It is my last day here in Tel Aviv, and it is torturing me to stay by finally being back to 75 and sunny after an entire week of rain. I am spending my last day throwing the shekels I don't have into a few souvenirs and a few last rugelach.
Allow me to reflect for a short moment- Tel Aviv is a very cool city. A hipster paradise full of bars and fast food stops, accompanied by a beach and a small center business district. I haven't explored all of Israel, but from the other parts I have seen and from talking to many Israeli's, Tel Aviv is a liberal bubble amidst the most tense country in the world. It reminds me of Cape Town in manyyyyy ways, and is truly a beautiful and enjoyable place to live.
My experience here has been completely overwhelmed, in a good way, by staying and working at Overstay Hostel. Overstay was the perfect introduction to hostel volunteer work and life- met great, fun, people of both fellow volunteers and some great guests rolled through; had pretty manageable, although often gross maintenance work- yes I did manual labor people- and had a lovely place to call home while very far from my real home for 3 weeks.
Now- to the political shit. I am obviously jewish, was raised celebrating holidays, occasionally attending synagogue when forced and went through the Bat Mitzvah process to get the fun party and gifts. But after that, my judaism was boiled down to my last name, eternally loving challah and celebrating 4-5 holidays a year with my family. For years I have comfortably said I am culturally jewish, a very recognized and accepted term in the states. In Israel, they know this term but its not as accepted. If you're jewish, you're jewish- you can still do whatever you want in terms of whatever food rules, and religious observations you choose to follow, but the most important thing is that you own and are proud of your judaism. Most people say when you go to Israel it brings you closer to being jewish, and I would whole heartedly agree. Not that I ever feel shame to be jewish, but its not always something I go around bragging about, whereas here you want people to know that you're jewish (the curly hair usually does it for me and people guess it), but it just instantly makes Israeli's like you more. You have an immediate connection, a language bridge when there is already a language barrier and a sense of family.
This being said, there is a BIG difference between being Israeli and being Jewish, that I think is commonly misunderstood, especially my people who are neither (aka everyone in my hostel, as I was the only jewish volunteer and then the owners are obviously all Israeli). As jewish, or whatever as I may be, I have no real connection to the land and state of Israel. I understand the history of the nation fully and completely, but have no Israeli relatives and am in no way just pro-Israel, because of the religion my parents passed on to me. When visiting Jerusalem, I was able to see a lot more the divides amongst the arabs and jews, and tried to understand as much as possible the current situation and think about my opinions on a solution to these two ethnicities sharing a land. But again, that is Israeli's and Palestinians sharing a land- when it is referred to as jews and arabs, as I just did, it makes it seem like I am tied to one side, I think that might be where some of my volunteers confusion begins.
Enough about politics, COME HERE AND MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN CONCLUSIONS.
I will be back to Tel Aviv again for sure, it is a dream beach vaca for me, cause I have the option of dining in a fun artsy restaurant after a few hours tanning- what more could a girl ask for.
I will post a bunch of pictures of Jerusalem, and the magical rainbow that rose behind the Western Wall when we visited- talk about a Holy moment. but for now I leave you with one piece, of the thousands of pieces, of graffiti in my neighborhood and a classic On My Way photo (click here if you don't know what I'm referring to)
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| do it guys- always. |
