Aliyah Diary #89: Idiosyncrasies number 2

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See Diary entry 55 – Idiosyncrasies #1 from the prior July for more.

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Black Friday

Israelis generally have no idea what the Thanksgiving holiday is about. They have no idea why the day after is called Black Friday, yet Black Friday advertisements are all over stores and the radio. (Presumably on TV as well though I don’t watch TV.)

Black Friday was known as the day when stores went from “in the red” (losing money) to “in the black” – making money for the year during the holiday shopping season … between two holidays that a) don’t exist in Israel and b) is celebrated by about 2% of the population, in that order.

I’ve met Americans who search for turkeys, cranberries, and whatever else is traditional for Thanksgiving. It’s an American holiday (based on Succos). You live in Israel. I don’t understand them – it’s like British people who had to take a break in yeshiva for teatime and eat their crumpets.

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News

Barely a day goes by when they aren’t talking about October 7th or something related. It seems to have bought us all together. It isn’t part of daily conversation around here.

A little bit of snow in Jerusalem and the whole city shuts down. A little ice that stays frozen and the city shuts down until it melts. Iran shoots missiles the size of buildings and people temporarily go to shelters and then are back out 10 minutes later.

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The Outdoors

My neighborhood has a large surrounding security road – on Shabbos we decided to walk on it, around the neighborhood and our journey was interrupted by a donkey on the road who came up to be pet. It’s mukzeh, though it was for my safety to make this thing happy.

In a nearby neighborhood full of farms, an Ibex ran across. We’re less than two miles from a dense city of 100k+ people.

I had no seasonal allergies this year at all – not in the spring, not in the fall. I don’t miss them … depending on the year, they were terrible in America and no need for allergy shots.

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Electricity

Good appliances are mostly from Germany … Grohe is a major brand here.

No need for electric bidets … the water is warm enough even in the winter. Most are under seat with a button or knob to spray the water – mechanical only. Kitten wouldn’t move for the picture.

They’re widening the road to our community … they’ve turned off the power twice. They announce it will be turned off at 11pm and it goes off at 9:50pm. When there are large storms, the power often goes out for about a half hour or so … including in the major city nearby.

The modern Hebrew word for electricity is “Chasmal”. It’s the name of an angel in Tanakh. The word was chosen because the Septuagint translates the word into “electron” in Greek – which is the basis of the modern word, “electricity”. It’s a backwards inverted translation.

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Food

Bagels and lox are hard to find … and are somewhere between “meh” to “very good”. When you order cream cheese, it’s in little containers rather than the larger containers you find in America … it’s like they don’t slop layers of fat on their carbs. Smart.

I found food with the triple bad labels – the trifecta of too much fat, salt, and sugar. It was an American product.

Heavy duty tin foil is not a thing in Israel – even in the store that sells Costco products.

“Fisduk” – pistachio – is a popular flavor around here in a lot of things:

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Community

Being in an American Yeshiva in Israel is not the same as living in Israel … at all.

My community has a large central synagogue when you enter, situated right in the middle of the a residential community and walkable from anywhere herein. The entrance the community is closed to cars on Shabbos. This is how it is supposed to be … in my opinion.

I once tripped over a semi-automatic rifle in synagogue.

What is the point of asking at malls if you have a gun? If I intend to do harm with it, I’m going to tell you? I looked it up: it’s a behavioral thing. The questions are designed to detect stress and deception – the body language is more important than the words in the answer.

Ethnic groups tend to stick to each other socially … my friends are Americans. Russians hangout with Russians. Israels hang out with Israelis. Russians often think Jews are a nation, not a religion.

The hand gesture for hitchhiking here is not a thumb pointed in the direction you are going. Point your first two fingers towards the ground and hold your arm out at a bit of an angle.

AI stinks at generating pictures of two fingers pointing downwards toward the ground. Use your own imagination.

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Products and Shopping

Israel is bringing a lot of workers from Nepal and India (northeastern part), especially in supermarkets. (America tends to have Indians from other regions.) The Nepalese and Indian workers in Israel are a pleasure to work with and speak English as a first language. They really try hard, work hard, are trying to learn Hebrew, and apparently the supermarkets love them, and they are treated very well here. There are Jews, one of them told me, in the northeastern mark of India … it’s a fun topic to read about.

Wow – Israel went from “hardship in clearing rocks to plant anything” to “we can’t find enough Jews who will stock shelves or work at a butcher counter so we’ll bringing in workers from less poorer countries.” Also, these guys are better workers.

Anthropologie now ships to Israel. Shazbot.

Shoes have various international sizes on them … including American sizes.

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Food

Frozen meat is numbered by cut.

Prepared food places are abundant around here – and cheaper and less time consuming than making the food yourself. The choices are extensive. The food is great. This one place – which no one knows is there – well, no one that I know – is packed on Fridays and super-efficient. During the week they have a small counter to order hamburgers and such things and fill the store with tables and chairs instead.

Parties here are often on Friday.

Fruits that in America need to stay out to ripen … need to stay in the refrigerator here so they don’t spoil too fast. Fruit tastes 10x better here (on average … unless it’s corn … don’t come here to buy corn).

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Services

Gas prices change at midnight, Saturday night, before the first of every month. You can look up ahead of time if they’ll go up or down and plan your gas buying accordingly.

The ‘controversial’ advertisement that said some woman I never heard of has good “genes” or “jeans” was here. In this case, I think Israelis probably know the meaning of both words though I’m not sure they understand the pun.

I went to a barber who looked like Zz-top – long beard, very thin, big graphic t-shirt, tattoos, and the best . . . his roughly 3 year old was with him in the store playing with real tools … hammer, nails, saws, workbench. The strange thing is that he brought his kid to work. Kids are a big thing here. You know what I mean.

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I didn’t come here for it to be easy. I came here for it to be real.

It’s not so bad … says the person with the same American business run from a computer 99.99% of the time instead of 97% of the time.

Others come here without a job … it seems if they’re in hi-tech they find jobs, often English speaking, though it takes time and effort to find such a job.

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