We Got Bikes.

This morning Evan and I ate cake for breakfast with Yotam and his family in their home in Tel Aviv. We were also offered cookies, brownies and coffee. The coffee was delicious. Yotam's father Jdi said, "This is because it is the best of two worlds. Italian coffee made the American way."
After breakfast we talked to about our plans to find bicycles at a shop in Tel Aviv. We had the location to the shop and Jdi said that he would drop us off on his way to work. Before we left though, he got an idea to call one of his employee's, Michael who is an avid cyclist. Jdi thought he may be able to find us even better bikes for a cheaper price. Evan gave him a call and made arrangements for us to meet in Or Yehuda later in the afternoon.
Yotam is Evan's friend and a soldier in the Israeli Army. At 20 years old, he is apart of a 250,000 member branch engaged in compulsory service. The night before, he had agreed to let us interview him when he returned home from work. We have not asked yet, but we are hoping that he will keep his uniform on for the filming.
Jdi dropped Evan and I off in the city center and we walked down Abraham Lincoln St in Tel Aviv until we found the bike shop. At an average of 1,500 shekels, the bikes were more exspensive than we reasoned. Fortunately, we still had the promise of Michael's assistance.
We decided to walk to the bus station to catch a ride to Or Yehuda. Tel Aviv is very hot during the afternoon this time of year and the streets are crazy with scooters. We passed a park full of Ethiopians relaxing in the shade and then through street after street of low apartments with flat red tiled roofs. Tel Aviv in this neighborhood is beige. The bus station seems to be the tallest building around and is actually situated within a shopping bazaar complex.
In the bus station bazaar, Evan gave the man Michael a call, we arranged to meet and then boarded the bus.
Michael is a well built man. He looks strong and fast and professes to be a very good freestyle bicyclist. He is 40 years old. He is also tan, quick witted and at one point in the afternoon showed is videos he posted on you tube of him doing some insane mountain bike jumps in the desert with his friends. Evan and I liked him immediately.
We met him at the bus stop in Or Yehuda and he drove us to a very simple neighborhood nearby.
The house that we parked in front of was small with a narrow pathway leading into a backyard. In the back were bicycles. Some were standing upright, others were hanging from a makeshift porch celing. Inside a shed in the rear were more bikes in boxes and lots of bike parts and equipment. There were three men outside, all orthodox and Michael introduced us to the oldest one, Amos.
Amos had a long grey beard, bright eyes and spoke very little English. He asked Evan if he spoke Hebrew and Evan said, "A little." Amos told him, "It is best to speak Hebrew and only a little English." We laughed.
We told Amos, through Michael, that we were looking for good mountain bikes with a rear rack to hold our gear. He showed us a few bikes for around 950 shekels. They were perfect except for the fact that they would not have fit us. You could tell that Amos was thinking, walking around his make-shift shop. Evan and I went inside the shed to look at bicycle equipment and Michael began telling us about Amos and his bicycle mission.
"He sells bikes very cheap here. The other shops don't like that but he is only out to make 20% and donates a lot to children's charities. Every year he raises mone, about 6,000 shekels to buy more bikes and gives them away to children. This is a very good place."
When Amos had finished thinking, he joined us in the shed. He said he had two bikes that he could rent us for three weeks. The price was 300 shekels a piece.
The bikes were better than perfect; dual suspension, 27 speeds, aluminum frames and disk brakes. They had good tires although you could see that they had been ridden hard recently in the desert. Both bikes needed a tune-up which I assured them I could do myself. Still, they changed the tubes and added back racks to both, and new brake pads and pedals on one. We paid the man Amos, thanked him and then insisted on taking Michael to lunch. He agreed.
Michael took us to a small restaurant in town where we had the best falafel sandwiches I had ever eaten in my life. He actually said, "They make the best falafel in the world."
The conversation at lunch was sparse, we were enjoying our falafel too much to talk. Afterwards, Michael said we could load our bikes onto his car and he would drive us all the way back into Tel Aviv. It was very hot that day so we piled into the car and left for the city.
I began by asking Michael how long he had lived in Or Yehuda. He said all of his life but his mother was British and he had spent a few years a child in the UK. I asked him if he too, like Yotam had served in the army and he said yes. "My experience was good. They taught me many things, discipline, how to land a helicopter and I made many many close friends." I made the statement that is was somewhat unusual for me to see so many military personnel walking around the town and the city. In the US we have police but the army is not visible in this way. Michael looked at us and said, "Yes, but in the US, you do not have the Arabs."
"Arabs like to fight. It is in their nature. Every few years they just need to start trouble with us. The army is necessary to keep them away, to keep us safe."
I then asked Michael if he had any Arab friends. He said, "I know some Arabs but I would not count one as a friend."
We had reached Yotam's house by this time and Michael helped us unload the bicycles from the car. He had been tremendously helpful to us, funny and warm. For the past three hours we had been shown a genuine friendliness and we were grateful to him. Evan and I said our goodbyes and we decided to take the bikes to the beach.
The sun was hot and the water refreshing. It is evident that the people of Tel Aviv love their beach. I went for a swim in the Mediterranean and felt cool all over. Towards the south from the water I could see the city of Joppa, an Arab inhabitance over 3000 years old and the world's oldest seaport. The city's buildings, white stone, glistened in the sun and sea.
After we were wet, Evan and I found some chairs and an umbrella to sit and talk about the day.
My friend Evan is Jewish. Borned and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, he is of Ashkanazi decent, Jews from eastern European countries. His family is reformed and they are all very intellectually interestd in the Jewish culture and the socio-political reality of the state of Israel.
Evan asked me, "Do you get the feeling or sense right now that you are on a Jewish beach?" There was a big Israeli flag on a pole, blowing in the warm breeze not far from the surf but at the moment I was feeling rather tranquil and enjoying the beautiful view of this part of the world.
"No," I said "Except for maybe that big flag." We talked about the idea of the State of Israel. We began by agreeing how wonderful it was for Jews to finally have a home to recognize after so many years of national homelessness, how special and unique the Jewish culture is, how fascinating, tragic and triumphant, its history has been and how creative it is in its artistic and intellectual culture. Our conversation then began to dive deeper. We allowed ourselves to empathize with the city of Tel Aviv, less than ten years earlier when rockets were fired and bombers were blowing themselves up on buses, on the streets and cafes. We acknowledged the fear and insecurity that it's residents must have felt at this time and began to understand why the military was seen by so many as such an important presence. On the edge od the Mediterranean, amidst hundreds of beach going Israelis, we began to speculate on the possibilities for this place in the future. There are Palestinians not 10 kilometers east of here in the West Bank who may never see the beautiful beach (Of course, they do have Gaza...): Would a one state solution ever be possible?
"There is a distinction of character here in Israel, even at this beach that might make a multi-ethnic society a problem to realize," Evan said. But before we can even begin realistically looking at solutions, "after being here just days it is clear that a basic apathy and racial insensitivity are causal in the continuation of this political conflict. And the question is: how is that to be addressed? What is the most effective way to penetrate such narrowness? Is it possible to impose a political solution from the top and have everything fall into place, or will the hostility need to be addressed on a civic level before a political solution becomes possible? Clearly the two sides overlap. How do we address people like Michael, slinging racist epithets with this sort of casual conviction? Meeting Michael did make me realize that racism is not necessarily a defining characteristic. It is a paradox: how could a man so gregarious and warm be so myopic and parochial in his assessment of his neighbors, the Arabs, at the same time." And how then is it possible to approach this attitude and illuminate it until it changes?
Furthermore, it is somehow the powers that be that are responsible for this sea change of cultural and social thought. It really is no fault of Michael that he thinks about Palestinians the way he does, he is responding as he has been thought by the social and political institutions around him. We cannot hold him ultimately culpable for his ideology. Like all of us, he is a reflection or conduit of his culture at large. The question then becomes: how can a society- the State of Israel-- bethe vessel of such vibrant and rich, beautiful and intelligent culture, hold attitudes and practices toward Palestinians that are quite frankly morally reprehensible?
At the moment I am assuming I will approach the same sort of mentality in the West Bank, but that is still miles away by the the bike.
After the beach we headed up Shenkin St and stopped at Cafe Tamar. The place looked like Brooklyn from the outside. Soon after we were seated a man came onto the patio drinking a beer and sat opposite us. He had an English language map of Israel and asked if I could see it.
"You don't know how impossible it is to find one of these." I said
"Oh. My rental car company gave it to me." His name was Oliver, a German engineer doing bio-energy work near Shkelon. "Please pray for me," he said, "as it is very close to Gaza." I told him that we would. He asked what we were doing and I explained our project, giving him the website address as well.
"How brave. It is ironic that you come to this particular cafe. In all of Tel Aviv you come to the old leftest Tamar Cafe."
He then explained that he had been coming here for years. Across the street was the old "Histadrut," a trade union newspaper, now defunct, known for its socialist convictions. The Tamar Cafe has been run by the same woman, Ms. Stern for 50 years. She is still behind the counter today.
"Back when the left was still the left, this was the place where journalists, liberals, intellectuals would meet in Tel Aviv. It is funny that you two just chanced upon it," Oliver said. I thought so too. He was very courteous. I thanked him for his map which he insisted on us keeping. After a short talk we headed back to meet Yotam. He was just getting off work.
Yotam would not wear his uniform but took us to a small pub in Tel Aviv where we interviewed him. Evan will be posting a separate blog entry of the conversation.