How you know I’m still Canadian after all these (almost 4) years…

How do I know I’m still Canadian, even after almost 4 years in Israel?

Well, for one thing, the big Canadian flag in my front window – genuine, no doubt made in China, purchased last week at Dollarama.  (Full disclosure: I bought the JUMBO size, not SUPER JUMBO, so it’s smaller than the Israeli flag we just took down after Yom Yerushalayim…)

(This is my actual flag pictured above – not some cheesy stock photo.  You can tell it’s my flag because it’s held up with a clothespin – see top-left of photo.)

For another thing, the small Canadian flag in one of the front planters.

For a third thing, we’re flying to Canada at some unspecified point this summer, iy”h.  (Or, as everyone says here, be”h.)

For a fourth thing… well, we just are.  It’s just our culture.

In what way?  Well, here are two examples.

Canadian in the mall

Last summer

Who Israel has instead of rock stars and supermodels (and why I’m glad)

Sure, supermodel Bar Refaeli captures her share of headlines here.  But you know who's a real celebrity in this country?

I'll tell you.

I was sitting down this afternoon in a little cafe in the mall, revving up my voice recorder, buffing up my pen & notepad, or whatever I do before an interview… when I noticed a woman standing outside the cafe, staring intently. 

After a second, she started waving - at the guy I had come to interview.  She waved timidly at first, shyly, and then a little more crazily when she saw that he'd spotted her there.  "Todah," she mouthed at him.  "Todah."  Thanks.

"He's like a rock star here," said the translator.

I nodded, numb, amazed.

Who was this instantly-recognizable mega-star that I had come to interview?

It was this guy:

What’s that you say?

Exactly!  Yeah, this guy.  (The one in the vest.  No idea who the guy in the white kippah could be.)

Yup, him.  Desmond Tutu’s buddy.

Going south: thoughts on a bus from Eilat

    

Christians have an easy mnemonic to remember Israel’s four seas:  “the Red, the Med, the Dead and the Bread.”  To some Jews, that last one’s a little obscure… it refers to the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), near where they believe JC performed the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.  Thus, “the Bread.”

Three of them are easy enough to get to, but the first one, the Red, involves a trek to what seems like the ends of the earth… Eilat.

Here’s an interesting point of Jew-trivia a friend passed along a couple of months ago:  Eilat is technically not in Israel.  Though that depends how you define Israel.  If you’re talking Biblical boundaries, it’s out.  (Nonetheless, you’ll be happy to know that people who live there still keep one day of yom tov.)

Certainly, it still feels like Israel – or at least, like some weird, remote outpost of Israel.  The presence of an airport smack-dab in the middle of the city (getting in the way whenever you want to walk anywhere) is an irritating reminder that Haifa is basically just an hour away, for anyone who has the means to fly instead of taking the 6-hour bus trip.

We went by bus.  Thus, four hours of THIS out the windows:

The goal of the trip was Togetherness, with a capital-T, and spending time relaxing with the Big Boy, who is on his way to Thailand to be swallowed up by the rebellion that has apparently just erupted there and have big-boy Adventures.

As you can tell, Togetherness was achieved, in the sense that he posed for Naomi Rivka’s many pictures, like this one.

We spent just a little over 24 hours in Eilat, which isn’t really enough.  Not because it’s such a great city, but because of the tremendous effort it takes to get there if you don’t have the wherewithal (ie money) to fly down.  I’ve heard the same thing about Australia, only more so:  unless you have a month to spend there, at least, it’s just not worth the crushingly long travel time and adjustment to not just a time but a seasonal difference.

Things to do in Eilat if you have only 24 hours:

Coral reef observatory!  Way cool.  Way overpriced.  Admission is good for 3 days, which is awesome, but it’s so far out of town that you have to either pay 40nis for a cab or memorize the bus schedule (after one cab ride, we did the latter), because they only come once an hour.

Dip in the red sea!  We did!  I did!  See picture, above.  This is a huge accomplishment… my first time getting completely all-over wet in one of Israel’s seas.  Yeah, I know: we’ve lived ten minutes away from the Med… and I still haven’t gone in, after nearly 10 months.

Dry off in a lounge chair!  This being Eilat, with 40 degree temperatures and dry, dry air, this only took about 20 minutes.

Eat a nice meal!  Yum… steak house.  Not the most mindblowing steak ever, and it cost a fortune.  Not a great reason to go to Eilat; there are better kosher steakhouses all over the country.  But Naomi Rivka was very, very impressed.

     

Sleep!

Pose!

Leave!  Here’s the bus station, where everybody is hanging around doing just that – waiting to catch buses to almost impossibly far-off cities.  It’s funny to imagine how far apart these places feel, like Eilat and Tel Aviv, when a 5-hour car ride was our standard way of visiting my in-laws up until last summer.  Somehow, here, the distances feel greater.

And now, as I “type” this message on my little tablet, we’re in a bus on our way home… in the middle of nowhere.  Here’s where the tablet’s built-in GPS says we are:

At last, after nearly 10 months in Israel, the landscape feels truly foreign, in a way that northern Israel never has.  Down here, at the ends of the earth, or so it looks through the bus window, it’s desperately dry and hot hot hot.

Definitely the dry heat everybody promises won't kill you like the muggy slap of the steamy Krayot heat last summer.  Even at 40 degrees in Eilat, with a gentle breeze and a dip in the ocean, it didn't feel a bit over 30, and we were very comfortable walking uphill to the bus terminal.

Everybody compares Eilat to beach towns and resorts:  Venice, Coney Island, Miami Beach. To me, it has a real element of Niagara Falls to it. Not quite as tacky, but a few more haunted houses and 3d ride simulators will take care of that.

There’s the same strip of attractions leading away from the beach and away from the desirable hotels - many of which, like the Hilton and Herod's, are truly fabulous (or at least look that way from the outside).  Incidentally, just as in Niagara Falls, that uphill trek leads to the only kind of hotel / hostel we can afford to stay in – the weird kind. 

Don’t worry:  it was weird but GOOD, a creepy little collection of teeny-tiny cabins…

Interspersed with papier-mache figures, so every time you go outside, you feel like dozens of people are watching you.

   

There are lots of the same  vendors of cheap trinkets and fast food... a key difference being that much of the fast food is kosher (while in Niagara Falls, you're lucky if there's one fly-by-night pizza place).

Between the tackiness and the off-the-beaten-path motel, it felt very familiar indeed.

But now, as I write this, I'm somewhere in the desert, a Biblically big desert, on the way from the Red Sea to Beersheva, where Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov had their main stomping grounds. 

So strange to think that this awful, bleak desert, too, is part of my heritage.  Even safely and sure-footedly within the Biblical Land, this terrain is  unconquerably alien and unfamiliar.

And yet!  And yet!  Here in Beersheva, the “capital of the Negev,” I found this outpost of sanity in an otherwise gusty, bleak, hot, dry world:  Mr. Corn!

I was heading somewhere else for dinner, so I didn’t stop to see if it was kosher (I thought I saw a Pesach teudah – indicating that they had sold their chametz – as I walked past).  But what a wonder!  This is a concept that the world is MORE than ready for:  corn, in all its wonderful forms.  Boiled corn, popcorn, together at last!

 

Corn! 

(For anyone who isn’t part of my immediate family… corn is easily my favourite food, and quite possibly, my favourite substance in the entire universe.)

I had to actually go back – to the irritation of my kids – to get a picture of this sign, which says, “Corn or potatoes?  Now you don’t have to choose anymore.”  I think it’s saying you can get both, maybe even mushed into the soup shown in the picture.  Not exactly sure… they were both in a hurry to get going and wouldn’t let me gaze at the sign.

Here’s the mediocre Asian-inspired supper I was rushing to get during our one-hour stopover in Beersheva.

And here’s the train that took us, in comfort and style, all the way home to Kiryat Motzkin, from where we had a comfy 7-minute walk home (it’s usually 5, but we were tired and loaded down).

Forget buses… train is definitely the way to get around this country in comfort and style – not to mention the ability to stretch your legs a little and use the washroom whenever you like.

I don’t think I’ll be heading back south anytime soon.  But dreams of (Mr.) Corn are flitting through my mind, teasing, tantalizing me still, even as the twinkly lights of Haifa’s green mountain welcomed me back to an area that is feeling  more and more normal, more and more like home, with every passing month.

I may be a stranger in a strange land (a very strange land), but with wonders like Mr. Corn lurking out there, who knows what other awesome experiences there are, still waiting to be discovered in this (huge) and holy place.

Big Bad Corporations? Bring it on.

It feels like the sort of thing I should have strong feelings about, like “Get your #$!% hands off my Israel!”  But I don’t.  Somehow, I’m happy as anything that Ikea is here, and would be thrilled to see more big chains like it moving in.

WalMart?  Maybe not.  Not much chance of that happening, but I do wonder where we draw the line.

I’m no economist, but as I understand it, there are a few arguments against big companies coming in and staking a claim here or in any small, threatened economy:

• Destroys local industry.   I hope you’re not talking about furniture manufacturing here.  There IS no furniture manufacturing here, or hardly any.  Nothing to make it out of.(palm trees?)
• Crushes local retailers.  I don’t think that’s a big risk in this country.  It costs a lot of money to bring stuff in, even if you’re Ikea.  I priced out some of the furniture at Ikea before we went… and we bought our shelves and bedroom aronot (closets) at our local HomeCenter instead.
• Disrespects local culture. If you’ve ever been to Kiryat Ata, you’ll know it’s a factory town without much culture to begin with.  I think Ikea probably improves the ambience.  Plus, they sell 5-shekel falafel at the hot dog stand by the exit – something I don’t think they offer at their Canadian, U.S. or Swedish stores.
• Channels money out of the local economy.  True, but if I buy a shirt at an Israeli chain, much of the money for the shirt is probably going to manufacturers in China or abroad anyway. 

True, buying “kacholavan” should be a priority (although do I really want more and more and more plastic products manufactured half an hour away in the Galil where our veggies are grown???).  But it’s not always possible.

Here are my arguments FOR our local Ikea store, in Kiryat Ata:

• It’s an island of sanity for olim.  Seriously, nice to walk around in a store this BIG, with such a huge selection.  The entire selection; everything I could have bought in my Toronto Ikea store is here.  Even after seven months (not a long time!), life in Israel is a nonstop daily assault of foreignness.  A little touch of familiarity… not a problem.
• They’re supporting Torah study.  Really!  I just found this article while looking for pictures I could use with my post.  It says they’re looking to hire guys in kollel to work in their off hours – a win-win (+win for klal Yisrael!).
• Convenience isn’t a sin.  Sure, our puritanical nature tells us that if something is too easy or too fun, it shouldn’t be allowed.  But the truth is that if Israeli stores don’t know how to create a great shopping experience – or don’t care whether they do or not, perhaps they will lose out to the competition.  Thanks, Darwin!

It’s funny.  I’ve received two very similar objections to posts and emails lamenting the incursion of “American” culture into Israel:  once when I ate at McDonald’s (“I’d rather have falafel!”) and once when I shopped at Ikea.

Both were from non-Jewish relatives, one of whom hasn’t even been here, let alone lived here.  They’re entitled to opinions, but you’ve got to weigh that against the feelings of people who live here. 

Judging by the numbers of Israelis in the Ikea store the day we went – many are quite strongly pro-incursion.

Now, you may be wondering… did I buy anything???

Nope. 

Well, hardly anything.

(tee hee)

Two herb plants for 6 shekels each.  Some drinking glasses for Pesach.  A cute toy for Elisheva in the bargain-basement damaged-goods “metzion” section near the exit.

Oh, and we ate in the restaurant!  All-kosher, with two sections, one a dairy espresso bar and one a meat/fish family cafeteria-style restaurant.  Not amazing prices, but very tasty food.

They do serve tasty meatballs, but they don't call them Swedish, and, disappointingly, don’t offer lingonberry jam on the side – even though it is depicted on their website.

Ikea has now become Elisheva's top  "thing to do in Haifa, " displacing the Bahai gardens, which she didn't really like anyway.

Maybe somebody should make a rule that these big conglomerates should ONLY be allowed to expand outside of North America in the future. 

That way, North Americans can be self-righteously rid of them for good… while those of us in the rest of the world can be grateful and thrilled that somebody is paying attention to us, and giving us the chance at a fun shopping trip even if we don’t end up buying a thing.

The new Ikea store (they pronounce it “ee-kay-ah”) in Kiryat Ata is only about 10 minutes away by a very convenient city bus, by the way.  Doesn’t mean I’ll be there all the time, but it feels nice to be at the centre of things for a change. 

Next stop… and no, I’m not joking.  Pizza Hut in the Malha Mall in Jerusalem, tomorrow.  I have to be in the area on an errand – it’s not a special trip, I promise!!!

Maybe someday I’ll get this junk food / junk culture thing out of my system… until then, bring on the Big Bad Corporations!

Okay, I will open it up, since I know mine isn’t the only opinion… What do you think of all these foreign interlopers?  Are they Good for Israel???  Leave a comment and let me know!

It’s all about the beauty.

Israelis love this country sometimes.  They rave about it sometimes, how beautiful it all is, and I always agree, of course, because it would be rude to say anything else.

But seriously – I’m coming from Canada, one of the pristine natural wonders of the world, the Great Lakes, the Rocky Mountains, and you’re telling me some hills, some valleys, and the puddle you call the Kinneret are beautiful??

Sorry, Israel.  On a global scale… not really.

From the air, on a satellite picture, compared to our neighbours here in the middle east, sure.  But close up?  Close up is where you notice the discarded Bamba wrappers, and the preponderance of brown and the tiny scale of things and, I admit, sometimes feel a bit underwhelmed.

But today was not that day.  Today – well, I have a thing about spring; always have, and today was spring.  Spring has become even more ecstatic for me since I took up gardening nearly ten years ago.

Today, I would have to say, was probably the country, and its countryside, at its finest.  Naomi Rivka and I took a trip out to Kibbutz Lavi in the Lower Galil (aka Galilee), and found beauty, beauty everywhere.  Not natural beauty – very much cultivated, in gardens throughout the kibbutz.

Everything that could bloom was blooming!

Rakafot (cyclamen), which look so much sturdier and more robust in nature (or semi-nature) than their potbound cousins in Canada:

  

Citrus (not blooming, but bright and colourful nonetheless):

 

Took this picture of bindweed, my mother’s nemesis.  Even in Israel, it’s taking over wherever it can.

Even thistles – which really are very striking, architectural plants… as long as you don’t stand too close.

After I took that first thistle pic, I found this entire freestanding BUSH o’ thistles.  Eeyore would be proud.

 

Sweet pea everywhere!  Don’t be tricked by the name.  Lathyrus odoratus may or may not be a pea relative (I forget), but it is easily distinguishable by its flattish twining stems AND is somewhat poisonous.

These things are EVERYWHERE!  A label in the garden labels it as salvia blepharophylla, but I really don’t think so, since those are red.

Aha… a quick web search tags it as the wild blue lupin, an Israeli native who blooms from February till May.  Here’s a whole bunch of them, growing together:

 

I love a garden that is well-organized, with tags… even if the tags are sometimes wrong.  These were in a communal garden on the kibbutz:

(ie chives)

(lemon geranium)

We even saw some papyrus growing in a fountain in the middle of the garden!  Naomi Rivka was impressed with its height – it looks smaller in books.

This one’s an unknown… the plant itself looks like dianthus, or pinks, but the stems are taller and the (5-petalled) flowers lack the distinctive “pinking” around the edges.  Anyone want to help me out?

     

Hate to sound like a travel brochure, but it’s true - Kibbutz Lavi boasts an extraordinary rose garden.  I don’t love roses, but did want to see it in bloom.  We were looking and looking for itn when I suddenly realized I smelled roses and I turned, and there it was, right beside me.

In Toronto, my mother planted one of these, a crocosmia plant, a few years ago… and it has done okay.  But it hasn’t truly BLOOMED the way this guy has.

Really makes you recognize what a struggle it is to garden with plants that are beautiful but so far removed from their natural climate (in this case, it comes from South Africa, but close enough).

Poppies were everywhere.  I was impressed by this one standing on its own…

  

… until I noticed this bed full of them (along with some equally beautiful little girls!)…

My friend Rachel insisted on showing me around, including a quick stop at this private garden festooned with dwarves and other knick-knacks.  The plants are mainly succulents, which are not my favourites, but a garden that would probably normally strike me as slightly horried actually charmed the socks off me in my happy beauty mood today.

   

No idea what this orange thing is; I was just trying to take a picture of this beautiful blue bird sitting on it.

 

And speaking of birds… I admit, I naturally just tune out Birds of Paradise.  But Rachel pointed these ones out, and for once, I was actually impressed.  And here’s that blue bird again, too!

Unknown reddish-pinkish thing.  This one may actually be a salvia; the greyish leaves and flowering pattern makes me think it is, but if anyone wants to help me out, I’d appreciate it!

 

This was in another private garden – sweet peas and kumquats, all wrapped up in each other. 

 

I’ve always considered kumquats pretty useless, as citrus go, but they sure are pretty, and the combination of the orange and purple was the last thing we saw as we left the kibbutz.

Oops… forgot to mention:  the kibbutz has a wondeful giant chess set!

And that we had a great lunch in the communal dining room (we were allowed to eat there free as guests of a kibbutz member)?

(I was sitting innocently eating my lunch when Rachel asked, “Doesn’t this lunch deserve a mention on your blog?”  So I leapt up to take pictures just to appease her.)

If you like some of this flowery nature stuff, it’s worth mentioning that Kibbutz Lavi has a fantastic, beautiful, kosher luxury hotel which is available for Shabbat, chagim or any old time (they have a much better class of dining facility, I’m told – but even so, our “residents’” lunch was delicious!). 

I’d love to be able to stay there… by which I mean, afford it.  But we do hope to go back to the kibbutz for another Shabbos sometime soon; there are more humble guest accomodations available free for friends and relatives of kibbutzniks. 

The kibbutz itself is conveniently close to Teveria (about a 10-minute drive), but due to the weirdnesses of Israeli geography, experiences a breezy Galil climate rather than Teveria’s stifling summer heat.

So I guess it’s not so nice to admit that I’m not blown away by the natural beauty here.  It’s not that I don’t love Israel, but if what I want is pine trees, snow-capped mountains, cool, fresh lakes, and bounding herds of moose, I’d have stayed in Canada. 

I may not be here for the beauty, but today was still a nice chance to discover plenty of man-made beauty, or at least, “man-curated” beauty in one of my favourite parts of the country.