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Harvey Tannenbaum a resident of Efrat, is the owner of , a full service concierge business for tourists and travelers in Israel. Tannenbaum immigrated to Israel from Los Angeles in 1994. He can be reached at
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By Harvey Tannenbaum
January 19, 2006
The Torah portion was recited to introduce us to the Book of Exodus of Shmot with names and the last days of Joseph. We removed our talit and unwound our tefilin on this Thursday morning in downtown Efrat.
The news startled us in that the Chief of Staff Halutz, who has been instructed by Prime Minister Sharon to bomb empty buildings and fields in 'response' to kassams and missiles upon our cities, stated that he ''had enough of those settlers (Jews)." The statement from the other Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office was that he was ''going to war against the Jews in Hebron." (Would he repeat the 1929 massacre, too?)
For some reason, after hearing about a new Pharoah in this week's Torah portion who did not 'recognize or remember' the Jews in Egypt, the orange juice/ toast at breakfast tasted sour after hearing the Chief of Staff, the Police commander, and the other Prime Minister's statement on "us Jews."
As we drove past the checkpoint before the Tunnel Roads, on the first sunny day in days, the soldier told this writer to slow down as the windshield wipers were covering this innocent citizen's face at 10am. As the soldier peered in closely and realized that our car was lacking in any terrorists or Hebron 'settlers,' he waved us through the checkpoint. There is a very popular boureka/challe/cake place in Talpiot called EEMA at which we stopped to pick up the shabbat challot and nosh.
Moshe, the co-owner stopped us from using the clamps to pick out our choices from the boureka table and said that he would serve us. We set down the clamp and, in his surgical gloves, Moshe chose the bourekas that he had eyed and that we would eat on Friday night. We asked him if we could use the clamp tweezers to pick the hot danishes to which he said "No, I will pick them out for you, it's hot!" The internal smile of life in Israel and its experience made us laugh and accept Moshe's pick of the day for our Shabbat table tomorrow.
At 3pm, we heard of another young mother, Tzippy Schlissel of Hebron, whose father Rabbi was killed by terrorists, was herself arrested and thrown to the ground by the Olmert Sharon police because she did not have her ID card in her possession as she held her two month old baby.
Tzippy and her husband filed a lawsuit to enjoin the government from throwing them out of their home in the "Shuk of Hebron," owned by the Sephardic Trust for scores of years. Perhaps the policemen were angry or being angered by the lawsuit of the Schlissels to stop the eviction of more Jews in Hebron.
Probably, Abraham, our forefather, was searching for his paid receipt when he bought the Cave of the Patriarchs many years ago but Abraham was not to be found today as Tzippy lie on the concrete floor at the foot of the police of this country.
We drove to the Ben Gurion Airport to pick up a relative when suddenly we all stopped at the Ben Gurion Airport offramp access to the airport. We looked for as far as we could see and all traffic was in one place with nowhere to go. We listened to the radio and heard a reliable bulletin being reported by Micky Gordis, a long time and trusted radio reporter, that the airport was in an emergency status and closed to air traffic, cars, pedestrians, and luggage. Micky restated twice that it was not due to an Amir Peretz-induced slowdown or strike of employees.
We continued to listen to the radio, car parked on the offramp, lights on(law on the highway even during the day until Springtime), when a new bulletin was being aired of an explosion in Tel Aviv's old bus station area. The first reports were maybe that the explosion was a criminal and not terrorist act, committed by rival gangs.
As we sat on the offramp, 2 F16s flew over quickly above us. The IAF was in the air over the airport. The reporters on the radio could not yet divulge why the airport was now on emergency status. "The flight controllers have lost contact with an El Al plane."
We waited and watched the emergency vehicles heading at top speed on Highway 1 to Tel Aviv. The IAF fighter planes were now wing to wing with an EL AL passenger plane. We could not figure out if the EL AL plane was in trouble or just wanted VIP service to get its passengers on the runway faster and called in for IAF jet escort.
We phoned the other person to keep our relative at the Steimatsky book store and maybe find a good fiction tale to keep her relaxed as we waited for the green light to move forward. The police began to open the gates of the airport road and we started the ignition of the car to move forward. Oy vey, the lights had been on, the radio was on, the army radio satellite device was on, the alarm to the car was on, and now the car could not be started.
The police opened the access to the airport and this driver was responsible in closing the access road to the airport. The cars honked and G-d sent a taxi driver whom we know that happened to be entering the airport to pick up his passenger. He looked at this writer standing near the hood in search of jumper cables. He stopped and loaned the cables but could not start the car since his taxi was an electronic system.
In three minutes after the taxi driver left us the cables, another car pulled over and on the offramp area as tens of cars passed us, he was able to pull side by side and hook the borrowed taxi driver's cable to the battery drained vehicle made in Japan. The car got its spark and off we were to the terminal where by now our guest had read three books.
As we passed the checkpoint of the airport, we saw the F16s flying away back to their base. On the side of the road, there were 10 men who parked their cars off the security clearance area and began to pray Mincha.
The newscasters were reporting 10 injured, 20 injured, 30 injured in Tel Aviv. The only one dead was the terrorist who got out with Olmert's brilliant move to permit 20,000 terrorists to come into Israel to work last week.
It only took one terrorist to do the damage today, but since the old Tel Aviv bus station was near poorer Jews, foreign workers, and other members of society not associated with Herzliya and Ramat Hasharon, the news stations began to downplay the terrorist act.
At 8 30pm after 30minutes of footage of the IAF planes over the airport and terror venue review on the news, the Macabbi Tel Aviv team took to the court in the Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv to play against a Serbian basket ball team. The introduction on national live TV brought out each player with rock and roll music. The games will continue as three Tel Aviv hospitals are treating 32 injured people.
Hebron, Going to War Against the Jews, I've Had Enough (Chief of Staff Halutz), EL AL plane escort for fear of a hijacking due to no communication for 4 minutes, terror in Tel Aviv (not a settlement town), championship basketball, and now it was time to catch a Maariv in downtown Efrat.
It was just another Israeli day. And now, mercifully, night.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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