The Buyer’s a Freier: Shopping, Israel-Style

Most people will be familiar with the doctrine “Let the buyer beware” (or, for those who didn’t attend a crap school, Caveat emptor). Retailers in Israel, however, have significantly extended the scope of the doctrine and renamed it “The buyer is a freier” (Yiddish-derived Hebrew for “sucker”).

I am destined never to get fit. After getting into working out for the first time in my life, my local gym, on Sheinkin Street, recently closed following a serious fire. Apparently, a female member (who said “of course”?!) – whose time might have been better spent on mental exercises – left her towel on the sauna heater.

Now, knowing Israel and its natives as I do, approximately a week after the conflagration – and with no sign of the gym reopening – I decided, to be on the safe side, to cancel the direct debit (after notifying the gym). And, sure enough, it continued collecting payments from those who hadn’t.

The gym reopened last week, when I phoned to renew my membership. “Naturally,” I informed the irritatingly camp manager Gidi, “I expect to be credited with the one month I had frozen” (earlier in the year, whilst I was abroad).

“Of course not,” he squeaked, “you cancelled the contract.”

I started explaining the contractual principles of consideration and frustration to him – that, following the fire, I was receiving absolutely zilch for my payments, and that the contract had now become impossible to perform.

When, however, the squeaking started up again – and sensing the onset of a rage which might have been wrongly perceived as homo-, rather than “no one can really be this camp-”, phobic – I requested the details of the gym owner.

Eddie was an altogether more serious proposition. And, sitting opposite him in his office, I tried a less legalistic tack, testing whether an Israeli could comprehend the principle that “The customer is always right.” What works in Brent Cross, however, will not necessarily on Sheinkin. And Eddie merely added insult to injury by stating that I would also have to pay a fresh joining fee.

It is as if the whole Israeli retail industry is run on the principles of the shuk (market). It is quite common in these parts, even in large chain stores, to haggle over prices. And, on Thursday, my kiosk friend Avi described the bewilderment of a Fifth Avenue (New York) shop assistant, who – after Avi had purchased a pair of shoes – could not comprehend why he was demanding a gratis pair of socks and/or shoe polish.

The Israeli attitude towards customers has caused me to “lose it” on several occasions since my Aliyah (and I relate such not out of pride, but in the interests of authenticity) . . .

I lost my Israeli consumer ‘virginity’ towards the end of the 1990s on a well-deserving Dizengoff Street kiosk owner, who refused to believe – me . . . an Englishman! – that The Jerusalem Post I had purchased from him merely an hour earlier had its TV guide section missing.

His temerity so incensed me that I picked up another copy and ran for it. He gave chase, but I ended up losing him in the garden of some side street (for many months following, however, I had to take detours to avoid passing him).

Then, last year, in two separate incidents on King George Street – and provoked by unbelievable rudeness – I called a hardware store owner a “Polani” (Pole), and hurled a frozen yogurt back at the woman who had only just served it to me.

You are probably thinking that I need to attend anger management classes. And perhaps I do. But when you have to deal with such attitudes on a daily basis, the odd outburst is inevitable for all but the most placid of souls (and I have never been described as that).

I leave my favourite Israeli shopping story, however, till last. Walking out of a shop on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street, and inspecting the roll of fax paper that he had just purchased, my cousin Marc realised that it was the wrong size.

Making an immediate about-turn, and politely requesting that the shop owner exchange it for the correct one, he was greeted with the now legendary reply, “Where do you think you are . . . in America?!”

One thing is for sure – the term “retail therapy” does not have its origins in Israel.

Curbing My (Irish) Enthusiasm

I have recently started to feel a real kinship with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David. I keep finding myself in awkward situations (and not only with T.A. Woman), and am regularly asking myself “Is it them, or me?!”

Now, funerals are generally a pretty safe bet. You turn up (on time), affect suitable solemnity (modulated to the age of the deceased and circumstances of death), wish the mourners “Long life” (even though you have never really understood what it means), and spend the rest of the time looking for the appropriate moment to piss off.

Safe for other people perhaps. Not for me. Not on recent form, at any rate.

Last week, I attended the funeral of my cousin’s late husband. As co-founder of Israel’s largest law firm, many of Israel’s (supposed) great and good were present.

As I approached the entrance to the grounds, in Herzliya, I recognized Isaac Herzog, a Labor MK (member of Knesset, Israel’s parliament) and a minister in Bibi’s new coalition government. By his side was a woman whom I correctly presumed to be his mother, Aura, widow of the late, former President Chaim Herzog, another co-founder of the firm.

With the big boys: Isaac Herzog (far left) with Barak, Obama

Now, Chaim and my late father were pals, in the twenties and thirties, in Dublin’s small and extremely tight-knit Jewish community. On one occasion, when he learned that my folks were in Israel, Chaim had his driver bring them over to his residence for dinner. And, in 1996, the two Irishmen, then in their eighties, had an emotional reunion at a book-signing for Chaim’s new autobiography. He passed away a year later.

Even though I was born in London, the Isaacson Dublin connection has always brought me into warm contact with other Irish Jews. It is very much a club.

Quite apart from my father’s distinguished academic achievements at Wesley and Trinity Colleges (he tutored Chaim in maths), my grandfather Joe was shammes (beadle) at Adelaide Road Synagogue and a well-known communal character, while my uncle Percy was considered amongst the finest Jewish sportsmen to come out of the “Emerald Isle”. Moreover, their cousin, solicitor Michael Noyk famously defended many Sinn Féin Nationalists, and was a close friend and legal adviser to Republican leader Michael Collins (whose widow used to visit my grandparents’ home, following his murder in 1922).

So, being the friendly and enthusiastic soul that I sometimes am, I decided to introduce myself to Mrs. Herzog. And, on mentioning “Harold Isaacson”, I received an immediate and warm response until, in mid-sentence, she was dragged away by Isaac – perhaps slighted that I should be more interested in his mother – who proceeded to parade her (though really, and self-importantly, himself) around those he considered more shaveh (worth it).

Isaac Herzog has the bearing of what is known in Yiddish as a shnip (the closest English equivalent is probably my favoured “mook”). He is short and weasel-like in appearance – perhaps, as I discovered last week, in character too (he was also investigated, in 1999, in relation to allegations of party-funding violations, but chose to maintain his silence) – and his nickname, “Buji”, for me says everything.

Perhaps this post smacks of the snubbed. Indeed, the experience was not pleasant. Herzog’s rudeness, however, spoke volumes for the nature of Israel’s new generation of ‘leaders’ – arrogant, unremarkable, self-interested, unconnected to the past, and owing their positions to protexia (patronage/connections). The nature of Israel’s electoral system does not help, either, as MKs have no constituents to answer to.

If we wouldn’t have been at a funeral, and my rather more phlegmatic cousin, Danny, hadn’t been there to stop me, then – never a respecter of title or position – I would have said something to the Shnip.

As it was, I just drove home understanding why so many Israelis despair at what they consider Israel’s biggest problem (even more than the Palestinians and our lovely Arab neighbours): the dearth of principled young politicians, who have got where they have on the back of their own talent, charisma and achievements . . . not of who their father was.

T.A. Woman: Feeling a Lemon in the Big Orange

“Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light, or just another lost angel . . . City of Night” (L.A. Woman, The Doors, 1971)

City of Night, the novel from which Jim Morrison took the above lyric, describes a sordid world of sexual perversion. Morrison translated it to Los Angeles, but, today, he might just as easily have substituted it with Tel Aviv (nicknamed “the Big Orange”).

I often get asked – especially by the long in servitude, sure that the single’s “grass” is “greener” – what the T.A. singles scene is like.

“Sodom and Gomorrah,” I reply.

Now, anybody who knows me – or, indeed, who follows melchett mike – will know that, whilst I am no Warren Beatty, I am no prude either. Having grown up in the ‘ghettos’ of North-West London, however, I am also not used to Jewish women having sex on the first date, or in nightclub toilets, both commonplace in Tel Aviv. And if the religious – the genuine ones (not those Charedim [ultra-Orthodox] seen kerb-crawling around Ramat Gan at night) – have got anything right, it is their emphasis on sexual modesty and restraint.

I have blogged about both Israelis in general, and the male of the species, but am regularly asked when I am going to address the fairer sex (if ever there was a misnomer!) Having to tackle them on dates, rather than just paper, I think that, subconsciously, I have been putting it off. I also understand no more about them – and, oddly, perhaps even less – than when I first made Aliyah, over 13 years ago.

A recent experience, however, has persuaded me to break my silence. And if it comes across as cynical . . . that’s because it is.

An Israeli acquaintance – who is actually married to an English girl (he had more sense) – recently suggested that I meet his neighbour, a 35-year old divorced mother of one. He said “S” was nice, attractive, down to earth, and spoke good English.

“Why not?” I replied.

S and I had a pleasant chat on the phone, when I realised that I had seen her in the neighbourhood. We even attended the same party recently, and I was pleased to hear that she, like me, was disillusioned with such gatherings, where you can’t get into the toilets for people doing drugs or having sex.

I found S’s frankness refreshing – she confided how miserable she had been on Seder [Passover] night, which she spent with a happily married couple, and how her ex-husband, who she divorced, has now found someone “younger and with bigger tits”.

I was excited to meet S, which we did the following morning, in my “Shabbes café”. And it was most enjoyable, even prompting me to mention her in my post later that afternoon. True, S spoke almost entirely about herself – T.A. Woman can be quite self-obsessed – but we sat for an hour and a half, and she opened up in a way that a woman wouldn’t (or so one would think) on a first date, unless she was feeling extremely comfortable.

S spoke freely about sex – not a topic I generally bring up on first dates – blaming the absence and quality of it for the break-up of her marriage and most recent relationship respectively, and even mentioning that her octogenarian grandmother was still addicted to it. She also complained bitterly about the behavior of T.A. Man, describing how many will only have sex on their living room sofas, to make it crystal clear to T.A. Woman that she will not be spending the night.

S mentioned that she had been in therapy for ten years, but I figured that she was just too nice for the f*ck-up that is the T.A. singles scene. I walked S home, and we arranged to go out again the following Wednesday evening.

When, however, S neither answered Sunday’s post-first date “courtesy call”, nor phoned back, I started to smell a rat. And when she didn’t answer my sms on the Tuesday, enquiring whether we were still on for the following evening, the rat started to reek. I called her on Wednesday too. But, again, no reply.

Neither shrinking violet nor freier (Yiddish-derived Hebrew for “sucker”), I sent her an sms that evening, stating “U could have just said u r not interested. So much easier… and nicer.”

29 minutes later, I received a reply, “Truely sorry…”

While S could do with losing some pounds – or, instead, adding some inches to her next pair of Levi’s – she is both tall and pretty, and the majority of men most definitely “would” . . .

But I can handle rejection (even with a spelling mistake) – one of the few pep talks on such matters that my late father gave me was that not all women will want me (how right he was!) – but why all the provocative sex talk? And why agree to a second date? And then the subsequent disappearing act, leaving me in limbo for the Wednesday evening . . .

Such behavior is not uncommon on the thirties and forties T.A. singles scene, and Israeli friends could not begin to comprehend why it got me so worked up.

But, even if it means remaining naïve, I will never get used to it.

Sometimes, I think that I am just not assertive enough. For instance, I usually ask a woman where she would like to go on a date . . . but most Israeli women just want the man to make the decisions for them. There is also the theory that, unless the man “makes a move” – however low on the “bases” – on the first date, the Israeli woman will conclude that he is just not interested (how different from North-West London’s finest!)

Whilst it is not uncommon, therefore, to hear the single Israeli woman – especially T.A. Woman (everything is more extreme in the Big Orange) – complain about the chauvinistic behaviour of her male compatriots, and claim that she longs for a “real gentleman”, she is so accustomed to such behaviour that she has difficulty recognising, understanding, and/or dealing with anything different. Indeed, she is like the abused child who can only return to abusive relationships in adulthood.

Anyway, next time, S, save the sex talk for the second date (or a dirty telephone conversation). And remember, everyone is deserving of respect . . . even if you don’t want to f*ck them.

“Never saw a woman so alone . . . so alone” (L.A. Woman)

Who the f*ck asked you?! (The Israeli, Part II)

I am forced out of the writer’s block – nothing to do with all the matzo I have been consuming this Passover – afflicting me recently by “Opinionated” Avi (who has already received mention on melchett mike: see The Israeli).

Yesterday morning, Avi, over hafuch (latte) at ‘our’ kiosk on Rothschild Boulevard, proceeded to tell me, my friend Dalia, and in fact everyone at the kiosk – Avi can add hardness of hearing to a long list of shortcomings – that, from a purely aesthetic point of view, I am “no metzia” (Yiddish for “bargain” or “real find”), and that, basically, I should take the first girl that will have me. She would be happy, he bellowed, to take a lawyer – and relative financial security – over good looks. Well, thanks mate!

Now this advice was not sought, you understand. And especially not from Avi, who is in his fifties, single, unemployed (though he claims to trade stocks from home), and wears jeans that would comfortably house a (plumpish) family of four. In fact, Avi’s selling point on dates is that he doesn’t live with his mother.

Two Saturday mornings ago, in Ha’Tachtit – our “Shabbes café” – Avi was “shooting off” to me and another kiosk friend, Yuval, about the reasons for the collapse of the British Pound. In a sequence reminiscent of the wonderful “movie line” scene in Annie Hall – when Woody brings out the Canadian media theorist, Marshal McLuhan, to confront an idiot pontificating about his work – another opinionated native appeared from nowhere, telling Avi that he had no idea what he was talking about. Yuval and I wanted to kiss him!

In a desperate attempt to save face – and knowing full well that the heroic stranger would never collect – Avi offered to bet with him on the performance of the Pound over the next twelve months. But the damage had been done, leaving Yuval and me sniggering like a pair of naughty schoolboys.

But Avi is merely an extreme (and somewhat unfortunate) case. Everyone here loves to give advice. Even Yuval, who is relatively laid back for “the species”, often begins sentences with “Ata yodeya ma ha’ba’aya shelcha . . .” (“You know what your problem is . . .”) But, as I keep reminding him, “I didn’t f*cking ask!”

Israelis like to think of themselves as psychologists, or, at the very least, life coaches. And they don’t let the lack of any formal training get in the way. Five and a half million dysfunctional Jews telling each other how to live!

I have just returned from a “Shabbes café” date with a woman (a cool one, for once) who complained how one particular guy – sitting a few tables away (it is all very incestuous in this ‘village’ of central Tel Aviv) – keeps telling her “At tzricha lizrom” (“You need to [go with the] flow”). As a woman of some substance, she finds it infuriating advice from a loser of not much. (On a first date, I didn’t want to be the one to break it to her that it also sounds suspiciously like doublespeak for “Why won’t you let me get me into your knickers?”)

Yet another kiosk friend, Yossi, a gay Moroccan, would regularly assault me with “Look at yourself – a lawyer . . . and that’s how you dress?! And you’re so out of shape . . . join the gym!” My mother, who has never met Yossi, loves him of course . . . having been telling me those things for years. Anyway, I did join the gym, just to shut Yossi up . . . but now he tells me what to do with my dogs! (“Little” Stuey got his own back last week, pissing on Yossi’s carpet. Now, I don’t know if you have ever seen a homosexual after a dog has urinated on his favourite rug . . .)

Anyway, in my long and patient search for the future “Mrs. Isaacson”, I am back on JDate, a cyber version of S&M . . . for singlemasochistic Jews. And it ain’t pleasant, I can tell you. In the process of arranging to just talk on the phone with a certain “Ronit” – no straightforward task, as she doesn’t give out even her mobile number (not, at least, until she has seen bank details and a salary slip) – I received an email from her, stating that “being with someone who smokes, even only occasionally, is really not an option”.

“38 and single,” I wrote back, “but you won’t give a chance to someone who likes a cigarette with his beer? Well, that really makes sense!”

I’ll let you know Ronit’s reply. Though don’t hold your breath.

Washing, folding . . . and binning Ha’aretz?

I remain befuddled by the continuing international brouhaha triggered by Ha’aretz’s (self-titled) “exposé” of IDF abuses during Operation Cast Lead.

Amos Harel’s article, Yorim ve’bochim (Shooting and crying) – referring to the tradition of Israeli soldiers meeting to discuss their experiences of combat – should rather have been titled Shotfim ve’mekaplim (Washing and folding), as a significant part of the particular discussion featured in the article centred on whether or not soldiers had a duty to sweep and wash the floor, and fold away blankets, in a house commandeered from Hamasniks.

In an almost Pythonesque rebuke, Danny Zamir, the academy founder at the heart of the current debate, told participants “If you’ve spent a week in a home, clean up your filth.”

But, as one of the soldiers pertinently observed, “I don’t think that any army, the Syrian army, the Afghani army, would wash the floor of its enemy’s houses, and it certainly wouldn’t fold blankets and put them back in the closets.”

That immoral IDF!

In fact, this non-story – published in last weekend’s newspaper, following a PR build-up of which Max Clifford would have been proud – has left Ha’aretz with seriously runny egg on its face. As demonstrated by the ever admirable Melanie Phillips,  in her article in The Spectator, The Ha’aretz Blood Libel, it was one of the sloppiest pieces of ‘journalism’ that one can ever have had the misfortune of wasting one’s Shabbos afternoon on.

I have Ha’aretz delivered daily – it is a far better read than the English-language alternative, The Jerusalem Post – but I just don’t know how much longer my blood pressure can withstand its hateful analysis. I have started to feel that I might as well subscribe to Der Stürmer (or even The Guardian).

Anshel Pfeffer wrote an intelligent ‘reply’ to Ms. Phillips, in this weekend’s Ha’aretz. Whilst I share what he identifies as the newspaper’s main concern – “the deep moral and material damage [the Occupation] has caused Israel” – and his celebration of the healthy democracy which its existence represents, he misses what is so disturbing about Ha’aretz . . .

Whenever you see, under a title, the name Gideon Levy or Amira Hass – primus inter pares (there are several others at Ha’aretz) – unlike Forrest Gump’s “box of chocolates”, you always know exactly what “you are gonna get” . . . never an objective view of the facts, but always a twisted, poisonous, perversion of them: propaganda which portrays Israel as bully, and the poor, defenceless Palestinians – however armed to the teeth by their Islamofascist sponsors – as victims.

And so committed are Levy, Hass et al to their pernicious agenda that they never, ever surprise.

If this is what Israel’s “quality” newspaper has to offer, it is no surprise that Ha’aretz’s daily circulation – around 70,000 copies – is so low (considering that it has no real competition). And I, too, am now questioning whether I can justifiably continue to fund it, and its unholy team of ‘journalists’.

Sticking it up the Swedes: a Sporting Purim Shpiel

Alfred Nobel! Greta Garbo! Ingrid Bergman! Ingmar Bergman! Britt Ekland! ABBA! Björn Borg! Sven-Göran Eriksson! Ulrika Jonsson! Can you hear me (if you are not under Sven), Ulrika Jonsson?! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!!

Okay, it was a Norwegian, not a Swedish, commentator who came up with a similar commentary – when his country’s footballers defeated England in a World Cup qualifier, in 1981 – but you get the idea.

And Israel’s 3-2 Davis Cup tennis victory, this weekend, over Sweden – the seven-time winners, who produced, in Borg, arguably the greatest player of all time – was no less of a giant-killing. Israel is now in the quarter-finals – where it will face Russia, in July (in Israel) – for only the second time in its history (the first was in 1987).

And the embarrassing home defeat was no more than the Swedes deserve, for their shameless decision to bow to domestic Islamofascist pressure to stage the tie behind closed doors (although, seeing as Sweden is always amongst the highest-placed developed countries in the international suicide rankings, it is perhaps no surprise that so many fundamentalist Muslims – known to be rather partial to the practice – have decided to settle there).

Just a few days after the attack on Sri Lanka’s cricketers in Lahore, by Pakistani Islamofascists, it was the perfect time to reaffirm the importance of sport in bringing people together. The significance, however, was sadly lost on the predictably unimaginative Swedes.

As a result of the Swedish spinelessness, I had considered issuing a melchett mike fatwa on all Jews who purchase “Volvoys” – what they call Volvos in Golders Green and Stamford Hill – but resolved that it would serve no useful purpose, because the company is now owned by Ford.

Boycotting IKEA would be far preferable, as the furniture retailer is far more accessible to the average Israeli than a Volvo – the store near Netanya, in spite of being amongst the most expensive in the world, appears to do a thriving trade – and because I have always hated the f*cking place, its labyrinths representing the ultimate shopping hell.

What I would only do for Israeli- Swedish relations

I would, however, be prepared to reconsider my call for a boycott if Ulrika (right) were to visit Tel Aviv, and ‘thrash things out’ with me in a spirit of mutual giving and openness. Purely in the interests of improving relations between our nations, you understand . . .

Anyway, a very happy Purim to Israel’s tennis heroes, Dudi Sela, Harel Levy, Andy Ram and Amir Hadad – our modern, sporting Mordechais – for sticking it up the anti-Semitic (let’s face it, that is what it boils down to) Swedes.

Is it just me? (Caribbean Trip, The Return)

I was really looking forward to coming home.

As well as my mum of course (and I’m not just saying that because she reads melchett mike!), I missed Stuey and Dexxy, ‘my’ kiosk on Rothschild (and decent coffee), Israeli food, and, in some strange sense, even my boss. And I had had enough of the Barmy Goyim (at least until Cape Town, January 2010).

But, not for the first time, on arriving at El Al check-in, at JFK – following my connection from Barbados – I felt strangely deflated (incidentally, most unlike all the corpulent Borough Park Jews in the queue . . . why shouldn’t they be weighed like baggage, and made to pay overweight?!)

What is it about seeing other Jews (and, no, not just Israelis) that does that to me? Might I be afflicted by the same “self-hating” disease that I have decried in so many others on this very blog?

When amongst non-Jewish friends (as I was in the Caribbean), I wear my difference with pride . . . even enjoying that they affectionately (I hope!) call me “Jewish Mike”. When back amongst my own, however, it all feels (to quote Jackie Mason) just a little “too Jewish”.

Is it just me?

There’s always a perceptible tension in an El Al queue. An impatience. And the travellers always seem so angst-ridden. Or am I just observing an unflattering reflection of myself?

Then there’s the Duty Free. Not as bad as at Ben Gurion. But my coreligionists are still very visible, frantically jostling for things they don’t need.

The umpteenth call for boarding. I push my luck and make a last-minute dash for the loo. But I needn’t have hurried. As I emerge, I am greeted by the sight of the March of the Penguins – as my chilonit (secular) work colleague refers to Hassidim – dozens of them, towards the departure gate. Where have they been? And why do they always have to be different, ignoring all the rules?

Then there’s the flight. God help me. I am only grateful that it is El Al, and that non-Jews don’t have to witness this.

Hours later, the plane has only just hit Israeli tarmac, and all the captain’s orders are immediately disobeyed. They’re standing, opening overhead lockers, talking on cellphones . . .

What is it about us?

Or is it just me?

What we Israelis can learn from the Islanders (Caribbean Trip, Week 2)

“When da plane full, dare nut enough room fer all de bags.”

We landed in Barbados, on Friday evening, only to discover that my suitcase (as well as numerous others) hadn’t made the flight from Antigua. “Lost Baggage” staff at the Liat Airlines counter merely shrugged their shoulders. I shouldn’t have assumed that my case would be on the next flight (there are several a day), either. “It should get ere in a coupla days.” When I queried as to what I was supposed to wear in the interim, they just chuckled. “Clothes cheap on da island.” And I would be entitled to 50 Bajan [=25 US] Dollars to cover the cost (of a pair of flip flops, perhaps). Anyway, they had absolutely no idea why I was getting so worked up.

I was pulling my hair out, too – during the lunch break of the Antigua Test (which, incidentally, was great) – having to queue twenty minutes for a sandwich . . . when, on entering the shop, I was third in line. And, when I finally was served, the Subway employee, with excrutiating slowness, arranged the tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives, etc, as if she was planning to enter her yeasty work of art to the Tate Modern (Damien and Tracey, that’s my idea!)

As I have now learned, however, trying to tell a Caribbean Islander that you are in a hurry is about as effective as informing an Israeli that you respond better to politeness. The stereotype of the Islanders – portrayed memorably in a British TV ad for Malibu rum (“Imagine if we Caribbeans took life as seriously as the rest of the world”) – is remarkably accurate. One informed me, yesterday, that the supermarket was a “five to ten minute walk” away. It took me no more than a minute and a half.

Enjoying the important thing in life (last Tuesday)

It has taken me over a week to adapt, but I am starting to appreciate the huge benefits of such a laid-back approach to life. These people just don’t get stressed about anything. They don’t care how much you earn, paid for your house, or tip, about your relationship with your God (and which of His commandments you choose to observe), or whether you are right, left, straight, gay, or a little bit of both. They exhibit a wonderful simplicity and seamlessness, not seeming to give a toss (excuse the puns) about much other than cricket . . . and, even then, not in the aggressive, jingoistic way that the English, for example, ‘enjoy’ their sport.

I tried to imagine a similar scenario to the airport one involving Israelis (somewhat tragically, I am often informed that my behavior is getting me extremely close to becoming a ‘real’ one) . . . The testosterone-challenged (too much) males of the species would have referred Liat staff to the private parts of their mothers (“Koos ima shelachem”), whilst their hysterical female mating partners would have been feigning to pass out and begging their men to calm down, all the while fanning themselves with a copy of Yediot (the closest Israeli equivalent of the British Sun ‘newspaper’ . . . but without the tits [if you exclude Bibi and Katzav]).

In another week and a half, I will be back in Tel Aviv, with fellow Israelis breathing down my neck as I withdraw cash from the ATM, attempting to push in front of me in every imaginable excuse for a queue, and generally being aggressive and discourteous. I am currently involved in a building project, and hearing how my partners address our architects and other hired professionals, during our weekly meetings, makes even this lawyer shudder.

So, what is it about Israelis?

We think too much. We question too much. We agonise too much. We say too much (often when it doesn’t concern us). We kvetch (complain) too much. We argue too much. We are over-cynical. And we are certainly too competitive and covetous. Woody Allen sums it up best, when he says that “Jews are just like everyone else . . . only more so.” And I would take that one step further: “Israelis are just like Jews . . . only more so.”

My (almost anti-Semitic sounding) view is that there are just too many Jews squeezed into so tiny a land mass. It often feels as if you are living amongst several million Sigmund Freuds, Alan Sugars, and Woody Allens (with several thousand Bernie Madoffs thrown in for bad measure). And, sometimes, the sense of suffocation causes me to fantasise about taking my leave, not just from Israel, but from Jewish life in general (whilst, at the same time, recognising that I probably wouldn’t last too long in such self-imposed exile).

True, the safety issues that Israelis have to contend with are rather more existential than those relating to bowlers’ run-ups. We can’t, however, perpetually use the matzav (security “situation”) to excuse our behavior, much of which is caused, not by our lovely Arab neighbours, but by our own greed, jealousy of, and lack of respect and tolerance for, our fellow compatriots and coreligionists (not to mention others).

I love my Land, and Israelis have many qualities, not least of which are a candour and straightforwardness not exhibited by my other compatriots, the British. At last week’s Test, England cricket supporters unfailingly greeted every outspoken utterance of flamboyant, exuberant West Indies fans with sycophantic laughter, which – amongst themselves (and on their own “patch”) – would undoubtedly, instead, have taken the form of racial slurs and epithets. But, there I am, being cynical again.

We angst-ridden Israelis (and Jews), with some justification, are always worried about what might happen tomorrow. And we are so busy competing and achieving, that we have forgotten (if we ever really knew) how – like the Caribbean Islanders – to “live the now” . . . and just be.

Days of Awe, Heroes and Whores

I generally don’t “do” awe (it entails reverence). But seeing Israel’s young men (many still in their teens) leaving their loved ones, these past few days, and going off to battle, has filled me with the damn thing.

As a result of my late Aliyah (immigration), my service in the IDF was both short and depressingly pointless – at one stage, I was spending entire weeks in a warehouse, counting nuts and bolts for tanks – and, to quote Woody Allen (yes, I know, again), “In the event of war, I’m a hostage.”

IDF ground forces entering Gaza, Saturday evening

I just cannot begin to imagine how it must feel to enter Gaza – never mind in pitch-darkness (as IDF soldiers did on Saturday evening) – in the full knowledge that it is teeming with deadly enemies, operating in a labyrinth of underground tunnels (a captured IDF soldier is worth far more to Hamas than a dead one, and one was almost dragged into a tunnel yesterday).

On yesterday’s evening news, parents at hospital bedsides were relating how the main concern of their injured sons was to return to their combat units as quickly as possible, and to be reunited with their comrades.

I am sufficiently self-aware to know that I have never had the fortitude to do what they are doing (I almost passed out during the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan – particularly embarrassing on a first date – so, the next time I am derogatory about Israeli males, please remind me as to what many of them were experiencing while I was struggling with my petty university “issues”).

In sharp contrast to the “soldiers” of Hamas, Hizbollah, and Al Qaeda, etc – whose world view and motivation are predicated on racism and hate – Israel’s young men are not there out of negative feelings towards Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims . . . but rather out of love for, and to defend, their families, People and Land. And this is precisely why Israel will emerge victorious, on this occasion too.

What is important is not that you “speak out as a Jew” – most of those who have done so, this past week and a half, have no interest in their Jewishness whatsoever – but what you “do as a Jew”.

There is no finer example of this than the selfless and courageous soldiers of the IDF. They are the true, modern-day Jewish heroes. And all of the “whores” and sell out merchants (see my earlier posts on Alexei Sayle, Gideon Levy and Harold Pinter) put together – who have been raising their ugly heads and voices – are not worth a single one of them.

Chazak ve’ematz! (Be strong and of good courage, Joshua 1:6-9)

Gideon Levy: Neighborhood Inciter a Testament to Cast-Iron Democracy

For many in Israel, Gideon Levy is Public Enemy Number One. The journalist, and editorial board member, at the left-wing Haaretz newspaper never ceases to sicken and appall with his anti-“everything Zionist” writing.

His article, yesterday, The neighborhood bully [perverting the title of a pro-Israel Dylan song] strikes again – responding to the first day of Operation Cast Lead – was an excellent case in point.

I haven’t got the energy, or inclination, to dissect his unprofessionally one-sided and fallacious arguments (I won’t let melchett mike deteriorate into one of those tedious and dreary “mediawatch”-type blogs), but this man – of, at best, questionable, and, at worst, traitorous, motives – is a wonderful testament to the impressive democracy that has evolved in this country over a mere sixty years.

If Levy had been a “loony left” Palestinian living in Gaza – rather than an Israeli (residing, no doubt, in some swanky suburb of Tel Aviv) – he wouldn’t dare have written such things against Hamas or his people.

If he had, his testicles would have been put on public display at the Tate Modern, Gaza . . . though only after they had been removed by an epileptic Hamasnik wielding blunt preschool paper scissors, stuffed up his rear, and then sent to his family for identification.

Now, there’s an idea . . .