Customer relations

I was talking to Jeff tonight, in between laughing over an extreme game of pool, trying not to think about Tel Aviv yesterday (two helicopters flying out in the direction of Lebanon every 30 minutes, two flying back) and a looooooooong but seriously good conversation with Rachel.

I won't report what Rachel and I were discussing. I asked for & received Jeff's permission to blog this story, though:

Jeff's in-laws are visiting right now, from somewhere overseas. Yesterday the visitors bought a brand new bicycle for a child in the Israel branch of the family, and Jeff phoned his regular taxi driver Mahmoud to ferry folks and bike to where the child lives. Mahmoud duly arrived, lifted the bicycle into the trunk, and then found he couldn't shut the lid. So they were casting around looking for some rope to tie down the trunk, and Mahmoud quickly spotted something that would do the trick.

All over Jerusalem right now there are strings of Israeli flags tied to balconies and bannisters, remnants of the Independence Day celebrations a couple of months back. Mahmoud tore one of these strings of flags from Jeff's neighbour's fence, stripped the flags off it and triumphantly tied down the trunk.

Now Jeff is a big guy by Israel standards; he's pretty muscular with it, and he's intensely patriotic - particularly right now, what with the missiles and the helicopters and the call-up and all. Mahmoud got off lightly - only words were exchanged - but he also lost a customer on the spot for his resourceful, but less than thoughtful, moment.

Whether he understood why, is an entirely different matter...

The prevailing mood back in Tel Aviv is very different to the mood in Jerusalem. In J-town, you wouldn't know there was a war on. True, there are little clues, like the TVs in public places being continually turned to the news channel, and the newspapers barely mention any other subject, and the helicopter landing pad by the Knesset is used more frequently than normal (but not on Shabbat), but apart from the first day - when everyone trickled into the bar late, stunned and grim-faced - there's been nothing more evident than a kind of quiet resolve at the back of everything.

In Tel Aviv it's a different story. Several people there expressed surprise that I hadn't left the country the moment the conflict started; to be honest I think if I'd been based in Tel Aviv I might have been frightened into doing exactly that, as much by the 'feel' of the community as by the horrible knowledge of what those pairs of helicopters, every half hour coming and going, can do. The Tel Aviv crowd are convinced the fighting will escalate; they anticipate missile attacks on every town in Israel, and they're nervous.

You don't hear people talk like that in Jerusalem.

In Tel Aviv, Gal told me (fairly casually) that he'd been called up twice and had it cancelled at the last moment - I can only guess at the disruption that caused his business - but he knew the real thing was imminent. Less than 12 hours after that conversation, I read that the IDF had received the go-ahead to call up 5000 reservists; I know Gal will be among that first wave, he'll be on his way to either Lebanon or Gaza by now. Hopefully the first wave will be the only wave, and the Jerusalem crew (mostly younger, and less experienced as soldiers) won't be following him any time soon.