Israeli Ramblings

Israeli Ramblings

Since leaving my Israeli home thirty three years ago I’ve always felt that I could return to live there whenever I chose. But in all my years of traveling there, this was the first summer that I suddenly felt that I couldn’t. It was a strange feeling and even stranger the moment I felt it. For years, even as life tossed out its usual detours, I had clung to the idea that I could always come back. But this year something had changed.

Returning was so comfortingly familiar, slipping into the well worn shoes of the sights, sounds and smells of my Middle Eastern home. And of course seeing mom again after the long months of separation was, as always, an oasis. After all the years every corner of mom’s apartment was home. Even the heat was part of the return ritual.

The beginning of the week wasn’t too bad. The days were bearable and the evenings comfortably cool for sleeping. Everyone told me how lucky I was to have missed the heat wave. I had to laugh. All of June, July, August and September is a heat wave, the soaring temperatures differing perhaps in a degree or two. But even a degree can make a difference as I was soon to remember, when the temperature began to climb along with the humidity and my crankiness.

It always scares me how susceptible I am to the weather, especially heat. I fell asleep hot and woke up hot looking forward to the moment when we would turn on the air conditioner. I drank cold water all day, inhaled ice and sometimes, when mom wasn’t looking, I would stick my head in the freezer.

But heat or no heat, you can’t sit in the house all day so mom and I would venture out in the morning to run errands and at night to try and catch a breeze somewhere. We met friends at blessedly air conditioned restaurants and tried strolling along the marina. I noticed that despite the 95 degree temperatures the women wore tight jeans. Their only concession to the heat was tank tops and sunglasses. I looked at them trying to figure out how they didn’t simply melt into a puddle of moisture on the sidewalk.

One morning I walked to the beach to gaze at the ocean then strolled along the main street checking to see which stores were still there and which had closed. I decided to pay my yearly call to the local department store, HaMashbir, to see if I could find a shirt. I usually don’t buy clothing in Israel because the prices are so outrageously high but I’d forgotten to pack a white blouse.

HaMashbir was having a sale so I headed to the women’s department hopeful that I might find something. I actually found a sleeveless t-shirt for forty Israeli shekels, about ten U.S. dollars, so I tried it on. Seeing that it fit, I asked a salesperson the price and she assured me that it was indeed just forty shekels. Then I checked the sale sign that was posted and it too boasted the same price. Feeling victorious I went to claim my prize.

The cashier asked me if I had a Hamashbir card and I told her that I didn’t. She looked at me as if I had two heads.
“Well would you like to apply for one?” she asked.
“No thank you,” I answered, “I don’t live in the country.”
“That has nothing to do with it, you can still get one!” she insisted.
Once again I refused then watched her ring up the shirt for eighty shekels.
“Wait a minute,” I told her, “That shirt is on sale.”
“Only if you have a card,” she retaliated. “It will only take a minute to get one right here.”

Oh for heavens sake. I gave in and said sure, whatever, then listened in astonishment as she told me that the card would cost me fifty shekels.

“Fifty shekels!!!! For a card?!”
“Of course,” she answered. “And it’s good for a whole year.”
“But I don’t live in the country so I wouldn’t be able to use the card!” I fairly screamed.
“So?” she countered. “But you’ll only be spending 40 shekels on the shirt.”
“But I wouldn’t be spending 40 shekels I would be spending 90 shekels on something that isn’t even worth it!”

By then, a crowd had gathered at the counter, everyone looking at me as if I were nuts. They understood the clerk’s logic perfectly well, so why couldn’t I? The icing on the cake was when the clerk asked me if I spoke any other language so that she could better explain this to me even though up until that point we had been conversing perfectly well in Hebrew.

It was at that moment, after telling her what she could do with the shirt and the card, that I realized that I could never live in Israel again. I could no longer understand the everyday logic that drove everyone. I felt like an American square peg in an Israeli round hole. My anger disappeared leaving me sad and nostalgic. In all the years that I had lived away I had grown away. And from now on I would be more tourist than citizen. And there wasn’t anything that I could do about it.