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Nostalgia Sunday

Israeli band Ha-Click never gained a great following among the young Americans in Israel during the early 80s. Certainly, if you were into peace, love, understanding, Arik Einstein, David Broza, Yehudit Ravitz, Matti Caspi and any number of other Israeli soft rockers, something like Ha-Click (known in English as The Clique), fronted by a black-lipsticked, spiky-haired Dani Dothan, was not going to hold any appeal.

On one hand, if you were into Punk and New Wave, Ha-Click and the Tel Aviv underground scene (clubs like Ha-Penguin on Allenby and Ha-Madregot on Dizengoff), were pretty tame compared to what was going on in New York and London at the time. On the other hand, these were people clawing at an entrenched culture establishment dominated by government-funded institutions, and creating an alternative art and music scene where none existed on a sleepy street of upholstery shops in central Tel Aviv. If it weren’t for Dothan, his brother Uri and a handful of other pioneers, there wouldn’t be Sheinkin Street today.

Inspired by New York’s SoHo district, the brothers Dothan moved into a dumpy apartment and set up an art gallery-cafe downstairs called Sheink-in. My friend Yael was one of the many young lovelies who served Nescafe and “botz” coffee there for a week or two. She can’t remember if she got paid or not, but money was not the point. The point was to be there. Other young artists were moving in all around the neighborhood; a small theater opened up, a plastics shop/gallery, an anarchist bookstore, a used record store; and on Purim the street was closed to traffic and the Adloyada parade – a Tel Aviv tradition from the 30s to the 60s – was revived by performance artists.

As Sheinkin gained in popularity, changes began to take place: Sheink-in closed down and Dothan opened up Tat-Rama, a high-level art gallery that also published a very large format, glossy magazine. Cafe Tamar – which still sells instant coffee and greasy cheesetoast under the watchful eye of proprietress and living legend Sarah Stern – became the hottest place in town to see and be seen. Sculptor Israel Hadany was commissioned to create a sculpture-fountain in the park at the lower end of the street. Tat-Rama closed down and a fast food delivery company moved in. The bookstore shut down and Cafe Cazze opened up, bringing in good coffee – finally! The Hadany fountain was paved over and replaced by a kiddie park. Hanging out at Cafe Tamar became cliche after Bananarama wannabees Mango sang a song about it. The Tel Aviv municipality gave the neighborhood a name – “Lev Tel Aviv”, the heart of Tel Aviv – and real estate prices inveitably started to rise.

I interviewed Dani Dothan about 15 years ago after he published a novel (a very good one, actually) about Jerusalem bohemians of the 1920s. He was resigned to the fact that Sheinkin had become, in his words, “a street of boutiques and restaurants”. It wasn’t exactly his vision, but he was certainly aware that it was due in part to his efforts. (He also explained to me that the difference between a “Sheinkiner” and a “Sheinkinist” was that of between buying and renting). He’s a very busy man and continues to stay on the cutting edge of Israeli popular culture: he wrote singer Dana International’s song “Diva“, which won the 1998 Eurovision, he directed Milkshake, a controversial cable talk show starring the irrepressible Zofit Grant (Mrs. Avraham Grant, as she’s known to UK football fans), and co-directed documentaries “The Ashkenazim“, and “The Blue Lamb“.

The Clique only reunited twice, in 1988 and 2004. Drummer Jean Jacques Goldberg passed away in 2006, so there’s not likely to be any more and in any case, reunion tours are pathetic, (sorry Johnny, but it’s true). A clip does occasionally show up on TV and that’s nice to watch, like this one of their big hit “Incubator” – and please note the prescient use of plastic sheeting, a decade before the first Gulf War made it part of our national consciouness.

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