The neighborhood has changed

I reside in the center of this Kfar Saba settlement, sitting in a chair in front of the Penguin ice cream shop on Rothschild Street. The next shop is a bakery but when I arrived, say fifty years ago, it was a dark dusty dress shop owned by twin Hungarian ladies. They had numbers tattooed on their forearms, they were survivors of Auschwitz. I told my mother to talk to them, but she was shy and never did. The next shop, now a pizzeria, was owned by a Hungarian with machines to make rubber stamps. I used to talk to him till he died. In the corner of the staircase of this old building, a Romanian had his watch repair shop, sitting on maybe 2.5 square meters. Next to the Municipality, a shoemaker had a wooden shack; he died and there are no more shoe repair shops in the town. The shack (restored and painted anew) is maintained as a historical souvenir of old Kfar Saba. Schoolchildren are taken to visit it. It is next to the first water well that allowed the existence of this hundred years old agricultural settlement. At the bus stop on Weizmann Street, old Yemenites were selling narcotic leaves they were addicted to. At that time there were still a few active farms.  A year before, eggs had been rationed, but the oldtimers continued buying "black market" eggs from Druckman's farm. Thinking back, the population of the town was depressing, poor, and miserable. 

Sitting on the street, I see a different public. Most women have blond hair, and there are five or six hairdressers on the block. There are quite a number of tall, original blonde Walkiries; they speak Russian among themselves. Many fat Philippine caretakers, shopping or accompanying old women. Some suspicious-looking muscular Africans, and some fat-assed Ethiopians. New tall buildings everywhere. The city shines with prosperity. I felt more at home then.