Aliyah Diary 118: Frustrations

Contents9

1. Supermarket Venting
2. Emergency Service Venting
3. Cutting off a really, really angry guy
4. Venting your Pee Pee on the Side of the Road
5. Is it Safe?
6. Death of Fruit Trees; Long Live the Cactus
7. Whiskey Sour
8. Getting Into School
9. Conclusion

Supermarket Venting

When does one truly feel “Israeli”? I have wondered this since moving here. I have Israeli citizenship though I’m an American. I’m just not like those Israelis born here.

Today, I am officially Israeli – not because of frustrations … everyone has those in every place. I am Israeli because of how it played out.

Costco in the U.S. … checkout –> efficient. Anything that shaves off two seconds per customer, they do, and they handle up to about a thousand checkouts an hour. Ever wait on the ‘returns’ like at Costco? You’re half outdoors, half in a rectangle shaped hole in a concrete wall, heat lamp above part of the line so you’re hot and cold at the same time, and it moves as slow as they can make it. Psychology: easy to buy too much stuff, uncomfortable to return anything.

Checkout lines are stupid slow in Israel. Like – Costco return line, stupid slow.

Big supermarket in Israel – two checkout lines open. I’m second in line, load my stuff on the conveyor belt that has no separator ensuring that the cashier will mix up whose stuff is whose no matter how much space you leave between your stuff and the person in front of you, and its 10 to 15 minutes until its your turn.

Then the lady in front of me asks the cashier to push her cart !? I see them at customer service arguing and arguing … another 10 minutes, or so it felt. This lady, by the way, was wearing a tank-top, toting along a ~7 year old with an earring, and kissed the mezuzah on the way in.

I’m weighing whether to go over there and make a stink or stay here and fumpf in place.

Ugh, this stinks so I’m going over there.

Apparently, it was an argument over how much a product cost and somehow the cashier needed to be at customer service the entire time. Why didn’t he call over a manager? I don’t know. After forever-feeling-minutes, all in Hebrew – I demanded he come back … there’s a line of people waiting to checkout and my stuff is all on the conveyor belt.

Eventually, in one of my pauses at the checkout line thinking for sure he’ll come now … even the manager screams at him and he still doesn’t budge. I go to talk to the manager who seems to be in agreement with me. She puts her hands around her head and rocks back and forth saying it’s all too much for her.

I go back the my cart, defeated again. The cashier comes back … then leaves again to talk to the mezuzah-kissing tank-top lady with ~7 year old with earring in one ear.

I fully vented my frustrations in Hebrew and pushed and pushed until I got what I came there for. That’s how you do it in Israel. Now I feel Israeli, a bit more than two years since I made aliyah. I’m also not sure I accomplished anything.

Emergency Service Venting

We needed an ambulance in the middle of the night for a guest. It doesn’t matter for what and I preface by saying that this is one story, not representative of everyone’s experience though I feel it is a warning to be shared.

What’s the number for 911? What’s the real number? 912? In Israel there are a few emergency numbers … Hatzolah: 1221. Magen David Adom: 101. I don’t know this. I should know this. That’s what Google is for. Okay, I dispatched for Hatzolah in America and their ambulances always come faster than the regular government’s. Makes sense.

I am incredulous at the response. Remember, I’ve dispatched so I can confirm one basic tenet: get the street address first so you can get first responders there as quickly as possible in case the caller gets hysterical, hangs up, dies, whatever.

I asked the dispatched if she spoke English – an emergency is not the time to practice a foreign language. Nope, it is.

… “one moment” she says.

No! No! I can tell you my address in Hebrew!

She’s gone anyway. Some guy comes on the phone and wants to know if I can speak in Yiddush?!? Two percent of Israel speaks Yiddush. His English seems to be about as good as his Hebrew and I tell him again and again … this is my address, I need an ambulance. “Vat do you vant? How been ich help you?”

Repeatedly, “I need an ambulance, this is my address….” in English and Hebrew … “this is the reason for my demand …” and after a few rounds, “If you can’t help me, please tell me and I’ll dial a different service instead.” Finally, I hung on him and called 101. An ambulance came quickly.

I wrote an incredulous letter to this organization when everything cooled off around here. Surprisingly, it was forwarded to a higher-up who then called me to talk about it and was very professional. It was probably a one-off thing … people aren’t perfect though dang, that can be life or death. I’m calling 101 next time.

Cutting off a really, really angry guy

My wife called me as I was getting into my car and I said, “okay, hold on, just getting in…” … “no, it can’t wait.” Well, I could ask her if she speaks Yiddush before we take this further, or I could worry how much damage there is to her car. Okay self, remain calm. It’s fine. Be a supportive husband, be there for her. That’s most important. It’s only money.

What actually happened: she was in the wrong lane and asked to get in front of another car so she could turn right. The other driver didn’t want her to … yeah, whatever. In Israel we’re all brothers and sisters and if you don’t let someone in, that’s rude. Everyone has the right to pull in front of everyone else in traffic. It’s a double-edged sword because you can also do it to everyone else and that’s the culture – save one car length at a traffic light by switching lanes? It will be done. I like this about Israeli driving (I don’t like how changing lanes on a highway requires only 0.7 car lengths between you and the car in front of you for a car to change into your lane).

After parking, out of the car she goes to go shopping. The guy followed her, gets out of his car, and starts yelling at her in the parking lot. He’s yelling and yelling and she’s apologizing and trying to console him and then he’s pushing her!

Another man sees this physical abuse, gets out of his car, and asks my wife, “is this man bother you?” Yes! … she says.

The abusive man says, “You don’t understand; she cut me off in traffic!”

The helpful man goes silent, nods in understanding, and drives off. I am not making that up!

Out of the store, the abusive man is still there, now claiming he called the police and my wife can’t leave. She leaves. She calls me. Whew – the car is fine. (Wife shaken up.)¹

Venting your Pee Pee on the Side of the Road

“Pee pee” is an adult phrase around here. You can actually say, in adult conversation, “I need to go pee pee”. Even more fun, I’ve seen people pee on the side of the road and they don’t walk away from the edge of the road into the trees or bushes (maybe because there are none) and don’t particularly hide what they’re doing. Well, the Shulchan Aruch (code of Jewish law) says that if you gotta go, you gotta go (paraphrasing).

Is it Safe?

A friend of mine came to visit with some of his boys. Two of them were students of mine in history class – I was their tour guide which was all fun except for making the transition from my girl family (“Daddy, you have to say sorry” and “you didn’t say it the right way” and “are you sure you mean it?” with variations of “you’re hurting my feelings you poopie-meany-head”) to a boy family (“can we fist bump again yet? It’s been 10 seconds” and “here’s an insensitive joke” and “he touched me first!”)

I live ‘over the green line‘ … not for an ideological reason unless you consider “saving money and getting a bigger house” an ideology. I’m on the inside of the security wall and it’s Israel proper according to everything but a map. No less than twice (and no more than) did my friend who was staying with me, before arriving, ask me if I’m worried about the Arabs. No, on the other side of the security fence we call them “terrorists”. On this side, we call them “doctor”. I’m on the “doctor” side of the fence. My community itself has another set of fences, cameras, and full-time security.

The ironic part about this question is that this friend had his minivan stolen from in front of his own house in New Jersey, in daylight. I feel so much safer here.

A few days into the trip he drove to Kever Rochol (where Rachel is buried – well, according to Montiforre), in Beit lechem (Bethlehem) to the astonishment of many of us. Not considered safe and he says … no big deal. Then I took him through the Shomron (northern West Bank) to get somewhere and he commented, “Hey, it’s mostly empty here; there’s plenty of open land for people.” He wasn’t so calm driving through – my bad. Took me a lot of hesitation to start driving there and now it’s normalized for me. It’s so not a big deal – just don’t drive into an Arab town on the “terrorist” side of the fence.

Death of Fruit Trees; Long Live the Cactus

I spent over a year, alost every day, watering my potted trees. Never did I get an avocado though I did get a red pepper somehow. The cumquat tree actually gave me about a month of cumquats, numbering in the hundreds … and then both trees died. Working theory: cat poop. So frustrating after spending so much time taking care of these trees.

Yeah, I’d like to plant things though I’m not going through another watering every day to have a tree die on my again. So … I planted cactus. Being from a place where temperatures go below freezing, cacti aren’t exactly in my knowledge base (though neither are avocado and cumquat). Cacti are hardy – I’m waiting for AI to catch up and be able to plant cacti, or for the weather to cool off enough during the day (I work at night) … whichever comes first. Finally, after the cacti fell over, I put them in the big pots and began to water them. Look how fast they grow day to day … and how the one that flopped over righted itself so quickly. These things are amazing creatures and far different than expected. They’re also great fractals.

Now I water them every day and this time it’s fulfilling because you can see the change from day to day … which is the opposite of what expected regarding trees and cacti. The pots are covered with tiles around the cacti to stop the cats from pooping on them.

Whiskey Sour

I like whiskey sours and the genus which it lives in. Went to a wedding with a full bar (weddings in August, outside, are a thing here – outside chuppahs are nice though for everything else there’s air conditioning). The bar tender said he couldn’t make that and he’d give me something more Israeli … whiskey, martini, seltzer, and … maybe lemonade? I want a whiskey sour.

The drink of choice in Israel is wine. The selection of kosher wines compared to the U.S. is vastly larger and superior. Israel has many local wines.

Getting Into School

Before we made aliyah, we checked out about eight schools and chose a high school for our girls. They welcomed us with open arms, took our data, and asked us how we wanted to pay the $1000 tuition bill. Haha … “we’re living large – we’ll pay it one shot! We’re kings over here!” compared to the $25k tuition bill for Jewish highschools in New Jersey, not including transportation.

One of our daughters now aged into this grade and we (well, my wife) applied to this same school in January for a school year that begins in September.

On August 20th they sent a notice of rejection. Not the school – the city. The city, we gather, does not want to accept students who do not live in that city. We leave in a small residential town outside of the city, by a few miles – seems we ‘snuck in’ by being new olim before – and the school welcomes us though says it’s not their choice.

On August 24th or so my wife went to the city with my daughter and was there all forkin’ day. She faced the wrath of one level to the next level to the next level of city bureaucrat, taking all sorts of abuses … and the best is that she didn’t receive the notice of rejection! It never arrived in her email and we only know about it because one of the bureaucrats claims it was sent.

Upon reaching the top person, my daughter has a school to go to.

Conclusion

Aliyah isn’t all roses and anyone telling you anything is all positive has something to sell you. Aliyah is for some people, not for everyone. It’s great for us and we’re very happy – you’ll have difficulties and struggles with institutions wherever you are though you will have to learn to navigate new systems here and you really do need to speak the language to do that.

1. I had a similar story once when I moved my office into a new office complex. There were no signs at reserved parking spots. A guy left a note on my car twice, for two different unmarked parking spots, the second note saying, “we’re reviewing the security footage to send to the police to find out who you are” or something like that. That, of course, is ridiculous, for a few reasons. Then I looked at the note on his car and saw why he was such a jerk. The note on his car said “BMW”. ↩︎