TEL AVIV: BEACH, BOMBS, BUS AND BRING THEM HOME

There is a vast difference between Tel Aviv, where we spent last weekend, and Jerusalem, where we live. They are as if from two different planets.

In Tel Aviv, people are westernized to the max. Many men and women wear skimpy clothes on the promenade and the beach.

Whereas… in Jerusalem there are many Orthodox Jews of a vast number of stripes. Men wear headgear as varying as kippot (skull caps) and big beaver hats. Women wear a headscarf or a wig. Men are nearly all in black, women wear long skirts and flat shoes.

In Tel Aviv, the Arab population is mainly at one end of town, in Jaffa.

Whereas… in Jerusalem, the Arab population mingles with everyone else, although I have noticed that not many Arab men are riding the bus since the war broke out.

In Tel Aviv, they are getting rocket attacks.

Whereas… in Jerusalem it is stabbings and shootings by Arab terrorists (apologies to the BBC –  but that is what they are.)

Everywhere, apparent civilians, male and female, are mingling with us, going about their everyday lives, but with a machine gun strung over one shoulder. We see them on public transport, in the street, in the cafes and restaurants…

They make Butch and me feel safe.  

BEACH at Tel Aviv

The weather was lovely last weekend in Tel Aviv and people were not just sunbathing but even swimming. Butch and I went for a really long walk on Friday, north along the whole beach, past the hotels and many restaurants where people ate brunch or drank coffee under parasols. After joining them for a lingering coffee, we walked on, past the marina and beyond, exploring part of lovely Yarkon Park.  

Everywhere was full of people young and old, sporty types jogging in leggings, dog walkers… It felt tremendously freeing to be here after Jerusalem, which is far more of a Middle Eastern hub.

BOMBS

As we walked, a siren sounded. We ran after others who were heading for a sushi restaurant where an oriental man was waving at us to come. Their shelter was full, so a dozen or so of us stood inside the restaurant on the steps that led down to it. A kippah-wearing man who talked to Butch was surprised that we had come to live in Israel during the war, (our families have expressed the same sentiment).

I have already written about the strong feeling of God’s having led us here (see my previous post).

The building shook as something like 6 or 7 rockets were taken out by Israel’s iron dome. Even though this can reliably save us, there is always falling debris that can and does do serious damage to people.

We heard of one man in Jerusalem who seriously injured himself: in his panic to get out of his car and lie on his belly, (which is the instruction), he pulled over and fell straight into a ditch.

BUS

In the Yarkon Park, we found on a bridge moving BRING THEM HOME posters of each and every missing hostage in Gaza…

We had walked 10 km from where we were staying at the Jaffa end of town to the Yarkon Park. We thought we would get the bus back. We sat at a stop and waited… and waited… and waited.

Finally, we realized that there would be no bus because of shabbat, when all transport, and pretty much everything else, stops. The time was 3.30 but shabbat would only come in around 5 pm, but we figured out that the bus we needed did not set out for its destination, south beyond Jaffa, because it could not make the round trip in time.

We could have got a cab… We didn’t. I wasn’t very happy to walk the 10 km back as I already had blisters on my feet.

But then…

BRING THEM HOME

Google led us to a big square, full of cafes that, amazingly were still open. We revived with coffee and cake.

More than that, the families of the hostages being held in Gaza were there and the empty beds we have seen on t.v. And, something I didn’t know about: on the balcony of the theatre that dominates the wide square were mannequins, one of each beloved missing person, dressed in their clothes, looking down on us all.

I knew then that God had been in our walk home. I felt privileged to be here, at the very centre of focus of the BRING THEM HOME campaign, in this place of immense pain.

We walked 20 km (13 miles) that day. Today, the families are arriving in Jerusalem, having marched the 60 km (40 miles) from Tel Aviv over several days. Tonight, after shabbat ends, they will gather outside Prime Minister Netanyahu’s house, lobbying as I am sure any of us would, were we in their awful shoes, to get our loved ones home and out of captivity, deprivation and danger.   

Sign up in the sidebar to receive notifications of my posts concerning my life in Israel. You will receive my 5-Minute Testimony: HOW I MET JESUS for free. This happened right here, in Israel. At my lowest ebb, I was saying hineini to God: give me meaning and purpose in my life. Where else, as a Jew, would I find it but in Israel? I never expected to find it in a Jerusalem church…