116
NOVEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
THREE PERFECTDAYS
||
TELAVIV
expensive to live in. The queenof the scene
is Ilana Goor, who turned a 280-year-old
hostel into the
llana Goor Museum
,
a
strange and wonderful collection that
includes an expansive table repurposed
from a monastery and heaped with iron
birds and fish, skulls and hookah pipes,
which Goor calls “The Morning A er.”
From here, you head to
Dr. Shakshuka
,
a Tripolitanian restaurant presided over
by the ebullient and outsize Bino Gabso.
“
He is very big man,” explains one burly
regular, “but he has the heart of a li le
bird.” Dozens of rusty ke les and lanterns
dangle from the ceiling. Lunch comes at
you in salvos: hummus, stewed eggplant,
spicy potatoes, succulent
shawarma
,
sausage, beans, couscous, lamb patties
...
dishes are piled onto dishes that you
haven’t even touched. The highlight is,
fittingly, the
shakshuka
,
eggs in spicy
tomato sauce with peppers cooked over
high heat. The burly regular offers sage
advice on what to do next: “First, sleep.
Then, beach.”
Before these twoactivities, however, you
embark on a trip to the
Jaffa Flea Market
,
where you wend your way through a
clutter of stalls. A very old Persian Jew
named Joseph sells you (a er some heavy
bargaining) an antique brass lotus flower
whose petals open when you twist the
base. “You respected me by paying me,”
he says, “and now you are entitled to a
gift.” He hands you a worn pewter key
chain with an image of Jerusalem on it.
Nearby is a store named Palestine, which
has a sign out front reading: “Fixed prices
(
the bargaining is unnecessary, does not
work and annoying) [
sic
].”
Inside you find
old typewriters, cameras, helmets, maps,
microscopes. The owner is a dauntless
tinkerer, and a lot of the stuff here works.
Now, like the man said: beach. On
Fridays, dozens of percussionists gather
beside a graffiti-coveredwall at
Drummers
Beach
to drum in Shabbat, the Jewish Sab-
bath. You find kids, old people, business
types and the odd weirdo happily ge ing
SMASHHITS
Clockwise from right, welcoming
the Jewish Sabbath at Drummers Beach; the
Tel Aviv Museum of Art; steak fillet with barley
and walnuts at city stalwart Cordelia
