Take not the 5-day workweek for granted

October 9, 2006 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Life 

Pixane sings the Western immigrant blues:

Beautiful long weekends
Oh how I miss you
Working on Sundays
Is way overrated

And now for the real kicker . . .

She asks:

PS: How crappy is it that we don’t get a single day off for Succot this year?

See, outside of Israel, the first and last days of Sukkot, when work is prohibited, are two days each. If sukkot starts during the week, then a person needs to take off four days from work. Therefore, it is much, much better when Sukkot starts on a Friday night, as it did this year: no need to use vacation days, since the holiday is Saturday-Sunday.

But here, the prohibited-from-work days are just one at the beginning and one at the end. And they are national holidays. And Sunday is a workday. So when the holiday falls on Saturday, it’s a downer — no extra vacation days. (Though many employers close their offices or give half days for the duration of the festival.)

Sorry, Pixane.

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Truncated: A fitting symbol

October 9, 2006 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: General 

We Jews are big tree planters.  This is especially true since the early 20th century when, for the first time in almost 2000 years, it looked like we might actually have a shot at having our own country again. 

Since then, we have admittedly become a bit obsessed with planting trees.

Long before the state was actually established, the little blue JNF (Jewish National Fund) ‘pushkes’ had already become the symbol of our longing to replant the roots of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

Pushkes

[Photo: © Jewish National Fund]

In the 30s and 40s, school kids would go door to door and even stand on street corners with these JNF boxes collecting funds to plant trees in every corner of what was then referred to as Palestine. 

And as the forests spread, the act of planting a tree continued to be associated with building the state.  There was even a time when the JNF certificate (“A tree has been planted in Israel in your name...”) was almost as ubiquitous a Bar/Bat Mitzvah gift as the fountain pen.

Yet this obsession with trees isn’t new. 

Trees have always featured in Jewish symbolism and theology.  Take for example the Tree of Knowledge (“… of good and evil.”) in the Garden of Eden.  There is also the Tree of Life… a common euphemism for the Torah (Eitz Haim He L’Machazikim Bah – “It is a Tree of Life for those who cling to it….”).

But in my opinion, there are few uses of the tree in Jewish symbolism more poignant than Jewish gravestones hewn in the shape of (or featuring the image of) a tree trunk with it’s branches cut off.  This expresses the very essence of ‘being cut down’ in the prime of life… of having one’s life truncated.

Those of you who’ve been reading me for a bit know that this line of thought is leading somewhere.  I may ramble… but I rarely do so without a destination in mind.

Every morning I drive to work through the south Hevron hills.  Many of my friends consider this a bit foolhardy considering the route takes me through many Arab villages and past areas where countless attacks have taken place. 

I don’t really have an answer for them other than to point out that even after having taken the same college-level statistics course a record three times before passing (with an abysmally low grade, I might add), I still know enough to recognize that I am no more likely to be involved in a terror attack than a shopper in a Natanya mall or someone sipping coffee in a Tel Aviv cafe.   

You see, statistically, terror attacks are as random as they are rare.  To say to oneself “I won’t go there (or there or there), and am therefore safe from attack” is a fool’s game which, if taken to it’s logical conclusion, ends with Israel as a nation of house-bound agoraphobes.  Many people who have made a study of terrorism as a tool believe that this is actually one of its primary goals.

Coming abruptly back to my original point… trees are sometimes used to mark the site of terror attacks, and there are several such monuments to terror victims along my commute. 

About a year and a half ago I wrote a post describing one of these monuments at the site of an ambush where several Israelis – most of them members of the same family – were gunned down just a few hours before Shabbat.  The picture I took was cropped, but near the stone marker is a small stand of trees planted by the survivors of the attack and lovingly tended by them throughout the year.

Just before Hanukkah last year an Israeli man… Yossi Shok, a husband and father of five children (ranging in age from one month to nine years old)… was driving home with two sisters (hitchhikers) along the same road I travel to work.  Terrorists in a passing car sprayed his vehicle with bullets fatally injuring him in front of his passengers.

When I heard about this tragedy, I knew that before long a monument to Yossi Shok would appear near the site of the shooting… and I didn’t have long to wait.  It is a large, rough-hewn block of Jerusalem stone surrounded by a small area of colored gravel sitting on the shoulder of the road where his car came to rest after the attack. 

And of course, a couple of trees were planted nearby as well. 

However, almost immediately the new saplings were uprooted… presumably by local villagers.  So the family had a couple of mature trees brought to the site and planted near the monument… and they set a schedule to come to water them and tend to the memorial.

Within a few weeks another act of vandalism had taken place at the memorial and both of the mature trees had been cut down to small stumps:

Stone_and_tree1

Notice the ground around the trunk shows signs of having been recently watered.  As I stopped to take these pictures the Arab women (who can be seen just to the right of the monument in the second photo) started pointing at me and screaming something over and over.  The Arabic word for ‘Jew’  (‘Yahud’) featured prominently in the chant:

Stone_and_tree3

As I stood there looking at this memorial a few thoughts crossed my mind.  First came the more obvious observation: ‘But for the grace of G-d (or luck, statistics, karma, etc.) that could easily have been my name on the stone’.

But then I began to look closely at the trees with their sawed branches drying in the mud nearby… and I realized that the Arab vandals had inadvertently evoked an even more powerful image for the memorial.  As I mentioned earlier, few things symbolize a life cut short more aptly than a tree trunk with it’s branches removed.

As I walked back to my car in the early morning chill, I had to smile just a bit thinking how Yossi Shok’s family and friends could have easily prevented these acts of vandalism had they only made clear to the Arabs the appropriateness of the result.

The irony is that in their ignorance and blind hatred of Jews, the Arabs who cut down these trees unwittingly created the perfect Jewish symbol of a truncated life.

Crossposted to treppenwitz

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Israelity: the Footwear

October 9, 2006 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

flip flops
All-too-true observation at One Jerusalem:

Alas! Summer’s almost gone, and soon these little toes that got so used to sweet freedom of movement and fresh air will have to find themselves suffocating once again in closed shoes and boots.

Hey, let’s play Spot the Tourists: they wear shoes (not to mention – socks!).

Israeli man and woman walk together. He: Bluetooth headset on ear, luxurious watch on wrist, buttoned-down shirt, 3/4 pants — dark green crocs. She: elegant dress, matching earring-necklace-ring set, expensive handbag — plain white beach flip-flops. Clearly not unaware of their looks. But clearly not going to the beach. So why this extreme contrast? I wonder if this is some sort of a fashion statement – nu, you’re in Israel, take it easy. We do what we want, and we don’t care. Plus, it’s hot outside and there’s no way in hell we’re going to wear suits, ties or “shoes.”

Presently, I’m getting prepared to go to a work-related meeting (don’t get too excited there, my friend, Alice is still officially unemployed). As nicely dressed that I am, I don’t have much choice but to wear my shabby flip-flops, for my feet are entertaining quite a few band-aids as a punishment for walking with uncomfortable shoes to some other job interview. “Is it too conspicuous?” I ask a friend, to which he answers off-handily, “Nah, don’t be silly – it is summer here, you know?” At the office, feeling pretty self-conscious about flipping and flopping into the room, I notice that 4 out the 5 other participants know too that it’s still summer, and simply wear flip-flops.

Lord, please don’t let The Manolo see this post.

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Toeing the party line

October 9, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Immigrant Moments, Politics 

This upsetting post by Rafi reminds one of how far Israel has to go before it will be what we all want it to be . . . it reminds me of the British Christian living here, who told me that “Israel will be a wonderful country, when it is finished.”

A new school opened up last year. The school is trying to cater to a public that mostly considers itself being some level of Haredi. They are mostly families of Western Immigrants who want a strong Torah education in the Haredi style but also want a strong secular education. The two generally do not go together. There are a number of schools around that have been trying this niche and all have had success and this new school is trying to join the crowd. In its second year, I am told it has been successful and parents are happy.

The school has been applying for accreditation and full recognition. The response they were given was that if the parents in the school (x number of them) sign up as members of (the ruling) Kadima party, they will be awarded a full license to operate as a school.

I am sure this happens all the time and whatever party in power uses their influence in similar fashion. However, right now Kadima is in power and right now I am blogging and this blatant abuse of power upsets me.

A school should be licensed and accredited based on its merits. If it fits the requirements (I would venture to say most of those requirements would be academic based) it should be given accredation, and if it fails to meet the requirements, accredation should be denied. In no way should any such decision be based on political affiliation.

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Sukkot, Kiddie-style

October 9, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, Holidays, Immigrant Moments 

A cute only-in-Israel finding, by Sustainable Apple Pie:

Last night when Dor and I were walking aimlessly around Tel Aviv (and running into people we knew at a rate of about one per hour) we found ourselves in HaMashbir, the Israeli department store. HaMashbir reminds me a lot of Meier & Frank back in the States (RIP) with the constant sales and discounts and endless variety of products – candy, shampoo, clothing, microwaves, bath towels and bedsheets, shoes, etc. etc. However, last night I saw something that I had never seen at an American department store: a kid-size pop-open sukkah, complete with artificial leafy roof and fruit decor. Kind of like the kid-size pop open tents you can buy for the playroom. But Christ, this is a SUKKAH. And it was on sale for a price of 200 shekels. I almost bought it, simply for the novelty factor.

This country never ceases to surprise me.

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