The view from my hotel room at the David Intercontinental is stellar, the expanse of the city laid at my feet, the glorious Mediterranean as far as I can see. This is the "money shot" so many hotels try to offer. I sit here watching the sunrise thinking, someday I would love to live here. The world outside seems idyllic.
Without a little study it would be hard to know of its true history, built from day one out of the strife between Arabs and Jews. Its original goal to make a land stake that would prevent the Jews from expanding what would become Tel Aviv into the Arab portions of Jaffa. From day one its basis was hate, to keep out those different, to make a statement about who belongs. Since then it has been the scene of many hate crimes and strife between Muslims and Jews. Its history makes me stop and think. How can human beings create something so beautiful into something so ugly? How can religion be used as such a weapon?
The tears I start shedding thinking of the history and pain this building represents are nothing compared to the utter helplessness and pain I feel as I realize what the shell of a building across the street from the mosque is. I have been there before, but it takes me a few moments to realize this is the remains of the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium. Once Israel's own little sea world, the complex once upon a time also housed the Pacha nightclub and a disco. The faded name Pacha is still visible from my room.
The building is being slowly deconstructed, someday it will be replaced by a hotel or a park, but there will always be a stone marker at the site. A marker to remember 21 young lives lost and 100's more changed.
On June 1, 2001 the disco and nightclub were the scene of one of the most deadly suicide bombings in Israeli history. As a crowd of 15-21 year olds, many originally from Russia, gathered to celebrate, a Palestinian joined the line that was forming to enter the disco and detonated the bomb he was concealing.
The people he killed were not soldiers who might cause him or his family harm, they had nothing to do with deciding his "right of return", they had never voted for either country's leaders. They were just innocent children out enjoying one of the first warm evenings of the summer. They believed there were safe here in Tel Aviv, far from the range of missile attacks and disputed borders. They had no way to know that the hate that began long before the mosque they could see from the parking lot was about to consume them.
The story of these two buildings is not new to me, I have been here before, I remember watching the news of the bombing, visiting the marker on a previous trip. Nothing about the hate possible in the world surprises me anymore, but it still it makes me think. The tears I am shedding remind me why I came here. I needed to remember what so many live with on a daily basis. I needed to remember that my problems are nothing compared to the realities of the families who lost their loved ones that night. I needed to remember what it feels like to worry your home will be taken away. I needed to remember that I have to give more and take less. I needed to remember I can't solve all the bad in the world but I must try regardless in my own small ways.
For as much pain as the view from my window encompasses, I wouldn't want to be looking at anything else. We all need to come see this view, we need to learn the lessons of the past, we need to find a way to end the hate and the pain, we need to think long and hard about becoming a little more humane, so that 100 years from now people can come and admire the beautiful beach and the sea without having to stop and think.
And then the sun comes up fully and I begin to comprehend what I am seeing, it is so much more than a beautiful beach. Within moments all the realities of humanity are laid out at my feet. In the frame of my camera is a 100 years of pain for so many, on both sides of the conflicts. The view from my room looks out directly on the Hassan Bek Mosque and the Dolphinarium. Sitting just across the street from each other, no two buildings could sit farther apart in the world.
The mosque built in 1916 is a beautiful piece of Ottoman architecture, its minaret reaching for the sky, the amazing limestone work, the beautiful palm trees. It is breath taking in its beauty and its outward peacefulness. A piece of history standing tall against the modern high rises and hotels soaring around it.
Without a little study it would be hard to know of its true history, built from day one out of the strife between Arabs and Jews. Its original goal to make a land stake that would prevent the Jews from expanding what would become Tel Aviv into the Arab portions of Jaffa. From day one its basis was hate, to keep out those different, to make a statement about who belongs. Since then it has been the scene of many hate crimes and strife between Muslims and Jews. Its history makes me stop and think. How can human beings create something so beautiful into something so ugly? How can religion be used as such a weapon?The tears I start shedding thinking of the history and pain this building represents are nothing compared to the utter helplessness and pain I feel as I realize what the shell of a building across the street from the mosque is. I have been there before, but it takes me a few moments to realize this is the remains of the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium. Once Israel's own little sea world, the complex once upon a time also housed the Pacha nightclub and a disco. The faded name Pacha is still visible from my room.
The building is being slowly deconstructed, someday it will be replaced by a hotel or a park, but there will always be a stone marker at the site. A marker to remember 21 young lives lost and 100's more changed.On June 1, 2001 the disco and nightclub were the scene of one of the most deadly suicide bombings in Israeli history. As a crowd of 15-21 year olds, many originally from Russia, gathered to celebrate, a Palestinian joined the line that was forming to enter the disco and detonated the bomb he was concealing.
The people he killed were not soldiers who might cause him or his family harm, they had nothing to do with deciding his "right of return", they had never voted for either country's leaders. They were just innocent children out enjoying one of the first warm evenings of the summer. They believed there were safe here in Tel Aviv, far from the range of missile attacks and disputed borders. They had no way to know that the hate that began long before the mosque they could see from the parking lot was about to consume them.
The story of these two buildings is not new to me, I have been here before, I remember watching the news of the bombing, visiting the marker on a previous trip. Nothing about the hate possible in the world surprises me anymore, but it still it makes me think. The tears I am shedding remind me why I came here. I needed to remember what so many live with on a daily basis. I needed to remember that my problems are nothing compared to the realities of the families who lost their loved ones that night. I needed to remember what it feels like to worry your home will be taken away. I needed to remember that I have to give more and take less. I needed to remember I can't solve all the bad in the world but I must try regardless in my own small ways.
For as much pain as the view from my window encompasses, I wouldn't want to be looking at anything else. We all need to come see this view, we need to learn the lessons of the past, we need to find a way to end the hate and the pain, we need to think long and hard about becoming a little more humane, so that 100 years from now people can come and admire the beautiful beach and the sea without having to stop and think.
This post really resonates with me. You write so well and from your heart that I feel the emotions between your words, and that i'm seeing through your eyes.
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