How much?

June 23, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Business, education, Entertainment, Food, General, health, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, News 

Cottage cheese in the supermarket (The Marker)

In their continual research about the cost of living in Israel, business newspaper Globes recently published an article — “We’re Overpaying For More Than Just Cottage Cheese” — that has locals up in arms — at least on Facebook — about how much we spend in our daily lives. The cottage cheese part comes from its high ticket price that launched a Facebook revolution of its own.

The Globes followup is not new news, but seeing it in print is a bit overwhelming, particularly when they tell us that the Israeli consumer pays two to three times more than others worldwide in monthly expenditures, while Israeli salaries are considerably lower compared with the rest of the world.

In fact, it’s somewhat gratifying, even satisfying, because it makes me feel better about my costs, my overdraft and my complaints. Read this:

However, if you take into account the average salary of an Israeli compared with those who live across the ocean, the picture is bleak: the average salary in America is about NIS 13,000 a month, and in the large cities about NIS 17,000 a month (according to the federal government website,) data from the European Union show that the average salary in Britain is about NIS 15,000, in France about NIS 16,000, and in Germany about NIS 12,000. Here, the average salary is only NIS 9,000 (and this does not take into consideration the large gap between the rich and poor).

The difficulty in making ends meet is felt heavily in all aspects of the family budget: “I can easily fully clothe my children for $100 a child,” said an Israeli living in the US, “whereas in Israel it would cost me much more. In the US, there is a huge market for good quality children’s and adult clothing at reasonable prices — prices that you will find in Israel only at the bazaars, where the quality is extremely low.”

Target, Walmart, and The Children’s Place are examples of these types of stores; even chains that “made aliyah” like American Gap or Swedish H&M, sell at prices that are 15-30% more than across the sea.

Here are some more aspects of the family budget that it is worthwhile to know how much we are paying for compared with other countries — a painful reminder of reality that starts with cottage cheese.

In brief, because you can read the article here, it comes down to cottage cheese, fuel, college tuition, mobile phones, cable and satellite, cars and apartment rentals. All are expensive, sometimes prohibitively so, and the prices end up affecting your life in a myriad of ways, from struggling with one car to

Sure, health care is cheap and great, as is bread — not the artisinal sourdough kind — tomatoes and cucumbers, milk and falafel. But not a whole lot else. As we compare our cost of living and style with our friends in the States, it’s astounding what a 6,000 to 7,000-mile difference can make. They’ve got two cars, we have one. They have savings, we do, sometimes. They don’t think twice about certain kinds of shopping sprees, we do. And more often than not, we’re in similar professions or at least careers that would have similar salaries if we lived in the same place.

But, then again, we get to live where we live, which has its benefits. Even if we pay through the nose for the the privilege, and can’t afford more than two containers of cottage cheese each week, or go into overdraft because of it.

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A celebrity at the school play

June 21, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Entertainment, Israeliness 

It’s been a good week for comedy in Israel. First, the twice-a-year Comedy for Koby show has been traveling around the country to great acclaim – I blogged about it yesterday. And in a few minutes, raunchy (and embarrassingly funny) U.S. comedian Sarah Silverman will improbably appear on a panel at Shimon Peres’ “Israeli Presidential Conference” entitled “My Recipe for a Better Future” (Silverman is also performing two nights of standup next week in Tel Aviv).

But Silverman’s introduction to Israel was in a much less glamorous setting. Last night, she attended that most mundane of Israeli activities: the school play, in which her niece was on stage. I was there too: Silverman’s sister, Susan, lives around the corner from us, and our kids go to school together at Jerusalem’s Sudbury Democratic School. Here’s a nearly 20-year-old clip of Silverman riffing on her sister’s recent marriage:

Part time paparazzi that I am, I was feeling pretty confident as I sauntered over to Silverman and introduced myself to the controversial comic superstar. Silverman was nearly incognito in sweats and a baseball cap – but it didn’t much matter: most of the Israeli kids there probably never even heard of her. I gave her some tips on where to eat the best falafel in Israel and wished her a good trip – her first ever to Israel.

Silverman then noticed the cargo pants I was wearing and bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t get similar pants for women. She then turned to her sister and made some racy comment – which I unfortunately couldn’t completely hear – that compared my pants with a woman’s body part. Either Silverman was already in performance mood, or she just naturally wisecracks.

I told her that I already blogged about her here on Israelity and I also told her about my personal blog, This Normal Life.

“This Normal Life,” she mused. “I’ve heard of that. I’m sure I’ve been on your site.” Sure, Sarah, nice small talk. But she continued. “So…where did you come up with the name?”

“Do you really want to hear?” I asked. “It’s a sad story.”

“What, did someone die?” she said.

“Actually, yes,” I replied.

I proceeded to explain how I started the blog in 2002 after a cousin was killed in the terrorist attack at Hebrew University and how I wanted to demonstrate to the world that, despite all the murderous atrocities in those difficult years, Israel was still a “normal” place and we were going about our normal activities, not cowering in our homes waiting for the next bomb to go off.

I then changed the subject and asked if she’s picked up any good material yet for her act.

As the Democratic kids left the stage to thunderous parental pride, I was struck by how I had shared with the famous Sarah Silverman that inherently Jewish reality, the one that is so part and parcel of everything we do in Israel, it’s even included in the Jewish wedding ceremony: that, even in our greatest joy (meeting a celebrity, shlepping nachas from our talented kids), we must always remember our sadness and suffering. At the wedding, the groom breaks a glass. Some of us blog. Ah, the vagaries of modern life in our beleaguered state.

Welcome to the real Israel, Sarah. We’re pretty normal here. Most of the time.

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Doctors in the Israeli house

June 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Medical Breakthroughs, Travel, tv 

The visting American actors in scrubs at Hadassah University Medical Center at Ein Kerem. (Photo: Aviv Hayun)

If actors pretending to be doctors keep coming to Israel to visit hospitals, does that mean the patients aren’t really sick?

For the second time in a month, actors who play doctors on American television series were brought as guests to the country for a vacation and meetings at hospitals where they viewed the latest medical procedures.

In May, members of the cast of the FOX series House – Lisa Edelstein, Omar Epps, Jesse Spencer, Amber Tamblyn – and David Shore, the show’s creator, executive producer and lead writer, used robotic surgical tools during a visit to the Sheba Medical Center’s medical simulation ward at Tel Hashomer.

And now, last week, Kevin McKidd and Sarah Drew, who portray Dr. Owen Hunt and Dr. April Kepner, respectively, on the ABC show Grey’s Anatomy, along with
Gregory Smith and Travis Milne, who co-star in the ABC police drama series Rookie Blue, and Lucas Neff and Shannon Woodward from the FOX sitcom Raising Hope, visited the robotic surgery laboratory at Hadassah University Medical Center at Ein Kerem, the Hadassah University Medical Center- Hebrew University Biotechnology Park and the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother and Child Center.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the delegation’s week-long trip was organized by America’s Voices in Israel and co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and by El Al Israel Airlines.

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“It’s humbling to see the work that real surgeons do,” McKidd told The Post.

The group’s itinerary included dinner at the 2C restaurant atop Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Towers where IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, stopped by to say hello, stops in Jaffa, Sderot (where the actors spoke to film and TV arts students at Sapir Academic College), Nazareth and Safed, as well as climbing Masada, floating in the Dead Sea and swimming in the Kinneret.

Hopefully they didn’t encounter any incidents along the routes requiring medical assistance. If a fellow hiker or swimmer had called out, ‘is there a doctor in the house?’ how would they have responded?

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Mikveh water

June 21, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: design, Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion 

These days, it’s all about recycling, whatever the material and wherever the venue. Even at the Pisgat Ze’ev mikveh, that’s a ritual bath, folks, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, water will soon be recycled, saving more than a million gallons of water each year.

It’s an experimental filtering and purification program that was recently approved by the Israeli Health Ministry, and will include the required changing of water at least once a day, as well as facilitating online checks of the water quality. The plan is for health ministry officials in Pisgat Ze’ev to supervise the purification process for six months before they introduce the system in other mikvehs.

If they actually succeed, 35 other mikvehs around Jerusalem will be recycling their water, saving more than 26 million gallons of water each year, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Which would be ecologically meaningful, for the many women who use the mikvehs regularly to ritually bathe themselves. But it doesn’t really deal with the amount of water used by the women who have to bathe or shower before entering said mikveh. Or the mikvehs that are clean vs. those that are less so. For that, check out this link that tells travelers where to find the best mikvehs in Jerusalem, including more ancient ones.

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Laughing for a good cause

June 20, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Entertainment, Life, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

It’s not easy to write a review of a comedy show. Most of the jokes quickly blend into the background and you walk away with a general sense of how funny such and such comic was. “Yeah, I liked the one about, you know, when he, um, talked about the beach, right?”

But I’ll give it a try, since last night’s installation of the now twice-yearly Comedy for Koby show was one of the best of recent years.

Comedy for Koby is a fundraiser for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which helps bereaved family members who have lost a loved one to a terror attack attend a therapeutic, healing and ultimately rejuvenating overnight camp or retreat. The foundation was started by Seth and Sherri Mandell whose 13-year-old son Koby was murdered by terrorists in 2001.

Los Angeles-based comic Avi Liberman puts together a package of 3 top U.S. standup artists, all with deep television chops, who perform around the country (this year there were 7 performance scheduled). Lieberman raises all the money to cover expenses, so every shekel for tickets goes straight to the foundation.

Last night, the comics were on stage in Jerusalem. Lieberman himself always leads with a 15 minute set of his own. Liberman mixes his own Jewish identity with Israel-specific jokes. His best last night (and totally politically incorrect, so sensitive readers should skip the next two lines): what’s the difference between a pizza and a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) man? The pizza can provide a meal for the whole family.

Next up was Ted Alexandro, a soft-spoken self-proclaimed Catholic comic. His funniest moment was when he was touring the Old City of Jerusalem, looked up, and saw a statue of Jesus. This god really has strong abs, Alexandro mused, before disparaging the Buddha as prophet in dire need for a trip to the gym, and speculating what a good Christian exercise machine ought to be called. “Cross-trainer,” he joked.

Religion was also part of Ian Edwards set as he compared the names of Jewish holidays with African American women’s names. Rosh Hashana – yeah, I dated her once, he quipped. Along with her sister, Tu B’shvat.

Judy Gold closed the show; she was reputed to be the best of the bunch and she certainly had the ribald personality (apparently toned down for her Israel appearance), along with a good dose of Yiddishkeit – how many funny men (or women) keep a kosher home and celebrate shabbos every Friday night, as Gold does?

Read more

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