Matchy-Matchy

It all started when my roommate told me that her fancy shampoo didn't work in this land, and the best stuff she has used is the cheapo caroline brand from superfarm (Israeli CVS). Sure enough, my fancy shampoo had not been working either and so I went out and bought 1+1 shampoo myself, and instantly my hair felt and looked better. The shampoo was harsh though, like all things here; it was designed to work with the hard Israeli water.

Still Life of Cat at Cafe in Brown and Beige, Emek Refaim

This whole soap debacle made me wonder. What is the Israeli landscape? What are nations, and how can someone look of that nation? Why do Israeli products have a distinct look, and how is it that Israelis can be spotted miles away? Sometimes now on facebook my Italian students post photos of their friends, and I think how perfectly they blend into their surroundings. But what does it mean to blend in?

When I lived in Milan, my father said I looked Italian. Blond and fair, I am not so sure if any Italian was ever fooled. But still, it is true: I did dress differently when I was there, adapted myself to both the weather and the culture and what was available. Waterproofed all my shoes, put on eye makeup everyday, drank espresso in the morning and ate a lot of focaccia.

In Israel, sometimes I can't make sense of it all. The Hebrew language, Israeli manners, Israeli bureaucracy, Israeli schedules and how everything here can be so last minute or take so long. I meet the children of Anglo parents, and sometimes they speak english perfectly, and sometimes they have accents. Sometimes they seem quite American, and other times they are meah akhoz (100%) Israeli. Sometimes they marry other anglos or children of anglos. But still, somehow, they know how to get around here and there. They can make sense of the land, they can blend in and they can speak Hebrew without an accent. They look Israeli. But how, but why? We have the same genetics, most likely. Their parents probably look like mine.

Israelis match the hard but beautiful terrain of Israel. Israelis just get it, they can make sense of this country and know how to make an intimidating waitress smile or how to get around a certain rule. Or how to look good in hiking clothes and how to survive on an Israeli salary. How to get from point A to point B and how to act during an incoming rocket. They know what to expect, or know not to expect anything whatsoever.

Finding a shampoo that works after almost a year of looking was a big deal to me. I finally felt like I was figuring things out, finding my place in society and what worked for me. Cutting my dependence on foreign goods. I felt like I was starting to blend into the Israeli landscape, knowing what to get. Tiny battles, sure. But significant ones.

And perhaps now I look a little more Israeli.

Round Robbin

<<Ma sei giovanissima!>> But you are just so young.

I got that line at least once a day when I was living in Italy, teaching English in two public schools. I was twenty-two, so yes, I was young. But considering my accomplishments--graduating high school, graduating college, having a job, living in my own apartment--I was hardly considered so young for American standards. Life in Italy definitely had a different rhythm, and age meant something different. Life was done in different stages. High school years extended to age 19 and beyond. College trailed on sometime after that, if you went. Children didn't move out of their parents' houses for years to come.

In Italy, American notions of age-appropriateness, even with clothing, went out the window. But life here in Israel is something different, age is something different. Israelis can be simultaneously extremely mature and immature. High school is over at 18, and then it is time for mandatory army service, though some choose to do an additional year of public service before serving. And then it is traveling time, time to see the world and breath and not be on military time (as documented in the charming television series, Katmandu):

 

And then working, then maybe getting a college degree and another degree (Israelis are among the world's most educated) and maybe working several full time jobs all at the same time.

Time during Operation Pillar of Defense had its own feeling, each moment another rocket fell and another code red warning interrupted a song on the radio. Yet, we are past it. It seems ages away. It is over for now but for me the next bad front seems looming somewhere in the near to distant future. Hard for an American, where we are still processing 9/11 as a people. The work week speeds by, but so does the weekend (Friday and Saturday). The normal days are very dense and frantic, but then there are two relaxing weeks of vacation during Sukkot and Passover. Things slow down on the chaggim themselves, and life freezes on Yom Kippur: stores are closed, no one can drive, making you feel a lot like an actor on a stage. So time both runs very fast and very slow, and to crown it off are the seasonal items, time markers: crembos (like mallomars), pomegranates and their fresh-squeezed juice at corner stores, persimmons.

Often I walk around and feel like I am in a magical realism novel. How else could you explain Jerusalem, captured in a defensive war, a holy city full of contradictions? How can we explain any of it? The desert blooming, the desert of Tel Aviv becoming a stunning metropolis city, the way my neighborhood Nahlaot can look entirely blue, gold or red depending on the sky...

Life here has its own pace and its own logic. A lot of temporal folds, if I dare say.

At a bar where the entrance age is 25, with a friend on my 25th birthday next to the sign declaring you must be 25 to enter. While the drinking age in Israel is 18, many bars have a minimum age of 24 to keep a less mature clientele (presumably the post-army-service-traveling crowd) out. Yes, I have been carded, though never denied entry even at 23.

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Political Musings From a Blonde

Doesn't Hamas know that I am a nice Jewish girl from Scarsdale?

That was my first thought as I ran into the safe room on Friday afternoon. I had already kindled my shabbat candles, and so I knew it wasn't the weekly siren announcing the entrance of the sabbath queen. We all just kind of stood there in shock, debating what it was as the siren droned on and on...

Anyway, I guess Hamas must know, I guess that must be why the rockets come raining down. I have never been one to love politics, never been one to love clever arguments and I have no interest in starting now. But the rockets keep raining down on places I have visited before and places where dear friends live.

And let me tell you something, till you hear an air raid siren, you don't know what its like. Sure, I had visited Sderot, the town that has endlessly been bombarded with rockets for the past few YEARS and saw the playgrounds with bomb shelters poorly disguised as purple snakes. You think you know, but you have no idea.

Coping Methods in Sderot

Still, a few days have passed and I am getting ready to laugh about all this. Israelis I have spoken to have been calm, carrying on. I saw a cartoon today with Fry from Futurama. The caption: Was that Hamas// Or Did Shabbat Just Enter? (in reference to the Jerusalem air raid siren).

Perhaps soon, I too will be calm and carry on.

White Bread

Here in Israel, it's all, "where does your family come from?"

And by that, they do not mean, where are you from. They don't even mean, where are your parents from. They mean, way back when, where did your roots take place? Where did your family reside till they were kicked out?

Sephardic, Temani (Yeminite), Ashkenazi, Ethiopian and beyond, you can find it all in Israel. I am not even going to attempt to explain the stereotypes, except that much of the time I feel like American wonder bread walking around. Sliced bread is an ingenious invention but in Israel, pita rocks the landscape. A few months ago, I went into a shwarma place and the vender laughed at me when I ordered my shwarma spicy, incredulously asking if I was quite sure I wanted spicy sauce and exclaiming, "but you are Ashkenazic!" (typical). Yes, I was sure, though I guess being blond doesn't help.

In any event, between the shwarma and the chummus and the jachnun and the roasted eggplant with sesame sauce, Sephardic and Temani food dominate. Don't get me wrong, the food is delicious. In general, I even prefer Sephardic-style cuisine. But sometimes I do miss cholent and kreplach and sour dill pickles and Dr. Brown's black cherry soda. I miss warm pastrami sandwhiches. But if there is anything I've learned about living in Israel, if you seek so shall you find.

Here, there is always tons of delicious food everywhere you turn... and no time of the week is there more food consumed than on Shabbat. Little by little, I have begun to discover the shabbat take out menus, the fancy restaurant and tunisian cafe in Baka, Abu Rami in Talpiot, and more.

And so, last week in a desperate search for my grandmother's chicken soup, I found an Ashkenazi take out place. I've been back twice and couldn't be happier, though I do feel a bit like a stereotype, like an American eating in a McDonald's in the middle of Paris or Florence. But, alas, what do I know? I've done that, too.

Heimeshe's Ashkenazi Delight, Karen Kayemit, Rehavia

Tunisian Food from a Cafe on Derech Beit Lechem, Baka

Israel in a Bottle

If you do not live in Jerusalem, you don't understand. You can't understand how everything is somehow significant here, how Jerusalem is the most magical city in the world.

I do not really know how to explain it, except that everything in Jerusalem is ladden with meaning. Sausurre and Derrida just swim around in my head as I drift along. Neighborhoods say a lot about the person, shuk venders are so emotionally emphatic about selling their vegetables that it makes me uncomfortable and taxi drivers dispatch crucial advice.

About two weeks ago was one of those nights when surely everything was symbolic. Everything that is difficult about Israel, everything that is so hard the only way of coping is to laugh, everything that is beautiful about Jerusalem, the holy city, all in one Jerusalem moment.

It was Thursday night and I had just finished working my American hours and then some. It was about 2 AM Jerusalem time. I called up a taxi company and spoke with a man who refused to take me home to Bayit Vegan because it was too far and claimed the company couldn't go there, but then relented when I told them that they had taken me there the night before (a white lie). Beseder, the cab was sent.

Twenty minutes and about five pleading phone calls on my part later, I was finally picked up from my office in Nahlaot. The cab driver was religious and spiritual and played dance remixes of Jewish tunes. We talked for a bit, and I said I liked the music. And he said he would play something special, lecavod shabbat, so off we drove into the midnight sunset, a techno remix of the shabbat classic Lecha Dodi blasting.

Storefront from the Summer Collection of Israeli designer, Daniella Lehavi

Now & Then

If Israel is my one, true love, Italy is the one that got away. The one that could never be. And so on...

And yet, perhaps it is no coincidence that both countries pull me. As my mother says, the sunlight in Italy is the closest thing the rest of the world has to the light in Jerusalem. The cobblestone paths of Israel and Italy's historic centers blend together. The magical ability to get lost going anywhere in both Jerusalem and Rome. The Mediterranean Sea. The love of food and coffee. The hand gesturing. The many accents. The big, curly hair.

And sometimes, when I walk by an old smoky building I am back at my host parents' Florentine flat on via Giacamo Medici.

Galipoli, Italy. Spring 2008

Nahlaot, Jerusalem. Summer 2012

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I have spent three summers in Israel, but this is my first September 12th in the Land of Milk and Honey. So far, I am loving it and I think the chagim (high holidays, Rosh HaShana through Sukkot) are set to be my favorite time of year in Israel.

First of all, the weather is quite lovely. It is starting to cool down, and by 5 pm or so it is already sweater weather. So it is a nice mix of summer in the morning and a chance to preview your fall wardrobe in the afternoon (even though I doubt so many other people in Jerusalem dream about back-to-school shopping and blazer season followed by chunky sweater season). On my walk home from work around 11 pm, it is chilly at first but by the time I make it to the tram, I am already warm again. It is nice to feel the crisp air, smell Jasmine plants and see flowering bushes overflow from gates and walls. For me, this is a truly Jerusalem sensation.

There is also a really festive atmosphere in Jerusalem. Israelis love to celebrate. Everyday, I see either a religious party or a birthday party or a bunch of people just celebrating for no reason. People are constantly barbequing in the parks and blasting dance music. Everyday here is a reason to eat cake. So when there is actually a real festival, it is quite exciting. Supermarkets are having special pricing. People sign their emails wishing a happy new year. Even store venders will wish you a happy new year. Outside the shuk, there is a booth selling stuff you might need for the chagim and for the year to come: pots and pans at a special price, tablecloths, sheets sets (for all the guests you will be hosting presumably), new years cards with French, English and Hebrew on them, calendars and more.

Which brings me to my next point: presents. The chagim are a great time because apparently people give and receive presents. It is also customary to buy yourself some new clothes, i.e. give yourself a new present. So there is a lot to love about that.

Last of all, there is some truly great seasonal produce going on here. You really realize that it is harvest season. I love seasonal things, they were one of my favorite parts about Italy. I loved hearing about the truffle mushroom harvest from my students in the vocational school and seeing my Florentine host mother whip up a cake with whatever was fresh, be in grapes during grape season or chestnut flour during chestnut season. Here, there are pomegranates literally everywhere in the shuk, and two types of long green beans. My guess is that one is sugar snap and the other is string beans, but when I talked to the vender at the shuk he said you had to cook both for about twenty minutes, so that doesn't sound like either. But he said that both types of ambiguous green beans are eaten this time of year and for the New Year. I also bought some special crystallized honey and one of my French roommates plans on making her Tunisian grandmother's special honey-sugar recipe.


All in all, this is a beautiful time of year and the chagim haven't even started. It is wonderful to see everyone getting excited and celebrating together. Next up: eating in a Sukkah at any ol' restaurant in Jerusalem.

sukka after sukka after sukkah

blurry view of sukkas over restaurants

post-sukkot etrogs on sale