[img]96|left|||no_popup[/img] Dateline Jerusalem — In this age of computers and Internet, one hardly gets snail mail anymore, unless it is a bill. Even photographs are sent from cell phone to cell phone. However, not everyone has a computer or cell phone with a camera. For those family and friends who do not, I decided to send postcards. Postcards? Yes, they still exist.
Israel has a myriad of fascinating places to visit and sights to see. It is easy to find postcards for the major cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, resorts such as the Dead Sea and Eilat, as well as ancient sites such as Masada and Caesarea. But finding a postcard for the city where I live is difficult. I was able to acquire a map of the city from the local mayor's office, no postcards. Bookstores and gift shops seem to carry postcards of tourist sites throughout Israel, but nothing depicting my city as a whole.
About the only postcards that can be found for Rehovot are ones showing the Particle Accelerator at the Weizmann Institute and pictures of the Ayalon Institute. A particle accelerator is an “atom smasher.” The device is housed in unique architecture and therefore makes for a great picture postcard. The Ayalon Institute, a kibbutz just north of the city, which is famous for having an underground munitions factory hidden beneath a bakery and laundry on the kibbutz, was instrumental in the establishment of the State of Israel. But finally, I found a gift store that prints its own postcards prominently displaying their shop surrounded by outdated pictures of the area. Something is better than nothing.
With approximately 120,000 people, Rehovot is considered a mid-sized city, the 14th largest city in Israel. It was established in 1890. Yes, it is over 120 years old and is a great reminder that the Land of Israel was the home of Jews long before the establishment of the State of Israel. Of course, there are other cities in Israel with even a longer continuous Jewish presence, such as Jerusalem, where Jews have lived uninterrupted for over 3,000 years. It galls me when I hear that Jews had no relationship to this land prior to 1948. Rehovot is proof otherwise.
Founded by Polish Jews in 1890, there was a large influx of Jews from Yemen to Rehovot during the beginning of the 1900s. The next immigration to Rehovot were Russian and Ethiopian Jews. Allegedly people from over 70 countries make up the population of Rehovot. I belong to an Anglo or English-speaking synagogue. Although services are conducted in Hebrew, the people who attend speak English in their homes and come from the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, Australia and South Africa.
A microscope, book, and orange are the symbols depicted on the emblem for the city. Rehovot, known as the “City of Science and Culture” and as the “Citrus Capital” of Israel, boasts world famous institutions of higher learning such as the Weizmann Institute of Science, known for its academic research and post graduate studies, and which was recently rated the “best academic workplace in the world outside of the United States.” There is also Kaplan Hospital, a teaching hospital for the Medical School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Harvard of Israel. And, the high tech Science Park is known as the “Silicon Valley of Israel.”
Rehovot is a great place to live if you are able to ignore the humidity here. I often wonder why I use a towel to dry off after a shower when within seconds I am sopping wet again. I am used to the dry, hot, weather of Palmdale/Lancaster/Antelope Valley. Here in Rehovot, the humidity is unbearable for me. My clothes stick to my body and my red face drips like a leaky water balloon. Friends complain of the muggy weather, but somehow they do not look like a melting cherry popsicle like I do. At least here I do not need to spend a fortune on skin moisturizers for my complexion.
L'hitraot. Shachar