Jaffa

On Friday I hung around Jaffa - the ancient city at the heart of Tel Aviv. Old Jaffa itself is very small and a lot of it has been modernized to various degrees, but it still has some of that Old Timey Bible feel. It boasts the supposed house of Simon the Tanner (closed for renos, of course) where Peter had a dream and decided that Gentiles could be followers of Christ. Not really an A-list Bible story, but kind of a big deal for Gentile Christians like myself, when you think about it.


It's a bit weird walking down a street and thinking "Peter must have walked here", but I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to feel about it all. In this case, at least, I was less struck by the fact that this is where [event] happened than by the idea that this is a bit like what it might have looked and felt like when it happened. Jesus would have walked down narrow stone streets like this one. He would have picked fruit from trees like these ones. He would have complained about the heat and looked for dry patches on his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his face like I do. And sometimes when I look around little phrases spring to mind like "By their fruit you will know them" or "A bruised reed he will not break" and I imagine the first hearers of those words looking around and seeing the same reeds, the same fruits. I like that. And I like the tension between those two verses.


On Saturday I walked around Tel Aviv, which apparently has more Bauhaus architecture than any other city in the world - certain neighborhoods are called The White City. It's not too exciting, but it has a refreshing kind of purity.


Tel Aviv also has lovely beaches, cool old ethnic districts, many interesting smells (mostly variations on garbage and pee), and some quality graffiti.