Goodbye Tel Aviv
I just spent a week in Tel Aviv where I don’t expect to be back for a while. As I was staying through the week-end I got to experience the town during Shabbat.
Waking up early on Saturday I walked down to the lobby to find the two expresso machines of the hotel under wrap. I walked down the street looking for an open coffee place, one with a terrace for some people watching. Walking up Gordon street I found the perfect spot near the intersection with Frug street and sat down. The coffee was good and the people watching interesting -the Shabbat crowd is quite different as people dress up and entire families take a stroll.
Two old friends were walking, I imagined on their way to the Synagogue. They were lost in their discussion as they slowly walked by me.
Now, just back in San Francisco, the image stays with me as a moment of peace, a moment suspended in time. This morning the first bomb in 11 years exploded on a bus in Tel Aviv; Hamas has been targeting the city with their longer range, Iranian-engineered missiles. That Saturday morning I experienced, sipping my latte on a quiet street, is now gone in all possible ways. Goodbye Tel Aviv.