Judaism from a vending machine in Jerusalem

February 25, 2009 - 10:22 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Israeliness, Life, Religion 

vending12Forget Life in a Pita, the popular album by Teapacks. We’ve now got Judaism in a vending machine. You can get just about anything in vending machines in Israel that you can get anywhere else – drinks, candy, sandwiches. But I think this must be a uniquely Israeli offering.

At Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station, you can put your money in a vending machine and receive booklets on Jewish laws and traditions. Intrepid Internet maven Jacob Richman took these photographs of the machine, which is stocked by the religious educational outreach organization Hadaf Hayomi (The Daily Page).

vending22I asked an intern yesterday to go to the bus station and stake out the machine to see if anyone was filling up with knowledge instead of empty calories. But despite most of the booklets being depleted, he reported that most people were choosing tortilla chips instead of Talmud. Evidently, it may take some time to replace ‘food for thought’ with ‘thought for food’.

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