Dealing with Racism in Israel, My Haunted Apartment, and other Updates

Ahhhh, Israel. Home of good schwarma, Ariel Sharon Park, intellectual military men, and Bar Rafaeli.

But there are bad things here, too. For example, my broken washing machine. That is an objectively terrible thing, especially since it is new, and I probably paid too much for it. Another example: the VAT, which makes everything imported here twice as expensive as it should be. But one of the strangest things I did not expect to find here was the latent, unconscious racism that pervades a lot of Israeli society.

What do I mean by this? Let me try to explain.

Israel is one of the more diverse societies I have ever lived in. Granted: the US of A probably qualifies as the most diverse place ever created, but it doesn't hold a candle to the tiny space that all these diverse people are forced to interact in; if the US is a melting pot, than Israel is a nuclear fusion reactor core. It's like the UN here, except more Jewish.

There are Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Persian Jews, Yeminite Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Chinese Jews, American Jews, Jews for Jesus, Israeli Arabs, Druze, Israeli Arab Christians, Sudanese refugees......and so on. And we all share a country that people claim is roughly the same size of New Jersey, but that is also a mistake, because half of this "New-Jersey-sized" country is desert that no one lives in, so it's more like the same of Rhode Island, which a majority of the population living in three crazy cities, none of which is bigger than Boston. In other words, we are packed like sardines here (sometimes literally....or at least it feels like it when the big-bosomed old Russian lades are breathing down your neck at the Zul-Poh (supermarket) check out line).

Yet, for all of this highly pressurized diversity, Israelis have a special place in their heart for a sort-of soft-core racism, that manifests itself in the silliest of places: old movies, food product advertisements, etc. I first noticed this at the onset of my packaged cake addiction. That's right: I've become addicted to Osem foil packaged cakes. I know this may sound gross, but the packaged apple cakes, babka-like cakes, sponge cakes, brownies, and even cookies, and all I have to come home to after a long day at the "Pokoolta" (aka the "Faculty" of Medicine). And I love them. They are no replacement for Mookie, but they are tastier...and they don't bite my hair....

Anyway, back to the racism. As I moved from normal lemon-flavored sponge cake into the exciting territory of chocolate cakes, I noticed something interesting about the packaging: the smiling woman on the bag was....darker. To be more specific, the lady on the package approving of the delicious chocolate cake contained within it was black. I started looking at all of the cake/brownie/cookie/etc. packages produced by Osem....and noticed a pattern: darker pastry = black woman, lighter pastry = white woman.

Now, you might be thinking---this isn't exactly deep-South-1850's-slavery sort of racism, but I cannot get over how weird it is to match up the color of my food with...the color of some woman's skin on my package. Anyway, this isn't the only thing. In truth, the rather large Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is constantly fighting on uphill battle in this country, just as Mizrachi Jews (i.e. Jews from Arab Countries) had to do 30 years ago, where their cultural norms were just not tolerated by the larger Israeli population. Example: whereas all Ethiopian Jews are suspected of not "really" being Jews, and there have been lengthy efforts to just convert them to Judaism en-masse to ensure there are no halachic problems in the future (a long, long topic of discussion in its own right...), the million or so Russians who immigrated here in the last 15 years are *known* to contain within their population not only many non-Jews, but even (I could not make this up if I wanted to) anti-Semities! (see here: Anti-Semtism in Israel).

I also watched a hilarious Israeli film from the 1950's called "Sallah Shabati," starring none other than....Topol!! Yes, Topol, the star of the amazing cinematic treatment of "Fiddler on the Roof" started his career playing an aging, Morrocan paterfamilias who drags his (huge) family to 1950's Israel. The movie follows him as he lies, cheats, tricks, and just generally does anything to keep himself from actually working---in order to buy a house for his family (they live in what they refer to as "Transitional Housing" in the movie, which is sort of like the refugee camps the Palestinians still live in today). His foil is (naturally) a lazy Ashkenazi ("Mr. Goldstein") who hasn't managed to move out of the immigration camp, despite all of the money.....he has managed to con out of various political parties...which Sallah is conning out of him by cheating at Shesh-Besh.....

Anyway...needless to say, every possible sterotype of any sort of Jews (yes...American Jews, French Jews, Kibbutzniks, Israeli bureaucrats, et al. were all very successfully mocked in this hilarious movie). But at the heart of the movie is the very real racism that existed in Israel against the newly immigrated Mizrachim, and is currently against Ethiopians and other minority groups.

Enough of this. On to my actual life:

My apartment is haunted. After finally fixing the dude, I bought a washing machine...which worked for a week. Then stopped working. The technician came....and said he had to order a few parts, and didn't come back for another few weeks, at which point he literally had to replace the MOTOR of the washing machine to get it to work. Then, a piece broke in my dryer. And so on....I am convinced that whoever lived in my apartment before me passed away....and didn't want to give up his/her/their apartment, and are trying to get me to move out, by destroying my appliances. My fellow med students have made a pool to predict which appliance is going to explode next...

My money is on the kum-kum (electric tea-kettle).

Otherwise, I just got back from "Sufersol Deel" (aka "Supersol Deal"), where I went shopping with Shmuel aka "Sam, aka "Shmuel" Korb and his wonderful mother, Lynn. I got some much needed food, cleaning products, pots, appliances, a thermos, and a doormat. Supersol deal is the flagship store of the Supersol line of stores: Supersol "Sheli" (or "My Supersol") is the neighborhood grocery store, Supersol "Beeg" (or "Big Supersol") is the larger grocery store version, and Supersol Deal is the Costco of Israel...That's right, I said it. Costco. So you can imagine that any place where they have deals on...anything...is going to be busy. A place where there are deals on almost everything...well, it's a madhouse! I was bumped into over 10 times, got into about five different shopping cart "traffic jams", fought a woman for my electric tea urn (which was only ~$35! A steal!), and even had the woman giving out free hotdogs tell me that I was a saint for wanting to live in this country, that she wanted to move to Canada herself, and that she had a beautiful daughter just about my age...if I wanted to meet her. (I declined). Anyway....I made it out of there having only spent 780 shekels (note: I never used to talk about money this much...but you get used to it living here), which roughly translates to $200. Which---again---was a deal.

Anyway, that was my adventure today. Other adventures I've had lately:

-Going to a Yale Alumni Musical Event (mostly full of 80-year-olds) in Tel Aviv. (Long Story).
-Being President of a medical school class full of Jewish kids.
-Trying to find a roommate
-Being in medical school.

Right. I guess med school has been taking up most of my time. Well...Shabbat shalom to everyone. And, as always, feel free to call/write/etc.

Michael

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My Dude Abides...

....well, sort of.

For all of those not acquainted with strange Israeli words for household appliances, a "dude" is the Hebrew word for "water heater." (Other funny ones are "kumkum" for electric kettles and "mahgav" for squeegee, which is also the word for the Border Police).

Anyway, the dude in my apartment has been displaying "very un-dude" behavior lately. First, the dude broke, as in it stopped supplying me with hot water. My landlady took care of this problem.

However, the next time I used the dude to take a shower, the water was beyond scalding, and at one point was even emitting steam from the shower head. I left my apartment to go grab some pizza, and came back to find the dude still on (whoops), a pipe burst, and water gushing all over my apartment. I flipped out, called my landlord's grandmother who lives across the street, who got very angry at me since it was 12:30 at night, who ran out in her evening gown to show me where the water meter was to cut off the water to my apartment. I spent a while mopping up the mess in my apartment (which consisted of using the mahgav to push the water out of my apartment through a small whole in the wall meant for this very purpose), and then went to sleep.

I awoke early the next morning to the smell of burning plastic, as the dude had caught fire. It wasn't an open flame, but the fumes of burning plastic convinced me to take refuge at my friend Shmuel's for the Sukkot holiday, as soon as I informed my landlord of this aggression against my apartment would not stand.

Anyway, the dude has been repaired by someone who I really hope was very thorough, and actually fixed all the problems, so that I will not have to deal with these problems again in the future. "If you will it, it is no dream"....Theodore Herzl. And, thus, the title of this post: "The Dude Abides".

Ah. Anyway, life here is pretty good. In between dealing with the above problems, I am trying to make my apartment look decent, have celebrated a few holidays, spent some time in Jerusalem with various friends from the States, made a few new friends, done some laundry, and been elected "Chief Representative of TeAMS Program Class of 2011." Or, as I like to call myself, President. This basically means I have the wonderful job of putting the Technion administration in its place when it steps out of line. For example, my first job is determining why, exactly, the Technion intercepted mail addressed to the students in the program for their loans, opened the letters, and cashed checks made out to these various students. In America, I could point out that they had violated numerous federal laws, and inform the appropriate authorities. But here in Israel....well...even if there are laws against this, I cannot imagine that fact will really mean much to them. We will see.

I start Medical School on Sunday, so that is also exciting.

Anyway. I hope everyone has not been too disappointed with my lack of posting, and that you have all had very happy and meaningful holidays. Please keep in touch.

Yallah,

Michael