Aliyah Diary 36: Road Rules in Israel

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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
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
36. Feb 25, 2025: Road Rules of Israel

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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Got My First … Second, and Third Parking Tickets

Okay, first one was not fair. I spent 10 minutes installing and using the app to pay and selected the wrong neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Second one … after five months of free parking in Modiin, they decided to start ticketing people. One hundred shekel fine for five months of parking, three days a week – pretty good deal. Now I park further away on residential streets where I don’t have to pay for parking.

Third one … in Mizpe Ramon. I parked at the museum and they had blue/white striped parking spots. They couldn’t possibly be ticketing in February on a weekday morning when there are plenty of spots … ha. Wrong.

It’s for this reason that I sought out a new gym … I’m not paying for gym membership and then parking on top of that. That’s against my religion. Found a new gym nearby that costs less, is newer, and includes three hours of free parking at the mall. Now, I prefer the street with specialty stores lining each side / dislike malls, though free is free.

Israel made it too easy to charge for parking

In the United States if a store wants to stop accepting cash they get yelled at for hurting poor people who don’t have bank accounts. It’s expensive to cement a parking meter into the ground, run electricity to it, and maintain it along with the credit card machines in them these days.

Israel solved this problem by simply painting the curbs blue/white … anywhere they feel like it. Private parking lots, streets, middle of nowhere … there are blue/white curbs along the side of the road about a 1/2 mile from civilization in any direction. Yet, closer to civilization the curb is grey meaning you can park without paying.

You have to use an app on your phone to pay … and so far, I’ve resisted. My resistance is waning.

I feel bad for not letting you cut me off

On highways people regularly “cut you off”. It’s just not possible to stay close enough to the car in front of you to prevent a little clown car from fitting in front of you, as are many of the cars here. Oddly enough, you don’t have to break when they cut you off. Not sure how that works … it just does.

Though one time a guy was really way too close practically side swiping me and so I honked and didn’t let him in. What’s the proper hand gesture for that? It’s the digitus medium manus. What does this guy do? He opens his window and waives me forward in slow long movements of his arm, as if to say, “Okay, you need to be first buddy – go, go ahead …”. Then I felt a bit selfish.

Clown cars

I purchased my car from a car seller in Israel before I made aliyah so it was waiting for me the day I arrived. He had offered me a Toyota Yaris or something like that and I joked how I wanted a car that could make it up hills. In America, I drove a 2012 Kia Optima that I sold after 12 years when I made aliyah. After about six years, it’s like a free car compared to leasing. The car was basic. It was fine. I was not showing off to anyone and didn’t need to.

It was also one of the smallest cars on the road, where in the U.S. everyone’s driving minivans and SUVs these days.

The Kia Optima length is 15 ft 11 inches. My car in Israel is about the same – However, here, I feel like a show-off. I really wasn’t trying to do that! It’s not a big car, yet, for Israel … it is. There are a few people with smaller-sized SUVs though not many. It’s a very rare day to see a minivan and most of the cars are smaller than mine … 13 feet is common as are cheap Chinese imports.

Price of Cars

Cars in Israel cost about 85% more than in the United States though when comparing to the price of the clown cars around here, Israelis seem to be spending about the same. A $35k car gets you much more in America, though so be it … also, comparing gas mileage and price of gas, if your car gets about 75% better gas mileage than what you’d be driving in the United States and gas prices are about 75% higher … the math comes out about the same. Hybrids are more popular in Israel, too.

Benefits of a Smaller Car in Israel

Americans love our personal space. It’s an annoyance when someone parks improperly in a parking lot making you have to pull out slowly and around their car. That’s literally the norm in many Israeli parking lots … even when people park where they’re supposed to. At a rest stop on the highway the lane was wide enough for one car to drive through, one way, and the parking spots were angled in on both sides.

I was driving my wife’s car that day … which is only slightly shorter than my car, though it’s turning radius is so much better. It’s lower to the ground and has a wheel base about 8% less. This made such a huge difference getting in and out of the narrow Israeli parking lots. A smaller car was almost more comfortable to drive in Israel (almost).

Even knowing what I know now, I probably would have bought the same cars though it’d definitely be a consideration in 20 years when I replace my car. (I’m not joking … if the car makes it. My oldest car was 18 years old … a 1980s Chevrolet Caprice classic … and it was a mistake to take a “hand-me-up” from a relative.)

Police on the Roads

Rarely.

Every once in a while, Waze says there’s a police car up ahead. I see them driving, sure … on the side of the road with a radar gun? Never seen one.

Once, and only once, have I seen the police pull someone over … and he was on a motorcycle with blue/red lights, pulled up to the right side of the car in front of me, and motioned for him to pull over. Israelis seem to be expressive with their hands.

No idea why he pulled the guy over … I was following him and going the same speed. Maybe they pull over the guy in the front of line here.

Blowing Me Kisses on the Road

First, to preamble this: cars 99% of the time stop for you at a crosswalk. People are extremely polite to pedestrians, and pedestrians to cars.

Once I let a teenager jaywalk in front of my car … he started to go … I could have continued driving … given the road politeness around here, I stopped and let him walk in front of me. He blew me kisses as he walked down the sidewalk. Strange hand gestures they have around here.

Flashing Your High Beams

The international signal for “please move over so I can pass you” is to flash your brights on the highway. In America this … sometimes works. In Israel, it’s respected. 80%+ of the time people move over for you! I feel so guilty that I do it for others. People generally drive a lot faster around here on roads … rarer to sit behind a slow poke for long.

Hillul Hashem Driver

A man short enough to wear his tefillin in his Israeli-sized car turned the corner where I was walking without stopping (him, not me – I had to stop). I gesticulated to him … he stopped the car, opened his window, and I said in probably bad Hebrew … “ish holech b’derech v’ata homshich?” He responded in English, “sorry.” I said okay, thanks, and felt better. What kind of country is this? You’re sorry? That’s a level – for admission of fault to be stronger than male ego.

Mental Map of the Land

Youth is wasted on the young. If the 40+ crowd ever wants to stop the young from taking over the world, we need only disable the GPS satellites … assuming we understand how to work them better than them.

When we came on our first pilot trip and looked at schools, I had no idea where I was … somewhere out in some weird unrecognizable place. About two weeks ago, when parking in a residential area to avoid paying for parking, I left through a different street and there was a school we saw … only a few blocks from where I am many times a week. Mental map of the land growing … it’s a metaphor or something for how what was foreign is becoming more local. Though I’m still not what one would call “settled” … just less of being a deer in high beams.

Parking Garages

They’re clean. Depends on the city / age. Most parking garages have painted floors (wheels squeak when you turn), are super clean, and many have lights telling you which spots are open, and which aren’t.

In the American Dream, for example, the parking garages sat empty for twenty years and the beams have all sorts of growth on them which … seems normal over there.

Lamed’s on the Cars

So I hear, you have to take 21 driving lessons, with a licensed instructor, before you can get a driver’s license. (Or, have a license in another country for five years.) As such, there are these lamed’s on the cars (for learning … lomad) far too often with some kid driving slowly in front of you.

The car to the left has a bumper sticker that says, “patience – this was also once you”.

… and I can read and understand it! When I arrived, I couldn’t have done that. Practice.

Saying Goodbye

“Goodbye” … which is short for, “G-d be with you” (really) is not shortened in Israel. People say about four different things before you can walk away, hang up the phone, etc. – l’hitraot, shalom, bye-bye, b’simCHA, b’chatzlaCHA … then repeat.

G-d be with you.