Reviving Ben Yehuda

As the clock ticked over to 7pm last night, my computer decided to throw a tantrum and shut down on me when I was in the midst of trying to reach an important deadline. After struggling with it for an hour or so I decided to shut it down and went to meet up with some friends to chat and stretch my legs out a bit on walk down Ben Yehuda.

ben yehuda was the chief instigator of a revival of the hebrew language as a viable possibility in the fledgling jewish state.

Now the street named after him in Tel Aviv echoes with hebrew and a polyglot of foreign languages that would probably make ben yehuda roll over in his grave, since rumour had it that he even punished his wife for singing russian lullabies to his son.

As we walked along the snaking road we reached one of the quieter sections before allenby and almost stumbled directly on top of a homeless man who had collapsed in the middle of the sidewalk.

A sweet guy from france has stopped just before us and had already called the magen david ambulance, so I cautiously stepped towards him to see whether he was conscious and breathing, create a barrier so that people wouldn't step on him, and determine what needed to be done for him in advance of magen david arriving.

I roused him and ensured that he would be stable and the ambulance came fairly quickly. Thank goodness for purell as I didn't have any gloves with me.

This was a curious study in humanity and israel. Given that this was a homeless alcoholic who probably suffered from several diseases, many people here tend to overlook his existance. It's a shame and very easy for someone in his situation to fall through the cracks anywhere. But, the younger generation in Israel stops and notices and always offers to help.

Once I had stopped there were several young people who gathered to see if they could be of assistance and more so to that, when the ambulance came, three strong young men were recruited off the street to help the ambulance attendants lift up the wheeled gurney. Three perfect strangers came together in seconds and functioned like a well oiled machineto get the man into the ambulance. It was beautiful and in seconds they had scattered as quickly as they had arrived, on their way to whence they had come.

The humanity and sense of communal responsibility here is so beautifully encouraging in the face of all the rough edges we complain so often about.

While I admire and appreciate this revelation, I've once again taken up my hebrew textbook and signed up for the imaginary ben yehuda corps.