Aliyah Diary 7: Ready for Guests & Yom Tovim

Part 1: Preparation for departure over here.
Part 2: First Few Days
Part 3: Moving In
Part 4: First Day of School
Part 5: Two Weeks In . . .
Part 6: Getting Comfortable

Shabbos Goy

Going to put this ahead of the cat update, this one time only, because this blog helped me get two Shabbos guests. Apparently, he said to the guests not to say too much so it didn’t end up on the blog. He didn’t say I couldn’t write about him! 🙂

We had a great time with them and we’re very happy to have them back again.

Unfortunately, we left the light in the refrigerator on – being spoiled with our GE refrigerator in America that is so frum it brings in Shabbos early and holds Rabbeinu Tam afterwords. What do you do in America? Walk outside and find a goy on the street. “Would you like kugel?” “Some what?” “I’ll show you. Just look at my refrigerator.” “I don’t want your Jew food!” “It’s kugel!” “I’ll turn off your light bulb, I know what you’re up to. Your neighbor asked me last week.”

Here, we were told by previous guests that it feels like Yom Kippur – all the streets are closed in our neighborhood every single Shabbos. We walk in the middle of the street. You know why? Because we can!

Someone tells me – you need a Shabbos goy? Go to the guard at the entrance and ask him. Is he Druze? “I don’t know … he’s a non-Jew … he’s familiar with this.”

I go. The guy is on his phone. I patiently wait. He gets off his phone and I ask him. He says, “ani lo goy.” I wish him “Shabbat Shalom” and he looks at me quizzically.

Not sure what to make of it except to say that this place is so religious that even our Shabbos goy is Jewish.

Cat Update

The latest – Sad-face has now become a regular at our house, joined by One-eyed Willy. You guess which is which:

Salem started coming around too. He’s not yet a regular. He has automatic ‘stealth’ mode at night. I don’t have a picture of him yet.

Black Socks and Sandals Update

Speaking of black – I was sitting my front porch and it was time for Minchah (afternoon prayers) and I could go inside and find my shoes, or I could just walk down half a block and join everyone else for the outdoor minyan (prayer group) . . .

Israelis often walk around in sandals, no socks … even in shul … which isn’t proper according to Jewish law. (In the bais haMikdash (Temple) both hands and feet were washed before praying … and we cover our feet today.) I am showing them that covering your feet while praying is important.

My socks are dusty because the painter has been sanding the walls and dust is all over the floors.

Rain

Someone said “marid haGeshem” too early – it’s not Succos yet. It’s rained twice now and I remember now that stone stairs are slippery when wet –

Driver’s license, mail, and phones

One of my next tasks … getting an Israeli driver’s license. My driver’s license from New Jersey is about to expire so I have to do this soon. New Jersey no longer gives them to you on the spot … they mail them to you and I have mail forwarding. They don’t forward driver’s licenses.

Incidentally, my American phone numbers (two out of six of them, anyway) forward to Google Voice and spam calls are down to about one every two weeks. My mail is down to about one piece every four days … mail forwarding doesn’t include junk mail.

In Israel you need to fill out an online form to get a driver’s license (that worked), get an eye exam (that worked), and make an appointment (that doesn’t work). The website to make an appointment defaults to Eilat to schedule an appointment … no matter what you enter for your location. Yet, you can click on one of a few locations rather than searching, and so I selected Rishon L’Tzion which is fairly close. Still, send you around in circles to make an appointment so I gave up for now.

433.3, even in kilometers, is far.

Diagnosing why SMS codes don’t come is another feat – sometimes websites just don’t send them (especially government websites). Other times, when they do and you don’t have a good phone signal, they never arrive. New procedure: put my phone on the steps outside, come back to the basement, request the code, go to the phone … pray on the way … and then, oh wait, my room has a window. I can just hold the phone to the window and determine that the failure point is the website not sending the code.

Meanwhile, the bank website, after painstakingly entering all the information to make a payment, never has SMS available at all to confirm your identity. Websites that work are optional around here. Apps, however – they work. Bank app on my phone works just fine because no SMS is required (because … <shrug>) and it works. (Whatsapp, on the other hand, works on any device, anywhere, at any time – even through the parental filters, Gentech.)

Also, when logging in on the phone the username and password is saved and just click “login”. No fingerprint or other complications like with American banks. Some things are harder around here, some easier …

As for the harder – I did find a location that gives the eye exam. The government website sent me here:

It’s an apartment building in a Haredi neighborhood. This could be it . . . it is the right address. The people there were very helpful and realized I was looking for “Gid Optic” … I’m thinking the sinews on an animal that we can’t eat. We can eat the optic nerve though, no? Actually, what it says is this, and it is around the corner and has the same street number:

It took maybe 90 seconds to complete the eye exam and about 10 minutes of Google translate to get it done. Then it’s in the computer and they charge you 50 shekels.

Again, I still haven’t been able to do part 3 and make an appointment to get the new license …

Speaking of Google Translate . . .

It’s like Google Classroom – if you don’t have it, you have to write down your homework. With it, Google will tell you anyway. It almost makes it too easy. I’m slowly recognizing things anyway as I see them like “cotevet” is address and “gavul” is border. As in, “border police” (something-something haGavul) and the Jews are returning within our “gavulim”.

I went to visit a new gym because . . . the old one insulting my honor / male ego / “don’t tell me what to do, I’m American and this is a free country!” (wait, is it?) This is what Google translate did for me:

On the left is the original sign – I’m reading it as something like …” do in the gym … something, something … only”. Skim a little … “something is forbidden” … skim some more … “something about 30 minutes” …. and, oh my G_d what is that! A black ninja is kicking out a green guy lifting weights! Who drew this Rorschach test anyway?! What was he thinking? I’ve already had that experience at one gym and the guy wasn’t even a ninja!

Then I use Google Translate … oh whew … it says have a “pleasant activity.” Nothing to worry about.

However, what it does say is “bring a towel” and “sports shoes” … fine. I’ll conform. Americans are annoying … we go around the world and loudly proclaim we are right and do it our superior way. When people speak Spanish, we look down on them for not speaking English in America. When we speak English in not-English speaking country, we still look down on them for not speaking English well.

Turns out carrying a towel is a lot less icky than lying on some gym bench fully of sweat.

Anyway, I haven’t joined this second gym yet because, while much nicer, it’s not any bigger and they double the price if you don’t live in Modiin. It’s like you can just fake an address either like in America – big brother watches you over here and everything is tied to your ID number and government computers. It’s the city gym, pool, water park thing of Modiin and what amazes me is just how clean and nice this place is. There is not a city in New Jersey that could pull this off as a government institution:

I didn’t get a picture of the gym or the pool … the latter because there were women in there dressed as women in pools usually do … the pool was about 10 lanes and much larger than anything found at any L.A. Fitness (a gym in America with pools) – they also have men’s and women’s swimming hours.

Yarmulke for the New Year

A quick pet peeve – almost every six-part yarmulke in America is actually a four-part yarmulke in disguise. They sew an extra stitch across the top. Go ahead, Benyamin – take off your yarmulke and look. Your hand is already reaching up there, anyway.

Not so in Israel where the people are real and the yarmulke’s are real:

Sukkahs

Back in the Chutz, I have a 20′ by 14′ patio with custom pergola top thing and bamboo fencing that I got shipped from Seattle because all of this cost me less than it would to buy a pre-fabricated sukkah of that size. I was going to do the same thing here. Someone sent me to סוכות הדר and on their website you can customize your sukkah size for a lot less. For about the same size it costs about 1/6th to 1/8th the price, including schach.

It took me about an hour and a half to order though because the website is in Hebrew, the descriptions all seem the same, and while the walls are “telescoping” … figuring out if they will “telescope” enough in this or that direction … in meters … when my tape measure only does feet and inches … is time consuming. (Yeah yeah, you can convert … though when they tell you the sukkah length is 3 and it can be shortened by .1, .2, .3 … my head doesn’t work that way and I sure hope “3” means “3 meters”).

My wife taught me a trick – when you can’t copy and paste into Google translate take your phone and use Google Translate when you point to the screen:

Think this was easy? Haha. Another half hour later … one of my credit cards doesn’t work when an address has to be entered … so I tried Google Pay. This card isn’t in it and Google Pay isn’t going to add it. Fine. I’ll try my backup credit card … it’s not working either way, either. Then I try PayPal … it wants to verify my identity using my parents’ phone number where I haven’t lived in 20+ years. Then I try another PayPal account … that won’t send an SMS code, because even SMS’s to American phone numbers are sketchy here. They have a ‘verify by email’ option and, finally, I make the payment for the sukkah … all while re-entering data in Hebrew repeatedly using the “hunt and peck” method which is as degrading as getting kicked out of the gym when you type 110 WPM.

Home ownership

The shades in the bedrooms are amazing. When you put them all the way down, the room is so dark that you could develop color photographs in there. I sleep like a baby … not the kind that wakes up and cries every hour … that kind that stays asleep all night.

Then there’s the broken stuff … dryer came with a big stain on it. Guy who installed the gas line said the dryer is broken. Guy who installed the dryer said the gas line isn’t working. Gas on the stove is how you test that your gas is working. Turns out a part is broken … the thing that starts the fire in the dryer. That part doesn’t just appear the next day or day after … no … it takes a week, weeks, month … depends how much you bother people about it, I think.

Now the toilets:

To the left is a standard Israeli toilet. All of the plumbing is in the wall. I guess that looks nicer until you have to service it and instead of the American toilet open-heart-surgery type of thing, with an Israeli toilet it’s Laparoscopic surgery.

In the middle picture is a water shutoff, behind a Where’s Waldo tile somewhere else in the bathroom. I’m guessing all of them are water and not gas … anyway, I figured out how to shut off the water without affecting the non-working dryer.

Opening the toilet was a self-taught operation. You pull of the panel, twist some plastic screws, pull off another panel, and then another thing … and there are two levers. One does a slower flush and the other a faster flush. This system is better than in America because, simply put, “floaters” are no match for an Israeli toilet.

US toilet: wait for the tank to fill up … hit the lever … shoot, didn’t wait long enough … do it again … ugh, I have to go … hopefully the next person won’t … ugh, no, … I better wait … checking Whatsapp … should have washed my hands first …

Israeli toilet: WHOOOSH … that thing sucked down everything except the pee around the toilet seat! (Hey, at least I put the toilet seat down.)

Amazon Woes

Now there’s something you don’t see in America ^. Also, walking down the street on Friday, one can hear Shabbos songs even in not-so-religious places. It’s really nice.

Amazon says free shipping to Israel when you buy over $49 of qualifying products. You can’t actually limit the search results to those products only, and while it seems to work if you’re buying a single product, I can find no combination where multiple items can be ordered with free shipping.

Amazon says it is free … then when you go to checkout it’s $51 in shipping for $63 of items.

I Googled it and a lot of people say they have this problem. The sad part is that I bought one of those products anyway, because it’s still cheaper than getting it here and I got exactly what I wanted and it was $15 off anyway, right?

Working my American Job in Israel

First, if you get emails from someone at exactly 8am it’s because Gmail defaults to that time when you “schedule send”. There was a time when, as a teacher, I wrote a parent something at night and he responded about a personal matter to my personal email at exactly 8am the next day. Sure you did.

Next, when the phone rings on Friday night when it’s the work day in America … that’s difficult.

Next, I was on a video call with noise-canceling earbuds. Oh no? Is that a siren? I have to go to the safe room! Wait, my office is the safe room. Nice! During WWIII I can still have video calls with clients! Wait … my kids will be in here too. Ugh.

I remove an earbud and realize that no, that’s not a siren. Someone is vacuuming upstairs. About five minutes later … I not so sure. remove my earbud. Still the vacuum. At least, I’m in the safe room.

I leave you with a shyla: If I only keep one day of Yom Tov in Israel, can I do business in America with non-Jews on the second day?

Go on to part 8: Visiting Jerusalem – Kotel and Unexpected Concert