Dexxy, a tale of a God-fearing dog

What exactly do you tell a charedi (ultra-Orthodox Jew) when your dog has chewed your tefillin?    

Dexxy had experienced, it would seem, a troubled first year. When I found her, nearly three years ago, lying on the grass outside my workplace in Or Akiva (Caesarea’s poor neighbour), she was at the doors of doggy heaven.   

There was something in Dexxy’s eyes, however, which told me that she was worth saving, that she would make a far more loyal and stable companion than the Turkish woman who had given me the boot earlier that same week. And so it has proved.       

But, over the following year or so, Dexxy’s abandonment anxiety would manifest itself in the daily mastication of the contents of my apartment while I was at work. And, perhaps noticing that I was hardly using them anyway, Dexxy one day decided that my tefillin would be next on her bit list.      

Even though I hadn’t been taking them out of their velvet bag more than twice a year, for my father’s and brother’s yahrzeits (memorials), there was something about the first sight of those chewed leather straps – with Dexxy looking even more sheepish than usual – that upset me considerably more than the far pricier furniture which she had destroyed.      

Following a couple of years’ borrowing the tefillin of my neighbour, Yudah, I decided last week that the time had come to get mine repaired and for a trip to Bnei Brak, the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city bordering Ramat Gan which I visit for religious goods and services (conversely to the journey of many a Bnei Brak resident, for the nightly “goods” and “services” offered in the vicinity of Ramat Gan’s Diamond Exchange).       

I had been putting off the shame. After all, how was I going to begin to explain to an ultra-Orthodox Jew – who, even at the best of times (which this most certainly was not), considers a canine far from a “best friend” – the carnage that Dexxy had perpetrated upon my phylacteries?  

I had considered quoting the Exodus 13:9 source for the mitzva of tefillin – “that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth” – but thought better of it. Dogs are, after all, only supposed to obey commands, not commandments.  

In fact, the only (apocryphal?) story more shameful that came to mind was that of the YU (Yeshiva University, New York) couple who – taking the Deuteronomy 6:8 instruction to “bind them as a sign” perhaps a tad too literally – were caught using tefillin in an act of bondage.  

Anyway, I entered the small workshop (recommended by a friend), off Rabbi Akiva, Bnei Brak’s main street, filled with dread. And, having reached the Gerer chossid sitting behind his desk, I gingerly removed the two boxes – one for the arm and the other for the head – from the plastic bag which had provided them a temporary home (the sight of their mauled velvet bag had only prolonged my distress).      

The chossid took one look at them, and – instead of the expected roar, followed perhaps by a patsh (slap) and/or yank of my (now negligible) sideburns, Hasmonean style – enquired, in a most relaxed, non-judgmental tone:    

“Nu, kelev?” (Well, was it a dog?)   

Taken aback and relieved in equal measure, I asked him whether he had ever witnessed such an abomination.     

“Yoh” (yes), the kindly chossid replied jovially. The scent of the leather boxes and straps, made from animal skin, he explained, is particularly alluring to dogs.    

370 shekels (about 60 quid) later, and they are like a spanking (no reference to our naughty YU friends intended) new pair of tefillin.    

Thank you, brother. Not that I visit for such purposes, but, should I ever spot you at night in Ramat Gan, I will be sure to reciprocate your understanding with nothing more than a nod (as good as a wink to a frum Jew).  

"I'll stick to bones from now on . . . promise!"

The Israeli male, a philistine with a small pee

Taking a Shabbes afternoon stroll through Jaffa last weekend, and feeling the effects of a liquid brunch, I had the sudden urge to relieve myself. And, spotting the wrought iron gates of a shack set back and largely obscured from the road, I took my chance.

“Zeh docheh” (that is revolting), Michal, my walking partner, hissed as I rejoined her a bladderful lighter, a (provocative) smirk of self-satisfaction emblazoned across my face.

Israeli women love a good hiss, though I immediately recognised this one to be symptomatic of the familiar female frustration that their anatomies – lovely though they are – simply do not allow them to do what ours can with ease.

Tel Aviv’s architecture has earned it UNESCO World Heritage Site status. It is not just the Bauhaus buildings themselves, however, but also the gaps between them, that make the “White City” such a wonderful one in which to live. It proved impossible in London’s semi-detached, side-gated suburbia to locate any discreet, impromptu pee stops between the Tube and the Isaacson household, resulting in many a desperate, late night dash – “Please God, help me make it!” – up the home straight. The male, post-ale stagger through Tel Aviv, on the other hand, is a blissfully relaxed one, with alleys conveniently located all the way to Melchett.

Like any chivalrous English gentleman (after regularly witnessing them wee in WC basins, I exclude our football fans from such characterisation), I only spend my penny discriminately (in line with the sign, right, which tickled me during my trip last year to the Caribbean) and out of view. While still urination (and arguably even indecent exposure) in a public place – and strictly speaking, therefore, a likely breach of the penal code – I believe it to be an inalienable expression of my manhood, and a rite which I will fight to preserve.

In our ridiculously PC age – in which it is no longer considered acceptable to give an attractive female stranger a friendly pinch or pat on the bottom, or even to compliment her on her breasts – were this advantage and privilege to be taken away from us, then what, dear reader, would be left?

The indigenous male, however, does not possess the refinement or finesse of the Englishman, nor even of little Stuey for that matter, who will only raise his hind leg by trees, corners of walls or discarded plastic bags (his target of choice). No, Israeli men possess no such subtlety, indiscriminately discharging the contents of their bladders anywhere and everywhere. The sight of them proudly urinating against shop fronts in busy high streets is a familiar one, as is that of unabashed motorists taking leaks in the full glare of oncoming traffic – and we wonder about our accident rate! – when they could just as easily take a few steps behind their vehicle or down the embankment.

Perched upon the pavement, together with other cheapskates, outside Leonard Cohen’s recent performance in Ramat Gan, we were suddenly treated, during the interval, to the delightful spectacle of long lines of local Neanderthals peeing in our direction down the Stadium embankment.

Like Stuey perhaps, Israeli males are keen to mark their (occupied) territory and to simply be “top dog”. It is part and parcel of the macho Israeli psyche: “I am a gever (male), and I will take it out wherever I like.”

In spite of last week’s flash floods here, it is a continuing source of wonder to me how, with such a paucity of annual rainfall, the country’s agriculture survives such uncomfortably hot summers and almost entirely arid springs and autumns. Perhaps now, however, I have the answer: it is the continual watering of the Land by the uncouth Israeli male – providing showers of a rather different nature – which performs, however unwittingly, the critical role in its irrigation. “Jerusalem the golden”, indeed!

So, Michal, the next time the English oleh (immigrant) needs to pull out his “hose”, praise rather than scold him for performing his Zionist duty . . . and, still, with a sprinkling of class.

Hasmo Legends XVIII: The Birds and the Mrs. B

With the notable exception of the contribution by the lovely Sue Schneider, Hasmo Legends and the comments thereon have – perhaps in keeping with some of the more unlovely interpretations of our religion – been rather male-dominated.                 

This may be some reflection of the fact that – as partially evidenced by the multitude of (invariably pasty) sprogs which they produced – most of Hasmonean’s Jewish Studies teachers viewed women as things to be fertilised and then (rather ironically, as they were the only ones who needed to be locked up) chained to the kitchen sink.     

Indeed, Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld’s legendary school assembly addresses always seemed to contain a warning about the dangers of the opposite sex or of the prohibition against dressing up as one of their number (even on Purim). And, with the exception of a one-off upstairs (girls) downstairs (boys) Chanukah assembly at Kinloss – at which a request to turn over the page led to several minutes of paper rustling (demonstrating that Hasmo girls had the same wonderfully advanced sense of humour as ourselves) – any fraternising between Hasmo boys and girls was strictly forbidden.                            

Not that many of us showed any interest in Hasmo girls anyway . . . which was more than a little surprising when one considers the teenage male’s perpetual state of sexual arousal and the fact that Hasmonean Grammar School for Girls – representing the only Jewish “skirt” in the area – was little more than ten minutes’ walk away.                     

I think not.

Our indifference was probably the result of a particularly unappealing school uniform – according to a reliable ex-Hasmo “sauce”, the girls were even required to wear maroon school knickers (not pictured right) during PE – or due to the fact that, whenever a Hasmo girl opened her mouth, she just sounded so Golders Green. Indeed, one can always spot an ex-Hasmo girl by the elongated vowel sounds and incorrect grammar – “Whoo are you eating/daaavening byyyy?” – not to mention the sad inability to escape (usually physically, but always psychologically) the ‘ghetto’.                     

Sex education at Hasmo Boys was virtually non-existent, with the school library and syllabi censored of any material hinting that human beings might perhaps copulate for purposes other than the purely reproductive. This made the teaching of English Literature and Human Biology at the institution particularly challenging. The first I heard about “the birds and the bees” was from my next-door neighbour, Graham, over a game of table tennis (see melchett mike’s Loss of Innocence), and it was not until well into my mid-teens that I first managed to tickle some tonsils, a sad fact that I still blame on Hasmonean.      

So, it came as some surprise when, in the early eighties, the fairer (they could hardly have been unfairer) sex slowly started infiltrating Hasmo’s staffroom. The reasons for this sudden influx of female teachers remain shrouded in mystery, though one credible theory is that following the relocation of the male victims of Mrs. Thatcher’s Care in the Community policy – which entailed the closure of so many Victorian mental institutions – there were just no more suitable male candidates available.                   

Notwithstanding certain commenters’ lascivious references to the (mythical?) daughter of Mr. Tompkins, the school caretaker, Hasmo’s pin-up girl was undoubtedly Suzanne Stern. And the young, willowy Economics teacher (see photograph below) – who always left a refreshing trail of perfume in her wake in the otherwise fetid school corridors – succeeded in arousing in Hasmo boys a sudden, miraculous interest in the Law of Diminishing Returns.                    

Not surprisingly perhaps, Mrs. Stern was also the unwitting trigger of numerous teenage pranks. On one occasion, a particularly gullible Persian boy – who, together with his family, had escaped the Iranian Revolution, merely exchanging the tyranny of the Ayatollahs for that of Hasmo’s Rabbis – was informed that a Valentine’s card forged in his name had been placed on Mrs. Stern’s windscreen (which of course it hadn’t). The entire class rubbed (for once only) its hands with glee as the boy, in heavy Farsi, pleaded with the bewildered blonde: “Mrs. Stern! Mrs. Stern! It wasn’t me who wrote the Valentine’s card.”                    

Economics A-level with Suzanne Stern, 1985: (from left) Shuli Meyers, Daniel Kelly, Marc Reiss and Yoel Kahn (who seems to think he is in a Gemorah class)

Whilst not sharing culpability for the chronic tendonitis of so many middle-aged ex-Hasmos, French teacher Marion Rosenberg did at least have a ballad dedicated to her . . . though the lyrics of Rosey, Rosey (to the tune of Daisy Bell) are not printable even on these pages.     

Mrs. Rosenberg would often exit our lessons in tears – I am sure that there will always be a part of her subconscious inhabited by her bête noir, Eric Elbaz – though her cause was not helped by a penchant for multiplying punishments in accordance with the Principle of Geometric Progression and for continually confiscating pupils’ belongings (her son, with whom I was in Bnei Akiva, would report to me on weekends on his newly-acquired secondhand goodies!)     

One thing that I can certainly never claim is that Hasmonean failed to prepare me for my own current bêtes noires: Israeli women. No, the school’s humourless Modern Hebrew duo, Mesdames Moller and Moore, provided more than ample notice of all the trouble I would encounter in later life. The pair had all the charm of . . . well, of two religious Israeli women. And the only thing that makes me smile when recalling either of them is the information, again from my aforementioned “sauce”, that Chana Moore used to sign her name “ח.מור”. Anyhow, I am confident that they are both now more suitably employed by El Al at Heathrow, either in security – fully equipped with rubber gloves – or in providing a broomstick shuttle service to departure gates.                   

Another female who must have questioned her sanity in joining the “funny farm” that was Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys was French teacher, Shirley Samuels. Alan Hyam Bloomberg, aka Cyril, took such a violent dislike to her – merely because she had the temerity to set her own examination (incidentally, for her own class) – that, for the remainder of her time at the school, he only ever referred to her as “the wretched Mrs. Samuels” (which Cyril, in his own inimitable way, pronounced “Sam-u-els”).                

Hasmonean’s Latin teacher, Mrs. Shapiro, is also best remembered for her examinations . . . not because she dared to defy Cyril, but because the results always rivalled Norwegian Eurovision Song Contest entries for most “nil points”. One such zero, my old mate Joey Garfinkel – never one for the convincing excuse – memorably attempted to explain away his total failure to “trouble the scorers” by claiming that he had suffered a problem with his contact lenses, a story no less feeble than Bernie Madoff telling his investors that he had only wanted enough to take his missus to the Hamptons for the weekend.                         

Hasmonean’s excellence in Latin was matched only by its preeminence at Geography. Following the departure of Jonny Denham in the late seventies, an escaped clown by the name of Joe Paley had been holding court, introducing overhead projections of African tribes with the insightful words: “These, my boys, are schvartzes.”     

At some point in the early to mid eighties, however, Hasmo’s Headmaster Rabbi Roberg, never slow to miss a trick, burst into action, making the inspired decision that his school needed a Geography teacher who actually knew something about the subject. Alas, the overlong reign of King Joe had ensured that the arrival of Cynthia Toledano – Hasmo’s second full-time female teacher (after Sue Schneider), but about whom I only recall a couple of things – was far too late for any of our year to have a future in the subject.           

The wonderfully named Mrs. Kadoo was the Asian lab assistant who appeared to model her hair on Basil Brush’s tail. Whilst I can still hear Mr. Joughin calling her name in his familiar drone, I don’t believe that I ever heard Mrs. Kadoo herself utter a word. Witnessing the daily antics in Hasmonean’s science laboratories – not least those of Flop and Steve Posen (never mind the ever delightful attitude of DJ) – she had probably lost the ability to speak (not to say the will to live). Either that, or the Hasmo powers that were had resolved that the best way of keeping lab assistants at the school for more than a fortnight was by only employing mutes (Flop’s miserable gimp, Michael, was the other).        

It was with Hasmo’s little old Cockney dinner lady, Mrs. Bannister, however, that boys were most keen to ingratiate themselves. After all, it was Mrs. B who dished out the much-coveted Friday soya rolls (though also the retch-inducing meat loaf processed from offal which, submerged beneath its coagulated gravy, you wouldn’t fob off on your Lithuanian cleaner). Assuming the guise of Jewish Olivers, we would always request an extra roll . . . though in the full knowledge that it would be met with a shrill, apoplectic “You know you are only allowed two!” (indeed, with the daily wind-ups that Mrs. B was subjected to, the miracle was that she never let slip the odd East End “Now f*ck right orff!”)

The Hasmonean school office was staffed by the lovely Ruth Hepner and the slightly irascible (though who could blame her?) Mrs. Saul-David. And affably attempting to maintain a semblance of order, in the dinner hall especially, was School Officer Mrs. Koohl, a curious addition to Hasmo’s staff whose job description was no less shadowy than that of Harvey Keitel’s Wolf character in Pulp Fiction. Indeed, the title of Pushing-In Prevention Officer would have represented a far more accurate description of her seemingly limited duties.

Now that's more like it!

Anyway, school kapels – if not knickers – off to all the female Hasmo staff who braved the nuthouse and who, for the most part, provided welcome relief from the excesses of the male loons who roamed its corridors and terrorised its classrooms.                 

[As with all Hasmo Legends, I welcome the memories and comments of ex-Hasmos of all generations. In relation to Hasmo 'girls', however, please be sure to keep them chaste . . . or, if not chaste, then at the very least true! And, should you wish to pen your own Hasmo Legend, be in touch.]

Orthodox to Reform: Losing my neshama?

I attended a bar mitzvah in Jerusalem on Saturday. At Kol HaNeshama, the Reform synagogue in Baka where I used to pray – or, more accurately, join in the singsong and close my eyes and pretend to meditate while other congregants were meditating (or pretending to) – after making Aliyah, 14 years ago.

And it really was very pleasant.

The “bible” Bible for Reform Jews is apparently W. Gunther Plaut’s The Torah: A Modern Commentary (right). And its preface, describing the Torah’s origins, certainly made a lot more sense to me on Saturday morning than any account I ever heard during my Orthodox upbringing, either in Britain’s United Synagogue or (even more certainly) at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys.

Plaut asserts, I think (an attractive congregant was interfering with my concentration), that while the Torah is neither the word of God nor written by Moses – it is a continuing source of amazement to me that so many, otherwise normal, friends and acquaintances actually believes that it is – its several authors chronicle the Jewish peoples’ perceptions of and relationship with (their notion of) the Deity.

Progressive synagogues – or temples, as they often seem to be called – possess an air of serenity, goodwill and even universal love that, if not entirely absent from their Orthodox equivalents, is far less apparent. The difference in atmosphere is best summed up by the split-screen dinner scene in Annie Hall, in which Alvy Singer juxtaposes the decorum at the Halls’ table with the noisy vulgarity at his family’s (though I do not employ the analogy to suggest either that Progressive Jews are more akin to WASPs . . . or that Orthodox Jews are coarse!)

On Shabbes mornings at Raleigh Close (Hendon United Synagogue) – where congregants would continually approach my grandfather, considered something of a “stag”, for tips on new share issues – I would learn more about the stock market than Torah. And the backbiting and intrigue for which Orthodox shuls are renowned was one of the primary factors in the continual refusal of my father, a constitutional anti-macher (big shot), to accept nominations for its board of management.

Progressive synagogues, on the other hand, have always felt to me fundamentally un-heimish (homely and warm) and – in spite of all the meditating and happy-clappyness – seem to suffer from a deficiency of true neshama (soul). In fact, they cause me to feel a sense of alienation similar to that experienced by Alvy at Annie’s parents.

Indeed, for those of us who are “FFB” – Frum (Orthodox), or in my case frumish, From Birth – the transition from Orthodox to Reform may be fraught with difficulty and discomfort. So, whilst I am far more ideologically aligned with Progressive forms of Judaism these days – even experiencing a sense of dissonance in Orthodox shuls – I have found the conversion process to be far from straightforward.

Whilst I haven’t yet concluded whether being able to hug one’s partner or massage his or her back as they recite kaddish (the memorial prayer) – which Progressive synagogues’ mixed seating enables – is beautiful or unnecessary (I am veering towards the former), I am now entirely used to increased female participation in services (which even some Orthodox shuls are now fostering).

But, on Saturday morning, there was the odd appearance of a mobile telephone (perhaps Hashem now accepts text messages), and – just when I had thought that that was as inappropriate as it could get – the woman in front of me pulled out a pen and paper, and started scribbling away frantically (perhaps the winning Lotto numbers had come to her during her meditations).

Whilst a Kol HaNeshama regular later assured me that such behaviour could only have come from a visitor, the same cannot be said of the female congregants who had donned a tallis (prayer shawl) and/or – what, for some strange reason, winds me up more than anything else in Progressive synagogues – a kippa (skullcap). In fact, the latter appears no less alien to me on a female head than a strap-on protuberance does – or rather would (“I have never seen one, Your Honour”) – between her legs.

But who am I, a self-declared and unabashed apikores (heretic), to judge any of my coreligionists? Especially since, at the same time on your average Saturday morning, I can usually be found on Rothschild Boulevard doing nothing more spiritual than indulgently licking the foam off my hafuch (latte).

What it boils down to, I guess, is that while you can take the dat’lash (acronym for dati le’she’avar, formerly religious person) out of Hendon, Menorah and Hasmo (and notionally Gush), it is far more difficult – perhaps impossible – to take the Hendon, Menorah and Hasmo out of the dat’lash (for a recent, interesting article on the dat’lash, see The ties that continue to bind).

And, to all readers of melchett mike – whatever you practise or believe . . . or not – a happy, healthy, and healthily irreverent 2010!

Stolen Auschwitz Sign Not “Abomination” No. 1

English courts issuing an arrest warrant for Israel’s former Foreign Minister, then defining for its Jews who shall and shall not be one of their number. Just another week for the Jews of England.

These decisions were so short-sighted – not to say absurd, discriminatory, and even dangerous – that they don’t merit my time (though Melanie Phillips is always worth a read). And then readers of melchett mike will ask why I choose to live in Israel!

True, this blog highlights often disagreeable excesses of life here. But they are also largely comical. And I certainly wouldn’t swap them for life back in Blighty, which is proving even less ‘my’ country than I had already thought.

Then, in the early hours of Friday morning, to cap off another wonderful week for European Jewry, Auschwitz’s “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign (right) was half-inched.

Without questioning the sign’s symbolic import, some of the immediate Israeli reactions to the theft struck me as more than a little exaggerated or, at the very least, over-hasty. One of Israel’s Deputy Prime Ministers (we need two just in case one feels an irresistible urge to embezzle or to rape a member of staff), Silvan Shalom, said it was “an abominable act” that “demonstrates once again hatred and violence against Jews”, while Director of Yad Vashem (Holocaust memorial), Avner Shalev, went as far as to brand it “a true declaration of war”.

Am I alone in cringing when I hear such knee-jerk pronouncements? And if they sound extreme and ill-conceived to me, what must the average non-Jew make of them? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give a hoot what anti-Semites think about us, but why invite ridicule amongst right-thinking people who have no such propensity?

Did Shalom or Shalev even stop to consider that the sign might well have been nicked by a couple of Polish vodka louts? That would not have excused the act, of course, but it would have deeply impacted on its significance. (Indeed, early questioning of the five suspects arrested late last night suggests that they did not have racial or political motives. And I am not being wise after the event – I wrote this on Saturday.)

Still, you have to commend the efforts of the Polish police to recover the sign. They offered 5,000 zloty – equivalent to $1,700 or £1,050 – for information leading to its return. In spite of the sum not being too being too far off Poland’s GDP, there were reports of down-and-outs across southern Poland being overheard discussing whether the reward merited an afternoon off from collecting empty bottles of Żubrówka.

You’ve gotta love the Poles.

Anyway, for anyone who was more concerned about a piece of wrought iron (for which a replica already existed) than the far-reaching ramifications of last week’s Court decisions for Anglo – and, in the case of Tzipi Livni, world – Jewry, might I humbly suggest that they give their priorities a little rethink.

Israelis, agents of our own demise?

It is extremely seldom that any aspect of the Rotter-in Chief’s religious education interferes with his relatively secular equilibrium. But Biblical lessons and warnings about the existential dangers to the People of Israel from certain of its own behaviours are starting to appear to me worryingly relevant for the modern State of Israel.

Last month, a real estate agent in Jaffa offered to bring me in on a deal, which was about to close, if I agreed to increase his commission from two to three percent (no little chutzpah in itself). In the end, no details of the property were revealed, but, last week, I was introduced to the seller by chance in the local supermarket. The deal had hit a hitch, and he brought me to the apartment to take a look.

The following day, the agent – who had somehow heard about this opportunistic meeting – called to inform me that, if I were to purchase the apartment, I would still owe him the commission. “Ata yechol likfotz” (literally “You can jump”) I advised him in my most fluent Hebrew (i.e., that of abuse!), warning him to never call me again. (I am seriously considering obtaining an agent’s license, in the – perhaps naive – belief that an honest practitioner will soon attract clients.)

In Golders Green a few years ago, a not particularly bright (and soon to become unemployed) agent, who knew I was a solicitor, offered to reveal to me the competing bids for a house in return for an envelope stuffed with cash. While such behaviour should not, therefore, be surprising for Israel’s real estate agents – to whom Woody Allen’s assessment of politicians, “a notch below child molesters”, could equally be applied – it is for its lawyers, so many of whom seem more concerned not to miss out on a piece of this country’s economic pie than to represent the best interests of their clients.

Introducing me to a deal in Tel Aviv a couple of years ago, my former lawyer quoted me a price which I knew to be around $300,000 above the asking one (which I discovered had not been increased). A short while later, the lawyer informed me that the property had already been sold. Smelling a rat, I called the seller to confirm. It was still on the market. But my lawyer probably had a better combina – surely the most important word in Hebrew slang, referring to a non-transparent and usually far from kosher commercial “arrangement” – with another client.

Israel’s real estate lawyers are also renowned for tipping each other off about deals and carving up between themselves, at lower than market values, properties that should be going to auction (following bankruptcies and liquidations). Of course, there are corrupt lawyers in the UK too. But they are very much the exception. Here, dodgy lawyers – especially in the field of real estate and based in Tel Aviv – often appear to be the rule . . . so much so that discovering a straight one sometimes feels like winning the Lotto.

Finding a property here, especially an older one with character, without some major encumbrance – usually not apparent on first inspection or revealed (and sometimes even concealed) – is also the exception. I have come across many with entire rooms appropriated from communal space, and one in Jaffa where virtually the entire living room floor turned out to have been built without a permit. The Israeli real estate market can be a minefield, and it helps to be naturally suspicious, a yekke, and to have an extremely thorough lawyer.

And the surprises don’t always end with the signing of the contract. When I received the keys to my current apartment, on Melchett, back in 1999, I walked in to find that a kitchen cupboard – a “fixture” in legal terms – had been removed. Leaving their homes for the very last time, Israelis are notorious for taking every last light bulb with them.

The shortage of affordable real estate in Tel Aviv is blamed, naturally, on the French ‘invasion’ – a commendable focus for resentment by any standards – but word on the rechov (street) also has it that large investment companies are snapping-up properties before they even hit the market (this in a country where over a third of the primary income is reported to already be controlled by a mere 19 families).

Even when you think that you have found a property, and offered the asking price, the boom in prices here over the past five years has caused many Israeli vendors to greedily wait for an even better offer.

My diagnosis of our sickness is simple (if a little racist, and without obvious cure): there are just too many Jews here.

And they are not deterred, as many Diaspora Jews are, if not by moral or religious considerations, then at least by concerns about incurring Jewish communal opprobrium and/or provoking anti-Semitism (“What will the goyim say?”) In a country where questionable ethics and corruption run from the Prime Minister down – and Ehud Olmert is only the most recent example – very few people have any such compunction. It is very much the law of the jungle.

Perhaps most depressingly, whenever I express disappointment at such behaviour, the reaction from my fellow Israelis is usually one of resignation: “Why are you even surprised?” There is also the oft-heard justification that “If everyone is at it (i.e., even our leaders), then why should I be the only freier (sucker) to miss out?!”

The People of Israel would appear, once again, to have lost its moral compass. Let us just pray that that poisonous Persian dwarf is not God’s instrument of correcting us.

[If any overseas readers of melchett mike are interested in investing in real estate here – especially in Tel Aviv or Jaffa, something I would highly recommend – I will be happy to share the benefits of my experience and findings . . . free of charge!]

Hasmo Legends XVII: Undated Masters Photograph

Following the interest in Hasmo Legends XVI: 1959 School Photograph (now in close-up enabling sections), ex-Hasmo Gary Hersham (1964-1971) has come forward with the following gem, which Gary seems to believe is from the early 1960s (a more precise date, anyone?)

I have included the names of the accused (as provided by Gary) below the photograph, and will be pleased, with readers’ assistance, to fill in the gaps.

It would be nice to receive readers’ recollections about each of them.

Seated: Frank, ?, Stanton, ?, Meyer, ?. Standing: Ellman, ?, ?, Katzenberg, Cohn, Wahrhaftig.

To view a larger image, click here.

Many thanks, Gary.

One today! Reflections of the Rotter-in-Chief

It is one year to the day since melchett mike first appeared in the blogosphere (at least in its current format) . . . and what an enjoyable 12 months it has been! 

Bored at work one Monday morning – November 3, 2008 to be precise – I started surfing the Web to find out what these blog things are all about. I somehow stumbled across Bermant’s blog by Danny Bermant – son of the late Jewish Chronicle columnist, Chaim, and a few years below me at school – and, Yosser Hughes-like, declared to myself “I can do that.”

By the end of that same day, melchett mike was up and running – on the Blogspot blog-hosting service – with a rather parve first offering titled Virginal Meanderings. Just over a month later, on December 10, I migrated melchett mike to WordPress, a considerably more advanced host.

Word of melchett mike started to spread around New Year 2009 with my series of polemical postings on the Gaza War – F*ck you, too, especially, seemed to strike a deep chord as Israel came under the sickeningly hypocritical cosh of world opinion – though I believe that some earlier posts, which very few people have even read, are amongst my best:           

•  The Israeli 
• The Tel Aviv Whites 
• Gever Gever*: The Israeli Male 
• Tomorrow 
• Parking Shields: Careers for UK Graduates in Tel Aviv 
• Oy Vey . . . Advanced Excuses for the Committed Commitment Phobe 
• melchett mike’s Loss of Innocence: Blighty’s New Years Past

(To view other earlier posts, use the Posts By Month index in the right-hand margin.)

Then, at some point during the War, probably from the urge to think about something rather more cheerful, I wondered whether anything had ever been written about that subject which my closest friends and I, when we get together, talk about more than any other: Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys. Being at work again (seeing a pattern?!), I did a Google search, and, to my amazement, found absolutely nothing.

On January 14, 2009, I posted Hasmo Legends I: An Introduction to an Institution (which recently topped 15,000 ‘hits’, 50% more than the next most clicked-on post), which was followed in quick succession by Hasmo Legends II: Yids vs. Yoks – The Religious Mix and Hasmo Legends III: Cyril, aka Mr. Bloomberg (second and third in the ‘hits’ list, the trio also having amassed 1,100 comments).

With Stu (two of Osher's mythical "four dogs"), Suzanna Cafe, Neve Tzedek

Just the experience of writing Hasmo Legends has been great fun, forcing me to relive, almost systematically, so many great memories and characters. In fact, once I had started typing, I could hardly stop! And, perhaps, following a bit of a breather, there might be a few more posts in the ‘oven’ (I am open to suggestions, too, and to “guest” posts – from earlier and later generations of ex-Hasmos – on other memorable ‘pedagogues’ who slapped, slippered, or merely slobbered, their way through Holders Hill Road).

Receiving Osher Baddiel’s rant was of course particularly gratifying, as it encapsulated the Hasmo ethos far better than any descriptive account ever could (and I am further grateful to Osher for supplying me with the nickname in the title of this post, a source of considerable – if somewhat perverse! – personal pride).

It has, unsurprisingly, been extremely difficult to maintain the same level of literary prolificacy – I was averaging 13 posts for each of my first three months of blogging – but I am still striving to post at least once a week. melchett mike has received approaching 172,00 ‘hits’ since it migrated to WordPress –  an average, in 2009, of 497-a-day – and 3,750 comments. This is my 92nd post (including 19 originally published on Blogspot).

Whilst all of this might come across as jolly big-headed, I am not (although had I been less removed from the North-West London “Shabbes lunch scene” – at which I understand melchett mike has been very much a talking point – I might very well have been!)

I must confess, however, that it was nice being asked, at a recent lawyer’s do at the British Ambassador’s residence in Ramat Gan, whether I read “the Hasmo blog” (even though I vehemently object to that description of it!) Flattering, too, to have a woman I had never met approach me at a party in Jaffa and tell me how much she loves the blog. Though, most satisfying of all, was having an ex-Hasmo inform me that he prefers my non-Hasmo posts.

melchett mike has certainly given me a lot more satisfaction than any of my many and varied careers. And I know that, even if I stop writing tomorrow (and barring the demise of the Internet), ex-Hasmos at least – and probably their children and grandchildren too – will be dipping into Hasmo Legends for a very long time to come.

Ultimately, however, I do this for myself. Because I like writing. I also find this country and its inhabitants endlessly fascinating and amusing (and I hope that the cynicism of many of my posts is not misinterpreted as disaffection).

Thanks to all of you who have helped make melchett mike the lively place that it is, with special mention to (special cases!) Nick Kopaloff and Daniel Marks (even though he still suffers from the delusion that melchett mike is really his!) It would be great if more of you would comment on a regular basis (see Twatter). And, for the hard time I have given a few of you, my apologies. With so many Jews – especially ex-Hasmos – it was never going to be easy!

Keep reading . . .

No Escape: Going to the Flicks, Israeli-style

No less than the virtually de rigeur pushing into queues here, the saving of spaces in them with unmanned shopping trolleys (see also Parking Shields), and the continual, blatant invasions of personal space – most infuriatingly, the crowding and looking-over-shoulders at ATMs – the lack of decorum in Israel’s cinemas is a phenomenon that no ex-pat Englishman can ever get used to.     

No, going to the movies in this country is not, as in others, an “escape” . . . merely a reminder.                           

Talking loudly during films is seemingly compulsory here. So, whenever I have the opportunity of selecting my seat once inside the auditorium, my decision is based not on its position in relation to the screen, but its proximity to clusters of Israeli women already seated . . . and talking.                           

In fact, tell an Israeli about the release of the first “talkie” – The Jazz Singer, in 1927 – and he will probably enquire as to why talking was not allowed in cinemas before that.                           

Last Saturday, for the last leg of an unusually agreeable first date, I took the lucky girl – who cannot have failed to have been impressed by my sophistication – to see Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque (local women being the fickle, unpredictable creatures that they are, however, I would not recommend the purchase of any new hats just yet . . . though Fanny on a first date might, perhaps, be a good sign).                

Despite my success in ignoring the proclivity of the projectionist to, without warning, cut from the middle of one scene to some unrelated point in the next – a long-favoured pastime amongst Israeli projectionists – I could do little about the loud belching from the left side of the auditorium which peppered the three-hour epic.           

And my date, who had seemed a rather demure soul until that point, earned numerous brownie points for her savage verbal assault on the bloke in the row behind us who had forgotten to turn off his mobile phone.              

A quiet Israeli cinema (Lev Smadar, Jerusalem)

Whilst I am not generally prone to acts of violence, the possibility that I might, one day, twat someone in the cinema here cannot be altogether ruled out.                         

It is not just the incessant loud chatter that so infuriates, but the seeming deep-seated need of Israeli cinemagoers to commentate on what they are seeing. During Saturday’s film, on every occasion that the striking Emilie Ekdahl character appeared on screen, an elderly woman seated behind us seemed to consider it incumbent upon her to exclaim “Eizeh einayim!” (“What eyes!”)        

And, as if they don’t see enough Jews here, the entry of any Jewish character (Isak Jacobi on Saturday) or theme, however remote, into a film is always the cue for an excited buzz amongst Israeli audiences. Indeed, the always animated reaction to a movie’s protagonists and plot often renders the Israeli cinematic experience more akin to pantomime.                                 

Audience reactions here are also markedly unpredictable. I have sat through terribly sad films that have provoked mirth, and hilarious ones which have passed without so much as a titter. This owes rather less to the language gap (in the case of foreign films) than to the unusual – or, to be less kind, f*cked-up – Israeli psyche.                                 

I must also give mention to the old boy, a Cinematheque regular, who would appear to have somewhat misconstrued the concept of home cinema, barking out his temperature comfort requirements to the usher – and to the entire cinema – in mid-movie. I don’t know why they don’t just give him the air conditioner remote and have done with!                            

And the extremes of Israeli behaviour do not end in the cinema auditorium. At the foyer reception to mark the opening of last year’s British Film Festival (also at the Cinematheque), in the presence of the British Ambassador to Israel, I cringed in horror as the refreshments were gobbled up – and even stuffed into pockets – in a display that would not even be witnessed at a Hendon Adass kiddush (synagogue reception).                                 

The Israeli cinematic experience is a microcosm of life here. From the discomfort of your seat, you can view – and in 3D – all the chutzpah, bad manners and neuroses that Israelis have to offer. And, for a mere 35 shekels, it represents extraordinarily good value!

Hating the French . . . racist, or merely human?!

Walking the streets of Tel Aviv these days, it is impossible to go very far without one’s hearing being assailed by a sickening nasal sound. And I am not referring to the delightful manner in which Israelis clear their sinuses (before projecting the dislodged contents onto the pavement without a thought for adjacent pedestrians).

No, I am talking French.

Like Germans entering France in May 1940, the French have arrived in Tel Aviv in their hordes. And they have only been a little more welcome, male and female Frenchman alike bearing tasteless testament to the deleterious consequences of gaudiness and too many hours spent under the sunbed (though North Africa is probably as much to blame as France for these roasted peacocks, jangling and clunking under the weight of excessive gold).

Israelis, hardly paragons of best manners, loathe the behaviour of the French – though perhaps they resent the competition – even scapegoating them for Tel Aviv’s increasingly unaffordable property prices (thankfully, the French have tended to settle the streets in the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean, a safe-ish distance from Rothschild).

Whoever invented the French language must have had a single guiding principle: “How do I come up with a sound that will drive other nations to sheer distraction?” And my instantaneous, though subconscious, reaction every time that I hear it is for my cheek muscles to contort my mouth into a De Niro grimace, that psychotic inverted smile which “Bobby” pulls in the movies whenever he is about to “whack” someone.

When spoken by the male of the species especially, the language turns me into a Tourette’s case, giving me the irrepressible urge to utter “the ‘c’ word” (not that, as regular readers of melchett mike will attest, I normally need too much encouragement). And the Frenchman, like the c*** in your high school class, has absolutely no self-awareness of that quality.

Following the arrogant, pretentious excesses of Eric Cantona (who could only be French), Thierry Henry restored the dignity of the Frenchman in English football. But the dastardly Hand of Frog ‘goal’ (left) that broke Irish hearts 12 days ago – cheating them out of a place at next summer’s World Cup in South Africa – showed that Henry had us duped. And, instead of admitting his offence, and going down in history as both a great footballer and a gentleman, Henry will now be remembered as a cheat in the mould of that repellent Argentine degenerate, Maradona.

Breaks yer heart: Parisians watch German soldiers enter the capital (June 14, 1940)

To the Englishman, memories of white flags being raised over France in 1940 are as repugnant as thoughts of the Hand of God doing so in Mexico City in 1986. It took the French all of six weeks to surrender to the Germans – it is no coincidence that the central strip of the French tricolore is white – a noble feat which they then surpassed by establishing the collaborationist Vichy regime.

But are our neighbours across the Channel any more worthy of our contempt than, for example, the Belgians or the Dutch, who surrendered in two and a half weeks and four days, respectively? And, cowardice aside, what is it about the French that so gets under our skin?

Far from displaying a modicum of gratitude to the British for fighting for his nation’s freedom, De Gaulle subsequently made every effort to exclude the United Kingdom from the European Community (now Union). And his successors, too, have stabbed the British in the back at every given opportunity.

For some peculiar reason, known only to themselves, the French are persuaded that they are superior to everyone else. In art. In style. In food. And, most inaccurately of all, in bed. According to a global sex survey, the French only spend an average 19.2 minutes on foreplay, while we Brits spend 22.5 minutes (I have been known to spend even longer . . . especially when I have company).

In spite of its close proximity to London, I have visited Paris just once, and then only for a cousin’s engagement party (yes, he did). But it was enough to discover an absence of hospitality – shopkeepers feigning not to comprehend a single word of English as I groped for morsels of O-level French – that gives me no urge to return.

Since S, the French girl who paid me midnight visits at Jerusalem’s Ulpan Etzion (the aptly named “absorption centre” where we lived for five months following Aliyah), I have not even come close to dating a French woman. Moreover, my extensive Facebook and mobile phone lists contain a mere single French entry. And, having known Yael for ten years now, the thing that still strikes me every time that I meet her is how nice she is for a French woman. The exception to the rule.

A French cock

So, Thierry Henry – arguably, until a week and a half ago, the greatest living Frenchman – reverted to type, proving that it is no coincidence that the national emblem of France is the cock.

Call me a “racist”, but . . . when it comes to the French, xenophobia takes on a rationality that makes it, if not a virtue, then common sense.