Bongs for all

June 28, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

Everybody in Israel is getting worked up about the coming disengagement from Gaza. Too worked up, if you ask the Green Leaf Party – who won 1.2 percent of the vote in the last national elections on a platform solely promoting the legalization of marijuana.

So, activists from the organization have suggested a novel approach to lessening tensions between the settlers in Gush Katif and the soldiers who are coming in August to evacuate them – just take a toke and enjoy the ride.

Israeli media reported they went down to spread the gospel in Gush Katif this week, basing their recommendations on the claim that “medicinal use of prohibited drugs is common to fight severe pain and lethal threats… It is therefore our strong belief that the legal adviser to the government…should issue a temporary order and instruct the police not to enforce the prohibition of personal consumption of cannabis among the settlers during the disagreement period in order to help avert violent behavior among adults,” said in a statement handed out at the site.

Settlers outside an abandoned hotel which has become an anti-disengagement headquarters were not immediately ready to whip out their bongs – A few shouting and shoving matches were reported between them and the pro-pot advocates.

After staging a roadblock to let the settlers know how they feel about the anti-disengagement efforts that include blocking roads throughouth Israel, the Green Party folks hightailed it back to the friendly confines of Tel Aviv – and presumably lit up in order to calm down.

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Things I’ve Learned

June 25, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Life 

I’ve learned a few things in the ten years since I moved to Israel. Some of them are interesting (at least, they are to me), some are unimportant, some are downright disgusting, and some are fairly thought-provoking. With the school year winding down and the hot, lazy days of summer almost upon us, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the store of knowledge I’ve gained to date. So here, in no particular order, are a few of the things I’ve learned.

My neighbor Chaim grows the sweetest plums I’ve ever tasted.

Maybe I hang out in the wrong places, but in a decade’s time, I have yet to find a decent bagel in Israel.

What I grew up calling shish kebab is called shishlik in Israel. Kebabs are made with ground meat.

I learned that it is considered socially acceptable to ask people their salary, or how much they paid for their house.

Bats do not defecate, they vomit. (I did warn you that some were disgusting, remember?)

Much though it pains this California girl to admit it, Danny Sanderson’s Hebrew version of the Beach Boys’ song Come Go With Me is much better than the original. (click here and listen for the sixth song).

It is illegal for teachers to accept gifts from individual parents (unless those gifts are handmade).

Unfortunately, I have learned that there are such things as flying cockroaches.

If you own a television, you have to pay an annual television tax.

Even though Israel is tiny, the various parts of the country have totally different characters (more about that next time).

Israel has three commercial ports: one in Haifa, one in Ashdod, and one in Eilat.

There are seven airports in Israel, though only Ben Gurion Airport and the Eilat Airport serve international flights.

Most cities and towns in Israel have a street named after Theodore Herzl.

All dwellings are required to have a bomb shelter.

I was saddened to learn that some of the very best Israeli singers were more successful abroad than they were at home.

Up until very recently, there was no capital gains tax in Israel.

You cast your vote by putting a slip of paper into an envelope (no hanging chads for us!).

If you don’t pass your matriculation exams, you can’t go to college and it will be very tough to find a job.

In Israel, “college” means junior college, and “university” means college.

While we’re on the subject, I recently learned that there are eight universities in Israel.

It is against the law to call someone a Nazi in Israel.

Some people hang strings of garlic bulbs in their yards to ward off the evil eye.

I have also learned that there are alot more interesting, unimportant, disgusting, and thought-provoking things out there, waiting to be learned…

I wonder what my list will look like in another ten years.

This post also appears on my website, Postcards from Israel.

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Things are back to normal, Part I

June 20, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

One sign that life has reverted back to some kind of normalcy here after four years of frenzy – I was sitting at a sidewalk restaurant last night on trendy Emek Refaim St. in Jerusalem’s German Colony (the bistro and the sidewalks were both packed with revelrers – and this is on a Sunday night – the Israeli equivalent of Monday night in America, the death watch for most night spots.)

Enjoying our meal, I glanced across the street and saw a long-haired man dressed in black wearing sunglasses, with his arms draped around a stunning woman. He was carrying an English newspaper, and clearly didn’t have that Israeli look.

And then it dawned on me – I bet that’s Dave Mustaine – the heavy metal godfather and leader of American rockers Megadeth. I can’t claim to be a fan, but I knew the band had arrived for a show headlining the Metalist festival taking place in a couple days on a beach near Tel Aviv.

Dave and his lady crossed the street, undisturbed, and made their way into a restaurant down the road.

Was it really him? Not sure. But I felt pretty darn good anyway, thinking that my little Jerusalem enclave was hip enough for the king of thrash metal.

Rock on Dave, and to all you heavy metal Israeli kids out there, enjoy the show!

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More random thoughts on Israeliness

June 13, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Israeliness 

Not being born in Israel, I struggled with the question of my identity all through my teen years and most of my twenties.

Why am I Israeli? Perhaps I am Israeli because all my life experiences have been Israeli since early childhood. I went to Kaytana (summer day camp) every summer where I partook of the most delightful of snacks ever – the eternal lahmaniya and shoko (a roll and a small plastic bag containing cold milk chocolate drink); I danced ‘rikuddei am’ (Israeli ‘folk’ dancing) for years; I knew all the Hebrew translations of the old Russian songs learnt sitting round the bonfire, without even realizing that they were old Russian songs; I acquired an intimate relationship with the paths and lanes and vegetation and smells of Israel on Scouts and Gadna (‘youth troops’ – a sort of preparation for the army) trips; I learnt my way round the smelly, humid, fascinating microcosm that was the (now long gone) old central bus station in Tel Aviv, before driving and car ownership made this unnecessary; I argued incessantly and quite hopelessly with numerous army cooks and drivers whose loud Mizrahi (Eastern) music kept me awake when I was trying to sleep on the base before my army night shifts…

But things have changed, and my daughters will probably never experience any of these things and are still far more Israeli than me because, well, because they just are.

So what is Israeli, and why do people who came here as adults seem to feel slightly out of things?

I remember sitting at home with my parents and brother once many years ago, watching the traditional Friday night chat show on the solitary state TV channel. The guy was interviewing singer and musician Matti Caspi, who years later was to place himself fair and square in my bad books by nearly running over baby Eldest in her pram and me as we attempted to cross Jabotinsky Street where it meets the western side of Kikar Hamedina.

Now Matti Caspi is known for his dry sense of humor, as dry as the Negev. He had this skit he used to do in a broad Moroccan accent about Sarah and her washing and Morris and his pigeons. He’d have them rolling in the aisles, but he’d always tell it with this serious, unsmiling, even melancholy face on him. I once was fortunate enough to witness history in the making when he did this skit in the lovely little amphitheatre in Ein Hod and actually cracked a smile!

Well anyway, we were sitting there watching Matti Caspi being interviewed on TV, before singing his latest song, and he was just so funny. R.T. and I were laughing hysterically, along with the studio audience on the screen, but our parents were sitting there, puzzled, quite unable to understand what was funny about what this rather sad looking guy was saying.

But then again, my very Israeli daughters often don’t get some of our old favorite skits either, so maybe humor is a generation thing.

To be continued.

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“Real” Israelis

June 10, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Israeliness 

People who are born in Israel are called sabras, after the Hebrew word for the prickly pear fruit. The saying goes that, like the fruit, Israelis are harsh and abrasive on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside. Lately I’ve been wondering whether immigrants to Israel ever come to feel that they are “real” Israelis. I’ve spoken to alot of people about this over the last several weeks. I’ve also asked a number of sabras whether they ever perceived immigrants (“olim”) as “real” Israelis. Every conversation took a different path, and each one was fascinating.

At first, I wondered if time would be the factor that made the difference between feeling like a foreigner and considering oneself a full-fledged Israeli. I talked to Ellen, who has been here for over 40 years. She has held a job here, raised children here, and even has grandchildren who were born here. She told me that not only does she not feel like an Israeli, she doesn’t ever expect to feel like one.

Another person I spoke to speculated that army service might be the thing that transforms an immigrant into an Israeli. He contends that the whole culture and experience of serving in the army causes immigrants to be integrated into the larger society. Elihu, who moved here with his family at age 10, agrees. Ron, however, has a different reaction. He was born here, grew up elsewhere, then returned to serve in the army and to settle here. Even after years of living, working, and doing reserve army duty here, he still refers to Israelis as “them.”

Perhaps growing up here, then, is the key. One of the results of moving to Israel as a child is a greater mastery of Hebrew. Most of the people I spoke to made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) as young adults. All said that a lack of fluency in the language made them feel awkward in their dealings with Israelis. Connected to that is the sense they have of not being aware of many customs. Tina, who moved here from England after graduating from high school, often feels out of touch with her Israeli co-workers. They have ways of communicating and socializing that she has yet to fully master.

Earlier this year, Tina (who is a lecturer at a teachers’ training college) asked her students to write an essay on whether they feel Israeli society is more like a melting pot or a salad bowl. Every single student used the second analogy. Indeed, while there are dozens of different cultures and nationalities represented here, the various groups tend to remain discrete. People are almost always identified by their family’s country of origin: Avner (a sabra) is labelled a Parsi (Persian), and Kalanit (also a sabra) is Moroccan.

So, who is actually a “real” Israeli? We have our infamous stereotype (aggressive, rude, selfish and impatient – yet Israelis are also generous, brave, caring, and good in a crisis), but of course not all sabras fit that mold. Those who don’t fit feel they are not part of the mainstream; even those who may fit the stereotype don’t believe they do. Meanwhile, the sabras I spoke to said that immigrants almost never seem to make the transition into becoming “real” Israelis. Perhaps, after all, a “real” Israeli is just a mythical creature.

It could be that immigrants, by their very nature, are not meant to feel the same as those who are born in the host country. It is enough that, rather than becoming “real” Israelis, we are ourselves, here. Brian Blum has written an excellent piece on this topic on his blog. His entry for 2 June 2005 is well worth reading. I think we immigrants tend to try to create a life here that resembles as closely as possible the life we left behind, albeit one that is free of the elements that caused us to leave our native countries in the first place. It’s a way of convincing ourselves that our new country is as familiar, and natural to us, as the life we used to have.

One other interesting note is that every single person I spoke to said that while they don’t feel they have become “real” Israelis, they do feel at home in Israel. I agree. We love living here, and believe with all our hearts that this is the place we were meant to be. We feel pride and patriotism when we see the flag waving, and when we sing Hatikvah, our national anthem. Maybe the fact that we took our old lives and chose to live them here is what makes us “real” Israelis.

Also posted on my website Postcards from Israel

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