I remember when....
This is from an article about the security situation in Judea and Samaria. Avital, the Ofra spokesman, remembers the days in the 1980s before the outbreak of the first intifada when she and her neighbors would go to Ramallah on a daily basis -- something no one has done in years.Indeed.
"We would go to the banks there for the shorter lines, get our prescriptions filled in the pharmacies. If our local grocery store ran out of challah on a Friday, I knew I could pop into the supermarket in Ramallah and find Angel challot there," she said, referring to the challah made by a well-known Jerusalem bakery.
Mrs. Carl and I were married in Israel in 1981 and one of our Sheva Brachoth (the celebrations held every night during the week after the wedding) was in Ofra. We rented a car the morning after the wedding and at the appointed time we drove to Ofra in our unprotected rented car (something that no one regarded as dangerous back then).
Even then, the Arabs enjoyed removing road signs and we ended up wandering through Ramallah and its neighboring wealthy suburb El-Bireh. Eventually, someone drove out and found us (there were no cell phones in those days) and led us to Ofra.
Today, there is a bypass road to Ofra, and I prefer the bus to driving there in our unprotected car.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:47 AM
3 Comments:
When Israel defeated the First Intifada, things looked brighter than they were for decades... until the Israeli Left decided to use Arabs and Jews as their guinea pigs in a disastrous experiment for which both sides are still paying to this very day.
What could go wrong indeed
I remember Israelis and busloads of Jewish tourists buying food, drinks and souvenirs in Jericho, Bet Lechem and Hevron.
I remember shopping the the shuk in the Old City without feeling the need to watch your back.
In 1987, I rode on the back of a Vespa with 2 other people on it and some luggage! (Tweetoh, if you are reading this, you know who you are!) through Rafiach all the way to the border crossing and back. Stayed at Yeshivat Yamit (the second*) while working at a nearby Kibbutz (Bnei Azmon/Azmonah) for a few weeks.
Mark
* Has anyone built a third Yeshivat Yamit yet? I haven't heard.
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