Funny, they call me Rachel

Funny, they call me Rachel here. I thought I would be called Rahel (in Hebrew) if not my real name (in Spanish) but everyone seems to default to the English version. When I ask why not Rahel, most people in Tel Aviv smile and say either “I don’t know” or “It is too old fashioned.” 

What they are thinking is, “It sounds too religious.”

The departure between the secular Israelis and the Haredim here is something to reckon with. Being in Tel Aviv, I am only experiencing it vicariously via the newspapers and the people I talk to. In Jerusalem, it is something the locals on both sides of the divide deal with on a minute-by-minute basis. This is leading to increasing amount of conflict.

(The Haredim are the very, very ultra-Orthodox and not your average kippa-wearing man on the street and in the Army uniform and in the barbershop and in the accounting office and in  a hospital and driving the bus…).

As far as I can tell, the conflict manifests itself in two primary ways: the Haredim's unwillingness to work in paid employment (men, anyway) coupled with very large families, and their unwillingness to serve in the Army.

Ultra-Orthodox men in Israel have traditionally shunned the workforce in favor of Torah study and government subsidies. Torah study --but presumably not government subsidies-- hastens the coming of Mashiach. Fair enough. But, I wonder, if the greatest commentator Rashi had a job, why not them?

Haredim make up the poorest segment of Israel’s Jewish population. A majority – 59% – live below the poverty line (the figures are dramatically better when one or two family members work) compared to just 14% among the general Jewish population. Recent years, however, have seen small but growing numbers of men and women join the workforce and attend professional training programs. The employment rate of Haredi men in Israel rose from 38 percent in 2009 to 45 percent in 2011.  A main objective of the Israeli government is to increase their employment rate to 63% by 2020 -  so a long ways to go. Secular Israelis resent the disproportionate rate of government subsidies going to the Haredim because they are patently unwilling to gets paid jobs.

The second major issue is the Haredim's unwillingness to serve in the Army.

At the creation of the State in 1948, prime minister David Ben Gurion and the Haredi worked out a compromised that the government would exempt a group of religious scholars (at that time, just 400 people) from compulsory military service so that they could pursue their studies. Either Ben Gurion needed them to support his government or, more likely to me, he could not imagine their numbers would ever grow. Ben Gurion probably saw Zionism as the evolution of Judaism.

On this one, Ben Gurion was wrong. Haredi population has been growing very rapidly due to high birth rate and doubles every 12 to 20 years. In Israel, they are estimated at 750,000 people. (I just Googled that. I have no idea how you go from 400 to 750,000 in 64 years; most likely immigration)

Secular Israelis recently that the Haredi don’t serve in the Army, especially at a time when the IDF is experiencing a shortage of people. Recently, the High Court ruled that this exemption could not be extended in its current form beyond August 2012, and this has become a huge issue between secular Israelis and Haredim  (again, many religiously observant people serve proudly in the Army; just the Haredim don’t want to).

There is a lot of resentment going on and extremism and violence has broken out.  But it may be changing. My all-time live hero Natan Sharansky pointed out recenltly that the Haredi extremists are becoming violent precisely because they are losing their battle against modernity.  He believes Haredim are no longer content with their destitute existence, that they are rushing headlong to work, to vocational training colleges, even to academia and that unprecedented numbers are choosing employment over welfare, modern education over luddism and maybe even military and national service over separation.  I pray he is right.

Friday I had lunch with Rafi’s cousin Avi at Café Batyah on Dizengoff. While the restaurant probably won’t make it to many Best-of lists, it was a great experience. They serve “very very Jewish food,” as Avi explained to me, considering this to be a very exotic food selection (it is like Kaplan’s back home. In all respects). More interestingly for me was the fact that, according to my mother-in-law, the woman who started the restaurant used to work at Café Ben Yehuda. And Café Ben Yehuda was the restaurant Rafi’s grandfather stared in the late 1930s in Tel Aviv, and which looms large in our family’s lore. It was really great to be there (though no one looked old enough to actually, possibly be Batyah).

Before and after joining Avi, I walked for hours on Dizengoff and surroundings. The total energy of the place was brilliant: lots and lots of people strolling, young teens, couples, young families with babies, older folks… And every café, every park bench, every juice stand was filled with people enjoying the sunshine and waiting for Shabbat in a Tel Aviv sort of way.

Gordon Beach

Fruit juice stand

Girls going home for the weekend

Your exchange comes with a free OJ here. Seriously.

Saturday morning I awoke feeling almost over my cold so I decided to walk to Tel Aviv’s main synagogue on Allenby Street. It is Shabbat in Tel Aviv and the streets were very quiet. 

Unfortunately, just a few blocks away from the apartment I slipped and fell, bumping my head on the pavement. From nowhere, two young women appeared and got me water, a cab driver materialized and offered to take me to the hospital… I was just shook up and bleeding a bit so I thanked everyone and walked (slowly) back home. There, I heard Rafi’s voice and put an icepack on my forehead for two hours and felt sorry for myself.  (It is now about 13 hours later, and I have what I hope doesn’t become a permanent imprint on my forehead of the clips inside my sun glasses. My forehead looks like it has two brackets carved in).

Later in the afternoon, I met my new BFF, Emanuela my trainer, who had invited me to meet her for lunch at a seaside restaurant, Fortuna del Mar. It was just want I needed. Four hours into it, we had enjoyed a wonderful meal (was it lunch? dinner? We started at 2 pm) of focaccia, tomato and artichoke salads, green salad, grilled sea bass, and chocolate cake with ice cream, plus a beautiful bottle of Chardonnay. Emanuela, my *trainer* ordered all of this so I am sure it is good for me.

With Emanuela. I should have been the one wearing the hat.

I  asked Emanuela if she worries about the political situation. No, she told me. There is no point worrying. She doesn't particularly follow the news and lives her life like everyone else everywhere else does and worries about the same things as everyone else. Emanuela's father was killed in the 1973 war when she was 8.

Once I got home, Rafi Skyped me and, in my enthusiasm to answer the video call, I forgot about the fall and the bloody forehead. It took Rafi 3 seconds to notice the "brackets" on my forehead. Yikes.

This evening I went to a comedy show. Clearly I live a sheltered life. 

Promotional Poster for Pam Ann

The comedy is called Pam Ann, and it is a solo performance about an eponymous air hostess. The description of the show mentioned it focuses "on the nuances of air travel, identifying the individual quirks of some of the biggest international airlines and their media stereotypes." So I thought I would go.

Well, what I didn’t realize was that the show was very, very campy and the audience would be comprised mainly of gay men and airline crews. However, I wasn't the only 'outsider': there were also lots of heterosexual couples and even some men wearing kippas.

Audience getting freebies before the performance

Pam Ann offstage

Audience view

Of course, I could not help but reflect on the fact that nowhere else in the Middle East would such a performance be allowed, nor would such an audience gather in perfect and absolute freedom.

In Israel, same-sex sexual activity has been legal since 1963 de facto and 1988 de jure. Unregistered cohabitation is legal and while same sex marriages cannot be performed in the country, foreign same-sex marriages are recognized. Same-sex adoption is legal and gays are allowed to serve openly in the Army.

Someone needs to tell Pride Toronto’s group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid that "Israeli apartheid" is a figment of their feverish anti-Semitism.

Walking back to my apartment at around 11 pm, the streets were full, absolutely full of people, and all restaurants and cafes were open, and full of people too. 

Everyone was enjoying their freedom.