Visions of Visions of Jewish Education

This is one that you will love if you have read Fox/Marom/Scheffler's Visions of Jewish Education, but you won't get at all if you haven't.

So I am sitting in a little falafel joint in the German Colony having a snack-meeting with one of my new colleagues from the Hartman Institute. Suddenly he says to me "Behind you is standing one of the great philosophers of Israel". I turn around, and see, at the counter, buying a falafel, someone who looks, frankly, like a taxi driver. Unkempt hair, a pair of old tatty jeans, a tatty grey T-shirt, a bit of a paunch. "Who is it?" I ask. "Menachem Brinker" is the answer. "Have you heard of him?"

Someone up there must be reading my blog

Today I took Road 443 back from work and it was a nightmare. Traffic crawled for miles and it took me nearly two hours to get home. Grr!

On Traffic and Territories

One of my first dilemmas in returning to Israel has been what appears to be a relatively simple one: what's the best way to get to work? It's not so simple, though. The quickest way is to take the lovely new Road 443 which zips you from Modiin to Jerusalem in under half an hour. Beautiful new road, no traffic, stress-free, brilliant. The alternative is to take good old "kvish mispar echad" (Road Number 1), which is the main Tel Aviv -Jerusalem highway. In the middle of the day, or later on in the evening, when there is no traffic, this is only about 5 minutes longer than the 443. But any other time that has the faintest whiff of rush hour about it turns Road Number 1 into a parking lot. "So what's the problem? Just take 443!" Well, one of the reasons that 443 is so quick is that it cuts through over the Green Line, into territories captured by Israel in the 6 day war. And while the road was originally designed for use by, and indeed was used by, the Palestinian Arab communities who live alongside it (it also zips you to Ramallah in no time at all), the entrance/exit roads to those villages were closed off after several drive-by shootings, some fatal, during the Al-Aksa intifada. So now it's one of those, ahem, "apartheid" roads, that you read about on the news.

Now, I happen to think that the commuting traffic issue is one that has not yet been fully explored by the right-wing media. I mean, it's all very well that the Palestinians want their own state, but what about my commute? Why should I sit in traffic for 20 minutes just so that 5 million people can have self-determination? If Tony Blair is reading this: take note!

For me personally, this dilemma is an enormous tension between two very important things in my life: (i) Middle East Peace and (ii) 10 minutes' extra sleep at night. So here is the solution I have come up with:

Peace offsets.

You know, like carbon offsets? When Al Gore gets all upset about global warming but then runs up a huge bill air conditioning his mansion, he gives money to various organisations that promise to "offset" his carbon footprint by planting trees, investing in renewable energy, etc. I figure, why not do the same with Road 443? Every time I drive on it, I will make a small donation to Peace Now or a similarly worthy group. So just as Al Gore can have his cake and eat it too, so can I! I can be self-righteous and lefty-liberal about the Peace Process, and go to bed to enjoy my extra 10 minutes' sleep with a clear conscience! Hurray! Who said living in Israel was complicated?

Fridge

...arrived.

The first week

Would you believe that after all the goodbye parties, at JTS and in Caldwell, after all the tearful farewells, after all the have-a-nice-lifes, after sending all our stuff on a big ship through the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, after schlepping 14 suitcases, yes, 14, count 'em and weep, on the plane with us, the Israeli government still won't bloody believe that we are actually back? As far as Ehud Olmert is concerned (or his duly appointed representatives, at least), we are under suspicion of being visitors, tourists, passers-by. But we need to be recognised as residents because that's the only way the kids can get national health coverage. So in order to achieve this, we have had to enter the Orwellian netherworld that is Israeli governmental bureaucracy. It's kind of like a badly designed board game: the National Insurance Office tells us we need to go to the Absorption Ministry. We go to the Absorption Ministry. No, they say, you need to go to the National Insurance Office. And so on...

Anyway, 8 days, a lot of car miles, a few stomach ulcers, and one near-divorce later, we seem to have succeeded. We are now officially Israelis. Again.

There is good news, though. As I'm sure you've heard, the Israel economy has really boomed in the last week. The Eldan car rental agency reports record profits. The stock of Traklin Electric, a large appliance store, is rocketing. And 012, the internet company, thinks Christmas has come early. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Sinclair family is happy to subsidise all these fine institutions. Just when they think they've screwed us for as much as they can get, behold! A new loophole is found that earns them even more money. I have come to the conclusion that the State of Israel doesn't need to strike oil to get rich - it'll be fine if we stay around for a few more weeks...

Speaking of appliances, I'll leave you with a particularly Israeli story. I ordered a fridge over the internet, in the US, from an Israeli internet store. We were due to arrive on Tuesday the 10th, and the fridge was to be delivered on Wednesday the 11th. But on Wednesday morning when I phoned the store to check that everything was in order... let's see how good your powers of narrative deduction are... can you guess what happens next in this story? Yes, that's right. "Oh, they have canceled the delivery for today. You'll get it tomorrow.". Well, screw you, I said. (To myself. I haven't become that Israeli yet). So we ran out to a local appliance store and found a similar fridge there which seemed ok. In these stores, the salesmen work on commission, so it's a bit like buying a car. We told the salesman that we didn't have a fridge at all right now, so we needed it delivered, like, today or tomorrow. He goes off to confer with his manager. "It won't be till Sunday", he says. Can't do it, then, we say. Maybe you could lend us a fridge from the display till the delivery? No, they can't do that. He goes off to talk to his manager again. To cut a long story short, the manager ends up lending us the store's office fridge! I go into the back room, it's a waist-high mini-fridge thing, he takes out the carton of milk that's in there, and I schlep it off into the car. Just like that! I doubt that would happen in Sears.

There is a twist in this tale: the new fridge wasn't delivered on Sunday. Of course not! It's Israel! On Monday we phoned to complain and they said we'll have it on Thursday (which is now tomorrow). So these poor blokes at the electric store have been without their fridge for a week!

Anyway, in short, we have had a crazy, hectic week, full of running around dealing with bureaucracy, buying things, and eating out a lot (well, we haven't had a full size fridge and our pots and pans are on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic). We are living in Modi'in, half-way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we have rented an apartment for the year, and it's lovely, and the kids are so far taking it all very very well. We are tired and frazzled but basically happy. Be in touch!