Tel Aviv Diary - July 6, 2012 Karen Alkalay-Gut
July 6,2012 On the other hand, there are performances where no lies at all are present. At least not on the part of the actors. Last night we attended the show of "Nalagaat," (Please Touch), the theater of the blind and deaf. The performance, which was something like playback, began with the actors kneading dough on the stage, and gradually introducing themselves and the others with them. The dough was made into rolls, and the performers talked about the stories, their memories, their dreams, and their hopes. In the mean time the rolls baked in the onstage ovens. And when it ended - with a very European-Jewish wedding - the audience was invited onstage to meet the people and eat the bread. You can see some of it here:
After the theater we went to eat at Black Out, the restaurant that allows something of the experience of blindness. Our blind waiter, Avi, was at home in the darkness, and took the seven of us in a row to our table, as each of us held on to the shoulders of the person before us. Avi told us where we were sitting, where the water was, where the silverware was, what he was putting in front of us, and when we were to leave with him. Without him, we were in total night. We easily overcame the visual limitations, and oriented ourselves, but seemed emotionally incapable of keeping quiet and distracted each other with jokes and good stories. After, we we shown out, and exclaimed at the brightness of the world outside, leaving Avi alone in his darkness. I turned back and saw a tiny Ethiopian, with a somewhat sad face, and remembered the way I held on to his back in my blindness. On the way home Ezi told me that we really didn't see what he saw at all, because we saw darkness while blind people see nothing. I am still puzzling over this, but Ezi, who has no vision in one eye, knows more about vision than I do. In the country of the seeing, the one-eyed man knows more of not-seeing than those who think they've experienced it all....
July 8, 2012 I come home too late to write the same night nowadays. Not that I wake up later, but there's too much excitement around to leave 8 hours for sleeping. Five last night. Once again we were in Jaffa, but this time it was another part. Two nights ago we were in the port - which has been undergoing quite a bit of overhauling. The hangars Ezi's grandfather built have been painted and/or remodeled. The shops, galleries and restaurants seem to be enjoyed by all the community and Jews and Arabs visit together, if still in separate groups. That's why I was so struck by the once primarily Arab neighborhood further south. Liz and Rafi have been trying to sell their house there, because they have long ago relocated to Brooklyn, and we went to visit them on their roof. The view of the sea, the one free beach in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the Muslim Cemetery, even the Peres Center, is amazing. I never noticed before however, that from the shore you can't see any further north than the Turkish mosque, as if Tel Aviv is unavailable even from afar from Yaffo. And then, as I walked around the balcony, I saw a square ugly new building in the middle of a blank space. It was a synagogue - brand new and out-of-place - filled with worshippers. There were men and women, and the prayer was vociferous. It was Saturday night and they made havdalah. "They're taking over" someone said.
It seems so innocent. And yet - it was as if the principle of separation had been violated, but not for purposes of integration, but for colonization.
This interview with me was on Saturday morning on the first channel. Let me know what you think - and/or tell the radio!
July 9, 2012 "Was there an earthquake?" I asked Ezi. "Why? Did you feel something?" "I guess not," I said. And then I read the papers Earthquake in Rhodes felt in Israel!. The only problem was that I felt a shiver in the earth around 6 and the earthquake happened before 5. So much for my accuracy. We only found out about it a few hours later when I read the paper. July 10, 2012
