Dizengoff and Me

From my last two posts, you know that our old friend Deborah was visiting us in Israel. This actually took place in late October, but it took me a while to get around to recording our sightseeing forays to the North and then to Jerusalem. But sightseeing was not really Deb’s primary purpose for coming to see us in Tel Aviv. She wanted to see how we lived, what our daily lives were like…and okay…where I shopped. So here we go.

She and I have had a long history of looking for the exquisite and the unusual in small boutiques, and also for bargains wherever they may be. I will never forget the mingled look of joy and awe on her face when she first beheld DSW, a store the the size of a football field, full of discount designer shoes as far as the eye could see, in downtown New York. (That was fun.) This time, such a thing was not even on our radar screen. In Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, the small (even tiny) store reigns supreme. It often puzzles me how so many of them manage to stay in business.

When in the grip of shopping “fever” as her sister Jill puts it, no words can adequately capture the energy, dedication and patience with which Deb would search for the perfect item, and her delight when she found it; be it for her, for someone she loved, or for her shopping partner, (a role I have played many times). I have seen this in action for over 50 years in Toronto, Paris, New York, Florida, Collingwood, and even at St. Annes spa. (Some people can shop anywhere.) By way of illustration, this photo, taken by my daughter some years ago in Paris after one of our marathon outings, tells you all you need to know.

Now there is no comparing Israel to Paris or New York when it comes to shopping. And that’s okay…how many designer bags does one person need? In Israel, the best shopping is all about the unique, the meaningful, and the historic. You can spend a lot of money, like some of our friends who have gone home with remarkable old maps, antique pottery, and fine art, among other things. On the other hand, some antiquities are so common that they find their way into lovely and affordable pieces of jewellery, such as the luminous fragments of old Roman glass that are made into pendants, earrings and bracelets. We bought three of them. Two went home with Deb: one for her and one for her sister. (One stayed with me.) Similarly, ancient coins are often turned into cufflinks and rings. She bought one of these rings in Jerusalem for her husband John. So it is possible to take home a little piece of history and not break the bank.

And while Tel Aviv is no Paris, you might be surprised by how much French you hear in the streets. The oldest neighbourhood in Tel Aviv (apart from Jaffa of course), is called Neve Tzedek and it is home to many French Israelis. Characterized by low rise buildings with red tile roofs, lots of greenery and flowers, and cobbled roads, it is quaint, charming and completely unique by Tel Aviv standards. To me it often feels like a sophisticated French village (complete with roosters). In Neve Tzedek, all the real estate agencies have ads in their windows in French (with Parisian level prices), and there is even an “Epicerie” on the main street. Add a French Lycee, several cafes, and an avant-garde dance centre (Dallal) et voila!… I rest my case. The little shops on the main drag are classy, exquisitely laid out, and priced accordingly. Who needs Paris.

For those who love Jewellery, Neve Tzedek is a mini-mecca, but my favourite shop, and the one I take all my friends to visit, is called Ayala Bar, after the Israeli designer who creates distinctive pieces that incorporate beads, glass, fabric and other wondrous things. Some of her pieces can be over the top; we chose the more delicate ones.

We shopped the summer-end sales on Dizengoff and Sheinkin for clothes, in the high-end Basel neighbourhood for baby gifts, on Geula St. for vintage clothing, in the Rubin Museum for coasters and cards, in Haifa for Roman glass, and on King George for odds and ends. (Not to mention our swing through the brand new (air-conditioned!) Tel Aviv Fashion Mall…meh.)

We also dropped into the bi-weekly craft market on Nahalat Binyamin, a pedestrian area usually noted for its concentration of fabric and sewing stores. Vendors come here on Tuesdays and Fridays from all around Israel. Most of them are artisans that make their own unique and creative items, among which are children’s toys, pottery, hand dyed scarves, jewellery made of recycled materials, Judaica, and my personal favourite…handbags made of recycled parachute material; strong, lightweight and beautifully dyed and cut. (I had to buy several.) Deb found some pomegranate shaped pottery, a little pop of colour to enliven her light decor at home, and yet a few more last minute gifts.

On her last evening in Israel she celebrated her travels, her friends and her purchases with another of her passions…the perfect martini…

Throughout our shopping adventures, Deb kept a close eye on her budget and the pathetic shekel/dollar exchange rate; not so much because she was worried about money, but because she was just a tiny bit paranoid about going through customs in Canada. So she kept all her receipts for obvious things like jewellery, wore her new clothes, and tucked the wrapped baby gift into an obscure part of her suitcase. She worked on keeping a low and innocent profile on her way through immigration.

Her “inner shopper” must have shone through however, and she was nabbed by a particularly hostile customs agent at the baggage exit in Toronto. When she triumphantly produced her (selected) receipts, in shekels of course, the woman almost had apoplexy…WHY did they have to to be in shekels she wanted to know. (Duh.) After a thorough search, which the agent finally gave up in exasperation, Deb was reluctantly released from custody, but not from steely-eyed suspicion, and made her way home. The agent never did find and unwrap the baby gift, a small consolation.

Throughout our marvellous eight days of walking, talking, and collecting beautiful items and experiences throughout Israel, neither one of us had any idea that Deb’s stoic three year co-existence with metastatic breast cancer was about to come to a crashing end…but so it was. Shortly after she got home, she took a turn for the worse and all the efforts of her doctors to re-stabilize her condition came to naught. It all went so quickly…she passed away just two weeks ago today.

My dear friend was brave, and funny and kind. I will miss her terribly.

Ever since I started to write about our Tel Aviv adventure, I have been asked periodically…well, what about Mike? While I feel that this is really his story to tell, I also realize he is too busy writing about Ottomans, Berbers, and Balfour to say much about himself, so here I go. ( I promised him that he would have editorial control!)

When Mike finally retired, we knew that Israel would figure somewhere into our plans, but a return to University for a third masters degree was not even a flicker on the horizon.  But when the idea came into focus, the chance to concentrate on Middle East Studies…in Israel…was just too compelling to pass up.

Now we knew there would be challenges of course, and indeed there were: finding an apartment, navigating the university bureaucracy, being “somewhat” outside the dominant age group of the class, (and professors too, now I think of it), writing papers etc.  However, there are unexpected challenges as well.  For example when going to museums and galleries, Mike has to decide between the student discount and the senior rate…hmmm…tough call. And then he has to tell the staff at the desk.  We expected that we would see a few raised eyebrows and maybe some scepticism when Mike would request the “student rate”, but it is not so. Every time he goes into his pocket to pull out his student card, the cashier waves him off…”No no…I believe you”.  (Really?) Then sometimes they give me the “student by association” rate too! How can you not love a place like that.

The campus at Tel Aviv University (TAU) is, as you can see, quite modern.  It is built on a hill, and also houses Beit Hatsufot, an impressive museum (which you can see in the background), that has as its mission the commemoration and celebration of Diaspora Jewry. It also has an excellent gift shop, where I had only to mention that Mike was a student, and immediately received the TAU discount and a free book about the museum! (Okay, okay, enough about discounts.)

Mike’s fellow students are a diverse and interesting group of people. They come from Asia, South America, Europe (Italy and Germany), and the U.S. and range in age from their early twenties to mid-thirties.  They include several journalists,  an entrepreneur, and a lawyer among others…and unexpectedly (to us anyway), many if not most of them are not Jewish. (In the first term, the class also had one wild, heavily bearded, conspiracy theorist, who bogged down many a class discussion; but he vanished, to everyone’s relief, when the time came to write papers.)  Interestingly, it turns out that one of the high points of going back to university has been the opportunity to meet and get to know an intelligent and dynamic group of young people!  He has become very fond of them.

The profs are also an impressive lot, and yes, all but one of them are younger than him. They are expert in their respective fields…something Mike notices as he reads extensively, and sees their work cited repeatedly.   And he also finds that the course work is fascinating,…and so do I, since I get to hear his thoughts and read his papers.  Just as an example of some of the courses:  Islam and the West, Minorities in the Middle East, History of the Ottoman Empire, Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, you get the idea. And some of his papers: The Balfour Declaration at 100, The Jews of Salonika during the Ottoman Empire, The Berbers of North Africa, and the Challenges of Arab Nationalism. Studying all this in Israel takes it from abstract to real, because all this history really informs the events taking place throughout the Middle East to this day.

Mike’s program is the “executive M.A.”, not that there are any actual executives in it, and was to have wrapped up on August 23rd after a final exam…and the small matter of 3 long (25 page) papers, and 5 short ones (10 pages or so).  Of course, this being Israel, not everything goes exactly to plan, so his program now encompasses 3 additional short papers for a total of eight (!), and they are due at the end of November, so we will be staying on for a bit. There is also a long thesis option (replacing the exam) for those who want to go on to an academic career, but since the requirements for that are an extra year and, even more daunting, the study of Arabic or Turkish, that is unlikely to happen.  I say unlikely, only because nothing about this whole venture has been predictable up to now.

In the course of this past year Mike has rediscovered how much he likes original research, academic life and yes, even writing papers…though maybe not so many at once.  I always felt he would make a wonderful history professor and to this day, I am impressed by his recall of dates, the sweep of historical events, and his ability to place these in context relative to current events.  So he is happy as a clam to be both back at university and in his beloved Israel (see picture above), leaving only the question of…what happens next?

Tucked between Jaffa and Florentine is a relatively unknown little neighbourhood called “Noga”, (originally the Noga Compound). It sits on the east side of Jerusalem Blvd, and south of Neve Tzedek.

Jerusalem Blvd itself was built in 1915 as a vanity project by Hassan Bek, known as the “Tyrant of Jaffa”, who was reputedly envious of the impressive Rothschild Blvd being constructed in the new city of Tel Aviv. After he extracted hefty taxes from the local populace, not to mention forced labour from his unfortunate Jaffa residents, he did get his own boulevard, which he firmly expected would be the pre-eminent roadway in the region. The fact that the road went nowhere  in particular, except to some orchards further south did not seem to trouble him.  It now goes to Bat Yam, a much more useful destination, but it never did become as beautiful as Rothschild, as can be seen from the two pictures that follow.

And it was not originally called Jerusalem Blvd either; it was named Djamal Pasha Blvd after the Turkish Supreme Commander.  This name did not last long, since the Ottomans unwisely backed the Germans in World War 1, and were expelled by the British towards the end of the war.  In 2018 the British took control of the region and  renamed the street, not surprisingly, King George Blvd.  In due course, after Independence, it was renamed Jerusalem Blvd.  As a result, the main street in Jaffa is now “Jerusalem Blvd”, a nice counterpoint to the fact that the main street in Jerusalem is “Jaffa Road”.

During the Mandate, the British set up their headquarters in the “Noga Compound”, which became an area of workshops, garages, and army administration buildings, a real mishmash of architectural styles.  Sometimes you can see, in a single structure, the three different styles of building that dominate the area: Ottoman on the main floor, eclectic on the second and modern or Bauhaus on the third. (They built “up”, without much concern for architectural harmony.)  After the British left, the neighbourhood was neglected and fell into disrepair, leaving it a perfect place for young artists and students, ever in search of cheap housing and studios, to remake into the trendy, artsy neighbourhood of today. Its many new shops and art galleries, can still be found cheek to jowl with old car repair shops and other dilapidated buildings…so it is not fully gentrified…yet. It is not cheap anymore either, but that is another story.

Just up the hill from the shops and galleries, is an odd little neighbourhood with narrow little car-free streets and old wooden houses that have a real New England look to them: very unlike anything else in Tel Aviv, or the rest of Israel for that matter.  It is a tiny little area, but packed with history, of the relatively recent and peculiar sort, that is often found in Israel.

Its story began in Maine  152 years ago in 1866 (yes, there is a good reason for the New England look). There, a charismatic former actor turned “priest”, by the name of George Adams, established his own church and persuaded 157 of its members to follow him to the Holy Land (in Ottoman Jaffa!).  Here, they were promised they would find Paradise, the land of milk and honey, and moreover, could settle in and wait for the Second Coming. They bought land, packed up a ship with tools and their own prefabricated wooden houses, and set sail. It was a difficult 42 day journey.

When they arrived, the Ottoman officials did not exactly greet them with open arms, and would not let them settle on the land they had purchased.  They were directed to put up tents on a beach, which unbeknownst to them had been a burial ground for cholera victims! This was a very bad beginning; several people died right away.  Later, they did move to the land they had selected, where they built their houses in classic new England style. It did not take them long to learn, to their dismay, that wooden houses are far too warm for a Mediterranean climate, that their tools were not suited to the cultivation of local products, and that George Adams was a thief, a liar, and a drunkard, who had taken all their money.  Two years later, the sad remnants of this little group made their way back to Maine, leaving their wooden houses and their dreams behind them.

Shortly afterwards,  in 1868, messianic German Christians known as the Templers arrived, took over the little wooden homes, built a handsome church, and settled down, also in preparation for the Second Coming.  In fact, their whole purpose in moving to Israel was the  belief was that their very presence would help to hasten that event. They were much better prepared than their American counterparts, and in the end established eight German Colonies throughout Israel. They were accomplished farmers and industrialists, and their experience with creating farmland out of the swampy, malaria infested countryside was very helpful to the first wave of Jewish settlers who arrived in 1882-1903.  The Templers remained German citizens however, and fought on the German side in both wars.  This led to their deportation by the British in the 1940s.

One of the more eccentric individuals to move into the Templer community was a Russian exile, Baron Plato von Ustinov, who arrived in 1878.  (With a name like Plato, he was bound to be an unusual character!) He converted a Templer building into a palace and then into a hotel, which once hosted Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who stayed there on his way to Jerusalem. He also built a tropical garden, complete with free-roaming monkeys and parrots. I am not sure how the sedate Templers felt about this, but a number of the Jewish artists and writers in neighbouring Neve Tzedek quite enjoyed the garden and its odd residents. All that is left of the garden today is an impressive Bengali Ficus tree. Ustinov eventually married a Jewish woman and his grandson went on to become the well-known actor, Peter Ustinov.

The building below is the old  Ustinov palace, and the blue plaque nicely illustrates the changes that took place in this little corner of Tel Aviv/Jaffa. Since I had not yet mastered the zoom feature of my phone camera, the text is unclear, so I have listed the plaque’s contents below the photo.

The neighbourhood is now a charming residential area, albeit much under construction, and with the advent of air conditioning, wooden houses are no longer quite such a liability.  A new community known as “The Village” has been designed in the old colonial style around a lovely central piazza, featuring one of the original restored buildings. It is a fitting tribute to the short-lived American Colony, and wholly unique in Israel.

Just like the rest of Tel Aviv, Noga has no shortage of cafes and restaurants. We tried Par Derriere, an attractive and airy deli/wine bar,  with a charming interior featuring lots of distressed wood and brick. In the front, there is a store where you can buy pickles, meats, cheeses  and wine (of course),  or sit at a long well-stocked bar (naturally), or entertain yourself playing pool.  In behind, (“par derriere”), there is a network of several  casual patios, some covered, some not…each one with its own bar…because you just can’t have too many of those. We had only to look at the place to imagine the party that no doubt unfolds here every night. We had lunch outside, and enjoyed the best sandwich (without question!) that we had in all our stay…brie, homemade onion jam, and arugula…all on a crisp half baguette. The combination was magical.  If I were doing it again I’d add a glass of chilled rose.

This little neighbourhood, mostly overlooked by tourists, is well worth a visit and can easily be tacked on to a tour of Jaffa or Florentine.

The Mega Balagan (mess):  or the joys of grocery shopping!

“Mega in the City” is a grocery store located about half a block from our building, so we naturally do  much of our shopping there. Despite its name, there is nothing “mega” about it, space being at a premium in this town.  It is staffed largely with relatively recent Russian arrivals who seem to have imported the Soviet work ethic: “You pretend to pay us, and we’ll pretend to work”.

The other day Mike went down to pick up a few things, and since he planned to buy some heavy items, he went to one of the sets of shopping carts which are kept locked up outside the store, and put in a 5 shekel coin into a cart to release the lock.  As can happen anywhere, it jammed.  He couldn’t get the coin out, and he couldn’t detach the cart. So he thought, well it’s just  5 shekels, and he might  as well save himself the aggravation of trying to get any help, and he went to try the other set of carts.

At that very moment, a young guy came along, clipped his dog’s leash, with dog attached, on to exactly the cart that Mike was heading for, and sauntered into the store. Hmmm…now what?  One cart jammed, the other “dogged”. Just as Mike decided that he would indeed go in to get help to deal with this situation, along came a woman, popped her coin into the cart the young man had left behind, and as she turned to take it into the store, she belatedly realized that there was a  dog that came with it.  WTF!  Being of sterner stuff than Mike, (i.e. she was Israeli),  she stuck her head into the store and yelled, “WHOSE DOG IS THIS?”   And a few other choice comments.

Meanwhile the employee  who came out to deal with the jammed coin, looked first at Mike’s cart…and nodded his head…yes, he agreed,  it was indeed jammed…puzzlement spreading over his face.  It seemed he had never seen such a thing before. He was baffled.

Then he turned his attention to the dog attached to the lady’s cart.  Now this was truly confounding. What to do? How to unclip the leash? (Should he unclip the leash?)  After a few futile efforts on his part, Mike intervened, looked at the leash snap, pressed a little lever and… Bob’s your uncle!…off it came. The lady went into the store with her liberated cart,  and the dog’s owner finally came out,  mid-shopping, grabbed the leash, and hooked his dog right back on to the next one.  Now we were back to square one: one cart jammed , the other attached to a dog.  Okay, at this point everyone was mad at this guy, but without a backwards glance, he turned and went back into the store.  Mike, by now a leash expert, unclipped it, attached the dog to the next cart in line, sacrificed another 5 shekels and went in to do his shopping. The employee remained outside, apparently struck dumb by this whole episode.

As Mike passed the checkout counters on his way in, he noticed that a little drama was unfolding with one of the few non-Russian clerks, a new-hire.  It caught his eye since only last week, mid-checkout, she had asked him to reach over and self-scan his six-pack of beer, apparently for religious reasons. Yes, he was allowed to buy it, but she could not touch it.  By coincidence, Mike is in the midst of studying this very phenomenon in a course, Islam and the West, that he affectionately calls “fatwa of the week”. We in the West only hear about extreme fatwas, but in reality they are mainly rulings that translate Qu’uranic precepts into practical strategies for daily life.  Mike’s course is examining, in particular,  the rulings that apply to situations that arise in the West such as, in this case, the legal sale of alcohol, and the need to be in a  workplace with unrelated men, both of which would normally not be permitted.  Here, she is clearly following a ruling that recognizes her need  to work and make a living, (even in a 100% kosher store), as long as she refrains from handling alcohol. It was Mike’s first one-on-one encounter with this kind of accommodation, and it took him a few minutes after his initial puzzlement at her request to figure out what was happening.  But I digress.

On this day, the same new check-out clerk, a Filipina customer, and the Russian manageress were having their own problems.  It appeared that the Filipina, who was picking up the usual groceries for her elderly charge, was having trouble with the credit card she had been given.  The clerk was looking in puzzlement at the card, the Filipina was on a cell phone trying to explain the situation to her employer in  broken English, while pleading in broken Hebrew with the clerk and the manager to let her take the groceries home anyway. The manager seemed nonplussed by the whole situation. The growing line-up grew ever more restless. (Happily, it included the obnoxious dog owner.)  Mike took one look and decided to take an unusually leisurely approach to his shopping; clearly this was not going to get sorted out any time soon.

Interestingly, one of the consistent exceptions to the rule that Israelis generally speak English, is found in grocery stores. This is because these stores are largely staffed by immigrants, many from Russia, who have barely learned Hebrew. (Don’t get me wrong, that in itself is a feat for which I have considerable admiration. So I appreciate that for them, English on top of Hebrew, would be a lot to ask…and it gives me a chance to practice.)

After making his rounds, and finding the usual 30% of our list out of stock, Mike went to check out. Sure enough, the big sale item of the day, the four-pack of water, would not scan. Despite several tries, including inputting the bar code number by hand, it just would not work.  So the problem was resolved in the usual fashion in Israeli grocery stores…he just had to go home without it. If it doesn’t scan, you can’t have it.  In this country, the consumer comes last.

On the other hand, there are a few services at Mega that you don’t get at home (or at other Tel Aviv grocery stores for that matter).  For example, you are allowed to take the cart home with your groceries, as long as you bring it back. And everyone does.  And if you have empty wine bottles (who us?) you can put them in an empty cart left at the store’s door specifically for that purpose. From there, the local homeless person can take the cart, once it is full, to wherever it is that you get the  bottle refund that most people cannot be bothered to hunt down. There is service; just not from the people who work there.

But Mike never did get his 5 shekels back.