The sea, the lovely sea

Huge waves crash onto the beach, strong winds and grey storm clouds above, drama.
Yet reality is slightly less pleasant. Since yesterday the Tel Aviv Jaffa municipal sewage company allows raw sewage to flow directly into the sea. Signs have been put up along the beaches to warn potential swimmers against it, "for the sake of their health".

The fish are reportedly very happy too.

Peres Center for Peace about to be inaugurated

On the beach (and that's much less than 300 meters from the water line - by law no construction should be allowed) and next to Jaffa's ancient Muslim grave-yard a weird looking construction, designed by a couple of Italian architects, the Fuksas, (were there no Israeli or, heaven forbid, Palestinian architects?) has been going up over the last several years, overlooking the lovely Mediterranean: The Peres Center for Peace.

Another neighbour of the center is the "Shem HaGdolim"/"Kedem 163" public housing estate, the worst one in Jaffa (and we have quite a collection of shitty public housing estates - thanks once more, Halamish)
A neighbour rather less quiet than the sea, even on a stormy day.

The greenish stripy building does not fit in and looks "not belonging". Sometimes contrast works. Not so, in this case. A colonialist presence looking oppressive rather than inviting. It does not say "dialogue" but "fuck off", having an open face (and obviously a beautiful view when you look out from the inside), only towards the sea. Towards the street and the heavy construction looks closed off, locked, like a safe, windowless, doorless, forbidding instead of inviting.
The spot is lovely, but the building doesn't interact with it. It's closed off to our neighbourhood of open doors and windows, of strong light and air.

A more important question is, of course, whether we will interact with the building, or rather, what will be going on inside it: an auditorium, a research library (will they be open to us, mere and simple neighbours?) . We have not been invited to the ceremony, which is supposed to take place between October 26-28, 2008.
Perhaps we should invite ourselves. After all, parties in Jaffa tend to be public, not so?

Oh, and i just wonder. they did not construct a parking place, so i guess they will be using the one belonging to our beach, which will , so i guess, become privatised for the events which will ofcourse be heavily guarded. Just guessing the last part....

Six trees, the Janosh Korchak park, perhaps a grave or two and Dankner, THE Dankner

Susan contacted me: "they are uprooting the trees next to my home", she said. The little park at the crossing of Toulouse and Korchak streets in Jaffa.
My first reaction was one of not comprehending. I know that little park. Sometimes i sit there, below the trees to read a book, or think and watch the sea.
My friend Halil owns a plot there, inherited from his late aunt, although it appears it was sold to the Dankner family in a some sort of deal and not by the inheritor and actual owner, Halil.
I wonder if i should mention it here, i cannot afford to be sued by the Dankners.

So: it's what's being said, OK, not sure. Maybe someone stole the plot from Halil. It wouldn't be the first time, in Jaffa.

But the trees were being uprooted, that's for sure.
Adult "Eshel" trees. I don't know their name in English.
There is something so violent about uprooting a tree. They even had a permit for it, so the police couldn't interfere. All of the neighbourhood were outside, trying to prevent it. Some of them even stood in front of the bulldozer.
The Israel Land Authority (the so-called owners) want to build a road and a parking lot over there, so they came to uproot the trees. They stated they had informed the neighbours and "no one disagreed". Yeah right, only , all the neighbours were out there, and no one had heard anything about this plan. All they know is that it is supposed to be a park. So the Land Authority are lying, very simple. They did not inform anyone, because they expected to be stopped. They came over the holiday, so people wouldn't be able to stop them, as all offices and courts are closed.

For the time being the uprooting has been stopped. Who knows. When your name is Dankner you can pull a few.... Lawyer Tagrid Gahshan will assist the neighbours in filing a suite against the Israel Land Authority to stop further uprooting and the construction of a parking lot where there is a park right now.

Oh, and about the graves? Well, some people state the park is the site of an ancient burial site, making it unfit for building in the first place, at least according to tradition.

another article (in Hebrew)
and in English

Sweet water, orchards and memory

Jerusalem Boulevard is being prepared for the underground (which in Jaffa will be above ground) or light railway or whatever they want to call that train of long planning but little practice.

As a result, parts of the road are blocked for various preparations. Traffic jams are the obvious result and swearing drivers of short patience-span the unavoidable outcome.

During the works in the northern part of the boulevard archeological findings caused a further stop in order to investigate the nature of the findings; Apparently during the Byzantine period there were wells and pools for the irrigation of the orchards surrounding Jaffa at that time (way before the Orange of Jaffa fame was introduced).

Jaffa was a wealthy town due to its natural harbour, sweet water wells (now destryoed by our less than carefull use of water as well as pollution - almost no water well in Tel Aviv west of the Ayalon is usable) and good land.

The archeological findings surrounding the oldder parts of the town, which started expanding during the 19th century) all point to Jaffa's wealthy past.

It is said that in the past a small stream ran along what is now Jerusalem Boulevard. Perhaps. On old maps it is indicated.

Most drivers swear when they hear about yet another arechological dig (there's another one going on on a small street leading from Boustrous (or Raziel, if you prefer today's name) to "Dr. Leck".

I'm quite moved by them, excited. A little bit of the past. I wonder what archeologists in another 500 years or so will excavate and think of us :) with our plastic bottles, plastic bags and other bits of garbage to last eternity.

So What?

There were little brownish black things, scurrying away from the sudden light, as i opened the flour container this morning. I tend to buy flour, rice etc. in bulk, on the market, not wrapped up. It's cheaper that way. Besides, you see what you buy (or so i thought).

The price of wheat flour, corn, soy beans and other basic food will be going up sharply all over the world, so the media informed me this morning.
Once upon a time 1+1=2, but that was in first grade.
On a global scale, things appear to work rather differently; 1+1=6, if you control the supply chain and it happens to please you.

True, droughts here and there, floods somewhere else and climate change all over. Petrol prices going up and the use of bio-fuel becoming more attractive, thus turning valuable agricultural areas, previously used for food production, into bio-fuel land.

Because isn't that what this is all about? Large conglomerates taking over control, investing where it serves them best, driving up the price here and lowering it there, so they can take over yet a little more.
Local farmers becoming (often underpayed) farm employees, working on the same land on which they previously grew their own communities' food, growing crops serving far away communities' needs for bio-fuel or animal feed, while creating local food shortages.
Logistics and transport fees drive up the price of foreign crops exported/imported world wide.

Global shortages are artificially created, on order to drive up the price, while large stocks wait in warehouses just for that moment, when the price is right (or wrong, depending on your point of view).
Agricultural subsidies are cut thus serving international conglomerates rather than the local farmers and local markets.

Perhaps it is much better to control the basic food market world wide, in order to promise adequate food supply for all. But the conglomerates and their political cronies wouldn't like that, would they?

And on a more local level, i expect the price of the basic controlled food (milk, eggs, bread, flour, rice, soy bean oil etc.) to go up. They are creating the "right" (=wrong) climate for the price hike, explaining it's a world wide trend. Of course the country's poor will receive a small subsidy in the form of 2 NIS or some such, to be slowly added over the next few years, as compensation.
It will be presented as a true victory for "social justice".
I just love the newspeak of those "PR" professionals employed by Elite Strauss, Tnuva etc. etc and the politicians. "we have no choice to blah blah blah". Yeah right.

Shafdan Found Guilty

Last week, the "Shafdan" company was found guilty by the peace court of having seriously damaged Israel's marine environment some years ago.
They were fined 800.000 NIS, which is quite a pathetic joke, considering the extent of the damage done.
The Shafdan company is responsible for the waste water management in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. For many years, they did not bother to maintain Jaffa's rather ancient sewage pipe system, until, one hot summer day, the main pipe basically exploded. A 10 meter high pressure shit fountain was the result. Houses were flooded, cars swept away and the smell...
No words can describe it.
As repair was going to be a time-consuming business, they decided to simply chuck the metropolitan raw sewage directly into the the sea for a period of approximately 2 months. No swimming, no fishing, no beach and yes, the smell, that too.
Fishermen went broke, kids were frustrated and nobody asked the fish and other marine creatures what they felt about their environment.
The lovely azure water close to the beach looked sort of brownish for months.

The shafdan constructed an huge monster of an elevated sewage pipe in Jaffa, adorning our main boulevard for about a year, while laying a new permanent pipe system.

Sewage pipes don't simply crash one day, they crash when they are not properly maintained in an ongoing regular manner. But that was beyond the Shafdan management 's considerations, who, by the way, make huge salaries.
Irresponsible? Unprofessional? Insensitive? All of those, but, as the court decided, foremost criminal.

Zalul

Filth on Jaffa's Jabaliya ("Givat Aliya") Beach

The official bathing season opened a few days ago.
A lovely sunny day brought out many to Jaffa's beach yesterday. Families with children, young people around a water pipe, teenage boys with their dogs, scuba divers trying out their material. The atmosphere was relaxed, the sea quiet and the lifeguards enjoying an easy day; no big waves, no dangerous undertow.

The beach, however, is downright filthy. True, the large debris brought in by the storm some weeks ago, has been removed, but the sand is full of...
all kinds on things you do not want to step into or on top of. It's gross. And unhealthy.

Municipality? "Mishlama"? You guys awake? Time to do something! And while talking about the beach, lately there has been a lot of vandalism on the beach and the stairs leading towards the beach. Garbage cans have been broken, bannisters destroyed, graffiti. It looks quite horrid. It would have been nice if all of that had been repaired prior to the onset of the bathing season. But worse, it's also unsafe. A lot of kids go to the beach. Municipality guys, wake up!! Are you waiting until a small child falls through one of the big holes in the fences?

Rainbow Warrior vs Shafdan

The Greenpeace flagship the "Rainbow Warrior" anchored just outside of the Jaffa harbor, opposite the "Shafdan" sewage plant, quite close to the spot where the sewage flows from the shafdan pipes into sea on an almost daily basis.
Decorated with yellow signs saying "Let the Sun Shine", the Rainbow Warrior is visiting the Israeli shoreline with a message of peace and a nuclear-free zone.

In Jaffa the beach is filthier

Jaffa's beach used to be lovely, soft golden colored sand, clear blue green water, a few ancient rock beds and indeed, also today the view is breathtaking: huge waves, a dramatic sky with windswept rain-clouds. Yet coming a ilttle closer, the disaster becomes quite clear.
The beach is simply full of filth of all kinds.
In nearby Bat Yam as well as on the more northern beaches of Tel Aviv the respective municipalities clean the beach daily. They are well aware of its value and know the city's people will complain if the soft sand looks less than pristine.

As to Jaffa's beach? Who cares?
Well, we do, but the municipality doesn't. Mishlama guys are you listening?
Jabaliya beach! It's filthy!

The storm of the last days has washed up enormous amounts of filth, ranging from black gobs (crude oil?) dead fish, dead cats, huge amounts of plastic bottles and all manner of yucky things better not mentioned during dinner. In other parts of the city, the beaches are kept meticulously clean, in Jaffa not so. Walking the beach has become hazardous. Anybody out there?

Jaffa winter 2007

Landed aliens or what?

I love swimming, especially in the sea. Jellyfish are the one thing that can stop me from enjoying it.
Usually, during the hot summer months there are a few weeks, when jellyfish become abundant, and even entering the water can be unpleasant, stinging, burning. Also when you do not actually see any of them close by. Apparently they release their tentacles with the stinging substance in the surf close to the beach.
I've never seen the monsters in winter, until today, that is. Today's storm washed up over a hundred of them.
I agree, when in the water, they are amazing, elegant, fascinating (as long as they don't come close to my exposed skin) but once stranded they become... weird. they look a little like that gooey yucky stuff some little kids like to play with in order to gross out anyone not as little and fascinated by yucky stuff as them.
And the winter jellyfish appear to be of a different kind the the ones we see in summer. Even weirder. They are quite big (the large ones have a 70 cm diameter) and appear to be more fleshy, quite substantial, unlike the watery things washed ashore during the summer. They are quite heavy, unlike their summer cousins. And like i said, this is the first time i've seen any jellyfish during this period of the year. I tipped a few of them over, gently, i have no idea if the things are still alive and if so, if they can actually feel anything. Do they have brains? Nerves? Do they have some form of "awareness"? Do they feel pain? They are so different from the summer jellyfish. They weigh quite a bit.

Global warming? Ecological changes in marine life? Another balance upset?
I truly have no idea. It's a bit eerie, something that doesn't entirely fit in.

Action! Bike & Train

Please take a minute to sign the petition to allow bicycles on the trains in Israel as is done in the U.S., Europe and many countries in Asia.
This, together with bike paths to the train stations, and decent bike parking at the stations, is a very inexpensive way to reduce air pollution, reduce congestion on the highways and roads, reduce Israel's balance of trade deficit and improve Israel's quality of life.
The petition is sponsored by Israel Bicycle Association, an environmental group.

Please forward this to your friends and to email groups.

Fish anyone?

Fishing and Jaffa go hand in hand. Jaffa has been a fishermen's town for some 4000 years.
One wonders about the next 4000, or perhaps about the next 100 years or so.
My fishermen friends tell me there are less and less fish in the Mediterranean Sea.
Some fish types have almost completely disappeared.
Overfishing may have something to do with it, but so the fishermen say, there are other, more serious reasons for it.
One is the Suez Canal, whose waters and passing ships have brought all kinds of non-Medditerranean fish with it over the years. Another reason is the release of different poisons, the Shafdan's sludge among them. The food chain is easily disturbed. Delicate ecologically balanced systems have been torn apart and chainreactions bring about unexpected modifications in marine life, or perhaps, one should say, marine death.
It's not only the professional fishermen, going out of Jaffa harbor with their nets night after night, but also the guys sitting, patiently waiting for the fish to bite, saturday after saturday.
They catch less and what fish they catch, are small.
Normally after a storm there are many fish. After last weeks storm, there was much less than they expected.
Just bad luck, or don't we even have another 100 years of fish? Industrial waste, sewage from the big cities, tankers and yes, perhaps also over fishing. Anybody listening out there?
It's a pity the fish cannot scream. If they could, perhaps we would hear them.

This is not only about Jaffa, it's about our sea, our neighbor's sea. Everybody's sea.

Sea of Sludge

Our lovely sea and wonderful beaches, look better, much better, from a distance. Upon getting a little close, you might want to put a clip on your nose at some hours of the day and as to bathing.... or eating fresh sea fish, better think twice.

I often feel powerless, in face of the slow poisoning of the sea. Although there are different laws against it, these are rarely and only partially applied. Fines are ridiculously low, so it's cheaper to pay a fine now and then, than to actually solve the problem.
In Tel Aviv and Jaffa the problem is accute. My fishermen friends tell me many fish have completely disappeared and this has nothing to do with over-fishing.
If it's bad for the fish it's bad for us. The strange thing is, that there actually are solutions available. It is absolutely unnecessary to poison the sea. Sewage can be dealt with in many ways. Some might look expensive on the short run, however, on the long run, killing off the sea is far more expensive.
On the short run there obvioulsy appear to be certain conflicts of interest, but do we really want to tell our future grandchildren that once upon i time you could go swimming in the sea and there were real fish in it?

So, some of you people, my readers, have contacted me over time saying they want to do something about it. This is your chance:

The coming meeting of Tel Aviv's "Green Forum" will take place on February 13th at 19.00 at the offices of the Society for the Protection of Nature at 85 Nahalat Benyamin Street in Tel Aviv. the meeting will be dedicated to our beaches and what we want (and do not want).
The ideas and wishes expressed during the meeting will form the basis for an alternative plan.

It really depends on us.



And for a little more information about what's happening to our beaches and water quality:
article by Karin Kloosterman

No fishing, no bathing nor swimming

They're at it once more: the sewage management authorities for Tel Aviv and Herzliyah are releasing those cities' shit into the sea once more, by permission.

Yep, in order to carry out maintainance of the sewage system, they will be releasing the untreated waste into the sea today and tomorrow and they received permission for those acts, while warning the public not to bathe in the sea the next few days.
I admit it is cold, but some people do swim also when it's cold, a lot of people like surfing especially when the waves are good, never mind the cold.
And others fish, for fun or for a living.
When ongoing maintenance is carried out on a regular basis, using robots an other advanced methods as well as proper planning (and maintenance) of back-up systems, there is no need for messing up the sea. But who cares about the sea...
The waste management authorities simply make an announcement not to swim in the sea during the next two days and that apparently makes it OK. When the cat is put in charge of safeguarding the cream...
Last summer i read a research on the quality of the beach sand on Tel Aviv's beaches (i don't recall the exact source, but a little googling will certainly help you). Although it looks clean, white and beautiful and feels soft, it was found to be full of bacteria, shit bacteria, e-colli.
So next time you take our toddler to build a sandcastle, you've been warned.

Ofcourse no one talks about long term damage, but that's quite normal here.

The king is dead, long live the king?

Milton Friedman died. I'm not an economist and didn't study much beyond an introduction "101" course in economics.

However, I'm a trained photographer, i have good eyes, i'm an observer (some will say a peeping Tom) by nature. I watch, i see, i wonder and i ask questions.

The enthusiastically embraced so-called free market economy introduced by Bibi and co has done very well for co (read: owners and shareholders of big companies).
But rather less so, for those who are no part of "co". Indeed, the "co's" freedom has increased. Freedom to move money where ever it is most worth while, freedom from paying taxes cooked up by their accountants and wisely invested in offshore easy tax economies. When they need government investment in their business (in the form of grants and tax exemptions as well as a very easygoing policy of disregard of ecological problems, labor agreements or selling their products to regimes with bad human rights records etc.) they have their close friends high up the political ladder.
Whenever it becomes cheaper to manufacture elsewhere (Egypt, Jordan, China where ever) they are also very free: the productions lines are quickly replaced, all temporary employment agency employees sent home with or without their last payments. Goodbye to the investments, made by the government with your and my money. It's a free market after all. And it is more profitable to produce elsewhere.
Of course there should be no taxes on imports, so the cheaply now elsewhere produced products flood the local market and local manufacturers close down. On the short run, some of us even have a feeling of wealth, as suddenly we can buy foreign elsewhere cheaply produced stuff for low prices.
For else where read e.g. China with its lovely employment conditions and "green" ecology record.

Previously nationally owned companies (meaning yours and mine) have been sold to "big money" for a fraction of their true value. The new owners, all friends of our politicians, earn fantastic amounts of money, while doing what they want, disregarding the law on 101 ways, because they can (e.g. see the movie "Shvita" "Strike", on what happens at Dimona's chemical factory).
On the run they also waste terrific amounts of Israel's national resources, water, clean air, phosphates etc., but no one seems to care very much.

The income gap is ever increasing, more and more people live below the poverty line and services previously provided to all by the government are more and more privatized, thereby becoming less and less available to an increasing group of people.

The Lebanon war showed this clearly: the weak, elderly and poor were left on their own (read lack of food, lack of medical care etc. etc.) , in badly equipped or non existing bomb shelters) while the more wealthy had to find their own way to evacuate, and the poorer ones among them ended up in Gaidamek's private tent camp.

This is not a temporary by-product, but the direct and planned outcome of the economic "free" market policy of the last several governments.
Free? Free for whom?

When one out of every three children in Israel live below the poverty line, that is NOT freedom.
Being poor implies spending most of your time and energy on mere survival. Not having enough money for very basic things, such as decent housing, food, good schooling.
Poverty in Jaffa is staggering.
Lately i assisted a few families by accompanying them to the court in order to go bankrupt (i do some assisting in a Jaffa community advocacy project)
One of the limits of a bankruptcy procedure is that you cannot leave the country for at least a few years. Nor can you normally operate a bank account, meaning no credit card, no cheques etc.
For many of us these would be serious limitations on the way we live and our freedom to move. Yet for those few poor families it means nothing. They have never been abroad and do not expect to go there in any case. Many have never even owned a credit card. They are so poor they think twice about taking the bus downtown. They haven't seen the inside of a cafe or restaurant for years (unless it was as cleaner or waitress). They are forced to work through employment agencies (yes, many of our poor are employed and work in fact very hard) for often below legal wages and under bad conditions.

Every now and then their houses are invaded by the hotza'a lapoal who carry away their few belongings, to be sold in order to cover their ever increasing debts. Sometimes they are even arrested, for a debt of 2000 NIS (but that is a lot of money when you have to feed yourself with an income of 770 NIS a month). Is that "freedom"?

"Why do they have debts?" you ask. Because their wages are to low to survive. Their social security payments have been cut again and again. Yet housing. electricity, water, food, health and education cost more and more and more.
There is no way they cannot go into debt. Is that freedom?

They are the "see through" people, their freedom is so limited by their poor conditions, the "freedom limiting conditions" of a bankruptcy process don't limit them at all, they never had those freedoms.

Poverty is a crime committed against the poor by the affluent decisions makers and corporate world in our society. The poor lack basic freedom, the freedom to live a normal healthy life. That lack of freedom is perhaps one of the worst forms of social injustice prevalent in today's Israeli society.

Milton Friedman died, I truly hope his ideas will die with him, but i know that won't be the case. Freedom exists for the wealthy, and they are the new kings.

The Jaffa Conference, 2006

It is difficult to discuss coexistence or cooperation between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel, when 20 people in Bet Hanoun (the Gaza Strip) died as a result of an Israeli artillery shell, a war crime.
How can Jaffa's only knesset member, the Palestinian MK Nadia Hilu possibly cooperate and be part of the coalition party, when ultra rightwing Ivet Liberman has become a minister.
The two events happened in the same week.
The Jaffa Arab Jewish Community Center has a lovely view of the sea. The weather is nice and sunny, the area is quiet.
Some 130 people sit together, in order to participate in a discourse concerning life in the "mixed cities".
During the first sessions panel members highlight certain aspects led by an incredibly overbearing and self satisfied Dr. Eli Peled, who instead of facilitating a discourse, takes up most of the time for presenting his own rather right-wing views, until several people in the public make their voice heard. But there no longer is time for a true discourse.
The conference is strange. After all, the majority of the participants LIVE in these cities, are aware of the problems and have been thinking about solutions. Instead the panel states the same things we have heard before and very few new ideas arise.
The new CEO of the Mishlama was there, another non-Jaffa ex air force buddy of mayor Ron Hulday.
Less than 15 minutes are left for the public's questions and ideas. The few members of the public who were allowed to talk (hell, where did they find that Peled guy?) pointed out the need for affirmative action. Palestinian Jaffaites should not only work in low level positions, but in all functions in the municipality, and that should include in functions in which they define policies and manage Jewish employees, not just as clerks serving the Arab population.
Sad to hear the new mishlama guy point out "Ahmad shelanu" ("our Ahmad", i guess he mean Ahmad Balahe, the ONLY Palestinian employed in a mid level mishlama position, the rest are cleaners and simple clerks).By using that term "our Ahmed" he said more than he intended.
Sad, sad, these guys seem to conceive of their function in Jaffa as a starting point, a jumping board so to say, in their careers, instead of a true aim and goal. So sad.
The next item on the program was Colette Avital, "the first woman candidate for president".
I don't see any connection between her and Jaffa.
I really didn't feel like listening to MK Collette Avital, so i used that time to get an update ex-camera info setting on some of the stuff that is currently happening in Jaffa.
The next session concerning NGO's was somewhat better, but also left me very depressed. True, there are about 60 NGO's in Jaffa and there is a certain level of wasted of resources, and a lack of coordination now and then.
But there are reasons for that, and solutions are not simple.

By its end i started to wonder what the hell i was doing in this conference. It seems more like a kind of "oh we are so nice" sort of meeting, in which we Jaffaites are serving as a picturesque background, than as a place where action can be planned. The public was silenced again and again.

Due to work commitments, yours truly needs to do some work now and then to pay the rent after all, i couldn't stay during the afternoon session, which was dedicated to the possible cooperation between the Waqf in different places, in relation to the safeguarding of Muslim religious places.
It's a pity i missed it.

But the truth? The part of the conference in which i participated was not very relevant, shallow and not at all geared towards solution seeking or thinking. I felt used as a background for some people needing to show they are doing something.

Not a success.

The beach? Well, it's gone, sort of

Over night a large stretch of Jaffa beach has simply disappeared. Gone, an ex-beach.

May i introduce to you: About 15 M wide and at places more than 75 cm deep, Jaffa's latest sewer.

A few year ago a strange little building was contructed at the southern end of the Al Ajami beach, just below the ancient Muslim cemetary. During the sumer it looks somewhat strange, out of place.
During the winter its function became clear:
It's nothing but a huge sewer, supposedly providing drainage to the always flooded area (after the torrential winter rains) of "Pardes Dakeh" and other low laying areas in Jaffa and south Tel Aviv.
But this is not surplus rrain water, we are talking about, by smell and look, it's raw sewage, coming from "somewhere".
Last year, it produced a small stream, deep, a little disgusting, but something you could simply jump over on your beach walks.
This year the situation is completely different. The strong current has taken away a huge stretch of beach: instead we have a river of smelly black debris-flooded water.
The waves carry the debris back to the beach, so all of our beach is littered with an assorted amount of what, in order not to completely gross out my four steady readers, i will call "garbage" (the understatement of the century, if you like).
I suspect someone in the municipality or at the "Shafdan" sewage plant decided to pull a few switches in order to releave the presssure here or there elsewhere, up north, thinking ofcourse that "well, the shit flows to Jaffa, so who cares, nobody will notice it anyway".

It took away a big stretch of beach and the southern part of our beach can only be reached by climbing over slippery rocks, as crossing the 75cm deep, 15 mr wide shitcreek is not something one likes ot consider.

Even in rainy weather like this, there always are some swimmers, surfers and beach walkers, who come day in day out, unable to do without the sea.
We just stood there, in shock.
No one even thought about going into the water.

Raining, it's raining

Why does rain always take us by "surprise"?

Streets flooded because the drainage-system is clogged somewhere, traffic lights failing, people triple parking thereby blocking the street, because they do not want to walk too far and get wet etc.

Tel Aviv has been covered by asfalt and concrete, rain water can no longer be absorbed by the earth, as is the natural course of things.

Rainwater is not gathered anywhere, although it might be a great solution to save it in this very dry country.

It appears the municipality nor anybody else really take responsibility for this kind of problems.

Roads are washed away, their pavements simply taken apart.
The same thing happens every year.
So are we just plain stupid (by refusing to learn from experience) or do we always think it is not our responsibility, someone in another depratment of the municipality, ma'atz or whever should take care of the problem.

No shit,... well, actually, a lot of it

The brilliant minds of the ministry of transportation have done it again.

The Ayalon river (that's the stinking little stream in the middle of the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv) is to be turned into a railway, to cater to the increased train traffic coming in from Lod.

Wonderful, public transport is green and i am all in favor of good public transport, but...

Guess what they want to do with the stinking waters of the Ayalon river (that is, the stinking filthy, horrid sewer aka "Nahal Ayalaon")?

You guessed it, it will be diverted to Jaffa, to our wonderful Ajami beach, where it will quietly flow into the meditarranean where its odorous waters will kill off the bathers and the fish.

NO NO NO, not in my backyard and not on my beach either! We have enough nimby's in Jaffa and south Tel Aviv.

Ecology is a matter of social justice.
They want to improve traffic from Lod? Fine. They want to divert the Ayalon river? What will it do to the ecological system of its natural course?
Or maybe clean it up?
Why to Jaffa?
Why not, let's say , to Rishon leZion? To Bat Yam? Ah, because the Rishon & Bat Yam people don't like it? It will do damage to their beach? It will affect the value of their housing? Surprise surprise, we in Jaffa don't like it either.

We have a small, but lovely, beach. We like to swim, to surf, to bath, to fish, to walk & to jog, to picknick, to dance and do capoeira on our beach. We do NOT like bad smells, poisonous water, filth, mud and sewage. And dead fish stink.

Don't even think of it, we will fight you, this means WAR

Ghost of a bike

Officially the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality claims to have a "pro bike" ideology and not for the first time they have organized a bike festival of sorts at the "sporteque" in north Tel Aviv. They also prepared a special "bike routes map" of Tel Aviv which, wonder of wonder, is being handed out for free.

But that is, so it seems, as far as they will go.

Biking is healthy, cheap, no problem with traffic jams and until recently, no parking problems either.
(That is, no problem to find a parking space, there is always a lamp post, a tree or some other piece of "street furniture" to which to connect your bike with a heavy chain lock, but when those are lacking you stand a fair chance to loose your bike to one of the many thieves. UNTIL NOW...

Yediot reported today that the Tel Aviv municipality has started to tow away bikes!!
They send a "pakah", a sort of municipal policeman with a big cutter, to cut through the lock and then a tow car comes to pick up the bike and tow it somewhere.

In order to get your bike back, you have to pay a fine (for obstructing the public space or some sort of offence like that.)
To the best of my knowledge there is no accepted & legal traffic sign stating you may not park you bike somewhere.
There are not enough bike park "thingies" in the city (in Jaffa there are none) so what are you supposed to do?

Don't these municipal police have something else to do?

And if you find your bike stolen, should you assume it stolen by the municipal police?
How can you prove your bike is yours by the way?

Weird....