Sitting in peering out

I've been a month and a half now in Tel Aviv and it's been a whirlwind.  I'm not exactly certain where to start; perhaps it makes sense then to start at the beginning. 

I stayed the first few days I was here with my good friends Moriel and Claire, and then subletted a room from a great couple named Jackie and Michal while I searched for an apartment.  Finding a good apartment in Tel Aviv isn't trivial and can take a long time, but luckily, I managed to find a place very quickly—just a couple of days of looking.  It's a cute little studio in an excellent part of town, right near the central shuk (market) and some really neat boulevards and streets.  It's also about 7 minutes by bike to the climbing gym. 

Other logistics fell into place without too much trouble.  Cell phone, bank account, lab, bus pass, bicycle... also, one big priority for me coming here was to immerse myself in the language, so I enrolled in an intensive Hebrew class at Tel Aviv University a couple weeks into being here (they call it 'Ulpan').  I just finished the first semester of the class; it was 5 days a week, 4.5 hours a day of Hebrew for a month.  I’ve improved immensely in that time.  It’s been one of the most stimulating experiences of my life to start learning a new language, and it makes me wonder where my priorities were back in high school and college, when I had the opportunity to do it but didn’t.  I don’t think I’m naturally talented with foreign languages, but where I lack skill, I’m trying to compensate with obstinacy and grit.  We’ll see how it pays off.   

Many people ask me why I bother trying to learn Hebrew, since it’s hard to learn a language at my age and it’s a lot of effort and I’m only here for a year or two.  The true answer is that it’s something that’s important for me in its own right.  It’s part of why I wanted to spend time in Israel.  If I’m a Jew, and half of the Jews in the world order pizza in Hebrew, it’s a completing experience for me to immerse myself in that life and to learn what it means from the inside.  But I don’t pretend that it’s logical.  Neither do I think anymore that most things in life are.  It’s the illogical elements, which we instantly pretend were intended, that strike sparks in the banal.  I want to learn Hebrew just because, and for once I don’t feel a need to pretend that it’s justified. 

When I planned my trip out to Israel, I scheduled a month and a half of unstructured time before starting my post-doc, allowing myself time to get acclimated and to pick up some Hebrew.  It’s turned out to be the exactly right plan.  I’m starting my research this coming week, and I don’t feel any logistical pressures bearing down on me.  I already know my way around the city, where to do my laundry, how the bus schedules work, where to get groceries, and other small details that would be stressors if I were handling them while working.  By chance, my intensive semester of Ulpan finished this week just in time for the start of my post-doc.  I’ll continue with morning classes.  I’m incredibly lucky that the timing worked out so perfectly, since with any other Ulpan schedule, it would be much more difficult for me to continue with Hebrew.

This brings me to Tel Aviv.  Somehow I was expecting a stress level here that I haven’t encountered.  There's a bustle of life in this city that’s refreshing.  Coffeeshops and bars are filled with people until 3 or 4 in the morning on any given night of the week.  I'm still trying to figure out when people work here—coffeeshops and restaurants are always busy, anytime of day.  There are also cats everywhere.  I personally like cats; in addition to taking care of any rodent problems, they give a really warm feel to the city for me.  I walk around smiling every time I see another furry bundle crouched on a sidewalk, which means I smile at just about every street crossing.  It's winter now and the evenings can be a bit chilly, and we’ve had some much needed rain, but the weather is typically golden. 

Maybe I’m just not yet jaded, but I haven’t experienced the rude part of Israeli society that people warned me about.  Actually, I’ve found in general that Israelis are incredibly warm people.  The first week I was here I had a couple of women on the bus try to set me up with their daughters.  I had an egg distributer invite me into his shop for some coffee, and exchange numbers so I can come up to his moshav some weekend on Shabbat (I’ve been meaning to go back to that guy for my eggs…).  I bought a radio in the shuk that ended up not having a powercord in the box, and when I went back expecting a battle, the shopkeeper apologized immediately and gave me one, surprised that it hadn’t been in there.  There have been a few negative experiences of course but I guess I don’t focus there.  One can always find negatives in life, but with our already limited attentions, I see no need to waste mind on them.

Many people have asked me about the situation in Egypt (and much of the rest of the Middle East, now), and how it’s affecting the life here.  The short answer is that it isn’t.  Life is moving along as normal and Tel Avivers are still going out unabated to their coffeeshops and their pubs and their clubs.  In truth, I can understand the mentality; why change your life for a situation you can’t control and that hasn’t even settled out yet?  But I have been surprised by just how unconcerned Israelis seem to be about the situation.  Then again, I can’t really speak the language, so maybe more people are talking about it than I know.

I’ve also been surprised by the paucity of conversation about Palestinians and the peace process, aside from some offhanded comments here and there about Hamas.  I’ve actually heard more concerns from Israelis about the Ultra-Orthodox Jews than about the Palestinians.  That is to me one of the more fascinating glimpses into the Israeli mind.  People here are aware of, and terrified of, the multiple population timebombs (not my term) that are currently ticking.  With a democratically minded Israeli populace maintaining a birthrate that’s many times lower than that of the extremists surrounding them, it’s only a matter of time—and not even that much of it—before the demographics themselves turn into society’s downfall.  And the typical Tel Aviver’s response?  C’est la vie; let’s go party or continue with business as usual, at least right now things have some semblance of stability. 

I believe it’s that same illusion of stability that prevents true progress with peace.  It’s a ubiquitous component of human nature.  Why doesn’t America accept the existence of global warming?  Distrust of science sure, but I think that the problem is rooted deeper, and it has more to do with the natural tendency to think that tomorrow will look like today, even if you’re driving straight towards a cliff.  All that being said, it’s still somewhat astounding to me just how easily one forgets here the geopolitical miasma that Israel is steeped in.  Life plods like normal even as chaos nips at the edges and threatens to suck it all out in an instant.  I was in Israel two years ago when Israel invaded Gaza, and I’m here now when the entire Middle East is rearranging through popular uprisings that could have untold effects on the peace and stability of the region, but I could easily ignore all of it if I wished.  I just wouldn’t check the news; life here would be completely unchanged.  This, of course, might all change; everyone’s aware that there could be a war.  It’s difficult for me to reconcile the upheavals occurring outside with the normalcy within.  I guess that’s just the paradox of life here. 

I’ll make one small comment about Shabbat before ending.  I’m accustomed in the States to being in a cultural minority, and to feeling that to be Jewish I need to explicitly foster identity.  It doesn’t feel that way here, and Shabbat is the most prominent example.  The whole weekend here—running Friday through Saturday—has a ready-made architecture; it’s not just a mess of disorganized off time where each person does his own thing.  Friday, the city descends on the shuks and the shops and it prepares for the upcoming rest day.  Even here, in this secular city, I can feel a tendril of mellowness in the pace of the shoppers, despite all the buzz of the markets.  I don’t mean to glorify Israelis; they can be stressed and unhappy as anybody, and they’re plenty rude when they are.  But the structure of the weekend, culminating in the Saturday rest day, seems to exert a relaxing influence.  Friday night, most Israelis my age go have dinner with their parents or with friends, and then many come back into the city to party.  On Saturday itself, I see more people than ever out on Rothchild Boulevard, playing with their kids or having a coffee with friends.  Everyone’s dogs are out.  The city is thrumming.  This is the beat of a secular but Jewish society, where the paces and structures of the religion are maintained but the religious elements are kept minimal.  I find it refreshing.

That’s it for now—I’ll have more updates along the way.  I wish everyone well.