48 hours of Tel Aviv

One of my best friends from college, Mia, came to stay with me for a week in Jerusalem. Mia was in Barcelona for 7 weeks and made a pit stop in lovely Rechaviyah (the neighborhood in Jerusalem where I live) before heading back to Massachusetts. Granted I was only in Israel for a week and a half when Mia got here, I was determined to give Mia the best week of her life. You'll have to ask her if it was or not. Because I am in class Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Mia toured Jerusalem during the day and at night I did homework, we went out a little, and the next morning we would go out for breakfast before repeating. Our initial plan was to go to Tel Aviv on Wednesday night and have a real Tel Aviv nightlife experience and tour on Thursday but alas we couldn't find anyone to host us for the night so we decided to experience the Jerusalem nightlife on Wednesday...not exactly sure what we were expecting but here is what we got.

**This post seems long but is just a ridiculous slew of events that is a very easy read. Also, there is no point other than to retell some of our adventures and relive some good times so don't expect any more. Also, Mia and I assure all readers, especially parents and grandparents, that we are very responsible girls who know our limits and are staying safe.**

To understand the next 48 hours, allow myself to introduce you to some of the characters:
Me- Living in Jerusalem, Hebrew is pretty good, generally translate for friends
Mia- Visiting me, can understand very basic Hebrew, attracts boys everywhere she goes
Ari and Keren- friends from school (see post Live from Jerusalem)
Adam and Nati- Our waiters at a bar in Jerusalem who don't speak English
Doran and friends- Guys who sat next to us at a bar in Jerusalem. Doran speaks minimal English, his friends speak none.
Natan, Ariel, and someone whose name I forgot- Israelis with North American parents
Julia- Friend from Jerusalem who goes to school in the states, minimal Hebrew (see post Manifest Destiny?)

Mia and I go to meet up with Keren and Ari in the center of Jerusalem at New Deli, a delicious kosher meat sandwich place where we see a bunch a friends from Columbia and Barnard. We are dressed up significantly nicer than everyone there and we explain that we were supposed to be in Tel Aviv that night and wanted to bring the Tel Aviv life to Jerusalem. Ari and Keren suggest that we go to a bar called Tel Aviv to help us get the full experience and so the four of us go with our friend Leelee who is leaving Israel that night. After a nice amount of catching up, Ari, Keren, and Leelee leave and Mia and I head over to the first bar which has seats open called Nadin. This is where Mia and I meet Nati, our very nice and cute waiter. Nati takes our orders but Adam, another waiter, comes over and begins to talk to us. Adam and I speak in Hebrew a little and assures us that he will be back to sit with us. About 10 minutes later, Adam asks us how we're doing and he's really trying to lay the moves on me. He speaks to us as if Mia doesn't exist and this is something I'm not used to when being with Mia so we're just eating it up. Adam asks us if we want shots and we politely decline but after assuring us they are free (b'emet, free!) we accept and get shots of really bad vodka. But we're in a good place and are enjoying each other's company and continue talking about all things school, family, and life. Adam asks me (not us, just me) if we enjoyed our shots, we lied and said we did, and then these two guys sitting next to us asked us if we were on brithright. No, we answered the 20-something-American men, but they continued conversing with us and the conversation was so exhilarating that I can't even remember their names and when they tried to get our numbers to hang out with us later after trying to convince us to go to Tsfat with them and their Aish-type trip, we politely declined and said that maybe we would see them around Jerusalem. We were happy to see Adam who asked if maybe I would dance with him, and I said maybe later because we were still enjoying each others company.

Me and Mia outside of Tel Aviv in Jerusalem

At this point a group of 20-something Israelis come to sit next to us and two of them turned to chat up me and Mia. We meet Doran who mostly speaks to me in Hebrew but is clearly trying to get Mia's attention. Doran has a friend whose name I also don't remember but he barely said anything... we know that some of them are in the army and other have finished so we figure that they're fun. Typical American girl response. Doran makes a toast which I translate for Mia, "To life, to drugs, to sex!" and we decide that maybe they're fun but they're not really our cup of tea. Not the typical nerdy boys I'm into, at least. After lots of translating between Mia and Doran and laughing at them thinking that I can't understand what they're saying, it's 2am and Mia and I decide we're going to call it a night. Doran looks at me as says in Hebrew, "tell her that I think she's --" So I translate and say, "Doran thinks you're, wait, what was the word? I didn't understand." "Tell her I thinks shes HOT" "Ohhhh okay... check please!"

Mia and I pay for our drinks (but not our free shots! Woohoo!) say goodbye to Adam who is sad we didn't dance with him, and head on home. But wait! We never took a picture of us at the bar and we're determined to photo-document our time together so it seemed perfect when we are approached by a red-head guy who looks at us and in Hebrew goes, "Hebrew or English?" I answer in Hebrew, "Shneihem (both)" he switches to English, "how can it be both?!" to which we proceed to make fun of him for asking us the question when he clearly speaks both. This gingy, Natan, is a riot and we enjoy meeting his friends who are "mad cool" and "super cool." After trying to get us to sit at the bar we had just left, we settle on a bench in the area we are and for about 30 minutes Natan amidst his severe ADD tries to flirt with Mia and I spend the time talking and joking with Mad Cool (whose name I forgot) and Super Cool otherwise known as Ariel. The three of us are having a great time cracking jokes and just chilling when at some point Natan puts his number into Mia's phone and we say we're going to walk home, after all, we are going to real Tel Aviv tomorrow! Natan, who is driving Ariel back to his home outside of Jerusalem (that seems to be the only reason Ariel was there- his mom is catching a flight to America in the morning and he needs to give her something... he swears that it's not a curfew despite our insisting that as a 21-year old he has a curfew). Natan offers us a ride to which I reply, "Yeah, okay, and when you show up at my apartment tomorrow looking for Mia we're going to have ba'ayot (problems)" and just to make sure he gets the point I add, "And my shutaf (roommate) is really big." (He's not). So no ride, but we'll see each other tomorrow and Mia and Natan have exchanged numbers. After parting ways we call them back to make them take a picture of us because as we explained that's why we were talking to them in the first place. Successful night complete with pictures and it's time to put this story on hold for a little....

Me and Mia on our way home from TA in Jtown

Mia and I head out to Tel Aviv with three things in mind- we want to go to the Palmach Museum (my favorite), we want to go to Shuk Hakarmel, and we want to go to the beach. We plan nothing and bring no map. And remember how good I am at getting lost? Looking back on it, I have no idea what we were thinking. After getting into Tel Aviv we somehow manage to go in the right direction and then finally find the right bus (with help from cousin Michal who we called after realizing that we just didn't know what stop to get off at) and when we got to the museum we were told because we didn't have a reservation they would "try to fit us in, but we could wait in the cafeteria for an hour or so." Oooookay. Let's clarify, the cafeteria was more like a shack outside and its safe to say that we didn't buy any food. Finally we got on a tour and as expected it was incredible. There's nothing to reinforce your Zionism like learning about the people who fought for the very existence of the State of Israel while being attacked from the inside and the out after having come to the land from the Holocaust. Not to mention all things that have to do with fighting affect me differently now that Jonah is a soldier in the IDF. But I digress, this is supposed to be a post about our 48 hours spent in real and imagined Tel Aviv. When we left the museum we asked someone at the front desk for directions (how smart and unlike us) to Shuk Hakarmel and low and behold I recognized the woman sitting there! She was a counselor in my age group at camp 7 years ago, or as she so adequately put it, "oh, you were one of those effing brats." Again, oooookay. Campers, if you read my blog or made it this far in my post, let it be known that I love you dearly and when you are 20 if we're still in touch (we will be) I will never describe you that way cause I even love when you're bratty. So we make it successfully back to Jerusalem (while exploring the Tel Aviv buses) and after meeting up with Julia head out to town again at about ten to 12.

Me at the Palmach Museum.  Talia- check out my dress!  I'm listening to your advice!

Thursday night in Jerusalem is much more hoppin than Wednesday night but we finally found a place to sit- 21 up but the waiter didn't seem to care "just this time." Julia, Mia, and I chatted for over an hour and then we (Mia) decided to check in to see where Natan was. As expected, he was in the same part of town that we were last night (no, definitely not waiting for us and definitely not because we said we'd be back) and we headed over. He and Mia headed inside to get drinks and I heard someone call "Sara!" and saw our friend from last night, Adam! I was SO excited to see our friendly flirtatious waiter when he asked me what I was doing here I responded jokingly in Hebrew, "we wanted to visit you! More free shots, right?!" He didn't think it was so funny but he told me to sit down and I said I would once I got a drink. I told Mia and we were so excited to sit with him until she comes out asking me where he is, I point to him, and she goes, "no Sara! That's Doran!" Woops. My bad. We definitely did not want to sit with him. And that explains why he didn't think my joke was so funny..... After sitting down with Natan and meeting some of his friends, Julia got to talking to one of them and Ariel met up with us and we started talking as well. Julia and the guy she was talking to were having difficulty with the language barrier, and every 5 sentences or so Ariel or myself were helping with the translations at which point I hear someone else call "Sara!" This time it WAS Adam and Mia and I, once again, were very excited to see him. So we talked for about 5 minutes until he went back to his friends, Mia and Natan went to "look for some food" which is definitely not a euphemism for take a walk and make out, and the four of us remained chatting at the table waiting for the check. At the same time we realized it was 4am, we also realized that they were charging us extra for "security" which is definitely a euphemism for just sitting at an outside table. Julia picks that exact instant to remember that she has to wake up at 9am and starts getting real mad at the amount she has to pay but we resolve the situation and head out trying to find Mia and Natan. Natan and Ariel are of course very hungry and so we stop for food, dance in the streets a little, and finally after a few more detours make it home to the sounds of the birds chirping at 5am.

Julia, Myself, Natan, Mia, and Ariel after they stopped for food

Me dancing in the streets late at night

A post wouldn't be a post without some politics thrown in so allow me to add (if you've made it this far then you deserve it anyway) a part of the story that I originally left out. The second night when we saw Adam (this time for real) and he came to say hi, as he left one of the boys we were with said in Hebrew, "oh, of course the American girls like the Arab guys." I am very confused and ask Ariel and Natan about their comment. They explain to me that guys like Adam hang out in this area to try to pick up American tourists because they know that Israeli girls won't date them and that they have friends who have been taken advantage of by "guys like these." I challenge them, saying that despite Adam's flirting he was just our waiter the other night, we had no intention of going home with him (or allowing him to go home with us, after all, did we not just tell Ariel and Natan the other night that they couldn't drive us home), and that if they were in some country and they saw their waiter from the night before, wouldn't they be excited to see him/her? We agreed to disagree and Adam came back for a few minutes to speak to me and Mia and the guys we were with didn't go out of their way to be friendly. Adam then recognized Natan and, in hebrew, told me "I think I got into a bar fight with that guy once." Oh. That could definitely shed some light on these guys' attitudes. But they laughed about it, shook hands, at least pretended to make up.

So there it is, folks. Mia and I had quite a fun time in the Jerusalem nightlife (and a little Tel Aviv), participated in some shtuyot (nonsense), and found that no matter how much you preface a blog post by insisting that there is no point other than to retell and remember good times, you always end up with a lesson. Ours was that the conflict is all around us. Who knows if Adam, if that even is his real name or just his Jerusalem-bartending-name, has spent a single second thinking about that night, but when I woke up the next morning (to babysit on 3 hours of sleep, it was lovely) I couldn't get the exchange out of my head. Ariel and Natan live in a reality that's just different than mine. My waiter was nothing more than friendly and flirtatious, to them he was deceptive (did he tell us where he lives? Did we even bother to ask? Does it even matter?) and creepy. Of course I believe that they have friends who have been taken advantage of by Arab waiters. But I bet that they have friends who have been taken advantage of by Jewish waiters too. And I certainly have friends who have been taken advantage of by frat guys in NYC. There are people like that everywhere, so why are we generalizing, stereotyping, and preventing ourselves from having a good time?

We're safe and we laughed all night long- ultimately that's all that matters. For now. Later, we'll have to delve in to the realities that people are faced with here, and maybe even try to throw out some suggestions on how to make things better. Until then, I'm down for more fun nights in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and beyond.

If you made it this far, I'll send you a postcard.

Manifest Destiny?

I'll fast forward a little to July 4th 'cause that's on my mind right now, but don't worry, I'll fill in the details of the days in between at some point.  Let me preface this post by saying that I'm on a constant search for the man of my dreams.  There's hope that I'll be meeting him at Hebrew U this summer (one of the Canadians who sits behind me, perhaps?) but really, what better place to meet him than in ISRAEL?!  So when I got invited on facebook to a Wet Hot American Fourth of July Summer in Jerusalem party, I knew this was gonna  be good.  A BBQ of a bunch of Americans, and after perusing the invite list and seeing mostly students from Bard and Yale, my friends and I began referring to it as the "Bard/Yale Party."  Yes.  Smart people.  In Jerusalem.  Boom.  I was dressed in my best Red, White, and Blue-Jean Shorts ready to impress.

The group of people was incredible.  An old friend from camp is living in this BEAUTIFUL apartment in Abu Tur, a neighborhood in Jerusalem that has a lot of Jews and Arabs but is known for them living in pretty separate communities within the neighborhood.  Sarah goes to Bard, a very liberal college, and is living with other Bard students who are all working in some capacity with Israelis and Palestinians, and as I learned, so were most of the people at the party.  What I formerly thought was called the "Bard/Yale Party" was actually termed by others "The JStreet and Co Party."  Others were working at various institutions like the Shalem center- very cool and smart people doing cool and smart things.  Silly me for spending my summer taking classes when I could have been working on really cool hands on initiatives to help solve the conflicts of the world.   Although everyone did seem to appreciate that I was taking a class called Conflict Resolution!

Sarah who hosted the party, me in my 4th of July best, and Julia my long lost soul mate 

Beers in hand, Born in the USA in the background, what did we talk about?  After Jewish geography and finally meeting some friends of friends, including one of my best camp friend's gay ex boyfriend (who doesn't have a gay ex-boyfriend these days, it's all the rage), who is an awesome guy and a girl named Julia who seems to be my soul mate here, we were a bunch of  Americans discussing our experiences in Israel and how we're working towards a better future in the Middle East.  In some way, it really seemed like Manifest Destiny: Ideals Edition.  We weren't trying to conquer lands nor make everyone fall in love with Bruce Springsteen (although the latter wouldn't be so bad).  We were Americans, privileged enough to grow up attending incredible academic institutions, attempting to make the problems of the world better in the ways that we knew how; pursuing life, liberty, and happiness in places that we called home, for people that we called brothers and sisters.

The party included no BBQ, hardly any American music, very few people dressed in red,white, and blue, and definitely no fireworks yet I felt a strong sense of patriotism and pride in my country for the values on which I was raised.  Whether spending time with JStreet, The Shalem Center, Hebrew U, or none of the above (definitely not all of the above), all of the students there were working with what we had.  Our educations, thirst for knowledge, values we were raised on, and quest for a better future.  Those are governing the experiences that we are having abroad this summer, and perhaps govern what our generation seeks to contribute to the world.  And if that is the grounding which Americans like me have and the values that we seek to spread then I have a lot of faith in the accomplishments that Generation Y can make in this world.

Oh, yes, the man of my dreams.  He wasn't there, at least I don't think he was.  But here's to trying, dressing to impress (casually, of course), and the continual search for amazing people who will influence my life and the world around me.

Live from Jerusalem!

Hello loyal and spontaneous readers!


It's been a full week since I landed in Jerusalem and the theme of the week is definitely adventures, or "
הרפתקאות."  I'm sitting in a lovely restaurant in Jerusalem on Azza street, which is theoretically only 5 minutes from my apartment but I get lost a lot so it's unclear how far exactly I am.  Just finished a great brunch- salad loaded with veggies, eggs, and tuna seasoned with spices and multi-grain bread on the side.  God I love this country and their fresh veggies!  I'll try to provide you with a little update on my week here without boring you to tears- I promise that there are many anecdotes in the post....


As you all know, after I landed (and passed out for 3 hours on Aunt Shirah and Uncle Menachem's couch) I showered and went to a Henna party for a bride-to-be in the Moshav.  The joke is that Jews are always late... well Israelis are later.  The party started at 8, so we went at 8:40 (Jews are late) and they didn't open the food buffet until 9:30 and by 10 Shirah and I thought that maybe she should drive me to my apartment in Jerusalem as I was anxious to move in... just as we were getting up to leave at 10:15, the bride's family dressed in what I assume is Kurdish garb started coming out...but still no bride (Israelis are later).  So I'm sad to say that there was no Henna for me, but it was still nice to reintroduce myself to the world of smokers, late nights, beer, and Hebrew.  


Hebrew Hebrew Hebrew.  I'm working on it.  My cousins are doing a really great job at speaking with me in Hebrew and when I have the time (on the bus, in my bed, basically when I am not physically moving much) I work on texting in Hebrew.  I've also started writing down "words of the day" which are very much based on my experiences- I learned "approximate, משוער" when reading the bus schedule and the like, although it's more just like a laundry list of vocabulary that I've been learning.  I'm already indebted to cousin Michal for speaking to me in Hebrew on the phone and pretending not to understand me when I speak English.  Lucky for me she has to respond when I text her in English, but she does so in Hebrew so it works out.  On the other hand, my roommate, David, speaks to me in English and I speak to him in a mix of Hebrew, English, and words that don't exist.


David is a 26 year old Israeli in school for Engineering and super nice.  So far we've only been home on the same nights twice so we're still getting to know each other, but he's great to live with- super clean, super respectful, offers me all of his food, and plays great Israeli tunes when he's cooking.  Mostly he's in exams right now so he's been busy studying (hah! Just kidding mom, studying is great) but we're working on getting to know each other- he also has nieces and nephews and I think he may invite him whole family for something- I'd love to meet them!  The apartment we live in is really beautiful.  I'm sub-letting from someone who is working at Ramah Nyack this summer and her room is a living room converted into a bed room.  It's literally the biggest room I've ever lived in and as you can imagine if you know me I'm having some trouble keeping it clean but I'm working on it... I make my bed every day so that's a start!  Now that I think about it I don't think I made my bed this morning, but whatever, one step at a time.  We have a great garden in the back yard that is just ours and David and I may plant some flowers, fix the fence, and tile a little path together tomorrow, I'll let you know how that goes.  Over all, very amazing.  Fantastic location- think walking to town is like walking from Columbia to The Abbey, and walking to the market is like walking to the 90s from campus.. but there's no rain and the weather is significantly cooler at night than in NYC.  I'm talking like high 80s during the days but a beautiful 60s at night.


Tel Aviv, on the other hand, is much hotter.  After my Shabbat plans were canceled late Thursday night, I spontaneously went to Tel Aviv for Shabbat (bye David!  See you later!) with good friends from school Ari and Keren.  Kevin, a friend from Columbia, had a car so we took it to Tel Aviv with a stop for pita and salatim (assorted delicious salads, which is the specialty of all Mediterranean cuisine) in Abu Gosh, an Arab town outside of Jerusalem.  My favorite salat that I had was Pumpkin-Hummus... Josh Warshawsky would definitely love it.  Shabbat was wonderful and not very Shabbat-y but a very relaxing first two days in Israel.  We mostly went to the beach, and did a little tiyul (translated as trip, but I prefer excursion) to Ramat Gan where there is a Safari... yes a Safari!  I REALLY wanted to pet the lions but I was strongly advised not to unless I wanted to make the news.  Which actually sounded like fun, so they didn't make such a convincing argument.  We saw some really awesome animals, including but not limited to lions (the cutest), hippos, elephants (which just make me think of Lord of the Rings battle scenes), giraffes, zebras, and tons of other animals- those were just the coolest.  At the beach I tried to cartwheel like twice and failed miserably.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to accomplish that one, folks.

At the Safari in Ramat Gan

Me and Ari on the beach in Tel Aviv

Back to Jerusalem meant time to unpack and figure some stuff out.  It also meant getting home, which was a huge adventure in of itself.  The trip from Ari's apartment in Tel Aviv to my apartment in Jerusalem should have taken 1.5 hours tops... it took us four.  First we took a sherut instead of the bus which definitely was not bringing us to the bus station, so then we transferred (which is not a thing, more like the guy forced another sherut driver to take us somewhere else) to a different sherut which took us "near the bus station and then we could walk."  THANKS guys.  Thankfully Keren has 3g on one of her 4 Israel phones (I'm totally serious, she has 4 phone) so we walked the 20 minutes to the bus station and easily found the bus to Jerusalem.  Keep in mind that I had about 40 shekel, or $10, left in my wallet from our Tel Aviv weekend so cabs were not an option at this point- we had a bus to Jerusalem and a bus to my apartment to go.  Finally in Jerusalem we are waiting for a bus to take us to my apartment where Keren will sleep over so she doesn't have to walk home alone.  But did you know that just last week they changed all the bus routes in Jerusalem?!  Some stayed the same but some did not... including the one we were waiting for.  It was 12:49am, we had been waiting for 30 minutes, and finally we just got on a bus that we thought took us kind of close to my apartment.  And then of course we got off and the turn that I insisted was correct was wrong, so another 25 minutes and help from the gps later we arrived at my glorious apartment.  Keren passed out within 5 minutes and I stayed up for a little while longer before finally calling it a night...and hey!  I still had more than 10 shekel in my wallet by the time we made it home!


I see that this post is getting very long so I'll end with a quick synopsis of classes and write more adventures in new posts.  I began classes at Hebrew University in Jerusalem this week- Conflict Resolution and the other is Israel in Public and International Law.  They both seem really great and I am absolutely shocked by the number of people who have never been to Israel, never spoken Hebrew, or been raised with an understanding of "The Conflict" that is completely different than mine.  For example, granted this is the extreme, one person said in my Conflict Resolution course, "and I'm interested now in how Jews are just realizing all the atrocities that they have been committing."  More about that later....  The commute to Rothberg (the international school of Hebrew U) is not bad at all and I'm only in classes 3 days a week, albiet 3 very long days.  


I'm sure I'll write more this week as I'm finally settling in... some great stories to tell and some awesome weekend plans including seeing cousin Michal tonight and Soldier Bro Jo as I've become accustomed to calling him tomorrow!  And don't worry loyal readers, the quest for the 21 by 21 continues.


Live from Mozi Cafe on Azza Street, I'm off to do some errands and explore some new routes in Jerusalem. And yes, my piece of multigrain bread has become toast in the time that I have taken to write this post....