Freedom in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

We return to Tel Aviv from the north for our last day of the birthright tour and, totally worn out as a collective, we struggle through a packed agenda--the site where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated; a big, bustling marketplace; the hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel a state in 1948. Afterwards there is a sentimental farewell dinner, dampened (for me at least) only by an impromptu speech from the Minister of Environmental Protection in the Likud Party, who happens to be eating in the same restaurant. The Minister gives a verbal pat on the back to George W. Bush and encourages us to stand against "the anti-semitism on college campuses in the US" (uhhhh...) A fitting farewell from the state of Israel. ___________________________________________________ At the airport, I quickly give goodbye hugs to everyone and catch a ride with Young Judaea staff back into Tel Aviv. I hop on a bus to my hostel, get out and walk past the same big market our group dove into earlier that day--now empty--and all of the sudden I'm hit with this really deep sense of loneliness and yearning for my group, or some type of company; it completely caught me off guard. I had randomly bumped into Dan and his tour again earlier that day, and we had planned to meet up, but my energy is just gone at this point and I go straight to my bunk (turns out the phone number his friend left me was short a couple digits anyways)--the hostel is dingy and the bed is uncomfortable. My roommate, a Frenchman, chats with me a little bit and laments that he's flying home tomorrow to return to work--that makes me feel a little better, but not much. Once I lie down, it doesn't take me long to pass out. ___________________________________________________ It takes me a while to get going again, but over the next few days, I get acclimated to my relative solitude. My revolving set of roommates are an interesting and geographically diverse mix, and I spend time with a handful of them, but I also do a lot of walking around alone. I get bored with Tel Aviv after a couple of days, and eventually make my way to the older (by about 4000 years) city of Jaffa just to the south. Unlike the developed and commercialized waterfront of Tel Aviv, Jaffa's beach is miles of dirt and rocks, presumably to be developed into something more pretty in the future. I go out on some big rocks by the water for a while--it's just me and a couple of fishermen--and then walk into the city, which is way more interesting than Tel Aviv: curvy, narrow roads; lots of kids playing; an amazing aroma coming from a house about every couple of blocks; prayer booming from a loudspeaker at a mosque somewhere. On the way back I stumble into the first restaurant I see and it ends up having the best kabob I've ever eaten. ___________________________________________________ On the last night of my stay, I meet up with one of my hostel roommates (a straggler from the far-left birthright program--I had no idea such a thing existed--the tour had to stop inviting soldiers to participate because they would always verbal altercations with the tourgoers) at an anti-war/anti-Israeli occupation march from Tel Aviv to Jaffa. I'm not always the biggest fan of protests, but this one had a really good vibe to it--all things considered, of course--and after birthright, it was really refreshing to see a couple thousand Israelis who outwardly question their leadership instead of falling into line with the status quo (I have great pictures from it that I still can't figure out how to get onto the various computers I've been using...hopefully soon). On the way back, I converse with one of the townfolk who is walking the same direction. When I mention the heavy propaganda in my tour, she replies, "I was in the army; I know propaganda." Her motivation for participating in the protest: "I was taught as a baby that it would be peaceful when I got older; now my friends are teaching their babies the same thing." Pretty basic.