The Life of a Woman

View of Tel Aviv from Carlton balcony
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After a delicious night's rest, I was a little less than enthused to be getting up and out.  After a moment or two to bring myself to full consciousness, I remembered I'm in Tel Aviv and with that I got up and began to make myself human again.

While roommate Jane was tending to her business I took in Tel Aviv from our balcony and marveled at this johnny-come-lately city on the Meditteranean .  Looking out over the mass of 4 & 5 story bauhaus style apartments, skyscrapers littered in between and masses of traffic below, it is hard to believe that Tel Aviv is only 99 years old.  Barely a toddler among these ancient cities of the middle east.  However, in 99 years TA has become Israel's most populous city.  This is not difficult to believe considering all the cafes, 4-star hotels, and top-knotch restaurants that line  the boardwalk and city streets.  Like Santa Monica, morning finds dozens of well built men and women in wet-suits sauntering down to the beach carrying their surfboards.  If it's hot in New York, London, Paris, Rio or L.A., you can be sure it is hot in TA.  The latest craze of Kite Surfing has certainly come to TA and you can see folks out there hanging ten and hanging tight to multi-colored parachute-style kites.

Button jewelry at Ha'Carmel Market
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After breakfast we were scheduled to take part in panel discussion made of up women from all facets of Israeli society.  The panel included:  a young wife & mother who worked at the Ministry of Transportation; an Israeli Arab who worked as a teacher in a Jewish school and was currently starting a restaurant and a B&B in Abu Gosh (near Jerusalem); a Bedouin Arab who worked as a teacher in her village in the Negev; an Ethiopian refugee who had built a new life in Israel; a modern orthodox wife and mother (5 children).

Ha'Carmel Market
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The experiences of these women were universal and endemic of their life situations, such as the sexism encountered by the woman working for the Ministry of Transportation (she was asked if she could follow directions on map).  The battle to obtain proper medical care in a bureaucratic system as encountered by the Israeli Arab from Abu Gosh was startling and gave me greater insight to what can happen when medicine becomes socialized. This woman had to get up out of her hospital bed and demand from the chief of staff that she be given the medicine her doctors believed would bring her back to health.  Her one-woman sit-in convinced him and she is living, breathing proof of the need for paitent advocacy in the hospital.

Tel Aviv architecture
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The story told by the young Ethiopian woman of her journey to Israel as an adolescent with only her young brother at her side brought us to tears and when she later related first encounter with blatant racism during a political rally she broke our hearts.  Lastly, the challenges of living a strictly Orthodox life in a secular society were made clear by a young mother of five as she attempts to help herself and other Orthodox women.

Lastly the Bedouin woman who education produced a sense of frustration about her life and its restrictions.  We were told that she had taken part in this panel last year and was happy to come back.  Last year she had given birth to her sixth child (I believe she is 28 years old) and at that time her husband, taking advantage of the customs of his tribe, took a second wife.  As a student and a teacher she has become educated and enlightened about the kind of life women in Western society live.  She expressed over and over again that she felt she and other women were far behind and was extremely frustrated about this.  She did however say that she learned to take a bad situation and turn it to her advantage.  She has befriended the second wife, who she assisted through two births thus far and that women has in turn given her the gift of a vacation.  She is also insisting her husband share in the childcare of his 8 children.

Fabric shop Tel Aviv Ha'Carmel
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These were all beatiful, young, vibrant women and I was grateful for the opportunity to hear their stories.  A lot of tears were shed, new insights made and business cards exchanged.

Incidentally, I later met the woman from Abu Gosh, who was such a little spit fire and entrepreneur, in of all places the ladies room.  I told her if she was in NY we would definitely be friends.  With that she said "we can be friends now" and gave me her card.

Next activity:  Shopping!

Fresh ingredients for falafals
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After the heat of the desert, and the air conditioned hotel conference room, I gloried in the cool breezes off the ocean.   Slipping on my shades, I borded our bus for some QUALITY SHOPPING TIME at Ha' Carmel Market (Nachalat Binyamin).  I'm a New Yorker and I have spent time wondering countless craft fairs from Soho to the upper west side, but Carmel Market had a charm that lower broadway in manhattan just can't pull off. The market begins at the intersection of Hamelek (King) George V and Allenby Streets, where jewelry designers and other artists have set up folding tables on the sidewalk just steps from retail shops.  These purveyors of little treasures come twice a week (Tuesdays & Fridays) to hawk their wares to locals and tourists from this prime location.

Falafals for lunch
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I purchased a few pieces of jewelry as gifts and for myself.  I was very impressed with a number of the designers I found along the way and requested their business cards for future reference and to pass along to friends.  I was particularly impressed with one designer working enamel and silver.  Her pieces were delicate, feminine, and yet thoroughly modern.  Another designer crafting her work from buttons created original and clever jewelry, which worn would elicit many comments and compliments.

Tali with Member of the Knesset
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Of course there were the requisite scented soap sellers and chachki items like painted toilet roll holders.  There were also some performance artists doing there things on the cobbled-stone side streets for those (men) not so interested in shopping.

The famous bauhaus architecture was evident in the buildings behind the marketplace.  The shops that lined the street were a variety of commercial interests from fruit drink stands, bakeries, cafes, vintage clothes shop, pharmacy, and restaurants.

Belly Dancing Instructor
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This was one of the first time a meal had not been planned for us, so we were free to choose our own lunch location.  Jane and I decided that now was the time to sample the famous falafal and proceeded to an open air stand that had an array of fresh ingredients on display that made our mouths water.  Just before we had chance to order we fell into conversation with a young man enjoying his falafal.  When we queried him a bit he told us that this stand was not "the best" one and he would recommend another more authentic falafal seller around the corner.  Before we could think twice we were following him up the street and around the corner to a hole-in-the-wall set up.

At this point I began worrying how my stomach would react to all those hot spicy ingredients, at the same time I spotted a clean and cute-as-can-be bakery & cafe two doors away.  I called out to Jane that she would find me in the bakery and headed in for my sweet fix.  The pleasant young woman behind the counter served me the tastiest cherry crumb cake with whipped cream.  It was a massive slice which fortunately my roommate shared with me, following her "bland" falafal.  Cake & cream for lunch is just something you have to do when you're on vacation - just for the decadence of it.

With our bellies full and our wallets a tad lighter our group gathered on the appointed spot on Allenby Street and awaited Moshe and his bus.  By the way, there had been a number of problems with the buses we had been given - primarily the a/c was not working properly and at one point (somewhere near Arava) the bloody thing actually sent up heat instead of a/c.  Moshe must have driven 3 different buses during the course of our mission, but I digress.

Our next stop was the Palmach Museum (The regular fighting force of the Haganah, the unofficial Israeli army prior to the war of independence.  The Palmach consisted of young Jews in British Mandate Palestine.  Many of the Palmach went on to fame in the IDF follwing the declaration of Israeli statehood) which I had been especially looking forward to seeing.  The museum is run by the IDF and upon our arrival were greeted by a female soldier who was our guide for the tour.  Each of us were given an electronic guide (which looked like a telephone handset) as we entered the first of a series of exhibits.  Each room had a stage & prop setting where we stood listening to the history of the Palmach.  At the end of each these various settings we were led to a room with seating built to resemble rocks and we then watched an apocryphal telling of the Palmach from its inception to the cease fire following the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.  I remarked to our young guide that I was especially pleased that the program included a recitation of a poem written by Hannah Senesh (an Israeli heroine who lost her life trying to bring Jews out of War torn Europe).

After we finished viewing the Palmach Museum we were taken to the Eretz Israel Museum Gift Shop for more shopping.  This was one of the few times when we seemed to have misplaced a member of our group.  But no worries, she was found sitting comfortably with a soldier just outside the Palmach Museum.

This evening we had dinner at L'Entrecote Restaurant where we heard from a member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) who represents the Kibbutz movement as a Labor MK.  She spoke eloquently of her challenges getting elected to and serving in the Knesset.

Sitting next to me at the dinner was a JNF Representative from the Tel Aviv office.  Yet another American woman who had made aliyah (from Boston) some ten years ago.  Interestingly, since tonight included politics, she told me she came to Israel with left of center views and now holds much more right of center views.  I wasn't very surprised to hear this, considering that the challenges of life in Boston are not quite as challenging as life in Israel.

We were also treated to a belly dancing lesson at which I'm embarrassed to say we younger women paled in comparison to our seniors.  To add to my many accomplishments in this life, I can now proudly say that I belly danced with a Member of the Knesset.