By David Scribner
November 16, 2013
Jerusalem
If you’ve noticed I haven’t been in Fuel lately, conferring with Mickey Friedman — and perhaps you haven’t — or if you’ve been curious why my scribblings haven’t appeared in the local rag for the past two weeks — and maybe you haven’t — the reason is I’ve been in Israel.
On a mission. Several, actually. As I’ll explain later.
But first I must tell you how fascinating a place Israel is, how surprising the landscape, how gregarious and engaging the people, once you get past the “sectual” politics. Aaahh, the politics! Especially in Jerusalem. It’s the Black Hats and the Head Scarves simmering in a cauldron. Such bitterness, in a city that defies comprehension.
Just try to follow a map of the Old City that’s a fortress-like structure straddling East and West Jerusalem. It’s surrounded by an ancient stone wall, so you’d think,”How lost could you get?” You go in through massive gates. Once inside, you find yourself in a labyrinth of narrow, stone streets, and not just level, but up and down, and twisting over each other. At one point, you burst upon the open, brilliantly lit plaza at the Western Wall. In a few minutes you could be at what is said to be the very spot where Jesus was crucified, and the cavern where he was buried. And at few steps away, you can climb the walkway to the Temple Mount, the holiest of places for Jews and the Golden Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa mosque, sacred sites for Moslems. And did I mention that many of the alleyways are lined with garrulous merchants?
That was a few days ago. Today, I’m in Tel Aviv, a modern, secular city by the Mediterranean, with its port of Jaffa, where, it is said, Jonah set off on his adventure in the belly of the fish, and the very port to whose rocks off shore, legend has it, Andromeda was chained, only to be rescued from a sea monster by Perseus, wrapped in an invisibility cloak provided by Hades and flying with the winged sandals of Hermes. Looking out into the sea’s misty horizon, you can imagine it. All of it. In spite of — or perhaps because of — the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) helicopters patrolling back and forth.
But now I am on a main thoroughfare in downtown Tel Aviv, Dizengoff Street, named after the city’s first mayor, Meier Dizengoff. Nearby, on the kind of tree-lined esplanade along which pedestrians and cyclers, young and old, traverse the city, there is a bronze statue of Dizengoff, in a bowler hat and riding habit astride a 17-hand Arabian.
His street is tree-lined, as well, very large trees indeed, their trunks entwined with cords of growth. How pleasant, companionable and welcoming it is to negotiate the crowded sidewalks in the shade of these old growth trees. They are not decoration but an essential feature of the streetscape. Certainly as essential as traffic lights.
And so, of course, it occurred to me how barren my hometown’s Main Street will look this coming spring and in the coming years when the old Bradford pears — neglected and badly kept up as they are — are untimely ripped up and replaced with scrawny species that will take decades to mature. Even when fully grown they won’t spread their crowns over the sidewalks to provide the leafy and shady alley that makes our downtown so appealing for human traffic on foot.
Instead, we’ll have bright glittering cement dominated by massive black racks for traffic lights and pedestrian guidance. Everything engineered for the automobile; human perspective and scale is an afterthought.
What a pity. Is there not some initiative that could, at least, make sure that adolescent trees rather than striplings be planted to preserve the tapestry of life?
Those are my reflections while I stroll along with my companion Marcie Setlow, in a modern city where bicycle racks are everywhere, where streets are tree-lined and commerce is thriving.
Even in Israel, for me, Great Barrington is not far away.
I have to stop now, for perhaps you are wondering whatever happened to the missions I mentioned at the beginning of this dispatch. Well, you’ll just have to wait for the next one.
I’ll give you a hint, however: They have to do with falafel and peace. Missions independent of each other, and not necessarily in that order.