Quick, where will your first bank account in Israel be?
One of your first tasks when you step off the plane is opening a bank account so you can start getting sal klitah, the six months of “absorption” money that you’re entitled to when you arrive in Israel.
So that’s why many olim feel rushed into opening their first bank account, and don’t think the process through as much as they should.
Sure, you can always move your account later, but you might not want to once you have an established line of credit, “standing orders” (הוראות קבע/horaot keva – fixed monthly payments), government deposits or debits, not to mention (hopefully) payroll deposits coming in and out of that account every month.
So you do want to put some thought into opening your account, even if it seems like you don’t have a lot of choices. When you look back on your aliyah process in five years’ time, these are some of the mistakes you may end up regretting…
1) You didn’t set aside enough time
I’ve opened bank accounts in Canada where I’ve walked in, plunked down ID on the counter, and walked out 15 minutes later with a bank card. That’s not how it works here.
Hello, yes, it’s me, still obsessing over the bathrooms here. I started this series thinking I’d better get down the stuff that tickles me while I can, before it all starts to seem commonplace.
But (and maybe this is just because I’m a bit juvenile that way) bathrooms continue to amuse me everywhere we go (one reason I enjoy Batya’s infrequent series, A Pisher’s Guide to Jerusalem).
Something tells me I’m not the only one. My fifth most popular post here is a Things that are cool in Israel episode all about Israeli bathrooms. And people are apparently Googling Israeli bathrooms at an astonishing rate. I hope I can help satisfy your curiosity and earn myself a slice of immortality.
(How can I blog about bathrooms when other Israelis are running to shelters? Listen, as my mother says, if I wasn’t laughing, I’d have to cry.)
In some ways, Israelis seem to “get” the idea of bathroom privacy, even more than in North America.
In public bathrooms, for example, the stall walls usually go almost all the way to the floor (except the annoying modern ones that seem to be copying the North American model). Generally, public bathrooms, even the most rudimentary, are more sturdy, soundproof and private here.
(Though I shouldn’t be too smug; it’s more likely here than in North America that the seat itself, a valuable amenity, has mysteriously either been forgotten or stolen.)
Yet in the midst of all this privacy, there’s also an obsession with putting a window in every bathroom. Ideally, in every stall. It’s like they think that the fumes are going to kill you if you have to be closed in with them for too long.
I already shared with you the pictures of our bathroom window in the merkaz klitah. In this picture, the right window is the bathroom; the one on the left is the shower room, which was separate in that apartment. This is the “outside” of the windows. This style always opens downward into the bathroom.
Our new apartment has a different style – your basic swinging-on-a-hinge design which, when open, affords absolutely ZERO privacy.
Here’s the view from the inside. Akiva’s working in the kitchen, but I called him over to say hello.
On the kitchen side, the view looks like this:
This lets me spy on the kids’ bathtimes, or, in this case, figure out what Naomi’s trying to do to her Barbie doll’s hair (ruin it with overbrushing, then overbrush it in a frantic attempt to smooth it out again).
One more weird thing about Israeli public bathrooms. In North America, when you get into the stall, the door swings freely, and then there is some type of mechanism to latch the door.
The mechanism varies, but in general, a single mechanism does both things – closes the door AND locks it. So when you’re done, you only have to unlatch the door and it’s pretty much open.
Here in Israel, for whatever reason, they have made this a two-step operation. Almost every public bathroom has two things: a handle (not a doorknob) to open and close the door, and a latch to lock it.
To get out, you have to reverse things: unlock the door, then open it with the handle. I don’t know why this is, at all.
I’m thinking maybe they should visit North America and see how productively we use all the nanoseconds we save by not having to repeatedly rescue ourselves from bathrooms (or, in my case, trying to shove the door open because I’ve forgotten there’s also a handle).
Are you willing to bear with me for one more potty-related quirk?
Wherever you are, it’s easy to tell which room is the bathroom, without asking for directions, because every bathroom door seems to have one of two things: a window or a peephole.
In the merkaz klitah, we had a window. They’re frosted, of course, for privacy.
You might think they’re there to let in light, but in this case, more light would have come in the window above the toilet, because the bathroom door opens onto a hallway.
Our current apartment’s bathroom door features the Mysterious Hole instead. Here’s the outside view.
Close up, you can see that it’s not just a hole… it has a weird, broken kind of mesh over it to – um, what? Stop lizards from creeping in while you’re bathing? Stop people from peeking in? (See aforementioned GIANT GAPING WINDOW.)
Here is the inside view.
I literally haven’t figured out the useful purpose of the peephole. It’s not big enough, plus it’s too weird and dusty, to provide significant ventilation or light.
And if somebody comes a-knockin’ at the door, what are the odds that they won’t be able to just say their name when you ask who it is? It’s not like you need to peek out to see who’s there.
This post has gone on too long, but remind me sometime to tell you about the Crusader Bathrooms in Akko. Really, truly. It’s a Real True Thing.
They say Israel is a Land of Mystery. Well, actually, I didn’t read that anywhere; I just made it up. But it could be true.
As you can see, there is plenty here that is mysterious. (Where do those toilet seats go? Are people too cheap to buy them, so they have to steal one from the Afula bus station? Who are these people who are googling “bathrooms in Israel” and driving up my rankings?)
Until I find out, you have my promise that if something bathroom-related happens in Israel, I won’t stop blogging until I get to the bottom of it.
(“Oooh, she said ‘bottom!’” all my British readers are cooing.)
I mean… until I have plumbed the very depths of the mystery.
This is one of the big cliches about Israeli life, so I kind of feel bad even mentioning it. But not bad enough to not mention it, and here’s why - because I’ve finally cracked the code!
(Sort of – I’ll explain in a minute.)
The sherut, monit sherut, or shared taxi-van, was actually our very FIRST Israel experience, way back when, on our ill-fated trip to Yerushalayim five years ago. It’s almost everybody’s first Israel experience – you get off the plane, wander stunned out of the airport and into the hands of a guy who, for 50 shekel, will stuff you into an oddly curtained van with a bunch of other stunned passengers, heading into Yerushalayim or wherever you happen to be going. (price may vary!)
Then you doze a bit and, eventually, the driver tells you you’re there, and you fall wearily out of the van with your luggage.
Sherut = “shared” = Service
So that’s the sherut. Easy to remember because, although the word means “service” in Hebrew, it sounds like “shared” in English. It’s a taxi, that you SHARE, with a bunch of smelly in-transit strangers.
Here in the Krayot, however, there are other little yellow “service taxis” that are vans, albeit more run-down (still with the tacky curtains), that ramble around on regular, predetermined routes.
(This grizzled guy in the picture? That’s exactly who drives every single one of these – except the one time I got a female driver.)
These are almost like buses, and in fact, run mainly along well-travelled bus routes. Ever since we got here, I’ve been trying to figure out why people take them instead of the regular buses.
In my head, I even made up this short list to compare the two:
City Bus
Monit Sherut
Comes less often, (sort of) on a schedule
Comes more often, whenever it feels like
Many passengers, luggage, standing room if full
Only 10 passengers, no standing room
Easy to enter with stroller/shopping
Harder to enter with stroller/shopping, plus nasty glares from other passengers if you are carrying much more than a handbag.
Stops at stops
Stops anywhere, usually with a screech and the thud of a dying cat.
Accepts transit pass (Rav Kav) or cash
Takes cash only, preferably small change or they’ll yell at you.
Discount if you buy 10 fares
Can’t buy multiple fares ever ever ever
Discount for kids’ fares
No discount for anyone; don’t even ask or they’ll yell at you.
Transfer free to any other buses / metronit in the krayot for a full 90 minutes
No transfer to anything else ever; don’t even ask or they’ll yell at you.
Full price 6.90nis
Full price 6.90nis… or so I thought!
You can see that city bus is coming out waaaaay ahead, financially, except for one thing. See that last item? Here’s what I just learned two weeks ago:
The monit sherut only costs full fare if you’re going the longest distance!!
Remember I said I’d cracked the code? That’s the code!
If you’re not going all the way, the fares are on a sliding scale. From our house to the ulpan or the library where I volunteer (too lazy to walk sometimes!) only costs 3 shekels, instead of nearly 7 for the bus. That’s about a buck.
For a dollar, especially if I’m running late, especially if I’m not going somewhere else immediately afterwards, it’s sometimes worth it.
So, in answer to my question (it only took 6 months to figure out!):
Why do people take the monit sherut?
Because they…
a) are going too far to walk,
b) are going somewhere directly on the sherut’s route,
c) aren’t transferring anywhere afterwards, and probably
d) aren’t going far enough to want to pay full fare. They may also
e) want to catch a bus at a screeching halt in the middle of a block (or get off in the middle of a block) rather than walking from a more distant bus stop.
I did say the little sherut buses come more often, but that’s not always true. Just like the feral cats all over the place here, they come and go whenever they please.
One more fun thing about the sherut: drivers are in a BIG hurry.
Time is money, but only if they’re driving. So they don’t want your money when you get in. They want your money while they’re driving, because then, money is money (or something). Drive, drive, drive: it’s their prime directive.
So you sit down first (unless you want to get yelled at) and discuss niceties about where you’re going and how much it costs later. Which is nerve-wracking if you’re only going a few “stops,” because you don’t have long to take care of the entire transaction – especially if the driver doesn’t realize the city has a library and where it might be.
Usually, you shout to the driver (over his blaring music or a Russian newscast) where you’re going, he shouts back the fare, then you begin the process of “passing” the money.
The Ritual of “Passing” the Money.
Don’t stand up! Just hand your money over to the person in front of you. They pass it to the person in front of them, and so on, all the way up to the driver. Then, whatever’s left of your money after your fare has been deducted comes wending its way back to you via the same sweaty palms who passed it up in the first place.
Each participant murmurs the code to the next in line: “ta’avir la nehag” (for a girl, “ta’avri la nehag”). Everybody knows what’s going on, but they still say it – it’s a magical incantation to keep the money safe on its journey.
(In ulpan, we learned to say “timsor / tims’ri la nehag,” which is technically correct – but so, in English, is adding the phrase “good fellow” when asking your best buddy to do you a favour. You can say it, but normal folks will think you’re odd.)
Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s five shekels you’re passing, or five hundred, you WILL get your change. This passing is not considered a “nicety,” as it would be where I come from. (Okay, in Toronto it would probably be considered an extreme “weirdity” to hand a stranger a 100-dollar bill to give the driver.)
Passing the money is as mandatory as if you were at the dinner table and someone asked you to pass the water pitcher.
If you don’t like handling other people’s sweaty change, you could try positioning yourself near the back of the sherut to avoid this weirdity. But I’m still at the stage where I find it charming – plus, with only 10 seats, there’s usually no choice left.
So what’s the plural of sherut???
If you know anything about Hebrew, you’ll know that the plural of sherut is “sherutim,” but you’d be wrong, because that means bathroom.
Because its full name is “monit sherut” (service taxi), the proper plural is “moniyot sherut” (service taxis). Or, as Elisheva loves to say in her fake-broad Ashkenazi accent, “moniyos sherus.” Apparently, they’re also referred to as “monit special.”
Feeling like a savvy Israeli doesn’t happen for me very often.
Today, I took a page out of Batya’s book (okay, blog) when we were out and about in Nahariya. Strange city, ambling around having a good time with friends from our pilot trip… when Naomi Rivka announced that she needed a bathroom.
(we only took Naomi Rivka – GZ stayed home with Elisheva, yay!)
And I looked up, and like the chorus out of Life of Brian (if you haven’t seen it, you must), there was the local Klalit (they spell it Clalit in English) health clinic. Using Batya’s rationale, we ARE Clalit members and thus, sort of, “customers” of theirs.
I also knew that the closest public alternative was the bus-station bathroom, which would almost certainly be sub-par, and also, possibly, be available only for a fee of 1 shekel. I learned this the hard way in Afula, where you hand over your shekel to an apathetic guy behind a desk who does NOTHING, and then enter the most hideously filthy bathroom which – for ONE shekel! – lacks seats. It’s like a third-world country, except you’re paying for the privilege.
So… why be a freyer (sucker) if you don’t have to be??? Into the Klalit clinic we went, marched up to the front desk, and asked for the sherutim (literally, services or facilities). The bathroom wasn’t great (actually required a bit of cleaning before she could use it), but it was free and there was soap, warm water and towels to wash up with afterwards. (No hand sanitizer! I have yet to see a health or recreation facility here with hand sanitizer. Weird, since it’s practically synonymous with these places outside of Israel.)
Anyway, there isn’t much that makes me feel confident these days, but being able to find my kid a bathroom the INSTANT she demands one (it really did just appear there, like a mirage) is one heck of a happiness-booster.
Oh, yeah, and then we stopped at a sandwich shop and I showed everybody the extensive sandwich menu so they could deliberate before I took a call. And then… when I turned back a few minutes later, realized I was the only one in the crowd (two were just starting ulpan) who could actually read the menu. Oops!
We skipped that joint – too expensive, too complicated – and found a falafel / shawarma place that only had two choices (falafel / shawarma, and half / whole). Thoroughly yummy!
While wandering around Nahariya, we happened to find delightful store we found in Nahariya called Gan Li / גן לי. Okay, it’s true, I have a fetish for anything school related, but this is actually the first decent, comprehensive, school-and-art-supplies shop we have seen since we got here.
For months, we’ve been buying binders in one store, a hole punch in another, a filler paper at another, and pencils and pens somewhere else entirely. Gan Li even had Akiva’s artist ink, and some decent markers he can use for drawing with. And some cheap (₪9) no-name highlighters for Naomi Rivka and magnet pens for our fridge (₪5 each). It’s not that the prices were so fantastic, it’s the fact that everything was all in one place that I found so very exciting!
Oooh! Ever a sucker for fun new card games, I bought the game Sleeping Queens (note: links point to the English Gamewright version; the Hebrew one is licensed by FoxMind), for ₪40-something instead of the ₪60-something in the big chain bookstores. But that’s a subject for another post…
All in all, a nice day spent with nice new friends in Nahariya. And it was nice travelling home in comfort instead of sitting cross-legged on the bus all the way back (meandering every which way down the coast and through Acco) wondering where I’d find the nearest bathroom. I’m Israeli; I already know!!!
I was astonished when I first saw it, but now I’m already starting to get used to seeing these everywhere we go, so I wanted to post before the novelty wore off…
Actually, there isn’t really much more to say. There is a toilet, and it is plastic. All the visible parts are plastic, including the seat, the bowl, the part that holds water. I haven’t looked inside to see if everything inside is plastic, too. Oh, and the brand name – which is ubiquitous here – is “Plasson.”
Some toilets have dual-flush handles (plastic), a little one inside a big one; ours has flush buttons, but the “large” flush gets stuck so I have taped over it. (You can always use two small flushes if need be, but the truth is that small is always enough.)
This is actually what we call the “potty room,” given that the two functions of our former bathroom are divided into two different rooms, a pretty common design for Israeli homes. It is literally, a potty, in a room.
Next door is the “shower room,” where the sink also lives. You’d think it would make sense to divvy up the tasks this way, but in fact, I don’t like it very much. You always have to wash your hands after using the potty room, and if somebody is using the shower room, you have to go all the way to the kitchen. However, since this is a smallish apartment, that’s not much to complain about, I guess. But the nice soap is in the shower room.
Some homes avoid this difficulty by having a “spare sink” just floating somewhere in the hallway; also useful for negel vasser (morning handwashing) on awakening, as well as netilas yadayim (washing before a meal with bread). However, as one of our family members has already gleefully noted, the shower room, since it does not contain a toilet, can be used for handwashing and bracha-making anyway (which isn’t usually fitting to do in a room with a toilet, though some halachic authorities have ruled that a modern bathroom is nowhere near the same as the kind of toilet facilities that existed when the Talmud was being written and so a bracha might be able to be said in there… but we don’t anyway).
So enough of that.
Another weird feature worth mentioning about Israeli bathrooms is the window. Ours, though tiny, has not one but TWO windows. The first is on the door – almost every bathroom has this, for some reason. It’s translucent; perhaps so you can see if somebody’s using the bathroom by the light coming through?
(notice the door handle, and taped-over lock – I had to put masking tape over both sides of this because of a peeking little boy)
The other window is above the toilet, and it’s huge – it’s the sole “ventilation” system for the bathroom – which opens up right into… the “utility porch,” a little sunroom just off the kitchen where I hang our laundry.
Here are the two windows, from the shower room (left) and potty room (right), opening, essentially, right into the kitchen:
Notice that you can see right in. Comes in handy for passing stuff to somebody in the shower, like if they forgot their towel. Not so handy when somebody in the shower hangs her towel over the window and it falls out into the kitchen. Just saying.
Notice the little air freshener lurking in the corner, just to the right of the potty room window. I have scrubbed and scrubbed the floors and other surfaces within an inch of their lives, but there is STILL a little bit of a smell if I let the air freshener expire. I’m normally pretty offended by artificial scents like this, but frankly, the smell it’s covering up is worse. Plus, there’s a huge open window right next to the air freshener, so most of its smell wafts away.
Okay, I seem to be blogging a lot about smells, and the downside of life here… so my next post will be (slightly) more uplifting, I promise.
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