"You shall have your day of rest" Silvan Shalom commands

In recent weeks, Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom’s has renewed a campaign to turn Sunday into an official day off in Israel, as with other parts of the world. The Anglo community has embraced the idea. As for me, I’m dead set against it.

How could anyone be against Sundays, you might ask? Isn’t that one of the biggest complaint immigrants from Western countries have? Especially for the religious, Friday is dedicated primarily to preparing for Shabbat; it’s certainly not a day for hiking, shopping and barbecuing.

Have these same immigrants forgotten their own miserable experiences in the old country? I haven’t. Back when I was more religious, Fridays were a nightmare, mostly because you had to explain to your employer why you had to leave early in the winters and how you’d make it up on weekends (oops, there goes Sunday).

Even if your boss was flexible, your co-workers might not be so supportive. I remember one Friday when I was working towards a looming software deadline, I told my lead programmer I was leaving while he would have to toil into the wee hours. He had a few choice words for me that probably spurred my aliyah.

Then there was getting home minutes before Shabbat (if I didn’t get stuck in the inevitable Friday afternoon traffic) and having no down time before showering, changing into Shabbat clothes and rushing off to shul.

Having Fridays off in Israel is, by contrast, one of the aspects to Israeli life that I most appreciated.

Now, MK Shalom assures us that implementing “leisure Sundays” would be different in Israel. We’d only work a half-day on Fridays. And we’d add extra hours to the rest of the week.

Sure, Silvan. And have you ever worked in a hi-tech company where the hours of that so-called “rest of the week” already stretched well into the evening? The pressure to work late on Fridays could be just as forbidding as my experience back in the States.

Here’s one more downer to rain on the weekend parade. I remember years ago, when I was CEO of a startup, discussing what it took to “make it” in the Internet age. “We work 24/7,” boasted one of my colleagues. When I told him in Israel we only work 24/6, he thought I was nuts. How could we possibly compete? So now we’re going to be 24/5.5?

So, sorry guys, I’m voting against this proposal. Not that it matters. The proposal has come up several times in the past decade and never made it out of committee (if it even got that far). My beloved one-day weekend is safe for now.

This post appeared originally on Israelity.

One of my closest childhood friends flew into town recently for a whirlwind Jewish Federation-sponsored tour of Israel. Ted had a couple of hours free in Jerusalem, so along with my friends David and Shelley Brinn (who had also known Ted back in the day) and Ted’s old girlfriend Evelyn, we met up at a local branch of the Cup O’ Joe coffee chain.

Ted had been a critical part of my tween and teenage years. We had become close at a JCC summer camp and shared myriad adventures until I took off for college. In the years afterward, we mostly fell out of touch – that is until Facebook brought us together again.

Our meet-up was great. We reminisced about old friends from high school and where they are today and, being Jewish, inevitably discussed politics, religion and international perceptions of Israel (“it’s not a flotilla, it’s a convoy,” the government spokesperson told Ted’s group of Federation professionals).

When I got home, I was inspired to pull out the old diary that I had kept since sixth grade. In-between such mundane entries as “I washed my hair today,” and “the combination for my new locker is 26-10-20” (don’t bother trying it; they’ve changed the locks at least several times since 1974), there was Ted. But not just a mention here and there; he was on nearly every page.

“Today Ted and I took the bus to Berkeley and had a hotdog at the Orange Julius.” “Ted and I went to Audrey’s party and we didn’t come home until 5:00 AM.” “Ted and I talked on the phone for two hours tonight.”

Ted was “my best friend,” I wrote, whom I now remembered was the subject matter for a chapbook of poems I wrote for Creative Writing class during my sophomore year at Oberlin. What a joy to have those memories awakened again!

As I dove deeper into the diary, though, the mood began to darken as the chaos of my teenage years asserted itself: all the confusion and chattering and trying to interpret every infinitesimal move a friend might make as somehow earth-shatteringly significant.

Slowly, I found myself being pulled back into a world I realized I’d idealized over the years, coating it with the pastel sheen of pre-responsibility, before the weight of adulthood, with its financial decisions and career malfunctions, transformed buried torment into hazy memories of “carefree” days.

There were the unrequited crushes; the incessant attempts at re-inventing myself; the four-month break when Ted and I didn’t speak (for the life of me, I don’t remember why, but it must have had something to do with a girl).

I wanted to call Ted and tell him to rush over, to sit with me and pour over the pages. To provide a reality check for my gushing teenage prose. We had such good times together, didn’t we? So why was my nightly analysis so depressingly dour.

But I didn’t call. Instead I turned to my wife Jody and we replayed the 30 years after high school: our tender and happy life together; our three beautiful children; the decision to move to Israel and all the wonder and tragedy that has incurred.

I put away the diary. Will I open it again? Perhaps. Those years will always be a part of me and it was courageous, I suppose, to dwell there, if only for a brief few moments. I will make a point of staying in touch with Ted (Facebook makes that deliriously easy). He was a huge part of my life. He should be again – but in the future, not the past.

I wrote about Ted on the Israelity blog.

Outside the Jelly Belly factory

I have to confess up front: I have never been a fan of jelly beans. But after a visit last summer to the very center of jelly bean heaven – the Jelly Belly factory in California, where I saw how the pint-sized multicolored candies are concocted – now I’m totally disgusted.

Ironically, if we hadn’t been Israeli, the whole travesty might never even have happened.

We were visiting my mom in Northern California. Google Maps said that it should take us an hour and 15 minutes to drive to the factory. But Google didn’t count on Friday afternoon traffic. About 10 minutes before our destination, the road slowed to a near standstill.

We still had 45 minutes left until the factory closed. How bad could this jam be? Pretty bad, it turned out.

When we finally got to the Jelly Belly factory, it was half an hour after the last tour left.

My wife, Jody, jumped out of the car and raced straight inside, while I looked for a parking space. She told the man at the desk our story and asked if we could join the last tour in progress.

“No, that’s not possible,” John, the floor manager, told Jody. “But I can give you a hat!” It was little consolation for a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Never one to give up, Jody tried a different tactic.

“We’ve just come 27 hours from Israel,” she said, stretching the chronology a bit. “I’m sure you can find a guide free now who could give us a private tour.”

Such chutzpa. It was akin to cutting into a line in the supermarket and announcing, “I was after her.” After 15 years in the Middle East, we must have integrated into Israeli society!

John, however, looked quite flustered. This wasn’t the way the locals talk. He turned to his assistant nervously. “Is Arthur around?” he asked. He was. “OK, run them through. But fast.”

That was good enough for us. We donned our complementary Jelly Belly hats, looking like a troop of confectionery Popeyes. Walking at breakneck speed, Arthur pointed out the sorting machines, the polishing devices, the enormous dryers and the robots that reject the duds and stamp the ubiquitous Jelly Belly label on freshly minted beans.

We learned that Jelly Belly was started in 1976 and that the company produces some 34 million pounds of product a year. Former US president Ronald Reagan was a fan and Jelly Bellies even found their way into outer space, stowing away on the 1983 Challenger shuttle as an astro-surprise.

All good fun. But there was a dark side. Arthur proudly gestured to several large vats of chemicals containing languid pools of artificial coloring and sweeteners. I recoiled.

I know that the fast-food industry is riddled with less-than-edible additives, but seeing barrels of the stuff before our very eyes made me loath to even touch a chemically altered treat. They look so innocent. What a cynical bait and switch.

Jelly Belly positions itself as a maker of “gourmet” jelly beans. Downstairs in the store, 50 “official” flavors beckoned with their cheerful monikers: Marshmallow, Dr. Pepper, Bubble Gum, Cantaloupe, Very Cherry, Chocolate Pudding and many more.

Jelly Belly also offers some truly atrocious flavors – clearly intended to gross out even your five-year-old neighbors. The offending flavors were all tricked up – perhaps in homage to “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans” in the Harry Potter books – to look exactly like the legitimate Belly variety.

• “Barf” looked like peach.
• “Booger” was the same color as juicy pear.
• Caramel corn corresponded with “moldy cheese.”
• And last on the list: “rotten egg” masquerading as buttered popcorn.

Despite my consternation, Jelly Belly continues to expand its global reach. Last year, the company opened its first “concept store” in Israel in Herzliya’s Cinema City mall. And for those of you concerned about kashrut, Jelly Belly recently upgraded its rabbinical supervision.

That’s right, vomit flavored beans are now officially OU. Ingest at your own risk.

This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

Photo from AP

With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration before yesterday’s AIPAC conference that “Jerusalem is not a settlement” – a response to U.S. claims to the contrary regarding at least part of the city -  I thought it would be instructive to look at a personal incident that occurred nearly five years ago.

In July 2005, I was interviewed for a cover story in the San Francisco Chronicle, my home town paper. The reporter was writing a series of articles about the real people behind the headlines living their normal lives in the Middle East and thought my story would fit in nicely. I agreed.

Imagine then my shock when I read the headline of the article reading “Settler Hopes for Peace to Take Root.”

The reporter insisted it was a “last minute overnight change” by a low ranking copy editor that was made without his approval.

The story of the inflammatory headline was then picked up by Honest Reporting which promptly sent a blast to its email list which numbered 125,000 at the time. The Chronicle was inundated by complaints and eventually published a retraction.

In light of the recent igniting of tensions between the U.S. and Israel (not to mention those with the Palestinians), I’m posting the link to the original story I wrote.

Visit: http://www.thisnormallife.com/2005/07/the-settler-from-west-jerusalem/

You can read the story in the Chronicle here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/24/MNGKMDS8151.DTL

Growing up, our family had an annual tradition on New Year’s Day. My father, my brother and I would gather around the family room table and put down in writing our predictions for the upcoming year. We would then open the envelope that had been sealed “upon pain of death” from the previous year.

Our predictions were divided into the categories that mattered most to us in our pre-teenage years: sports, entertainment, politics, and personal. The results were almost consistently out in left field, though sometimes we’d hit a grounder. We took pains to divide our pithy predictions according to who said what.

I still have those envelopes. Here are some excerpts from the years when I was 12 and 13 years old.

My brother predicted that JRR Tolkien would come out with a new book. My father thought he’d die (he did), while I said someone would make a major live action move out of Lord of the Rings (I was right, too…just 30 years off).

I rooted for a Beatles reunion; my father voted for Simon and Garfunkel. All of us believed that then President Nixon would be impeached, but only Dad predicted correctly that he would resign. He also pegged gasoline at a whopping 65 cents a gallon.

On more important matters, I thought Disneyland would open a new land and that we’d buy our first color TV (I was wrong about Disneyland, right about the TV). And I hoped the U.S. draft would come to an end.

Years later, what I find most interesting, though, are the predictions we made about Israel. There were only two.

On January 1, 1973, my father and I wrote a cryptic three line prediction: “Arabs No Settle.” Little did we know what was to come later that year at Yom Kippur.

The following year, now jaded by 1973’s events, we all predicted a new Arab-Israeli war (this time we were fortunately wrong, although we were not out of the clear with two Lebanon wars, a protracted terrorist war of attrition, and a full scale conflagration in Gaza still to come.).

Our prediction tradition has sadly since faded. What would be on our list if we were to reignite it today with an Israeli spin?

Is this the year of an attack on Iran and a subsequent retaliation?

Will any more politicians be impeached or resign (I think Ehud Olmert has us covered for awhile).

The Beatles won’t be reuniting but Paul McCartney finally came to Israel (and the list of artists slated for 2010 is formidable – see my colleague David Brinn’s report on the Israelity blog).

Of course the draft is mandatory and will be for the foreseeable future.

And any complaints about 65 cents a gallon gas have long been converted into wistful nostalgia.

One thing I am sure of: the state of Israel will be here in another year and the Jewish people will continue to thrive.

Happy 2010 to all This Normal Life’s long time readers.

This post originally appeared on the Israelity blog.

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If you’ve just arrived at TNL for the first time in awhile, you’ll notice things look a little different around here. Just in time for 2010, I’ve moved the site to a new server running WordPress using the very cool and flexible Thesis theme. There’s no logo yet – the old one was nearly 5 years old and needs a serious overhaul – so if you know a great graphic designer, please be in touch.

As I staggered off the Goliath roller coaster at the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Los Angeles this past summer, wobbly and nauseous, I felt a wilting sense of sorrow. I knew at that moment, as my equilibrium began doing jumping jacks in my belly, that this was probably the last time I’d be visiting an amusement park.

As a life long roller coaster fan, it’s not easy for me admit defeat. When I was growing up, there was nothing I enjoyed more than a road trip to the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk with my friends where we would ride the Giant Dipper over and over for just a buck a twirl.

I’ve always been a purist. No new fangled metal machines for me. The old wooden coasters were the only way to go, powered entirely by gravity (after the initial chain pull to the top).

Other notable woodies I’ve visited over the years include the Cyclone at Coney Island, the Blue Streak at Cedar Point, and the Colossus at Magic Mountain (which we thoroughly enjoyed on this trip). Why would you want to ruin that by putting, I shudder to even say it, a motor on the car?

It’s not just the motors, though. Over the years, roller coaster riders have demanded more and more thrills. When it first opened in 1971, Magic Mountain had a tame ride called The Gold Rusher which today is so neglected that you can walk right up to the front and jump on; no 3 hour lines for this moldy oldy.

In 1976, Magic Mountain introduced the world’s first 360-degree looping coaster. By 1990, the newly launched Viper tripled the number of loops and added a batwing turn that inverts riders twice as well as a double corkscrew. On the Riddler’s Revenge, you stand up while flipping six times.

The terrifying Tatsu is dubbed the “world’s tallest, fastest and longest flying roller coaster” where riders recline with their backs against a suspended overhead track while hurtling forward at intense speed. And don’t even get me started about the X2, which at midday had lines up to two hours long.

To its credit, earlier this year, Magic Mountain did open its first wooden coaster in nearly 30 years since the Colossus made its debut. The new Terminator Salvation has less of a drop than I’d like but is followed up by some very steeply banked turns.

But age is creeping up on me. I still love the wooden coasters, but I just can’t handle the twists and turns that are the raison d’etre of the more thrilling rides the way I used to.

After my sixth or seventh ride at Magic Mountain, I could barely stand straight as my surroundings spun around my brain. I ordered a tall bottle of Sprite in a failed attempt to soothe my seething stomach. Much to my coaster companion, 18-year-old Amir’s disappointment, I was done for the day…or more likely for good.

As we departed the park, fingering our greasy funnel cakes, I gave one last wistful look at my past and announced my decision to never return. Amir was sad – “who will I go with next time?” But 11-year-old Aviv was indignant.

All through the day, Aviv had been challenging himself on scarier and scarier rides. He wasn’t quite ready for the Colossus, but he was having no part of this “last amusement park ever” crap. There were still many more roller coasters in his future, he fumed.

And we don’t even have to go as far as California. Rishon LeZion’s SuperLand has its own nausea-inducing twister – the Kumba.

Of course he was right. I guess that’s what being a parent is all about. You might liken raising a family to catching a nasty virus. Sometimes you just have to make yourself sick to your stomach in order to please your children.

It’s been a month of firsts for our family. We sent our oldest son off to the army in November. Then last night, our 16-year-old daughter Merav headed out to the U.S. on her first airplane trip alone to visit her grandparents over Hanukah.

Living in Israel means that flying nearly anywhere out of the country entails a hefty trip. And heading to the States can be as long as 24 hours door-to-door. So it wasn’t surprising that Merav was initially quite apprehensive. We went over the itinerary for the tenth time on the drive from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion.

“When you get to New York, you first go to passports, then claim your luggage, then put it back on the conveyor belt…that is if it doesn’t get lost.”

“What!” Merav cried in a panic.

“No, no don’t worry, that never happens,” I replied, adding to myself the qualifier “much,” after having been the victim of too many items gone astray over the years.

Sure, Merav’s been to the States many times with us, but going solo is a big deal. I can relate. I remember my first time on a plane alone.

I was 17 and flying from San Francisco to San Diego to check out the University of California campus there. This was 1977 and security was a lot more lax. My mother actually came onto the plane to make sure I was settled in and buckled up. Nowadays of course, non-ticketed family can’t even make it past the Irish pub next to the metal detectors.

Upon landing, I stayed in a YMCA in downtown next to the Greyhound bus station. 30+ years later, I still can’t understand why my parents didn’t put me up in an at least a Motel 6.

On my first day in San Diego, I went to the bus station to make a call home. I entered the phone booth, spoke for a few minutes and then left to catch a bus to the university.

It was then that I realized I’d left my wallet in the phone booth. I raced back but it was already gone…along with all my cash and ID. Fortunately, I still had my plane ticket home and some loose change in my pocket. But my college visit was shot.

That was until I met Clifford, a down and out man who had the air (and smell) of a homeless vagabond. For some reason, I struck up a conversation and it transpired that he had a car. He offered to drive me to campus. And I, being young, foolish and incredibly naïve, accepted.

He then proceeded to drive me to UC San Diego…albeit with a lengthy stop on the way at a shady house in an even shadier neighborhood where he said he was checking up on his sick baby sister but for all I knew was buying drugs or procuring a fire arm to use in his nefarious kidnapping plans.

Clifford, however, was true to his word and my semi-homeless new best friend and I wandered through the tree-lined lanes of the school. We even stopped at a campus cafeteria where I treated Clifford to a Snickers bar with my remaining coins.

I didn’t promise to stay in touch when Clifford dropped me off at the airport later that day (I’m not sure Clifford had an address he’d be willing to share). But I thanked him profusely (perhaps as much for not killing me as for giving me a tour of San Diego). And I’ve never forgotten the inexplicable kindness by a man with very little who expected nothing in return.

Merav won’t have the opportunity to meet her own Clifford. She’ll be greeted at the airport by doting grandparents, and any stay at a YMCA has been replaced by the tonier Hampton Inn. And when it comes to communication, phone booths are nearly extinct of course. Merav will be calling by Skype video from her laptop straight to mine.

Following up on my post from earlier this month, here are a few more snippets from our recent trip to the States.

Mordechai and Esther in the desert

One of the highlights of our trip was a stay in Yosemite, a stunningly beautiful national park located mid-way between Berkeley (where we started after visiting my mom) and Los Angeles (where Jody’s mom lives). That meant a lot of driving through flat, boring countryside.

Finding a decent radio station became a family quest. It was about 9:00 PM as we were searching through the dial that we heard a deep voice. “Then Mordechai said to Esther: Do not imagine that you will be able to escape in the King’s palace any more than the rest of the Jews.”

Huh?

Mind you, this was August, a half a year from Purim where we traditionally recite the Scroll of Esther from which this passage was taken. The booming voice continued, proceeding to recite the entire story up until the death of Haman.

Was there a Chabad outpost out here in the middle of the cornfields, we wondered? Of course not.  This was a Christian radio station and the reading was part of its regular on-air Bible series. We tried to stay tuned for the next story, but the station faded out and we were reluctantly obliged to switch to more standard Classic Rock fare.

Interestingly, our August mini-Purim shpiel ended abruptly before the “real” conclusion of the story. The part about the Jews rising up and slaughtering those who had come to kill them – conveniently missing. Best not to make any allusions to those modern Israeli oppressors, I suppose…

Super sized

With the entire population of Israel less than that of many metropolitan centers in the U.S., the contrast between our little country and “big” America has always been clear. From cars to homes to restaurant portions (and the bellies of the subsequently exiting patrons), we were immersed in the super-sized culture documented in Morgan Spurlock’s fast food tragicomedy.

What really drove it home for us, though, was the rice milk. We’re accustomed to our little one-liter cartons here in Israel and, indeed, that’s what I remember from when we lived in the U.S. 15 years ago. Rice Milk abroad now comes in a super sized half-gallon box – that’s twice the size of its puny Israeli cousin. Water bottles have jumped to as large as 2 gallons! Even Ziplocs are bigger.

During our trip, 18-year-old Amir was eager to try out his new driving skills on American highways. I’m no stranger to a California freeway, but watching my son trying to change lanes across a six-lane road packed with fast moving traffic was enough to scare even the most introverted back seat driver.

On the flipside, we were overjoyed at our movie theater experience – stadium seating with a huge screen and an audience that actually turned off their cell phones before the movie starts! (Upon returning, Amir went to see Inglourious Basterds here in Jerusalem. The screen was tiny, the sound went in and out, as did the focus. Back to DVDs for us…)

Personal De-Entertainment System

When we booked our flight on Delta, we had the choice to fly through New York or Atlanta. I had taken the Delta NY flight in March when my father died. It was an old plane, with uncomfortable seats and a few inconveniently spaced TV screens for the evening’s movies. So when we heard the Atlanta route flew a spanking new 777 with a state-of-the-art personal entertainment system with tens of movies on demand, we said “sign us up.”

The flight to Atlanta adds an extra hour to the already 12+ hour flight from Israel. But we were looking forward to using that time to squeeze in at least six movies (me in particular as I can’t sleep on planes). I started with “17 Again.” Jody chose “Sunshine Cleaning.” Everything was going fine until about ¾ of the way into the film, it abruptly froze.

I looked around. The rest of the passengers were happily watching their films. It turned out that just the two rows we happened to be sitting in were stuck. I called the flight attendant. She was apologetic and promised to “re-boot” the system.

The screen went dark and Linux code began scrolling across the screen. I don’t know who designed this, but consumers should never see computer language on a movie screen. It took nearly half an hour for the system to start up again.

Unfortunately, those same system designers had inexplicably linked the light controls to the touch screen display. That meant that we couldn’t turn the lights on to read. The kids nodded off, but I was stuck there, a chronic insomniac, sitting in the dark with absolutely nothing to do. A classic Jewish mother joke (“don’t mind me, I’ll just sit in the dark, it’s OK”) except I wasn’t laughing.

When the screen was finally active, I quickly turned on the lights. They were staying open in case of another malfunction which, I am sad to report, was quickly forthcoming. It took another three re-boots before we had our movies back. Total number of movies watched on the flight: 2

Three weeks later, assured that the problem had been addressed, we eagerly anticipated our return flight and its assorted films. We got through the first flick fine. But during the second – wham – another frozen screen. And again – it was only our rows (OK, I exaggerate, it was actually our section – but just the right side, not the middle or left).

The flight attendant this time was more loquacious and admitted that the entire Panasonic-made system was subject to similar temper tantrums on a regular basis. I thought about writing to Delta. Instead I posted about it to Facebook where at least one of my friends wrote back to say the same thing had happened to her.

Lesson: don’t pick your flights based on the amenities. And bring a flashlight.

We just returned from a nearly three-week vacation in the U.S. We visited family up and down California, hiked in redwoods and spent too many hours on planes and waiting in airports. Here are a few choice snippets from the trip. I’ll be posting a second batch later in the week.

Donuts follow me

One of the extravagances I indulge in when visiting the old country is doughnuts. Regular readers will recall our frantic searches for Krispy Kremes in years past.

This trip, to alleviate any sugar stress, I discretely informed our hosts that a box of Entenmanns’s glazed buttermilk doughnuts would not be unwelcome. Perhaps I didn’t realize the dedication of our friends and family to plug my fried dough fix.

The deluge began in Santa Rosa at my mother’s house. It continued at Juliet and Birger’s in Berkeley. Aaron’s home in Los Angeles was initially doughnut free…until the day of our departure when not one but two boxes appeared as a parting gift. That accompanied us through the first half of our stay in La Jolla.

The doughnuts were emblematic of a general glazed environment in which we found ourselves. From decadent desserts to a hurried visit to the scandalously synthetic and sugar injected Jelly Belly Factory (I’ll have more in a future post), I felt at times like it would have been just as effective to insert an IV and pump the sweet stuff directly into my veins. (By the way, I gained a couple of kilos on the trip which I’m diligently striving to work off. Can you say tofu?)

Aroma bait and switch

When Israel’s popular Aroma café opened outlets in New York and Toronto, Israeli expats and friends of the Jewish state rejoiced. High quality coffee, sandwiches and salads to challenge Starbuck’s hegemony had made it to North America. So when we heard there was an Aroma in Los Angeles, where we stayed for three days during our vacation, we were eager to feel the Israeli love.

As soon as we pulled up to the Aroma, though, we knew something was wrong. The familiar Aroma logo was missing, replaced by a flowery cursive. We asked the hostess at the door what the deal was. Speaking in quick Hebrew, she explained that there was no connection between the Israeli and LA Aromas – other than both were staffed by Israelis and served Israeli fare – and that the California establishment was not officially kosher though only dairy and fish were served.

We had driven at least a half an hour out of the way and we had three hungry kids (and one boyfriend) in tow. What choice did we have?

For the record, the menu is a mish-mash of Israeli fare – more Caffit than Aroma (the “sweet potato extravaganza” was similar to the Jerusalem brand but with more deep fried fritters). The prices were nothing to celebrate over either: for the six of us, the bill was over $100.

Tattoos

What is it with tattoos in America? It’s not like Israelis don’t go for body art. But tattoos in the Holy Land seem smaller, more decorative than their American counterparts. Everywhere we traveled in California, there were men whose entire arms, backs and sometimes chests (there were a lot of shirtless men) were covered in ink. I can’t vouch for the women’s chests, but we glimpsed many backs and arms that had undergone the artist’s needle.

And then there were the dagger earrings. We saw several of these aggressive accessories adorning exceedingly tough looking young men during our visit to the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park. Combined with the tattoos, I found myself actually pining for the Israeli version of macho.

Merav returns to the dark side

One of the key events of the trip was fifteen-year-old Merav’s return – after four years of staunch vegetarianism – to the world of the carnivore. Merav had not undergone an existential eating crisis. Rather, she had caved to the pressure exerted by her posse of meat eating friends back home.

We planned this meal meticulously. We picked a fancy kosher meat restaurant in Los Angeles. Merav asked her Safta and me to order and not tell her what she was getting. We chose spaghetti with meat sauce. It seemed less in-your-face than a steak for her first time out. We didn’t want to spoil her conversion from the get go.

The spaghetti arrived with a candle in the center. It would have been too embarrassing if we sang something silly like “Happy meat day to you,” so we restrained ourselves. Merav took a taste. Then another. Her face contorted with those initial bites. And then she delivered her pronouncement. Thumbs up.

Half way through her meal, she turned to me and gazed longingly at my veal chop. “Can I try some?” she asked innocently. “Sure,” I said. “I think I’ll have that next time,” she quipped.

Tell the doctor that the operation was successful.

My nearly sixteen-year-old daughter Merav attended the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade two weeks ago. She had heard about the event, the controversy it had engendered, and thought it would be interesting to see what all the fuss was about.

It’s funny how time tends to curl around and repeat itself. When I was sixteen, I attended my first gay parade, in the heart of San Francisco’s famed Castro District, for many of the same reasons: curiosity, support, adventure.

The San Francisco parade was a major cultural event for the city. A staggering 250,000 people showed up in 1977; there were floats, flamboyance and not an insignificant amount of PDA (with a goodly sprinkling of near nudity).

Despite San Francisco’s well known reputation for tolerance, the gay community was certainly not immune to controversy: 1978’s Proposition 6 – also known as the Brigg’s Initiative – would have banned gays and lesbians from working in California public schools.

I remember the entire state waiting on pins and needles for the voter outcome (it was defeated in a last minute surprise turn around, dealing former orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant’s national anti-gay campaign to its first major defeat).

The euphoria didn’t last long. A short time later came the tragic murder of Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor, played in a virtuoso performance by Sean Penn in the Oscar-winning film “Milk.”

Those were confusing times for a nerdy young 16-year-old like me who liked to hang out with his straight friends in the heart of the Castro. That boarded up subway station where in the movie Harvey Milk first used his megaphone to charge up an angry mob? There was a performance artist named Ruby Rodriguez who used to do a risqué cabaret act (including rubber chickens and ventriloquism) every Friday night in that same spot. When the bars let out at 2:00 AM, hundreds of drunk, gay men crowded around. My friends and I were there to cheer Ruby on (I have the tape to prove it).

Although I prided myself on my liberal San Francisco values, I got into my own public controversy with the gay community. In 1978, I was writing a column for the local newspaper. In what I thought would be an “eye opening” pro-tolerance piece, I posited that, if 10 percent of the population were gay, then there must be a number of gay men and women in the high school from which I had recently graduated…including, I wrote, “possibly the football team quarterback or the head cheerleader.”

What was I thinking?

The San Francisco Advocate – a gay-run newspaper – sent a letter of protest to my boss, calling the article homophobic, and I was promptly sacked.

If anything, the pride parade in Jerusalem has stoked even more flames.

True, the Jerusalem version is much tamer than San Francisco’s (or even Tel Aviv’s pride parade earlier in the month which culminated in a group wedding on the beach). But it is no stranger to controversy.

In the past, the parade has been mired by protests by haredi and right wing agitators who consider homosexuality to be a biblical abomination and something that should not be flaunted anywhere, and certainly not in the Holy City. The 2005 parade ended in violence when an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed three participants (he is now serving a 12-year prison sentence).

Then, in 2006, members of the anti-Zionist extremist Eda Haredit religious sect conducted a “pulsa d’nura” – a kabalistic ceremony which, wrote the Jerusalem Post, is believed to “unleash unearthly powers against specific sinners” – to curse the parade.

To the best of my knowledge, lightning did not strike down any revelers that year.

The 2009 version of the parade went off without incident, save for a single case of egg throwing. Haredi protesters steered clear this year, in part to avoid having to explain to their children what the parade was all about. Or perhaps they had bigger fish to fry, like the opening of a parking lot on Shabbat (I’ll save that rant for another post but I just have to ask…where does it say in the Torah that providing a safe and convenient place to park one’s car is a desecration of God’s name?)

In any case, 4,000 people participated in the parade under a police cover of 1,500 officers. Perhaps the biggest complaint was the inevitable traffic jams during the evening rush hour crush.

Still, it got me thinking: what is it about religion that makes one believe that a supernatural being is on the believer’s side or, indeed, that one can reasonably ascertain what that deity’s opinion is on any particular earthly issue?

I’ve still not forgotten, shortly after I first arrived in Israel in 1985, Shas member of Knesset and then Minister of the Interior Yitzhak Peretz placing the blame for a horrendous train accident that killed 22 junior high school students from Petach Tikva on a movie house that was allowed to remain open on Shabbat.

And yet, I fell into that trap myself. In my more religiously extreme days, I tried to take on what I thought was the Orthodox party line regarding homosexuality. My parents were aghast. So was I when I woke up 20 years later and realized how twisted my thinking had become.

Marcia Falk, writing in The Book of Blessings, presents an alternative to the standard Shema prayer:

“Shema Israel, Alfey panim, m’lo olam shekinatah ribuy panecha echad.”

“Hear O Israel, divinity has thousands of faces, the fullness of the world is its presence, the multiplicity of its faces is One.”

Falk’s aim in her poetic license, she writes, is “to articulate what a monotheistic belief means to us. To me it means the honoring of diversity within the unity of creation.”

That diversity means people of all shapes, sizes, shades and, I would add, sexual orientation.
I’m proud that my daughter came out to support the parade, like her father did over 30 years ago. Because I have to believe that, despite what some adherents claim, tolerance is an intrinsic Jewish value and one – borrowing a page of my own from the kabala – that there isn’t enough of in this fractured, broken world.