Bayit banamal

November 2, 2009 - 1:40 PM by Jessica · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business, General, Israeliness, Life 

Photo credit: Debbie ZimmelmanI’m not the first to write about Tel Aviv’s namal, the refurbished port/boardwalk at the northern end of the city. And I must confess a ‘hubati’ (read below) love for strolling along its wooden planks, hillocked in some places to encourage kids on scooters, bikes and skateboards, and with just the right kind of cafes and restaurants along its length. (Although, as my mother pointed out recently, there are not enough benches for just sitting and looking at the sea.)

(’Hubatim’ or a ‘hubati’ — pronounced cho-BA-tim — is someone or those from Holon/Bat Yam. It’s a tongue-in-cheek/somewhat derogatory term for the Tel Aviv version of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, those who don’t actually live in Tel Aviv, but come in from the outskirts to enjoy ‘the big city.’ Another TLV friend of mine has a kindly term for those of us who don’t live in the Big Orange, ‘ambassadors and diplomats.’)

This isn’t an entry about hubatim, however, rather about a societal development that I noticed at the namal. Sure, it’s got the shopping, the restaurants, the event halls and bars. But during the day, besides the ‘ambassadors and diplomats’ strolling along the boardwalk, as well as the tourists and unexplained working-age people who are hanging out rather than working — btw, they must be freelancers — there are many, many moms with babies, pushing strollers and carrying babes in slings. Sure, it’s a nice place to stroll when you’ve got a kvetchy ankle-biter. And the Israeli commercial network is clearly starting to feed into that trend, with a Steimatzky’s for kids, a Shilav (of course), including a lovely playground outside the store, and Dyada, a kind of club for babies and their parents.

It’s all quite baby-friendly, which is a helpful thing when you’re trying to negotiate the real world from the vantage point of a double stroller loaded with two one-year-olds. Then again, all they really wanted to do was crawl after the seagulls.

Photo credit: Debbie Zimelman

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Burned

May 20, 2009 - 8:56 AM by Jessica · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General 

wooden-playpenJust a quick post: I was at Shilav, a local baby store in my local mall, two places where I spend a lot of time these days, and was asking Miki, the store manager with whom I also spend a good amount of time talking, whether they’d gotten in any wooden playpens yet. He told me they hadn’t, and the entire country — the entire country! — is out of wooden playpens because there was something wrong with the last shipment…

“No playpens in the entire country?” I asked. “You mean, no other store has wooden playpens?” (Not that I’d buy the playpen at another store, seeing as I have many gift certificates at Shilav and therefore much money to spend there.)

“Nope,” he said. “We all get them from the same importer and the wood was bad, so they burned them on Lag b’Omer.”

Just thought I had to share.

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Helpful strangers

January 9, 2009 - 12:15 AM by Jessica · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

Our stroller, even if you can't always see the babies

Our stroller, even if you can't always see the babies

When you enter the baby business, you discover how much some people love babies. Particularly twins. There are those who see a double stroller and immediately light up, delighted at the thought of not one, but two infants in the same carriage. There are others who need to stick their head into the stroller and inspect said babies for themselves, and then there are those who have advice to offer, desired or not.

As it turns out, Jerusalem’s Malcha Mall is full of these people. I headed over there the other day with my sister and the boys for an afternoon adventure, because anywhere you go with three-month-old twins can be classified as exciting.

And along the way, as we do these days, we met many people who wanted to meet our guys. There was the saleswoman in the socks section of the Mashbir, who literally lifted the baby out of my sister’s arms, kissed him and ran off to show him to someone else. I had never met this person before in my life. There was the staff at Aroma, who exclaimed over our little guy’s size — he’s the one who spent six weeks in Hadassah’s NICU — and couldn’t believe he was for real. “Is he a doll?” they asked. There was the woman at the Originals shoestore, who took offense at the way I was holding one of the babies, sort of sitting him up on my leg in order to burp him. “What’s that going to do to his posture?” she barked at me.

When we bumped into the father-in-law of the woman who owns my local dry cleaning store [it's a small country, and Jerusalem is really a village], he glanced at the carriage, asked if they were both boys, and then pinched my cheek, saying, “You have to really know how to make boys!” Wink, wink.

And then there was the coexistence moment of the day, when I sat next to another mother, an Arab woman, as we nursed our babies in the local Shilav baby store. She admired my babies and I admired hers, and she wondered out loud how I was handling two infants. I shrugged and rolled my eyes, and we agreed that new motherhood is challenging no matter how you approach it. But thank goodness she didn’t offer any advice.

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The 60th Craze

May 6, 2008 - 3:35 PM by Stephanie · 5 Comments
Filed under: Business, Holidays, Pop Culture 

It seems everybody but everybody is getting in on Israel’s 60th anniversary craze.

That includes, of course, marketers who are pulling gimmicks galore in a bid for attention and those hard earned shekels.

What are some of the trendier 60th trends?

- Marco’s Shoes is offering “special edition” sandals and clogs in blue and white motifs

- Shilav Baby Clothing & Accessories will be giving away 60 baby carriages to the first 60 new mothers who sign up on their website between May 7-8.

- The cafe cafe chain is offering hummus flavored ice-cream for the anniversary

- Blockbuster Video is offering 6-movie memberships for 60 shekels ($17) instead of NIS143 ($41) between May 6-8.

- Africa-Israel Investments is offering an NIS60,000 ($17,400) discount to government employees who purchase apartments in the Savyoneem neighborhood (!!!)

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