An Aliyah Journal

Natalie

2011-07-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

You all know the story of the old man who walked along the beach picking up starfish that had been washed up onto the sand and tossing them back into the ocean.
A young man stopped him and said
Are you crazy old man, there are thousands of starfish along the shore, do you really think that your tossing them back into the ocean one at a time will make a difference?

The old man bent down, picked up a star fish and tossed it back into the ocean. He looked at the young man and replied
To that one, it just made a difference

Natalie is sixteen. She lives with her boyfriend and his family in a 'block' in Pardes Hanah. A 'block' is an apartment building, but 'apartment' is too luxurious a word to describe where and how Natalia lives. There is no elevator in her building, no lights on the landings between the six flights of stairs that are littered with used clothes and electrical goods that no longer work. There are no paintings on the landings, no balconies, no plants. When I walk up to her apartment neighbours open their doors and curse us. There is no body corporate. You get the picture.

Natalie is bright and lovely, she is tall with long dark curls which she straightens daily with a hair iron her boyfriend picked up and fixed. She has infinite patience for straightening hair, I know because she straightened mine, and I saw in her a love for all things to do with hair that frankly I just don’t share. Why don’t you do hairdressing? I suggested from the little stool on which I sat in her boyfriend's bedroom one evening, in front of a makeshift dresser. The white wardrobe doors had disengaged revealing the contents of their shared life and it dawned on me that Natalie's boyfriend carried a tremendous load by having this young girl live with him and his aged parents.

"I want" she said giggling a little at the possibility of fulfilling a dream, of being a productive human being with a future, and then in a moment the sparkle in her eyes faded, she came back to the reality of the realisation that in all likelihood this would never happen, " maybe, one day", she said. For now, she reluctantly drags herself to school almost every day but she has no interest or future in academia. She prefers to clean my house which she has done from time to time. But it's such a waste, this young girl with so much potential, cleaning toilets at sixteen.

I ask her about her parents. Her toothless, jobless mother lives downstairs in the same block, in fact it was she who cursed us when we walked past her apartment. When her husband beat her up one too many times, accusing her of lying about Natalie being his daughter, she left him and had a breakdown. She was taken to the mental ward of the hospital where she stayed for six months and Natalie was taken in by her aunt. She was one year old. She was brought up in the home of her aunt who now receives her meagre social security benefits. From time to time, her aunt gives her a hundred shekels, pocket money. In all her sixteen years her father has not contributed one single shekel towards her upbringing, has not bought her one pair of shoes. Natalie never lived with her mother, whom I have met and suffice it to say, I can understand why.

It's not an unfamiliar story in these parts, and yes it could be far worse. Natalie was fortunate that her aunt took her in, and she was fortunate that her boyfriend took her in, and she is fortunate that she is passionate about something in her life, that she knows what it is that she wants to do - she wants to be a hairdresser, and I know she will be a great one. I also know that if she had the contacts you have, if she had the network you have if she had the opportunities you have, if her parents had come to Australia instead of going to Israel, if she grew up in a community where wealth was a given, if she woke up every morning to a fridge full of food, and a newspaper full of jobs, she could do it on her own, but here I cannot see this outcome for this young Israeli girl. Here she will stay at school because she has nowhere else to go during the days, and she will live with her boyfriend because quite frankly he is a good guy with a good heart who knows she will be on the street if not with him and then when she finishes school, if she finishes school, she will wash floors and clean toilets, probably for the rest of her life.

I would like to raise some money to put Natalie through hairdressing school, and in return if you ever find yourself in Israel, you can go visit Natalie and have your hair cut or straightened, curled or coloured. She will welcome you and make you the best black coffee ever and you will see a little star in her eyes as she smiles down the valley of her future and you will know that you helped to throw this starfish back into the ocean.

The Block

2010-09-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

The open concrete area under the block in which Yuri lives, is filled with large wailing women. They sit on plastic chairs between pillars in a large square clapping their folded hands over their chests in grief, lamenting the tragic and sudden loss of the father of my friend Yuri. In the cultural code of the Kazakhstan, they are all dressed alike for the occasion, wearing finely decorated black and dark blue summer dresses and patterned scarves to cover their heads. I am noticeably out of place in my jeans and my genes, dwarfed by their heavy bodies and swollen legs which show out beneath mid calf hemlines. They are, each and every one, magnificent, with eastern european faces that express a lifetime of experience; expulsion, war, famine, migration, poverty, loss, grief and suffering. These are not women who care about carbs, these are women who work two jobs a day to pay for their children's fake designer jeans and tobacco and Hash habbits.

I have noticed these heavy set women with crooked backs sitting three to a bench outside their 'blocks' on hot summer nights down the main road of Pardes Hanah. When the air inside their small apartments is unbearably still and the smell of fried food lingers, even though the street offers no relief from the heat, there is nowhere else to go. They meet and talk, no doubt swapping remedies for ailments and ancient womens fables of suffering and woe. I long to listen and to understand.

Now the women wail and the men sit separately talking in small groups while the sounds of songs of lamentation fill the neighbourhood like a call to prayer, bringing the entire community through the gates and into the outdoor basement, where trestle tables have been set up for the meal that will follow the funeral.

I walk up the six flights of stairs into Yuri's apartment to see if I can help. Two large Kazakh women stand in the small kitchen while a third one with a pretty face and swollen purple legs stirs a camp size pot over an outdoor gas cooker that has been set up in the living room. The dining room table is covered in sacks of potatoes, pots, plastic cutting boards and knives. Yuri's girlfriend is at the sink washing oversized alluminium pots and strainers. When she sees me, she takes the opportunity to offer me and all the working women a cold cola which of course there is no refusing. 'Drink Rebecca, drink' she says in Hebrew, mimicking the ways of her ancestry without even noticing. It is strangely out of place because she is only sixteen, but it is she who will clean the apartment and carry the heavy pots of food up and down the six flights of stairs and take care of her boyfriend's family for the next seven days, while they mourn the loss of their father and husband, and then she will go to school.

I watch the largest and loveliest of the women cut fatty beef ribs into large chunks and cover them with salt, paprika and prunes while another adds a can of tomato paste to a large pot of boiling potatoes. I tell her my grandfather was Russian and she says she recognises me from somewhere. She asks if I live in the neighbourhood. No, I don’t I say but I tell her I recognise her too. She could be my grandmother. Any of these women could have been my grandmothers and in a way I feel like all of them are. I am comfortable with them like I have known them for a thousand years. I watch closely as she adds the potatoes to the meat and lifts the heavy pot to the gas burner. I tell her my name is Rebecca and her face lights up. She tells me something about a 'black and beautiful Rebecca' but I don’t know what she is talking about, perhaps her daughter, perhaps her grandmother, perhaps a character from a Kazakh Jewish legend I know nothing about.

After the funeral we return to the block. The long rows of tables have been set with plates of fruit, heavily salted battered fried fish, bowls of potatoes, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bread and crackers. There is a bottle of Vodka on each table, which my friend says will 'mess with your head' if you drink it, so I dont.

Now that the body is in the ground, it is the men's turn for spiritual work. Blessings are said over the various types of food, and symbolisms are explained. The egg represents the life cycle and we are all instructed to say as many blessings as possible because the angel of 'death' hovers. Then the meat is served with bowls of rice and I devour as much of this simple food as I can. My mother always said we come from peasant stock; this is my food, and these are my people. The women sitting next to me turn to me frequently throughout the meal and ask me why I am not eating. I show them my bowl full of bones and they nod in satisfaction before returning to their lively conversations in Kazakh.

A young man opens his prayer book, stands up and begins to lead the tefilla but not before demanding silence from all. He bangs his hand down on the table and the women are quiet for a few moments. His prayers are important no doubt but the real spiritual work of the day has already been done. These large Kazakh women carry the complete cultural mythical, spiritual and physical load of their entire community. Their sobbing, shrieking and the singing of their Kazakh songs of lamentation are the spiritual meat of this rite of passage and they know it in their bones. Again he bangs his hand down on the table, his spiritual ego demanding respect, and again the women humour him with a few minutes silence before starting up again. This young man who has just found his religious persona is in battle against the entire force of Jewish Russian Matriarchy - there is not a women in the group who's heartfelt grief alone would not force open the gates of heaven; let him bang his hand on the table all he likes, to them he is just a child. In time he will understand. Death will teach us all that it is the heart alone that moves the heavens.

The KGB and The Mosad

2010-04-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have inside information that leads me to believe that the staff in Bank Hapoalim are trained in the secret Mosad Agents Programme TSANMECWAWEB. Otherwise known as 'The Strategic Art of Not Making Eye Contact with Anyone Who Enters the Building'. I am certain it's a compulsory state run course for all staff of all Israeli banks though I personally have not had the pleasure. And yet, once you break through the code, once you get through the (Israeli developed) 'concrete glass' wall that separates the 'server' from the 'served', suddenly and without warning, like a 'sleeper' a hidden consciousness is awoken, eye contact is made, service is given(albeit reluctantly) and even recipes have been known to switch hands.

It's the same with the staff at Macabbi Health, but in their case the training I believe is stricktly KGB. Last week I had the great pleasure of visiting the Kippat Hulim (Government Health Centre) in Pardes Chanah for the first time. My regular, South African born, English speaking, warm, intelligent, human family doctor in Zichron was unavailable and I needed to see someone urgently, so I thought I'd try my luck at the government health service in Pardes Chanah.

To my advantage it became immediately apparent that the KGB not only train their staff in 'the strategic art of not making eye contact with anyone when enters the building' but also in foreign tongues, as well as in the masterful art of 'confusing the enemy'. I entered the building and found my way to the front desk where a woman was staring intently at her monitor, trying her hardest not to notice my human form. After ten minutes of my own personal meditation in 'savlanut (patience...not to be confused with sagvaniot, doughnuts) she weakened and against her better wishes she turned her head towards me and looked up.

'Aha, I've got her now', I thought and not wanting to miss the opportunity I quickly asked if she spoke English, as I always do when approaching an unknown species. 'Yes' she said, 'I do'. This always gets them, these KGB trained Israelis. This is their weakness; an opportunity to practice their English, the language of the 'great yonder'.

She soon realised this was my first visit to a government health service centre and she proceeded to educate me on the long list of medical specialists and practitioners that were available to me, clarifying at the end that today none of them were available, 'except Dr Iliad, who is in today', she said. She then pointed me towards a phone down the end of a long corridor and gave me the secret code. I was to call this number and make an appointment with Dr. Ilaid who, she assured me was in today. Always one to follow instructions I went to the phone and waited for the dome of silence to close over my head. I made the call.

'For the English menu press four' said a voice and I did. 'Efshar l'daber b'Englit?' I asked (Is it possible to speak in English?) 'Shniya' said the voice in Tel Aviv. 'The English menu', means just that and that alone. She put me through to a different voice and I repeated my question. He put me through to a different voice and I repeated my question and then she put me through to a different voice and I repeated my question. By this time, my Ulpan teacher was starting to scream in my brain and I blurted out my simplest Hebrew 'I am in Pardes Chanah at the Macabbi Kipat Chulim and I want to make a meeting with Dr.Illaid for this morning. Please. '

'No, Dr. Iliad is not in Pardes Chanah today' the women said. 'Yes he is' I said' 'I am here, now, and he is in today'. 'No he's not', she said 'but I have made an appointment with you at the other Macabbi Centre in Pardes Chanah with Dr.Pizat at ten to eleven'. OK I said politely, not wanting to sabotage my chances of seeing someone. I walked back towards the desk and mustering up all the anger of a frustrated women with a possible bladder infection and thrush I explained that the KGB were adamant that Dr Ilaid was not in today and explained that they were sending me into enemy territory and as it was I could barely stand never mind walk the five blocks across town to the other Macabbi Centre. I asked if she could please take pity on me, being from a neutral country like Australia, and make an appointment from HER computer with the doctor who was or was not in.

So she swivelled her chair across to the 'other computer' (do you see the problem here?) and she booked me an appointment with Dr. Iliad for ten thirty.

At eleven thirty exactly I went in to see the esteemed Dr. Iliad. My first mistake was to ask him if he was Russian. 'No' he said, giving nothing away, 'I'm Israeli'. That's what Israeli's say when they don’t want to tell you their parents are from Uzbekistan. 'This place is like socialist Russia' I said. He didn't agree. He smiled happily like he had just had great sex with the woman he had seen before me for some forty five minutes.

'What are your symptoms?' he asked. 'I have a UTI' I explained.
'That's a diagnosis' he said, ' what are your symptoms?'
I decided it was time to come clean.
'I have no real symptoms I said, I am actually an undercover agent from the Department of Frustration and Anger Development, pretending to writhe in pain and not understand what anyone is saying, just here to check that you and your staff are doing their jobs properly.'
'No further training is required.'
He looked pleased

Change Your Tampon Before You Leave Home

2010-02-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

Sanitation was never my strong point. I mean of course I wash my hands after I go to the bathroom and sometimes even before, but I was never one of those moms who carried baby wipes in my bag and who bathed my children every day. I believe a little 'shmootz' is a good thing; it builds a healthy immune system. Still there are some places even I will not go.

After a long day rushing around, I found myself in the supermarket late at night in desperate need of a change of tampon. A woman knows these things, not by the time on her mobile phone, but rather by the intuitive knowledge that if she does not get to a bathroom soon, even the most lax sanitary boundaries will have been crossed, and so it was that I found myself searching for the toilets in the ludicrously cheap King supermarket in the Arab Village of Urm El Farhem. A friend had told me about her husband's shopping experiences in the town and I was keen to find an alternative to the local Zichron supermarkets, the cheapest of which are expensive, so when two local Israeli friends told me they were going to check it out, I grabbed my courage, dropped my prejudices and keenly went along.

The supermarket turned out to be significantly cheaper than any other I had been to and well worth the extra time to get there. It was well stocked and across the board and noticeably cheaper on almost all products. I threw a few items into the trolley, and left the boys, oblivious to my growing sense of urgency, to do their shopping while I went to find a box of tampons. Scanning the shelves with my expert shopping scanner eyes, I was surprised to find a variety of brands of pads but only one choice of tampons: that old and familiar brand Tampax, with its little yellow plastic applicators that remind me of disposable needles and thrush. Since there was no alternative I decided to pay the twenty eight shekels and bought the brand I would never otherwise have bought.

I left my friends to finish packing and paying for the shopping, grabbed a tampon from the box, shoved it into my bag and went off to find the toilets. It takes a new orlim many months and a solid grade at Ulpan Aleph to learn that even though the Hebrew word for 'women' ends in the traditional male ending, 'Anashim', the toilet with the picture of the chic in a skirt is indeed the one allocated for the female species. The difference in sanitary upkeep between the men and women's toilets is negligible in this country, so it's important to know. It took me six months to get it in Hebrew, with pictures, so what were my chances in Arabic? I walked down the hallway attached to the supermarket, following the directions of the well travelled girl at the cash out counter, who put her hands to her mouth, shook her pretty head in disbelief and asked an exacerbated WHY? as do all Israeli's when they discover I had come to live in Israel from Sydney, Australia.

Needless to say, when I finally came to the place where one 'washes one's feet' there was nothing to clearly differentiate the mens from the womens toilets, unless of course you understand Arabic which I don't. There were no toilet seat on either(Israeli women don't need toilet seats, it's a statement of our independence from colonialism), no locks on either doors (neither of which closed completely) and no running water. After careful consideration, the one I finally deduced to be the women's toilet was the one with damp toilet paper spread unevenly around the bowl as if to suggest it had once been used by someone who cared about their sanitation (which I took to mean a woman). The other had no paper at all, so the choice was easy.

Still with no running water after a big day out and a long night shopping I knew this was not an act that could be performed without running water...and that's when it struck me, suddenly it was clear and I came to fully understand why it was that the only brand of tampons available at this supermarket were the ones that come with an applicator.

Back in Zichron I roam the supermarket winging at the prices, almost double on many basic items and wonder if it's worth paying twice the price for rice and toilet paper just for the luxury of being able to wash ones hands when one goes to the toilet. Probably not I conclude, as long as you change your tampon before you leave home.

Rambam Hospita Emergency Ward, Haifa

2009-08-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Everyday I'm thinking, Thank G-d it's not yesterday.

Robby was not getting any better and we realised if we left him in his hotel room in Tel Aviv alone over Shabbat he might just freeze to death, though the thought of moving scared him to bits. He was not well enough to make the drive and he could not pack up and check out but mostly he could not bare to be in our hot house with a million teenagers and air conditioning units that, much like us, worked some times, randomly and not at maximum efficiency.

Still we had no choice but to save him and so we drove to Tel-Aviv, packed him up and brought him home against his better judgment. The house was clean, and we had run the air conditioning all day to cool it down. There was hot chicken soup on the stove. By Sunday morning he still had a fever so I took him to the doctor who sent him for an x-ray. "Ze iy efshar"- it's not possible, said the woman at reception, he has no details, no Israeli ID number, it can't be done. Just like that she was willing to let this tourist slip away from sheer neglect. "Really" I said, bewildered that a fellow human could be so clear about the possible demise of another. The doctor sent us here, surely that's a sign that this chest needs to be X-rayed. No, she said, it's not possible, and she looked back at her monitor, untouched. At this point Robby perked up with an offer of cash. She too came alive. It will cost 200 shekels she told me annoyed that we were still there and presuming that his life was not actually worth that much, and that we wouldn't go for it.

A few minutes later the disc was begrudgingly handed over with the words - massive pneumonia spat out at us like we were criminals. The crime of course was hers, but no Israeli will admit to such negligent behavior, fear of litigation has not yet reached this primitive country.

The doctor immediately put him on a double course of anti-biotics and since it was already late in the day, sent us to Rambam hospital first thing the next morning.
Walking in through emergency is always confronting, old men in wheelchairs propped up with foam props, half naked, exposing the inevitability of old age to the already vulnerable, faces exhausted from waiting too many hours filled with anxiety and helplessly surrendered to a system that offers no sympathy to the weak and frail. Security guards brazenly showing off their Arabic to beautifully groomed nurses harshly reflecting the fast deflating life-force of the ill at hand who meekly wait in line to give their details to women who are poorly paid to take them, in the slowest and most painstaking way possible.

The woman behind the glass looks up blankly after twenty minutes filling in forms "Oh", she says, "I suppose you want the receipt in English for your health Insurance?" and she starts again, with a carbon copy invoice book and a ball point pen. How quaint, I think, a hospital that invoices the old fashioned way coupled with a medical system that promises to cross ID all patients across the country. What are they planning on doing, photocopying every body's records and sending them down a long tube to a silent underground centre that funnels information to every doctor's surgery in the state through a secret hole in the floorboards via Mosad retired mice?

But like all Jews, we have a plan. We have protectzia, we know the best of the best, we know people who have donated so much money to so many worthy institutions in this country, that we already have our own little underground network busy securing the best treatment by the best doctors in the country. Still beurocracy must take its due process and as Robby sits shivering in a corner, we shuffle from one corridor to the next and await his fate as rabbi's hustle in the background shouting our cause to professors who themselves have no power in a system stuck in the post socialist quagmire that is the Israeli Health Care System.

Finally he is submitted, but there are no beds in the Emergency Ward, so we take him downstairs to the hospital mall, where a zillion patients (and their families) furiously shop and eat fast food in their pajamas attached to their drips. It's a veritable commercial hub down underground at Rambam and I myself manage to pick up three singlets from a bargain table outside the Fox shop for ten shekels each. A Russian Israeli has set himself up with a little table from where he reads the palms of the already vulnerably ill, giving them hope perhaps for a better life next time round.

We return to the Emergency Ward after Robby and Gray finish their kosher McDonalds. He is given a bed and we wait, trying to distract him from the Russian man who's just been wheeled in shivering and moaning in shock, his cowboy boots telling of life on the street, his son standing suspiciously far away from him, offering no comfort to the man whom he probably just pushed down the stairs himself. Across the way an elderly Arab woman sits tending to her dying mother whose lungs have filled with fluid, and who no longer has the will, strength or consciousness to try and cough up the mucous in which she will inevitable drown. She weeps into a tissue and I try consoling her in my broken Hebrew.

And so the day passes, and as patients disappear into the big unknown upstairs we leave Robby and return to our own chaos back home. And then things heat up again in the Emergency Ward as a new wave of disabled bodies start arriving, most notably a man in an Orange jump suit, handcuffed to his bed and accompanied by two police officers. The room is full but for a small space between Robby and the sink into which they squeeze Robby's new roommate.

That's it, Robby gets up. "After being there for eight hours being promised a bed all day, I said enough is enough, You gotta get me a room". Oh, OK, said the pretty nurse, there's one upstairs waiting for you, and so it was that Robby left the stench and the fear of life in transition and made his way to the first floor. He would miss the small bathroom who's unsubstantial sink served only to splash water from its high arched tap onto the floor leaving it wet and dirty all day, and who's hole in the ceiling made one wonder if some pervert hadn't planted a video camera from which he would later post the daily bowel movements of the infirm on U-tube for his amusement. He would miss the gargling sound of vomit from the women next to him, regurgitating three times over before being puked out for all to hear, sending everyone gagging and running off to the little wet floored toilet down the hall. Later he said, "that sound and that smell will stay with me forever."

"I'm in a hotel" he said reporting from the first floor of the hospital "and everyone is really nice up here, even though you can hear what the person on the other side of the phone is shouting to the guy across from me in Russian". I listen hard, but all I can hear is the hideous sound of a wild boar coughing up incessantly in the background, no polite conversational pauses between labored breaths.

The next day we go visit - he looks better, he can breathe. He looks at us and says, "Everyday I'm thinking, Thanks G-d it's not yesterday".

Park This Way

2009-06-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

There's an Israeli comedian that tells how in Israel you have to take twenty eight driving lessons before you can take your driving test to get your licence. His punch line is aptly delivered in a simple "Why?"

Our seventeen year old daughter has been working hard to pay for her own driving lessons of which she has so far completed half the required amount. She has also been studying the theory book in English and today I drove her to Hadera to take her theory test which she passed. Since I would be in Hadera with a few hours to spare I called my friend who is a police and traffic officer to meet for a coffee and a chat.

Hadera is Golans beat; he walks through the streets and is greeted by all with affection. Once there was a time where he handed out tickets and fines, but now many years on he knows everyone and they all know him. He no longer hands out fines but rather warm greetings and small reminders for all to be on their best. He agreed to meet me outside the driving school a block away from the centre of the small city and as I pulled up outside he was there to greet us.

On the way Tay had read out loud from her theory book and I had tried to explain the logic behind the answers to her questions. I was curious when she came to the question about parking on the opposite side of a two way street. Can one park on the left side of a two way street facing the same direction? In Israel you drive on the right so the obvious answer would be no. Yet my husband had asked a booking officer that very question one day in Zichron as he rushed out of the American Pizza bar to save himself from getting a ticket. "Ze b'seder", he was told, in fact "b'seder gamor" (absolutely OK) by the cop. I was relieved to discover that indeed it was not absolutely OK, in fact it was absolutely illegal to park on the opposite side of a two way street facing the wrong way and explained to my daughter the seemingly obvious reasons why.

Yet lo and behold as I pulled up outside my daughters driving school, a parking spot appeared on the opposite side of the street and Golan proceeded to stop the oncoming traffic and directed me to park in the spot, facing the wrong way. Luckily a spot appeared on the right side of the road, and I was able to pull in facing the right way, saving myself the enormous stress of having to negotiate Israeli traffic down the narrow side streets of Hadera and the internal conflict of doing something completely illegal with the absolute blessings and guidance of the law itself.

I got out the car and gave Golan a big hug, grateful that at least in Hadera I was on the right side of the law, whatever side that was. "What's wrong with you Israeli's?" I asked him," how can you park on the wrong side of the road like that? And you, a cop right outside a driving school? "
"Here, I am the law" he said shrugging his shoulders ..."and this is Israel."

Marketing Israel to Itself

2009-05-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

At this moment in time, Israel sits between that casual non affected place we all fell in love with in the seventies and a slick stylised future of the new century - hovering somewhere between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Kylie Mons 'locomotive'. Last weeks Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration was a case in point. Podiums designed to look like large blue underpants , a pompous staged military presence, endless formations of predictable Israeli symbols visible only to the camera's eye, and masses of dancers all doing the same thing over and over again to the backdrop of (I concede) some relatively impressive entertainment technology.

I imagine some big Israeli names were called in to produce the event but still it felt staged and flat. Of course in the Tel-Aviv world of design Israel is well and truly up there with the best, as it is in the world of the arts, music and dance, but the rest of the country, is still very much stuck in flared jeans and gaudy fonts.

During the week I attended a small Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration where Children from all the kindergardens in the town gather at the local military courtyard to sing national songs, wave Israeli flags and be indoctrinated through a somewhat dated socialist youth project. Scattered parents hovered close to their children as they all swore emotional allegiance to the State through song and dance. Of course there isn't a dry eye when little Jewish children sing Hatikvah but it's the military and nationalistic overtone that I found somewhat dated. If this country wants to market itself to the next generation, it's going to have to find a better strategy.

I understand why Israeli children need to be indoctrinated, they will all give at least two years of their life to the country in service and it's important that they have a strong sense of National Pride to do so. Still as I watched little mouths yawning away to no less than six official speeches, I couldn't help but feel that these ceremonies are more about the adults reaffirming their allegiance to the state than the children who would be just as easily bought off with a Magen-David shaped chocolate on a stick and a bag of Bambas.

Last week I went with my daughter to the Misrad Haklita, the Absorbtion Centre in Hadera to sign some forms. On the way up to the office, we went in to what looked like a regular pharmacy, though the name of one of the National Health Funds was clearly signed. My daughter needed to buy a packet of tissues. When we finally get to the counter, the woman serving us asked if we were members of Macabbi. What, to buy a tissue? I ask back, astounded. Yes, she replied, you can only buy tissues here if you are a member of Macabbi. My daughter and I burst out laughing; the woman serving us doesn't get the joke.

When we got upstairs I shared my tissue story with the woman at the misrad - who has been nothing short of a Godsend to us. She told us that during Chol Hamoed, across the state, the misrad employ staff to sit in the office all day to answer the phone, even though the office is officially closed. Their sole purpose, for that week is to tell whoever calls that the office is closed. She shrugged her shoulders and explained in a word - "Inertia".

'Inertia' indeed – the country that markets itself on its intelligence is still running on the generators of a dated socialism, reflecting the cumbersome sluggish style of its post hippy era. We will never return to the Zionistic free-style of long days in the Sinai but the conservative style of the eighties and nineties has been replaced by diversification and vitality that must be reflected in all things Israeli not just its hi-tech industry.

Meira of Hadera - My Initiation

2009-01-13T01:13:00.000-08:00

I am returning to Sydney to celebrate my parent's fiftieth wedding anniversary, but Meira didn't know that. All she knew was that I had lost my Israeli travel document (a temporary passport issued to Orlim who leave the country before one year). She looked down at me disapprovingly through the glass screen between us and waited for an explanation I did not have. The implication was clear. Yes, of course I understand that in a country like Israel, where security is of primary concern, the loss of such a document is no small matter. I did not need Meira to tell me that, though she obviously felt that I did. "It's very expensive to replace" she said, her eyes awaiting some kind of grovelling apology for my very existence. "It's 500 shekels". "Wow, that is expensive" I said adding to my growing debt-guilt, "but what can I do, I've booked my ticket, I'm leaving in three weeks."

"Go over there and get a letter from that girl to say you've lost it" she commanded. I scurried across the office, dodging a blind Arab man holding on to a pretty young Arab woman wearing an elegant black scarf. 'Slicha' I said half smiling and wondering at the same time if perhaps my travel document hadn't fallen into the hands of a mad Jihadist plastic surgeon with a tribe of daughters willing to look just like me for long enough to complete some massively destructive mission.

I returned to Meira with my tail between my legs and handed her the paper. She handed it back. "Fill it in" she said. I looked at the page full of Hebrew and I looked back at her. She knew damn well that I was far from capable of filling out this form. At my request we were speaking in English. She turned the snobby corners of her mouth up, grabbed the form back, made a personal call on her mobile phone and filled out the form while continuing a previous conversation with her co-workers behind the counter at the same time.

This place reminded me of the Road and Traffic Authority in Bondi Junction, with its ticket system and windowed counter. I missed the rough faced Aussie women with whom you could always share a personal story, and open up a conversation just by admitting you were human. Meira wasn't human though. She was one of those beautifully groomed Tel-Aviv women, streaked blond hair cut sharply against her chiseled face. She wore a large diamond studded eternity ring on her stubby manicured fingers, a high maintenance girl, clearly too good to be working an office job at the Misrad Hapnima in Hadera. There was no breaking the ice with this one.

I gave her my Australian passport, my Israeli ID, my Tudat Orlah , I gave her my husband's Israeli credit card. "Who's Gabi ?" she asked suspiciously. My husband I said, calling him over to identify his legitimacy. Where's his ID? she asked rudely. I was starting to come undone. I pointed to my ID, which has his name and number on it, she continued stapling and folding, stamping and writing.

I thought about my dad and I started to cry. I don't know why but I did. She neither noticed nor cared and by the time she handed me back my card, and told me it would arrive in the post within two weeks, I had completely fallen apart. Meira had managed without actually saying anything to completely annihilate me. I had been initiated.

This is the Israel I had heard so much about, this is the beurocratic nightmare, the scorpionic Sabra of which I had been warned. Up until now, I had been spared. I left the office in tears and cried all the way home. I still don’t know why I was so intimidated by this woman, maybe it was the full moon or maybe I'm just terribly homesick, or maybe that's what Meira does to make her feel better about herself.

I could wipe Meira out in a psycho-spiritual battle in a flash. I have squatted down and birthed five times, I have lived in a rain-forest. I have sat in tribal circles with powerful women, manifesting healing and manipulating energy. I have immigrated. I am a strong woman, a powerful being, capable of drawing powerful forces to my aid. By comparison Meira is a child, an un-evolved being, caught in the superficiality of her unprocessed life. Life will process her, it always does. I hope it does so gently so she grows to see that her external beauty will only ever be a reflection of her inner essence.

Role Reversal in the Holy Land

2009-01-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not a control freak, really I'm not. I'm really a pretty laid back person, ask anyone - except my husband. OK, maybe I am a bit of a control freak but for very good reason. I want everything to be done the way I want it to be done. That doesn't mean I'm a perfectionist though, I just like things to be ordered, not necessarily spotless, just tidy. I'm certainly not that mom scrubbing the kitchen cupboards down with meths; I'm that mom drinking it!

Our recent immigration has presented new challenges but money is not one of them. Money is an old challenge, one that's been part of our dynamic since I rejected the idea of contraception and married a man sorely lacking in a MBA, and now to add fuel to the fire we are trying a role reversal. I did the first twenty years and now it's his turn.

The playing field is pretty even because as things stand I'm not earning any money, but my housewife skills even back then, when we first started out were noticeable better than his. Now he's communicating with underpaid teachers, under aged postal workers and overworked secretaries - in a language he neither speaks nor understands; but to be fair I was pregnant, nursing and sleep deprived for fifteen of my twenty years, so that pretty much puts us on par.

The thing that really gets me is that nothing ever gets done along the way; there's an end goal and it gets reached but along the way, if you'd only pick up the socks and drop them in the laundry and let the cat out and close the dishwasher and fill it with powder and press start ...it's on the way!!! It makes no sense that you wouldn't just see it and do it, you're literally right there.

There is no forethought and no organisation and when it comes to the children there is little compassion and even less food. Am I being too demanding? I come upstairs from my office. The pantry is open before an empty chair some hungry child has stood on, to remind me that my umbilical cord still pulses with healthy guilt. The potatoes are out, five scattered along the kitchen bench top awaiting a future fate. I heard talk of hot fried chips for lunch, but that was before everyone mysteriously disappeared. Carrots spread with crusted Miso sit drying in a bowl on the kitchen table, and assorted empty packets of corn chips, spill out of the garbage onto the kitchen floor.

Yesterday I took a break from work and while feeding the cat I stumbled upon an old tin plate which I thought would sit well on the wooden shelf by the front door. When I brought it inside to wash, I found the kitchen sink full of dirty plates, which I furiously stacked on top of the crusty pots from the night before and wondered about the ingenious way in which the Almighty fashioned 'man'.

I am reminded of a joke. Man says to G-d "Why did you make women so beautiful?""So you would love her" G-d replies. "But why did you make her so stupid?" Man continues, "So she would love you."

Housework is cyclic. The washing has to go in the machine in the morning, be hung in the afternoon, folded and put away at night so a new load can be done at night ready to be hung the next morning before everyone wakes in need of breakfast and school lunch, shoes and permission notes. Dinner also has to be thought about in the morning and children have to be thought about throughout the day, not all day but from time to time, especially around pick up time when they all get out from four different campus's at the same time. Some forethought is required. They also need to be FED!

The house is silent. I can't imagine he's taken them all to the supermarket to stock up for the week's meals and snacks - that's what I would have done. Then we would have come home, the children happily bouncing off the walls from junk food whose ingredients I can neither read nor understand. I would unpack the shopping in neat categories in the pantry and start cooking dinner. I imagine they are at the park, cold and hungry. I make myself a cup of tea and contemplate our future. I don't think this is going to work.

I put the potatoes in to bake, clean up the carrots, and wash the dishes. I don't think he will ever be the housewife I once was, and I will probably never earn enough to keep us, still I think it's been a healthy exercise. I'm a better mother than I am a father and he's a better dad than mom. The dog barks ahead of the arriving crowd, they storm in flushed from an afternoon on the windy sandbanks of the local beach. "I'm starving" the little ones say in unison, tearing their shoes off leaving neat little piles of sand on the rug which they will try rub out with their feet when they notice. "What's for dinner mum?" the teenager asks. Some things never change.

2008-12-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

Time In Israel

2008-12-15T03:11:00.000-08:00

According to cultural anthropologist and biblical scholar Raphael Patai the predominantly Arab, Middle Eastern Culture reflects an interesting relationship with time that can be understood through the Arab language. In his book entitled The Arab Mind, he says "In Arabic the imperfect form can stand for present, future and past ". The Arab language reflects a clear lack of concern for linear time, with significant historical events often grossly misrepresented in linear time sequence. A disconcerting example follows.

The names Mary and Miriam share a root and in Arabic are one and the same; Maryam. Patai tells us that even though Mary -mother of Jesus, lived some thirteen centuries after Miriam- sister of Moses, "the two women are represented in the Koran as one and the same person". Koran 3:35ff. The wife of Imran (ie.Amram, father of Moses) is said to have given birth to Maryam, who in turn gave birth to Jesus. In Koran 19:28 Maryam the mother of Jesus is addressed as "sister of Aaron". Even to the lay scholar this lack of regard for linear time presents a major problem, with fundamental Jewish and Christian events being merged into a cholent of misinformation.

My friend, who works with the Arab Israeli peace initiative, teaching Arabic and working closely with Israeli Arabs, tells me that the Arabs are not in a hurry to take over the country, they have time. Meanwhile the Israeli national hand symbol for 'be patient – savlanut" is silently screamed out of every car window at every opportunity accompanied by horn blowing before the lights even change colour - like your mother reminding you to pick up your dirty socks as if you weren't going to anyway. Coming from abroad where less parve hand signals are frequently used, it's easy to be offended when an Israeli sticks their pinched fingers up at you implying somewhat more than a polite request for a little patience. Patience is not widely practiced in this country implying that Israeli's are in a hurry to get things done, to be productive, efficient and not waste time.

Unless of course you are in the service industry. If your job requires you serving anyone in any way shape or form (with the single exception of the staff at the King David Citadel) the old Arabic sense of timelessness takes over. No one is in a hurry to do, finish, accomplish anything. There is no rush, time itself will wait. Personal calls are taken, meals are prepared, cows are milked. There is no sense of time in the Post Office, bank, health department, or council offices. The ministries all over this country float in the Arab national time frame blissfully ignorant of the fact that outside the enclosed walls of Israeli bureaucracy, linear time is still the order of the day.

Schools fall somewhere in between, insisting you send your child prepared to every event with just a days notice, and at the same time initiating services over years if not decades. By the time my seven year old is assessed for learning difficulties he will be a general in the Israel Army, and believe me he won't be the first to make it into Israel's fighting forces with unaddressed issues. In this case it may even be a bonus. In fact in most cases it's probably a bonus.

My sister in law has a diary in which she schedules her busy life. Lunches and parties are penciled in weeks and months ahead, and she never misses a birthday. We aren't like that; still I can't help but be confused. Am I supposed to be efficient and productive or endlessly patient? Is time in this country important or irrelevant? The Torah perspective would of course say that the six days of the week are for productive linear time, and the Sabbath is a day of transcendence where we float above time in blissful celebration of the gift of the day. Perhaps if all of Israel honored this cycle, the order would be evident and there would be less confusion.

Israel is a strange and mysterious place, ordinary, gritty and hard. I can't seem to sink my teeth into anything here; time evades me as I desperately try to create order in my daily life and the life of my family. Nothing gets done and yet we float from day to day, with a vague sense of purpose. I am woken in the dark hours of the early morning by the Mosques call to prayer. Morning merges into afternoon, afternoon into night and by the time I climb into bed I wonder what it is that I have done all day.

Perhaps it is the land that sets time up in this way, Arabic and Ancient Hebrew reflecting the essential nature of this timeless arid place. Productive modern Israel and modern Hebrew with its clearly differentiated verb tense system, seems determined to overcome this indifference to time. Still I think they don't stand a chance with the girl behind the checkout counter at the local supermarket and the fifteen year old running the international post depot in central Tel Aviv and so for a carton of milk and cotton socks from grandma, we will patiently wait.

Womenspeak

2008-11-07T00:16:00.000-08:00

After six months I am still startled when Israeli women open their mouths to speak. Not so much with Israeli men - they are after all, men. Even when they speak English, they speak a different language, but the women look like women I know, like women I've grown up with like my cousins and my aunts, my friends mothers and my mother's friends, they look like they should sound like them too, but they don’t. Israeli men are different - they all look like members of the Mosad, or ex members of the Mosad. They wear dark glasses and jeans and walk around with attitude befitting a middle-eastern man who works for the Mosad. Even the softly spoken more evolved ones look like they work for the Mosad – in a different department – in higher intelligence.

The women however look the same, apart from their shoes they dress the same, they mother and shop and act the same, but when they open their mouths to speak, from deep within comes a gruff loud voice that scares the hell out of me. I look around to see who's fallen, whose run into the traffic, only to realize that they are talking to me, making very small talk in very big voices.

There's a woman I dance with who's had more roadwork done on her pretty face than is seemingly healthy - full lipped, long haired big boobed and skinny. Modeled on Stacy (as opposed to Barby) she moves around the dance floor in her own bliss, childhood patterns of ballet classes long passed restricting her free movement. She is tall and wide eyed and looks like a child who has not yet moved from innocence to power. Light and slight, awkward and fragile she twirls around blissfully in her own make believe world. We greet each other and smile, but she knows I speak little Hebrew and until last night we had never actually exchanged words.

Then after the teacher-DJ gave instructions for a new dance momentarily in English, she brushed passed me and turned to say " In your merit, he spoke in English" (Well that's not exactly what she said - what she said was " because of you he spoke English " but the word she used was 'schut' which in Chabbad-speak means merit. Its how you say 'because' when the outcome is positive). In the moments between hearing and understanding what she had said, I nearly jumped out of my skin. This beautiful sculptured childlike overgrown ballerina spoke in the deepest voice, and uttered the most guttural and loud Hebrew. She was simply making small talk and thank G-d I understood what she said or I might have left the class running.

There are others too, the homeopath who looks like the Rebbitzin, the woman outside drinking coffee who looks like my brother in laws mother, they all startle me when they speak. Perhaps it's the language itself, and perhaps when the time comes that I finally speak it, I too will startle. After all I look like I was born here; I walk the same, apart from my shoes I dress the same, mother the same and shop the same. People assume I'm Israeli, they ask me directions in the street, questions in the mall, and perhaps they too are startled when I open my mouth and meekly stumble out in my softly spoken foreign accent my apologize in broken Hebrew for not understanding or speaking the language of my face.

They turn to their friends and say – wow, I never expected that, she looks just like one of us.

Nachlaot Hippies on my Kitchen Floor

2008-11-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

It's Simchat Torah. Small groups of families and teens drunk with wine and song decorate the street. The heat of summer has lifted and daylight savings brings in the dark sky well before its time. Elijah runs in to the house ahead of the rest and calls out in great excitement as if to warn me "the whole of shule's coming to our house, now!" Earlier I had sat outside alone under the light of a few scattered candles and remembered how this festival had been for me in the years before. If you were a mother of small children – which I had been for many years, it was a 'boys club'. More often than not, I chose to stay home with sleeping toddlers whose routine was more important to keep than my need to be part of the fun. Now my sleeping toddlers had all grown up and were fiercely independent and more than capable of getting themselves home from shule alone, in the dark.

Still these days I choose to stay home, treasuring my few moments silence after a long month of festivities and too much food. Finally the house is quiet, I am alone. And then they arrive –in a pack, a tribe of three or four families, assorted singles, young ones and couples. It's hard to tell who belongs to who as their ages span from infant to elder and they huddle together on our kitchen floor in rustic clothes made of cotton and hemp. The High Priest leads them in chant. They "Om" at his gesture and he invites us all to join in. My kids come down stairs with friends who've come to stay for the chag and join in the circle on the kitchen floor and we all "Om" a little more, though my Om is more of an Um? as I contemplate the logistics at hand.

Expecting no more than a few odd drunk blokes, some hummus and olives were all I had planned for the often forgotten late evening meal that usually accompanies Simchat Torah. Luckily I was inspired by Abby's Minestrone for which we had shopped together a few days before, so I had spent the day cooking a big pot of soup and had pitta and bread for tomorrow's lunch. Together with Yossi's pasta and a few extra salads it would stretch just far enough to feed the hungry masses. The High priest blesses the space; I look across at his Moroccan (could be Navaho) wife, her long curls streaked Grey by the wisdom of time, motherhood, life – 'looks like we've joined the circus', I mouth to her over the crowd. She laughs.

The high priest senses a certain tension. "What do you need he asks?" I need you all out of my kitchen I reply, shuffling them out with my broom. There is work to be done here and no amount of chanting G-ds holy name is going to turn the lettuce in the fridge into salad or slice the tomatoes. The men may well reach for the stars, but it's the womenfolk who feed them when they land back on the planet. Hungry children, breastfeeding mothers, starving teens will join in the song and dance, the spiritual high of endless celebration in the name of the good Lord, but hallelujah brother, I say, let the hungry amongst us eat.

We sit outside drinking wine and singing Jewish and American Folk Songs. Kumbaya My Lord, is spontaneously remixed into a politically correct "Someones perpetuating racial steriotypes -Kumaya..." - by Yossi of course and young Elijah orchestrates "Let It Be" to the enthusiastic cheers of the drunken crowd.

The next day we debrief over tea. My daughter said " "Nachlaot hippy's have babies and move to Pardes Chanah". She's right. Whats more, we would have been those Nachlaot hippies had we moved to Israel instead of to Mullumbimby twenty years ago. We would have joined the Shlomo Carlebach and or Rainbow Kehilla's, and at some point lived in Nachlaot with the chevrah. Later we would have moved somewhere greener, somewhere less expensive, maybe camped in a caravan for a few years on Shlomo's Kibbuts Mod'in , but ultimately we would have landed ourselves on a rustic and rundown property in Pardes Chanah with a large leafy yard and some free range chooks.

For us back then, Mullum simply wasn't Jewish enough and so we spent the next twenty years compromising our hippy values for a seemingly spiritual but largely just religious education. I can't claim to be a hippy anymore, I shave under my arms, and as much as I have embraced my inner Kundalini, I will always have a primal fear of snakes. My house is not warm and rustic, full of books and herbs, but rather Star Wars blasts forth from the flat screen TV and our food scraps rot in plastic bags.

Still when the Nachlaot hippies arrive, something in me wants to be part of it. I want to live in a tee pee and cook over an open fire. I want to pick berries and herbs and heal my children with whole foods. I want to sing to an open fire and weave baskets and rugs and blankets. I feel connected to the earth through the women in my life who make soup and garden and make mugs from clay, and I feel connected to the heavens through the men who pray and chant and make blessings over bread and wine as if theirs were the first and last.

The next day after the service was over and the regulars went home to sleep off hangovers and continue private celebrations, the hippies stayed on to dance. They procured a private and much treasured Sefer Torah for a few hours, one which had survived the Holocaust and they danced and sang and danced and prayed all afternoon in the courtyard of the local school until the day turned cool and they finally conceded to join the rest of us for a piece of bread and a cup of wine.
This year Simchat Torah came to me, and like one of my seven soul mates, for a night and a day I bathed in the likelihood of what might have been with Nachlaot hippies on my kitchen floor.

Fundamental Islam exposed

2008-09-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

I look at the picture of Gilad Shalit on my fridge and I hate G-d. I have never met the boy, I know nothing of his life, his family, his temperament; all I know is that in some way he belongs to me, he is one of mine. The tears come from time to time, and my thoughts move from his mother to the political echelon, to Nasralla (may his name be wiped out), and then finally to the greater mechanical workings of the spiritual world. There is no resolution. Neither his mother nor the current Israeli political entity as it stands today can do anything. Nasralla like Darth Vadar is a slave to the Emperor of Evil – the Dark Force. The Force of light and good unfortunately rests on the shoulders of mere humans while G-d slumbers away the remainder of his 6000 year creation.

There have been times when the Primal Universal Force has been forced into response – the Holocaust was not one of those times, but it is said in Chassidic thought that the miracle of Purim lies in the fact that the King (an analogy for G-d) woke up. After waking, he couldn't get back to sleep so he called for his diary to be read to him and was reminded that Mordechai the Jew had saved him and had not yet been rewarded; the rest is the Megilla.

What fascinates me about Nasralla and his merry men of disillusioned followers of Global Jihad in the name of Allah, is that they have managed to get it so wrong. I know it's naive to assume they have anything other than Global Power in mind, but they do present at least in their public persona, a perception of a higher cause. They are not merely out to take over Israel and return all of Palestine to the Palestinians. They are part of a bigger plan to bring down the western world and convert the entire world to Islam: To bring about the ultimate prophecy of Mohammed, when the entire world will follow the teachings of Islam.

If this is the ultimate goal, how on earth does kidnapping our children and thereby creating hate and anger make anyone want to love and worship Allah? How are they reaching us, how are they connecting to our soul in a way that may make Islam tempting? How are they spreading the word of a possibly better and more conscious world?

Perhaps they believe if they can convert the Jews, they can convert anyone, because we are the most stubborn when it comes to our own religion. Christianity couldn't convert us after two thousand years violently chasing us out of every country on the face of the planet. Russia couldn't suppress us into non existence, even Buddhism ultimately sends us back to discover our own spiritual roots, so what makes the proponents of fundamental Islam think they can kidnap our children and hold us hostage to their G-d ? Do they really think this is the way to our hearts and souls? There must be another agenda. Political victory, fame and glory are too ego centric for a so called spiritual leader of Nasrallas stature unless he's suffering from a serious chemical imbalance, a possibility I haven't yet ruled out.

The only other conclusion I can come to is that in the big picture at least, what is going on is the painful evolution of the greater family soul of fundamental Islam. Like fundamental Christianity fundamental Islam must also come to learn that forced conversion, even Dimmitude (allowing a lesser nation to live under Islamic rule without entirely annihilating them) is a highly unevolved spiritual path. You can't force humans to love G-d. You can't force Allah on man. You can try, you can impose, you can kill and wound and damage and lie, you can manipulate the masses to believe that their only salvation is your religion, but a relationship with G-d can only come from personal individual contemplation and choice.

The Chareidim are right in some way to remain insular, they know that they can't force Jews to keep the Sabbath; all they can do is protect themselves from external influences and pass on the inherent wisdom of Torah to the next generations. Chabad on the other hand spreads joy and simcha with such exuberance and speed around the globe that secular Jews are inspired to be part of this vibrant energy, to reconnect to a Spiritual Force they never knew existed in their ho-hum drab religious past lives. If fundamental Islam's true reason d'être is to spread the word of Islam, it could take a page from the Rebbe's book, and spread some joy and some kindness, instead of tainting all of Islam with pain and hate.

All this does nothing for the sacrificial lamb; the vessel for the evolution of the unevolved. But why does it always have to be the lone Jew or the tiny Jewish nation that shows humanity the cruelty of which it is ultimately capable, until it has seen too much of its own ugly innards that it is motivated to evolve into something more human. Perhaps that is what is meant by the Jews being a light unto the nations. The light of a camera that exposes - in this case, the ugliness of mankind to itself- that is the light of the Jew. The filthy dirty blood sucking rat referred to as the 'Jew' by fundamental Islamic doctrine is nothing other than what is exposed when the light is shone into the crevices of fundamental Islam itself. Gilad Shalit, sits in the dark shining a light on the inherent ugliness and cruelty of those who hold him in captivity.

The Lost Semetic Art of Haggling

2008-06-17T02:24:00.000-07:00

Under the arch at the top of the midrachov in Zichron is a little shop that sells hippy-Indian clothes, where my three oldest daughters can often be seen rummaging through the over stocked store in search of something easy and cool to wear for the summer. The owner is used to us by now and knows that his patience will pay. He lets the girls treat his small shop like their own private dressing room while he fusses about trying to look busy and helpful. At the end there will be a sale of a few hundred sheks and a small mound of clothes to put back on the racks. He will have something to do, my girls will feel loved and I will rest guilt-free for the remainder of the week knowing that my princesses have something to wear to the ball.

Our last purchase at his store totalled four pieces of coloured cloth weighing all of 75 grams and barely stitched together at all. He folded them slowly, meticulously calculating the addition of each out loud. “Three hundred and fourty shekels” he said, waiting for my return offer. I stared at him blankly not sure exactly what it was I was supposed to do. Uncomfortable at the awkward length of silence and my obvious lack of response he continued ”I’ll make it three hundred”. “Todah rabah” I replied, pathetically trying to retrieve my credit card from the bottom of my daughters bag. I was grateful to have been let off the haggling hook.

Though presented with many an opportunity in the Middle east, haggling is just not an art I have been able to master. I can’t even do it do it with my seven year old, for whom everything is a deal. “I’ll let you buy me the entire Lego Pirate ship with all its little Lego pieces - that you will have the pleasure of stepping on in the early hours of the morning, if you let me eat ice cream on the couch and go on your computer whenever I want”. ” OK, I say, sounds like a fair deal to me”.

A few weeks ago I found myself in a Jerusalem taxi with my parents on our way back to their hotel from the Kotel. My father inquired about the cost of the ride to which the driver shamelessly replied “Forty shekels”. ‘Forty shecks ‘ I mouthed silently to my mother sitting next to me in the back - ‘that’s outrageous’. It was a twenty shekel ride at most. Excited by the opportunity to exercise my new found citizens rights to haggle I began frantically to search for my courage, but unlike Mulan who went to battle for her father’ honour, this time my silence betrayed us all.

Haggling is an aggressive game of one- upmanship and while I completely understand the premise of ‘get what you can’, it feels dishonest to me. I am reminded of a game we played at College where one party has to spend exactly the same amount of money on a purchase as the other needs to receive for a sale by the end of a certain day. The game commences at the eleventh hour with five minutes left to negotiate. No one in the group simply sat down and said “this is what I have or this is what I need”. We all started to haggle, each team running out of time and all parties ending up in jail or having lost everything.

Last week after a long day of too many grown up activities and broken promises, we found ourselves engaging in the futile art of haggling once again when our seven year old dragged us into the markets of the old city in search of something sharp and dangerous with which to taunt his sisters. Again my silence brought a terrific drop in price. The laser sharp finely crafted be-jewelled and dazzling pocket knife went from more shekels than I can say in a foreign language to less than a pack of Zanex. But there was more - for a few extra shecks he would throw in a sparkling home crafted hand grenade and a fluffy self exploding Katsuya.”Yes” I replied finally finding my voice “but can you also throw in a pack of 5mg Valium and a bottle of Vodka?” And so it was that I left the scene of the crime and the seven year old to work it out for himself.

Moments later he emerged victorious, with Aladdin-like triumph, his new found pocket knife safely tucked into the elastic waistband of his khaki shorts, his rainbow knitted Kippah dancing innocently on his head. Later we will haggle over ownership rights, but for now, I am just grateful that not all of our Semitic origans were lost in the Diaspora.

Mop Technology and Cleaning Ladies

2008-06-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

I never once saw my mother, my African nanny nor our gorgeous Czechoslovakian cleaning lady Angela throw a bucket of water on the kitchen floor and mop it by attaching a shmatta to a stick. The first time I saw this extraordinarily primitive cleaning technique was on a visit to a friend in Mullumbimby where his new Moroccan Israeli girlfriend was cleaning his house perhaps for the first time ever. Since then I have only ever seen the bucket-shmatta-stick method used by Israeli’s or their partners. It completely fascinates me. In this day and age when we can practically call home from our mobiles on Mars, how is it that Israeli woman are still mopping the floor with a shmatta and a stick?

For most of my adult life the cleaning lady in my house was me. Perhaps it had to do with a certain uncomfortable feeling I had from having grown up in South Africa, or perhaps it was because I married a man sorely lacking in an MBA, but by the time our fifth baby came along, I was ready for some help and so I enlisted the services of an Israeli. It didn’t take me long to discover that young Israeli girls are rarely skilled in the art of cleaning house and besides, I could never tell them what to do because I was too busy making them tea and mopping the floor to ask them to hang out the washing. “Never mind, you hold the baby, I’ll do the washing” I would say shocked by my own inability to delegate to someone half my age wearing gold platform shoes.

Eventually I responded to a flyer in my mailbox. A gentle trustworthy reliable husband and wife team from Korea, who would bring their own equipment, speak very little English, clearly define the job they intended to complete and stay no more than an hour and a half. It was perfect. No tea, no counselling and no waiting for them to finish. For five years I lived without fear, and then we made Aliya.

A few weeks after arriving in Israel, our agent called to tell us the cleaning lady would be arriving at 8am. It would give us an excuse to get the kids to school on time (for once) and do some shopping for Shabbat. By one pm, we thought it safe to return home, only to be swished out the front door by a wave of water and a well dressed cleaning lady waving a shamatta and a stick yelling at us in a most officious Hebrew.

Since then, Lubner and I have bonded. She arrives whenever she wants and tells me how long she will take to finish. She leaves a tower of Babel pile of linen for me to wash, and a list of chores for me to complete before she returns - whenever that may be. She speaks to me in a a language I will probably never understand and she locks up the safe room with a promise that if anything ever happens, she will rush over from the adjoining village to attend to my families safety.

Last week I woke the entire household at six am, to get ready for Lubnar the cleaning lady. We tidied, we washed, we stacked, we sorted, we packed and we tucked away but Lubner never came. So out came the bucket and the shmatta and the stick. I filled the bucket with soapy water, swished it over the tiled floor and began to mop in disbelief. This is the twenty first century, we talk with and see family and friends online over a distance of 14136 kilometers in real time and I am mopping the kitchen floor with a shmatta and a stick. In those moments, I invented an automatic swirly machine that silently polishes the floor much like a swimming pool cleaner randomly moving around the house sucking up dust and polishing. I invented Ugg-pads, wide soft self soaping removable sponges that you attach to your teenagers feet when they are still asleep and as they mooch around all morning (without lifting their feet), unbeknown to them they are also miraculously cleaning the floor.

Then the five year old took over and completed the task with Cinderella enthusiasm while I wiped down the bathroom mirror, splashed some tea tree oil around the loo, sent hubby outside to shake out the rugs and cleaned the kitchen. The older kids hung out the washing and the seven year old entertained us playing ‘Let it Be’ on the out of tune piano. The house was incomparably filthier than it had been the week before, but a little leavened bread tucked behind the couch will only serve at a mitzvah in the year to come. As for Lubner, I believe she will be back, one random Friday morning 8am, sharp, I just hope I can extract the shmatta off the wheels of the remote control car before she takes out her stick and reminds me that in Israel, some things will never change.

Sun-set in Jenin

2008-06-07T12:32:00.000-07:00

Recently I was stopped by a woman who kindly pointed out that I was parked illegally. “Slicha”, I said apologetically, “ b’Englit ?”. “Sure,” she said, in a broad East Coast American accent “I can do it in English too” and she repeated her diatribe of abuse for the horrendous crime of my having parked half up on the curb outside my own house in the dead end quiet backstreets of Zichron Yaakov. I was confused. I thought that my newfound Israeli Citizenship entitled me to drive, if not park like an Israeli. Still it came as a bit of a culture shock, the way Israeli’s drive, and after my first month here I declared to all that I was never leaving my home town of Zichron again, a vow my husband annulled immediately, and thank G-d for that for a few days into the Pesach break I was ready to venture out again.

Israel’s roads are notoriously badly signed. Decisions made at break neck speed must contribute to the toll of lives if not to the toll on Israeli nerves, and so it was that we found ourselves in Tiberius instead of Tzvat. It was a hot and windy day but we found a place to park in a run-down outdoor parking lot where to the delight of all, I proceeded to deposit our only credit card into a parking meter into which it disappeared never to be seen again. So I decided to read the instructions “b’Ivrit”, which apparently did not say put your card in this slot. After stumbling around Tiberius with no money we discovered our twelve year old still had some Aussie dollars, so we negotiated a ridiculously high interest rate (with the twelve year old) and managed to exchange many dollars for a few shecks. Tiberius markets are no fun without money and a pack of annoyingly poor teenages and so we moved on to Tzvat, stopping for a dunk in the Kineret and an ice cream on the way.

A few hours later we reached the holy town of Tzvat where our oldest daughter had been learning and couch-hopping the previous year. She knew all the alleyways, the artists, the cafe’s, she knew each and every nook and cranny of the Old City. She took us up the back streets through shortcuts and unknown walkways pointing out important and significant sites along the way, like where Raffi threw up all night on Purim and where Sarah found her stray dog. We sat outside the Bagdad cafe and ate a kosher l’pesach meal and watched the little children dodge the traffic, our son leading the way with his Israeli army kippa and a cap gun. We were safe, he was armed.

Our daughter decided to stay for the night and sent us on our way down narrow winding roads that lead to dead ends that back into private dusty yards that go nowhere. Finally we followed someone who led us down the hill out of the old city up a one way street, the wrong way and back on the highway accompanied by The Beatles, singing “On our Way Home....”

My husband seemed to know what he was doing so I devoted myself to separating the children who were entangled in a blood battle over Mario and besides I have a notoriously bad sense of direction. Then he looked at me and said something he has never said before in his life. “Maybe that last turn was a mistake “. The sign to Jenin should have been a dead giveaway but then maybe we were just heading in the direction of Jenin and not actually going through it. Or maybe it’s OK to drive through Jenin, maybe everyone drives through Jenin? Maybe it just gets bad press? By now the traffic had thinned down to one car, ours and as darkness set in doubt miraculously transformed into certainty - this was NOT the way home. My husband is always reluctant to turn around; so we drove a bit further our relationship, indeed our lives more at risk with every passing meter, until he saw the checkpoint ahead. He then conceded that perhaps there were better ways to end our days and besides we both knew, no checkpoint guard would ever let pass a family in a rental car driving on the wrong side of the road, no matter how brave and neutral Australians are, and besides, now we were Israelis.

An Aliyah Journal

2008-06-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

The taxi driver threw his hands up in the air in excitement and greeted us with a big warm smile when he heard we had just made Aliya from Australia. “Australia”, he said, ‘I love Australia! I’ve been to Australia! I want to live in Australia” He tossed our bags and our children into the back of his dusty sheirut and off we went making our way up north on the No.2 freeway to a small town just north of Natanya called Zichron Yaakov. “The No. 4 is better “he said “but I never take it, too many fines” meaning you couldn’t get away with speeding the way he was. He told us about his travels to Sydney, to the Opera house and the Blue Mountains and how he dreamed one day of living in Australia. “I had to come back to look after my father “he said, “but you how could you leave the best country in the world to come to Israel? “ I had to admit, it was a damn good question.

Even though my husband had been threatening for years no-one believed we would ever actually do it. Firstly no one believed he would ever talk me into it, and then once he had, the move was contingent on him doing absolutely everything to make it happen, which no-one believed he would do, but he did. He went to the Aliya office, he did all the research, made all the phone calls, attended all the appointments, filled out all the paperwork, organised to have our home packed up and shipped over, booked the tickets and found a house for us to rent.

We arrived at Ben Gurion feeling like Maurice Saundeks ‘Max’ having ‘sailed through night and day and in and out of weeks’ and were promptly escorted to an office inside the airport where we were issued with Israeli ID’s and granted Israeli Citizenship right there and then - before we changed our minds. I was somewhat taken by the Ministry’s confidence that we were here to stay and in that simple defining moment for the first time in my life, I felt the stirrings of a sense of national identity. I think it’s true, that Israel experienced in ones youth ensures a lifelong attachment, but like Lorenz’s duck, I had imprinted Los Angeles on my psyche in the wisdom of my youth, and it was not until the motherland embraced me in her matriarchal arms, granting me citizenship without a moment’s thought, that I felt, in some strange way that I had come home.

I had no real expectations, but I knew (because everyone told me repeatedly) that it would be hard to make Aliya at forty something with five children and a substandard Jewish Day school Hebrew. Even so there was a flow to the events that lead us to believe that it was the right thing to do. The universe synchronised itself to make it easy for us. I don’t mean in a big way, I mean in a small way, like when you ask for a parking spot and you get one in a most unlikely place, that’s how it was.

From our rented house in Zichron, over suburban red rooftops we can see the Mediterranean in the distance. On our first morning we awoke to a street parade for soldiers who had completed their first level of training. Their spirits were high as friends and family joined their march to the base. I examined the young faces of these teenagers carrying guns and felt a great tug at my tenuous newfound national identity. This was a reality for which I was not prepared. When I told my cousin that I was ambivalent about coming to live in a ‘war zone in the middle east’, she promptly corrected me, “It’s not a war zone” she said, “its Israel”.

At night the streets are quiet but for the noise of neighbours doing evening chores and children speaking Hebrew at a speed I will never understand. A cool breeze blows through the house and the crisp evening air reminds us that in Israel it is not summer yet. We have given ourselves three years to decide if we can make it. Before we left, we attended the United Israel Appeal function in Sydney, where we heard Natan Shransky and Fentahun Assefa-Dawit’s remarkable stories of their return to Israel. I guess if you spent nine years in a Siberian Labour Camp or you walked across the Sahara by foot to get here, you cannot be so easily convinced to leave; we however had flown in from Sydney’s eastern Suburbs with a laptop and a credit card...I guess only time will tell.