Tel Aviv Rooftop

Just seen the hard-hitting Israeli film Ajami, named after a neighbourhood in Yaffo a few minutes drive from the rooftop. Ajami tackles the plight of young Arabs, like those in the photo above, caught up in a tangled mess of crime gangs bound to an Arab honour system all intertwined with social exclusion from Jewish society, the occupation, the differences separating 'Israeli Arabs' from Palestinians over the Green Line and even the sharp class and religious differences between Christian and Moslem Arabs in Israel. All this is wrapped up in a rivetting and complex drama that leaves the viewer stunned. Yaffo In one scene inthe film, one of the Arab characters who has a Jewish girlfriend, says he is going to move in with her in Neve Tzedek. But Neve Tzedek is out of reach and he ends up overdosing. Flea market Yaffo The version we saw was in Hebrew influenced Arabic with Hebrew subtitles but I'm sure it'll come out in an English version abroad. Go and see it.

A succah on the balcony of an old house on Rehov Lilienblum, a spit away from the rooftop. In the background one of the luxury residential towers still under construction. Succot . In Tel Aviv, as all over Israel, religious and not so religious people, erect a succah or booth or 'tabernacle' in their back gardens or on their balconies and spend time there during the week long Succot festival. The custom derives directly from the bible. "In Leviticus , God told Moses to command the people: “On the first day you shall take the product of hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook” (Lev. 23:40), and “You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt ” (Lev. 23:42-43). Why God should want future generations to know that he made his people live in booths remains a mystery...