Anywhere, Israel

What I love about Israel:

I had some checks that I needed to deposit, so I took a trip into Hadera. This was my first trip alone in Israel since I arrived. And I remebered how much I like to go places on my own. It is great to just walk around looking at everything. Here is some history of Hadera that I found online:

Hadera
A town in central Israel, situated between Haifa and Tel Aviv, was founded in 1890 by members of Hovevei Zion, a group of Zionist immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe. The name Haderah comes from the Arabic al-Khadra_' ("the Green"), referring to the color of the swamp vegetation of the area. The notorious swamps of Haderah caused more than half the settlers of Haderah to die of malaria during its first 20 years. The settlers received aid, however, in 1895 when Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a wealthy French philanthropist, gave them funds to drain the swamps by building canals and planting large eucalyptus groves. The eucalyptus tree soon became Haderah's symbol.

At first, agriculture was the main occupation of Haderah's settlers. They planted field and vegetable garden crops and citrus groves. But as the population of Haderah increased, the economy expanded and industrialized. Today, industry has become the main element in the town's economy. Situated in Haderah are the American Israel Paper Mills, and the Alliance Tire and Rubber Company, food-preserve plants and other enterprises. Agriculture, however, has continued to develop and there are now carp ponds, beehives, cattle, poultry, and flower and banana fields in Haderah. In the early 1990s, there were 46,000 inhabitants.

In the bus I heard more Arabic than Hebrew. There were guys in from of me that were blonde speaking Arabic. Women with head-coverings with there children and men in heated conversation.

When I got to the bank I waited in line for forever and a day. In front of me was an Israeli soldier with his Russian Grandma. Behind me was an Ethiopian woman. So how many languages was I hearing in line? Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Ethiopian, and a man yelling into his cell phone in English, trying to order cable service. There was a guy with a fannypack and tight 80s jeans picking his nose and slipping his finger as carefully as he could into his mouth. There were Ethiopian women with tribal tatoos and Orthodox men.

When I got to the counter the clerk didn't speak English, so she sent me to another clerk. Then he took me to another woman who worked behind a desk. In the next almost half an hour she told me all about herself.

Her name is Nava and actually she looked a lot like my grandma Eva. Her son is in LA right now traveling. He just got out of the army. I learned what he did in the army. And she even whipped out her wallet to show me a picture of how handsome he is. Then it was on to me. What was I doing in Israel? Oh, a new immigrant. Yoffi, very nice. When she made a copy of the check from my grandfather, she asked if he was Jewish because Kimmel is a very common name in Israel. I laughed because he is not. She told me she thought it would be great for me to do the army, and on and on.

That is Israel. You might have the nicest heart to heart with some random person in the bank. But she has a great outlook on life. She told me, " You should treat everyone with respect, because everyone has something to offer the world."

After the bank I walked around Hadera. I was hungry but all I could find was a street of very shady falafel and shawarma shacks. Sometimes I am up for an adventure, but not yesterday. I found the mall. Every town in Israel has to have a mall, I think it is a law. The government must have it written down somewhere on offical paper, because everywhere you go you see a cen-yon (mall). And Israeli's love the mall. It is an Israeli pastime, that and sunflower seeds and shesh-besh.

So I got back to the kibbutz at about 7:30, tired, but happy, because I got to see something interesting. Once on the kibbutz grounds it is very far to the actual kibbutz so the people driving give lifts to all that are walking. There was me and two other guys from the last Ulpan. A car pulled up and they told us they could take only two because they had a dog. So the guys were gentleman and let me go first with the big slobbering dog.

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Tonight I am going with most of the Ulpan to a club in Haifa. We ordered a bus to come and take us. It is safe and cheap, only about 5 dollars a person. The club is called Ultra Sound. The clubs here have funny names, like The Terminal and Ultra Sound.

Anyway, Shabbat Shalom. Hard for me to believe that I have been here for almost two months. The time has gone so fast!