The Disgruntled One. I was taking pictures of my daughter and her friend in the Yaffo flea market. They were standing next to this guy, who possibly thought that I couldn’t resist taking one of him. Look at his hand. He was spoiling for a few sharp words. But he relaxed when he saw I was interested in my teenagers, not him. Only later did I see he still got in the photo.

On the other hand, these two ladies didn’t mind at all. Aren’t they cute? Just two friends, one brunette and one blond, relaxing oh the sidewalk. On antique chairs meant to be sold, but never mind.

Still in Yaffo, cooking shakshoukah at Dr. Shakshuka’s.

The Lilac Lady. I wonder what event she was all dressed up for. A grandson’s bar-mitzvah? A wedding? Or does it take her fancy to dress like that every day, because she’s old enough to do what she dern well pleases?

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Do people still fall for this ancient scam? It’s a variation on the shell game, which has gulled the naive (and the greedy) into parting with their money for centuries.

This elderly Russian lady must have intense stories to tell, but we couldn’t talk because she spoke only Russian and Yiddish. She was selling chocolate rum balls she’d rolled up at home – koosher, she assured me. I paid whatever she asked for them, my heart squeezing in my chest. I hope she has someone to go home to at night, and that they love each other.

The lively Greek music coming from this Levontin Street bar caught my attention. Then I saw the guys sitting and having a little arak together there, and I really had to snap. They were amused at my interest and at my American accent – probably figured me for a tourist – and allowed me to.

I like to see friends together.

The organic market at the renovated Tel Aviv train station. This guy gave me such a knowing smile from behind his lettuces that I got embarrassed. Well, his dreads are cute.

I bought hot fresh chickpeas from this man on one of my trips through Shuk Mahaneh Yehudah in Jerusalem. Did I seem impatient to him? He’s giving me the classic Israeli signal for “wait a second” – tips of fingers bunched together and the wrist turned.

Far from the shuk’s bustle and noise, chef Moshe Basson shows how to make fresh za’atar pesto. I admire Moshe for his dedication to native foods and traditional Israeli cuisine, and for his partnership in Chefs for Peace. I guess if I have a food hero, he’s it.

What do you see in this man’s smile?

He’s a butcher in Shuk Ha Carmel, Tel Aviv. He’d come to shoot the breeze with the lady below. They’re childhood friends, he said. He scolded her for smoking. She heard him out tolerantly.

Then she said, in a hoarse, cracked voice: “He worries because I just finished a round of chemotherapy.”

A fast-food stand in the Shuk Ha Carmel: two brothers sell majadra, soup, and salads. I couldn’t find a good angle for the food photos, so I snapped one of the brothers.

This drink of coffee covers his thoughts up, but doesn’t hide the challenge in his eyes, or his tough stance.

I know that many market vendors suspect photographers of working for the income tax authorities. I’ve given up trying to explain that I’m just a Jewish matron and a food blogger. Eventually they just trust (sometimes my American accent works in my favor).

This is a Tsfat photo. Yaacov sits outside an electrical appliance store, selling blue bead bracelets against the Evil Eye. When you buy, he gives you a sure-fire blessing that’s guaranteed to fix you up in life. But – you must be proactive. Yaacov will tell you which Psalms to say, and at what time of day, because you must do your part too.

No pictures of kids…I have many, but feel tender about exposing their little faces on the Internet. More men than women – that’s natural, since there are more men vendors in the shuk and on the street. And some of my favorite shots stayed in the archives. Well, it’s a long enough post for right now. Sometime I’ll show you the best of the rest.

]]> http://www.israelikitchen.com/israeli-moments/street-portraits-tel-aviv-and-jerusalem/feed/ 15 http://www.israelikitchen.com/travels/the-great-brooklyn-nosh/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-great-brooklyn-nosh http://www.israelikitchen.com/travels/the-great-brooklyn-nosh/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:03:13 +0000 Mimi54 http://www.israelikitchen.com/?p=2733

Cool kebabs up there, eh? All skewered with their slices of vegetables, ready for the grill. There might be sleeker, fancier places to shop for kosher food in Brooklyn. But when I told my son I wanted to visit a typical kosher supermarket, he took me to Landau’s, on 4510-18th Avenue.

My son asked the owner, a taciturn older man, for permission to take photographs. He explained that I’m from Israel and write a food blog. They spent long minutes talking: my son may have had to explain what a blog is.  I offered my business card. Mr. Landau inspected me mistrustfully but finally decided that I looked legitimate and nodded yes, summoning his own son to show us around.

I was dazzled by the display of gefulte fish.

Now how about this smoked cholent meat? I’d never even heard of smoked cholent meat. My ignorant Israeli eyes were being opened to the true meaning of kosher gourmandaise.

It’s a fairly large place. Lots and lots of products, and lots of different people, too.

A tall blond dressed in a black suit and stiletto heels stood out from the Jewish housewives and kids in strollers. She pushed her shopping cart around in a hurry, probably hungry for dinner after a long day in a high-powered office. A man dressed in an extremely clean striped T-shirt and shorts, dreadlocks bobbing around his face, stopped dead in front of her cart. He started talking in a language that wasn’t English, and may not have been anybody’s language but his own. The blond’s face froze. He gestured and babbled and wouldn’t budge, and the blond was trapped in the back of the shop with him.

My son and I exchanged glances. We’ll help her, we communicated silently. He walked over and put himself between the man and the blond’s shopping cart,  saying, “Excuse me, can I just get this…?” and reached up for something on a shelf. That freed the blond, who freed, fled. The man with the dreads switched to English, mumbling, “Why are you all Jewish? Stop being Jewish.” And went his disoriented way.

In Israel, someone would have led him out of the store. In Brooklyn, nobody even said anything to him. Other people had noticed, but nobody was going to get involved. In Israel, everybody gets involved, all the time. I suppose that in our small society, you can size people up more or less, and know how they’re going to react. In big New York, strangers are unpredictable and may become dangerous.

Talk about culture shock.

Any fresh food

or packaged food

is available at Landau’s, or so it seemed to me. And all kosher.

I wandered around the aisles, enjoying shocks of nostalgia when some product from my childhood caught my eye. Maypo breakfast cereal! I still remember the jingle: “Every single morning, I want my Maypo!”

But what really struck me, forcefully and not for the last time, was how much folks in the States require convenience from their food. It’s becoming like that in Israel, too. I just hope that the kitchen influences of all the grandmas and grandpas linger in the Israeli mind, so that we don’t lose the precious heritages of our ethnic foods.

I was starting to feel a little lonely for the warmth of Hebrew – I, who have never been able to drop my American accent and whose aleph-beit vocabulary shrinks when I get flustered. Not exactly homesick; I was too happy, being with my boy. Who’s 30 years old and a big, scary guy. (What can you do, a Jewish mother is a Jewish mother.)

But my boy knew what to do – he took me to Mansoura Bakery in King’s Highway. There, we found the petite, vivacious Josiane, whose sparkling friendliness and French-accented Hebrew made me feel at home right away.

Not to mention the fabulous confections and pastries in the shop. Like this rich baklava. Enough to drive all thoughts of dieting right out of your mind.

But I was able to withstand temptation because of these hand-made, pistachio-stuffed, sugar-free chocolates.

Magical. In fact, the whole shop was magical, with it’s European air and Mediterranean delicacies.

Another kosher bakery on Kings Highway is Sababa. My son is friends with the owner, who allowed me to photograph his tempting baked goods -

and even to descend a steep staircase to the basement, where the work is done.

We were just leaving Kings Highway, when this sign stopped me in my tracks.

Isn’t it strange to have felt a shock?  I’m used to seeing young soldiers with their rifles everywhere in Israel. I hardly see the guns anymore. Yet realizing that shooting a cop is a common enough crime to warrant this sign – well, it rattled me.

Other things amused me, like the bottles in this Russian liquor store.

Notice the one in the shape of a machine gun, in the back right-hand side. Draw your own conclusions.

I loved this wall mural, a big advertisement for a laundromat. There isn’t much street art in Brooklyn, I noticed. But this mural, cleverly using  protruding bricks for the girl’s ironing board, was great.

One of the highlights of my Brooklyn experience was meeting with my friend Leda Meredith, who has contributed guest posts here at Israeli Kitchen.

Leda – dancer, choreographer, writer,  authority on locavore life and sustainable food, and I – Jewish matron, doulah, soapmaker and writer, have been email friends for ten years. Two women as different as a robin and a hen, but meeting and chatting was natural and easy.  Leda gave me a copy of her latest book, The Locavore’s Handbook. I’ll be blogging about the book and about Leda herself in a later post.

Is that all there was of New York for me? Of course not. There were mornings spent in museums, interviews with people I work for – or just found interesting- a delicious kosher Chinese meal, horrible coffee at Starbucks, tramping around with my son, a kaleidoscope of impressions. But for now, and it’s 4:30 in the jet-lagged morning, it’s enough.

Feel like hearing about my trip to Calgary? I’ll write about it if you like, and that will be Part 3.

]]> http://www.israelikitchen.com/travels/the-great-brooklyn-nosh/feed/ 12 http://www.israelikitchen.com/israeli-moments/shuk-mahaneh-yehudah-in-april/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shuk-mahaneh-yehudah-in-april http://www.israelikitchen.com/israeli-moments/shuk-mahaneh-yehudah-in-april/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:31:42 +0000 Mimi54 http://www.israelikitchen.com/?p=2432 [...]]]>

Last Friday Baroness Tapuzina, Sarah Melamed, and I drove up to Mahaneh Yehudah, Jerusalem’s open-air market. It seemed like half  Jerusalem was out shopping, loading up on the week’s best and freshest food before Shabbat.

We arrived at around 10:00 a.m, strolling from stand to stand, drinking etrog juice here, taking photos there. Something new: fresh green chickpeas, roasted and salted.

I bought a bagful for all of 5 shekels. We three snacked on the oily, salted chickpeas as we wound in and out of the tight little streets. Notice the huge bag of green almonds hanging behind the vendor’s head.

By 2:00 p.m.,  the multitudes streamed up and down the alleys, and nobody allowed you to just stand and chat in the middle of the shuk. You’d get a good-natured scolding for blocking the way.

“Lady, move!”

You just have to take it in good part. And move on.

Here’s a still life with fish:

Although this little guy seemed ready to cuss everyone out. Hm. One or two disgruntled folk in the shuk had the exact same look on their faces.

One of the fun things about going someplace with friends is that each sees different things. It struck me, as never before, how preoccupied people are with avoiding the Evil Eye – ayin ha-ra.

Our old green-eyed friend, Jealousy.

Is my produce more attractive than yours? Do I have more customers? Tfu, tfu, tfu – let’s spit three times.

Or decorate my garage door with chamsah handprints.

Or place a rue plant on the right-hand side of the stand. That’s a sure-fire Evil Eye deterrent. People will often put a potted rue plant on the right of their doorstep, or plant one in the entrance yard. I did that myself once, just to fit in with the atmosphere, when I lived in Tsfat.

Afraid someone’s going to cast a jealous look at your beautiful infant? No problem: just slip an anti-ayin ha-ra bracelet over her little wrist. Or over your own, if you’re really worried.

So many contrasts, so many different kinds of people.

Over to one side, a Breslaver Hassid busked for coins.

He did have a manic look about him – but it can’t be easy, singing “Na-Nach-Nachman-mi-Uman” to the indifferent crowds at Mahaneh Yehudah.

A more peaceful man was this vendor. He specializes in home-made ambah, choumous, and all kinds of pickles. I tried one of his pickled carrots – whew! It was fiery with those demonic tiny red shatach chilis.

We were starting to get hungry, and eyed the sidewalk restaurants with a view to lunch. Should we go for one of the sophisticated new cafés, the ones with a deliberately European feel?

No, we were far more attracted to the funky places that cooked old-fashioned dishes like majadra over gas burners. Some of those tin pots over gas burners produce sumptuous meals, too. Kubbeh dumplings in rich soup, meat sofrito, and the most luscious hand-made choumous…

Here someone chooses Shabbat take-away.

Eventually we squeezed into the Azura restaurant, sitting almost elbow to elbow with other diners. This post has gone on for a long time, so I won’t describe what we ate (maybe in another post) – but here’s something to put in your eye – creamy choumous, crowned with chickpeas and parsley, and anointed with olive oil.

It was really, really good.

These aluminum cooking pots and the primus cooker made me think of delicious Middle-Eastern home cooking. Women create mouth-watering savory meals out of such simple equipment here.

Chamomile in damp bunches offered by a sidewalk vendor. He was a young man who just set up a few boxes of herbs and greens on the sidewalk.

Jerusalem sage for stuffing.

And, I’m sorry to say, za’atar. I say I’m sorry because I’m fairly sure this was gathered from the wild, where it’s a protected plant.

The vendor weighed out his produce on this little scale, right there on the ground.

We descended through the shuk.

These shoes might be worn by some Oriental princess…or not.

In any case, here is a cobbler to fix your shoes when the soles wear out.

The owner of a metalworks shop contemplating a knotty problem laid out on his table.

A subtle arched corridor leads to a sunny exit. The shuk was closing for the day

A small cemetery tucked away in the middle of the shuk.

And out again, coming up to this decorated door.

Sarah and I visited a coffee shop in the shuk too – another post. Meantime, enjoy these souvenirs.

That’s what it felt like when Sarah Melamed and I entered the 100-year-old Babour spice store in Nazereth – like stepping into Alladin’s Cave. And if you consider herbs, coffee beans and exotic spices jewels, then everywhere were jewels, packed into sacks. The aroma in the old store was exotic, a mix of aromatic herbs, coffee, sweet dried fruit, and a certain Oriental something that made me feel like I’d truly been transported to a strange new country. But the resident genie didn’t float in the air showering dubious blessings on our heads. He’s a down-to-earth, friendly man called Tony Kanaza and the third-generation owner of the business.

Here he stands in front of a huge cabinet whose shelves bear packaged spices and bottles of distilled oils and perfumes.

Tony let us have free run of the store, which is housed in a stone building surely dating back to the days when the Ottomans ruled the Holy Land. Traces of the noble old building’s arched windows remain for romantic people like me to ponder over.

Tony knows everything about the herbs and spices: what dishes to cook with them, and what ailments they cure. I saw a young Arab woman asking him for something to relieve heartburn: he took her to a big burlap bag containing whispy, strawlike stuff and told her to make tea of it. Another customer wasn’t sure if the deep-yellow dried safflower petals would taste good in the chicken dish she was planning. Tony considered the question with due gravity and recommended using turmeric root instead.

Another thing I noticed was the way he greeted every single customer with a genuine smile and a gentle “Ahalan wa-saalam,” and that when a customer left, he again made sure to dignify him or her with a courteous personal goodbye.

In fact everywhere in Nazareth, which is a Moslem/Christian town, I sensed a slower rhythm in the people, a willingness to take more time, to appreciate life. I also walked without fear in the shuk. Whatever people’s politics might be there, they didn’t visit their views on the shoppers, and if they harbor hostility, I didn’t feel it.

But let me show you some of the treasures we saw.

Cinnamon bark, dried safflowers, hibiscus. Behind on the right is dried lemon grass.

Coffee beans.

Indian barley and senna pods.

Fragrant dried rosebuds.

Cassia bark, a basket full of rolling pins and ma’amoul cookie molds straight from the carpenter, and dried chillies.

There were some ceramic wares. Below are incense burners. I assume they’re for church functions.

Rough-cast cups and jars with slits for coins – they’re either for charity or piggy banks. They’re very cheap, and so they have to be, because to get the money out, you have to smash the jar!

Tony told me that the pear-shaped jars with round openings are meant to be hung on tree branches so birds will nest inside. And do you see the jars with heart-shaped openings on the left, next to the basket of nutmegs? They’re also for hanging on trees, but with candles inside, to create a soft illumination that ‘s easier on the spirit than electric light.

Cleaning the herbs involves a lot of work. These well-used sieves help to separate the light, dry herb matter from heavier dirt.

These red and white beans were freshly dried. A revelation in cooking: I’m so used to beans that have sat on store shelves and dried up that I was amazed at how quickly they cooked up, and at how delicious their fresh taste was.

Boxes of chewing gum.

All kinds of dried fruit:

Wonderful, isn’t it? I even love the store’s receipt:

Sarah and I spent a wonderful afternoon traipsing through this store. We also explored the steep alleys and winding stone stairways of the Nazereth shuk. But that’s a story for another day.

The ancient town of Ramleh (Ramla) has had a  long, colorful, and troubled history – and how not? It has existed under one government or another since the 8th century.  It has survived war and earthquakes, drastic population changes, glory, and decline.

Apparently Ramla’s golden years happened a long, long time ago.

9th-century historian Al-Muqaddasi describes it as a prosperous, agreeable town surrounded by stout walls, enjoying varied agriculture without those walls and bustling commerce within. Last week, hopping off the sherut (collective taxi) to meet Sarah of Foodbridge, the impression I had of Ramleh was that of a town struggling to rise above poverty and neglect.

Although there are some charming, up-dated buildings.

We were there to explore the funky shuk, where Arab vendors sell produce we don’t see in bigger towns, like these purple carrots

and heaps of local greens. The leaves, from left to right, are za’atar, chicory, and Turkish spinach.

I bought Jerusalem Sage, a broad leaf that doesn’t resemble or taste like culinary sage. People stuff it with rice and roll it up. When I cooked it, I stuffed it with a mixture of rice and leftover picadillo. Extra leaves, I sliced into soup. Here the vendor weighs out a bunch.

The Jewish Bucharan baker stamps his breads with beautiful designs.

I enjoyed strolling around, getting a feel for the place.

The majority of the town are Jews, albeit of many different origins. Muslim and Christian Arabs are large minority groups. The feeling in the shuk was straightforward and business-like; none of the overt hostility between peoples that has discouraged me from visiting the Arab shuk in Jerusalem’s Old City for many years.

Here Ethiopian and Russian immigrants shop in the narrow Shuk streets.

A vendor allowed me to photograph him.

At a kosher bakery, I sampled sambousak (fried pastries filled with a spicy chickpea mixture). Greasy, but delicious.

Another vendor sells hot, flaky bourekas that are meant to be split open and filled with choumous and a sliced hamine egg. Not a bad breakfast, any time.

More pastries, fried and glistening with sugar syrup…

On our way out, I glimpsed pickles for sale…a good idea for recycling empty soft-drink bottles.

It was fun. I’d like to visit Shuk Ramla again. Each shuk has its unique character, and I liked the feeling of this one, where a church clock strikes a tinny note as you gaze up at a minaret tower and munch a kosher sambusak. It’s old, it’s funky, the people shopping there are working-class and there’s nothing upscale about it.

It feels close to history, and close to the land.

Sarah Melamed of Foodbridge and I will be leading a nature walk through the rocky hillsides close to Kfar Uriyah and the forest near Tarum – on Friday morning, January 8th.  Sarah is a plant biologist with a lifelong passion for nature and I have studied edible and medicinal plants for the past 15 years.

We will meet at 9:300 AM at Nachshon Junction, the intersection of road 44 and 3, about 10 minutes south of Ramla Please bring sensible walking shoes, a field guide if you own one, and plenty of water. The walk will take 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

We hope to show you where the wild things grow. Things like

za’atar

cyclamens

and

flowering almond trees.

Most of these wild edibles and medicinals are protected by law, so it won’t be a foraging expedition but rather an Exploration. Like Winnie the Pooh’s Expedition to the North Pole, only here in Israel.

If you’d like to join us (and you don’t have to be a blogger for this, just a nature lover), email me – my green contact tag floats along the side of the blog on the left. Or email Sarah at Sarah.Melamedatgmaildotcom.

A message from the counter-culture…

I didn’t know what to make of this sad Russian pirate and his little wooden Mariushka doll.

The same artist, who seems to feel that doll faces hide other realities.

Well jeepers, turn the volume down.

Something startled Norman badly. Was it all that noise?

Confessions of a narghila-smoker… a beautiful portrait.

Sleeping Beauty turned truculent.

…But the country runs on optimism – no other choice!

An email from Denny Nielson appeared in my Inbox. “We’re going to press apples for cider. Want to come?”

Did we ever. The Tapuzinas (if I may call the Baroness and her good hubby that) had come over for dinner and we were all feeling kind of full and expansive.  The Baroness thought it would be an adventure. Mr. B.T. was excited at the thought of home-brewed “scrumpy,” which seems to be the same as “hard cider,” only in British. Me, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia for juice pressed out of real, live apples, like I used to drink in my Michigan childhood.

So we joined up last Friday and sped through the central plains on to the hills outside of Jerusalem, in search of cider. Denny’s home and homebrew supply store are located in Mevasseret Tzion, where nights are cool and a home-owner might grow a grapevine to twist over a garden wall. We opened the gate and climbed up stone steps to a sunny patio where people were standing around watching the apples getting crushed.

It was like crushing grapes. Throw the apples into the hopper, and press the button.

The lathe inside the crusher bumps and grinds, spitting apple particles all over you if you stand too close, and the pulp drops into a bucket underneath.

Take the bucketful to the press,

and get a nice strong volunteer to twist the rachet around till the pulp yields no more juice.

Strain the juice and measure it out. Add some sulfite to avoid spoilage.

That was all. The rest of the work is done at home. You throw some wine yeast into the juice, which already wants to start fermenting, and close the bucket (in my case a carboy) with an airlock. Airlocks are the plastic widgies that, filled with sanitized water or a mixture of water and vodka, allow the gases produced by fermentation to escape, while forbidding insects, dust, or bad mojo to enter.

But there was more to it than that. There was a garden with herbs.

Gorgeous basil, eh? Or as Mr. B.T. said, “Nice pesto plant.”

Views of the Judean Hills and the back side of Jerusalem. Yad VaShem stands in the far distance, a somber reminder of how lucky we were to be making cider in the sunshine, in the Israel of today.

There were people hauling apple crates together, managing the crusher, lifting the bucket full of juice, and suddenly finding it easy to talk to each other. Here is our host and homebrewing master, Denny.

An unfamiliar voice called my name, and when I turned around, it was a Twitter friend who had recognized me from my avatar. He is of Lebanese extraction, and this interested the Baroness. In a second he and she were talking about Lebanese cuisine and swapping recipes.

It was also neat to get more homebrewing supplies at Denny’s shop downstairs. I brought home 10 liters of juice and six bottles of beer.

I’m happy to see interest in good beer expanding in Israel. The appearance of several serious local microbreweries is making a difference to folks who (like me) enjoy a glass of suds and would rather support an Israeli small business. But only Denny does things like the apple crush for cider. So far; I’m sure the idea will catch on.

Next thing is to convince him to crush pears for perry, which is pear cider. Or pear wine!

So what does the cider look like?…Well, when I brought the juice home, it looked like this:

It ain’t done yet. Takes about 2 months for the cider to drop all its sediment (bits of apple pulp, a layer of used-up yeast), become clear, and be ready to drink. I expect it’ll have between 7-8% alcohol by volume. When it’s ready, I’ll show you.

We bloggers moved on to lunch at a Kurdish eatery in Or Yehudah. It’s called “Hapundak shel Moshe,” a crowded, working-man’s place that’s famous for its kubeh soup. I’ve never been all that fond of kubeh, but that day, I had to change my mind. There was bulgur kubeh, semolina kubeh, kubeh fried and kubeh in soup. I had pumpkin soup with kubeh dumplings ladled over rice made yellow with turmeric. The owner also put a few inches of Kurdish kishkeh on top.

It was spicy and savory/sweet and filling and so nutritious, I looked 10 years younger when I got up from the table than when I’d sat down.

And here are just a few of the pots full of mighty Kurdish food.

The Baroness was writing up her own blog post about our cider and kubeh adventures just a little while ago.  Make sure to skip over to her blog and see how the day looked to her.

The last Klezmer I attended was 7 years ago, when I still lived in Tsfat. There had been a bus bombing in nearby Meron just a few days prior to the festival, effectively sabotaging it. I remember the dark, almost empty streets at night, with a few vendors turning out their wares in hopes of a sale. Most of the performances were indoors and almost no tourists came. This year, contemplating the huge crowds, I did think a few times about a possible terrorist attack – as I’m sure many did. But the small town was swarming with security, both plain-clothes and uniformed. The tentative political quiet prevailing right now favored us too.

Staged concerts went on till 1:00 AM.

But  knots of informal performances kept going wherever it pleased folks to stay up.

The Lubavitcher Mitzvah-Mobile was out.

And just in case you forgot, a sign reminded you to “Love Thy Neighbor as You Do Yourself.”

*

By the third night, I’d had enough of the streets and the crowds. A group of friends got a car convoy together to go viewing the Perseids – meteor showers of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which were at the peak of visibility that night. We needed to be away from light pollution, so chose to view the sky on a hilltop about 15 minutes away from Tsfat. We drove out and upward till asphalt gave way to a dirt road, and parked by a dark field.

We’d brought sky maps, flashlights covered in red cellophane, sandwiches, tea in thermoses, and wine.  Some had brought big mats and sleeping bags, which we spread out on the thorny dirt. We settled down, talking but little as the dark and the silence, broken only by crickets and distant drumming from an Arab wedding, settled around us again.

In central Israel, I am surrounded by buildings every day. I’ve gotten used to missing contact with nature, and gasp to see a few stars on a clear night. That night, lying on my back in a thorny field and freezing, I let go of time and just lived. A great Hand had flung the white veil of the Milky Way, sprinkled here and there with radiant dots, across the dark heavens; constellations were so close they seemed to walk over us. Brilliant Jupiter presided, apart.  Whenever a shooting star crossed the multitude in the sky, we on the ground oohed in unison.

At 10:00, we heard distant booms and sat up – it was the fireworks in Tsfat. I’d never seen fireworks from far off. The showers of colored lights took up hardly any space in the sky and looked contained, compared to the wildness of the spreading galaxies above them.

It broke up our silence, and we began to talk quietly. Some of us recited poetry. (I was cultured and gave “The Owl and the Pussycat” – the only poem I know by heart.) We talked about the great plantings of new vineyards in the country, and if it was good for the soil. Others told stories. Eventually, a yellow half moon rose and hung low on the horizon, shedding light, absorbing some of the star’s display.

At about 1:00, we packed up and returned to Tsfat. I was regretful. Although I’d been uncomfortable in the cold, I would have stayed longer. But my friends weren’t on vacation like me and had to get up as usual next day. It had been a wonderful, soul-satisfying thing to do.

*

Any time I go back to Tsfat, I take photos. Here are some daytime picture I took (my night-time ones are lousy, I know).

A painted sign outside the Sanz synagogue reminds you to give charity.

R. Yerushalayim, the main street of this small town, post-Klezmer.

R. Tarpat, where we stayed.

Out-of-towners set up a “Hookah Tent,” where I suppose they put other things than tobacco in their bubbling hookahs. What is this craze for the hookah, anyway, I ask. As a non-smoker, I can only suppose it’s pleasant.

Wild grapevines thrive in Tsfat, spilling black fruit over walls everywhere.

As do figs and pomegranates.

There is an extensive artist’s quarter, and lots of galleries.

But sometimes art just happens spontaneously.

And someone scrawled this little graffito:

The Yosef Caro synagogue is smack in the middle of the Artist’s Shuk.

It’s worth visiting to see the ancient Torah scrolls and to breathe in the atmosphere.

We didn’t eat out much on this trip. I had free run of my hostess’s kitchen and permission to entertain other friends, so I shopped on arrival and cooked. Actually I roasted 4 chickens and made a great stew of potatoes and sweet potatoes with onions and herbs. As guests came, they brought salads and drinks. I also baked: an improvised walnut bread. Here it is. If I can remember how I did it, I’ll post the recipe.

Our magical three days in Tsfat are behind us, but I did bring home a renewed appreciation for the slower pace of life there, the shedding of an almost obligatory tension that you feel in the industrial center. Long may it last.