This morning dawned bright and clear over the city of Tel-Aviv, that 101-year-old “first modern Jewish city in Israel”. Our tour guide Miri and Rabbi Biatch reminded us last night about the three, now four, main characteristics to strive for in a group tour such as ours: maintaining flexibility, a sense of humor, patience, and punctuality. With these four goals in mind, everyone got onto the bus and we got underway on time.
Many of us are, at the present, jet lagged and tired, but very happy to be here and investigating this “old-new land”, as Israel was once called by the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl.
We began our day with a visit to Beit Rut Daniel, the first Progressive movement (Reform, to us!) institution to come to the city of Jaffa.
Beit Rut Daniel is a liberal Jewish institute that serves as a synagogue, a hotel, a community center for both the Jews and Arabs of Jaffa, and the future site of a pre-school under the auspices of the Progressive Jewish movement in Israel. Because of the economic situation of religious movements here, the Progressive Movement has created a plethora of special programs and services that benefit the Jaffa community, in order that there is income and, perhaps more important, there is buy-in from the locals about the presence of a liberal Jewish institution.
Following our visit to Beit Rut Daniel, we drove a short distance to the old port area of Jaffa, located just south of Tel-Aviv, and we walked along some of the small alleys and pathways of the Jewish section of Jaffa. Some of the architecture is fascinating, and beautiful.
From Jaffa we traveled, some by foot and others by bus, to Independence Hall, the location of the signing of Israel’s declaration of independence. Many may have a familiarity with the iconic photograph of David Ben Gurion standing with about 25 of the 38 signers of the Declaration in front of the two vertically draped flags of the new state. This is where we were this morning.
We watched a video presentation telling us about the early design and construction of Tel Aviv, then heard an impassioned lecture on the history that brought the Jewish people to the fulfillment of its two thousand year old dream on the day of the signing, which was May 14, 1948, or 5 Iyar, 5708. If every Jew had the verve and zeal of this speaker, whose name we knew only as Itzik, there would be no problem with Jewish identity in our times.
After our lecture at Independence Hall, we walked a couple of blocks to have lunch at an Israeli diner, where most of us had shwarma, that blend of lamb and beef that is spit roasted on vertical skewers. It was a crowded and warm Tel-Aviv winter day (the high here today was 76 F degrees, so in the small diner it was also very warm and close.
We then traveled to North Tel-Aviv to the Museum of the Diaspora or, in Hebrew, Beit Hatfutzot. It is a museum dedicated to chronicling the history of Diapora Jewry through dioramas, models, achiving of ancestral data, and the like. By this time in the afternoon, we were even more tired but determined to get over our jet lag.
We made one more stop in Tel-Aviv on the way back to the hotel, the site of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. There is a memorial reminding pedestrians on a busy sidewalk that this was the location of the shooting by Yigal Amir in November of 1995. This was a tragic and devastating event in the life Israel, and his memory is honored each Friday – for the last 15 years – by a memorial service taking place in the morning hours.
On the way back to the hotel, some intrepid travelers braved the foot and noise traffic of the Carmel Market, an old institution in Tel-Aviv, as their return route. Where there used to be primarily fruit, vegetables, and meats, now there is a majority sales in clothes, souvenirs, tchachkes of various kinds, house wares, and candy.
Early evening saw us meeting twice with Rabbi Judith Edelman-Green, former Madisonian who made aliyah – immigrated to Israel – in 1984. She is working on a project to create an institution that serves the needs of developmentally disabled adults, which will be built in the Tel-Aviv suburb of Kfar Saba in a few years. Also, she brought with her her daughter and her daughter’s flat mate who are both former soldiers (just recently released from military service, who described some aspects of army life in Tzahal, the name acronym that is made by the Hebrew letters of the official name of the Israeli army.
Dinner was a vast array of meats, salads, vegetables, a few casseroles, and terrific desserts. We have eaten as a group but the meals are buffet style, at least in the hotels. That way, each person can eat their choices and their fill of what they like.
We’re all tired, ready to say good night, but excited about our day tomorrow when we transfer to the north part of the country for a very different kind of Israeli tourist experience.
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