Things that are cool in Israel #12: Boureka Laws (with boureka and freezer puff pastry dough vocab lists)

Every once in a while, just when we start feeling Israeli, something new comes along that honestly charms the pants off of me all over again. Something like… the Boureka Law.

Yup, that’s really a thing. Read on to find out.

Tummy rumbles 

For supper tonight, at NR's request, we're making homemade bourekas. We bought the pastry and now we just have to make a bunch of fillings and bake them up. In case you're wondering, there are a million kinds of freezer pastry here. Probably in North America as well, but there, most of them weren't kosher. Usually, we just

Things that are cool in Israel #11: Milk Bags (& their awesomely smart holders!)

What???  Four years in Israel and only 10 things are cool?  Impossible!

(And yes, shocking but true; another aliyahversary has passed, marking another year for us living in this amazing Holy Land!)

So here we are with a long-belated #11 – something we’ve been enjoying since our first few days here: milk in bags.

Now, as Canadians, milk bags and their cute rectangular plastic holders were not new to us as they are for many olim from the U.S. and elsewhere.  Coast to coast in Canada, walk into any supermarket and you’ll see a huge display of them:

Photo © Alex Dawson via Wikimedia

So I grew up using milk bags, both loving and hating them.  They’re very handy to keep around, they don’t hog space in your fridge, you can pop them in the freezer if you bought too many.  But on the other hand… when you need to open them, you have to run around looking for a pair of scissors.

(So much so that in 1979, a Toronto inventor created the “Snippit,” a little device that hangs on the freezer and cuts milk bags open.)

(photo credit © Tangibles, the Snippit company)

But no need for a Snippit in Israel!

Here in Israel, there isn’t

Things that are cool in Israel #10: Holy Sandwich Bar, Batgirl!

Since my last post about restaurants was kind of kvetchy, I figured I’d balance that with a quickie about something that was awesome the same evening we went to a place and they started giving me THE STORY (read that post and you’ll understand!)

Want to know what’s cool here???

You go to order your sandwiches, and they’re served up with a side of scripture.  That’s what.

Here you go, your typical Israeli deli takeout place, at the Kiryon, our local mall.  Notice anything?

Things that are cool in Israel #9: Tripping over history

Are you a dummy about history?

Don’t know your Maccabees from your Hasmoneans?  Can’t tell Greeks, Romans and Babylonians apart?  Well, relax – there’s no way you could be dumber about Israeli history than I am.

And the great thing about living in Israel is you just kind of ABSORB history by living here.  It’s all over – so much so that at certain times and places, you’re actually tripping over it.  Like today, when we went and visited a whole bunch of graves.

Even if you find graves kind of creepy (who doesn’t?), even the gravest sites in Israel have been thoroughly sanitized by time and by the nice archaeology people who are in charge of removing the bones to Elsewhere for a proper burial before they swing the doors wide to tourists.

Sure, Israel has some big-name graves (Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Maimonides being two of the biggies), but we decided to head a little off the beaten path today to celebrate one of Northern Israel’s cultural treasures – the grave of Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nassi (Judah the Prince), otherwise known throughout the Talmud as “Rabbi.”  Why does this guy merit the one-name appellation, out of all the rabbis who have ever lived, throughout Jewish history?

Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nassi is better known as the REDACTOR of the Mishna.  He was the editor, the guy who pulled together all the oral traditions floating around and single-handedly, perhaps, saved Judaism as we were poised on the brink of a very long exile.

After Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Nassi requested to be buried there around the year 217, the village of Beit She'arim in the Jezreel Valley became THE trendy burial site for Northern Israel.  Lots of famous and wealthy people hurried to follow his example.  So there are lots and lots and lots of long-ago relatives to visit, in a lovely park-like setting on a deliciously breezy hillside.

Things that are cool in Israel #8: Barbie’s Book of Tehillim

You know what's cool about about Israel that I don't write about often enough?  Prayer.
(Yeah, yeah, yeah, kindly overlook the fact that I haven't blogged here in over a year.)
Bevakasha.

Because I really want to talk about prayer for a second.
Prayer so cheap you take it for granted.
Specifically, books of Tehillim (Psalms).  Here in our local "stock" shop (Max Stock Kiryat Chaim), they sell bulk packages of keychain sifrei Tehillim, 7 for ₪10.  If you're in the U.S., that's less than $3. 

How awesome is this?

Things that are cool in Israel #7: Ads around the Jewish holidays

Spotted this trio of IKEA ads while shlepping into Haifa the other day. 

I was so charmed that I found myself wishing immediately that they were more of them. 

When was the last time you wished to be inundated with MORE advertising messages?  In Israel, it happens.

Here’s the first one (translation beneath):

Hebrew text:  סירים מעוצבים דיינו / sirim me’utzvim dayeinu
Translation:  “Designer pots, Dayeinu!”  (from the Haggadah song, Dayeinu)

This one is #2 (Like my kids, I don’t know which one of these I love more…)

Things that are cool in Israel #6: Jews of Diversity (where not every Jew looks just like you)

Did you grow up Ashkenaz in North America?  I did.

To be raised Ashkenazi in North America is to believe that every single Jew in the world looks pretty much… like you.

(this is NOT my Bat Mitzvah picture, but it might as well be.  The colour scheme was similar, but we didn’t make my father wear a tux.)

Coming to Israel has been the most wonderful kind of shock.

It turns out that shiny-white isn’t the only colour Jews come in after all.

It turns out that THESE are Jewish faces…

(even the white guy in the background)

And THESE are Jewish faces…

And THESE are Jewish faces, too…

(even the white guy in the background)

Of course, so are these…

Things that are cool in Israel #5: School Uniforms

I used to not believe in uniforms.

I mean, come on, a pure-white horse with a horn sticking out of its forehead?  How the heck could that be conducive to a peaceful, productive learning environment?

Over and over, my children explained, very patiently, that I had misheard.  That what they had to wear to school every single day was a uniform.  Not a unicorn.

(I say “patiently,” but they said it in the exasperated way that they always used to explain that the boat to the Toronto Islands really does exist, even though I told them I don’t believe in ferries.)

So for years, we pulled together various uniforms.  A tunic thing in elementary school.  Various colours of collared shirts and blouses, tops, bottoms.  Kilts, kilt pins.  Tights, socks, shoes.

(I have never understood – as a Jew who is just a wee bit Scottish by marriage – why Jewish girls’ schools are so drawn to kilts.)

The last year we bought uniforms in Canada (last year), we paid something like $60 each for 3/4 sleeve blouses.  More or less.  Skirts were probably around the same.  Perhaps a bit more.  My daughter literally never had enough uniforms; who can afford that kind of hit right before Rosh Hashanah, every single year.

And we only had one girl in uniforms at any given time – imagine if you had two, or three, or seven.

(Her school had a used-uniforms gemach, to give them out free, but we only managed to get anything worthwhile from it once.)

Israel has a slightly different take on school uniforms.

Things that are cool in Israel #4: The Dude and the Drainer

Yom HaAtzmaut is coming – Israel’s Independence Day!  So it’s time to sing her praises.  Tra, la, la… here I go!!!

Praise #1:  Going Solar

In terms of natural resources, one thing Israel’s got plenty of is sunlight.  In the summer, probably TOO much, but that’s not entirely a bad thing.  Israel got into the solar water-heating thing very early on, and now you can’t go up and down a city block without seeing water heaters bristling on the roof of just about every building.

Apparently, 90% of Israeli homes have a solar water heater – or, in Hebrew, a “dude shemesh” (דוּד שֶׁמֶשׁ).  And now, so do we!

(The plain old word for water heater is “dude” / דוּד – you pronounce it just like he English word “dude” – phonetically, dood, to rhyme with “interrupting the post like this was very rude.”)

In the Merkaz Klitah, our electric dude was right in the apartment, and if we wanted hot water, we’d have to turn it on and wait 10-15 minutes.  It took me a few days to figure this out – when we first arrived, it was WAY too hot to think about heating up water, even for a shower (it wasn’t freezing cold out of the taps, anyway).

Here, we have a switch.  In the winter, like when we moved in, there isn’t quite enough sunlight for a steady supply of hot water.  These days, we don’t have to think about the switch… which means we’re saving a ton of money.

I love being part of a country where something like this – which would be revolutionary in Canada – is just a mundane feature of even the most junky, run-down apartments.

(Granted, in Canada, there’s not as much sunlight, so it would probably be silly to rely on it to heat a family’s entire water supply… for oh, about ten months of the year.)

Praise #2:  What’s this about Drainers?

Because so many people have raved about their dudes in past, and thus it has become kind of cliché, I thought I’d throw in a “bonus” rave, and here it is:  two-level dish drainers!

I bought a new one yesterday, having grown tired of our one-level drainer and wanting to move up in the world:

 

(excuse our post-Pesach kitchen “balagan”!)

This one is a sturdy plastic model; there are also metal ones available, but to me, the idea of metal and dripping water don’t mix.  No matter how “stainless” it is, I know at some point, there will be rust.

(Weird Word o’ the Week:  stainless steel in Hebrew = nee-rosta / נִירוֹסְטָה, a word I just figured out a few days ago is actually a non-Hebrew word combining the Latin-ish parts, “nee” (no) and “rosta” (rust).  Blah.)

Yeah, it’s kind of a yucky brown/beige colour.   I don’t know exactly why I think this is so cool, except for the fact that I’ve spent my entire life trying to fit stuff into a measly single-layer dish drainer, creating an effect my family refers to as the “Jenga” when anyone tries to get any one item out.

With this one, the layers are switchable, so if I decide I want cutlery and plates on the bottom, and pots / glasses on the top – la-bri’ut (“to your health” / לִברִיאוּת), as they say here when you sneeze.

Draining the Drainer

The only thing about this that is not cool is that it’s nearly impossible to buy a dish drainer that actually drains.  Unlike just about every model I ever saw in Canada, most come with a “tray” that sits underneath and catches the water.  Ew!  Why would you want to leave the water sitting to go moldy and make your cutlery stinky???

(I understand the utility of it if you’re drying dishes, say, on your bed or on a bookshelf… but in a kitchen, there’s almost always access to a sink, right?)

So if you peek underneath this new drainer, you’ll see that I have replaced the tray with one that actually drains, into the sink.  It’s not quite the right size, but given how long and hard I had to search for it, it will do for now.

Wow!  Usually, I only share ONE thing that’s cool in Israel… but this time, you’ve gotten not one (the dude), not two (the drainer), but THREE (the little language lesson about stainless steel).

To show your appreciation for this tremendous generosity, please Like, Share, Comment… let me know I’m not alone in my admiration for this great land of ours!

Cool things in Israel #3: 4 things you’ll love about bakeries!

1. They have no doors.  Who needs doors, anyway?

2.  They’re (almost) all kosher, even in areas without a significant religious community.

3.  They all have ₪5 icekaffe on tap.  (Not always tasty, but a quick fix if you need one.)

4.  They tell you what season it is!  Or at least, what holiday’s coming up.

 

Good Shabbos / Shabbat Shalom!!!

More in this series of Things that are cool in Israel: 

• Crossing the street!
• Bathrooms!

Things that are cool in Israel #2: Bathrooms

Okay, you’re probably sick of my potty-themed posts, but bear with me:  there is no actual bathroom in this picture, just the handwashing area outside the bathrooms at the Rami Levy supermarket beside where I met Batya last night for my trip to Shiloh.

What is extraordinary about this bathroom / handwashing area???  Well, besides the fact that it is spotlessly clean, which is rare and happy for a bathroom in a very busy supermarket. 

Look up, up, and left.  It’s a bracha!  Discreetly but professionally printed, the bracha traditionally said after going to the bathroom, hanging right there as a reminder.  I love it!!!

More in this series of Things that are cool in Israel: 

• Crossing the street!

Things that are cool in Israel: Crossing the Street

Sort of an upbeat counterpoint to my “Things that are weird about Israel” posts…

Crossing a street is not a simple matter here.  Minor streets are crossed at zebra crossings, which is easy here in Kiryat Yam, which seems to house the only laid-back Israeli drivers, but challenging elsewhere.  Still, zebra crossings are a breeze next to major intersections with stoplights.

Major intersections are usually divided into a couple of different sections, and each section has its own pedestrian signals, and often, a button to request the crossing.  I have no idea if the buttons actually do anything to speed up the lights. 

At some intersections, the greens “line up,” so you have a second or two to run across the whole road; in some cases, however, you have a second or two to run halfway, followed by another delay on another median.  This was a lesson I learned very, very quickly, basically the first time we were almost killed expecting the intersection to let us cross peacefully, like in Toronto.

Here is a typical button at one intersection I was crossing today.

Here are two others, at different stages of the same intersection.

   

So why is this cool?  Two reasons.

One is just a small personal victory:  a couple of weeks ago, I finally figured out what the button says when you push it.  Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that for all their complications, every attempt has been made to make these into “blind-person friendly” intersections.  Not sure they’ve succeeded, but anyway, the buttons talk when you push them.

What do they say, you ask?  A very stern, Israeli lady - who sounds like a longtime smoker yet fanatically correct ulpan teacher – announces, “בקשתך התקבלה – נא להמתין בירוק” - “bakashatcha hitkabla; na lehamtin bayarok.”  “Your request has been accepted; please wait for the green.”  (mea culpa; any errors are mine and NOT the stern Israeli lady’s)

But here’s the other cool part, which I also figured out very recently.  Every one of these buttons has a yellowish panel on the side with slide-in plastic bits that look like part of a Rubik’s cube or another sort of puzzle.

Here are two:

  

In a couple of places, I’d even noticed the “puzzle” was missing one of the yellow pieces, meaning that the others could slide around freely.  Anyway, the cool part is that these are actually a LEGEND, in braille, describing the structure of the intersection so that a blind person could, theoretically, cross it without being killed. 

In the one on the left, for instance, the dot represents the pedestrian waiting to cross.  There are two lanes of traffic to cross (on the right), followed by another median (where the blind person can find the next map / button).  The one on the right shows a pedestrian, a single lane of traffic (on the left), and then another median.

Cool, huh?

The button boxes also make a noise.  Kind of a mellow ticking after you’ve pressed the button (accompanied by a light flashing, presumably for deaf people who might not hear the ticking); when the light finally turns green for that section, it makes a frantic loud “run!  run!  run!” tickticktick noise.

All of this crossing was, however, necessitated by a very worthy purpose:  Getting the Girl Dancing Again.  Somebody posted an ad for a dance “chug” – after school activity group – in nearby Kiryat Shmuel (aka “k-shmoo,” its rapper name). 

Anyway, the journey, street-crossings and all, was a great success, and Naomi Rivka is now officially enrolled in her first extracurricular activity here.  The price is reasonable, and although it was less dance-y than I would have liked, she loved the teacher and came home declaring, “it’s my thing.”  So that’s settled.