Israelis and GOA trance!

[tribal]

Toe Rings, Rave Music and India (Just for Israelis)

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Santosh Verma for The New York Times

Three young visitors who identified themselves as Israelis in Anjuna Beach, a town where restaurants like the Green Palms advertise their wares in Hebrew and English. Israeli tourism in India has boomed in recent years.

The New York Times

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NJUNA BEACH, India — Hebrew-language banners flutter improbably in the sea breeze here while a poster of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher sage from Brooklyn, keeps a watchful eye on the youngsters on their way to the next full-moon trance party on the beach.

Goa, a onetime Portuguese colony on this sliver of India's west coast, is now a shrine on the Israeli ravers' pilgrimage through India — the birthplace of the mind-numbing electronic dance music called Goa trance.

For Israelis craving an escape from the pressure of home, often after a prolonged stint in the army, India has become the refuge of choice.

Judging by the accounts of Israelie, the contrast between home and here could not be more stark. An explosion usually signals fireworks in the sky. The only army you are likely to see is that of enterprising peddlers hawking toe rings and sarongs on the beach, often in passable Hebrew.

One recent day, the revelers here on Israeli Beach, as the non-Israelis call it, were busy hoisting a giant glow-in-the-dark mushroom for a trance party scheduled to get under way at midnight.

Never mind the troubles that have kept the well-heeled Western tourists from the Indian subcontinent. The Israelis, used to violence at home, are unfazed.

"The more trouble there is, the more we come," said Shira Agasi, a serious, bespectacled woman of 21 who had traversed the Israeli circuit in India, from Manali in the north to Varanasi in the east to here, since finishing a two-year stint in the intelligence division of the Israeli Air Force.

"I hope we can bring it to Israel, this atmosphere," her friend Riki Levy, 20, added wistfully, staring at the sea, engulfed in twilight indigo.

The end of the cold war opened diplomatic relations between India and Israel barely 10 years ago. Since then the two countries have expanded trade ties and shared intelligence. Today a substantial portion of India's military budget is spent on Israeli arms and military training. A common enemy, Islamic radicalism, helps cement bonds.

In 2000 more than 60,000 Israelis visited India, according to the Israeli consul general in Bombay, Dov Steinberg.

While no exact figures are available on how many of them come to Goa, word of mouth on the young Israeli travel circuit and the range of services that cater to their needs, from falafel at the restaurants to rooms for as low as $4 a night, makes Goa a frequent stop. for many.

So for the last several years they have flocked to these beaches, most of them fresh from the frazzle of military service, lured by the notion that the sea and the mysteries of India and fat chillum pipes stuffed with hashish will offer answers to life's big questions.

A handful have been arrested on drug charges and sentenced to the local jail.

"There's a fantasy: you think here you'll know what you want to do," is how Lior Naveh, 25, a native of the Tel Aviv area, put it as he watched the sun set before clambering up a hill to a rave at the famous Nine Bar, a sand pit with fake caves serving as the D.J.'s booth. But, he added, "I still don't know what I want to do."

So powerfully has India gripped the Israeli imagination that it has figured in television serials, as the subject of at least one recent novel, A. B. Yehoshua's "Return to India," and in a film based on the novel, to be released soon.

Published in 1994 in Israel, the novel — titled "Open Heart" in its English translation — tells the story of an Israeli doctor who travels to India to rescue a young compatriot who has fallen ill. The doctor, in turn, falls under the spell of Indian mysticism.

Jews have a long history in India. There is a 400-year-old synagogue in Cochin, an overnight train ride from Goa, and as many Indians say with great pride, theirs is one of the few nations where Jews have not been persecuted.

But the Israeli fascination with this place has to do with something else.

To most Israelis, Mr. Yehoshua argued, India represents a country of many cultures and beliefs, a place where you are not under pressure all the time. The tourists generally do not come here to ride the packed trains of Bombay or reflect on the communal riots that litter this country's past.

Young Israelis come armed with lessons on how to get by in Goa, from the price of an auto-rickshaw ride to how much to haggle on the price of a hand-embroidered handbag to the names of clubs. "We knew exactly about this place when we were in Israel," Ms. Agasi said.

Escape it might be, but some things do not change. Friday evenings find diners at many restaurants in the area lighting a candle, reciting a Sabbath prayer.

Bumper stickers and posters scattered all over Anjuna hawk the virtues of one Jewish sect or another.

At the small shops that offer Internet access, the latest news from Israel is always a click away. When word spreads through the grapevine, as it usually does these days, of violence back home, a steady stream of Israelis pours into the long-distance telephone booths to call home.

[dialectics]

wow, that was beautiful.

i already have it planned - as soon as i get my phd i'm heading out to tokyo, thailand and goa. spend a few months travelling through southeast asia.... something i've gotta do.....

peaz,

rob