With Corona moving into our collective rear-view mirror, there are some A-Ma-Zing ideas for exploring this beautiful country of ours! Lots to see, Lots to do, Lots to eat! We have heard of some amazing tours starting this Spring. Unfortunately, we have also heard some not-so-good ideas… and it is our journalistic duty to Spill the Tea. So without further ado, the Daily Freier presents the Ten Worst Tour Ideas for Israel!
1) Locusts & Honey: a culinary tour inspired by John the Baptist!
2) Grab your numbered pottery shards, it’s Bingo Night on Masada!
3) “Find your way out of Dizengoff Center” long weekend adventure
4) “Let’s walk up and down all the hills in Haifa!”
5) “Ecce Homo”: We show you the hottest Gay Night Life in Jerusalem’s Old City!
6) Danny the Digger rummages through your trash and posts it on Youtube.
7) Afula, Afula, Afula!
8) “Festival of the Senses”: A Scratch n’ Sniff Tour of the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station
9) Drink beer in Machane Yehuda on a Thursday evening! Wait, Sorry. This is actually Peak Nightlife for Jerusalem. Never Mind.
10) Sarah Tuttle-Singer leads a historical walk through Neve Tzedek but gets really baked and spends the entire evening looking for Tacos instead.
Jerusalem: With yesterday’s Jerusalem Pride Parade, the city’s LGBT Community stood up as one to show that they can be just as dull as the city’s straight residents. The Daily Freier took the Number 480 Bus up from our hideout on the Coastal Plain to investigate.
The Daily Freier first met up with Dalit and her partner Noga, who proceeded to explain that they really really wanted to plan a great after-party, “But we spent all week at the National Archives studying the Poetry of the Second Aliyah, and just never got around to it.”
Next we spoke with a marcher named Avi. “As a Gay Man, I just wanted to show that I also belong in a city with Zero nightlife.” he explained. “This city without a single decent club? It’s my city too.”
Avi’s friend Assaf concurred. “People think that being gay is just party party party…. but it’s not. Being gay should also mean living in a city where everyone is welcome at the Number One Thursday night activity……you know, drinking beer in a Shuk.”
The Daily Freier wanted to continue the interview but Assaf said it was 6:30 PM and “getting late” and that he needed to wake up early for tomorrow’s book fair.
Jerusalem, Machane Yehuda Market: Jerusalem is still in shock from the news that the United Torah Judaism Party’s Yaakov Litzman wants to close down Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda Market, a move that would deprive the city of its one cool hangout and thus “make the city just as boring as the Daily Freier thinks it is”. Reaction across the city was intense, with particularly strong objection from your one friend who has somehow convinced himself that Jerusalem really has a great party scene. Mr. Litzman outlined his objections to the market, calling it a “focal point for debauchery“, whereas our research revealed it to be about as decadent as a particularly edgy Tel Aviv laundromat.
Yet the Daily Freier wanted to get “all the facts” so it set out on a deep investigation of this topic to include reading a Times of Israel article and taking the bus to Jerusalem and walking around. According to the article, one of Mr. Litzman’s objections to the market is that recently two drunk women accidentally wandered into a nearby Yeshiva, a tragedy that the traumatized Yeshiva bochers have no doubt reacted to by telling and re-telling the story to their friends a thousand times, each re-telling somehow better and more exciting than the last.
In addition, Litzman claimed to have witnessed cannabis use in the market, leading the Daily Freier to send his office an official inquiry as to the specific part of the Market where he witnessed this so-called “cannabis”. And whether these “cannabis users” were passing it around or just being a dick about it keeping it to themselves. And whether they still had any left.
Furthermore, Mr. Litzman said that “if people want to have such a raucous nightlife, they should do so outside the capital.” Wait a minute…. he really really did say this. Sorry, writing satire is just getting harder and harder for us. Anyhoo, Jerusalemites who want to have a good time are invited to take the high-speed rail line to Tel Aviv, which will be ready last March/Bzrat HaShem/in the Fall/Inshallah/after the Chagim/Before Moschiach/when Hanin Zoabi and Matisyahu record a duet/ next Pesach “soon”.
Fortunately, this extreme action seems unlikely to take place, for just because Mr. Litzman controls a powerful bloc of voters, mainstream Israeli politicians would never sell out their constituents just to gain a short-term political advanta…….Bwahahahahahahaha! Good luck, Jerusalem!
Jerusalem, the German Colony: Israel’s capital (Yeah, we said it.) experienced quite a scare today as a clearly agitated man was taken into custody for his own safety. At approximately 10 AM this morning, an older gentleman wearing a disheveled suit wandered into traffic and attempted to enter a private vehicle that he described as “my town car“. At this point the driver’s owner got into an altercation with the gentleman, who insisted that he had “an important message for Abu Mazen” [Momentary Real World Buzzkill: Yes he DID actually say this today]. After the vehicle’s irate driver pushed him away, the pensioner walked over to a local convenience store, where he patiently discussed with a confused Dati woman the best places to park your yacht on Martha’s Vineyard during the winter months. After several minutes, the gentleman exited the shop and jumped onto the Jerusalem light rail, describing the movement of the train as being “not unlike windsurfing” before exiting at the Machane Yehuda Market. As the retiree wandered the Shuk’s confusing alleys, he told a man selling cactus fruit that “this place is more confusing than Dizengoff Center“. The man then stopped at a pastry shop, where he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and told customers that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House and that he was “seriously considering running for president in 2020.” [Real World Alert: Yes he really said this]. It was at this point that concerned bystanders feared that the man was suffering from the delusions of grandeur symptomatic of “Jerusalem Syndrome” and stepped in to help. As one man distracted the pensioner by entering into a drawn out negotiation over a carpet, a woman slipped away to call for medical help. Magen David Adom personnel quickly arrived on the scene and gently escorted the confused man into a waiting ambulance that they described as his “personal limousine” that would bring him to meet “the important people“.
UPDATE: An American Embassy spokesperson described the man’s current condition as “Good” and that he was “quite busy” perusing the care package he had received from the Embassy’s Consular Section, consisting of some nautical charts of Cape Cod, Season Three of the West Wing, and a Thomas Friedman book.
While all of you wait impatiently for Sarah’s new book on life in Jerusalem to come out, running old Daily Freier algorithms to build your own Sarah-Tuttle Singer article while trying to somehow find a way that the Israeli postal system will allow you to order the real thing from Amazon, the Daily Freier managed to steal a page of her final draft. How did we do it you ask? By patiently waiting at Crave Street Food until she got distracted by the arrival of her friend the Gay Mizrahi truck driver who always sells the best pomegranates. And we passed on this excerpt to YOU, our loyal readers. Don’t thank us. We’re not listening. So without further ado, behold a page of the manuscript!
……. seriously mixed feelings because how was I supposed to know that my Internet troll would be so cute in real life? I know, right? But anyway, let me tell you about the time my Palestinian cab driver was listening to Carlebach and OMG can I just tell you? Crave’s bathroom stocks free tampons! Hella Woke, Am I right? So then I’m just walking through Machane Yehuda rummaging through my purse for a coin for the scratch-off lottery ticket that I bought from that really funky Makolet that’s run by the totally chill lesbian Off the Derech couple who always let me use their bathroom when I have to pee. So where was I? OK so I’m drinking from my flask of Laphroaig 18 Years. The peat? OMG can I tell you about the peat? But anyway, I bought it at the Heathrow Duty Free, and the cashier was wearing full hijab. And we had an amazing moment in the checkout line that reminded me that anything is possible if we just…. wait a second. I think I misjudged the strength of the edibles that I took an hour ago and the last time this happened I ended up walking the entire ancient road from Ramle to Yafo and got these Painful blisters because I was wearing flats that were kinda too big but I didn’t have time to return them because Crave had just changed their menu and can I just tell you? Their lamb bacon? Better than the real thing. So anyway, let me tell you about the ride back. So I’m standing on the platform waiting for my train and I sneezed. Because it’s cold out. And I wasn’t wearing a coat. Don’t judge, OK? So Yeah. I sneezed. And then do you know what happened? This Haredi guy turned to me and said “Sei Gezunt”. Which was just incredible. Kind of like the time I went to Mid-Burn in the Negev and accidentally joined a cult for 6 hours before I figured out that the mushrooms must have been……
Tel Aviv, HaHagana Station: With the pending (and shockingly somewhat on-time) launch of the Jerusalem to Tel Aviv High Speed Rail line, residents of each city eagerly look forward to the chance to remember all the things about the other city that suck. The Daily Freier wandered the streets of Tel Aviv gathering answers, and then reluctantly took the bus from Savidor Station to do the same in that other city 40 miles to the East that really, really knows how to party.
“I don’t quite know what it is about Jerusalem, but it just turns you into a dork.” explained Yafo resident Danny S. “My cousin did Yeshiva there and he actually taught himself to speak poorly accented English. Like he now purposely adds “umms” and “uhs” to his sentences. He literally has a self-imposed speech impediment. And he’s from Miami.”
“Why do all the girls wear those thick black tights that look like they could stop an AK-47 round?” asked Tamar, a personal trainer from Florentin. “Are they auditioning for the next season of Fauda?”
“The worst is that Jerusalemites take it personally when we remind them how much their city sucks.” explained the Daily Freier’s very own Aaron Pomerantz. “Last year I somehow talked myself out of a date with a pretty dati girl when I told her that Jerusalem is lame.” [Editor’s Note: This may or may not have actually happened to a Daily Freier writer in real life.]
Not to be outdone, the Daily Freier got some very raw responses from the Jerusalem streets about what they can’t stand about Tel Aviv.
“Tel Aviv is just a giant weirdo reservation.” noted Hillel K. “It’s like they took the weirdest kid from each of my classes growing up, moved them to Tel Aviv, and let them reproduce. Oh yeah, and now they’re artists.”
When the Daily Freier asked Hillel about the cool spots for Jerusalem nightlife, he thought for a moment, scratched his head, and answered. “Well, there’s Machane Yehuda on a Thursday night…. And then there’s the other side of Machane Yehuda….. Wait…..Did I mention Machane Yehuda?”
According to the Israeli Ministry of Transportation, in 2019 they will open another High Speed line that will allow you to visit your friend who you thought had died but actually had just moved to Haifa in 2013.
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Live from Tel Aviv. This is like Satire and Stuff.
With Corona moving into our collective rear-view mirror, there are some A-Ma-Zing ideas for exploring this beautiful country of ours! Lots to see, Lots to do, Lots to eat! We have heard of some amazing tours starting this Spring. Unfortunately, we have also heard some not-so-good ideas… and it is our journalistic duty to Spill the Tea. So without further ado, the Daily Freier presents the Ten Worst Tour Ideas for Israel!
