Thyme, oregano, basil, sumac, sesame and salt. Mix them together and you come up with a little spice blend known as za'atar. Wrap the za'atar in a piece of newsprint to dip your "bagaleh" (Jerusalem bagel) into, and you've got a favorite street-corner snack. Israelis are often called "Sabras" because, like this breed of cactus, they're rough and thorny on the outside but sweet and sensitive on the inside. Za'atar seems the right culinary symbol for Israeli society on the whole -- a huge mishmash of Ashkenazis and Sephardim, Russians, Ethiopians, Yemmenites, Arabs and Jews, Bedouins and Druze, locals, transplants, tourists, and on and on and on....
A free day in Haifa offers a little glimpse of that Israeli heterogeneity, which makes no sense and yet somehow just...works. I accompany my dad on his morning "rounds." First we stop at the newsstand run by Haim, an orthodox Jew with a wooly gray beard, to pick up the paper and perhaps a little lesson in Talmud, then we go next door to Aryeh, the Moroccan green-grocer, who tells my dad, the second-generation "yekke" (German Jew), that an Ashkenazi may fill his home with books but a Sephardi prefers to fill his with food! But before the morning errands are run, a stroll and a dip at the beach are in order. "Chatichat bri'ut" (a slice of health) is what my Savta (grandmother) called it. What warms my heart even more than the sunshine is watching the posse of pensioners playing "sheshbesh" (backgammon) in the shade while they gobble up fresh melon and pontificate about corrupt politicians (Barak spends 500,000 shekels on a Paris hotel?! What has happened to our government?!) Mid-afternoon is the right hour to go down to the Hummusia Abu Marun. BEST HUMMUS EVER. The proprieter, an Arab Christian, sits with us as we savor a few sips of sweet Turkish coffee after our meal and tells us his secret: everything made on the spot with THE BEST INGREDIENTS. The BEST olive oil. The BEST tahini. "Eyn kazeh" (there's nothing like it).
As we leave the joint we stumble into the middle of a film shoot, which, based on the actors we see, seems to involve many kaffiyeh-clad Arabs, prostitutes and midgets. Sorry, there's no politically-correct way to describe such a scene.
The past few days, though, were spent not relaxing in Haifa but rather running around like mad in Tel Aviv. But it was worth it: I finally found a home! It's a charming, breezy flat (shlosha kivunei avir!) in an old Bauhaus building (that also happens to be inhabited by the sculptor Yigal Tumarkin) on a quiet street called Israel's, which (for those who know Tel Aviv) is just east of Dizengoff between Gordon and Frischmann, meaning (for those who don't know Tel Aviv) it's smack dab in the center of things. It's about a 10 minute walk from the beach, a five minute walk to the Beit Lessin Theatre and Dizengoff Center, and close to any bus I may need for adventures farther afield.
It took some time to figure out the whole apartment thing, especially since I'm just learning my way around the city, but thanks to (or perhaps in spite of) many opinions from friends and family (you know what they say: 1 Jew, 2 opinions), I finally settled on something that I think will be great. It's fully furnished and ready to go, so all that's left for me to do is...well...to start LIVING! I move in November 8 and want to hit the ground running with my work, my meetings at Tel Aviv University, and above all the coffee-house hopping I hope to do with old and new friends. Tel Aviv at night is a sight to behold: you've never seen so many patios of coffeehouses and pubs littered with folks chatting and eating and sipping coffee and tea with nana (fresh mint). I love it.