Yesterday I was sitting, eating shwarma, at an outdoor restaurant on Bazel Street. The street food eatery "Bazel Congress" and the street itself cememorate the first Zionist Congress that united a very diverse Jewish Europe in the quest for Jewish statehood. But the restaurant and street were less about politics than an acknowledgement of history.
A couple of the staff had pinned 3 by 5 cards to their shirts that said, "nigmar???" or loosely translated, "is it over?" They were marking the news that Israel had begun to pull back from their forward positions in Gaza. This too was less politics than the hope that the battle might be ending.
After lunch, a friend and I walked over to the Yarkon park on the banks of the Yarkon river. A lush spot indeed considering it, like all of Tel Aviv, is built on sand. Sitting on a park bench, enjoying the world, the dreaded siren went off. I watched parents and children scurry for cover. Then, after some seemingly long passage of time, the sound of a fired Iron Dome rocket and a short time later the boom of rocket on rocket explosion. This was an even mix of politics and military strength.
I walked home in the late afternoon. Put on a swimsuit, decidedly not Israeli in style, as in not a speedo, and rode Mediterranean waves into the dusk. The water was delightful but even this was tinged with politics.
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