License to Camp
Every year come May we’re amazed. One day it’s cold and rainy and the next, summer is upon us with temperatures in the mid-80s Fahrenheit. Sweaters get packed away, shorts and sandals come out.
May also signifies the start of camping season. Which got me thinking about our last camping experience in Israel.
“We’re going with another couple of families out to the President’s Forest,” our friend Rafi said, referring to the woods just west of Bet Shemesh. “Would you be interested in joining us?”
I conferred with my wife Jody and the kids. They were into it.
“One thing I need to tell you, though,” Rafi added. “No one has a gun. I don’t think it should be a problem, but I felt you should know.”
A gun? If someone had told me growing up, when all we had to do was roll out our sleeping bags under some magnificent Redwood tree that, 30 years later, we’d be talking about whether it was responsible to go camping without a gun…well, I would have shot the guy.
Welcome to Camping in Israel.
In our two previous camping experiences in the country (OK…we’re not big campers, so shoot me…well, er, you know what I mean…), we have gone to formal campsites surrounded by a fence with an armed patrol car making the rounds at regular intervals. Both have been crowded and noisy.
For those people who prefer to get away from the teeming masses, usually someone is packing heat…and planning to spend the night awake doing guard duty.
The families Rafi had assembled for our evening under the trees, by contrast, were a ragtag group of gunless, vegetarian, sensitive new age Anglos.
All I wanted to do was give my family a positive outdoors experience. But I couldn’t help but recall my conversation with Michael, the armed guard at our son Aviv’s school. When I told him what we were planning to do, he practically yelled at me.
“Are you crazy! You can’t go anywhere without a gun these days.” Then he added, “You should get a gun.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” I joked. I still couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.
“Seriously. Unless you’ve got some social or mental problem, anyone can get one,” Michael said. He gave me one of those sardonic Israeli winks. I was not comforted.
“I haven’t even been in the army,” I countered.
“Never mind. It’s easy. Just go in and apply for a license.”
“I’d be too afraid of shooting myself or one of the kids,” I said in my best broken Hebrew as images of Dick Cheney flashed in front of me.
“Don’t worry so much,” Michael assured me. “It’s all instinct. You’ll do fine.”
Needless to say, the conversation did not put my mind at ease. So when we finally headed out, it was with not a small amount of trepidation.
As we got to the clearing Rafi had picked out, though, tents were being set up, the barbeque was already in motion and the kids were collecting wood for the fire. Everything looked perfectly normal. Just like I remembered from so many years ago.
I sat down on a bench and started up a conversation with Rafi’s 17-year-old daughter Tani. We talked about a number of mostly non-inflammatory subjects: schools and music.
Inevitably, though, the conversation turned to my topic du jour. Tani had no problem with the concept of unarmed camping
“I’d feel more at risk going to the mall,” Tani said, biting into a vegetarian frank.
“Who’s going to be looking for us out here, anyway?” Rafi piped in. “Pass the onions please.”
“You’ve got to live your life,” Tani added.
As the sun went down, we gathered around the campfire to sing old Israeli songs and a few American classics from the 60s. The adults passed around a bottle of wine. From time to time, I stifled a desire to yell out “Stop that singing. Drench the campfire. If we stay very quiet, we’ll be OK.”
Just then, my daughter Merav came up to me. “Abba, I need to go to the bathroom. Come with me.”
“You know where the bathroom is,” I said, not wanting to leave the song-fest. “Take my flashlight.”
“I’m scared.”
And I thought: oh no…she’s picked up on my fears. She’ll never have the kind of carefree camping experience I had as a kid. I’ve scarred her for life.
“What are you scared of, honey?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Wild animals,” she said. “I don’t like all the sounds. What if there’s a fox?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Or a moose,” I suggested in a faux-Bullwinkle voice.
Merav looked at me with her patented brand of withering glance (at least I thought she did, it was dark, after all…) and I promptly got up and accompanied her to the outhouse on the other side of the clearing. But as I did, I smiled to myself.
I may not know how to handle a gun, but at least now I’ve got a license to camp.
——————-
This article was cross posted on This Normal Life.
Exotic Orlando
Here are two words you don’t normally hear in the same sentence: “Exotic” and “Orlando.”
Exotic is more frequently associated with places like Tahiti and Thailand or even Monte Carlo. Orlando, on the other hand, is heavy on such decidedly non-exotic offerings as Early Bird Specials and Premium Outlet Malls.
But for me, on a recent business trip to the U.S., Orlando was as exotic as they come.
You see, it had been nearly three years since I was last in the States. In the twelve years since I immigrated to Israel, I’d never taken such a long gap between visits. During my first nine years in Israel, I traveled across the Atlantic frequently, whether on business or family vacations. It was part of an unwritten contract I made with myself before coming here, that I would never be too long without touching base with “the old country.”
It’s not like I didn’t travel beyond Israel’s borders at all these last years. My family and I have had some very enjoyable – and objectively much more exotic – vacations recently: We’ve been to Prague, Italy, Turkey, even India.
But America…I missed the country of my roots. And absence – combined with a healthy dose of subjugated culture shock – has the power to transform even the most typical slice of suburban America into a wild ride only somewhat less invigorating than a dash through traffic in downtown Delhi.
Truth be told, I was also itching for a break from Israel. My difficulty with Hebrew, the lack of anything one could reasonably describe as “customer service,” the insane driving behavior … it all adds up. Despite the fact that Israeli Independence Day was just this week, I didn’t feel unpatriotic. I just needed a little distance, that’s all.
My introduction to “Exotic Orlando” began even before I left, when Daniella, the ten-year-old daughter of my friends Yuval and Hilorie, caught wind of where I was going.
“Can you get me a prize?” she asked in all earnestness and with great enthusiasm.
“A what?” I asked.
“A prize. They give away prizes at Disney World.”
I had offhandedly mentioned that I had decided to take a day off to “play” as part of my trip. My brother arranged to fly out from California to meet me and we had planned an excursion to Disney’s MGM Studios theme park.
“You know, I’ve been to Disney before and I’ve never gotten a prize,” I said.
“You’ve got to be sad,” Daniella went on. “They give away t-shirts and these things that shpritz water and have a little fan.”
“But I’m not planning on being sad. I’m planning on being very happy.” Disney World doesn’t bill itself as “the happiest place on earth” for nothing.
“You could pretend to be sad.”
“Anyway,” I added, “How could I bring you back a prize and not get one for my own kids?”
“You’ll have to look very sad.”
Well, I’m sorry to report that I did not get Daniella a prize. But my brother and I had a great time. We rode on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride three times and the Aerosmith Rock ‘n Roller Coaster twice.
At the end of a long and action packed day, America seemed as far away and foreign from Israel as a ride on a gondola in Venice though we could have done that too, sort of, if we’d had time to visit Disney’s neighboring Epcot park.
The next day, my business meetings started with a “get to know you” team-building kind of event. The locale for our group bonding: “Gatorland” – lovingly described in literature and signage across the copious gift shop as “the alligator capital of the world.”
And so it was. A 110-acre theme park with thousands of alligators and crocodiles of all sizes, Gatorland is most famous for its “Gator Wrestling” show and its “Gator Jumparoo” where the poor gators are enticed to leap four to five feet out of the water to snatch a dead chicken hanging from a pole on a string.
My daughter, the recently converted vegetarian, would have been appalled. But I thought to myself: It doesn’t get better than this.
When my business meetings were over, I had a little time left to prowl the mall. I drove past a sea of McDonald’s and stores selling sofas and hardwood floors, past the IHOP and the Waffle House and the “Steak and Shake.” I caught a couple of flicks at the multiplex, and channel surfed until my remote finger was too pooped to click.
At the end of a week, my suitcase was stuffed with Dockers and Geoffrey Beene shirts bought at half price, toiletries from the Wal-Mart Super Center, a stack of computer equipment and one lonely bag of (half-eaten) Krispy Kreme mini-cruller doughnuts.
All during the trip, everyone was ever so polite. Salespeople hustled to help. The highways were wide and modern, and I didn’t hear a word of Hebrew my entire stay.
Paradise?
Not quite. No one moves to a place just for the shopping (or do they)? But as a temporary break from Israel in a land of endless vistas (and endless shopping), big cars and low taxes, it was quite welcome … if not truly “exotic” in the purist sense of the term.
On my plane ride back to Israel, I was seated next to a group of young Israeli adults. They were loud and boisterous. They refused to stay confined to their seats. They slapped each other on the back and high-fived half the flight home.
In short, they represented everything I had wanted a break from. But that was before my trip. Now we were fellow travelers, returning from vacation. Of course they were filled with unbridled energy. Who wouldn’t be after a trip abroad, and in particular to Orlando … which will forever be known in my personal travelogue as “the most exotic place on earth?”
———————
This article was cross-posted at This Normal Life.
Israeli Bloggers Go to the Polls
A lot of Israeli bloggers wrote about their various experiences voting in Wednesday’s election. For some of them, it was their first voting time at the polls in Israel and had to learn the drill.
Yael Kaynan’s main problem was deciding who to vote for: she was the epitome of the undecided voter, to the great amusement of the officials manning her polling station.
I had an existential crisis at the voting booth. Stood there for literally 10 minutes holding the envelope in one hand and “ken” (for Kadima) in the other. Couldn’t make myself actually get it into the envelope. Finally I picked up “Emet” put it in, started to seal, then pulled it out. Grrrr. Put the two side by side in front of me and did eenie meenie miney mo (no lie). Mo landed on Emet (like ok, I already knew it would having played that selecting game zillions of times as a kid but I also knew I’d feel better about sticking it in there if there was some other something suggesting it should go in) and in it went. I sealed it. I looked up and the polling guy at the end of the table was laughing at this spectacle. I grinned back and fluttered the envelope in his direction and said, what else to do when you are completely undecided? Then into the box it went.
Sarah went to the polls feeling celebratory, although:
If I’d been expecting trumpets to sound and fans to throw confetti at me while I voted for the first time in an Israeli election, I’d have been sorely disappointed. Save for two elderly ladies who held me up a bit while climbing to the second floor of the high school where my voting station was located, I had absolutely no wait. I just went into the classroom, showed my National ID Card to the four good folks sitting at the table, and went into the lone booth with the envelope they’d given me. Actually it wasn’t really a booth, but a table set up with a blue cardboard screen for privacy.
Behind the screen were about 30 sets of little slips of paper, each with the name of a party on it. My job was to pick my party, put its slip of paper into the envelope, and then go back to the table to enter my envelope into the ballot box. It doesn’t get any more lo-tech than that, but at least we don’t have to worry about dimpled chads. Envelopes with more than one slip inside are discounted. I’ve heard there are problems sometimes when people walk away with all the slips for parties they don’t like, but I’m sure the four people at the table had extras of everything just in case.
(I should note that the four people included a charedi man, a woman who did not appear religious at all, and two men of vague demographic standing. I suppose that they have different parties represented at each voting station, so they can watchdog each other. They were joking around between themselves – it seemed like a nice atmosphere. It was odd, because any other day these people would probably be pointedly ignoring each other, but here they were, thrown together by circumstance, and having a nice chat over coffee and a ballot box.)
…As I dropped the envelope into the box, I mentioned that I’m a new immigrant voting for the first time here, and the big charedi man immediately behind the box pretended to be snapping my picture. They all congratulated me, and that was that.
It wasn’t the first time voting for She, who writes at Something Something:, but she found it inspiring nonetheless.
Call me naive and idealistic, but I find that there’s something very empowering about the democratic process. Voting excites me, especially here, where there are so many parties to choose from, and a population small enough to feel that you might be able to make a difference, that you can make your vote count.
We went to our polling station this morning, Husband, the Little One, and I, greeting neighbors who were also doing their part for democracy. Until just a few days ago, I was still undecided as to who would get my vote, but in the end, I went with my conscience, and damn, did it feel good! I hadn’t been sure if I’d vote for them or not, given that I don’t like the party leader, but their platform matches my beliefs perfectly, and once I made my decision, I suddenly felt at peace. Standing behind the partition with my little blue envelope, I didn’t even hesitate. I quickly spotted the paper I needed and slid it into the envelope, knowing that my party was getting my vote.
I suppose it may seem strange to get so worked up over the simple act of putting a small piece of paper in an envelope and dropping it into the election box, but I can’t help it. I am fulfilling my obligation as a citizen, as a citizen concerned about the directions and decisions that my country will take. It is a privilege to take part in the democratic process, and this was brought home to me once again just last night as I watched the chaos currently taking place in Belarus, where people are willing to put their lives at risk in order to ensure that the democracy takes place. I wonder if I’d be strong enough to do the same if I was in their shoes, and am very grateful that I am not. Grateful that I can vote freely and know that my vote will count for something.
I have a hard time understanding those who are indifferent, those who don’t feel the need to vote. Voting is one of the most important obligations a citizen can fulfill, and democracy should never be taken for granted.
A Nerd and Proud of It
“You’re a ch’noon,” my twelve-year-old daughter Merav impishly pronounced me one day after I refused to let her take an “emotional health” day from school.
“What’s a…what did you call me?” I replied.
“A ch’noon,” Merav said, repeating the Israeli slang that, to the best of my fading Hebrew uplan memory, was not on the weekly list of frequently used words like the Hebrew for “café” and “bus” and “explosion.”
“It means nerd,” Merav clarified. “Like you.”
“Why? Because I liked learning when I was a kid?” I shot back. “Because I think you should too?”
“Ch’noon, ch’noon, ch’noon,” Merav chanted.
“Sshhh…” I said, noticing that seven-year-old Aviv was listening, If he picked up anything vaguely derogatory, we’d never hear the end of it.
How did it get to this? I mean, how did I become a ch’noon? After all, I have tried for most of my parenting life to be the cool dad, the dad who could really relate to his children. I could feel their pain and offer worthwhile advice from vividly remembered and still relevant experience, not just platitudes and stuff that might have worked in “the old days.” Sure I might be 45, but in my mind, I would forever be 16 (which, by the way, is not necessarily a good thing, my therapist notes).
And so, around the dinner table, I was open to answering any question. Fire away: politics, drugs, rock and roll. Even sex…our Friday night discussions might not make Dr. Ruth blush, but she’s certainly want to join in the conversation.
All this required staying up-to-date with the latest media. When my wife Jody chastised me for listening to Howard Stern, I rationalized it as keeping my finger on the pulse of what’s hip. Listening to alternative rock radio over the Internet for me was a job not just a pastime.
Indeed, music has always been a particular passion and I’ve not been a dad who got stuck on Springsteen (not that there’s anything wrong with that). How many other dads make it a point to stay up on the cutting edge of the latest indie/emo pop, who can introduce their kids to Death Cab for Cutie, Interpol and Snow Patrol? Britney Spears and Madonna – that’s what real ch’noon wannabe-cool dads listen to.
Mind you, all of this might be a bit of over-compensation. When I was my kids’ ages, I actually was a ch’noon. The only time I got anything less than an A in a class was in Driver’s Ed – darn that pesky simulator!
I read sci-fi voraciously, laughed a little too hard at Monty Python, and was head of the Math Team (mind you, though, only the “B” team, and we lost every competition we entered). I didn’t have a pocket protector, but for a time I did carry my scientific calculator on my belt – hey, it was just more convenient that way!
When I got invited to a party, it was with the band geeks, not the stoners and the jocks…and I didn’t even play an instrument.
But times had changed. I had changed.
“Give it up,” my friend Seth said to me as I was lamenting my descent in nerd-dom in synagogue one Kiddush. “She’s your daughter. There’s nothing you can do to be cool in her eyes.”
Easy for him to say. But maybe he was right. If I laughed too hard in front of Merav, or tried to make a joke in Hebrew, Merav would roll her eyes and give me that withering look that until recently I took as a term of endearment.
Maybe I should accept my fate with my daughter…my daughter…just a minute…what about…
“Amir,” I asked my fourteen-year-old son as I caught him wolfing down brownies and burekas at the Kiddush. “Do you think I’m a ch’noon?”
“No, not at all,” Amir said without a blink. “You like the same things I do…you know, computer games and BattleStar Galactica and the Internet.”
I beamed, until I realized that the very things he was referring to…were what had gotten me thrown into the ch’noon box in the first place.
I turned to Aviv. “Do you think your Abba is a ch’noon?” Aviv just ran around to my back and punched me in the tush.
I think that was a yes.
Well, there you have it. Once a ch’noon, always a ch’noon I suppose. At least one of my kids thinks I’m moderately cool. The others will come around…eventually…right? In the meantime, there’s not much I can do about it.
Yes, I am a ch’noon. And darn proud of it!
———————–
This article was cross posted at This Normal Life, which is hosted by Bloggerce, a new publishing service started by the author.
Words we use (and eat)
Filed under: Food, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness
Once upon a time before supermarkets and neatly cellophaned meat in Styrofoam trays, we humans had a close relationship with someone called a ‘butcher’. Through this important relationship we acquired an incredible vocabulary and depth of knowledge regarding the butcher’s trade and wares.
Looking back on my typical American Jewish upbringing, it never occurred to me to ask any of the grown-ups what exactly ‘tenderloin’, ‘skirt steak’, ‘flanken’ or ‘brisket’ were. Likewise, I knew terms like ‘roaster’, ‘fryer’, ‘pullet’, and ‘capon’ described various sorts of chicken… but if you put a gun to my head I couldn’t possibly be more specific than that.
Since my few outings to the butcher (Benny Levine’s on Madison Avenue in Bridgeport CT), were usually spent ‘skating’ through ankle-deep sawdust (didn’t all butchers have sawdust on the floor?) and staring longingly at the candy display near the big, old-fashioned cash register, I was never in a position to question where these exotic names had come from or how to identify them. I simply assumed you asked the butcher and he gave you what you wanted.
When we moved to Israel I was delighted to note that even in supermarkets consumers typically had a face-to-face relationship with a knowledgeable butcher and frequently held extended discussions about cuts of beef and make specific requests regarding the quantity and type of chicken.
The only problem is that if in the states I only had the vaguest idea of what to call the mind-numbing array of meats and poultry… here in Israel I’ve been reduced to pointing like a Neanderthal at likely selections in the meat display and hoping for the best.
I bring this up because my ignorance of local nomenclature has me a little gun shy about ordering meat products here.
A perfect case in point would be the time I went to a popular shwarma joint in central Jerusalem and saw that they had 3 different rotisseries of roasting meat (shwarma). One was lamb, one was turkey and the third seemed to be a combination of the two. The guy ahead of me in line ordered ‘Me’urav’ (mixed), so I naturally assumed that he had requested some shwarma from the third ‘mixed’ rotisserie. It sounded like a good idea so when it came my turn I ordered the same.
When I bit into my pita stuffed with ‘me’urav’ I was nonplussed because it didn’t taste like either lamb or turkey. In fact it didn’t taste like shwarma! However, not wanting to look like an idiot I finished my portion and made a mental note to ask someone what I’d eaten.
As all you laughing Israelis already know, I found out soon enough that ‘me’urav’ is a Jerusalem mixed grill delicacy consisting of all the tripe and organs from inside the chicken that any civilized person would discard while cleaning the bird.
[~shudder~]
This culinary mishap caused by not knowing what the hell I was ordering had me deeply worried because one of the things I’ve fallen in love with here is something called ‘Pargiyot’. For the longest time I didn’t want to ask anyone what it was because I was secretly afraid that these tender morsels of grilled poultry would turn out to be the ass, feet and brains of the chicken!
I eventually went to a reliable friend and asked him what ‘pargiyot’ was. He explained that some restaurants mistranslated ‘pargiyot’ as ‘Cornish Hen’, but that this fallacy was based on bad information someone had given them that Cornish Hens were simply tiny chickens. He explained (and you can correct me if I’ve been misinformed), that ‘pargiyot’ are, in fact, very young chickens… basically what used to be called ‘spring chickens’ in yesteryear.
So, this begs two questions:
1. Was I given good information about the definition of pargiyot?
2. If so, is there anything comparable in the US or Europe? I mean, other than an expression for someone who is young, is there an American equivalent of a ‘spring chicken’ any more?
Cross-posted on treppenwitz
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