It’s easy to get a bit romantic about these things. Look at this roundabout. It’s Dizengoff Square, one of the buzziest parts of one of the buzziest cities. All around the square are cafes that spill out onto the street, all full, all alive. Last night the square was a mess. They’d dug it up, the tarmac was ripped up, the bit below the tarmac exposed. Diggers and machines were running around like worker ants in a colony. This morning it’s almost finished. The road is made. The tarmac smooth. The work is done. Since we’ve been in Brighton they’ve been doing up the seafront road and it still isn’t finished. And we’ve been in Brighton since 1997.
I’m biased. Let’s be clear. I’m biased.
I’ve been here two days now and I haven’t scratched the surface, but all I’ve had are good experiences. A day and a night with Ruth, which was lovely and interesting. Tel Aviv, which is that familiar cosmopolitan city, plus the beautiful beach. People are very friendly, very smiley. There’s that American service attitude here, that “we’re here to help” thing. I don’t care if it’s all about getting tips, I like. And loads of people have got dogs. It’s my thing. I like places that like dogs. It’s my Lottery fantasy. You know those idle daydream chats you have with yourself abt what you’d do if you won the Lottery? Mine is dogs. If I won the Lottery, I’d set up a dog foundation. Well, I would after the travel thing was sated. So maybe about five years after I won, I’d get round to the foundation. But I like dogs. And here they like dogs. Walk on the street, loads of people are walking with dogs. You go in a café and, odds on, the people next to you have got a dog. The dogs are fairly laid back – it’s too hot for all that barking stuff, but then again, I haven’t seen any psychopathic geriatric spaniels.
What does Tel Aviv look like? It looks like a big, cosmopolitan city. Big wide streets – boulevards – with bright lit shops, lots of bars and cafes and restaurants. It’s a consumption city. Conspicuously. And it’s an outside city. The streets are alive with people sitting, eating, drinking, café-ing. Cars everywhere but the big thing here are the electric bikes and scooters. There are bike lanes all over and there are plenty of bicycles, but the electric bikes and scooters are everywhere – on the bike lanes, on the roads, on the pavements. And they go fast. They’re called scooters for a reason – they scoot. Silent and quick, whizzing around, people standing up silently scooting past.
I’ve walked around a fair bit of the city now, walked and, for the last couple of days, cycled. It doesn’t feel particularly big, already I’ve got a real feel for areas and districts, for different roads and routes. It helps that there’s the sea on one side because if you keep the sea in your mind, you always know more or less where you are. The sea feels a lot more present than, for example, Brighton. If you’re in Preston Park or Seven Dials you wouldn’t necessarily know that the sea existed, but here I’m aware it’s there. Is that because I’m a tourist and I’m viewing it through that prism? Probably. Sitting here in Dizengoff Square, we’re nowhere near the beach. I can’t smell it or anything, but I can somehow feel it. Maybe, and I don’t know, I’m thinking that because of how people are dressed.
T-shirts and shorts. Flip flops. I’m not sure how I’d cope here, no one’s wearing a suit. No one’s wearing a jacket even. It’s all t-shirts and shorts, singlets, not shirts. No one looked dressed up, no one looks like they’ve spent hours deciding what to wear tonight. The young girls – mid-teens, that sort of age – look like they’ve made an effort, but that’s all. But they all look good, cool and relaxed. Comfortable with their look, comfortable with their bodies. It’s a loud atmosphere, chatty, laughter – lots of loud laughter. And late. Writing this, it’s 12.20am and it’s the same as it was at 8pm.
Tel Aviv by night is as buzzy as it gets. The bars and cafes spill out on the streets, loud groups of people drinking, eating, being loud. They’re not afraid of being loud here. And again, everyone’s young, 35 max. They’re the same people who were on the beach – good looking, cool. The air is warm – it’s September, past the hottest time of the year, and there’s a breeze, but it’s still warm.
It’s so odd being here, writing this stuff while at the same time reading all the social media posts about Labour, Corbyn and antisemitism. There’s so much rabbit on here (as ever) about Israel, what it is, what it isn’t. It always amazes me that there are so many people from Hove and Stoke Newington and Wiltshire and places like that who absolutely know absolutely what it’s like. Well, I’m in Tel Aviv in a restaurant called Abu Hassan and if they were here it would blow their minds. They’d be like one of those robots in a 50s sci-fi film when asked the exact number of Pi. “Does not compute…. Does not compute” There’s so much certainty about what people back home say, and all that makes me think is of the disconnect.
I’ve written on three people’s threads – really politely and really respectfully – “Are you Israeli? If you’re not, when was the last time you were in Israel?” So far, none of them have responded. The more I see – and the more I see while I’m reading what I’m reading – the more I realise that a lot of it really isn’t motivated by anything going on here.
Meanwhile, back in Tel Aviv… I took a bike and had a good look around today. Away from the wide boulevards of Dizengoff because staying there, it would be like going to London and just hanging around Covent Garden. You’d have a great time, go to some fantastic places, meet really interesting people, but you couldn’t really come away saying you’d “seen” London. And so, even given that I’m only here for a couple of days…
There’s really some not so Covent Garden bits. There’s inequality here. Of course there is, just like there is everywhere. And it’s the same people who are getting schtupped up the tucchus as they do everywhere. I went to the bad area of town – well, that’s always the best place to score – and it quickly became apparent that it was a Sudanese enclave. Black guys hanging around. Women on the streets who I don’t think were waiting for a cab. It was a long way from Dizengoff Square and I’m not sure that I’d rush to take a night stroll there. But that’s no different to any other big city and it’s just a function of a big city in a melting pot immigration country.
Talking to some people last night, I was told that the Israeli arabs – not, note Palestinians – were moving into medicine and law, becoming doctors and chemists, curiously following the same pattern as Asians in the UK. Incidentally, it’s apparently a bit of a trend for some Israeli arabs to identify as Palestinians here, as an act of solidarity.
Actually those roadworks? That really is the romantic thing. Two days later and they’re still working. Maybe they’re not so different.