Day 5: Food Poisoning and Tel Aviv by Night

We got to sleep in this morning, and we headed out to the hot tub after a rather small breakfast on my part (still didn’t have much of an appetite). I was feeling really crappy by this point, and I left our activity that was at 11 after about half an hour to go back to my room and sleep. That activity was cool, and I’m disappointed I left it early, but I really couldn’t keep on going. Omer asked questions relating to Judaism and Israel, and we moved to a side that was either marked “2x disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” or “2x agree.” The question that I found the most interesting was “I see Judaism as more cultural than religious,” which led to very inspired and thoughtful discussion. I was on the “agree” side. I slept through lunch, and then spent about two hours in the bathroom using the toilet from both ends. I feel real bad for my roommates that had to hear that…

Afterwards, though, there was a Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremony. This was for kids who felt inclined to get their Bar/Bat Mitzvah in Israel, either because they hadn’t had one before, or because they didn’t feel connected enough to their Judaism when they did theirs nearly a decade ago. Out of our friends, Max and Meghan did theirs. They read from Miketz in English, and blessed the Torah before and after reading. They each also gave a small speech as to why they wanted to have their Bar/Bat Mitzvah here. It was a very nice ceremony, and it was fun to see us all dressed up nice for something.

We got some more free time before heading out to Tel Aviv for our night out. I was planning on going, but fell asleep in that free time. When it was time to go out, I could hardly get out of bed. I texted everyone saying that I was thinking of dipping and just sleeping, but I was told that if I really wanted, I could grab dinner, then join Allison wherever she was going to end up, since her night was going to be chill. So, I took a few Dayquil and some Tylenol and headed out. Sol, Meghan, and I stuck together for the first half of the night. We were going to go to meet Meghan’s friend Dana at a pizza place, but turns out that even though the drinking age is 18, they wouldn’t let me in since I wasn’t 21 yet! Dana was shocked, since she said she’s never seen bouncers that really care. We were frustrated and just wanted to eat so we found a pizza place nearby. Unfortunately, their wait was way too long, and on our way back to the other place, we came across a group of other Birthright kids eating pizza, so we ended up at that place. This pizza was delicious, and certainly not kosher… I was told that I was sitting at a seat where a famous Israeli TV show director was sitting just seconds before I sat down, which was kind of cool! Dana, her brother, Sol, Meghan, and I talked for a while about our trip so far, how we like the country, and about how Dana and Meghan know each other (from camp). It was a nice evening. We then walked around, trying to get into clubs and bars, but even our 21-year-olds in the group were struggling to get into certain places. After many unsuccessful attempts, Dana and Meghan broke away and decided to spend the rest of the night at a fancy sushi restaurant famous in Tel Aviv to catch up and talk. Sol, Kevin, and I went to go meet a friend of a friend of Sol’s at a jazz bar not too far from where we were dropped off.

Walking around Tel Aviv at night but before the party scene started (which is at about 11) was a weird experience. The streets were so empty, and if we saw another group of kids around, it was probably one of us. We kept on walking around in circles, coming back to places that we recognized. The center of the night was Rothschild Boulevard, this wide street that gave us a sense of exploration and excitement to walk around. It really felt, in the moment, as if this was Tel Aviv. Equivalent to walking down Rue de Rivoli in Paris; that feeling of strolling down the main street of the city, where everything is, and where everyone wants to be. I don’t think that Rothschild Boulevard is the center, but it’s not far off. There was a small park on the island between the lanes that commemorated the founders of Israel and honored those who fought for it in its early days. The empty vibe on the street was kind of eerie, but I’m sure that any earlier, and any later, it would have been a much cooler, more hip destination. But in that weird, uncanny time frame, we caught it in, I got an unusual peace from it. Coming back to the same intersection many times gave me a sense of security, a sense of direction. I had, up until now, felt a lack of understanding of the layout of anywhere we’d been. I had just felt shepherded around, blindly following where Omer was taking us. Having this experience on my own is really what I travel for. To be able to not just see, but understand other cities, cultures, and countries. In the end, I’m really glad that I went out that night, even if it didn’t mean us getting plastered in a club. In the end, we got the better deal: we got to see and know Tel Aviv, not the inside of one bar.

So Kevin, Sol, and I headed to Sol’s jazz club. He had brought his flute around, imagining that he’d have the opportunity to play, but the group that was playing was well-rehearsed and certainly not improvising. For the first 45 minutes or so, we just talked to Solomon’s friend of a friend and his wife, who had moved here from the US about four years ago. They have two daughters, both of whom learned in their teens to speak Hebrew like a native. The parents are still struggling, but the dad can understand much of what’s being spoken. The oldest daughter is in the IDF right now, and is apparently real good with a gun. At about 11, the jazz show started. It was really good. Superb. They had a catchy motivic fragment in some strange church mode that their first

song was based on. The second song was in a major key, and I didn’t enjoy it as much for that reason, but either way it was still excellently put together and just super tight in its musicianship. Everybody, when looking around the red-lit room with the band in the center, was bobbing their head in a very jazzy way. It was hard to not follow suit. But what blew my mind was the third song. They took those two motifs that were presented in the first numbers and brought them back and combined them in a way I don’t think any of us foresaw. It sounded so natural, as if it had always been this way, yet they had just done something so mind-blowing. But the vibe in the room was undisturbed by this stroke of musical genius. It may have gone unnoticed, but I’d doubt it from a set of regular attending jazz club members. I just think the idea was to just go along with it. I don’t know. Maybe as a classically trained musician I was reading too closely into it, but I was amazed by the group. I just kept on dancing my little dance as I had been, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool this music was.

Unfortunately, the time for us to come back to the bus had come, and we got on the bus with many, many kids that were significantly more drunk than we were. Since I wasn’t feeling too well, I had decided I wasn’t going to drink anyways, but it was good that I had company in Solomon and Kevin as well. Either way, our night was superb, and I really am glad that I had decided to go along to this jazz club. It felt much more authentic than just sitting in a club. That could be anywhere. But this jazz scene felt more natural, less catered to the American tourists.