Finding friends at Haifa U's big BASH

FREEMAN PORITZ

The occasion: Haifa University's opening party, BASH. Running from 6:30 p.m. until 1 a.m., with a festival feel, it's the party that's supposed to set the stage for an awesome school year.

Most people who attend the event are Haifa U students, which makes sense, since entrance is free for them. For me, it cost 30 shekels, just like any other visitor - not to mention the annoying fact that entrance is limited to boyfriends and girlfriends of Haifa U students. My dilemma wasn't the money. It was finding someone to go with.

I'm 20 years old and from Tel-Aviv, a Canadian who made aliyah a year and a half ago and, evidently, does not have a girlfriend from Haifa U. The party was sure to be big and I didn't want it to go on without me. It featured Israeli singer Rita, known as a vibrant stage performer, and two bands, including the popular HaDag Nachash, whose name, when reversed in Hebrew, means "New Driver."

My cousin Tal had planned to take me to the party, but she came down with a cold and backed out. At least she helped me buy a ticket before she went home. Unfortunately, that didn't solve my problem. I still needed to find someone to go in with me. Security was rigid. They don't take chances here.

Luckily, I'd been to Haifa U once before and remembered that I'd met a nice girl on a tour of the dorms. I figured she'd take me if I could somehow get in touch with her. The easiest way to find her – to call her, of course – would have worked perfectly, had she remembered to give me all 10 digits of her phone number. I was in dismay when I realized she'd only given me nine. A nine-digit phone number in Israel, unless it's Bezek (a land line), is just about useless. Maybe she was trying to snub me, but I figured I should take a gamble and try to find her. I decided to do a reconnaissance of the dorms.

It was early – 7 p.m. I still had a good chance to catch up with her before she went out to join the festivities. Girls usually take a while choosing which clothes to wear. That could work to my advantage. My photographic memory tracked the way to her area of the dorms and suddenly I heard something that made me turn my head: English! And better yet – Canadian English! I introduced myself to the two girls, one American and one Canadian, in what my fellow Canadian termed, "English with a perfect accent." Great, I thought, two Canadians meeting in Israel is a dangerous situation. We can never stop talking about our respective Jewish communities until we figure out which people we both know and where they're from and, of course, what they're doing now.

Instant friendship was struck. We agreed to head in to the concert together and to keep in touch afterwards. The Canadian and her friends helped me get in - I posed as one of their boyfriends.

It turned out that the Canadian is the roommate of the girl that I was searching for. As expected, she was already at the party. I found her and we started to dance. We heard Hebrew, some English, some Russian, even a little Arabic. We danced slower and closer together. Singing in Hebrew, we held our hands up to the sky. For a young person enjoying the nightlife, Canada and Israel didn't seem 5,000 miles apart.

Freeman Poritz lived in Vancouver from the age of six to 19. He is now living in Israel and is a soldier in the Golani Brigade.

^TOP