VC Speaks Out: Healthy Israel

There is something distinctly healthy about Israel and it's people.

Public spaces are manicured, men are manicured, even DOGS are manicured. The food seems to always be fresh, the weather good, and the people, pets, and parks, just healthy in general.

To start: the food. There is nothing striking about Israeli cuisine -- it's not unique in any way, from what I've observed. It's not like going to France or Italy where you have distinct and intricate national cuisines. What makes the food here so good is that whatever it is you ARE getting, it will be VERY fresh and well-done. You can taste it in things as simple as the breads and cheeses, but like I said in my blog entry about Big Mama's, I saw it with the pasta as well, the food here is just GOOD.

Connecting food and people: NO ONE HERE IS FAT. I mean, no one. Like -- not a single person. I looked around at Big Mama's, which was PACKED, and out of maybe 100 people ranging in age from 19 to 60, NO ONE was the least bit out of shape (let alone fat or obese).

Imagine the carefree and healthy glow of Mediterranean people, like in Italy, combined with Soviet Union Olympic everything genetics, and that's what Israel is. I always knew Israeli's were hot, because we had so many at Columbia, but I feel like all my friends (eh-HEM, Dr. Juicy!) looking unsuccessfully for Mr. Jewish USA should drop it and just come to Israel. I have to say that the people, although perfectly-formed, all have a bit of a hard edge to their look (there is a severity to their features, bodies, AND style -- with dreadlocks and kind of grunge/funk being particularly in...all with a military aftertaste) which makes the men particularly hot and the women a tad masculine (I know you thank me for my generalizations lol), so for all you men looking for cute Jewish girls in NYC -- stick to NYC (I heard Park Slope has at least one really hot one), but SERIOUSLY Israeli men are hot. I can't even rave about it enough lol.

To expand on the idea of a healthy society, though, I tried to think about why it is that I wasn't annoyed by the children in the art museum's Kadishman exhibition, why I didn't feel a tinge of annoyance when the waiters at Riff Raff smoke and talk loudly in a language I don't understand, and why even last night I wasn't annoyed/threatened by the masses of Israeli (and other) youth, and I think that it's because there is a placidity here, and a kind of ease of social interaction (that comes with the logical observance of basic social norms -- eg: respect to others and their personal space, pleasantness in customer service, etc.) that is totally lacking in Egypt. In Egypt, children aren't as well-behaved, the waiters talking loudly are not talking with a cadence that indicates calm or jovial conversation, but rather argument/frustration/complaint, and the youth are not free, they are aggressive. I felt a similar thing in Afghanistan: for all the supposed fierceness of a constantly-warring nation, there is NOTHING aggressive about the way people deal with each other in normal social interactions, and while the argument could be made that in Egypt, I'm the aggressive one, it's because I'm responding to a palpable aggressivity in the society that has everyone scrambling over each other for recognition/service/entry, etc.

I also decided that you can judge the health of a society, in part, by its stance on pets (correcting for cultural differences, of course): all the dogs when they are being walked (and EVERYONE seems to have dogs!) in Israel always have a smile, and I feel like I can really see why so many people came here to build (as they continue to do) a really well-functioning society.

Now, I'm functioning only on the healthy, and the unhealthy deserves a LOT of attention, too (I plan to blog about that next), but for now this is what I was thinking. It's similar to the feeling Curie and I had in Carthage, which is that you can go to Israel and be just sort of middle class and lead a PERFECTLY happy, relaxed, dignified, and comparatively worry-free life -- the same CANNOT be said of Manhattan, or Cairo. I think I crave a place where people can just relax into their lives and just live and interact in a kind of easy and non-defensive or survival-oriented way (ironic, since this state was BUILT upon the notion that they had to defend themselves and survive or face extermination...again).

VC