Calamari In Tel-Aviv Poem by gershon hepner

In Tel-Aviv they’re eating calamari
under nighttime skies as starry
as eyes of those who run like Jonah
from reality, with Barcelona
their ideal home, for they condemn
the ideals of Jerusalem
espoused by prophets. “Fie! A pox! ”
they cry, upon the Ultra-Orthodox
for whom a Shabbos cholent is the dish
that they prefer, gefilte fish
and herring more delicious than
the calamari rabbis ban.

To this poem there’s a moral:
Those who can’t share food will quarrel,
and if by neighbors they’re abhorred
they may well choose to live abroad,
unless they should already feel
they’re doing that, and what’s unreal
is where they live, unless they make it
like places for which they’d forsake it.

Inspired by an article by Dina Kraft and Ethan Bronner in the NYT on September 18,2009 (“A City Reinvents Itself Beyond Conflict”) :
Tel Aviv is, in fact, the most politically liberal city in Israel and offers a sharp contrast to the spirit of religious conservatism that informs Jerusalem. It votes to the left and looks to Europe. Many inhabitants yearn for nothing more than to live the life of a hot Mediterranean city, to be, say, the Barcelona of the Middle East and forget the conflict a dozen miles away.And to a large extent, they succeed. That means that as it observes its centennial, Tel Aviv tends to be engaged in a debate not so much about its past as about its future. Amid the rush to settle here in the heart of the country’s economic and cultural hub, many question the move to build up with luxury condominiums and office buildings. A band of residents see such development as a threat to the city’s affordability and basic feel….
Underneath the energy and construction is the running conversation about growth in a place that feels both hip and homey. It is a pedestrian- and bike-friendly city where clothing boutiques, run by young designers with an affinity for climate-friendly fabrics and grilled calamari, nestle with button shops, cobblers and old-timer restaurants offering goulash and cold borscht….
Today, Jaffa and Tel Aviv function as one municipality, and as part of the centenary celebrations a boardwalk has been built between them. But Jaffa, where many Arabs live, remains Tel Aviv’s poor cousin. Tel Aviv’s ability to reinvent itself and look past political conflict can be seen in a popular club called Zippy Trippo. The large basement space aglow in strobe lights was just last year a listening post for the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, dubbed by its workers as the Facility. Having a drink nearby is Gadi Shalom,38, who a few weeks ago left his rented apartment in the city center to move into one he bought in a nearby suburb. He had wanted to stay in the city, but prices were out of reach. “I think people here would prefer to live in another country, ” he said, trying to describe the demand to live here. “And living in Tel Aviv is the closet thing to living abroad.”


9/18/09