--My friend Ashley, from grad school, hosted an American-Israeli (plus a lone Brit, and 3 South Africans) Thanksgiving. We had turkey, mashed potatoes. . . eggplant salad, Jerusalem salad, Persian flatbread, sufganiyot (Hanukah donuts), and rugelach. So, you know, just your traditional holiday menu.
--All of my students at school are both dubious of and enamored with "Sahn-TAH Claw-OOS." Several have requested that we do an in-class Christmas celebration, like we have with other American holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, but I told them that there's a pretty strong Jesus connection, so it'd likely be a no-go with the people in charge of all of us.
--For the aforementioned Thanksgiving school celebration, I forced all my first-graders to make that beloved Thanksgiving craft, the Hand Turkey. They also practiced writing by making a list of things they were grateful for. These lists included: My Family, Mommy, Tal (someone's best friend/desk partner), pizza, "the trees and the sky," "everything! ! ! ! ! !," and "no homework."
--I told one of my colleagues at school, in Hebrew, that I was staying after to have a parent meeting.
She told me that the word I was using for "meeting," meant something more along the lines of a world summit, or U.N. assembly.
Not really the same thing at all.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
I fool my students by letting them ''play with clay.'' haha, chumps! You were practicing spelling!
Dragons=frequent conversation topic
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Embarassing Things I Have Said in Hebrew. . . So Far.
Inciting Incident: One of the school secretaries compliments me on my boots.
Me:(in halting Hebrew) Thank you! I "procured them (in the sense of stealing them)" from Target in the U.S.
Secretary: (With mock astonishment) No, I don't believe it! You're not the type!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inciting Incident: My next-door neighbor, a nice Haredi guy who's always making little improvement to his building, is at my corner kiosk playing backgammon with the kiosk dude. I want to make polite and friendly conversation with him as I buy some soda.
Me: Hello, how are you? I see that your "backyard" (I have chosen the term for backyard that also denotes "ass" in Israeli slang) is looking great!
Haredi Neighbor: (silence)
Kiosk Dude: (Protracted laughter followed by explanation of the gaffe)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Me:(in halting Hebrew) Thank you! I "procured them (in the sense of stealing them)" from Target in the U.S.
Secretary: (With mock astonishment) No, I don't believe it! You're not the type!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inciting Incident: My next-door neighbor, a nice Haredi guy who's always making little improvement to his building, is at my corner kiosk playing backgammon with the kiosk dude. I want to make polite and friendly conversation with him as I buy some soda.
Me: Hello, how are you? I see that your "backyard" (I have chosen the term for backyard that also denotes "ass" in Israeli slang) is looking great!
Haredi Neighbor: (silence)
Kiosk Dude: (Protracted laughter followed by explanation of the gaffe)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Israeli Slang U Gotz ta Know
Look, it should surprise no one that there's a certain, perfectly serviceable (if somewhat antiseptic) lexicon you learn in Ulpan (Hebrew school) and an entirely different, juicier, and plain old nastier set of words you learn just being out and about in the city--fending off guys at the bars, elbowing your way to the front of the Sabieh line (Oh, Sabieh, if heaven could be contained in a pita it would taste just like you.), listening to the chants and boasts of the fruit sellers at the shuk, and separating two warring kita hey (6th grade) boys after their insults give way to blows.
These are some of the latter:
"Die!": One of the most jarring exhortations to hear directed your way when you're a new Hebrew speaker, the homonym actually means, "Enough (already)!" It's a good word to know if you're regularly required to quiet classrooms of screaming children, but also effective when hissed at a hovering makeup counter lady. Apparently it's also the command Israeli dog-owners use to quiet their barking dogs, but since mine is hopelessly monolingual (on his best days) I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the usage.
"Efshar?" and Yesh Matzav?": "Efshar?" literally means, "It is possible?" and it's a nice way to ask someone to move their stuff so you can sit down on a crowded city bus, or to request a favor of any kind. However, it's also often asked of girls in bars by shady-looking dudes (often "Arrseem" see below)who want to dance with (i.e. dry hump) them. Same thing goes with "Yesh Matzav," which literally translates to the ominous-sounding "There's a situation," but really means, "There is a chance," and is generally phrased as a question and used to ask for a dance, a cigarette, or a phone number (generally by someone to whom you'd deny all three).
"Arrs" (or in its plural form, Arseem): A type of guy who might resist precise definition but whom, as in pornography, you know when you see. Generally an "arrs" (another false homonym for English-speakers, however a far more accurate one) is an overly-groomed, jewelery-wearing, hair-product-using, designer-jeans-buying young man out on the prowl, whose hands seem to be constantly occupied with a cell phone, a cigarette, a drink, or some combination of the three. Lifelong Tel-Aviv residents seem eager to brand the suburbanite males who come into the city on weekends to pack the Namal nightclubs and clog Rothschild Blvd as Arrseem, leading me to conclude that these must be the equivalent of the New York "Bridge and Tunnel" crowd. You've been warned.
Faltzani: Okay, to be fair, I've never heard this one used in conversation, and I'm pretty sure it's outdated as far as slang goes, but the etymology of it is so fantastic (and so resolutely Israeli)that I couldn't resist mentioning it (one of my fellow teachers filled me in on it). A "Faltzani" is an egotist, someone who thinks too highly of himself and acts snobbishly.
It's derived from the verb Ha'fleetz, which means to pass gas.
These are some of the latter:
"Die!": One of the most jarring exhortations to hear directed your way when you're a new Hebrew speaker, the homonym actually means, "Enough (already)!" It's a good word to know if you're regularly required to quiet classrooms of screaming children, but also effective when hissed at a hovering makeup counter lady. Apparently it's also the command Israeli dog-owners use to quiet their barking dogs, but since mine is hopelessly monolingual (on his best days) I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the usage.
"Efshar?" and Yesh Matzav?": "Efshar?" literally means, "It is possible?" and it's a nice way to ask someone to move their stuff so you can sit down on a crowded city bus, or to request a favor of any kind. However, it's also often asked of girls in bars by shady-looking dudes (often "Arrseem" see below)who want to dance with (i.e. dry hump) them. Same thing goes with "Yesh Matzav," which literally translates to the ominous-sounding "There's a situation," but really means, "There is a chance," and is generally phrased as a question and used to ask for a dance, a cigarette, or a phone number (generally by someone to whom you'd deny all three).
"Arrs" (or in its plural form, Arseem): A type of guy who might resist precise definition but whom, as in pornography, you know when you see. Generally an "arrs" (another false homonym for English-speakers, however a far more accurate one) is an overly-groomed, jewelery-wearing, hair-product-using, designer-jeans-buying young man out on the prowl, whose hands seem to be constantly occupied with a cell phone, a cigarette, a drink, or some combination of the three. Lifelong Tel-Aviv residents seem eager to brand the suburbanite males who come into the city on weekends to pack the Namal nightclubs and clog Rothschild Blvd as Arrseem, leading me to conclude that these must be the equivalent of the New York "Bridge and Tunnel" crowd. You've been warned.
Faltzani: Okay, to be fair, I've never heard this one used in conversation, and I'm pretty sure it's outdated as far as slang goes, but the etymology of it is so fantastic (and so resolutely Israeli)that I couldn't resist mentioning it (one of my fellow teachers filled me in on it). A "Faltzani" is an egotist, someone who thinks too highly of himself and acts snobbishly.
It's derived from the verb Ha'fleetz, which means to pass gas.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Halloween in Israel
I've been doing halloween-themed lessons in all my classes this week, and have never seen kids more excited to be introduced to the joys of pumpkin-carving and free candy (though almost all of them already have a basic, albeit fractured, understanding of the holiday apparently gleaned from "Hannah Montana" and other American TV shows)
I dressed up like a ghost which thrilled the kids and, as a delightful side-effect, confirmed for all the other Elhareezi teachers that their illiterate, stuttering colleague was also completely MENTAL.
We read a spooky story in the dark (sort of. pitch-blackness is hard to achieve on an 80 degree, unremittingly sunny day) by flashlight, wrote a ghost story of our own together, paired up to administer "Are you a Witch?" and "Are you a Werewolf?" quizzes I found on a funny ESL lesson-planning website(sample questions: Do you like your hamburgers extra-rare? Do you ever wake up confused and full?), and tried to answer some Halloween rhyming riddles (During which, somehow the question, "What type of Halloween monster hates sunlight and rhymes with 'fire'?" was answered with "Ooh, my brother!". . . "A liar?" . . . and, finally, Hagit!" . . . which is the name of a certain class's homeroom teacher (pseudonym used to protect the innocent)).
But the most eagerly-awaited moment of the whole lesson was the last five minutes of class, spent trick-or-treating. We "trick-or-treated" at the secretaries' office (who were very confused about the whole thing, and possibly thought I was giving the candy to *them* when I dropped it off and tried to explain it before class), the teachers lounge (where one of the long-suffering Kita Vav (5th grade) teachers silently gave out candy with one manicured hand, while clutching an unlit cigarette in the other) and the medic's room (Where the medic pretended, with a complete straight face, not to recognize any of the costumed kids, which was a big hit. And yeah, they have ex-IDF medics in the schools here instead of nurses. because it's Israel, and god forbid something should happen, the medics know how to evacuate people and/or respond to trauma. But ours, Elad, mostly gives out ice packs, cleans scrapes, and serves as a beloved confidante/therapist/recess sparring partner).
I was happy that a lot of the kids dressed-up for the occasion (though I couldn't resist asking more than a few, "How can you remember every piece of an elaborate costume ( such as the pirate get-up comprised of lace-up blouse, boots, wig, hat, hook-hand, felt eye-patch, and plastic cutlass) yet you can't remember to do your homework, or bring your pencil case to class?
Besides the already-mentioned pirate, I also had a cow-girl (very eager to perform her country line-dancing moves for me and the class, a super-woman (complete with a pink satin cape and a giant "S" logo that twinkled with little battery-powered LED lights), several soccer players (the boys, obviously), and a sequin-spangled rock star so committed to her costume's alter-ego that she insisted on speaking into her glittery plastic microphone every time she raised her hand in class)
And though the kids liked the trick-or-treating the best (free candy plus no discernable academic benefits=WIN!) I loved some of the spooky stories they came up with. Even though I tried to prep them both last week and during this week's lesson, a lot of the kids had a much smaller knowledge of halloween ghouls to draw upon than the average American elementary-school student. Consequently, the expected ghostly adversaries of many of the stories were supplanted by other more universally familiar but perhaps less Halloween-typical "bad guys" such as Bowser the evil dinosaur from the Super-Mario Brothers video game, various Pokemon villains, and "Pharoh."
"You mean, a mummy?" I stupidly asked, when that particular baddy was added to one of the stories. "Looooo(No)!" came back the exasperated reply from this particular author, "You know, Becky, the one in Egypt(as opposed to all the non-Egyptian pharaohs, I thought to myself), the one who Hashem made all the plagues for, and then Moses came?"
"Ohhhh, right" I said, a smile forming in spite of my best efforts, "Who's scarier than that dude?"
I dressed up like a ghost which thrilled the kids and, as a delightful side-effect, confirmed for all the other Elhareezi teachers that their illiterate, stuttering colleague was also completely MENTAL.
We read a spooky story in the dark (sort of. pitch-blackness is hard to achieve on an 80 degree, unremittingly sunny day) by flashlight, wrote a ghost story of our own together, paired up to administer "Are you a Witch?" and "Are you a Werewolf?" quizzes I found on a funny ESL lesson-planning website(sample questions: Do you like your hamburgers extra-rare? Do you ever wake up confused and full?), and tried to answer some Halloween rhyming riddles (During which, somehow the question, "What type of Halloween monster hates sunlight and rhymes with 'fire'?" was answered with "Ooh, my brother!". . . "A liar?" . . . and, finally, Hagit!" . . . which is the name of a certain class's homeroom teacher (pseudonym used to protect the innocent)).
But the most eagerly-awaited moment of the whole lesson was the last five minutes of class, spent trick-or-treating. We "trick-or-treated" at the secretaries' office (who were very confused about the whole thing, and possibly thought I was giving the candy to *them* when I dropped it off and tried to explain it before class), the teachers lounge (where one of the long-suffering Kita Vav (5th grade) teachers silently gave out candy with one manicured hand, while clutching an unlit cigarette in the other) and the medic's room (Where the medic pretended, with a complete straight face, not to recognize any of the costumed kids, which was a big hit. And yeah, they have ex-IDF medics in the schools here instead of nurses. because it's Israel, and god forbid something should happen, the medics know how to evacuate people and/or respond to trauma. But ours, Elad, mostly gives out ice packs, cleans scrapes, and serves as a beloved confidante/therapist/recess sparring partner).
I was happy that a lot of the kids dressed-up for the occasion (though I couldn't resist asking more than a few, "How can you remember every piece of an elaborate costume ( such as the pirate get-up comprised of lace-up blouse, boots, wig, hat, hook-hand, felt eye-patch, and plastic cutlass) yet you can't remember to do your homework, or bring your pencil case to class?
Besides the already-mentioned pirate, I also had a cow-girl (very eager to perform her country line-dancing moves for me and the class, a super-woman (complete with a pink satin cape and a giant "S" logo that twinkled with little battery-powered LED lights), several soccer players (the boys, obviously), and a sequin-spangled rock star so committed to her costume's alter-ego that she insisted on speaking into her glittery plastic microphone every time she raised her hand in class)
And though the kids liked the trick-or-treating the best (free candy plus no discernable academic benefits=WIN!) I loved some of the spooky stories they came up with. Even though I tried to prep them both last week and during this week's lesson, a lot of the kids had a much smaller knowledge of halloween ghouls to draw upon than the average American elementary-school student. Consequently, the expected ghostly adversaries of many of the stories were supplanted by other more universally familiar but perhaps less Halloween-typical "bad guys" such as Bowser the evil dinosaur from the Super-Mario Brothers video game, various Pokemon villains, and "Pharoh."
"You mean, a mummy?" I stupidly asked, when that particular baddy was added to one of the stories. "Looooo(No)!" came back the exasperated reply from this particular author, "You know, Becky, the one in Egypt(as opposed to all the non-Egyptian pharaohs, I thought to myself), the one who Hashem made all the plagues for, and then Moses came?"
"Ohhhh, right" I said, a smile forming in spite of my best efforts, "Who's scarier than that dude?"
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Shockingly Teacher-like Things I have Honest-to-God Said to My Students to my Increasing Horror
1. "[Omri/Tomer/Lior/Liat/Romi/Roni/Roi], what did I just say?
(After inevitable silence or mumble of "I don't know")
Well, the reason you don't know is because you were [talking to your desk partner/taking apart your pen/breaking your eraser into many small eraser nuggets/industriously picking your nose/industriously picking your scab/playing with your webkinz stuffed animal under the desk/ trying to balance your mini hand sanitizer bottle on top of your water bottle] so you need to stop [doing that] and pay attention."
2. "Mouths closed, eyes on me!"
3. "No rocking in your chair!"
4. "Walk, don't run!"
5. "Speak up so the whole class can hear you, please!"
6. "Stop [hitting/kicking/poking/chasing/spitting on/throwing your chocolate milk at] h[im/her]!"
7. "Apologize!" Almost always followed by "Look h[im/her] in the eyes when you say you're sorry!" or "And why are you sorry?"
8. "Is it an emergency, or can you wait to go after class?"
9. "I don't want to [call your mother/tell the principal/take away your recess], but I will if you keep on: [walking out of the classroom in the middle of the lesson/making high-pitched cat noises while I'm writing on the board/ burping repeatedly and on purpose/calling your classmate an [incongruous English-language epithet you've learned from American television whose meaning is a mystery to you such as "fugly," "douchebag," or "shithead"]/purposely pouring water on to your notebook to "see what happens"/taking my tape dispenser and affixing long strips of tape to all of your facial features then getting some tangled in your hair/taking my red whiteboard marker and drawing on your willing desk-partner's arm/texting someone on your phone under your desk (you are in third grade! WHO IN THE WORLD could you possibly be texting?).
and, for some reason, the most horrifying of all,
10. "Use your indoor voice!"
(After inevitable silence or mumble of "I don't know")
Well, the reason you don't know is because you were [talking to your desk partner/taking apart your pen/breaking your eraser into many small eraser nuggets/industriously picking your nose/industriously picking your scab/playing with your webkinz stuffed animal under the desk/ trying to balance your mini hand sanitizer bottle on top of your water bottle] so you need to stop [doing that] and pay attention."
2. "Mouths closed, eyes on me!"
3. "No rocking in your chair!"
4. "Walk, don't run!"
5. "Speak up so the whole class can hear you, please!"
6. "Stop [hitting/kicking/poking/chasing/spitting on/throwing your chocolate milk at] h[im/her]!"
7. "Apologize!" Almost always followed by "Look h[im/her] in the eyes when you say you're sorry!" or "And why are you sorry?"
8. "Is it an emergency, or can you wait to go after class?"
9. "I don't want to [call your mother/tell the principal/take away your recess], but I will if you keep on: [walking out of the classroom in the middle of the lesson/making high-pitched cat noises while I'm writing on the board/ burping repeatedly and on purpose/calling your classmate an [incongruous English-language epithet you've learned from American television whose meaning is a mystery to you such as "fugly," "douchebag," or "shithead"]/purposely pouring water on to your notebook to "see what happens"/taking my tape dispenser and affixing long strips of tape to all of your facial features then getting some tangled in your hair/taking my red whiteboard marker and drawing on your willing desk-partner's arm/texting someone on your phone under your desk (you are in third grade! WHO IN THE WORLD could you possibly be texting?).
and, for some reason, the most horrifying of all,
10. "Use your indoor voice!"
Friday, September 25, 2009
What's On in Israel
I was at Shuk Carmel earlier in the week and I decided to buy a kilo of Mystery Fruit, since everyone else was buying them with great enthusiasm, and I've always believed that when a big group of people is doing something, you should follow suit without any questions.
Once I got home, I dumped them into THE colander to wash and inspect them. My findings: they're about the size of a nectarine, with similarly smooth and shiny skin. But their color is more of a pink-red blush with scattered saffron-colored freckles, and it has a stem like an apple or a pear. So, I was thinking, alright, it must be a very pretty variation from the peach-nectarine family. But, once I bit into it, the flesh was just like an apple—crisp and white and a little mealy. But the taste of that apple-like flesh was more like a mixture of melon and plum. And once you get to the core, the fruit has a stone pit, not seeds, and the pit is surrounded by a beautiful red corona of flesh, just like a peach!
Well, obviously, I was disgusted.
Make up your mind, Mystery Fruit! Maybe all the Israelis are always telling you how special and delicious you are, but from where I stand you just look like you're terrible at making decisions! You can't please everyone, Mystery Fruit.
Anyway, remember my 8 channels of shamefully pirated Israeli cable? Well, the shame is waning in inverse proportion to my delight over the weirdness of the programming choices. There's actually a ton of American TV, but it's sort of like playing Roulette every time you turn to the two English channels. It must have been a pretty Faustian licensing deal on the Israeli side of things. I think all the American network heads banded together and were like,“Oh, sure, HOT! (yes, that's the name of the main cable provider), you can show reruns of “Mad Men” and “House” and “The Office” and “Family Guy.” What's that? You want to show “Ugly Betty” too? No problem, we'll even throw in “Gilmore Girls.” at. Go ahead and sign that contract. Terrific!”
(Ten seconds later, with ink still wet on contract)
What? Ohhhh, that paragraph in tiny type at the end just states that you also have to buy up the syndication rights for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Dr. Phil,” “King of Queens,” a few NBC and ABC shows that were canceled after one season [Ed: “Swingtown,” anyone? Exactly.] , and some CourtTV shows from the O.J. Era. And, best of all, a daily 4-hour block of selections from the Hallmark Channel [Ed: comprised mostly of the sort of truly execrable made-for-tv woman-in-distress movies that make the programs of its rival channel, Lifetime (home to “Not Without My Daughters!” and “Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?” ) look like flippin' Shakespeare]. Also, Israelis like Tae-Bo still, right? Well, I hope so, because, you've also agreed to air hours of early morning Billy Blanks workout videos
Yeah. Mwah-ha-ha.
(Chorus of evil laughter swells as the American network heads disappear in a cloud of smoke. The Hot! executives weep)
The Israeli channels are way better anyway. “In Practice,” that HBO show about a therapist and his clients, is actually based on the Israeli show of the title, and you can still catch it in reruns here. And Israeli kids' shows are basically geared to my language level, so I've actually been watching those, though there's only so many times where you can sing along with a talking cartoon bear about all the different colors in the rainbow before you feel like a real horse's ass.
I guess “Shalom Sesame” (the, you guessed it, Israeli version of “Sesame Street”) is also really popular though I haven't seen it. I did read in the paper that they just finished filming on-site segments for an upcoming kids special about the peace process and Jewish-Israeli/Arab-Israeli conflicts. Elmo and a film crew visited the Kotel (the “Western Wall”) for it. Can you imagine? Say,you're a devout Orthodox Jew, and you're, like praying the mourner's kaddish at the wall, or something else incredibly sacred and serious, and when you finish and turn your head, there's a flippin' MUPPET next to you, talking in the third person (“Elmo loves davening! Yay!”), trying to hug you with its furry, floppy limbs and basically making light of everything you hold dear, and oh PS also there are two grown men attached to this thing and they're crouching o at your feet with their hand up his butt. And PPS someone is filming all of this.
I'm surprised there wasn't a Haredi Riot. (Not as fun or colorful as a “Zoot Suit Riot,” by the way).
There's also this very popular reality show everyone in Israel watches about 4 women of different ages, with different backgrounds, who videotape their own lives with little camcorders, then turn over the raw footage to be edited by the show's producers. I mostly have no idea what the fuck is going on during the episodes, and the camera-work leaves much to be desired (haha) but there's a lot of crying and yelling and soulful monologues into the camera plus some very educational Hebrew swearing.
Oh, and there's this evening soap opera that stars the Israeli heartthrob of the moment, Yehuda Levi (only in Israel can a heartthrob have a name like “Yehuda”). He's either a former pro soccer star in real life who's playing an international underwear model in the show, or a former international underwear model in real life playing a pro soccer star on the show. Same difference, right? And I guess he has this rival (a blonde dude, ya know, so you can tell them apart) who used to be his friend but now they hate each others guts, and they like to steal each others girlfriends. And one of the only Anglo character on the show is Yehuda's crusty British doctor, who had this very dramatic scene with him in the last episode, totally in English, where he brandishes (brandishes!) a full (full!) specimen cup at Yehuda while denouncing him for “pumping [him]self full of damned steroids!” [Dah-duh-DAAAH! Dramatic cliffhanger music surges as camera pans to Yehuda who is trying to look defiant yet contrite but sort of just looks constipated!] Also, everyone says “fuck” a lot, even though the show airs from 6:00-7:00 at night, Sunday-Thursday. Also, they show boobs.
OH! And the opening credits are amazing.Yehuda and the blonde guy are standing on this pitch black soccer pitch with a thunderstorm raging around them, and they do some arty primal screaming before beating the shit out of each other in the rain while remaining very handsome-looking. And just to make things absolutely perfect, the super-dramatic, sort-of-strained male vocals of the show's opening credit song are provided by. . . you guessed it! Yehuda Levi! He's the classic triple-threat: real underwear model/fake soccer player/delusional pop musician.
And I haven't even mentioned the two Russian TV channels (both mostly featuring movies from no earlier than 1970 that have clearly not been archived properly since tthey're all grainy and scratchy, and their colors are kind of faded and distorted. Or maybe that' was just the style of the U.S.S.R. cineastes back then? (“In Israel, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!”)
There's also an all-French public television-type programming on channel 12 (lots of classical music performances and hour-long specials about endangered species, like the somehow hilariously titled “Apparaciones Despuetre: Le Panda Rouge”--a special about the (admittedly sad) plight of the Red Panda (neither red nor a panda, by the way). It also shows classic movies late at night, but they're all badly dubbed into French, regardless of their nation of origin, with Hebrew and Russian subtitles flashing every two seconds on the bottom of the screen. It lends a really surreal air to, say, “Chinatown,” which I still ended up watching for a half hour or so (how do you say “She's my sister and my daughter” in French? Anyone?)
I need to spend more time with my Hebrew flashcards and less time with the television.
Once I got home, I dumped them into THE colander to wash and inspect them. My findings: they're about the size of a nectarine, with similarly smooth and shiny skin. But their color is more of a pink-red blush with scattered saffron-colored freckles, and it has a stem like an apple or a pear. So, I was thinking, alright, it must be a very pretty variation from the peach-nectarine family. But, once I bit into it, the flesh was just like an apple—crisp and white and a little mealy. But the taste of that apple-like flesh was more like a mixture of melon and plum. And once you get to the core, the fruit has a stone pit, not seeds, and the pit is surrounded by a beautiful red corona of flesh, just like a peach!
Well, obviously, I was disgusted.
Make up your mind, Mystery Fruit! Maybe all the Israelis are always telling you how special and delicious you are, but from where I stand you just look like you're terrible at making decisions! You can't please everyone, Mystery Fruit.
Anyway, remember my 8 channels of shamefully pirated Israeli cable? Well, the shame is waning in inverse proportion to my delight over the weirdness of the programming choices. There's actually a ton of American TV, but it's sort of like playing Roulette every time you turn to the two English channels. It must have been a pretty Faustian licensing deal on the Israeli side of things. I think all the American network heads banded together and were like,“Oh, sure, HOT! (yes, that's the name of the main cable provider), you can show reruns of “Mad Men” and “House” and “The Office” and “Family Guy.” What's that? You want to show “Ugly Betty” too? No problem, we'll even throw in “Gilmore Girls.” at. Go ahead and sign that contract. Terrific!”
(Ten seconds later, with ink still wet on contract)
What? Ohhhh, that paragraph in tiny type at the end just states that you also have to buy up the syndication rights for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Dr. Phil,” “King of Queens,” a few NBC and ABC shows that were canceled after one season [Ed: “Swingtown,” anyone? Exactly.] , and some CourtTV shows from the O.J. Era. And, best of all, a daily 4-hour block of selections from the Hallmark Channel [Ed: comprised mostly of the sort of truly execrable made-for-tv woman-in-distress movies that make the programs of its rival channel, Lifetime (home to “Not Without My Daughters!” and “Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?” ) look like flippin' Shakespeare]. Also, Israelis like Tae-Bo still, right? Well, I hope so, because, you've also agreed to air hours of early morning Billy Blanks workout videos
Yeah. Mwah-ha-ha.
(Chorus of evil laughter swells as the American network heads disappear in a cloud of smoke. The Hot! executives weep)
The Israeli channels are way better anyway. “In Practice,” that HBO show about a therapist and his clients, is actually based on the Israeli show of the title, and you can still catch it in reruns here. And Israeli kids' shows are basically geared to my language level, so I've actually been watching those, though there's only so many times where you can sing along with a talking cartoon bear about all the different colors in the rainbow before you feel like a real horse's ass.
I guess “Shalom Sesame” (the, you guessed it, Israeli version of “Sesame Street”) is also really popular though I haven't seen it. I did read in the paper that they just finished filming on-site segments for an upcoming kids special about the peace process and Jewish-Israeli/Arab-Israeli conflicts. Elmo and a film crew visited the Kotel (the “Western Wall”) for it. Can you imagine? Say,you're a devout Orthodox Jew, and you're, like praying the mourner's kaddish at the wall, or something else incredibly sacred and serious, and when you finish and turn your head, there's a flippin' MUPPET next to you, talking in the third person (“Elmo loves davening! Yay!”), trying to hug you with its furry, floppy limbs and basically making light of everything you hold dear, and oh PS also there are two grown men attached to this thing and they're crouching o at your feet with their hand up his butt. And PPS someone is filming all of this.
I'm surprised there wasn't a Haredi Riot. (Not as fun or colorful as a “Zoot Suit Riot,” by the way).
There's also this very popular reality show everyone in Israel watches about 4 women of different ages, with different backgrounds, who videotape their own lives with little camcorders, then turn over the raw footage to be edited by the show's producers. I mostly have no idea what the fuck is going on during the episodes, and the camera-work leaves much to be desired (haha) but there's a lot of crying and yelling and soulful monologues into the camera plus some very educational Hebrew swearing.
Oh, and there's this evening soap opera that stars the Israeli heartthrob of the moment, Yehuda Levi (only in Israel can a heartthrob have a name like “Yehuda”). He's either a former pro soccer star in real life who's playing an international underwear model in the show, or a former international underwear model in real life playing a pro soccer star on the show. Same difference, right? And I guess he has this rival (a blonde dude, ya know, so you can tell them apart) who used to be his friend but now they hate each others guts, and they like to steal each others girlfriends. And one of the only Anglo character on the show is Yehuda's crusty British doctor, who had this very dramatic scene with him in the last episode, totally in English, where he brandishes (brandishes!) a full (full!) specimen cup at Yehuda while denouncing him for “pumping [him]self full of damned steroids!” [Dah-duh-DAAAH! Dramatic cliffhanger music surges as camera pans to Yehuda who is trying to look defiant yet contrite but sort of just looks constipated!] Also, everyone says “fuck” a lot, even though the show airs from 6:00-7:00 at night, Sunday-Thursday. Also, they show boobs.
OH! And the opening credits are amazing.Yehuda and the blonde guy are standing on this pitch black soccer pitch with a thunderstorm raging around them, and they do some arty primal screaming before beating the shit out of each other in the rain while remaining very handsome-looking. And just to make things absolutely perfect, the super-dramatic, sort-of-strained male vocals of the show's opening credit song are provided by. . . you guessed it! Yehuda Levi! He's the classic triple-threat: real underwear model/fake soccer player/delusional pop musician.
And I haven't even mentioned the two Russian TV channels (both mostly featuring movies from no earlier than 1970 that have clearly not been archived properly since tthey're all grainy and scratchy, and their colors are kind of faded and distorted. Or maybe that' was just the style of the U.S.S.R. cineastes back then? (“In Israel, you watch television. In Soviet Russia, television watches you!”)
There's also an all-French public television-type programming on channel 12 (lots of classical music performances and hour-long specials about endangered species, like the somehow hilariously titled “Apparaciones Despuetre: Le Panda Rouge”--a special about the (admittedly sad) plight of the Red Panda (neither red nor a panda, by the way). It also shows classic movies late at night, but they're all badly dubbed into French, regardless of their nation of origin, with Hebrew and Russian subtitles flashing every two seconds on the bottom of the screen. It lends a really surreal air to, say, “Chinatown,” which I still ended up watching for a half hour or so (how do you say “She's my sister and my daughter” in French? Anyone?)
I need to spend more time with my Hebrew flashcards and less time with the television.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Tel Aviv Bulletin: New Year's Edition (In Which, for once, the Dog Manages to Build Bridges Instead of Noisily Destroying Them)
Shana Tova, everyone. It's the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and as I walked the dog early this morning we saw many black-hatted Haredim (literally trans.”God-Fearers,” the Israeli umbrella terms for members of all the Ultra-Orthodox sects) passing through my quiet neighborhood on their way to Shul to observe the first of the Yanim Noraim (trans “The Days of Awe,” which sounds way better than the “High Holidays,” right?). Almost all the married men clutched the hands of their young sons, little boys in freshly-ironed white shirts still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Older men slowly strolled in groups of threes or fours, some walking arm-in-arm and others leaning on canes.
Everyone had their tallis, carefully folded and protected in a waterproof plastic pocket, tucked under their arms. The quiet stream of men all wore the sober Orthodox rekelech (long black blazer, suit pants, and white button-down shirt), slip-on black leather dress shoes (to avoid having to touch shoes or tie knots on shabbat). Most of the mens' hats were black felt fedoras, though a few wore brimmed hats with a rounded top, and the boys wore plain kippot (the small flat skullcaps we call by their Yiddish name, yarmulke, in the States).
Their conservative black-and-white uniforms, worn in accordance with the Orthodox belief in bodily modesty, suddenly made me acutely conscious of my own clothing-a white cotton t-shirt (ironically decorated with a photo of a nearly-naked, proudly flexing muscle man from the 1920's) and short green boxer shorts I'd worn to bed the night before, topped-off with only a pair of ersatz Ray-Bans and a messy ponytail. I thought of the dressing-down I'd witnessed at the Kotel (the Western Wall) just days ago during our school trip to Jerusalem. A fur hat-topped Haredi in a long silk coat, and a gray beard had happened upon two female tourists who'd removed the dark blue wraps they'd been given by security guards at the Wall's entrance to reveal their above-the-knee shorts and shoulder-baring tank tops. Incensed, he harangued them, jabbing his finger angrily at them as they walked backwards, uncomprehending, away from his shouting. A younger, Modern Orthodox woman flew to the women's rescue, speaking to them softly as they hastily tied the borrowed wraps back into skirts and shawls. At the same time, two Kotel security guards and a younger soldier in field fatigues surrounded the older man, walking him in the opposite direction as he continued to scold and complain.
Wincing, I turned the corner at the end of my block, intending to make a low-profile loop before returning home. Of course, I immediately met with a new clump of Haredim, who wordlessly, without eye contact, parted down the middle to permit me to pass through. Consumed by the worry that I'd just been judged as some pajama-clad Jezebel, it took me a minute to notice that a young dad and his two young sons were trailing several meters behind the group. But the little boys locked eyes with Michael immediately, and the younger of the two, still chubby with baby fat, called out, “Chamud! Kaaaay-lev! Kaaaaay-lev!” (aprox trans.”Oh, Cute! Doggy, doggy!). Hesitant but smiling, I leaned over, scooped Michael up in my arms, and squatted down to introduce him to the boys. With a nod from their dad, the two carefully stroked Michael (who's always been way calmer and more polite with kids), and touched his soft ears. The littlest one squealed happily when Michael politely licked his proffered fingers. I set Michael down on the sidewalk and stood up before waving “Bye-bye” to the boys. Their father's smiling eyes met mine, and with a nod, he wished me “Shana Tova Umetukah,” which I'd just learned in Ulpan meant “A good and sweet year.”
I headed back home with Michael straining at his leash, laughing at myself as I realized the tune of that dumb song from Oaklahoma!, “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends,” was playing in my head.
Everyone had their tallis, carefully folded and protected in a waterproof plastic pocket, tucked under their arms. The quiet stream of men all wore the sober Orthodox rekelech (long black blazer, suit pants, and white button-down shirt), slip-on black leather dress shoes (to avoid having to touch shoes or tie knots on shabbat). Most of the mens' hats were black felt fedoras, though a few wore brimmed hats with a rounded top, and the boys wore plain kippot (the small flat skullcaps we call by their Yiddish name, yarmulke, in the States).
Their conservative black-and-white uniforms, worn in accordance with the Orthodox belief in bodily modesty, suddenly made me acutely conscious of my own clothing-a white cotton t-shirt (ironically decorated with a photo of a nearly-naked, proudly flexing muscle man from the 1920's) and short green boxer shorts I'd worn to bed the night before, topped-off with only a pair of ersatz Ray-Bans and a messy ponytail. I thought of the dressing-down I'd witnessed at the Kotel (the Western Wall) just days ago during our school trip to Jerusalem. A fur hat-topped Haredi in a long silk coat, and a gray beard had happened upon two female tourists who'd removed the dark blue wraps they'd been given by security guards at the Wall's entrance to reveal their above-the-knee shorts and shoulder-baring tank tops. Incensed, he harangued them, jabbing his finger angrily at them as they walked backwards, uncomprehending, away from his shouting. A younger, Modern Orthodox woman flew to the women's rescue, speaking to them softly as they hastily tied the borrowed wraps back into skirts and shawls. At the same time, two Kotel security guards and a younger soldier in field fatigues surrounded the older man, walking him in the opposite direction as he continued to scold and complain.
Wincing, I turned the corner at the end of my block, intending to make a low-profile loop before returning home. Of course, I immediately met with a new clump of Haredim, who wordlessly, without eye contact, parted down the middle to permit me to pass through. Consumed by the worry that I'd just been judged as some pajama-clad Jezebel, it took me a minute to notice that a young dad and his two young sons were trailing several meters behind the group. But the little boys locked eyes with Michael immediately, and the younger of the two, still chubby with baby fat, called out, “Chamud! Kaaaay-lev! Kaaaaay-lev!” (aprox trans.”Oh, Cute! Doggy, doggy!). Hesitant but smiling, I leaned over, scooped Michael up in my arms, and squatted down to introduce him to the boys. With a nod from their dad, the two carefully stroked Michael (who's always been way calmer and more polite with kids), and touched his soft ears. The littlest one squealed happily when Michael politely licked his proffered fingers. I set Michael down on the sidewalk and stood up before waving “Bye-bye” to the boys. Their father's smiling eyes met mine, and with a nod, he wished me “Shana Tova Umetukah,” which I'd just learned in Ulpan meant “A good and sweet year.”
I headed back home with Michael straining at his leash, laughing at myself as I realized the tune of that dumb song from Oaklahoma!, “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends,” was playing in my head.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Everything Up 'Til Now II
SEPTEMBER 12
I coerced a distant Israeli relative into co-signing my lease, I exploiting the goodwill, brute strength, and luggage racks of three different cab drivers, I spent dozens of painful hours at the bank, I pack and unpacked and packed and unpacked and packed and unpacked, and I think I might have contracted stress-induced eczema.
What I'm trying to get at is that I'm writing this from the living room of my third and final apartment. And it feels terrific.
There was a last-minute, excruciating 48-hour delay in moving because of missed deadlines in the rehab of the unit next door (into which the previous tenants of my apartment just moved). I should have known to expect it: the promises of an Israeli construction contractor are doubly fishy.
The up-side is that my new next-door neighbors, Tal and Arik, have been so warm and generous and welcoming to me (possibly out of guilt, but I'll take it anyway I can get it). They gave me their old vacuum cleaner, two sets of curtains, two kitchen chairs for the breakfast nook in the kitchen, a kam-kam, a suede couch and love seat (both the color of urine, but extremely comfortable), three area rugs, a television, a dvd player, a huge bedroom wardrobe, and a silver lizard screwed to the wall next to the toilet in the bathroom whose curved tail holds the requisite toilet paper. Not only that, but Arik also patched me into their cable TV service and gave me the password to their wireless internet!
Michael is happy with our new home too. His new favorite activity is crying at my feet until I open the doors of the balcony and pull open the bottom set of the shutters so he can stick his head through the slats and wait for unknowing pedestrians, bicyclists, and stray cats to pass by so he can give them his loudest, most basso profundo WOOF and watch them jump, scowl, and hiss, respectively. It's great fun.
He also loves sniffing his way through all the construction detritus left behind by the renovation next-door. For some reason, peeing on splintered two-by-fours and half empty bags of plaster is way, way more fun than peeing on boring old trees and light poles.
Things haven't been all ponies and rainbows, though. I thought long and hard before deciding to share this with you all, but I realized that keeping it a secret would only make it worse.
I bought a pair of Tevas.
For those of you who are (blissfully) ignorant of these sartorial shandas, just imagine all the grace and style of an orthopedic walking shoe, stripped down to its clunky sole and with the addition of velcro-trimmed nylon straps.
Basically, these are the ugliest sandals in the world. They're favorites of the granola set, the type of nouveau-hippy-crystal clutching-backpacker-hydroponic gardener whose shoes have to be sturdy enough to hike and trek through the wilderness, but also permit the toe-baring integral to their deep connection with the electromagnetic energies of the earth's chi.
They are also popular with people who have horrible toenail fungus.
And here in Israel, where they were first spawned (in some horrible shoe-laboratory, deep in a hastily-converted bomb shelter, as part of some sinister plot hatched by the Israeli secret police), wearing them is basically a civic responsibility. I spotted a dozen or so pairs at the wedding I went to last weekend.
Iam all for inter-cultural understanding, but heinous footwear is where I usually draw the line. Look, living in Holland doesn't mean you have to clump around in wooden clogs, and spending time in Japan doesn't necessitate a pair of those thong sandals with the little white ankle socks.
But. I'm going on a day trip to Jerusalem tomorrow, with everyone else in my cohort, and we're going to spend the afternoon in the City of David—which is sort of like a theme park, except with all sorts of ancient ruins and architectural finds instead of roller-coasters and cotton candy stands. So, actually, it's not at all like a theme park. But the main draw at this place is the network of underground tunnels (I know, I know. First Bet Govrien, now this. What I can say? The Jews of old were a cave-loving people). These tunnels are rocky and dark, it takes about 45 minutes to travel through them, and they're filled with water—the levels are apparently between waist and knee-high, though that's vague sort of estimate when it comes from someone 6'2'' (our guide, Ilan). So, Ilan told us we were required to bring along a pair of what he crisply termed “sport sandals,” with his South African accent. Or, if we didn't have a pair, he would permit us to wear a pair of “Aqua-Sox.”
What could I do? I was stuck, as said, “between the devil and deep blue sea.”So, I sulkily chose the lesser of the two evils, and slunk into the “Steve's” outdoor store at the Dizengoff mall. Now, as a completely inexperienced, unseasoned hiker and camper, I normally love these stores. All the little collapsing cups and space-foam mattress pads and water-purifying tablets—ooh, and the rainbow selection of carabiners!—give rise to vague fantasies of tromping around in some sunny forest wearing sweat-wicking socks designed by the U.S. Army, eating beanie-weenies cooked over a campfire before snuggling into my sleeping-bag spread out under the stars.
But then I remember that I hate beanie-weenies. And that I really, really hate peeing outdoors. But until I recall all that, I can spend hours inspecting compasses, listening to the virtues and drawbacks of different tent models, and imagining what freeze-dried beef stroganoff would actually taste like, once reconstituted.
Not on this visit though. Instead, I slunk to the footwear section, where I was greeted with a veritable orgy of Teva sandals and their many imitators. It was disgusting. After I swallowed my vomit, I gingerly poking through the selection, I picked out the least offensive of the lot. Plain black nylon straps and a black sole. I brought I brought them to the register, holding them away from me between thumb and index finger in the same manner I carry Michael's bags of doody on walks. And once the sale was completed, the cashier thoughtfully placed my purchase in a plain brown shopping bag, ensuring me the same anonymity allowed to purchasers of hard-core pornography or hemorrhoids medication.
I had to swallow a little vanity, but even though they may not look good, man oh man are they a dream to wear! Lightweight, sturdy, and incredibly comfortable. And I don't even mind donning the huge pair of Jackie O.-style sunglasses and the blond wig
SEPTEMBER 3
The dog has recently discovered how to transubstantiate. Or, at least, that's my lead hypothesis at the moment, since I've come home to Temporary Apartment Number Two: Electric Bugaloo on three separate occasions to find him waiting for me at the front door, outside of the bedroom/study area where I had sequestered him behind a securely closed bedroom door. Maybe I could earn some extra tuition money by taking the dog on the road and staging spectacular escapes, like a modern-day, canine Harry Houdini. I mean, you'd pay 69.90 (plus TicketMaster charges and handling fee) to see that, right?
No?
Alright, this more mundane explanation is probably the right one. The bedroom's attached office closes with a heavy sliding glass door, rather than one on hinges. And somehow, the dog has learned to nudge ithis door open just far enough for him to wriggle out, Riki-Tiki-Tavi style. Or at least that's what I think. Mom and Dad actually bought me a tiny camera designed to attach to a dog's collar document what the dog does when its alone in the house, as a lark. But now I'm really regretting leaving it in Chicago.
So, I've co-taught two days of school so far, and as I was warned, the cultural differences between American and Israeli public schools are huge. There are lots of little things. Like, the kids have two recesses, one ten-minute one in the first half of the day and one twenty-minute one in the second half. The school day begin at 8:00and end at 2:00, instead of 3:00 or 4:00. However, almost all of the kids spend the hours between 2:00 and 6:00 in what we would call extracurricular activities, for which they pay additional tuition. Elhareezi has one of the largest offerings of after school options in the city. This year, besides playing basketball and soccer, kids can join dance classes, learn how to draw comics, make pottery, take music lessons, or help in the zoo.
Yes.
The School Zoo. Okay, this is not an Israeli school thing. The Zoo is unique to Elhareezi, and I'm not quite sure what the genesis of the whole program was, or how long it's existed. But on the grounds on the school campus, beyond the front gates, in between the basketball courts and the soccer field, is a little red wooden bungalow with an attached outdoor yard. It's currently home to several ducks, two chickens, a pair of huge, floppy-eared bunnies, and an extremely placid pygmy goat. My co-teachers told me that the zoo will incubate and hatch chicken eggs in another few months (always a thrill for grade-school kids) and shelter the obligatory butterfly cocoons (also nice) and that they sometimes also have alpacas, adolescent lambs or even ponies. Apparently they also had guinea pigs at one point, but they didn't get all one gender, so the resulting surge . . and reduction. . . in the guinea pig population was very disturbing for the children (Who wants to be the teacher who explains that some of the Guinea pig mommies ate a lot of their guinea pig babies? Not me.)One of the long-time teachers is the zoo-keeper, and she also takes care of the huge (6 feet wide and probably 7 or eight feet tall) aviary of little birds (a bunch of parakeets, plus several others whose names I don't know)adjacent to the main stairway in the school itself.
But while there is a zoo, there's no cafeteria. Israeli kids eat during a twenty-minute gap between second and third periods (so around 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock) in their classrooms, and while the period is called “breakfast,” most kids eat that in the morning at home and just have a snack at school.
Gym class is held two or three times a week, always outdoors (unless there's rain), and it begins with a mystifying series of what looks like a mixture of calisthenics, tai chi poses, and yoga asanas.
The kids buy all of their textbooks before school begins, instead of using school copies, and they organize their work in six-inch tall two-hole binders and write tiny little notebooks that look just like college exam “blue books,” only with plastic covers. . . usually covered in pictures of “High School Musical,” or the like.
But the Israeli kids themselves are the biggest difference. One of the older teachers struggled to describe their temperament to me on the first day of school. Finally, she told me, “We say they are like little animals. I'm not sure what they are called in English, but we say they are like groups of a sort of kind of wild goats.”
Great.
I guess the best way to put it is to just say that Israeli children really have a lot more chutzpah. A whole lot more. They are, to to borrow from the AKC's description of the purebred dachshund:
“Highly vocal, intelligent, and brave to the point of brashness.”
The organization of the classrooms do nothing to quell these qualities. Like primary schools everywhere, the walls are covered in pictures, charts, student work, written reminders like,“No fighting,” written in stark red letters in a 6th grade room) and institutional propaganda, such as “Math is Fun!”( written in glittery paint on one on of the fourth grade walls). But the rooms themselves are only big enough to comfortably seat say, twenty or twenty-five students. Instead, the typically host around forty kids. And their desks. And their straight-backed chairs. And their backpacks. And their personal cubbies (in lieu of hallway lockers). And all the other flotsam and jetsam elementary-school kids seem to accumulate.
This makes for a very crowded room. What's worse, the kids are seated in pairs at small tables, rather than desks, making cross-talk during lessons irresistible, and cheating during exams almost effortless.
Just working silently, or heeding the (constantly, constantly repeated) admonition to “Raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak (goddamnit)” is a huge challenge for Israeli kids. In America, following directions, listening to the teacher, waiting for your turn, and working well with others are (for better or worse) constantly drilled into kids heads from the first day of preschool. But in Israel, early childhood education isn't standardized, kindergartens are all private, and the preschool teachers are more circus ringmasters than instructors.
I'm fortunate because, once the beginning of the year English language placement tests are processed, I'll take the native English speakers and the students who are deemed “advanced” outside of the large English classes to do more specialized instruction—in so called “Native Speaker English Enrichment” classes. I'll be able to lead writing projects, plan my own lessons, and tailor the classes to the individual goals and interests of each child. I even get to choose my own textbook (which I can follow or deviate from as required).
The full-time, salaried teachers are not so lucky. I can't imagine having six (50-minute) periods a day of barely-contained chaos. Plus, the teachers have to stick pretty closely to strict (but constantly changing) Ministry of Education-mandated curriculum and standards, and don't have the extra help to implement lessons more ambitious than the ones set out in the subject's text and workbook, which sounds very stifling. And, in spite of unions that have grown far more powerful in recent years, teachers in Israel are paid the lowest salaries of anyone in the so-called “Developing World,”though, to be fair, salaries across all professions are much, much lower (in spite of a fairly high cost of living) all across Israel.
One thing I do love about Israeli schools is the hand-raising system. In Israel, students generally raise their hands while pointing their index finger. However, when they raise their hand to ask permission to go to the bathroom, they raise their index and their middle fingers together (like in the Boy Scout pledge). So, it's easy to wordlessly nod yes or no to bathroom requests without interrupting the flow of the lesson. I think this should be implemented in American schools post-haste.
However, amidst all these differences one bit of teaching wisdom was the same.. The head of the English department, Vered, advised me, as so many vets have advised first-year teachers, to not smile until a mid-year holiday. Only, instead of saying to wait 'til Thanksgiving or Christmas, like everyone says in the U.S., she told me to wait until after Chanukah.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Everything up 'til Now
August 30th: Tel Aviv Bulletin: Andy Rooney Edition
Here are some of the little things I've been noticing/learning about Tel Aviv in the last two weeks.
1. Israelis are still very much influenced by the egalitarian, fairness-loving ideals of their founders. You can see it in when they get in taxis; only Israelis slide into the shotgun seat next to the driver, staunchly rejecting the "chauffeur and idle bourgeois" relationship implied by sitting in the back seat.
However, in spite of this nod to equality, they are not a line-forming people.
Not outside the bus, not inside the pharmacy, not at the museum. I have yet to figure out the exact protocol for elbowing into the fracas, but it seems to involve assiduously denying that everyone else around you is intent on the same goal. For example, when I gave a pointed, "Slicha!?" (excuse me) to an older lady who flagrantly slid in front of me at the corner bodega checkout, she turned and said, (in Hebrew) "Ah, you are also waiting?" Uh, no, Ma'am, I'm just standing here with two liter bottles of pop, three little cups of yogurt, and the Friday Jerusalem Post balanced in my arms, about a foot away from the register, because it's the hot new thing all the young people are doing.
This woman was clearly not familiar with the proud American tenet "No Cuts, No Buts, No Coconuts."
2. Israelis and Dairy Products: Man, Israelis are flippin' besotted with dairy. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with having a sizeable population that follows the kashrut (kosher) laws (let me break it down for you gentiles: due to the prohibition against mixing meat and dairy, a lot of observant jews tend to eat what are called "dairy meals" (i.e. vegetarian, often featuring, you guessed it, dairy products) for lunch and dinner (rather than deal with the expense, and relatively greater difficulty of preparing/storing/transporting meals with meat in them). And Israel does have a pretty big dairy industry for a country its size (its funny to drive in the country and see herds of familiar Holstein cows out to pasture in a landscape that looks like Arizona).
But even so, man, these people are obsessed. There are about kajillion variations on the typical Israeli table cheeses available for purchase anywhere, whether you shop at the huge open air shuks or one of the many grocery-store chains. . They're made with sheep and cow and goat milk, in textures ranging from spreadable to semi-hard, and though the flavor spectrum leans heavily to the mild side, they're all delicious. And yogurt--Jesus Christ, I think the amount of live and active cultures happily bubblin' away in this country could bring digestive regularity to all of the middle east (and who knows? maybe that would be instrumental to the peace process?)
. It's so funny to go to someplace like AM/PM, a 24-hour mini mart, where you'd expect to find a huge soda fountain bar, two or three rotating hot-dog cookers collecting grease, and a whole wall devoted to potato chips and Hostess bakery items (at least if you were back in the States). Instead you're greeted with a perimeter of refrigerated cases lining the walls of the store. Inside them? Tons of fresh vegetables and fruits, which is weird enough, but also thirty kinds of yogurt. No exaggeration. fruit-flavored, plain, with granola, with chocolate chips, Greek-style, with honey, in huge tubs, in tiny cups, in kid-sized squeeze tubes, organic, whatever. and that's just the *mini-mart* selection! Forget about the grocery stores--they have their own wings devoted just to yogurt and yogurt drinks (nah, that's not true, but almost). Anyway, in summation. Cheese, yogurt: a people obsessed.
3. Israelis inexplicably love English logo t-shirts--there are lots of t-shirt only stores on Allenby, King George, and Bograshov advertising "5 for 99 Shekels," their windows full of shirts folded into neat little, Gap-esque squares to showcase the text on their chests. Some have pictures of Scarface with dialogue from the movie underneath. Vintage-looking t-shirts with counterfeit "Abercrombie and Fitch" logos on them are popular, and so are ones with charming slogans like "Sexy Bastard," "One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor," and, "I'm a Virgin (written in huge letters) Butthis is an old t-shirt (written in tiny ones)." Lots of other cringe-worthy shirts are for sale too, but it's not so much the shirts themselves that are so funny, but the people wearing them. There are a lot of hugely innaproprpriate t-shirt+wearer matches on display like:
-Two ladies in their late thirties pushing baby strollers down King George, wearing identical belly-baring t-shirts with block letters screaming "Bikini Inspector."--A lone man in his sixties, walking down Allenby St. wearing a black t-shirt with the explanatory text: "Just a Fucking T-Shirt."
--A 12-year old girl at Shuk Carmel wearing a mock-soccer Jersey with the number 69 (so witty!) and the last name "PutaMadre" (Spanish for "motherfucker," and an adopted curse word of choice in Israel).
--The otherwise rational-looking dad at the beach with his kids wearing swim trunks and a white shirt with neon green text splayed across the chest cryptically explaining "I help the D.J. at night. I am the D.J." (Maybe it's like a zen koan?)
--A barely pubescent kid at the beach with a navy blue shirt that reads"Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon"
--Another young kid around the same age at Gan Meir whose shirt asks "What the Fuck?" with a picture of Bart Simpson.
--A very nice looking girl about my age, walking a dog with her boyfriend whose white tank top said on the back *and* the front in a fussy cursive font, "I can teach you how to fuck."
Look, I know there are tons of people walking around with bits of foreign text on their person because other alphabets are graphically pleasing or exotic-seeming. But, here in Israel, almost everyone speaks a little bit of English, and *most* people speak very good English, so how does this shit happen? Maybe I'm just not giving Israelis enough credit,
4. Inter-Jewish Relations: Okay, does everyone know the Tom Lehrer song "National Brotherhood Week"? No? Well, one verse of the song goes:
"Oh, the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Hindus hate the Moslems. . . and everyone hates the Jews!"
Well, Tom Lehrer was on the right track, but it turns out that the Jews all hate each other, too. Especially here in Israel.
The international schism between the more traditional Orthodox and Coservative denominations and the more liberal Reform and Reconstructionist Jews is old news. And before I moved here, I read a lot about the culture clashes between the Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, comprising a very small minority even here) and the more mainstream secular Jews. The enmity between the two groups stems from disagreements about not only religious practice, but also public education, foreign policy, federal welfare aid, gender relations, and pretty much every other topic that would ruin a dinner party.
BUT. That's not all.
The assimilated Jews complain endlessly about the newly-arrived immigrants. The Russian immigrants despise the Ethiopian olim. The Ashkenazi Jews take issue with the practices of the Sephardim. The Jews from European backgrounds see themselves as superior to the Jews of Arab and Persian descent. The (slightly more relaxed) Modern Orthodox sniff at the comparatively footloose practices of the Conservative Jews (a relatively new denomination in Israel). The Jews who keep kosher cluck and shake their heads at those who flout the kashrut laws. And everyone is skeptical of the Jews who convert late in life.
Yeah, I'm making huge generalizations for the sake of effect-- the truth is that only a small minority of all of these different sub-groups really share these beliefs, and an even smaller number actually voice them in public. Still, it's dismaying to uncover each new variation on bigotry in a country shaped by the equal-opportunity ethos of Zionism.
In the most recent Jew-on-Jew hate crime, the public Religious schools in a nearby city, Petah Tikvah (whose name ironically translates as Port of Hope), have refused to enroll over a hundred Ethiopian immigrants in their schools in spite of orders to do so by the Ministry of Education, protests held at the gates of the city's primary and secondary schools, pleas from leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community, and denouncement by members of the Knesset (the Israeli legislature). As of today, just three days before the beginning of the school year, the conflict remains in deadlock.
So, I hate to leave you on a heavy note, but that's all fer now. But stay tuned to hear more as I attend my first day of (elementary) school, start Ulpan, and continue to commit linguistic and cultural gaffes across the city.
Love to all,
Becky
And the best cave was one we traveled through for about 25 minutes. It was built as an escape route/secret hiding space network for the Judeans when they revolted against the Romans (unsucessfully, natch). Al, it was so cool. We had to *crawl* on our hands and knees, with flashlights clutched in our hands (or our mouths), to go through these tunnels. In some places we had to army crawl, even, and in other spots we had to slide down ramps or climb up narrow, slippery passages, or slowly contort ourselves so we could go feet first down into a short drop. It was AMAZING! The tunnels occasionally opened into ante-rooms that were big enough to hold everyone (if you were taller than me, though, like 5'4'' and above, you couldn't stand up straight) before narrowing again. It was so wild to try to imagine the real Judeans, in the Iron Age, hiding and strategizing down in these tunnels, and all the people who'd been through them since. I enjoyed feeling a little bit like Indiana Jones. .. .
I was also pretty stoked because half of the group was too skeeved by the narrow confines of the tunnels to do the climb! And of the group that did start out, three people went back after we made it to the first ante-room because they found it too claustrophobic. So, for once, I was part of the brave group! ! ! ! However, as you know, if there had been any possibility of live spiders being down there, it would have been a 100% NO GO for me (I didn't tell anyone that, however. Must try to maintain my street cred as long as possible).
To add to the excitement, the group also got stuck in a very brief sandstorm as we were hiking. The guide just told us to close our eyes, and we waited for it to move on (a sand storm is a cyclone cloud ). It only touched down on us for a minute or two, and it sort of felt like being poked with needles, or getting a really intense microdermabrasion (skin exfoliation) treatment. When we felt the sand prickles die down, we opened our eyes to see a twenty-foot high cyclone spinning its way down the hill. It was really beautiful. However, it lefts its mark in our hair, in our ears and nostrils, and in a few peoples' mouths. (Guys, look, it was my first sandstorm, and even *I* knew to close my damn mouth. Come on!)
So after the hike was through, and we were DRENCHED in sweat, caked in a gritty mixture of sand, clay, and dirt, and read to drop from exhaustion, it was time to go to the winery. Naturally. Their are lots of Israeli vinyards popping up all across the countryside these days. The rocky, sort of barren soil in the area is apparently terrific for growing grapes? After we wearily shuffled off the bus, we walked through a gorgeous courtyard flanked by a large willow tree and a mini grove of blooming white oleanders, we entered the sanctuary of the winery's gloriously, gloriously air-conditioned tasting room where we had a guided wine tasting (meh) with five kinds of Israeli cheeses to accompany them (Yay!). Then, on the way back, we saw a flock of goats and sheep, with one shepherd (who was talking into his bluetooth headset) and three tan-and-white spotted sheepdogs (who were not).
August 15th: And God said Remember this Day and Keep it Holy. . . By Going to the Beach
Momma and I just returned from an amazing day at the seashore! We started out down Bograshov sometime around 11 or 12 (without cellphones or watches and hampered by our still-impaired circadian rhythms, neither of us are really sure what time it was when we left) already wearing our swimsuits and equipped with floppy sun hats, liter bottles of water, pistachios, dried mango, and pretzels (to calorically restore the massive energy reserves needed to bask in the sun and float in the waves. We had bid Michael-dawg a pathos-ridden farewell (Michael sort of goes through a modified Keubler-Ross-style Stages of Grieving whenever I leave the house:
1. Denial--he sees me put on shoes or grab my bag (without getting his leash) and helpfully waits at the door, tail wagging. ready to accompany me.
2. Passive-Agression--He repeatedly slinks away from the bedroom (where he stays, with water and toys and fan, in order to minimize any mischief/noise complaints), curcling up into a ball on the couch, or trying to burrow into one of my open suitcases on the floor in the dining room.
3. Depression--He shakes pathetically once I scoop him up into my arms to deposit him in the comfy bedroom armchair, loses all appetite for rawhide or treats (obviously, proffered as bribes at this stage), and punches me in the gut with the full impact of his deadly "sad puppy eyes" look.
4. Anger--Once we shut the bedroom door and he hears the key in the front lock, Michael wimpers and offers up some impassioned barking. This stage has been mercifully brief here in Tel Aviv.( Back in Chicago, where his separation anxiety was only compounded by the plaintive accompanying yelps of his siblings, Ali's dogs Justin and Osi, it has lasted as long as fifteen minutes. Yes, Ali's neighbors do hate us, why do you ask?)
5. Acceptance--He resigns himself to his fate. An hour to five hours of truly dedicated napping, genital-licking, and sun-bathing. Oh cruel world.
Anyway, back to the beach. When we arrived, we expected to have to gingerly make our way through acres of spread-out towels and wide-open beach umbrellas to find an open spot on the sand. Since lots of people work a 5.5-6 day workweek (working a half day or until sundown on Friday), Saturday is THE prime time in Israel for relaxing and having fun, which includes one of the cherished Israeli past-times, "Chillin' at the beach." (No, that is not a literal translation from the Hebrew.) However, we were pleasantly surprised to see tons of open space up and down the beach, and this, in the most heavily-trafficed section of the shoreline, near tons of waterfront hotels and beachfront amenities. So, we rented an enormous, Goldstar Beer-logo-festooned beach umbrella, and two chairs from one of the Ethiopian "Beach-Umbrellas-Chairs-and-Chaises" guys (more on the Ethiopian Jews in Israel soon) who helpfully toted the whole kit and caboodle to our preferred spot, stabbed the beach umbrella deep into the sand, and offered us two blue receipts in exchange for 18 shekels (about 4.50 American) with a 10 shekel tip (aprox. 2.50).
We, quite literally for possibly the first time ever, had it made in the shade.
And so we passed the most pleasant, brain-free afternoon sunning ourselves on the beach, people-watching, flipping through magazines, and guzzling down water, puncuated by brief trips down into the water to float in the gentle waves. Well, Mom started to do so immediately, but I had one last hurdle. I had excitedly (excitedly!) bought a neon-yellow inner-tube at one of the many beach-sundries shops crowded alongside all the waterfront hotels and restaraunts, but in order to use it, I had to blow it up first. And I think we all know that using a hand pump is cheating (well, I told myself that after we couldn't find one in the shop) even though the tube was surprisingly larger than it had seemed when it was all folded-up in its packaging. So I spent what seemed like an eternity blowing that neon [Grandpa--don't read this next word to Nana, okay?] fucker up. By the final stretch I felt like I was hyperventilating, my cheeks were sore from pushing all the air into that tiny little valve, and Iwas ruing the decision to ever buy the thing in the first place. . . but let me tell you all something:
Once I took it out into the water?
TOTALLY WORTH IT!
I can't imagine anything more beta-state inducingly pleasurable than bobbing around in that yellow tube, far enough to be lifted up in the gentle waves, but close enough to paddle to shore. Facing the sand, I was surrounded by my fellow bathers--hot-doggin' teenage boys heaving nerf footballs at each other, elderly ladies wearing flowery bathing caps, teenage couples taking advantage of neck-high water to do a little oceanic heavy-petting (Don't think I didn't see you, Israeli teenagers! For shame!), and tons of ecstatic Israeli (and French and several other nationalites of) children (some being toted further out by parents, some wearing inflateable water wings around their tan little biceps, and some astride wake boards and blow-up rafts--but, when I turned out to sea, all I could see was ocean water stretching all the way to the horizon, dotted only with the distant white outline of a yacht and the very tip of a sailboat's mast.
So, obviously, I took the opportunity to pee in the ocean.
August 14th: Its 4:00 in the afternoon on Friday here, so we're about an hour away from the beginning of Shabat (yeah, officially it starts at sundown, but 5:00 is when all the shops shut down so the people who run them can go home in time for sundown). The streets are emptying out, but earlier today, from about noon onward, all the sidewalks in our neighborhood (just south of the city center) were clogged with people, strollers, dogs, and these funny electric stand-up scooters (sort of like a razor scooter, but with a motor and a battery. No seat, but you can zip along at a pretty good clip, faster than a bike, slower than a mo-ped. I don't know where people get them, but there are tons of them, and they're always zooming past in the bike lanes and, alarmingly, on the sidewalks. I need to get someone to let me try theirs' because it looks like fun! ) as people enjoyed the first day of the weekend (Thursday night=Friday Night, Fri and Sat=Sat and Sun) and did last minute errands before shabat.
The dog and I woke up early for a relaxed morning (Mom, on the other hand, shockingly slept until 11:20 after taking two Advil PMS the night before. She only woke up because the dog hopped up and started licking her face) beginning with a walk while it was still relatively cool, around 7-8 am, and followed by chill-time on the couch while I followed up on a bunch of apartment listings online). Then Mom and I joined the fray on the street ourselves and went to the grocery store in Dizengoff mall to buy food for tomorrow (almost no restaraunts remain open on shabbat, except for a few owned and operated by gentiles. Even hotel dining rooms make cold food the night before so that the staff can do as little work as possible on saturday itself). The grocery store was crowded with people buying their own shabat provisions, sort of like how the Jewel gets on Christmas Eve and the day before Thanksgiving (except here it's like this every week, I guess!). We bought supplies for a picnic lunch to take to the beach tomorrow, and yoinked one of the dozens of warm, sweet smelling loaves of challah bread resting on bread racks in the bakery department (challah was in almost every grocery cart we saw!).
I'm going to see some apartments on Sunday with two different rental agents, so I'm looking forward to that, especially since I've begun to accrue house-wares and linens for my new place ("and getting such good bargains," please imagine me saying in Nana's voice).
Nothing much else to report. We had awesome schwarma and falafel for dinner last night (Mom agreed that the Israeli way of adding a handful of french fries to both sandwiches is a brilliant idea, and that laffa (sort of like nan, really pillowy Iraqi flatbread, and the diameter of a burritto tortilla) is way superior to pita as the bread of choice. We ate at an outside table with Michael, who was very dissapointed to be denied any turkey schwarma and, as is his wont, barked at every dog that passed by on the sidewalk in spite of our admonitions not too. Yeah, I have to work on that--I've started to carry around his spray bottle to squirt him when I say no, and it's definitely helping. There are many, many dogs in Tel Aviv, and about half of them walk around without a leash, just trotting by their owners side, or meandering up and down the block while staying within whistle's distance of their owners, or trailing several feet behind their owners in the case of the most aged, grey dogs. Obviously, Michael is not capable of such good behavior, and dissaproves mightily of dogs walking near him without leashes
One last thing: we discovered Israeli-style lemonade (called lee-mo-nah-NAH), which is made with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, a tiny bit of sugar, crushed or shaved ice, and lots of pulverized fresh mint. It is green and it is DELICIOUS.
Here are some of the little things I've been noticing/learning about Tel Aviv in the last two weeks.
1. Israelis are still very much influenced by the egalitarian, fairness-loving ideals of their founders. You can see it in when they get in taxis; only Israelis slide into the shotgun seat next to the driver, staunchly rejecting the "chauffeur and idle bourgeois" relationship implied by sitting in the back seat.
However, in spite of this nod to equality, they are not a line-forming people.
Not outside the bus, not inside the pharmacy, not at the museum. I have yet to figure out the exact protocol for elbowing into the fracas, but it seems to involve assiduously denying that everyone else around you is intent on the same goal. For example, when I gave a pointed, "Slicha!?" (excuse me) to an older lady who flagrantly slid in front of me at the corner bodega checkout, she turned and said, (in Hebrew) "Ah, you are also waiting?" Uh, no, Ma'am, I'm just standing here with two liter bottles of pop, three little cups of yogurt, and the Friday Jerusalem Post balanced in my arms, about a foot away from the register, because it's the hot new thing all the young people are doing.
This woman was clearly not familiar with the proud American tenet "No Cuts, No Buts, No Coconuts."
2. Israelis and Dairy Products: Man, Israelis are flippin' besotted with dairy. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with having a sizeable population that follows the kashrut (kosher) laws (let me break it down for you gentiles: due to the prohibition against mixing meat and dairy, a lot of observant jews tend to eat what are called "dairy meals" (i.e. vegetarian, often featuring, you guessed it, dairy products) for lunch and dinner (rather than deal with the expense, and relatively greater difficulty of preparing/storing/transporting meals with meat in them). And Israel does have a pretty big dairy industry for a country its size (its funny to drive in the country and see herds of familiar Holstein cows out to pasture in a landscape that looks like Arizona).
But even so, man, these people are obsessed. There are about kajillion variations on the typical Israeli table cheeses available for purchase anywhere, whether you shop at the huge open air shuks or one of the many grocery-store chains. . They're made with sheep and cow and goat milk, in textures ranging from spreadable to semi-hard, and though the flavor spectrum leans heavily to the mild side, they're all delicious. And yogurt--Jesus Christ, I think the amount of live and active cultures happily bubblin' away in this country could bring digestive regularity to all of the middle east (and who knows? maybe that would be instrumental to the peace process?)
. It's so funny to go to someplace like AM/PM, a 24-hour mini mart, where you'd expect to find a huge soda fountain bar, two or three rotating hot-dog cookers collecting grease, and a whole wall devoted to potato chips and Hostess bakery items (at least if you were back in the States). Instead you're greeted with a perimeter of refrigerated cases lining the walls of the store. Inside them? Tons of fresh vegetables and fruits, which is weird enough, but also thirty kinds of yogurt. No exaggeration. fruit-flavored, plain, with granola, with chocolate chips, Greek-style, with honey, in huge tubs, in tiny cups, in kid-sized squeeze tubes, organic, whatever. and that's just the *mini-mart* selection! Forget about the grocery stores--they have their own wings devoted just to yogurt and yogurt drinks (nah, that's not true, but almost). Anyway, in summation. Cheese, yogurt: a people obsessed.
3. Israelis inexplicably love English logo t-shirts--there are lots of t-shirt only stores on Allenby, King George, and Bograshov advertising "5 for 99 Shekels," their windows full of shirts folded into neat little, Gap-esque squares to showcase the text on their chests. Some have pictures of Scarface with dialogue from the movie underneath. Vintage-looking t-shirts with counterfeit "Abercrombie and Fitch" logos on them are popular, and so are ones with charming slogans like "Sexy Bastard," "One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor," and, "I'm a Virgin (written in huge letters) Butthis is an old t-shirt (written in tiny ones)." Lots of other cringe-worthy shirts are for sale too, but it's not so much the shirts themselves that are so funny, but the people wearing them. There are a lot of hugely innaproprpriate t-shirt+wearer matches on display like:
-Two ladies in their late thirties pushing baby strollers down King George, wearing identical belly-baring t-shirts with block letters screaming "Bikini Inspector."--A lone man in his sixties, walking down Allenby St. wearing a black t-shirt with the explanatory text: "Just a Fucking T-Shirt."
--A 12-year old girl at Shuk Carmel wearing a mock-soccer Jersey with the number 69 (so witty!) and the last name "PutaMadre" (Spanish for "motherfucker," and an adopted curse word of choice in Israel).
--The otherwise rational-looking dad at the beach with his kids wearing swim trunks and a white shirt with neon green text splayed across the chest cryptically explaining "I help the D.J. at night. I am the D.J." (Maybe it's like a zen koan?)
--A barely pubescent kid at the beach with a navy blue shirt that reads"Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon, Triathalon"
--Another young kid around the same age at Gan Meir whose shirt asks "What the Fuck?" with a picture of Bart Simpson.
--A very nice looking girl about my age, walking a dog with her boyfriend whose white tank top said on the back *and* the front in a fussy cursive font, "I can teach you how to fuck."
Look, I know there are tons of people walking around with bits of foreign text on their person because other alphabets are graphically pleasing or exotic-seeming. But, here in Israel, almost everyone speaks a little bit of English, and *most* people speak very good English, so how does this shit happen? Maybe I'm just not giving Israelis enough credit,
4. Inter-Jewish Relations: Okay, does everyone know the Tom Lehrer song "National Brotherhood Week"? No? Well, one verse of the song goes:
"Oh, the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Hindus hate the Moslems. . . and everyone hates the Jews!"
Well, Tom Lehrer was on the right track, but it turns out that the Jews all hate each other, too. Especially here in Israel.
The international schism between the more traditional Orthodox and Coservative denominations and the more liberal Reform and Reconstructionist Jews is old news. And before I moved here, I read a lot about the culture clashes between the Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, comprising a very small minority even here) and the more mainstream secular Jews. The enmity between the two groups stems from disagreements about not only religious practice, but also public education, foreign policy, federal welfare aid, gender relations, and pretty much every other topic that would ruin a dinner party.
BUT. That's not all.
The assimilated Jews complain endlessly about the newly-arrived immigrants. The Russian immigrants despise the Ethiopian olim. The Ashkenazi Jews take issue with the practices of the Sephardim. The Jews from European backgrounds see themselves as superior to the Jews of Arab and Persian descent. The (slightly more relaxed) Modern Orthodox sniff at the comparatively footloose practices of the Conservative Jews (a relatively new denomination in Israel). The Jews who keep kosher cluck and shake their heads at those who flout the kashrut laws. And everyone is skeptical of the Jews who convert late in life.
Yeah, I'm making huge generalizations for the sake of effect-- the truth is that only a small minority of all of these different sub-groups really share these beliefs, and an even smaller number actually voice them in public. Still, it's dismaying to uncover each new variation on bigotry in a country shaped by the equal-opportunity ethos of Zionism.
In the most recent Jew-on-Jew hate crime, the public Religious schools in a nearby city, Petah Tikvah (whose name ironically translates as Port of Hope), have refused to enroll over a hundred Ethiopian immigrants in their schools in spite of orders to do so by the Ministry of Education, protests held at the gates of the city's primary and secondary schools, pleas from leaders of the Ethiopian Jewish community, and denouncement by members of the Knesset (the Israeli legislature). As of today, just three days before the beginning of the school year, the conflict remains in deadlock.
So, I hate to leave you on a heavy note, but that's all fer now. But stay tuned to hear more as I attend my first day of (elementary) school, start Ulpan, and continue to commit linguistic and cultural gaffes across the city.
Love to all,
Becky
August 24th: Caves and Wine
i'm just back from officially signing my lease (though i still need to give the very nice landlord a 20,000 NIS bank guarantee. . . scary to freeze all that money for a year, yo!) and i spent all day from 8:30 am til 6:00 on a hiking trip out in the country, in beit givrin national park, with everyone in my cohort. Beit Givrin has about 300 man-made caves (carved out of limestone, which i guess is pretty soft and conducive to cave-carving?) made by the Philistines, the Judeans, and other back-in-the-day peoples. We went down into a bunch--including two that were underground cisterns for wealthy Judeans' hillside villas that, of course, reminded me of the underground cisterns we saw in Istanbul (or rather, under Istanbul) although these were dry. We also saw two caves that were underground pigeon coops, basically. Pigeons were a big food source, I guess, and these caves had rows and rows of little 1 foot wide recesses carved into the rock, stretching all the way up to ground level, almost. Those were the little individual roosts for the pigeons!And the best cave was one we traveled through for about 25 minutes. It was built as an escape route/secret hiding space network for the Judeans when they revolted against the Romans (unsucessfully, natch). Al, it was so cool. We had to *crawl* on our hands and knees, with flashlights clutched in our hands (or our mouths), to go through these tunnels. In some places we had to army crawl, even, and in other spots we had to slide down ramps or climb up narrow, slippery passages, or slowly contort ourselves so we could go feet first down into a short drop. It was AMAZING! The tunnels occasionally opened into ante-rooms that were big enough to hold everyone (if you were taller than me, though, like 5'4'' and above, you couldn't stand up straight) before narrowing again. It was so wild to try to imagine the real Judeans, in the Iron Age, hiding and strategizing down in these tunnels, and all the people who'd been through them since. I enjoyed feeling a little bit like Indiana Jones. .. .
I was also pretty stoked because half of the group was too skeeved by the narrow confines of the tunnels to do the climb! And of the group that did start out, three people went back after we made it to the first ante-room because they found it too claustrophobic. So, for once, I was part of the brave group! ! ! ! However, as you know, if there had been any possibility of live spiders being down there, it would have been a 100% NO GO for me (I didn't tell anyone that, however. Must try to maintain my street cred as long as possible).
To add to the excitement, the group also got stuck in a very brief sandstorm as we were hiking. The guide just told us to close our eyes, and we waited for it to move on (a sand storm is a cyclone cloud ). It only touched down on us for a minute or two, and it sort of felt like being poked with needles, or getting a really intense microdermabrasion (skin exfoliation) treatment. When we felt the sand prickles die down, we opened our eyes to see a twenty-foot high cyclone spinning its way down the hill. It was really beautiful. However, it lefts its mark in our hair, in our ears and nostrils, and in a few peoples' mouths. (Guys, look, it was my first sandstorm, and even *I* knew to close my damn mouth. Come on!)
So after the hike was through, and we were DRENCHED in sweat, caked in a gritty mixture of sand, clay, and dirt, and read to drop from exhaustion, it was time to go to the winery. Naturally. Their are lots of Israeli vinyards popping up all across the countryside these days. The rocky, sort of barren soil in the area is apparently terrific for growing grapes? After we wearily shuffled off the bus, we walked through a gorgeous courtyard flanked by a large willow tree and a mini grove of blooming white oleanders, we entered the sanctuary of the winery's gloriously, gloriously air-conditioned tasting room where we had a guided wine tasting (meh) with five kinds of Israeli cheeses to accompany them (Yay!). Then, on the way back, we saw a flock of goats and sheep, with one shepherd (who was talking into his bluetooth headset) and three tan-and-white spotted sheepdogs (who were not).
August 22th: Everything you didn't Particularly Care to Know About Renting an Apartment in Israel
To quote columnist Jim Anchower, of The Onion, “Sorry it's been a long time since I rapped at'cha.”
The intensity of my apartment search reached a fevered pitch over the last 72 hours, and now that I've found an (expensive) place, the ensuing lease negotiations are consuming a lot of my time and energy.
Everyone in Tel Aviv dreads apartment-hunting. Renting is very expensive and competition is fierce for available spots. (Mom and I went to view a 40 square meter (40. Square. Meter. Period) studio on Ben Yehuda earlier in the week, and we were 2 of over 15 people looking at the place, just that evening (and it was going for 4,000 shekels a month, roughly 1,00 dollars). The only place I know of that compares to Tel Avivbis Manhattan, and like so many New Yorkers do now, I gave in and hired a realtor to help me.
Gadi (pr. Gow-DEE) has been really helpful. He's a Tel-Aviv native, was born here in fact, and not only does he really love the city, he know the ins-and-outs of all the different neighborhoods. He's in his early thirties and has followed a life track that's pretty typical for most Iyoung sraelis (but very foreign-sounding for us, um, foreigners). After graduating from high school, he did three years of compulsory military service in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces)--I'm not sure what. After being discharged, when he was around 21 or 22 years old, he spent time traveling the world. Lots of Israelis go to Africa, some go to Western Europe (though it's not as popular of an option), and many, many do like Gadi and trek it to India. Gadi ended up spending four years there (during which time he picked up “ay leetle beet” of Hindi (enough to convince the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv to use him as the realtor for all of their staff members), in addition to already being conversant in French, English, and Hebrew. (Sigh).He returned home in his late twenties and "did uoo-neh-vare-soh-tee" in an abreviated three years to earn his undergraduate degree.
And now he runs his own real-estate brokerage firm, and does a lot of work with English-speaking Jews making Aliyah (becoming Israeli citizens) and other Anglos like me (yes, Israelis actually do call American/Canadian/British/
Even bereft of scooter rides, I do think we're getting our money's worth, since the intricacies of the rental process here in Israel differ greatly (and confoundingly.)from the standard operating procedure at home. What's that you say? You'd like an exciting primer on Israeli Leasing Procedures? Oh aaaaaal-lright, if you insist. Here it goes:
For one thing, alien residents like me face a lot of additional roadblocks, all put in place to ensure we're good for the 12 months of rent money the landlords are squeezing out of us. Most foreigners' leases require the signature of one or two Israeli co-signers, in addition to bank guarantees from an Israeli lending institution in amounts ranging from 15,000 NIS (new Israeli shekels) to 50,000 NIS. And to make things even more fun, the banks who issue the guarantees charge non-citizens 5% of the guarantee amount for the privilege. Once that's in place, it's still considered prudent for the landlord to require aliens to pay rent three or four months at a time, or even to pay in one lump sum for the whole year!
Once the lease has been signed, most tenants become responsible not only for utilities (electricity, gas, and the most expensive in desert countries like Israel(currently in the midst of a five-year long drought) water) but also the arsana and the yav beit. The first is the bi-monthly municipal property tax (mysteriously calculated by a secret cabal of city council members according to neighborhood location and apartment size), the second is a maintenance fee paid directly to the building's yav beit (literally “custodian,” sort of like a super), a fellow tenant who takes on the responsibility for maintaining the building's exterior (washing the steps, watering any plants in the entryway, painting over graffiti, and the like). So, to put it bluntly, all that shit adds up fast, yo.
Needless to say, I am not exactly liquid enough to suffer these strictures without significantstomach upset (stress-induced, you see). . .I think the ten-dollar word for my financial situation (and a good one to remember for Scrabble if you haven't heard it before) is: impecunious.
So, we'll all have another week of orientation together, then we'll start observing in the classroom at our individual elementary and secondary schools on September 1st (weirdly, though Israeli universities don't begin the academic year until after the high holidays, schools teaching grades 1-12 all do, even though those two weeks are always, “notoriously unproductive for students and staff,” according to one of my professors.
And in the same week, we'll start our various Hebrew classes, all taught at Ulpan Gordon. The ulpan system is a wholly Israeli invention, though its highly participatory teaching techniques, innovative curriculum design, and rapid-immersion ethos have spread their way across the world to influence the way languages are taught globally. In fact, the U.S. Military language-instruction academies (training army and navy linguists in all sorts eye-crossingly difficult languages like Korean, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian) are largely structured on ulpan techniques. The Ulpan, is a state-sponsored, county-wide network of Hebrew-language schools designed for new adult citizens (there are about 220 in Israel today—and remember that Israel is the roughly the size of New Jersey). Ulpan's legendary efficacy and intensity developed gradually as a result of the near constant influx of new immigrants to Israel, all with different native tongues. The countries forefathers wisely believed that promoting widespread fluency in one state language would aid acculturation and help knit together Jews from all different social classes, religious traditions, and home countries.
Olim Chadashim (literally “new arrivers,” or new citizens) typically begin Ulpan with five weeks of “boot camp” in classes of thirty or so people at one of many immigrant Absorption Centers. Class is taught for seven to eight hours a day, six days a week, for all of those five weeks. Ulpan teachers (among the most skilled, dedicated, and patient teachers in the universe, I think) speak only in Hebrew from day one (one reason why, besides the rapid-immersion it facilitates) is because they typically teach in a classroom where there might be half a dozen different native languages spoken,.and achieve amazing results. At the end of those five weeks, students emerge with a suprisingly level of fluency (enough to negotiate everyday interactions like making store purchases, asking and giving directions, going to the bank, and the like) and the crucial basic reading skills needed to decode apartment listings, understand bus and train schedules, and fill out job applications.
New citizens aren't the only students in the Ulpan. Visiting students like me, visiting “dee-ahs-poh-RA” Jews from all sorts of other countries, employees of international companies with business in Israel (lots of high-tech development firms) and immigrants ineligible for citizenship (like the large population of Filipinos who have poured into the country, many of whom work as private caregivers for senior citizens and disabled people—more on that soon). There are Ulpanim with programs designed especially for the deaf, the blind, and the mentally-challenged, as well as classes geared towards nurses, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who need to learn a very specialized vocabulary.
So, anyway, that's what's in store for me (with an abbreviated “boot camp”). Once University classes begin, I'll continue taking Ulpan classes twice a week (probably in the evenings, though it depends on my class level). And I'll be teaching three days a week at an awesome elementary school in (very swank) North Tel Aviv.
But you'll just have to wait—biting your nails, staring at the clock, obsessively refreshing your email inbox—until my next letter home to hear all about it.August 15th: And God said Remember this Day and Keep it Holy. . . By Going to the Beach
Momma and I just returned from an amazing day at the seashore! We started out down Bograshov sometime around 11 or 12 (without cellphones or watches and hampered by our still-impaired circadian rhythms, neither of us are really sure what time it was when we left) already wearing our swimsuits and equipped with floppy sun hats, liter bottles of water, pistachios, dried mango, and pretzels (to calorically restore the massive energy reserves needed to bask in the sun and float in the waves. We had bid Michael-dawg a pathos-ridden farewell (Michael sort of goes through a modified Keubler-Ross-style Stages of Grieving whenever I leave the house:
1. Denial--he sees me put on shoes or grab my bag (without getting his leash) and helpfully waits at the door, tail wagging. ready to accompany me.
2. Passive-Agression--He repeatedly slinks away from the bedroom (where he stays, with water and toys and fan, in order to minimize any mischief/noise complaints), curcling up into a ball on the couch, or trying to burrow into one of my open suitcases on the floor in the dining room.
3. Depression--He shakes pathetically once I scoop him up into my arms to deposit him in the comfy bedroom armchair, loses all appetite for rawhide or treats (obviously, proffered as bribes at this stage), and punches me in the gut with the full impact of his deadly "sad puppy eyes" look.
4. Anger--Once we shut the bedroom door and he hears the key in the front lock, Michael wimpers and offers up some impassioned barking. This stage has been mercifully brief here in Tel Aviv.( Back in Chicago, where his separation anxiety was only compounded by the plaintive accompanying yelps of his siblings, Ali's dogs Justin and Osi, it has lasted as long as fifteen minutes. Yes, Ali's neighbors do hate us, why do you ask?)
5. Acceptance--He resigns himself to his fate. An hour to five hours of truly dedicated napping, genital-licking, and sun-bathing. Oh cruel world.
Anyway, back to the beach. When we arrived, we expected to have to gingerly make our way through acres of spread-out towels and wide-open beach umbrellas to find an open spot on the sand. Since lots of people work a 5.5-6 day workweek (working a half day or until sundown on Friday), Saturday is THE prime time in Israel for relaxing and having fun, which includes one of the cherished Israeli past-times, "Chillin' at the beach." (No, that is not a literal translation from the Hebrew.) However, we were pleasantly surprised to see tons of open space up and down the beach, and this, in the most heavily-trafficed section of the shoreline, near tons of waterfront hotels and beachfront amenities. So, we rented an enormous, Goldstar Beer-logo-festooned beach umbrella, and two chairs from one of the Ethiopian "Beach-Umbrellas-Chairs-and-
We, quite literally for possibly the first time ever, had it made in the shade.
And so we passed the most pleasant, brain-free afternoon sunning ourselves on the beach, people-watching, flipping through magazines, and guzzling down water, puncuated by brief trips down into the water to float in the gentle waves. Well, Mom started to do so immediately, but I had one last hurdle. I had excitedly (excitedly!) bought a neon-yellow inner-tube at one of the many beach-sundries shops crowded alongside all the waterfront hotels and restaraunts, but in order to use it, I had to blow it up first. And I think we all know that using a hand pump is cheating (well, I told myself that after we couldn't find one in the shop) even though the tube was surprisingly larger than it had seemed when it was all folded-up in its packaging. So I spent what seemed like an eternity blowing that neon [Grandpa--don't read this next word to Nana, okay?] fucker up. By the final stretch I felt like I was hyperventilating, my cheeks were sore from pushing all the air into that tiny little valve, and Iwas ruing the decision to ever buy the thing in the first place. . . but let me tell you all something:
Once I took it out into the water?
TOTALLY WORTH IT!
I can't imagine anything more beta-state inducingly pleasurable than bobbing around in that yellow tube, far enough to be lifted up in the gentle waves, but close enough to paddle to shore. Facing the sand, I was surrounded by my fellow bathers--hot-doggin' teenage boys heaving nerf footballs at each other, elderly ladies wearing flowery bathing caps, teenage couples taking advantage of neck-high water to do a little oceanic heavy-petting (Don't think I didn't see you, Israeli teenagers! For shame!), and tons of ecstatic Israeli (and French and several other nationalites of) children (some being toted further out by parents, some wearing inflateable water wings around their tan little biceps, and some astride wake boards and blow-up rafts--but, when I turned out to sea, all I could see was ocean water stretching all the way to the horizon, dotted only with the distant white outline of a yacht and the very tip of a sailboat's mast.
So, obviously, I took the opportunity to pee in the ocean.
August 14th: Its 4:00 in the afternoon on Friday here, so we're about an hour away from the beginning of Shabat (yeah, officially it starts at sundown, but 5:00 is when all the shops shut down so the people who run them can go home in time for sundown). The streets are emptying out, but earlier today, from about noon onward, all the sidewalks in our neighborhood (just south of the city center) were clogged with people, strollers, dogs, and these funny electric stand-up scooters (sort of like a razor scooter, but with a motor and a battery. No seat, but you can zip along at a pretty good clip, faster than a bike, slower than a mo-ped. I don't know where people get them, but there are tons of them, and they're always zooming past in the bike lanes and, alarmingly, on the sidewalks. I need to get someone to let me try theirs' because it looks like fun! ) as people enjoyed the first day of the weekend (Thursday night=Friday Night, Fri and Sat=Sat and Sun) and did last minute errands before shabat.
The dog and I woke up early for a relaxed morning (Mom, on the other hand, shockingly slept until 11:20 after taking two Advil PMS the night before. She only woke up because the dog hopped up and started licking her face) beginning with a walk while it was still relatively cool, around 7-8 am, and followed by chill-time on the couch while I followed up on a bunch of apartment listings online). Then Mom and I joined the fray on the street ourselves and went to the grocery store in Dizengoff mall to buy food for tomorrow (almost no restaraunts remain open on shabbat, except for a few owned and operated by gentiles. Even hotel dining rooms make cold food the night before so that the staff can do as little work as possible on saturday itself). The grocery store was crowded with people buying their own shabat provisions, sort of like how the Jewel gets on Christmas Eve and the day before Thanksgiving (except here it's like this every week, I guess!). We bought supplies for a picnic lunch to take to the beach tomorrow, and yoinked one of the dozens of warm, sweet smelling loaves of challah bread resting on bread racks in the bakery department (challah was in almost every grocery cart we saw!).
I'm going to see some apartments on Sunday with two different rental agents, so I'm looking forward to that, especially since I've begun to accrue house-wares and linens for my new place ("and getting such good bargains," please imagine me saying in Nana's voice).
Nothing much else to report. We had awesome schwarma and falafel for dinner last night (Mom agreed that the Israeli way of adding a handful of french fries to both sandwiches is a brilliant idea, and that laffa (sort of like nan, really pillowy Iraqi flatbread, and the diameter of a burritto tortilla) is way superior to pita as the bread of choice. We ate at an outside table with Michael, who was very dissapointed to be denied any turkey schwarma and, as is his wont, barked at every dog that passed by on the sidewalk in spite of our admonitions not too. Yeah, I have to work on that--I've started to carry around his spray bottle to squirt him when I say no, and it's definitely helping. There are many, many dogs in Tel Aviv, and about half of them walk around without a leash, just trotting by their owners side, or meandering up and down the block while staying within whistle's distance of their owners, or trailing several feet behind their owners in the case of the most aged, grey dogs. Obviously, Michael is not capable of such good behavior, and dissaproves mightily of dogs walking near him without leashes
One last thing: we discovered Israeli-style lemonade (called lee-mo-nah-NAH), which is made with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, a tiny bit of sugar, crushed or shaved ice, and lots of pulverized fresh mint. It is green and it is DELICIOUS.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
