Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Business as Usual in Tel Aviv

I can't say that people have changed their routines here in Tel Aviv. Of course, everyone has a friend or family member in the North, and many people are hosting relatives who have fled south. One of my friends is currently having two of her sisters (plus children) staying at her house, together with her mom. The only person not there is the father who is taking care of the family's chicken farm, which is in katyusha range.

At the shuq here the vendors were selling as briskly as ever, and the mood was not terribly different from normal. Of course some of the vendors worked the war into their banter. One man pitching mangos and apricots told me that the "tsfonim" (lit. people from the North, but also slang for fashionable, yuppie types) had been buying from him all day, that they had left everything in Haifa to come to Tel Aviv. Also, apparently the fact that there is a war going on is an incentive to buy more tomatoes - or maybe some people will try anything to convince you to get your vegetables from them.

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