For 3 years in a row
I wrote about Jerusalem
Together, our class’s poems
Would have made a guidebook—
The Kotel, the hotels
The spas, the sea, Ein Gedi
Netanya to Renana
to the place that gave us Chanuka
Sephardic senoritas buying kafiyas in Hertzilya—
And none of us knew
What we were talking about.

When I got to Israel, at 17
On a Federation trip
I was a kid out of water, lost, angsty and on financial aid
determined to hate every minute of it
instead, I couldn’t stop writing for a week
I wished for pages of unbroken paper, I
could have filled a Torah

“I can’t explain it.” I hear that over and over again when people try to describe Israel. They see modern buildings and cars and beaches and slums and cafes and malls and traffic and everything else you’ll find in a Western country.

But somehow, Israel’s different. It tastes different, it feels different, it sounds different.

Why?

How can we explain this difference without settling for the sentimental clichés we’re all so familiar with— you know, yearning for two thousand years to return to our homeland, feeling that sense of belonging you can only find in Israel, and so on? Those are true, of course, but they’re also general and abstract—they don’t grab me in the kishkes.

For me, there is one simple observation that tells me more than a hundred books or speeches about Israel’s uniqueness. And no, it’s not their phenomenal accomplishments in science, medicine, the arts, literature, and the digital world; nor is it even their near-miraculous ability to survive in one of the world’s nastiest neighborhoods; or even that Israel protects human rights like freedom of speech and freedom of religion like no other country in the Middle East—all of which I’m incredibly proud of.

No, what really gets me is the way Israelis talk to each other.

That’s right, the way they talk to each other.

In particular, the way they talk—and argue—with someone they’ve never met before. Think about it. You meet a complete stranger, and, instantly, you’re comfortable enough to argue with that stranger. That is mind-boggling.

Personally, I simply can’t imagine going around my city of Los Angeles and seeing strangers talk to each other as if they’ve known each other all their lives. The mere thought of barking, “What the hell are you talking about?” to a total stranger makes me cringe.

Unless, of course, I’m talking to my brother and sisters.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if my parents didn’t teach their children how to be civil and polite. It’s just that when the mishpacha is around, we don’t agonize too much over etiquette—we’re family so we’re familiar, which makes us very comfortable.

It doesn’t offend us if someone forgets to say “please.”

Now, I know that a lot of people will look at this peculiar aspect of Israeli society and call it an absence of good manners, which can have some unfortunate side effects, especially when people passionately disagree. I can sympathize with that.

But after more than thirty visits to the Holy Land, I’ve also come to appreciate what’s behind this Israeli tendency toward instant informality.

In Israel, everyone talks to each other as if they’re family.

So yes, it can get a little rough around the edges. Million of strangers acting like they all know each other.

I’ve never seen that anywhere.

Of course, I’ve also never seen a family that waited 2,000 years to attend its family reunion.

As we near the 60th anniversary of its momentous founding, the State of Israel finds itself in a “pincer” situation. Hamas is expanding its arsenal and influence in Gaza to the south, and Hezbollah is actively doing the same thing in Lebanon to the north. Iran is helping both of them to achieve these aims. In the meantime, Israel isn’t helping matters by constructing new settlements in the West Bank, an act seen from the perspective of the Palestinians as a provocation.

How do we celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday in the face of these dire threats, and this state of insecurity? How do we rejoice when Israel’s current administration implements policies that so many of us take issue with? I am having troubling this year tapping into the appropriate emotions. Are we farther away from peace than ever? Or will geo-political necessity force it upon the region?

Israel is important to most Jews because she is a Jewish state, on ancient, Biblical land of the Jewish people. As our history proves, even when relatively few Jews were living in Israel, we were still obsessed with this land, and our place there.

On the bus to Jerusalem, I began to rise from my seat to see the landscape better. “Oh, this is your first time to Jerusalem,” said the passenger next to me.

I think in my early years, I believed Israel and the Lower East Side to be the same place.

I am a Diasporist culturally, but none of my close non-Jewish friends are fooled. Perhaps they even more than my Jewish friends know the real score. None ever wore kefiyahs, even when it was a raging fad. One friend actually apologized for saying something nice about Jimmy Carter. I hadn’t said anything or even made a face.

On the other hand, I have always met people who make a point of saying nasty things about Israel to me. Apparently, I am a Zionist complaint box.

What does it mean to be a Diasporist instead of a Zionist, if so many of the former are also supportive of Israel?

I think it is a symbiotic relationship, and that both can and should make the other expression of Jewish identity and community stronger. Supporting Birthright Israel is probably the most important single thing that those concerned with Diaspora “engagement” and “continuity” can do. A trip to the Jewish state is simply a better sell of Jewish civilization than anything else.

Robert Caro wrote that less than power corrupts, power reveals. The choices Israel makes says a lot about who we really are, and what we really stand for. We often focus on the external challenges Israel faces, and for good reason. But we should also look to Israel as the spiritual barometer of the Jewish people.

By Rick Lupert, who has written 11 books, and is creator of the Poetry Super Highway, a major internet resource for poets. See below for full bio.

My heart is in the East
My heart has always been in the east

Once on a trip to New York City, I visited
the old Jewish neighborhoods in the Lower East Side

When the Jews moved to New York City, they gravitated
towards the east their hearts were in the east

On another trip, to London, I took a walking tour of
its old Jewish neighborhood also in the east of that city

When Jews came to London, they also settled in its East
Their hearts are in the east

No matter how far west we’ve been sent,
we always situate ourselves in the East Our hearts are in the east

When I took students to Israel, to show them the place for the first time
They thought they were bringing their hearts with them

Weren’t they surprised to find them already there
beating on the tarmac of Lod,

growing out of the soil under the trees illuminating the golden stone,
Their hearts are in the east

My heart is in the east in the faces of the sabras, in the weight
of the desert rocks, in the sweetness of its fruit

My heart is with them, in the east these impossible beings
living every day just to live.

My heart in the east pays no attention to the lines which separate
this neighborhood from that one.

My heart in the east ignores the obscene barriers
constructed to separate human from human

My heart in the east is an open tent, my family home,
I’ll gladly share with anyone proclaiming peace as their anthem

My heart was in the east in the beginning, when they invented the east
When God said, Hey, why not check out the east, I’ll make it worth your while

My heart is in the east tomorrow, where time has no meaning
Where the heat and the cold hold hands, where our history is our memory

At this moment,
my heart is in the east

When I am in Los Angeles, I am in the east
When I am in Oconomowoc, I am in the east

My heart is always in the East. Sometimes I visit it (and)
Listen to it beat to the beautiful silence of the Sabbath streets

—–

Rick Lupert has been involved in the Los Angeles poetry community since 1990. He served for two years as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets, a twenty-five year old non-profit organization which produces a readings and publications out of the San Fernando Valley. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, including The Los Angeles Times, Chiron Review, Stirring, PoeticDiversity.org, Zuzu’s Petals, Caffeine Magazine, Blue Satellite and others. He recently edited A Poet’s Haggadah: Passover through the Eyes of Poets anthology and is the author of 11 books: Paris: It’s The Cheese, I Am My Own Orange County, Mowing Fargo, I’m a Jew. Are You?, Stolen Mummies, I’d Like to Bake Your Goods, A Man With No Teeth Serves Us Breakfast, (Ain’t Got No Press), Lizard King of the Laundromat, Brendan Constantine is My Kind of Town (Inevitable Press), Feeding Holy Cats and Up Liberty’s Skirt (Cassowary Press). He serves on the Artist and Community Advisory Council of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California. (Though he’s not sure how that happened or what it means.) He has hosted the long running Cobalt Café reading series in Canoga Park since 1994 and is regularly featured at venues throughout Southern California. Rick created and maintains the Poetry Super Highway, a major internet resource for poets. (http://PoetrySuperHighway.com/) Currently Rick works as the music teacher and graphic and web designer for Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge, CA and for anyone who would like to help pay his mortgage.

Israel’s existence is a miracle: After wandering in exile for almost twenty centuries, the Jewish people have returned to their homeland where they govern a Jewish democracy, speak the ancient language of the Torah and the Mishnah, and conduct their daily routine in the neighborhoods of Isaiah, King David, and Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi. It is easy to take this collective resurrection for granted. Even after visiting Israel many times, I still forget how astonishing the establishment of Israel really is. Occasionally, however, a simple intrusion in my life can abruptly focus my amazement on that little state.

• A few years ago I received a small airmail package from Israel. My college roommate had moved to the Negev region (the desert region in southern Israel) shortly after graduation and was living on a kibbutz. One March, a few weeks before Passover, he mailed me a copy of the newly-printed kibbutz Haggadah. It was beautiful. Although similar to many others I’ve seen, there were two striking differences: the text was entirely in Hebrew, and the Haggadah emphasized agriculture and land over the traditional rabbinic concentration on liberation and commandment. Only in Israel, I thought, would such a Haggadah seem perfectly natural. Where else would a translation be superfluous, since even the youngest child at a kibbutz Seder understands the Hebrew of the Bible and the Mishnah? (I am so used to evaluating the translation of American Haggadot that this one seemed almost incomplete.) And where else would the emphasis on agriculture and the cycle of the seasons seem so natural? Restored to their own land and once again farming the soil, Israeli Jews experience a heightened sensitivity to the seasons and natural rhythms of growth and harvest. Within the confines of this little package, I was once again reminded of how unique Israel truly is.

• The great treasures that have come to light due to the careful studies and exploration of Israel’s archaeologists—the most notable of which are the Dead Sea Scrolls—enrich our sense of belonging and of peoplehood wherever we live. The last time I was in Jerusalem, I went to the Israel Museum near the Knesset building. The exhibition of pottery, jewelry, and glass was from an unearthed tomb of the Seventh Century B.C.E. I passed each case fairly quickly, until I was stopped by a spot-light illuminating a metal strip no larger than my thumb. Scratched onto this thin silver band were the ancient Hebrew words of the Birkat Kohanim, the priestly blessing. That little scroll, unearthed in Jerusalem, is the oldest existing fragment of a biblical text. I stood staring at this prayer, one that I recite every morning as part of the Shaharit service, and I began to weep. I wept at the mystery and majesty of finding my own spiritual expression rooted in almost 3,000 years of Jewish living. Across the ages, a distant soul mate had found purpose, comfort, and identity in the same prayer that Jews today use to start our day.

• Having grown up relatively non-observant, I took on the mitzvah of tefillin (phylacteries) as an adult. I recall telling my grandmother about the first time I saw someone wrapping himself in tefillin, and her surprised and encouraging response: she went into her closet and emerged holding a brown paper bag that contained her father’s (my great grandfather’s) worn set of tefillin. A year ago, a dear friend arranged to bring my tefillin to Jerusalem, where a sofer (scribe) installed new Hebrew scrolls, rendering the tefillin kosher for ritual use once again. This year, I brought those tefillin to Jerusalem. Imagine the power of standing on the balcony of my hotel, with a view of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls, as I wrapped myself in my tallit (prayer shawl), strapped my great grandfather’s tefillin around my arm and across my forehead, and began to recite the ancient prayers that faithful Jews have recited throughout the millennia. I had the sense that my great grandfather had taken his precious tefillin, with all that they embody, and passed them across a chasm of a few generations until they could be lovingly received, and again become a vessel for connecting to God many decades later. In a sense, that link across the ages is precisely what being in Jerusalem means too. As I wore my great grandfather’s tefillin and recited the same prayers he would have recited each morning, I thought about what this moment would have meant to him and to his contemporaries – how they had prayed for the chance to see Jerusalem as the vibrant center of a sovereign Jewish community, and how he must have doubted whether he would have a great grandchild for whom these mitzvot and tefillot would still speak. I stood in his presence, and through his eyes I could see the miracle that Jewish continuity is, the unlikely miracle that Israel remains.

•Israel’s miracle is not only its deep and ancient roots. Today’s vitality – cultural, social, intellectual, religious, economic – also speak to the continuing blessing of Jewish peoplehood. Each year, I get to visit the family of my college roommate, who made aliyah after graduation in the late 80s. Each year I watch as his twins, Noah and Yonah, grow taller, stronger, more thoughtful and more beautiful. They chatter to each other in Hebrew, and then smoothly transition to English to speak with their parents or with me. I marvel as my cousins’ children, Adina and Doron, head off to their youth groups on their own. And I reflect that the miracle of Israel is no less its present than it’s past.

My ties to Israel extend deep into my roots and soar far into my future.

And now…without further ado…(“ehhhh….mah zeh ‘fur-dehr ah-doo?’ MAH ZEH???”)

Sixty things I love about Israel:

1. I love that the women are not only hotter than Mitzpe Ramon in July but that they also have a Passover Seder. (Much like the fourth dimension, my human brain is incapable of processing this.)
2. I love the outdoor cafes/kiosks on Rothschild and that Israelis universally agree that Starbucks (the altar to which American consumers bow their heads and pray) stinks.
3. I love that I don’t look at the people I meet as French, Russians, or Australians, but rather as Israelis who are trying to make it here just like I am.
4. I love my Ulpan teacher from Kitah Bet, Dafna, who spoke to us like we were four so we’d understand her.
5. I love that falafel is a healthy snack (OK, maybe I just love choosing to believe the American myth while I scarf it down forty-seven times a week.)
6. I love that people I know from all over the place are always visiting this place, the center of the Jewish world.
7. I love that I can tell a joke about Rosh Hashana at a comedy club here and know that it will be understood by everyone in the audience.
8. I love wearing jeans to virtually any social event.
9. I love the kumkum and the utter shock on every Israeli’s face when they ask “but how do you make coffee in America???” in the same manner that teenagers ask how we survived before cell phones. (Since it takes an hour for my dud shemesh (water heater) to heat up during the winter, next December I plan to shower in the kumkum for the next 3 months.)
10. I love that it’s 12:48 AM, tomorrow is a work day, and Cafe Aroma is still hopping. HOW DO THESE ISRAELI PEOPLE DO IT???
11. I love expanding my already unrivaled vocabulary of ridiculous Hebrew and Arabic slang and that Israelis think I’m fluent because I can say I have to go the bathroom 47 different ways.
12. I love arsim (from afar. When they’re leaving me alone.)
13. I love Friday in Tel Aviv.

Ahh, Sheinkin St. on a Friday.
Marketing in the Middle East makes me laugh.

14. I love English words which are directly absorbed into the Hebrew language. “Slicha, yesh li peepee!”
15. I love how warm and proud of each new immigrant the former olim are and how so many treated me to an “aliyah beer” or dinner when I arrived.
16. I love how cheesy American and international pop music is welcomed with open arms here. For this reason, someone hypothetically can sit in the barber’s chair, get a proverbial spring in his step when “Backstreet’s Back” comes on, look around, and realize that nobody finds it the least bit weird that said song is being played. This is all hypothetical of course. It never happened.
17. I love that I went to World AIDS Day and had my AIDS awareness raised by two macho sperm kicking a soccer ball.
18. I love that people are so unbelievably hospitable to the degree that my American brain cannot understand. Like when 45,000 people invited me to their Passover Seder, including a co-worker who I had only known for a few weeks.
19. I love Adloyada in Holon, the biggest Purim parade in the country which feels like the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving.
20. I love the feeling of unity and Jewish peoplehood on Yom Hazikaron when people stop whatever they’re doing to commemorate fallen soldiers during t’kasim (ceremonies) and during the siren. Even though it looks like aliens have invaded earth and frozen the human race.
21. I love the ridiculous English t-shirts that people wear in this country, usually with no inkling of what they even say or mean.
22. I love that Hebrew is both an ancient and brand new language with words whose roots can be traced as far as the Torah (b’reishit, whose shoresh is “rosh” or “head”/”beginning) and as recently as NOW (“l’sames”, “to send an SMS”).
23. I love the food here and how people eat such a healthy diet, such as my co-worker who ate a whole pepper in her hand as if it were an apple.
24. I love the almost meaningless phrase of “yiyeh b’seder” which I continuously mock for its universalness even as I say it myself to make myself feel better.

“YIYEH B’SEDEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOO PROH-BLEM!!!”
See?

25. I love how someone would slow down during the running of a marathon to say “b’tayavon” to the bystander eating 100 meters away.
26. I love that when Maccabi Tel Aviv recently competed in the Euroleague international final in basketball, people stopped what they were doing to support their country and watch.
27. I love that stockbrokers and garbagemen can get together one month out of the year and shoot RPGs.
28. I love that I wear ties with roughly the same frequency that I take a bubble bath.
29. I love how any stranger at a bus stop can start talking to you about politics and philosophy… and then try to set you up with their niece.
30. I love that I have a full-blown fever, have to pack to leave my apartment for the next week, and that the little Israeli voice in my head is saying “yiyeh b’seder.” I know we already covered this. I have to keep reminding myself.
31. I love Easy Park and Pazomat, the ingenious car-related inventions that someone should bring to the States and get rich with.
32. I love shira b’tzibur, congregating with friends and strangers in a public venue and singing songs that you may have only heard at Jewish summer camp.
33. I love Galgalatz, the only radio station whose format somehow includes both Gidi Gov and Kanye West.
34. I love that Israeli models like Nivit Bash model for Maxim Magazine weeks before going home for Passover Seder.
35. I love that instead of singing about “Old McDonald” who had a farm, it’s Dod (Uncle) Moshe.
36. I love that that this country is truly a Kibbutz Galuyot (an ingathering of the exiles) and an Israeli-making factory. Marry a Brazilian immigrant with a Romanian, have them procreate, and their kid says “ehhhhhhhhh…….” and is indistinguishable from the Russian-Hungarian kid three feet away.
37. I love that somehow, someway, I’ve gotten so used to drying my clothes on a clothesline that I can hardly remember why it felt so necessary to have my socks dry in 45 minutes.
38. I love that everyone says “mazal tov” to each other at an Israeli wedding, regardless of whether you’re actually the one getting married or not. (What did I do? I ate 10 egg rolls in 5 minutes. I didn’t think anybody noticed.)

Is she getting married or walking on the moon?
“Houston, we have a freicha.”

39. I love the odd juxtaposition of daily activities like jogging with my ipod combined with the crazy history of my running path through sites like Kikar Rabin. It makes you realize that you live here.
40. I love that my friends Daniel and Amalia made me walk the long way home the other day so they could poach some exotic fruit called pitango from a secret place in Tel Aviv which I’m not allowed to disclose. WHO DOES THAT IN AMERICA???
41. I love that the holidays recognized by the majority are MY holidays and that we don’t have to stress about taking time off from work to enjoy them.
42. I love how Israelis would hike up a bubbling volcano and stop 10 feet from the molten lava just to whip out the portable burner and make Turkish coffee (while balancing on a shaking rock.)
43. I love how the six degrees of separation is reduced to ONE with seemingly every single person I meet here. And that it rarely even requires the use of Facebook to figure it out.
44. I love that Facebook has Israeli applications like IsraPoke. Would you like some chumus with that?
45. I love how the doctor turned into a Jewish mother before my eyes, grabbing the phone from my sick little hands and telling my friend that she needs to take care of me because I was “mamash, mamash, mamash choleh.”
46. I love how no matter how much I stress about having to accomplish on my weekend, somehow, when I spend Shabbat away from home in a relaxing environment like Jerusalem, in the end, it was “yiyeh b’seder.”
47. I love how when you walk into an Israeli’s home, approximately 1.34 seconds elapse before they offer you a hot drink. You could enter their apartment with a clown suit and a machete, the first thing they’d say? “Some-theeng to dreenk?”
48. I love seeing my Israeli friends in the days after Shabbat because they feed me. Not just with anything but with the 468 Tupperwares of delicious food that their mothers have sent them home with after the weekend. Where do these mothers find the time??? You leave them alone for 5 minutes on a Friday, when you come back, they’ve whipped up a 7 course meal for the Western Galilee.
49. I love that I saw “Borat” in Israel where everyone was dying laughing from all the hilarious Hebrew. You think that happened in the Cherry Hill, New Jersey multiplex? (Does Cherry Hill have a multiplex?)
50. I love learning some random phrase in Ulpan or in the shetach (”the field”) and then picking it up in conversation days later to my complete delight. This leads to awkward exchanges where I interrupt two people by suddenly screaming “COMMON DENOMINATOR! COMMON DENOMINATOR!”
51. I love how the sample credit card in advertisements doesn’t have a name like John Doe or Shmuel Ben-Tov but instead “Israel Israeli.”
52. I love how the band at the first soccer game I attended played not “We Will Rock You”, but “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem.” What is this, Rivka’s Bas-Misvah?
53. I love how my former roommate tried to teach me how to clean by taking the toilet brush, cleaning the toilet, and then using the same toilet brush to CLEAN THE SINK. And she thought I was the idiot. (Ok, just kidding. I didn’t really love that.)
54. I love when an Asian person stops me to ask where the #5 picks up and we converse in Hebrew.
55. I love how someone stood up and blew the shofar on an El Al flight last September. If that happened on an American airline, this would lead to confused passengers tackling him and the ADL issuing a press release.

IS IT A CRAZED FUNDAMENTALIST?!?!?!
Nope, just Duvid welcoming in Tishrei.

56. I love that McDonalds is kosher for Passover.
57. I love that on Israeli Survivor, the contestants are often far less cutthroat than their American counterparts, schmoozing and laughing like….well, Israelis.
58. I love how on Yom Kippur, there are almost zero cars on the road.
59. I love that living here makes me feel like I am contributing to the building of a country.
60. I love that I’ve had this once-in-a-lifetime experience and that it’s not over yet.

In March of 1985 I sat down with my Rebbie and asked if he thought studying at a Yeshiva in Israel for a few months would be good for me. He said “don’t go.” It was the only time in our ten year relationship that he told me what to do. It was the only time I didn’t listen. He was right, of course. I wasn’t really mature enough for the type of Yeshiva I wanted. But I thought I knew better.

I saved up for the trip by working in a local Deli every spare moment I had, got a ticket with a stop-over in London for a week of spiritual preparation (i.e. pub-hopping) and finally landed at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv where my sister was waiting for me, having managed to secure a front row spot behind the twelve foot fencing that separated the masses from us celebrities (i.e. exhausted overtired travellers) in those days. After twice negotiating a fair price with a taxi driver (once at the start of the trip and once at the end) we arrived in Jerusalem and had a wonderful dinner at the friends I was staying with in Bayit Vegan. Afterwards, despite my obvious fatigue, I insisted on walking my sister back to her dorm and, not being able to tell one jerusalem-stone building from the next, spent the night wandering the streets completely lost. Lost, but walking on air. Lost, but lost at home.

I found a Yeshiva to enroll in for the next six months but the special memories I have of that first Israel experience were not from there. The Yeshiva was convinced that I was spending too much time in town with “who knows who” and hanging out at “who knows where.” They were right of course but they couldn’t prove it until a snitch discovered some damning evidence in my drawer. A knitted kipah. And not just any knitted kipah but one that said “LUV DEB” inside. ((kipah-top.jpg then kipah-botm.jpg images go here))

Oh, there was also a note from Lee Anne Cohen saying she’d meet me at Lalo’s or Pini’s Pub. Busted! ((leeannenote.jpg image goes here - must be large enough to be read))

An interrogation followed - they wanted to know exactly where I was hanging out (and who else was there). I refused and instead I tried to explain why it was that I felt stifled by them. They were well-meaning people, yet they taught me quick lessons about the polarization of Jews in Israel.

After I was confronted with the evidence I stayed away for a few days, hanging out in town and talking with friends, considering my options. I couldn’t accept being judged by something so shallow. Yet now what would I do? Stay at the Yeshiva? Stay in Israel and try another Yeshiva? Or return to my Rebbie and the Diaspora?

During those few days I had numerous adventures but my favorite was the last one. I can’t remember exactly how it was that I ended up at a bus-stop somewhere on the outskirts of the city at 3 AM but buses don’t run that late and I was way too tired to walk. For a long time no cars passed by but eventually a tiny car sputtered to a stop in response to my waving hand. An obviously non-observant Israeli teen with long wild curly hair and a girlfriend on his lap leaned out of his window and offered me a ride which I gratefully accepted. “On one condition” he said, “that you allow me to take you right to your door.” A little nervous that this wild looking dude might have some nefarious reason for wanting to know where I lived I asked him why he would insist on such a condition. He said “tomorrow I am going into the army, tonight I want to get all the mitzvot I can.”

So they judged my kipah and I judged his hair.

I decided to go back to my Rebbie.

I didn’t leave empty-handed though. I took with me six months of memories. Walking, ‘tremping‘, wading, floating, swimming, climbing and jumping, six months of running around the country every spare moment I had. I developed a fierce passionate love for Israel and a strong desire to live there one day. That came true for my family and I from 1994-2001 and although we need to be in New York right now our thoughts are always of home.

——-<>——-

PS: I found the kipah and note 3 weeks ago as I was cleaning my basement for Pesach and couldn’t stop smiling at the memory of all this drama. Anyone know where Lee Anne Cohen is and how to get in touch with her? I think she was from South Africa and maybe Indiana?

It’s not hard to celebrate 60 years of awe-inspiring accomplishments in the fields of art, architecture, fashion and design. It is hard however, to sum it up or highlight it or point it out for the whole world to see and exclaim together in amazement and joy, “Oh, riiiiiiiight. That was super cool. And totally Israeli.” So here, in honor of our past 60 years, are what I’ve selected as significant highlights from the past 6 decades. Let the jaw dropping begin.

1948-58:

Tel Aviv’s distinctive Bauhaus style reflects a strong tradition of art and craft that was brought over from Europe. But the slight alterations - replacing windows with balconies and increasing shaded areas through added cornices - account for the Middle Eastern climate thereby introducing an Israeli element to an International Style. Or perhaps recreating an older aesthetic within a new, Israeli style of living. In 2003, Tel Aviv is declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and renamed the “White City“.

1959-68:

Don’t let these bathing beauties distract you from the real excitement of the decade: Gottex. Founded in 1949 by Leah and Ermine Gottleib, Jewish immigrants from Hungary, as a raincoat company, they turned a quick 180 degrees toward the Mediterranean sun - in recognition of our more defining climate. With Gottex’s revolutionary introduction of Spandex (yes, you can blame Israel for that one), bathing suits became lighter and clingier, allowing for Gottex to pioneer two significant swimwear crazes. First, as hemlines rose in the swinging 60s, bathing suits hiked in all directions - thanks to the miracles of Spandex and other light fabrics developed by Gottex. Second, and this relates to later decades of partying and excess as well, Gottex put glamour and fashion onto the beach. And with Gottex the concept of luxury swimwear was born and bred.

1969-78:

If you thought many of Israel’s corporate logos, symbols, posters or advertisements had something in common, you were right. They were either designed or influenced by Israeli graphic artist extraordinaire Dan Reisinger. Born in Hungary in 1934, Reisinger’s talents were quickly identified and he was sent to study at Jerusalem’s prestigious Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Reisinger’s prolific career has enjoyed incredible hometown and international success. He has designed more than 200 social, political and cultural images and posters in Israel, including 150 logos that have become part and parcel of our everyday living. Together they serve as a visual timeline marking Israel’s most significant historical, social, economic and cultural developments over the decades. In 1971-74, Reisinger designed what we have all come to know and love (or loathe) in the form of ElAl’s corporate logo - the slanted letters, mixed Hebrew and English, blue and white. Above is a destination poster to travel with ElAl which was part of a series. The graphic, abstract and modern-meets-traditional, almost nostalgic but contemporary, aesthetic of Reisinger’s work continues to influence.

1979-1988:

Just like disco its moves and grooves, so too, in a way, did the artwork of Yaakov Agam. And as the excessive and hyperextended 80s took over, Agam’s kinetic, geometric and highly colorful, conceptual art found its place in the middle of Tel Aviv’s bustling metropolis. In the form of a rotating sound and light water fountain that, along with the angular blocks of color - that really change as you look at them from different angles, represent the elements of Water and Fire. Agam’s experiments with optical, kinetic and experiential art left an indelible imprint on our canon. In this case, the spectacle placed within and about Tel Aviv’s most important crosswalk shows the city gaining a self-awareness - or perhaps a self-imposed importance - of its position as the (cultural) center of the country.

1989-1998:

I can’t say enough about Ron Arad. I love, love, love him. He’s an incredible designer. World renown. Amazingly innovative and challenging at the same time. And from Israel. In 1989, Arad’s rapidly increasing fame and reputation for chair and furniture design led him to establish Ron Arad Associates in London. In 1994, again owing to growing success, he added a workshop in Italy to increase production of his studio pieces. Seating and shelvingare just some of his more famous designs that are currently either on view at major museums around the world or on sale for respectable (read: incredibly high) prices at prestigious auction houses. But with design gaining mass popularity and media attention these days, its the talent that makes Ron Arad a household name - not just the pricetag.

1999-2008 and beyond:

The Israeli Design Center in Holon where the past, present and future come together and forge ahead. Both the culmination of years of amazing art and design efforts from Israel and the (final) destination for future ones. Designed by none other than Ron Arad, the Museum’s voluminous shapes take on larger-than life presence as it guides the visitor’s experience both inside and out through a range of spirals, swirls and enveloping colored building materials (steel, concrete, stone, glass, etc). Obviously an amazing homage to Arad’s own legacy - since the works to be displayed inside the museum were undoubtedly influenced by him. Founded by Professor Ezri Tarazi, a celebrated designer, teacher and arts advocate in his own right, the Israeli Design Center has been gaining speed and prominence both locally and internationally with a great website (albeit in Hebrew only for now), events and conferences welcoming prominent figures from abroad, and a burgeoning student and independent artists and designers community. It is literally and figuratively the space to watch for our art and design future.

The above post was created specially for 60bloggers.com where 60 bloggers celebrate 60 years of Israel with 60 days of posts on Zionism to politics and everything in between.

I was at an event sitting next to one of the guys I enjoy from my neighborhood when he called me a Zionist. He’s a Hassid, in the very modern sense, which means he sends his kids to yiddish speaking school but watches broadcast TV through a gizmo attached to his computer. I’m modern, in every sense, which means the modern Hasidim I pal around with occasionally make cracks about the authenticity of my Judaism.

I got called a Zionist because I said, quite facetiously, that I wanted my kid to go to the all-yiddish school with my friend’s daughter. My friend, smiled, and said this was impossible, and when I pressed for an explanation he said three things disqualified me: I wear jeans. I don’t have payos. And “you’re a Zionist.”

Having looked in the mirror that morning, I have no choice but to accept the first two charges. But a Zionist? Me.

Though I went to Modern Orthodox schools that attempted to teach me to be a good Modern Orthodox Zionist, I never thought it took. I don’t say Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut, and though I wish my kids (who attend ordinary Bes Yaakovs) knew more about the history and the religious significance of Israel, I never felt especially inclined to take them to community Yom Haatzmaut events. This year, around Yom Haatzmaut, I told some stories at the Friday night table about Israel, and made sure the smaller kids knew the holiday’s name, but that was it. No blue and white cookies for us.

But this is ambivalence, not anti-Zionism, god forbid. I’m as committed as anyone to the permanence of the Jewish state. I want my kids to learn Hebrew, and I want them to grow up knowing that every Jewish life, indeed every life, is precious before God. I worry about my brothers and sisters in Israel, and I support policies which I believe will make them safe and prosperous. But I am not a Zionist, in the way that other American Orthodox Jews are Zionists. I’m missing the intangible passion, the bit of madness that makes people want to rally and march and dance on Yom Haatzmaut. I put Jerusalem before my greatest joy, but not Israel.

When I was a kid, I described this ambivalence toward Israel, this perceived flaw in my Jewish character with a joke: I said that I didn’t have blue and white underwear. Later, as an older cynic, I explained my indifference by saying that I didn’t hate ordinary Arabs enough to qualify as an American Zionist. But the truth is simpler: I’m just an American, and in my mind 21st century Zionism is just Israeli nationalism. Nowadays, my way of explaining myself is to say that I am a non-Zionist, pleased to pray for our brothers the children of Israel, desirous of their safety and prosperity, and eager to visit and soak up the culture and atmosphere of the Jewish state, but at the end of the day, an American.

And that I think is as good an explanation as any for my ambivalence. Eight of my great-grandparents were born in America. One of my grandfathers, and several of my great uncles wore American uniforms during the second World War. My father flies Old Glory on National Holidays. I have a close friend, who comes from Holocaust survivors, who says that her own Zionism comes from fear. Having grown up hearing stories of Nazi and concentration camps, she became convinced that only Israel makes us safe. I’m smart enough to respect the intelligence of that argument, but I don’t feel it. At her childhood dinner table there were stories about life in the ghetto, about living as sub-humans, and non-citizens, with no rights, and no opportunities. Hearing that sort of thing binds. It creates obligations. And its an experience I never had.