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I am traveling by taxi through Tel Aviv, on an evening flushed and heavy with the threat of rain,
down wide boulevards, down narrow streets choked with fumes and traffic. We weave our way through
back alleys and between bollards, past endless apartment blocks, small pharmacies, jumbled groceries, little electrical shops. We pass by bald lots, scrublands, dead cars, shanties; by new malls adorned with Hollywood stars. My driver is sweaty and blond; he speaks into several telephones. He steers with
one finger. We are quite lost.
"Mountain Street off Miracle Street. At the top of the hill by the television tower."
He has never heard of Miracle Street, but he won't admit it. His finger is confident. His finger is full of pride.
This is the city which was founded on sand by Zionists, and look what it has become. A tangle of dead ends and one-ways, unexpected barriers and sudden pavements. A labyrinth designed to fox the visitor. A city which began as a dream and grew dense, like a jungle; which began white and is now a general grey. The white visions of the dream have turned dark with salt, a hot moisture hangs in the polluted air; the air pounds with the noise of traffic and work, sirens and horns and the hearts of hundreds of thousands of people.
Tel Aviv is not like Jerusalem. No temples were built here. No messiah will come. In all the vistas of history it is nothing but dunes.
The nights in Jerusalem are cool; the nights in Tel Aviv are mild and sweaty. Jerusalem air is full of pine and spices. Tel Aviv air is full of tar and sand.
Once a Jerusalemite always a Jerusalemite. Yet how many Jerusalemites flee to Tel Aviv. If I lived here I couldn't choose between them. My soul would belong to Jerusalem, my body would belong to Tel Aviv.
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