While my family was not particularly religious, I was sent to a Jewish day school for elementary school and at home we always had a traditional Friday night dinner that was preceded by the appropriate blessings over candles, wine and bread - and sometimes a lusty round or two of "Shalom Aleichem", the traditional hymn that welcomes the Sabbath angels. My mother is a kick-ass cook who could give Jamie Oliver a few tips. In those days she was "into" traditional Ashkenazi Jewish cooking, which she learned to prepare from my erstwhile Hungarian-born great grandmother, Rose. Later Mom went on to prepare more "sophisticated" stuff, like wild mushroom soup and roasted Moroccan chicken with almonds and apricots, but I still remember her gefilte fish (which was peppery, in the Hungarian style, and not sweet as Polish Jews prepare it), tzimmes (a stew made of sweet potatoes, carrots, prunes and honey) and roast brisket (with tons of fat) with huge fondness. I am sure that, if Israelis could taste Mom's version of Ashkenazi Jewish food, it would lose its local stigma forever and ever, amen.

On Friday afternoons when I came home from school, swinging my schoolbag and wearing a dark school uniform with blue knee socks and scuffed oxfords, the house was filled with the smells of baking challah, roasting meat with garlic, simmering chicken soup (with light-as-a-feather kneidlach - dumplings made of matzo flour) and a cake or pie for dessert. We laid the table with a clean cloth, set it with the "good" dishes and cutlery, washed, changed, and drove to fetch my great grandmother so that she could join us, my grandparents and any other relatives who'd been invited, for dinner.

I wouldn't describe my childhood as a particularly happy one, but my memories of those Friday nights are suffused with warm yellow light. There was a sense of community and continuity that is so important - particularly to children. Four generations of one family were gathered around the table, neither arguing nor tense, singing, joking and telling oft-repeated stories of family lore. My great grandmother, who had taught my mother all her recipes except the one for cheese danish, which was top-secret and went with her to the grave, inevitably reached out to pick up the challah my mother had baked; she'd examine it critically, then use her knuckles to rap sharply on the bottom crust. This was how she judged whether or not it had been baked properly; and if it hadn't, she immediately and sternly informed my mother of the fact.

One day, when I was about 8 years old, I came home from school and told my mother that my teacher - an Orthodox Jew of the black hat variety - said it was a sin to drive on the sabbath, and that we should not drive my great grandmother home on Friday nights after dinner. Well, my mother said, you tell your teacher that it is a bigger sin to leave your great grandmother home alone on Friday nights. She's too old to walk, she's too old to sleep on the couch and anyways she needs to go home to her own bed. (OK, I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the idea).

I was thinking about that story on Yom Kippur, as I wandered around Tel Aviv enjoying the one and only day when everything - really, everything - is closed and there are no motorized vehicles on the streets. It was like a huge celebration. Crowds of kids were whizzing down the middle of normally traffic-clogged roads on their bicycles or rollerblades. Families were strolling together. On Rothschild Boulevard I ran into groups of friends sitting on various benches, chatting and reveling in the quiet, in the totally relaxing knowledge that there was absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do but where they were and what they were doing. You don't realize how disturbing urban noise is, until it's absent. And then your soul expands.

On Allenby Street I saw a group of foreign workers' children - Filipinos, Africans, Chinese - riding their bikes in a group, calling to each other in completely unaccented Israeli Hebrew. Suddenly a moped came buzzing towards them from the opposite direction, shattering the peace and quiet. (sidenote: it's not technically illegal to drive in Israel on Yom Kippur - it's a custom and a social contract that the vast majority respects, but there are always some assholes who are just "anti" and need to demonstrate the fact). The foreign workers' kids yelled at the moped driver, "Hey, you jerk, it's Yom Kippur! What's the matter with you?"

At Neila, the closing prayers of the Yom Kippur liturgy (your last chance to beg God's forgiveness for the sins you committed over the previous year), I happened to be outside a synagogue and heard the cantor singing the familiar prayers. Dusk had fallen and I stood outside the open window of the synagogue, humming along to the words and remembering Yom Kippurs past: the synagogue I'd attended with my family in Canada; the synagogues I'd attended in New York (including the year I dragged my avowedly secular, raised-on-a-kibbutz ex-boyfriend with me; he sat next to me for about 30 minutes, yarmulke perched at an awkward angle on his bald head, looking alternately bored and confused until he leaned towards me and whispered, "THIS is NOT for me! I'm going home to make coffee. See you later."); the bizarre synagogue I attended in Tokyo, together with a bunch of ex-pat Israeli men and their Japanese wives, a few Israeli and Jewish diplomats and assorted Jews who were working mostly on temporary assignment for investment banks, like me, and some rather odd Japanese who had decided that they were Jewish. And there I was in Israel, feeling absolutely no desire to enter a synagogue and pray.

Because for me, synagogue attendance abroad is an expression of tribal identity. It is not an expression of faith. I'm not one of those Jews who gets bored during synagogue services: I know the liturgy and the customs; I don't need a rabbi to announce the page in the prayer book and instruct me when to stand and when to sit. And I do see the beauty of some of the liturgy, in an objective sense. It's just that it doesn't speak to me. I am not a believer. So when I'm abroad I attend synagogue to feel that I am part of a community. In Israel on Yom Kippur I feel part of a community when I join my friends on a bench on Rothschild Boulevard and chat, or when we walk down to the beach together to watch the sunset.

I know that I remember those family dinners on Friday night not because I felt God's presence at the table, but because I felt the presence of family and communal ties. And I think, really, that's what religious practice is based on: community. Whether you express it by praying and fasting, or by holding your child's hand as he tries to keep his balance on his new rollerblades.

In the end I had such a good time being a tzemach (Heb. Literally: bush; colloq: vegetable - eg, veging out) over the long weekend that I lost all interest in following up on the Madonna story. There I was, lolling on the beach just a few minutes' walk away from the hotel in which she was staying, and I couldn't even summon the energy to go over and visit. The sun was shining, the waves were splashing, the noisy diesel buses were silent for three whole blissful days, and Tel Aviv seemed to be suffused in a glow of well-being and relaxation. I guess it should've been a big deal: prior to Esther's visit, no major pop star had been to Israel since the Red Hot Chili Peppers cancelled their much-anticipated appearance at the beginning of the second Intifida, in the fall of 2000. But in the end it just wasn't. A big deal, that is.

On Saturday a group of Israeli Hare Krishnas were hanging out on the tayelet (beach promenade), opposite Mike's Place. With their infectious chanting and dancing - accompanied by Oriental drums and harmonium - they competed successfully with an old guy who likes to stand there with a battered mike and croon old Israeli folk songs, karaoke style, to recorded musical accompaniment. A group of Indian (dots, not feathers) diamond dealers and their families paused during their late afternoon stroll and sat on a bench, looking rather bemused, to enjoy the performance. It was nearly sunset, and I stood there, squinting a bit as the sun's rays bounced off the windows of a nearby high-rise, watching the tide go out and thinking about the remarkably unremarkable strangeness of this scene. Jewish devotees of Krishna were entertaining Indian Hindus with a paean to the latter's god on the Jewish New Year; opposite was Mike's Place, which was full of people drinking beer and enjoying live music; in April of 2003 the famous pub was bombed by Muslims from the U.K., and for the first time I actually knew someone who was killed in a terrorist attack. But looking at the place that afternoon, one would never know that it was once - quite recently, in fact - the scene of death and destruction.

My ruminations on death and cognitive dissonance did not interfere with my enjoyment of the day, though...

On Friday evening I was invited to dinner at Karen's. She and her husband Ezi cooked up a gorgeous holiday meal, and conversation around the dinner table was great - funny, intelligent and warm. At one point one of the guests, a U.K. native who has lived in Israel for many years, mentioned a controversial letter (scroll down to Sept. 17 entry) she'd received via a series of email forwards. (I agree with Karen's commentary on the letter, by the way). The ensuing discussion of the letter was characterized by an interesting generation gap: the woman who'd received it was outraged, but her daughter, who was born in Israel and is currently completing her military service, was bored by the whole topic. Who cares what they think? she asked. Let them drink their tea and shut up.
My reaction was somewhere in the middle. Clearly the guy who wrote it is neither well-informed nor emotionally balanced - and he might want to consider brushing up on his spelling and grammar. Since I tend to be condescending when I'm pissed off at someone, the letter obviously got on my nerves. But I've heard so many people all over the world spout off their cuckoo half-baked and ill-informed opinions based on so many topics that I just can't get really excited about letters like this one. There will always be conspiracy theorists, people who are ignorant, people who don't like me personally or my tribe in general. All I can do in response is to represent myself, as an individual, as best I can. And to live a good life.

It's an hour before sunset on the eve of the Jewish New Year, and Tel Aviv is quiet. On the way back from last-minute shopping at the shuk, I saw hasidic men carrying towels and bars of soap, headed for their ritual pre-holy day ablutions in the mikveh across from my apartment building. Some men were already headed home from the mikveh, their ritual sidelocks still damp.

Old Mrs. Weiss, her hair freshly tinted violet and a smile on her face, sat by the window of her ground floor apartment. Waiting, no doubt, for her son to come pick her up for the holiday meal at his house. I waved to her and called out holiday greetings; in response she leaned out the window and said, "When you pass by, the whole street smiles. Happy new year my dear."

A four-day weekend stretches ahead, and everyone seems relaxed and happy. Let us hope that this is a good omen for the coming year. Happy new year to everyone.

According to a journalist friend of mine, 200 trendy freaks - er, kabbalists - will be staying at a certain 5 star hotel in Tel Aviv over the Jewish New Year. Among them will be Esther, hubby Guy and little Lourdes. My friend, who has amazing connections, will be staying at the hotel and plans to snag an interview with Esther - even if it means having to babysit Lourdes. How does she do this? She can barely afford her rent, but she managed to finaigle a free room at a 5 star Tel Aviv hotel that overlooks the beach.

She said that if I'm really, really nice to her she might let me hang out at the hotel and raid the mini-bar in her room.

Meanwhile we're both busy churning out filler articles for our respective publications' New Year advertising supplements. Articles, I might add, which hardly anyone will read. Which is my way of explaining why blogging will probably be a little light over the next few days.

Monday night I met my friends Adi, Shira and Yoav for drinks at Evita, a new gay bar in Tel Aviv. Despite its mildly cheesy name, Evita is a seriously cool place. The owners obviously put a lot of thought and effort into the details: the result is sleek, ultra-modern but warm and inviting decor, good music that is not too loud to prevent conversation, friendly but detached service and very good food to go with the drinks. There's even a ventilation system that sucks up most of the cigarette smoke, which was a must in New York - before smoking in public places was banned - but is still pretty unusual in Israel; for a change, my eyes didn't start to tear up after the first half-hour. Unlike gay bars in New York, Evita did not feel like a pick-up joint. Most of the guys came in couples or small groups, and seemed to be there for the simple pleasure of drinks and food in a congenial environment.

Shira and I arrived at the unfashionably early hour of 10 P.M., when the place was still quite empty. We wanted to enjoy a drink and chat with Adi and Yoav, who both work at Evita, before their shift started. Yoav is a teaching assistant and full-time student at Tel Aviv University's law school; he's also an actor who graduated from Beit Zvi, Israel's most prestigious acting school. Adi writes a regular sex column for an Israeli women's magazine; she also spends a lot of time chasing freelance writing jobs for any Israeli publication that's interested in paying.

I include these little details to illustrate just how difficult it is to make ends meet in this country. Salaries are ridiculously low, so many uber-talented people like Adi and Yoav can't rely on their earnings from a single job to make ends meet. For awhile, before the hi-tech bubble burst nearly simultaneously with the outbreak of the second intifida, there was an atmosphere of money to burn; today, most of my friends (including this blogger) are earning about 50% of the salaries they could command from the late 1990s through the end of 2000. Prices, however, remain high - for everything.

But even though a lot of people are broke and/or struggling, places of entertainment are full. My old friend A., whom I've known since we were students in New York, is a native-born Israeli who is currently visiting the country for the first time in many years. On his first night back we had dinner at Louisa, a cafe on Basel Square; at one point he sat back, surveyed the bustling outdoor cafe and the many people walking the streets, and said, "Look at all these people! It's a weeknight, it's past 11 P.M., and the place is full. In the States, the restaurants are the first to suffer in an economic downturn." And it's true: having a good time is really important in Israel, and I guess a lot of people would rather go out with friends than buy a new rug for the livingroom floor.

So back to the other night... The four of us were drinking beer and sharing goose liver pate (which we jokingly called "feta", because pate and feta are spelled the same in Hebrew), and having a Sex and the City moment: there was Yoav the gay actor/law student/waiter; Adi the sex columnist; and me and Shira, who work for the same newspaper. Of course our conversation got a bit - er - randy (shall we say). Shira kept interrupting to ask Yoav if there were any straight guys at the bar (one: the bartender), and I kept telling her to relax and enjoy not having to fend off the neanderthals for a change. Our vow to make it an early night was quickly forgotten, especially after the bartender started sending over free drinks. Since my definition of a lot to drink is the average Brit's idea of pre-dinner cocktails, by the time we left - a little after midnight - I was practically staggering. Note to self: perhaps alcohol and pate are not the best things to ingest following a two-week ayurvedic cleansing diet of rice, lentils and vegetables.

So what's the point of this seemingly pointless story? The point is, when I got home I read the article in the Guardian that Imshin linked to and commented on, I thought about my enjoyable evening out with friends in Tel Aviv, and concluded that the journalist who wrote this article is a really good example of a hopelessly provincial hack. Because he chose Lansky, one of the ickiest, tackiest pick-up bars in Tel Aviv, to hang out at; because he writes that the Hebrew word for celebration is hagigat, when in fact it is hagiga; and because he couldn't even spell the URL for Layla, a website about Tel Aviv nightlife, correctly. And because he's a lazy, lazy journalist: he makes no attempt to go for nuance, and he totally overreaches in making this tenous connection between "the situation" and the natural human desire to have a good time.

All of my friends are politically aware, and some of them are political activists. But none of them says, "Good God, the misery of the Palestinian people is too much to bear. I simply must go out and get drunk in order to forget the horrors of this awful world."

We are all aware of our reality, and many of us try to make it a better reality, but mostly we just live our lives. To imply that this is callous is as ridiculous as saying that New Yorkers who live in nice apartments and eat at good restaurants are ipso facto indifferent to the thousands of homeless people on the streets.

On Thursday night a group of people with nothing in common besides the facts that they live in Israel, blog and speak English got together for the first time - and really enjoyed themselves. "On the face" of it (heh) one would think that we weren't destined to get along so well: we hold widely varying political opinions and come from diverse backgrounds; we are not all Jewish; we live different lifestyles; we come from several different countries; and decades divide the youngest from the oldest among us. But as it turned out, our few commonalities were more important than our many differences.

I confess that I went out of pure curiosity, and with no expectations, and I don't think I was alone in my attitude. I met people whose company I would probably not seek in my everyday life, and was reminded once again of how rewarding it is to be put into a situation that forces me to look beyond the surface and see people for who they really are.

It wasn't possible to talk to everyone, of course, and anyways I'm not much of a table-hopper, but based on the enthusiastic response to our first get-together I'm sure we'll make an opportunity to meet again soon.

The warm and charming Adrian has posted a list of all the participants. The absence of some bloggers (Hi, Ashley! Hey, Bert!) was noted with regret. Guys, please come next time. Ashley - there was beer, lots of beer.

I would never have started writing "on the face" if not for the gentle but insistent nudging of my lovely and talented sister Adina, who is the family Web guru. Thanks, babe, for the push - I'm fascinated by this new style of community building, and delighted to be a part of it.

By the way, I finally figured out how to download haloscan for comments (very not difficult - big surprise; but why did it delete all the previous comments? :( ). So ck, please feel free to feed my ego on a regular basis with your much-appreciated feedback. If my planned trip to TO (November, probably) comes through, we must meet up.

Next step: how to post a blogroll. Probably not difficult...