Aliyah Diary 34: Finding Obscure Products in Israel

All Aliyah Blog Entries

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
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
15. Nov 10, 2024: Safety Fourth
18. Nov 24, 2024: Language – l’at, ‘lat
29. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Still in America
31. Feb 3, 2025: Internet Filtering for Kids
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things

The Roads
24. Jan 5, 2025: Supermarkets & Highways
25. Jan 12, 2025: Not Cutting Me Off

Government and Bureaucracy
10. Oct 8, 2024: Driver’s License
11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
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

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

Travel and Trips
08. Sept 25, 2024: Jerusalem Concert
14. Nov 2, 2024: The Kindness of Strangers
20. Dec 5, 2024: Tel Aviv Art Museum
23. Dec 29, 2024: The West Bank. (Shomron)
26. Jan 18, 2025: Dead Sea Beer and Ice Cream
28. Jan 26, 2025: Yarkon River Judaism, Tel Aviv
30. Jan 31, 2025: My Son Visits and we Travel
35. Feb 20, 2025: Mitzpe Ramon Stars, Ein Avdat

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Hairdryer For My Earbuds

To my wife, “Where can I find a hair dryer?”

She responds with some joke about how I don’t have enough hair for that. (While my brother insists that hair genetics go after your mother’s father, that only worked for him.)

I explain to my wife – I need it them my earbuds. She pretended I sounded a little crazy though such a request isn’t exactly new. It’s nowhere near the time I shipped stuff to an Amazon locker in Key West, didn’t tell her I wasn’t driving to the hotel, ran out of the car and came back with a fluffy bunny (in case my kids get hurt), unhealthy snacks (in case she didn’t let us buy), a knife (to cut the fruit), and a Key West deck of cards. I correctly surmised that I wouldn’t find a Key West deck of cards in Key West, so I had them shipped from Amazon.

Then during my daily Hebrew lesson via Zoom with my teacher when I tell her about my day, I said “הייתי צריך מייבש שיער לאוזניות שלי” … I needed a hairdryer for my earbuds. I said this in four different ways until she finally said, “What do you want to say? Say it in English.” That didn’t help much either.

You see, it’s how you loosen the glue to open them up and change the battery. I’m not paying $200 for a new set of earbuds over a little glue.

Finding Obscure Products

That wonderful intro brings me to an update about trying to find products here. I spend a lot less money – life is slower and more pleasant. Local roads aren’t designed for speed and there are no speed traps. They simply design them with speed humps and many round-abouts saving from stop sign anxiety before going and there are so many smaller “local” specialty stores that you don’t find in America anymore.

It has a downside. Need a new battery for your earbuds? You can’t find such a kit in Israel, complete with plastic and metal guitar pick, tweezers, and a tiny screwdriver for a particular model of Sony earbud. Amazon won’t ship batteries here, so I resorted to convincing my son and daughter-in-law that it was fine to bring them in their luggage.

When I left New Jersey, Amazon became so fast that I could order something from my phone in bed as a fell asleep a trip on it outside my front door, on my out in the early morning. Oddly enough, that can happen here … from the pet store for some reason. They also have an option to get a call to give them your payment information and they’re quite efficient about it.

Things You Can Find Easily in Stores in Israel

Computers, electronics, food and fruit of all types (in season – or imported from South Africa), kosher meat, kosher restaurants, bed lines and sheets, granite, housewares, paving stones, Buddha statues that spew water (if you know where to look), tools (hardware stores are great for that here), high quality furniture, Costco products (Franks hot sauce, huge packages of ziplock bags, etc.), lighting fixtures, any sort of dog or cat need, and a lot more that alludes me right now simply because it’s not something I think about. For everything else – there’s Amazon.

There isn’t the same selection here as Amazon, however, in general, Israelis seem to choose good products. I guess when you’re selective about what you’re bringing in, you choose wisely.

Now for things that I haven’t found in Israel.

U.S. Sized Extra Long Twin Bed Frame

As Israeli mattresses are different sizes than American as we brought all our beds (except the one that didn’t fit on the lift) and mattresses, I brought with me an extra-long twin mattress to Israel an anticipation of the day when my mattress gave out. It’s been on the floor of my office and has become a sort of extra guest bed when a guest with a baby visits – she wants complete quiet and darkness for the baby, and we want the same from the baby … the quiet, not the darkness. My office is the safe room with thick concrete walls and a blast door to keep the Beagle Boys from getting in and baby noise from escaping. Then she puts a baby monitor in our kitchen which defeats the purpose, as far as I’m concerned.

I decided it was time to buy this mattress its own frame and didn’t even bother trying to find it in Israel. It’s easiest to find a bed frame on Amazon and have it shipped here. Taxes on it are 18% though shipping is free. It’s more expensive than if I bought it in America though with Amazon prices, it’s not bad.

Towel Bars and Shower Caddy

We had to gut a bathroom with major plumbing problems. That’s for another article – the quality of plumbing work around here, especially when done by Arabs, is often not up to American standards. In the before-time … in the old country … in the USA I would have gone on Amazon or walked into Target, maybe. Here, we could have ordered from Amazon and waited three weeks … instead we walked into hardware stores to find these things:

• small local hardware store – excellent service … someone always walks up to you to help … didn’t have what we wanted though there was a big display with various products which we would have wanted, had they actually had them.
  
• larger local hardware store – decent service if you go to the cash register and ask … had just about the same thing as the smaller local hardware store.
  
• Bathroom / tile design place where we ordered all the granite from … I’m sure they had … we just didn’t want to spend so much (more) money though it was our last choice.
  
• Even larger hardware store in the huge commercial center – we found large towel bars with nice 3M sticky pads so no need to drill holes. Not an Amazon-like selection though … fine. If we really couldn’t find, Amazon would be a backup choice.

Cat door with chip reader

Our cats have the biggest cat house in Israel. We feed them in there and put them there at night so they’ll be safe from … other cats. Then after they finish eating they do this “lion in a cage” routine where they pace back and forth along the bars while never letting their gaze leave your direction to the point where if you don’t feel like dealing with it, you avoid going near the glass door because if they see you they do this quick head jolt and lock on to your ever motion like a heat seeking missile.

Also, I don’t like changing cat litter. I also don’t like paying for it.

So … chip reading cat door. Wild cats can’t go in, yet my cats (and presumably, neighbor’s cats who have implanted chips) can go in to eat, sleep, and be safe. I read all the reviews and found the one I want to buy … it is available in Israel – I found one website where it was somewhat more expensive. I found another (Desertcart which is apparently a worldwide shipping company?) which said “ships from our warehouse in Amazon” and based on an educated guess, they just order it from Amazon for you and charge even more than if you bought it from a regular store.

It was cheapest to buy on Amazon in the United States and pay 18% import tax. It just came after about three weeks. It uses AA batteries which are the same in Israel though we’re still going through our Costco supply that came with us from America.

Remember when commercials used to say, “call now and your gift will arrive in four to six weeks”?

National Geographic Magazine

I bought a subscription for one of my kids as an early birthday present. After looking at various magazines from various organizations with magazines about animals, this seemed to be the best choice for her age and whatnot. What didn’t occur to me for some reason is that it’s in Hebrew. Did you know National Geographic has editions in different languages? Well, I didn’t.

After subscribing, I tried to write them on the website to ask if they had English … there’s no place to do that. It may be National Geographic and it may be a large multi-national company, though in Israel, you get Israeli culture. The office has funny hours too. I chose from the very limited dropdown “delivery problem” and then put my question there. They did answer and didn’t say, “you chose the wrong department” because … it’s Israel. It’s not so formal here.

The magazine comes to our doorstep. It’s in Hebrew. It’s not in the mail because no one trusts the mail.

Laptop Battery

We have a Chromebook hitting five years old. It’s an excellent machine and there’s no reason to replace it but for the battery barely holding a charge. In America, you go on Amazon and find the replacement battery. (Our current state of battery technology has much room for improvement – it’s such a limiting factor on our electronics.)

I can find it on Amazon … they won’t ship it. I found it on Newegg … they ran out. I thought I found it on Temu … don’t see it there now. I found it on Ebay and some battery website. I ordered from the battery website that says they ship worldwide and did have the subdivisions for Israel … I’m the “mercaz”, the center, like the rest of the country. Then they wrote me – they can’t find my address on Google Maps. So I send them a version of my address which Google Maps likes.

It should be here … I don’t know when.

Previously, I wrote about my experience getting a transformer. Bring those from America – or order on Amazon. They don’t know what you’re talking about here. They’re more than meets the eye.

Propane Conversion Kit

In America we had a gas hookup. In Israel, houses have large propane tanks.

I bought the wrong conversion kit on Amazon. Turns out you can return it just like in America. I took it to a bank of lockers, entered some codes and scanned the packing slip, and put it in. Then it was shipped all the way back to America at no charge and I got a refund.

I may have ordered the right one this time.

Printer Paper

In the United States, we print on “Letter” paper. Until someone gives the idea to Trump to put tariffs on any country that won’t use our standard for paper size, the rest of the world uses “A4” paper which is named for the number of folds compared to a 1-meter squared size piece of paper. I brought my HP LaserJet printer from America … and some extra ink cartridges because they are locked to certain regions … however, I did not account for what would happen when we ran out of America-paper. So we have A4 and I had to fiddle with some settings and move the mechanical bars a bit in the printer to fit A4 by default. For a while, it was telling us to “insert A4 paper” and we’d have to manually tell the printer to continue. One day it decided to stop doing that and it prints like normal now.

I also keep the transformer on all the time for the devices that require 110/120 volts … the video monitor, sound system, and printer. It wastes power, I’m sure. It’s also convenient like a good American expects. Even Bidet’s in America have remote controls, as if you’re going somewhere while using it. You think I’m going to get up and go to the TV to turn it on with the transformer? No thanks.

Also – they have some simpler Bidet’s here … just a piece of metal connected to a valve. That’s a ghetto Bidet. On the plus side, you can use it on Shabbos.

Eggs in the Refrigerator

The eggs I buy here are refrigerated and so they stay that way. You can also buy unrefrigerated eggs. There are also two different expiration dates eggs depending on whether you want to keep them in the refrigerator or out of it. Why would you want to keep them out of the refrigerator and have a shorter expiration date? I am too American to even fathom an answer to that.

Making Rice After Bedtime

This one had me standing in stunned stillness like a video game character being penalized for being hit by something he shouldn’t have been hit by. One of my kids came out of bed after bedtime because she forgot to prepare her lunch for tomorrow. Fine, okay, quickly. Then I walk in the kitchen and she’s making rice in a pot.

Why are you cooking now? You said you were just putting together your lunch – you know … putting things in a bag.

No, no … it’s kind of like the Hobbit … there’s first breakfast, second breakfast, and I’m not sure how else it goes … you have to bring the right kind of food for the right meal. It isn’t like “snack time” and “lunch”. It’s … “various snack times of different food groups each” and the coolest kid in the class brings a piece of chicken on rice for second breakfast and so my daughter needed to cook rice after bedtime so she wouldn’t get made fun of for her American lunch-snack-time-thing.

I am allowed to forget one product in the supermarket

I had this written into the kesubah. Husbands are allowed to forget one product on a shopping list from their wife. Sometimes my wife marks off which product that is creating a paradox that could start a kugelblitz, which isn’t nearly anything like what it sounds like.

When I go food shopping without a list … that’s joy. With a list, that’s … up and down aisles a few times each because the list never syncs with the aisles and I’m bound to have missed something which wasn’t where I thought it was, or … you know.

Try following a list of baking and cleaning products in a supermarket where not only are things written in a different language – they sometimes have different names. Sometimes the packages have English on them and a lot of times those products are more expensive than the products with just Hebrew.

You know what they call baking soda around here? Sodium Bicarbonate … that makes sense. That tells you what it is rather than this “baking soda” / “baking powder” business which are two very different chemicals.

Thankfully I was in the expensive supermarket with good service – better than most any American supermarket – and it was midweek / not busy. I had something akin to a personal shopping assistant helping me figure out where everything on my list was to be found. Sometimes Google Translate helped, sometimes not. Sometimes descriptions in my best Hebrew helped … sometimes … you know, I think I got every dang thing on that list and it’s because it was someone’s wife probably who hated when her husband comes home missing a product.

America is the Sun / Israel is the Moon

The United States is very homogenized. We once sat down at someone’s table who bought their house about the same time as we did, and we had identical chandeliers. We both bought our chandeliers from Costco. Target, Trader Joes, Home Depot, Planet Fitness … it’s all the same throughout the country save for the layout to fit the size of the building.

Remember the last time you went to a neighborhood hardware store in the U.S.? I do. It was about 2005 and even then, unbelievable that they were still in business. That was an eon ago when we still had two Blockbuster video stores.

Israel has variety once you leave the touristy stuff. You have to find it though. It’s not on Google and few people will be able to tell you where anything of specific is, and if they do, their directions probably won’t help you anyway. I’ve found some of the most interesting stuff just by exploring.

While Israel has this reputation of lacking customer service compared to the United States, it’s not true. At least, not for me. Israel just has a lot more variation in service level. The nearest small hardware store to me … I go in there first, before the bigger ones because their service is exceptional and somehow they almost always have what I’m looking for.

Supermarkets … same … in the United States there’s a certain “baseline” of what you expect in a supermarket. There are variations, yes, though variations on the same theme. In Israel, the variations are far greater. There are supermarkets here with buzzing flies and there are supermarkets here far superior in quality and service than the United States.

Gyms … also for another article … I’ve recently started a new gym search and there’s everything from the … “smells like smoke, stained floor, dirty equipment” to “people must live here all day, it’s so nice with the spas, sauna, pools, and fancy equipment.” The United States is a Roman-style country … it is based on the sun calendar, which rises and sets even if you’re the British who are between empires. Israel is based on a lunar-solar calendar which moves around though always comes back.

Newly Discovered Eateries

I was eyeing a new soup store behind the escalator going down from my current gym. I didn’t feel like having the “is this kosher” conversation and possibly walking out making an awkward situation for hall, though I could see the certification from the escalator (or, “moving stairs” as it literally translates from Hebrew) and went in.

I asked him what the best soup to buy … and made a mistake with my Hebrew because I do that a lot and then learn through awkward situations. He said “beet soup”. Best beat soup I ever ate. Never mind that I’ve never had beet soup before – this is still the best. (It logically follows.) Closest I saw in America in a kosher eatery was probably soup from a can left out too long so I got very sick. That is decidedly not an experience you’d have in Israel with … best beet soup ever!

Cheese and fish store – I’ve walked down this particular street many times and somehow missed this store. All they see is cheese and fish (and a few other things related thereto). I had to ask, despite the sign on the door … “All the blue cheese is kosher?” Yes! There were about six kinds of kosher blue cheese in big wheels! Find that in America! Okay, one didn’t have a hechsur I hold by (Triangle-K isn’t considered reliable in America though it’s a around here seemingly more often). The herring in this country … even from a can … it’s just better.

Back to the beginning of the article: the reason it took me so long to replace my earbud batteries … it’s an annoying to do and I didn’t have as much a need. I bought them in America to drown out awful, awful music they play in gyms and volumes too load to be pleasant. In Israel the music is tolerable and normal volumed … except for when there’s some really bad cursing in American music and the Israelis don’t really understand what they’re hearing. Aside from that, just haven’t felt an urgent need to fix my earbuds in Israel after waiting a few weeks for the new batteries. So goes the relaxed life in Israel.