Tel Aviv Rooftop

Palestinians surveying the wreckage It's been a while since I posted a blog, part of the reason being a very welcome family visit. During this time, the bits of news that filtered through the family fun focussed on the growing debate over the necessity of a military operation against Hamas in Gaza. This reached a new peak on Wednesday about 80 rockets were fired into Israel . By Friday, the media were reporting that the decision had been taken to undertake a limited military operation with "defined goals". Yesterday at about 11 a.m. we started to hear 100 planes bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in a "shock and awe" opeation that came earlier than everyone expected. You can get an idea of what Gaza looks like here . This morning there was a second air strike and the the death toll in Gaza is approaching the 300 mark. Unclear how many were civilians and how many were armed. The reports that I've heard talk of overflowing hospitals, a complete breakdown

On my Sunday morning bike through Yaffo this morning I heard (on the radio/phone) that the government had decided to block a ship carrying humanitarian supplies for Gaza from sailing from Yaffo port. The ship was sponsored by the Israeli Arab community (the Islamic Movement according to Ha'aretz) and nearly all Arab members of Knesset were supposed to have been on board. Since I was nearby, I decided to take a look. It wasn't hard to pick out the knot of cameramen around the grounded MKs. On the sidelines, I heard one worried man saying that the police had confiscated his ship last night. The man in the middle with the grey beard (click pic to enlarge) and the scarf is Sheikh Riyad Saleh, formerly the mayor of Um el Fahem and today the leader of the main wing of Islamic Movement in Israel. To his right, in a sweater, is Knesset member Mohamad Barakeh, who leads the secular/communist mainly Arab Hadash party. Since the ship had been whisked away by the authorities, this was obv

Saw Rufus Wainright at the Mann Auditorium (heychal hatarbut) which is the home of the Israel Philharmonic. Rufus, who gave us a terrific show - his songs an amalgum of campy pop, classical, Broadway and folk - seemed (strangely) a bit overawed by the respectable surroundings. Hasn't he ever played in a concert hall before? Anyway, he did a lot of rapping with the audience, and seemed to be having a good time in Tel Aviv. He was open and friendly and the crowd, which included a large contingent from the local gay community, lapped him up. He also brought out his mum, Kate McGarrigle - the Kate half of Kate and Anna McGarrigle - who has a great voice and seemed like a feisty lady. I used to be a fan of Rufus' dad, Loudon Wainwright III, who by the looks of his website is still going strong. I remember, through the mists of time, seeing him in concert, circa 1969, at Manchester University where he sang his big hit 'Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road". I heard him say o

Couldn't have been there without writing a few words about Pensaks Passage at Herzl 16. Built in 1925, this was designed as a commercial building and served as a sort of proto-shopping mall, complete with shops, restaurants, cafes and workshops. From a central courtyard open to the elements, you climb up to another three floors all facing down to the courtyard. Today the ground floor is deserted and some of the top floors have been sub-divided into flats. The day we we visited a group of arts students were holding an exhibition on the ground floor. Goods were lifted to the upper floors by means of a lift (ok, elevator), the first of its kind in Tel Aviv. Still standing but now unuseable, this went by the name of ma'aliya. The original sign can be seen in the entrance to the building. A pretty corner created by tenant on one of the upper floors hints at the potential for change. Haven't heard about a scheme to salvage and conserve this wonderful old building. I hope that s

These are hard times all over and Tel Aviv is no exception. One friend told me about a friend of his who has just been dismissed from a high-tech company . The whole exercise was carried out like a military operation. The unlucky emplyees recieved a dismissal letter and were expected to vacate the building within minutes. When they staggered downstairs they found two ambulances and a line of taxis waiting to take them home. I heard another story about 5 guys who are about to be sacked by the kibbutz factory but meanwhile have been invited to a holiday at a Turkish resort at the same factory's expense!! Despite the economic downturn and at least in the near vincinity of the rooftop (yesterday an example of inner urban blight today a sexy real estate location) the clatter of building is still audible over the traffic. The whole area is being revitalised by a combination of conservation of old buildings hand in hand with new construction, especially of tower buildings. Here's the

This is a photo of (part of) the outside of a bar situated at 1 Herzl St, a few minutes walk from the rooftop. The first time I saw it I smiled at the irony of Theodor Herzl, hozeh ha-medina (the visionary of the state) as the name for pick-up bar. But after all, this is sardonic Tel Aviv where all sacred cows have long been slaughtered . And also after all, what does Herzl mean to young people nowadays. At best, he might ring a bell as a vague symbol of someone who promoted the idea of a Jewish state. Nobody however actually reads his works nowadays and even if they did, his ideas about a utopian European-type Jewish-international state would sound as though they belonged to another planet. I was therefore intrigued - and a bit shocked, to notice that on another part of the facade of the bar - which seems to have been copied from an encyclopedia entry on Herzl , the designers had chosen to include this text: “We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned to

Municipal elections tomorrow. In Jerusalem (which already has an ultra-orthodox mayor) haredi candidate Meir Porush has been driven to visiting pubs in a last ditch effort to pick up votes against secular hi-tech tycoon rival Nir Barkat. The ladies on TV from once staunchly secular Ramat Eshkol had no doubt for whom they were going to vote (even if they couldn't remember his name for the moment). Anyone but the ultra-orthodox who are changing theface of their neighbourhood. One of them woke up to find a placard outside her door advising her to dress modestly so as not to offend the eyes of her religious neighbours. If the battle for the management of poor, bedraggled Jerusalem is being waged , at least symbolically, over the souls of its residents in the religious sense of the term, a different battle is being waged over the Godless souls of Tel Aviv. Here too, two conflicting world views seem to be clashing. On the left, the communist, non-Zionist hard working Knesset member Dov H

Was lucky enough to spend a few days in Cairo , for a seminar. My third brief visit. I was told that this tower was built by Nasser and funded by an American bribe in return for not building the Aswan Dam, which of course he eventually built anyway. Other than to look attractive (it also lights up at night) it serves no apparent purpose. Early Wednesday morning, this was the view from my hotel window. But most of my attention was on CNN and I found tears running down my cheeks during Obama's victory speech. The Egyptians, like nearly everyone else, were heartened by his victory There are an estimated 20 million people living in Cairo - a quarter of Egypt's population. 100,000 of them live in the cemetary. Noisy, congested and dangerously polluted, Cairo still has the buzz of a great city. Forget about pedestrian crossings. To cross the road, you have to wade into six lanes of honking old cars and hope for the best. Food is brought in by employing a variety of integrated transp

Took a trip last weekend with friends to the village of Metula which is slap bang on the Lebanese border a few kilometers north of Kiryat Shemoneh. We were hosted by Galia Goldberg at Hamavri , an archaic name (literally translates into “the well maker”) but somehow appropriate for an old-fashioned , friendly family hotel . The vivacious Galia is the widow of the late Yossi Goldberg who was Metula’s mayor and, for a few years, a Member of Knesset. Their son, Eyal, who joined us, made a sensitive and compassionate documentary film about his lively family and how they contended with his emergence from the closet. There are some unforgettable scenes of his domineering, eccentric yet loving grandmother and her bitter sweet-relationship with his grandfather. Both of them have died meanwhile, as has his father Yossi. Metula – founded in 1896- is about as close as you get to an authentic Jewish village (as opposed to kibbutz or moshav) in Israel: old stone houses, home-made jam, wood fires,

Yehuda Halevy Street erev Yom Kippur After losing someone close, it's hard to know when and how to return to 'normal'. Is it right, after only a week of mourning, when the loss is still keenly felt, to return to pleasures like listening to music, or exercise, or writing a blog? In the orthodox Jewish tradition the mourning period continues for an entire year. In secular western culture you are expected to return to work the day after the funeral. In any event, the 'normality' one returns can never be the same as that which existed before the loss. In my case, I know that the person I lost, would have wanted me and everyone who loved her, to continue living their lives to the fullest, as she always tried to live hers. And so, on Yom Kippur , I took to the streets to re-experience the surreal pleasure of a city without cars. Although other cities in the world hold an annual carless day, there is no city in the world that can match Tel Aviv (and other Israeli cities)

It's been a month since the last post and for good reason. Together with other family members and friends, I've been undergoing the traumatic experience of accompanying a dear and close relation through a life-threatening disease. The imminent threat to someone dear to you has the effect of reshuffling priorities dramatically. But now that she has hopefully embarked on a long road to recovery, I can start returning to other more trivial pursuits - like this blog. A spin-off of the experience was the opportunity to observe life in the wards and i ntensive care units of two hospitals. Apart from admiring the overall sense of professionalism, compassion, dedication and plain hard work of the medical staff, I was also struck by their ethic composition. The wards and intensive care units were staffed by a bewildering mixture of veteran Israelis (ultra-orthdox, orthodox, traditional and secular) Russian and other immigrants and Arabs. There aren't many work places in Israel wher

A few weeks ago, an artistic prankster made interesting use of some empty space on the massive billboard hiding the building site of the White Tower residential project on the corner of Allenby and Rothschild. The developers had printed the following sentence, ostensibly written by architect Richard Meier : "Building this White Tower over the White City is a dream come true" our prankster turned it into: "Building this White Tower over the White City and ask people for 13,000$ a square metre is a dream come true." Needless to say, the artistic addition (effective, despite the bad grammar) was speedily eradicated. There's a homeless guy who lives under the billboard now - a completely unintentional but even more effective condemnation of the system in which some pay in gold to live in luxury while others are destined for the gutter. Not that by-passers seemed to notice -neither the art work nor the homeless guy. Nevertheless, the problem of affordable housing in

MLC in action last night. click for full screen Well we did it. Last night's performance by Mid Life Crisis at Bloom Bar was a major success and all band members are still high on our night of glory. The enthusiastic and supportive audience of about 60 (several of whom were not even family or friends of the band members) was in the 18-65 age range - definitely the market niche we're seeking. Rockin it up at the Bloom Bar. There's nothing like pretending you're 21 and getting away with it for an hour. Some of the audience was too young to recognise the cover versions we did (even covers of new songs a mere 10 years old!) but seemed to appreciate us nevertheless. We were on good form and even when we flubbed something (no more than 4-5 times throughout the 14 song set) we somehow sorted it out (herein lies the value of rehearsals) and got back on track. They could almost be doing that little dance like 'The Shadows' used to do - but they're not. Y who was

So much for writing more blogs on my holiday. But you know how it is; the more time you have , the less you seem to to accomplish. Not that I've been entirely supine. There have been great family visits and a lot of beachgoing and even sailing! (thanks to H and his yacht). The picture above in fact is of H's foot, casually steering our craft through the stomach-churning swell off Ashkelon marina. The photo below was taken at Alma beach, our favourite (and closest) spot along Tel Aviv's long beachfront. Here, Arab families from Yaffo share some communal space and the vocal comments of the lifeguards supervising the limited strip of sea designated for bathing (the sea is dangerous here). That's about where the co-habitation ends though. Each side sticks to itself and doesn't bother the other and everything's cool (although not warm). It's clear who looks out of place in this photo. Unbearably muggy, noisy and sticky, midsummer in the middle of Tel Aviv is to