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.)
Once again I'm taking a photo of myself in the mirror of some lonely hotel room.
This time outside the window is a particularly mundane suburb of a particularly mundane city: Zurich.
Coincidentally, a few weeks ago I published here a post entitled “Föhn” It was all about Switzerland and how much I like it. I started it by wondering how come I've been dreaming so much of Switzerland recently, and really I have. That post did not contain a word about Zurich. Nor did I dream of Zurich, ever.
Not that it's not a pretty town, in its prosaic way
It's just too goddamn clean
No one would argue this, whether or not this is the home of the Dadaist movement, Zurich is just too clean and settled in its ways. You can even walk out of it into perfectly serene nature in a short stroll. I am only in the city for 24 hours. It's just not right that I was able to take these photos a short stroll away from the hotel:
Zurich makes me miss Israel/Palestine for how boring it is. I need action. Why in the name of the almighty Alpine God Toblerone did my workplace choose to send me here? They just sent somebody else to Istanbul to write of the anti-Israeli sentiment there. Here I can't even sense any such sentiment. Everyone is extremely sweet. Why did they sand me to candyland, where even the terrine is crowned with redcurrants and a pretty peach?
The answer is simple and tragic: They sent me to review a Rod Stewart concert.
Rod Stewart, there's a Zuricher rock star for ya, as safe as a stroll up the Banhoffstrasse. I miss the war! I miss the occupation! I miss the rise of fascism! I make a vow. If nothing saucy happens to me on my single evening in town, I'll never travel again to any city that's not been demolished at least once.
The early evening doesn't carry much promise. Myself and another journalist arrive at the venue, a hockey stadium, to review it. Then word's out on 2 things.
1. The journalists are extended a rare backstage invitation. The Danish producer Lars seems to have taken to us.
2. Frida from Abba is in the building.
We both head directly back to the catering hall, and witness a birthday surprise, presented to a crew member.
We also meet a few legendary musicians who are in Stewart's band, among them David Palmer, formerly with The The, and guitar hero Paul Warren.
We have a delightful dinner featuring local delicacies that really stink up the room.
Having digested, we meet Stewart himself. I recently published a post in support of artists who join the BDS and cancel their Israeli shows. When I interviewed Warren over the fondue, he drew a comparison between appearing in Israel today and in South Africa during the eighties. He himself played Sun City with Tina Turner at the time and said he felt “uncomfortable”. He added that Turner herself later came to the conclusion that she's made a mistake.
I ask Stewart about his choice to hit town at this time. “I have a contract and I intend to respect it,” he said, “A deal's a deal.”
A deal's a deal and a show's a show. His concert is rockier than I had expected, an extremely happy event.
I leave with “I am sailing” on my lips, trying hard not to think of flotillas. Backstage, the artists are preparing to leave for Germany that same night. I have to discover nocturnal Zurich on my own, if it indeed exists.
Here's a guy with dreadlocks. He tells me to go to “El Lokal”, on Gasner Alee. I take the train down. Young people are sitting outside by picnic tables, drinking homemade brew. The atmosphere reminds me of the Minzar. Not bad, but I have a Minzar at home.
Then comes my streak of luck.
They are not Swiss, though that would make for a better story. The girl is German, a doctor of virology. The guys are both Canadian tattoo artists. I bum a cigarette off them at El Lokal. They are on their way out, things were being to mild there.
The doctor leads the way. She leads us west.
Soon we are walking down streets lined with gray buildings, shabbier than anything I'd seen in Switzerland before. Alternative types, my favorite crowd, spill out of the many nightspots.
The first bar we enter has an altar with botanica candles.
The second one is further west, on a street filled with buxom prostitutes, drunken laughter, the sweet smell of weed and that of cheap grilled meat. We have reached Beauerstrasse in west Zurich, the city's street of shame. It too is lined with some smashingly urban alternative bars. Here is the scene, and the scene is rough and real.
Not being a fan of prostitution, I never plan to wax poetic about a city's red light district, but in the case of Zurich, it's seeing the dark side that gives the bright side meaning. Perhaps no place is incomplete if you just take the time to dig an inch underneath its surface. Who knows what tattoo artist you'd find 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.
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.
I spent the day in Hebron, with its soldiers in full combat gear, barbed wire fences and tense atmosphere. Often, despite the dry clime and complete lack of seafood, my mind wandered to another city with its own soldiers, fences and tension, Bangkok.
It's not exactly ironic or surprising that Bangkok is in flames. I was there about ten months ago for a short spell and constanly thought to myself: this place is explosive. What will it look like when it combusts? I got the answer this morning. The front page of Yedioth Aharonot presented a startling image: the Central World Plaza shopping center on fire. Formarly this enormous mall was known as the "World Trade Center", another one bites the dust.
I don't really care much for all the luxury goods that were burned, but the sheer magnitude of the mall and its location at the very bustling heart of the city both give an idea of how really violent the situation in Bangkok is. I can't help but weep for it, pray for its recovery and nostaligcally post a few of the photos I took there on better days.
1. Off Moher Four quid a bed in no town House and mist, not quite a world Square sliced, elderly coupled was the evening and what and what.
I used to wake up in such beds from nightmare home Outside mist, inside no house a pint of tea There's a war here too they say Money flows in Limerick's Shannon, all protection, rots the boats, It's green and burns slowly like everything.
And what? I own no camera, nor the dark road shaped like long me or no town's late burger. I own the unenveloped steel.
Oh, and yes, the lust for heaths.
2. Saaremaa Near here, I found a Soviet camp. across camp fence, near here, a corridor, in a corridor (dark), stepped on something.
Camera flash all I have.
Camera shows, in an instant, bunch of twigs Sauna down the corridor. In an instant I'll see. Soviet troop fled, left tub.
Near her, all I think, near her. Now are they?
3. Failed Nocturne If we abide by lighthouse strategies, I won't get a lift to town. won't get a lift to town no lift to town Promise me you'll leave a fiver at the pub. By the order of the stone fence, so I vow.
And on the very night which is not night too blue for night too blue Next to the German runaway I sit, Camper wheels and wine, hopes for the aurora, and hey!
The fiver, Never left it. Done the vanishing act again. vanishing act again, vanished again. Top of Scotland top of of tops The grass and the cork. Everything's light. No fence in sight.
(photos were taken around Tagaranna cliffs, Saaremaa, Estonia.)
I'm free to write here about any subject in this world, except journalism. I'm employed under a contract with Israel's second most widespread newspaper, Israel Haiyom, and have made a vow of confidentiality to it, which I intend to respect.
I will tell you though, that I suspect IH and myself are headed for a divorce, or at least a return to casual friendship. No blame. The paper and myself are just mismatched. It took us three years to reach this conclusion. That's not long. It took seven years before I realized such a mismatch existed between me and my ex-wife.
One way in which the paper and I are mismatched has to do with my love of "Gonzo journalism": Journalism that centers on the recounting of experiences. Before writing to Israel hayom, I specialized in such pieces. Once, for Haaretz, I tried to ride in one day the entire NYC subway system and go through each of its 468 stations. Another time, writing for the Hebrew edition of National Geographic Traveler, I disguised myself as a South African backpacker and stayed a week in a Jerusalem hostel. I learned more about my native city on that week than ever in my life.
One of my articles that appeared in the weekly supplement of IH, described a visit to Teufelsberg. An abandoned American intelligence facility outside Berlin. My friend Anna and myself climbed a barbed wire fence on a misty day (see above image) and explored the complex.
As we expected, none of the old equipment remained in the site. The huge globe-like canopies that used to shield sensative antenae are now hollow planetariums. Retreating after Berlin's reunification, the Americans made sure to even remove the screwes that fastened them to the floor, lest someone deducts from these the nature of the devices.
My editors found themselves pleasently surprised. Here was a story about nothing. Two happy-go-lucky travelers walk into a building that turns out to be empty. "This piece holds its water solely thanks to your writing ability" one of them told me. "It's refreshing, in the sea of revelations and exposures."
That was the end of it, though. I can't just refresh all the time, I need to supply the beef in order to bring home the bacon, to chat with celebrities and find out saucy stories, otherwise the readers will ditch IH for its competitors. I respect that. I'm not here to whine about the current state of the press and weep over how competition has cheapened the Israeli media to an intolerable degree, nor do I moan that political biases render the treatment of actual issues virtually impossible. I would like, however, to assert that I believe in what I do.
I believe that fine journalism is an art. I believe that it can be truly delightful literature. I believe that journalism can make a difference through the telling of stories. I believe that we can reflect the world in articles, we can reveal its diversity and complexity, capture its many ambiences and remind, daily, how fascinating it is. If anyone out there knows of an oppurtunity for someone who holds these beliefs, feel free to write me at yuvalba@gmail.com
I'll conclude by posting a few photos from Teufelsberg, and raising two toasts: one - for the wonderful people who've worked with me in IH, and with whom I still hope to freelance from time to time. Another - for the love of life and letters, and pictures, of course.
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.
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.
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.
