Hatz Ba'Sheket

I really miss bacon.

Ham too. Shellfish three. I initially assumed that these foods would be nearly impossible to find, and I’d have to get my fix at chinese restaurants. But I spoke to some people from Tel Aviv, and non-kosher food actually isn’t as much of a taboo as I suspected. In fact, my new friend Esty said, “in Tel Aviv, eating a ham and cheese sandwich is considered cool.” I also learned that, although pigs are not allowed to set foot on Israeli soil, farmers have gotten around this issue by using raised floors for the animals. Brilliant.

I love it at the new place, Silent Arrow. There’s a lot of work to do each day, but it’s really enjoyable. We tidy up the common area and kitchen, clean the bathrooms, wash the sheets by hand, rake stones, prepare the dome tents for guests, and lots of other stuff. Every day is a little different.

I can’t decide what I enjoy more, the cool quiet peaceful mornings or the warm cozy candlelit evenings by the wood-burning stove. Dror has a wonderful herb garden, where I can find mint, lavender, and lemongrass for tea, and rosemary, green onions, and the Israeli Za’atar spices for cooking.

They have a nice cat named Gingy, who is supposed to be in charge of catching mice, but spends his days sleeping on the couch. On my and Kathi’s first day, we accidentally caught two mice in a tupperware container. Gingy was curled up in a ball on the couch, and didn’t seem at all interested in the excitement. So, unsure of what would happen, we took the container and the cat outside and opened the top. Then Gingy’s instinct kicked in! I’d never seen a cat catch and eat a mouse before, and it was DELIGHTFUL to watch. I definitely got a sick enjoyment out of it, especially the squeaky-squeak sound as Gingy toyed with his prey, and then the crunchy-crunch sound of tiny mouse bones breaking as he chewed it up whole. Be’te avon! (That’s bon appetit in Hebrew). 

Dror is a cool guy. He has two lovely daughters that he brings once in a while. He is a little anal about details, ironic considering he’s such a hermit, but that’s why the place stays so nice. He built everything at Silent Arrow from recycled materials, and uses all the gray water from showers and sinks to water the gardens. He’s had several pet birds including a hawk and a stork, rescued during jeep trips to the desert, and he presently has a crow named Slikha.

The name Silent Arrow is actually a clever world play. Bow and Arrow is Hatz Ya’Keshet, and Silent Arrow is Hatz Ba’Sheket. (Took me a while not to get twisted up on that one). Israelis seem to love Hebrew word play. I learned from a guest that the TV show Breaking Bad has a hebrew title that means “jumping lines,” which denotes both the idea of becoming evil, as well as doing drugs!

We’ve had some really interesting guests. After so many months on the road, it’s been fun to be the stationary one and to speak with fellow travelers on their own adventures. In particular, two young couples from Tel Aviv were here a couple weeks ago and I had a great conversation with them. One guy, Yotan, and I started talking politics, and, unsure of how to properly engage an Israeli on hot button issues without coming off as offensive, I sort of tiptoed around the question:

“A lot…of…ahem…young people in America, that is to say…some young Jewish Americans…don’t…necessarily agree…with…some of Israel’s foreign policies.”

“Well I don’t agree with Israel’s foreign policies,” he responded flatly.

Nice. Phew. Let’s talk, I thought to myself.

Yotan spoke with disdain of the “Religious Right,” in the same way that I scorn the Religious Right in America. The difference is, of course, that whereas I’m mostly referring to Christians, he’s talking about fellow Jews.

I guess I’m realizing what I already knew intuitively: militant religious fanaticism is bad, no matter the religion. And there’s lots of debate here; the country seems to be split pretty evenly. Both Yotan and his girlfriend are strongly against the way the occupation has been and is being handled, but he is in favor of a two-state solution while she is against it.

We also spoke about racism in Israel, which I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve been here. I’ve seen a lot of TV commercials campaigning against anti-Arab and anti-Black racism, and have been learning about Tel Aviv’s growing population of refugees from Africa. It’s a difficult issue, because on one hand, Israelis understand that Jews have been persecuted for millennia and should empathize with others, but on the other hand, we achieved a safe haven for ourselves and need to maintain it, even if that means denying equal rights under the law to non-citizens. Additionally, the refugees often pass through two or three countries that would grant them asylum on their way to Israel, but they choose to come here because it has the best conditions.

And there even seems to be a historical stigma against African and middle eastern Jews as well. Yotan explained that there are Jews coming to Israel from all parts of the world — some from more affluent European areas, and some from African villages without electricity. So there has been social stratification and commensurate discrimination in the past. But as the country matures, there is a “melting pot” effect. Yotan gave himself and his girlfriend as examples of the “New Israeli” — his mother is German and his father is Iraqi; his girlfriend's mother is Lithuanian and her father is Spanish.

Right now we have a large group staying with us, about forty people in their early twenties, all in the Socialist Movement. Honestly, for Socialists, they aren’t very social, and it’s been hard to talk to them. But there are a couple guys who are willing to chat. Youth movements are big here in Israel. There’s not really an equivalent in America, except maybe a YMCA youth center mixed with NFTY (Jewish youth group) with a political influence once the kids reach teenage years. It’s been fascinating to hear their views and learn about their lives. I was even able to impress them by pulling a little Karl Marx out of the deep recesses of my brain, buried since my junior year of college.

My favorite task, by far, is chopping wood for the furnace. Dror gets the wood from old industrial palettes, so the wood boards are really light and soft. When I connect on a good strike with the axe, pieces of wood explode in every direction, and I feel like a man.

Inside the common area at Silent Arrow

Even though I’m having a great time here, I’m starting to get really excited about starting the Career Israel program on Feb 13. Even though I’ve been off the bike for a while now, I feel like Career Israel will actually mark Phase 2 of my overseas adventures, or the “convince my family that I have a plan” phase.

Mitzpe Ramon, and especially Silent Arrow, have felt a little like a fantasy fairy land, where time moves really slowly, and once I leave, everyone on the outside will have aged 20 years or something… I’m looking forward to being in “the real world,” in a normal daily routine, and getting back into a professional environment.

I’ve been continuing to do a lot of trail running. My favorite route has been to run the trail down into the crater and then back up. It’s a killer. On my last run, my time going down was 16:43 and going up was 16:35. (Descending is tough too, because of all the rocks and boulders). It’s not quite like being on the bike, but it’s a whole lot more fun than regular old running.