Israel has some of the best beaches in the world. I know what I am talking about here. I grew up next to the ocean.
Here, the sand is white and soft. The waves are suitably wavy for the average swimmer. The water is a divine blue green. And it is warm. Nothing like the north Atlantic beaches of my childhood where, even in mid August, you risked major muscle spasms in the arches of your feet if you entered the water too quickly. That searing pain reminded you that it was best to play on the pebbly sand and swim in a lake somewhere else.
Not so here.
Beach season is at least six months long and there are people on the beach even in the middle of the Israeli winter.
Some of those people on the beach are life guards. In typical lifeguard fashion -- or in Bay Watch lifeguard fashion -- the mostly male lifeguard contingent are bronzed and muscular. They sit up in their huts on stilts, flexing their muscles and doing what I guess lifeguards everywhere do -- flirting from up high with the bikini contingent on the ground. Up until this point they are exactly like lifeguards on other beaches I've visited.
But that's where the similarities end. Israeli lifeguards, maybe out of fear of being ignored or not suitably swooned over, like to yell at the swimmers through large megaphones. And not just the odd command -- more like a running dialogue of insults.
"Hey, you, lady in the flowered bathing suit, get away from the flag."
Some women in flowered bathing suits look around to see if it is them that the lifeguard is speaking to.
"No, not you on the left. I'm talking to the short one over there with the fat kid in the red bathing suit. Are you listening to me?"
And while most pay the lifeguards no heed, swimmers do so at their own risk. Not the obvious risk but more of a risk of being harassed via megaphone until you cave to their demands.
"Okay, you don't want to listen to me. That's fine. But don't blame me if you drown." (Sometimes it sounds frighteningly familiar to your grandmother.)
We would listen but after an hour at the beach it starts to wear you down and you automatically start ignoring the insulting blasts. Sometimes when you ignore them for too long they switch to heavily accented English assuming that if you aren't listening then you must be a foreign visitor. It's important to add that they don't get any nicer when they figure you are a visitor.
Of course, I have never noticed them yelling at the people who most deserve it. One time my friend Glenn took his daughters out about 15 meters into the sea on a day that had a lot of red and black flags. His pregnant wife was on the beach trying not to hyperventilate. Where exactly was the lifeguard that day? Probably too busy yelling at some lady in a flowered bathing suit who was standing next to one of his precious flags.
And if you swim out too far, they will yell to you -- one really good blast. But as they have already warned you, if you don't listen, then you are on your own. You want to swim with the sharks, well, then, it's up to you. Heaven knows they have witnesses that they yelled to you -- not one of whom could testify with a clear conscience.
I have no doubt that if you were really in trouble that they would do everything they could to save you, during the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., from May through the end of October. But once you were safe, they would run for the megaphone and give you a piece of their mind.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Driving the porcelain bus to mom
Why do most kids wake their mothers when they aren't feeling well? And why, when they can't sleep, do they feel obliged to wake their mothers and tell them -- and then ask them to push over so that they can get it? Why don't kids, in general, wake their fathers?
Last night at around 2:30 a.m. I heard someone walking around. Within seconds the night crawler speed walked into our bedroom, totally surpassing Chaim and made a quick right around the bed to my side. By then I was already awake, but I was trying to fake being asleep.
Tap, tap, tap.
"What's wrong Yael?" (I spend a lot of time asking that question.)
"My stomach hurts and I have to throw up now."
I have tried to train her to throw up first -- preferably in the toilet or at least a waste paper basket -- and then come and get me. So far, I have a success rate of zero. For some reason it is more logical to waste the few remaining moments of pre-barfdom to come and announce your intentions so that there is an audience for the big event.
From my perspective, who the hell wants an audience at such an uncool moment? However, Yael does not subscribe to this school of thought. And as a result, most vomit explodes onto my bed or my bedroom floor. Of course, the vomiter is too busy feeling lousy after the event to do anything but sit or lie down in a catatonic state. Therefore, the spectator -- usually me -- gets the priviledge of cleaning up.
Oh yes, the vomiter feels bad about it. But, hey, what can you expect post strenuous lurch?
I wouldn't mind so much if only, now and then, when the urge to drive the porcelain bus became unavoidable, that the child in question should wake up his or her father and let him get involved in all the fun.
In my house, Chaim just sleeps through all the highlights of the program while I spend the remainder of the night keeping the patient company either in the washroom or his or her bedrooom. Chaim wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning and I spend the day walking around like a zombie.
The truth is that when I was a kid I did the same thing. I never once considered waking my father who was only going to wake up so startled (because no one ever woke him up) that his shocked reaction would have superseded the real issue: that I felt sick or I couldn't sleep. My mother, on the other hand, woke up silently and effortlessly as if she had been lying there expecting me for hours.
Therefore, I've decided that the next time I feel sick, I am going to go from room to room and wake everyone up. Of course, I am going to leave them all sitting there in a semi-conscious state because nothing will change the fact that I prefer privacy at such moments. But at least then they can all be mom for a moment.
Last night at around 2:30 a.m. I heard someone walking around. Within seconds the night crawler speed walked into our bedroom, totally surpassing Chaim and made a quick right around the bed to my side. By then I was already awake, but I was trying to fake being asleep.
Tap, tap, tap.
"What's wrong Yael?" (I spend a lot of time asking that question.)
"My stomach hurts and I have to throw up now."
I have tried to train her to throw up first -- preferably in the toilet or at least a waste paper basket -- and then come and get me. So far, I have a success rate of zero. For some reason it is more logical to waste the few remaining moments of pre-barfdom to come and announce your intentions so that there is an audience for the big event.
From my perspective, who the hell wants an audience at such an uncool moment? However, Yael does not subscribe to this school of thought. And as a result, most vomit explodes onto my bed or my bedroom floor. Of course, the vomiter is too busy feeling lousy after the event to do anything but sit or lie down in a catatonic state. Therefore, the spectator -- usually me -- gets the priviledge of cleaning up.
Oh yes, the vomiter feels bad about it. But, hey, what can you expect post strenuous lurch?
I wouldn't mind so much if only, now and then, when the urge to drive the porcelain bus became unavoidable, that the child in question should wake up his or her father and let him get involved in all the fun.
In my house, Chaim just sleeps through all the highlights of the program while I spend the remainder of the night keeping the patient company either in the washroom or his or her bedrooom. Chaim wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning and I spend the day walking around like a zombie.
The truth is that when I was a kid I did the same thing. I never once considered waking my father who was only going to wake up so startled (because no one ever woke him up) that his shocked reaction would have superseded the real issue: that I felt sick or I couldn't sleep. My mother, on the other hand, woke up silently and effortlessly as if she had been lying there expecting me for hours.
Therefore, I've decided that the next time I feel sick, I am going to go from room to room and wake everyone up. Of course, I am going to leave them all sitting there in a semi-conscious state because nothing will change the fact that I prefer privacy at such moments. But at least then they can all be mom for a moment.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
There's no hope for Hope
Last week I noticed a series of lingerie posters along the main thoroughfares of Ra'anana and most of them looked like they had been the victims of a religious fanatic graffiti artist. At first I couldn't figure out why someone would do that, but when I mentioned it to my husband and then showed him the ads as we drove along the main street, he noticed that the graffiti was very uniform.
He is much more observant than I am -- and I don't mean from a religious perspective. However, after he mentioned it, I started looking more carefully. Lo and behold, I had to agree. This was definitely not the work of an overzealous religious person.
Of course, at the time, I couldn't figure out exactly what the goal of the marketing plan was, and over the next few days I forgot all about it. Only later did it become known that it was a marketing ploy by the lingerie company.
One of my favorite things about Ra'anana is that I find the religious community -- at least in my neighbourhood -- to be very tolerant and the collective approach to observance is "live and let live". I surely did not experience that in Toronto and I am not sure if it exists in other parts of Israel, but religious tolerance (by religious people) seems to be alive and well on the east side of Ra'anana. And that is why I was originally baffled by the graffiti.
Fortunately I have friends who are also detail observant And one of them took it upon herself to call the corporate offices of the company and ask about the posters. Here's what one of the two co-owners of the company, Yafit, told her:
"We had to do this because we knew the posters would be ruined anyway by the religious community in Ra'anana." And if that wasn't presumptuous and insulting enough, she added that if, in turn, secular people thought that religious Ra'anana-ites did this, and it bothered us, then we (religious people) obviously felt guilty.
What the heck is she talking about?
What exactly was I supposed to feel guilty about?
I can't even follow her warped logic. If I didn't damage the posters then I wouldn't feel one iota of guilt.
And more important, why would someone willingly start a smear campaign in Ra'anana -- a city where secular and religious citizens seem to co-exist peacefully most of the time. If I was going to incite a smear campaign against a group of people in the community, then I would probably be more careful to cover my steps. And if perchance I was confronted about my tactics, I would probably think twice before verbally attacking the inquirer.
Co-owner Yafit also showed her complete lack of understanding of most religious people living in Ra'anana. This isn't Mea Shearim or Betar Illit. Apparently she hasn't been to one of the city pools on a Friday afternoon and heaven knows she hasn't actually spoken to any of us or she would have know exactly how ill-informed her campaign logic was.
Speaking on behalf of many of the religious people in Ra'anana: We are modern orthodox Jews. And what that means, in the most general of terms, is that while we observe Shabbat and keep the mitzvot to the best of our ability, we are educated and worldly. We travel. We work. We read.
My synagogue alone is populated with lawyers, doctors, PhD's, professors, business people, and ivy-league college graduates. My friends are ex-partners in big city law firms, math professors, architects, high-tech wizards, bankers and the likes. We are as comfortable in meetings in New York and London as we are in our synagogue. No one that I know is going to go out and buy a can of spray paint to cover up some babe in her underwear on a poster.
And as immigrants from Western countries, we are proponents of free speech. Just because we don't walk around in our bathing suits and underwear doesn't mean that we can't hack it when other people do. If we wanted to live in a closed society, we never would have chosen Ra'anana to begin with.
And finally, any Jew who thinks that inciting anger and hatred between Jews is a good thing is, in my mind, the lowest of low. Well, maybe not the lowest. I put child abusers on that level, but I am willing to allow Jews who encourage hate between Jews to have the next rung up on my decency ladder.
I am not the first to say this and I won't be the last. The worst enemy of the Jews is other Jews. And Yafit, my friend, you have just proved the point better than I ever could. Willfully concocting a plan that could be misconstrued by secular Jews to make them dislike religious Jews more than some of them already do, is truly pathetic. I wish your new lingerie store everything that it deserves.
(late addition note: someone contacted me this morning to say that while we are mostly modern orthodox, some of us have children who have surpassed their parents' observance and as a result, are uncomfortable with such ads. I don't think that means that they would go out and spray paint them but these people deserve acknowledgment as well. Ra'anana is a diverse community that should celebrate its diversity rather than working to harm it.)
He is much more observant than I am -- and I don't mean from a religious perspective. However, after he mentioned it, I started looking more carefully. Lo and behold, I had to agree. This was definitely not the work of an overzealous religious person.
Of course, at the time, I couldn't figure out exactly what the goal of the marketing plan was, and over the next few days I forgot all about it. Only later did it become known that it was a marketing ploy by the lingerie company.
One of my favorite things about Ra'anana is that I find the religious community -- at least in my neighbourhood -- to be very tolerant and the collective approach to observance is "live and let live". I surely did not experience that in Toronto and I am not sure if it exists in other parts of Israel, but religious tolerance (by religious people) seems to be alive and well on the east side of Ra'anana. And that is why I was originally baffled by the graffiti.
Fortunately I have friends who are also detail observant And one of them took it upon herself to call the corporate offices of the company and ask about the posters. Here's what one of the two co-owners of the company, Yafit, told her:
"We had to do this because we knew the posters would be ruined anyway by the religious community in Ra'anana." And if that wasn't presumptuous and insulting enough, she added that if, in turn, secular people thought that religious Ra'anana-ites did this, and it bothered us, then we (religious people) obviously felt guilty.
What the heck is she talking about?
What exactly was I supposed to feel guilty about?
I can't even follow her warped logic. If I didn't damage the posters then I wouldn't feel one iota of guilt.
And more important, why would someone willingly start a smear campaign in Ra'anana -- a city where secular and religious citizens seem to co-exist peacefully most of the time. If I was going to incite a smear campaign against a group of people in the community, then I would probably be more careful to cover my steps. And if perchance I was confronted about my tactics, I would probably think twice before verbally attacking the inquirer.
Co-owner Yafit also showed her complete lack of understanding of most religious people living in Ra'anana. This isn't Mea Shearim or Betar Illit. Apparently she hasn't been to one of the city pools on a Friday afternoon and heaven knows she hasn't actually spoken to any of us or she would have know exactly how ill-informed her campaign logic was.
Speaking on behalf of many of the religious people in Ra'anana: We are modern orthodox Jews. And what that means, in the most general of terms, is that while we observe Shabbat and keep the mitzvot to the best of our ability, we are educated and worldly. We travel. We work. We read.
My synagogue alone is populated with lawyers, doctors, PhD's, professors, business people, and ivy-league college graduates. My friends are ex-partners in big city law firms, math professors, architects, high-tech wizards, bankers and the likes. We are as comfortable in meetings in New York and London as we are in our synagogue. No one that I know is going to go out and buy a can of spray paint to cover up some babe in her underwear on a poster.
And as immigrants from Western countries, we are proponents of free speech. Just because we don't walk around in our bathing suits and underwear doesn't mean that we can't hack it when other people do. If we wanted to live in a closed society, we never would have chosen Ra'anana to begin with.
And finally, any Jew who thinks that inciting anger and hatred between Jews is a good thing is, in my mind, the lowest of low. Well, maybe not the lowest. I put child abusers on that level, but I am willing to allow Jews who encourage hate between Jews to have the next rung up on my decency ladder.
I am not the first to say this and I won't be the last. The worst enemy of the Jews is other Jews. And Yafit, my friend, you have just proved the point better than I ever could. Willfully concocting a plan that could be misconstrued by secular Jews to make them dislike religious Jews more than some of them already do, is truly pathetic. I wish your new lingerie store everything that it deserves.
(late addition note: someone contacted me this morning to say that while we are mostly modern orthodox, some of us have children who have surpassed their parents' observance and as a result, are uncomfortable with such ads. I don't think that means that they would go out and spray paint them but these people deserve acknowledgment as well. Ra'anana is a diverse community that should celebrate its diversity rather than working to harm it.)
And I worried when my banker retired
For some reason, I have a banker. I never really had such a person that I could contact in Canada, but I do now. I am sure there is some explanation for it but I really don't care. Truth is, I like it.
Until a few months ago, we had another woman who took care of our banking needs. She had been helping us since we moved here and I was very upset when she decided to retire. She wasn't that old -- probably sixty -- and I was not ready for her to make a life change. She didn't consult with me, but all of a sudden, one day I walked into her cubicle and another woman was sitting there beside her. In true Israeli fashion, she didn't say a word about this woman and the woman made no effort to leave when I arrived. She stayed for the entire discussion. Finally, I had to ask who she was.
According to Dvorah, her husband was retiring and she had decided to retire too. That might sound very reasonable but I was not happy that there was going to be a disruption in my banking life.
In Canada I was a capable bank client. I understood the process and the logic of banking. And if there was something I didn't understand I could always ask for additional information in English. I never figured that the transition to being the family bank activity executor would be much different in Israel. Well, yet again, I could not have been more wrong.
Banking logic in Israel is definitely not derived from the Canadian banking system. For example, you cannot carry over a credit card balance from one month to the next. At the end of the month, the credit card company -- in conjunction with the bank -- swoops in and take the amount that it is owed out of your bank account. And heaven help you if you do not have the funds on hand to pay. I think they send someone to your home to take your children!!! (oh, I am joking, but it's not a bad plan.)
Another example, even when there was monthly interest in Canadian bank accounts, there was no such animal in my day-to-day shekel account here.
And rather than list everything weird that goes on in hebrew when I do the banking here, let me just add that I have to go to a different teller for almost every conceivable action. One deals in cash; another deals in transactions that don't involve physically touching cash; and yet another deals in foreign currencies, while the next one only deals in shekels. Suffice it to say that if you have an iPod, always take it with you to the bank -- along with a snack -- because you are going to be there for a while.
Now with all this banking confusion it would seem to me that anyone who retired would stay far away from the bank afterwards. But no, that is not the case. Today, when I got to the bank to have all my banking correspondence translated and explained to me in English, there was Dvorah hanging out in her old cubicle along with Sari, the woman who took her place. And that's not the best of it..... there was a customer in there discussing his account. Dvorah had just dropped by with her husband I later found out, but it never dawned on her to not be involved with Sari and the customer.
No one seemed to mind that there was a non-bank employee smack dab in the middle of the discussion. I just sat there watching the whole thing. It was better than tv although some subtitles would have been nice.
When the discussion finally ended, I said to Dvorah: "haven't you had enough of this place?" That was my polite way of saying: "What the hell are you doing in the middle of a private banking conversation between a banker and her client?" Dvorah just laughed. She loves dropping by for a few hours now and then just to be part of things again, she explained. So now I see that old bankers never go away, they just cash in and out now and then.
Until a few months ago, we had another woman who took care of our banking needs. She had been helping us since we moved here and I was very upset when she decided to retire. She wasn't that old -- probably sixty -- and I was not ready for her to make a life change. She didn't consult with me, but all of a sudden, one day I walked into her cubicle and another woman was sitting there beside her. In true Israeli fashion, she didn't say a word about this woman and the woman made no effort to leave when I arrived. She stayed for the entire discussion. Finally, I had to ask who she was.
According to Dvorah, her husband was retiring and she had decided to retire too. That might sound very reasonable but I was not happy that there was going to be a disruption in my banking life.
In Canada I was a capable bank client. I understood the process and the logic of banking. And if there was something I didn't understand I could always ask for additional information in English. I never figured that the transition to being the family bank activity executor would be much different in Israel. Well, yet again, I could not have been more wrong.
Banking logic in Israel is definitely not derived from the Canadian banking system. For example, you cannot carry over a credit card balance from one month to the next. At the end of the month, the credit card company -- in conjunction with the bank -- swoops in and take the amount that it is owed out of your bank account. And heaven help you if you do not have the funds on hand to pay. I think they send someone to your home to take your children!!! (oh, I am joking, but it's not a bad plan.)
Another example, even when there was monthly interest in Canadian bank accounts, there was no such animal in my day-to-day shekel account here.
And rather than list everything weird that goes on in hebrew when I do the banking here, let me just add that I have to go to a different teller for almost every conceivable action. One deals in cash; another deals in transactions that don't involve physically touching cash; and yet another deals in foreign currencies, while the next one only deals in shekels. Suffice it to say that if you have an iPod, always take it with you to the bank -- along with a snack -- because you are going to be there for a while.
Now with all this banking confusion it would seem to me that anyone who retired would stay far away from the bank afterwards. But no, that is not the case. Today, when I got to the bank to have all my banking correspondence translated and explained to me in English, there was Dvorah hanging out in her old cubicle along with Sari, the woman who took her place. And that's not the best of it..... there was a customer in there discussing his account. Dvorah had just dropped by with her husband I later found out, but it never dawned on her to not be involved with Sari and the customer.
No one seemed to mind that there was a non-bank employee smack dab in the middle of the discussion. I just sat there watching the whole thing. It was better than tv although some subtitles would have been nice.
When the discussion finally ended, I said to Dvorah: "haven't you had enough of this place?" That was my polite way of saying: "What the hell are you doing in the middle of a private banking conversation between a banker and her client?" Dvorah just laughed. She loves dropping by for a few hours now and then just to be part of things again, she explained. So now I see that old bankers never go away, they just cash in and out now and then.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Restaurants in the age of cell phones
Last night Chaim and I went out for dinner as part of an interesting local fund raiser. All you had to do was go out and eat, and the restaurant was supposed to give ten percent of its profits for the night to charity. It was a great plan. Easy to participate. And for a good cause.
So, off we went to do the easiest good deed possible.
We chose a sushi restaurant that we like. It's a busy lunch spot but pretty quiet at night, which is just the way we like it.
We had no sooner arrived in the restaurant and sat down at our table when my cell phone rang. I immediately noticed that the phone number displayed on the screen was our home number, so I answered it. All I heard was hysterical crying and here is the essence of the first conversation:
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: Yael, what is wrong?
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: Yael, will you please calm down and tell me what's going on and why you are crying.
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: (I hung up)
Okay, so compassion isn't my strong suit. I think that parents should be able to go out to a restaurant without fear of mass destruction at home. I don't think that's a lot to ... ring, ring...
Second phone call:
Yael: Ari called me fat.
Chaim: Well, if he called you a monkey would that bother you?
Yael: No, but he called me fat.
Chaim: Well, you're not fat. Good-bye.
At that point, we started to order, naively figuring that we now had the fat issue out of the way and it was safe to enjoy the evening. ring.... ring...
Zeve: You know the cell phone recharging in your office?
Me: Yes.
Zeve: Can I have it?
Me: No.
Zeve: Why not? I need a new cell phone and you told me I could use this one today.
Me: I told you you could use it today and I don't want to discuss this now.
Zeve: Why not?
Me: Bye Zeve.
By this point, I could barely remember what I was going to order or why I was going to order it. So I tried to collect my thoughts, focus on the menu and initiate a conversation with Chaim. ring... ring...
Me: Whoever you are, you better have a limb hanging by a thread because otherwise I am hanging up.
Yael: You told me I could have that phone.
Me: No, I told you that you could use that phone when you needed it.
Yael: But Zeve says it's his.
Me: It's not.
Yael: Fine.
Me: Good-bye.
That was the last call we received during our hour and a quarter in the restaurant. The food was probably good. I know I ate it. But who can relax and have a good time when they have their cell phone with them? Other than doing a good deed, I am not really sure why I bothered to leave home. Next time the good deed people want something from me they better have a plan for my cell phone.
So, off we went to do the easiest good deed possible.
We chose a sushi restaurant that we like. It's a busy lunch spot but pretty quiet at night, which is just the way we like it.
We had no sooner arrived in the restaurant and sat down at our table when my cell phone rang. I immediately noticed that the phone number displayed on the screen was our home number, so I answered it. All I heard was hysterical crying and here is the essence of the first conversation:
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: Yael, what is wrong?
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: Yael, will you please calm down and tell me what's going on and why you are crying.
Home: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: (I hung up)
Okay, so compassion isn't my strong suit. I think that parents should be able to go out to a restaurant without fear of mass destruction at home. I don't think that's a lot to ... ring, ring...
Second phone call:
Yael: Ari called me fat.
Chaim: Well, if he called you a monkey would that bother you?
Yael: No, but he called me fat.
Chaim: Well, you're not fat. Good-bye.
At that point, we started to order, naively figuring that we now had the fat issue out of the way and it was safe to enjoy the evening. ring.... ring...
Zeve: You know the cell phone recharging in your office?
Me: Yes.
Zeve: Can I have it?
Me: No.
Zeve: Why not? I need a new cell phone and you told me I could use this one today.
Me: I told you you could use it today and I don't want to discuss this now.
Zeve: Why not?
Me: Bye Zeve.
By this point, I could barely remember what I was going to order or why I was going to order it. So I tried to collect my thoughts, focus on the menu and initiate a conversation with Chaim. ring... ring...
Me: Whoever you are, you better have a limb hanging by a thread because otherwise I am hanging up.
Yael: You told me I could have that phone.
Me: No, I told you that you could use that phone when you needed it.
Yael: But Zeve says it's his.
Me: It's not.
Yael: Fine.
Me: Good-bye.
That was the last call we received during our hour and a quarter in the restaurant. The food was probably good. I know I ate it. But who can relax and have a good time when they have their cell phone with them? Other than doing a good deed, I am not really sure why I bothered to leave home. Next time the good deed people want something from me they better have a plan for my cell phone.
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