Kaleidoscop #culture #world #travel

The past & present in JERUSALEM   In Jerusalem, one can almost see the fine lines that separate the different cultures and more so, the different origins of the Jewish community... and I don't only mean the old town, with its various quarters: Muslim, Jewish, Armenian etc., where one can expect those visible boundaries, but the "new" neighborhoods.  Walking across several Jewish ultra orthodox areas (Mea shearim, Geula) was quite an experience: the passersby all wearing the customary clothes made one feel like an intruder (which I was, in spite of the best possible intentions)…  I would look through the windows of the traditional bakeries offering Ashkenazi (thus Eastern European) pastry and encounter surprised looks… I obviously represented a different reality, while the entire streets belonged to the past, with the walls covered in the typical poster-messages addressed to the community and the families shopping for dinner… The same feeling ove...

Thoughts on a journey to TEL AVIV & JERUSALEM  I just hate black and white. Not the movies, but the concept. And there's not only 1 type of grey, either: there are only shades - of all possible colors. Period. That's why I wanted to come to Israel and see life here with my own eyes, ignoring the biased propaganda some European newspapers practice on a daily basis. Because I knew for a fact that the public policy of a state can seriously differ from the practicalities, its inhabitants and daily life in general. But one must experience that first hand. By traveling, observing, trying to grasp that microcosm.  That's the reason I hadn't even try to imagine how a journey to Israel would be like - keeping in mind the tumultuous and controversial background of that territory, my own writings and interview/encounter with the Jewish Community in Berlin, I preferred to dive into that new reality, to become immersed… to observe and listen to wh...