or immigrants or outcasts or democatic or what?
What about the exceptionalism of America? Immigration. ? Wide open spaces ? Room to dream? Do we still believe in all that?
In the Carmel market in Tel Aviv, to see how hard people have to work to make a living in what is probably the most successful city in the most successful country in the middle east makes me realize how independently we, as Americans, can live as family, whereas here, hanging together is a survival exigency.
Bit of luck with the visa to Jordan. If I hadn't got there today, they wouldn't have been open again until Sunday. Whew. And there are no more hotel rooms to be had in Tel Aviv.
I actually find the "hassle" of trying to get a visa as interesting as going to a museum or seeing old buildings. I enjoy seeing how countries work. Tours deprive a traveller of that.
5/6
Having lunch in front of my hotel
Photo
Waiter say "enjoy"
How can I not?
"I realize the view is a bit 'arsh but we are working on it"
Here, instead of lookig west and imagining chIna or japan, I look over the horizon and see rhodes,malta and Venice, and crusader shIPs arrivingore than a thousand years ago for some ungodly godly reason.
It borders on the inconceivable that Israelis aren't trying harder to solve the mess that they are in; the country is so pivotally wonderful, as an example of the resiliency of the human spirit. But for a people this dedicated to survival not to figure out an answer to this conundrum Is ridiculous. While I sit here in a streetside cafe and read the Jerusalem post, with story after story of rockets smuggled and nuclear weapons debated and settlements built, though ordered dimantled, it's hard to believe that it's not some sort of trumpet call. Gideon, where are you? There are certainly walls that need bringing down.
Arak and grapefruit Good stuff
A distinct feeling of being in brooklyn , with palm trees.
The Palestinians are like the people in Orlando who sold their land to disney and then resented how well walt did with it. If only the Israelis had paid for it.
What will be the price?
A beautiful spring evening
In tel aviv,
Why abandon the strawberries ?
Photo
Cats. Cats everywhere. In fact, one of them just pooped in the potted plant near me in restaurant. Downwind. Fortunately
A big, hulking guy walks by on the promenade, with an armfull of roses, maybe for his girlfriend and the next persons to pass by,a couple, looked very disappointed in each other. We all live side by side, but so far away from each other.
Debbie , I am indulging my penchant for interrogating waiters.
I guess that it comes down to: who wants this land more?
Are Palestinians more of this land than they are Arab ? Who is most of this land?
Walking awAy from the beach, it's hard to leave this sybaritic outpost for the ascetic interior.
Who are the Israelis who deny the Israeli-Arabs the vote, refuse to give any tax money that the state collects from the Palestinians back to their community and will not allow some of the most common goods, like cilantro into the occupied areas on the excuse that it might compromise national security and then are perplexed when some people condemn them as oppressors. I haven't met those Israelis.
To paraphrase an old rabbi, l'haim 's a beach.
Had the best cappuccino since Italy.
Okaaay. I am now in Jerusalem.
Hotel iffy.
Cab driver says I should try to do better.
Deb, you would not want to be here.
Inside the walls, there seem to be hordes of people coming from somewhere and no matter which way I walk, swimming upstream.
Arabs,I think, praying.
Actually, Ossis , clerk at the Armenian hospice, says that they are christians, on the via dolorosa.
They look Arab to me.
I changed hotels and now inside the walls of the old city.
I Am completely lost.
But it is said that to lost is to be close to god.
I'm nozt sure I have ever seen a place quite like jerusalem.
For one thing, the noise is deafening.
This place is teeming with life. For a little solitude , I just have to go into a church. Funny.
What is it that makes this place different from, say, piazza San mArco on similar dAy? There is the same crush of people, there is not the same grittiness Nd intensity of purpose. Nonone is going to let go here.
Everyone's fingernails here are hard, dirty, and unpullable.
Stopped for a beer. 0.0 percent. Surprise. No alcohol inside the old city.
Walking down, or up it's kind of hard to tell, I helped a Bedouin write a "going out of business" sign. When I asked where he was going, he said "Basle". We shared a glass of orange juice, but I had to leave, feeling claustrophobic. It's going to take some to crack this city open.
I got into a long discussion with an Israeli named shimon levy about the Jews and the Arabs ("garbage") and whether Obama is a friend of the Jews or not. He thinks not. He says that he has a lot of American friends and I asked him if they agreed with me or him. They all seemed to work for Goldman Sachs and were, surprise, on his side. I told him that most of the people at the country club were on his side too. I told him that I had a lot of opinions, my wife thinks too many. He liked that. He feels that Obama is weak. I tried to make the point that it difficult to assure someone who doubts that you would die for them, without dying for them.
My little, funky hotel in east Jerusalem has an edearing characteristic in that of all the hotel people I've run into, they speak the best English.
Everywhere is stone; everywhere is hard.
Shimon asked me " why can't they just leave us alone?" That seems so naive. I couldn't decide if he thought that Arabs were evil, or just stupid. And right after this discussion, I walk into the alcazar hotel and meet the Arab proprietor and he is perfectly reasonable amd accomodating. The mind boggles.
Sitting outside the old city walls, having a salad, considering a return to my hotel by going back into the ancientness, but afraid I will again get lost.
How many peoples have Jews feared?
How many have Americans?
Just had a nice walk with this guy who wanted to be my tourguide (it's ok Deb, I didn't pay him a cent nor buy him a drink- remember , no al ohol in the old city!) . He's Armenian but an american citizen, from Edina , Minnesota no less. Good guy, we parted best of friends.
It's shabat, Friday. Haredim day.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Tel aviv
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