Parking lot blues

August 26, 2010 - 3:09 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Life 

Like most parts of the developed world, parking lots are getting quite sophisticated in Israel. But sometimes, the more forward you get, the farther back you go.

Yesterday, I had an appointment at the labrynth-like Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem. When you first enter the comples, you take a parking ticket from a machine next to a little booth manned by an actual human being. There’s a sign saying it costs NIS 20 for the first hour.

Then you have a plethora of options to choose from in which to park, including their relatively new main parking lot which can welcome 1,000 vehicles and is close to the hospital’s main entrance. You need to insert your parking ticket there for the barrier to swing up and let you in, and the machine spews the ticket back to you.

So far, so good.

When it was time to leave, I wasn’t sure what to do regarding payment, but I figured that you paid back at the main entrance where I saw the person in the booth on my way in. So I got in the car and made my way out of the lot, but the barrier didn’t open.
Someone pointed to a sign outside a nearby door which said “Pay station’ and said “You have to pay there first.”

Luckily, nobody was behind me, so I backed up, parked again and went in to pay. A sign on the machine said ‘payment by cash or credit card.’ When I inserted my ticket, the window light came on saying I owed NIS 26. I inserted my credit card, looked around and whistled while I waited for the transaction to complete. My credit card came out of the machine, and I saw a receipt down in the bottom window of the machine, which I took, and figured that was in lieu of the parking ticket I initially inserted.

Made my way back to the car and the exit, and again the barrier didn’t open. This time, I pressed the intercom outside the car window and got the parking lot HQ. The voice on the other end told me that my payment hadn’t been accepted, and that I need to go back in and pay. I told him/it that of course I paid, and I even have the receipt.

He responded that it must have been a receipt somebody else left there, and that I needed to reinsert my parking ticket. I told him that the machine had kept the ticket.

Meanwhile, a line of cars, with not such patient drivers had formed behind me. Again, I had to back out, after they all backed up, and I returned to the pay station, where I pressed the intercom and the man/thing walked me through the steps to retrieve my ticket and pay my NIS 26.

The third time at the exit was a charm, and 20 minutes after I began, the barrier lifted up and I drove out. When I reached the hospital exit with the booth and the human, I had to hand him my parking ticket – he looked at it, and he raised the barrier to let me out.

I had to laugh. After all that automization and confusion (at least on my part), in the end, there was still a guy sitting there whose job it was to let me out. Couldn’t he have been taking the payment as well?
It’s a question I’ll ponder the next time I make my way to Hadassah.

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I know someone who knows someone who can help

July 6, 2010 - 9:24 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

Protekzia makes the world go round, especially if you’re in Israel. The term – meaning having someone on the inside to enable you to bypass normal social protocol – is coveted here. And most immigrants never find the key to unlock their inner protekzia, as it’s usually about who you know in high or powerful places.

I finally felt like a veteran Israeli this week, around the fourth that I’ve been undergoing tests for a mysterious ache in my upper arm and shoulder.

Not having had to test the efficiency of my socialized health plan beyond ordinary family doctor visits and tests since I’ve lived here, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the way things work. So far, I’ve been x-rayed, had a stress test, met with an orthopedic doctor and had an ultrasound. On the positive side, I’m healthy as an ox. On the negative side, there’s still no diagnosis for my nagging ailment.

The next step is to undergo something called a nerve collection EMG, some kind of test conducted at Haddasah Hospital involving inserting needles in the nerves of my arms. I called up to make an appointment, and the receptionist said, “You can have either 1:30 pm or 2 pm on… November 3rd.”

After overcoming my shock, I told her that I was busy at 2 pm so I’d take the 1:30. She didn’t even laugh.

Later, after thinking about the four month wait for something that’s bothering me now, I remembered that a friend knew some important personnel at the hospital. I called her and asked if there was anything she thought she could do. She said she’d make a phone call, and I gave her all the info.

A few minutes later, I got a call from a Hadassah rep saying that there had been a cancellation for July 28th and it was mine if I wanted. From four months down to three weeks, all because of a phone call.

Even if my arm still hurts, I felt better at having succeeded in penetrating the labrynthe of Israeli protekzia.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Welcome to Eggs-rael

June 20, 2010 - 9:15 PM by · 5 Comments
Filed under: Food, General, health, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Travel 

Pinch me, I must be dreaming. For the first time in all my years here, I’ve found a place with egg white omelet on the menu. Not that you aren’t able to order an omelet made of egg whites in Israel. But this generally this involves making long explanations to young wait-persons who generally respond with everything from a blank stare of utter confusion to a just-as-confused-but-trying-to-be-helpful, “Are you sure you only want the whites? I’m going to have to charge you for a regular omelet anyway, you know.” So, having it on the menu is a big deal.

It got me thinking about eggs, which are a very important part of the daily diet for most Israelis – and not just during Passover when it’s all eggs, all the time. According to a 2007 report by International Egg and Poultry Review, hen egg consumption in Israel was 30.98, putting Israel 36th in world per capita consumption. In 2004, Globes reported that the average Israeli consumed 239 eggs per year.

One of the reasons consumption is so high is because eggs aren’t just for breakfast in Israel. I still remember this revelation at the age of 7 or 8 when I was invited to dinner at the home of a little girl in my Grandmother’s Jerusalem neighborhood. Her mother served us fried eggs, sunny side up. Wow! Breakfast food for dinner! This must be a pretty good country to live in if you can have that.

Of course, actually coming here to live meant dealing with some of the peculiarities of egg procurement. For example, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, eggs were taken away from consumers and delivered straight to our soldiers. The only eggs available were tiny little substandard ones — and then only through the black market.

Meanwhile, Israel’s soldiers were being stuffed silly with four, five and six eggs a day. Eventually, this artificially created shortage ended, eggs came back to the grocery shelves and those soldiers — now in their 50s and 60s — treat their high cholesterol levels with statin drugs. (Israel’s Hadassah Hospital, you should know, was a pioneer in the use of statins for controlling high blood pressure).

Another weird thing was that there were no egg cartons, just trays of eggs. If you just wanted to buy a few eggs, say 6 or 8, the grocery store proprietor would place them very carefully in a little brown paper bag and hand it to you to carry gingerly back home. And if you were lucky, most of them would arrive whole. This led to the development of the portable plastic egg carrying case.

Even before the State was founded, most of Israel’s eggs were marketed by evil monolith (I am not kidding) Tnuva which at one point in the 1980s marketed 66% of all of the country’s eggs. To its credit, Tnuva did standardize levels of production and was the first Israeli company to qualify for ISO 9002 international standardization. Nonetheless, times have changed and today Tnuva has to make do with controlling a mere 35% of the egg market in Israel.

I’m too young to have experienced the austerity regime of Israel’s early statehood but the excellent Nostal site (in Hebrew but with lots of pictures) has a nice entry about powdered eggs, which seem to have characterized the era for many.

But I am old enough to have seen one of the last egg stores in Tel Aviv, which was located on Shenkin Street right next to Cafe Tamar. It was not a boutique. It was a dumpy little store that sold one thing and one thing alone: that perfect oval symbol of rebirth.

Today, we have egg cartons by the dozen, restaurants like Tel Aviv’s Benedict that serve eggs all day and all night, and shakshouka, a North African dish consisting of eggs poached in tomato sauce, is a staple on every menu. (The Israel Poultry Council has a nice recipe here).

As for the aforementioned egg white omelet, it was served to me at the Si Espresso cafe. Located at the Latrun junction, the cafe is a popular hangout for mountain bikers from all over Israel (hence the healthy Lite Breakfast)*. Definitely recommended, even if you aren’t wearing biking shorts.

*This past Friday morning was no exception; the bikers hadn’t yet received the news that one of their own, triathlete Shneor Cheshin, had been killed while riding by a hit-and-run driver. You can read more about it in Yossi Melman’s impassioned editorial, Drivers to Blame, in Haaretz.

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Foto Friday – Danny Yanai’s Israeli Walls

March 19, 2010 - 6:17 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Crime, design, Environment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Picture of the Week 

Israel is all about walls. Read the daily news headlines and you’ll come to believe that all Israeli walls are either Western or Separation. But Israel has other walls, more modest and colorful, less emotionally charged and politically burdensome. It’s these sorts of walls that photographer Danny Yanai has collected into into an online gallery entitled “Mainly Walls”.


Wall – Neve Tzedek Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

Yanai looks at walls both close up…

Lock – Peki’in Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

And at arm’s length…

Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

There are walls that depict a slice of life…

Wall – Tel Aviv Mural by Rami Meiri. Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

A city’s extreme energy…

Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

It’s history…

Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

Even it’s seamier side… or as Yanai puts it: “Shit happens”.

Wall – Tel Aviv Photo by Danny Yanai Israelpics.com

Danny Yanai specializes in documentary and geographical photography. His work is on display at the HP Israel offices in Raanana, and he has exhibited in both solo and group shows. Yanai has an extensive online gallery on a range of subjects, most recently the Kumbh-Mela festival in India. But perhaps the most moving series — and the most heartbreaking — is Baby Sivan Fighting For Life that documents the short life of his daughter who died of cancer last year. Sivan was treated at Hadassah Medical Center’s Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation And Cancer Immunotherapy and donations in her memory are gratefully acknowledged by the family.

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Back to nature

October 5, 2008 - 9:05 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Holidays, Religion, Travel 

sataf.jpgThe Shabbat between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is referred to as ‘Shabbat Shuva’ – literally, a return to God and one’s self. Falling during the ten days of repentance, it’s the time for introspection and reflection, ahead of the upcoming Yom Kippur fast.

While we usually observe Shabbat Shuva at our synagogue in Jerusalem, this year, we decided on a more novel approach – a scenic hike along Sataf, in the Jerusalem hills.

Located only a few minutes outside of Jerusalem, close to Hadassah Hospital, Ein Kerem, Sataf is a 250-acre thing of beauty, maintained by the Jewish National Fund. The downhill trail along the terraced mountainside includes the remains of a 4,000 BCE Chalcolithic village with some of the oldest agricultural traces in the region, the remains of a pre-1948 Arab village, an observation post overlooking the western entrance to Jerusalem, an abundance of fig and olive trees, and the Ein Sataf water spring.

According to the site, Gems in Israel, most of the remains found in Sataf are from the Byzantine era.

There is no mention of a village named Sataf in the Bible and the first occurrence of the name in writing, is from Ein Karem, during the Mamluk era. Most of the remains found in the Sataf are from the Byzantine era. The Arab village of Sataf numbered about 450 people around the middle of the 19th century. A short time after the War of Independence, a small group of immigrants from North Africa settled here – but they were only here for a few months. Later, the area served as a training area for the IDF’s 101st and paratrooper units. In 1985, the KKL-JNF began the restoration of ancient agricultural practices in the area, with the help JNF supporters from Switzerland.

The primary crops in the Judean Hills in ancient times included vineyards, olives, figs and pomegranates. In this rocky-hilly region, dry farming (which relies only on rainfall for irrigation) was practiced using an elaborate system of terraces and tunnels. The springs here were not plentiful, so the existing water supply had to maximized. This was achieved by tunneling into the water-bearing strata. An ingenious system of channels (parts of which are clearly visible) conducted the water that was stored in large pools to the terraced plots.

The place was packed with nature-loving Israelis, some taking advantage of the bicycle rental stand in the parking lot, to cycle down the steep road circling the terraces. But the hiking trails – ranging from 500 yards to two miles – are the main attraction. The trail floors of full of brown pine needles, reminding me of new England hikes of yore. And when you reach the bottom, and the Sataf pool, there’s a short water tunnel that the two seven-year-olds in tow had no problem going through at least 15 times in an hour, in between munching on a picnic lunch.

Despite the hordes of hikers, the trail didn’t feel congested, and until we reached the pool, we rarely saw anyone else. And unlike many public Israeli situations, these outdoor enthusiasts were respectful of both the surroundings and the people around them. No litter, loud music or barbecues here.

I even got a few moments alone to contemplate the year, the world and myself. I might have been able to do the same at ‘beit knesset’, but the surroundings at Sataf were certainly more inspiring. Now if we could only figure out a way to get there for Yom Kippur without driving, that would sure be a fast to remember.

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