One Year In: Weathering Cultural Differences

I've lived in Tel Aviv for a little bit over a year now, and with this much time under my belt, I feel like I'm starting to glimpse some of the key cultural differences between the United States and Israel. In the name of international relations, I've compiled a partial list of these below:

1. Honey comes in glass jars. When you ask the grocer in halting Hebrew if he has, "The honey that is in a bear of plastic," he will say no, and then treat you with the bright, slightly condescending kindness he reserves for the mentally handicapped.
2. Sidewalks are for pedestrians. . .and bicycles, and electric bicycles, and electric scooters, and s egways, and vespas, and motorcycles. Also, for parked cars.
3. Movies theatres have assigned seats and intermissions. But they do not have Milk Duds.
4. There are two kinds of state-sanctioned gambling: the national lotto, and the national postal service. (Your odds are better with the lotto)
5. Pizza can be delivered to your door via motor scooter.  So can dog food, kitty litter, potted plants, air conditioners, and kegs of beer.
 6. Lines are for suckers.
7. You can always count on honest opinions of your hair style, clothing choices,  makeup job, and weight. Whether you ask for them or not.
8.If you sleep with your windows open at night, you might be awoken by three a.m. caterwauling cats or three a.m. caterwauling Mizrahi music . (The Mizrahi music is worse)
9. In Israel, as in Europe, the date is written as day/month/year: you will need to remember this when you check the expiration date on the carton of milk in your fridge.
10. Don't be disappointed when a boy you like introduces you to his male partner. "Partner" is the literal translation of the Hebrew term for "roommate."

Sushi in a Sukkha and Krembo Season

It's that time of year again here in Israel. The new year of the Jewish calender has just begun. The fasting  that accompanies Yom Kippur has been broken. Perhaps more significantly in secular Tel AViv, the scabs and bruises incurred by bike-riding, skateboarding, and skating kids who spent that holiest-of-holy days temporarily occupying the closed streets have all started to heal. We're halfway through the week long Sukhot holiday, and palm-topped Sukkhas can be sighted on small high-rise apartment building balconies and in the dusty courtyards of neighborhood shuls. The largest, most lavishly-decorated Sukkhas line the wide streets in the city center, where they shelter diners at almost all of the cafes and restaurants. They are, with barely an exception, lovely--their roofs supported by bamboo poles and their makeshift walls formed by blond palm fiber mats, their roofs a grid of green palm fronds, and the interiors decorated with ruby-red pomegranates and apples hanging on strings from the ceiling, sprays of golden date branches bound to the corner supports, and garlands of paper chains and crepe paper pinwheels, brightly-colored foil stars and strings of fairy lights. Of course, the rationale for the temporary transformation of these establishments' outdoor patios and streetside seating is based on worldly, not spiritual concerns. By providing a Sukkha, the restaurants and cafes ensure that Israelis observing the scriptural instruction to sleep and take all their meals in a sukkha for the duration of the holiday can patronize their businesses.

It's all old hat for native-born Israelis, who think nothing of brushing aside curtains of plastic beads, or ducking under rainbow-striped bunting to sit inside these little palm huts and calmly consume a cappucino (no doubt, their 8th or 9th of the day thus far) and biscotti. But I still have to giggle when I see steaming hot pizzas and lacquer bento boxes full of sushi being served inside the confines of the sukkhas. It goes to show that the Conservative and Reform Jewish sects have a point when they argue for the necessity of interpreting Jewish scripture in light of contemporary mores and concerns. I doubt Moses, in even his wildest dreams, could ever have imagined a contingency for the far-ahead in the future day when the descendants of his wandering people would survive to practice their religion (well. . . in a fashion) in their own nation-state, and furthermore would  faithfully mark the start of fall with a week spent in little forts designed to honor the improvised shelters that housed the 12 tribes of Israel he ledduring their 40 years of wandering, and furthermore would want to maintain that tradition even when satisfying a hankering for Japanese food.

Now, the advent of Sukkhot happens to roughly coincides with the annual arrival of the Krembo. No, Krembos are not a type of rare migrating bird, and they're not a band of Eastern-European avant-garde clowns. They are, in fact, a seasonal chocolate marshmallow cookie, but to describe them merely as such is the same as calling the Beatles "some British rock band." Krembos are nothing less than an Israeli icon--the confection has been popular in the country since before it achieved statehood. In pre-Israel Palestine, Jewish mammas would make homemade version of this treat--topping thin vanilla biscuits with sweet marshmallow fluff and enrobing the whole thing in a thin shell of chocolate. The treats began to be mass-produced in Israeli candy factories in the mid-sixties. Today, they comprise, along with savory n' salty Beesli snack mix, and air-puffed peanut-flavored Bamba, the holy triptych of Israeli snack foods.

Adding to their appeal is the limited production window. Scattered cardboard cases  begin to arrive in bodegas and grocery stores in mid-September, they can be seen in every kiosk, street stall, and candy shop by the beginning of October, and the supply is exhausted sometime in late January.  During "Krembo Season," they become a form of child currency. Temper tantrums and meltdowns are quelled with promises of a Krembo, they are served as classroom treats for student birthdays, and many enterprising student council candidates are known to increase their constituency through the schoolyard distribution of Krembos bearing home-computer printed campaign stickers.On college campuses, earnest petition-clutching student activists coax otherwise apathetic fellow students over to their informational booths with the promise of a free krembo, and the Magden David Adom paramedics who man on-campus mobile blood-donation trucks reward blood donors with krembos in order to restore their depleted blood sugar levels.

They are the ultimate impulse buy--speaking from personal experience, it's hard to resist adding one to a grocery purchase every so often when your sweet tooth calls out. The Ha'aretz newspaper claims that the average Israeli eats a dozen every year during the 4-month window of availability, and I regret to say that my Krembo consumption seems to be on par with that statistic. It could be worse, at 115 calories the delicate little foil-wrapped domes aren't as deleterious to one's diet as, say, a pistachio ice cream cone, a hunk of halva, a chocolate rugelach, or a Kif-Kif candy bar, all of  which are a few of the other constant favorites in the Israeli sweets rotation. And, despite their diminutive size, the little Krembos pack a sugary wallop. In fact, tne of my friends eats them with a wince, since the super-sticky marshmallow filling makes the unfilled cavities in his molars throb with pain. Interestingly, this does not appear to curtail his consumption.

There are only a few risks associated with the treat. Of course, anyone who hazards a Krembo binge will end up with a stomachache and the frantic rush of a sugar high, and the consumption of more than one or two Krembos in one sitting should be strictly avoided. Additionally, it's crucial to do a thorough inspection of any child who will be in close contact with you post-Krembo consumption. A quick scan of the child's mouth and hands is not enough. If you are lax, you will inevitably find yourself combing a knot cemented by a little bit of hardened marshmallow out of the back of your hair or blotting at a smear of chocolate on the side of your formerly clean shirt. But if you an steer clear of these two dangers, I recommend you seek out the elusive Krembo for yourself. They're a very popular export, and I'm told they can be found during the fall in many kosher delis and bakeries.

Just remember that there are two schools of thought on the proper consumption of the Krembo: one that advocates eating the biscuit first, and one that recommends sucking up the marshmallow fluff and leaving the cookie base for last . Like the conflict over which direction to hang the toilet paper roll and whether to place forks in the dishwasher tines up or tines down, this argument has divided many a household and created untoward tension in romantic relationships. Some Israelis, almost universally boys between the ages of 8 and 10 years, diplomatically avoid the entire question by embracing the practice of shoving the entire Krembo directly into their mouth, sort of like the hippos I saw at Hamat Gader who consumed entire melons in one saliva-stringed chomp. I do no recommend this practice in polite company.