Grand Canyon in Tel Aviv

I've been on a bit of a blogging break during Sukkot, but now the Jewish holiday bonanza is over for a while and I am getting back on the horse. We went to Tel Aviv over the break. It was fun, very different from Jerusalem. We had to scramble to find kosher restaurants. We went to the beach and then the next day we went to nachalat binyamin where there is a big arts and crafts fair which was packed with people. Based on my observations, I think there are probably modesty patrols at work in Tel Aviv: they run around and if they catch women dressed too modestly they make them take off some clothes. (I notice expansive cleavage solely in my function as blogger and recorder of Israeli cultural norms). It was particularly striking because a day or two before in Jerusalem it had rained and the temperature had dropped to like 15 degrees or something horrifiyingly cold like that. I saw one person, an ethopian guy wearing a big sweater and a scarf. Anyway, we rode the bus back from TA with the boys sitting in the aisle, Israeli style. Hoshanah rabba, the last day of sukkot I walked to the kotel. I walked outside the old city to the dung gate which takes you past silwan which is an arab part of east jerusalem . The road gives you a great view. There is a lot of talk in the Jerusalem mayoral election (nov 11 More to follow about crazy Jerusalem politics) about dividing the city. It is funny because the left generally supports the idea of dividing the city while the right opposes it. Generally I am pretty far to the left, and if dividing Jerusalem helps people get to a peaceful solution I am all for it I guess, but I find the idea weirdly counter-intuitive, ie. that the way to help people live together better is to put a wall or barrier between them. It is hard to imagine wanting to further de-integrate the city, but what do I know. When you look at Silwan and Abu Tor from the Old City it is pretty hard to imagine how dividing the city would work practically, since the city is a patchwork. I wished the Arab people I saw "subach al hir", good morning, one of my few arabic phrases and one lady who was taking out the garbage right next to the old city said subach al hir and chag sameach (hebrew for "happy holiday".)
The praying was crazy, hot and chaotic with the constant threat of getting poked in the eye with a palm branch. I got down there around 9:15 am. Started out at a Sephardi service which looked like it might well take until 3 in the afternoon, bailed. Tried to pray on my own but after getting madly jostled for a while joined in with some chasidim. couldn't follow what they were up to. There was an ethiopian guy wearing the traditional turban and a sipowitz short sleeved shirt and tie combo (impossible in the blazing heat but not as impossible as the long black kapotes and FUR shreimels the haredi guys were wearing). He was looking for a lulav and etrog to shake so I shared mine (lulav and etrog = the bunch of four plant species that is waved around on the holiday... and if you are asking yourself Why? or Wa-hun? then you are at about the same point I was). It was gonzo but kind of fun in retrospect.

I'd like to give a big shout out to my gis and devoted reader Avidan who, a propos of my recent postings about birds, drew my attention to an article about the Nesher/Eagle/Griffon Vulture on a weird but intriguing site called Zoo Torah by Rabbi Nosson Slifkin. There is a long and interesting discussion there about the exact identity of the biblical Nesher which includes the truly alarming detail from the Talmud; the Nesher's gizzards cannot be peeled. And here I had been trying to peel Nesher gizzards all this time and just thinking I was doing it wrong, using the wrong fork or failing to chill them first... But no you can't do it, so forget it. Whip that little datum out at your next cocktail party!
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