I still can't believe I only have 2 weeks left of the summer session/semester/camp. It just keeps moving faster and faster.
This will be another serious blog post, so feel free to skip it if you only like frivolous posts. There are some fun, provocative pictures, so you might as well keep reading.
This summer has been a summer of protest. When I arrived, there was a huge battle to reduce the price of cottage cheese. There was, and is, a strike among the specialist doctors. However, the current hot topic trending on the national Israel twitter, if you will, is the tent strikes.
Set up: things in Israel are expensive. However, the price of living has gone up extraordinarily over the last few years. There are many explanations: the influx of foreigners, the failure of a number of international economies, the gap between the rich and poor, and so forth. So, who is getting left behind? The university-aged youth of Israel. Landlords will often set their rent rates high because they know the Americans, French, British, or whomever, will pay it. As a result, they'd rather rent to the foreigners, so it's hard on the youth. Naturally, you'd expect there to be new developments of apartments for these students. Indeed, there are many developments in the cities but they are catering to the foreigners who only will be in Israel for Sukkot, Pesach, Shavuot, or just the summer. There are many buildings that essentially are vacant all year except on the rare occcasion the Americans are in town.
Daphne Leef, a Tel Avivi who found herself without an apartment, began the protest by setting up a tent on Rothschild Avenue in Tel Aviv, a major boulevard in a swank part of the city, and made the call to protest on Facebook. Now, in every major city and town in Israel, there are tent cities made of protestors. What has made this unique is that young and old, secular and religious, poor and wealthy, and student and employer have come together on this issue. This unity has prompted many in the Knesset to threaten to quit the government if the issue is not solved.
This has not been without controversy. It has been linked to the "Arab Spring" or the revolutionary wave that seems to be in the hearts of every one in the Middle East since the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, the civil war in Libya, and so forth. The difference with this and those of some of the Arab nations is that Israel has the freedom of speech. That being said, a protest of this scale certainly hasn't gone unnoticed. The rightists believe this to be an attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Likud party as a whole. However, a number of polls show those who vote Likud support the protests.
Every time I go down to the shopping district near my apartment for food, extra school supplies, and so forth, I can walk through the major tent city of Jerusalem at Zion Square. Nearly every night, there are concerts. Last week, they had an abbreviated Kabbalat Shabbat led by a number of Israel Reform rabbis. I've asked a few of the protestors if I, as an American living here for the year, am part of the problem. The general response is: not really. Since I am living here for a full year and contributing to the society, it is OK. While I am paying the jacked-up rent prices, my singular contribution is not causing the whole system to collapse. In Jerusalem, I got a much more positive response than in Tel Aviv.
On Friday, I was in Tel Aviv with a few classmates just to get out of town for the day. I saw some amazing things at the Artist's Shuk, walked through some shopping districts, sat in a cute cafe and generally had a good time. At night, I walked through the massive tent city on Rothschild Avenue. There were signs all over the place. Some were political, others were not. Judge for yourselves:
"This is another place they will not build attainable housing."
This was the sign in front of two musicians.
Subtitles: we want gay marriage.
As best as I could translate this, this is a statement of their sentiments.
Israel = love.
Israel=Honor to all who live
Feel free to ask me more questions about the tents. At the same time, I'm curious as to what the US media has to say about it...unless they're more concerned about the London riots.
"Change" comes from A New Brain--a wonderful, underperformed musical.
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