Berlin Magendavidplatz

There's one place in Tel-Aviv where you can buy a frilly red dress at one in the morning, and that's Berlin.

Is it a boutique, with the cheapest bar in the city thrown in for good measure? Is it a speakeasy, camouflaged by racks full of cloths? I think it's a city. Berlin is a common Israeli last name, but no one named that is involved with "Salon Berlin". Rather, there's something about the place that reminds me of Prenzlauerberg in the late 90s. It's too cool for school, with its nerd-punk vibe, its weird little sculpture shows, its free for all D.J. position, its trash movie nights (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, scariest film ever!) and left-leaning political soirées. Salon Berlin recreates something that is beyond Berlin, it's the myth of Berlin.

That myth fits Tel-Aviv wonderfully. There's a cafe in Jerusalem situated between Gaza Street and Berlin Street, it is named: "Twixt Gaza and Berlin". These are precisely the coordinates of the Israeli existence, and even more precisely, the Tel-Avivian one. This city resembles Gaza in its topography and layout (though considering Gaza's current situation, any comparison between the two cities seems vulgar), at the same time it aspires to be a Berlin: youthful, ever reinventing itself, exploding with artistic action.

This is no new thing. Tel-Aviv first became a decent city when German Jews, dubbed "Yekkes", escaped Hitler and came to Palestine. They were for the most part not idealistic Zionists who chose to come here and create a romantic, agricultural Jewish utopia. Rather, they preferred an urban environment, a cafe, a kiosk, a museum, a petit bourgeoisie existence, a Berlin.

Late at night, the tiny cafe at the back of Salon Berlin is both a showcase of how successful their endeavor was, and of the strange path their dream has taken. Their grandchildren are here, drinking both beer (first brewed in the Middle East by Yekkes in 1935) and Arak. At one point some of us get drunk and go try on clothes. I look bad in all of them. never mind, going to Germany in three days, I'll do my nighttime shopping there

Leon de Bnei Brak

A few posts ago I told you about Jeff, the foremost pig scholar in my life. Jeff's year in Israel, during which he researched the theme of Kashrut and the pork industry in Israeli society, is coming to an end. We will be losing him in two weeks or so.

His final project this time around was to interview Israelis on camera about their relationship with food and Judaism, and to do so in their kitchens, while they cook. When Jeff asked me to participate I asked him whether I was obliged to prepare pork. He said that I could prepare whatever I wanted. I chose seafood.

If anything changed in the Israeli menu over the past decade, it is the penetration of non-kosher shellfish into our diets, besides, the ban on seafood is more severe that the ban on pork. what is pork? another kind of meat, and we know meat. By forbidding us to eat seafood, the good lord almighty prevents us from tasting a very unique element of creation, one that resembles nothing else.

For me, the ban on seafood is an insult to sensuality. In my view, religion uses taboos mainly to weaken us, it makes sex look dirty so as to distance us from our bodies, once we are distanced - our lives become disharmonious and we end up relying on the religious powers that be to provide us with harmony. Shellfish, bottom feeders though they may be, are sexy (much sexier than pork, to be sure), and the ban on them calls for rebellion. So while Jeff set the camera

I went shopping for mussels, then showed them some love.

See, the first step in cooking a meal is usually uncorking a botlle of wine, then sauteeing an onion (you'll need sauteed onions no matter what you make), but when a mussel-deprived israeli gets his hands on a kilo of the forbidden black gold, he must commence with showing it effection.

Sari, Tel-Aviv's #1 coolest young curator and artist came to show the mussels some effection of her own. She couldn't believe I was having a guest over who keeps kosher (Jeff does) and chose to make him food of which he can't partake.

I pointed out that I also prepared glatt kosher "Pretty Girl Medallions", thus named since I invented them in hope of impressing a pretty girl (she was duely impressed, though why didn't I think of making her mussels?). Pretty Girl Medallions are made up of bucheron goat cheese, semi-molten over browned slices of eggplant and crowned with slices of fig. Sari, being pretty herself, presented them to the lens,

then removed the lid to allow our Belgian friends similar immortalization. This time i'll keep the recipe a secret, but it's very similar to classic Moules Marnieres.

The best part of the meal was of course the conversation around the table. It went to strange places (remember my comment on seafood being sexy?) and also involved some complex issues of life in a semi-theocracy. Judaism is all about how you interpert it and what empheses you choose to place. The Israeli establishment focuses on banning public transportation on the sabbath and the import of foreign salami. I prefer to focus on my beloved Song of Songs: "I have come into my garden / my sister, my bride / I have gathered my myrrh with my spice / I have drunk my wine with my milk / eat, my friends, drink and be intoxicated with love."

Bad News, Good News

The police is now about to drain the Yarkon river in order to find the body of Rose, a four year old girl who was disasterously murdered by her grandpa. This is the same police that didn't even notify the public about the disappearance of Amna Asala, a fifteen year old missing girl from Arab'e, in the Galillee.

Neither girl is Jewish, but Rose, of French origin, is blue eyed and fair haired, the media is showering her with all the attention she deserved to get and never got from her family before she died. Amna, a Palestinian Israeli, gets neither proper media attention nor proper police attention. She's been missing now for a month and a half.

When living in the States I wrote a piece for Haaretz called "Hayafim Vehakhatufim", describing how the media centers on fetching, white missing children, letting others rot in basements. When Salt Lake City girl Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, the nation went hysterical over her. When the papers felt that the mystery won't be solved and a a happy end was not in sight, it began telling the stories of hispanic, black and less attractive white girls that went missing and were found. Those girls never got attention when they vanished. Our society, one that experienced dehumanization, predudice and violence towards children at their worse, is similar. This is really bad news.

The good news is Paul brady

In Memoriam, Courage

Abie Nathan, who died yesterday at the age of 81, is remembered as Israel's most legendary peace activist. The author of this blog is indebted to him. When I was a child It is he who inspired me (along with his chum and business-partner John Lennon), to take pacifism seriously. He also inspired something else in me: wanderlust.

Abie Nathan was a great traveler and should be remembered as one. He didn't travel very far, there was no need to: going to Egypt from Israel in 1966, a one hour flight, was the furthest you could go on earth. To the Israelis it seemed more dangerous and more implausable then going to Mars. Nathan vantured out in a small plane, landed in Port Said and asked to see president Nasser. In Israel the media declared him dead.

He returned a few days later. Nasser did not meet him but the Egyptians fed him well, listened to him, put him up for the night and treated him with utmost respect. The Martians were actually quite friendly, fancy that.

In returning safely from Port said, as well as from from his meetings with other "enemies", Nathan made a very strong point, which still needs to be made and remade: It's easy to cause people to hate and fight each other if you don't let them meet. Israelis today are not allowed to visit cities in the occupied territories, nor anywhere in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and many other places that are incredibely relevant to our lives. The people of these places can't visit us.

While I understand this country's security needs, these travel bans also help to perpetuate the existance of such security need, since they are invaluable in perpetuating conflict in the region. We only know the Middle Easterners as "the enemy". Once they make us coffee, we won't shoot them with the same fervour, god forbid, and then how can we be driven like blind geese to dumb wars like in 2006?

Abie Nathan got imprisoned for merely meeting members of the PLO. Ten years later, prime minister Rabin did the same on the White House lawn, with all present cheering and cameras clicking. The only shift ever caused in the stagnant local status quo was inspired by a "weirdo", "criminal" globetrotter, as well as by several of those who met him and showed him hospitality.

I Look Good in Maya's Glasses

יום בעיר

I'm not quite sure how this happened, but two books I authored got published within a week of one another. If "I'll Meet You Halfway" is a love story (of sorts) set in unique urban surroundings, "A Day on the Town" is a love song to the urban experience itself. I spent one day in each Israeli "city", i.e. a community of over 30,000 souls, then wrote 1000 words about each day. Alon Sigavy added upbeat, wonderfully rustic photography, Avner Haberfeld gave a knockout design, Einat Yakir edited the texts with great sensativity, Israel supplied grit and charm, peeling paint, sweet almond juice and cold beer, skyscrapers, chapels, sabich stands, poetry and adventure.

ניפגש באמצע הדרך

Dear Mr. Rossi.

I am Yuval, the author of the novel "I'll Meet you Halfway". It's an honor to be writing a poet whose work has left a mark on my life.

You are asking how I came to know your text and quote it in the book. Here is the story: Years ago, when I first visited Finland as a traveling musician, I fell in love with a Finnish girl. She and I lived in London together for a few months, during which learned to play "If You Love" on the guitar. She even joined me on some of my trips as a musician and we would sing "Jos Rakastat" together to people in Britain, Finland, France, and here in Israel.

A few years ago we met in Helsinki. I am no longer working as a musician but was visiting the city as a journalist. I met her for dinner and found that she now owned a guitar. We sang Jos Rakastat together, as well as other songs we loved.

When I came back to Israel I had an idea: to use this situation of two old lovers meeting ten years after their break up, and write a novel. I overdramatized the story, changed the charecters, added many imaginary scenes and omitted other scenes. I left the scene in which we sang "Jos Rakastat" nearly untouched. It was just so perfectly beautiful as it was.

I also included a few verses in the book, because I felt that the lyrics shed a new light on the story, as if saying: if you are a truly special human being, I will go with you to the beach and draw your likeness in the sand, no matter how long I have to wait for that.

I thank you again for your wonderful work and for the permission you gave to use it. You were credited in the book and I will see to it that you will be in any future translation. We will of course also send you a copy of the book. Se on täyttä hepreaa, but you have a part in it.

All the best,

Yuval Ben-Ami