_
Shana Tova, Rehovot!
by Erin Israel, Rehovot.blogspot.com
"It's finally fall, here. You can tell in the way the sun falls behind the apartment buildings on the west side of Herzl Street earlier, with longer, darker shadows, and in the evening chill that follows.
The Drive-By Rabbi, zooming past the Alkali Cafe (the Saturday Night Cafe) on Herzl Street, is also another indicator of seasonal change. Just a couple of months ago, the Drive-By Rabbi would crawl through midday traffic on Herzl in his white LandRover, equipped with a megaphone on top, broadcasting gloomy anti-disengagement messages from beneath his broad black hat, gripping a microphone with one hand and the steering wheel with the other.
This afternoon, as we were sitting at the Alkali, the LandRover appeared on the corner and slowly began to make its way down the street. The rabbi leaned forward over the wheel, and reached for the microphone. I braced myself for thunderous warnings of indeterminate Hebrew.
Instead, the megaphone barked, "SHANA TOVA LE COL LECHEM!" "Happy New Year to you all!" Everyone in the cafe set down his macchiatoni and turned around. Even the cats at the base of the tree sat up. The rabbi appeared to wave to the cafe-goers, and clipped the median strip in his festive glee.
No orange ribbons? No political message? Nope. Holiday wishes.
Rehovot's eccentrics, however, make up for any loss of unpredictability the town may have suffered as a result of the rabbi's overtures of normalcy.
Crazy Man Number One can now be seen perambulating along the streets of downtown, having been confined previously to captivity on campus. This gentleman's characteristically slow, monotonous gait and wide stare mark him from blocks away. If he had collected pledges for each kilometer he's walked, he would be a millionaire by now. Perhaps he already is. If so, he should invest in an image consultant, and maybe buy some smaller headphones so he does not so closely resemble a giant insect.
Crazy Man Number Two is in a whole other league. A spry, slightly tanned man with wiry muscles and cropped gray hair, he scampers around downtown, talking excitedly to himself and anyone in his path. Because Rehovot is full of state-supported pensioners, shopkeepers and cafe owners welcome him as they would anyone else, and perhaps more warmly than anywhere else I've seen. Alkali Cafe supplies him with a soda, a pat on the back, a seat at the bar, and respectful listeners--regulars who don't shy away from him as everyone else does.
Crazy Woman Number One is the only mean one, although, God knows, she probably has good reason to be. However, I don't see why I was so unfortunate as to become her latest target. Last week, as we came out of a tiny bakery on Herzl, a woman in her seventies, with white curls askew, sitting in a chair outside, demanded, "Ma sha'a?" "What time is it?" Since I didn't have a watch, I showed her my wrist and said, "Ani lo yodat." "I don't know."
She glared at me, and then asked, "Cigaria?" I shook my head. She shook her head imperiously, and said, in Hebrew, "HMMph."
This bakery, it must be said, sells some of the best tiny savory and sweet pastries in town; the savory ones are burekas, filled with cheese, spices, and mushrooms, in one case; the sweet ones are filled with cream cheese and dusted with powdered sugar or chocolate sprinkles. Two racks of symmetrical, joined pastries are always warm and cheap. A weekend breakfast of these for two costs about NIS 4.
I stopped by on Thursday morning and went inside. Someone was talking distractedly near the door, but I didn't notice who it was until I came out and tried to reshuffle my gear: books for the Book Club, a yoga mat, a bag of groceries, and a paper bag of breakfast pastries. The chatter increased, and seemed to be directed at me.
"Gveret! At lo [unintelligible]! Rak "shalom" ve at lo [also unintelligible]!" The same woman from last week, clad in the same clothes, sat in a different chair, yelling and shaking her fist at me. The bare minimum I understood of her tirade was, "Lady! What's wrong with you? You can't even say "Hello"?"
I dumped my stuff on a chair and glared at her. People hurrying by, and standing just beyond, at the bus stop, turned to listen. As I considered the irony of this woman criticizing me at the top of her lungs for being impolite, my yoga mat toppled off the chair.
Well, what would Ghandi do?
Ghandi, perhaps, would take a seat at one of the bakery tables nearby, sip espresso and nibble placidly on a cheese pastry, nodding kindly in the direction of the obviously-insane woman while she frothed at the mouth.
So that's exactly what I did. Pacifism via pastry. I feel confident that this philosophy contributes significantly to the irrepressible zaniness of Rehovot. Now all I need is a LandRover and a microphone to broadcast my message of passive resistance--and preferably a helper to lob bonbons at bystanders."
Source: Erin Israel. Beer-tso-NEE leen-SO-a DEH-rekh ha-EER luh-sha-AH. I would like to drive through the city for an hour. Rehovot.Blogspot.com (7 October 2005) [FullText]
"It's finally fall, here. You can tell in the way the sun falls behind the apartment buildings on the west side of Herzl Street earlier, with longer, darker shadows, and in the evening chill that follows.
The Drive-By Rabbi, zooming past the Alkali Cafe (the Saturday Night Cafe) on Herzl Street, is also another indicator of seasonal change. Just a couple of months ago, the Drive-By Rabbi would crawl through midday traffic on Herzl in his white LandRover, equipped with a megaphone on top, broadcasting gloomy anti-disengagement messages from beneath his broad black hat, gripping a microphone with one hand and the steering wheel with the other.
This afternoon, as we were sitting at the Alkali, the LandRover appeared on the corner and slowly began to make its way down the street. The rabbi leaned forward over the wheel, and reached for the microphone. I braced myself for thunderous warnings of indeterminate Hebrew.
Instead, the megaphone barked, "SHANA TOVA LE COL LECHEM!" "Happy New Year to you all!" Everyone in the cafe set down his macchiatoni and turned around. Even the cats at the base of the tree sat up. The rabbi appeared to wave to the cafe-goers, and clipped the median strip in his festive glee.
No orange ribbons? No political message? Nope. Holiday wishes.
Rehovot's eccentrics, however, make up for any loss of unpredictability the town may have suffered as a result of the rabbi's overtures of normalcy.
Crazy Man Number One can now be seen perambulating along the streets of downtown, having been confined previously to captivity on campus. This gentleman's characteristically slow, monotonous gait and wide stare mark him from blocks away. If he had collected pledges for each kilometer he's walked, he would be a millionaire by now. Perhaps he already is. If so, he should invest in an image consultant, and maybe buy some smaller headphones so he does not so closely resemble a giant insect.
Crazy Man Number Two is in a whole other league. A spry, slightly tanned man with wiry muscles and cropped gray hair, he scampers around downtown, talking excitedly to himself and anyone in his path. Because Rehovot is full of state-supported pensioners, shopkeepers and cafe owners welcome him as they would anyone else, and perhaps more warmly than anywhere else I've seen. Alkali Cafe supplies him with a soda, a pat on the back, a seat at the bar, and respectful listeners--regulars who don't shy away from him as everyone else does.
Crazy Woman Number One is the only mean one, although, God knows, she probably has good reason to be. However, I don't see why I was so unfortunate as to become her latest target. Last week, as we came out of a tiny bakery on Herzl, a woman in her seventies, with white curls askew, sitting in a chair outside, demanded, "Ma sha'a?" "What time is it?" Since I didn't have a watch, I showed her my wrist and said, "Ani lo yodat." "I don't know."
She glared at me, and then asked, "Cigaria?" I shook my head. She shook her head imperiously, and said, in Hebrew, "HMMph."
This bakery, it must be said, sells some of the best tiny savory and sweet pastries in town; the savory ones are burekas, filled with cheese, spices, and mushrooms, in one case; the sweet ones are filled with cream cheese and dusted with powdered sugar or chocolate sprinkles. Two racks of symmetrical, joined pastries are always warm and cheap. A weekend breakfast of these for two costs about NIS 4.
I stopped by on Thursday morning and went inside. Someone was talking distractedly near the door, but I didn't notice who it was until I came out and tried to reshuffle my gear: books for the Book Club, a yoga mat, a bag of groceries, and a paper bag of breakfast pastries. The chatter increased, and seemed to be directed at me.
"Gveret! At lo [unintelligible]! Rak "shalom" ve at lo [also unintelligible]!" The same woman from last week, clad in the same clothes, sat in a different chair, yelling and shaking her fist at me. The bare minimum I understood of her tirade was, "Lady! What's wrong with you? You can't even say "Hello"?"
I dumped my stuff on a chair and glared at her. People hurrying by, and standing just beyond, at the bus stop, turned to listen. As I considered the irony of this woman criticizing me at the top of her lungs for being impolite, my yoga mat toppled off the chair.
Well, what would Ghandi do?
Ghandi, perhaps, would take a seat at one of the bakery tables nearby, sip espresso and nibble placidly on a cheese pastry, nodding kindly in the direction of the obviously-insane woman while she frothed at the mouth.
So that's exactly what I did. Pacifism via pastry. I feel confident that this philosophy contributes significantly to the irrepressible zaniness of Rehovot. Now all I need is a LandRover and a microphone to broadcast my message of passive resistance--and preferably a helper to lob bonbons at bystanders."
Source: Erin Israel. Beer-tso-NEE leen-SO-a DEH-rekh ha-EER luh-sha-AH. I would like to drive through the city for an hour. Rehovot.Blogspot.com (7 October 2005) [FullText]
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home