I feel that it is in the best interest of humanity to interact with diverse groups of people in order to increase understanding of the unfamiliar and strive towards peaceful coexistence. As a citizen of the world, I have the responsibility of finding or creating opportunities for people of different cultures, languages, histories, races, ethnicities, and experiences to come together on common ground.
That said, naturally, I was obligated to share with our student group the free things to do in Haifa: a speed-dating event I found on Facebook. The event description said that the working languages would be Russian and English, so I proposed going to our Whatsapp group of 60+. It was mostly a joke suggestion, but there was so much positive feedback and excitement emanating from the group at the prospect of meeting Russians that the enthusiasm was contagious.
A few days later (the day of Speed Dating Haifa), when we all met up in Paris Square to make our migration up the mountain, we were about 15 people strong. Because we were so many, when Egged Bus #3 came, we got split into two buses, with the back end of the group waiting behind for the next ride. With the glorious aid of the Moovit app, we knew we could grab Egged Bus #112, so we were just a few minutes behind. Until, of course, I missed our stop, so we had to backtrack a bit. Which really turned into an opportunity to see an extra few blocks of the typically bustling market district and we bumped into a woman going in the opposite direction of us, who stopped to ask for directions, after which we deduced we were all going to the same place, so she joined our haphazard gang.
As we progressed in the 10-minute trek, our surroundings got drastically more residential. There were more trees, fewer shops, and a general sense of quiet (yāknow, for a city). We arrived at our destination, Yerushalayim Street, 29, which was not at all a restaurant or bar, as we had expected it would be. It appeared to be a Jewish center of some sort…
We walked into a chaotic lobby, people moving in every direction, no one quite sure what to do. However, the uncertainty of the situation did nothing to dampen the groupās determination and eagerness to be present. Shortly after the organizers began to feel overwhelmed by the seemingly unprecedented numbers, we were ushered downstairs to give them some room to finish registration.
The basement, as it was, had no windows (eeeeep), but it was clean, well lit, andā¦ there were cookies and wine!!! Baruch Hashem. We were split into two groups, men on one side, women on the otherā¦ the women got the side with the drinks, is that an omen or what? After we took our seats and made some funny faces at the boys from our group across the room, we made our way to the refreshments. They were certainly needed, given the unexpected and unprecedented 40-minute monologue in Russian about the importance of men and women coming together (in the biblical senseĀ –Ā literally, referencing the story of Adam and Eve) and the unifying power of love. The speaker even tried to apply a few poorly thought-out analogies regarding the similarities of love and water. By the time we got in the water, so to speak, it was already 20:00, halfway into the scheduled programming.
The host, Alexey, explained the rules of speed dating as his helper and part-time translator of Russian to English (for those of us not in the know) helped folks into seats. As we settled in, I scoured around the room to visually check in with everyone in our group. We had agreed on a signal, an aggressive ear tug, to represent the thought, āLetās get outta here!ā So far, everyone was still pretty interested. One thing we hadnāt thought of prior to sipping on unknown wine in plastic water cups was that the event had not included age ranges… Our ages ranged from 19-22, the rest of the room appeared to be 22-45. Oops.
The first round, my partner noticed me checking my phone (this was before we officially started the timed ādateāĀ –Ā I was looking to see if there was any message from an important Israeli boy!Ā He took that opportunity to pull out his own phone and immediately suggest that we exchange numbers and not waste any time in this charade. I took the opportunity to say āNo.ā
The next round was with Danik, who later got ousted by his friend for being āFedyaā. He was a pretty nervous guy and expressed his concern over all the English speakers in the room (he only spoke Russian). His face sustained a look of agony, anxiety, and alarm for the entire duration of our ādateā at which point he made a run for the door to take a smoke break. At this point, I noticed one guy was not leaving the side of one of the girls from our group, which (1) Undermines the rules of the game and (2) Is creepy. I ushered him away from her and naturally he latched onto the next closest female: lucky me.
Misha actually turned out to be a pretty decent dude. By the end of this round, however, the team had called it quits and started making a not-so-subtle exit. Checking to make sure there was no player left behind, I made my escape as well. One of the girls had actually invited her fourth round partner to join our jailbreak and he ended up being our democratically elected group leader (this is a funny joke because heās Russianā¦) who showed us the way down to Haifa’s downtownĀ Port.
A few of us were looking for something to munch on, so I suggested giving Jyoti a go. We assembled a table for 7 and the restaurant manager/our waiter kindly talked us through the menu (aside from being indecisive, itās difficult to take Indian food into Hebrew then again translate into English, so we were pretty needy of his attention, and he was very patient and obliging).
It seemed that none of us knew enough about Indian food to make an educated decision in any language, so I settled for the strategy of looking at the plates of others dining there. āThaliā seemed like a good choice, it had a bit of everything: rice, naan, carrots, lentils, potatoes, chickpeas, a yogurt sauce, and some green-lemony addition. When in doubt, try everything? Roman, our Ruski companion, did not venture to order food, so I assembled him a mini sample platter from my own. He was tentative to try it. I assumed it to be because he was uncomfortable taking food, but after a bit of convincing, he did eat and we discovered that he actually struggles with spicy food!!! (This he blamed on the Russian diet).
Roman helped fulfill my goal of instigating some cross-cultural exchange. There were questions and confusions and explanations of convoluted sayings, like how a cow that is silent is better than a cow that moos, in other words, donāt blame others if you are not guilt-free yourself (duh, isnāt that clear?). Once we were ready to roll out, we immediately ran into a few more people from our greater group who were headed to listen to a bit of live jazz. Roman tried to teach them a bit of Russian amidst a vocabulary exchange. With that, we strolled over to the music (Roman applied the folk saying, āwe are poor relativesā).
The restaurant was really making great use of the downtown areaās construction and renovation. Given that the street was closed to automobile traffic, they were able to set up a stage in the road along with many tables. We boogied a bit, had some beer, and then headed to my apartment for cantaloupe, tea, and talk.
Perhaps none of us will ever speed date again, but certainly we will not forget having shared this experience together.
Eve Litvak
