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Glum British weather can't bring me
down
ICONIC: Uri with Israeli singer Yoram Gaon
THE promenade from the port in north Tel Aviv is now complete,
all the way to old Jaffa, and for the first time in my life
I was able to walk its whole length without stepping onto
the sand.
It is an extraordinary path, with its vistas of brilliant
blue Mediterranean and shimmering yellow beach.
I walked with my children and my wife -that is, they walked
and I ran, leaped and danced. My son kept urging me, ''Calm
down, Aba, cool it a couple of notches,'' but I could not.
I was frantically invigorated by Israel, by the sunshine
and the sounds, by the waves of nostalgia, by the architecture
and the language, most of all by the sheer spiritual energy
of the land.
We flew out on the day after New Year's Day and it was as
though I had connected my soul to a fuel pump as we touched
down at Ben Gurion airport. We'd come to do a television show
with the iconic Israeli singer Yoram Gaon, and the prospect
certainly excited me, but it wasn't that which fired me up
into the stratosphere.
I was higher than a satellite the whole time, on nothing
chemically stronger than honey and almonds. Israel recharged
me. Even now, back in England under January skies, I am buzzed
with the brilliance of the coast and its culture.
I cannot analyse the whole sensation, but I am certain that
much of this must be rooted in the connections I make with
my own past when I return to Tel Aviv. I scampered round the
streets of Jaffa, pointing out the places where I had played,
where my mother and I had lived, where I went to school, where
we bought groceries, where my father found my first pet, a
stray puppy.
I felt plugged in to the untrammeled energy that propelled
me when I was a boy, before I learned to control the forces
which made my career. It's great fun to be able to bend metal
at will, but it's even more exciting to have that energy flowing
wild and untamed through your body. I think every child feels
this, in one way or another, but mostly we forget how to feel
that life force as we grow up.
The buildings of Jaffa, many now refurbished, are a fascinating
jumble of styles - Arabic, Bauhaus, Deco. And they are all
low-rise, none of them more than four storeys.
Israelis love to talk of Tel Aviv as a rival to New York,
but it is in Jaffa, where the spirit can soar unobstructed
to the clear skies, that I feel real freedom.
Tel Aviv is named both for its newness and its deep history.
The name was inspired by Theodor Herzl's Zionist novel, Altneuland
(Old New Land). In Hebrew, Tel Aviv combines the concept of
antiquity (tel, an ancient site) with joyous rebirth (aviv,
springtime).
We roamed the waterside cafes and stared at the minarets,
and I remembered how the streets were always jostling with
soldiers when I was a young man here.
Perhaps the military are warned to wear civilian clothes
off duty, for fear of homicide bombers, but the sight of so
many young people who were not in uniform gave hope to my
heart. On Yoram's show, I made a passionate plea for peace,
urging Israelis to live side-by-side with Palestinians, pleading
for an end to aggression on both sides.
I have no patience with those militants, most of whom were
not even born in my country, who demand blood sacrifices from
my children's generation. The troubles have damaged tourism,
of course, and it saddens me that so many Jews stay away from
Israel now, when the country has most need of its friends
overseas.
There may be a greater risk to dining in Jaffa than in Milwaukee,
in theory - but though you can get run over by a garbage truck
in any city in the world, there is no place on Earth which
serves better food than Tel Aviv.
The breakfasts were feasts from heaven. Succulent breads,
sweet and savoury; every kind of cheese, from the softest
to the tangiest; all the fruits of Eden; strips of fish and
scoops of spices; mouth-watering honey from the kibbutzes.
I felt not only my body awake each morning, but my soul,
as if I was realising for the first time how God intended
us to dine. We fill our faces with such gunk, most of the
time, when there is a glorious storehouse of delicious and
simple food ready to be spread before us in abundance.
Many Israeli families are coming to Tel Aviv for short breaks,
taking advantage of the fact that foreign tourists are staying
away.
We chatted with a couple from the Sea of Galilee, who were
clearly as happy as I felt myself, as we spread the thick
honey in rolling coils across slices of dark rye bread.
One wonderful side effect of appearing on a show as popular
as Yoram's was the rush of emails from old friends over the
next few days - people whose faces I can still clearly recall,
who sent notes like this: ''You won't remember me, Uri, but
we used to play basketball in the street where we lived.''
Of course I remember! But there was one person I admit I
could not recall at all, though my mother was delighted to
see her old landlady again after so many decades!
Her name was Lily, and we spoke on the phone, shortly after
I got back to England.
''I held you in my arms,'' Lily told me, ''and you couldn't
have been more than one year old last time I saw you.''
I shall have to return to Israel soon. I think Lily will
be my excuse!
Email
him at uri@urigeller.com
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