Tel Aviv July, 2009

Neve Tzedek and Florentine are unlike many other parts of the city, in that the walls of these neighborhoods are covered in all kinds of “writing.” Ranging from graffiti to street art, posters and flyers, this writing screams and whispers for the attention of passers-by.

Reading walls while walking both requires and trains a sense of the city that is difficult to get by perusing the statistics of the planning department, or attending community meetings. The discourse on the walls is of a different character—a kind of ubiquitous white noise, noticeable in an otherwise clean, “white” city. Let’s take up the task of reading while walking this city. Because the writings on the walls, and the experience of reading them, provide a complex commentary upon the ongoing physical, economic and political transformations faced by Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

4-18-2008: Everything must go!
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York

Martin Luther King could never be president. Not because of racist attitudes of America in the 1960s (those haven’t changed all that much), but because he was an enemy of the state, not its benign friend– not a smiling visage on a t-shirt, or a McDonald’s advertisement. We ought to be careful to whom we compare this man, who never hesitated to call out the injustice at the heart of American existence.

This is a man who neither extolled the inherent “greatness” of America, nor tried to “restore” America to a pristine past, which never existed. This was a man who set out with a clear motto: to “Save the soul of America” from itself. He was certainly never silent in the face of wanton destruction of life.

The war in Vietnam is a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality… we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation… We will be marching for [Guatemala and Peru, Thailand and Cambodia, Mozambique and South Africa] and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change.
Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change. Change.