Be a Sexy Bride

In the US, I think brides usually try to achieve a look that says "dewy," "virginal," "elegant." Israeli brides, on the other hand, tend to go for... well... not so virginal.

Take a look at the wedding dresses in this clip from a show by the Israeli comedian Adi Ashkenazi, whose insights about Israeli culture inspire me to write this blog:



There's a powerful trend among Israeli brides to wear, basically, thin polyester lace over white bra cups. If you dare, take a look at this Yediot Ahronot article about trends in bride dresses for winter weddings-- I would place the top photo here, but it is literally too skimpy for me to post on this blog. Winter weddings, people. Those girls look cold. (The bride looks cold, too.)

The thing that is especially impressive about these gowns is that they will inevitably be worn in traditional Jewish weddings, presided over by orthodox rabbis. My wedding in the US was performed by a Chabad rabbi, so I made an extra effort to insure that not even my collar bone was showing-- I modified the McCall's pattern for a long-sleeved dress so that its neck reached even higher than on the dowdy bride on the pattern bag. In this dress, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure I can see the bride's belly button:

 

(Source: http://kala-levana.index.co.il/kala-levana/siteFiles/1/2819/14086.asp)

In reality, I don't think Israelis look at these dresses and think "sexy." They look at them and think "yafefiyah" (soooo pretty)... which, as we know from Isra-fab home decor, usually involves dangerous levels of crackle paint and glitter. Furthermore, Israelis believe that showing skin is snazzy, not skanky. (See some terrifying examples of snazzy Israeli fashion in this post.) To the average secular Israeli, covering up too much skin is sad, while wearing skin-tight spandex at age 60 is festive. By logical extension, on your wedding day you should wear almost nothing with maximum sparkles and embellishment, and all eyes will be on you! Er, parts of you, at least.

If you're invited to an Israeli wedding, wear whatever you normally wore on Friday night in Jewish summer camp, and you'll be dressed appropriately. See this post from What War Zone??? for more insight into the frightening and festive beast that is the Israeli wedding. But if you're the Israeli bride, ask yourself whether Madonna would have worn your dress in a music video during the 1980s. If the answer is yes, your dress is probably yafefiyah.

Have you had any adventures in Israeli weddings? Was your wedding dress "yafefiyah"?

What War Zone?? T-shirts!

One of my favorite funny blogs about Israel is Benji Lovitt's What War Zone?? If you haven't checked it out, do so now... and you might just be able to catch Benji's standup act in the US!

Benji also just came out with a line of t-shirts featuring from his his favorite Israeli-isms and humorous lines. Click here for the full line. The "yiyeh beseder" t-shirts are great, because they capture the Israeli attitude towards everything from nuclear bombs to clogged storm drains, but I have to say that this one is my favorite:

It says "everybody loves a HOT guy," which only makes sense if you realize that one of Israel's two big cable companies is called HOT (with that logo). This results in fun conversations:

Me: I asked a HOT guy to come over this morning while you were at work.

Dear Husband: Oh? Why?

Me: Well, I was in the mood for some HOT Fun! but I couldn't seem to get it started on my own, so I called the HOT guy.

DH: You know, I really prefer it if you let me take care of this kind of thing myself. 

Me: Well, the HOT guy went back to his truck and called a few other HOT guys, and they got Israeli Entertainment going, but then...

Riiight.

I'm not sure that I can wear these shirts on the Israeli streets (well, maybe one of the yiyeh beseder ones... those might even catch on among regular Israelis!) but they would make hilarious gifts for anyone you know who has spent enough time in Israel to get the jokes.

What would you put on a t-shirt to celebrate all of the quirks of Israeli life? I'm very tempted to make bumper stickers saying "honk if you're Israeli." Get it? Get it?

Good times. :) 

Stereotypes are fun! (Please help...)

Despite my complete lack of free time (believe it or not), I'm toying with the idea of creating a quiz to help y'all answer this critical question: what kind of Israeli are you?

Here are a few of the result categories that I have developed so far.

Arse/Freicha:
You love hair gel, polyester, skin-tight clothing, heavy perfume, and nightclubs. You are also quite possibly thirteen years old and/or in the Bublil family. Your home is an Isra-fab marvel. You believe in working hard and partying harder! If only it didn't take you so long to get ready for the club each night...

Kibbutznik:
You connect to Israel through its nature. You love sweeping vistas, the smell of cow manure, and produce picked straight off the tree. You probably know how to milk a goat. In your daily life, you rarely meet anyone you haven't known since infancy. You favor peasant skirts, white cotton tunics, long hair, and quiet nights with the hooka. You probably know how to play acoustic guitar.

Hareidi:
Your life revolves around Torah study and prayer. You may have more children than fingers. You are likely to live in Jerusalem or B'nei Barak. You know exactly what you will wear every day and exactly how you will spend each moment. You unwind on Friday nights with a good niggun and fabringen. If you own a cell phone, it's probably kosher.

American Oleh:
You probably live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Beit Shemesh, or Zichron Yaakov. Your first question when you go anywhere is "atah medaber anglit?" You've never quite mastered the Hebrew "r" or "ch." You were the only person applying for your job in a suit and tie. You actually allow other cars to cut in front of you on the highway, and you never forget to use the turn signal.

Russian Oleh:
You came to Israel because it was easier to get into this country than the US, but really you'd rather be back in Russia. This whole Jewish/Hebrew thing... not so much your style. You know how to hold your vodka and you can tear through pickled herring. In the wintertime, you like to turn on the Christmas tree lights and pretend that the sand on the beach is snow. Whether in chess or ballroom dancing, you are determined to turn your children into prodigies. Back in Russia, you were a nuclear physicist. Here in Israel, you clean floors. What? Bitter? You?

Tel Avivi:
You wear black, sip espressos in coffee houses, and recycle. You attend poetry readings in support of gay, underprivileged Palestinian youth. You are fairly certain that there is no civilized life outside a thirty kilometer radius of your two-million-shekel studio apartment, and you wish the rest of Israel didn't bring the reputation of your country down.

Ok, what did I miss? What would you change in these categories? What categories would you add?

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!

Everyone ELSE on the Road is an Idiot

(These are not idiots. These are children dressed up as
traffic signals in the Kiyrat Bialik Purim Parade.)

In honor of the fact that I'll take the first driving lesson en route to my Israeli license tomorrow, and the fact that the theme of the Purim Parade in Kiryat Bialik this year was road safety (really), a post about Israeli driving etiquette.

To drive in Israel, remember one simple rule:

Everyone else on the road drives like an [insert term: idiot/maniac/nephew of a monkey/Polish grandmother].

You, of course, drive very well. Every Israeli, personally, is a good driver. You keep a safe distance between yourself and the car in front of you, only talk on your cell phone in case of an emergency (for example, if your friend needs to figure out what plans are for Saturday night now), and pay close attention to all the cars around you.

On the other hand, OTHER Israelis are dangerous drivers who must be snapped into consciousness through skillful application of your horn. Other Israelis do not stop at intersections and pull out into streets without looking and must be honked at so that they do look. Other Israelis jabber on their cellphones constantly, even about stupid little things like Saturday night plans when their friends don't need to talk about them right now, and must be honked at with your free hand. Other Israelis must be honked at so that they notice you cutting them off. Other Israelis don't start moving when the light is about to turn green, so they need to be honked at so that they don't waste a precious second of potential movement. Other Israelis tailgate you, ignoring the "Keep your Distance" sign that you have clearly placed on your bumper. Other Israelis drive too slowly, and so you are forced to honk your horn, flash your lights, or tailgate them (safely, of course, because you're a good driver who pays attention) so that they don't keep you from making the next light. And other Israelis insist on honking their horns at you for no good reason, which is extremely rude.

To recap, if you want to be Israeli, you must be an extraordinarily good driver (like every Israeli) to make up for all of the crazy maniacs driving on Israeli roads.

If this doesn't make logical sense to you, bear in mind that the crazy drivers are not like you. Israeli men will tell you that women are the worst drivers, although of course they're wrong. Israeli women will tell you that Russians are terrible drivers, and Russians will explain that Arabs drive like maniacs.

So when you're on the road, remind other drivers to keep their distance and show a little bit of respect for the other drivers on the road! You may need to maneuver slightly into their lanes so they can hear you shout.

Sign on a rear window: "Keep your Distance-- Lawyer in Car"

Tell "Jokes"

Years ago, an Israeli told me a joke that I didn't find funny. One Israeli meets another, and says, "Say, Dudi, how did you like that cafe last week?" Dudi replies, "Oh, it was a blast."

Get it? Get it? Ouch.

Yet I think Jews have always told jokes about the worst things that happen to us. For example, there's that old one about two Jews sitting on a park bench in Berlin, just before WW2, reading newspapers. One looks over at the other and says, "Yankel, why are you reading that paper?! It's Nazi propaganda!" Yankel replies, "Well, in your newspaper, what do you read? You read that the windows of Jewish shops are being broken, Jewish property is being seized, Jews are being worked to death in concentration camps, and no other country wants to let us in. Now what do I read in my newspaper? Jews control the banks, they control the media, they control the government..."

Instead of weeping, we prefer to laugh, I guess. Israelis take the security situation here very seriously-- the recent election results prove that-- but you have to laugh at an absurd world, too. Maybe it's a way to feel in control. An Israeli Soldier's Mother, at her blog, wrote a great post about a "joke" told by her son: http://israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com/2009/03/circles-and-jokes.html

"What happens when a paratrooper makes a mistake?" he asked me.

I looked at him as he answered, "a paratrooper dies."

"Ouch," I answered, not really liking the joke.

"What happens when artillery makes a mistake?" he continued.

Well, if he was going to follow through and tell me an artillery man dies, I was going to be positively miserable those few days before he entered the army. "I'm not sure I want to know," I answered.

"A paratrooper dies," he said with a grin, knowing what I was thinking.

If you want to understand how Israelis have such normal, happy lives given the world in which we live, you need to look at Israeli jokes. Beneath them is a subtext: that's life. Life here involves some risk, but life also goes on. You just have to balance that dark side by living a little harder, laughing a little louder.

I'm struggling with whether I actually want to post this. This post is a little dark, plus I have a cold and my brain is fuzzy. I still don't consider these jokes funny, exactly, and I think Israelis are more sensitive than Americans realize-- I haven't heard jokes about Sderot, for example. But I'm trying to explain why it is that life here looks so much worse from the outside than it does from inside. Some of my friends in the US see Israel as smoking rubble, when here I'm sitting at my computer on a sunny day with my window open, my neighbor's loud music blasting, birds singing. The biggest decision I need to make today is whether to go grocery shopping. Life feels so normal. You sometimes only get a sense of how the "matzav" (situation) impacts Israelis in things like these bitter jokes. Israelis make the choice to LIVE. To get angry, to argue about politics, to laugh-- and then to go shopping and make Friday Night dinner or go dancing in a club. We live on the blade of that double-meaning of "blast," I guess, and most of the time we choose to celebrate.

My husband just pointed out the irony to me that this post-- about jokes-- is less funny than my others. But maybe that irony captures the contradictions in Israeli life better than anything else.

Election Ads-- Apply Directly to the Forehead

Before the elections, my husband and I spent evenings curled up on our couch watching election ads. Government funding gives every party a few minutes to share their agenda on national TV. This means that parties with no chance of making it into the knesset-- featuring ads made on their nephew's imac-- are featured alongside the heavy-hitters like Likud and Kadima. Hilarity ensues.

The merger of the Holocaust Survivors' Party with the Mature Green Leaf Supporters is the most special Israeli party of all time (except for maybe the Men's Party, which for a while had zayin as its letter for voting and now uses fey-kuf. I'll leave people with good Hebrew skills to figure out those). My guess is that the merger of these two groups resulted from schisms within both the Retired People's Party and the other (presumably immature) Legalize Marijuana Party. This is their actual election ad, and there's something endearing about it. I repeat: this is not a spoof.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFoimWJTroQ

Sadly, these idealistic individuals didn't make it into the knesset.

This election ad parody is actually LESS ridiculous, but it captures the essence of the more serious ads on TV.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbf2T9OmOA

The jingle hits on every platitude possible: Israel wants Change, Leadership, and a Future for our Children! Avi Etinger loves peace, but he hates the Holocaust. He follows in the footsteps of Begin and Rabin and Sharon and plenty of other people who died in recent years. (Never mind that Sharon is, technically, still alive. I'm pretty sure.) So vote for Avi Etinger, because ma ze meshaneh: what difference does it make?

Right, that other Israeli characteristic-- cynicism about our leaders. I'm slowly starting to get that.

Update: I was trying to find a clip from one of the nephew-in-uncle's-basement style campaign ads, and I wasn't successful. However, I just found a good summary of all the election ads (and the way Israeli elections work) here: http://lisagoldman.net/2009/01/31/israeli-election-campaign-clips-seriously-hilarious/

Update #2: Ok, so for my Hebrew challenge of the day I decided to try to translate all of the parody election ad that I posted above. This is my best attempt. Er... yes... did I mention I've lived here less than a year? Also, the ad was a lot dirtier than I realized at first... ah the innocence of poor Hebrew skills. Read on at your own discretion. Please correct any glaring errors and PLEASE tell me what the fourth line means! :)

Song:
Israel is in need of change
Israel is in need of leadership
For the sake of a future for our children
We need a spicy step? We need on your march lions? We need mountains next to us? Er, I didn't understand this line. Help from better Hebrew speakers is appreciated.

Avi Ettinger speaking:
This is the knesset (parliament).
On a survey of international fun/pleasure,
that was advertised recently,
the knesset was ranked in the second-to-last spot.
This situation MUST be stopped.

Song:
It's time so say "cusomo" (I'm pretty sure that cusomo is a swear word relating to a certain body part of one's mother, or possibly of a male of homosexual persuasion? Either way, it's not in the dictionary:)
To the election of a different candidate
So vote for Avi Etinger
Because what difference does it make?

Avi Ettinger speaking:
Citizens of Israel
People, children, and tots,
(aside) children and tots are the same thing, no?
Habitu bi... habitu bi b'kipat havdela --hmm. The most I get from this is "look at me in a hat from havdela." Except that he seems to be gesturing at the dome of the rock, so I'm confused.
Who is more cute/precious?
You will have that responsiblity (or you will decide?) in the polls.

Song:
He is on the side of peace
But against the Holocaust
He loves the nation
That hates fecal examinations (maybe this means prostate exams?)
He supports Judaism and sodomy (!)
He will wage war with "avtala" and Chaim Etgar. Hmm. I'm not sure what "avtala" means. Maybe "purity" or "virginity" (betulah?) Chaim Etgar is a humorous writer.
He continues the voice of Rabin
And of Begin and Sharon
And many others who passed away in recent times

Avi Ettinger speaking:
The females (?) of sexual relations (Maybe another sodomy reference?)
We can put in order the goings on
In legislation, with pleasure (with "kef," the party's name)

Song:
So when you are at the polls
go to a different canditate
and vote for Avi Ettinger
Because what difference does it make?