Aliyah Blog 79: Erev Chag (day before a holiday)

Introduction

Said many American Jews: It’s difficult to take off so many workdays for the Jewish holidays. FunTime Junction had no idea what hit them when twice a year they were understaffed for Jew-week, when the Jews piled in. I explained the Jewish calendar to them so perhaps they’d be prepared the following year.

What if you moved to Israel and all the schools in the country were off for the holidays? It has its pluses and minuses. No more going to Disney World in their slow season (well, you could – it’s just you have to leave the country for it). Everything in Israel is full.

Pre Yom Tovim (holidays)

The worst traffic is not during the intermediary days. It’s in the days leading up to the holidays. The days between Yom Kippur and Succos/ot … I still have PTSD. I can’t even think of a comparison in the United States to explain it.

There’s a two-lane traffic light road to get from the city to my yishuv (residential community). On the way is a major commercial center with too many car dealerships and garages, a few restaurants, small stores, a school, two hardware stores, a supermarket, and some office space. They do have a left turn lane. What they don’t have is a 1/2 mile left turn lane and so the road gets blocked up every Friday, when the country has off, and for some reason, people find it worth it to wait 45 minutes just to get in. The rest of the week … nearly empty.

Before Yom Kippur, even worse. The traffic was backed up past the entire road, across another highway, and into the nearby city of Modiin. Again, I can’t even come up with a comparison in the United States.

Going the Other Direction

I needed a few things and sure wasn’t going to brave getting into this secular commercial center (where all the restaurants and the supermarket and fully kosher – it’s like that around here in many places). About a half mile in the other direction, I can go to the very, very haredi city of Kiryat Sefer.

Two days before Succos/ot my new glasses were ready (for another diary entry). I receive the call at 8:40pm … they close at 9:00pm. Okay, not a problem. The haredi city entrance is designed smartly … there a long two-lane entrance and exit road which leads to a large traffic circle with a monument to the 12 shivatim (tribes) of Israel. It works.

Then to the shopping center … oy vey. Now, for this, I have a comparison. It’s like a high school hallway between classes trying to get to the other end of the school for your next class that starts in four minutes. I had about 10 minutes to go after stupidly trying to enter the outer door parking lot with one row of parking spots on each side and a width between to barely fit two cars – no room to turn around. I made it out of there and went to the parking deck where a woman in an SUV blocked the entrance. Small honk and I was in. Small honk at the first corner and she moved again. Then I was on the elevator down with her in a few minutes and hoped she found it more awkward than I did and neither of us spoke.

Then … oy vey.

Some of these people are moving at high speeds (relatively) in all sorts of contradictory directions like molecules being heated up from one side and bouncing off each other. Some are steady. There is no consistent path between any two points more than 6 feet away from each other. It’s like the anti-social distancing plaza – with esrogim being sold somewhere in the distance.

I make it the glasses store in time – there’s a woman with a baby carriage blocking the door. She’s not protesting anything … she just … needs a place to stand and there are no places. I open the door enough to get in, despite gaining weight in Israel, and pleasantly receive my new glasses.

Then I go back the next day

It is possible to recover from the trauma of the experience … unless you compound it by going back the next day before full recovery. Why oh why …

We needed “chad pami” – single use items for our sukkah … forks, knives, plates, and not spoons (I bought spoons – oops). The “chad pami” store, of which there are many in Israel, was nice and pleasant. The people in stores are pleasant, religious or not, Jewish or Arab.

Then …

Oh then.

I receive a text from my wife with groceries to buy. Well, I’m here so let’s brave the supermarket – they just gutted it and redid it and I only need a few things.

Pre-rant to my rant about this grocery store: you literally just redid the store. You emptied it to its concrete foundation and walls. You know how busy this area is. You know you’ll be packed. Wouldn’t you prepare for that or am the crazy one because your clientele will only like your store if you make spaces where people can’t fit between the aisles, people in line extend into the aisles, and you train your workers to block 80% of aisles when they restock?

That was just the pre-rant!

Grocery shopping the day before Succos/ot

No shopping carts to be found. I find some vertical grandma cart or something. I walk in … so far so good. I make it around the first crate where vegetables are being unloaded – good for them. They’re keeping the place well stocked. I weave back and forth through the supermarket because I don’t know where anything is … in a front corner, one person with a shopping cart can kind of fit through and that’s before the guy sitting there with his pallet restocking eggplant. Near the yogurt, a lady is sitting on the shelf removing one yogurt at a time from her pallet … not enough room to pass even with my grandma cart. She kind of sort of moves a little when I stand and wait for her so I can pass. Then out came the disdainful glare and my middos (character) is all downhill from there.

I go to pay . . . there’s about three feet between the cash registers and the aisles. I start at the “full service” lines – only two people in front of me in each of the two lines. Then I take a closer look and remember that Israel cash register lines move at a speed of two. Two what? Just two. Two nothings. In front of me in each line are also two – two ginormous women with two shopping carts each. This is not a good idea.

So … self-service checkout. A slightly less ginormous lady is in front of me … are you on line? No, she answers. In retrospect, I might have used the wrong word. So … around through the aisle to get on line, behind the gentleman with a black hat and jacket. Then the slighly less ginormous lady says, “I’m next and this ginormous lady behind me is after me.” Then half a dozen people are negotiating who is next in line and who is after whom. It’s like friggin’ middle school.

Ah nah. Ah nah. No! I’ve had it! “I just walked to around on to strand/string line to be here”. (After reviewing what I said later, I think it sounded about like that.) The line goes here! “Why not just stand in it?”

I’m next! Y’all gotta be nice to me because I’m not dressed Haredi and it reflects badly on the comm … what the … this 16 year old girl just walked in front of everyone to go to the self checkout and none of you care?

The self-checkout was fine … I did the whole thing in Hebrew which is a level, even if I had to choose a slightly different type of orange because the one I had wasn’t there and then I’m on my way out. There’s another line to get out because, why not? People are moseying on out like only a cowboy with black hat and white strings can do … when a man in black hat, black jacket, and white strings hanging out on his phone pushes past me to exit. I should have let this one go. I really should have. Was too frazzled and without giving it any thought, I tapped him on his shoulder and said, “excuse me, there’s a strand/string line here”.

Chol HaMoed

Okay, secular shopping center … too hard to get into.

Haredi shopping center experience … should have gone to the secular shopping center.

Chol HaMoed trips … conversations around me kind of went like this: “Oh, your kids go to RYNJ? Do you know my cousin so and so?” I found New Jersey, found that you need reservations to go to Ein Gedi (which is probably empty today, the day after the holiday), and Israelis avoid the popular places to hike or tour in the country because the Americans have taken them over for a week.

Next week – I have big hiking plans – alone – while everyone is in school, work, or back in America.

Side bonus: sukkahs are plentiful. This restaurant, Al HaAish, has a huge sukkah adding to their approx. 200 indoor seats. It was also packed. This time we came armed with a reservation.