The Amália Lesson

Sometimes we get lucky. A dear friend working in the diplomatic community invited me and my girl to the grand opening of the Portuguese film festival in Tel Aviv. We didn’t even know what movie was to be screened, but enjoyed the port served in small glasses and the company of dignitaries wearing neckties. Israeli society is extremely informal and the attire common at events of the international community make one feel pleasantly “abroad.” Then we stepped into the theatre, the lights were dimmed and suddenly we were back home.

The film was named “Amália,” and told the story of Fado legend Amália Rodrigues. Its first scene showed a 1974 concert Rodrigues gave in Lisbon, only a few days after the Carnation Revolution was completed and the totalitarian Nova Estado regime toppled. As the singer joins her musicians onstage, the crowd erupts in protest. Someone yells: “Fascist!” another: “Your beloved Salazar is gone! What will you do now?”

Rodrigues, portrayed by the talented Sandra Barata, began singing, and I began thinking of the West Bank settlement of Ariel. In recent weeks the arts scene here gushed over the opening of the first center for the performing arts across the Green Line. Major Israeli theatres, among them the national theatre “Habima,” are scheduled to send their productions there in the coming year.

About 50 members of the Israeli theatre scene signed a letter stating that they would refuse to perform in the occupied territories. This won them plenty of disdain from the Israeli public and reprimands from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture. Quickly, this exceedingly rare act of protest by Israeli performing artists began to fall apart. Several of the signatories demanded that their names be removed from the letter, citing a “misunderstanding.”

Who's misunderstanding what? Amália Rodrigues misunderstood history. She refused to be the people’s voice against a corrupt and violent regieme. Historians now tell us that she did support dissidents in secret, and in the film she is shown bribing an official in order to free a poet friend who was taken a political prisoner. Still, in public she never said a word against Salazar and his murderous PIDE policing force. She drank chapmagne with him while others were tortured by his thugs. She could not see past the present moment to a future in which Salazar would be seen worldwide as Portugal’s greatest historical enemy. Her reputation survived (with a voice like hers, how could it not?), but it suffered as well.

The artists who agree to perform in Ariel, and those who fear voicing an opinion against the use of Israeli culture in reinforcing the occupation, see only the present and only the narrow local perspective. Around here, the occupation is taken with a shrug. Most Israelis accept Ariel as being “Israel proper” depite the fact it’s built in the very heart of the West Bank, designed so as to render direct transportation between Ramallah and Nablus impossible. We’ve been taught not to care that its sewage is polluting the water of nearby Palestinian town Salfit, or that it was built largely on land stolen from local farmers, or that its existence forces hundreds of thousands to go through humiliating checkpoints, or that its very existence is a huge obstacle on the way to the peace we all say we want.

The artists who accept such notions and embrace the settlements may one day find themselves facing a hostile audience (as they already would – abroad). Times change, regimes fall, occupations end. I would advise every Israeli artist to think about Amália Rodrigues, then think about singers who took the cause of human rights and liberty even when those were unpopular or unsanctioned: Mercedes Sosa in Argentina, Victor Jarra and Violetta Parra in Chile, Vladimir Vysotsky in the Soviet Union, Fela Kuti in Nigeria and more, and more. Think about all of them, dear artists, and ask yourselves who would you rather be.

(this post also appears on +972, the new joint initiative of English-blogging Israelis.)

Worse than Jewish

Thursday night, the Israeli opera performed its rendition of Bizet's "Carmen" at Hayarkon Park. 70,000 culture enthusiasts came to watch poor Corporal Don Jose choose to defect for the love of a cigarette factory girl, only to get dumped for Escamillo the bull-fighter.

The performance was splendid. Rinat Shaham was both intense and precise in the title role. It was as though the open air inspired her to be a more powerful, charismatic Carmen that the one she was at the Tel-Aviv Opera House. Mayor Ron Huldai acted as the evening's MC. While sets were replaced between acts, he filled the audience up on the plot, some which became a little blurry due to cuts and omissions.

Huldai also gave some background on the opera but did not go into analysis and criticism. Thus a very crucial aspect of Carmen did not come up that evening in the park: the fact that it's a work full of ethnic prejudice.

Carmen is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. In the prose text, Don Jose is recounting his misadventures to a prison cell-mate. "I should never have gone with such a woman," he tells him. "After all, we all know her kind."

"Is she Jewish?" asks the cell mate.

"Worse," says Don Jose, "She's a Gypsy."

۞

For me as a Jew, it's almost calming to hear that the Roma were considered "worse" than us in Mérimée's 19th century Europe. They certainly are considered "worse" these days. In contemporary Scandinavia, for example, I found that disdain toward the Roma is largely acceptable and may be voiced freely, while antisemitism certainly isn't. Why is that so? Both ethnicities burned shoulder to shoulder in Auschwitz, did they not?

They did, but the Romani historical foundations and political lobbies were never very effective or efficient. This is partially how come French President Nicolas Sarkozy could this week announce his plan to deport all Romas without proper French documents.

Sarkozy, his Minister of the interior, Brice Hortefeux, and the Secretary of State of European Affairs, Pierre Lellouche, claim that French is swamped by Roma who moved in from the most recent EU members in the Balkans, that this had caused a culmination in theft and drug trade.

I don't doubt that Roma culture tolerates petty crime far more than mainstream European culture does, but Sarkozy has far greater thieves to worry about: corporate thieves who steal in a day more that what a Roma settlement would steal in a decade. Besides, even if the Roma are involved in crime, there is no greater crime than to reinforce a damaging stigma placed on a community and deem this community unwanted.

۞

It's sad to see this taking place in France. French Roma are known for being progressive and open. Traveling in rural France I often received lifts from Gypsies, pitched my tent among their trailers in Sts. Maries de la Mer, spoke to them and learned of their world.

Of all Roma societies, this is the one most welcoming to the non-ethnic Roma traveler, providing an alternative for those who couldn't take the burdon of mainstream French life. It's also open to the world - French Manouche Gypsies were the first to integrate western pop music into their musical repertoire. Modern Jazz would be unthinkable without the blessed influence of Django Reinhardt, pictured above.

French Roma had a modernizing influence on their Spanish neighbors and would doubtlessly have a similar effect on Balkan newcomers. By singling those newcomers out, Sarkouzy is causing great damage to their French brethren. He is identifying Gypsies in general as thieves, drug dealers and a burden on society. Worse than Jews? Much worse.

Is it any surprise that this is happening in the one European country where the Roma have become most integrated? The Jewish community of Weimar Germany was more modern and culturally assimilated than any other in Europe. Rather than embrace this, the Germans perceived the Jews as a threat and acted accordingly.

Europeans have portrayed the Roma as a treacherous woman who would pick your wallet or your heart, whichever she gets her hands on first. Gypsies have always been taken for a threat, so legislation against them is almost inevitable, but it is tragic and disgusting nonetheless.

۞

I can't really conclude this without a word about the semi-nomadic people of this land. This passing week. 1,300 Israeli policemen arrived at dawn to the Bedouine village of Al-Arakib, evacuated its hundreds of residents and demolished it entirely. Al -Arakib, a shanty town north of Beer-Sheva, had existed since before the founding of the state of Israel, but it's located within a ring of land around the city which the state wishes to preserve as "Bedouine free".

45 houses were demolished in the village, which means hundreds of homeless souls. The Israeli press paid minimal attention to the event. In the two largest newspapers it recieved no mention at all. In place of Al-Arakib, the Jewish national fund intends to plant a grove of pine.

Frankfurt Dream

In my dream I was on the tarmac in Frankfurt's airport, gazing through the oval hatch at the air traffic controllers as they perform their elegant dance-of-the-orange-rods before the gargantuan airplanes. I soon got tired and wondered aloud when we would take off. The passenger seated beside me said that we were grounded and I might as well just leave the plane and go for a stroll.

So I walked out of the airport and into a nearby suburb of Frankfurt. It turned out to be an historical town, with quaint streets winding twixt medieval houses. Evening was falling and lights were coming on in the houses. One door was open, letting warm yellow light pour out onto the narrow sidewalk. From within I heard the chatter of young people and the shuffle of kitchenware. I walked in and up a steep staircase, an uninvited guest.

atop the stairs was a corridor running between many doors. Evidently, this was a students' apartment. Several young men and women from around the world walked here and there, speaking English to each other. Some on their way to the kitchen, some to see friends outside. The place seemed to be accustomed to strangers since no one paid me much mind.

Still, I felt uneasy being there. After stopping in the kitchen and chatting with some petite latino girl who was cooking lentils inside a great pot, I left the flat and returned to the street. I walked downhill, searching for river Main and for a glimpse of Frankfurt's famous skyline. The suburb had a modernist center with modest glass highrises and a waterfront cycle lane. at some point the river and the lane separated, the river disappeared among the rushes, and across the dark asphalt of the lane appeared home.

Home: a barren hill of chalk, topped with the separation wall. Mediterranean bushes grew on the slope, climbing over old stone ruins on their way to the concrete crest. The side of the bike lane closer to home was dustier. I was almost tempted to step over it and climb the hill but then stalled and looked back to the suburb of Frankfurt, which was there alright, and looked back to the Jerusalemite hill, which was there alright, and woke up.

(artwork: "Germany and Poland" by Joshua Neustein, taken from the Moonriver's fantastic treasury.)

Germans

The first time I ever met a German, I slept with her, or rather - next to her. I had no choice. I was 18 years old and trapped on a chilly mountaintop on the island of Crete. With me was a Geordie chap my age named Alex, whom I met on the ferry over. We missed the last bus descending to the valley and ended up building a campfire not far from two blond girls who were putting up a tent.

Finally we amassed the courage, invited them to sit by our fire and in return received an invitation to sleep the night in their tent. The chill was intensifying as we entered, they saved our lives, no less. I lay by the chubby one, careful not to disrespect my hostess despite the narrow space. She giggled through the night in her sleep, as sweet a person as I've ever known.

Hitler came up the next morning, as we all descended into the gorge of Samaria. I think I brought him up. I've been bringing him up since when meeting Germans, an act that simultaneously breaks and forms the ice. Ultimately, young Germans and young Israelis are like-minded about history, although I did find a few of my German friends to be undereducated about it. I would use German terms such as "Einsatzgruppen" (SS death squads, responsible for systematic massacres) and notice a raised brow. My teachers taught it, theirs didn't.

Then again, you speak to young Israelis about the massacre of Kafar Qasem, inspired by the same Einsatzgruppen, and recieve a similar raised brow. We never like to look at our own faults, but we do like to look at the faults of others and in that Germany is an underprevilaged nation. While all of Europe is taking the case of the Palestinians and faces Israel with hard questions, the Germans are forced to go easy on us. No one likes to have "Look who's talking" thrown in their faces.

This isn't a new story, of course. I heard that journalists who get a job with "Bild", Europe's most succesful tabloid, published in Berlin, must sign a form stating they will never write anything critical of Israel. These days, as international media screams in joyful rage, Bild journalists must be tearing their hair out much of the time.

The Bild is unhelpful, but in general the German media's dillema is a good thing. Bereft of the mandate to be unreasonable, it must be mature in its treatment of Israel. Those who read my blog regularly know exactly how much I encourage criticism of Israel, but if it isn't fair it's not pragmatic. Germany is a country that can produce mature, helpful criticism at this time, and I hope it picks up the glove and does so.

Not only the press is influential. Last night I had an astounding theatrical experience. Frankfurt's Mousonturm theatre brought to Tel-Aviv it's production of "My First Sony", a theatrical interpertation of a Hebrew novel by Benny Barbash. The director, Stephane Bittoun, is German-Jewish. He staged a terrificaly subtle presentation of one Israeli family's decomposition, one that is so humorous and elegant one doesn't quite understand how come it moves us to tears. This is the greatness of German theatre since Brecht. It does not seek to emulate life, thus it is life.

All the family's misadventures are recorded by one of the children on a primitive tape recorder. The entire play is a record of things that have been, which is what our present is due to become. Bittoun's all German crew treat Israel's enormously complex present with a mix of courage and elegance. Everything is there, the settlements, the Einsatzgruppen, the emotionality of being Israeli.

Itka and I were standing outside the Kameri theatre, wiping tears from our eyes. "My First Sony" was a promise. There's a culture besides our own that shares our history and has the capacity to contribute to our future. It's endowed with the sensativity to see what's happening here and the responsibility to treat it tastefully, carefully, maturely. I wouldn't expect much from "Bild", but other Berliners can be true allies to all of us here, Israelis and Palestinians alike.

I take that promise seriously and am glad for it. Hence, I will be rooting for Germany on Sunday as it faces England at the world cup. Somewhere out there, my kind German host from that Cretan mountaintop will be cheering along.

(Image on top is of my dear friends in Berlin-Neukölln, twin city to Bat-Yam, Israel.)

There

I met my old lover on the street last night. She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled. Later I dreamt of Madrid, the city in which we spent our only vacation.

In my dream I was south of Madrid, at an amusement park, with Itka. It was in fact Virginia's "King's Dominion" where my family used to go for fun when we lived in Washington D.C.

Ok, but in my dream it was south of Madrid, not D.C. and we only had that day to be in Madrid. Itka was in a sexy swimsuit and I was trying to get her to dress up so we make it to the subway train and hit town, otherwise we'd miss our last few Spanish hours. I did my best to excite her by describing Madrid's structure: East to west goes Gran Via.

South of it is the old center, north is Bohemian Malasaña. This arresting boulevard meets the corso Del Prado going north to south, with Uptownish Salamnaca and the beautiful park El Retiro to its east. So really Madrid is a cross.

It's the cross I bear, like anywhere in Europe, Europe that murdered my family, Europe that taught me culture, Europe that fed me fine chocolates, Europe that broke my heart time and again. I dream of europe like crazy. I dream of old loves, European old loves. I don't even miss them, I just dream.

I read of Swedish author Henning Menkel imprisoned in Beer Sheva's dour prison following his participation in the Gaza flotilla, and I nearly weep. My heart is Swedish, my eyes are Croatian, My feet are Italian. I'm not speaking poetically. My roots are in Europe. My grandparents spoke Polish, Hungarian, Russian and Romanian. I ventured into that continent as a teenager, seeking love. Found some love, still came back here. Why? Does being a Humus lover really make me a Middle Easterner?

Israel is the first colonial society that das no "mother country". There's nowhere for us to return to. When the state was founded this was even worse. Not even the U.S. accepted Holocaust refugees until 1949. We were all homeless souls doomed to the colonialist deed.

We still are. Following 43 years of brutal occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, all partially paid for by my tax money, I would readily leave the Middle East if anyone offered me a foreign citizenship, but no one does. The world really is hypocritical. You don't like us being here? Show us the way out.

Currently the way out is only in dreams. I paid 1500 Euros worth to social security and another 1600 to Tel-Aviv's municipality over the past two weeks. I don't even have enough money to vacation by the sea of Galilee, never mind breath the moist air of Brussels. Maybe it's better that way, My friend Alma writes from Weimar that she feels threatened for the first time since coming there as a student, at least in Trukish grocery stores.

Nevertheless, she loves Thuringia. Here's a photo she took there, posted in an album entiteld "I can't believe I live here".

I can't believe I live here, in a land where right wing thugs throw smoke grenades into peace demonstrations, as happened tonight, where the army spreads doctored videos to try and cover up its viciousness, as it admitted to have done tonight. My old lover whom I've met on the street is going to spend the summer in Europe, blissfully. I know that this bliss is never complete, wherever we go we carry Israel on our backs like a cheap un-orthopedic rucksack, yet there's a comfort to being away, in green pastures where we once belonged.

Föhn

Why am I dreaming about Switzerland, night after night?

Is it because I want my county “cantonized”? I certainly wouldn't object to it. Imagine the territory between the Jordan and the sea split into cantons based on Arab or Jewish majorities, imagine referendums, a loose centrist government... something could come of this place after all.

Is it because I'm yearning for a Wilhelm Tell? Perhaps. A man must have a myth or two to hang on to, a healthy national symbol to call his own. We have the legendary amputee Joseph Trumpeldor, but he's famed for saying: "It is good to die for one's country" on his dying breath. I don't subscribe to this phrase. Poet Wilfrid Owen rightly noted that upon knowing the horrors of war -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Knowing something of these horrors, I prefer to dream of Switzerland's pastures than the thorns of upper Galilee. The Swiss manage to keep Wilhelm Tell as a symbol. That's enviable. In this country, a man stopped at a roadblock and forced by soldiers of an occupying army a to endanger his son's life can only be a hero of the other side.

Why am I dreaming of Switzerland? Maybe simply because I miss it. I miss the days of adventure that led me like the through its valleys like the föhn, the warm wind.

Hitchhiking in the Bernese highlands, a driver warned me of the föhn. "It's an old wind that's trapped between the mountains" he said. "It comes into the valley and everything heats up, then everything looks very clear, the colors are sharpened, and afterwards people experience headaches."

This wind caught up with me in Interlaken, brightening everything. I felt no headache, I felt elated. The mountains sloped seductive, unattainable and just plain outragously gorgeous directly into the water. The chubby warden at the hostel invited me and an American girl for a fondue dinner at her home. We will buy the Gruyère, she'll take care of the rest.

A week later, near Lucerne, I discovered the wonders of raclette in the farm of complete strangers who were just a spontaneously hospitable. Who said the Swiss were cold and arrogant? I would like to introduce them to my kind hosts in Watwil, in Bern, in Fribourg, in Winterthur... Switzerland lavished its franks on a traveling street musician and was the easiest country in Europe to hitchhike.

One of the more memorable lift I cought there left St. Gallen in the middle of the night. I couldn't find much to do in the town and headed for the road. Two girls were already there, sticking their thumbs out by the side of eastbound road. I joined them.

One of the girls was Swiss, the other - a Bosnian Refugee. they were headed for the shores of lake Constance, to a Bosnian club that turned out to be a dump complete with vinyl curtains befitting a cheap bordello and an awful singer accompanying himself on a keyboard.

We went outside and built a fire on the waterfront. I played some songs for them on the guitar, then tried to get the Bosnian to tell me about her fresh war memories.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,

She preferred not to tell. "I've seen everything," she said, "that's all I can really say."

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori

Before dawn we ran out of firewood. Chill crept in. We walked back into the town of Rorschach, found an unlocked door and entered. We were in the hallway of a small apartment building, protected from the wind. There, on the stairs, we fell asleep like dogs, until some tennant of the building went down for the newspaper, bumped into us and invited us up for a cup of hot chocolate and a shower.

You may call this laughable. You may say, as many cynical Israelis would, that in real time Switzerland was not so keen on offering breakfast to refugees and to Jews. That's as may be, but we don't treat our refugees very well either. I don't see many Israelis volunteering to drive them inland from the Egyptian border, as Swiss activists did during the Holocaust (refugees who reached Cantons not bordering reich territory were not deported). You may mention stolen assets that were kept for decades in safes underneath Geneva's pavements. You may speak of arrogant Europeans who come here and take sides out of self righteousness. I'm no expert on such things. All I know is that I've been to the land of peace and that it treated me well, well enough that I would dream of it every night and wake up inspired.

Aux Armes

Sitting on a bus going through the slushy Polish countryside, I overhear a conversation about the two Warsaw insurrections, that of 1943, and that of 1944.

Oops. what is that about? I grew up learning of only one insurrection, the insanely heroic, ill-fated Ghetto uprising of 1943. I interfere the Pole and the Englishwoman who are chatting behind me and ask them about the other one.

The Pole then tells me an amazing story: As the Red Army was nearing the Vistula, in 1944, the people of Warsaw decided to take arms against the Nazis, in hope that Russian aid was near.

The Russians chose to wait west of the river and let the locals "do the job". While they waited, 250,000 Warsaw residents died in battle or were murdered by the Nazis. After two months of strife. The Germans kicked everyone out of the city and burned it to the ground as an act of revenge. 80% of Warsaw was destroyed, the carnage was greater than that of any other European city.

Dramatic, ha? How come I've never heard of any of this? I'm 33 years old, my roots are Polish, my people's history is strongly interwoven with that of the Polish people, but none of it was ever told to me in class, in Yad Vashem, in conversation about history... It seems as tough the Israeli education system makes sure we see no one's disaster but our own.

Is it an accidental hole in our education? I doubt it. Keeping silent about the suffering of others, or belittling it to the point that it's "not even worth mentioning", facilitates portraying us as eternal victims and the rest of the world as antisemitic. I hate to say so, but ignorance is a political tool in Israel, as it is in many other places.

It works, too. If you ask most Israelis about the relationship between Poles and Germans during the Holocaust, they'll tell you the Poles are an antisemitic people who handed Jews in to the Nazis gladly. No word about insurrections, about the murder of multitudes, about Polish prisoners in the camps, about destroyed cities.

We are vaguely aware of Poles who protected Jews, the "righteous among the nations". i'm glad about that, but even that is a Jewish issue. We know nothing of the disaster suffered by Poland during the war. The first time I arrived in this country, after finishing 12 years of Israeli schooling, I was stunned, no one told me any of this, and for a reason.

Last summer I traveled through Galizia with a group of Israeli guides who show the death camps to groups of Israeli schoolkids. the tour, organized by the polish government, was meant to show the guides "Polish Poland" so that they can give students background on the country, not only from a Holocaust perspective. Jewish and holocaust sites were also featured by the Polish planners, but they were not the focus.

For the most part, the Polish sites were canceled by the Israelis, who cared nothing for them. On several days we ended up visiting only Jewish sites, especially the remains of old synagogues, sometimes four in a day. Those additions to the program were truly moving places, relics of the tragically lost world of Galizian Jewery, but focusing on them beats the purpose: to learn more about something besides our own history.

It is very important that we develop empathy, because we seek empathy. It is also important because without empathy, compassion is impossible, and in our situation in the Middle East we must develop a capacity for compassion.

Knowing of the suffering of others is the key to both empathy and compassion. The Israeli ministry of education, especially under the current minister Gideon Saar, consciously keeps that information away from students, and not only in the case of Poland. prefer unquestioned patriotism to these two qualities.

Least Romantic City?

Itka and I are off to Warsaw tonight, each as correspondant of a different paper (I had to let the organizers know that Israel-Hayom and Maariv are sharing a bedroom). The Poles invited us to attend the openning of the international Chopin year, including recitals by such legends as Kissin, Demidenko and Barenboim, plus a concert conducted by the artful Franz Bruggen.

200 years after his birth, Chopin turns out to be a hard sell. I had to give up on a major magazine article for the weekly supplement and settle for 800 words in the daily culture pages. That's a shame because I had a killer concept. Chopin gets me high. I hear the first notes of "Impromptu Fantasie" and my spirit soars. I could sell Chopin to Indonesian villagers whove heard nothing but Gamelan music their entire lives. I'll use those 800 words to the outmost, do trust.

Warsaw makes me far less ecstatic. I've been there twice so far (all photos are from the latest visit, last year) and each time found it to be Europe's least romantic city. It's none of Warsaw's fault, of course. It was known as the most perfectly demolished city of all those harmed by WWII. It then went under the hammer and sickle for too long. But There's more to this than bad history. I've heard it being described as "the epitomy of all that is not exotic", and found that notion spring to mind with every bite into the bland local sausages.

In other words, Warsaw is a city that demands an effort, it does not offer itself. With five days on our hands, we'll try and discover it. The hypothesis: it's wonderful, it's sexy, it's breathtaking. I'll update you later, as we emerge out of the alleyways of the Praga and the clubs off Marszałkowska. If we're still not into it, you're welcome to take our place in the philharmonic hall when Chopin turns 300.

La Strada

30 kilometer's east of Paris is a place called Bussy St. Georges. It looks like this:

Bussy St. Georges, one of the world's most artificial suburbs, happens to be precious to freewheeling ramblers, the kind who would never pick it as a place of residence. This is because right next to this peaceful, cookie-cutter nowhere, runs the freeway. On it is the first convenient service station for hitch-hiking east. Old habits die hard and since the mid Nineties, when I thumbed my way down Europe's highways, hitch-hiking has been my sport. All I need is a nice day in late March, an equally adventurous partner, and a coveniant station. There it is, in the distance.

How does one get there? How does a couple, traveling with two suitcases weighing 49 kilos in total, two backpacks and a guitar get there? It takes making a quick tactical plan, then climbing down.


then schlepping the goods to the pumps.

Sounds difficult? it was, but it was worth it too. As soon as we hit the station, and I mean instantly, we were approached by Bertrand, a French businessman in the scaffolding industry. Bertrand was on his way to Austria on business. He asked if we would be his chauffeurs. Would we mind driving him to Germany while he works and naps in the back?

No problem, Bertrand, just hand us the keys to the Mercedes.


We were delighted. Our flight was to leave the following evening from Frankfurt airport. A direct lift (well, not quite a lift) across the border was a gift. Add to this the lack of speed limit on the German highways, (Itka just loved going over 200 kph) and the German dinner to which Bertrand treated us when our roads parted by Mannheim, and you have two happy campers.

This was the easy lag of the trip. The gas station in Mannheim turned out to be a tougher nut than the one in Bussy St. Georges. We had to roll our stuff through the dark countryside to get across the freeway and head back north (Bertrand's route took us a tad too far south),

then got a lift with a Greek truck driver who spoke little English or German and ended up on the wrong road,

then got trapped in a derelict station in the Rheinland, where I tried to amuse us by attempting to pick out a goofy toy dragon, chosen by Itka, out of one of these impossible machines. Didn't work, and our hitching luck ran out. By 1:00 AM we were still there and decided to take a cab to the nearest town: Bingen on the Rhine.

We got a nice hotel in Bingen, but still enjoyed a nap the following day, in the shadow of the old castle in Oberwesel. Even the mixture of rough travel and easygoing travel can be exhausting. It's baffling, how I made it through five years of penniless travel during my early twenties. I did it, though, and it benefited me in two ways:

1. I know where the pretty places are.


2. I really appreciate boar done in truffles and a perfect Riesling, served in a castle overlooking the Rhine, now the I can have it.

A Farewell to Charms

Today is our last day in Paris, last call for mignon of pork in vanilla sauce, for late night cigarellos consumed in the cold breeze of Rue Timbaud, for the "bling!" the Metro pass makes when passed over the scanner, for hanging with trombone players, cinema maniacs, Amnesty activists, Albanian vagabonds and sharply dressed gay dancers from Cameroon. for spending hours on hours vintage shopping (or sipping Calvados at a cafe while the other is spending hours on hours vintage shopping, depending which one of us you are), for getting a nice flame in the fireplace, for those bloody rooftops I love so much.

You can be pretty sure I'm not going to spend this day blogging.

Tigers

Normally it's exceedingly easy to find lifts to Paris on the Dover-Calais ferry. This time it was impossible. No one was going our way, or if they did, their cars were packed, or they didn't want to pick up hitchers. We were pretty sure we'd have to put the 82 Euros into the train, which is bit depressing at this point in our low budget trip. Only the high speed TGV trains run between Paris and Calais and the prices are unreasonable.

Then, as we were being embraced by the concrete jetty arms of the continent, somebody said yes. They were two dark skinned men, Londoners on their way directly to Paris. On their dashboard was nestled a little, multi-armed Hindu god. Itka and I began a Hebrew guessing game, spelling terms that would betray our topic.

"It's pretty obvious which subcontinent they're from," she said.

"Yes, but they could also be from S-r-i L-a-n-k-a, for example, or B-e-n-g-l-a D-e-s-h. Though most people from S-r-i L-a-n-k-a are Buddhists, and people from B-e-n-g-l-a D-e-s-h are usually Muslim and don't really look like this. By their looks I would guess that they're T-a-m-i-l-s."

"That's good. I've always been a fan of t-i-g-e-r-s."

The car deck was opened and we disembarked into the French night. The driver and his friend needed some help navigating onto the relevant autoroute, so we began chatting and actually asked them where they were from.

"Sri Lanka," said the driver, "You know Tamil Tigers?"

"It's my favorite guerrilla army," Itka told them.

"We are Tamil Tigers," said the other man, and, perhaps in order to sound not in the least threatening, added: "You should know that Tamil Tigers are always serious, Tamil Tigers never smoke, never drink." in a split second Tamil Tigers also stopped being Itka's favorite guerrilla army. Sic transit gloria mundi. She later admitted she anyway favored them mostly thanks to their sexy name.

The pair handed us a CD of militant Tiger songs. On the cover was an image of the Tigers' mustachioed leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, in camouflage gear. They then played it for us - Indian Music with a snare drum.

These fellows were no simple fans. They were hardcore. The way the man at the shotgun said "we are Tamil Tigers" made it clear that being Tigers and caring for their organization was, if not their 9 to 5, at least a major occupation for both. The LTTE, mind you, is considered a terrorist organization in both Britain and France. During the 20th century, the Tigers have carried more suicide bombings than all Islamic terrorist groups combined. problem is that their foes, the Sri Lankan government and army, are not any better, and they are recognized as a sovereign state. "I'm very sorry about what your people are going through right now," I said, "I know most of the north was taken over and the press is not allowed to enter and report, there must be slaughters going on."

"Yes," said the driver, "but we kill more than 200 Sri Lankan soldiers each day."

Outside, along the nocturnal highway, signs were advertising historical attractions in the region, mostly pretty castles. We stopped at a service station and were treated to two cans of Red Bull by the driver and his friend. It was hard to believe, while traveling this excellent highway, that Northen Sri Lanka even exists, but it's almost equally hard to believe that when in Southern Sri Lanka. I remember having a pleasant "Lion" beer at a beach-front cafe in Rathgama, just south of Colombo. With me was a Dutch journalist who made it across the lines. He showed me photos of another world, a funerary world, one in which our ferry from Dover somehow briefly docked.

The Promised England

Here's where we spent yesterday: at "the Jungle", a makeshift migrant slum in the forest near Calais France. It is there that nearly a thousend migrants, from Afganistan, Eritrea and elsewhere await a chance to enter the land of their dreams: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Jungle is an obcenely harsh place, a landmark of a government's disregard for human wellbeing and dignity. Our reportage from there is to be published in Haaretz and should prove the most meaningful piece of the French month's output, but that's not what I want to tell you about. I'd like to tell you about these people's paradise.


With our decent passports, it took us ten minutes to hitch a lift to the Dover ferry. within 90 minutes we were across the Channel. It did look good, that England.


after several pints of Kentish bitter at a family owned pub, crowded with dogs and children, it looked even better.

so good, in fact, that we decided to stay the night and walked over the fields and pastures that grace the clifftop to the town of Deal. Here we found yet another pub, The king's head, it offered cheap rooms, good atmosphere and a cardiologically disasterous breakfast.

However, stepping out of the King's Head this morning we realized how mislead all these immigrants are. England is no El Dorado. In fact, it is a grim chip-shop freezer of a country looking something like what you see below. A morning walk down Deal's pier was simply punishing. Can we get used to English weather? Is the Jungle preferable? We'll spend another day of good ale and healthy chat and let you know.

Terry poison

It's only normal, sometimes your living room becomes a dressing room for the world's sexiest electro-pop band.


and your study becomes where they jam pre-show.

Terry Poison, Israel's finest export product, came to perform at la Fleche D'or, a Parisian music club, just down the street from where we're staying. Since Itka used to be their production manager, their guitar player, Anna, became our house guest for two nights, and the little house on rue Florian served as venue for the pre-show toast. From there it was only a few steps to the club.



It's situated in an old railway station on Paris's now defunct Petite Sainture line, and is the kind of place where people play limbo with each-other's legs.

and where a pretzel dry, solidly dressed punk act can draw cries of praise even from the Terry Poison crew. That was the warm up act. We were waiting for the madness to come.

I like clubbing but seldom get to witness the scene behind the scenes.

Did this time,


and went crazy when my lovely friends came on stage to shake the city of Paris. This being our neighborhood haunt, Itka and I have been to the Fleche D'or several times since hitting Paris, we never saw it go wild like this. Our compatriots, our pals, our wild women are the hardest rocking act on both bank of the Seine. I disown Schubert as my favorite musician, it's time to burn the old station down.