TRAVELOGUE: OUR HONEYMOON IN ISRAEL

Bruce David Wilner April 1999

ABSTRACT: This document describes my travels with my wife, Cheryl, in and around Israel—as well as to and from Israel—from a unique and whimsical perspective. The site is supported by an offbeat set of photographs—not your standard tourist shots of this attraction or that (you can find those in a variety of books, magazines, and even other Web sites). Hebrew words appear in italics, as do the occasional Yiddish, Arabic, French, Spanish, and German terms. The text is peppered with relevant Scriptural quotations, as well as with some of the more acceptable jokes told by our genial, highly knowledgeable native tour guide, Mr. Eytan Tel-Tsur. For what it's worth, a summary of our observations on—and feelings about—Israel in comparison to the U.S. is also offered. Finally, a glossary of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic terms is provided for the reader's convenience.

April 1999

WED 07 April

Security at international arrivals in Heathrow is tight, especially after the loser in front of us is discovered to have a metal cigarette lighter shaped like a gun in her purse. As a result, the twitchy security officers disassemble Cheryl’s backpack and individually inspect every roll of film with their grubby fingers, even to the point of tearing open fresh, sealed boxes of film. Oddly, I got past security without removing the small bottle of PERCOCET® from my pocket. (I should not, under any circumstances, be able to sneak such a powerful narcotic into either UK or Israel. I brought it with me in case a medical emergency should arise and our Third World hosts prove either unable or unwilling to offer suitable painkillers.) Meanwhile, Omer and Shir’s grandma leaves her bag behind, and I scream out "Hashilshul!" (Hebrew for "traveler’s diarrhea," which grandma and I had briefly discussed on the plane) to get her attention. This works well but has the unwanted side effect of eliciting peals of laughter from the crowd gathering behind us.

I have never walked so much in my life just to change planes. The old rug looks like hell. We seem to be routed around the entire periphery of this building, at least one-half mile. The crowds at Heathrow are from all over the world. There are quite a number of Sikhs. I notice the 24-hour clocks and schedules and suffer through the notorious British food: the best item available at the concession that accepts Visa® is a sandwich unappealingly labeled "Brie cheese with iceberg lettuce and low-fat spread," prepared on lowly white bread. The British are crazy about their "footy" matches: the crowd at the bar almost commits murder as one team scores a goal, and a constable rushes over to see what the hysteria is all about. I serve as Spanish interpreter for a lost Portuguese lady at the airport and am almost shanghaied into additionally serving as interpreter for a Spanish gentleman. When the fellow insists that he just heard someone speaking Spanish, I keep my mouth shut and stare at my feet.

Cheryl bought me this zipper/snap/Velcro® passport belt thing that holds my passport and is worn around my waist under my shirt. It also holds a front door key and a couple of hundred dollars. The stewardesses must think I’m weird when they ask for my passport and I start disrobing. Plus, if I touch it the wrong way, I accidentally tickle my belly and I giggle. This must be the fourth time I’ve had to extricate the God-forsaken thing to show to someone.

On the second major haul (from Heathrow to Tel Aviv), babies wail nonstop (I did pack my earplugs, but I can’t find them; I suspect that they’ve been checked through in the large bags) while I watch Disney cartoons on the seatback video screen on this lovely Boeing 777. I am surprised to find that "Timon and Pumbaa" isn’t at all bad. In this episode, Timon must rescue the meerkat princess from the giant python who kidnapped her. Interestingly, the classic Walt Disney cartoons that I used to find amusing now seem rather crappy to me. Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck are janitors cleaning out an old clock tower—getting caught in the springs, being abused by storks, and falling off ladders. Oh, well, for sixty-year-old films they’re not bad.

THU 08 April

We get off the plane at Ben Gurion airport in a driving rainstorm. They told me it doesn’t rain here. Perhaps the LORD has sent the rain to match my mood, which is lousy after flying one hour, then seven hours, then five hours. A bus takes us to the main terminal building but leaves us some distance away, so we must walk through the rain without umbrellas and arrive looking like drenched rats.

We line up at a row of booths to get our passports stamped. (One of the other people on our tour later told us that we narrowly missed an airport work slowdown arising from a labor dispute, yea, that it took him several hours to get his passport stamped—just one day after we arrived.) I tell Cheryl to pick booth number 18, which is considered lucky because it is the value of the Hebrew word chay ("life") in the gematria, a numerological technique in Jewish mysticism. Not surprisingly, I am not the only person in the crowd who chooses this line.

The airport has an old-looking linoleum floor that I am told is new. The grounds are richly planted with palm trees, and there are dogs (not in animal carriers) all over the place.

Despite the legendary Israeli security, nobody looks in our bags. This is surprising, since other people are having their luggage disassembled, and some are taken into booths where they receive proctoscopic examinations and have their toenails torn out. The public address system summons us to the information desk, where we are met by a guy who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He tells me, "Go collect your bags and come back here. If I am not here, wait for me." He refuses to give his name; he laughs at my primitive Hebrew, "Mi atah," which means, "Who are you?" and says only, "Follow me." I guess he did whatever was necessary during his one-minute absence, since, pursuant to a few nods and hand signals, he marches us right past all the checkpoints unchallenged as if we own the place and summarily bundles us into a comfortable van driven by one Udi.

Palm trees … Israeli flags … road signs in English, Hebrew, and Arabic … my God, we’re really here!

Ex. 15:11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

Look at this gouged-out landscape. Arizona is my first thought: scrub, evergreen trees, large boulders strewn about. We make out the remains of terraced hillsides that are obviously very ancient. Desperate-looking, prefabricated tract housing projects in white stone jut upward unexpectedly like erect penises. Speaking of penises, what are these "penis trees" all over the place? I learn later that they are cypress (brosh). We certainly aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.

Power lines are everywhere. So are construction projects. Neither does much for the landscape. These abandoned army jeeps, painted Rustoleum® red, also look like hell. Udi tells us that they constitute a war memorial: jeeps are left in situ where their occupants were sniped while shuttling supplies to Jerusalem during the 1948-49 blockade, and every year they are given a fresh coat of Rustoleum. Udi tells us that the veterans’ families know exactly which jeep is which and whose lives were lost therein. (We later realize that this entire country is a living war memorial. The Israelis are immensely proud of their military achievements, which have been realized against overwhelming odds but at a terrible price.)

These people are obviously extremely patriotic. Americans are patriotic, but Israelis are borderline ridiculous. Indeed, the entire "freeway" (such as it is) is lined with Israeli flags which, Udi tells me, are in preparation for Independence Day. How ironic it is that every other flag—flown at the same height as the national flag—is the red-on-white Mem Ayin Tzade flag that advertises the Federal Department of Posting Flags on Freeways.

The roads look dangerous. They are winding and undivided. It is only a matter of time until we pass our first accident. I learn my first Hebrew word, painted on the side of the police car in Hebrew letters without the diacritical marks that make it easier for beginners: mishtarah means "police."

Udi is fun. He speaks very good English, but I will soon meet Israelis whose command of English puts Udi’s to shame. Udi tells me that the country is virtually free of street crime but that paranoia over terrorism is so high that, should somebody report a plastic sandwich bag on the sidewalk, the mishtarah barricade the streets and send in a robot vehicle to explode it. We then see a police cruiser and are surprised that its blue lights are flashing continuously even though it is just routinely patrolling a quiet block. This is the law, Udi tells us.

We arrive at our hotel in Jerusalem (the Radisson Moriah Plaza on Rechov Keren Hayesod) just before 7:00AM, and there is no room available for us. Udi mumbles something to the manager in Hebrew, and suddenly an available room is scared up. A mezuzah is affixed to the door of our room—as it is to the door of every hotel room throughout Israel. That's a nice touch. But they call this a "five-star" hotel? The walls are dirty; the twin beds (like the one I slept in when I was four) are about two feet wide; the bathmat barely fits in the tub (indeed, I almost break my neck slipping on it the next day); and the toilet is flushed by pulling a metal knob on the top of the tank. I get immediate experience with the toilet: after the tension of the flights (not to mention the overeating—British Airlines shtups us with food every hour or so), I throw my guts up. I follow this with a couple of IMODIUM® tablets and a VALIUM® (my angel is already asleep and doesn't need any drugs), and we both sleep like babies until 2:00PM.

We wake up and boldly venture forth into the streets of Jerusalem. We are experts: we know two major streets, Rechov Keren Hayesod and Rechov David Hamelech. It is cold and windy, not at all what one might expect. The first thing we see is some nut walking around mumbling to himself. We then pass a street corner that physically reeks (probably from decayed, discarded food.) The Israeli drivers honk their horns, yell, shake their fists, swerve, and park absolutely anywhere the car can physically fit, despite the fact that (according to grandma on the British Airways flight) the fine for illegal parking is 360 new Israeli shqalim (written NIS 360), or US$90. (A sheqel—the singular of shqalim—equals a quarter within a very, very small margin of error. Remember it.) In addition to parking meters, they have this odd machine that governs a whole group of parking spaces: you seemingly deposit coins to purchase a ticket for a given number of hours and then post it on your windshield. Everywhere we look, there are motorcycles, and they too are parked anywhere one can squeeze in two dachshunds end-to-end. That strikes me as odd, almost as odd as the clinical black-on-yellow license plates (two digits hyphen three digits hyphen two digits).

There are lots of tourist trap jewelry shops hoping to sell the rich Americans a silvern menorah or mezuzah or a tacky ceramic sculpture. We come back from our brief adventure, furious that the Bank Leumi ATM refused to accept my Crestar card, and enjoy a delicious dairy meal (today is the last day of Passover, or Pesach) of French onion soup and latkes with applesauce at the hotel café.

It is now 6:30PM, and we go downstairs to one of the small conference rooms to meet our first scheduled point of contact, Dvorah. Orange juice and grapefruit juice are served. I’ll bet they are Prigat brand; all the juice in this country seems to be Prigat juice. Some other people from our tour are there: Bill from California; Kerry and her mother-in-law Susan from Australia; and energetic bar mitzvah boy Neil and his mother Linda from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Back on the streets, I people-watch carefully. The Jerusalemites are interesting. I haven’t seen any blacks or Hispanics yet. There are lots of English-speaking people, generally American or British tourists. There are Hasidim in traditional garb. There are young men trying hard to look cool but not quite managing. I see jeans, slacks, and shorts; heavy coats, light jackets, sweaters, and T-shirts; shoes, sneakers, and sandals. Some men wear kipot (yarmulkes), some do not. Some women wear the sheitl (wig), some do not. (Interestingly, even among the patently Orthodox, I don’t see any tzitziyot.) There doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason.

I now learn my second word of Hebrew by looking at street signs, which are also marked in English: tzanchan means "paratrooper." I’m sure I’ll get to use that tidbit. A nearby construction project has a huge sign that reads Solel Banayim. I recognize solel because it is the name of our temple at home and means "pioneer" or "pathfinder," or even "paver" if your sense of poetry is narcotized. (I later find out that banayim means "builders.")

We bump into a group of English-speaking students, Englishmen of Indian descent and one Canadian, who tell us that it is marginally safe to eat a shvuarmah from an outdoor stand in the Old City. But it is 8:30PM, and the Old City is starting to close down for the evening. We are almost crushed by drivers trying desperately to back out of alleys that are solidly blocked and triple-parked like a Washington Heights side street. I begin to wonder if people actually live in the Old City.

Some restaurants are kosher for Passover, meaning they offer a special dairy menu, while others are non-kosher. Now, where can we find a nice non-kosher restaurant that serves excellent fresh shrimp in garlic sauce, fresh-cooked chicken and almond pies, and Moroccan-style salad brimming with fresh pickled eggplant? Why, at the YMCA, of course! That is where we find Le Tzrif. The maître d’hôtel speaks excellent English and is very accommodating. (It seems odd to me that the hard liquor is stored in a glass-paneled wooden cabinet secured with a rusty padlock.) Like everyone else here, the manager seems to like your shqalim but love your dollars. He also seems truly fascinated and charmed to meet and talk with Americans. We dine like kings and queens on the delicious food and walk back to our hotel, captivated by the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences of our first day in Israel.

FRI 09 April

We are awakened early (6:30AM), as we will be every day for the remainder of our stay. The Israeli breakfast buffet is marvelous, including scrambled, hard-boiled, and "Oriental style" (involving tomatoes, evidently) eggs; salad with the de rigueur green and black olives; fresh and dried fruits; cheeses; herring (in either white or red wine); cereals; orange and grapefruit juice; plain and chocolate pastries; milk; coffee; and tea. I have probably omitted two or three items by accident. At breakfast, I give Neil, the bar mitzvah boy, a loud "Happy Birthday" to his mother’s surprise (she had mentioned his birthday yesterday). I also offer him a mushed chocolate Ho-Ho® from Cheryl’s backpack in lieu of a birthday cake, but he declines. The other tour groups (Spaniards, Germans, Poles, even Japanese nuns) are already there when we arrive for breakfast at 7:00AM.

Despite warnings from everyone, I have been drinking the water. Cheryl is completely paranoid and insists on using bottled water for everything—even for brushing her teeth. I have not caught traveler’s diarrhea (shilshul). However, I am, shall we politely say, eliminating solid wastes several times per day—probably the combined effect of this huge daily breakfast (which is not my style) with a screwed-up biological clock.

We have now met our entire tour group, which includes:

• Neil and his mother Linda from South Africa (Jewish);

• Kerry and her mother-in-law Susan from Australia;

• Al from Minnesota (Jewish);

• Mike and Carol from Arizona, and Carol’s parents, Ross and Shirley;

• Bill from California;

• Two Romanian ladies whom nobody trusts (they play the "no speaka da English" game all day long—until they are cheated out of one-hundredth of a sheqel, or sense a freebie: then they speak English like professors); and

• Your humble narrator and his wife (Jewish).

We meet our tour guide, Eytan Tel-Tsur. He is tall and slender and usually wears a dark blue pullover and a straw hat. He is a native Israeli and speaks outstanding English (and, as he would later admit to us, fluent French, Spanish, and German as well). In five days’ worth of guided touring, with him talking almost continuously from about 8:00AM to 6:00PM, I catch only five slight errors:

(Quite honestly, most Americans don't have Eytan's command of English.) We also meet our bus driver, Yitzchak, who is delighted when I call him a jinji (redhead), a word that I learned from grandma on the flight. I enjoy screwing around with him in Yiddish, and I eventually coin a few ditties, such as, "Itzik Pipik, ich’ll geben dir a shmitzik!"

Our first stop is to view some churches at Ein Kerem, the birthplace of John the Baptist. I have a blast speaking Spanish to the Franciscan friars, while Neil enjoys petting and playing with several of the stray cats. (We gradually discover that the entire nation of Israel is crawling with stray cats.)

This city boasts some of the weirdest modern architecture I’ve ever seen in my life. The newer buildings do incorporate doors and windows, but that’s about all that I find recognizable. Of course, the majority of people live in older structures, generally small (two-story or three-story) apartment buildings with several large units, though we pass billboards advertising new luxury high-rises and plenty of new construction sites. All of the structures are clad in an outer layer of the local "Jerusalem stone," which is typically white but also occurs in shades of tan, gray, and pink. Laundry is hung out to dry from every window. We see window air conditioners everywhere—something not seen in the U.S. for more than twenty years. I note that even the poorest neighborhoods of Jerusalem spare no expense when it comes to playgrounds: the monkey bars, slides, and other large-scale amusements are dramatically designed, looking more like abstract artworks to be studied than like toys to be abused and dirtied. In fact, many were designed by noted architects whose names Eytan can reel off without hesitation.

Although Eytan trumpets Israel’s freedom from street crime, I notice a heavy network of iron bars across every first-floor and second-floor window. (Such countermeasures seem so out of place in what looks more like a close-in suburb than an inner city, but they could simply be reflective of high prices for more aesthetically advanced anti-burglar technology—or perhaps this is as "inner" as the Israeli inner cities get.) Evidently, the only Jerusalemites who do not have to worry about burglary are the four-legged ones, which crop up in the most unexpected places. Indeed, every time we pass a scrubby snippet of grass, some enterprising fellow is grazing his tiny flock of sheep or goats—only meters from the busy city traffic.

I am not impressed by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial. Compared to the Holocaust Museum in Washington—a masterpiece of historiography, multimedia technology, and architecture—Yad Vashem is a complete letdown. (However, I do enjoy helping the lost Portuguese lady with the "Pino Verde" cap locate her tour group, again by speaking Spanish.) Israeli sentiment over the Holocaust is quite strong, and the Holocaust memorial day, Yom Hashoah, is a national holiday. I am surprised that Israel offers no Spanish Inquisition memorial: this institution was similar in spirit to the Nazis, merely lacking their 20^th-century technology of mass murder and thereby having to rely instead upon the smaller-scale and rather more intimate technology of 15^th-century torture.

(I am reminded of the following joke. Q: Why is toilet paper like the Starship Enterprise? A: They both circle Uranus looking for Klingons.)

Bethlehem is astonishing. The only word I can summon for what assaults my senses is squalor. It is busted up, burned out, bombed out, filthy, horrendous, not to mention the frightfully hilly and just plain ugly terrain. Here and there I am surprised by a storefront that proclaims "dentist" or "optometrist." Conveniently located between two junkyards, an Arab is unassumingly selling freshly roasted chickens right on the sidewalk. Yet, despite all this, lo: in the middle of a Jewish country, I am visiting a Christian holy site where Jesus was born, while the muezzin belts out the Friday afternoon azan from a minaret down the block. Wherever we step off a bus, an Arab is ready with postcards, hawking, "Postcards! One dollar!" (We saw this all over Israel.) We then stumble across the same Spanish-speaking tour group (identifiable by the short, white-bearded tour guide and the two bald young shtarkers) that we will keep bumping into throughout our stay in Jerusalem.

Bethlehem has "tourist police," as do (supposedly) other parts of Israel, though Bethlehem is the only place where I actually saw one. His English was excellent, and he told me he was returning to the U.S. shortly to complete his master’s degree in English. He is apparently stationed at the gift shop where they attempt to sell me a mother-of-pearl Nativity sculpture for US$1,195. (It is beautifully made—it may even be worth what they’re asking—but it just isn’t one of my priorities at the moment.) Bethlehem also has regular (Arab) police, some of whom I espied through the bus window. When they opened their glove compartment, presumably to access equipment or weapons, I was surprised to see that oranges and bananas spilled out—perhaps sustenance for the long wait to cross the "border" back into Jerusalem.

Everyone’s dish is set atop a warming tray with a metal grid that is evidently heated by a can of Sterno® beneath. Among numerous other dishes, we adventurously order a plate of the local "St. Peter’s fish," which I later (and most appropriately, I believe) christen "St. Peter’s bones." The few morsels of meat that we are able to scrape off the wretched thing actually have a lovely flavor, and Eytan will inform me a few days later that what we had thought to be a uniquely Israeli fish is but a run-of-the-mill tilapia. Oh, well, we found both the food and the company highly enjoyable.

Eytan tells lots of jokes, some of which are good, and I capture one of them here:

"A shrewish woman is bragging to her friend about how completely she controls her meek husband. ‘Moshe, under the table!’ she commands, and Moshe immediately crawls under the table. ‘Moshe, come out!’ she orders, but Moshe won’t budge. ‘It’s about time I got a chance to make some of the decisions in this household,’ Moshe protests."

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