Discord, difficulty only part of life in Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel -- The drummers on the beach pause, and Idan Beshef slowly bangs out a new beat. One thump followed by two quick ones. He starts slowly, swaying back and forth, then quickens the pace as others join in.

The musicians first came to Tel Aviv's beach seven years ago, and some return nearly every evening, just as the sun begins to set. They climb a slippery rock barrier jutting into the glistening Mediterranean Sea, pounding out the rhythms of daily life in Israel -- an improvisational symphony for the sunbathers on a crowded stretch of sand.

Most of the world has an image of Israel, an image of discord and difficulty, but that is only one part of the reality. Life goes on here, with the same intensity and passion heard in the drums. The beach is one place to feel it, in the sound of the waves and the roar of the drums.

Sunbathers come to see the drummers, drawn by their spirited play and willingness to allow anyone to join them, even those whose drums are the bottoms of plastic water bottles.

'Better than therapy'

The biggest group arrives on Fridays, when secular Tel Aviv primes itself for a weekend of drinking and clubbing even as the Sabbath draws the religious city of Jerusalem to a quiet close. The action begins with the drums on the beach, which runs from the city's northern suburbs south to the old port of Jaffa.

"This is better than therapy," Beshef said during a short break, carefully climbing down from his perch in bare feet. "Just beat the drum and let it all out. Feel the sunset, the sand, the water, the people. When you play the drums, the music goes into your soul and there is no way back."

Beshef, 25, tends bar in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, where he grew up. On a typically sweltering day, he is wearing loose-fitting jeans, a red T-shirt and a white head cloth, his eyes hidden behind wrap-around sunglasses.

"There are no politics on the beach," Beshef said. "Everybody needs a place to escape, where you can play and nothing else matters. This is the place."

Lotan Mager, 17, is in high school. College is too far off to think about now, for in another year she and her classmates, male and female, will join the Israeli army.

But for now, she is at the beach, wearing a black bikini top and red sweat pants and practicing a martial artlike dance. The drummers are nearby, and Mager tries to keep up with the beat, letting her braided hair loose.

"I exercise because I need to enjoy life," said Mager, who lives in Modin, the one-time village between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where the Maccabee revolt against the Seleucid Empire began in 167 B.C. "I come here whenever I can."

People on the beach talk not about Israel's conflict with the Palestinians but about the lack of jobs, a lack of money and a hectic lifestyle that tests the most patient person.

Shmuel Ventura and Rami Levagev come to the beach every Friday to fly kites. Both men work as furniture movers, and grew up on the same Tel Aviv street.

They are from two different generations. Ventura is 35 and already a veteran of two conflicts -- both Palestinian uprisings. Levagev, who emigrated from Russia when he was a child, is 19 and has been exempted from army duty because of his infirm parents.

"It's how you live here," he said, trying to explain his luck in escaping some of the other facts of life here: attacks. The first time he escaped unhurt after being a few feet from a Palestinian gunman who opened fire on a crowd in Netanya. Later, he barely missed a bus in Tel Aviv that blew up before it reached the next stop.

"You lie low."

His friend joins in.

"It is a pressure-cooker," Ventura said, handing the kite string to his friend. "There are conflicts everywhere. It is like living in a cage."