Day 22: We Have Arrived

Monday, October 26 - Week 4

We slept a good chunk of the flight, landing in Tel Aviv around 3:00 Monday afternoon. Coming in for a landing, I was amazed at all the high rises; I don't remember very well what it looked like 29 years ago, but I'm pretty sure it didn't look anything like this. We got off the plane and headed for the first bathroom. Naturally they were just closing it for cleaning, because the best time to clean an airport bathroom is when a couple hundred people are getting off a plane after an 11 hour flight. We found another bathroom just outside immigration. I was amused to see that in this very high traffic area, there was only a single hand dryer. But even more amusing was the way it was installed: it had a power cable coming out of the bottom and barely reached an outlet above the dryer so that the cord had to lay across the front of the dryer. The irony is that I know at least 3 Israeli electricians at home that could hardwire that thing properly without any cord or outlet needed at all!
Tired, but happy to be in Israel!
(Photo: Sandra)
As a matter of background, it bears mentioning the situation in Israel at the time of our arrival. Since its birth in 1948, the modern state of Israel has been under nearly constant attack in one form or another by the surrounding Arab population. The reasons are complicated and far beyond the scope of this travelogue. But as a small taste of the issue, consider that from a Jewish perspective, it has been our homeland for thousands of years, given to us by G-d, as documented in the Torah. And while we were exiled from the land as a nation, there has been a nearly continuous Jewish presence there throughout history. For the Jews of the Diaspora, return to our land is a tenet of the religion and an oft repeated theme in our liturgy. On the other hand, from an Arab point of view, having a Jewish state rise from the ashes after 700 years of Arab rule in the area cannot have been a welcome development. It is my opinion, and one I heard echoed by the Israelis I spoke with while in Israel, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that anyone who thinks they know how the issue can be resolved simply does not fully understand it. As we arrive in Israel, the latest assault on the Jewish State has come in the form of Arabs randomly stabbing Jews on the street with knives, though in some cases, guns or cars are the weapons used. While some of the victims have been soldiers, many are civilians, including women, the elderly, young children and even a 15 month old baby. As we land in Tel Aviv, there have been an average of 2 attacks a day for the past month and a half. On the one hand, it would be difficult to not feel somewhat apprehensive about bringing my entire family to a country where people are getting savagely stabbed on a daily basis. On the other hand, never in my life has there been a "good time" to come to Israel when it seemed completely safe, and Sandra and I felt that to live in fear and not come to Israel is to let the terrorists win. Besides, there were millions of Israelis going about their lives every day without choice. For us to come and visit for a couple weeks seemed like an easy act of solidarity and support for our Jewish brethren.

 It took a while to get through immigration (more chaotic lines, of course) and get some cash and finally get out to the taxi stand. We were standing in a long line (that was at least moving), when some guy came and asked us how many people we had, and when we indicated 5, asked us to follow him to the front of the line. It turns out he had a minivan, which I'm sure cost a bit more than a regular taxi, but as I was watching the small taxi cars pull out I was wondering if we were going to be able to fit us and all our luggage. The driver quoted us a flat rate and never turned on the meter, but it was little more than what we were told to expect, so I figured it was ok. The drive was chaotic and our cab driver was an expert at contributing to it, often squeezing through spaces that I was fully certain were only half the size required for this vehicle. The city is a strange mix of old, crappy, and graffitied and new, elegant, and cool looking. To be honest, I found it a bit depressing, but I suppose if I judged Los Angeles by any of its freeways at rush hour, I would feel no better about the place. Our apartment was an Airbnb off Dizengoff, one of the (if not the) main streets in Tel Aviv. The side street on which the apartment was located was not beautiful, but the apartment was nice enough - a three bedroom two bath with kitchen and laundry. 
A lovely kitchen
One of the kid's rooms (Photo: Natalie)

Living room with non-frum art, but at least it wasn't scary
We dropped off our bags and walked Dizengoff in search of dinner. As we were now in Israel, we wanted to eat only in kosher restaurants. That should have been easy, and maybe if we lived in this part of Tel Aviv, we would have known where to go. But relying on Google searches and various crowd-sourced ratings websites (like Yelp), the percentage of restaurants that were kosher (and a step up from a felafel stand) seemed to be very small. Though I was disappointed (and quite a bit surprised), I cannot stand in judgement of Israelis (at least Tel Aviv Israelis) and their level of adherence to Jewish law. Many Jews came to the land of Israel before it was the modern State of Israel without the slightest religiosity. Having been raised at nearly the same level of religiosity myself, I can certainly understand it. Besides, who was I to judge anyone about serving kosher food when two weeks ago I was eating a (vegetarian) crepe at a restaurant specializing in pork dishes.

 We targeted a certified kosher restaurant about a mile away called Landver. As we were to learn from our Airbnb host the next morning, just prior to our arrival, Tel Aviv had been hit by a huge storm that had dumped a ton of rain, as well as high winds that had taken out the power for a while and brought some trees down. The storm seemed to be clearing out, but there were deep puddles everywhere and we had to be careful where we stepped. When we got to the middle of Dizengoff Square (a sort of circular shaped intersection with a raised pedestrian-way in the middle), we saw a bat the size of a pigeon flying around and eating dates off a palm tree. The biggest bats I'd ever seen had mouse-sized bodies and wings that spread no wider than my hand. This bat was a monster! There were also feral cats EVERYWHERE! David was excited about the cats and disappointed that we would not allow him to pet them. Since he couldn't touch them, he began to count them.

 When we got to the corner where Lanver should have been located, all we saw was a dark office building. We were now quite hungry and not a little disoriented and beginning to lose hope of ever finding kosher food in the land of the Jews. Just as we were about to give up, we found it at the end of a dark pedestrian walk. The restaurant was packed and lively and there was a huge outdoor patio area filled with people. Though the wet ground spoke of recent stormy weather, the air was actually quite comfortable and we took the last table on the patio, which had a hanging swing serving as seating on one side of it. Many people were strolling by along the pedestrian walk, the lighting was festive and a rabbi-looking guy showed up with a guitar and started busking. It was quite fun and a nice recovery from what had started as a somewhat depressing evening. The restaurant was dairy (meaning they don't serve any meat dishes), so the thrill of eating at a kosher restaurant was somewhat anticlimactic, as everything on the menu was something we would normally order at a non-kosher restaurant at home. 
Our first meal in the Holy Land (Photo: Natalie)
On the walk back to the apartment, we found that while the storm may be blowing out, it was not quite done doing its thing to Tel Aviv. It started to rain quite hard, complete with lightening and thunder, and we became drenched. We stopped in a small sidewalk market for some water bottles and decided to get a big umbrella. Each panel of the umbrella was a different color of the rainbow. It was pretty and the "Noah" theme seemed very appropriate to have while we were in Israel (in the story of Noah and the ark in the Torah, G-d presents a rainbow as a promise that he would never again drown the Earth).

 When we got back to the apartment, Sandra started a load of laundry, but then had to go to bed, so I stayed up to move it to the dryer. It took me a while to figure out that I had to use the extension cord sitting on top of the dryer to plug it into an outlet across the room (the hokey wiring of the hand dryer at the airport seemed to be shaping up as a recurring theme here in Israel). But once it was tumbling away, I went to bed, believing our clothes would all be dry when we woke up on the morning.