Security personnel inspect the car containing four Israelis which was bombarded with bullets on Tuesday night near Kiryat Arba. (AP)

It’s horrible, but unfortunately true. I think everyone is starting to remember how previous waves of terror began – a shooting here, a bus bomb there, and before you know it, it’s an everyday thing.

I’m getting on a bus in a few hours, and for the first time in years, I may be looking around and checking out the passengers getting on, doing my own personal profile checking.

I guess the big difference this time, though, is the fact that we have a security barrier which is supposedly preventing potential suicide bombers from arriving at their destination, and the facts that the cooperation we’re getting from the Palestinian security forces are helping to prevent and catch terror acts before they happen. But not always, as the last two nights have tragically shown.

I, like most Israelis who want the peace talks beginning today in Washington to succeed, want to believe Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he said that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian terror rejectionist groups are Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s common enemy.

But if all Israelis, and not just settlers (who for some, incomprehensibly, don’t count as they are bringing it on themselves by living in the West Bank) are now going to be open targets for the guns and bombs of terrorists, it’s clear that the peace attempts in Washington are going to fail miserably. And our Palestinian neighbors will only have themselves to blame when their statehood once again moves beyond their reach.

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The drink and the album

The beverage in question was “gazoz”, which is really a retro drink these days, made of seltzer and various flavored syrups. It was gone for many years from the Israeli kitchen and restaurant menu, although home carbonation systems — and then just store-bought bottles of seltzer/soda water — carried on the tradition. But the last few years have brought gazoz back to the beverage list, and it’s a happy thing. Sure, you can have your limonana and iced coffees on a hot day, but the simplicity of soda water with a spritz of lemon, peach, pineapple, passionfruit, etc. syrup is easily refreshing too. And, clearly, quite cheap if a local restaurant is willing to offer free refills.

Interestingly, I always thought that the word gazoz was based on one of the European languages for gas, or carbonation. But a little Googling brought me to this Forward article, whose author found that the Turkish “Gazöz” means fizzy lemonade. “The Turks must have borrowed this word, along with the soft drink it designated, from the Italians — and since Palestine was under Turkish control until 1917, it is highly likely that Turkish rather than Italian was the immediate source of Hebrew gazoz. French, it almost certainly wasn’t.”

And like many popular Israeli terms, the word gazoz was popular for a while, so much so that a classic Israeli rock band borrowed the term; Gazoz was only around from 1978-1979 and released just two albums, including the now classic:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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But after spending a couple end of summer 100 degree days there, for maybe the 10th time, I can loudly proclaim that Eilat is a whole lot more than one gaudy hotel after another, a boardwalk that rivals any US beach front for mass culture tackiness, and a huge neon advertisement for conspicuous consumption.

Eilat is simply one of the nicest spots in Israel. The Undersea Observatory is a world-class delight, the Coral Beach one of the most magnetic, alluring sites in the country, the Dolphin Beach is incredible, the Bird Observatory is an international attraction for fans of the two-winged creatures, and the list goes on and on.

You don’t need to wallow in decadence in Eilat – you can use it as a jumping off point for some of the most amazing natural wonders Israel – or any country – has to offer. So next time you guffaw at someone for saying they’re headed to Eilat, just remember the blue water, the tropical fish of every color, and the tranquility of sitting and staring out on to a smooth-as-glass Red Sea.

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Buffalo Steak House

Buffalo Steak House is the kind of restaurant you go to for a special occasion or when relatives have flown into town (and are treating). With a menu almost entirely given over, as its name implies, to various cuts of beef (with the occasional chicken dish thrown in for those trying to keep their red meat intake down), it was the perfect place to celebrate the Blum family’s collective birthdays.

This is birthday season around our house – Amir and Jody in August, Merav and me in September. With Buffalo’s prices ($20-$30 a plate), we opted to pool our gastronomic resources.

For at least one of our family members, it was also the first time eating steak. Nearly 17-year-old Merav only jumped out of a prolonged vegetarian lifestyle a year ago. Twelve-year-old Aviv had some steak background, but not a lot – it was not that far in the past that he didn’t get more adventurous than chicken stars and burgers.

On the advice of our English-speaking waiter (who immediately pegged us as non-native born – do we look that American still after 16 years in the country?), the relative newbies went for the Entrecote. Amir – whose steak experience is more extensive – chose a very rare filet. I broke the steak chain and ordered three spicy and entirely delicious sausages cooked in a batter of beer, honey and mustard with fried onions on top.

Jody – who’s on a diet that eschews meat in the evening – ordered a salad, which was quite good in a non-carnivorous way.

The sweet potato chips with a mustard dipping sauce made for an excellent appetizer.

I can in good conscious recommend Buffalo; it’s certainly as tasty as the Meat and Wine Company in Herzeliya – and a lot closer for Jerusalemites like us. The bill for the five of us topped $150 with tip. For a once a year shared celebration, we can eat that.

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In any case, I spent my waiting time reading the entire newspaper, something I don’t usually get to do; chatting with other waitees, including someone who wanted to hire me for my writing skills; and returning phone calls. In the back of my mind, I figured that I would grab a sandwich from the woman who has a little stand just around the corner (1st floor, Maccabi building, Agrippas Street, Jerusalem) from my doctor’s office. When I had been waiting over an hour, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and ambled over to her stand to see what she had to offer.

As luck would have it, she’d just run out of fresh rolls. And in typical Israeli style, she noted that she only makes sandwiches from the freshest ingredients (this is why Starbucks never made it here), and would therefore have to pop down to the Machane Yehuda market just down the street to pick up some more rolls. But she couldn’t do that without someone to man the counter, and keep an eye on the espresso machine, soft drinks and croissants still available.

Well, I certainly had the time, given that I was #288 and #278 had just entered the doctor’s office. Plus, it was too chancy to leave the building and grab something to eat, and, I knew from past experience that she makes a good sandwich. And so, sandwich lady I became for a brief 20 minutes, as she ran out for fresh rolls and quickly returned. Nothing actually happened during that time, but we all exchanged smiling glances at the situations that an elongated wait can offer.

And the sandwich was worth it.

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Here’s a tidbit of useless information: do you know why Tel Aviv’s Gan Ha-Ir mall is called that? Because there used to be a zoo — Gan Hayot Tel Aviv — on the site. Gan means “park”, hayot means “animals”, ir means “city”. So, “animal park” and “city park”. Hence the name.

On the other hand, maybe it’s not so useless, as the story of the zoo is, in microcosm, the story of the modern city of Tel Aviv.

The story starts in 1935 when Rabbi Dr. Mordecai Schornstein, formerly the chief Rabbi of Copenhagen and an animal lover, fled from Nazi-occupied Europe to British Mandatory Palestine.

En route, Schornstein purchased a number of animals in Italy. According to the Farkash Gallery (more about them below), “He opened a pet shop on Shenkin Street 15 and named it ‘Gan Hayot’ (‘zoo’ in Hebrew). The birds and mammals in the store soon became a local attraction, and after the ‘Eastern Fair’ [or the Levant Fair] of 1936, where Dr. Shornstein presented his animals, he founded his zoo on Hayarkon Street 65 [in 1938].”

“However, after a pair of lions and tigers was donated to the zoo, the zoo became a real annoyance to its neighbors. With pressure mounting by the zoo’s neighbors, a new compound was built for the zoo in the northern part of the city, which was at time mostly uninhabited. In November 1939, the zoo was relocated to its new location and was opened to the public.”

“The Tel Aviv Zoo was a source of pride for residents of the first modern Jewish city. The zoo displayed creatures from around the world as well as animals and birds of the Land of Israel. It also had a small aquarium. A visit to the Tel Aviv Zoo was a popular outing for children of the Land of Israel.”

The zoo’s proximity to Tel Aviv City Hall provided the perfect situation for a joke told by the late great humorist Ephraim Kishon. To paraphrase: “One day a lion escaped from the zoo, wandered over to city hall and began eating the clerks, one by one. This went on for weeks. It was only after the lion made a crucial error and ate the tea cart lady that anyone noticed.”

The zoo was also apparently one of few in the world able to breed flamingos in captivity, according to this 1970 study published in the Journal of Zoo Animal Medicine.

Another curio of this zoo story: During the World War II, a Polish army regiment was stationed in British Mandatory Palestine. The unit, the 16th Lwow Rifles Battalion, kept a bear as a mascot: Wojtek. The soldiers decided to bring him a companion and acquired Michael, a Persian bear.

According to the website devoted to Wojtek’s memory — he was much loved in that screwy Eastern European sort of way, meaning that in addition to being kept in captivity, the soldiers made him do tricks and taught him to drink beer and smoke cigarettes — “It was hoped that he [Michael] and Wojtek would become companions, unfortunately they had a vicious fight which put paid to that idea. So Michael was donated to the Tel Aviv zoo in 1943.”

Here’s the letter from the Mayor of Tel Aviv thanking the Lwow Rifles Battalion for their donation of Michael to the zoo. As for his would-be companion, “In turn they received a monkey called Kaska who spent most of it’s time teasing Wojtek.”

(BTW, after being demobilized in 1947, rather than subject him to Soviet occupation, the unit gave Wojtek to the Edinburgh Zoo where he remained until his death in 1963).

Originally located on the city outskirts, as Tel Aviv expanded, so gradually was the zoo surrounded by residential buildings. In 1980, the zoo was closed and the animals moved from the center of Tel Aviv to more the hospitable, humane surroundings of the Ramat Gan Safari.

The Gan HaIr luxury high-rise and up-market shopping center was built on the site and completed in 1989. A statue commemorating Rabbi Dr. Schornstein was placed at the entrance to a little garden to the rear of the building, on Hadassah Street.

The Zoo lives on in images, though. Some wonderful posters from its heyday available for sale online at The Farkash Gallery. And some of the children who loved the zoo, now adults, have posted home movies of their visits on YouTube.

Tel Aviv Zoo 1966

Tel Aviv Zoo 1970s

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According to The Jerusalem Post, at the rally, Gilad’s mother Aviva Schalit read out a letter addressed to her son, beginning:

“Again this year I have not bought you a present, I have not baked you a cake, and you will not be able to blow out your candles and make a wish.”

Further on in her letter, she apologized to her son for having been unable as yet to secure his release, and went on to address Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, imploring her to become more involved in her son’s plight.

Addressing the prime minister himself, she said: “Secure Gilad’s release, before we run out of time.”

On Friday, Gilad’s father Noam Schalit commented on his son’s impending birthday.

“Tomorrow we will celebrate a sad birthday, the fifth, for Gilad in Hamas captivity… Unfortunately, we don’t see anything happening moving forward. There are no negotiations and we do not see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Here’s some photos of Schalit and the various rallies that have taken place in his name over the last four years. May this be the last year that he’s in captivity.

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But yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a much wider array of flowers being sold by the teenager outside SuperDeal — Friday flowers are often sold by enterprising teenage boys outside supermarkets, gas stations, and more often than not, on random sidewalks and sides of highways. He sold me these bizarre-looking buds, and told me the name, which I promptly forgot, being laden down with packages and reminders of what I had to buy next.

The orange-y ones look like round orange peppers to me, but may be a completely different variety. The pale green ones have the look of nothing I’ve ever seen before, as these delicate-looking feathery bulbs that are sort of ugly yet compelling in their otherness. The question is, does anyone know what they’re called? I’d really rather not wait until next Friday.

Please chime in with answers!

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Camping at HaBonim Beach

As the school year is quickly approaching, I thought I’d share a little of what we did on our summer vacation. You don’t have to be on holiday, though, to enjoy little downtime in Israel: these tips are handy any time of the year – all the more so in the final week of educational freedom.

We were fortunate to have friends in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ra’anana who suggested a house swap. While nothing is terribly far in little Israel, being closer to the “merkaz” (the center of the country) enabled us Jerusalemites to take advantage of more of what the greater Tel Aviv region offers.

Truth be told, the real advantage to our arrangement is that by going away – even an hour from home – we were “forced” to take the time off. Sure, we could have done day trips, but we wouldn’t have. Email and Facebook would have been just too enticing.

Since our vacation coincided with the recent heat wave in Israel, we spent a lot of time in the water. The Herzeliya beach is perfunctory – it has the requisite sand, lifeguard and bathrooms. Nothing special, but it’s the closest to Ra’anana (with better parking than at the central beaches of Tel Aviv), so that’s where we headed on our first day.

For a second beach trip a few days later, we drove up to the HaBonim beach, not from Zichron Ya’akov and south of Haifa. We had been told it was the most beautiful beach in Israel. It was.

This is a “camper’s beach” and when we arrived, most of the pergolas were already filled with tents. We shared some open space with a mangal (barbeque) and several toddlers.

Since many of the beachgoers are there for more than an afternoon, HaBonim has a more laid back family-friendly feel than trendy teenager-centric Herzeliya. But the real jewel is the nature walk – an hour-long loop along a marked trail (the beach is actually an official Israeli nature reserve) where we could lap up the shore as the sun set. It was lovely.

Waterslide at Yamit 2000

We also hit the Yamit 2000 water park – not recommended. In the summer, there must be a billion screaming kids (and even louder teenagers). Waits for 30-second water slides stretched to close an hour. Definitely not laid back.

We also rented bikes in Tel Aviv and rode along the Yarkon River all the way to the namal (the old Tel Aviv port) which is one of our favorite hang-out spots. We had packed picnic lunches to keep costs down, but we did manage to scarf down some Aldo Ice Cream before returning on the route we came. Biggest surprise: this bike route is actually part of the Israel Trail, normally only for hikers. Who knew?

One other highlight: the Jaffa Flea Market which stays open late Thursday nights during the summer and is filled with merrymakers, musicians and street comics.. It’s also packed with people, but it’s a fun atmosphere. This one is time-limited: go before the summer’s over!

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Klone is a recognized member of the world street artist community who has had his work covered by any number of art commentators – the most comprehensive bio I’ve found is by Hagi Kenaan on the Maarav blog. And there’s a nice write up of a massive 3-man graffiti art happening from last summer. He’s participated in group shows in Israel, USA, UK and Europe and and had solo shows in Tel Aviv. So Klone is not unknown.

But his work does convey loneliness, isolation and pain. Of it, Klone says, “My work is dealing with memories, my own and the ones I manage to collect in everyday life from surroundings, if its my childhood in USSR or the coming to Israel…”

“…if it’s the layers of the city, walls crumbling apart and graffiti covering and being covered…”

“…people getting old and the new generations appearing every moment, the search is endless. Thus my work of documenting it is still long. I learn a new language that invents itself along my way, I don’t understand its symbolics most of the time and use my skills as a channel to combine all the elements I collect in my everyday into one stream of visuals…

“My work might be on paper, canvas, wood, wall or whatever surface I stumble upon on my way. The story must be told and I hope that one day I will understand it all.”

Klone’s technique often involves creating complex works on tissue-thin paper before venturing outside. The paper is then quickly glued onto the desired surface (as above). His most recent venture was last week — you can see it on Tel Aviv Street Art. More Klones, including artwork done in studio and available for sale, can be viewed on his website.

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