Tel-Aviv

Saturday, September 5, 2009, Motzei Shabbat
There is a scene in the movie Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (one of my top ten favorite movies) where we get a very romantic tour of London that makes you fall in love with the city in much the same way Woody Allen makes you fall in love with New York. I often feel like I could direct the scene that would make anyone fall in love with my beloved windy city on Lake Michigan, but today I felt the same about Tel-Aviv.
Many people have heard me say that there is no place like Tel-Aviv on a Friday, and I’m sure this is still the case, but this time around my Friday in Tel-Aviv was dramatically changed. As usual, I went to the Carmel Market to do my vegetable shopping. The Carmel has the freshest and cheapest fruits and vegetables available in Israel, and it is loaded with characters, smells, colors, sounds and tastes that are simply delicious.
In my past incarnation as a Tel-Avivi, I would ride to the Carmel on my bike, do my shopping, bring everything home and then go out for beers with my friends into the afternoon before heading to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat dinner at the in-laws. Once we got a car, this ritual changed for the better as I wasn’t trapped without public transportation in a city that has nothing to offer on Shabbat.
This past Friday was much different than in my previous life here. As a parent, the day started with sending off the children to school, and, as this was Friday, I had to accomplish all my errands by noon because of early dismissal. Also, the walk to the Carmel is about 3 times as long from our place in North Tel-Aviv, which makes me glad I bought a basket with wheels for my shopping. Of course, all this will be resolved when our container arrives from the US and we get our bicycles.
Shopping in the Carmel was fun, but the joy was lessened by the extreme heat and long walk. When I passed Choni HaMehagel Street, I was reminded of his story in the Talmud and considered drawing a circle around myself and making a deal with God that I would move when he would make rain. I took a bus home and got off at the Land of Israel Museum where I once worked. It is minutes from our apartment and across the street from the Kibbutz Seminar where I would love to be an adjunct professor of education.
After a small lunch, so we could save room for my mother in law’s wonderful Morrocan Shabbat dinner, Itamar and I went to Park HaYarkon, five minutes from the apartment, to join the Israeli version of Little League. Unlike in Skokie where I have coached for the past three seasons, the Israeli baseball league has semi-professional coaches. Itamar’s is a twenty year old who is still in the army and serves as a physical educator. He is the son of a guy named Larry who made aliyah from New York, I believe, and he coaches in a mix of English and Hebrew; Hebrish, ala the James Brooks movie Spanglish. This coach told the kids about how he was sent over the summer to a MLB training camp where he worked with Barry Larkin of Cincinnati Reds fame and learned drills that really impressed me. What I think he didn’t learn is to match the drill to the age of the player.
In Chicago, Itamar had a personal baseball trainer who we refer to as Pete the UPS guy because he would come watch Skokie Youth Baseball after driving his shift for UPS. Pete would always answer questions I had about training with, “That will come when the kids get older.” It was as if he had a secret trainers manual that broke down the training process into ages. Itamar’s new coach was sharing great exercises with the team, but I think some of them were not completely age appropriate.
After baseball (Is there life after baseball?) we went home and borrowed our car from my brother in law, Lior. We owned a car 13 years ago when we lived here and left it with the family instead of selling it because of complicated tax related reasons that I won’t get into. In this incarnation of our lives in Tel-Aviv, we are hoping not to be car owners, which explains why we borrowed the car from Lior.
Going to Beit Shemesh and having two great meals, dinner and lunch, doesn’t explain much about why Tel-Aviv is amazing, so I will skip forward to Shabbat afternoon.
When we returned to Spring Hill, the translation of Tel-Aviv, Itamar, Sahar and I took a walk to the beach. As this was the first time, we had no idea what was in store for us. We walked out of our neighborhood, Kochav HaTsafon, and headed south on Ibn Gvirol, over the bridge which crosses the Yarkon River, to a beautiful river boardwalk that leads to the sea. On our way, we discovered the unit of scouts (Israel doesn’t segregate boy and girl Scouts) dedicated to sea life. The Sea Scouts, as they are called, have a big clubhouse on the shore of the river where they store lots of boating equipment and have their weekly meetings. We took a brochure, and I hope to send Maya and Sahar to the first meeting on Monday (Itamar is still too young).
From the scouts to the sea is a short walk past the Tel-Aviv pier. The closest beach is called Mitsitsim, Voyeurs Beach, after a movie in the late sixties with the same name that was filmed there. The first impression at this beach was that it couldn’t be Israel because all the stores and restaurants were open. I was also impressed by the crowd. There were hundreds of people, all ages, and there was even an Elvis impersonator playing guitar and singing. The water was the same temperature as the air and there was a good sprinkling of clouds in the sky and breeze from the sea to keep the oppressive sun at bay. When we left the beach, we stopped for hummus in a cozy little restaurant. Sahar said the hummus was, “a hundred times better than anything in America.” I know a better place in Jaffa that I’ll save for her.
In the evening, the family took a walk to Park HaYarkon to the public workout area which reminded me of Muscle Beach at Venice Beach in LA. I did one of my greatest practical jokes of all time at Muscle Beach when I first arrived in LA with my friend Marc. The two of us were getting a tour from my native friend Danny when we stumbled upon Muscle Beach. We were a bit ahead of Danny and decided to knock him off his native high horse. We went to the biggest, strongest guy in the workout area and asked him to play along with our plank, then we got Danny.
“Danny, check this out. It’s so cool.”
“Look at these guys.”
Danny was unimpressed and snobbish. That’s when I went up to our co-conspirator, tapped him on the shoulder, pointed at Danny and said, “That guy called you a fag.”
The guy dropped his 4000 pound weigh, walked up to Danny, pointed at his chest and said, “Did you call me a fag?”
All Danny could say, in perfect Ralph Kramden fashion, was, “Huminah, huminah, huminah.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised in this city of actors that even a muscle bound body builder could act, but he had me totally fooled as well until he laughed and said, “Hah, your friends gotcha.”
Every year before Rosh HaShana, I consider calling Danny and apologizing.

In Park HaYarkon, there are no muscle bound actors, but it is also a place that breaks the image of the scrawny or paunchy scholarly Jew with glasses, a beard and a Talmud under his arm. Everyone in the park was exercising in one way or another. There were people on the machines, people playing basket ball, Israeli folk dancers, joggers and bikers. I felt totally out of place with my glasses and paperback, but I left my family to do their thing while I read.

When we got back to our apartment, I promised Itamar that we would jog through the park in the morning, which we just did, and now I must take a shower before the titanium of my MacBook rusts from my sweat.

Boker Tov Yisrael. Boker ohr, Tel-Aviv.