Cigarette butts, old candy wrappers, dirty napkins on the ground. Above, Jews, Jews, Jews, lots of Jews, walking, smoking, laughing. First day of Chol Hamoed, there’s a breezy, late afternoon glow. I’m sipping Turkish coffee at a café on Shenkin Street in Tel Aviv and I’m surrounded by a sea of Jewish humanity. There are Jews in caftans, Jews in bleached jeans, Jews with Michael Jackson T-shirts, Jews with big jewelry, with strollers, with spiked heels, with sandals, blonde Jews, one black Jew with a kippah, Jews with fanny packs, one with payos, little Jews with pacifiers, bald teenage Jews. Sounds of Betach! Nachon! Young Jews with diamonds on their cheeks, female Jews arm in arm, a Jew on a moped riding the sidewalk, another handing out Rabbi Na Na Na Nachman leaflets, Oriental music competing with Green Day and with a lone guitarist playing a modern version of “Shalom Aleichem.” Jews with pink skirts and Jews with jeans out of fashion, a Jew with a price tag still on her turquoise dress, a Mizrahi Jew with a disco hairdo, constant cries of “b’emet?” two 8-year-old girls walking together, not a single Jew in a suit and tie, the distant sound of an ambulance siren, cellphones hanging around necks, a red poster with the words “Coke sucker,” 1,000 conversations that aren’t about Gaza or Sharon, no one handing out parking tickets, café chairs and tables out of order — protruding out on the sidewalk like a jagged border on a map– Jews with crutches, one in a wheelchair, Jews with glitter on their shirts, a Jew on a bicycle holding a surfboard, 1,000 sunglasses (most of them placed above the forehead), a petite redhead in an army uniform, a Jew with a Yankee cap, a four-seater Renault with seven people in it and a Moshiach bumper sticker on the back (honking), a Jew with a buff torso and black T-shirt with one English word on it: “Open,” a little girl in a stroller who looks just like my little Eva, a tough-looking Jew with long sideburns who needed four fender bumps to park his Rover hatchback, a girl with pink hair, a little storefront with a huge sign that says The Krenko Records Shop, a little black dog without a leash, a Peruvian-looking man with long, black hair holding a baby, a beggar saying “Chag Sameach,” a frum mother with her daughter, no one taking pictures, a bathroom stall with a narrow, vertical window (presumably so a security guard could see inside) and a small poster of the new Sean Penn/Nicole Kidman movie. Pretty much everyone talking, either live or on a cellphone, sun setting and not many people leaving, no CNN news crew in sight, litter on the ground, live Jews everywhere.
David Suissa is editor-in-chief of Jewish Journal.
