The person who went in the ambulance to the hospital gave permission to share her story if I mention that the two medics in the ambulance listened to kinnos the entire way. “Kinnos” is sad poetry we recite on “Tish B’Av” which is the day we remember the destruction of the temples, spies speaking badly about the land of Israel, beginning of the inquisition, assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, first trains to Auschwitz, and the invention of poetry itself.

Changing facts here so as not to say who the person is that went to the hospital – let’s just say: a) it was a neighbor, b) she wasn’t pregnant, c) everything turned out fine … it was a routine sort of thing in that … who hasn’t gone to the hospital at some point in their life?

Start of My Tish B’Av Morning

The previous night (ignore the heading for a second), unlike what I am used to in America, shul started 10 minutes after the end of Shabbos so we could bring our Tish B’av knick knacks after Shabbos ended. As such, I was 20 minutes early. (Do the math.) Rather than long, drawn out kinnos … it was … peppily moving along.

In the morning (remember, the heading says this is about the morning), I could go to the mythical minyan at 6am which some people are so sure must exist, the less mythical minyan at 7am, the “explanatory” minyan at 8am, or the 9am minyan. Opting for the 9am minyan without the “explanatory”, having never once been able to sit on the floor in a synagogue until 12ish in the afternoon for the explanatory, as is pretty much the only choice in America that I ever saw, the 9am seemed like the best option.

8:20am-ish … “come get me – I got an emergency appointment at the doctor and I’m told I need to go the hospital right away.” Okay … rushing out to … errr… pickup the neighbor.

Ambulance Chaser

In the same elevator a frum medic guy is going up with some sort of chair which looks conspicuously like a medical something-something. I ask who it’s for … yes, it’s for my … errr… neighbor. … I gave the first name and he gave the last name. HIPAA be darned.

Here’s the funny thing – I feel safe and calm about it. Why? In America you never know how long you’ll sit in an emergency room wishing you were at home dealing with the lesser pain instead. Then you wait for insurance approval, wait in some hallway on a bed until a doctor comes by, bills a few thousand dollars and walks away, and then you fight with their billing department afterwards from a “top” hospital. All that after filling out a pile of redundant paperwork. In America, doctor’s offices are things to be avoided and especially, especially ambulances and hospitals.

In Israel we have a choice of hospital … I don’t one from the other. Go towards Tel Aviv or Jerusalem for a hospital? Go North to where there will be less people fasting or go South where there will be more religious people understanding of Tish B’Av needs? I decide that given the choice, G_d wants me in Jerusalem on Tish B’Av.

Okay, the errr … neighbor comes out to the ambulance and I’m waiting and waiting for it to start driving so I can follow like a good lawyer. Then … crikey, while she’s listening to kinnos, this ambulance can go through red lights. Danger mouse – the best thing to come out of it is the word “crikey”.

Finding Your Way Through Sharei Tzedek Hospital

Rosetta stone of Sharei Tzedek Hospital – or at least it would be if more Hebrew words were different than the English ones. “Catscan” is apparently part of the universal language.

Going up the big hill to Jerusalem, hey… there’s the ambulance … I caught up. I’m later told that he wasn’t trying too hard whereas I was enjoying ‘sport mode’ in my car and a dirth of speed traps in this country. Oh, how I do not miss the stress of American highways with: Drive fast here, not there … cop maybe there? Guy crawling in left lane … four stop signs in a row, blind corner …

Whatever people tell you about driving in Israel being worse – lies. it is soooooo much calmer to drive in Israel than America save for perhaps driving the middle of a dense city with roads designed during the Ottoman rein. On average, I drive faster on Israeli highways than American highways. The only thing American roads have going for them is that it is socially unacceptable to cut people off on the road. In Israel, it’s a courtesy to let other people in.

Once you get there, there’s a nice helpful sign to the parking deck which has positive and negative floor numbers for maximal confusion and, in true Israeli style, you have to ask in at least four places where you’re supposed to go … to absurdly jovial security guard peppily making you feel happy to walk into a hospital.

Kriky. In my haste to get out and pick up the errr … neighbor, I’m wearing the only pair of leather shoes I own and carrying a pocketbook as well as my siddur / kinnos for Tish B’Av. Time to carry the leather shoes too because we don’t wear them on Tish B’Av. What a sight.

Okay, so … not the first building … the second building … go past the cafe on Tish B’av, go to the elevators, go up to floor 0E (the floors aren’t quite hexadecimal – I wrote that for nerd effect – you’ll see why), okay – now go to the end of the hall and at mile marker 1.2, make a right past the next cafe. Then get told by a very happy and smily person that, oh, this is for actual emergencies … you want “minui” which is for … some kind of lesser emergency.

So Israel has three levels of “emergency rooms”:

terem (a step up from “I don’t have a doctor’s appointment“)
minui (come in an ambulance)
emergency (limb falling off, I guess?)

So … back down and around … and there’s the goat and troll with their annoying questions before you can pass … three doors with security guards where one always tells the truth, one lies, and one smacks you if you ask a trick question … then through the corn maze and down three floors …

Found the errr … neighbor

Brief pause here to say: Israel sucks at apartheid. Arab doctors, patients, secretaries, all over the place alongside Jewish doctors, patients, secretaries all over the place. Jewish doctor with tichel invites Arab patient with hijab which otherwise look really similar in dress … and so on.

So … you came in ambulance, did you? Well, you can walk to … go to the secretary yourself. Great, now take and number and go sit there by office #1 for the first procedure. Wait, wait, wait … and wait some more … all of Shachris and some kinnos got done before office number one.

Okay, now, person who came in the ambulance, go back to the secretary, take another number, and sit by office number two.

Doctor Thinks Religious People Aren’t Normal

This is precious. I made a reference to The Matrix or Star Trek … a mind control device … The doctor, who is secular, says, “wow, a normal religious person.” (This conversation starts in Hebrew.) Sure – I watch sci-fi movies. She then tells us some of her life story. Israel, telling life stories to strangers is a thing – we’re all actually distance cousins (and, if Ashkenazi, not genetically distant enough).

“I’m getting married in a few months after I finish all my exams. I made my fiancée watch all nine Star Wars movies.”

Yeah, it’s us religious people who aren’t the normal ones. Do you also own a Bobba Fett light saber?

Doctor’s Beliefs about … anything

Actually, you can be religious and nerdy at the same time

She was given the choice to be called up to the army and fight in Gaza … she said that of course she would. She had some choice curse words to say about the terrorists we’re fighting, especially a compound term which means procreation with one with him he shares mitochondrial DNA.
Young religious guys aren’t actually learning all that much … she sees them. For the top guys, sure, exemption from the army. Everyone else needs to share the burden of defense.
The Arab doctors start college at 19, and medical school at (I guess) 21 and are “babies” with no knack for the medical practice having not been in the army and being too young.
She was in the army and finished her biology degree at 21 when she started her medical schooling.

I didn’t ask why her medical school start at 21 was different than an Arab’s at 21. Israelis often have strong opinions.

Also …

“My defense of the country is more important to keeping Shabbos and kosher or we’d have no country.”

Also, I’m fasting and I know it says “1.” again and not “5”. Not worth figuring out how to change that right now.

This is where I started to give my opinion about the importance for the Jews to keep Shabbos and Kosher … and didn’t get too far. Later I invited her for Shabbos and said we’d even serve her kosher food and everything.

I know it may sound like I’m negative on this doctor, though I’m not. It was a humorous, friendly conversation … until I said what I and the … errr … neighbor … since I’m changing facts here … wanted to do medically. The female doctor says, “No, she needs to make that choice for herself.” Ugh.

The “neighbor” and I spoke about it earlier and already decided because that’s what … err … neighbors do for each other. It’s called martial … I mean, neighborly communication.

Efficiency

Sitting on the floor in the hospital on Tish B’av when I only brought leather shoes

The American medical system stinks. Period. Period. Period. I have a rant about that elsewhere.

“The results of that test are in my medical file” … from the doctor seen just before the kinnos ambulance ride, said no one in America, ever.

In America they say … “I’ll have the secretary call that office’s secretary to get the records sent over to us … wait here 45 minutes after I came to your appointment right on schedule, 45 minutes late.”

Israel: <click> “Oh yeah, here it is.”

Then we ask about how to get a new one of these Matrix / Wrath of Khan control devices (you figure it out). Doesn’t it take months to order?

“No, walk into SuperPharm and ask for one.” (The large pharmacy chain here)

We both learned forward wide-eyed, laughed like G_d just told Sarah she would have a baby (again, not the thing here – see the first line of the blog entry), and the doctor responded with, “eretz haKodesh.”

She then clarified, “I mean, it’s possible that SuperPharm doesn’t have one because they’re all out and you have to go to the next one …”

Eye exams … also, glasses stores do them.

Pharmacy Experience

“we can buy suntan lotion at SuperPharm” … “why would a farm sell suntan lotion?” said relative who hadn’t spent much time in Israel

This gets me every single time, and I’ve been doing it for a year already …

a) It’s time to renew my medication.
b) log in to health provider.
c) press a button to do so. Message goes to doctor.
d) text message: renewal granted.
e) go to any pharmacy – tap card at the register.

Stop there for a sec – that whole process so far took about one minute of my time and 15 seconds of the doctor’s time. More information technology people were involved than anyone else.

Continuing …

f) ask Pharmacist for the refills.
g) go sit down or mossy around the store until your prescription is ready.
h) where are you going? – says the Pharmacist.

I am so conditioned to give a prescription to a pharmacist … or more likely, a worker, and then waiting about 20 minutes for the prescription to be filled that I still, after a year, do that.

Imagine walking up to the cash register at a bookstore, asking the cashier to hand you a book from behind the counter, and then saying … “I’m going to walk around the store. Be back to get the book in 20 minutes, okay?”

That’s how a pharmacist in Israel probably feels when I for my refill.

Also … I’ve gotten refills in multiple pharmacies in multiple cities – tap your health insurance card anywhere and … it just works.

. . . and I feel so much safer here knowing there’s a working healthcare system even though I’ve barely needed it here.

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

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

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon