End at the Beginning

This morning is my last here in Haifa.  I'm certain that I will be back to Israel, but these are my last moments sitting at my kitchen table and listening to the waves as they gently roll towards the shore.  It's been fun.  Israel is not at all what I expected and I'm not sure that after five and a half months I really understand it. 

Israel is a young country, full of contradictions, competitiveness, and color.  It's the stony deserts of the Negev and the classy streets of Tel Aviv.  It's the mosque within sight of Matam, the scientific and technological center of Haifa.  It's the tent city student protest parties and the train full of tired youth returning from the military for Shabbat.  It's the warm kiss from a friend and the smile of a stranger baking pitas. Haertz Israel. The land and the people.

A parting story:
Yesterday was the best day we've had during our entire time here.  We started the morning with fresh pastries and chocolate cereal.  We said goodbye to Camel (our car) and Avi our landlord.  Avi has a son in San Jose so we chatted about California, Yosemite, and Tahoe.  He is off to Barcelona in a few weeks.

We walked the beach to the train station and went to see downtown Haifa for the last time.  We had been here before, in February, when it was cold enough to scale the 1002 steps from Yefe Nof to Wadi Nisnas in sweatshirts.  On a gray and rainy day we had wandered down into Wadi Nisnas and discovered an amazing baklava bakery in the midst of a very strange part of town.  We had wandered around the old city and back up the mountain tasting the first flavors of Israel--foreign, exciting and a little scary--as we made our way back up to the Carmel Center.

Full circle, back in Wadi Nisnas nothing looked familiar.  The sun was shining, unmercifully hot, and the little ramshackle village didn't look half as "Middle Eastern" as it had on that gray day in February.  The people were welcoming and warm.  To think that I had once considered them slightly threatening!  We went back to the same bakery where we met some very kind Jewish women.  They were there to purchase merengue cookies but heartily recommended different types of baklava and helped us communicate with the shop owner.  The bakery, located in a Christian Arab village, caters to his neighbors.  For the Jewish ones, he has a sign in Hebrew letters and bakes cakes and cookies in the European fashion.  For the Arab ones, he has a sign in Arabic and bakes baklava and knefe sprinkled with rose water.  Everyone is free to indulge in their own comfort food.

Later in the evening, we went for a sunset swim.  Since jellyfish season is now over, the beach was massively crowded.  There were people everywhere--on the sand and in the water.  We swam out and looked back on the crowd.  It was the world's largest pool party!  There were kids jumping off of their dads' shoulders, Russian women floating around as they gossiped and single men trying to swim aggressively against the waves.  Everyone was happy.  How could you not be?  The water and the gentle waves were like a warm hug, relaxing as it cradled you and rocked you back and forth.  There were no jellyfish, nothing to be afraid of, just sand and water and laughter.  This was the Israel I didn't expect and the one that I'll cherish for as long as I live.

"Shalom," meaning "peace" is the traditional greeting in Israel.  It is also "good-bye."  So go in peace, live in peace, come again in peace.

I used to wonder what the waves whispered as they sighed outside my window.  Now, I know.

Shhhhhhhhalom.

Shopping in Israel + Beyond

Relative to driving up to Costco and carrying away a truckload of groceries and gadgets, shopping in Israel is hard.  It is very dependent upon when you go and where you go.  If you are shopping on Shabbat, you are most likely in an Arab souk where prices are not posted and haggling is expected.  If you are shopping on Friday, you are most likely in a crowded Jewish store where prices are non-negotiable.  Don't get the two confused!

Daily shopping:
Jewish stores are closed on Shabbat and they start closing at ~2:00 p.m. on Friday so they can get ready for the Shabbat dinner.  If you need something from a mall on the weekend you have to fight with everyone else.  If you don't like fighting for space, go early (before 11).  Remember: security guards check all cars going into parking garages.  Stop politely and open the trunk.  The guard will look in your backseat and your trunk and then pass you through.  Don't try to talk with him in English--it just makes him suspicious.  Guys will be wanded at the entrance to the mall.  Women will have their purses inspected.  Mall parking gets creative and dangerous on Friday.  If you want to avoid the crowds, shop on Sunday evening after work.

For groceries, if you shop at Sufersal (red and white logo), register your address for a saver card.  This is like a Safeway Club Card in the states and it is very good to have.  We saved a bundle on 2 for 1 deals.

For a fun and cheap lunch, go to the malls or a market on Friday.  Malls host smaller stalls with farm-fresh groceries or special breads or cheeses.  The cheese stall in the Haifa mall near Matam is especially good.

If you're looking for a special souvenier:

Craft stores:

A very special find is Foad Halbe's Druze Crafts in Daliyat Ha Carmel.  On the main street he is just across the way from several restaurants, on the northern end of town.  Go there!  He sells Druze Glass and hand-weaving wholesale.  This has been the highlight of many shopping trips.  The restaurant next door is very good as well. 

Magdal in Ein Hod.  Magdal works with ceramics in this artist village, just east of the cafe.  Look for the brightly colored pottery.  She's amazing.

St. Patrick's, Milk Grotto Street in Bethlehem.  This store run by Louis has some of the best reasonably priced olive-wood souveniers in Bethlehem.  It may not be high art, but it's nice enough to display on the shelf.  Best olive wood souveniers in all of Israel!  We love the angel we got there.

Arab Markets:

My favorite market for driving hard bargains is Daliyat Ha Carmel on Fridays.  On Shabbat the place is incredibly crowded, but on Fridays you can get some great deals.

Jerusalem has the biggest market with the best selection.  If you want something that looks Middle Eastern, this is the place to shop.  Prices are steep and negotiations aggressive but the variety is excellent.  It is also the best place to people watch if you aren't being crushed by the crowds on Via Dolorosa.

Akko is my favorite souk to wander.  It has a fair selection (we really like the shop just south of the Knights Hall) but the fish market, the spices, and the old city make it a fun place for pictures and general ambience.

Nazareth is ok if you want olive wood carvings but aren't going to Jerusalem or Bethlehem.  Prices are better in the off-season when Christian tourists are few and far between.

Jordan:
If you have time to go farther afield, the markets in Aqaba, Jordan beat anything in Israel.  My favorite place there is Hilawi on the Jeweler's street.  He makes custom beautiful beaded jewelry out of local stones.  Great prices, great place.  It's also a good place to by dallahs.  We got ours at a store on the road to Petra (which might have been a tourist trap) but never saw anything so nice in Israel.

Tel Aviv:
Shopping is excellent if you want a piece of the hip, trendy vibe in the city.  It seemed to specialize in designer clothing.  The store at the Bauhaus Center on Dizengoff had some very cool decorative art.  The craft fair on Friday morning was interesting but slightly overwhelming.  If you like hamsas, that's the place to find one.  Just don't try to shop on Shabbat.  You will be sadly disappointed.

Shopping is more personal in Israel so have fun with it, meet people, and enjoy!  It's not Amazon.com, and that's the joy and challenge of it.

Best Sights to See in Israel

If you're coming to Israel for pleasure, I'm sure you're planning a stop in Jerusalem, a swim in the Dead Sea and maybe an excursion to Tel Aviv.  We've discovered a few spots slightly off of the tourist route that are definitely worth exploring.  Here our our favorites.

To get a great sense of history:

·         Best ruins: Tzippori/Sephoris (mosaics are outstanding – you won’t believe that they’re 2k yr old)

·         Best place to feel like an ancient Roman: Bet She'an (Scythopolis).  Biggest and best collection of Roman ruins in Israel – real feel for a roman city.

·         Best place to feel like a knight: Tel Asruf/Apollonia in Herziliya (a castle on a cliff overlooking the sea). A close second is the Knight's Hall in Akko

·         Best place to feel like a fisher of men: Capernaum (St. Peter's House) in Galilee

·         Best museum: Eretz Israel in Tel Aviv.  Interesting stuff, good explanations in English, and you can take pictures of the artifacts (unlike the Israel Museum)

·         Best place to feel the weight of history: Jerusalem, Old City, on Shabbat in lent.  People will be everywhere, in full religious garb (from orthodox Jews at the wailing wall to orthodox Christians in the holy sepulchre

To experience nature:

• Best wildlife: Agamon Hahula (Hula Lake) just off of highway 90 in the Upper Galilee.  Great in autumn as migrating cranes make a stopover in the thousands.  Good in spring.  Hot in the summer (see Twitching in Israel for more)

• Best lush greenery: Banias is so beautiful, wet and green that you would swear you're not in Israel.  The falls were really flowing in May and I think they are good year-round.  If you can make the trip, couple it with a dinner at Dag al HaDan.

• Best desert landscape: Mitzpe Ramon.  On a clear day you can see the whole crater and even if you can't the diverse colors of the Carpentry are worth making the trip.  I've never felt a landscape this desolate!

• Best unexpected surprise: If you come from March-May there are great wildflowers blooming all over Israel.  The bloom starts in the south and moves north so there's always something good to see.  The diversity of color and forms in the flowers is much better than those in California.  Everyone will go to Mt. Gilboa for the Gilboa iris, but there are good flowers growing elsewhere too!

*If you are in Haifa there are trails down the western wadis from the top of the Carmel to the sea.  Follow the brown signs to the trail at the top of the wadi and then follow the white-green-white stripes on the rocks.  Careful, the rain makes the trails very slippery!

To experience the New Israel:

• Best cultural experience: beaches on Shabbat.  Everyone flocks to the beaches--young, old, families, singles, Arab, Russian, Jew, tourist...On Saturday nights the Haifa Hof Ha Carmel hosts folk dancing just south of the Hotel Leonardo.  Come and watch the crowds!  Last weekend several couples danced while on rollerblades

• Best walk in Haifa: stroll the Louis Promenade on the uphill side of Yefe Nof.  Night or day, it's a gorgeous view.

• Best Arab city: Old Akko (Acre) is a nice medieval town on the sea.  It's a seashore carnival atmosphere of Middle Eastern culture.  There's a fun souk with fishmarket and a great seashore promenade on the southern and western sides of the city.  Make a day of it and have dinner at Uri Burri (great seafood).  It's especially nice on Shabbat since it's still open when Haifa's stores are closed.

• Best way to feel the "vibe": stroll anywhere in Tel Aviv at any time.  It's amazing but the streets will be packed at midnight with more people than were out at noon.

These are a few of our favorite things.  Really, there was nothing we saw that we regretted seeing other than a few really nasty traffic jams. 

Top Tips:
If you are here for a long time, purchase a National Parks Pass which is good for a year of unlimited entries.  Israel has 65 National Parks and more National Reserves so this has more than paid for itself in five months.  Also, parks close 1 hr earlier on Friday than they due on Saturday due to Shabbat.  If you want to make sure to see something, get there before 2.  They will close at 4 and start shooing people out of the parks at 3.

If you are interested in hiking, Carta Jerusalem publishes an excellent English guide to the National Parks.  It has a summary of each park, the trails in them, maps to them, and pictures of what to see.  It's available for purchase at the National Parks.

If you are traveling on Shabbat, target an Arab village for lunch or BYO sandwich.  Tiberias was a ghost town and the only places that were open for lunch were rest stops in the gas stations.  National Parks will probably have a small concession booth selling ice cream and water.

If you want to park in the cities before 8:00 p.m. or on days other than Shabbat, purchase an electronic parking pass (available in gas stations).  Dial in the city code and zone and it deducts from a pre-paid amount until you get back and cancel it rather than requiring you to feed the meter.  Genius! (There is also a way to pay by phone but that requires you to have a cell phone while in Israel).

Don't take life too seriously!  Always a good tip, but of utmost importance in Israel.  Don't get offended or insulted by rude behavior--it's just the way this rather aggressive country is some times.  Laugh it off and let it go.  I can't tell you how many times I've nearly been run down by buses at round-about pedestrian crossings.  The key is *nearly.*  I'm still walking and no harm's been done.

Have fun! La Chaim!

Shabbat and the City (Tel Aviv, part 2)

Tel Aviv certainly is "cool."  There's a vibe about the place unlike Haifa or Jerusalem.   The Friday markets are crowded and fun.  Everything is on display for the public.  It is a place to see and be seen.  Hip stores vie for attention on the boulevards while farmers hawk piles of cherries in the plaza.  It is a kaleidoscope of color.  Restaurants (at least the ones we tried) are extremely good.  However, like all of Israel, it suffers from the tyranny of Shabbat.

Everything that was exciting and cool--the markets, the restaurants, the trendy shops--everything like that, is completely gone by Saturday morning.  Some restaurants and coffee shops are open which is a small mercy, but the majority of the city is closed.  Plazas are devoid of life.  Large boulevards have no traffic.  Shops are shuttered or display their wares in windows with one light on, as if to mock and say "come back later."  It's like a war-zone and everyone has gone to ground.  The city is empty.

Everyone is at the beach, and I do mean everyone.  The entire city lives by the "shop on Friday, beach on Saturday" cycle also common in Haifa. From an American point of view, this is just too much conformity.  I can go to the beach and enjoy it on Friday while the people are elsewhere, but I can't go shopping on Saturday to avoid the beach crowds.  Silly … 

Beach on Friday

Beach on Saturday

There is also no public transportation from Friday afternoon until Saturday night.  Come to Tel Aviv on the train on Friday and you're stuck until 9:10 p.m. on Saturday.  This might work if you can crash with family or friends, but a night in a Tel Aviv hotel is not cheap ($200+).  It seems like the rules have been made to benefit the natives or the tourists.  Tel Aviv works well if you live there, like to party all night on Friday and sleep on a beach chair, or don't work a normal week. 

Still, it was good to see the city and to be able to stay over on Thursday and Friday nights.  The restaurants were the best in Israel which made it worth it to have two dinners in the city.  We were too tired to take in the fabled night-life scene but given what I've seen in Haifa and Jerusalem, Tel Aviv is the only place you can go out for a "night on the town" in the entire country, so any bar would be like New York crossed with Miami crossed with Vegas.  We overheard one person at the beach saying that he got to sleep around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.  No wonder Shabbat is so quiet--everyone not at the beach is sleeping off a hangover.  Tel Aviv ranks high on my list of Israel experiences, but I still think Haifa with its natural beauty and pleasant beach is definitely the best place to live!

Saving the Best for Last

Yesterday we joined a coworker and her boyfriend in Tel Aviv for dinner.  When we met up and explained that, although we had been in the country since February we had not yet been to Tel Aviv, her boyfriend lit up.  "Welcome to Israel," he declared with a broad grin.

To most Israelis, Tel Aviv is the center of the world.  Jerusalem may have all of the old religious landmarks but Tel Aviv is the cultural soul of this relatively young state.  It was in Tel Aviv in 1948 that David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of Israel as the first sovereign Jewish state--a state that would "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race," while still allowing the "Jewish people to be masters of their own fate."  The secular vs. religious tensions apparent in the Declaration are still plaguing Israel today.  Jerusalem is the religious side--strongly orthodox and very proud of its religous ceremonies.  Tel Aviv is the secular side, the 83% of the Jewish population (Jewish in ethnicity and tradition) that cares more about enjoying life than fighting over territory.  It's a refreshing and playful breath of multicultural fresh air.

Take the restaurant we went to as an example--"The Diner by Goocha."  Goocha had been a seafood restaurant serving everything from fried calamari with parsley and garlic aioli in classic Italian style to a seafood noodle dish cooked in coconut cream and thai peppers.  Last night was just a week after it had been remodeled to look like a traditional American diner.  The menu had changed to include items such as rib-eye "chops" with Hollandaise sauce and New York Cheesecake.  They had even lined the walls with chalkboards to give it the straight from Chicago or New York look.  Everything was new and shiny and it was packed, in the middle of the week, from 8:00 and later.  We left at 10:30 and it really seemed like the city had just started to wake up.  We hear that some restaurants will stay open, serving dinner items well past 2:00 a.m!  Want a bacon cheeseburger at 1:00 in the morning?  Tel Aviv is the place to get it.

We heard from our host that rollerbladers started a protest on Tuesday nights.  They gathered at 10:30 p.m. in such numbers that they shut down the streets and caused traffic jams.  Instead of arresting them the cops worked with them to create a rollerblading route of select streets that are closed from 10:30-12:00.  Now it's more of an event than a protest.

We're going back this weekend because it is an interesting place and it seems a little more like America in its hedonistic pleasures and stay-open-late (even on Shabbat) freedoms.  The food is great and the attractions are supposedly good as well.  How could we leave Israel without visiting it first?

L'chaim!