Israelis raise funds for northern Israelis, southern Lebanese
Last night there was a concert in downtown Jerusalem called “After the War,” with various artists performing, and proceeds to be split 50-50 between relief organizations for northern Israelis, and relief organizations for civilians in southern Lebanon.
Co-organizer Daniel Sieraski reports that 80 people came, and the concert brought in $1,000. Instructions for donating are at Dan’s website.
Measuring an immigrant’s Israeliness
Three years after immigrating from Connecticut to Israel, David Bogner on the ongoing difficulties of switching from Fahrenheit, inches, and cups to Celsius, centimeters, and grams:
. . . [E]ven as we struggle mightily with big things like language or the trivial things like the metric system in our daily lives… in the privacy of our home we still maintain some vestiges of our old way of doing things. Even though I know how many liters of fuel my car takes and the kilometrage I’m likely to get in the city and on the highway, I don’t have a clear sense how these things stack up on the ‘good/bad’ scale as I would if we were talking about gallons or mileage.
One exception to this partial cultural dumbness is my new hobby; beekeeping. Since I never gave any thought before as to how many pounds of honey a typical beehive should provide, I’m perfectly comfortable thinking of the honey yield from my beehives only in Kilos.
But there are some areas of our lives that have been harder to convert. The most obvious example is that we still measure our recipes using ‘cups’ and ‘teaspoons’. Any new recipe from an Israeli friend sends us scurrying to the computer to do a quick conversion to more manageable measures.
. . . For the record, I’m not a complete idiot. I have a pretty good idea of what is hot and what is cold when I hear the weather predictions at the end of the news. But that’s mostly because I hear the range of temperatures listed next to locations in the country which provides a ready key to anyone who knows basic Israeli geography. But when one of the kids gets a fever, I have no real sense if a particular temperature is hot enough to warrant a trip to the doctor or if it is perhaps hot enough to smelt copper ore.
. . . . Anyway, inside the house we continue to be a Fahrenheit family and use the handy computer conversion whenever we needed to relate vital temperature info to the pediatrician. But outside the house I have gamely tried to make the leap to Celsius.
For the past three years I have had the little ‘outside temperature’ indicator on my car’s dashboard set to Celsius and have made a concerted effort to take note of the number and relate that to how it actually feels outside. I honestly wanted to be able to instinctively understand the range of local weather the way I had in our old life. I wanted to be able to know without thinking that this temperature meant sweat… and that temperature meant to send the kids out with sweatshirts.
But after three years I have to admit defeat.
This past week while we were up north on vacation I reset the car’s outside temperature indicator to Fahrenheit. I did it mid-trip because it was hot outside… but I had no earthly idea how hot it really was. While we sat in front of Falafel Zehava in Beit She’an I repeatedly glanced at the Celsius temperature and it had absolutely no connection to what I was feeling outside the car. So I reached up and switched it to the more familiar scale and suddenly the world came into focus. It was 102F outside. That I understood!
When I made the switch on the car’s on-board computer I felt a little guilty. I didn’t point it out right away to Zahava or the kids, and even contemplated switching it back once we got home. But now that it has been a week, I realize I’ve made another small concession.
In the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. But just as with our big comfortable American appliances and Pyrex measuring cups graduated into nice safe ounces… I feel like I have reasserted control over a tiny part of my life that had been flapping freely in the breeze.
This newfound clarity has freed up a small part of my brain that can now concentrate on becoming more proficient in Hebrew… becoming a more assertive negotiator of Israeli commerce and traffic… and, of course, being the kind of father who knows whether to dress his kids in shorts or sweaters in the morning.
Lines, Lines everywhere
Gilly is a British immigrant to Israel . . . who is now moving temporarily to the US . . . and he wishes to remind us (“us” being people who like to complain about the bureaucracy in Israel) that some things are not about Israel. They are about being an immigrant. Or, about being on Earth:
Today I went to an office, grabbed a number from a morose official and sat in an uncomfortable chair waiting for my turn. After a surprisingly short wait, my number was called and I found myself opposite a clerk, whose accent revealed that he was also a relative newcomer. After spending 10 minutes looking over my documents I was told that despite the fact that I hadn’t waiting long enough since my arrival, they would probably send me the important number, without which I can’t sort out a phone line and driving license “within 2 months”.
I know you’re thinking Misrad Hapnim but you’re wrong – I’m in the US remember – that’s the social security office in Rockville – but it just goes to show that we don’t do things too differently (although an Oleh will usually walk out on the same day with a Teudat Zehut).
Last week I walked into the Verizon store to see about getting a mobile phone – how difficult could that be? Plenty of tourists buy them in Israel without a problem so why should here be any different? After a chat with the salesman during which I persuaded him that I didn’t need a phone that gave me directions, played music, played games and made the tea, we finally found what I wanted in a corner of the store, hiding amongst the motorola sliders and flippers which our American cousins seems to love; a simple, beautiful Nokia. The price was reasonable and we went back to the counter to arrange the deal – and then came a catch (not THE catch – I hadn’t been expecting one – a catch) – my lack of a social security number (2 months – see above if you skipped) and credit rating (another new concept) meant that I had to leave a deposit of $400 per phone. Ouch!!
I’ve concluded so far that the immigrant experience is never 100% straightforward, generally expensive and somewhat frustrating and needs to be approached with a full wallet and a sense of humour. I came to a similar conclusion when I made Aliyah in ’96 and have been dispensing the same advice to Olim for a long time – so far everything is going great – I’ve got a bank account sorted which I opened with a Jordanian teller and we have an apartment with no furniture which I’ll be moving into on Thursday.
Luck of the Irish Pt. 2
I was thinking about packing up and heading home – taking the leisurely bus ride back to Ma’aleh Adumim – when I got a call from my buddy Seth.
Traffic outside the city was at a complete standstill from both ways, he told me. A quick check on Israel Radio confirmed that there was a ‘hot’ terror alert of a suicide bomber attempting to enter Jerusalem from either Bethelehem or from Ramallah (closer to our side of town).
Seth had alighted from the bus and was making his way home by foot. If you haven’t left yet, don’t bother, he said. You won’t get home for hours.
Great, I thought. Guess I’ll stay and work some more. Then I happened to check out the previous posting on Israelity about the new ‘Dublin’ bar – which just happens to be directly across the street from our offices.
It’s been open for a couple months now, but I’ve only passed it in a hurry on the way home. Now’s a perfect time to check it out – and drinking while the sun’s still shining has always been appealing. So while our security forces are out making our country safe, I’m going to explore the world of Irish beer… more tomorrow.
Luck of the Irish?
There have been street advertisements all over Jerusalem for a new pub opening up called “Dublin.”
Eliesheva, who apparently visited from Tel Aviv, obviously likes it:
The Dublin pub in Jerusalem is the closest I’ll get to Ireland for now.
And it’s sooo awesome…
Sigh. Ireland.
Anyone else have a report on the place?
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