Disengagement

Over the past few days, many of you have asked me about the disengagement so I thought this would be a fitting way to start off my blog.

Living in Tel Aviv has given me a different outlook than what I would have expected on how the disengagement affects Israeli society . Many people refer to Tel Aviv as the "New York" of Israel. While I find faults in this simplistic equation, I do agree that there are quite a few similarities. Tel Aviv is a busy city that is always bustling from dawn till dusk and into the wee hours of the morning. It is an eclectic city with all kinds of people of various ages and from different backgrounds, but you see a large presence of "young people" (age 20-30). Renting an apartment is relatively more expensive here then in other places in the country (except maybe Jerusalem) and many Israelis move to Tel Aviv for some period of time for the experience.

In short, Tel Aviv in many ways operates in its own microcosm, which is also very much like a bubble. And while everyone knows that the disengagement is happening (since it is pretty much the only thing on the news or in the paper), you don't actually "feel" it happening around you because Tel Aviv is in its own world where you can very easily forget what is happening in the rest of the country.

If I want to know what is going on around the country I need to make a conscious effort to open a paper or turn on the TV. For a country where everyone has a political opinion (and not afraid to voice it) I was shocked to see how little people talk about it here and even joke about it. Orange is the color of the people who are against the disengagement. People wear orange shirts and tie orange ribbons to their bags in solidarity with the anti-disengagement movement. I was in a shoe store the other day with a friend and she was debating what color shoes to buy- brown or orange. The sales guy jokingly said "you should get orange; it seems to be the color of the summer."

All that being said, the disengagement is certainly taking its toll on Israel. It is hard for everyone to see such internal strife between all sides: religious, secular, soldiers, police, young, old etc.... It is especially hard to see how some people try to equate what is going on to the Holocaust, up until the point that certain settlers wear yellow Jewish stars on their clothing.

These past few days have brought a lot of tears and heavy hearts to many people around the country, but like always people move on and life here continues.