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Top 10 Total Israel Moments (Or Pointless Stories from my Year Abroad)

At times during the course of this year, I found myself forgetting that I was in Israel.  There would be days that I would spend entirely in the office of ENP, or where I wouldn’t speak a word of Hebrew to anyone.  The country is so diverse, that even on tiyulim, it was easy to forget I was in Israel when surrounded by a lush, green forest.  The following is my list of top 10 Total Israel Moments—moments during which I was fully aware that I was in Israel, and after which the only appropriate response was “only in Israel.” 

10.  Eating Out at Restaurants

Eating out at restaurants in the states is usually a fairly simple endeavor for Andy and myself.  We both will eat in a non-kosher restaurant, but will only eat hot or cold dairy products, which means that at any given restaurant, about half of the menu is off limits.  We usually find ourselves ordering salad, fish, or pasta (for Andy) at most places that we go, unless we decide to treat ourselves to a kosher meat restaurant, for a special occasion.  We don’t often eat at kosher dairy restaurants because the food is somehow less tasty, but more pricey.  We have our favorite restaurants in New York and depending on what we’re in the mood for, we decide where to eat.

In Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, there are a plethora of kosher restaurant options.  Even some of the restaurants which do not have kosher certification still sell kosher meat—it is the fact that they are open on Shabbat which prevents them from having “kosher” status.  This means that Andy and I have a lot more options when we decide to go out to eat.  Since kosher restaurants serve either meat or dairy cuisine, we must first decide whether we are in the mood for meat or dairy.  And once we arrive at the restaurant, we have many more menu options to choose from, meaning that it takes us longer to order food.  When we are finished our meal, even after a meat meal, we can stop at the ice cream shop on the way home for (parve) dessert.  It’s safe to say that in Jerusalem, our culinary options are much more extensive than they are in the States. 

9. Shopping At The Shuk

Almost all of the produce in Israel is grown in Israel, which means everything is grown locally.  Our favorite fruits and veggies need only travel the short distance from the north or the south to Jerusalem before we can enjoy them, instead of making a long journey across an ocean, as they do in the States.  Andy and I have been enjoying fresh produce for 10 months now, and it will certainly be hard to return to eating the sorry excuse for fruit that is being sold in US supermarkets.

In addition to buying fresh fruits and vegetables, shopping at the shuk is an experience all its own.  People usually shop there two or three times a week, picking up the freshest ingredients for lunch or dinner.  The stalls are small and cramped, the aisles are crowded, and the shop owners’ screams fill the air.  It is not a relaxing experience.  And yet, the colorful and noisy background, the pushing and shoving of your fellow shoppers, the ability to jump from one stall to the next in order to find a peach that costs slightly less all combine to create a quintessentially Israel experience.  There is nothing like it in the States.  Nothing.

8. Feeding The Stray Cats

Throughout the course of this year, I maintained a blog called “Cats of Jerusalem” on which I would post pictures I had taken of stray cats, with misspelled captions asking for different food items.  On more than one occasion, it occurred to me that taking pictures of stray cats in Jerusalem bears a striking resemblance to taking pictures of squirrels in America—there are plenty of cats to take pictures of, and you look crazy while doing it.

The difference, however, lies in the way the locals treat their acquired strays.  In the States, only crazy old ladies feed the squirrels, and they scamper away before you can even really get close to them.  In Israel, however, wherever you go, you will see piles of cat food which people have bought and left on the streets for the stray cats to eat.  People often leave their leftovers outside for the cats (a practice Andy and I quickly adopted), and there is even a man who lives on our street who opens up the trash bags in the dumpsters so the cats in our neighborhood can access its contents.  The Yeshiva boys who lived in our apartment building adopted one of the local stray cats, and named her “Sea Cow”.  She would walk into the building, climb the steps, and wait patiently in the hallway for someone to feed her.

All of this comes, I think, from the idea in Judaism that we should respect all living things, including animals.  We are even supposed to feed our pets before we feed ourselves.  So yes, the street cats are seen as disgusting, as vermin, even as carrying diseases, but people still take care of them because they, too, are G-d’s creatures.

You can view Cats of Jerusalem here: http://catsofjerusalem.tumblr.com/

7. Becoming Friends with Taxi Drivers

One night, a number of months ago, I got into a cab that had been ordered for me by the family for which I was babysitting.  I think the cab driver must have heard me speaking on the phone in English while I was waiting for him, because the first thing he said to me after I told him my address was “Where are you from?  Philadelphia?” 

“Uhh… Yeah, actually.”

So it turns out that the cab driver had lived in Philadelphia for a number of years, and owned a falafel store on South Street.  By the end of the trip, he had given me his business card and told me to call him if I ever needed to go to the airport. 

Interactions like this are not uncommon here in Israel—everyone has friends in common, or knows people who grew up in the same community as you.  The best part is, once you have a meaningful interaction with someone, that person will remember you every time you walk into the store.  There are two stores on Ben Yehuda Street (a very busy pedestrian mall, frequented by a lot of tourists) whose owners recognize Andy and me as soon as we walk in.  The same is true for the ice cream shop around the corner from our apartment, and for a few of the art vendors I’ve purchased from during the weekly craft fair.  The ability to have meaningful interactions with strangers, resulting in their ability to remember you next time they see you, is an experience unique to Israel. 

6. Arriving At A Hotel Where You Have Reservations, Only To Find Out It’s Under Construction

In Israel, very few things are done with unnecessary politeness or professionalism.  Some people consider it rude, others just accept that this is how things are done here.  For example, if I had a dime for the number of times I bought something from a store owner or salesperson who was on the phone during the entire time of my visit to the store, I’d have at least a dollar, but probably more.

I think the experience that best summarizes this sentiment is the time that my mom and sister drove with Andy and me down to Eilat, where we would spend the night before my mom and sister went to Petra, Jordan.  The drive down to Eilat is long and boring, and we were aching to get out of the car and into a comfortable hotel room.  When we finally found the hotel, and its quite hidden and inaccessible parking lot, we noticed a significant lack of cars and people.  It soon became apparent that we would be the only people staying in the hotel—possibly including hotel staff.

A man who claimed to be a contractor, wearing a dirty T-shirt and pants that kept falling down below his butt, informed us that the hotel was under construction.  That seemed unlikely, as my mom’s tour guide had made reservations at the hotel for us to stay there, and this man did not exactly exude informed authority.  Slowly, however, through many calls to the tour guide, the hotel manager, and others, we learned that the hotel was indeed under construction, and that instead of telling anyone, the person who took the reservation had simply made us reservations at a different hotel.  To call this unprofessional would be an understatement—to say I was surprised to be experiencing something like this would be a lie.  As we piled back in to the car to check out the second hotel, I silently added this experience to the mental list of crazy hotel stories I have acquired during the course of the year.

5. Knowing Everyone

After Andy and I returned from our trip to Rome, we took an airport shuttle from Tel Aviv to our apartment in Jerusalem.  We were surprised that somehow we had managed to end up on the same shuttle and two of Andy’s classmates, but we were even more surprised when the family that got on the shuttle after us began to discuss their experiences flying from Philadelphia to Israel.  After sharing names and neighborhoods, the woman who was traveling with her elderly parents exclaimed “Your mom is Elaine and she works at Blue Cross!”

As we would come to find out throughout the course of a fairly typical sheirut ride including a rude driver and many near-death experiences, the woman worked with my mother at Blue Cross and was traveling with her two parents, also from Philadelphia.  We, of course, had many acquaintances in common.  Crazier, still, was another woman who was in our sheirut, who happened to know this Philadelphia family somehow.  In a shuttle that holds 11, 9 people knew each other. 

The phenomenon of knowing people everywhere you go is a uniquely Israel experience, and never loses its excitement, no matter how many familiar faces you see.

4. Waiting In Line For Ulpan

One of the moments during which I was most aware of being an American in Israel was in the very beginning of the year, when I registered for ulpan (intensive Hebrew class).  To begin with, there is no online or over the phone registration—you must register in person.  Registration is first-come, first-served, which means that it’s possible that the spots will fill up before you get a chance to register.  Furthermore, a new student like myself must take a placement test before even getting into the line* (*I use the term “line” loosely) to register—so the choice becomes: do well on the test and take a long time, possibly losing the opportunity to even take ulpan and therefore having just taken a Hebrew test for nothing, OR do okay on the test and then get into line* as quickly as possible.

For better or for worse, I chose the latter option, quickly filling in as many answers as I could without thinking too hard or taking too long, and then I went to join the mass blob of people waiting to register.  The process went something like this: it didn’t matter who got there first or who had been waiting the longest—everyone just pushed their way into the tiny office in order to hand over the registration form to the secretary, who then entered all of the information you had just written down by hand into the computer, manually.  It would have made more sense to the collect the forms and let the people leave, then to spend the rest of the day entering the information into the computer.  Or to let us register online.  Or anything else.

But instead, I joined a swarming mass of people trying to squeeze itself into the tiny office, and was bumped by many elbows.  I, for my part, also bumped my elbow a few times.  Imagine it’s rush hour on the subway in New York City, and there is one seat left in an already crowded car, and it’s right in the middle of the car.  So everyone on the platform tries to get into the train at the same time in order to get that last seat—and in doing so, no one gets into the car and the seat is then taken by the person sitting next to it who uses it as a bag rest.

Waiting in line to register for ulpan was kind of like that. 

3. Waiting In Any Line

If you expected to see lines when you arrived in Israel, you will be severely disappointed to find out that lines do not exist here, and instead you will meet the line’s disorganized, grumpy, and smelly cousin, the blob.  Every attempt to enter a bus, a store, a venue, or just about anywhere where there are more than three people, becomes a fight to the death, a gladiatorial competition to see who will enter first and who will be left out in the cold.  And don’t even think about letting other people in front of you to be nice—that’s a good way to make sure you never go anywhere ever again.

I think the best way to illustrate what I’m talking about is through a story about the time Andy and I went to the misrad hapanim (literally: Face Office) to get our visas for the year.  We were there with two of Andy’s classmates and a coordinator from Andy’s program.  We had arrived at a time when the office itself was only open to people who had previously arranged appointments (which, of course, we had).  Just getting through the mass of people in front of the doors was a challenge—parting the Red Sea was easier.  Imagine a celebrity sighting after a Broadway show.  Once you join the blob, you’re pretty firmly stuck where you are.  Out came the elbows.

When we finally reached the front of the mass of people, the program coordinator explained to the guard that we had an appointment and did some classic Israeli finagling—“no, it’s fine”—and we were allowed in.  Unfortunately, one of Andy’s classmates had fallen behind and was stuck in the crowd.  Another member of the swarming mass of people gladly took his spot and snuck into the building with us, pretending to be the fifth person in our group.  He was clearly out of place, and he didn’t even have an appointment, so they would not have seen him once he got to the office, but he saw a chance and he seized it.  Our program coordinator then had to convince the security guard to let our actual fifth member through.  It was like squeezing a watermelon through a hole the size of a grape…

I pretty much like to spend my days alone and line-free.

2. Buying Food Off The Street

My mom and I once bought ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck in New York, and spent the rest of the day bent over with stomach pain.  To say I was skeptical of buying home baked goods from the woman who sold them on the corner of our street every Friday would be an understatement.  I lived in New York for two years—buying open or home baked food from people on the street is a huge no-no.  One week, however, a brave friend of ours tasted some of her wares, and claimed it was some of the best Shabbas food he had ever tasted.  So the next week, Andy and I picked up two challot, and thus began a long and meaningful friendship between Rifka and myself.

The challah, was, indeed, the best challah in Jerusalem, and her potato kugels are addictive.  She even made a few of her dishes gluten free upon request.  We would serve her food to everyone we invited over for meals, and sure enough, they would begin to buy food from her as well. 

Rifka is a religious woman, so I never worried about the kashrut of what she was selling (although I sometimes joked that she probably only dressed that way to sell food on Fridays and actually put lard and shrimp in what she was making).  There were some people, however, who did question her kashrut because she didn’t have someone watching over her preparations at all times.  Furthermore, there is an instant trust and relationship that develops between two Jews, no matter where you are, that allowed us to get to know Rifka and to trust her. 

Rifka had made aliyah five years before, from New Jersey, where she used to write curriculum for a religious day school.  Now she bakes food and sells it on the corner on Fridays (see previous post about how living here is hard).  Although I never knew much more about her than that, Rifka soon began referring to me as her friend, and introducing me that way to some of her other customers.  She said that I reminded her of herself (her exact words: “we’re the same person”) and although she doesn’t have email, she said she would think of me after I left.  On my last Friday morning visit with her, she gave me a parting gift: a havdallah candle.  Actually quite appropriate considering the separation between kodesh (Israel) and chul (America).

I’ve never become friends with a Mr. Softee driver or a soft pretzel vendor, or anyone selling anything on the street for that matter.  It just doesn’t happen.  Mostly because I won’t buy food from people off the street unless it’s sealed, but also because there’s a different culture in Israel—everyone is family. 

1. Crashing a Bat Mitzvah

The most quintessential Israel experience I have had this year occurred on Andy and my fifth day in this very country.  We had spent our third night in the country at Andy’s family’s house in Hod Hasharon, and they tried to convince us to stay an extra night, and to attend a family bat-mitzvah with them the next day, near Jerusalem, after which they would return us home.  Israeli hospitality often looks very similar to being pushy, and refusal on the part of the guest is taken as an insult.  Andy and I were still jetlagged, barely unpacked, and completely unprepared for a bat-mitzvah.  So we returned to the apartment in Jerusalem, with promises that we would see the family at the bat-mitzvah the next day.

The bat-mitzvah was for a cousin of the family we stayed with, whom we had never met.  On the morning of the bat-mitzvah, family members living in Jerusalem picked us up, and we just kind of showed up at the bat-mitzvah.  Although we felt uncomfortable and out of place attending a life event for a person we didn’t know and that we weren’t invited to, everyone else seemed happy to see us and to welcome us.  We attended the morning service as well as the lunch afterwards, and never felt like people didn’t want us there.  Then we returned home and slept.

It is often said of Israelis that they are pushy, chronically late, and show up where they aren’t invited.  I think the stories above illustrate that pretty well.  But I also think they illustrate a sense of connection, of family and friendship, that you could only get in a country full of Jews.  I think this sense of connection and familiarity is what I will miss the most when I return to New York.  For an entire year, I felt as if I were attending a giant family reunion—and now it seems like I’m leaving all my loved ones behind for a life of loneliness and solitude. 

L’hitraot, Israel.  Until we meet again.