I have a lot of friends here. No more than anyone else, but a full plate and then some, nonetheless. Most of us didn't know each other eight years ago, yet I cannot imagine myself without them anymore.
One thing that happens when you move far away from family and your life history is that the new friends you make become your family. In many cases they are better family than blood family.
The same thing happened to me in university and then when I went to work in cities far from where I grew up.
Over time I have collected quite an impressive group of people I feel honoured to call my friends. I have had more crazy experiences with almost every one of them. That was particularly true of the friends I found in university -- both in undergrad and grad school. I could write volumes on our escapades but I won't because I don't want to go to jail or get sent to a penal colony (do they still have those things?).
I really didn't think that life could get any better than my university years with respect to having great people in my life. And that was true for many years. I did make some great friends during my years in Toronto but most of the time we were all busy working and building careers and that didn't leave much time for bonding on a higher level. There were definitely moments -- like the Great Muffin Caper of 1987 and the Are Any Media Going To Show At My Press Conference crisis of 1990 -- but they didn't come as fast and furious as they had previously.
However, that all changed when I moved to Israel. I often sit in synagogue on Friday nights and look across the room at a huge selection of my new friends. I sit in the same section every week and it gives me a great vantage point from which to review my life in people.
When I first arrived, going to synagogue was a dreaded event because I felt so alone. Now, it takes all the focus I can muster just to get home in time for dinner after the Friday night service. My children and husband have totally given up on me. They just leave when they are ready and I guess they assume I will surface in the kitchen sooner or later. They probably figure that at some point I will get hungry enough to come home and feed us all.
The other night a group of my friends and I were all at a jewelry show in another friend's penthouse apartment. As two of us left the show, a few others yelled out to wait for them. As we all entered the elevator, everyone was talking at once. We probably continued this way for about a minute or two before someone noticed that the elevator wasn't moving.
We had been so busy talking en mass that no one had bothered to push the button to the ground floor. When we realized it, everyone burst into laughter. And it was at that moment that I was struck by the realization that I can't believe how lucky I am to live among such good people.
We have schlepped to Haifa via train and bus to see the Bahai Gardens. We have held surprise parties on the beach. We sit down at bar mitzvahs and weddings never worried about who will be at our table because it just doesn't matter. We eat communal holiday meals. Our kids all manage to play together regardless of their age differences. We have celebrated each others birthdays. We have cried together at the funerals of friends who died too soon. We have cooked for people we don't even know. We have raised money for all sorts of causes. And we have done all these things together.
In fact, we have become a family. And in true family fashion, we have dumped our kids on each others' door steps without notice. We haven't worried about babysitters because we know that if worse comes to worse, our kids can always sleep over at the home of someone who wasn't going out for the evening. We have borrowed eggs, flour, sugar, wine, and divvied up a salad when one person didn't have one and another had more than enough for lunch.
One year, we unintentionally all went on Chanuka vacation together. Nothing like getting to the foyer of the Royal Beach Hotel in Eilat in time to light the Chanuka candles just to find that everyone else you know is there doing the same thing.
I know that my last few posts have been rather moribund but I am having a melancholy phase and now you all have to experience it with me. That is the price of readership. But the truth is, in true friend fashion, I know that most of you are reading along and nodding your heads. You remember the same things that I do and you also know how lucky we are to have such good friends.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Bubble girl
(I'm back from my Christmas break. I figured that if more than half of the world can have a 12-days of Christmas break, the fact that I am Jewish and live in Israel shouldn't keep me from celebrating in a secular Christmas sense as well. If my friend Barb can celebrate the parts of Yom Kippur that she likes, there is no reason I can't pick and choose what I like about Christmas.)
And so, I am back with a thought about living in Ra'anana. After we moved here, many Israelis -- and many North American Jewish know-it-alls -- were quick to tell us that living in Ra'anana was not really living in Israel. My hebrew ulpan teacher said that Ra'anana was a bubble. I didn't really know what she meant because for the first few years, I rarely drove outside the Ra'anana-Kfar Saba-Herzlyia area (for those of you who do not know Israeli geography, I didn't wander very far from home). However, I completely trusted my teacher, who was a born and bred Israeli.
We didn't visit Toronto for almost two years after our move. But before we left, one of my friends told me to be prepared for the Jewish types who wanted to dismiss the magnitude of our move. She told me that they would inevitably say things like: "living in Ra'anana is just like living here (Toronto, New York, Chicago, etc..)."
On our first trip back to Toronto (I specifically mention Toronto, rather than Canada, because there aren't enough Jews anywhere else in Canada to create a collective opinion on anything Jewish), no one said anything of the sort. I automatically assumed that my friend, being an ex-New Yorker, had simply assumed that Torontonians were the same as New Yorkers.
However, two years later, on our next trip to Toronto, I was standing in my old grocery store -- the one with the largest kosher section in all of Canada -- talking to some old friends. We were talking about life in Israel. All of a sudden, some woman I didn't know just joined in our conversation. I guess that if you are standing in the kosher section, other kosher section customers assume you are Jewish and by default, they can just join your conversation.
She said: "I overheard you say that you live in Israel." "Yes," I answered. "Where do you live?" she asked. "Ra'anana," I innocently answered. And then there it was.... plain as the nose on my face. She looked at me and said: "I would just love to live in Israel, but Ra'anana isn't really Israel."
I almost keeled over on the spot. I could see my ex-New York friend's cheshire cat smile in my mind's eye.
As my regular readers know, I am not one to let sleeping dogs lie. It's just not my style. So, I turned to her and said: "Oh really. That's funny. The Israeli government seems to think it is. They gave me an Israeli passport." And now I was on a roll, so I continued: "Don't try to find excuses why you don't have the guts to make the move. Ra'anana is in the center of Israel and even though there are a lot of English speakers there, at least I had the guts to go. Don't justify your pathetic excuses for not moving by insulting me."
That will teach her to join strangers' conversations.
Everyone in my little social circle just stood there.
I love uncomfortable silences -- especially when I initiate them.
I said good-bye to my friends and I went back to my shopping.
Well, that opinion has served me very well for several years now. However, the news of the past few weeks has made me wonder if perhaps I do live in a bubble -- albeit, a bubble in Israel. (Don't even try to start that debate with me again.)
After the rape of a teenage boy in an Israeli Juvenile Detention Center a few weeks ago, another friend walked up to me and said: "Well, what crazy North American olim (immigrants) move to places like Carmiel? It's a dangerous place. Everyone knows that."
I didn't.
I just assumed that moving to Israel was pretty much the same everywhere you went. I know that moving to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem is NOT like moving to a smaller place, but it never dawned on me that there are simply some places that North American, Australian, South African or Western European immigrants simply don't move. Unfortunately, Carmiel is one of those places.
After a little more thought I realized that most North Americans (and probably members of the other three westernized groups) move into areas that have reputations for being more Anglicized. And I guess we do it for a reason. We are more than willing to move to Israel and be active contributors to the future of the Jewish people. However, the more streetwise among us understand that we are never going to be truly Israeli. We are just too westernized. I have an Israeli passport and I speak passable hebrew. Many of my Anglo friends speak excellent hebrew. But it's not about those things.
We think like westerners. We can't help it. Our children wear helmets when they ride their bikes. We insist on using seat belts. We take turns at intersections. We do not honk our horns at the drivers in front of us the split second the light turns green. We take our places in lines. We are not afraid of someone getting in front of us. If we get out of line, we understand that we have lost our place in the line. We say please and thank you. We tip service people who help us. We do not interrupt other people's turns with bank tellers because we just need them for a second. We do not nap between 2 and 4 and we definitely don't get angry if children play outside between those hours.
I could keep adding to the list, but you get the point. Most of us are westerners living in Israel.
I will never agree with that dismissive woman in my Toronto grocery store. It is very easy to be an armchair observer. I can come up with hundreds of excuses for any number of things I simply don't want to do. However, I am willing to accept that Ra'anana is a bubble -- an Israeli bubble.
And so, I am back with a thought about living in Ra'anana. After we moved here, many Israelis -- and many North American Jewish know-it-alls -- were quick to tell us that living in Ra'anana was not really living in Israel. My hebrew ulpan teacher said that Ra'anana was a bubble. I didn't really know what she meant because for the first few years, I rarely drove outside the Ra'anana-Kfar Saba-Herzlyia area (for those of you who do not know Israeli geography, I didn't wander very far from home). However, I completely trusted my teacher, who was a born and bred Israeli.
We didn't visit Toronto for almost two years after our move. But before we left, one of my friends told me to be prepared for the Jewish types who wanted to dismiss the magnitude of our move. She told me that they would inevitably say things like: "living in Ra'anana is just like living here (Toronto, New York, Chicago, etc..)."
On our first trip back to Toronto (I specifically mention Toronto, rather than Canada, because there aren't enough Jews anywhere else in Canada to create a collective opinion on anything Jewish), no one said anything of the sort. I automatically assumed that my friend, being an ex-New Yorker, had simply assumed that Torontonians were the same as New Yorkers.
However, two years later, on our next trip to Toronto, I was standing in my old grocery store -- the one with the largest kosher section in all of Canada -- talking to some old friends. We were talking about life in Israel. All of a sudden, some woman I didn't know just joined in our conversation. I guess that if you are standing in the kosher section, other kosher section customers assume you are Jewish and by default, they can just join your conversation.
She said: "I overheard you say that you live in Israel." "Yes," I answered. "Where do you live?" she asked. "Ra'anana," I innocently answered. And then there it was.... plain as the nose on my face. She looked at me and said: "I would just love to live in Israel, but Ra'anana isn't really Israel."
I almost keeled over on the spot. I could see my ex-New York friend's cheshire cat smile in my mind's eye.
As my regular readers know, I am not one to let sleeping dogs lie. It's just not my style. So, I turned to her and said: "Oh really. That's funny. The Israeli government seems to think it is. They gave me an Israeli passport." And now I was on a roll, so I continued: "Don't try to find excuses why you don't have the guts to make the move. Ra'anana is in the center of Israel and even though there are a lot of English speakers there, at least I had the guts to go. Don't justify your pathetic excuses for not moving by insulting me."
That will teach her to join strangers' conversations.
Everyone in my little social circle just stood there.
I love uncomfortable silences -- especially when I initiate them.
I said good-bye to my friends and I went back to my shopping.
Well, that opinion has served me very well for several years now. However, the news of the past few weeks has made me wonder if perhaps I do live in a bubble -- albeit, a bubble in Israel. (Don't even try to start that debate with me again.)
After the rape of a teenage boy in an Israeli Juvenile Detention Center a few weeks ago, another friend walked up to me and said: "Well, what crazy North American olim (immigrants) move to places like Carmiel? It's a dangerous place. Everyone knows that."
I didn't.
I just assumed that moving to Israel was pretty much the same everywhere you went. I know that moving to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem is NOT like moving to a smaller place, but it never dawned on me that there are simply some places that North American, Australian, South African or Western European immigrants simply don't move. Unfortunately, Carmiel is one of those places.
After a little more thought I realized that most North Americans (and probably members of the other three westernized groups) move into areas that have reputations for being more Anglicized. And I guess we do it for a reason. We are more than willing to move to Israel and be active contributors to the future of the Jewish people. However, the more streetwise among us understand that we are never going to be truly Israeli. We are just too westernized. I have an Israeli passport and I speak passable hebrew. Many of my Anglo friends speak excellent hebrew. But it's not about those things.
We think like westerners. We can't help it. Our children wear helmets when they ride their bikes. We insist on using seat belts. We take turns at intersections. We do not honk our horns at the drivers in front of us the split second the light turns green. We take our places in lines. We are not afraid of someone getting in front of us. If we get out of line, we understand that we have lost our place in the line. We say please and thank you. We tip service people who help us. We do not interrupt other people's turns with bank tellers because we just need them for a second. We do not nap between 2 and 4 and we definitely don't get angry if children play outside between those hours.
I could keep adding to the list, but you get the point. Most of us are westerners living in Israel.
I will never agree with that dismissive woman in my Toronto grocery store. It is very easy to be an armchair observer. I can come up with hundreds of excuses for any number of things I simply don't want to do. However, I am willing to accept that Ra'anana is a bubble -- an Israeli bubble.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The more things change, the more they stay the same
A few years ago I would have insisted that this picture was directed at North American Jews but now, after a few years in Israel, I realize that all Jewish parents are the same. The only difference here is the focus of Jewish parents' attention. Instead of it being their children's education and careers, it is their senior army officers. Word has it that every parent who has a child in the army has the number of that child's commanding officer on his or her speed dial.
Normally this photograph would make me laugh, but I also have one of those parents.
Thanks for sending me the photo Karen.
It never feels like Christmas here
After spending 40 years celebrating Christmas -- even if it was only tangentially -- it was surprising how quickly I forgot all about it the first year we lived in Israel. I remember the day very clearly. We were sitting in the kitchen having dinner and I had to check the calendar for some other reason. As I scanned December looking for the date I needed, I noticed that it was Christmas Day.
At that moment I just couldn't believe that Christmas had crept up on me completely unnoticed. Considering that in Canada everyone shifts into Christmas mode right after Halloween, I was amazed that it was dinner time on Christmas Day before I even realized it. And considering I live a hop, skip and a jump from both Bethlehem and Nazareth, it was rather ironic.
So here I am, eight years later, on the verge of my eighth Christmas in the Holy Land, and all I can think about it what is going on in my Holy Land (yes, as I said ... within a 90 minute drive to either of the two key locations in the Christmas story.)
First is the complex matter of Gilad Shalit. For those of you who don't know his name, he is an Israeli tank solider who was ambushed and captured by our good friends Hamas 1278 days ago. Normally Hamas and their likes prefer to leave us squirming in our lack of knowledge as to whether our captured soldiers are still alive or not. Usually, after we have released several hundred of their killers back into the world, they like to send us back our ONE or maybe TWO soldiers in pine boxes. So far, it hasn't happened like that this time, but I am not going into the details of why I think that is.
What I will address is the fact that, once again, on this regular December day, Israel is torn apart by what the best course of action is in the Shalit situation. What is best for all of Israel? Not an easy question to answer.
We have a chance to get Gilad back alive -- which is what every Israeli parent with an army-aged child wants. But the price of his release is so very high -- it requires Israel to free hundreds and hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands. And we know full well that, with very few exceptions, these prisoners were not rehabilitated in Israeli jails and that, once they are back on the streets, they will inevitably kill more Israelis. Needless to say, all of those families who have lost members at the hands of terrorists are against the deal. They are already victims of previous attempts to get some of our soldiers back.
Each side has a legitimate argument and I do not envy the people who will have to make the final decision. Our enemies are not men of integrity. They do not value life. They are scumbags. (This does not include all the innocent people living under their rule.)
However, my second story for the day involves the Israeli scumbags. Yes, we have them too. Unfortunately.
In the midst of the holiday season I hate to discuss upsetting things but today, after reading the newspaper, I feel like I have no choice.
Yesterday's Jerusalem Post reported the most upsetting story I have read in a long time. A Florida family that recently came to live in Israel has just been through one of those ordeals that keep parents up at night worrying.
Their teenage son was arrested for some minor mischief and ended up in Youth Detention. While there he was physically and sexually abused by both the staff and other teenage inmates. When his father came to visit him he had just been through a beating and he begged his father to get him help.
The father tried everything that any normal panic-stricken parent would try to do to protect his or her child. He was ignored by the authorities and dismissed out-of-hand. He hired a lawyer who was so shaken and upset upon meeting the teenager that he could barely discuss it on record.
Together they have worked around the clock trying to get this kid out of juvvie. Needless to say, the family says they are leaving Israel as soon as they possibly can.
At the heart of problem is the fact that the parents are new immigrants and totally out of their element trying to maneuver through the Israeli Justice System. The details of the case appear tenuous although it is difficult to say for sure because the source of all my information is the Post. And heaven help anyone who relies on newspapers for accurate information.
I am an immigrant and although I have not had such a nightmarish experience (thank God) I do understand the helplessness an immigrant feels. A new system (that in some ways is inferior to the system you left behind). A different language. A different mentality. A different culture.
Israel is a wonderful country on many levels, however, at the end of the day, the one thing that North Americans naively expect is that it is a democracy similar to the one they come from. It is not. As I have said before on the odd occasion, Israel is a third-world country dressed up to look a first-world country.
So, as the Christian world enters a special time of their year, it is very easy to see why Christmas doesn't cross my mind anymore.
At that moment I just couldn't believe that Christmas had crept up on me completely unnoticed. Considering that in Canada everyone shifts into Christmas mode right after Halloween, I was amazed that it was dinner time on Christmas Day before I even realized it. And considering I live a hop, skip and a jump from both Bethlehem and Nazareth, it was rather ironic.
So here I am, eight years later, on the verge of my eighth Christmas in the Holy Land, and all I can think about it what is going on in my Holy Land (yes, as I said ... within a 90 minute drive to either of the two key locations in the Christmas story.)
First is the complex matter of Gilad Shalit. For those of you who don't know his name, he is an Israeli tank solider who was ambushed and captured by our good friends Hamas 1278 days ago. Normally Hamas and their likes prefer to leave us squirming in our lack of knowledge as to whether our captured soldiers are still alive or not. Usually, after we have released several hundred of their killers back into the world, they like to send us back our ONE or maybe TWO soldiers in pine boxes. So far, it hasn't happened like that this time, but I am not going into the details of why I think that is.
What I will address is the fact that, once again, on this regular December day, Israel is torn apart by what the best course of action is in the Shalit situation. What is best for all of Israel? Not an easy question to answer.
We have a chance to get Gilad back alive -- which is what every Israeli parent with an army-aged child wants. But the price of his release is so very high -- it requires Israel to free hundreds and hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands. And we know full well that, with very few exceptions, these prisoners were not rehabilitated in Israeli jails and that, once they are back on the streets, they will inevitably kill more Israelis. Needless to say, all of those families who have lost members at the hands of terrorists are against the deal. They are already victims of previous attempts to get some of our soldiers back.
Each side has a legitimate argument and I do not envy the people who will have to make the final decision. Our enemies are not men of integrity. They do not value life. They are scumbags. (This does not include all the innocent people living under their rule.)
However, my second story for the day involves the Israeli scumbags. Yes, we have them too. Unfortunately.
In the midst of the holiday season I hate to discuss upsetting things but today, after reading the newspaper, I feel like I have no choice.
Yesterday's Jerusalem Post reported the most upsetting story I have read in a long time. A Florida family that recently came to live in Israel has just been through one of those ordeals that keep parents up at night worrying.
Their teenage son was arrested for some minor mischief and ended up in Youth Detention. While there he was physically and sexually abused by both the staff and other teenage inmates. When his father came to visit him he had just been through a beating and he begged his father to get him help.
The father tried everything that any normal panic-stricken parent would try to do to protect his or her child. He was ignored by the authorities and dismissed out-of-hand. He hired a lawyer who was so shaken and upset upon meeting the teenager that he could barely discuss it on record.
Together they have worked around the clock trying to get this kid out of juvvie. Needless to say, the family says they are leaving Israel as soon as they possibly can.
At the heart of problem is the fact that the parents are new immigrants and totally out of their element trying to maneuver through the Israeli Justice System. The details of the case appear tenuous although it is difficult to say for sure because the source of all my information is the Post. And heaven help anyone who relies on newspapers for accurate information.
I am an immigrant and although I have not had such a nightmarish experience (thank God) I do understand the helplessness an immigrant feels. A new system (that in some ways is inferior to the system you left behind). A different language. A different mentality. A different culture.
Israel is a wonderful country on many levels, however, at the end of the day, the one thing that North Americans naively expect is that it is a democracy similar to the one they come from. It is not. As I have said before on the odd occasion, Israel is a third-world country dressed up to look a first-world country.
So, as the Christian world enters a special time of their year, it is very easy to see why Christmas doesn't cross my mind anymore.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
And now for cold yoga (not to be confused with hot yoga)
Shwami Shimon's father died this past week and he is sitting shiva for seven days, which is how I found myself at a cold yoga class last night. It's not that I couldn't live without yoga for a week -- because I could surely live without exercise forever -- but in true teenage fashion, everyone else was going so I went too. Actually, I wanted to find out if one could actually do yoga in a room that wasn't 105 degrees.
The short answer is yes, you can do yoga without feeling like you are stranded in the Sinai desert in the noon sun in summer. The longer answer is that it just doesn't feel like you have worked hard enough if the sweat isn't streaming off your body by the bucket load. Cold yoga is very civilized and everyone leaves the class looking pretty much as they did when they entered. After hot yoga you look like you just spent an hour and a half in the oven at 350 degrees.
As an aside, one of my friends asked me after the class why I did yoga at all. "You look like you were really struggling," she said. I wanted to punch her in the face but I did the mature thing and simply agreed that I wasn't the most flexible person on earth. I also added that Swami Shimon said that if I kept it up, I would eventually become more flexible.
If I gave up on everything I tried but didn't do well, then I might as well just sit on the edge of my bed and stare off into space all day. I am very good at that. Actually, I think you could fairly call me an expert in this category.
Back to yoga. Based on the remarks above you can reasonably assume that hot or cold, I didn't execute the moves with any finesse. Apparently temperature has nothing to do with my lack of balance or general yoga ability. I actually thought I was holding my own quite nicely in cold yoga until the editorial input from my "friend" after the class. The teacher didn't have to run to my rescue on a minute-by-minute basis the way Swami Shimon does, so I took that as a sign of improvement on my part.
When I asked the other hot yoga chicks if they preferred cold yoga over hot yoga I received a very enthusiastic and consistent "no way". That doesn't mean that they didn't have fun because who wouldn't have a good time doing pretty much anything with 13 friends? Plus, if you aren't comfortable bending over to grab your ankles and in the process sticking your rear-end in someone's face, then they really weren't your friends to begin with were they?
Also, one thing that cold yoga had that hot yoga never has was an apres-work-out meal of real Nepalese food. Compliments of the cold-yoga initiator, we had the most delicious vegetarian meal I can remember. I would tell you what I ate if I could, but I can't. All I could easily identify were the peas and the basmati rice. There was something mushy in a brown sauce and something else more mushy in a red sauce. Both tasted amazing. And all the dishes were spicy which gave me the added advantage of going home almost as hot as if I had gone to a hot yoga class.
The short answer is yes, you can do yoga without feeling like you are stranded in the Sinai desert in the noon sun in summer. The longer answer is that it just doesn't feel like you have worked hard enough if the sweat isn't streaming off your body by the bucket load. Cold yoga is very civilized and everyone leaves the class looking pretty much as they did when they entered. After hot yoga you look like you just spent an hour and a half in the oven at 350 degrees.
As an aside, one of my friends asked me after the class why I did yoga at all. "You look like you were really struggling," she said. I wanted to punch her in the face but I did the mature thing and simply agreed that I wasn't the most flexible person on earth. I also added that Swami Shimon said that if I kept it up, I would eventually become more flexible.
If I gave up on everything I tried but didn't do well, then I might as well just sit on the edge of my bed and stare off into space all day. I am very good at that. Actually, I think you could fairly call me an expert in this category.
Back to yoga. Based on the remarks above you can reasonably assume that hot or cold, I didn't execute the moves with any finesse. Apparently temperature has nothing to do with my lack of balance or general yoga ability. I actually thought I was holding my own quite nicely in cold yoga until the editorial input from my "friend" after the class. The teacher didn't have to run to my rescue on a minute-by-minute basis the way Swami Shimon does, so I took that as a sign of improvement on my part.
When I asked the other hot yoga chicks if they preferred cold yoga over hot yoga I received a very enthusiastic and consistent "no way". That doesn't mean that they didn't have fun because who wouldn't have a good time doing pretty much anything with 13 friends? Plus, if you aren't comfortable bending over to grab your ankles and in the process sticking your rear-end in someone's face, then they really weren't your friends to begin with were they?
Also, one thing that cold yoga had that hot yoga never has was an apres-work-out meal of real Nepalese food. Compliments of the cold-yoga initiator, we had the most delicious vegetarian meal I can remember. I would tell you what I ate if I could, but I can't. All I could easily identify were the peas and the basmati rice. There was something mushy in a brown sauce and something else more mushy in a red sauce. Both tasted amazing. And all the dishes were spicy which gave me the added advantage of going home almost as hot as if I had gone to a hot yoga class.
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