{"id":25500,"date":"2013-04-11T23:55:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T06:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=25500"},"modified":"2013-04-13T01:21:06","modified_gmt":"2013-04-13T08:21:06","slug":"sidewalks-of-heaven-in-tel-aviv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=25500","title":{"rendered":"Sidewalks of Heaven in Tel Aviv"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_25501\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25501\" style=\"width: 588px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2013-04-11-11.09.50-harav-tomer-libi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25501\" alt=\"Harav Tomer and Libi\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel \" src=\"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2013-04-11-11.09.50-harav-tomer-libi.jpg\" width=\"588\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2013-04-11-11.09.50-harav-tomer-libi.jpg 588w, https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2013-04-11-11.09.50-harav-tomer-libi-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 588px) 100vw, 588px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-25501\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harav Tomer and Libi\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Music reaches out to us, wherever we are. Walking along King George Street in Tel Aviv I saw a man in a white button down shirt and tie, long beard and kippah, playing the guitar, a hat on the sidewalk at his feet. We started talking and he played me a song, an original, acoustic, soft and soulful with a recurring refrain: give me strength (Hebrew: <em>ten bi coach<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Harav Tomer loves motorcycles and rock &#8216;n roll, he is a Hozer Betshuva (a Jew who returns to religion), a rabbi, teacher and the father of seven children who, in his own words, is &#8220;trying to make peace through music, to help religious and secular people connect with one another, help people connect to themselves through religion, and&#8230; to make a living.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coming towards us on the sidewalk was a long-legged rocker lady in blue jeans, her long dark hair swinging and a smile on her face as she reached down to put some coins in his hat. It was none other than Libi, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=20747\" target=\"_blank\">bold and brilliant singer<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0 who has happily returned to live in\u00a0 Israel, performing at the Woodstock Revival summer concerts in Jerusalem, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=24324\" target=\"_blank\">One Billion Rising<\/a> event in Tel Aviv, and gigs throughout the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wait, I&#8217;ll play you a song,&#8221; he said, and sang Stairway to Heaven. It was beautiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music reaches out to us, wherever we are. Walking along King George Street in Tel Aviv I saw a man in a white button down shirt and tie, long beard and kippah, playing the guitar, a hat on the sidewalk at his feet. We started talking and he played me a song, an original, acoustic, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}