Aliyah 109: Good Bureaucracy

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My new friend from Nigeria

Sometimes it is easy to notice faults and forget all the good there is. When I last visited Caesarea and I saw this man, I had to go speak with him. Sure, there are plenty of Ethiopian Jews in Israel, however, this man does not look Ethiopian and Ethiopian Jews don’t record English vlogs. Turns out he’s a Catholic priest from Nigeria named Ohdu (spelled phonetically on my part). He’s staying in Jerusalem and came on a bus with his Catholic group seeing the remains of a rectangular pool cut into the rock two thousand years ago for a Roman house.

“Were you here during the war?” Yes, he says – and he felt safe because the government cares about people here. In Nigeria, they couldn’t care less about you, he says, while here there’s an app with emergency information, public bomb shelters in every community, warning sirens, and homefront command instructions and guidance.

Sometimes it takes a foreigner looking in to see what we can miss when we’re in the middle of it all. The mouse doesn’t understand why he’s running in a maze. Meaning lies outside the system. (Paraphrase from Rabbi Johnathan Sacks on having meaning in our lives and connection with G_d.)

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Passport in Five Minutes

A new oleh (immigrant) gets a temporary travel document for their first year – recognized in most countries – and then a full passport. Online you make an appointment to get a new one. When the system works, it works. Appointments are booked three months ahead of time, though you can get quicker if you have a need. I have no immediate need because I have no desire to leave Israel, so I booked an appointment three months out and paid online to save some money.

If you pay in the winter, the cost is 185 NIS … if you pay in the summer, the cost is 285 NIS. If you pay in person it’s 315 NIS. If you pay once when you booked the appointment and once on the day of the appointment … they give you a paper with QR code to get a refund. Oops. … and I can’t get it to work.

Any who, now I know the system. I knew the building I was going to, understood the sign that says “Office of Population” even though I can’t actually pronounce the word (I learned it in Duolingo), went in, entered by Israeli ID number in the machine (which I now have memorized), took my ticket and sat down. My appointment was for 10am. At 9:57am I got called to the counter.

At 10:03am I was done.

I brought this many pictures with me: 0
I brought this many documents with me: 1 (Israel ID card … and old passport just in case)
I filled out this many documents: 0

That’s how it should be.

People ask me if you need to know Hebrew. You can ‘get by’ with just English … though not everyone speaks English, those who do don’t necessarily speak it well, and you avoid looking like a fool when you say things like, “is it possible to take my picture again while I smile?” and she says, “yes, though keep your mouth closed”.

No Hebrew –> sad passport picture.

Payments are only by credit card. This is very common and the last time I used cash was with an off-grid Bedouin in the middle of the desert over a year ago. Israeli credit cards are more like debit cards, and the transaction fees are very low. Compare that to the United States where people complain that if you don’t accept cash, you’re harming poor people.

(One of my kids didn’t see the text message with code and location to pick up her passport – it got sent around in circles between the dry fruit store with the passport pickup and the government office until it appeared at our house somehow.)

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New Garbage Can

One day one of my kids asked me why we had a new garbage can. “We don’t.” Wait, why doesn’t the garbage can fit in our garbage can cubby anymore?

Turns out we do have a new garbage can.

After two weeks of mystery, my neighbor (who barely speaks English so I smile at him) explains to me that he asked the yishuv (town) to get us a larger garbage can because we kept filling ours up. You can do that? The town gives garbage cans? (For that matter, a hole that developed in our sidewalk was fixed within days.)

There’s so much to unpack here. What is invasive in America (mind your own business) is kindness here (your garbage can has been replaced) while I scratch my head, thankful that the Israeli yarmulkes are thick enough to prevent scratching out of already receding hair.

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Kvish6 (the “NJ Turnpike of Israel”)

Israel’s main highway is “Kvish6” (Route 6). It looks like the NJ Turnpike though with far less cops, more consistent high speeds, less signage, and two different toll systems.

Catch that?

Imagine if your NJ Turnpike EZ Pass worked from the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the George Washington Bridge (most of the state) with zero signs, indication, notices, nada that you need a different EZ-Pass North of the GW Bridge … and then you get fined for not paying the toll.

Being overwhelmed with aliyah and bureaucracy I relied on the “tolls by mail” signs on the road. No mail … I must be getting charged though a payment app, automatic from my bank perhaps … never received anything by mail.

One day after my parking tickets that didn’t show up in my online government account caught up with me and I decided to create an online account for the highway … yike. (Singular.) I got the geebies. (No heebies.)

Fines are about 8x the tolls and a law firm is handling collections?!?

Kvish6 staff is really, really friendly … I’ve spoken to half a dozen employees. All friendly. They just can’t help you. It’s gone to a law firm “which only happens after a long time and many notices” … <big smile through the phone which I understand thanks to my experience with a passport picture>. The law firm says, “tachlis, you need to pay 7.75x the tolls”. Nah.

After many more phone calls, with the help of Nefesh B’Nefesh, the supervisor explains how to appeal. A lawyer from Kvish6 calls me a few days later – very friendly – of course – she offers me an ‘out of court settlement’ of about 4x. I took it and signed a legal settlement document with a lawyer. Weird.

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Dentists in Israel

A “checkup” is not a “cleaning” and vice versa – unless it’s an American dentist.

I’m currently going to an Israeli dentist in private practice (read here about my insurance dentist experience and the followup) as he’s available at a day’s notice and I’m usually flexible with time at less busy hours for dentists. I made an appointment for a “checkup” … he asks me what I want at the appointment … “you know, clean and check my teeth … the usual…”.

“You made an appointment only for a checkup.”
“Yes, a checkup.”
“You didn’t make an appointment for cleaning.”
“I also want a cleaning – of course.”
“Well, the hygienist doesn’t have time today. I mean, I do, but it’s not my job…”
“I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, but …”
“Doesn’t matter to me who does the cleaning.”

Deepest clean ever. Starts poking holes in gums … about 16 of them … the ‘deep clean’ that my American dentist said I needed to do in a very apologetic voice. This dentist is just … “you said cleaning and Israel this is a cleaning!”

If I’m ever interrogated, I’d drop all the information I have at the first chance I get. Meanwhile, his henchwoman … the Israeli lady who speaks no English and is holding some sort of device in my mouth keeps saying, “linshom … linshom!”

Lady, I’ll linshom whatever you want me to tell you!

Took about three of those until I remember the word! Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!

I smiled a little with the breath. Amazing how a word which was part of a one-page Hebrew lesson in the book with my tutor suddenly came back to me and how I will never forget that word again!

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Shirut Leumi

Religious girls usually do a year of national service (shirut leumi). For a new oleh, they assign you someone to help your daughter find a placement after filling out pages and pages and stacks of online forms. My daughter said every once in a while she’d get a Whatsapp message from her helper person (Whatsapp is used for everything … I barely use the regular phone / texting). The conversation goes something like this:

“Hi, how are you?”
“Good.”
“What’s new?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Okay, very good.”

My daughter found her own placement.

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Outlets in Israel

Here, you plug the sheka into the teka … the plug into the outlet. This is far from the only hazard … I learned from buying a 3-phase oven that 3-phase outlets are not standardized in Israel. You need to make your own cable … thankfully, I thought to keep the plug from my old oven though I hadn’t considered that the new on would come with no cable at all. Save your cables … heck, I have a cable draw with RCA sound cables though I did finally throw out the VGA cables when I made aliyah.

You also have to connect the wire to the other end and now everywhere I look I’m noticing homebrew cables on rather high wattage air units:

The green cable is actually meant for outdoors, though no harm in using a better cable, even indoors.

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Packages from abroad

The United States is king of commerce. I order custom family photo albums regularly from one such American company. No branch in Israel. No shipping to Israel. Wanted to avoid the, “can you take this package for me…” thing that American Jews in Israel do.

There are package forwarding services – about $60 from America and $40 from Germany. (In retrospect, perhaps I should have checked Italy or Greece which are even closer.) Also, for some reason, this particular photo album company charged less in Germany so with the extra shipping cost the price came out about the same.

While delivered to Germany, it seems this package service brings it to Poland for shipping via FedEx (cheaper?) and after seemingly being delivered by the guys who run Jetlagged: The Game where they hit as many countries in Europe as possible, it went back to Germany, then to the Netherlands, Belgium, Frane, Germany again, and finally to Israel – arriving on time.

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Go down to take a shnatz

From the Streetwise Hebrew podcast (highly recommended) I learned the word “schnatz.” It’s even funnier than the joke about the SS officers blowing their noses (the snot’zis!). This is an acronym for “afternoon nap” and is so versatile:

לקחתי שנ'”צ (I took a schnatz)
תינוק נרדם לשנ’צ (the baby went down for a schnatz)
לפעמים שנ’צ קטן מחזיר לי את האנרגיה לכל היום. (sometimes a small schnatz gives me stronger (more) energy for the whole day)
פשר לשלב שנ’ץ אחרי האוכל (you can have a combo: schnatz after eating)
עשיתי שנץ (I had a schnatz)
נרדמתי לשנץ (I went down to schnatz)

Biggus …

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