re: #457 marjoriemoon

Love it. Boy have things changed.

My first visit to Israel was in 1978 with B’nai Brith, Young Judea. I was 16. One afternoon, 4 friends and I (3 other girls and a guy), went into town, I believe it was Tel Aviv, but now I don’t remember! Anyway, we were shopping a couple hours and it was hot, so we sat down on the curb on a dead end street out of the way of traffic to rest.

This guy came walking up and started yelling something in Arabic and tossed something at us. Then another guy came up and did the same thing. They were tossing coins. We just laughed and tossed them back. Then another guy and another. Then some women came over and they were angry, screaming at us. We got up and as we started to move away, a crowd formed, maybe 30-40 people. I have no idea where they came from but we started to get scared. They were advancing on us, pressing us into the storefront next to the sidewalk. We all grabbed each other and I screamed, “Run!” And we bolted out from the crowd and ran down the block.

A young Israeli fellow came walking up to explain that they were tossing coins because they thought he was a pimp and we were his hookers. The wives were very upset. It was a scene man.

So it was probably Jaffa. Sounds scary.