When my parents visited Israel a few years back, they weren't too impressed -- it was too "Third World" for their tourist appetites spoiled by former imperial capitals of Rome, Madrid, and London. I think, in Tel Aviv it is hard to remember that you are *not* in Europe: the architecture, the people, the fashions, the food are pretty much like elsewhere in the West, adjusted for the weather of course -- the Bauhaus buildings and chicken schnitzels are, no doubt, of European descent, although there are a lot fewer blonds around here than, say, in Sweden. But once you leave the city, you do get a different, non-European (although by no means non-civilized) feel to the land. Where in Europe will you come in contact with banana plantations, pomegranates, or an orange tree in the middle a town?
I keep recalling a poem by my favorite poet, Joseph Brodsky, which is worth reproducing here in its entirety (although this is not the best translation I've seen, and it's even better in the original Russian):
It must be the amazingly tasty and rich food, the good wine, the ubiquitous Roman ruins, the warm and incredibly blue Mediterranean sea, the cypresses, olive and fig trees, and especially the chirping birds and buzzing insects that make me think of this poem.
Here is CAG cheering imaginary -- and apparently flying -- chariots at the Roman Hippodrome in Qesarya:
Remains of Roman thermal baths in Khamat Gader, where Roman legionaries soothed their battle wounds:
Sunsets into the sea (you can never have too many of those -- simply breathtaking):
The source of our sustenance, olives and grapes:
A perfect final resting place -- a cemetery on the shore of Lake Kinneret:
If you don't read the news and just take in the magnificent views of the yellow hills, blue waters, green orchards, and orange sunsets you would think this is indeed the place of internal serenity. Or would you?
The border fence separating Israel and Jordan and the adjacent Golan Heights bear frequent signs warning of land mines, which remind of many military battles fought here over the past 60 years and of the disputed status of the Golans (captured by Israel from Syria in 1967 and now a subject of peace negotiations between the two countries -- yes, Syria and Israel are still officially at war, the border between them is called a disengagement line, and many roads along it on the Israeli side are marked on our road map as for "military use only").
The Jordanian border fence:
A little sign on the left says "Danger: Mines" (we didn't dare to leave the car):
One of the area kibbutzim -- a purely agricultural, albeit collective enterprise -- sports a Syrian tank at the entrance as a reminder of a massive attack by the Syrian army it endured and repulsed during the 1948 War of Independence:
So even if you aren't up to speed on current events, you still get the sense that this land is less than tranquil, as it maybe used to be two thousand years ago as imagined by a Jewish poet in the Soviet Union. For better or worse, the periphery of an empire has become the center of the world attention.
On a lighter note: While we were visiting the thermal baths (close to Jordan but still on the Israeli side), CAG received a text message on his cell phone welcoming him to a Jordanian mobile network and wishing us pleasant stay in the country. There might be a fence, and perhaps even a mine field, between the two countries, but modern technology is truly beyond borders. Maybe there still is hope?
I keep recalling a poem by my favorite poet, Joseph Brodsky, which is worth reproducing here in its entirety (although this is not the best translation I've seen, and it's even better in the original Russian):
Letters to a Roman Friend
Now it's windy and the waves are running crisscross.
Soon it will be fall, and nature's face will alter.
Shifts in these bright colors stir me more profoundly,
Postumus, than changes in my lady's wardrobe.
To a certain point a girl can satisfy you --
if you don't go farther than her knees or elbows.
But how much more joyous the unbodied beauty
of an autumn wood: no kisses, no betrayals!
-----------------
Postumus, I'm sending books, I hope you'll like them.
How's Imperial Rome? -- A soft bed, hard to sleep on?
How fares Caesar? What's he up to? Still intriguing?
-- Still intriguing, probably, and overeating.
In the garden where I sit a torch is burning.
I'm alone -- no lady, servant, or acquaintance.
Not the humble of this world, nor yet its mighty --
nothing but the buzzing of an insect chorus.
-------------------
In this graveyard lies a merchant out of Asia.
He was clever, able, yet he passed unnoticed.
He died suddenly, of fever. Not to this end
did he sail here, but to make a profit.
Underneath unpolished quartz there lies beside him
an Imperial legionnaire, renowned in battle.
Target of a thousand thrusts, he lived till eighty.
Rules here, Postumus, are proved by their exceptions.
--------------------
Birds aren't very bright, my Postumus, that's certain;
but there's misery enough even for bird-brains.
If one's fated to be born in Caesar's Empire
let him live aloof, provincial, by the seashore.
One who lives remote from snowstorms, and from Caesar,
has no need to hurry, flatter, play the coward.
You may say that local governors are vultures.
I, for one, prefer a vulture to a vampire.
-----------------
I'm prepared, hetaera, to wait out this downpour
in your company. But let us have no haggling.
Snatching silver coins from this, my covering body,
is like ripping shingles from the roof above you.
This roof's sprung a leak, you say? But where's the puddle?
I have never left a wet spot; no, not ever.
Better go and find yourself a proper husband:
he will do it to your sheers and pay the laundry.
---------------------
Here we've spent -- I swear it -- more than half our lifetimes.
As a slave -- now white-haired -- told me near the tavern:
"When we look around is, all we see is ruins."
A barbarian perspective, though a true one.
I'm back from the mountains carrying fresh wildflowers.
I'll get out a jug and fill it with cool water.
What's the latest from that Libya nor wherever?
Are we still engaged in all that desert fighting?
--------------------
Friend, do you remember our Proconsul's sister --
rather skinny, though her calves were heavy?
You had slept with her...Well, she became a priestess--
priestess, Postumus, with gods for her companions.
Come and visit me, and we'll drink wine together.
Plums are ripe and bread is good. You'll bring the gossip.
I shall make your couch up in the star-swept garden
and teach you to name our local constellations.
-------------------
Soon, dear Postumus, your friend who loves addition
will pay his debt, his old debt, to subtraction.
Take my savings, then, from underneath my pillow --
though not much, they'll pay the cost of my interment.
Post on your black mare to the House of Hetaeras
hard against the wall of our provincial city.
Give each girl the sum for which she once embraced me:
let them mourn me for the same amount of money.
-------------------
Dark green laurels on the verge of trembling.
Doors ajar. The windowpane is dusty.
Idle chairs and the abandoned sofa.
Linen blinded by the sun of noonday.
Pontus drones past a black fence of pine trees.
Someone's boat braves gusts out by the promontory.
On the garden bench a book of Pliny rustles.
Thrushes chirp within the hairdo of the cypress.
(Translated by George L. Kline, from A Part of Speech)
It must be the amazingly tasty and rich food, the good wine, the ubiquitous Roman ruins, the warm and incredibly blue Mediterranean sea, the cypresses, olive and fig trees, and especially the chirping birds and buzzing insects that make me think of this poem.
Here is CAG cheering imaginary -- and apparently flying -- chariots at the Roman Hippodrome in Qesarya:
Remains of Roman thermal baths in Khamat Gader, where Roman legionaries soothed their battle wounds:
Sunsets into the sea (you can never have too many of those -- simply breathtaking):
The source of our sustenance, olives and grapes:
A perfect final resting place -- a cemetery on the shore of Lake Kinneret:
If you don't read the news and just take in the magnificent views of the yellow hills, blue waters, green orchards, and orange sunsets you would think this is indeed the place of internal serenity. Or would you?
The border fence separating Israel and Jordan and the adjacent Golan Heights bear frequent signs warning of land mines, which remind of many military battles fought here over the past 60 years and of the disputed status of the Golans (captured by Israel from Syria in 1967 and now a subject of peace negotiations between the two countries -- yes, Syria and Israel are still officially at war, the border between them is called a disengagement line, and many roads along it on the Israeli side are marked on our road map as for "military use only").
The Jordanian border fence:
A little sign on the left says "Danger: Mines" (we didn't dare to leave the car):
One of the area kibbutzim -- a purely agricultural, albeit collective enterprise -- sports a Syrian tank at the entrance as a reminder of a massive attack by the Syrian army it endured and repulsed during the 1948 War of Independence:
So even if you aren't up to speed on current events, you still get the sense that this land is less than tranquil, as it maybe used to be two thousand years ago as imagined by a Jewish poet in the Soviet Union. For better or worse, the periphery of an empire has become the center of the world attention.
On a lighter note: While we were visiting the thermal baths (close to Jordan but still on the Israeli side), CAG received a text message on his cell phone welcoming him to a Jordanian mobile network and wishing us pleasant stay in the country. There might be a fence, and perhaps even a mine field, between the two countries, but modern technology is truly beyond borders. Maybe there still is hope?
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