Website letters 2008
Jewish Currents, NY Haifa, Israel touring
Jewish Currents
Accord, NY. August 2008 issue.
Letters
Haifa [about visiting that city)
Having visited Haifa for two days in June 2006, accompanied by a Haifa raised colleague while staying in the home of an elderly Croatian Jewish Holocaust survivor, and again in May 2007 when I guest taught at the University of Haifa (during the student strike, no less) at which time I stayed in a hotel, I read Sue Swartz's Love Letter to Haifa with keen interest.
I am astonished that she even considered taking a car to and from Haifa. On both of my visits I entered by the most convenient and only environmentally friendly way: train. So while Swartz states she didn't notice the "bad air" (vis-a-vis cigarette smoke everywhere) it's the vehicular gridlock enveloping Haifa (along with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem) which make the city's air akin to Now a Huta (the industrial city near Krakow) and Silesia of Poland during the years prior to 1989: the air is hot, dry, and choked with dust and vehicular exhaust; travelers with asthma - beware!
If Haifa is interested in seeing an influx of western tourists they have a long way to go. Many hotels do not bother replying to email inquiries. In 2007 there wasn't a single smoke-free B&B; the only smoke-free hotel I could find to stay in is run by Messianics. The room was clean and comfortable but the proselytizing literature and souvenirs in the lobby were offensive and distasteful.
Haifa boasts a gleaming million dollar plus new bus depot, yet smokers are permitted to smoke throughout; secondary smoke makes the wait for a bus disgusting. The multi-ethnic University of Haifa isn't in the clear either: Students and employees can be found smoking inside a main campus building.
That aside, Haifa is beautiful and a offers a rare example of Jewish Israelis co-existing, mas o menos, with Arab Israelis; it also boasts the only Jewish and Arab joint taxi company in Israel. That's a start.
Yours,
Akiva Kenny Segan
Seattle, June 1, 2008