30 GOOD MORNING, HOLY SPIRIT
His family came from Greece to Egypt before settling
in Palestine. But being "from somewhere else" was
common. The Jaffa of my childhood was truly an
international city.
Walking down Raziel Street into Tower Square that
contains the Abdul Hamid Jubilee Clock Tower, the stone-
walled jail, and the Great Mosque, built in 1810, I could
hear locals conversing in French, Bulgarian, Arabic,
Yiddish, and other languages. And in the kiosks and open-
air cafes, I could sample baklava, zlabiya, felafel, sum-sum,
and dozens of other delights.
So here I was, born in Israel, but not Jewish. Raised in
an Arabic culture, but not of Arabic origin. Attending a
Catholic school, but raised as a Greek Orthodox.
Languages come easy in that part of the world. I
thought everyone was supposed to speak three or four.
Arabic was spoken in our home, but at school the Catholic
sisters taught in French, except for the Old Testament,
which was studied in ancient Hebrew.
During my childhood, the hundred thousand people of
Jaffa had become engulfed by the exploding Jewish
population of Tel Aviv to the north. Today the metropolis
has the official name of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Over four hundred
thousand live in the area.
Actually, Tel Aviv began as a Jewish experiment in
1909 when sixty families bought thirty-two acres of bare
sand dunes just north of Jaffa and marched out to the site.
They were tired of the cramped conditions and noisy Arab
quarters where they lived. The expansion continued until
Tel Aviv became Israel's largest city.
Even though my father was not Jewish, the Israeli
leaders trusted him. And they were happy to have someone