Rain – a love/hate story
I really hate the rain. Oh, I know it’s good for us and the country desperately needs to refill its reservoirs. I just wish we could get all our rainfall at night, when I’m sleeping. Getting caught in a daytime downpour is one of my most dreaded activities. It’s cold, my glasses get pelted so I can barely see, and I’m always afraid that sloshing through puddles will ruin my shoes.
Now, my wife Jody and I are regular exercisers. Our main workout is running – we head to the streets 3-4 times a week, on several different circuits in southern Jerusalem. Our favorite is along the Sherover and Goldman Promenades, overlooking the Old City. We also run up to the Ramat Rachel kibbutz and back, and through the German Colony.
This morning, the skies looked ominous. It had been thundering all weekend, but at 9:00 AM, the ground was dry. We decided to chance it. Strapping on our iPods, we headed out on the closest route to home towards the Old Katamon neighborhood.
About five minutes into our run, we felt a few drops from above but not enough to turn back. I can deal with a light drizzle as long as it stops and starts. Which is exactly what it was doing. So far so good.
10 minutes into the run, the rain started coming down harder. We were in San Simon Park and ducked under a tree until the rain lightened up. Then we were off again.
As we turned back onto Kovshei Katamon Street, the skies opened up big time. There was a bus stop across the street. We dashed between oncoming vehicles where we took shelter to wait it out.
Only this time, the rain didn’t abate – it intensified. The streets began to fill up. It’s amazing how quickly water can come cascading down a slight hill in the midst of Israeli city. It was easy to imagine how a flash flood could appear out of nowhere.
As the gullies deepened, the splashes from nearby cars loomed closer. When a truck rumbled by, soaked us from head to toe. We knew it was time to head home…regardless of the downpour.
For the next five minutes, we sprinted through the streets as if wading in a freezing swimming pool. We were up to our ankles in a gray and brown Jerusalem liquid mix. Since I was running blind (the glasses thing, remember?), if there had been a pothole, I would have been a goner.
We made it home and our teenager daughter laid out large beach towels at the door to mop up our mess.
All I wanted at that point was a nice hot shower. I threw myself under the water, only to realize too late that there had not been enough sun that morning to power the solar heater and we had neglected to turn on the electric timer.
Sitting in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea, Jody tried to lighten the mood, pushing a more optimistic agenda. After today, she said, it couldn’t possibly get any worse.
That’s when we heard the drip-drop of the rain again. We looked up. It was coming through the roof.
Did I mention I hate the rain?
HMO bait and switch?
Maccabi Health Fund
When I received a call from our Maccabi Tivi, the complementary medicine branch of our local HMO, offering a massage and reflexology treatment for only NIS 100 (just over $25), I jumped at the chance. After all, my favorite luxury vacation has always been a trip to a spa (of which there are now plenty in Israel) with a massage included. Those rub downs, however, are usually upwards of NIS 300 ($80).
The Maccabi deal, unfortunately, was a bit of a bait and switch. In order to get the massage, you have to first see the doctor whose job is to sell you additional treatments. The appointment then became a kind of game of cat and mouse where I needed to tell the doctor what ailed me, but not too much, lest he send me for acupuncture instead of shiatsu.
I didn’t have much to worry about. Dr. Rosenbaum was pleasant enough, waddling in late for our meeting. He asked me some questions and typed them slowly, one finger at a time, into his computer. He felt my pulse and asked me to stick out my tongue. Then he sent me on my way without a single alternative recommendation.
My massage was immediately afterward. It was also part of the bait and switch. Not that my masseuse Nadav was in on the game. But the shiatsu was brief – under 30 minutes – and much of it consisted of his placing two fingers on strategic parts of my back and holding them there for several minutes. Not exactly a strenuous workout.
Nadav seemed, in fact, more interested in getting back to his granola bar, which he greedily stuffed into his mouth before I had even left the treatment room.
My reflexology appointment is next week. I have to decide if it’s worth the time – an hour and a half back and forth with Jerusalem’s horrendous center city traffic – not to mention the cost of the parking.
I’m expecting a sales call on the phone shortly. “How did I like it?” “Am I ready to sign up for more?” I’ll act politely interested, then insist on a full hour, no doctor, no granola bars and validated parking.
OK, maybe not the parking.
A moral dilemma on King David Street
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, Social Justice, Sports, coexistence
I’m not sure if I was taken in by a 3-Card-Monty sidewalk scam or callous in not fully helping someone in need.
I left Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Friday with my tennis partner Calev after our weekly doubles game (Why we get to play at the venerable hotel’s outside court situated in it’s beautiful poolside courtyard is another story worth telling some day).
As we were walking to Calev’s car, a neatly dressed woman holding two young girls – aged maybe six and four, dressed in their Friday finest approached us.
“Excuse me,” she said in an accented English that revealed her Arab origins. She was tall and thin, and wearing a fashionable black pant suit.
“I’m from Haifa, and I had to come to Jerusalem to take one of my girls to the hospital for an appointment. But I lost my pocket book, and now we have no way of getting back to Haifa. Do you have any money you can give so we can go home?”
What would you do?
Calev, who grew up in New York, immediately scoped out the situation as a classic tourist scam, aimed at bilking the high-scale King David clientele out of their money.
I looked at the little girls, and took NIS 20 out of my pocket and handed it to the woman.
“This will get you to the Central Bus Station,” I said. “You can ask Egged (the bus company) to help you get home.”
The woman wasn’t happy with that offering.
“But I need NIS 150 to get home,” she insisted.
Claiming that the money I gave her was all I had, we continued walking to the car. Calev said, “I’m sure she’s from east Jerusalem and does this every week.”
As we drove onto King David Street, he suggested we look for the woman and offer her a ride to Haifa. If she declined, then we’d know that I had been taken. If she accepted, then it was going to be a long afternoon driving two hours each way to Haifa.
Alas, we couldn’t find them on the street anymore, and we were left to speculate. Ultimately, I didn’t feel bad at my NIS 20 contribution to the woman. Even if she was a clever scam artist, the money would hopefully go to feeding her children. But we may never find out who she was… unless she’s there again next Friday when we finish our tennis game.
Meditations on being alone
My wife left me this week. Don’t worry – it’s nothing serious. Jody is participating in a week long meditation retreat at Kibbutz Hanaton in the Galilee. That means I’m home alone with the kids (not a problem) but also alone in the kitchen (bigger problem).
I have never been much of a whiz as a cook. I can stick a sandwich in the “toast” machine and I’ve been known to whip up an omelet under distress. My saving grace is my Shabbat cholent, which is reputed to be the best in Baka.
So Jody had lovingly bought exactly the right ingredients for the list of meals she’d prepared in advance before she left. Nice wife, huh?
But for our first meal alone, when I opened up the fridge, it was nearly bare. Jody believes in the Japanese model of “just in time” delivery. If she’d specified one salad for the week, then there was only enough lettuce, cucumber and tomato for that. This model is great for saving cash – why stock your pantry to the brim like some kind of second supermarket when you could leave that money in the bank where it can keep working for you.
But the kids wanted more than one day’s salad. And we were already out of bananas.
I decided to call Jody on her cell phone. She could advise me on where to find the freshest vegetables that wouldn’t take too substantial a bite out of my wallet. But it was to no avail. You see, she was on a silent meditation retreat. Seven days of no talking. She had showed me the schedule. The wake up gong sounds at 5:30 AM. First sitting is at 6:00 AM followed by morning prayers and a meal eaten in complete silence – you’re not even supposed to look your dining partner in the eye.
Then more meditation, more meals, more prayer until 9:30 PM when it’s lights out and the whole process starts over again.
The silent part also applies to cell phones. Fine, I could always SMS, right? Wrong. The retreat leader had advised participants to turn of their phones completely for the duration of their time away.
That seemed a bit obsessive to me. Even when Jody and I have gone away to far-flung places like India and Egypt, our cell phones have always been on for emergencies. This was like going back to the 1970s when using a payphone was considered a extreme sport.
But I suppose it will be a good experience. Kind of like one of those wilderness challenges where you hike for a month and have to fend on your own, eating berries and hunting bunnies. The kids and I will tough it out. Learn how to cook soup. Even follow recipes.
Or we could forget about the missing cucumbers and order a week’s worth of falafel and pizza. You know, that actually sounds pretty good…just don’t tell Jody!
Listen to the music
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Music, Religion, coexistence
(Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski/The Jerusalem Post)
But at the Ron Shulamit Music Conservatory in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, haredi women of all ages (from age 7 through adulthood) are not only learning the classical canon on their instruments of choice, but many are going on to graduate from a BA program and enter the work force as music teachers.
The 15-year-old institution is slowly changing perceptions – that of the girls and their families toward the outside secular world of culture, and also of society’s accepted but tainted view of the haredi world as a backwards society where culture is disdained and scorned.
Maybe somewhere, a middle ground exists where the truth lies. And if the Ron Shulamit conservatory is involved, then surely there’s music playing.
I recently visited the conservatory and sat in on some classes. These girls are serious – and very talented. They tackle the music with the same tenacity as they would Torah studies. And, according to the staff, the fact that they’re coming to the field with zero knowledge (since most of them don’t have stereos or TVs at home), it provides a freshness to their approach to music.
“When they hear a piece of music, this is the first time they’re hearing it – and their reaction is ‘wow!’ It’s a discovery,” Rina Shieffer, the conductor of the conservatory’s student orchestra, told me. “Everyone’s heard Beethoven’s 5th a million times, but for these girls, it’s all new. They play in an exciting manner and are interested in all the details.”
Non-haredi Israelis still have plenty problems with the haredi population here – issues of welfare for big families, refusal of most of them to serve in the army, Shabbat road closures, etc..
But there shouldn’t be anyone to argue against adding this element of culture into their lives, and enabling haredi young women to find their voices and learn a skill that will enable their families to perhaps leave the welfare line. More power to the Ron Shulamit Conservatory.
Snow patrol
From the last big snowstorm
With Jerusalem on the verge of its bi-annual one-day snowstorm, I was reminded of the last time the white stuff blanketed the Judean Hills.
I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m not a big snow fan. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the beauty of a snowy day, I do. It’s very pleasant to look at…from a distance. But up close, it’s just so darn inconvenient. Especially in Jerusalem where everything shuts down. Completely.
In other locations around the world, a little snow means you might have to drive a little slower or put chains on your car tires. In Jerusalem, the city is paralyzed. Schools are closed. Supermarkets don’t receive deliveries. Bus service is canceled. Last time it snowed, even the trendy new Waffle Bar in our neighborhood was shut tight. I mean, what more could you want than a hot caramel and whip cream covered waffle on a cold snowy night, but no…
People who live outside of Israel don’t expect snow in Jerusalem. With our baking hot summers and close proximity to the Dead Sea, it’s easy to forget the city is perched on the top of a mountain, at an elevation of 2500 feet.
My worst snow experience in Israel by far was several years ago. It was during the time I was working in Tel Aviv. I needed to get back home but as I set out from my office, the news was reporting that the main highway to Jerusalem was closed. But Highway 443, which I’ve written about before, was still flowing, albeit slowly.
As I approached the summit near Givat Ze’ev, the snow became thicker and visibility dropped to just a few inches. Cars were skidding off the road, the sides of which were lined with people who’d gotten out of their non-functional vehicles and were actually walking in the meter high snow drifts, where to I don’t know. There was a bus turned over on its side.
I got on the cell phone with my wife and she talked me through three hours of the most treacherous driving I’ve ever experienced. There were times when other drivers whose vehicles had already skidded into oblivion physically guided my car when I could neither see nor steer. I was so traumatized I didn’t go back to work for the rest of the week. And don’t ask me about the phone bill (fortunately the company was paying).
These days, I work from home. That doesn’t entirely ameliorate my distaste for the Jerusalem version of the proverbial winter wonderland. But with everything I need just a 30 second commute away, I say: bring it on snow, I’m ready for you this time.
Super group jams in Jerusalem
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion, Travel, tv
Pat Boone the day after his jam session
Imagine being a guest at the luxury David Citadel Hotel and coming back after a long day of touring around. In the lobby, you hear some strains of music and clapping coming from the grand ballroom downstairs, so you head on down to check it out.
Opening the doors, you, indeed, see some musicians gathered having a grand old time playing some early rock & roll, some blues and some country to an appreciative crowd of 150 or so American guests of the hotel.
Only on closer inspection do you realize that among the players are:
1- Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on bass
2- Legendary ’50s and beyond entertainer Pat Boone on vocals
3 – FOX News Jerusalem correspondent Mike Tobin on guitar.
Well, this lineup really did get together this week – Huckabee has been here with two busloads of mostly Christian American supporters, among them Boone, and his wife and granddaughter. Tobin, who regularly plays in a local band with standout guitarist Bradley Fish, asked his FOX colleague Huckabee, who’s an accomplished bassist, if he wanted to sit in with them. And Huckabee upped the ante by inviting Tobin and Fish to the hotel to jam with him and with Boone, who’s sold millions of records and was Elvis Presely’s nice guy alter ego in the 1950s.
“How could I pass up the opportunity to play with Pat Boone?” asked Tobin, recounting the evening to me.
The result was an eclectic session featuring impromptu renditions of “Ain’t That A Shame” (a hit for both Fats Domino and Boone), Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” and a stirring rendition of the “Theme to Exodus, lyrics which were written in the early 1960s by Boone.
According to witnesses, many of the Christian supporters of Israel in the room were left with teary eyes. Boone called the song the “second Jewish national anthem” after Hatikva, and apparently, from the crowd’s reaction, he may be right.
From paradise to a parking lot to a high rise
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Environment, General, Israeliness, design
The gates are closed at the Mahane Yehuda parking lot.
I’m not sure if Joni Mitchell meant that for the continuation of her lyrics to “Big Yellow Taxi” but it seems to be the modus operandi in Jerusalem, at least for the parking lot next to the Mahane Yehuda fruit and vegetable shuk.
The huge area, on the corner of the capital’s Jaffa Road and Shmuel Hanavi St. has been the one saving grace of going downtown in recent years – it’s the only outside, spacious parking lot around and has serviced the shuk shoppers as well as anyone else brave enough to dare to tread downtown during the construction of the light rail tracks.
So imagine my surprise today, when walking past it, I noticed that the lot was closed, the exits gated off, the pavement boasting huge holes in it, and one of those gigantor signs announcing yet another luxury high rise to be built on the premises.
Just what we need in Jerusalem – less convenient parking and more outrageously priced apartments that will be bought by foreigners who will leave them empty 50 weeks a year. Way to go, city hall. And Joni, if you want to do a new version of “Big Yellow Taxi,” you can use my idea without credit.
Fit for a King (David)
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, General, Politics, Travel
We’re used to heads of state coming to Jerusalem, with the flags of the visitor’s country unfurled throughout the city, and their motorcades causing traffic jams wherever they go.
But what about the hotels where they stay and the accomodations and special needs required to host VIPs during their visits here?
With Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his huge entourage enroute to Israel on Monday, The Jerusalem Post focused on what the King David Hotel – the traditional resting hole for heads of state – is doing to prepare for the visit.
The King David’s Old World lobby is full of photos and signatures of the leaders and celebrities who have stayed there over the years, and in recent time, the person in charge of making sure they’re comfortable and pampered in their hours spent at the hotel has been Sheldon Ritz, the deputy general manager.
We’ve share a couple meals together over the years at mutual friends, and Sheldon, originally from England, is a charming, calm fellow. But all bets are off when he’s preparing for a state visit.
The Italian delegation has booked 200 rooms for their two-and-a-half day stay, and Ritz told the Post that he has had ‘thousands’ of phone calls between the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Italian Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office in Rome, as well as the Israel Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) in Jerusalem to make sure everything is set up as required.
The biggest headache for Ritz and his staff is blocking off the rooms, so that the ministers are in one section, the journalists in another, security people in another and other members of the entourage in yet another.
“It’s like trying to seat people at a wedding,” said Ritz. “There are a lot of things to take into consideration.
Among Berlusconi’s likes and dislikes that Ritz has to worry about? he dislikes goats cheese and sheep cheese. He doesn’t eat animal fats, he doesn’t want perfumed flowers in his room and he likes his bed to be made French style – meaning that the covers are tucked in at the base.
The King David will also host a state dinner for Berlusconi, which will feature entrecote steak and lamb cutlets with four seasons pepper sauce.
While the Italian premier hasn’t asked for any special exercise equipment to be at his disposal, he can always partake of the hotel’s one outdoor tennis court. I played there on Friday, and can attest that it’s in tiptop shape.
It would be interesting to find out if Berlusconi, who’s just as well known for his prediliction for beautiful women as he his for his diplomatic achievements, has requested the company of any Israeli beauties. However that’s the precise reason so many important people stay at the King David – it’s far too discreet to disclose anything like that.
To 443 or not to 443?
With Highway 443, the road that runs between Jerusalem and Modi’in through the West Bank, all over the news lately, I was reminded of the events that led to 443 being closed to Palestinian traffic nearly ten years ago.
We had been invited to a barbeque at the house of friends in Modi’in. On the day of the party, the news reported that Highway 1, the main road out of Jerusalem, was jammed and there were hour-long back-ups. The solution seemed easy enough: we’d just take the alternative highway – Highway 443.
Except that nothing is that simple in Israel.
Since the second intifada broke out in 2000, we had avoided traveling on certain roads, specifically those that pass by areas where there had been terror attacks. 443 had been the site of many such tragic incidents, from ambush killings, drive by shootings, to frequent firebombs.
443 was closed to Palestinian traffic in 2002 – the controversial act that led to this month’s Supreme Court decision ordering the army to re-open back the road within six months. Even with the traffic ban, we weren’t comfortable with the drive. But we were already running late for the barbeque. Sitting in traffic would have meant we’d miss all the fun. And definitely the chicken wings.
With no small amount of trepidation, we opted to take the fast track. We were immediately struck by its stark, barren beauty. The rolling hills with their jagged rock formations, the long stone terraces that always look to me to be thousands of years old.
My wife Jody rolled down her window. The road was open, traffic was flowing, the mountain air smelled crisp with just a hint of the salt from the Mediterranean Sea, already visible in the distance.
Then, out of the blue, we came to a stop. I quickly noticed that no cars were coming in the other direction either. Something had happened.
People turned off their car engines, got out and stretched their legs. A man opened his back door and out sprang a scraggly black dog who instantly jumped the fence to go for a run on the empty other side of the road. The sounds of the muezzin from a nearby village echoed through the valley.
We turned on the radio. Galgalatz was reporting that a hefetz hashud – a suspicious object – had blocked the road.
In the midst of our waiting, a totally chutzpadik taxi driver decided he couldn’t wait and started to push his way to the front. Honking ferociously, he yelled to the other cars to start up their engines and move to the right so he could squeeze by on the almost non-existent left-side shoulder.
It was not like he was going to get past the roadblock. What was he looking for? A half a minute’s lead-time over all the rest of us freiers?
And then, after about 40 minutes of frustration, BOOM. Not deafening, but still loud enough to rattle us. The police robot used to zap suspicious objects had apparently taken a bite, and something on the menu had a kick to it.
The traffic started up again. Slowly we snaked down the road, anxiously craning our necks to see what the cause of all the commotion was. I imagined something minor, maybe a small package, a garbage bag or even a suitcase forgotten the side of the road.
It was a car. An old Subaru, left abandoned, and now a smoldering wreck. That was big…had it been blown apart by the robot or was there a bomb inside? I couldn’t stop myself from thinking: what if it had gone off just as we were passing? On the very day – no, the only day – in the many years that we chose to go this way?
Since that incident, the intifada has faded and so have our fears. We travel 443 regularly. But what will happen when the road is reopened to traffic from Ramallah and other points in the PA, we wonder? Will we – and other nervous Israelis – pack back onto Highway 1? Was that, perhaps, the reason a new exit was recently opened entering Modi’in from the south?
Summer is still far away, but the annual barbeque is already calling. I suppose our decision will be made based on if we’re on time or not.
And whether they’re running out of chicken wings.
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