The Happy Ending???

I went jogging in the park with Nili yesterday around noon.  The long loop at the very North of Park ha Yarkon was almost empty aside from a few tourists, someone from the nearby high-tech area enjoying his sandwich in the park and one religious youth with teffilin praying toward the yellow strip of Yarkon river.  At the end of the jog I treated Nili to some barefoot play in the sand. We had to find a shady area as the sun was burning and some of the playground covers had been removed in lieu of winter to be washed. Nili was so fascinated with the sand substance that started throwing it all around her.  Suddenly the air was pierced by a string of police sirens.  One car after another was zipping toward Tel Aviv center and it quickly became obvious that something bad had happened there. Someone exercising next to me was trying to check the ynet news but it wasn't loading. Then HaAretz app on my phone flashed the news of a bus explosion in Tel Aviv.  So busy with the air threats we forgot about this other terror option. To think about it, just a few days ago I encouraged Naor to take his first independent bus ride naively thinking that as long as Gaza is closed buses are safe. Heading home I passed a few bus stops and saw people coming of buses, talking on their cellphones, probably learning the news and thinking how lucky they are to be speared.

At home on TV I saw how Israeli intelligence services are carefully packing every single piece of junk from the place of explosion  so that they could reconstruct it later in the lab.  Police was commanding people to get away from the scene as reports of another woman wearing an explosive belt have been coming through. The nearby Azriely skyscraper that is a mall and an office building has been closed. As injured in the bus were interviewed in the hospital more and more details about the suspect were released.  Explosive bag was placed under the seat a few bus stops before, suspect exited the bus and then initiated the explosion remotely. Police arrested someone in the nearby stock market area but later on he was cleared.  In the afternoon I was trying to take the kids to their usual activities but the streets of Tel Aviv and all roads North were completely packed. Probably police shut down some routes searching for the suspects and people were trying to get home to their kids earlier.  I was stuck in the traffic for 2.5 hours just to make a 10 km route.

Cease fire never seemed as unrealistic as now when South was under fire and the heart of Israel was hit from within. Yet Hillary Clinton was here, then in Cairo, undoubtedly pressing both sides, and in the evening the news of an upcoming announcement started to appear on the TV. As the announcement went on IDF was continuing to bomb Gaza, more rockets were fired on Beer Sheva and Ashdod some hitting houses and anti-cease-fire demonstrations were held in a few cities. I was at the doctors clinic with my mom at this time and everyone around watching the news were extremely skeptical that this peace will last.

Yes, this morning we all were surprised to discover that it holds for now. Army is still on a high alert, schools in the South are still closed, people are instructed to be watchful in public transportation but TV has switched to cover the January election campaign.

When dropping my mom at the train station this morning I saw this cheerful religious sandwich seller that was greeting everyone with "Good morning", wishing an "Ahla" day and encouraging people to smile, while marketing his sandwiches made from the legendary Marco bread and the heavy sadness present in my heart all last week started to disappear.

Later on a distant noise was heard in Tel Aviv sky and everyone was revealed to realize that it is a thunder of the approaching rain.

Back from school Naor announced that they are planning a surprise party for his class teacher who should be released from the army any day now.

As War Continues

Excitement of the first war days wore off and now it is fear, frustration and exhaustion. Of course the hardest impact is down South. Our relatives in Ashdod hear the sirens every 3-5 min; kids sleep in the sheltered rooms and parents rush there at the first wailing of the sirens.   A building not far from them had been hit. They are hesitant to come over as roads are exposed, their family is large and we don't have a sheltered room in our house. My cousin sounded very angry on the phone insisting on the Army entering Gaza and finishing the job on the ground. Like many others living on the fire line he is tired of years of random bombings - few hundred every year. But according to military predictions ground invasion will be a bloody mess for both sides and even if Hamas is completely destroyed, next in popularity is Islamic Jihad that have a strong support in Iran.

In Tel Aviv we have had one or two daily sirens every day in the last four. Most of them have been intersected by the Iron Dome defense system. This system had just been installed above Tel Aviv three day ago and is being tweaked by the engineers as rockets fly by.  So far, great success rate but no guarantee, so with every siren we rush to the "safest" room, lie on the floor covering our heads and wait for the siren to stop and then count the seconds to a loud "boom" hoping it wont occur above us. Yesterday the sirens went off during school hours, kids were taken to the shelters and we received an instant message from Nadia's teacher within a seconds that everything is OK.
Throughout the day life mostly continues as normal.  But anywhere I go I am trying to note a potential cover spot in case sirens will start - in the park, at the store, on the freeway.  Preparing to run to the supermarket today I was hesitant whether to take the baby with me or leave her at home with my dad; kind of a life roulette. Our audio sense has never worked so hard and felt so critical. Ears are attentively tuned to the street sounds trying to classify the noise as the war alert (siren) or routine noise of police sirens, motorcycle roar, airplane engines. Sometimes it seems to start similarly, takes a second of worry, but then there is usually a relief. My grandmother used to be an expert at such sounds during the Second World War in Russia. She was only 17 but responsible for distinguishing enemy airplanes from the Russian planes by the sound before they are in sight.

Two of our son's teachers and some of the fathers of our kids friends have been called to the army duty. 8-months pregnant mom of one of Nadia's friends stayed behind, working and managing with 3 young kids (and a dog) by herself.  In general most of the Israelis (men, under 47 years old) would do anything to avoid the mandatory yearly 2-week army duty bringing excuses from work, doctors, and even rabbis. But in a case of war, such as this one, the show-up rate is almost 100%. According to the news, the army is parked at the Gaza entrance ready to enter.  Most people here hope it wont happen but everyone also knows that any peace with Hamas can be only temporary.

Our First War Sirens

It started as a regular tennis lesson in the Tel Aviv's Park ha Yarkon.  A magical complex with ten or fifteen well-lit courts and elegant party place among the tall palm trees and the amusement park in the background. All the courts were full with students of all ages and group sizes. Our daughter was one out of two girls and six boys aged 9-10 with a teacher and an assistant. Given the late after-work hour (6-7pm), few of the parents were there waiting for their kids or taking the lessons themselves. I, as always, was using this time to play with our baby on the grass under the palm trees. She was holding my hand and pulling me to run in circles. Suddenly, 20 min into the lesson, the siren went off.  Not the loud one as in the second world war movies and not the low and steady one as we hear every Friday from Bnei Brak, but the up-and-down dull one. Before I figured out what was going on, the teacher told all the kids to lie down in the middle of the court and cover their heads with their hands. Few moms ran to join the kids in the court. I grabbed the baby and rushed next to my older daughter. Surprisingly kids were not scared and thought it all must be a part of some training. The baby was trying to escape my enclosure and crawl away. In a minute we heard a distant boom and sirens stopped. One mom grabbed her cell and frantically started calling her kids who were left at home alone. She then grabbed her daughter and left hugging my back on the way as we exited the courts, like saying "It will be OK, newcomer.". The rest of the parents stayed and called their families to check on or share the experience while kids continued the lesson as usual. A few minutes later my cell posted "Ha-Aretz" newspaper alert that sirens went off in Tel Aviv. Then my mom called and my sister-in-law. I sent an instant message to my husband who was travelling that we just lived through our first war siren. In this bright court light with so many people around it looked more exciting than scary. Back at home we found my dad glued to the TV.  He told me that he just served himself dinner when the siren went off. He contemplated for a second but then decided that warm food and hungry stomach can not wait.

The day before my cell-phone posted a news alert that Israeli Defense Forces assassinated the main Hamas mastermind, Ahmed al-Jabari. Almost immediately a non-stop rocket fire escalated from Gaza and all large people gatherings (schools, weddings, outdoor birthday parties) were cancelled in the nearby to Gaza areas.  Rocket fire to Shderot, Ashkelon and Ashdod has happened a few times in the past months already so it wasn't very unusual.  But then my mother-in-law sent an instant message advising to buy water supplies and I started to think through the assassination news.
I called my cousin's wife from Ashdod and offered her to bring her daughter over tomorrow. She told me that she happens to be at the wedding in Rehovot with my mother and that she is going to stay at home tomorrow with her kids and her mom. Her husband, my cousin, went to work in Ashkelon the next day, passing through 3 sirens on his way, then after 15 more sirens his factory got closed for the day and he returned home.

Our son was at his swim practice in Hertzlya and learned about the rocket only later. He called asap, ensuring that everyone is safe and was on his phone all evening discussing the situation with his classmates and swim team friends. He told me that he was calming down a girl from his school who was from the South but lived in the boarding school in Tel Aviv. They all were in the bomb shelters.

Our neighbor stopped by and brought me keys from her house. Unlike our old-built house, they have a bomb-shelter room inside theirs and she invited us to run over no matter whether they are at home or not.  Another option would be to run to the town shelter that is located one street away but there is no chance we could reach it in 1.5 mins, and this is how long it takes for the rocket to reach Tel Aviv from Gaza.

Our son demanded that we should prepare an emergency bag and I asked him to list everything he thinks should go into it. He did a great job: water, pocket knife, food, baby diapers and food, flashlights, money.  I packed it and left next to the front door. Later on my dad added a giant plastic bag full of garbage there and we joked that we should be very careful to grab the right bags if we ran. I also mused that kids should put on their prettiest PJs and wore sport clothes myself for the night.  Despite these preparations, we all decided that if something happens in the middle of the night the safest would be to gather in the master bedroom and lie face down like we did on the tennis courts.  Before sleep to calm the kids down from all the news, I let them watch extra TV and our daughter was so surprised and excited that she muttered: "I don't mind the sirens going off every day." The night was quiet, aside from baby teething and awake a few times.

School was open the next day but the planned school-wide ceremony got cancelled. Life went as usual on Friday mornings. Another siren went off soon after lunch and we all rushed to the bedroom covering our heads with our hands. I stood on my knees hiding our baby under me and she started crying scared from the dark under my body and sweater flaps. Again, a min or two, a distant boom and sirens stopped. Relatives called as well as our son swim teammates who live in the Northern areas inviting us/him to come over. Someone told that the rocket fell in the fields close to his school.  In the afternoon he left for a swim meet in the North that was going on as planned. I took both daughters to the neighborhood park that was all empty. The weather was magnificent: autumn warm and quiet; air slightly yellow from the setting sun.  A few men in variously colored kippas went by to the local synagogue. It seemed so close to Paradise, so peaceful. Back at home I made the Tomato Basil soup from the New England Soup Factory cookbook and we watched two movies occasionally checking the news. 

Ohh, the real estate.

I have not been writing in a while because in addition to the regular crazy family routine we are very busy figuring out where we should live in Israel. Our rent is expiring in a few months and it could be nice to move into something of our own. We like the area of Ramat ha Hayal that welcomed us this year but not sure whether it is the best for us. Like a pendulum we are shifting between wishes of a bursting life in a small apartment in the inner city to the ideas of relaxing, serene lifestyle in the suburban villa.

 Tel Aviv is luring us with its offerings. It is a self-proclaimed city that never stops and indeed many cultural events are happening here daily. One may say that it is mostly for adults, but here it is: the main Tel Aviv library is offering fiction and comics-writing classes for kids. Tel Aviv opera has a summer camp where kids can sing and sew. Last summer on many Tel Aviv intersections you could spot a piano chained to some pole, inviting everyone to dip their hands in.

 HaBima square is an amazing place for roller-skates, and Tel Aviv promenade has been named one of the top 10 in the world. When I started writing this in August, Tel Aviv had a White Night celebration with many mid-night events throughout the city: an earphones party in the Rabin's square, opera marathon in the Opera building, a set of short intellectual lectures at the University, midnight run in the Yarkon Park and much more. But is this stimulation good for today's already over-stimulated kids? Do they need this cultural exposure or calm? Many times after school our kids are running to their rooms to relax after the screams of school. Is it safe for the kids to wonder the streets of the city by themselves? And we, can we manage with the impossible parking of our large American cars into the tiny street parking spaces in Tel Aviv? Can we downsize our belongings and personal space so much that we can fit into a small apartment?

 Or perhaps we should go to the suburbs. Own a piece of land, breath fresh air, inflate a pool for the kids, have enough space to host a large family event. Not hear any neighbors. Safe and relaxing atmosphere of a village where kids grow by-themselves in the wild. But why then some houses we saw have metal bars on the french doors leading to the porch/yard? Why even in suburbs most people still drive their kids to/from school and after-school activities?

 As you see, we are rather confused. But the largest of all problems is the real estate cost. With the salaries that are on average 1/2 of the US salaries, real estate here is 2 times the US cost. In the US million dollars is a very large number, somewhere out there, with the infinity. Here million is something many people count their mortgage in. At first you laugh in disbelief, you think you will figure something out, you decide to join the protesters that demand social justice, you hope the prices that rose 50-70% in the last 10 years will finally start dropping down. But then you look right and left, you see everyone managing, and know that you must, somehow. Surprisingly, we are much more adaptable creatures than we think and after just one year in Israel our kids are already OK with potential options of sharing a room or moving into an apartment.

As always with Israelis, necessity is a mother of invention. A few of the people we met bought small and old first-floor apartments, renovated them, got permits to dig in same size basements (under the apartment building!) and divided the yard surrounding the building between the tenants.


Most of the people immigrating from the US come to Raanana or small towns (yeshyvim) a bit North such as Tel Mond, Zicharon Yakov, etc. Like in the US, real estate prices correlate with the quality of public schools and general cultural level of the population. Real Estate site, Madlan, recently posted ratings of all schools in the country. However Israel has much more diversity everywhere. We rent in a quite expensive area where an old 2-bedroom apartment goes for $600,000 and a 4-bedroom house for $1,300,000. Still, I am saddened to discover teenagers leaving kids' park filthy in the evening, large dogs running unleashed, few mothers smoking cigarettes next to their kids at the playground and school so unorganized that even the animals in its wild corner were tragically attacked one night by the neighborhood dogs. I should devote another post to what we learned so far about Israeli schools. There is a lot to admire and a lot to feel enraged about.

Real Estate Agents and Transactions.  We have met a few excellent agents in each city, but the rest are comically unprofessional and paranoid. Most are competing for the same houses so they are ridiculously secret. They screen you on the phone trying to sniff whether you are another Realtor pretending to be a client and just trying to steal the house from them. When they schedule an appointment they rarely tell you the name of the street and the house number - you meet them at the closest corner. Many didn't know the size of the house they are offering to sell, number of the bathrooms or the school district.


And even when we thought that we found one "professional agent" that seems knowledgeable and reliable we realized another major problem - most of the agents are dual agents representing a seller and a buyer simultaneously and receiving 2% from each.   They are obviously more loyal to the seller with whom they are surely having a deal rather then the buyer who is probable. We almost bought a house recently realizing in the last second that there is a large electric pole-hub in the corner of the yard. The agent didn't think of pointing this to us even though electromagnetic radiation have been a concern for the current tenants as well as all potential buyers, and tests have been done.

When selling our house in Boston, we were required to move all our junk away, clean the house before any showing and get away from the house avoiding any personal interaction with the potential buyers. We read stories about apple pies placed in the oven to seduce the buyers with the cozy smell. Here, searching for a place to buy, we see snapshots of family life as it is, un-edited: owners are almost always present in the house, sometimes we see kids still in bed or in their pajamas, pots with deliciously and not-so-deliciously smelling food simmering on the stove. We learn from the owners everything that agents are incapable of telling us about the area, schools, parks, building plans and neighbors. At the end the system works out. The process is tedious, time consuming and occasionally frustrating but we discover what each area has to offer. And the fact that we get confused more and more means that they are all pretty good.

Cool Israeli Technology for Everyday Living

Israel is a high tech country. Not only because of the number of high tech companies flourishing here but also by the number of high tech applications used here as a routine part of life.

• Start with the simple stuff: texting. Almost every communication is done via SMS (short messaging service available on most phones): grandmothers chatting with their kids, music lesson scheduling, birthday party reminders, cable company announcements. In Boston only young and hip were aware of this technology on their cell phones.


• Street parking made easier. Imagine parking anywhere in Boston, pressing one button on your iPhone app to initiate the parking meter count, pressing another when you are done and paying only a $1 or $2 that will be automatically deducted from your credit card at the end of the month. Pango is a local company that provides easy and cheap paid parking interface, in agreement with the municipalities. No need for parking meters, coins or punch-cards. You register with this service once by linking your cell number to your car license plate to your payment means.  Then, just park anywhere in Israel along the designated and abundant blue and white curb and use the app to pay.  GPS on your phone automatically recognizes what town you are in and charges the amount based on the municipal rate. For example, in Tel Aviv you can park for up to 3 hours, paying 5.5 shekel per hour if you do not reside there and 0.69 shekels if you are a resident. How does parking officer know that you paid? He uses another app that connects to the main database that knows that you set your parking timer on.
  
  
  


• Smart Elevators. It is likely this technology is being used somewhere in Manhattan or Chicago skyscrapers but I have never seen this before. Button-less elevators that are guided by a central optimization technology.  Every floor has a few panels where you punch the floor number you need to go to and then the panel directs you to go to the elevator A or E or G  that soon will be going to your floor. You enter this elevator and realize that centralized elevator brain optimized waiting time, riding time, number of stops and perhaps electricity by grouping together people that go to the same floor.  My elevator stopped only on the floor 4, 10, and 11. There were no buttons inside other than emergency ones. 
  
  


• All your medical needs on one website (Maccabi). Browse doctors, schedule appointments, request referrals, review results of the tests and probably much more. The website by the way is developed by the company my brother works for - eWave - and they are starting to bring this technology to the US.


• Technology at schools. Kids and parents are encouraged to use Google Docs for collaboration. 3rd graders are preparing power point presentation. All the homework is posted online daily on the school website by kids or teachers. Exam schedule - online. There is an online class forum that kids use to ask questions and send messages to each other.


• Open Sesame parking Lots. Most of the municipal parking lots are equipped with smart technology. Cameras located somewhere near the entrance picture and character-recognize your license plate. When you press the button for an entrance parking slip, it comes printed with your car's license. When you return to pay it automatically recognizes whether you are Tel Aviv resident and eligible for a 75% parking discount. You pay, you enter your car and you notice something strange: garage gate opens before your car as soon as you approach the exit. You don't even need to insert your paid parking slip. Another camera automatically recognizes your license plate and communicated with the central system that knows you just paid.


• This is low tech but simple and useful: convenient parking for cars with strollers. Remember the blue parking spots for disabled just next to the entrance to any facility?  As we all know unloading and navigating a stroller with a baby or two (or three) in the parking lot may be as complex and dangerous as managing with a wheelchair. In the Tel Aviv's Ramat Gan Mall I noticed some convenient pink parking spots for cars with babies.

For us, newcomers, it is easy to spot such novel and cool things, things that are done differently and better than in the US. But of course there are other technology areas where Israel is lagging behind. I recently called Tel Aviv police and had to wait 3 minutes till a dispatcher answered. There was no answering signal, just the monotone rings and I was doubting that I dialed correctly. Just when I was about to hang up a woman answered and started slowly asking who am I and where I live. Only 5 minutes after I dialed we finally got to the reason of my call. Likely it wasn't an emergency.  Boston's police answers immediately, automatically recognizes who you are and where are you calling from, by the number. They will even come in 5 min if you call and hang up. They will come if you hear noises in your yard or to replace the batteries in your smoke detector in the middle of the night. They will also come to direct traffic and insure student safety at school. Hopefully, soon in Israel.

9-Months Progress and How We Got Here.

It has been almost nine months since we came to Israel and it seems that we have completely adjusted. Sometimes it even feels that we never left, while we have been away for 17 long years.  We have been perfectly comfortable in the serene Boston suburbs and now are surprised to discover that the boisterous Tel Aviv pace awakes and energizes us. We are exploring and learning: Kikar ha Tarbut (Culture square) is one of my new favorite places; Memorial and Holocaust Days - real days of mourning unlike the Memorial Day in the US. Our kids are gradually finding their circles and are getting used to the loud, rough but friendly school atmosphere.

Now it is time to reveal that I was the one who didn't want to come back. In the past few years, our life in the US settled into a comfortable and convenient routine: we loved our neighborhood, were surrounded by close friends and supporting neighbors, we figured out the schools and a bunch of extra-curricular activities combining Russian math, JCC swim team and a US lacrosse league, life-long mortgage and Caribbean vacations were all within our reach.  We had a favorite newspaper, magazine, radio station, political party that we proudly chose, restaurants, and a hardware shop.
Why trade all this for a life with a constant threat of war?
For a politics we would never support?
We loved Israel and always enjoyed our yearly visits.  I thought this was enough. Why endanger the kids in the army?  Why take away their chances of going to Ivy League universities? Why downgrade our lifestyle? Why immerse ourselves into this land of pronounced contradictions (religious-secular, Sephardic-Ashkenazi, arabs-jews, right-left, rich-poor)?

But returning from every visit to Israel we felt brokenhearted leaving behind all those people who loved us, the sunshine, sea and the happy frenzy of Israeli lifestyle.  We always had some doubts but were quickly dismissing them settling back into the sweet and calm routine. Perhaps one day when we will be very old; warm climate seems to be good for older people.  Every year a family that we knew moved back to Israel. We said farewells, observed their absorption, but never thought it will be us. To be more precise, Moshe secretly hoped that one day it will be us but I was quite certain it won't. A job offer came but we rejected it: "Not now. Life is too good to change it."

And then we started going to Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties, where families were together and shared touching stories of their past. And we thought, who from our family is going to come to our son's US Bar Mitzvah?  And then our relatives were sick and we felt guilty for not being closer to support the daily struggle. When Moshe's large and united family called on Jewish Holidays he always turned grim. But what really pushed him to tears were memories of Falafel David in Nes Ziona and the songs of Ehud Banai. And then another job offer came and we realized that it is now or never. And we decided to take a chance. Kids, born in the US, were not happy.  We were taking them away from everything their world was: life-long friends, house, sports, language. We were trying to soften the shock by saying that we can always come back if things don't work out.

The first 6 months were not simple. The relocation in the midst of the August heat was sticky and bureaucratically painful. Kids adjustment in school was heart-breaking.  They were coming home and seeking silence, crying for their US friends. They kept saying that they will run back to the US as soon as they reach an independent age. External and internal political news were very saddening. I had my own crisis one hot September morning (Friday) in the Rami Levi discount supermarket. More than once Moshe was very close to giving up while dealing with bureaucracy, broken air conditioners or broken promises. But the sunshine helped us smile and friends and family's support balanced the external troubles.

We slowly discovered our neighborhood - welcoming people, small food shop, great fruits and vegetable store, hair salon, private pharmacy, a wonderful park. Things that we started calling home now.

10 things we miss most about US

I hear that some of you started packing your bags to come here after reading my previous post about 10 things we really like in Israel.  It is indeed a fascinating country that is also very pleasant for a visit or stay. So, please come!

However, I am trying to paint an honest picture of our adventurous immigration.  With the excitement of the new life there is obviously a nostalgia for the old one. Here are 10 things that we miss most about US right now, six months after the move.

1. Friends. We all try to stay in touch via email, skype and phone but with a 7-hour difference and a shifted weekend (Friday-Saturday in Israel and Saturday-Sunday in the US) is it hard.  New friendships are slow to appear. People are warm and welcoming. However, here in Israel everyone is surrounded by a large and a tight family circle. Then, there are friends one grew up with - school, army, university. Who needs additional friendships when the weekends are so short? We were surprised to find that most people around are not interested to cross the boundary between acquaintanceship and friendship.
   
   
2. Boston's sports frenzy.  We still are part of the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics Nation. We feel the pain of the Patriot's Super Bowl loss but have no shoulder to cry it on. We watch games deep into the night, wear T-shirts, read Boston Globe and pack our emotions into emails to our Bostonian friends.   Israeli sports scene is also contentious and engaging but it will probably take us years to get hooked.  
   
   
   2011 Bruins' victory
3. Naor misses winter, especially the sunny Boston snow days when he could play outside with the friends bundled in a snowsuit building snow forts, fighting snowballs, sledding from the high-school slopes. 
   
   
4. Kids miss quiet and discipline at school and frequently come home tired from the noise. Large classes (27-40 kids) and non-strict rules lead to teachers spending 1/3 of the lesson time screaming for silence. Yes, screaming for silence...
5. We (parents) miss longer school day and more homework.
6. Not worrying for our survival. In the US you worry about keeping your job, lose your sleep thinking about your mortgage, or stress over saving enough for summer vacation, afterschool activities or college. All these worries are valid here as well, but can be obscured by a helpless worry of a potential war. Is Israel serious about bombing Iran? Is Iran serious about sending rockets to Tel Aviv? Where will these rockets fall? Unfortunately, the only things we can do is finding where the nearest bomb shelter is and ordering gas masks from the town hall. Fortunately, we are slowly getting used to living in uncertainty and this doesn't affect our daily mood.
   
   Gas masks for adult, youth and baby...
7. Better hospital conditions. While the professionalism of doctors and nurses is comparable with the US, the luck of resources in government-ran socialistic medicine is felt everywhere - number of people per hospital room, ratio of patients per nurse and therefore attention that every patient gets, hospital food and equipment. 
8. Trader Joe's - there is nothing like it in Israel. I believe that Trader Joe's is the working parents' friend allowing to spend minimum time serving delicious, rather healthy, not expensive, kids-friendly and interesting meals.   Without it I find myself constantly busy with feeding a picky family of five from raw ingredients.
9. Variety and simplicity of online shopping. In the recent years in Boston I almost stopped going to stores altogether (except Marshalls, TJMax and Filene's Basement). Why spend 60+ min driving, parking and browsing through Toys-R-Us, Mac Cosmetics, or West Elm when you can order anything online in 5 mins? Surprisingly in such high-tech country like Israel online shopping is in the embryonic stage. Every little purchase is an hour-long project.  One of the problems is that postal workers do not come with a car and do not carry any packages. There is also a heavy taxation on the US-ordered stuff. 
10. US Holiday Spirit. We did try celebrating Thanksgiving this year. Since no one in Israel is usually buying a whole giant turkey,  I had to order it from a supermarket a few days in advance. The turkey did not look at all like a fat American bird, it was an anorexic dead creature with a long neck. My husband's mistake of asking the butcher to remove the bird's skin turned it into a horror picture. We did cook it and ate it but I am still asking turkey's forgiveness for these deeds.  Move here did earn us Jewish holidays with the family that we have been longing for for so many years. But we still miss the other holidays - the sweet anticipation of Halloween, Thanksgiving flavours, the Christmas cheer on the streets and shops, an Independence Day with a parade, 5K run and fireworks in our town. These are part of the traditions our kids were born into and we all enjoyed for so many years.  
    

10 things we like in Israel (more than in the US)

1. Food. As everywhere around the Mediterranean, food  in Israel is a top priority and investment. It is elaborate, flavorful, and usually spicy. It is also pretty much the only thing that unite everyone in the region: Arabs, Jews, Christians, Druzes; secular and religious people; political right and political left.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Friday rituals. For the secular crowds in Israel, Friday became a sacred day, much more special than Shabbat.  Most of the adults do not work.  Kids are in schools or day-care till around noon. The adults enjoy these few hours of freedom by relaxing in coffee shops with partners or friends, then stopping at the neighborhood markets to buy Shabat hallah, weekend newspaper, flowers, pastry and other last-minute food.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   The majority of shopping is usually done in advance. Then, there is cooking for expansive Shabat dinner or anticipation of going over to the parents' house, Galei  Zahal radio in the background. Those who do not cook, enjoy a sweet rest in the afternoon. And at night, everyone puts on festive clothes and goes over to meet the rest of their families for large, noisy, late and delicious dinner. For young adults this all is just an prelude to continuing the night by going out with their friends. They get back home only around 2-4am and sleep till noon on Shabbat.
3. Public display of affection.  Parents are openly "devouring" they kids on the school steps or playgrounds, while kids comfortably enjoy it and giggle. Relatives express love for each other openly in person or on the phone. Even our kids started saying "I love you" to us a few times daily. Adult men can greet each other with a kiss without any embarrassment. Lovers behave like there is no one around, sparking the air with affection and sexuality.
   
   
   
   Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.
4. Warm clean sea and fantastic beaches. 
5. Passion for life. It may be the warm and passionate Mediterranean blood, an antidote to the daily political stress, or something else, but Israelis live to the fullest.  Even on the weekdays, even those with kids, all eat, drink, laugh and party till late. Fun opportunities are never missed for the sake of sleep. Tel Aviv is rightly advertises itself as a city that never stops.
6. Flower bloom instead of snowstorms in February.
   
   
   
   Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.
7. Relationships: warmth, hospitality and easy-going. Anyone and anywhere you are visiting, you can expert to be seated and fed anything from a coffee-and-cake to a full meal. If you run out of eggs, salt or sugar - feel free to knock on your neighbors door. Pregnant or visibly sick, everyone - garbage men, market sellers, bank employees, or supermarket bag packer - will be wishing you a safe and healthy delivery and a quick recovery.
8. Strong women. They work (even with 3-5 kids), they manage kids-school-babysitter-activities logistics, they cook (very well), they do most of the housework, they dress well and look great, and they mostly spoil their husbands. They are smart and opinionated leaders.
9. Playground gyms - sportex.  Someone somewhere got an ingenious idea that in a country like Israel with mostly sunny and warm weather gyms should not necessarily be indoors. Now you can find adult gym equipment corners in every park. Why not build some strength,  while your kids are playing at the playground?   Why not work on the muscles after finishing your morning jog or on the way to work?
   
   
   
10. Abundance of exotic fruits and vegetables. Brown tomatoes, spherical zucchini, sabres, papaya, kiwi,  guava, anona, persimmon, pomelo etc. And if you, like me, do not know what to do with them, any shop seller or fellow shoppers will gladly offer you a few recipe suggestions.
    
    
    
    
    
    Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.

Next to come - 10 things we miss most about US

Motorcycles Are Everywhere

Yesterday I was in a minor car accident.  A taxi I was in had to cut sharply to the right lane to avoid crashing into a car that carelessly switched into our lane from the left. Just as I was about to compliment the taxi driver on her great reaction, we saw a black shadow on the right, heard a boom and saw our broken right rear-view mirror.  The motorcycle that crushed into us was on the asphalt behind us and in the darkness of the winter evening it was impossible to see whether the rider was moving at all. Another car stopped, and driver in a high heel boots rushed to assist the motorcyclist across few lanes of a heavy traffic. In a minute or two he stood up, walked a few steps and ensured everyone that he and the motorcycle are perfectly fine. Some plastic did fly off from his motorcycle but it appeared to be fully functional.  My driver and the motorcyclist exchanged the insurance information and separated in a friendly way.

Such accidents seem impossible to avoid in Israel.  Cars are driving almost glued to each other, with only a foot distance in-between. In such proximity, any impulsive change of speed or direction by one driver immediately affects every car around. And of course there are motorcycles. At any given moment you can spot ten of them on the road around you. Because they are cheaper while cars and gas are tremendously expensive in Israel. Because, like in Manhattan, parking is expensive and impossible in most of the main Israeli cities. And because you can get anywhere much faster on a motorcycle. They are allowed to sneak in-between the cars standing at traffic-lights or moving on a freeway.  You should always be ready for  motorcycles swooshing by your car on the left or right, or both sides simultaneously, like fighter jets. As much as I hate this slogan, I am constantly pronouncing it in my head here in Israel - Motorcycles are everywhere!

And you can spot anyone on a motorcycle or a scooter: pizza or flower delivery man, business woman in a skirt and high-heels, a man with an 8-year-old child behind him, a very big person, a student with a dog, religious person with tziziot waving behind him, or someone wearing only a bathing suit and a helmet. I really wanted to create a collection of snapshots of colorful Israeli motorcyclists, but this would require spending a day at the main intersection and with a small baby at home it is impossible.

Parking is another interesting topic. All Israeli drivers are experts at squeezing their cars in the smallest possible space from any potential direction. And they manage to do this in the shortest amount of time.  Just imagine yourself doing parallel parking on a one-lane street when tens of drivers are beeping to hurry you and motorcycles are sneaking from all directions. You have to be fast.

Such tight parking and many bumper accidents explain why the majority of cars have small dents or color scratches. It is almost impossible to get in or out of a parking spot in Tel Aviv without kissing the butt of the car in front of you or the face of a car behind you.

I was at the doctor's office recently and when I came out I saw that my giant Toyota Sienna parked along a curb is bordered (front and back) by two parked cars with a 10cm (~4") distance to each.  Sienna is long and wide and I didn't believe I could get out from this accidental trap. I tried looking for the owners of the culprit cars, honking to get their attention but no one appeared. Two young rough-looking  men in their car drove by looking at me with pity and one showed with his finger around his head agreeing with me that the driver that came last and blocked me must be a koo-koo. I wasn't sure what to do. Can the police help? How long will it take? A few minutes later I saw the same guys in a car driving toward me again. They must have circled the neighborhood.  To be honest, I got a bit scared... The street was completely empty aside from me and them. I contemplated whether I should get inside my car. When they approached, one of them got out and offered to navigate me out of this trap. He ensured me that with his help my car should be capable of getting out with only touches to the other cars' bumpers. True to his words I was free in a few minutes after a number of back-and-forth maneuvers. I wondered if this may ever happen  in the US where these strangers would likely be in a rush or afraid to help me and be accused by the surrounding car owners. In Boston I had been stuck in my cars a number of times, occasionally with little kids in the back seat. Few people stopped to help each time, but all of them were our friends from school or day care. Strangers had never offered any assistance. And thinking of it, neither did I.