Kadita

I spent my worst hair-day ever in Kadita.

Thankfully, I was not the only one with coiffure issues.

How do you dress up for a place like Kadita? That's a riddle. This secluded hilltop community looks like nothing else in Israel, to say nothing of the greater Middle East. It's peaceful in the deepest sense of the word.

Kadita should really require nothing in the way of attire. About thirty years ago, a few hippies came and built homes with their own hands on the foothills of Mt. Meron. Their cummnity was never recognized by the state. It is only due to the nearby tomb of Mishnaic sage Rabbi Tarfon that a road even leads there. It's not a very good road.

While driving on it we met a local Druze man who was picking wild dill in the pastures. I believe a secret garden of wild dill deserves for me to comb my hair and put on a nice shirt.

But what Kadita really requires today is a yarmoulka. Much of the community turned religious over the years. We were fortunate enough to be invited into the home of Eliran and Elinor, two devotees of hassidic rabbi Nachman of Breslau. They made us good coffee, gave us some homemade olive oil and boiled eggs from their henhouse for a picnic lunch we planned.


We got to play with their kids, Michael, Noya and Avinoam, in the pleasant winter air. We also heard two very special life stories, though seperately. In Religious Jewish society it would be inacceptible for a man to even speak with a woman not of his family. I stayed in with Eliran and flipped through the photo album of his secular days. Meanwhile, elinor took Itka out, showed her the chickens and introduced her to her nother in law.

Then we were out to roam the hillsides. Itka looks great in rural surroundings,

but she's an unrequited animal lover.


As for me, I felt a natural longing for the grassy knolls and stone fences of Scotland and Ireland. If not for Eliran's overgrown sideburns and timidness towards Itka, I could believe that we've been transported there. Turns out we haven't. Israel is Israel, for better or worse. It offers us gracious Celtic pastures on which to sit and enjoy glatt kosher eggs.

Beagle

I've never owned a dog. I've never even owned a goldfish. I grew up in a blissfully tailless household, under the impression that dogs are smelly, drooly creatures (which they are, let's face it.) Don't get me wrong. I love dogs. I think they are super cute, I just never wanted to call one my own.

You marry a woman - you marry her family, so goes the old saying. When you enter a relationship with a girl who owns a dog, you enter a relationship with whatever dog she fancied before you were around to consult. In the case of Itka, it's Misha: a rather massive, black Amstaf and Labrador combination. Misha is one of the kindest creatures on the face of this planet (second only to her owner) but she's a little dumb and definitely drooly. Moreover, having spent her youth as a stray dog, she's way fond of trash. A good way to break the current speed record for a living creature would be to take her miles away from the nearest pile of trash, then set her free. She will dash like a bullet to that pile of trash and start feasting, afraid as ever that this is her last supper.

Now picture me, fagile urban bastard that I am, pulling her out of the trash. I never even pulled a goldfish out of the trash. However, dear readers, I am excited about the owner of this dog and the things that have been hapenning to us. Our shift from best friends to lovers is one of the most moving things that have ever happened to me. If I want it to last, I must become more of a Doolitle. I'm putting my heart into it.

Then last night Itka went out with Misha for a stroll and failed to come back. An hour passed, the dishes were done, and I headed out to look for her. Jaffa at night shouldn't be dangerous for a girl accompanied by an Amstaf, but what do you know.

The danger came from an unexpected direction. As Itka approached me down lamppost lit Lamartin St. I saw that she's accompanied by another dog. "It took me an hour to make him follow me" she complained, "look at him! he's a puppy, three months old, maybe four."

This puppy is about half the size of Misha, which is much, but he's indeed a puppy, a scared puppy. A handsome mutt, he's blessed with a patch of sharpei squeezy wrinkled fur on his forhead, which makes him look both contemplative and extra adorable. His eyes are super-sad, perhaps partially due to an eye infection, I wouldn't know. He squeeks every once in a while when the new company intimidates him, he's to die for, but hold it a minute. "Look," I tell Itka, "I may have to stay at my place tonight until he gets shots and stuff. I don't know if I'm capable of sleeping in the same house with a stray dog." I've only just gotten used to waking up with Misha slumped over me. I know my limits.

Itka promised to spray him gainst ticks and fleas and lock him for the night on the balcony. She's not intending to keep him. A Jaffa apartment can hold up to one canine. "There are lots of stray dogs in jaffa," she explained to me, "but this one has a chance, he's young, good looking, someone will take care of him, so it doesn't make sense to leave him for the neighborhood kids to torment." Later that night, outside a bar coincidentally named "the Cat and the Dog," we met our beloved friend Y. the spy and decided that she would make a wonderful owner.

"I do want a dog," Y. the spy admitted, "But I want a beagle. I've literally been having dreams of owning a beagle."

This clashed with Itka's worldview, "You mean you're intending to buy a dog?"

"What can I do, I'm dying for a beagle."

"You can name him Beagle," I suggested. Y the spy said she'll think about it. Meanwhile Itka and I returned to a house with two dogs. I slept only too well (though you'd be naive to think Beagle stayed on the balcony), then spent breakfast staring transfixed at how they played some kind of a pretend-biting game with each other. Misha was at her finest, perfectly hospitable and kind. She seemed determined to make little Mr. Beagle feel at home. Itka was doing a wonderful job juggling two dogs and a caninophobic boyfriend. There was special harmony at the apartment this morning, smelly, drooly harmony, the best kind.

I'll conclude with a passage from a children's book by the inimitable Yoram Kaniuk. Sometime in the seventies, when living on a relatively rural area outsied Tel-Aviv, his home became a literal zoo, complete with a donkey. In his book "The House in which Cockroaches Reach Ripe Old Age" he describes a girl and her mother who keep adopting animals to the horror of the father. At one point he exclaims: "That's enough! There are fish here, there are cockroaches and mosquitoes, there's Vered the dog, there's Tanchoum the cat with her kitties and grandkitties, to say nothing of the donkey and the hedgehogs and the turtle. Not another dog!"

But later on he's being interviewed on television as the head of the most colorful household in Israel and suddenly the whole menagerie makes him very proud. At the very end he even cries when one of the cockroaches dies.

Beagle found a loving home in Jerusalem and is renamed Che. Thanks to all who offered to adopt him.

Once

I'll be 32 this Sunday, and am currently looking through my more peculiar achievements: those experiences that were experienced only once.

So in 32 years I skydived once
went snowshoeing once
got married once and divorced once
got stranded on a small island once (for about 30 hours)
got my heart broken once
got my jaw broken once
tried hard drugs once
got arrested once (while protesting environmental issues)
published poetry once
earned my accomodation by reciting poetry once
visited Lichtenstein once (I crossed it on foot!)
Visited Lebanon once (long story)
biked from Holland to Prague once
spent a night at a parking lot once
spent a night inside a window display trailer once
spent a night with a married woman once
met with overt antisemitism once
got spat on once (same occasion)
frenched a tree once (a dare in a truth or dare game)
saved a man's life once
broadcast a radio show once
revealed to a man that his girlfriend was pregnant with another man's child once (don't try this at home)
saw a beaver in the wild once
saw a rattlesnake in the wild once
saw an elephant in the wild once
saw a humpback whale in the wild once
visited a rubber plantation once
touched a dead man once
spoke to a head of state once (Rabin)
saw the pope once
got massaged at a Turkish hamam once
sat in a "smoke sauna" once
sat at the waiting room of a brothel once (didn't use their services)
ate jellyfish salad once
ate blood pudding in blood sauce once
ate "thousend years old eggs" once
ate alligator once and turtle once
drank authentic moonshine once
explored the underground drainage system of a city with a flashlight once
got mugged once
painted a "trial of Paris" once
pretended to be American once
pretended to be French once
pretended to be South African once
pretended to be Macedonian once (traveling the Middle East isn't easy for Israelis)
wore a bindy once
wore fake eyelashes once
had a letter exchange with the governemnt of Saudi Arabia once
shook hands with a Serbian mafia head once
saw actors performing a play I wrote once
lectured at Harvard university once
got paid a live duck for my work once

The nice thing about this list is how difficult it was to assemble. most of the things that came to my mind I had done more than once and so they didn't get a mention. Many of the things that were mentioned, I would love to do again. It's being a great life so far, perfect for reruns.

Fan

A few days ago downtown lover wondered aloud whether peacocks could be found in the wild. I answered positively but in truth wasn't quite sure.

Here in Macedonia, they can be found on the money

and on trees

and just plain out and about.

If you play them right, they will spread for you

If you're really gentle they let you come very close.

But in reality this is a very unpeacocky country. Modest, warm and mind nubmingly beautfiul, it wins the heart effortlessly. I'll do it a favor and spread a little fan for it right here. All these photos were taken over the course of two days with foul photo-weather.



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Hadera, The Final Frontier

The town of Hadera, forty kilometers up the coast from Tel-Aviv, has such a solid reputation as a shithole, that when writing my book about cities in Israel I promptly skipped it (though I did mention it on my blog before, right here). Alas, the publishing house pulled me by the ear and forced me to board the train headed there. Alon waited for me at the train station, his camera prepared to immortalize dullness.

Five hours later we were at the far end of a 2,400 meter long wharf sticking out into the windy Mediterranean. Beneath us were jellyfish over one meter in diameter. We've just been inside a smokestack 300 meters tall, currently the tallest structure in the Middle East. The wind was insane. We were feeling just fine.

That wharf is a coal terminal for the local power plant. I'm not mad about coal-powered power plants, but in terrorism-prone Israel, nuclear is scary, and until they get their act together and harness the sun and wind, coal is somehow acceptable. In terms of Hadera tourism, it's a serious treasure.

Not that Hadera lacks anything. It's got an historic clifftop-Bauhaus-mansion-coffee-shop, a park pond full of fish so precious that a guard has to be placed there to protect them, and an outdoor market offering the biggest strawberries I've ever seen (certainly in January). Once more I learn that prejudice towards places is similar to racism and makes about as much sense.

P.S. The real final frontier is as always Jaffa. There's a stray horse, a beautiful white Arabian, hanging around my neighborhood for about a week now. On my walk back home from the pub tonight it followed me part of the way. Cute as can be!

This was the first time I noticed his limp, which is probably the cause of the abandonemnt. I reported this to the city's veterinarian service, which has a 24 hour hotline, and asked them to keep me informed on where he's taken to and how he's being treated. They promised they will, let's hope they stay true to their word.

Sheep on Street

Efros sits with her back to the living room window. "There's a sheep on your street," she says.

"You heard a baa?"

"I did."

I look out the window and there really is a sheep on the street, two kids are riding cute little fillies about it, trying to herd it towards the nearby gravelly lot. I exclaim something or other, but what really amazes me is that she recognized it wasn't a goat.