Tel Aviv

Friday February 1st, 2013

I was down stairs and waiting and my tour did pick me up at 8, like Myriam's phone call, rather than 9 like her fax, so I am glad she called.  There were just four of us in a family minivan (as opposed to a 15 passenger minibus), a German guy here on business, an Argentinian who really wanted steak, and an American who was in town because his godmother had just died.  I sat in the way back, which made it hard to hear, but I could see out both sides, which was an advantage.

I wasn't expecting much on this tour, Tel Aviv is not a very old city (about 100 years, I learned today) and is mostly about the beach and business.  Jerusalem is the capitol, the most populous and the more historical, but this was what was scheduled for me today, so this is what I did.  I had picked up a new map from the hotel before leaving, which was helpful because I could follow where we were and where we were going.  We drove on some of the major streets with our guide giving us some stories of what we passed, we were going to go to Old Jaffa first, but it was raining pretty hard, so our first stop was the Diaspora Museum on the University of Tel Aviv's campus.

The museum was pretty good, if a bit out of date.  I especially liked the models of different synagogues from around the world and the clay people depicting different aspects of daily life.  I went in with a bit of a bad attitude because I was paying for a tour, but leading yourself through a museum is not really a tour.  I probably wouldn't have come to this museum if I hadn't been 'toured' to it, and that would probably have been ok.  But like yesterday, if I am paying for someone's time, I want to use their time.  This attitude wasn't helped when, about 30 minutes into our 90 minutes there I realized I didn't have my wallet.  I knew I left the hotel with it, but I didn't know where it fell out of my pocket.  (I have a history of this, but have never lost my wallet in a foreign nation.)  I went to look for the guide, who wasn't at the meeting place yet.  I asked the museum folks if anyone had turned it in, but they hadn't.  I didn't know where the guide was, I didn't know where he put the van since he dropped us off, I didn't even think I could get back to where he dropped us off since it was out side of campus and we had to come through security to get onto campus and no one told me the magic words.  Realizing there was nothing I could do, didn't really help my attitude, nor help me to focus on the museum, but I did go back and try again.

 When I am in a bad mood, I don't take pictures, so it wasn't until most of the way through that I started and this wooden ceiling got me started.  It was beautiful.

One of the oldest known wooden synagogues in Polad, built in the 17th century.  The central motif is the zodiac, but the artist avoided painting human figures.  Virgo is symbolized by two female hands embroidering; Sagittarius by and arm shooting an arrow

 There was then a whole gallery of models of synagogues from around the world.  After seeing countless mosques, which largely look the same over and over again (the differences are in the details, which I am only starting to appreciate), it was really neat to see such a wide variety of synagogues in shape and form.  I realized yesterday that I don't think I have been in a synagogue, but at least I have seen inside some models of them now.

A synagogue built in the US, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

The Tempio Israelitico, 1882, in Moorish style, Florence, Italy.

 Another thing that caught my attention was a wall of translations of the first page of Genesis.  I took a picture of the Turkish version.  Now, I have the advantage of being familiar with what it says, but I was surprised and impressed with how much of this I can follow.  I wont say read, because many times I can recognize the root of the word and given the context I can tell what it means, but there is no way I would be able to read this with any nuance without knowing the answers in advance.

Verse 3: And God said: light there should be, and light there was.

 I appreciated the history and the daily life snap shots provided by this museum, but a lot of it I had seen/heard before and a lot of it was one sided.  Of course if it is your museum, it can say what you want it to say, but just like I learned a lot from going to the museum of American atrocities (not its real name) in Viet Nam, I would be very interested to go to the museum of the Byzantines who pushed the Jews out in the 4th century or the Mamlukes who took over in the 7th and then the Crusaders who 'visited' in the 12th century and the Ottomans who were around until the early 20th century.  I have been to several British museums but had never heard of the British Mandate which 'ruled' this area between WWI and 1948, and I would be very interested to go to the Palestinian museum to find out what they thought about the brand new state of Israel.

Anyway, the good news was, my wallet was in the van and all the wild thoughts running through my mind about sending out one of those 'I am stranded in a foreign land and have lost everything' emails that are usually fishing spam, so no one would believe that I was really sending it disappeared along with the knot in my stomach and I could relax a little.  The other good news was that it had stopped raining so we could move on to the walking part of our tour in Old Jaffa.

This mosaic map shows the Old part of Jaffa.  

Built in 1901 in honor of
Abdul Hamid II,
Sultan of Turkey

According to the time line, Jaffa has been a settlement for 4000 years.  It was under Egyptian control from 1500BC to 1200BC when the first Israelites moved in.  The Assyrians took over in 700BC and then the Persians in 586BC.  Ceders of Lebanon were floated as far as Jaffa for use in building both the first (~960BC, King Solomon) and the second temples.  The Greeks take over in 332BC until Simon the Maccabee liberates it in 144BC.  Jaffa's importance as a port declines when the Roman governor, Herod builds a new port at Cesarea in the north in early AD.  When Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century most of the Jews were kicked out of Jaffa.  Then the Christians were kicked out by the Mamelukes in 1291 (Turkish children bought into slavery by Egyptians who trained them to be warriors.  They then revolted against the Egyptians and took over the Middle East!)  The Mamelukes were defeated by the Ottomans in 1515 who ruled until 1917 with only a brief interruption when the Egyptian Mohammad Ali took over in 1832, although the Ottomans were apparently more friendly to the Jews and let them start a little city outside of Jaffa which became Tel Aviv in 1874.  Then there were the British, who destroyed the city in 1936,  then the war of Independence  and rebuilding.  In short, Jaffa has pretty much seen it all in the last 4000 years.

After the British destroyed the city in 1936, it was rebuilt to look much the same, except now people don't live here, most of the buildings are galleries and shops.

This is the view of Tel Aviv from Jaffa. 

This is the national symbol for tourism in Israel, so there is no hiding that you are tourist when you step out of a van with this logo. 

 We climbed to the top of the hill and then wondered down through the 'old' narrow streets.  We looked at the port, but didn't climb down since the weather was bad.

When we approached this arch, I wondered what Aztec art was doing here.  Everyone else seems to have been in Jaffa at some point, so maybe there was just something I didn't know yet.  But really there are three stories from the Torah here if you know how to look.  On the left Abraham is getting ready to sacrifice his son, on the top the soldiers are getting ready to bring the walls of Jerico down and on the left Jacob is dreaming of the devil.

An Egyptian artifact left over from 3000 years ago when they were in charge, with part of the old Old Jaffa in the background.  

Narrow streets with buildings coming straight down to them - it reminds me of Mardin and if I had to guess it is similar to much of the architecture between there and here.  

Gratuitous cat picture.  

This is the rock of Andromeda of Greek myth.  What her rock is doing way over here in Israel, I don't really understand.

 After finishing in Old Jaffa our guide gave us the option of a 10 minute drive to the market, or a five minute walk.  At that particular moment it wasn't raining so we agreed to walk.  It turns out that the market we were being taken to was the same one I had priced underwear at my first night here and I wasn't all that excited about seeing it again.  He had told us when we first got in the car that today's tour would end by 2:30 in part because we would have seen everything by then, but also because it was Friday and everything would be closed.  (He didn't say it, but also probably so he could go home and do his Shabat things.) We got to the market at roughly noon and he said we could have 90 minutes to look around and eat lunch.  I said I could find my own way home from there so not to wait for me, the other three wanted rides back to their hotels so arranged  place to meet.  The market was interesting, a combination of fruits and vegitables that must have already packed up when I visited the market before, underwear, which I had seen, and many other things.  Yesterday's guide said I could find anything i was looking for in that market, and for 50% of its price elsewhere.  We agreed that we would eat, but couldn't agree on where.  The Argentinian really wanted a Ruth Chris steak house, the American wanted to sit down and the German and I didn't really care.  We ended up sitting on stools at a Schwarma place.  It was good, especially the lemonade.  This country really knows how to do lemonade.

I don't want any of my Turkish friends to feel jealous looking at this, so I wont point out that he has a circular saw to shave this pile of meet, nothing so mundane as a long knife...

 After lunch we parted ways.  I wanted to check out ProBooks, which I thought closed at 3, but actually closed at 13:00 (still don't think in 24 hour time).  I did make it with a few minutes to spare and while they didn't have a periodic table (nor anything in Hebrew as far as I could tell) they did help me find the location and closing time of the book store Laurie's friend recommended.  The two ladies helping me couldn't agree on what bus I should take, so I said I would walk.  Their estimate of 45 minutes turned out to be pretty much spot on and there wasn't even very much rain on my way there.

Rothschild Boulevard.  A nice walking street with trees, a bike path and picnic tables in the middle. 

 I had seen a book store which had been recommended to me by my guide a few days ago and marked it on my map as we drove around in the morning, so I stopped by there on my way, but it was mostly art books.  (why are there so many more art books than science books? and why doesn't every book store have periodic tables?) I passed several other things we had seen earlier, including the office for the travel agent I am using for this trip.  I wish I had taken a picture as I somehow missed it on my way back and it would be nice to have a picture to go with the story of the travel agent (to be told later).  I was looking for Doron books at 147 Iben Gvirol street.  I appreciate that the streets are well signed and that maps are easy to follow here.  I am also a big fan of the address numbers, but they never seem to get very big and although the evens are on one side of the road and the odds are on the other there can be quite a disparity between them.  I thought I was getting close when I saw 122 on the other side only to find that I was still at 87 on my side.  The numbers go up very slowly, I think every building has a number and since each building could have 4-5 shops in it and you don't skip any, it takes a long time to go up.  In any case, I knew I was in the right place as soon as I walked in the door, there were kids books, school supplies, dictionaries, and they were all in Hebrew.  I took a quick look around, but didn't look too long before asking and sure enough they had exactly what I was looking for!  It was behind the desk so I never would have found them.  Fantastic!

Doron Bookstore 147 Iben Gvirol street, Tel Aviv, Israel, home of periodic tables in Hebrew.

It made it back mostly dry, there was just one corner that was a bit damp.  I wish I could read the Hebrew to find out what names they use for the elements, especially the old ones.  Looking at the symbols, an old controversy comes up again, check out element 104, known in the US as rutherfordium, Rf, but one of the two Turkish periodic tables uses the symbol Rf but the name Kurchatovium, for Igor Kurchatov, a Soviet nuclear physicist.  I don't see a date on it, but that there are no elements beyond 105 suggests that it is a few years old.  

 It was on my walk back to the hotel that it really started to pour with rain again.  I walked under the eves as much as I could, but people here have no better umbrella etiquette than folks in the US do.  I wish umbrellas would come with instructions.  Here are some suggestions:

1) You may not use an umbrella on a crowded side walk.
2) If there is enough space for you to use an umbrella, you must lift it when passing people so that you do not poke anyone's eyes out.
3) If you are using an umbrella, you do not get to also walk under the overhang or eve of a building forcing an unumbrellaed person to move into the rain to avoid you giving up all the protection they have so you can continue to use double protection.
4) When walking in the same direction as people without umbrellas, either invite them under yours, or stay far enough away from them that your drip line doesn't intersect their walking path.
5) Umbrellas may only be opened/closed/shaken when there is plenty of space, even if it means you stand in the rain for 30 seconds while you do it.

From the sign accompanying this memorial: Here at this spot, on Saturday Novembe 4th, 1995, Israel's Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Yitzhak Rabin was assasinated.  "Peace shall be his legacy"

The pedestrian signals for each side of the street are independent  which I like, but it takes some getting used to.  Here you could cross if you were already at the middle, but you can't get there yet.

 Anyway, I got very wet on my walk back to the hotel, but the PT survived so I was happy.

For reference, this is what wet but happy looks like.