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Rehovot Spring Bliss
by Erin Israel
"Sometime last Wednesday night, spring rolled in, and, ever since, it's been sunny and about seventy degrees, here. Cafes have stowed their heaters and tied up the winter awnings; families have started to picnic, out on the lawn, again; and there's the cheerful delirium, wherever you go, of Israelis running away from winter.
"Don't stow your blankets and scarves just yet," the Visiting Scientists liason warned me when I visited the office, yesterday. "It will be ridiculously hot and cold until the end of March." I nodded politely, left the office, and then spent two hours lying outside in the sun, watching two clouds move gradually from north to south, like giant steamboats.
Others are less pessimistic. The corner grocer greeted me in an ebullient mood, and showed me cell-phone pictures of his children. Two tiny faces, pale and blue-tinged from the digital screen, looked out: a one-year old little girl with a shock of white-blond hair, and a twelve-year-old boy, wearing glasses. "She looks Scandinavian," the grocer said, pointing at his daughter.
"Is her mother Scandinavian?" I asked (logically, I thought).
"No, no, no." He laughed uproariously. "We're both Israeli. Born and raised here. But we're white." Here he poked at his skin, which was really more pinkish than white. "My parents came here in the Seventies, from the old....Russia. The Soviet Union." He shrugged. "But we are from Israel; the children are from Israel."
"Spasiba!" he called to an elderly woman, who was leaving the store. (It means "thanks" in Russian.)
"Do you speak Russian?" he asked, when I returned to the checkout stand with my things.
"No, but a little bit of Czech," I replied.
"Oh. Really?" The grocer adjusted his yarmulke and blinked. "Tell me something in Czech." He paused to shout out greetings in Hebrew to the Tibon Veal man, idling in the street in his truck, then called back something in Russian to the woman who runs the deli at the back of the store.
This is an average day of shopping. My grocer speaks at least three languages fluently; probably more, for all I know. He makes an effort to greet shoppers in their own language; since the grocery is a block from the Institute, he's an international one-man band of "Hello, how are you, strawberries are on sale!"
# # #
About two weeks ago, when it was still blustery, and spring was an illusion, I began seeing triangle-shaped cookies called hamentaschen stacked in the front cases of bakeries, alongside the usual rows of burekas and other feats of phyllo dough. The cookies herald the coming of Purim, and their name means "Haman's pockets". (The triangular shape of the cookies echoes Haman's tri-corner hat.) In the supermarket on Herzl, the bakery had three trays of these perched on the counter, but I couldn't read the flavors listed in Hebrew.
("Do you speak English?" I politely asked the Russian bakery worker in Hebrew, and gestured to the cookies.
"Lo," she said, frowning, and crossed her arms.
So no hamentaschen for me.
"Well, the Cold War is over!" I said, and huffed off.)
Who is Haman, and what is Purim? I didn't know, either.
The Judaism 101 site notes that Purim involves some serious celebrating: "According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between 'cursed be Haman' and 'blessed be Mordecai,' though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is." Someone ought to tell the supermarket bakery workers that it's supposed to be a festive occasion."
Source: Erin Israel. "A-VEEV." "Spring." Rehovot.blogspot.com (last viewed 26 October 2005) [FullText]
"Sometime last Wednesday night, spring rolled in, and, ever since, it's been sunny and about seventy degrees, here. Cafes have stowed their heaters and tied up the winter awnings; families have started to picnic, out on the lawn, again; and there's the cheerful delirium, wherever you go, of Israelis running away from winter.
"Don't stow your blankets and scarves just yet," the Visiting Scientists liason warned me when I visited the office, yesterday. "It will be ridiculously hot and cold until the end of March." I nodded politely, left the office, and then spent two hours lying outside in the sun, watching two clouds move gradually from north to south, like giant steamboats.
Others are less pessimistic. The corner grocer greeted me in an ebullient mood, and showed me cell-phone pictures of his children. Two tiny faces, pale and blue-tinged from the digital screen, looked out: a one-year old little girl with a shock of white-blond hair, and a twelve-year-old boy, wearing glasses. "She looks Scandinavian," the grocer said, pointing at his daughter.
"Is her mother Scandinavian?" I asked (logically, I thought).
"No, no, no." He laughed uproariously. "We're both Israeli. Born and raised here. But we're white." Here he poked at his skin, which was really more pinkish than white. "My parents came here in the Seventies, from the old....Russia. The Soviet Union." He shrugged. "But we are from Israel; the children are from Israel."
"Spasiba!" he called to an elderly woman, who was leaving the store. (It means "thanks" in Russian.)
"Do you speak Russian?" he asked, when I returned to the checkout stand with my things.
"No, but a little bit of Czech," I replied.
"Oh. Really?" The grocer adjusted his yarmulke and blinked. "Tell me something in Czech." He paused to shout out greetings in Hebrew to the Tibon Veal man, idling in the street in his truck, then called back something in Russian to the woman who runs the deli at the back of the store.
This is an average day of shopping. My grocer speaks at least three languages fluently; probably more, for all I know. He makes an effort to greet shoppers in their own language; since the grocery is a block from the Institute, he's an international one-man band of "Hello, how are you, strawberries are on sale!"
# # #
About two weeks ago, when it was still blustery, and spring was an illusion, I began seeing triangle-shaped cookies called hamentaschen stacked in the front cases of bakeries, alongside the usual rows of burekas and other feats of phyllo dough. The cookies herald the coming of Purim, and their name means "Haman's pockets". (The triangular shape of the cookies echoes Haman's tri-corner hat.) In the supermarket on Herzl, the bakery had three trays of these perched on the counter, but I couldn't read the flavors listed in Hebrew.
("Do you speak English?" I politely asked the Russian bakery worker in Hebrew, and gestured to the cookies.
"Lo," she said, frowning, and crossed her arms.
So no hamentaschen for me.
"Well, the Cold War is over!" I said, and huffed off.)
Who is Haman, and what is Purim? I didn't know, either.
The Judaism 101 site notes that Purim involves some serious celebrating: "According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between 'cursed be Haman' and 'blessed be Mordecai,' though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is." Someone ought to tell the supermarket bakery workers that it's supposed to be a festive occasion."
Source: Erin Israel. "A-VEEV." "Spring." Rehovot.blogspot.com (last viewed 26 October 2005) [FullText]
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