Hundreds of thousands of people from the charedi community gathered in Jerusalem late Sunday afternoon in one of the largest demonstrations in Israel’s history, to protest against a reform of the conscription law that would draft ultra-Orthodox men into the army or compulsory national service.
The huge crowd of people congregated from under the Bridge of Strings at the city entrance, stretching past the Jerusalem International Convention Center and down Shazar Avenue, branching off along large sections of Jaffa Road, Yirmiyahu Street, Sarei Yisrael Avenue, and other major thoroughfares.
from the Jerusalem Post, March 2, 2014
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Jerusalem is sometimes such a religious pressure cooker. I was at that demonstration myself (for a grand total of 20 minutes). What I encountered was a relatively tranquil sea of black stretching as far as the eye can see. Shofars screeching and cries of tehilim were heard booming from the loudspeakers. Such a divisive issue: Afterwards, people I know were either disappointed that I attended the rally for such a short time or incredulous that I could even fathom attending in the first place.
Just as Israel has many natural ecosystems – in one day you can travel from the snow-covered peaks of the Hermon to the subtropics of Eilat and everything in between – Israel is also a patchwork of social ecosystems.
There is probably no greater example of these worlds apart than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. One is hilly, the other is flat. One borders the Judean desert to its east; the other is bounded by the Mediterranean to its west. One is decidedly religious, with pockets of secularism; the other is decidedly secular with the religious residents interspersed throughout.
I know religious tourists (and residents) who need to escape to Tel Aviv’s beach-like, bohemian, secular, and laissez-faire atmosphere for a short time to get relief from the pressure cooker of Jerusalem. The ocean breeze and the water soothe raw nerves and tightened muscles like a massage.
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When I read that Tel Aviv was probably Israel’s most bike rider-friendly city, with an extensive network of designated bike routes, I hopped into my car and headed to Old Jaffa, where the bike route along Tel Aviv’s beach promenade begins. I enjoyed it so much that I repeated the experience two more times. It was an opportunity to have a change in both social and environmental ecosystems – and it’s a lot of fun!
From the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, which took me to the Ayalon Highway, I exited at the Kibbutz Galuyot exit. Turning left at the exit, I traveled all the way down Kibbutz Galuyot, turned left on Derech Salame and continued a little until I saw the Old Clock tower of Jaffa, where I turned left on Yefet Street. A few blocks away (but it’s a bit complicated!) there is a large municipal parking lot that is free. Off of Yefet Street itself, there is a for-pay underground parking garage – if you don’t miss the parking symbol sign.
Walking around Jaffa is itself an experience. This is the ancient port city, from where Yonah, the prophet, boarded a ship to Tarshish. This is where all the Jewish immigrants arrived to the Holy Land during the First Aliyah period (1882 to 1904). Today, you’ll find many tourists, including Arab tourists from all over Israel and elsewhere, because Jaffa has many Arab residents. The streets are safe (at least during the day). And Jaffa is famous for its extensive open-air flea market.
Heading back on Yefet, I walked with Pinchas – a slightly hyperactive student in a yeshiva in Beitar Ilit, who solemnly promised me that his mashgiach gave him the green light to take off that day – and another student friend of his to a shwarma store on the corner, then turned left onto a narrow alleyway (Hahalfanim Street) where we saw a bunch of bikes parked outside a small storefront. The place is called WheelBee, and it is only a block from the oceanfront.
The city-sponsored Tel-O-Fun system gives anyone with a credit card 24-hour bicycle access. The bikes can be rented and returned at any of the stations around the city. The advantage of WheelBee, which has been around for three years, is that they have all kinds of bikes for rent: electric, kids’ bikes, mountain bikes. They also provide helmets, maps, and assistance (if you get stuck or lost). They are on the internet (www.wheelbeetlv.com). One of the proprietors, a young Sefardic woman named Eleanor, is proud of her father, who revived a synagogue, Ohel Avraham, only a block away, creating regular minyanim and bringing in a kollel.
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I rented three electric bikes at 75 shekels each for three hours. It’s almost like riding a regular bike. The motor gives a little assist only if you are pedaling. So climbing the inclines feels like half the gravity, and if you want to cover a lot of ground in less time, it’s worth it.
There are four levels of power: off, light, medium, and max. My experience is that the bikes could last all the way to Herziliya in the north to Jaffa in the south on max, without changing the battery – on the regular sized bikes – but it’s better to keep it on medium except for the bridges or if you want to pass other cyclists. The mini-bikes (16” tires) would require a battery change, and they supply you with a backup just in case. The regular sized bikes are steadier.
Armed with helmets and bike locks, we headed down the alleyway, past a minaret, and onto the beach boardwalk (tayelet). Very shortly, we arrived at the Etzel Museum (the organization headed by Menachem Begin), crossed over a busy boulevard (Kaufman Street), rode through a small park and turned right on Shabazi Street. We were in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood, the first Jewish community built outside of Jaffa. There was a building by a parking lot that housed a yeshiva. In earlier times, it was the synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook, zt”l, Israel’s first Chief Rabbi. When he arrived in Palestine, in 1904, he became the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa.
Winding past the quaint little homes of Jewish Tel Aviv’s first neighborhood, we entered the cosmopolitan Rothschild Boulevard. It was full of pedestrians and kiosks – and had designated bike lanes. We still had to navigate because of “stray” pedestrians.
We continued up Rothschild Boulevard, crossing famous streets like Allenby and Dizengoff, reaching Sderot Ben Gurion, where we turned left, in the direction of the ocean. At 71 Ben Gurion, we passed an island of Yiddishkeit – the shteibel of the Vasloi Rebbe, one of the few chasidic rebbes of Tel Aviv who did not budge from the city as it became more and more secular to the nearby city of Bnei Brak. Any Shabbos he is home – which is most of the time – he has all the meals in the shul, and many a curious passersby (and people who needed to say Kaddish for a yahrzeit) have been “ensnared” by the Rebbe’s warmth and love and became religious. I spent a Shabbos there myself, and I can’t tell what a culture shock it was to go out of that shteibel on a Friday night and walk down Dizengoff Street to the apartment I was staying in!
From Ben Gurion we found our way back to the beach promenade and continued north, until we came to the Tel Aviv port, just passing the separate beach for Orthodox bathers. After crossing a long narrow pedestrian bridge that crossed the Yarkon River, we saw the tall smokestack of the Reading Power Plant. Continuing north, we rode over another long bridge, hearing the sounds of the tires against its wooden planks.
The beaches and the breakers are so beautiful! The wide open sky and puffs of clouds were such a contrast to the busy city! We passed by large organized groups of Bais Yaakov girls, out on a tiyul – their teachers trying to maintain order. To our right was a small airport, and planes were coming in low to the runway. If we had continued, we would have reached Herzliya (after making a short detour into Ramat Aviv at the end of the tayelet) in about 25 minutes. But we turned back, passed the power plant, and headed left along the Yarkon River.
Ganei Yehoshua, a green oasis known colloquially as Park Hayarkon for the river it hugs, covers the northern expanse of the city with trails on either side of the water all the way to its eastern boundaries. The trails run about 3.5 miles through open grassy knolls and a small forested area. Endless trees, shady places, rowing clubs, climbing walls, petting zoos, and people and more people provide a dynamic landscape. Stopping at a small pavilion by the riverside to catch our breath, we delightedly observed two colorful parrots sitting on the branches of a large shady tree. They looked as if they had just escaped from a pet store.
We rode over one of the many little bridges that cross the Yarkon and headed back to the beach promenade. Then we stopped for a pasta lunch at Café Café, part of a chain of dairy restaurants all over Israel that have a mehadrin hechsher.
Then we raced back to Jaffa. The late afternoon sunlight reflected on the waves like a thousand diamonds. As the weather was getting warmer, we had to make sure to keep our eyes off the immodestly dressed bathers.
The minaret was like our lighthouse. We honed in on it, passing many Arab pedestrians, who were much more modestly dressed than the Tel Avivians. We zoomed back to the store, and then walked a block to the storekeeper’s father’s shul for Mincha.
It was the end of a perfect day.
