the silencer

It wasn't a marvel comics superhero who brought a full 24 hours of solitude and quiet reflection into tel aviv yesterday. With all the honking cars off the roads, the city seemed perfectly quiet even with the throngs of tykes on bikes playing on the pavement.

I went for a long walk to be alone with my thoughts and traversed most of the city along the sea, so that I could hear the soft lapping of the waves accompany me as a soundtrack to my yom kippur reverence. The heat was strong yesterday and that made my fast a bit difficult. Even though the early end to Yom Kippur was supposed to make it easier, my throat and lips were completely parched by my day walking in the sun. Over 2200 people were taken to the local hospitals in tel aviv over the holiday for treatment, although a portion of that number includes women in labour. Luckily for me, despite my rather unwise foray under the blazing middle eastern sun, I managed to make it without an IV of saline or ringers lactate solution. The moments that I wasn't walking, I was nestled into shady spots along the tayelet where I could read without interruption.

Although I've always gone to Shul on Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur, it doesn't feel like I need to search out a shul service here. I tell my parents that all of Israel is my shul.

for the final blowing of the shofar, I walked over to a shul on dizengoff where people always gather in the street to listen to the songs of prayer and hear the shofar. From a vantage position I listen attentively with fellow tel avivis as the blast of the shofar made it's way through the stained glass windows and open doors of the shul, across the crowds and atop the bauhaus style apartments. With uncharacteristic silence and with complete stillness the crowd together felt the heady shofar note weave it's way through their ears and into our hearts.

of course, the best way to break the fast was with friends at my favourite sushi place. As soon as it opened we sat perched atop our favourite elevated chairs and ordered lots of spicy sushi. It's always appropriate to end a jewish holiday with some high quality shrimp...too funny. One of my friends was on his way to a holiday in berlin. Yom Kippur inspired him to bond with the germans.

I read an article in the haaretz late last night concerning normalization. The first dirty word for arabs involved in the peace process is collaboration, then comes normalization. As I was reading I couldn't help but laugh as sad as it was to hear of the powerful egyptian press group boycotting and pressuring others to boycott Israel, because within my NGO we've long experienced the underlying cold peace and anti normalization. It's better for us that it's upfront and in the open now.

It's much easier to work and combat injustice and obstacles to peace when they're acknowledged to exist. We've long had difficulties sharing work on publishable papers and conference presentations, and had many physicians outright refuse to take part in any health diplomacy project that involves other egyptians knowing of their involvement with israelis. This is even given that we have a peace agreement with Egypt. I'm of the opinion that it's a great step forward to make prejudices public so that we can better combat them. Cold peace is better than missiles, but is an obstacle to progress for all. Shine some light on the resistance remaining so it can be directly addressed.