Mashbir desires

June 10, 2010 - 4:21 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Business, design, General, History and Culture, Israeliness 

I’ve written about the Mashbir before, Israel’s main department store, and really, only department store. It’s a place of nostalgia for many of us, although I still head there for my socks and tights.

But today, as I was running around downtown Jerusalem doing errands, I came upon the corner where the new Mashbir is being constructed, on Jaffa Street, right on Zion Square. It wasn’t so much the construction that clued me in as the massive billboard on the soon-to-be side of the building. You may not be able to read the words, so let me help you out. It has people juxtaposed against the massive stones of the Western Wall, where it’s customary to put notes written to God, but these models are hawking the Mashbir, letting any future customers know that they won’t have any wishes or desires once the new Mashbir finally opens.

A fitting ad for a store just a few blocks from the Old City and the real Western Wall.

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Helpful strangers

January 9, 2009 - 12:15 AM by · 1 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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