Thanksgiving in Tel Aviv: Day 1

After our Thanksgiving dinner Thursday evening, we stayed in a Crowne Plaza hotel right on the beach. It was a standard hotel room, even a bit ragged, that we chose for location & because we got a good price on priceline. But, we had a room at the end of the corridor and Noah was impressed with the views to the west and south that overlooked the Mediterranean Sea and the beach. He kept saying that the room was “like a palace” and we enjoyed hanging out on the balcony watching the beach volleyball players on the sand and the kayakers and sailboats in the water. It was so sweet that he was so impressed with something we take for granted.

Since we were in TA on a Friday, we wanted to make sure to get to a couple of markets that are only open a couple of days a week, one of those days being Friday. After breakfast, we took a nice long walk on the tayelet (promenade) from the hotel down to Yaffo to check out the famous flea market. The walk was only supposed to take about 30 mins, but that didn’t account for a boy wanting to climb on every available rock.

Noah took this of us on hatayelet

Tel Aviv, November 2010

Noah was a good sport walking so far in 80 degree weather and we stopped along the way to let him enjoy a playground. The flea market was too hard to navigate and negotiate with a 5-yr-old, so we just soaked in the craziness and didn’t try to buy anything. To really find a treasure would take some effort getting through the first layer of junk that sits out on the sidewalk, but we weren’t about to put Noah through that. One old lady called out to Noah: “Yeled, yeled, atah rotzeh doobie?” (boy, boy, do you want a teddy bear?) Except that it was this disgusting, raggedy old thing that not even a 5-yr-old would be tricked into wanting.

We then walked over to HaTachana (the station), a former train station near the Jaffa/Neve Tzedek border that has been turned into a shopping/entertainment center and just opened this year. The city preserved about 20 of the original buildings, train tracks, and an old rail car with an exhibit inside. The main building of the former station is now an upscale souvenir shop and most of the other buildings are shops or restaurants. They have done a good job of keeping the shops local. I didn’t see any international chains and only a couple of local chains. One restaurant is on the roof of a restored villa that was the turn-of-the-century family home of a tile factory owner. On Fridays an organic farmer’s market is held, where we partook of fresh-squeezed meetz tapuzim v’ meetz rimonim (orange & pomegranate juice).

HaTachana, Tel Aviv

We continued our tour of Tel Aviv’s Friday markets by taking a cab to Nachalat Binyamin, a pedestrian mall arts & crafts market. Noah picked out a special glass dreidle for his souvenir from one of the artists.

Back in the hotel room, we took a rest and caught a special Channukah edition of Rechov Sumsum (Sesame Street).  We asked Noah how much he understood, and he said “Most of it!”  After just three months, I’m so jealous! Then we went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant on the beach. The food was modern middle eastern, with a seafood emphasis and was really good, but a couple of weird things happened. First, since the outdoor seating is on a deck on the beach, the stray cats wander around where the customers eat. I’ve seen people leave cat food out on the sidewalk or feed strays bits of food and I guess these particular cats were used to getting gourmet handouts. One cat was especially aggressive and sat on the ledge right next to our table. When we ignored him, he put his paw on Roy’s arm. Then, when Roy tried to shoo him away, he hissed at him! We obviously didn’t understand that we were in his territory. The other weird thing about this meal is that if/when you order the mezze, a waiter brings out a huge tray of about a dozen to choose from. We casually said, we’ll take all of them, thinking that the price on the menu was per person. Um, no. It was per dish. So, that was a pricier meal than expected. We are such high-rollers – “give me one of everything!” We took the leftovers back to the hotel for breakfast the next morning because we couldn’t bear to waste anything!

A Fulbright Thanksgiving

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home. We are very thankful to be having such a wonderful adventure together this year. This trip has helped us appreciate all that we have. We’ve given thanks for something every day that we’ve been here – even if it was something as simple as figuring what a sign said or carrying on a simple conversation in Hebrew. We are especially thankful for our old and new friendships and for the generosity and warmth of our friends in Israel.

Fulbright hosted all of the fellows for a Thanksgiving dinner in Tel Aviv last week. It was great to see everyone again. We learned that there will be several more programs planned for us over the next few months as well. Fulbright really knows how to take care of us, which is another reason to be thankful.

Thanksgiving dinner, Tel Aviv, 2010

We stayed in Tel Aviv for a couple of nights and made a mini-vacation out of it so we could see more of the city. More about our sightseeing to come . . .

You are invited

talk announcement

a week from Wednesday – be there or be square.

Walking Wadi Lotem

We decided to explore a little bit closer to home this weekend.  The Haifa Tourist Board recommended hiking in the city’s wadis. What’s a wadi? The mountain makes it difficult to get a sense of the layout of Haifa from a map, but you can get a better sense of the geography by looking at the big green slashes on the map.  These are the wadis–dry riverbeds which will spring back to life when and if the winter rains ever come and need somewhere to drain.

We started our hike in Gan Ha’Em (mother’s park), Haifa’s shabbier and smaller version of Central Park. It is a good comparison because it has a bandshell, carousel, zoo, museum (archaeological), playground and grassy spaces for picnickers. It is also smack in the middle of an urban area. To one side of the bandshell, with just a small sign marking the wadi, are a couple of steps down to the hiking trail. It starts with the zoo on one side and apartment buildings on the other.

beginning of the hiking trail

But soon, as the trail descends, the sounds of the city begin to drift away.

Noah requested a picture because this spot was "so beautiful"

collecting acorns

After walking away from the sights & sounds of the east side of the city, the trail starts to approach the west side.

a glimpse of the city in the distance

The woods are very dry right now. It is supposed to be the rainy season, but we’ve had all of 10 minutes of rain since we arrived in August. Grave times . . .

stopping for a rest at tables & chairs made from tree stumps

And a ride on the carousel as a reward for being such a good hiker.

the horse was named Nicola

The “calliope” played “Yadaim lamallah al ha rosh . . .”

Tzipori

It’s been a really busy week here. In addition to the talk I gave at Bar-Ilan last Sunday, I also gave a talk at the Technion on Thursday, am trying to meet a (self-imposed) deadline on a manuscript, and we are getting ready to go out of town at the end of this week. So, I am finally writing about this trip, only a week late.

After about six weeks of waiting, our National Parks membership card arrived in the mail. Last weekend we decided to follow Anat’s advice and check out Tzipori, an archaeological site that is part of the Israel Nature & Parks Authority.

Noah with the Israeli Parks Authority mt. goat mascot. He got the t-shirt too.

It is olive harvest season here. This is an olive tree at the entrance to the site. Can you see the ripe black olives?

Tzipori is located just outside of Nazareth and is famous and important for its spectacular and well-preserved mosaic floors. Many different civilizations have built their sites on each others’ ruins on this mountaintop and we saw artifacts from Greek, Roman, and Jewish towns and a crusader-era fortress. Excavations have been ongoing for about 70 years. One important discovery was a formal street grid suggesting urban planning.

ruin of an old storefront on the street grid

medallion on the street

The main streets were lined with stores and homes, including some mansions, as evidenced by the elaborate mosaic floors that the wealthy could afford.

floor of a home

The park included the ruins of the main city streets, as well as some of the important monuments on the outskirts of town.

cactus forest with ripe fruit along the trail to the Crusader fortress

The fortress was built during the Crusader period on the ruins of an even older building. The building is at the highest point on the site to afford a view of the surrounding area. We could see all of the way to Haifa from the roof of this building – it was a 45 min. drive. Imagine how long it would take to travel by wagon, on unpaved roads, in mountainous terrain, and the advantage of seeing the enemy coming when they were still 2 days away.

entrance to the Crusader fortress

remains of olive oil press

Another of the outskirts buildings is the remains of a synagogue. There used to be many synagogues in ancient Tzipori, but this is the only one that has been discovered so far (found in 1994). A permanent structure has been built around the floor and old bimah to protect it, so the light was not so great.

floor of the synagogue

Tzipori is mentioned in the Talmud as a Jewish city with 18 synagogues and was the site of the Sanhedrin for a short time as well as the home of Talmudic scholars.

the rocks are where the bimah used to be

more of the synagogue floor

The floor has inscriptions in Greek & Aramaic. Interestingly, in addition to Jewish themes, like shofars and the 7 species, there was also pagan imagery, like the 12 signs of the zodiac.

Noah was amazing on this trip. He was interested in the history, walked the site for 3 hrs., took that picture of the cacti, and was just overall agreeable and happy. We think that his (re)adjustment at school has made him happier in general.

After our history lesson, we drove to Nazareth to go to an Arab restaurant called Diana that we had read good things about. We didn’t have time to stop and see the sights, but from the car we could see throngs of Christian tourists there to see the town where Jesus was a child. We saw so many different types of clergy walking the old city: Greek Orthodox priests, Franciscan friars, monks. We were there for the food. We ordered the salad appetizers, which are the customary start to Arab meals. Usually there is no extra charge for salads and you get anywhere from 3-6. The waiter told us about the salad special of 8NIS/person. We were surprised that they charged, but went for it. We were served 14 salads. Plus pita & olives. It was kind of crazy. We took home a lot of leftovers and I had excellent lunches all week.

Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan

Sunday I traveled by train & bus to Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, outside of Tel Aviv to give a talk about my research at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. The mission of the center, which is to get researchers from different fields speaking to each other and working together, is even evident in the architecture of the building. It was built around an open 7 story atrium and each floor that rings the open space has offices on a theme, so my talk was on the “Development” floor. On one spot on each floor, there is a glass-walled, bulge of a room, that juts out slightly into the atrium. These spaces are meant for gathering people together to share ideas, and since they are glass-walled & each floor is a ring, then these spaces are visible to everyone. You can just look out across the atrium into the conference room, see if anyone is gathered there, and join the conversation. It is an amazing concept, although, in reality, it took a few years for people to get used to the idea of inter-disciplinary work. Projects are now getting underway. So different from CUNY where people are scattered across campuses with only the remotest possibility of meeting one another.

I went there in the first place because I met a researcher, Roni Geva, when I was here for the sleep workshop in May, and it seemed like there might be some connection with our work that we wanted to explore. Even though she is a clinical psychologist, studying at-risk babies, and I’m an experimental psychologist, studying typically developing babies, we are both interested in attention, among other things. I had a great visit with her students and met some other faculty there and I’ll be going back in December to see if we can get something going. At the very least, I had some insights about a data-coding problem she was having, so even if we don’t start anything new, I can consult on an existing project.

A digression: On the train down there, I was working on my laptop and the man sitting next to me was asking me about the software I was using. He ended up asking me why I was in Israel, where I was from, wished me luck, etc. Later one of the students gave me a ride from Ramat Gan back to Tel Aviv so I could skip the bus ride. She and her boyfriend were writing down suggestions for where we should visit while we are here. I know the stereotype of the brusque Israeli, but once personal relationships are established – even if its just a fleeting moment on public transportation – people are so warm. I was reading about one of the American reality shows that had been adopted for Israeli television, can’t remember which one, but one where contestants are judged on their cooking and kicked off each week. And the meanspirited-ness of the American version did not fly here. Its such a small country that everyone is someone’s cousin or friend-of-a-friend. It becomes part of the culture to look out for one another. Indeed – the mother of the student who gave me the ride to the train, worked with Anat, my colleague at U. Haifa, when she was a student. “Any friend of my mother’s former advisor is a friend of mine.”

Art show

Every Fri. afternoon, the children in Noah’s class come home from school with a big shopping bag full of all of the art they made during the week. Noah then gives us an art show, where he goes through the pieces one-by-one and explains the stories behind them or his process for making them. If he had an especially productive week, sometimes we have to take a break from the art show and continue it the next day. This is where many of the captions in Noah’s own words come from that we put under the photos of his drawings.

And a shot of the picture so you can see what he’s talking about. Its part of a series he did last week on circuses and archers.

as explained in the accompanying video

How Noah’s doing

A little bit about Noah’s adjustment.

Every day when we arrive at school, two or three children come up and hug him. One morning, Yaffa (the ganenet, kindergarten teacher) told Sarah that all of the girls love Noah. Some things are cross-cultural.

His teacher was concerned that he was getting frustrated with not understanding Hebrew during “rug time” and acting up, playing the class clown for the other children’s attention.  He even had a “time-out” for being disruptive, although he says he didn’t understand what he had done. Sarah came up with the idea of him bringing a little notebook and asking the teacher to define words he doesn’t understand.  He’s done it for two days now, and Yaffa greeted us with “What a great idea that notebook is.”  She said Noah spent rugtime paying close attention to what she was saying and periodically asking questions, rather than paying attention to the other children.  He’s found that a handy phrase is “אני לא מבין” (Ani lo mevin)–“I don’t understand.” When we brought the notebook in the first day and explained that Noah would write down words that were new to him (in English transliteration), Yaffa asked, “he can write?” When Roy said that he could, she said she was surprised, but she wasn’t surprised.

On the ride to school we heard a Hebrew pop song that was in heavy rotation in October, which we refer to as the “ooh, yeah, ba dada da da da” song because we don’t know who sings it or what its about — but its really catchy. This morning Noah translated a line: “כמה זה כואב” (kama zeh koev)= “How much it hurts.”  He tells me that when we were in the emergency room with his broken leg, the nurse kept pointing and asking “Zeh koev?”

Saj: A Druze pita primer

The Druze live throughout the mountains of Lebanon, but also in two large villages on Mt. Carmel and in the Golan. As a result, there is a strong Druze presence in Haifa and the north – more so than in the rest of the country. We are lucky to have that unique cultural detail associated with our city because the Druze religion is mysterious to outsiders and it has been interesting to learn a little bit about the culture.. The Druze are known for their hospitality and their loyalty to their country. Typically, Arab-Israelis are not required to serve in the military, but the Israeli Druze insist on serving in the IDF. Male elders are recognizable by impressive mustaches, but most of the younger Druze are assimilated in their dress.

Our gateway to the culture has been food, of course – the gateway to most cultures. We’ve mentioned saj a couple of times before, but finally have a chance to illustrate it in detail here. Every saj stand that we’ve seen, whether in a Druze restaurant, a roadside stand, or in the mall on Friday mornings is run by an elderly Druze woman. They are recognizable by their white head scarves and black dress.

stretching & tossing the dough

putting it on the stove with the help of a flat cushion to avoid burns

the dough bubbles impressively

the finished project (pre-filling)

When the saj done, it is folded in half, filled either savory, with labneh, olive oil & za’atar or tabouleh, or sweet with chocolate spread, and then folded again to contain the filling.

Hai-Bar Nature Reserve

The first-weekend-without-a-cast celebration continues. We wrote briefly about the Mount Carmel National Park when we took a walk there erev Sukkot. It is 20,000 acres, so we only got a glimpse the first time we went. This time we went back to the Chai-Bar Nature Reserve, 1500 acres inside the park, dedicated to the restoration of wildlife that have been extinct in the area due to hunting, deforestation, or poisoning.

Wild goats - the symbol of the Israeli Park service and repopulated from Crete

Gazelle

Fallow deer - imported from Iran via covert operations & subterfuge

Normally, photos of animals don’t usually have much drama, but to put into perspective where we were, the following picture was taken from the same spot where I took the one of the goats:

U. of Haifa campus

We went home that evening to make pizza on the grill and experienced more wildlife in our own backyard:

look near the wheel (for scale)

biggest beetle we'd ever seen