Old Grey Goose International : Israel Journal

Friday, July 4, 2008 - Day Four

Today is a day off for most schools and businesses, because the Sabbath (Shabbat) begins at sundown and ends 24 hours later on Saturday evening. Shabbat is a day of rest and spiritual enrichment. Orthodox Jews do not use any equipment, cars, phones, etc. during the Sabbath. Elevators at certain hotels are set to stop at all floors so that patrons are not required to operate the machinery.

We were able to catch up on sleep this morning before leaving for our only performance of the day at the HED College of Contemporary Music in Tel Aviv. They offer a BA degree and are affiliated with Oklahoma City University in the US. Founded ten years ago, they currently enroll about 150 students. Their director Yehvda Cohen is a great guy. He studied at Berklee College of Music, among other places. He says that only at his school can a student play classical music in the morning, attend a jazz workshop in the afternoon, spend some additional time producing music electronically, and then attend a folk concert in the evening. He likes his students to be well rounded and to understand the similarities between different types of music as well as the differences. He also requires his students to understand and play Arab music in order to inspire cultural appreciation in the “neighborhood.”

Yehvda introduced us in a basement club that is used for performances. A jazz band had preceded us upstairs and the entire day had been focused on American Independence Day. We played for an hour and a half and were blessed with an excellent sound man. We talked a lot about the music we play, as well as its varied origins.

The audience was interested in our casual presentation, and one fellow told Jeff that he had never been to Maine but could just imagine us sitting on the back porch of a farm playing this kind of music.

Yehvda offered us refreshments and gave us some CD’s following the show. This was the last day of University for the year, and we were the final performance of the day. We wished the students well with their studies and thanked them for their enthusiastic reception.

Another Embassy employee, named Zeba, attended our performance. She is Iraqi and did her undergraduate work at the University of Vermont. She is married to a Jew, and this is her second tour in Israel. It was comforting to hear her say that she is still trying to get her mind around the complexities here. I look forward to speaking with her more during the tour in order to get her perspective on current events.

We had dinner at a wonderful Arab restaurant. The only thing we had to order was which kind of fish we wanted (they brought out four varieties to show us). For starters they filled the table with about twenty dishes (all delicious), including humus, baba ganouch, tabouli, spicy shredded carrots, pickled peppers and cabbage, cucumber salad, tahini, tomatoes, olives, two kinds of bread and falafel.

The atmosphere was great and the clientele was almost entirely Arab. Service was extraordinary. For a main course, most of us had sea bass with a lemon/garlic sauce, fresh from the Mediterranean. There was some debate around the table as to how polluted the Sea may be, but the fish was nevertheless excellent.

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