Israeli Nurseries - The Smell of Success

On Friday we had a party to celebrate the end of term at nursery. The kids all sat down and enjoyed singing and performing the actions for various songs. They waved coloured squares of material, shook tambourines and waved sparkly shakers. The parents videoed their every move and, being Israeli, chatted throughout, almost drowning out the kids.

When the singing ended the feast began. The kids sat down and munched through a whole range of treats. I watched as, one by one, they emerged from the dining room with chocolate mustaches and sticky hands.

The parents had clubbed together and purchased presents for the three staff. I felt bad because I was unaware of any collection. Perhaps it took place whilst my little one was off sick. They were each given a basket of goodies, but what I felt was more meaningful, was that each of them was given a piece of paper with a personal message on, thanking them for the care they had given the children. The message was written out neatly in gold pen and real effort had been made to make it a special keepsake. The parent who organized the collection read each one out to those present and everyone clapped.

It is at moments like this when Israelis really come up trumps. They have such inherent warmth to them and it is little touches like this that make me proud to be here and have adopted this homeland as mine. I think in the UK the onus would have been on the gift, but here, what was stressed and what will, I am sure, remain in the memories and hearts of the recipients, was the heartfelt thanks they received for what is, after all, extremely hard work.

I have been really impressed by the nursery staff. I chose a small nursery with a family atmosphere. The kids are all very well disciplined; when it is time to watch a video they sit down and don’t get up till the end; when it is time to eat they wait for the prayer before tucking in; when they have finished an activity they are involved in clearing away too. The place is full of music and laughter and the kids obviously enjoy coming.

Having left a tearful toddler with them for the last few weeks I know that my child is being well looked after. I know this because when she returns home she smells of the scent of one of the nursery workers. I guess she must be getting lots of hugs, love and security during tearful moments.

Israeli nurseries, like any others around the world, are good, bad and indifferent. I am so thankful to have found somewhere that I am happy with and that, more importantly, my little one has grown to love and enjoy.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Bureaucracy Busting

So, following on from my last blog, today was my Israeli bureaucracy busting day. Unfortunately I had to take my sick baby with me so that provided an added challenge.

So, after queuing half an hour at the bank I presented my passport, ID Card, and Credit Card to the bank, as instructed yesterday. The teller bashed about on the computer, asked colleagues for help and finally told me that they do not provide cash for my particular credit card. He told me that I should visit other banks as they may well provide this service.

In the end it took me four hours in three banks to get cash out and retrieve yesterday’s ‘swallowed up’ cash card. During this time I had to amuse the baby, communicate my needs in Hebrew and stay both patient and sane.

It really does wear you down. You spend on average around half an hour in a queue. This is not a normal queue but an Israeli queue. Because Israeli’s can’t be trusted to queue in a fair and cordial manner, the banks have installed machines that give out numbered tickets. However, Israeli’s have no time for this and many take a ticket and then leave the bank. They carry out another chore or two and after a short while, return to the bank and re-join the queue at the front.

But it’s not only this! They also try to circumvent the queue system by sitting in empty chairs as they arise at the counters. Sometimes another member of the queue or a teller will send them back, sometimes they just get served.

Whilst I was at the counter there were two people arguing behind me as to who was next for my teller. They both had numbers but even this was not enough. At one point I stood up to calm the baby and one of them actually sat in my chair! I had to send them away as I am sure that they would have tried to get served even though I was mid transaction!

At the last bank, a lovely young lady called Ina took the time to complete the much needed change of address form for me and also gave me access to their internet banking. She was a reminder to me that among all those, ‘computer says no’ people, there are still real gems out there who go the extra mile.

Incidentally, I found out that my inability to withdraw cash using a cash card from my UK account is not just a problem for me. A friend I met on the bus is also having the same problem. Her bank informed her that there is a general problem with the use of cash cards on ATMS from foreign accounts at the moment. At least it’s nothing personal.

So that was my morning; 4 hours, 3 banks, a returned cash card and cash finally withdrawn from my credit card to fund hubby’s trip abroad. I am sure that to undertake these tasks in the UK would have taken around half an hour and been much less stressful and eventful. However, since moving here, I always know that when I have a trip to the bank planned for any transaction that is not routine, that I need to expect the unexpected. Whatever can go wrong usually does.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Israeli Bureaucracy Wears Me Down

Israeli bureaucracy is renowned. Today though, was a classic bad day. One of those few occasions when I actually felt ground down by it all and reminisced about the efficiency of ‘back home’.

The day started with a trip to the bank. I needed to withdraw cash from my UK account. I went to three cash points, each told me the ‘service is not available’. I phoned my bank; no problem with the card or the account. No known reason, just ‘dafka’.

I had to get cash out to buy some sterling for a business trip my husband is going on this week. I asked if I could withdraw money from my credit card. ‘Yes,’ they said. I presented them with my UK credit card and my ID card. ‘No,’ they said, ‘come back tomorrow with your passport’.

I tried to get cash out of my Israeli account; the machine ate my card. I put the number in just once and it swallowed it right up. I have had an ongoing problem with the bank. I have a standard monthly statement and a Visa statement. The Visa statement they manage to send to my correct address but my monthly statement still mysteriously gets sent to my old address, even though I have tried to get it diverted. In the end I just gave up. Apparently my card may be out of date and the new one may be at my old address. Totally great!

Three cards; no cash.

This evening I had to take the baby to the Dr. The chicken pox is thankfully subsiding but she has picked up a cold and it has gone to her lungs. My son went to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription for antibiotics. The pharmacy phoned me up to tell me my daughter has been taken off our health care plan. The same daughter who went to hospital with me earlier in the week and whose health care card worked just fine then. I spoke to a representative from the health care company who insisted she must have been removed. He told me my husband must have removed her if I didn’t! Luckily the pharmacy knows us and still supplied the prescription.

So now I have a whole list of jobs for tomorrow:

• Try to get my swallowed up card returned.
• Go to the bank with my passport to get some cash.
• Try again to change the out of date address they have on file for me for some of their services (but not others!)
• Try to find out if a new cash card has been sent out and is floating around and in danger of being used fraudulently.
• Get my daughter re-instated on our health care plan.

Most people who know me would tell you I am a positive, calm, patient person. I am very British; I like to queue, I apologize to you if you bump into me, I drink tea all day long, I like good manners.

Today I feel tired. Tired of trying to sort things out in a language that is unfamiliar to me. Tired because my daughter has had one illness after another. Tired because sometimes being an olah is so frustrating and difficult.

So I ‘took five’. I sat in my garden, overlooking the Shomron Hills. I took in the view and breathed in the fresh, cool night air. I made myself remember why I came here and I returned to the house with the strength and determination to tick off all my ‘to do’s’ tomorrow.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Lights Out!!

We get power cuts on a regular basis in Israel. Living where we do, the power cuts are even more frequent.

Normally they only last a few minutes but on Friday afternoon it lasted a few hours. At first we just took a break from our Shabbat preparations; had a drink, a snack and waited for the return of the hum of the fridge. We waited and waited… but no hum, no light, no electricity.

During the outage our little one wandered into the laundry room and poked about near the washing machine. I wasn’t unduly worried but had forgotten that the safety features on the machine are controlled by electricity. Thus, on this occasion, she was actually successful at opening the washing machine door. The machine had come to an abrupt halt mid cycle and promptly poured a drum full of water over her legs and feet. She didn’t cry but had a perplexed look upon her face. I arrived on the scene, scooped her up and began the process of mopping up the leak.

Time passed by. Shabbat was coming closer. Luckily we had already prepared most of our Shabbat food for both Friday night and Saturday. However, the Friday night chicken was still uncooked and in the fridge. We began to think, ‘what if..?’ and started considering alternatives to the Friday night chicken.

However, just in the nick of time the house buzzed with the return of electricity; the phone beeped, the lights came on and the fridge positively purred with delight. Friday night chicken was back on the menu!

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

A Slow Dash To The Hospital

I had a surreal evening last night. I always thought that once you got chicken pox, that was it; over and done with. The baby, though, has proven an exception to the rule and caught chicken pox for the second time in 3 months. This time around she had a very high fever and we wanted her to be checked over.

Thus, we had our first experience of an Israeli hospital dash, since making aliyah. We live on a yeshuv (settlement) and don’t have a car. In order to get to the nearest hospital we ended up calling an ambulance. We waited around 20 minutes with a baby who was worryingly hot; you could almost see steam coming from her. By the time the medics reached our house, her temperature had begun to go down a little. There followed a big debate; the driver warned us that taking the ambulance would incur a cost; ‘Do you really want to take her in? She looks OK to me’. He then told us to try to get a Dr to come out instead. We phoned up three local numbers; one didn’t reply, one went to answerphone and one was switched to fax. We decided we wanted her checked by a doctor, so eventually got in the ambulance.

Being a private ambulance, we had to disembark and switch to another ambulance so that the original one could stay in its service area. It struck me as odd that we had wasted around 40 minutes discussing whether to get into the ambulance, making calls, waiting for a rendezvous with another ambulance and finally switching over. It was hardly a streamlined service, operating with a sense of urgency!

The evening got yet stranger when I discovered that the girl volunteering with Magen David Adom, in the second ambulance, a lovely Australian here for a year, is related to a family we know from the UK.

We arrived at the hospital and the baby was checked over , diagnosed with chicken pox but finally given the all clear to return home. One of the paramedics from the ambulance hung around and told me that he lived near me and, if I waited for a few hours, would give me a lift home. Seeing as it was 3am in the morning, this was a great help and much appreciated.

Today she is a little brighter, although still burning up. Today I am quite a bit poorer thanks to the Israeli healthcare system. However, I guess in the end, the ambulance driver was right and next time I should only call the ambulance as an absolute last resort.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Our Fur Covered Skeleton

I thought I had hardened my heart to the local stray cats. We already took in a mother and kitten who are now happily installed in the garden and looking much healthier than when they arrived.

This morning the kids and I collected the baby from nursery and a stray kitten attached herself to us. She is a scruff of a kitten, only a few weeks old and looks like a fur covered skeleton. She has hungry eyes and a desperate cry. My son picked her up, carried her home and gave her some cat food.

My husband took one look at the scrawny bundle and said, ‘No way, two is enough already’. So now we have a meowing cat, expectant of more love and food, hanging about outside the house and crying whenever she hears someone close by. We are worried that our other two cats will fight with her, as cats are territorial and our original two must know that they really fell on their feet when they found us.

In Israel cats are the equivalent of mice in other countries; there are so many hanging around the public litter bins and each year more and more arrive on the scene. They are a nuisance really and spread disease. Many people I know adopted beautiful, tiny kittens. We seem to have picked out cats that are a little less attractive and have an air of desperation about them. They look pitiful and in need of a little love and attention.

So the battle in our house today is whether to keep the new kitten. She is just so small and helpless. Perhaps we can encourage the mother cat to adopt her although I guess it is more likely she will see her as a threat.

Tonight I installed the kitten into the shed. I gave her a box to sleep in, some water and some food. I hope she stays in there. Most nights we hear cat fights outside and this one, all bones and as light as a feather, would surely not survive.

All I know is that now there is a consequence for taking this cat home and alongside that, a feeling of responsibility.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

24 Hours of Trouble

Well things seem to be settling down a little. The baby is getting used to nursery, and the kids are enjoying their holiday activities.

My daughter has been going to a wonderful holiday camp at a neighboring yeshuv. She has a different activity every day and is surrounded by kind, well behaved children. She is in a caring, educational environment and is just thriving there. We have been so pleased with her experience there that we are actually considering sending her to the school that runs the club.

My son, as ever, goes through life with his eyes half shut and his head in the clouds. This weekend is a classic example of the chaos he causes. Friday afternoon we all took turns to have a pre Shabbat shower. He kept stalling having his shower, distracting himself with various activities. Finally we heard the shower going and breathed a sigh of relief that he was at last on the way to getting ready. We carried on making our final preparations, when suddenly we heard a dripping sound. We followed the sound to see water pouring down from the ceiling. I ran upstairs to find the hall waterlogged. I waded into the bathroom and shouted to my son to turn off the shower. We thought at first we had sprung a leak, but no, this was all down to my dozy son. He had turned on the shower and languished beneath the warm water, singing quietly to himself, thinking about the Shabbat ahead…. standing there with his foot over the plug hole and water running first out of the shower then making a trail of destruction down the hall and finally falling in a puddle downstairs.

On Shabbat afternoon I decided to take the baby to the park for an hour. He wanted to come along too and insisted on taking a new football his dad had just brought him. “It’s too hot to play ball,” I said, but he insisted and I relented. We had a nice time. The baby went on the swing and then accompanied her big brother on various other rides. We took the long, scenic route home and chatted together before arriving home.

We had visitors in the afternoon, a new family who had just moved into the yeshuv. We welcomed them to our home and apologized for the heavy small of damp in the house! As I put out seudah shlishit my son rushed over to ‘help’ me. He took a big bowl of pasta and transported it to the table, however, his concentration being what it is, the pasta never reached the table; suffice to say I was cleaning up pasta, sauce and smashed bowl shortly afterwards.

In the evening, Shabbat out, we watched some TV, checked our emails and then, gradually got the kids to bed. As I tucked him in my son suddenly remembered something; he had left his ball in the park!

I don’t know! He is 24 hours of trouble. Let’s hope he grows out of it soon.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Rest In Peace

It was a long, galling day. Israelis at home, at work, traveling, on holiday; wherever they were, whatever they were doing; we all had one ear tuned in to the news. We waited, impatiently to find out the unknown fate of our two missing sons.

Finally, as two coffins emerged, a nation collectively sighed. Although we suspected it would end this way, we still felt the bitter disappointment and pain of their families, whose lives have been suspended with the mixed feelings of hope and dread for two long years.

We were relieved at their eventual return and the ability to finally lay them to rest and honor their service to our country. Even though we were thankful to have them home, we acknowledged the high price we paid in the trade-off. Many were exasperated at the weak negotiations and one-sided deal. It reflected both the pathetic stature of our Government and the impossible situation we are often in when it comes to matters such as these. We watched, with distaste, as Lebanon celebrated with vigor the return of a child-killing terrorist. All in contrast to the somber mood back home.

This is not a political blog. There are plenty of those and I avoid it as a rule. This blog details my day to day emotions, frustrations, experiences. Yesterday was taken over by the return of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. May their dear souls rest in peace. May Gilad Shalit be home with us soon, alive and well.

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Three Different Hats

Like many others before and after me, making aliyah has lead me to completely change direction in my career. My Hebrew is simply not good enough to work in many professions. The truth is that having the baby during our first year of aliyah also created complications in my ability to attend ulpan and work full time. Don’t get me wrong, she is worth every sacrifice ten times over, but she has cramped my style somewhat!

I have ended up doing what a lot of olim seem to do; a little bit of this and a little bit of that! Aside from setting up and running my judaica homeware small business, I have also picked up a few teaching hours in September (hence the need to settle her into nursery now – see previous posts). Recently I 'fell into' freelance writing, which I really enjoy.

Writing has been part of every job I have had and yet I had never really considered it to be an occupation I could consider. Having 'taken the plunge' it is very rewarding to begin selling articles and make money from something I so enjoy.

Recently I have written a series of articles on aliyah and emigration – I attach the link here as some may find it of interest aliyah articles. I will be adding to this series over the coming months.

I have spoken to many people who say that they made a success of their aliyah by re-inventing themselves. I guess variety is the spice of life and with three different professional hats to wear as well as the most challenging but rewarding job ever (being a mum), there is never any time to be bored.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Settling In

It’s been a strange week. Much of it involved settling the little one into nursery.

Last Tuesday I delivered her, loitered for five minutes then disappeared into the next room. I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave the nursery; I wanted to be on hand in case she needed me. I could hear her crying but she was whining rather than hysterical. I tried to read a book but was just too distracted. The Nursery Nurse kept sneaking back to me to tell me how things were going. She told me to go into another part of the nursery and relax.

I went to where the babies are looked after. When I arrived they were all asleep and I chatted to the lady who cared for them. Initially we spoke in Hebrew and then discovered we were both English speakers. This was a relief to me as my Hebrew is pretty basic. She was originally from Swaziland and told me that at its peak in the late 1970s the Jewish community there numbered 14 families! I spent a very pleasant hour chatting to her and she also crept out a couple of times to report back to me.

After an hour and a half I went back to my teary-eyed daughter and got the biggest hug ever. It is so hard to leave her – hard for her, hard for me.

She went again on Thursday and Friday, just for a few hours. They said that she is doing better – crying on and off, but taking part in activities. They told me to persevere. I dropped her off again today and she cried as we turned up the nursery path. I said my farewells and then stood outside the nursery for a while, listening to my daughter cry. Finally I got a grip and went home.

It is sweltering in Israel at the moment. We have fans in each of our bedrooms to help us get through the hot nights. The fans in Israel seem to be made to fall apart before the end of each summer. The fan in the baby’s room has a broken stand and is propped up against a wall. We recently bought a fan for our room and the buttons have all broken, they just fell apart in our hands, stayed pushed in or simply refuse to be pressed.

We didn’t buy this particular fan locally so I couldn’t be bothered to take it on the bus and return it. Instead I spent this evening taking it apart and using the parts to fix all the faults in the rest of the family’s fans. The fan in the baby’s room is now nice and sturdy, the one in my daughter’s room has new casing. I gave the remaining remnants of the fan to my son who spent an hour happily unscrewing it and taking it apart. Having got as far as he could he decided he was going to continue enjoying this exciting new toy by smashing it to smithereens with a hammer. Each to their own I guess.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com