Randomly cool things here
I took the car in for routine maintenance last week and was waiting in the lounge availing myself of a free cup of espresso from the machine (yes, they even have that in Israeli car dealers 😀) when I noticed that not only do they have free coffee, but they also have a chumash (bible), a shulchan orech (jewish book of laws/commandments), a prayer book, a book of psalms, and several other religious books. I suppose many might say, “why not,” or “so what,” but it felt pretty cool to be in a place where even at the service garage at a car dealer the random books they have strewn around are those from your own religion, your own people, your own history.
Then last friday morning we were running an errand at a mall – this one happened to be Holon, just south of Tel Aviv. First of all, it was very busy since Fridays here are like the weekend already. But I also noticed that they have all these temporary stalls set up in the mall where you can basically get an entire Shabbat meal! These aren’t the temporary booths you see in malls selling jewellery. And they’re not even temporary fast food booths you might see selling falafel or shwarma. These are several large tables per “booth” with freshly cooked meats, stews, salads, knishes, borekas, etc. And these are pictures of just two of them. There were literally eight or ten of these all up and down the mall. And they were all busy, too, selling food for shabbat. I’ve seen restaurants like this in Jerusalem, where you can buy pre-made food for shabbat – that wasn’t surprising because Jerusalem is considered to be more religious than Tel Aviv. However, this is Holon, basically a Tel Aviv suburb. These are just random secular Israelis getting ready for shabbat. Again, very cool to be in a place where even the secular cultural orientation is Jewish.
And yes, I know that we are still in the “honeymoon” period of moving here, where we “ooh and ahh” over being somewhere Jewish, over being able to wear a kippah wherever you want and not be looked at strange, over all the random ways that the country is Jewish; and I know that this amazement will wear off soon, and can’t be all there is to sustain a long term move here. But still, it’s cool.
