Tipsy in Tel Aviv

It’s Friday night in Israel — which means two things. First, it’s Shabbat. Second, it’s the night we’re supposed to head into Tel Aviv. As part of Shabbat, Isaac tells us that he has “an emotional activity” planned for us. We’re all seated around him in our hotel’s conference room and he’s wearing a priestly white button-down shirt.

“Now darlings… it will be sad. It will be heavy. Some of you will cry,” explains Isaac with an oddly warmhearted smile. He asks now that we reconvene in the room in ten minutes. I have no idea what he’s planning, but suddenly I’m a bit nervous. I amble up to my room with little purpose and sit on my bed for a couple of minutes before heading back down to the conference room again.

As the last of us resume our seats in the room, Isaac explains what he has in mind. “We’re each going to share something that we carry with us everywhere. This can be a physical object or it can be something metaphorical.” At first, the gravity of the request doesn’t seem to fully register. But as minutes tick by, tears begin welling up in eyes around the room.

We’ve known each other for less than a week, but suddenly we’re going in a circle and talking about the people, objects, and events that have changed our lives. We talk about the parents, friends, and siblings that we’ve lost. We talk about the clothes they used to wear and the things they used to say.

We talk about death and cancer and living for others. We talk about prejudice and degenerative diseases and mental disorders and suicide. Even the most hardened among us find themselves fighting tears now. Some of us can hardly even contain ourselves enough to share as it reaches our turn. But we all persevere.

It’s a deeply cathartic moment. Once people have finished wiping tears from their eyes, Isaac decides it’s a good time for us to change course. “Now darlings!” he interjects cheerily. “Now that I’ve got you all crying… we’re going to do a more fun activity. We’re going to separate into groups, and perform skits based on some of the things we’ve done so far.” Normally, there would probably be some resistance over this sort of activity. But after the heaviness of everything that we’ve just shared with one another, a little improv seems like a welcome reprieve.

In spite of having no time at all to prepare these skits, each group’s finished product is quite impressive. Once we finish with the skits, we perform a not-so-brief shabbat prayer before loading excitedly onto the bus.

With hearts and humor on our sleeves, we head to Tel Aviv. There’s a noticeably different energy on the bus this time. Our vulnerability has hardly put a damper on our enthusiasm. We’re being given a few hours to wander, but most of us are planning to drink. As we get out of the bus, we marvel at the massive buildings. Tel Aviv is surprisingly reminiscent of some of the American cities that I’m more familiar with. Skyscrapers, neon lights, and exaggerated storefronts surround us.

Isaac leads the majority of our group toward the entrance of a club. I doubt this is because he wants us to drink; I think he just hopes to keep us all in one place. As we walk, he diligently scans us to make sure no one has straggled behind. We’re all adults, but we’re in an unfamiliar city in a fraught country where we don’t speak the language — so a little supervision is actually welcome. I look over at my Israeli friend Teddy. He looks almost disappointed to be here.

“Are you not a fan of Tel Aviv?” I ask.

“I hate it here. It’s a tourist city,” he explains as, almost on cue, a pair of tourists stumble out from a bar with arms seeking balance on each other’s shoulders.

As we arrive at the club, an array of colors emanate from the windows. Following a brief exchange in Hebrew and a quick glance at our American IDs, the bouncer lets us in.

I’ve only been to a couple of clubs before in my life. The truth is that alcohol isn’t a drug I’ve ever enjoyed very much. And going to the club without drinking alcohol is like eating fries without salt — which Israelis actually love to do!

But as we walk into this club in Tel Aviv, I’m caught off guard, first, by the lack of crowd. I can move about the club freely; this is already unusual. As I walk down the main stairwell a violet glow emanates from the floor. As I look ahead, there’s a skeleton plastered seductively onto a giant heart and surrounded by neon blue lights. To my left, there’s a palm tree with a red LED strip wrapped neatly around it. Behind it, there’s a food stand; it seems to be selling pizza and alcoholic slushies — shit. These are my weakness.

The club is separated into different rooms — each seems to be shooting for a different atmosphere. In one room, there’s a bar with Eminem playing. It has a purplish glow and records along the wall. I’m beginning to feel at home in this Tel Aviv club already.

In another room, they seem to be aiming for more of a grunge vibe. This room is a dark blue. In a nook tucked beneath the stairwell, there’s a room without any music at all. Instead, there’s a ladder that leads into a loft with beanbag chairs. This friendly room is filled with shockingly unfriendly faces; I retreat. In a room glowing fiery red, they’re playing an impeccable assortment of American pop songs from between the 70s and 2000s. I find myself dancing in a club — that’s a first! Alcoholic slushies are good for something.

Attached to the wall, there’s a series of musical portraits and an eccentric assortment of memorabilia. There’s a painting of a Mother Mary cat holding a baby Jesus cat. There’s Beavis and Butthead on the wall next to a record clock. On the record clock, there’s a two-headed baby doll revolving dementedly. The disturbing sight puts strangely little damper on the wild dance party going on beneath it.

I don’t know how to dance, but I flail three limbs randomly enough that I begin to understand the appeal anyway. With my fourth limb, I carefully maneuver my green apple alcohol slushie between my mouth and a sea of bouncing shoulders. I’m amazed to look over and see even Teddy feverishly dancing his way through the crowd now. I’m having a blast. With a group of people I’ve never met before last week, we dance wildly through generations worth of music on this frenetic Tel Aviv dance floor. It’s a hectic, tumultuous scene.

There are other rooms too.

“Apparently there’s a green room,” a friend of mine tries to say over the excitement.

“Like the color?”

“No, like a weed room. We’ve gotta find it!”

This piques my interest. As far as this alcoholic slushie has gotten me, I’m not ashamed to admit that I miss weed. In Israel, weed is decriminalized. Even so, I was unwilling to risk smuggling weed into a foreign country — Pennsylvania med card or not. But now that I’m here… I wouldn’t mind a good night’s sleep. Suddenly, I’m feeling hyper-vigilant. As music continues to blast, I divert half of my attention now into the search for this new room.

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