Our second day in Israel, we set out to get a taste of history and better understand this country in which we had landed. To that end, we set out for Independence Hall, to begin with the beginning. We wound through the streets of our "hip", graffitied neighborhood, trying to find this nearby monument. We passed graffiti of a woman wearing a burqa and a shop selling t-shirts saying "We don't need another hero", among various shops selling cheap goods and cheap clothing. Finally, after asking directions several times, we found Independence Hall. It was a humble tan building with a little stone fountain in the middle of the facing street to make it look a little bit more important. Two men slouched on the steps as a woman scrubbed the unoccupied spaces. Dark glass obscured the inside and made it look rather deserted.
As soon as we opened the door, though, we saw a large group of people seated and at attention in a room past the foyer. We has missed an introductory video but had made it just in time for the English tour. Well, you just sit in one room as guide speaks at you, but it was a tour of Israel's history none the less.
As soon as we were seated, the guide began, welcoming the two groups of students: the Americans and Canadians on one side of the room, and... the Germans on the other. I guess we sat on the wrong side. Our guide, a charismatic guy in his early twenties who used the world "miracle" for everything related to Judaism or Israel and claimed that the declaration of Israeli independence in this room "wrote a new chapter of the Bible", drew scoffs from the students around us and made me look up in surprise. It was such a formulaic script, interjected with a little personality. The exposed biases, the blind faith in his recitation of history... It felt like I was back in Vietnam again, choking down government propaganda. My family tried to temper my skepticism a bit, suggesting that perhaps things had been amped up a bit for the students on their birthright trips, but I just disliked hearing such a one-sided presentation of history. It was interesting, though, that they performed the ceremony in just thirty minutes in a bomb shelter (according to our guide).
Our second stop of the day was further north in Tel Aviv at the Palmach Museum.
The Palmach, a predecessor to the current IDF in Israel, was comprised of groups of young Israelis eager to train and fight for Zionism and the promise of a Jewish state. It was here that we got our first modern Israeli interactive museum experience. Israel seems determined to make its history incredibly personal and alive to the museum-goer, using exhibits that do not display memorabilia or written descriptions on walls. Instead, they use videos, a lot of sound effects, smoke and mist, and group experiences. And you are required to be guided on your tour. At the Palmach museum, you must sign up in advance and join a Palmach troop as they meet, train, cross the country on a secret hike, go on secret missions during the war, defy the British, lose loved ones, and offer yourself as "the silver platter on which the state of Israel was offered". While I think that the interactive museum idea is an interesting one, the required groups and very specific path forced everyone to have the same experience. There was no independence in the experience, the creation of understanding. The pace was predetermined, and we shuffled from room to room like historically-inclined sheep. While the videos are engaging, it is a bit disconcerting to have recreations (always with an element of fiction where the records have holes) as the only form of information offered, instead of a variety of sources. Still, the museum was quite interesting and the Palmach members were courageous and incredibly dedicated to the Zionist movement and the creation and defense of Israel. They were also quite clever. When the Nazis made a push into northern Africa and toward Israel, the British asked for Palmach assistance on this new front. But when the Germans were pushed back, the British no longer needed or wanted Palmach assistance. The Palmach created a system where they worked half the month on kibbutzim and the other half training, thus covering their costs while advancing their military experience. When the state of Israel was declared, the Palmach was folded into the IDF, a successful army by any standard.
After that historical perspective, we wanted a taste of modern Israel. We hopped on a busy bus headed downtown and got off to wander through the Carmel Market and buy falafel from a street side restaurant.
It was fun to watch the small storefront serve such a ravenous lunch crowd. The small wire bin was constantly submerged in the hot, spitting oil as fresh falafel balls were fried into crunchy submission. A salad bar of toppings - pickled cabbage, diced cucumber and tomato, cucumbers, peppery pickles, a variety of tahini flavors, tabbouleh, and others - was available for the customers. We scraped the French fries off the top of our falafel and stuffed our pita with the fixings. Delicious. The Carmel Market was less exciting. It was a market like any other market, but with few unique offerings. The highlight was definitely the food stands. We loved the stands that boasted every type of dried fruit - I loved the figs and dates - and the myriad types of baklava were overwhelming. Honey oozed over cookie sheet-like platters. We bought a few and apparently didn't reach the minimum weight, so our seller threw in a few more for good measure. Heaven. We also saw Israeli bagels, freshly made!
That evening, we wandered Old Jaffa. Old Jaffa was the oldest continuously working port in the world until 1967, when the modern port of Tel Aviv was built a mere 5 km away and overwhelmed it. The ancient village has had many incarnations, with layers of history literally piling atop one another - Byzantine, Roman, Ottoman, Muslim, Christian, Jewish. We loved walking around the port, seeing the house of Simon the Tanner where "St. Pete" (the signal was rather informal) raised Tabitha from the dead and had visions that Christians should be baptized as Christians and could eat food previously forbidden by kosher laws.
We saw the old lighthouse, the old Greek Orthodox Church, and numerous art galleries (Jaffa has been reborn as an artists' colony). We went on a tour of the underground archaeological site beneath Kedumim Square, seeing relics from the various centuries (arrowheads, perfume bottles, coins) and enjoying more interactive videos.
These were used to stop charging horses the way the modern equivalent is used to stop a car.
Our guide was irreverent and hilarious, discussing the serious pollution problem from people smoking too much opium, the attempted assassination of Napoleon (they are very proud of his visit), and so on.
Finally, we ended the evening with a fascinating dinner at the Blackout Restaurant.
We had wanted to go to the theater performance by the blind-deaf actor group, but they were sold out. So we dined in... Darkness. Our waitress, Galina, led us to our seats around a table, described the location of our silver wear, glasses, and water jug, and advised us gently as to how to survive a dinner in the dark without spilling something all over ourselves. We dined on salads, fish, gnocchi, a dessert sampler, fruit salad, and bread with a delicious olive tapenade spread between the slices (so we didn't have to do it ourselves). It was a wonderful meal, one of discussion and fingers and curious taste buds. It was wonderful to focus completely on the food and company around me, without watching anyone reach to check a phone. We heard languages weave around us, as our neighbors spoke in Hebrew, English, or Spanish. I think our whole group loved the experience. We were laughing at ourselves and each other, clinking glasses by accident, searching for silverware and napkins. It was great.
Spotted: a contemporary art exhibit down by the water. Many of the pieces were actually functional inventions, from a wooden block that folded out two separate desks, drawers, and a holder for various potted plants to a bicycle attachment that could store things... Or be removed and used as a wheeled shopping bag. There were street barriers that doubled as benches for those awaiting public transportation and three joined chairs built on the strength of triangle that folded up into a single flat stack about six inches thick. Really cool stuff!
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