A Word from Sponsors

I recently received an e-mail from Ernesto, a middle aged Catholic fellow from Manila who moved to Tel Aviv half a year ago for work. He reads my blog and asked if I might link to his. So I am.

Check out his story about coming to HLC (Holy Land Central), his first time traveling internationally on a 20-hour Lufthansa flight via China and Germany (no less). Also take a look at his story marking Holy Week.

Best to you, Ernesto. Mabuting kapalaran!

Awkward Moments

My son is at the honest stage of life that clearly arrives halfway between ages 4 and 5. He vacillates between the fantasy world of dressing up as Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman, Batman, a Viking (Danish heritage) or Superman and openly questioning his surroundings then offering up observations that at times could stand a smidge of censorship. For instance...

...in the doctor's office waiting room loudly announcing: "He's really, really huge mommy" when a bulky person walked in.

...in the backseat of the car when he asked my cousin's struggling-with-overactive sebaceous-glands teenage son: "Why do you have so many pimples?" Had I not been pretending to be deeply engrossed in scenery outside the window, I'd have hugged the young boy for his response: Because I'm growing up and this is what happens to some people as they grow up. After mulling that one over for a few seconds young Rapha replied: "Yeah. I have them on my toosig"

....in the backseat of the same car, leaning forward and asking my rapidly graying cousin: "Neil, you're kind of old aren't you?"

....any and every time he happens to the be in the room when I undress: "Ooh! Your toosig is really, really big. You eat too much junk"

...fielding a phone call at my behest: "My mommy doesn't want to talk to you right now."

...loudly noting the sexual orientation of a relative's parents: "But he can't have two mommies. Where is the daddy?"

...on the beach: "That man is really hairy. Why does he have hair on his back?"

Were we all this adorable?

Winding Down

Passover is in its last stretch...Tomorrow eve it's over and out until next year.

I've had a really nice vacation albeit clouded by yesterday's bombing. I think about our mini-jaunts around the country and then for a few seconds turn my thoughts to the families mourning today. It's too painful to think about them for more than that brief moment but my thoughts return to them repeatedly.

Raph & I journeyed, yet again, to Jerusalem today with cousins to visit the Bloomfield Science Museum. Actually a lot more state-of-the-art than my snobbish, former member of the Bay Area Discovery Museum self expected. A scientific hands-on extravaganza for kids with displays aimed at multi-level intellects and ages, we could've spent hours roaming each floor and trying out experiments. We loved the bubbles, the bubble magician, the light particle diffusion display and electricity and spark demos.

We left the museum and headed to Salah A Din Street in East Jerusalem across from the Old City's Damascus Gate for shwarma, falafel and hummus lunch. I couldn't get over the fact that we were actually hanging out there. When I left HLC years ago the East side of town was a precarious place to be if you were a native Hebrew speaker, which today's lunch companions happen to be. Incidentally, the other cousins - the Palestinian ones - can spot the Hebrew-ites a mile off.

I marveled over sitting there & eating so cordially and all and was then dosed with reality when a pair of twenty-ish hippy types in dark glasses and baggy clothing with long greasy hair and rucksacks on their backs passed us en route to Damascus Gate. Had I not heard the blaring Hebrew coming from walky talky devices connected to their front pack straps, I'd have never noticed they were wired. I guess they turn down the volume when they close in on whatever it is they plan to close in on.

My cousin and I did double takes and in unison declared: Undercover!

Sorta reminded me of the undercover units operating in major cities; Most of the gang members know exactly who they are and sometimes greet them by name. *sigh* Same game, similar playahs, different setting.

The Agony of Parenting

My father phoned this afternoon and our conversation shot me backwards in time evoking an insight which had eluded me on my move back to HLC (Holy Land Central) after a ten-year hiatus...

Back during Gulf War the 1st, I was here in HLC working for NBC News when Scuds started lobbing into Tel Aviv. It was Iraq's attempt at goading Israel into the heat.

Ask almost anyone who was here during that time and they'll tell you with detail what they were doing and how they felt during those seemingly endless first-night-of-missiles moments. Being terrified has a way of sticking with our brains' clarity department. Funny thing is that we sometimes forget the stricken feelings of our associates in other locales.

A month after that first missile night a videotape made its way into my hands. "From the NBC affiliate station in Cincinnati," the cover stated. I knew what was on it.

That first Scud night, anxious relatives across the U.S. who couldn't get in touch with loved ones living in Israel due to phone line congestion, gathered at a local synagogues to pray and wait out the frustration together. My parents - awaiting word from three of their four children living in missile hit areas - were among them.

Local news producers raced to synagogues to lasso interview candidates and found my parents - wide eyed and willing to accompany them downtown for a live interview at WLWT's studios.

In hindsight I'm almost sorry I viewed that tape. Because forever frozen in my memory is the image of my father sitting on that television set ashen-faced, distracted, terrified and distraught as he absent-mindedly answered questions about his three children living in Tel Aviv and Haifa. He didn't yet know that we were all unscathed.

Today he phoned about the bombing. Initially hearing the inflection in his voice I asked: "Dad, is everything okay?"

I was going to ask you the same, he replied.

"Oh yeah. We're fine," I answered. "We don't really go to that part of town much."

And I hung up the phone realizing: Wow. Here they go again. A child in Israel. The worry is back. And the memory of that videotape returned and tears sprung to my eyes. What we put them through inadvertently.

Here We Go...Iran & $$

One person commented here that the Palestinian people need the influx of $$ and that Hamas, unlike predecessors i.e. Arafat, has historically been instrumental in ensuring funds reach the populace in the form of education, improved infrastructure, etc.

My concern lies more with the Iranian side & inherent symbolism in a donation coming on the heels of the U.S./European aid cutoff, Ahmadinejad's recent rhetoric regarding Israel and the Holocaust, talk of Iran's nuclear progress and the current cut-with-a-knife thick tension between Iran and the U.S. This move sends a clear signal to numerous parties and ups the ante..

* * *
Iran just announced they'll be donating $50 million to the Palestinian Authority since Europe and the U.S. recently cut off direct aid.

I don't even know where to begin vis a vis the implications of this one...Stay tuned.

The Bestest Good Friday

Tonny, Raph and myself journeyed on up to Jerusalem to check out Good Friday goings-on in the Old City. Although I spent years "covering" this significant, Christian holy day while working for foreign news agencies, I never personally witnessed the procession along the Via Dolorosa.

It didn't happen this year either. We arrived too late. BUT action there was aplenty, regardless.

Simply venturing to Jerusalem is akin to traveling abroad for me. Buses packed with red-faced, Yiddish-speaking religious Jews in black and white, fur-lined spodiks and shtreimels atop their heads, long sleeved silk robes, women in heavy stockings... all in heat wave, 80-degree (26.6 C) temps. As I curiously peeked at my bus-mates en route to the Old City, a mutually curious 5-year-old with flowing side-locks peeked back. Schoingemacht. I'm the visiting alien.



We arrived at the Western Wall side of the City and made our way along the stone alleyways towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which, according to Christianity, is built over Golgotha i.e. the place where Jesus was crucified and buried.

As we moved into the Moslem quarter, the muezzin began calling worshippers to Friday prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque. We found ourselves swimming against the tide of carpet-carrying men scurrying to prayer and so ducked into a chatchke shop to wait out the flow.

Heading out again, we knew we were getting closer to the church because the passers-by were getting blonder and the rosary and incense/myrrh shops were gaining in number. The heat was taking its toll so we stopped for lunch at a rooftop restaurant a block from the church.

The food was "eh" but the view from up top was beautiful. All those archeological gradations along Jerusalem's hillsides, church towers, Mosque domes...Who needs a vacation abroad when you can jump on a bus to J-Town? Speak English and occasionally pull out a digital camera and Voila! You're a tourist for the day.



The church was crowded, as would be expected, and I was moved, as happens on each visit to the Holy Sepulchre, by the tourists who kneel and spread their upper bodies over the cool, marble slab covering Jesus' final resting place, weeping openly.

It was a wonderful day, indeed, to be in the Holy City for the sheer experience of taking in all three major religions' holy times in a single go. Definitely one of those "I'm lucky to be here" days.

A Happy Easter to all of my celebrating friends...

We're Here

Chag Sameach (Happy Holiday) to my kin folk and virtual brethren worldwide celebrating Passover come sundown this evening. Rapha, Tonny & myself will be joining about 40 others at cousins Neil & Orna's who live just a hair inside the green line in a community called Kochav Yair. Picturesque natural setting and the scent of seasonally blossoming flowers and fruit trees will be heavenly.

My wishes for all:

• Decent wine
• A speed reader who gets you to the meal within half an hour
• Lack of analytical relative insistent upon interpreting Haggadah texts aka Rashi
• Not too bitter Maror
• Find the Afikoman
• Get the gift you truly desire for finding it
• Relatives too tipsy to resume Haggadah reading after meal

Next Year in Jerusalem! (or this Friday or Sunday if you're headed up for Good Friday or Easter)...

(and yes, I know, Charlton Heston is an NRA loving bleep bleep bleep. But c'mon. Charlton IS Moses)