Letter from Israel: The Bright Side of Life

Fif­teenth in an ongo­ing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — So much of West­ern­ers hear about the Mid­dle East is seri­ous. As a result, most peo­ple prob­a­bly do not know the bright side of life here (with apolo­gies to Monty Python). So here is a list of ten, ran­dom anec­dotes that you might find interesting.

1. On my sec­ond vaca­tion to Israel is 2007, I was try­ing on some clothes in the dress­ing room of a Tel Aviv mall. With­out any warn­ing, the clerk threw open the cur­tain after a few min­utes and asked, “So, do you like it?” I was halfway undressed, and there were tons of peo­ple in the store! (At least the clerk, as usual in stores, was a cute girl.) There is lit­tle per­sonal space here. When I lived with room­mates, they would open the door and walk into my room with­out even knock­ing. It’s a casual country.

2. Even busi­ness is casual. At my first job in the high-tech indus­try here, my boss — the direc­tor of the depart­ment — usu­ally wore sweat­pants and a sweat­shirt to work. Men go for days with­out shav­ing, even to job inter­views. “Dress­ing up” con­sists of wear­ing a nice pair of jeans and a short-sleeve, button-down shirt. That is the typ­i­cal dress for a wed­ding (unless you are the bride or groom) or even going to a syn­a­gogue. As one Israeli remarked to me: “Only lawyers and the prime min­is­ter wear suits here.” I love it — espe­cially the part about not hav­ing to shave every day. Most Israelis out­side the fash­ion­able parts of Tel Aviv could care less about high fash­ion. It is com­mon to see most peo­ple in cheap, com­fort­able clothes.

3. I love hag­gling! You can do it almost every­where. I was doing my Fri­day shop­ping before Shab­bat ear­lier today, and I saved fif­teen per­cent from the sticker prices when I bought a CD player and some posters for my apart­ment. I have my own secret: Since most sales clerks are high-school girls or young women just out of the army, I flirt shame­lessly and inten­tion­ally speak Hebrew worse than what I actu­ally know. They always think the Amer­i­can accent is cute! The next time I go on vaca­tion to the United States, I think I will try my hag­gling skills there. Per­haps I’ll even put on a fake — and bad –
Israeli accent.

4. The fun­ni­est thing I have seen to date: A bar full of drunk Israelis singing aloud — in their heavy accents — to “Bohemian Rhap­sody” by Queen.

5. When­ever you walk through a busy part of town, it is com­mon for mem­bers from an out­reach group of Ortho­dox Jews called Chabad to come up to you (if you are a man) and ask, “Did you pray today?” (It is optional for women to do the thrice-daily prayers.) Then they will try and try to get you to put on tefillin — tra­di­tional, leather straps around your left arm and fore­head con­tain­ing pieces of paper with words from the Bible — and say the prayers right on the side­walk. One rabbi in Jerusalem offered a free bagel sand­wich to any­one who would do it. (I took the free food.)

6. I was wheel­ing a shop­ping cart full of gro­ceries to a taxi wait­ing out­side a super­mar­ket when three Israelis came up and asked if I needed help load­ing them. You’d never see that in the United States, at least on the East Coast.

7. The enthu­si­asm of street ven­dors can be star­tling. I was walk­ing by a group of young men on a side­walk bench when one of them shouted sud­denly right at me, “One orange for a shekel (twenty-five cents)!” I declined and wished them the com­mon greet­ing on Thurs­days and Fri­days of “Shab­bat Shalom (Peace­ful Sabbath)!”

8. Once you get used to it, Israeli blunt­ness is quite amus­ing and refresh­ing. Peo­ple here have no patience for any­thing, and they will always get right to the point as quickly as pos­si­ble. A friend of mine was telling a story about another friend of hers, and I asked which one it was because I did not remem­ber. Instead of say­ing some­thing like, “My friend who works at Cell­com and stud­ies com­mu­ni­ca­tions,” she merely said, “The fat one.” Imme­di­ately, I knew to whom she was referring.

This atti­tude stems partly from the fact that Hebrew is a blunt, con­cise lan­guage. When I was work­ing part-time in a kitchen in a bar, the man­ager would hand me dishes that needed wash­ing. Instead of say­ing, “Here are some more dishes,” he would say in Hebrew, “Take.” If a per­son dis­agrees with some­one (some­times even a boss) about some­thing, he will not raise polite coun­ter­points. He will say, “You’re an idiot!” and then explain why. It’s not being rude or bossy; it is just how peo­ple talk. Once you get used to a new alpha­bet with weird-looking char­ac­ters that you read right to left, Hebrew is a com­par­a­tively sim­ple lan­guage to learn. More­over, you learn to develop a thick skin here.

9. Shab­bat begins every week at sun­down on Fri­day. Ten min­utes before, rab­bis from Chabad — the group I men­tioned ear­lier — will turn on loud­speak­ers on top of a build­ing in the cen­ter of the city and announce that Shab­bat is start­ing. Then they will blare a record­ing of “Shalom Ale­ichem” (“Peace Upon You”) for every­one to hear. The song is a tra­di­tional one that is sung at the begin­ning of Fri­day night din­ner. It is a greet­ing to the two angels who, in Jew­ish thought, accom­pany every­one on his way home from the syn­a­gogue to eat. (I like the announce­ment, but I have never thought to ask sec­u­lar Israelis what they think.)

10. Israeli teenagers love fire­works. In addi­tion to the back­fir­ing cars that I men­tioned in a prior let­ter, one always hears the noise of fire­crack­ers — or larger — going off. When I was walk­ing through down­town Jerusalem with a friend one time, a group of nearby chil­dren set off what sounded like an M-80. The build­ings and our bod­ies seemed to shake. I was not used to the noise at that point, so my friend and I jumped and thought the worst when we heard the explo­sion. When I saw the chil­dren, I was about to walk over and stran­gle them myself. But then the police arrived and got them to go away. Now, I real­ize that it is just kids being kids.

Prior let­ter: Sto­ries from the Desert III