Israel is a country of contradictions. You can walk down the street and find futuristic robots , a herd of goats, or the owner of a horse and cart making a sale.
My husband made up a song he calls, “Do you know the watermelon horse?,” based on the song about the muffin man. When the children don’t want to get dressed he tells them a story about a child who tries to buy watermelon. The watermelon man won’t sell to the child because he or she doesn’t have on a shirt, shoes, or whatever.
The police closed off our street yet a third time on Friday because of what turned out to be a bag of used clothes left at the bus stop. This time of year people often leave used clothes in good condition at the side of the road. This bag was closed but I don’t know what is happening. Perhaps the neighbors have become more vigilant.
Last night, after a noisy reading in our synagogue (but with only a few caps), I asked my daughter if she wanted to come to the women’s reading of Megillat (Scroll of) Esther this morning. She didn’t say no right away, which is almost a yes for a teen, so we went. I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a women’s reading before.
There were about 25 people there, half of them teenagers. Considering Petach Tikva’s 300 Orthodox synagogues, I would have expected a larger crowd. Possibly there were other women’s readings elsewhere. The three readers, including one teen, had prepared well.
The woman in charge wore a fake fur hat. I remember having one like it about ten years ago, when fur patterns were in style. One evening after I put mine on my little daughter (now the teen) asked me where I was going. “To a party,” I told her. “Oh,” she said. “Do you have to dress up like a puppy?”
This prompted me to give away the hat. I should have saved it for Purim.
Now we’re busy delivering Emunah packages, cooking, and reducing, reusing and recycling the mishloach manot.
Purim humor from around the web:
[My Purim basket Giveaway ends Monday, March 3.]
Sometimes the urban environment is an ideal place for wild animals. Here’s an example: In 2006, Petach Tikva’s two hospitals merged to form the Rabin Medical Center. Since then, several new buildings have appeared at the Beilinson campus while the Hasharon campus, several kilometers away, lies stagnating.
The health ministry originally planned to shut down Hasharon completely, but workers and residents protested and prevented the closure. Large departments in Hasharon, such as maternity, closed or moved to Beilinson but others, including orthopedics and internal medicine, exist in both places. Hasharon is viewed as a friendly, community-based hospital while Beilinson has become a large medical center with numerous specialties.
Nothing illustrates the stagnation of Hasharon more than the building pictured above. I’m not sure whether it was meant for a clinic or offices, or even parking, but shortly before the merger took place someone scrapped the project. This was bad news for the neighborhood’s elderly and sick. Yet all was not lost–this abandoned building on a huge plot of valuable, government-owned property in the middle of a residential neighborhood–turned out to be the perfect habitat for bats.
Walking by at twilight one can hear hundreds of shrieking bats and even view them flying back and forth. Some residents avoid the place, while others are fascinated. Recently my husband has seen bats swooping over the street late at night. When he called the city’s hotline, he was told that they don’t deal with bats.
Petach Tikva has invested large funds in beautifying the city. Let’s hope that it will put pressure on the health ministry to remove this eyesore. Maybe they can merge it with the local zoo.
More on animals in urban settings: The “Street Goats” of Bnei Brak.
This post originally appeared on Green Prophet and is reprinted with permission.
My son’s school has been emphasizing the importance of the environment. He insists on bringing his sandwich in a reusable container and refuses a recycled bread bag. And a few months ago the school hosted an event on environmental topics, including making crafts with recycled items and a discussion of water in Judaism. Cardboard boxes, prepared by the municipality, were provided for each household to collect old paper. The box reads: “You recycled? You helped! In Petach Tikva we take responsibility for the environment.” Petach Tikva, refreshingly, is first in the country for percentage of trash recycled.
Yet the school exhibits some cognitive dissonance when it comes to the environment. I’ve already written about the ridiculous amount of school supplies and multicolored folders required for each child. After the environmental event kids were asked to bring in yet another plastic folder–this time green, along with writing paper and nylonim (clear plastic page covers)–for a unit about the environment. I recently noticed the unused folder in my son’s backpack. He thinks the teacher forgot about it.
A few months ago, the city began to erect a traffic circle at this dangerous intersection. Work stopped temporarily when residents of a neighboring street sued the city out of concern for the extra traffic in front of their homes. I am more concerned about the safety of the intersection, but I realize other issues are involved. My daughter fears the traffic circle will make it harder to cross the street on her way to school, when there are a large number of cars. She won’t be able to judge which cars are headed toward her as they go around the circle.
The city puts a sculpture, or garden, in each traffic circle. I found the one above next to the bus stop on my way to Tel Aviv last week. A worker noticed me with the camera, so I asked him what he thought. He replied with some unpleasant comments about the mayor. Then I realized that an element seemed to be missing from the sculpture. (I’ll wait while you congratulate me on my artistic perception.) So I asked about that, too.
It turns out that a statue of a black cat had been placed on the rock at the base of the dodecagon. When a woman living in an apartment nearby called the city and yelled that she didn’t want to see that cat there every day, it was removed. Apparently a columnist complained about it too.
If you look closely you can see the hoopoe, now Israel’s national bird, at the top of the figure. Several traffic circles feature hoopoes in various poses. I wonder whether the cat was supposed to be contemplating the bird for its next meal? The worker suspects that since the mayor was reelected, we shouldn’t expect a replacement for the cat.
In the meantime they restarted work on my traffic circle and I am anxious to see what artwork will appear.
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