After an unsatisfying dinner of potatoes and vegetables — the kashered chicken and beef being too salty for my health — I hoped to spend a comfortable evening in the lounge of my sea-front hotel in Netanya, Israel, that blustering Friday in February 1992. No sooner had I settled with my book into a spacious armchair from which I could watch the storm whipped waves against the shore, than 30 men crowded into my space. Some wore caftans, some business suits, all sported beards and side-burns, smoked cigars, debated noisily and gesticulated wildly. Two stood right in front of me waving fumes and limbs into my face as if I did not exist. And for them I may not have, as they were fervently religious Jews, trained to disregard women.
The smoke, the uproar, the throng got to me. I escaped to the only working elevator, as I was not about to climb four flights of stairs. Reaching the haven of my room, I was welcomed by a veritable flood. The wind warped the French doors viciously, driving the rain through the cracks.
There was no refuge. I dashed back to the elevator, now occupied by two bearded dignitaries. The moment I entered they get out, but not before strafing me with devastating looks.
Neither the concierge’s indifference, nor the freezing night spent in a towel-covered, soggy room, could dampen my emotional connectedness and love for Israel I had developed on my work-study trip.