WEEK 3
DAY 14 - Thursday
Caesarea or 'Qisarya' in Hebrew is about 30 kms north of Tel-Aviv, about half way to Haifa. From Jerusalem it's about 90 kms, but it feels like it takes longer since you've got to drive to Tel-Aviv and the road tends to get snarled with traffic and periodic stoplights after you exit the fast four-lane highway "1" between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv to take route 4 north through a series of towns and Tel-Aviv suburbs. The most impressive of those communities is Ra'anana, about 20 kms north of Tel-Aviv, which gives one the impression of Boca Raton. I counted not less than twenty construction cranes for luxury apartment complexes going up, and there were the tell-tale terracotta roofs of sprawling upscale housing communities. It seems to be the community of choice for North Americans and apparently has a country club. We also noted a strong high-tech presence in Ra'anana, large office buildings with IBM and SAP emblazoned on them visible from the highway. The consensus about Qisarya is that it is not as impressive as Beit She'an, in terms of ruins, but the coastal setting is spectacular. Actually, I was quite disappointed. While Beit She'an is exquisitely preserved, Qisarya, which was once one of the Meditteranean Sea's most important port cities, has suffered for milennia. Built by Herod the Great with an amphitheatre, temples and bathhouses, as well as a hippodrome where thousands watched chariot races, the city was conquered and occupied and destroyed and re-built over and over and over again. There is evidence of Roman, Byzantine, Moslem, and Crusader presence. But perhaps the most devastating destruction has been the elements; the salty air and crashing waves, which have pocked and crumbled the remaining stonework. The natural conditions of Beit Shean were more favourable to preservation. One other aspect disappointed - Qisarya is very much being promoted as a popular tourist destination so there are art galleries, and restaurants and stores on the site. The offices of the Qisarya Development Corporation (founded by Edmond de Rothchild who dreamed of developing the city) are on the site as well. We expected to be able to spend the entire day at the archaeological site since a public beach was advertised, but found that it was closed. So after a lunch eaten among the ruins, we drove 5 minutes to the public beach in town. The consensus is that it rates highly, one of the better beaches we've visited. No crowd. Clean water. Huge beach. Pale, fine sand that gradually slopes into the water. No rocks. Where it fell short was that the beach was littered, and there were no public facilities at all - every other beach we've been to had, lifeguard, changing facilities, toilets, showers, drinking water fountains etc.
DAY 15 - Friday
The fourteen year old decided to take the day off, staying home to hang out with the sixteen year old (should I be worried?). The rest of us decided that we didn't give Tel-Aviv enough of a chance the first time around so back we went, in spite of the heat. Bathing trunks were brought along just in case we got desperate. We had no real idea about where we wanted to go and ended up at Shuk HaCarmel. Let me just say that I would take Tel-Aviv's market over Jersualem's any erev Shabbos of the week (erev Shabbos of the month?). It's cleaner, more presentable, significantly larger, and according to the eleven year old, a lot less smelly. The challah and sugar-glazed danish stalls are open but don't seem to have the same hive-like attraction to wasps. I may be imagining this but the fruits and veggies seem fresher, the throngs somehow calmer and more easygoing (incidentally Shuk HaCarmel was just as crowded, maybe even more crowded than Machane Yehuda). In a word, the Shuk HaCarmel experience just felt more civilized, especially since, once you've wound your way through it, you can find your way onto Nachlat Binyamin an adjacent pedestrian walkway with hundreds of artists and craftspeople displaying and selling their wares. The artists in Jerusalem sell almost exclusively to tourists and their designs and products reflect their market. Their product tends to be cliched and souvenir-ish; Jerusalem cityscapes and skylines, portraits of hasidic Jews, and other objects to instill piety or ward off the 'Evil Eye'. The artists in Nachlat Binyamin feel more legitimate. Selling to tourists and locals alike, what they offer has wider variety and is more interesting and creative. Tel-Aviv is a more interesting, more creative, more tolerant, and as the eleven year old remarked feels safer than Jerusalem. Granted this may be because she now sees every payas-and-beard-wearing male as a potential attacker. But I also think she senses what I and the wife do: Tel-Aviv is just a cooler, more energized and exciting place. People seem more laid back and less judgmental. Unlike Jerusalem, they also care about their appearance and style. From Nachlat Biyamin we walked up Sheinkin Street, which has all kinds of fashion boutiques, including many familiar American and European brands like Diesel and Aldo. Our real reason for traipsing up Sheinkin was to make a pilgrimage to Cafe Tamar. The wife had been telling the eleven year old about this legendary meeting place of authors, poets, musicians and artists that dates back to before statehood. A photo was taken, but the eleven year old was too shy to go inside and wasn't at all impressed with her namesake cafe. She described the scruffy customers drinking and smoking under the canopy outside as "washed-out druggie failures." I haven't a clue what else she might have expected. From there we went back to our now favourite restaurant in Tel-Aviv 'Yosveta' (the same place we lunched the last time) on the beach for amazing smoothie fruit drinks and American helpings of pasta and vegetarian sandwiches that rival Montreal's Cafe Santropol. Finally, the heat was too much and we decided to give the beach one last chance, at least the wife and five year old gave it another chance. The eleven year old and I found a shady seat along Shlomo "Cheech" Lahit Promenade where we could stand bikini-watch. They apparently don't make one piece bathing suits in Tel-Aviv, or have never heard of them, because no matter the age, shape or size, every girl, woman and grandmother was wearing a two-piece. Which either means there's a great opportunity here for a bathing suit manufacturer, or the women here have a ridiculously inflated view of themselves. Then again, the view was, for the most part, pretty good as fas as I was concerned. According to the bathers the water was super clean this time, giving credence to the report about our last experience being an aberration because of an offshore ship dumping garbage. As head judge of our 'favourite places to swim in Israel' committee the five year old has officially bumped Tel-Aviv's ranking to number three ahead of Qisariya (but behind Nitsanim and Ein Gedi) since the facilities are superior and the beach just as nice.
DAY 16 - Shabbat
I've decided to take my day of rest today on Shabbat, for a change. A day to stop and reflect. The wife and fourteen year old have gone to the Arab market in the old city to shop for tchotchkes: the Arab market being the only place to shop for tchotchkes in Jerusalem on Shabbat. The rest of us are hanging around the apartment. The sun is shining as usual, not a cloud in the sky, but the air feels slightly fresher today. The sixteen year old and her boyfriend are hunched over the living room table scattered with little plastic mosaic-like tiles with letters on them. Occasionally one or the other announces 'Peel!' They're playing a game called 'Bananagram' which is a combination of Scrabble and Dominoes and apparently de rigeur in every Shabbat observant home in Jerusalem. Listen closely and you may hear "Peel!" shouted triumphantly (it denotes some sort of spelling victory) in every quarter of the holy city, which is a bit funny when you think about it since in Hebrew peel means elephant. But I am not thinking about elephants or bananas. I am thinking of expectations, the ones I had in coming here, the ones I have in being here, and the ones I will have when I leave. The wife and I have continually talked about our respective expectations, and how well we're faring relative to them. If nothing else, this city, this country is all about expectations, and its opposite disappointments. In the modern art collection at the Israel Museum you find the surrealist artist Rene Magritte's famous 1959 painting called 'The Castle of the Pyrenees'. The painting depicts a massive gray boulder surrounded by clouds hovering in the air over rolling waves. On top of the boulder stands a non-descript medieval castle. The boulder defies gravity mid-air while the frothing, crashing waves beneath it articulate the very force threatening to drag it down. It is a dreamscape. Physically impossible, and by virtue of its impossibility suggesting the physical reality to which we terrestrial beings are bound. The boulder should fall, would fall into the sea if it were not in a painting and not solely a matter of artful depiction. This is not a boulder, and not a castle, this is paint on canvas, an artist playing with representation and our expectations. Which is exactly what Israel does; plays with representation and expectation. We constantly ask ourselves what this country represents and what we can and should expect from it, and what it can and should expect from us in return. Ever since we arrived, the big news coming from abroad and soliciting not less than three opinion pieces in the Jerusalem Post (the right one, the wrong one, and the one in the middle?) is about the Jewish-Methodist shidduch of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky. A lot of opinionated people seem to care. What does it represent? A step forward for Jews in America and a model for the kind of openness that does not currently exist in Israel (the only legitimate marriage here is one sanctioned by the Orthodox Rabbinate)? Or a step backward? An example of the dangerous pathway that ultimately leads to Jewish perdition by intermarriage? And what of the Rabbi and the Minister together under the chuppah on Shabbat?! And what of the fact that the groom insisted on wearing a tallit and kippah? It's a positive thing that Marc cared enough to wear those potent symbols of his Jewish identity, one commentarist wrote. Marc should be ashamed of himself for perverting those symbols, wrote another. Strangely enough, being here, in Jerusalem, I don't care. The hoopla and outrage seem equally silly to me. What happened (and will happen) between Chelsea and Marc is not the end of Judaism or the Jewish People, or a new beginning. And yet it's taken so seriously; representation and expectation. Some of my reactions to being here have taken me by surprise. I was overwhelmed emotionally on our first day at the Wall, and not by being at the Wall, this most hallowed, all-important spiritual locale, but by being there with my wife and four daughters. It suddenly hit me that the last time I was standing at the Wall (incidentally, during a freak snowstorm) I was alone (my girlfriend/wife-to-be, had returned to Montreal) childless and confused. Eighteen years later, here I am, returned with a wife and four healthy beautiful children. Unbeknownst to me, without even realizing it, I had spent the last eighteen years on track to completing a circle, and here I was standing at the finish line/beginning, a generation later. I felt the most profound sense of being truly and deeply blessed I have ever felt in my life. I was ambushed by the second most moving moment I've experienced so far. It was in the scupture garden of the Israel Museum. I took a series of photos of the girls standing in a variety of postures and positions on the famous scultpture by Robert Indiana that spells out the word LOVE in a square of Hebrew letters (AHAVA). The Judean Hills and the cloudless azure sky are the backdrop. Taken together, the photos evoke and represent exactly how I'm feeling; all the promise and possibility, the hope and expectation, of our four ladies finding their own place and positions around LOVE. What else really matters? I suppose that Chelsea and Marc must feel the same way.
DAY 16 - Saturday evening
We have to delay our trip up north by a day due to a nasty ear infection that the sixteen year old contracted some time Friday/Saturday. She had been complaining of ear blockage/water in the ear, for about 24 hours and, thinking nothing much of it, we tried a series of home remedies. By the end of Shabbat her mild discomfort had become exacerbated to genuine pain and so we knew that a doctor would have to be seen. Eight o'clock last night we rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, which is a newish and expanding complex of buildings in a suburb of Jerusalem. The donors wall at the main entrance indicates that North American money plays a huge role in the development of this impressive facility which includes an attached hotel and shopping centre. We were prepared for another adventure, this time trying to navigate the medical system as a tourist. It took us some time to make our way through the various buildings in the nighttime dark to finally arrive at the emergency admissions, which was not well indicated with signage. As Shabbat was just about to end it was not at all busy. At admitting we had to fill out a simple form and pay 1500 shekels (about $400 CAN, insurance reimbursable) right off the bat. Then we were ferried over to see a nurse who took us right away, asked a series of questions (staggering through half English half Hebrew) and sent my daughter to have an IV site put in. We thought it was overkill so we convinced the male blood nurse just to take a sample for blood tests instead - which they had insisted on doing even when we said that too was unnecessary - and if the patient needed an IV drip later they could jab her a second time. Up to that point we were all super impressed with the medical system. The facilities are incredibly modern, clean and efficient. But from that point on the waiting game started. We were told that we would have to see a doctor (duh, but what we didn't know was that they meant a specialist) and were asked to wait outside until he was available. We waited for about an hour and half until they called us again at about 10:30 pm. We were now told that we would have to go into the main building across the courtyard to the ENT (Head and Neck Department) on the sixth floor to see the doctor. When we got there the doctor saw us immediately (in fact he was standing in the hallway expecting us) and my daughter underwent a most thorough examination. Having been in such a situation with a child more than once before I expected the doctor to ask a few questions and then look in her ear with the standard handheld device that the doctor stuck in my ear as a kid. Not so. The young specialist laid the patient on the table and inserted a device which magnified her inner ear canal and projected it on a screen. I hadn't had this much fun since journeying through my intestines via camera during my colonoscopy. He explained the problem - a small pearl-like bubble could be clearly seen on her timpanic membrane (eardrum) which he said was caused by a bacterial infection. "If she says she is in pain she's not lying" he commented. He gave her an ear drop anesthetic to numb the pain, wrote a full report (in English), and wrote prescriptions for two types of antibiotic. He was patient, unrushed, and methodical. He said she would have to be seen for a follow-up in the next few days and provided the information to make another appointment. We then had to return to the emergency room in the other building to report back to the admitting nurse who would then give us some starter drugs to last until the prescription could be filled tomorrow morning. From there we had to go back to the admissions kiosk to check out. These last two steps took maybe ten minutes. We were out by 11:30ish total elapsed time from arrival to departure was about two and half hours. The last, and most challenging step was getting my car out of the parking lot. When we arrived it was still Shabbat so all the lots and gates were open and because I had no idea where we were going and the patient was in excruciating pain, I just dumped the car in the first available space. When we left it was business as usual, all the gates were down, and I had no way of getting the car out since I had no automatically-dispensed parking ticket. It took about twenty more minutes to find the attendant and pay the 36 shekels ($10) demanded to have the gate raised. It seems to me what we experienced stacks up quite well against the Canadian medical system. The examination and treatment were much more thorough than we would have received at home, to the point of overkill. The facilities definitely top any Montreal hospital (then again we'll have a brand spanking new super-hospital soon). On the one hand, all the running back and forth between buildings struck me as sort of unnecessary. On the other hand the emergency room and waiting area were quite empty, which meant more beds there for the real emergencies. My grade B to B+.
DAY 17 - Sunday
The sixteen year old stayed home and started on her antibiotics while the rest of us met up with Israeli friends, a husband, wife and three young boys, who were back home visiting family from the States where they now live. We ended up at The Bible Lands Museum located next to the Israel Museum. This was our back-up plan after our original choice for an activity was to meet at the Bloomfield Science Museum which turned out to be closed on Sundays. Bloomfield has a lot of hands-on type activities, and hence would have been ideal for three rambunctious little boys. Bible Lands has one of the country's most impressive collections of ancient archaeology dating back 5000 years, but is decidedly on the cerebral side. Our friends were late in getting into Jerusalem from Tel-Aviv and when they arrived we warned them that finding parking on site of the museum would be impossible. We parked our respective vehicles in the vicinity (ours around the corner directly across from the Knesset). Finally, the two families met at the museum, a place where I could have easily spent an entire day on my own. We managed to keep the kids semi-interested for about an hour and a half. From the museum, our friends insisted that we join them for an early dinner in Abu Ghosh, an Arab town fifteen minutes outside Jerusalem. They claimed that a restaurant there makes the best hummus in the Middle East. The hummus was indeed excellent, as were the unending variety of salads that arrived at our table non-stop. Tomorrow, all things being equal, we will be northbound for two days.
DAY 18 & 19 - Monday & Tuesday
It's been a whirlwind tour and we're back in Jerusalem. Everyone agrees that two days in the north was not nearly enough. Most of our time was spent trying to escape the heat. On the drive back today the car digital thermometer registered 47 degrees. While the girls napped I worried about the temperature at which cars overheat and tires start exploding on the searing pavement. What's more, the 47 degree point was reached just as route 90 southward dropped down into the Dead Sea region past the checkpoint which separates the mostly arab west bank from Jewish territory. I kept imagining scenarios where I would be asking a donkey-riding bedouin for help getting my wife and three daughters back to Jerusalem on whatever means of transport he might have at his immediate disposal. But my worry was all for naught and we arrived safely in the golden city in practically sweater-weather, 36 degrees. As for the north, yesterday was one of our best days in Israel. We stopped at Hamat Gader which calls itself 'Israel's Garden of Eden' and the claim could almost be believed if the garden of Eden came with an elaborate petting zoo and the Middle East's largest crocodile farm (200 of the beasts). There was also a parrot show and a huge 30 foot waterslide that only our eleven year old, from the family, was courageous enough to fly down. All to say that the kids were happy as mud-caked baby hippos. And the parents were happy too because Hamat Gader, located 10 kms east of the Kinneret in a rugged valley overlooked by Jordan and visible from Syria, is simply one of the most beautiful corners in Israel. It has been inhabited for more than 4000 years and was a favourite of the Romans who built an amphitheatre and baths there because the valley is fed by mineral rich hot springs that bubble up to the surface from volcanic sources. Yes, I said HOT springs. So there we were lying in spring-fed pools and waterfalls and jacuzzis in sulphurous water that was actually hotter than the 45 degree air outside. Luckily, there are also cool pools so hopping from one pool to the other we alternated feeling drained and invigorated. We stayed at Hamat Gader until closing time (5:00) and then headed up the eastern side of the Sea Galilee. We stopped at Kibbutz Ein Gev at a restaurant that according to Frommer's is Israel's largest with seating for 700. We weren't looking for more crowds, but we were looking for a place that catered to families and served fish (at least the wife and I were looking for fish) and this restaurant is renowned throughout Israel for fish cuisine, particularly their specialty, something called Saint-Peter's fish. People come from all over to try it. I don't know much about the New Testament reference but I can say that the species is native to the Kinneret. The wife and I can attest that their specialty is delicious, light, not fishy-tasting, not bony, gently seasoned with garlic and spices, and lightly grilled. It was the best meal we've had in Israel so far and the view from the shoreline, the Kinneret at sundown, added to an ambiance of day-ending satisfaction. Heading straight off to bed would have tied a ribbon on the perfect day. Unfortunately, there was the small matter of driving 30 km more north to Qatzrin in the Golan where we had rented a room at the field school. Qatzrin is the so-called 'capital' of the Golan. A town of about three thousand inhabitants, the government has poured money into the town to settle it, and it shows. A quiet, quaint municipality with a towncentre, schools, sports complex, a mall, all the needed amenities, and well laid-out neighbourhoods that bring to mind some of the Cote-St. Luc neighbourhoods developed in the mid-70s. Rolling down the main route into town I was excited to catch a glimpse of tanks on military manoeuvres on the adjacent field; Qatzrin is also the Israeli miliary headquarters of their Golan operations. While we drove through the Golan on the way to Safed the next day, along the narrow, swervy-curvy, rising and falling roads, Sidney noted how many fenced off fields there were with signs that warned against trespassing on fields that may be mined. The wife was underwhelmed by our accomodations at the Qatzrin field school, but I'm not sure what she expected from a facility used to board students. We got a 20 by 15 foot room with two single beds and two bunk beds. There was a small fridge, a bathroom with toilet, sink and shower, and best of all, air-conditioning! In spite of the three inch foam mattresses and plywood underpad, I was charmed. I was less taken with the joint the next morning, my spine was as crooked as a Golan sideroad - no chance my back would stand even a single more night - but the next morning Annetta said she was warming up to the place. The kids had a fitful night too, although Eden said she loved having 'a sleepover' with the whole family. A complete breakfast with scrambled eggs, various breads, yogurts and salads, was served in the field school dining room and we were out by nine for the drive down the Golan, across the north shore of the Kinneret, and up to the famed mystical mountaintop city, Safed. The view on the climb was spectacular. We parked the car and strolled through the artist's quarter of the old city. In one gallery/boutique the saleslady we met was a Montrealer who had moved with her husband to Safed a few years ago. It was already getting hot and the kids were losing patience so after a stroll through the narrow alleyways of the Sephardic quarter Safed would be history for us. A quick stop for ice-coffees and a drive-by visit of the famous cemetery where the great mekubalim (mystical rabbis) of the 17th and 18th century are buried and we were on our way. Safed was not much like I remembered it, owing I suppose, to Madonna's influence (our Madonna, not the first one); it was very touristy and built-up with residential buildings, houses, hotels and kabbalah study centres. What we really needed now was to come down from the mountain for a cooling off via immersion. Rafi, our host at the Qatzrin field school had recommended a reed-shaded estuary that feeds the Kinneret called Maj'rase as the perfect place for a refreshing dip with the kids. We had to drive back across the northern shore of the Kinneret from Safed, cutting across many famous Christian sites including the Mt. of the Beatitudes where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount. It seemed that with temperatures climbing into the low 40s we were not the only ones with dreams of baptism-style relief. There were buses and cars filling the lot and lined along the side of the road to the entranceway of the reserve. The wife and kids hiked the wet-trail, meaning they marched along the stream with the throngs, beginning in ankle deep frigid waters and ending an hour later in mid-thigh waters. I took the dry trail next to the stream occasionally dunking my head. It wasn't a long leisurely stopover, like at Hamat Gader, but the kids said they enjoyed it. The almost two hour drive back to Jerusalem in the heat of the day was described above. The ladies conked out in the car while I white-knuckled it.
Day 20 - Wednesday
I have finally done it. It's taken three weeks in Israel and I've finally found the happiest place in all of Jerusalem. It's a place where, like every public place, there are mobs of people. The religious are there with their straggling, toddling broods, their single, double and triple strollers, but unlike other places they're not rolling over toes and being jammed into thighs. In this place the religious and the secular, the Arab and the Jew, pass without seeming to notice one another, or rather there pervades throughout a tone of sobriety, a civilized sort of indifference that transcends cultural and religious differences, and simplistic opposing paradigmatic terms like tolerance and intolerance. The happiest place in Jerusalem, I believe, is the modern, fully air-conditioned, sprawling, multi-storey, American style shopping mall. Okay, I may be exaggerating on the basis of my experience this morning. After all the driving I did over the past two days up north, today was to be a break for me. The wife and two older daughters would spend the day shopping at the Jerusalem Mall, while I took the younger kids to an activity; our choice being the Bloomfield Science Museum, which was founded and endowed by Montreal's own Neri Bloomfield, and was highly touted as an excellent, fun hands-on activity for kids. The elder ladies were dropped off at the mall and we headed off to the science centre. Well, you have never experienced unpleasantness until you have stood in line for fifteen minutes in the hot sun, then paid $35 admission for the privilege of battling hordes of out of control Israeli kids clambering for 'another turn' at generating voltage by spinning a wheel, or lifting heavy lead weights using rope pulleys and levers and letting them crash to the ground. It was as if Jerusalem had closed every other 'family-friendly' activity in town, and since kids younger than 5 are admitted free (for absolutely no apparent reason considering that not one of the installations would be appropriate for that age), every diaper-clad Shmulik and runny-nosed Rivkele was brought along. My two girls took our experience in stride, better than I did. A choking claustrophobia got to me. I lasted a couple of hours by sheer fortitude and stamina - and because I dreaded having to leave the air-conditioned facility to go back out in the 40 degree heat. By lunchtime I was calling the wife in a controlled panic to let her know that we were on our way to the mall to meet her. It was like an oasis in the desert. I may be overstating one thing. I do believe with all my heart that the shopping mall is the happiest place in Jerusalem, not solemn, or morose, or unnecessarily serious, or reflective, with not a hint of anything spiritual. But the parking garage is absolutely the unhappiest place in all of Jerusalem, of this I am also completely convinced, which would be somehow fitting ie. to have to go through hell to get to heaven. Now I know why virtually every car in Jerusalem is dinged and dented and paint-scratched. It's because they've tried finding parking at the Jerusalem Mall. Jerusalemite drivers apparently don't agree with 'no parking' signs or zones, think their cars can fit in 'spots' of any size, don't believe in directional arrows or so-called 'exits' and 'entrances', and apparently the car manuals here, under the section entitled 'Horn', tells drivers that 'manic and inappropriate use is mandatory in the parking garage at the Jerusalem Mall'. We met the rest of the family for lunch at Yotveta, the Jerusalem branch of our favourite Tel-Aviv beachfront vegetarian restaurant. McDonalds this chain ain't - I mean this in terms of consistency. The menu is the same but, we may as well have been dining at McDonalds so non-similar was the quality. The aspect about the Mall that most differentiates it from other crowded places we've been, besides the ample space that better accommodates the numbers, is that I understand mall rhythm whereas I still can not apprehend the rhythm of other crowded Jerusalem places, whether the Bloomfield Science Museum or Machane Yehuda. The same goes for the traffic - different rhythm. I don't get the urgency. The bold, honking global intolerance that seems to extend to everything everywhere. Except in the mall where everyone seems to be content, blithely engaged in a hands-on activity for grown-ups, the religious and secular, the Jew and the Arab alike. We were only too happy to stay at the mall until late this afternoon - I have never been so happy to extend my time at the mall, ever, really. Those who've had me shopping with them, or to put it more accurately, dragged me along, know that five minutes more at the mall is usually wayyyy too long. Tomorrow, we are back to the real world, by which I mean, 200 CE and Massada.
DAY 21 - Thursday
There was a rude knock on our door at number 10 Aleph HaRav Chen this morning at 7 AM. Fortunately, The wife and I were already awake and getting the kids ready for our scheduled trip to Massada. We wanted to get there as early as possible. The prospect of being on the top of a desert fortress mountaintop in one of the hottest places on earth after noon didn't appeal. We thought that if we got an early enough start, we might be there by 9ish, spend a couple of hours visiting and then be on our way home by lunchtime. In fact, the knock on our door was about the heat. A fit-looking, tanned, grey-haired man introduced himself as Yehuda Bertinoff in thick Hebrew accented English, asked if we were who we were, and presented us with a document. He said that a special committee of the Prime Minister's office had been struck to deal with the problems arising from the heat wave that has settled on the country since approximately July 29th and that copious examination of travel records indicates this was the date of our arrival. Further examination by a team of specially convened Hebrew University meteorological-history graduate students (I didn't know such a field existed but apparently Hebrew U is a world leader) has revealed that individuals with our exact names arrived in Jerusalem from Montreal precisely eighteen years ago when there was another freak meteorological occurrence, in that instance, the heaviest snowstorn in more than a hundred years. The Prime Minister's office has therefore determined that we are a national threat and the only way to end the freakishly hot weather that has plagued the country for the past month is to expel us. The document Mr. Bertinoff presented, certified and stamped by the office of Binyamin Netanyahu himself, was an Order in Cabinet asking our family to leave the country within five days, the deadline coincidentally falling on next Tuesday, the very day of our flight. I explained that we were scheduled to depart anyway, and then Mr. Bertinoff turned to leave, looking satisfied that he had done his service for his country. The door was closed and I packed up the kids and we were off on the 100 km drive down to the Dead Sea and Massada. It was an excellent trip. Massada has developed an exquisite museum of archaeological finds on site which was not there when I visited last. We did manage to get there early and left by about noon. On the way back we re-visited Ein Gedi for a refreshing dip in the springs and waterfalls. On the drive back to Jerusalem the thermometer of our car hit 51 degrees. According to latest weather forecast for Israel this heat wave will in fact break the very night we leave, and August 2010 will go into the history books as one of the hottest on records. I just hope they allow us back into the country sometime.
DAY 22 & 23, Friday & Shabbat
We're definitely in winding down mode. On Friday, the wife and fourteen year old went back to Machane Yehuda to do some food shopping and then down to Jaffa street for souvenir shopping. I took the younger two to Kibbutz Ramat Rahel which is within the municipal bounds of Jerusalem, perched on a hill about a ten minute drive from our apartment. The wife heard that the kibbutz has a lovely pool with ample shaded grounds open to the public. So in an effort to beat the heat we packed a picnic and headed over. The kibbutz advertises itself as a 'hotel resort' and the claims are accurate. The facility is not 'luxurious' by North American standards (nothing here is) but the pool is large and the grounds feature beautiful views of the Judean hills - you can see all the way to Bethlehem. When we got there it was pretty crowded (as usual) but we managed to find a shady spot under a tree and the girls spent much of the day in the pool, while I dug into a novel by Eshkol Nevo, a hotshot new Israeli writer getting international attention. Last night we were invited to bring in the Shabbat at friends' apartment, for the second time this trip. She is an ex-pat Montrealer and her husband a transplanted American. They are the only two people we know who have toughed it out and made a life for themselves here. If they weren't so individually accomplished (she is a doctor of psychology and he works for the government in urban planning) we would admire them for that fact alone. As much as I enjoy driving on Shabbat in Jerusalem it doesn't look like I'll be doing much today. We're all moving very slowly and our only plan for the day is to start the new week with a 'sound and light' show tonight at David's Tower in the Old City, one of the few touristy things we've done here. But as we're winding down I thought as a means of summing up I'd share some numbers, compiled anecdotally and idiosyncratically:
Our Trip in Numbers Days: 24
Average normal temperature for August: 30 degrees centigrade
Average temperature August 2010: 34.3 degrees centigrade
Warmest temperature we recorded: 51 degrees centigrade (at the Dead Sea)
Average rainfall for August: 0 mm
Rainfall for August 2010: 0 mm
Kilometeres driven: 2021 kms
Highest geographical point reached: 900 meters, 3200 ft. (Sefad)
Lowest geographical point reached: -422 meters, -1385 ft. (Dead Sea)
Museums visited: 6
National parks visited: 10
Pools visited: 2
Hospitals visited: 1
Ice coffees consumed: 50 (estimate)
Restaurant meals consumed: 8
'Milkies' and 'Danies' consumed (pudding treats that are an Israeli favourite): 100 (estimate)
Litres of water drank per person: 80 (estimate)
Bottles of sunscreen used: 3
Weight lost (me): 7 lbs
Belt loops reduced (me): 1
DAY 24 & 25 - Sunday & Monday
Our winding-down pace has slowed to a crawl. I think everyone is pretty anxious to get home. The last couple of days - we head out to Ben-Gurion airport tonight for an early morning flight tomorrow - have been occupied with tying up loose ends and getting ready for departure. Yesterday, the sixteen year old and I spent another three hours or so at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital for her follow-up appointment. The patient has finished her antibiotics and says that the ear is feeling better, but there is a constant ringing. Another $85 USD to the Israeli medical system confirmed that her ear is mending nicely but there appears to be water behind her eardrum, which we are told will likely evaporate on its own, no further treatment necessary. However, the specialist we saw this time recommended that she have a hearing test. When I asked if this was absolutely necessary, and whether it can wait until she gets back to Mtl, the doctor said, "it should be done sooner rather than later "to rule out the one percent chance of a 'surprise'". Another example of overkill it seems. He also said that the infection probably developed when she went swimming in the Kinneret. If we choose to arrange the appointment for a hearing test it will have to be done with the assistance of the school where she will be studying beginning on Thursday. This is something we'll be discussing this afternoon when we visit Kibbutz Tsuva to meet with the program head and drop off her valise. Our daughter will be sleeping in the apartment in Jerusalem tonight and then she'll take a bus to the kibbutz tomorrow morning. Yesterday afternoon the wife and I went for a stroll around her old neighbourhood in Old Katamon/the German Colony. This area is Jerusalem's Westmount or Forest Hill, prime real-estate. We walked down clean residential streets with large houses on lots, as opposed the crowded apartment buildings one sees in every other neighbourhood. One street was as wide as a North American street with ample sidewalks - and for the first time I really felt the impact of the difference in scale from what we're used to in Canada. For a brief moment it felt like I was breathing easier. We spent our last full evening in Jerusalem having dinner at a lovely non-kosher Italian place called Foccacio's located downtown just off Ben Yehuda that was recommended by Frommer's. We sat on the terrace. The atmosphere was pleasant and breezy, the food was good and the price very reasonable. This is something that the wife has remarked on - the restaurants have really improved in the twenty years since she lived here. We haven't eaten in restaurants often to save on cost (and to experience fully the joys of market shopping for fresh locally-grown fruits and veggies), but most of the meals we've had have exceeded expectations with large portions (most times one dish was shared by two) at decent prices; our meal yesterday for example, including the wife having a glass of wine, cost 230 shekels with the tip which comes to about $65 CDN for the entire family. Service is also improving, although in general your waitress or salesperson still makes you feel like they're doing you a big favour. There never developed in Israel a 'customer is always right' consumer culture. It's been more like 'wait your turn and I'll come to you.' After dinner we walked around Ben Yehuda, mostly the sidestreets off Ben Yehuda actually, where there are happening restaurants, American and British style clubs/bars, and little shops with crafts and art. A few general observations, and misconceptions dispelled: The tractor-driving balaklava-wearing arabs we passed on our up north did not cover their faces for fear of being labelled 'colluders' working for Jews. Rather, the masks help with the heat - though I'm not sure how. There are many reasons for the dirtiness of the city, including the psychology of apartment living - nobody seems to think it's their responsibility to keep the communal garbage bins where each apartment dweller dumps his/her bag of trash tidy. But another reason, for the bad smell in particular, is the season/weather, specifically the lack of rain in the summer. I'm thinking that Jerusalem must smell much fresher in the fall, winter and spring. With regards to Israeli parenting, a woman named Sarit who we met at our friends' apartment last friday confirmed our experience that the kids rule the roost in the average Israeli family. Interestingly, she works as a parenting counsellor, a sort of Israeli super-nanny interventionist (which, incidentally, is a wildly popular tv program here). She told us that many Israeli parents have trouble saying 'no' to their kids, indulge them excessively, and do not know how to set limits. Ironic, considering that Israel is all about limits; walls and checkpoints - but maybe that's why parents don't impose many in the home. This explains the seemingly parentless kids we constantly saw smacking their siblings around and running between the tables in the restaurants. And finally, in many respects, I've gotten used to it here. I feel more personally connected to the news here than at home, daily and international events have greater immediacy and urgency. Although, it surprises me that the aspect about life here that matters least is that everyone is Jewish. The very fact alone seems to cancel out it's importance, at least on a daily-living basis. The wife is right when she says that because everyone here is Jewish the opportunities to live 'Jewishly' and the definition of what that may mean are much broader. To live as a Jew in Montreal usually means that you have to fit in one box or another. And yet, a few weeks here and what is mattering to me are not Jewish-specific aspects of social living, but rather, things like taking care of the environment and treating one another with politeness and basic decency. However, it should also be said that with everyone living on top of one another as they do here, it is astounding that they achieve the levels of common decency that they do. And with all we have in Canada, the resources and the space, it borders on shameful that we can be so preoccupied with pettiness, and do not achieve much much more.
