Tel Aviv Diary - March 3-7, 2013 - Karen Alkalay-Gut
March 3, 2013 Tel Aviv is definitely a bubble. Maybe we should declare independence. When I see the news and what's happening in Jerusalem I love my bubble more. Some things may change with the new government. I don't know - right wingers scare me. Tel Aviv IS the world's second "Most Innovative City" according to the Wall Street Journal (second to Medellin, Colombia)
March 4, 2013 my friend, who hasnt been around the country for a few dozen years, says there are fewer Arabs in Tel Aviv, Where are all the workers,he asks, the carpenters, the tilers? Has their role disappeared? All I knew is that there are pharmacist and opticians and pharmacists that i depend upon who are Arab, and there are many fewer poor workers. The salespeople in the shops, the shoe store clerks, are all Arab. Yes the country does look different
When I first moved to this neighborhood, about 35 years ago, the Bedouin would drive their sheep down the center of this street, and the bells of the sheep would waken me. We would run to the window to watch them. Now there are Arab students living on this street, and it is domestic and suburban. March 6, 2013 So the Locusts are not only plaguing Egypt, they've invaded us as well. They haven't turned up in the north and they'll probably leave for Egypt again once they see we're more aggressive towards them than the Egyptians, but they really behaved just the way the Passover stories describe them, getting into the food, the mouths, noses, making a furious racket as if they were a divine punishment. No wonder Pharoah let our people go. I wonder if he thought the locusts would follow us. Anyway, they are here in part because the Egyptians didn't spray. March 7, 2013 The opening of the dramatization of Hans Fallada's novel "Little Man, What Now" at the Cameri was last night. 1932 Germany, a young clerk marries his pregnant girlfriend but has to keep it a secret because his boss wants only single men. He loses his job anyway and, well, you'll have to see it yourself. It's worth experiencing - for the singing and dancing as well as the plot. It's a story of the economic situation and the society in Germany at the start of the Nazi era, and it is a fascinating exploration of humanity. The acting and direction are amazing and we weren't bored for a minute even though it went on for well over two hours. I'm very sensitive to bad acting, to over-directed movements, to forced lyrics - stuff like that. And I didn't see any of that last night. How I wish this could be seen by a larger audience than the Hebrew-speaking theater-goers.