A cool, objective look at the Dubai scandal

February 21st 2010

Today I took the bus from Jaffa Road to the Central Bus Station.

I haven't taken a bus in a long time, but Aryeh needed the car.

Yes. Aryeh and I live, operate and work in the world with one car. As do most of our friends. The great thing about having one car is that you develop fantastic powers of negotiation. For the past 5 years, since my son Yonatan got his license, the 3 of us have sat around the dining room table at night negotiating over Who Gets The Car. We each have to say: "I need the car the because..."

Anyway, here I am boarding the number 20 bus on the Jaffa Road in downtown Jerusalem. It's very crowded and I struggle to get to the back where I can hang on to a yellow pole and sway back and forth in unison with all the other passengers. Out of habit, I scan the face, body language and clothing of every single person standing or sitting in my vicinity. Why? Because that's what I learned to do for four years during the Intifada of 2000-2004, when I was commuting back and forth to film school, and was afraid of getting blown up on the bus every day.

I was very, very lucky not to get blown up, but other people were not so lucky. A lot of young people got blown up, and a lot of old people got blown up, because they use the buses the most. Lots of school children got blown up, because that's who the buses are packed with at rush hour every morning. One schoolgirl was on her way to a swimming competition, because she was a swimming champion. After the bomb, they were only able to identify the body by analyzing the shreds of fabric from her swimsuit.

In those days I would get on the 20 or the 6 or the 21 outside Jerusalem Central Bus Station, and I would try and work out which seat would be least likely to get me killed. I couldn't sit at the front because some bombers would panic as soon as they boarded and detonate right away. I couldn't go to the middle of the bus because so many bombers would the choose the middle as the place to detonate, causing maximum damage to the front and back of the bus.

At night on the news, there would always be footage of the latest blown up bus to look at. I would try and calculate from the wreckage, which seats had been the safest and which had been the deadliest, on that bus.

Usually I would make my way to the back of the bus, figuring that most bombers would lose their cool and detonate before reaching the back. And I would always scrutinize my fellow passengers very, very carefully, at the same time, of course, that they were scrutinizing me. If I saw any dark skinned young man travelling alone with a backpack, I'd get off the bus and just walk the rest of the way. And that would happen say, five times a week.

Today I scanned all the faces on the bus and I felt relatively safe.

Because we got them.
The bomb-makers and the masterminds and the organizers and all the eighteen-year-olds who couldn't wait to get recruited. We got them all, pretty well. We took them on, and we dismantled their networks,we smashed their bomb factories, we listened to their phone calls and blocked their bank accounts, and when any of their top brass forgot to be vigilant, we assassinated the hell out of them.

As well as doing all of this, there was the small and simple matter of involving our children in this fight. All our little boys, the ones who had been playing with meccano and lego and playmobile on the living room floor. The ones who loved reading Tintin and Asterix or the Israeli equivalent, and who gobbled their Frosties for breakfast every morning before getting the bus to school. All our beautiful boys - the ones who were on Ritalin and the ones who weren't, the ones who loved football and the ones who were too nerdy for sports. The ones who wore kipppot and tzitzit and the ones who didn't. We waited till they turned eighteen and then we put them in uniform and trained them to use weapons and taught them to speak Arabic, and they went into every one of those viper's nest towns like Jenin and Ramallah and Nablus, usually during the night, and they arrested every single person hiding a weapon or in possession of explosives. When Jewish kids outside of Israel were at university studying law or medicine or engineering, our children were in those towns. Every night.

As for the big shots, the cowards who were recruiting teens to do their terrorist work for them but who didn't get their hands dirty themselves, the ones who travelled around Jordan and Syria and Egypt and who hid in safe houses and got themselves new identities - we got them too. In Gaza and in Tulkarm and possibly even in Dubai. They will never, ever be safe from us, and we will get every last one of them.

We don't know for sure if Mahmoud Mabhouh was assassinated by Israel, but as an Israeli I sure as hell hope so. He was a key player in smuggling weapons into Gaza from Iran. Weapons to fire on our civilian populations. Special long range rockets for hitting Tel Aviv. Guns and mortars for terror attacks.

So if any of you are feeling outraged about the Dubai assassination, go ahead, you're entitled.

You probably weren't using the buses here between 2000 and 2004.

Gee but it's great to be back home

February 17 2010

There are 3 things that I always find in the fridge when I’ve been away on a trip:

1) A glistening, hexagonal shaped mould on the zucchini

2) The cheap mayonnaise instead of the Helman’s

3) 0% yogurts in flavors like cappuccino or cheesecake, that nobody has eaten, is eating or will eat.

Also, the dining room table has always been mysteriously converted into Aryeh’s office.

But- it’s great to be home.

Superbowl Sunday

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY

It’s Sunday in Los Angeles – Superbowl Sunday. Superbowl Sunday is a big day for the Los Angeles Jewish Community. It’s up there with Yom Kippur, or Seder Night. How do I know? Because I'm here with a delegation from the Ma’aleh Film School for 10 days of screenings and events, and we haven't been able to book a single screening on Superbowl Sunday. There is no synagogue, JCC, campus, Jewish organization or private home that would consider holding an event on this holy day. That’s because every single member of the Los Angeles Jewish Community, from age 7 to 77, male or female, Ashkenazi or Sephardi, orthodox or reform, is mad about American football. And that means that nothing, absolutely nothing, can be scheduled on Superbowl Sunday.

I’m trying to think if we have a parallel in Israel? I don’t think so. Let’s say the Los Angeles ballet company were coming to Tel Aviv and they wanted to schedule a glitzy performance on Yom Kippur. It would be no problem. They would get 1,500 people. And if all the theaters were closed, someone in Herzliya would do it at their private home.

What I’m trying to say is, there isn’t a single event in the Israeli calendar where you could get all Israelis to agree on the importance of that once event. Certainly not a sporting event. If the event had something to do with Humus, (the chickpea dip, not the terrorist organization) you might get a consensus. Humus is the great Unifying Factor in Israel. I’m not kidding. Arabs eat it (they invented it). Ultra-orthodox Jews eat it. Trendy Tel Aviv lefties eat it, and Settlers eat it. The Green family eats it on a Friday night with fresh whole wheat challah, so there is never any room for soup. There might be some exceptions though. There’s a Russian Orthodox monastery right next to Ma’aleh and I’m not sure the nuns there eat Humus. Those nuns look a bit anemic to me. I’ll make sure to send around a tub or two.

I do remember one time when practically every Israeli in the country was watching the same thing on TV, and that was when Ilan Ramon, the Israeli Astronaut, was broadcasting from the inside of the space shuttle. I get such a pain in my heart when I even think about Ilan, who died in the space shuttle explosion, and his gorgeous beautiful son, who was killed piloting an IAF plane only a few months ago. I hope G-dash-D is holding them both really tight up there. I hope He’s hugging them for all the Israelis who want to hug them but can’t.

I take it back when I say that all of Israel was watching Ilan’s broadcast. The ultra-orthodox were probably not watching. I think they were out demonstrating in Tel Aviv, against the Los Angeles ballet company performing on YomKippur.

THE PICO KOSHER DELI AND OTHER SPIRITUAL MATTERS

It’s Superbowl Sunday and my colleagues, Neta and Pazit, have gone to Disneyland for the day. I’m feeling SLIGHTLY better, after two days on antibiotics. I've had strep throat and a high fever, (that's right, on a business trip), so I didn't go.

So here I am alone in a hotel room. My knees are improving, they’re now chopped liver consistency and I can sort of stand up. But with the sore throat and feeling like death and all, I’ve had nothing to eat for four days.

I’m sitting on my bed in the hotel room feeling a little low, because I just spoke to Pazit, and she and Neta are about to go on the “It’s a Small World” ride which I haven’t seen for thirty years. All seventy two TV channels are showing ads for the Superbowl, or past Superbowls, or men in suits predicting what will happen at the Superbowl, or crowds of laughing and delighted people in New Orleans laughing and being delighted about the upcoming Superbowl. (The Saints did win by the way.)

I’m sitting on the bed thinking:

“What would I love to eat right now, if I had to force it down just to get some nutrition?”

And I realize there’s only one way to find out.

Ten minutes later I’m walking on my chopped liver knees down Pico Boulevard, which is around the corner from the hotel, and where all the kosher eateries are. I call Tali our events organizer, whose superb brain we are using to produce the film festival.

“Tali,” I say “I need a corned beef sandwich, for medical reasons. Where do I go?”

Without missing a beat, Tali says:

“You need the Pico Kosher Deli”.

Pico Kosher Deli is awesome, there is no other way to describe it. It is a dream of a deli, and the people who work there only speak in Hollywood movie language. They call out things like:

“Ira, that’s one corned beef on rye with pickles and coleslaw to go.”

The corned beef looks like it’s from a movie and so does the rye bread. Even the coleslaw looks like it was scripted. The coleslaw should have a sign next to it saying:

INTERIOR. DAY. COLESLAW.

All I can say is, if you are ever having doubts about your Judaism, you need to visit the Pico Kosher Deli. Come to think of it, I don’t think it’s a co-incidence that the Aish HaTorah building is just up the road. Those Aish people know what they’re doing. First, they spend six months putting people back in touch with their Jewish roots. Then they send them down the road for a corned beef sandwich. After those two experiences, no one has any problem believing in G-dash-D.

So. I’m back in my hotel room sitting on the bed, watching the only channel I can find that doesn’t have the Superbowl on it. It’s the health channel, showing hour after hour of pregnant women giving birth to premature babies who almost die but don’t.

I unwrap the corned beef sandwich, which is about six inches high, the coleslaw is glistening in its little plastic tub, two elegant long pickles are laid out on the greaseproof paper, and I’m sipping on a diet coke. On TV, premature twin girls named Shauna and Shannon have just been born, and they’re going to be okay.

You know what?

You can keep Disneyland.