The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 7 of 21)

br> Re: P. David Hornik's A Tale of Two Cities /p>

Your essay on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem (easy, now) dialectic was thoughtful and very well articulated. It was subtle, too -- much better than it seems at first. I like it a lot.

I had the perhaps somewhat odd experience of becoming well-acquainted with Jerusalem and her post-1967 environs for some years before ever setting foot in Tel Aviv. Entering or leaving the country, it was always B-G Airport to Jerusalem, Jerusalem to B-G Airport, do not pass Tel Aviv, do not collect $200.

Boy, was I knocked for a loop the first time I rode into Tel Aviv, which must have been about 1972. I remember being stunned by what looked like third-world shanty towns along Derech Lod as it passed through what I later came to know (for I found my bride there, and resided there myself!) as Kfar Shalem and Shchunat Hatikvah. Then came Dizengoff, Bavli, and finally my destination, the lecture hall at the university in Ramat Aviv.

Holy cow! As the Texas Board of Tourism now proclaims about that state: "Like A Whole 'Nuther Country!"

p>Really nice job. I hope to see more of your work in the online (and paper!) TAS . The TAS folks are good peeps. I like 'em a whole lot, and I think the readership is very interested in getting more deeply into the Israeli experience behind the headlines. br> -- Paul Kotik br> Plantation, Florida, USA

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