Reminders of Where I Am

Tel Aviv is split up, roughly, into two general neighborhoods. The north end, to run with the New York City analogy*, is a lot like uptown Manhattan; lots of stores, most fairly upscale, and hip little cafes and the like. Residential areas are nice, in good repair, and usually have at least 2 late-model cars in the driveway.
The south end is like downtown/East Village Manhattan; the residential areas are in a bit more disrepair, the stores are more funky than froofy, there are a few open-air markets, and the crowd is generally younger than in the north end.

The hotel I stayed in for the first two nights here was in the southern-center, western part of the city, literally a block or two from the beach. So, I spent basically all of yesterday exploring the southern part of the city.

I went through a big open-air market (got batteries for my reading light! It works now!), walked along the beach promenade down to the Old City (Yaffa or Jaffa, depending who's romanizing), where I wandered about for some time among the ancient architecture. There's a port down there too, which I explored thoroughly.

Towards the start of the evening I was wandering through a pedestrian (aka people, bikes, and an endless deluge of scooter traffic) area, full of hip little places. Feeling rather hungry, I stumbled upon a neat looking little cafe where I ended up stopping for dinner.
I got a double-espresso and the chicken hummus, and was happily munching away, when all of a sudden an older woman starts yelling loudly in Hebrew, and a youth is running quickly away. Other people yell and point as well. I startle a bit, look around, and come to the conclusion that she probably had her purse snatched. Terrible, but not entirely shocking in any city.

I guess the people behind me had a better look at what was going on. Here's what I gleaned from a combination of deduction, observation, and overhearing the folks behind me, at least one of whom spoke both Hebrew and English: The person running away had a knife in at least one hand if not both, the woman, I think, was a shopkeeper, and another young man who had been involved had what was a very bloody, quite likely broken, nose.

Before describing the scene further, I want to clear up a couple things: First, this is by no means representative of my time here thusfar - on the contrary, I've felt extremely safe here, despite the language barrier; Second, this did not affect that overall feeling of safety here. As an isolated incedent, I can only assume that it happened for a reason, whether it's something tangible and rational, or sheer bad luck on someone's part.

It made me think about how people are more hesitant to fly when there's been a plane accident recently - the actual likelihood of a crash isn't affected by when a crash takes place, but we tend to think of it that way. Same deal here.

The biggest affect it had, I think, was to remind me that yes, this is an unfamiliar and new place. Sometimes, at least in Tel Aviv, it's easy to forget that this is a very, very different place than the U.S. - because in so many ways this is a very Western place, and it really does feel a lot like a smaller, hotter Manhattan where everyone usually speaks Hebrew.
Hence the title of this post. A reminder is precisely how that event felt: A reminder that, indeed, this is a foreign and, as a shopkeeper I talked to today put it, difficult place to live. Past all the window-dressing, there's a lot of people here for whom life is tough, and sometimes that leads to violence.

Despite all the music and dancing, all the delicious eateries and stunning galleries, this is very much Israel, with all the social and political tensions that go with it, small and large.

It was a good reminder, and I spent some time later that night thinking about the difference between feeling unsafe and feeling vulnerable.

*: That Tel Aviv is, in fact, a lot like a smaller, cleaner, hotter New York, where people actually stop for pedestrians.