Tent Politics

It's been nearly six weeks now since a 25 year old girl who got kicked out of her apartment and tired of having to pay ridiculously high rent and repeatedly be abused by greedy homeowners, opened a tent on Tel Aviv's best known street.



6 of her friends joined her initially to form the '7'. Since then, many other tents villages have opened across the country (now over than 90's) and many other groups, from divorced fathers asking for more rights, to the settlers offering the solution to the high prices in the West Bank, have joined giving their angle on what is termed the fight for social justice. Many political conversations were held in the tent village that formed on Rotschild street and in the other tent villages across the country. Even gestures to show agreement or displeasure with a speaker. Since the meetings became large, it was decided to avoid clapping in agreement. Instead, quick semi twists of the hand, as if changing a light bulb in a Bollywood film, became the sign of agreements.



At the beginning of the protests, 3 of the '7' went to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to listen to a government discussion of what is happening. They were quite unhappy but as visitors to the Knesset are not allowed to make any kind of noise, they remained silent. Instead, the 3 stood up and held their arms crossed, making a large X. They were kicked out of the Knesset at that point, and that has become the symbol for disapproval with a speaker.



Finally, to show that a speaker is continuing on and on, rumbling and rumbling, one does the 'ata hofer' symbol - you are digging, with arm over arm rotating in a circle, like traveling in basketball...





The '7' continued to lead the protests, deciding many times in small closed forms. As many people have joined the tent villages and even more the protests themselves, there was a strong cry for more representation in the 'deciding board'. The initial system had each tent village send a representative to some meetings to find out what was going on and the country divided into five areas, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Haifa and the North, and each one of those allowed one representative in the deciding body. A bit of a democracy, except that the power of the '7' was too large in that situation.

This was problematic as this is the definition of a grassroots movement (even though most of us actually sleep on sand...). Almost all decisions are voted on in circles of people who come out, community members, folks in tents, even passerby's who want to make a statement. Everything is discussed, sometimes too much (at which point one does the traveling sign...).



Finally, early last week, the representative from Nordau (my tent village, I am proud to say :) ) suggested a new system, 10 + 3; 10 representatives from the different tent villages, elected in the villages themselves, and 3 representatives from the '7'. A developing democratic system... This will be the protest's leading board and soon, it will be time to negotiate, to decide if the government is doing enough - and maybe even eventually, to stop the protest once enough changed have been made.

Hey, one can always hope...

Life in the tent village(s)

As of today there are 78 tent villages across Israel made of 3383 tents! How official is that count? Not sure, there may actually be more. But considering the swelling heat here (circa 30 degrees at night) and high degree of humidity, its quite impressive. I wake up every night because of the heat and in the morning I can no longer sleep as the tent becomes an oven, albeit a nylon-walled-strangely-shaped oven, but plenty uncomfortable for the inhabitant.


"Rotschild Tahrir corner"

Either way with so many people living in these villages, there is a quite a community life that has burgeoned. In Rotschild, the original spot, every street corner has a camp-center where there are couches, carpets, pillows and people sit. There is also a kitchen where people donate food, make communal meals and naturally, hang out. Bathrooms, electricity and water are provided by local businesses which are supporting the demonstration, or at least standing pat while people come asking for a visit to the toilet.







The police has reported that the residents of the near-by streets do complain about the noise – people hang out till very late, there is music, chatter and just general clamour all over the place. Also trash has accumulated even though there are strong efforts to keep the areas clean and to recycle as much as possible.



My tent village, Noradu street, is now the second largest in Israel with over 150 tents (just for comparison, Rotschild has circa 2000!!!). New tents are popping up all the time. When I first set mine up, I was third from the end. I am now sixth on one side and on the side across from me there are 3 new ones. So people are joining all the time.



Nordau is considered the more family-oriented, academic tent village. It also located in the northern part of TLV which has that stereotype… There are children activities every evening, comprised at times from famous authors coming and reading stories to various others leading activities (I am going to lead an origami making activity with the goal of making a 1000 cranes hoping for the Japanese legend). Later in the evening there are two lectures. We have had famous economists, an Israel-prize winner, a bible-study and just general discussions during these lectures and following them. Our nearest bathroom is a bit far (especially from my tent ☹ ) and is located in the Aroma coffee shop across the street by the village’s kitchen.




Friday evening we have special Shabat welcoming dinners with people from the near by synagogue coming by and leading prayer. And people just sit down and talk about the revolution, explain why they are here, what they think must be done, hang out, sing a little, laugh and most of all, remember that the fight is for actual social changes and, well, hope.

It all started with cottage cheese.

It all started with cottage cheese.

You could even say it all started with a poor vegetable salesman in Tunisia. On a local scale though, it started with cottage. The price of cottage went up, and suddenly people were protesting. All on facebook, nothing out in the streets, but protesting, and in large large numbers. This meant they stopped buying cottage, a meagre protest but still, a protest. Now if you have never had Israeli cottage then maybe you don’t know, but it’s really good and for many was a staple food, a basic product on the table. Either way, people showed some will to organize for social causes, albeit only for cottage and only on facebook, but still.

Then about three weeks ago, a 20 something lady who couldn’t find housing in Tel Avid and was getting frustrated at how difficult it was to live in this country unless you were rich or had rich parents, decided to take a tent and sleep in arguably the best known street in Israel, Tel Aviv’s Rotschild’s Avenue.


Within three days there were over 50 tents there.





A week later, a huge protest over the government’s repeated policy of ignoring the poor and helping the rich ensued. Suddenly people were taking to the streets. Tent-villages popped up like mushrooms after the rain in Jerusalem, Beer Sheva in the south and Kiryat Shmona in the north and in many other cities. The tent village in Rotschild suddenly grew to enormous size, taking over the entire walkway of the avenue (circa a mile long) and many groups joined the cause. Everyone suddenly had something to say. The doctors fighting for public medicine better wages and livable hours, the students asking for lower tuition and more public housing, mothers wanting public education for their toddlers, everyone suddenly had a booth and tents. Every street corner on Rotschild suddenly had some major activity – a lecture discussing a cause, a movie explaining an issue, a musician coming to support.








The government tried to paint the entire protest as a leftwing thing. Now in Israel left and right are mostly identified with the security situation with the left wing willing to give the West Bank for a Palestinian state and the right wing wanting to hold on to it for security or religious reasons.

But this issue dragged people from all over the map. This was evident in the different visitors who came to Rotschild, which became the center of the protest. Further, various groups opened tents – an Arab-Jewish coalition at one part, settler teenagers at another end, orthodox Jews next to supporters of gay rights. Everyone came out, and the most amazing thing was that people talked! And are still talking - about social policy, about better living conditions, about the peace process, about how fricken hot and humid it is! About everything and anything. But mostly about social justice.

The people want social justice became the slogan of the protest. Bumper stickers, signs, posters were seen just about anywhere stating this.
The events culminated in tonight’s huge protest. Estimates are that over 350,000 people showed up to protest. Now just to put that into scale, Israel has circa 7.5 million inhabitants. In the UK, if a similar percentage came out to the streets, that would mean 2.9 million. In the U.S.? 7.2 million people!!! And on top of that, it was ridiculously hot and humid – an Israeli summer.

And people came. From near, from far, with their kids, with their grandparents. Walked in the streets, painted signs, yelled till their voices went coarse. What will happen? A smart (very smart) man once said, man plans and God laughs.





“The people want social justice, the people want social justice!”