Now THAT THE

DUST HAS SETTLED...

COME SEE THE
NEWLY REMODELED &
EXPANDED GREG SHOES
IN WEST BLOOMFIELD.

With the biggest
and best
selection ever of
women's and
children's
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These wrecked buses represent the past in Israel.

GREG SHOES

851-5566

Orchard Mall
West Bloomfield

"Serving the
community for
36 years"

559-3580

Evergreen Plaza
Southfield

Taking A Bus
To Israel's Future

LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

1993 BUICK
PARK AVENUE

FULLY LOADED WITH PREMIUM PACKAGE

L

ittle by little, over the
last five years or so, it's
become clear that
Israel is no longer a
poor country trying to keep
its balance in the Second
World without falling back
into the Third.
All of sudden the phones
work. The mail arrives on
time. Most people have cars,
often two per family, and
car phones are a common
sight. Apartments in the
city go for as much as
$150,000 $250,000, teen-
agers are afraid to wear the
wrong kind of jeans or run-
ning shoes to school, and
the country feels half-empty
in August with all the
Israelis traveling abroad.
There are still signs of the
backward past: the Arab vil-
lages with their sewage run-
ning in the streets, the big-
city slums with their blocks
of old, ruined apartment
buildings.
There are still corners of
Israel where things are
shabby, where the people
are lively but primitive,
where nothing seems to
have changed since about
1953.
But if there is one prime
example of the uproarious
mess that was Israel, it is
Tel Aviv's Central Bus
Station, the crossroads of
the country. On August 18,
this sprawling, filthy Middle
Eastern bazaar will begin to
shut down. Taking its place
is a new station that looks
like an international air-
port.
As much as any other

-

ONLY $

399 *

per month

* Lease based on 30 months. First monthly payment and security deposit (sec. dep. rounded to nearest $25.00
increments over monthly payment). Mileage limitation 12,000/year. 150 per mile over at lease end. To get total of
payments multiply payment by 30. Lessee subject has option, but is not obligated to buy at a price to be determined
at lease inception. Subject to prior sale. Rebates apply where applicable. Stk# 47460

12,3$92

TH E DE T RO

_BUICK 411

22

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event in recent memory,
this changeover symbolizes
what Israel has left behind,
and what it's become.
The old bus station, locat-
ed in the middle of Tel
Aviv's poor, Sephardi south-
side, is an assault on nearly
all the senses. A riot of peo-
ple, some 250,000 a day —
including what seems like
every mobilized soldier and
backpacking foreigner in the
country — get on and off the
buses, which are lined up
next to the old station build-
ing and along the narrow
streets that surround it.
The station building, con-
structed in 1940, is coated
with decades of grime,
inside and out. Beggars —
some legless, some blind —
sit on the floor, holding out
their hands for money.
Chabadniks tend their
table, trying to interest the
passing men into putting on
tefillin.
Hundreds and hundreds
of little shops, kiosks and
stands huddle against one
another on the streets. The
most famous are the ones
that sell pop music cassettes
and action videos.
Every imaginable cheap
item seems to be flowing out
of the shops. Rows of belts
and T-shirts and dresses
hang from the ceilings, toys
and watches and lipstick
are piled up on counters,
along with radios and shoes
and sunglasses — basically
any low-tech product that
can be carried away by hand
is on sale.
Hawkers shout into

ji