{"id":1672,"date":"2014-06-29T14:59:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T14:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2014-06-29T14:59:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T14:59:30","slug":"my-mothers-first-tel-aviv-bus-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/my-mothers-first-tel-aviv-bus-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"My Mother\u2019s First Tel Aviv Bus Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nicole Sivan<\/a><\/p>\n

I lived in Tel Aviv through the Second Intifada– the years when buses around the country blew up weekly. An underfunded university student at the time, I had no choice but to continue to ride the buses daily as frequent taxi rides were beyond my budget. I slowly realized that this mode of transportation was really no big deal and I probably had a better chance of meeting my demise in a taxi crash than on an ill-fated bus. I imagine the victims of such acts of terrorism felt the same way as they unknowingly boarded their doomed buses.<\/p>\n

My mother, however, had a completely different outlook on one\u2019s vulnerability to becoming a victim of a terrorist attack. When she visited Tel Aviv, she refused to ride the bus. On foot, sherut (shared taxi) or taxi cab were the only ways she would travel. But, as the Second Intifada came to a close, I finally succeeded in convincing her to give the Israeli bus a try.<\/p>\n

\"Dan-Tel-Aviv-Buses\"<\/a>

Dan-Tel-Aviv-Buses<\/p><\/div>\n

We waited at the #5 bus stop in a north Tel Aviv neighborhood along with one other woman carrying several shopping bags from a nearby supermarket. As we watched the bus quickly approach from down the street, we jumped back in shock as the bus hurled forward as if it had no intention of stopping. Suddenly, as if awakened from a daydream, the bus driver slammed on the breaks and the bus skidded to a stop. The frantic motion caused the woman next to us to drop her groceries, glass jars and bottles shattering, the rest of her purchases soaking wet. This poor woman boarded the bus with us cursing the driver for having such poor driving skills and destroying her groceries.<\/p>\n

A debate then erupted throughout the bus over whether or not the driver was reckless, causing the woman to lose her groceries, or if he was only getting his riders to their destination on time. Passengers were split 50\/50; half defending the driver for his aggressive driving skills and the others reprimanding the driver, telling him he drove like a \u201cmeshugena,\u201d a \u201ccrazy man.” These passengers believed the driver owed the woman for her damaged groceries. To those who didn’t know Hebrew like my mother, the discussion sounded threatening. The driver was screaming at the poor woman to pay her fare and passengers were yelling back telling the woman to stand her ground. Since my mother already imagined the worst about riding a bus in Israel, she tried not to make eye contact with anyone. She didn’t want to make any facial expression that might suggest any opinion in a debate she couldn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

I translated for her as best I could as words flew from all directions. Arms flailed, fingers pointed– everyone had an opinion about what happened. Even new passengers who got on the bus at future stops got drawn into the discussion. In the end the driver waved his arms in despair and gave the woman free fare as compensation for her misfortunate bus trip.<\/p>\n

Everyone was satisfied.<\/p>\n

My mother, scared from her bus adventure despite arriving safely at her destination, returned to being a pedestrian on the streets of Tel Aviv. Her opinion about the dangers of the bus remained unshaken after her over stimulated ride across the city, and she was able to add a whole new list of reasons as to why she should avoid the bus in Israel.<\/p>\n

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By Nicole Sivan I lived in Tel Aviv through the Second Intifada– the years when buses around the country blew up weekly. An underfunded university student at the time, I had no choice but to continue to ride the buses daily as frequent taxi rides were beyond my budget. I slowly realized that this mode more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,28],"tags":[75,625,125,133,272],"class_list":{"0":"post-1672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israeli-life","8":"category-israeli-life-culture","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-israeli-news","11":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","12":"tag-tel-aviv","13":"tag-tel-aviv-buses","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}