When travelling to Israel even the most apolitical person gets confronted with the fact that the birthplace of most of our major religions makes even the most menial tasks political. One can go through the airport security check in many other countries without having political thoughts but this land forces you to confront your thoughts and beliefs. As a fellow Dutch person I can imagine it is like going from 0 to a 100 real quick. In Israel, religion, conflict and class function in a way that can feel truly foreign, so skating is in a sense a safe haven.
Intro By Roland Hoogwater.
Text by Sebastiaan Vijverberg.
Photos by Ziggy Schaap.
“Such a blessing was given to the Land of Israel” – Johnny Cash.
No skateboarder would disagree on Johnny. Although tensions in Israel are high, the people we’ve met in the holy land we’re so welcoming and accommodating we immediately forgot about the travel warnings and security checks at the airport. If this isn’t convincing enough, consider the distinctive mix of religions and therefore culture you will experience in the promised land.
Get there while you can and don’t forget to bring hummus home!
Shalom.
Text to go with the images:
1 – Dutchie Justin Wagenerskating the first spot Ofer showed us in Tel Aviv.
2 – Louis Marshall flew more than 3000 kilometres to skate this sidewalk.
3 – Kinky at the Tel Aviv beach.
4 – Fabian Jankoschek did graffiti, fidget spinning and a little bit of skating on the side.
5 – Fuck you all, Lucas Jankoschek goes down with the wrong foot forward.
6 – Low impact spots are the best, and they get better when high impact skaters like Sebastiaan Vijverberg skate them.
7 – We skipped the club and fancy bars to get crusty in the streets of Tel Aviv.
8 – The old city of Tel Aviv gives a feeling of what Israel used to be, Louis front blunting just before it went from twilight into night.
9 – Sven Langkabel has the highest Wallride Nollie’s and the lowest amount of tricks documented, unfortunately!
10 – There’s alot of spots around the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the most famous one being the meetup spot around the corner of Louis’ wallride called Golda.
11 – Ashdod is a little more south of Tel Aviv and has a whole different level of archtecture like this Dubai like marble ledge spot. Ofer owned this spot after guiding us around the whole week, thanks Ofer <3
12 – He might be small but Turtle CEO Lucas Jankoschek did the biggest switch wallride to regs.
13 – This spot seemed to be the holiest of the holiest places we visited in Jerusalem, we were listening to Ofer’s crazy hip-hop playlist on the boombox while Fabi ollie’ed in the bank.
14 – Only one day of rain during our 10-day trip through Israel and even then the Ofer legend came through with spots to skate. Sebastiaan Vijverberg – Fs ollie
15 – Hopping fences in Palestine territory
16 – Lucas Jankoschek rides the abandoned pool park on our way to the dead sea
17 – People pay a shitload of money for this holy mud which is good for the skin. Sebastiaan bathing in European money
18 – Turtle out!