Blast from the Past

Having the day off work yesterday I started off the day waiting for the re-upholsterer to come and he never showed. Looks like God just wants me to cover my icky couches with cheap couch covers instead. But while I was waiting, a call came in from a long-lost British friend, now a journalist and documentary filmmaker, that she was in town and could we meet. I had wanted to spend the day browsing around Tel Aviv but decided to cut Tel Aviv short to spend more time with her.

Finding myself in Tel Aviv, navigating through those busy main streets with traffic whizzing by and those big buildings, I felt so provincial and so uncomfortable with all that busy-ness. It's probably what people felt when coming to visit a place like NYC from rural Oklahoma. It was weird for a former New Yawker like me to feel this way. I took the new train back to Jerusalem and enjoyed the ride in freezing air conditioned luxury.

I met my friend whom I hadn't seen in 25 years inside Jaffa Gate and we promptly walked to the neighborhood of Silwan, just outside the old city walls. It took us awhile to find the place, and thankfully the trek was all downhill, as it was a hot day. We wandered into a local grocers, who I think gave us water and ice cream at ridiculously low prices - I wonder if he did this on purpose because they knew we were coming to support the "Silwanis" against their homes being demolished. We spoke to some people there at their protest tent. The children of the village were just done with their theater performance. I hope to post photos of the area where the homes are to be demolished later this evening - as it's quite an extensive area. I feel terrible for these people. Some opinions that I remember were -

"If they had told us 30 years ago that they wanted to turn this area into a park, we wouldn't have build here. But they just decided to make it an archeological park now!"

"If they demolish these homes, there'll be a third Intifada."

That last comment was disturbing. I hope it was just talk because I kind of like the idea of Jerusalem teeming with people these days, and of restaurants and clubs re-opening, after the ghost-like appearance the city had for the past 5 years. Why would the government want to "fuck it all up?" Isn't everyone just sick of the violence and the frustration?

I met Angela of the International Committee Against House Demolitions there and we took a taxi back into West Jerusalem where we e sat down to have coffee and a bit of food at the cinemateque. Later on we saw a film by Avi Mugrabi - called something like "revenge for two eyes" - where he vascillated between showing Masada and what teachers tell different school groups about the Jews of Masada - which sounded eerily familiar - "they were surrounded by troops, they were sieged, no one could go out, and no one could come in and they committed suicide." The same story told in different ways. Then the scene would show the Wall, the soldiers not opening up electronic gates to let very young Palestinian school children go back to their homes, etc. etc.

Not a happy movie but a thought-provoking one at that....