Ba'Aretz # 14-Andy of Tel Aviv

Although most of those reading this probably didn't see the Andy Griffith Show when it first debuted on television (it was a spin-off an episode of the Danny Thomas Show, when the whole Make Room for Daddy cast got stuck in the fictional Mayberry, North Carolina and had to cope with a small town sheriff, his inept deputy, and a host of small-town-America-in-the-fifties characters), but I think almost everyone has seen it in re-runs some time or another. Aunt Bea, Otis the Town Drunk, Goober Pyle and his gas station, Barney Fife, Floyd the Barber are among those who have become part of American folklore.

The opening theme of the show was whistled as Andy and Opie, the father-son gentle sheriff and mother-less child, fishin' poles slung over their shoulders, head down the road... tossing pebbles that skip over the water. Whenever I hear that theme whistled, I think of gentleness and simplicity, virtue and common sense, and, of course, Aunt Bea's hot apple pie.

Whenever I hear that theme, I never, ever think of skyscrapers or wide boulevards, sophisticated boutiques or elegant restaurants, beautiful beaches or avant garde galleries, ethnic diversity or a cacophony of spoken languages. I never think of traffic jams or protest rallies or political intrigue. When I hear the "Andy of Mayberry" theme, I never picture a community of four hundred synagogues. Never, ever, ever!

In just five weeks, 2009 will be upon us and next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv, the first new, Jewish city built since Biblical times. In early 1909, 69 young Jews, whose names have been enshrined on a marker on Rothschild Boulevard, stood along the barren beach for a photograph and then proceeded to build what has become a thriving and important Middle East metropolis. Like New York, Tel Aviv is a city that never sleeps (although one hears slightly more Hebrew in TA than NY). Like Amsterdam and London, Paris and Rome, San Francisco and Sydney, Tel Aviv is a city one can visit over and over and experience it anew every time.

And the good folks at the Tel Aviv 100th Anniversary Commission have created a wonderful series of television commercials depicting the history of Tel Aviv. The commercials can be quite moving, as long as you hit the "mute" button, because the commercial's theme song is the whistled one from Andy from American TV so long ago. The song is a nice one, just not for Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is just not the city I ever associate with Andy and Opie. At least not until Gomer Pyle trades USMC for the IDF.

Rabbi Jeff Kahn