Israel, Day 2

Marc, Reuben and I got up and went to breakfast. I made myself a parfait of yogurt-esque cheese, fig jam, honey, and corn flakes, and ate that with a couple of hard boiled eggs. Mmm, protein. I was ready to go. It was going to be a great day. I knew this because I was in Israel, and I believed every day would be great.

Today’s festivities included a tour of Jaffa, Tel Aviv beaches, Independence Hall, and the Mega Event.

I sat down to eat with Marc and Josh. “It’s my birthday,” Marc announced.

“Oh yeah, you did say that yesterday,” I recalled. “Happy birthday, man.”

“Yeah, happy birthday,” echoed Josh.

“Thanks. There needs to be an after party after the Mega Event tonight. In honor of the memory of the day of my birth.”

Josh laughed. “In honor of when you were spawned!”

“Yeah,” Marc agreed, raising his glass, “I wasn’t born. I was spawned ready.”

We toasted to Marc’s spawning.

He looked at me expectantly.

“Uh… sorry, dude. That’s not going in the book.” Josh raised an eyebrow. I reconsidered. “Okay, I lied; it’s going in the book. Hang on.” I pulled my notebook from my pocket.

“Whoa, what’s he doing?!” Josh exclaimed between bites of cereal. “You’re makin’ me nervous, writing everything down like that.”

Marc had an idea. “Maybe you should use other names. Especially when we say or do stupid things.” He paused. “Call him Pedro.”

“All right. You’re no longer Josh. Henceforth you shall be Pedro,” I declared. I scribbled a note about this and took another sip of my orange juice. “So what does that make you, bud?”

“Javier,” Marc triumphantly announced. “Definitely Javier.”

“Javier it is.”

Boy, did I get some stories out of Javier.

Our first destination was the old city of Jaffa. That place is paradise for mythology/ancient history buffs. Everything happened there. King Solomon brought the wood for the first temple in Jerusalem through Jaffa, because he had paid attention in math class and knew that covering the shortest distance between two points requires a good port. Jonah tried to make friends with the local seatizens in Jaffa, and ended up in a whale of trouble. Andromeda, chained to a rock, [pictured below (the rock, not Andromeda in chains)] was rescued by Perseus there, too. Oh, and Napoleon killed a lot of people because the Ottoman Empire didn’t love him enough. So Jaffa was a pretty happening place back in the day.

Today it’s famous for its zodiac-adorned wishing bridge and its overpopulation of stray cats. Go figure. It’s also still a sweet looking port with a beautiful view of the sea.

We followed the shore all the way to the beach in Tel Aviv for a brief respite of relaxation, rays, and mild waves. There was an epic chicken fight from which Marc and Jesse emerged victorious.

The three of us thought it would be a great idea to get a football or a Frisbee to throw around. It’s the American thing to do, and everyone knows how the saying goes: When in Rome, do as the Americans do.

Maybe that’s just the American version of the saying.

We wandered over to a nearby bar because we assumed that every self-respecting bar in Israel would have a football and/or a Frisbee. We were shocked to find that our assumption was incorrect. What the hell, right?

“Well, we can at least get a beer while we’re here. You guys want to get a beer with me?”

“Beer with the birthday boy? Sure.” I was down. I mean, I knew we were warned not to get drunk, but one beer in celebration of Marc’s birthday wasn’t going to get us drunk. It was Corona, for crying out loud.

“Yeah, definitely,” Jesse agreed.

We toasted in Marc’s honor and I showed them how to properly lime a Corona (with a lemon; apparently, in Tel Aviv, citrus is citrus). Two minutes later I was heading back down the beach toward the group when Andrew intercepted me, head down, eyes alert, missing only the wire in his ear to complete the image. “You really shouldn’t have that.”

“This?” I held up the beer. “Uh… okay… why not?”

“You’re not supposed to have any alcohol during the day.” His eyes shifted again.

“Okay, I’ll get rid of it. Sorry, I didn’t realize. I knew we weren’t supposed to drink in excess, but we were just toasting Marc’s birthday. It’s no big deal for me to get rid of it, really. Sorry.”

Tair caught up with the situation, looking less like a member of the CIA and more like a stern mother, which is always much, much scarier. “You’re not supposed to have beer, Garrett.”

I shifted on my feet. “Yeah, Andrew was just telling me. I’m sorry. I’m going to get rid of it now. I promise.” I started backing away towards the trash can.

“Just go finish it back where you were, away from the group, by the bar.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I did as I was told, and when I arrived, Marc and Jesse were there too. They wore congruent frowns and bent necks that said ‘we got put in the corner, too’.

“What just happened?” I asked. “I thought we weren’t supposed to get drunk, I don’t remember anything about not drinking at all.” I was genuinely confused, because I had been taking notes when the Rules were laid down. I had been taking notes the entire time. On everything.

“Ran just chewed us out, big time,” Marc explained. “Apparently we aren’t supposed to drink in the daytime, and it’s a really big deal.”

“You don’t think they’ll kick us off the trip for this?” Jesse’s eyebrows were furrowed in concern and she was sitting on the edge of her seat, but trying not to look like it. “Ran was pissed. He looked angry as hell.”

I was feeling on edge, too, though I wasn’t sitting down. I hate getting into trouble by accident. When you do it on purpose, you expect the consequences and have the chance to accept them before doing whatever it is you’re going to do. When you suddenly find you’ve broken a rule you had no intention of breaking, you feel like you’ve been viciously screwed by both yourself and the world, and that’s just a little too much unsolicited screwing for me.

On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine that the good people running our trip would be so unilaterally minded as to boot us out for this. We hadn’t even talked about it yet.

“Ran basically said we’re in big trouble and they’ll sort out what will have to happen later. So I don’t think we’re being kicked out. I mean it would be @#$%ing stupid if we were.” My eloquent friend, Javier, ladies and gentlemen.

Javier was right, though. “If we were gone, they’d have told us we were gone already. Besides, this can’t be the first time someone has gotten mixed up on the specifics of the rules. The things they kick people out for are usually a bit more extreme than three responsible adults unknowingly breaking a rule by having an overpriced Corona light on the beach in honor of a birthday.” Corona’s not even a good beer, for crying out loud.

“Yeah,” they both agreed.

“Let’s just go do our thing and take whatever’s dealt. Not much else we can do,” Marc added. That was basically my attitude, and Jesse nodded as well.

“We didn’t even get a @#$%ing Frisbee,” Jesse said. Thanks, J. Way to look on the bright side. We sauntered back to the group.

The whispers were already making the rounds.

“Everyone, listen!” Ran called everyone together. “We are going to get our lunch now, and dhen we will have a chance to walk around dhe markets. Three of you will need to stay and talk to me, uh, you know who you are, because dhey had a beer and weren’t supposed to.” So it looked like calling us out in front of everyone was first on the list of repercussions. Awesome.

Lunch was good, though. We were seated outside at a place called Dr. Shukshuka’s in the center of a Jaffa/Tel Aviv marketplace at three long tables of fifteen or so. There was bread, tapenade, beans, couscous, soup, lemonade, and I’m sure one or two other items I’m forgetting. I mostly ate couscous and soup.

As we concluded our meal, Jesse and Marc ended up sitting across and next to me, respectively. “Everyone’s going shopping. I kind of want to go shopping with them,” said Jesse.

She had asked me, earlier, to try and keep her from making unnecessary and impulsive purchases, and I’m nothing if not a good friend. “Nah,” I countered. “It’ll be cheaper in the market in Jerusalem anyway. Besides, sitting here is more fun.” My logic is infallible.

Marc gave a weak chuckle that receded into a frown. “We should probably see if Ran wants to dole out our punishment now, and just face the music.”

“Yeah, let’s do it.” I was all for getting that over with. The only thing worse than being double-teamed by yourself and the world is dragging it out over time. I called over to the table where the staff was seated.

“Tair!” She turned. “Does Ran want to talk to us now?”

“You guys can go shop for a bit if you want to.” It was meant as kindness, to be sure; I don’t think she wanted to prolong our tenure in the stocks.

“Thanks, but if he’s okay with it we’d like to just discuss it now. Is that all right?”

“Yeah, sure. That’s fine.” She turned back to her table, and a minute later Ran pulled a chair up, shoulder-patting distance behind me and Marc. Here comes the party.

Ran glared at us. It wasn’t a mean expression, but there was a glint of indignation in his eyes and terseness set in his mouth. The sardonic part of me wonders what he would have said if I had asked him if he wanted to play Charades with us.

“It is not allowed to be drinking in the daytime here. We said that very clearly yesterday.”

Well, that cleared that bit of confusion up. That sardonic masochist in me was going, “Ahhh, of course, because alcohol doesn’t affect the body nearly as much at night as it does in the daytime. We’re all Jewish vampires.” I decided at that moment to call that part of me Calvin and to kick him in the shins whenever he started talking at me. It actually did make sense (to the sensible side of me) that they didn’t want members of a Taglit-Birthright trip openly drinking alcohol while embarking on a journey of historical and spiritual exploration. Calvin just happens to find dark humor everywhere. Sometimes he has his uses. You’ll see what I mean.

While I had been trying to silence Calvin with a psychic sledgehammer, Jesse had been explaining that we were sorry and that it was Marc’s birthday, which was why we’d had the beer in the first place. Marc tried to take the blame and casually mentioned that it was only one beer. Calvin silently contributed that it was not even a real beer, but I ignored him and added apologetically that it wouldn’t happen again.

“Thank you for that. I didn’t know before that it was your birthday, so I understand that,” Ran said. “But you really should not have drank that beer.” Drunk, Calvin tried to correct his grammar, and I might have even allowed it, if Ran hadn’t kept going. “So, as a punishment, you will have to deliver dhe wake-up call tomorrow, to, wake everyone up. Here is the list of everyone.”

Marc, Jesse, and I exchanged glances. That’s it? “We can handle that. What time’s wake-up?” I asked.

“Six thoirty.”

I nodded. Jesse looked impassive. Marc winced. I could almost see Javier behind his eyes, banging his head against a desk.

After lunch, we headed to the Rabin Square monument. It looks like an inverted Star of David, and is a symbol of peace and remembrance. There were political rallies and negotiations in this square. One of them, in 1995, unfortunately resulted in the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the square’s namesake. The murderer is still alive; Israel has no death penalty. They do have prison, though, so he’s not killing anyone else.

We walked a short distance from there to the location of the assassination. It moved me to pensiveness, standing in the place where such an atrocity was committed. Not because I was feeling what he might have felt, or because of a personal connection to the man; rather because there was such a feeling of dedication and honor that I don’t usually feel at places like this.

It reminded me of the location where my friend Dustin was killed back on Long Island years ago. That spot on Sunrise Highway is adorned with RIPs, flowers, pictures, and other mementos all the time. People honor those they genuinely know and care for that way. When a political figure gets that kind of emotional recognition – that’s a mark of true greatness.

We stood together discussing this, and Ran asked for a volunteer to read one of Rabin’s speeches. I raised my hand and was asked to do so; I’m not nervous reading in front of groups, mostly because I’ve had practice with poetry and with teaching. I tried my best not to screw this up.

Ran brought out lyrics, next. They were incredibly familiar – the English side, not the Hebrew – because they were lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine”. He pressed PLAY on his CD player and we all, slowly but surely, began singing along. “Imagine all the people living life in peace.” Imagine.

I started to imagine the cover of that song by A Perfect Circle, and then I started to imagine an ice cold root beer float refreshing me in the summer heat, and then I realized that Lennon was just a bit too convincing when he sang that word. Time for a change of scenery.

We headed to Independence Hall for a tour and a discussion. The discussion was part of the tour, as it turned out, giving us a very impassioned history of the birth of the State of Israel.

The building was largish but unassuming. It blended well with its surroundings, made of stone and standing square.

Our guide’s name was Felicita, and she was very reasonable. She let us sleep through the video. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. She did say she would understand, though, if we did.

“I remember my first trip to New York City. We arrived at five in the morning after a very long flight, and they had planned a tour for us at ten AM.

“It was a wonderful dream.

“You can sleep now, if you like, during the fourteen-minute movie I’m about to show you. Just stay awake for the actual tour, because you don’t want to miss that.”

Tel Aviv had, according to the video, sprung up extremely quickly. It showed us the history of Tel Aviv in a matter of minutes, but the city has only been in existence for about a hundred years. It showed us the founders, the way the city was founded, and the city’s current population. It showed us how the first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, donated the very hall we were in (formerly the mayor’s private residence) as a final gift to the city. It showed us “the first Maccabean Sporting Event taking place (many participants pictured here will later be exterminated in the Holocaust)”. This was horrifically morbid. Everyone fought back dark laughter, not because this was funny but because of our disbelief that such a horrendous factoid would appear, as such a complete non sequitur, so matter-of-factly following a jovial description of a sporting event. LOLWTFFML. You know what I mean.

So after this strange but informative video, we were led into the main hall. There was a rather large audience of about 150 seated in the big room, all facing the roped-off podium. In front of it stood our speaker, a dark-haired Israeli man who spoke nearly unaccented English. Behind him, the flag of Israel hung proudly. Here was where David Ben Gurion announced a Jewish state, the State of Israel. But, if you were to ask our speaker, he’d tell you I’m getting ahead of myself.

“When is a war over?” he asked the audience, referring to World War II.

Hands went up.

“When a treaty is signed.”

“Treaties are good, they’re agreements to stop fighting, but that’s not when it’s really over.” He called on someone else.

“When the fighting stops,” one person announced. He called on someone else.

“When new borders are drawn,” I heard a girl towards the back of the room say.

“When the celebrations start.” Any excuse for a party, neh?

“When the next one begins.” My, aren’t you Captain Cynical?

“When is a war really over?” our host repeated. I raised my hand.

“When everyone goes home.” It seemed a logical response to me. The war is over for the governments when the treaty is signed. The war is over for civilians when the fighting stops. The war isn’t over for everyone until the soldiers are all welcomed back home and it can become a memory.

“When everyone goes home,” he echoed. “May 8, 1945 was the biggest day ever for suitcase manufacturers. Americans, Brits, Aussies, Russians, Germans all went home. The soldiers left and the war was over. The natives returned to their homelands. But who are the true natives? How many of you feel at home in America?” Calvin asked me if he realized he was talking to a bunch of Americans. We understand how to feel at home just about anywhere we aren’t welcome. We also understand that some people can feel out of place in their own home; our ancestors did it to the real natives of our homeland.

So I wasn’t surprised when everyone raised their hands. “Are you serious? You just arrived yesterday on boats from villages in Europe and you already feel at home? Our people have been here for four thousand years and this question still has to be asked here. It’s still a very complicated question. Who are the true natives?” Tough to say, really. We tend to divide ourselves into socially constructed groups, so lining those divisions up with the many definitions of “native” in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion to such a query is, indeed, ‘complicated’ at best. Frustratingly predictable as his rhetoric might be, the man made a point.

He continued by describing to us how Israel was announced in the middle of a siege. His dark eyes flared and his voice rose in intensity; this man loved his country, and he loved the sound of his own voice telling its story. “They were trying to shove us (Jews) to the water. Shove us into the water?! We’re Jews!” he exclaimed. “We don’t swim! How many Jews have won swimming medals in the Olympics recently? Moses was born in a basket. He came to the sea and he split it. Noah spent time building a boat the size of a city when the world drowned. Jonah got a lift on a whale. Even Jesus would rather walk on water than swim! What were they thinking?”

They were thinking they could stop us. Almost all of our holidays are about survival. One Jewish joke I’ve heard goes something like this: what does every non-fasting Jewish holiday boil down to? They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s party! One of my friends, noticing this trend, observed, “You guys party a lot.”

“They try to kill us a lot,” I responded.

After this rousing speechification, we were brought back to the hotel to change and get ready for the Mega Event. It’s an aptly named event. I mean, “The Event” sounds like a bad X-rated movie. “Big Event” just doesn’t cover it, and “Super Event” just sounds lame. If you have a suggestion for a better name, I hear Taglit-Birthright is accepting nominations. Calvin would like you to e-mail him the details on how well your suggestions go over.

The Mega Event has been compared to a lot of things. USO show. Britney Spears concert. Someone even compared it to a homecoming dance. I would say that it’s like all of those things, only Jewish.

We started by standing in epic lines for half-decent falafel. I was hungry, so it tasted like the best thing ever. I learned the Hebrew word for tahini (tchina), and made prodigious use of it on my falafel. The very second I finished eating a loud voice came over louder speakers to announce the beginning of the Mega Event.

They had a lot of speakers, including the largest sponsors of the Taglit-Birthright program. The Adelsons brought their two young kids up with them. The old man, Sheldon Adelson, was long-winded and easily distracted, which wouldn’t have been that funny if it wasn’t for his kids. Besides the fact that there were whispers of “how old was he when they were born?” the children looked so bored. The older one kept rolling his eyes. Calvin asked me if the kids had any clue that the jumbotron featured them quite prominently in a close-up view for the whole audience to see.

Anyway, it was really cool to see so many supportive people there talking up Israel, but it was also what I expected. The coolest part was definitely the music.

I do have to say this: I was told that the Mega Event is usually at the end of a trip, not at the beginning. We were there on our second day, and everyone else knew all the songs and call-and-responses, etc. Despite this fact, I think everyone had a really good time. The music was great, the dancing was fun, and there was free water to be had. Everybody went home happy. And tired. You might be noticing a running theme to this trip…

Oh, you didn’t think the night was over yet, did you? Oh yes. I had set my alarm for 6:15 AM (prepared to give the wake-up call at 6:30), but I was awoken at 3:30 by my friend Javier, rather unceremoniously. He needed advice about women. His method of asking was somewhat impaired, but I got the message, all right. Javier was feeling lonely. I told Javier to concentrate on climbing the ladder and wrestling the question; perhaps it would come to him in a dream.

“You keep doing your thing, Javier. I’m going back to sleep.”