My first month as a bona fide employed expat has been really great. I went with my friend Esty and her friends on a camping / hiking weekend in the north. They were all Americans but one of the guys works for Young Judea and has organized lots of overnight trips, and the other guys had served in the IDF. So they knew all the best spots. Highlights of the trip were hiking through a stream in Yehudiya, swinging off a "tarzan" swing into the Jordan River, camping on the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and cooking a monstrous Poyke Pot filled with beef shoulder and veggies. My favorite part of the weekend, though, was cliff diving in a beautiful hidden cove. We had to hike an hour in the blistering mid-day sun to get there, but it was so worth it!
I made some really good friends during the weekend. It was mostly young Americans who joined the IDF as “lone soldiers,” and it was fascinating to hear their various reasons for making Aliyah and enlisting.
I got to know Esty’s roommate, Ilya, a cool Israeli dude who speaks English, Hebrew, and French with a Russian accent, but speaks Russian with an Israeli accent. Go figure. Ilya works as a software programmer for internet security, using the skills he learned in an intelligence unit in the IDF. He's preparing to move to his company's New York branch in February.
Ilya was born in Israel to parents who made Aliyah from Russia, but he was actually formally kicked out of the country when he turned 18. This is because he is a “fourth-generation Jew.” What this means is that his great-grandmother is his only Jewish relative. (His mother is completely non-Jewish, and his father had only one Jewish grandparent.) Israel welcomes anyone with third-generation Jewish roots and their spouses, but that’s where the line is drawn. Later, I asked Adi about this. She said it's actually a bit of an issue, because people from Russia and Ethiopia who only have one Jewish grandparent, and no practical or spiritual connection to Judaism, are able to move to Israel for a better life. Are these people Jewish? Should they be considered Jewish? I said that it seemed like a stretch…these people aren’t actually Jewish, and they are diluting Israel’s Jewish identity, and maybe it would be better to only allow people who have a Jewish parent at least. But Adi responded that this rule was created to mirror the litmus test used by the Nazis. If someone had just one Jewish grandparent, he would have been rounded up and sent to the camps like any other Jew. So, that same someone would now have a home in Israel.
Adi also said that these Russians and Ethiopians who come here are favored by some left-leaning political groups, because they provide a secular counterweight to the rapidly multiplying Horadim (ultra-orthodox). Interesting point.
Back to Ilya. So when he turned 18, he wrote a letter and met with the Dept of Immigration, and he explained that he is a Zionist and he wants to stay, he promised he’ll be a good citizen, etc, and the government let him stay. And after four years in the army and a few more years contributing to the Israeli hi-tech sector, (and the fact that he’s an unmitigated badass) it’s safe to say Israel is lucky to have this guy.
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I just moved into my new apartment. I’m really excited about it. It’s got two balconies and lots of natural light. And it’s in the best location! The apartment is on a quiet, tree-lined street, but a mere hundred feet away is the Carmel Shuk and all the restaurants and cafes of Nahalat Binyamin. My favorite bar is a Jazz club called 50 For Your Soul, and it’s around the corner. I’m also a stone’s throw from King George Street, and walking distance to Rothschild Street and the beach. It’s the center of the center!
It’s interesting how the things you look for in an apartment here are different than in America. Although Tel Aviv is a bustling metropolitan cultural center, it’s still a city in the Middle East with a low GDP per capita compared to Western countries. What that means is that the residential buildings are more like Belgrade than Boston. You can get a really nice place, but you have to pay high prices – especially relative to the lower incomes here. So a nice room in the center with good A.C. and lots of windows, maybe with a chillaxing rooftop, is all I’m asking for, even if the building doesn’t have an elevator and the pipes and wiring run all over the hallway ceiling and walls. And the added bonus is that the staircase does not have any windows, which is a big benefit when you’re sheltering from rocket attacks. Different priorities for sure…
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I’ve been getting into a weekend mountain biking routine with my colleague Eran and his friends. He picks me up Friday morning around 6 am, we link up with his buddies, and then I pass out in the back seat and wake up at the trailhead, not sure exactly where I am in this tiny country, but ready to ride. His friends are – to say it mildly – not in peak physical condition, so the pace is slow and we take lots of breaks for coffee and cigarettes. (They bring at least two thermoses of coffee). To them it’s a social thing as much as it’s exercise. And I’m happy, because I’m chilling with Israelis, watching them talk shit and sometimes even participating with my broken Hebrew. That’s what I love about mountain biking: you have the whole gamut, from competitive trail-burning, to farting around with more time spent stopped in the shade than in the saddle. You don't see much of the latter with the lycra-clad roadies.
I feel like I’ve already seen most of the cultural sights here, so now it’s on to the nature / outdoorsy side. If I can look back on this year and say that I hit all the best Israeli trails, I’ll be satisfied!
One of Eran’s biking buddies, Yuval, is a tour guide and driver by profession. For obvious reasons, business has been slow for the past two months and Yuval has had lots of time on his hands. So he decided he was going to get in shape and mountain bike every single day. And his current bike was starting to fall apart here and there. So, he went out and spontaneously bought himself a new $5,000 bike! To reiterate, Yuval was seeing very little income during the peak summer season, but instead of worrying about his economic situation, he blew a huge chunk of money so he could be productive towards his health during this slow period. That’s such an Israeli Carpe Diem attitude, and I dig it.
Otherwise, just having a good time and living the life. I’m still learning a lot at work, and checking out new restaurants now that I’m actually making money again. I’m trying to learn Hebrew every day. I discovered a grocery chain that sells all the un-kosher treats I could ask for: Bacon and scallops and shrimp, oh my! Adi won’t eat that stuff, so I only indulge every so often, but it’s enough to get me through.
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| Anti-war protest in Rabin Square |
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| Some signs were more inspiring than others |
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| Another sunset on my bike ride home from the beach |
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This is usually just a barren dirt road that connects the bike path to the road towards my office. But on several evenings this month, it's been filled with dozens of busses! It's all Ultra-Orthodox people -- I'm not sure where they're from, but it's cool that they get to come to the beach. As long as my route isn't blocked, that is...
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| Water hike in Yehudiya |
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| Yehudiya |
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| Chilling at the waterfall in Yehudiya, we saw this contraption. How awesome! When (if) I have kids, I'm totally getting one! |
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| Sunset on the Kinneret during our camping trip. |
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| Another gorgeous sunset. Lately, after working out at the outdoor gym on my ride home from work, I've been jumping in the sea! Total paradise. Nothing like a sunset swim to make you appreciate each and every day :) |
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| Sweet mountain biking. Usually, when you see mountains on the horizon, they are in another country...either Jordan or Lebanon or Syria. These are the Hevron mountains, which are in the West Bank. So...depends who you ask...regardless, it makes you realize just how small Israel is. |
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| When I think about Israeli agriculture, I think "intensive, innovative, high-yield, efficient," etc. So it's easy to forget that this sort of agriculture still takes place in beautiful valleys adjacent to moshavs and kibbutzim. It's definitely not the endless monocrops of the USA! This was the end of our mountain biking ride. |
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| Families with half-asleep children huddling in the staircases during an early morning rocket alarm. |
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| The view from the balcony of my apartment! There's a parking lot and then a really nice building, and from here it sort of looks like the country |
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