Notes From Tel Aviv

My notebook is Israeli. It runs backwards. What the cover would be is a dirty piece of cardboard, with coffee and dirt stains. The real cover is on the other side. It's orange and says "3 Subject Notebook." When you open the notebook from the opposite side, the coffee and dirt side, you get my first entry.I tried to turn this Israeli notebook into an American notebook.

This is what I wrote when I first arrived in Tel Aviv:

The streets are dirty in that New York way where sidewalks just barely pass as sidewalks. Somewhere under all that dirt and gum and dirty gum, there's a place to stand. The buildings here are collapsing, silently chipping away, while the insides become more and more modern. Things are trapped indoors. The indoors are bright. Indoors you can forget that you're in the middle east, in the middle of a war.

I'm constantly looking for signs of modernity. Brushed wood accents spell IKEA. How's the wall art? Dental care? People seem to have teeth, but they're not white. A woman in the restaurant coughs- will she be treated for what ails her?

But there's no time to think because I'm on a PROGRAM. There are things I'm supposed to see, places I'm being told are important to my understanding of Judaism. I'm told this over and over again and I vainly follow the advice thinking here I'll feel more like a Jew, or perhaps over there. If I stand at Masada and a Jewish bird poops on my shoulder and the sun hits the rocks just so and the clouds part a little bit, will all this make me feel more like a Jew? Or humor! What if I crack a joke, or a knowing smile or something (anything?) with someone on the street? Perhaps I'll feel more like I'm part of a people.

Really, it's just a search for community. The same search every 20 year old takes. But BIRTHRIGHT would like you to believe they've found the perfect fit for you. The perfect community. Really, it's just a marketing gimmick to get me to join the Israeli army.

Stereotypes abound. Everywhere. The noses, my god. Everyone's nose looks like my own. Some stereotypes I'd like to forget. Most, actually. The money thing. The outwardly Very Dissapointed Face the bartender shoots me when I say I'd like to order a smaller size of coffee. As if the tiny amount of lost tip is actually the most important thing in the world. Seattle waiters give looks, sure, but this one said "what a waste of a table you are" with such disdain, I would have doubled back if I knew how to do that.