tel aviv

i've been spending more time in tel aviv lately visiting with friends and family. yesterday i spent the afternoon with my father's aunt, my great aunt, who is nearly 80 and volunteers with machsom watch, the group of women who monitor the checkpoints. she calls the women in her organization "fighterits" adding the hebrew feminine suffix "it" to the english word fighter. i told her about the right winger and she said she'd have much less patience for someone like him. she told me stories about trying to learn arabic and how touched she was to realize that hebrew and arabic are so similar. she proudly told me she drives her own car into the territories, unafraid and determined. she read me stories by a women named edna from the organization, stopping at the end with tears in her eyes. she told me about organizing a family passover ceder in an arab village and how proud she was that her granddaughter's rightish wing boyfriend came despite his apprehension.

funny enough, some young man from port said in egypt called her randomly on skype several months ago probably thinking she was a young woman. she innocently answered and has since been talking with him several times a week, mostly about day to day things. he called while i was there and was interested to talk to me about my peacemaking ambitions. he talked to me about the situation of gazans stranded in egypt and the nature of his work as some kind of textile importer. we made outlandish, tentative plans to all take a trip to dahab in the sinai. in the meantime, she said she'd take me to a meeting with several important organizations next week. even though i'm only related to her by a long fizzled out marriage, i felt happy and proud to have such a compassionate, lefty woman consider me family and friend.

i've also been spending more time with my clone, gila, who is also american, also looking for peace work, went to school at nyu and knows my cousin benny. last night we went to a very difficult play called "hebron" about the terrible situation there, the antithesis of muslim-jewish coexistence. well, to be fair, i pretty much dragged her there. afterwards ali and other people gave a talk, moderated by an exceedingly annoying woman. it was my first time seeing him since i've been here and of course, once he was on the stage and speaking so honestly and eloquently about the need for co-existence and mutual understanding i forgot all about the million reasons i have to hold on to my own anger towards him. he makes it so hard to hold grudges!