Across the street, the "Marrakesh Restaurant" sign glows red. In English. English is everywhere. This is not just in Netanya, it is in the airport and what we saw of commercial Tel Aviv as we passed by. Brand names are written in English and so are store names. Netanya is in part a seaside resort, a tourist town for foreign as well as domestic travelers. If "Marrakesh" were spelled מרקש, how much harder would it be for a passing tourist to look it up on their favorite restaurant review site before deciding to go in or pass it by??
So at times I know I'm in Israel, and at times it's easy to forget. But we've been here less than 24 hours and exhausted all that time. As my ears and eyes and tongue are tuning to Israeli Hebrew, I will be more immersed.
Already I'm thinking differently, feeling the deep roots of the language. Shlomo HaMelech Boulevard is prominent, while adjacent Shaul HaMelech Street is not. King Solomon and King Saul. There is a cutout silhouette of Theodore Herzl on top of the water tower in Herzliya--goofy but poignant. We passed A.D. Gordon street--that's who my father was named for, and his father was named for Theodore Herzl.