When I was a thoughtless teenager, I remember making fun of the car loads of immigrants off on day trips. The families were larger than the number of available seats in their cars but that did not stop them from cramming everyone in and hitting the open road (this was Canada after all). I never said anything out loud but man oh man, was I an effective eye roller.
Well, the chickens have come home to roost and I recently found myself in a similar situation. Granted, we had several cars, but it was Hol Ha'moed Sukkot and since the kids were off school, etc... we headed out with approximately 40 of our immigrant friends on a mini vacation to Ashkelon.
Most of us do not have family in Israel with whom to spend our holidays so over time we have become a family unit of our own. Frankly, I would probably choose to vacation with these people even if we had family nearby -- these people are way more fun and I like them all!
This year, we decided to go south as a show of support for the merchants who had experienced such a difficult summer thanks to the constant missile attacks from Hamas. Plus, the beaches near Ashkelon are excellent, so it was an easy decision.
We stayed in little guest houses (with 5-star hotel prices) at a kosher kibbutz called Ein Tzurim, half way between Ashkelon and Ashdod. We've been there before because they have the largest sukkah we have ever seen and since eating in the sukkah is a big part of the holiday, the World's Largest Sukkah seemed like a good starting place.
The problem was that the WLS was only open for breakfast and that left another one to two meals a day that required comparable sukkah space.
Imagine the mixed reactions of the hostess of a lovely restaurant who was both thrilled and downright distressed when we called to make dinner reservations for 29 in the sukkah our first night in the area. After some intense negotiations she arranged for 18 seats in the sukkah for the men (who have an obligation to eat there) and a few of the women.
We arrived all at once with everyone loudly speaking English, which is comparable to arriving naked in terms of receiving the unwanted attention from other diners.
Once we were all seated (yes, an organizational event in itself), then came time for the ordering-by-family group. No one wants to figure out the bill for 29 people on a full stomach. Trust me, we tried that one year and I personally ended up with a bill for close to 500 shekels for two shwarma.
The second night we were 48 people so we decided to approach the dinner arrangements differently.
First we had to agree on a place to eat. You know the saying "two Jews, three opinions"? Well, multiply that by 12 and I can't even begin to count the number of opinions that resulted. First we had to decide where to eat -- Sderot, Netivot, Ashkelon or Ashdod. Everyone was standing in a loose circle in a corner of the kibbutz, Googling restaurants on their phones and calling to inquire about sukkah availability. Things I now know: never assume that a kosher restaurant has a) a sukkah or b) room for 48 people.
Next, everyone was trying to sell their restaurant recommendation to the group. Who wants a dairy meal? Who wants meat? Who wants a light meal? Who was really hungry? Who was prepared to drive for 40 minutes? Who was prepared to drive 30 minutes? Who was not?
In the end, yes, you probably guessed it, we ended up at the same restaurant as the previous night. The problem was that despite management's insistence that if we were returning we needed to contact them by noon, it was now 7:00 pm and we were driving there without any such warning. I would like to say that they were happy to see us, but they were not.
I would also like to say that I was happy to be there -- but I was not. I don't like meat and the last thing I wanted was two meat dinners in a row. I struck out on my own in search of anything but meat. It was a great plan but it totally failed in the first attempted execution. I resigned myself to returning to the original restaurant.
No sooner had we rearranged all the indoor tables to suit the needs of the women (all the men were squashed into the sukkah) in our group, then my friend Debbie came running in waving a menu from another restaurant. It was dairy. It was nearby. We promptly and noisily departed (for light dairy food). You can imagine how happy the original restaurant was at this point.
Now we were just the women. The new restaurant would not agree to our family billing plan from the previous night. Immigrants or not, we argued with them like real Israelis until we simply exhausted them into submission.
Then there were all the little girls amongst us who could not decided what to eat -- even after they had ordered. Let's just say that there were several order revisions before the waitress finally got our orders to the kitchen, and one revision after that! Order envy is a strong motivator with the under-10 set.
Somehow we all finally ate, paid, tipped and got out of there alive. No small feat.
I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that Ashkelon was glad to see the end of us. And it goes to show that no matter where you are, immigrants receive eye rolls from the locals. They may arrive in more cars and they may have more money to pay for their meals, but at the end of the day, they do things differently and well out of the comfort zone of the locals.
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