As the clocks throughout Tel Aviv's constellation of liquor stores struck 23:00 last night, and the townspeople lugged home their final bottles of 35-to-40-shekel Arak, a rare summertime sadness settled over the city.
“Arak is considered the cheap and good and everyone can afford it, and it's always available,” said Itay Zecharia, a 20-year-old clerk closing down his nondescript corner store, a couple blocks off Rothschild Boulevard, for the night. “Now it's not going to be like that. It's just crazy.”
The morning of Monday, July 1 marks the start of a bleak new era for Israel: Today is the day that the country's only cheap liquors, Arak and vodka, almost double in price to around 70 and 100 shekels per bottle, respectively. This, thanks to ” target=”_blank”>Lapid is backtracking a bit on his support for the law in the news today.)
There are very few cheap thrills left in Tel Aviv — among them a spot in the sand, a dip in the sea and a plastic cup full of Arak-grapefruit. In the blazing Mediterranean summer, locally brewed Arak runs in the veins of the Israelis; normal resting blood-alcohol content is approximately two cups of Arak.
So naturally, the new alcohol tax has been widely mourned as an assault on the national identity. Wrote Liel Leibotvitz in ” target=”_blank”>Sabbath in sin city: Keep the shops open“.) Although God's presence can still be felt over here, in the wicked thunderstorm sunrises and the breeze over a topless French girl on the beach, his touch is softer and more open to interpretation than on the cold synagogue stones of Jerusalem. Although this new alcohol tax isn't distinctly religious (just like the Turkish prime minister's ” target=”_blank”>a recent music video with over 85,000 views on YouTube.
Their harsh warnings for Lapid and his cronies, as translated by ” target=”_blank”>called on his vast following — or “we the Arak people” — to shove the Finance Minister's cigar up his butt.
But will a pricier drunk be enough to send Tel Aviv's more-or-less comfortable middle class into the streets, a la Istanbul? Is our cheap summertime Arak worth the tear gas?
“I don't think people will drink less, I just think they'll be more bitter,” said Itay Haza, the 28-year-old manager of Va'ad Habayit, one of the best dance bars along Rothschild. Asked how the tax will affect him on a personal level, he said ominously: “Ask me next week. But I hope it's not going to be what I think it's going to be.”
