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Israel Vegan Fest 2014

About 3 months prior to the Vegan Festival 2014, I kept on receiving colorful ads for the event every time I checked my Facebook feed. “Vegan Festival 2014 in Ramat Gan National Park, Israel, the world’s largest Vegan festival!!! I told myself and my partner Stephanie, “Damn, if only we were in Israel…” We had no intention of flying for a visit in October, especially since we were just there in August, visiting family and friends as Iron Dome roared in the sky.

As October approached, I kept imagining how much fun it would be to actually go to the Vegan Fest, and visit family and friends of course.

But before I describe our experience at the festival, I’d like to share with you a little bit about my own personal story. I became a Vegetarian around 2002 thanks to one of my best friends from College at UC Santa Barbara, soon to be Dr. David Green (how fitting of a last name, eh?), and continued as a Veggie for nearly 7 years. During the next chapter of my life, my “Roaring Twenties”, when I lived in Tel Aviv for about 5 years, I experienced what I now look back upon from a health perspective as a hodgepodge of dietary experimentation/confusion/apathy/lack of clarity and quickly fell off the health-eating wagon. I was drinking too much alcohol, getting high way too often, consuming way too many plates of hummus, pizza, almond croissants, falafel/sabich stuffed pita sandwiches and devouring lots of high fat animal products, mainly cheeses, salmon, sardines, and red meat. Although I was training several times per week in Krav Maga and Judo, the pounds kept packing on and I didn’t know why. Towards the end of that period, I was also working a stressful, monotonous desk job just to make ends barely meet. Fortunately, my long distance Swedish girlfriend at the time (we are still together 2.5 years since the day we met at a youth hostel in Arad as Tel Aviv University graduate students) and we both decided that it would be fun to move in together and try something new.

When I got to Stockholm I had some time to do some much-needed soul-searching. I was unemployed, away from old friends and family, in a new land, with a new language, a good point to start a healthier chapter and turn over a fresh new leaf. I was (and still am) 1.72 meters tall and was uncomfortably overweight at 82.5 kilos. I wanted to lose the excess fat but felt almost ashamed to talk about it with other people, to admit to myself and to others that something was physically wrong with my health, to admit that I needed help. At the same time, I was also feeling extremely guilty whenever I would consume anything animal related, knowing full well exactly how the meat industry works in order to get that dead animal on my plate and that I was simultaneously putting tons of second hand chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones into my body after every meal. After experiencing also horrible lower back pain, indigestion, acid reflux, heaviness, fatigue, and just not feeling so good in my body, I knew that it was time to make some much needed changes. One of those major lifestyle changes that I made with the help of my partner was both gradually switching to a healthy vegan lifestyle. I have been a proud Vegan since June of 2014, with no vision of ever going back! I have also successfully dropped 9kg of ugly fat without cutting off my head! And now, back to the Vegan Festival 2014 story.

Well, almost. About 2 weeks before the festival, I began thinking about all the wonderful possibilities that I would be missing by not attending. The festival lineup consisted of Israeli musicians, guest lecturers, and dozens of booths selling food plus any type of health related product considered to be Vegan. We checked the website for our favorite Stockholm-Tel Aviv direct flight airline, Norwegian Air, and found a great deal for 2 round trip tickets at only $400. We took this as a promising sign and after debating the matter as healthy couples do, we pounced on the tickets almost immediately. As each day went by, I could not await to be surrounded by thousands of other curious, eager to learn, health oriented/compassionate minded people, and most importantly, to be able to eat to my heart and wallets content without having to always ask, “Is that Vegan?”

We arrived to Israel on October 8, the first evening of Sukkot, celebrating in Ashkelon with my Aunt’s giant Moroccan family in-law. We also got to celebrate the 1^st birthday of my cousin’s son. We filled up the other days with day trips to a Sukkot-packed Jerusalem and pleasant walks through Tel Aviv, meeting up with friends in both places. Although I was enjoying the vacation, I really could not wait until finally Monday would roll by. I was ready and psyched, planning to stay from opening till closing.

Around noon, my father Shalom aka Shuli (when I came out of the Vegan closet to him for the first time, he said to me mockingly “Vegan, schmegan!”) drove us out to the Ramat Gan National Park, a very large area with plenty of outdoor space for a festival (I later read online estimates of between 10-15,000 attendees.) The sun was shining clearly, considering that we had just come from rainy Stockholm, as we followed the other people towards the entrance on the other side of the lake. We were to meet up with 2 other friends Eli and Antonia, along with their young niece and nephew. I was hungry and seeing all of the booths from far away made me jump with joy inside, knowing that I would soon be getting my grub-on hardcore, vegan style.

The whole day went by in a blur of moments, mouthfuls, and conversations that I was able to semi-capture before the battery on my phone decided to run out. I would like to share with you glimpses of the aforementioned:

After the festival, we headed out to meet with my friend Steve for a drink on the beach. Now, the grand punch line to my experience at Vegan Fest, the irony of it all, considering that there were no animal products being served, was that when I got back to my Savta Tova’s house, I began having stomach cramps and major nausea. Throughout the night, I puked my guts out, dry heaves and all. The next day was spent recovering and we unfortunately had to cancel our trip to kibbutz Harduf up near the Sea of Galilee.

So there is a mysterious element to this bizarre twist of fate that will always have me wondering, “What did I eat that made me sick?” Was it the Domino’s pizza topped with Soy cheese, the numerous free samples of various soon to be released Vegan alternative products, the soy based ice cream, the Black Hebrew’s Teva Deli booth from Dimona (there food was and always is outstanding and I frequent their restaurant the Taste of Life in Tel Aviv every time I visit), the schwarma sample, the knaffe with coconut cream instead of goat cheese, the chai latte, or the lemonade/mint leaves blended that I drank at the beach? It could also have been due to forgetting to wash my hands and possibly touching something contaminated, I really don’t know.

In conclusion, even after the food poisoning/stomach bug letdown, it was one of the greatest festivals that I have ever attended (Burning Man, Coachella, Zorba the Budha Festival). And I will definitely be there next year. But next year, I’ll make sure to bring some hand sanitizer too. Israel, I am proud of you.

Israel Vegan Fest 2014