Entry Point: Things Are Bad Here

Israel is all grown up. Gone is that diminutive little Ben Gurion Airport where you'd arrive and wobble down the steps of the plane, perhaps level your lips with the concrete of the tarmac, and crowd a tram to the terminal.

Gone is the Coca Cola sign and in its stead: CellCom and H.Stern. New Ben Gurion has the frame of a Gothic Cathedral, not filled with the white tufts of cigarette smoke (characteristic of its namesake), not stuffy, but like a mall filled with oxygen and Birthright children ready to have extremely casual sex with the Jewish State (and each other).

First night, we went to the Port of Jaffa—once an old beautiful rotting industrial slum showered with pocks and rust—which has devolved in Miami katanah, its Arab character washed off and given birth to South Beach clothes shops and wine tasting, in the way of the cats who left the seaport when the fish disappeared. There are real planks on the walk, there is real varnish on the signs, chinzy and professional. So professional.

Israel is all grown up. Its every wish to be fat with money and aching with bad relationships and saddled with unruly children and lousy neighbors -- it's all come true. It is rich and empty like the places it wanted to be like. Like the new Largo or the Guggenheim.