Older and Weiser

It has been 16 years since I last heard that greeting at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv and it felt good to hear it again.

I can only imagine how much has changed here since 1993, when I came with my family to celebrate Brian’s Bar Mitzvah. One change is to the airport itself, which has gone from being positively “Third World” to a bright, modern facility with free luggage carts (unlike O’Hare and LaGuardia). Another is the road to Jerusalem, which is now four lanes (I remember two), has no potholes, great signage and plenty of traffic. Good to know they were working on things while I was away.

Julie and I are staying at the historic King David Hotel, a wing of which was destroyed in a bombing by the Irgun (a para-military force led by the late Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin), during the time of Britain’s occupation of what was then called Palestine. From the window of our room we can see the Old City, perhaps a mile in the distance, and, immediately below us, the hotel pool deck.

It occurs to me that the view from our window might be an apt metaphor for Israel itself: in the foreground is the drumbeat of modern life, while always there in the background looms a 3000-year-old-history lesson — the living museum to the prayers, passions and hubris of man that is the Old City. I can’t wait to get back there with Julie.

It has been a long trip — 16 hours in all — and Julie is napping. I think I’m too keyed up to sleep but we have a late evening ahead of us and I really should try. More later.

Michael

Filed under: Israel by Michael Weiser