if you like hate mail with bad grammar:

journey into zionism.

you'd better get my autograph while i still know you.

retired!

So, this is going to be my last post. It was a tough decision to make, but I figured that blogs are pretty lame, especially when nobody reads them. However, blogs that are read by the masses are infinitely more awesome, so I’ve accepted a 10 million dollar contract to do a blog for the Jerusalem Post. Yeah, it’s a right wing newspaper, but you can trust that this is my way of infiltrating their readership with liberal, atheist propaganda. You can also trust that my title, “Journey Into Zionism,” wasn’t my creation. Not to mention the fact that I’m leaving Israel in a month.
Oh, and a link to the site? Maybe later.

i'm going hooome

I walk past the president’s house on my way to work every morning, a fact that I try to boast about as much as possible. My uncle responded by cheerfully informing me that the Hebrew word for “the president” is coincidentally the same as the word for “my rapist.” I’m not one to point fingers, but it seems that Father Hebrew, Mr. Ben Yehuda himself, had a bit of an interesting sense of humor, or at least some kind of clairvoyance. Yeah, my Hebrew conversational skills just reached a new level of sophistication.
With this new information at hand, I marched back to the office responsible for my imprisonment, El Al Airlines, in order to argue my case once again. Alas, I was told for the fifth time that my ticket does indeed expire on August 14, and, try as I might, no public tantrum or devious maneuver involving lies about fatally ill relatives can get me out of it. Their best offer was a morning flight on August 8th, and, without divulging too many details, that just wasn’t gonna work for me.
[Note: Many of you have asked for a more informative explanation. I mean, if you guys want evidence of rational decision-making, you’ve come to the wrong place, but you should know that I don’t let anyone tell me what to do, including El Al Airlines.]
I thought about setting up a PayPal account so all my loyal readers could donate to the cause, but then I remembered, umm, what loyal readers? So I set to work on finding an affordable plane ticket, working on a budget of roughly a handful of agarot and a pocketful of dreams. I was pleased to discover that this sum grants me the possibility of a layover in such exotic locations as Athens, Amman, Istanbul, and Kiev. I almost had an itinerary reserved through a Greek airline, when I remembered that there’s no reason to endure the physically demanding process of changing planes when I can actually stay seated in one place for the entire trip. And that’s when I found Israir.
Rumor on the street has it that Israir’s planes are made out of recycled Fanta bottles and duct tape, but you didn’t hear it from me. Hey, you get what you pay for, which is evidently a much smaller amount when you’re soulless and willing to fly on either September 11th or Yom Kippur. At that point it was a toss up, considering I’m going to hell either way, but I might as well travel on a day when all the duty free shops will be open for business. Nine-eleven it is.

Go on, don't be cheap! It's only 20 shekels!

I received an urgent message last week from the director of Young Judaea summer programs. The bulk of it was comprised of a buttload of British blah blah but I’ll summarize the important points for you.
“Shana! Come quick! Hats, and lots of them! We need YOU! Sell! Charity! Blimey!”
Even though my chanichim flew home three weeks ago, my original employment contract was kind of “open ended” such that I would be at their beck and call for the rest of the summer, and besides that, I’ve been told that the Maccabia Games is like totally the best ever. So I packed my YJ staff shirts, a swimsuit, and my sleeping bag, and headed up to the southeast shore of the Kinneret for two days of extreme awesomeness. The Maccabia Games is this little tradition involving an Olympic-style color war between the various tour groups of Young Judaea and the British sister movement, FZY. The competitions range from ruach (spirit) to football (soccer) to obesity (tug of war), and the team with the most points gets some kind of plastic trophy and eternal bragging rights. It’s another tradition to sell hats to the participants at an inflated price, the proceeds going to charity. As soon as I saw the hats, it was clear why they called me in – they definitely needed a expert salesperson, or at least someone highly attractive, to unload something that unsightly.
They set up a table for me in the shade to conduct business. I must have had the same conversation a million times.
Jew: Free hats?
Shana: No, 20 shekels… but it’s for charity?
Jew: What charity?
Shana: Sick kids, I think.
Jew: Oh… I’ll come back.
Sounds promising, but trust me, they never came back. I sold nine hats the first morning and only one the next day, for a barely respectable sum of 200 shekels. And where did that money go? Let’s see. The original envelope containing 180 shek was promptly lost in the office by one of the highly competent directors, perhaps because all that suffocating air conditioning interfered with their motor skills. The 20 shekels (roughly $5) from the second day was rushed to the organization of choice: Haddassa’s fund for a medical clown in the pediatric ward. In other words, my hard-earned tzadaka went straight into the pocket of some pedophile trained in the arts of improvisation and picking on cancer patients. I’m glad my services were so useful.
However, I do feel that the experience wasn’t a total loss, as there is much to be learned from the British folk: For example, that an oversized t-shirt can be made infinitely more flattering by cutting it down to the approximate surface area of a shoulder pad. And although the pre-competition stretch routine of a cigarette and a quicky with the current flavor of the week may not take in any trophies, it sure makes you look like a winner. In addition, I’ve learned that there’s a pretty good reason why Young Judaea policy requires that kids swim with their shirts on, and it’s not so they leave Israel with a farmer tan, nor is it so I have yet another reason to tease them. Refer to my shoulders if you can’t figure it out.

def not wasting time at work

The latest Harry Potter was released at 2AM on Shabbat this past Friday. While half the country has already retreated into isolation to complete the book, the other half, aka the blacks, is up in arms over the situation, and understandably so. However, I can’t figure out if it’s because the seculars were encouraged to spend money during G-d’s day on a children's story about witchcraft, or because they felt left out of all the fun.

One pilgrim had this to say:
"We must put a limit on the desire to imitate other countries. It is inconceivable that numerous employees will be brought in to allow these events to take place and damage the spirit of Shabbat. I plan to file charges and fine anyone who violates the Hours of Work and Rest Law."

Yeah, I also stopped paying attention midway through the first sentence. Either way, I personally think there are more important issues to freak out about right now. Like for instance, that there are spiders in my apartment and I’m too scared to do anything about it! Or how about the fact that I haven't had a hair cut in 6 months? Or how I’m stuck in Israel without a return ticket?

To be continued…

oh white bread, you minx

Some shit went down in the wheat-growing industry recently. Nobody really knows what happened (or I don’t care to do the research to find out), but for some reason the price of wheat went up, up like a qassam rocket over Sderot. But when the bread-makers asked G-d for permission to raise the going rate of their products, the powers that be asserted a big Nun Vav. (N-O, to translate.) Their reasoning – charge all you want for the specialty loaves, but your basic white bread prices are fixed so that every breadwinner, whether he be a Bedouin, an Arse, or even a Russian immigrant, can afford to provide his or her (but clearly his) family with a healthy amount of empty calories from carbohydrates.
In typical Israeli fashion, the bread-makers’ response was very straightforward: a national bread strike. And the people’s reaction has been understandably dramatic. “Why why why why why!” can be heard echoing through the streets of Jerusalem. “All I want is a loaf of plain bread,” whimpered my cousin at dinner the other night.
As for me, I’m not actually affected by any of this, considering I tend not to eat white bread when presented with any other digestible option. In fact, I am actively engaged in what I like to refer to as the “Warsaw diet,” which basically involves only buying inexpensive food from the shuk.
You’re probably wondering how I can sustain myself for two months eating only items from an open-air market, but I guarantee that it is entirely feasible, especially when you have the eating habits of a farm animal to begin with. Additionally, it is actually recommended to stick to this way of life when your wallet has the elasticity of a chocolate wafer, which mine decidedly does. Am I getting all the nutrients necessary for survival? That’s debatable. But have I sampled every type of fruit produced in this country in the last eleven months? Why yes, yes I have. Such is the life of the impoverished OTZMA alumna.

Day 19/20: the day that lasted 43 hours

My chanichim flew home Monday night. We only lost one (and it was at the airport) so I’d say we did a pretty decent job as madrichim.
As far as feedback about my performance goes, the kids said I was quite nice, helpful, and friendly… except when extremely fatigued. Apparently, when I’m tired I’m significantly less approachable, according to my rakezet (supervisor?). My immediate response was “Well, duh,” which I voiced as “Yeah, that’s entirely possible.”
She replied, “This is something you should work on for next time.”
My rebuttal: “Next time??” Ha! Suddenly everyone’s a comedian!
Oh, the morning monster. You just can’t escape it.

Day 16: What's the difference between pizza and a Jew?

Young Judaea has a policy of turning insignificant events in the trip into meaningful milestones through preparation sessions, emotive ceremonies, and breakdown discussions. The visit to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, is a perfect example of this nonsense.
Our master schedule called for a short service the night before, just to set the tone for what was to come, but the bulk of the procedure was entirely up to us. Ori thought it might be nice to ease the kids into the Shoah mindset by shaving their heads and making them wear striped clothing. I suggested depriving them of dinner and etching numbers into their forearms. Yael, the sentimental one, exercised her veto power and set up a dark classroom with candles and heart-rending photographs scattered around the floor, which they had to enter barefoot and in silence. Can we say, pathetic?
Fortunately, American Jews are taught from a young age to cry on command whenever they hear the words Holocaust or Auschwitz or even six million, and after fifteen minutes of listening to “Eli, Eli” on repeat, we had a few kids wiping their eyes on soggy sleeves.

Day 14: another holy site

We were walking around in Tzfat, and after a short pit stop at a grocery store, one of my chanichim opened a bag of chips. She took a few bites before pulling out an object wrapped in plastic.“What’s a poog?” she asked, and then corrected herself. “Oh, pog. What’s a pog?”
G-d I’m old.

Day 8: Israeli Society and Zionism.. and of course marrying Jewish

We had a sex talk with our kids, utilizing the rationale that they are all one big family, because who wants to hook up with their brother or sister?
21 brothers and sisters? What are we, Haredim?