Aliyah Blog 46: Car Towed and Repaired.

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Aliyah Diary

Arrival
01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In

Cultural Adjustment Fun
04. Sept 4, 2024: First Day of School
05. Sept 8, 2024: Two Weeks In . . .
06. Sept 16, 2024: Getting Comfortable
07. Sept 22, 2024: Ready for Yom Tov
09. Sept 30, 2024: Nasrallahed on the Floor
18. Nov 24, 2024: Language – l’at, ‘lat
39. Mar 12, 2025: Prove Yourself
50. May 19, 2025: Lag B’Omer
55. Jun 11, 2025: Idiosyncrasies

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties
15. Nov 10, 2024: Safety Fourth
29. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Still in America
31. Feb 3, 2025: Internet Filtering for Kids
37. Mar 3, 2025: Technical Difficulties
40. Mar 17, 2025: Holiday Loneliness
49. May 13, 2025: It’s Broken.

On the Roads
24. Jan 5, 2025: Supermarkets & Highways
25. Jan 12, 2025: Not Cutting Me Off
36. Feb 25, 2025: Road Rules of Israel
46. Apr 24, 2025: Car Towed and Fixed
47. Apr 27, 2025: Taking the Bus
53. May 29, 2025: TLV Airport Speed Run

Shopping
11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy
10. Oct 8, 2024: Driver’s License
13. Oct 30, 2024: Bureaucracies and Stories
19. Nov 28, 2024: Taxation for Americans
22. Dec 23, 2024: Doctors & “Choleh Chadash”
27. Jan 23, 2025: Healthcare in Israel
32. Feb 5, 2025: How To Hire the Wrong Person
33. Feb 10, 2025: Quest to Pay My Taxes
48. May 4, 2025: Bank Account for Business

Politics & Thought
12. Oct 25, 2024: October Sun and the Jew
16. Nov 17, 2024: Where People Look Like Me
17. Nov 19, 2024: Jewish Identity and Outlook
21. Dec 11, 2024: Let Freedom Ring
38. Mar 6, 2025: Talking in Quiet Peace

Travel and Trips – South
08. Sept 25, 2024: Jerusalem Concert
14. Nov 2, 2024: The Kindness of Strangers
26. Jan 18, 2025: Dead Sea Beer and Ice Cream
30. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Visits and We Travel
35. Feb 20, 2025: Mitzpe Ramon Stars, Ein Avdat
45. Apr 20, 2025: Desert Llamas and Camels

Travel and Trips – North
20. Dec 5, 2024: Tel Aviv Art Museum
23. Dec 29, 2024: The West Bank. (Shomron)
28. Jan 26, 2025: Yarkon River Judaism, Tel Aviv
42. Mar 28, 2025: Hike Nahal Tavor, Mt. Tabor
50. May 18, 2025: Casearia
52. May 25, 2025: Flowers of Kfar Rut
56. Jun 15, 2025: Agam Art Museum

Travels Outside Israel
54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon

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Fun New Experience

Exploring new foods, places, ideas … I like all of it. I didn’t choose to go into patent law for nothing. In some sort of perverse and twisted way, I was happy to have the experience of getting my car towed and getting a good deal on a new engine.

G-d had some mercy on me for my stupidity (more on that later):

• the car worked down a large and windy shoulderless hill into the great city of Tiveria.
• Once hitting flat land the car sputtered out and there was a nice shoulder on the side of a road with not too much traffic (many roads in Israel have no shoulders).
• It was 70 degrees out and overcast. Very comfortable weather. Couldn’t ask for better.
• Short walk to a beautiful hotel with a bathroom and helpful staff at the desk that spoke fluent English … in a very heavy Arabic accent.
• I was heading to a yurt to sleep (yay, Israel!) and one of their guests spoke fluent English – between the yurt owner and other guests they were able to arrange the tow truck and tell me what bus line to take to finish my trip.
• There was a bus from there, the rest of the way to the yurt.
• My family took two cars, leaving at very different times … and the right number of family members came that we all fit into one car so getting back home was easy.
• I only despaired two times during the ordeal.

Imagine coming here and speaking only Portgeuse. G-d needs to give you even more mercy. With English you can usually get by.

Now for the stupidity

First, I’m from New Jersey. We don’t pump gas. That’s uncivilized. Yech. I have little experience with it and the pumps in Israel are in Hebrew. I’ve gotten familiar with the gas station near my house and rarely go anywhere else.

Gas stations in Israel have “95” (regular gas – or as they call it, “benzene”) and “sollar” (diesel). The nozzles are very differently size so you can’t possibly mess-up which is good because nine times out of ten I grab the diesel nozzle even when I’m consciously trying not to do that again this time. Then, oy, switch to the other one.

Now, picture this – you plan a two and a quarter hour drive with stop in Tzvat to the artist colony before heading up to your yurt just over the edge of the Golan Heights. Not a short day and then you find out since it is chol haMoed Pesach [intermediate days of Passover] the entire country is traveling on the same road as you.

With every minute of driving Waze says you have the same amount of time left to go making you feel like nothing is being accomplished. Change of plans – we stop at Tzippori along the way instead of Tzvat. The Sanhedrin was there and it is referenced many times in the Talmud. Wanted to see it for a while … we end up near the cisterns, which are cool, and don’t actually end up seeing the city part that I wanted to see. More frustration.

Okay, more traffic and finally, in the clear – let’s get gas just before the last leg of the trip. Who knows if I’ll see another gas station? I’m exhausted, kids are thirsty, and I grab the diesel nozzle … oops … how do I always do that? I put it back and grab the other one.

The regular person nozzle starts filling my tank and eventually I see the price. That’s funny … 5.60 per liter instead of over 7. Must be some cheap stuff – that shuts off too easily. I’m from New Jersey. You think I’ve seen people fanagle these things? We have 87, 89, and 90-something. I look at the sign … incomprehensible. Ya know… I should stop filling with this stuff.

On my way out I use Google Translate and it comes up with the gobbldgook … it’s having trouble with it and changes a lot … comes up with “urea” at some point … must not be able to translate this. It’s probably just a lower octane and is only a small percentage of what’s in my tank anyway.

Then the car says nah-ah and conks out

Down the mountain and a windy narrow road to Tiveria and . . . “Sorry kids – the car isn’t moving. Sometimes adults make mistakes too. We aren’t perfect and …”

They interrupt with, “we know”.

Yeah, I know you know though could we pretend and make daddy feel better because daddy has feelings too, you know.

They interrupt with, “we know”.

Fine kids, fine.

(I’m exaggerating the story here; they were very patient and more forgiving than I was of myself though they told me that they appreciated that I stayed calm during all this new adventure.)

What went wrong

I forgot to say Tefillas HaDerech. I always say it on long trips.

Every gas station in both countries is foolproof … and this one isn’t? … and … oh, it really is “urea”. No one seems to have heard of it and they make a weird face when I tell them such a thing exists. Turns out it’s an additive for diesel engines to reduce emissions and this gas station had no regular pump … at least, not on the side where I was.

As an aside: people think that driving in Israel is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Israelis thinks this. It’s not true – the United States has 3.5x more traffic deaths per capita (12.84/100k people) than the Israel (3.63/100k people) and the roads here are much more leisurely and safe … and slower. You can’t drive 50 MPH in a 25 MPH zone around here because the roads are narrower, there are lots of speed bumps, and roundabouts. If you can drive faster, it’s because it’s safe to do so.

How to Get Your Car Towed

In America if you need your car towed, this is the procedure:

• Call a tow truck company or maybe your insurance, AAA, whatever – wait from 1/2 hr to 3 hrs by your car, and they take it back to their garage or tell you to select from various places based on location.

In Israel if you need your car towed, this is the procedure:

• call your wife in a (calm) panic who tells you she heard of this thing called Yedidim … Israel version of “Chaverim” – then thank the heavens some there speak English (even if it’s in a heavy Brooklyn accent)
• Spend 15 minutes on the phone with them – send them pictures of where you are and so on – and find out a) they don’t tow, and b) they empty tanks if you put diesel in by accident … not whatever I did …
• Call the insurance company. Hit a bunch of numbers until they give you the name of a tow truck company to call that they work with
• Call towing company … they only tow up to 15 km and I have to choose the place. “Hang up and call us back when you have a place.” They won’t take responsibility for towing it somewhere. Ya think I know who cleans engines in Tiveria?
• Google around for towing places within 15 km … pause to daven minchah …
• Find a place, call back … this person only speaks Hebrew and mine is not good enough for this task … get hung up on
• Call again … etc, etc.

Yurt lady messages me … am I still coming? Yes! … and now I will vent my frustration to you! I’m stuck on the side of the road (in beautiful weather overlooking the Kinneret next to a five star hotel bathroom … you know, it’s not that bad …) …

The Yurt lady and an English speaking guest work it all out. “The closest Mazda garage is in Afula – it will be towed there.” Wait, I said, they won’t tow more than 15 km. “He said he would.” Oh. “Leave the key on the wheel and come to the Yurt. It will be at least three hours before they tow your car.”

They didn’t tow it until the next morning – I know because they only asked for the code to start the car in the morning.

Now I’ve noticed something else about Israeli roads … 1) police cars drive with their lights on and it’s not to pull anyone over … they just … drive that way. 2) there are way too many cars on the side of the road, many of them damaged beyond repair. It seems that no one is in a hurry to tow things around here. Leaving my car on the shoulder for only one night apparently is nothing around here.

If you’re near the Kinneret (Israel’s biggest lake, in the north) stay at this yurt – Bali Yurt – wonderfully large and clean yurt and I am so thankful for her help that I paid her extra.

Then we took the bus to the yurt and had a great time. The other family there who had helped us fed us chicken, salad, and matzah knowing that our food was left in the car and we were probably hungry.

A week of internal monologue

For the next week I anguished over my decision to buy a new Mazda 6 … [internal monologue starts here] it’s not fancy for the U.S. though it is for Israel – I only realized this once I was here. Every time I get a scratch in the Mazda it’s … ugh, there goes another few hundred dollars in value. I plan to drive it until I can no longer duct tape it, though still … spent a lot less on a used Hyundai Elantra for our second car which I’ve been driving while my car is being fixed … the Elantra is a great car. Heck, I take the bus now. Maybe I should have bought only one car – no, we need two. Why didn’t I just get two Elantras? Was I in two much of a rush to get cars before we landed? Even if I rented a car for a while … would have spent much less overall. Yes, though I wanted a nicer car when I came to Israel so I’d feel I was “trading up” … yes, though the Elantra easily gets over 50 MPG (or … less than 2 gallons per 100 miles … a much better way of measuring) and the Mazda is only about 30 to 35 MPG (… about 3.3 gallons per 100 miles). Car cost more, gas cost more … [internal monologue ends here]

Picking up my car in Afula

About a week later I took a bus to Afula to get my car. I picked up my Mazda 6 and drove it back. Oh … hey, why was I doubting myself? This really is that much nicer than the Elantra. So much more pleasurable to drive. Hmm… maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to get this car. If only I bought two Elantra’s I wouldn’t have known the difference. 🙂

For the entire week I’d been taking buses and it was fun at first. That’s for the next blog entry.

The Mazda place tried flushing my cars innards twice … it would drive and then conk out the same way. So … replace the engine. It’s a good shyla (question) whether the insurance would cover it … is this an accident on the road? I’d have to of had it taken to a garage they work with, have it appraised, pay my deductible, have my insurance go up next year – car insurance is stupid expensive in Israel – and I don’t even know what else. I decided just to pay for it once I heard the price for all the work they did including replacing the engine. Nice bargain – which is funny how the mind works because the whole thing could have been avoided. Would have cost much more in the United States and who doesn’t love a bargain?

Now, apparently, I have to take it to the insurance company to have them check it and show them a piece of paper that the guy at the garage told me half a dozen times, “don’t lose this paper”. Apparently without it they think you stole the engine.

… and that, my friends, is the stupidest thing I’ve done since making aliyah. Make sure the stuff you’re putting in your car is “95” even if the nozzle fits. People are very helpful around here and no one laughed at me or ridiculed me for my mistake except for myself.