Snapshot of Tel Aviv

Random Thoughts on Everything

It’s my last morning in Tel Aviv before returning to London.

At 9am, beneath a slightly overcast sky and cooling breeze I lean on our terrace balustrade and watch the dusty streets awaken below me. From the house next door an Israeli flag flutters in the corner of my eye. An interesting juxtaposition with a tinkling version of London Bridge is Falling Down, that floats up from the small nursery opposite. Conversation, car horns and children’s voices accompany the drop off as parents park SUVs where they really should not. ‘A minute,’ They call to the drivers blocked behind them, grabbing their kids from the back seat to dart across the road, further delayed by the necessity of greeting other parents, who presumably own cars abandoned elsewhere.

It’s a sight so beautiful, so normal, and so hopeful that it breaks my heart.

Behind the nursery the orange trees in the Suzanne Dellal are ruffled by the breeze, the sun comes out, it reflects off the water that runs over turquoise irrigation channels, and a salty tang flavours the air. A few mothers after delivering their precious charges hang about for a chat. They pull on dog leads, click their tongues, accentuate verbal points with the wave of a hand and a shrug. The dogs bark with impatience as their owners scroll on phones … no answers found, no solutions agreed … 58 hostages still held on another day of uncertainty.

In the distance a military helicopter patrols the coastline. It flys low, out beyond the terracotta rooftops, my view of it impeded by a rusted electricity pylon so heavily weighted that it tilts toward the narrow roadway, like a drunken Ed Miliband shouting plans for net zero. The rotation of helicopter blades drowns out the mosque’s call to prayer, and sends the birds nesting in the Eucalyptus trees soaring into the sky.

The mothers disperse. Replaced by school groups of visiting eleven year olds, surely amongst the few not debating Donald Trump’s head spinning plan for the Middle East. The kids push each other and scream from one group to another, ‘Raffi, boyna … Uval oy Uval … yalla. Gaggles of girls giggle and shriek, ‘Dai’ (enough or stop) They hold school papers that tell them about Tel Aviv’s oldest neighbourhood but like most kids they’re not much interested. The outing is opportunity for a good time. They care little about the Chelouche family who pioneered life outside the walls of Jaffa, so what if these people built a beautiful house, a business, a bridge and a new community from which the city of Tel Aviv arose … what time is lunch?

Spring blossom is pink and purple, it carpets the pavements like the remnants of an Indian wedding party. A homeless man in the garden opposite yells Anglo Saxon obscenities at himself in a south London twang. ‘Don’t you f**king look at me like that!’ He screams to no-one, unexpectedly following up in a monologue of soothing Parisian French. Other people come and go, they drink coffee or chat on their phone, none even look in his direction, he’s just another homeless guy … sadly, one of many.

Below me on the corner of our street stands a No Entry sign. I see it as a symbol of Israeli mentality. For them that sign is not compulsory, it’s open to interpretation, merely a suggestion. Each individual must be free to best suit themselves. Be it by bike, scooter or car, rules are for others, the weak, the subservient, and those not in a tearing hurry to enjoy whatever life they may unknowingly have left to them. I could say this attitude represents a country at war, and maybe it does, but this way of thinking drives Israelis to great innovation. To 13 Nobel Prizes, to advances in tech and huge leaps forward in medicine that include the world’s leading treatments for Parkinson’s, for M.S, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, strokes, various neurological and muscle injuries.

High above me, heard but not seen, a fighter jet passes and starlings break formation to scatter on the wind.

I close my suitcase feeling sad to leave. No matter what tragedies have befallen the people of Israel, and however misjudged and vilified they currently feel, I see all around me a struggling but thriving Nation. One that looks forward in joy, rather than backward in sorrow.

Quoting Nova survivor Yuval Raphael … ‘New Day Will Rise.’