Rotten Tomatoes

Note to protesters: If you’re going to throw a tomato at a politician, don’t miss and hit the police officer next to her. Hitting a politician with a tomato might make you feel better, but hitting a cop is a felony.

Antibacterial Soap

JERUSALEM — So I was eating dinner at my girlfriend’s family’s house one evening, and they were feeding her infant nephew. A piece of food fell on the floor, and my girlfriend’s mother picked it up and gave it to the boy. (The five-second rule, after all, is always in effect.)

My first reaction was to ask, “Are you sure it’s OK?” My girlfriend’s mother responded, rightfully, that children need to expose themselves to some bacteria to develop immunities. Children who are always in a completely-sterile environment tend to develop illness more often as adults because their bodies are not used to fighting germs.

I thought of this story as I read today that cases of a drug-resistant bacterium named MRSA have skyrocketed. I blame this occurrence — among other similar ones — partly on the overzealous desire among parents in recent years to use antibacterial products that call most, if not all, germs. For example, I was working as a reporter after college, and the editor’s wife — an older woman who had never had children — always stocked the bathroom full of antibacterial soap and always made sure to point out that fact.

Bacteria is not always bad! People need to develop immunities, and bacteria become resistant to drugs the more that they encounter them.

Chef Management

BELLEVILLE, Illinois — Since I have completed most of an Executive and International M.B.A. at two different universities in two different countries, I can now… manage the cooking of a multi-course meal using Gantt charts! I’m glad that the thousands of dollars spent are proving worthwhile.

Hummus Wars

RISHON LEZION, Israel — A group of Lebanese chefs turned an attempt to break a worldwide record in hummus production into a diatribe against Israel. Here is the amusing story. In the Middle East, everything is controversial — even food.

In the meantime, here is a recipe for hummus that I found online. I wish I could remember exactly were.

1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

DIRECTIONS
Combine the garbanzo beans, yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil,
water, salt, pepper, and cumin in a blender or food processor, blend
until smooth.

I’m going to try it soon.

Corned Beef

One of New York’s most famous institutions is disappearing: The Jewish deli.

A Good Tip

Phoebe Damrosch asks Americans to remember their poor servers:

…despite our infatuation with those who grow, butcher, cook, style, photograph and review our food, we still dismiss the people with whom we have the most contact in the food world: our waiters…

In their defense, waiters work unpredictable schedules for inconsistent money. They rarely have health or dental insurance, paid sick leave or retirement planning options. Because of the high turnover that results, owners are reluctant to invest in training. So owners see waiters as expendable, chefs think they are undereducated and overpaid (on a good night, a waiter can make twice what the lowest-paid line cook or dishwasher earns, which is just over minimum wage), and diners anticipate incompetence before it occurs.

How can restaurants attract more of these professional, committed and inspired workers and how can they persuade current waiters to be proud of their work?

First, restaurants need to provide health insurance and retirement planning for their employees. One way to do this would be a service charge, as practiced in Europe, put toward paying a salaried staff. Would American diners be willing to give up tipping — and its illusion of control — if it meant providing benefits and a living wage for the people who cook and serve their food?

Tipping provides American waiters with an incentive to increase their check average by pushing bottled water, extra courses, expensive entrees and pricey wines and by showing guests the door as soon as they stop chewing. The service charge shifts the focus from the money to the experience. Instead of worrying about how much money she will take home that night — and upselling and groveling her way to that goal — a waiter can worry about doing her job well: making people happy at whatever price and pace they prefer.

I was a waiter at three different places in high school in Belleville, Illinois: Ponderosa Steakhouse (a low-end, Midwestern chain); Steak ‘n’ Shake (a 50s-throwback, Midwestern chain where the burgers are made from high-quality steak); and an Italian restaurant that quickly went out of business. I have nothing more to add except that the writer might just be onto something.

However, Damrosch does not say how much this service charge would be. If it would a significant cost that is passed along to the customer and added to the bill — and especially since it would be a mandatory one that removes the illusion of customer control — then perhaps the restaurant sector would suffer in general because fewer would eat out during a hard economy. I don’t know.

Here in Israel, I have seen several places that have a different method for paying waiters: no salary at all. Here is what occurs. The minimum wage is somewhere around NIS 21 (roughly $5) an hour. If a waiter works forty hours, he should get a total of a little more than NIS 840. If he makes less than the amount in tips, the employer then covers the difference. If the waiter makes more, he keeps it all. Now, a question to my readers: Is this fair?

Don’t Buy Into Apartheid?

RISHON LEZION, Israel — For the record, I hate extremists of any kind. For every scare-mongering conservative like Glenn Beck, there is a group of useful idiots like the left-wingers in this video.

It seems that June 20 was National Don’t Buy Into Apartheid Day. (Do they make Hallmark cards for that?) A group of aging hippies and a few young wannabees walked into a Trader Joe’s store in San Francisco, started removing all Israeli-made products from the shelves, labeled them with stickers, asked the manager to stop selling them, and tried to convince customers not to purchase them.

My favorite part is the look on the manager’s face when they talk to him. You can just tell that he wants to laugh and say: “Are you f—— crazy?” But to his credit, he kept his composure and did his best not to anger a few crazy customers. I would have done something that would have resulted in a quick firing.

Just a couple of points that are probably obvious:

• Many people who work in low-paid, blue-collar jobs like food-packing in Israel are Arab Israelis and Palestinians. If activist groups decrease demand for these products, they will hurt the people they are supposedly trying to help. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a feel-good act of symbolism that actually does nothing.
• Thriving economies create peace. Countries and peoples that are economically intertwined are far less likely to wage war against each other. One of the best ways to help the Palestinians — whether they will have a state or not — is to help business in the Gaza Strip, Israel proper, and the West Bank. These activists specifically want to target products from the West Bank despite the fact that food produced there, even on settlements, most likely involved capital or labor from Palestinians. Buy more of it! Give them jobs.
• Focus on things that matter. If you want to help the Palestinians, volunteer with or contribute to groups that address abuse by the Israeli Defense Forces (sadly, some individual soldiers do reprehensible things in isolated cases but not as a result of official, military policy); fight in the Israeli Supreme Court for the rule of law in the Occupied Territories rather than the rule of force by settlers; or do other similar actions. Don’t do meaningless, token gestures that just make you look stupid.

On a related note, similar incidents have occurred in France — but with more-sinister results:

One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”

As a supporter of Israel, free markets, and civil liberties, I find this story to be absolutely repugnant. These activists stole and destroyed private property. They had the gumption to decide for themselves what consumers should be allowed to purchase. They were misguided enough to focus only on Israel rather than countries — like, say, China and Iran — whose records of human-rights abuses are among the worst in the world. (Then again, if a group removed everything made in China in many stores, I think nothing would be left.)

The fact that the customers in the store did nothing — and a few even supported the action — is downright scary. It may be a cliche, but it is true: Evil (or a useful idiot) triumphs when good men do nothing. If I had been in the French store, I would have grabbed the nearest blunt object I could find and smashed their video camera. Et ce serait fini.

And that reminds me of a final question: Did the San Francisco activists do what the French ones did? The video does not say. Did they steal the products from the store, pay for and take them, or leave the items on the shelves with the stickers? This inquiring mind wants to know. If it is the first or last, they should be arrested and charged with theft or vandalism; if it is the second, then they are extremely stupid because any purchase, no matter from whom, helps the Israeli companies.

(Hat tip: Jewlicious)

Building the Perfect Burger

See here for ideas for your Independence Day barbecue.

Chocolate Milk

Israelis love chocolate milk. (You can even buy it in small plastic bags for drinking on the go.) Perhaps this is why.

Kosher Google

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Meet Koogle, the rabbi-approved search engine for ultra-Orthodox Jews:

Yossi Altman said Koogle, a play on the names of a Jewish noodle pudding and the ubiquitous Google, appears to meet the standards of Orthodox rabbis, who restrict use of the Web to ensure followers avoid viewing sexually explicit material.

The site, at www.koogle.co.il, omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which Orthodox rabbis view as immodest, Altman said.

Its links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes, such a television sets…

Nothing can be posted on the Jewish Sabbath, when religious law bans all types of work and business, Altman said. “If you try to buy something on the Sabbath, it gets stuck and won’t let you.”

Here is the site in English.

Since I moved here, I have worked with a few ultra-Orthodox Jews (also known as charedim) at two jobs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Everyone used the Internet without any fuss. Another collegue of mine, who was modern Orthodox, explained to me that adults are allowed to use the Internet freely because they are mature enough not to look at anything considered objectionable. So I do not know where the reporter of this article heard that ultra-Orthodox Jews cannot use the Internet in general. If any of my readers can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

Still, if ultra-Orthodox Jews can, in fact, only use kosher search-engines like Koogle, then that does not bode well for the community. As I noted in a prior post:

They devote their entire lives to two things: studying Torah and raising a family. From the time they are young teenagers through most of their adult lives, ultra-Orthodox men pray and study Torah — all day, every day. In fact, they stop studying subjects like math and science in the eighth grade. And they choose not to work.

The haredim survive mainly on donations and government subsidies because they have a high level of political clout. (Although the ultra-Orthodox comprise ten percent of the population, Israel’s system of proportional representation gives their small political parties disproportionate power in the government.) Essentially, they receive unemployment benefits for their entire lives. Most charedi Jews live in poverty, but they consider it a small price to pay for their religious devotion. Most ultra-Orthodox men also receive exemptions from Israel’s mandatory military service (three years right after high school for men, and two for women).

Suppose that I am an ultra-Orthodox child (or even an adult) who wants to learn about astronomy. Suppose there is a webinar — an online seminar on video — of a female teacher giving a nice lesson on the solar system. I would probably not find the webinar on Koogle because the teacher will likely not be dressed as “modestly” under charedi standards. I doubt Koogle would return any results for such a topic. (As it turns out, I am correct.) So an extreme, unnecessary adherence to the Torah, as interpreted by ultra-Othodox Jews, can be a serious impediment. It would be much more sensible for charedim to use the Internet freely — as in my example from work — as long as they are responsible adults. I hate seeing pornography in search results for common terms as much as the next person, but Google does have Safe Search and other tools that remove that possibility.

On an unrelated matter: Does anyone else think that Koogle — named for a traditional, Jewish, noodle dish — is so similar to Google that it might infringe on the search engine’s trademark? I would not be surprised if Google files a lawsuit. Then again, perhaps Google will not mind since Koogle will obviously not steal any significant market share.

Shavuot

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, marking the anniversary of the receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai after the Exodus, started Thursday evening at sundown and was then followed by Shabbat. Although it is now a little late, I wanted to pass along some interesting links.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg discusses the transition of Shavuot from an agricultural holiday to an intellectual one. Eli Kavon laments the purported assimilation in the United States and universalism in Israel that he thinks are destroying Jewish culture and education. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin explores why Jews read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot and why the Torah was given in the desert outside the Holy Land. Edmon Rodman writes about his experience learning to chat the Torah. Rabbi Paul Steinberg looks at the three targets of Jewish stories like Shavuot: the self, the community, and the present. Jews traditionally eat dairy meals on the holiday, so here and here are some good recipes. Two years ago, I described how Jews frequently wrestle with the commandments in the Bible (although I think I will update my thoughts soon since they have changed).

Weekend News Review

Daniel Gordis writes a book on how the Jewish people can survive when Israeli will likely face unending conflict in the near future. The Jerusalem Post publishes an in-depth look at the Israeli military’s revamped public-relations department. The Post also profiles an army unit that treats everyone in the West Bank — patients today who could turn into attackers tomorrow. One in four Israelis would consider leaving the country if Iran obtains nuclear weapons. In light of the approaching holiday of Shavuot, during which Jews celebrate the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai by eating dairy products, Ha’aretz offers some tips on making homemade cheese. Sayed Kashua, an Israeli Arab, describes his encounter with security at Ben-Gurion Airport. Anand Giridharadas is disappointed that Indian culture — one which, to me, seems very Jewish — is becoming Westernized.

Loving It

Why is Israel so wonderful, special, and unique? See here and here.

Letter from Israel: Stories from the Desert III

Fourteenth in an ongoing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Here are some more anecdotes that I thought people might find interesting.

Remembering the Holocaust

From sundown today until sundown tomorrow, Israel is now observing Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every country has its national holidays, but this day honoring the six million Jews who were murdered by Nazi Germany is nothing like you will see anywhere. Nearly all bars, clubs, shops and businesses are now closed. Almost all of the entertainment channels on Israel’s two cable television providers have suspended programming. Instead, Channel 2, a major broadcast network, will be presenting a somber, hour-long ceremony with rabbis, soldiers, politicians, singers, Holocaust survivors, and writers tonight.

The most significant event will occur tomorrow at 11 a.m. Throughout the country, sirens will blare for sixty seconds. They are so loud that, no matter where you are, it sounds like it is right next to your ear. Everyone at home will stand at attention and remain silent until the sirens stop. Everyone driving on the streets will stop their cars, get out, and stand at attention on the roads, streets, and highways. It is an eerie sight to behold. Then, a few seconds after the sirens, business will resume as usual. As an example, see the above YouTube clip from the streets of Tel Aviv.

Holocaust Remembrance Day is the second of four major holidays that are occurring right now. (The first was Passover.) In seven days, Israel will celebrate its own Memorial Day in honor of soldiers and civilians who have died in the country’s wars and terrorist attacks. Again, the sirens will sound that day for another sixty seconds. The following day is Israel’s Independence Day, when founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announced the refounding of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv in 1948 just after the British left the parts of the Middle East that they had controlled since the end of World War I. As in the United States, Israelis will celebrate the day with barbecues and fireworks.

The Jewish people are roughly 5,000 years old, and each person carries
a sense of his history — the triumphs as well as the horrors — inside him. It is an amazing experience to see this reflected in every holiday here.

—
They Are What They Eat

Jews have a common joke amongst themselves: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!” This is the philosophy that Jewish people have towards food.

Imagine that every holiday and Friday dinner was like Thanksgiving, with so much food that you want to do nothing except fall asleep afterwards. Friday night — when the Sabbath begins at sundown — is the holiest time for religious Jews. Almost all families here spend the entire day cooking large amounts of food, and then they eat together — after saying various prayers and lighting candles, if they are religious — after the sun sets. Saturday lunches and dinners, as well as all holidays, are typically the same. Orthodox Jews, who
cannot use electricity, drive cars, or do many other things on the Sabbath, will usually read the paper, discuss the news, read the Torah, and take a nap after lunch until the sun sets on Saturday. Eating is considered a holy experience, and this is one of the reasons that religious Jews keep kosher — to bring a sense of observance and holiness to one’s meal. It is also considered a commandment to invite guests to meals on the Sabbath, especially if they have nowhere else to go.

But in Israel, the attitude towards food differs in other ways from the United States — not just in regards to religion. Even though fast-food places like McDonalds and Burger King are slowly becoming more popular, Israelis still tend to eat much more healthily than in America. For starters, food just tastes better here. Everything — from meat to vegetables to fruits — is fresh and not saturated with chemicals and preservatives. As a result, tomatoes in stores, for example, are smaller than in the United States because they are not grown with artificial engineering, but they taste much better. (However, people shop more often because food goes bad more quickly.) This will surprise many of my friends and family who know me, but I have eaten many more fruits and vegetables since I moved here. Now, I like the taste. I order hamburgers with the works. In addition, there is nothing as good in the world as fresh orange juice here — and the oranges, interestingly enough, usually come from the Gaza Strip.

Secondly, people eat less junk food. Whenever I travel somewhere on a bus, I see Israelis eating snacks on the way. But they are not eating chips or candy bars or fast food. Rather, Israelis purchase fresh nuts and vegetables, and then they put them in bags for the trip. It is very common to see someone pull out a leaf of lettuce or grab several nuts from a bag and eat them while they are sitting in class or traveling on a bus. The father of a friend of mine frequently eats raw parsley by the bunch. Moreover, kosher eating tends to be healthier (or at least less unhealthy). Religious Jews do not eat pork or shellfish — and they do not mix meat and dairy in the same meal, so they only eat hamburgers. A hamburger is healthier (or less unhealthy) than a bacon cheeseburger — especially when this is how a person eats all the time.

According to the United Nations, the average life expectancy for an American is 78. In Israel, it is 80. I’m starting to understand another reason for the difference.

—
Sleeping in Shifts

When I lived and worked in Boston, I would see people going out after work and then staying until 10 or 11 p.m. In Israel, people are only starting to go out at this time — even when they are in their twenties and thirties.

As I have written in several letters, nearly all Israelis serve in the military for two (for women) or three years (for men) after high school. This experience affects Israelis — in good ways and bad — for much of their lives. In the army, people here get used to sleeping in shifts. Israelis have told me that they will sleep for three or four hours at a time (or even less) twice a day. By the time Israelis are older, they are still used to this schedule.

So this is a typical day for an Israeli: They wake up, and go to work. They get home from work, eat something, watch a little television, and take a nap for a few hours. Then, they go out at 11 p.m. and have fun until 3 or 4 a.m. Then, they go home and sleep for a few hours before getting up for work. No matter how much I try to convince Israelis that it is healthier to sleep for seven or eight hours straight every night, no one believes me. After all, their experience has proved to them otherwise. (And it is nearly impossible to prove stubborn Israelis wrong.)

Still, I see how tired my friends are after doing this for several weeks. I make fun of them and tell them that I was correct, but their typical response is: “Whatever, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Israelis take the standard, Jewish cheer — “L’chaim!” (“To life!”) — very seriously. Still, by the time they are married and have children, their schedules tend to resemble those of typical Americans. I just wish more of my friends would be that way right now. I just cannot stay out that late anymore.

—
Sunset, Sunrise

As I have written in various places, Jewish holidays — as well as days in general — last from sundown to sundown the following day. I had never known why until a rabbi explained it to me.

Look at the following verse from the story of Creation:

God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day… And there was evening and there was morning, a second day… [Genesis 1:3-5, 8]

The last sentence following each day of creation describes a day as beginning in the evening. So that is why Jewish days begin at sundown. Moreover, darkness existed before light — logically enough — so this another metaphorical reason.

Prior letter: Stories from the Desert II

Letter from Israel: Stories from the Desert I

Twelfth in an ongoing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Here are some anecdotes that I thought people might find interesting.

—
The Five People You Meet in Israel

The Hippie — Most likely a young person who just came back to Israel after spending two years traveling in Latin America or India after finishing their post-high-school army service. They have long dreadlocks, an addiction to smoking pot, an acoustic guitar, and a love of Pink Floyd. They tend to work in bars while finishing a college degree in liberal arts one part-time course at a time. They tend to sleep most of the day because they work and then party at night. Common habitat: Living on a kibbutz. Strengths: Making friends. Weakness: Altered states of mind.

The Yuppie — Most likely a secular, cosmopolitan resident of Tel Aviv who dreams of achieving the American Dream — but in Israel. They work in the high-tech sector and are finishing their MBA degrees. They hate religious people and scowl at anyone with a kippah (yarmulke). They would gladly give away all of Jerusalem and half of Israel if it meant that they could earn a million shekels in peace. Common habitat: High-end cafes and restaurants on Shenkin Street in Tel Aviv that serve pork and other non-kosher food. Strengths: Growing the Israeli economy. Weaknesses: A lack of spirituality.

The Zealot — Most likely a newly-religious Israeli or an Orthodox, Jewish immigrant from America who goes to the West Bank, pitches a tent or builds a small house for his family, buys several guns, and shoots at any Palestinian who comes within range. The Israelis believe that the Torah, as they interpret it, is superior to Israeli and international law and refuse to leave their part of the sacred land. The Americans subconsciously want to live a in a fantasy world resembling that of the Wild West. Common habitat: The West Bank (and formerly the Gaza Strip). Strengths: Defense skills. Weaknesses: Insanity.

The Arse — “Arsim” is a slang, derogatory term for Mizrahi Jews (their families originally came from Middle Eastern countries) in Israel. They are viewed as the Israeli equivalent of so-called white trash. They wear a lot of gold jewelry, have little education, and work blue-collar jobs. Their dress and culture resembles that of Arabs than of Ashkenazi Jews (originally from European countries). They are loud and argumentative, even for Israelis. The singing styles of their popular singers resembles that of Arabic music except that it is in Hebrew. Ashkenazi Jews think that the music sounds like a screeching cat that is in the middle of being killed. Common habitant: Dance bars full of bad music. Strengths: Delicious food. Weaknesses: Listening to them in karaoke bars should probably be another circle in Dante’s Hell.

The “Others” — All of the non-Jewish Israelis, who roughly comprise twenty-five percent of the population. Israeli Arabs (Muslims, Christians, and Druze) are always seen as potential terrorists. Russians are viewed as people who faked immigration papers saying they are Jewish in order to move here, or they are seen as mobsters or prostitutes kidnapped from Europe and forced to work for organized crime here. Christians are viewed as the religion that should have the least say in Jerusalem the Middle East because Jews and Muslims far outnumber them, and Israeli Jews usually associate Christians with the Holocaust. Common habitat: All over Israel. Strengths: Proving that Israel can be a vibrant democracy by embracing citizens who are not Jews. Weaknesses: Threatening Israel’s existence as a country that is officially Jewish (and democratic).

—
Sexual Personaes

In a prior letter, I described how blunt and frank Israelis are in regards to sex. Here are just a few of the conversations I have overheard:

Me: Has the band arrived at the bar yet?
Bartender 1 (a guy): No, but you’ll know when they are here because the floor will be wet beneath Shlomit.
Shlomit (the other bartener): Yeah, the bassist is cute!

Girl 1: I haven’t had sex since August!
Guy 1 (her friend): Has your hymen grown back yet?
Girl 1 laughs and pretends to slap Guy 1.

Guy 1: That dress makes you look like a whore!
Girl 1: Yeah, you can slide a credit card down my vagina.

—
Blame it on the Rain

Even the weather in Israel is polarized and extreme. In the United States, it will moderately rain for several hours before the skies clear. But during the rainy season here (roughly December through March), it can sound like the world is ending — and then it will clear rapidly as though nothing had happened. It will rain violently — including loud thunder, large hail, gusty winds, and bright lightning — for ten minutes, and then it will disappear after ten minutes and give way to clear skies. Then, ten minutes later, the storm will start again. And then it will go away. This cycle can repeat for a whole day — or even longer — at a time.

But during the storm times, it can sound frightening. Sometimes I have thought about building an ark.

From April through October or November, it will not rain. At all. Not one drop. Then, on some magical night in the fall, it will start sprinkling. Everyone will run out of their homes, or their bars, or their shops, and stand outside in the street to feel the raindrops. (I call it First Rain, but I do not know if Israelis use the term.) On First Rain last fall, I saw several children rush out of their apartments onto the street to dance in the rain. They started singing in Hebrew, “Rain, rain, every day!” (“Geshem, geshem, kol yom!”). It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

—
Fun With Hebrew

Traditional, English translations of the Bible say in Genesis that Adam “knew” Eve. I had always thought that this was only a polite euphemism for ‘had sex with,” but now I understand the reason. In English, the verb “know” has two major uses: 1.) To “know” a fact, like two plus two equals four; and 2.) To be familiar with something, like “I know math.” In Hebrew, each of these uses has a different verb: “yodea” is to know a fact, and “makir” is to be familiar with something. However, “yodea” can also means “to have sexual relations with” in traditional Hebrew. So, in the original Hebrew, Adam did “yodea” his wife Eve. That is where the “knew” in the Bible comes from.

I was hanging out with some friends one time, and one offered me some of the food on his plate. I declined because I did not like what he was eating. In Hebrew, I told him: “I would not like it, I know myself.” Everyone broke out in laughter. I had mistakenly used the verb “yodea” rather than “makir,” so this is what I had literally said: “I would not like it; I know myself sexually.” (I realized later that this use refers to masturbation in Hebrew.) I should have used “makir” so that I would have said: “I am familiar with myself.”

But I laughed with everyone else. When one is learning a new language in a new country, one needs to have a sense of humor. It can be tough.

—
Young Americans

Israelis always ask Americans why they would ever want to live here because many Israelis have never been to the United States (a visa can be hard to get). They think that America is what they see on TV through television shows like “Friends” and “The O.C.” — namely, that life is easy and everyone lives rich, comfortable lives — because the media is their only exposure to the country. To many secular Israelis, the United States seems to be the real Promised Land of milk and honey. (By the way, Israeli television is now showing reruns of “Alf” as well, and I loved that show when I was a child! I get more of the jokes now.)

As a result, Israelis cannot comprehend why anyone would want to leave America for Israel, whether temporarily or permanently. It has been up to me — and other young Americans I have met — to give them a sense of balance. We tell Israelis that few people there are rich, that the propsperity in recent decades had been falsely financed through debt (and that it is now falling apart), and that untold tens of thousands of people have no health insurance because America, unlike Israel, does not have universal health-care. We describe how warm Israelis are compared to the fact that most people in America barely know who their neighbors, let alone hang out with them frequently. We tell people here that the United States can have a dog-eat-dog, everyone-looks-out-for-himself mentality in constrast to the tribal society in Israel. We say that Israelis always have a sense of spirituality about them, even if a particular person is not exactly religious — and we contrast this to the images on MTV (which is available here), whose popular rap and R&B videos degrade women, celebrate greed, and showcase explicit sexuality.

Although Israelis love the idea of America — especially since the United States can seem like Israel’s only friend in the world — they frequently joke about Americans. Israel is a tiny country populated with Jews and non-Jews from nearly every country in the world, so ethnic jokes are common and acceptable. (It is also because impatient, blunt Israelis have no use for political correctness.) Israelis have jokes about everyone: the French (snobs who insist on speaking French even if they know Hebrew), the Russians (all the women are prostitutes, and all the men are mobsters), the British (pretentious, boring people or wild drunks) and, of course, the Arabs (evil, murderous barbarians). Everyone tells me the American jokes. From what Israelis see from Americans here and on television, they believe that all Americans are materialistic, naive, slutty, shallow, stupid, and fat. The “naive” part is most common — many shop owners and taxi drivers try to overcharge me because they think all Americans are “friarim” (suckers). Moreover, Israelis think that any Americans who come here must be religious zealots. (After all, why else would they leave the real Promised Land?) Still, many Israelis do want to go to the United States because they want to become rich.

More than one observer has remarked, interestingly enough, that the Jewish country is full of racists. But Israelis would just tell them to lighten up and have a sense of humor.

—
Not-So-Fast Food

In the United States, fast food is seen as a cheap, fast way to get a meal. In Israel, it is neither fast nor cheap. Israel probably has the world’s worst customer service in general — why should people care when they are paid by the hour and do not get more money for working quickly? — and a typical Value Meal at McDonald’s costs the equivalent of $12. So, to Israelis, fast food is a treat to be enjoyed once in a while or on a special occasion. But it is just as unhealthy here.

—
The American Accent

Israelis are stereotyped — sometimes accurately — as aggressive and direct. I think the Hebrew language has something to do with it. In English, people emphasize different syllables of different words for different reasons. In Hebrew, the last syllable of a word is always emphasized intensely. It sounds as if I were to say in English: “I WANT to GO to the MALL.” The result is that Westerns feel as though Israelis are punching them repeatedly with the very words they use. Whenever Israelis make fun of the American accent, they do one of two things: 1.) They speak Hebrew in a monotone voice because Americans accentuate Hebrew as if they were speaking English; or 2.) They speak Hebrew like a so-called dumb-blond Valley Girl.

I thought the second option was ridiculous until I overheard some American girls who were likely tourists. I was withdrawing money from an ATM when some early-twentysomething women were getting money at the station next to me. They were discussing their plans for the evening, and I am not exaggerating their conversation:

“Like, do you want to go to Tel Aviv? There is this bar that is, like, so cool! The bartender is super hot!”
“No way!”
“Yeah! I wear, like, this slutty top, and he always gives me free chasers [shots]!”
“Yeah, let’s go!
“Cool… oh, my God! I, like, only have fifty shekels left!”
“Well, I can, like, spot you.”
“Thanks, honey! Let’s party!”
The two of them yell, laugh, and go to flag a taxi.

I rarely hear American tourists because I avoid tourist-trap locations, so this type of chatter sounded a little foreign after a year of living in Israel. And then I understood why — in addition to MTV and “The O.C.” — Israelis sometimes have such a low opinion of Americans.

Prior letter: Finding Israel’s Center

Beer and Pizza

Why do these two foods go so well together? See here.

Coke: No Longer “Classic”

The most popular soft drink in the world, at least by brand awareness if not sales as well, is making a major change to its marketing strategy:

Two decades after adding the designation, the Coca-Cola Co. is removing the word “Classic” from its prominent location on the flagship cola sold in the U.S., a company spokesman said Friday.

“The reason for being, for classic as a descriptor, has all but disappeared,” spokesman Scott Williamson said.

The “Classic” tagline — right under the script Coca-Cola logo — was added in 1985, when the company introduced a formula that consumers called “New Coke.” New Coke never caught on and was sold sparingly until it was dropped in 2004.

The reason for introducing the “classic” tagline was obvious: Customers hated “New Coke,” so the company wanted consumers to be sure that the product they were purchasing was the former one. But as the company spokesperson tells MSNBC, fewer young people today remember New Coke, and older consumers are likely no longer worried about buying that particular drink by mistake. So why keep “classic”?

Still, I am skeptical that the change will have a significant effect. As Geoffrey James notes in a blog post, a company can actually decrease profits by focusing on expensive branding strategies when other factors, like sales itself, are more important. But the most important thing for Coke is that people around the world are drinking less and less of the soft drink, and the company has had to think of creative ways to respond.

If I were the chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola, I would not focus on removing the “classic” tagline or printing misleading claims in advertisements. It undoubtedly costs money — labor and production costs — to change label designs and remove the tagline altogether, and revenue will not increase enough — if at all — to offset the added expenses. (Besides, in my head, the word “classic” still has positive connotations. I can still remember a jingle from my youth: “Coca-Cola CLASSIC… Can’t beat the REAL THING!” I like hearing the word.) Moreover, making disingenous claims harms the brand image in the minds of consumers who are increasingly skeptical of advertising in general.

If I were the CMO, I would focus on a segmentation strategy. Products like Coca-Cola Zero target consumers who had been turned off my the level of high-fructose corn syrup in the beverage. Off the top of my head, I think I heard that the company is also developing sports drinks to combat brands like Gatorade. Coca-Cola has also developed a product line with zero carbohydrates. The company needs to develop additional products to target specific, diverse populations rather than needlessly remove a word from its labels and make claims whose truthfulness is questionable.

Earlier: Coca-Cola’s New Marketing Strategy

Beer

Conventional wisdom holds that the stocks of beer companies are safe bets during recessions because, well, people drink when they are upset. But now that might be wrong.

Happy Chanukah

RAMAT GAN, Israel — Starting at sundown tonight, Jews around the world — including Adam Sandler – will celebrate Chanukah by lighting menorahs and then eating latkes, doughnuts, and matzah ball soup. If I had a copy of the DVD, I would be watching “The Hebrew Hammer” as well:

 To all of my Jewish readers, חג שמח! To my Christian ones later this week, Merry Christmas! Of course, there are serious themes to the holiday. My prior thoughts are here and here.

Bagels

RISHON LEZION, Israel — If you thought that Jews in America invented the bagel, you would be wrong. See here. By the way, I have yet to find a good bagel in Israel. I miss Boston for that!

Modern Kashrut

Slaughtering animals for food in a kosher way has always meant causing as little pain as possible. Now, there is a group of rabbis who are trying to create another kosher classification that certifies the animals were treated humanely while alive as well. See here.

Total Recall

Another week, another product recall from China.

Many observers, myself included, have noted that the future of manufacturing will always be in China (at least until another low-cost competitor arises). Perhaps we are wrong. Many businesses have been moving their operations to China because the labor costs and government regulations there are so much lower, but the flip side is that the products are not as good.

If U.S. consumers increasingly stop purchasing products made in China — and if transporting goods from China to the United States becomes too expensive to be worthwhile because of the rising price of oil — then perhaps manufacturing will return to America one day.

Food

This looks tasty. I think I’ll try to make it soon.

Letter from Israel: All About the Palestinians

Fifth in an ongoing series

TEL AVIV — As my readers have probably realized by now, every issue in this part of the Middle East is a complicated mess of politics, religion, history, culture and economics. The same is true for the Palestinian people. However, there are some things that are definitely not true. In this letter, I will explore the common myths about the Palestinians that are common on both the political left and right – in Israel and the United States.

Myth #1: The Palestinians Have Always Been a People

The Ottomon Empire (now called Turkey) ruled the Middle East until the end of World War I. Britain and France took much of its territory because the Ottomans were allies of the Central Powers, the group of European countries that lost the conflict. For centuries under the Ottomon Empire and then under British rule, the various types of Arabs who lived in the region known as Palestine were divided amongst themselves by ethnicity, tribal kinship, and different religious leaders. It was a localized, tribal society; there was never a united country or people named Palestine whose citizens were Palestinians.

However, history forced the various Arabs who lived in the region known as Palestine to unite and become a common people with a common destiny, whatever that will become. When Israel was founded amidst warfare in 1948, many of the Arabs in the region known as Palestine left for the West Bank (then part of Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (then part of Egypt). (There is an ongoing debate over whether the Arabs left voluntarily or whether they were forced to leave at Israeli gunpoint.) Those who went to the West Bank and Gaza became known as Palestinians, and those who stayed in Israel became Israeli Arabs.

No matter how much far-left activists in the United States and Israel would like to think otherwise, a unified, Palestinian people did not occur prior to the creation of the State of Israel. They were an accidental creation of history. Part of the problem in Palestinian society is that these various groups of people are still trying to figure out how to function and live together in a civil society.

Myth #2: The Palestinians Elected Hamas Because They Support Terrorism

Pundits on the far right who make this claim know little about Palestinian history and society.

For decades, the leader of the Palestinians was the late Yassir Arafat, whose Fatah political party controlled nearly everything. Whenever the international community would give millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, Arafat and his cronies would deposit a good portion of it into their private bank accounts in Europe. (This is why Arafat’s widow lives in a luxurious apartment in Paris.) While the Fatah leadership was stealing money, the Palestinians suffered from a depressed economy, poor hospitals, lackluster schools, and low levels of daily necessities. After Fatah’s leaders took their share of the money, most of what remained was then used to purchase guns and bullets rather than food and medicine.

Some Palestinians eventually become fed up with the corruption, and they formed a new organization, religious group and political party named Hamas. (Israeli spies actually helped to create Hamas in order to destabilize the Palestinian leadership at the time.) Most Western news outlets report only that Hamas attacks Israel and Israeli civilians. Of course, this is true – but there’s another side to the coin. While Fatah was stealing money, Hamas began opening schools and hospitals. As Fatah bought guns for themselves, Hamas bought food and medicine for the people in Gaza. After all, religious people of all types care about the poor, and the leaders of Hamas, being Islamic fundamentalists, are no different.

There’s an old saying in America: People vote with their pocketbooks. I suspect the Palestinians were no different when they gave Hamas control of the new Palestinian parliament. When the Palestinians were voting for Hamas, most did not do so because they hated Israel – they elected the party because they wanted their daily lives to improve. An open grocery store and elementary school down the street is more important to a family than relations with a neighboring country, even if it is Israel.

Still, I write this not to excuse Hamas. After all, they would probably kill me (or at least hold me for ransom) if I was caught while walking through the Gaza Strip and they knew my identity. Even though I can understand why a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas, I still think they made the wrong decision.

Even though Israel has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, Hamas still provokes Israel by attacking nearby army bases and firing rockets at southwestern Israeli towns nearly every day. Whenever Israel responds militarily in self-defense, hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed or hurt. The last Palestinian election offered a choice between the lesser of two evils: Fatah, which is corrupt but wants a two-state, peace agreement with Israel, or Hamas, which improves peoples’ lives but attacks Israel and invites reprisals in return. They chose Hamas – the worst of two bad options.

Myth #3: All Palestinians Just Want Their Own Country

Conventional wisdom, especially from the political left, holds that all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs want a separate State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. But conventional wisdom would be wrong.

The Palestinians barely have a functioning economy – after all, their biggest exports are oranges (from Gaza) and olives (from the West Bank). (By the way, fresh orange juice from the Middle East is probably the best thing I’ve tasted in my life.) For obvious reasons, it is difficult to build a society when most people live in refugee camps and Israel erects barriers, road blocks and security checkpoints everywhere to prevent terrorists from entering the Jewish state.

As a result, Palestinians were only able to find work in Israel. Just as the United States and European countries increasingly rely on cheap, immigrant labor for day labor and service industry jobs, so did Israelis employ Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. Arabs who live in East Jerusalem are officially permanent residents (but not citizens) who can live and work anywhere in Israel, and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza can apply for work permits.

But after the two intifadas in the late 1980s and early 2000s, Israelis stopped hiring them out of fear. After all, this was a time when suicide bombers would blow up a bus or restaurant at least once a week. Other Palestinians would go momentarily insane, walk into their kitchens, grab a knife, go outside, and then slash the first Israeli who would walk by him on the sidewalk. I can only imagine what life must have been like. Now, however, nearly all immigrant labor comes from Asian countries like China and Indonesia. The intifadas not only hurt Israel, they destroyed the job prospects for Palestinians as well. This is just one of the reasons that moderate Palestinians vehemently dislike the extremists.

Israel is now one of the few places where Palestinians can find good jobs, quality schools, and modern hospitals. As a result, many Palestinians want to live in Israel (and many Israeli Arabs never want to leave), even if it means that they would be a minority in a Jewish state. If a State of Palestine is ever created, it would not be a miraculous cure-all for the Palestinians. Most Palestinians support the idea in theory, but it does not mean that they would choose to live there. Just as Israelis are divided over what to do with the West Bank and Gaza, so are the Palestinians torn over whether they want two countries in the area, or a single, bi-national country.

Myth #4: Neighboring Arab Countries Support the Palestinians

To many people in the West, all Arabs and Muslims are essentially the same. This is an understandable – though wrong – feeling since most Americans have never met many Arabs and Muslims. Just like Europeans have stereotypes and make generalizations about each other (the British are insufferably polite, and the French are rude), so do Arabs in the Middle East.

To be blunt, the Palestinians are the low man in the Arab pecking order. People in other Middle Eastern countries stereotype them as uneducated, violent, angry nomads. If there were a similar phrase in Arabic for the derogatory English term “white trash,” then I am sure Arabs would use it to refer to the Palestinians. (Conversely, people from Saudi Arabia and Dubai are seen as spoiled, materialistic people who pretend that they are religious, and Bedouins are viewed as some of the most down-to-earth and hospitable people on earth.)

Right-wing Americans and Israelis frequently claim that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to destroy it. To them, the Palestinians and local Arab countries form a united front in an effort to kill every single Israeli and Jewish person. But that’s not true, and not only because Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan.

Arab countries in the Middle East do not care about the Palestinians. Yassir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization was kicked out of Jordan (for planning to topple the government). Egypt keeps its border with the Gaza Strip closed most of the time because it does not want Palestinians in their country either. Arab countries would prefer to close their eyes and pretend that the Palestinians do not exist.

Of course, when you watch the news, Arab leaders always seem to say that they support the Palestinian cause. But it’s more important to look at actions, not words – and there are no actions at all. Most Arab countries are ruled by authoritarian dictators who mismanage their governments and economies. (And most of these leaders are also supported by the United States as well, for various reasons.) As a result, most Arabs are very angry at their dire situations and poor lives. The dictators use their state-owned newspapers and televisions to whip up anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian hysteria to deflect public anger from the government and onto Israel instead. Arab countries use the Palestinians; they do not really want to help them. Some Israeli pundits want to give the West Bank and Gaza Strip back to Jordan and Egypt, but I imagine the response from those governments is only laughter.

Myth #5: The Palestinian Government Refuses to Stop Terrorism

Many right-wing pundits in America make assumptions about Palestinian government that are patently untrue. They take the political process in the United States and apply it to the Palestinians. Well, what works in the United States does not always work in the Middle East.

If the U.S. president orders the military to do something, they do it. It’s that simple. So conservative pundits wonder why the Palestinian government does not simply order the terrorists to stop. Every time a terrorist act occurs, these conservative pundits cite it as proof that the Palestinian government does not actually want peace with Israel. Well, it’s more complicated than that. After all, this is the Middle East.

The Palestinians do not have a standing army, or even an effective police force. All political parties, terrorist groups, and violent factions have their own private “security forces.” (Essentially, they are comprised of thugs who need jobs.) Imagine if the Democrats and Republican parties in the United States had their own armies that did their bidding. That’s what the Palestinians have: constant, low-grade civil war.

The president or prime minister cannot simply order terrorism to stop because no one respects his authority. The security forces of Hamas are not going to listen to a president from the Fatah political party. Fatah’s terrorist faction is not going to care what the prime minister from Hamas thinks. If a government official tells a group of terrorists to stop, they will ignore him because they are motivated by an irrational hatred for Israel, not loyalty to one’s country. The Palestinian government is fractured and essentially powerless.

But there is even more to the story. Every political party depends on the support of its base: In the United States, for example, the Republican Party has gun owners and conservative Christians, while the Democrats have minorities and labor unions. These parties cannot win elections without their support. Well, both Fatah and Hamas have their own bases, in a sense: extremist terrorists. These factions need to be supported, or at least tolerated.

If the moderate Fatah political party cracks down too hard on its terrorist faction, then their supporters will go to Hamas at best, or even overthrow or assassinate President Mahmoud Abbas at worst. The moderate government has no choice but to tolerate a limited amount of terrorism. If the moderates make the terrorists too unhappy, then the moderates will lose power (through elections or violence), and the terrorists will gain absolute power. If that occurs, then even more terrorism will occur that what had happened under the moderate government. It’s a no-win situation.

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As I wrote in a prior letter, I am not an expert on the Palestinians. But I thought it was important to describe the other side of the Israeli coin since news outlets in America frequently ignore the complexities of Palestinian society. Someday I would like to interview Palestinian leaders and people myself, but I fear that such a peaceful day is years away.

Next letter: Living in a Chaotic Tribe. Prior letter: The Great Religious Divide

Spinning Out of Control

Am I the only one who feels this way?