On going home again...

This is the home of some other rich Jews (ya know, the one 

designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), not my home, but I visited 

it when I was back in the US. Because I get to be a tourist now!

And that's my beautiful niece, Sarah.

This past August I went back to the US for the first time since I made aliyah in the spring of 2008. I honestly didn't know what to expect. Would buildings and cars in America suddenly seem gargantuan? Would the green scare me? Or (and this was honestly the most frightening possibility) would I go back to the US and feel so comfortable that I wouldn't want to return to Israel?

The culture shock started for me on the flight to the US. I was sitting next to an Israeli couple, and before the fasten-seatbelts signs on our Continental flight turned off, I found myself as the one better at communicating. I was the one explaining what "ginger ale" means and translating their requests for "no ice" to the stressed-out American flight attendants. Yet I felt relieved, for some reason, that I was sitting next to Israelis. I eyed the American couple in front of me-- an overweight family in sweats and t-shirts, squabbling with each other about things that seemed so trivial. The Israeli couple next to me talked with me about their feelings about religion, about aliyah, about cultural differences between Israel and America, about already missing the people we had left behind in Israel. To my surprise, I didn't want to stop speaking in Hebrew just yet. Interacting with the flight attendants in English seemed so... easy. Mechanical. They were polite but not kind; they smiled but seemed annoyed. Huh. Maybe this whole "Americans are nice" thing won't be so compelling after all.

As I waited for my transfer flight in Newark, I got a taste of what it means to be "Israeli" in the US. The former homeschooling mom (who reminded me of my own) with the blue T-Shirt LOVED Israel, in fact they celebrated the Holiday of Booths with their church! She looked at me expectantly: I was from the Holy Land. I felt like she wanted something from me, but I wasn't sure what. The reality of living in Israel feels so different from the idealized version that American Christians and even American Jews believe in. I felt like my own country, my own Israel was already being traded for the Promised Land, for some shiny myth rather than the complicated, vibrant, hilarious reality I had left behind.

On my transfer flight to my destination, I found myself (by complete coincidence) sitting next to an Israeli girl. She felt that she didn't belong in Israel and was about to end three years in the city where I grew up to travel to the Netherlands. Yet there was a kind of... commonality in our conversation, an ease of expectations, an honesty. For the next three weeks, this would be the last time I would speak Hebrew to a stranger.

During my time back in the US, I discovered a few things.

1. It was wonderful to see my family and friends. At the same time, being away from them for two years didn't matter as much as I worried it would. I was most worried about what it would be like to see my nieces and nephew-- two years in the life of a one, five, seven, and nine-year-old is a very long time. But after a bit of initial shyness, they were inviting me to go pick flowers, have tea parties, watch movies, run around, and play dress-up as much as ever before. And my one-year-old niece was just getting to know everyone, so I seemed no stranger to her than her grandfather or the dog. (Ok, so she did like the dog better.)

 The pinkies in the air make it fancy. The expression on my face makes it creepy.

2. American service people ARE nice, though their niceness feels impersonal. One of my favorite I'm-not-in-Israel-anymore moments went something like this...

BARNES AND NOBLE CHECKOUT GIRL: You're paying by credit card? Ok, let me just see some photo ID.
ME (searching in my wallet): Oh, crap... The only ID I have in English is my Israeli driver's license... and I changed my name completely when I moved to Israel, so it doesn't match any of the names on my American credit card...
BARNES AND NOBLE CHECKOUT GIRL: Oh, that's ok. I just needed to see your photo.
ME (trying to figure out this logic): Ok.... um, great! *Shows her my photo while privately thinking, freyerit!*

To be fair, the American checkout girl was simply following procedure. I used my visa, so she had to see a photo ID. Never mind that the name on the visa and the ID didn't match up. An Israeli, on the other hand, would have been very suspicious of my credit card but then would probably have lent me enough change to pay in cash. Or maybe the innocent face that gets me through mall security with barely a swipe of the metal detecting wand also works in the US.

Oh, and a word to the wise: never try to give extra change to American checkout people so that they can give you fewer coins in return.  In Israel, if I give 20 shekels to pay for something that costs, say, NIS 15.60, the checkout person is likely to ask if I have 10 agurot so that I can get one coins in change rather than four. (Israeli checkout people take great pride in conserving spare change.) Don't try this in the US. Unless American checkout people can enter in the total amount of money you give them into their cash machine, they get very confused.


3. The US is saturated in green, and what Americans (in the Northeastern US, at least) think of as "hot" Israelis think of as "early winter." I had to buy a jacket. But while I absolutely love the greenery of the US, I found myself missing the rockiness of Israel.

4. Things in the US are cheap. (It also helps that dollars are worth more than shekels... something that costs one dollar will always seem cheaper than something that costs 3.70 shekels.) Walmart and Target are amazing stores. Sam's Club is a little overwhelming. And it's really nice to be able to find size 9.5 women's shoes in any shoe store.

5. Teenagers in the rural US and teenagers in rural Israel have basically the same reaction when they learn you come from far away: man, I really want to get out of here.

6. A Cafe Latte is nowhere near as good as a Cafe Hafuch. 

7. Those people who sell carved wooden animals "from Israel" in American craft fairs actually see themselves as being "from Palestine."

8. Wearing 3D glasses and going to see Step-Up-3 in 3D makes you cool. I don't care what anyone else says.

My sister and I in the packed movie theater on Step-Up 3, 3D's opening day.

9. If you want to buy second-hand bonnets off of old-order Amish women, it helps a lot to be able to say you come from the land of Israel.

10. No matter where I go from now on, I'll miss somebody and something. In Israel I'll feel American, but in America I'll feel Israeli. I guess that's a sign of progress?

A lot of other things I learned while in the US are harder to pin down in words. I realized that knowledge I now take for granted in my life-- the spices I use to cook, the Hebrew I read effortlessly, the Israeli cities I now have mapped in my mind-- isn't at all obvious to most Americans. I'm so used to thinking of my Hebrew as "not very good" that it was bizarre to me to realize that my brothers couldn't read the label on the halva I brought back as a gift (and, in fact, had never tasted halva before). Something about being in America made my Hebrew seem totally fluent... I got a little charge from speaking to my mother-in-law in Hebrew on the phone and knowing that nobody around me knew what I was saying.

Three weeks and two flight transfers later, I was back in Israel. My husband met me at the airport. And as we were driving back from Natbag through dry, brown, beautiful rocky hills, I felt like my mind was coming back to life, as if it craved the challenge of deciphering Hebrew. (I admit that I'm a bit of a masochist.) I missed the smells. The landscape. The sense of deep, long history. The sense of reality. I found myself laughing. I turned to my husband. "I get to live here!"

While it's nice to go on vacation, nothing quite compares to going home again... to Israel. 

How does your perspective on the US change when you visit it from Israel?

Things *NOT* to do if you want to seem Israeli

Here's a list of things I've noticed Americans doing that they (ok, we) tend to think makes us look Israeli... but that actually make us look like fresh-off-the-Nefesh-b-Nefesh-flight olim, or worse: here-for-a-year-on-a-gap-year-program Americans.

Disclaimer: these are great things to do if you want to seem Israeli when you're in America. Just not in Israel.

1. Wear wrap-around pants. 

 Yes, these pants are comfy, cool and only cost about 15 shekels in the shuk. But unless you're either A) cleaning your house with bleach on a Friday morning or B) Idan Raichel, don't wear these pants in Israel anytime someone else can see you.

2. Call the New Israeli Shekel a "shek." 

This seems to be slang popular among the Jerusalem English-speaking crowd, but I've never heard it from Israelis. The formal term for the shekel is "shach," short for "shekel chadash," which could be the source of this bit of Anglo slang, but "shach" is only used by newscaster-types. Say it with me, folks: they're called are sh'kalim.

2. Wear tzahal clothing when you aren't in the army.

Source: http://www.ioffer.com/si/military+hebrew

Yes, I'll admit that I went on Birthright when I was 18 and bought the requisite army shirt. (Hey, it matches my eyes!) But in Israel, wearing army clothing means you're actually serving in the army. In fact, Israelis get so sick of wearing army clothes while they actually serve in the army that you would be hard-pressed to find any olive green in an Israeli wardrobe. So save that tzahal shirt as a gift for your friends back in the US.  In fact, wearing basically any shirt with Hebrew writing on it, in Israel, is a decent indication that you aren't Israeli (unless that shirt has a cut-out neck and says "madrich"-- counselor-- on it somewhere).

4. Wear a kippa when you aren't orthodox.

My parents are very active members of a reform congregation in the US, but dress my ex-hippie dad up in the right clothing and he could pass as a chasid. I have literally never seen his chin. When they came to visit me in Israel last year, my dad decided to celebrate being in the Jewish state by wearing a kippa (yarmulke) all the time. Problem is, like a tzahal uniform, a kippa has a specific meaning in Israel. At the very least, it means that you are either on your way to a synagogue or shomer shabbat and shomer kashrut, so for my dad to wear a kippa while touring the country on shabbat... confusing.

5. Say "shalom!" to strangers.

My husband and I were recently in a national park when a couple walked past us, smiled brightly, and said "shalom aleichem!" We were not at all surprised when they turned out to be German Christian tourists... we would have been shocked had they turned out to be native-born Israelis.  On the other hand, feel free to strike up a conversation with any shop owner, bus driver, or waiter that you see, and say "shabbat shalom" anytime to say goodbye to any Israeli you meet any time past Thursday morning. By Israeli standards, anyone you actually interact with for more than 30 seconds is no longer a stranger, so it's fine to greet them/share your life story.

6. Be loud, angry and combative.

"What??" you're saying. "Israelis are loud, angry and combative!" But here's the thing: Israelis are loud and combative, but they aren't usually angry. To Israelis, being loud and combative is all part of normal social interaction, and it's usually followed up with "shabbat shalom" and "tell Moshe I say hi." When Americans are loud and combative, on the other hand, we get angry, and we tend to leave in a huff with red faces and resolutions to never buy sandals in Israel again. As I said in another post, Americans are ruder (by Israeli standards) than we realize. If you want to seem Israeli, a better bet is to attempt to connect personally with whoever you meet. Being loud and combative is a higher level of Israeli-ness that we usually can't pull off.

I feel like there's more I should add to this list. Have you ever seen people on the street and just KNOWN they're not native Israelis? How did you know?

Then again, we American olim ALWAYS seem Israeli in America and American in Israel, so maybe we should just embrace it...

Come see me perform with the Haifa English Theatre!

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow night marks the first performance of an evening of one-act plays from the Haifa English Theatre. I'll be performing in the second play, a comedy called "The Bear" by Chekhov. It would mean so much to me if any blog readers show up... stick around afterward to say hi!

Here are full details:


LOVE UNREQUITED, an evening of one-act plays produced by the Haifa English Theatre, opens in June at Haifa’s Beit Hagefen Auditorium.  The three plays focus on the inner psyches of the characters--their loneliness, longing and needs for love. 

The plays included are Something Unspoken and Portrait of a Madonna written by Pulitzer Prize winning American playwright Tennessee Williams, as well as The Bear, a farce written by the well-loved Russian author Anton Chekhov. 

In Something Unspoken, Williams draws from his Southern background in his portrayal of the imperial Cornelia Scott, and of her long-suffering secretary-companion Grace.  The two of them share a silence “that nothing less than dynamite could break though.”

In Chekhov’s The Bear, Madam Popova (me!) is mourning her late husband when Grigory Stepanovitch comes to collect a debt.   Popova’s loyal servant Lukeria witnesses the beginning of their romance. 

In Portrait of a Madonna Williams explores the tragic story of Lucretia Collins who has aged in isolation. When she asks the building manager for help, he sends the elevator boy and the porter instead.  They watch silently as a doctor and nurse enter.  Time has run out for her.  

LOVE UNREQUITED is directed by Murray Rosovsky and will be performed by the Haifa English Theatre on the following dates at the Beit Hagefen Auditorium, 33 Zionism, Haifa.

Thursday 3 June -- 20:30
Saturday 5 June -- 21:00
 Tuesday 8 June -- Matinee 17:30
 Thursday 10 June -- 20:30
 Saturday 12 June -- 21:00

Tickets are available at the door and by mail order.  For more information please call Hazel
at 04-872-7940 (evenings).

*****

All the plays look great in rehearsal, and I can't wait to go to performance tomorrow. I hope you can show up to support the Haifa English Theatre!

P.S. I also blogged about the Krayot recently at a new blog a friend started encouraging olim to move to the northern coastal areas. You can find my entry here, along with great info about all the coastal communities: http://go-coast.blogspot.com/

Foods surprisingly hard to find in Israel (and foods to try instead!)

One reason that I use a lot of Israeli cook books (in addition to the fact that they help me learn words like "diced," "sauteed," and "minced garlic" in Hebrew) is that some common ingredients in the US are hard to find in Israel... and some common ingredients in Israel are really hard to find in the US. Here are a few foods I was surprised to have trouble finding here, along with suggestions of Israeli foods you could eat instead.

Caveat: you usually can find these foods, especially if you go to a big grocery chain specializing in imports, like Tiv Ta'am. But it's harder, so why not adjust to Israeli supermarkets??

Hard to find: bagels & lox

This one took me by surprise when I made aliyah, because in US bagels and lox seemed like the most Jewish food in existence (after, maybe, matzo ball soup). Here, bagels themselves are almost impossible to find! Jewish state, indeed.

Instead, try: ikra! (Hebrew: איקרה)

I first ate ikra on Yom HaAtzmaut, at a barbecue with a bunch of Romanian Israelis. It's a salad made from fish eggs, cream, lemon juice, and a few other ingredients-- here's a recipe (in Hebrew) from Yediot Ahronot. The Romanians called it "poor man's caviar," but I'd say the taste is actually very cream cheese-and-lox-esque! You can find ikra in the salads section of any supermarket-- in our local super, ikra is behind the deli counter, next to the cheese and smoked fish. Good luck finding a bagel to eat it with.

Hard to find: molasses

I've actually never been able to find molasses in Israel (though I haven't looked all that hard in Tiv Ta'am, and my ginger snap cookie recipe has had to slum it with dark brown sugar instead. I guess Israeli grandmothers don't go for this "surprise" natural sweetener-- whatever that means. 

Instead, try: silan! (Hebrew: סילאן)

 

Silan is date honey, and while it's a common ingredient in Israeli recipes (particularly savory recipes that need just a bit of sweetness), I never knew it existed before I made aliyah. It has a milder flavor than molasses or even honey, so I'm not suggesting it as a molasses substitute, but it's awesome on yogurt, in meat dishes, in desserts. Try to get 100% silan rather than a mixture of silan and sugar-- for some reason, I am able to find pure silan in our super around passover, but not at any other time.

Hard to find: grated mozzarella (forget about fat free!) 

 It's actually pretty difficult to find any kind of fat free dairy products in Israel. 1% milk, yes-- you can even buy it in plastic bags! Skim milk, what? You can find fat free yogurt, but you're much more likely to find 1.5% or 3.5% yogurt. Fat free cottage cheese is unheard of, though 5% is very common. I guess Israelis just aren't willing to sacrifice that much taste. Add to this the fact that mozzarella cheese isn't very common here, and you'll need to find a substitute for all your diet recipes that call for low fat mozzarella. Never fear!

Instead, try: crumbled emek! (Hebrew: פתיתי עמק)

Emek is more flavorful than mozzarella, and I'd say it's one of the major reasons why Israeli pizza is so delicious. Emek packages are marked with the percent of fat in the cheese, and the lowest-fat good-tasting variety is 22% fat. (Stay away from 9% emek. I think it's mostly plastic.) 22% fat sounds scary, but it's actually fairly equivalent to part-skim mozzarella-- according to nutritiondata.com, 100 grams of part-skim low-moisture mozzarella is 302 calories and 100 grams of regular part-skim mozzarella is 254 calories, while 100 grams of 22% emek is 299 cals. And did I mention that Emek tastes much better? On the other hand, if you want cheddar cheese or (chas ve'shalom) processed American cheese food, perhaps aliyah is not for you.

Hard to find: chili powder

I've actually made my own chili powder spice mix-- you can easily find recipes for chili powder online. But you won't find anything exactly like American chili powder on our shelves.

Instead, try:  Tunisian Harissa Seasoning! (Hebrew: תערובת לאריסה תוניסאית)

Tunisian Harissa (in Hebrew, "Larisa Tunisait") is a chili pepper spice mix pretty similar to chili powder, but (big surprise!) more flavorful. Use it on fish, in soups, anywhere you want a bit of a kick.

Hard to find: fresh pineapple

We buy canned pineapple all the time, so you certainly don't need to go without pineapple in your salat peirot here, but you probably won't find fresh pineapples at your local veggie shop. Pineapple grows in hot, moist climates, while Israel has a hot, dry climate. So your oranges, avocados and bananas were probably picked yesterday at a farm an hour away from your veggie shop, but you won't find pineapples. I mention this because pineapples are just about the only fruit I don't find here, with the exception of more delicate berries like raspberries. Have I mentioned that I LOVE Israeli fruits and veggies?

Instead try: fresh shesek! (Hebrew: שסק)

In English, shesekim are actually called loquats, but you didn't know that anyway, did you? These taste nothing like pineapples, but they're absolutely amazing little fruits with a taste like a slightly tart, extra juicy apricot. Here's a gushy article about the loquat from NPR's foodie show, The Splendid Table, which makes them sound all exotic and rare. I bought a kilo of loquats from a fruit stand by the side of the road. They're slightly messy to eat because you pull out the seeds and the ends before popping them into your mouth, but they're delicious. Other fruits to try in Israel: persimmons, pomegranates, sabra fruit, passion fruit, and those big stinky wrinkly fruits that you should avoid storing in a close space...

Hard to find in Israel: corn chips.

My husband and I don't buy much snack food, but we once tried to find tortilla chips to serve with dip for a party. Eventually we realized that while supermarkets in this country sell dozens of varieties of potato chips, corn chips are basically nonexistent. Sorry. 


Instead, try: bissli! (Hebrew: ביסלי, meaning "my bite")

Bisli are traditional Israeli snacks that started out as deep fried, spiced pasta back in the days when Israel really didn't import food from abroad. Each flavor has a different shape, and they're all delicious. Oddly enough, even though chips and salsa (let alone tacos) are pretty much unheard of here, you can find taco-flavored bisli. If you want to get the full Israeli experience, on the other hand, try the falofel flavored bisli. Just don't plan to breathe on anyone for a while afterward.

Hard to find in Israel: M&Ms, peanut butter cups, peppermint paddies, snickers bars...

If you're considering aliyah, take a deep breath, look at the picture above, and ask yourself if you can live without everything in it. Now stop hyperventilating. Breathe into a bag! In! Out! In! Out! I've never found M&Ms, Hershey's kisses, or anything combining mint and chocolate in a regular Israeli supermarket. However, never fear...

Instead, try: Israeli chocolates! (Hebrew:  שוקולד)

I grew up a few hours from Hershey, PA, so I feel a little disloyal for saying this, but Elite brand Israeli chocolates can definitely give Hershey a run for its money. If you want peaunut-chocolatey goodness (along the lines of a snickers bar), try a pesek-zman bar. If you want a kit-kat, try a kif-kef. Personally, I love the 60% dark chocolate bars... I almost always have some in the house. But if you want an M&M or a Hershey's kiss, well, you're still out of luck. But did I mention that we have chocolate spread?

I could go on. For example, it's not easy to find drip coffee here, although we have some pretty good instant coffee-- I highly recommend Jacobs brand (the green lid, not the gold). You won't find "Italian Seasoning" on our shelves, but you can always mix together basil, oregano, and paprika... or go for a middle eastern spice blend, zatar. You won't find tylenol, but we have acamol. You won't find graham crackers, but Israeli tea bisvitim usually do the trick. For everything American you can't find in this country, you'll find three other products that Israelis can't find in the US... as I found when I translated an Israeli article this old blog post, What's Missing in America.  A lot of the fun of living in Israel is discovering the local flavors that are "gourmet" in America and available in any corner macolet here.

What foods would you add to this list?

Be'tei avon! (Bon appetit!)

I'm back!

  Part of what has sucked away my time this month: our new living room! It's much prettier now. 

First, I never ever want to move again. We can make do with four rooms forever. (Four rooms = three bedrooms and a living room... if you want to understand how Israelis calculate "rooms" in apts, read this post.)

Ok, maybe that's not entirely true... someday I want a house with a yard so I can grow lemons and maybe get a dog. But this move was utterly exhausting, perhaps because I astounded every Israeli I know by insisting on doing most of the painting myself. We did hire four strapping Ukranians to move our boxes and furniture, and it was blissful... they hoisted our boxes about 20 at a time out of our old apt, into their truck, and into our new one all in two hours on a Thursday morning.

But it certainly is worth it... it's amazing to live in our OWN walls, and we love our new apartment. We wake up in the morning to the sound of birds, not cars (to the delight of our cats). Our cabinets are clean and white. My oven has a "convection" setting. Yes, little things make me very excited.

Anyway, I've missed a pretty momentous month of blogging. There was the end of Passover, Yom HaShoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom HaAtzmaut. (You can always read about what I did last year... it pretty much still applies.) While I agree that it's pretty shameful I didn't post for Yom HaAtzmaut (Israeli Independence Day), in my defense I was very Israeli... I stayed out really late Yom HaAtzmaut watching fireworks and free concerts by singers with the last name "Peretz," and then ate myself into a semi-comatose state at a "mangal," a barbecue, the next day. Between those two sources of brain cell death, and all the paint fumes, you should be glad I've recovered in just two weeks. (I also discovered that cotton candy in Hebrew is called "searot savta," Grandmother's hair. Isn't that awesome and mildly disgusting?)

Another day this month was momentous for me: on the day we moved into our very own apartment, I also hit my two year mark in Israel. It feels at once like it couldn't possibly have been two years and like it's incredible that I lived in the US just 25 months ago. I'm working on a post about that soon!

We've also been busy in other ways... my husband and I participated in a few Israeli 5Ks (well, actually a 5.7 K and a 4.9 K... Israelis aren't big on details) and I accepted a last-minute role in a Chekhov play (come see me with the Haifa English Theatre in early June!). I've also been painting some creepy Russian Orthodox Christian-esque props for said Chekhov play. Introducing the icon my husband and I have dubbed Gregor, Patron Saint of Constipation:

This is something I definitely wouldn't have predicted aliyah would lead me to paint.... 

My day job apparently also hasn't gotten the idea that it should stop demanding my attention when my life gets busy. Still, it was really nice to log in and discover that I have 90 followers and 15 comments to moderate. Wahoo!!

So I'm back... and this last month has definitely given me plenty of material to blog about. :)

How was your month? Anything interesting happen to you while I was busy inhaling paint fumes painting our new apt?

Ode to my First Israeli Apartment

To my first Israeli apartment:

First, I'm sorry that we're leaving you in April. Well, ok, that's not exactly true, but trust me-- it's not you, it's us. We wanted to buy our own place, have one more room, and live on a quieter street, but we really appreciate you having been there for us throughout these first two years in Israel.

You've been taking a lot of abuse lately. Strangers have been walking over your mismatched tiled floors and criticizing little things like the way your 70s-era wood paneling is peeling off the walls or the paint on the bathroom ceiling is chipped. They laugh at your .5 room (the dining area) and complain about the car alarm going off outside your tinted, patterned windows. They also don't seem too impressed by the doorways that have been turned into shelving units and don't see the beauty in the fact that our cats can crawl through the bottom of the shelving units to go from room to room.

These low orange velvet chairs actually came with our furnished apartment. 

Our cats loved them. As scratching posts. And wrestling arenas.

But hey, at least you put yourself out there. It's not your fault that your owner thinks you are worth hundreds more shekels a month than we currently pay and that the arnona taxes are high here. Yes, you suffer daily rejection, and yes, you are quite possibly wet between the walls, and yes, the bed that you came with creaks like it is undergoing torture whenever anyone breathes, but... what was I talking about again? Oh, yes, you suffered rejection daily while our landlord was trying to rent you out, but we're still proud of you, and there are things I'll never forget about our first apartment in Israel. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

1. You made 70s style Isra-fab. From your brassy, curvy ceiling lights to the naked Grecians silkscreened on our bathroom tiles to the plastic wood paneling on the kitchen cabinets, you truly showcase the one time in your life when anyone living in this apartment did "shiputzim" (renovations-- and a fabulous word). 

2. The views from your windows were always interesting. Our cats will miss staring at birds, bats, and autobusim outside our window, and we'll miss watching them stare down at us in shock and concern when they see us approaching from the street. Every community parade in our town (as well as a lot of traffic) passed right below our front windows, including the traffic safety parade last Purim and the veterans parade on VE day. All the loud traffic passing outside your window only made the stillness during the siren on Yom HaShoah and YomHaZikaron more stunning. And the view outside your back window proves that Israel really does have seasons! Really! Take a look:

During July (when a branch fell off because of the drought):

In early December, when the grass started to come back:

Today (spring-- note the flowering trees!):

So yellowing grass isn't quite as pretty as yellow fall leaves, but it's still nice to watch time pass. Also, aren't those metal "soragim" (bars) kind of beautiful?

3. You have a different tile floor in every room, which helped us decide if we want to do any shiputzim of our own! (For the record, the dark brown tile in the shower room hides cat hairs much better than the light white tile in the toilet room.)

4. You taught me all about how to turn on a dude (er, not a guy... a water heater), how to close my trisim in a sandstorm, and how to flip the switch on the circuit board of our house each time you objected to the idea of me running the kumkum (electric teapot) and the stove at the same time.

I'll also miss your huge kitchen and the high ceilings in your living room. I'll miss having a random little closet to put the litter boxes into. I'll miss the time we looked at the uneven tile in the bedroom and hypothesized that your previous elderly residents had buried lirot in the sand beneath the tiles. I'll miss living within a block of any kind of store I could ever want, from a guitar store to a petshop, with a bridal store, a health food shop, three yarkans and a super thrown in for good measure.

Our landlord finally came down in his asking price and found a nice mother with three kids (!) to move into this one apartment. The new people seem to appreciate you more than we did-- the mother looked at that gold chandelier in the living room and thought it was ya-fe-fi-yah. The two eight-year-old boys in our building seem excited about playing with the two eight-year-old girls who are moving in. But don't forget us, ok? You were a very significant 100 meters during my first two years in Israel, and I know we'll never forget you.

Now, excuse me while I go pack.

P.S. Yep, we're moving in just over a week!! Wahoo! Blog posts might be pretty infrequent as we move, though I have some ideas I'm kicking around. The thing I'm most worried about: canceling HOT cable... any suggestions about how to keep HOT from taking any more of our money?

If you want to understand Israelis, read this book...

We have an amazing library just down the street, housed in an old building from the Turkish period. It's just a few aisles of (mostly) paperback books, in Hebrew, English, and Russian (with a new Spanish section), and browsing its stacks is like looking through a friend's bookshelf. I get overwhelmed when I have to choose between all the many categories in a major library-- in our library, on the other hand, I always find a few books that I want (and have discovered the wonder of British chick lit). There's nothing fancy about our library, but that's part of why I love it: my library card consists of a number scrawled on a bookmark, and I've never been charged a late fee, even when I was pretty sure I was returning a few books a month late. I have to admit that I stick to the English books, but I often see translations written in spidery Hebrew above tricky words.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I borrowed Ask for a Convertible by Danit Brown from the library, and I've been meaning to recommend it to everyone I know ever since. In a series of beautifully-written (and funny) short stories about the same set of characters-- primarily a family who makes "yaridah" (moving out of Israel, the opposite of aliyah)-- Brown conveys the Israeli mentality better than any book I've read. Danit Brown (not to be confused with Dan Brown) is a close observer of both American and Israeli culture. I like to think that this book is what my blog would be if it became hyper-intelligent, self-aware, and moved back to the US. :)

The main character in the short stories is named Osnat, which is one of the names my husband and I joke we'll name our hypothetical future children so that they will never move to America. (As someone in the stories says, "What is it with Israelis being named after bodily fluids?") Osnat is transplanted from sun-baked Tel Aviv to cloudy Michigan at age 12. Through the course of the stories, she attempts to figure out where she belongs, even moving back to Tel Aviv as a young woman.

One of my favorite aspects of this book was the way Brown gets details right. She shows Osnat's mother attempting to find self-rising flour in Michigan-- I remember seeing self-rising flour on my post-yaridah Israeli mother-in-law's shelves, and now I realize this is what most Israelis use rather than plain flour and baking powder.  Brown conveys the gulf between the ways Americans and Israelis see Judaism and Israel. In one story, a burned-out driving instructor moves to an American small town and meets the town's one Jew and a staunch Christian. They end up in a coffee shop, and the Americans want to know what it's like in the Israeli army. The Israeli starts to tell them his arsenal of funny, raunchy stories about his time in the army, and the Americans grow increasingly confused and shocked at this image of the "holy land." Yet the Israeli is also burying the pain of a family member dying in a terrorist attack; this isn't the kind of thing he talks about, even though perhaps it's what the Americans would rather hear. I could also relate to the emotional strain of moving to a new country, whether that country is America or Israel. I have felt the plunge in IQ that comes with not being able to remember the word for "pants" in a clothing store and the slow process of finding friends and the different sound of Israeli apartments compared to American wood-frame houses.

One of the most thought-provoking stories was called "Your Own Private America." In it, Osnat struggles to be Israeli while all of the Israelis around her are looking for an idealized version of America. Here's an excerpt:

There was something about the way her aunt was always urging her to buy, buy, buy that made Osnat feel like the fat girl whose skinny friend kept encouraging her to eat and eat. "That's just how much stuff costs here," her aunt liked to say. Or, "Surely your parents can help you pay." It didn't matter that she had the same number of televisions and drove the same kind of car as Osnat's parents. There was simply no arguing with the spacious homes and glitzy automobiles you saw on TV. It was easier to believe in those than in the pasty, blubbery people who lived in trailer parks and sometimes came to blows on American talk shows. If one of these realities had to be rigged, then let it be the poor one.

I see this attitude so often in Israel. Israelis yearn for their "private Americas," despite the fact that most of my Israeli friends vacation in resorts while almost none of my American friends did. Israelis constantly use "cmo b'chul"-- like outside Israel-- as a sign something is truly nice, and they find it hard to believe that I honestly think quality of life is better here. Yet life is noisy and stressful in Israel, and as Osnat says, "America was nice, with its air conditioners and manicured lawns." This book put my fuzzy, conflicted feelings about the emotional distance between America and Israel into focus like no other book I've read.

One small disclaimer-- if you're easily offended by language or sexual content, you might not like this book, although to me it seemed pretty mild.  Also, this book risks keeping you up at night. I don't usually like short story collections, but this one pulled me through to the end.

Have you read Ask for a Convertible? Do you think you can relate?

P.S. I'll probably mess up the formula for choosing the links that appear below this post by writing this, but it strikes me that Danit Brown wrote about every one of the topics that appears below this post for me: getting an Israeli driver's license (and failing the test the first time, as an American), running into celebrities on the Israeli streets, and even experiencing a chamsin. No wonder I loved this book!

I'm in the Jerusalem Post!

So... apparently I was featured in the Jerusalem Post "Arrivals" column this past weekend! You can view the whole interview here:

http://www.jpost.com/CafeOleh/CafeTalk/Article.aspx?id=169637

As with any published article,  not every detail is entirely accurate-- for example, while I very much love and miss my mother, mother-in-law and grandmother, as well as my two brothers and my sister, I also very much miss my father, father-in-law and grandfather! (Not to mention my brothers-in-law and my sisters-in-law, and maybe most of all my six nieces and nephews-- two years in the life of a little kid is eternity, so I don't feel like I even know them any more, even if we sometimes talk on the phone. That's the saddest part about moving away.)

It's a great article, though, and I'm really flattered. The Haifa English Theatre very much appreciates the good publicity... the Haifa English Theatre is truly as awesome as I say in the article (see my post about the last HET performance), though I could also credit a lot of non-HET, non-Anglo friends for helping me in my aliyah. Check the article out if you're curious about my unusual childhood and pre-aliyah life, as well as a bit about my personal life in Israel.

And I guess my cover is blown... so here's what I actually look like (on a rare good-face day):

However, contrary to the impression you might get from the picture, I do have more than three fingers on my left hand. Maybe that's why they only used the top of the picture in the article. :) In the background you can see the amazingly beautiful castle Montfort... see my post about Montfort.

Now I need to figure out what to do about all the autograph-seekers who keep bothering me... at least, I'm pretty sure the lawyer was just using our final mortgage forms as a ruse to get my signature...

P.S. I actually did post one picture containing my face on the blog before... and now it's probably more obvious which post it was. :)

Standing on the threshold of 2010

I recently discovered this wonderful, thoughtful entry posted among the comments of past messages. Lisa, I can't access your blogger profile, so I can't give you proper credit or a link, but thanks for posting it. While she was talking about 2008, I find this an inspiring read as I move into 2010. (Btw, anyone else want to write a guest post about how you came to be Israeli or any other aspect of Israeli life? I'd love to post more!)

STANDING ON THE THRESHOLD OF 2008 2010

I was just 14 when I first visited Israel and I never suspected that I was about to fall hopelessly and helplessly in love with a country...a nation...a new way of being. Photographs from that life-changing trip show me in tears in the Ben Gurion departure lounge and this became a pattern that continued with every annual visit that followed.

I could never quite understand my depth of emotion for this feisty little country. I was born and bred in South Africa and grew up surrounded by loving family, friends and all the luxuries typically enjoyed by a privileged White child. Why then did I feel so foreign as I drove the familiar streets and interacted with people I'd known for a lifetime and only felt I truly belonged when I stepped back onto Israeli soil?

My love for Israel defined me. I listened only to Israeli music. I lingered over books on Israel in every bookstore I entered and watched movies that were based in the Middle East with an overwhelming longing to transport myself to the world shown on screen. In 1991 I escaped the Gulf War just as the first scuds hit Tel Aviv and went to London where I found myself drawn to the local ELAL offices in the hope of savoring a taste of the country I loved best.

I once explained my attachment to Israel by saying that I went about my daily routine with a constant awareness of missing a piece of my heart and it was only when I arrived back here that I felt that illusive puzzle piece slip seamlessly into place.

Israel soothed my soul in way that nothing else could. It was for this reason that in 2005 I decided that I could no longer spend the rest of my days wishing I was someplace else and put plans in motion to relocate my family to the country of my heart.

We arrived at the Mirkaz Klitah absorption centre in Raanana on the 26th June 2006....and Israel went to war with Lebanon just 2 weeks later. The next 18 months saw me move home 3 times ... tackle the challenges of settling my children into an entirely new school and social environment ... reestablish my cookery school and make new friends ...and face a sudden divorce that saw me unexpectedly navigating my way through single parenting.

It also brought me sheer joy as I realised that this was not merely an infatuation and I truly had found the love of my life. I continue to thrill at the sight of the distinctive blue and white flags that flap in the breeze and I am always the last person on the street to remove my flag from the gate-post after the Yom Hautzmaut Independence Day celebrations are over. My eyes still fill with tears whenever I hear the Hatikva national anthem. And I constantly irritate my children by changing radio stations if the station I am tuned to dares to play anything but Israeli music.

2008 will be a momentous year as Israel celebrates 60 years of independence and I celebrate my 40th and a new found independence of my own. Being here for this momentous birthday is the greatest gift I could ever wish for and I am grateful each and every day to have been granted the opportunity to realise this dream.

Roll on another year of sunshine!

 P.S. Wow, am I ever confused about dates. My original title for this post was "Standing on the threshold of 2009." Am I really senile already??

Aliyah after the honeymoon...

I think I'm one of those people who is happier after the "honeymoon" wears off. My relationship with my husband, for example, is better now than it was five years ago when we got married. Of course, we have bad days, especially when it's... er... the time of the month when I just NEED to sink my teeth into some petty argument and shake my head around. In general, though, we are kinder to each other now, less likely to freak out at little faults, more vulnerable, better at giving each other what we need. Most of all, I value being comfortable together. I can dress in a ripped t-shirt and sweatpants and feel as attractive around him as when I'm dressed up. (Well, mostly. Regular showers are also important.)

I've been thinking about this a lot, lately, because in my life in Israel, I think I've moved past the honeymoon stage. And I love it.

First, a disclaimer: I know I'm very lucky, and I also know that I have probably moved to the phase of feeling comfortable in Israel faster than most olim. (I've heard it takes about three years, and I've been here for a year and a half.) I mean, this blog didn't grow out of nothing-- I was obsessed with becoming Israeli for years before I actually made aliyah. I came here with pretty good Hebrew and an Israeli husband, so I have someone to throw the phone to when I'm not sure whether the dentist is suggesting a teeth cleaning or a root canal.

When I first moved to Israel, though, I got easily embarrassed in stores when I couldn't communicate what I wanted or when the owners of the vegetable stand yelled at me for squeezing their peaches. I forced myself to read a whole novel in Hebrew, to cook from Israeli cook books, to eat salad for breakfast. I was like a person in the early stages of a relationship who is determined to prove that she has everything in common with her guy, that she is the perfect girlfriend and he a flawless paragon. Just as that isn't a realistic formula for a relationship, it's not a realistic expectation for aliyah.

There were good things about these early stages, too. Every holiday thrilled me (wow, we have concerts on Yom HaAtzmaut! People other than me are celebrating Sukkot!) and I generally looked at the world around me with shiny, love-struck, oil-glazed-from-too-much-falofel eyes.

Today, though, I forgive myself for reading newspapers in English or eating muesli and yogurt for breakfast. In some ways, I'm much more Israeli now-- I have grown to love nescafe, for example-- but I'm also comfortable with the ways in which I'm American. While driving somewhere strange in Haifa used to be a terrifying ordeal, it's now simply a trip to the nearest city. I expect to walk out the door and speak Hebrew. I listen to Galgalatz in the car and NPR over the internet at home, although many aspects of American culture and politics seem irrelevant and a little annoying to me now. And... please don't shun me, siblings... but I'm just as excited by a victory for the Maccabi Haifa football (er, soccer) team as the Pittsburgh Steelers. Whereas we used to go hiking to see as much of this beautiful country as possible, now we go because this, here, is our life, and we want to enjoy it. It's hard to explain this shift in feeling, but it's powerful. I live here. This is now my life.

I'm also much more comfortable acknowledging the imperfections of life in Israel. I look at politicians on TV and am more likely to think "scum bag" than "champion of Zionism." Before I came here, I idealized Israelis-- I saw them as more real and profound, less inhibited and fake. Some of that's true, some of that isn't. Israelis have shortcomings just like Americans.

The aliyah-as-marriage analogy works in many other ways, too: you must get to know each other first, you must be committed, you must discuss money and how to raise the kids and where to live. (I bet that the percentage of people who "divorce" aliyah over financial concerns is at least as high as the percentage of marriages that dissolve over money.) I once heard someone say that the best indication of how happy you will be in a marriage is how happy you are out of it. In other words, if you are miserable, don't expect marriage (or aliyah) to transform you. We are responsible for our own happiness. As I waited for aliyah, I reminded myself to practice enjoying life then so that I would be able to enjoy life in Israel.

Yet the fact is that I am happier now than I have ever been, just as I am so much happier and so much more myself with my husband than without him. I am growing into myself in Israel. The honeymoon is over, and life is good.

Now, if only Israel would remember to put the toilet seat down...

Evangelizing aliyah doesn't work...

My sister is back in America (right? Please call or e-mail! :) and we had a great visit. We didn't do anything spectacularly touristy while she was here-- it's nice to have a guest who lived here for 9 months already and got most of that out of the way. It was wonderful just to slip back into being sisters again. We both keep changing, yet the moment we get together we renew our language of shared experiences, sarcastic humor, and bad habits (like trailing off at the end of a sentence and speaking too quickly).

It's hard to move to far away from my family, but being close to my sister has nothing to do with geography. In a weird way, it was almost hard to value our time together because it just felt so normal. I miss her already, though!

Sadly, my attempts to brainwash my sister into making aliyah were largely unsuccessful. I'm not sure why. Certainly, it had nothing to do with the "incentives" my husband and I offered:

• If she makes aliyah, she can babysit our hypothetical future children ALL the TIME!! (Hmm. Are we self-serving much?)
• If she makes aliyah, she gets aliyah benefits, so surely she can put off getting a real job after college graduation.
• If she makes aliyah, she can watch American TV shows WITHOUT ADS!
• If she makes aliyah, she gets much better-tasting fruit and vegetables. (That one almost convinced her.)
• If she makes aliyah, she too can buy baggy pants with built-in fake underwear from FOX!
• If she makes aliyah, we'll let her stay with us for a whole two weeks before we make her move out and find her own place.
• If she makes aliyah, she can buy cute little cars unavailable in the US, like the Madza 2 (you just thought there was a Mazda 3, didn't you?) and our Hyundai Getz:

(Ok, so that's not OUR Hyundai Getz. Ours is... well...
a lot more dusty and dented. But it's the same idea.)

• If she makes aliyah, she can get a scooter license! (She took one sample scooter lesson while she was here, so she's already on the way. What? They have scooters in Boston, too?)
• If she makes aliyah, she can... umm.... wait, it's coming to me...

Seriously, I would love it if someone from my family or my husband's immediate family would make aliyah, and obviously there are better reasons than those. You know-- the whole living-in-the-Jewish-homeland thing. The fact that this is a beautiful nation with warm people, rich history, and almost any experience you want within driving distance. The fact that life here is vibrant and real. And even my selfish reasons for wanting family nearby have nothing to do with free babysitting-- I would love to have sisters and brothers in the area without a time limit, to share holidays and weekends with them and have it all be no big deal.

But this did make me realize that ultimately, you can't evangelize aliyah. You can't entice family and friends to leap into a different culture, different language, different life. Something about desire to make this crazy journey bubbles from within. And my family is there for me-- even if "there" is across an ocean.

Original content: http://howtobeisraeli.blogspot.com

Read Hebrew blogs (or write one... please participate!)

First, I want to direct everyone to the excellent new edition of Haveil Havalim over at another one of my favorite blogs, Shetl Fabulous. Shetl Fab isn't Israeli, but her humorous perspective on Judaism would make her right at home here, I think! Shtetl Fab, thanks SO much for including this blog twice!

If you're up for a Hebrew challenge, I highly recommend my husband's blog, israbloph: israbloph.blogspot.com I have to admit that his posts are sometimes way beyond my Hebrew level. My husband was born in Israel and moved to America as a teenager. I'm extremely jealous of his true bilingualism. :)

This brings me to the real point, though-- Muse gave me a great idea in her response to my long post about my first year in Israel. She suggested that I read Hebrew newspaper articles and write letters to the editor about them. This made me think about reading Hebrew newspapers and writing blog posts (in Hebrew! *gulp*) about them, which gave me the idea of a new blog: olimomrim.blogspot.com Olim Omrim... will be a blog challenging a few of us olim (immigrants to Israel) to write entries entirely in Hebrew.

I'm looking for about five or six olim (vatikim or chadashim) who will commit to writing a post entirely in Hebrew on one specific day of the week. I already have one or two Brazilian friends who would like to participate, meaning that this really will be a coming together of not-just-Anglo olim! Your posts can be short or long, edited or barely readable, in basic Ulpan phrases (I am Maya. I like cats) or "ivrit gavoha." You can write about newspaper articles, your daily lives, your cats, the weather, politics, or whatever. The strict rules: posts must be written entirely in Hebrew (characters, not transliteration) and must go up on the blog on your day of the week almost every week. We'll encourage each other and celebrate the guts it takes to put our work up in a foreign language.

You can see my introductory post (which my husband helped make grammatical... you'll see my true colors soon :) on the blog already. If you would like to participate, please leave a comment in response to this message (and give me a way to get in touch with you)!

Even if you don't want to join in, please read our blog and cheer us on. (You can leave comments in any language.) I'll post about it again when it really gets off the ground. I think I'll appreciate reading the easy Hebrew that my fellow participants post! Who knows, we might develop a following of olim wishing to read easy Hebrew (and Israelis entertained by our attempt). This endeavor scares me, but I make a point of never avoiding anything just because of that. There's no shame in making mistakes-- only in being afraid to make them!

Not so "chadasha" anymore...

Disclaimer: this post is really long. Sorry! I wanted to get all my thoughts about a year after aliyah out, even though in reality I could have written another 1000 words... read if you wish.

As predicted, I didn't have time to post before Pesach-- preparing WAY too much food for our seder kept me busy. But that's our seder table above. Pretty, isn't it? :) This was my first time hosting a seder since a little second seder for a few of my friends in college, and I'm happy to say that I actually pulled off not only sweet gefilte fish from scratch and matzo ball soup, but also compote for desert... in other words, all the components of a good Polish seder. :)

April 8th, the day of the seder, marked the one year anniversary of my aliyah. In a way, the one year anniversary is a little bittersweet. I mentally gave myself a year to be an "olah chadasha"-- i.e., a squeaky clean new immigrant, allowed to take time to get her feet wet. A year seemed like such a long time, and during that first year it was fine for me to still not be able to figure out which cut of meat in the grocery store is brisket (our cuts are numbered, and for the record-- number eight appears to be really tough shoulder meat) and to watch Fox News on cable TV more than Arutz 2. Because I was so new-- in Israel for less than a year-- I could still impress people with my fledgling Hebrew and use "just off the boat" (er, plane) as my excuse.

My legal status was also different during the first year: I received my "sal klita" payments from the absorption ministry, I was supposed to tell someone before traveling outside the country, and I was allowed to drive on my American license... at least in theory. (I realized in January that my American license had expired in August. Oops.)

Now, I'm not such a new immigrant anymore. Am I where I thought I'd be in a year? In some ways, further along. I've read my first full-length book in Hebrew, something I told myself I would do after one year. I feel very comfortable here. My husband has a good job, I get around, we have some friends. We have a good life here that feels natural and happy. I caught myself wondering the other day why Americans go out on Saturday night because Sunday is a work day... forgetting for a second that Fri-Sat is not the American weekend. (In Israel, the work week runs Sun-Thurs.) I truly love life in Israel and have not had a moment of actual regret at moving here.

At the same time, if I'm to be totally honest, I also feel frustrated with myself. I think I've been a bit too easy on myself this year. I actually came here with quite good Hebrew, partially thanks to four semesters of college Hebrew, but mostly thanks to the half hour of study that I did every single morning during the year before our aliyah. When I got here, I didn't really find an ulpan at my level, and after a few months of an informal class with some "olim vatikim" from Argentina, I stopped going altogether. And unfortunately Hebrew doesn't come automatically just from living here, much as I kind of let myself believe it would... and stopped studying every day.

There are days when I kind of feel surprised that I live in Israel... it's too easy to hole myself up at home and create a little America inside our apartment. It's too easy for my husband and I to speak English together at home. It's too easy to watch American TV (which airs on cable without ad breaks!) than Israeli. It's too easy to choose to stay home and interact with Americans online than push myself out into the Israeli streets or into the homes of Israeli friends. (I still don't like inviting myself over, despite the fact that that's a pretty Israeli habit.) So while my Hebrew has definitely improved this year, I am frustrated by the knowledge that it probably could have improved more, that I still struggle for words and quite possibly asked the fishmonger (on Tuesday) to grind up bones along with my carpion (for gefilte fish) instead of bones on the side. In my ulpan class, many Argentinians with worse Hebrew than me had lived here seven, eight years-- a reminder that it takes more than geographic relocation to learn a language and shift a mindset.

So what should I do this next year? I want to keep my online job interacting with American students, so I don't plan to get a job in Israel-- even though that's the best way to fully adapt to Israeli life. Instead, I want to make these "new aliyah year's" resolutions so that I can grow as an Israeli this next year...

1. I will read five more full-length books in Hebrew this year (starting with Water for Elephants in a Hebrew translation, which my husband picked up for me because he knew I wanted to read it). I'll post on this blog when I finish each book!

2. I will go back to studying a half hour of Hebrew every morning... I liked the time limit because it freed me up to do whatever I wanted with that time, like figure out the meaning of Israeli song lyrics, read a newspaper, or do a crossword puzzle. Maybe I'll subscribe to some kind of fun Israeli magazine? I love that kind of reading.

3. I will find a new volunteer opportunity that will put me out in my community, speaking Hebrew. (Any suggestions? I volunteered at a veterinarians's office for a few months after I arrived, which taught me how to say "neutered" in Hebrew but also told me I don't particularly like to be around blood. I'm thinking of volunteering at an old folk's home, but any other ideas are appreciated.) I might also start tutoring part time to get a bit of Israeli work experience.

4. I'll try to watch Israeli news more often. Israelis are news fiends, and the nightly news is usually very sensationalistic and entertaining. (More stories about, say, mothers reunited with the children stolen away from them at birth and adopted into ashkenazi familes than the war.)

5. I'm going to start exercise classes so that I get out of the house and learn how to say "downward-facing dog" in Hebrew. :)

6. I'll make plans with Israeli friends (or at least, friends I speak with only in Hebrew-- two of my best friends are Brazilian!) more often, for more informal Hebrew practice. Maybe I'll even set up something formal like weekly coffees (my treat) to work on my Hebrew? Hmm. I'll actually "jump" over to visit my husband's Israeli aunt more often, as she always invites me to do.

7. My husband and I will celebrate "Hebrew-only Fridays," in which we only speak Hebrew for 24 hours to each other. We did it two weeks ago, and it was incredibly frustrating but also helpful. Today I haven't been so good about it, because we're trying to make plans for pesach (going south fell through) and deciding where to go isn't our strong point. But enough excuses! Hebrew-only Fridays it is!

8. We'll figure out which shul we actually want to join. We've visited a bunch in the area, and have been surprised to feel most at home in a masorti shul mostly full of immigrants... but we aren't completely sure we want to join that community. We'll see.

9. I'll try to remember to be kind to myself, because one year really isn't that long and I don't need to become perfectly Israeli all at once. I'm allowed to watch Friends and Oprah on our TV, but I'll also try to get sucked into a few fun Israeli shows as well. I'll listen to Israeli music that I like for fun, not education. I'm allowed to have days when I'd rather stay home or go out with Anglo friends, and I'm allowed to not want to eat salad for breakfast. I'll continue to approach this journey of aliyah as discovery rather than burden. I will be learning "how to be Israeli" all my life, and it's fine to be American too.

Do any olim "vatikim" have advice for me? I would really appreciate it. Perspective can be hard to come by sometimes.

The first Hebrew that I ever learned (aside from a few rote recitations of blessings I heard at Hanukah) were the four questions, which I taught myself when I was twelve based on the tune in the back of our reform hagadah. I did not understand a letter of Hebrew, and I remember my father sitting and squinting at the letters, glasses off, to figure out their sounds so he could write them for me on paper. When I made my first Jewish friend, in college, we kind of bonded over both knowing "ma nishtana." This year at seder I could not only say the four questions but understand them (I was the youngest again, darn it), and most of the rest of the seder to boot. So I've come pretty far.

Two years ago, I remember saying "next year in Jerusalem" at seder and feeling special meaning resonate (next year in the Krayot!). This year, I really feel that, with our own seder, we're on our way. Even though maybe I'm still in the desert.

Move back to Israel for the cheap plane ticket!

If you make aliyah and become Israeli, you get a free plane ticket. But if you're already an Israeli citizen and you live abroad, the only thing keeping you away is the cost of a flight, right?

That at least appears to be the logic behind El Al's new deal with the Absorption Ministry, offering cheap plane flights for Israelis living abroad who want to return home:

Prior to the State of Israel's 61st birthday, to be celebrated on April 29th, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and El Al came to a deal as part of the ministry's 'Coming Home at 60' initiative, which was launched last year.

Israelis returning from Europe will be able to purchase at ticket for $150 (not including tax) and those returning from North America will be able to purchase tickets for $300 (not including tax).

Oddly, the article doesn't specify that these foreign Israelis must return home for good, although I'm pretty sure that's the implication. It goes on to say that they must have "an authorization from the Immigration Absorption Ministry of their status as returning citizens," and to be a "toshav chozer" is (I think) a legal status akin to making aliyah without most of the benefits... and with some fun penalties, like a fine and waiting period to get health care.

I still think that my in-laws should look carefully at whether they can finagle a cheap plan ticket home in time for Yom Haatzmaut!

P.S. Does my blog load very slowly? I'm thinking I might need to cut a few of the images.

To ensure your children stay in Israel, give them un-emigratable names!

Basically everyone in Israel has family members living in the US. (Israelis also believe that the US is approximately the size of, say, Jordan, when in fact even Jordan is smaller than my home state of Pennsylvania. "Oh, you come from Pennsylvania? My brother-in-law's cousin lives in Montana! That's close by, right?") To prevent our hypothetical future kids from joining this reverse exodus, my husband and I have come up with a brilliant idea: give them names that will be horribly embarrassing anywhere outside Israel.

Some of our favorites (these are all actually common Israeli names):

Osnat
In Hebrew: pretty girl's name that comes from the tanach (Yosef's wife)
In English: gray matter that comes of nose when one sneezes

Inbal
In Hebrew: pretty girl's name related to the ringer of a bell
In English: sounds like a painful medical condition

Dudu
In Hebrew: nickname for guy's name starting with "d," just as "Bibi" is nickname for Benyamin Netanyahu
In English: sure to get child beaten up in kindergarten

Moran
In Hebrew: girl's name that comes from a pretty flower that blooms in the spring (see my wildflower pictures below)
In English: self-explanatory

Shai
In Hebrew: nice macho guy's name (possibly short for Avishai or another biblical name)
In English: would be especially embarrassing to an already shy person. ("Tal" is another name that might keep son in Israel if he's short.)

Chen
In Hebrew: girl's name meaning grace, pleasantness
In English: once readers understand that daughter is not Chinese and get past the pronunciation of chet, the hen jokes begin... (I also think it might not be so easy for a guy to be named "Dov," despite the fact that this is a manly name based on the word for "bear.") Right up there is the girl's name "Segal."

Oded
In Hebrew: nice boy's name meaning prophet
In English: I'll admit that this name sounds fine to me in English, but when one of my Brit friends gave this name to her son, her parents were shocked she would name him "oh-dead"

Pini
In Hebrew: common nickname for "Pinchas."
In English: er, right.

Almog
In Hebrew: evokes delicate waving of Dead Sea coral
In English: sounds like should be name of character in "Hagar the Horrible" (and I'm not talking about the biblical Hagar, another undesirable name)

Dikla
In Hebrew: girl's name either based on Bible or on the name for a date palm
In English: might give people wrong impression

Gad
In Hebrew: nice, humble Biblical name
In English: sure to blow expectations out of proportion

Nimrod
In Hebrew: descendent of Noah
In English: means "idiot" and will result in too many Green Day jokes

Snir
In Hebrew: based on another name for Mt. Hermon
In English: may cause people to think you have an attitude problem

Nofar
In Hebrew: pretty girl's name
In English: sounds like lyric from Bob Marley song

Uriah
In Hebrew: Biblical guy's name
In English: sounds like a bodily fluid or character from a Charles Dickens novel

Of course, it's possibly for Israelis to turn unfortunate names into selling points. I mean, that model named Bar doesn't seem to be doing too badly. And once American celebrities realize they aren't being pranked, they tend to open up to our entertainment show host Guy Pines (pronounce that last name phonetically... it doesn't rhyme with "shines." If only we had that last name, we could definitely insure our children wouldn't make "yerida" to America without thinking their decision over carefully!).

There are probably a lot of American names that don't translate well into Hebrew-- any guy named "Noah" who doesn't want to pronounce his name "Noach" will find Israelis think he's female. Are there any American names Israelis think are especially funny?
Did I miss any fabulous yeridah-proof Israeli names?

When you take driving lessons, try to understand your instructor

So I'm currently taking driving lessons to convert my American License to an Israeli one. There's no such thing as a learner's permit in Israel; rather, every new driver has to take about 24 expensive lessons before getting a license, and foreign drivers like me still must take a few lessons before getting official Israeli permission to venture on to the road.

My driving teacher, being Israeli, talks on his cell phone constantly while I drive. Today, he suddenly shouted,"Brrake! Brrake!" just as I was about to move through a traffic circle. I braked. Turned out he was greeting an Arab guy named "Berake" on the phone... oy.

But it could have been worse. He told me about an Argentinian-Israeli driving teacher who was speaking Spanish to someone in the back seat while an Israeli student was driving. The Israeli student came to a traffic circle, and heard her instructor suddenly say, "Si!" (As in, "Si, senora.")

The problem: in Hebrew, "si" is the imperative form of "drive," as in, "Get into the intersection now? What are you waiting for??" The student shrugged it off, because it obviously wasn't a good time to enter the traffic circle.

However, at the next intersection, she again heard the command for her instructor: "Si!" This time, she assumed that she must have done something wrong in stopping and looking to see who was coming.

So at the next traffic circle, when she heard "Si," she floored it-- shooting out into traffic and narrowly saved from collision by her instructor slamming on his brake.

This story almost comforted me when my driving instructor grabbed the steering wheel and tried to push me into a U-turn (I didn't understand the command to do a parsa-- horseshoe.)

Ah, the joys of living in a multi-lingual society!

Make Aliyah!

(An adorable olah chadasha-- new immigrant-- from my Nefesh b'Nefesh flight)

If you really want to be Israeli, make aliyah! Aside from a mountain of paperwork, immigrating to Israel is not hard at all. The Israeli government paid for my plane flight and provided some money to support me for my first year here, and I became an Israeli citizen literally minutes after touching town on Israeli soil (well, asphalt. Kissing the dirt doesn't quite have the same power when it's a runway in Ben Gurion airport). The wonderful organization Nefesh b'Nefesh supported me in every possible way, from a group flight to a list serve full of people willing to explain to me what kinds of catfood are available in Israel.

Still, making aliyah is just the start of becoming Israeli. I want to understand enough Israeli cultural references that I can make it above 1,000 shekels on the game show Monit HaKesef ("The Taxi of Money." It's fabulous. I'll post about it some other time). I want to have close friends that I only speak with in Hebrew. I want my future children to grow up in a home that reflects not only my American heritage and my husband's Polish ancestry but also Morrocan cooking and Mizrachi music and... well, maybe not Mizrachi music. I can't bring myself to go much more Mizrachi than Boaz Sharabi. I doubt my husband and I will ever drive our Hyundai Getz down the street blasting "Ani Chai b'Seret." (Yes, I know "Ani Chai b'Seret is a pretty lame example of a Mizrachi song... as I said, we're pretty Ashkenazi.)

Anyway, that's what this blog is about: my desire for not just my identity card but my identity to become Israeli. And it's for anyone who wants to bring a bit more Israeli-ness into their lives. I've actually been on this quest since long before I actually made aliyah, and I'll continue on it long after.

It comforts me that Israel, even more than America, is a country of immigrants. Today in the supermarket I realized that my accent didn't sound that different from the accent of the old man in front of me-- who had probably lived in this country for more than 60 years. Almost everyone here has at least grandparents who speak accented Hebrew, and the effort those grandparents made to become Israeli dwarfs mine. They made the decision to speak Hebrew to each other even when it would have been so easy to make Yiddish or Polish or Farsee the language of this country. They forged this thing called "Israeli." So I think I can become part of it after all.

Shabbat shalom!

This is a Mop

After making aliyah, most of the life skills I'd acquired over 25 years of semi-competent existence were wiped out. I felt like a movie princess suddenly forced to live without her maids. How do I get an appointment with a doctor? Where do I go to rent a movie?? What should a lease look like? How do I pay taxes? Where do I write the return address on a letter?? What do people eat for dinner? And what should I wear if it's 20 degrees outside?!

So one thing I had to learn was how Israelis mop floors. I have yet to see a Swiffer or sponge mop here, and I only saw a traditional mop with spaghetti strands when a Brit provided one as a theatre prop. Instead, we have these metal poles that grip towels between their plastic teeth and wide base.

They are easy to use, really, except that getting the towel to stay on confused me at first. I attempted to wad both ends underneath the clamp in a ploy to approximate a Swiffer, but all four corners wouldn't fit. Then I think I let the towel drag behind the base of the mop, towel wistfully tickling the floor as I dragged the foam-metal base, squealing, along my poor tiles.



The secret to using these mops is that you put the base down ON the towel, as you see in the picture above, and push the towel around with the pressure from the handle. (My husband's aunt, the most meticulous housekeeper ever, just slings towels on the end of the thing without clamping. This, I believe, is an advanced skill.)

My next challenge-- getting the mop wet. I tried to dip the whole head in a bucket with the towel on, but it was too wide. I needed to take the towel off before wringing it off into the bucket. Then I tried to wash the dirty towels in my washing machine, but these are special cheap floor-washing towels (which you buy as a pack in the supermarket), so they ended up beading off into bits of lint. My husband claims the towels are supposed to be disposable. I still wash them, but now I mostly just rinse and hang.

The thing is that I now like this system better than a Swiffer or a sponge mop. The towel is nice and large, so it cleans my floors quickly. The towels last longer than those disposable Swiffer papers, and by reusing them, I save money.

A lot of people panic about all these changes when they make aliyah and try to bring everything with them from America. My advice would be to suck it up, and stalk an Israeli to see how she gets through her life. Yes, you'll feel like an idiot for a little while-- you'll have to ask a lot of questions about things your mother taught you to do when you were eleven years old. But it's worth it, because now I feel like an Israeli when I mop the floor, and I'm not begging Swiffer papers off of every visitor who comes to see me from America.

Now don't ask me about how to be TRULY Israeli and use a squeegee to clean the floor. That one still scares me. (I think it stands on a higher plane of Israeli-ness.)

If anyone reading this made aliyah, what life skills did you have to learn?