The Age Gap and other adventures in the Katamon social scene

Social events are scary and overwhelming. Unfortunately they are necessary. On Thursday night I went to the annual "Nefesh B'Nefesh Tel Aviv beach party." The crowd was really diverse... young people from both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, religious, secular, and of course the guys who were clearly just there for the girls and free beer. Though I must admit as someone who does not usually enjoy beer, it really was good beer. The evening was saved when Alissa showed up with a couple friends and I had a nice small group of people to talk to. After the party we went back to her friend's apartment in Tel Aviv to sit on his roof and drink tea, and then her other friend drove us back to Jerusalem. I was out until 2am!! Thanks to Hebrew school, it had been a very long time since I stayed out that late and it was nice feeling like a real person again. Still... crowds... people I don't know... scary.

Then we come to the Katamon scene. You probably have heard more about the Upper West Side, Georgetown, Cambridge... all those places in the US where Jewish singles my age wind up. Katamon isn't much different, but having all made aliyah it gives us some sort of commonality to talk about. The freaky thing is it creates a scene where, as my roommate experienced, you can run into someone who taught you in his first year of teaching and is now suddenly a contemporary. The Katamon crowd ranges in age from about 20-30. I never really thought I'd be mingling with people my sister's age, but there you have it. In Katamon it can happen. The other crazy thing about this event (which, btw, was a seudat shlishit in the courtyard by someone's apartment) was that there may have actually been more guys there than girls. The majority of young people moving to Israel, for various reasons, are girls, so this was a bit of a surprise. Made the environment a little less cut throat. I think you can all figure out what I'm talking about.

Slowly but surely I will build my group of friends here. Still makes me miss UMD that much more. The havdallah tonight was UMD Hillel style which used to make me cringe in pain, but tonight it suddenly wasn't so bad. And there was less cuddling going on. The hardest part about socializing here is you only really see people once a week. Yeah that's right-- appreciate the monotony of Hillel while you have it. Pretty soon you'll miss sitting at the exact same table with the exact same people (barring unexpected events) eating the exact same food every single day for four years. Though I'm sure you know you will miss having friends close by who you can summon from the depths of their basement apartment (or wherever) to watch a movie every other night.

So in short, this evening I took on the Katamon scene and survived. And I think I will survive future events like this.

Shira, Dan, and Stu- will you make aliyah already? Please???