Now Hear This!

Israelis are known, among many things, for being expressive through their cars. By this I'm not referring to driving style or speed, although that too has become sadly stereotypical. I'm referring to the quantity of bumper stickers plastered all over what seems like the majority of the cars here. It got to be so much that a song (actually, a really good song) was written a couple years back in which all the lyrics were direct quotes from various popular bumper stickers.

A lot are political, a lot aren't, but the ones that I find funniest are those which are aimed at a direct dialogue with God. Things like "God in Heaven, we love you!" seem to me inappropriate for a bumper sticker, somehow, and yet they're everywhere. Come on, do you really think God is stuck here in this traffic jam, and getting excited about your sticker? If you love Him, show Him in more heavenly ways, I say.

And yet, despite my real cringe every time I see one of those, there is a religious bumper sticker that I like - short and simple:


I realize that it's pretty hard to see here, but it has the words that are familiar to Jews worldwide: Shema Yisrael, Ado(n)ai Elo(h)einu, Ado(n)ai Echad. Literally, it means, "Listen up, Jews, God is our Lord, God is one." It's the phrase that we've been saying for thousands of years, it's our mantra. But generally, when we say it nowadays, we're either a) in a synagogue, surrounded by people who don't need convincing, or b) at home, praying in our living room quietly to ourselves. And so no one is there to listen up - it's a shame, really.

But here, finally, is a good opportunity! "Listen up, Jews," and there are the Jews, potentially listening up all around you. What could be better?

Zippidee doo dah, zippidee ay

My workplace took us out for our yearly festive-ish evening last week. It was nice - dinner and a stand-up comedian, and not too many speeches. Since it's one of the few perks that I get, we make sure to go every year.

This year the event was at a local place in Gush Etzion called Eretz HeAyalim, or in English, "Land of the Deer." I hadn't been there before, but I'd heard about it - Eretz HeAyalim is very well known for its Omega. Ah, "but what's an Omega," I hear you cry. An Omega is what most English speakers refer to as a zip-line, and this place has the longest one in Israel. I'm pretty sure that in Hebrew it's called an Omega because the shape of the thing that holds you resembles the Greek letter, but of course I could be wrong. I actually found a promotional movie for the place, made by a neighbor of ours, and there are some bits with footage of the Omega around 3 minutes in, if you'd like to see.

Anyway, the place was lovely, the comedian was pretty funny, the food qualified as fancy, and we enjoyed relaxing with friends. As an added bonus, I found a new kind of typo that I don't recall having seen before. Generally in life, you come across words that are misspelled because letters that sound similar are incorrectly interchanged. Here, I found a letter swapped for one that looked similar, rather than sounding similar. Maybe the difference isn't that big of a deal, but I was amused:

I mean, we can forgive them the missing silent e on "rop" - a lot of intelligent adults I know can't quite get the hang of silent e (believe it or not). But swapping a g for a y? Now that's a high-class typo.

The Land of Plenty

Funny story - a few years back, when my oldest daughter learned to read English, we found her reading everything she could find, and of course it made us very proud. One day, she came up to me and asked, "Why is everything made in China?"

Ah, she didn't know just how profound a question she was asking.

We really need to be grateful for this abundance of non-local products - they provide such a treasure trove of humor. My younger daughter's birthday wasn't too long ago, and she got a truly nifty gift - a sort of roulette game, in which players take turns spinning a top amongst marbles that then are knocked into holes with varying points. It really is fun, and she opened it and began playing so quickly that I almost didn't get a chance to see the package. But, good girl that she is, she kept the box for storage, and so I got a good look when we took it out to play the next time. I actually got my first impression from the side, before we had even taken it off of the shelf:

That was amusing. Not so special, but amusing. It in no way prepared me for the crazy potential on the front, though. Just wait, it's coming.


See, it's getting better already. This isn't just a game, it's a funny game. The "first grade product" seemed perfectly reasonable to me at first - it's an age recommendation, right? Until, of course, I realized that it might be a declaration of quality... hmm... which is it? Tricky.

Now this is just childish humor, I know; some capitalization issues, a bit of metathesis, and a missing apostrophe aren't really that funny. But really, this is the promise we need to be most grateful for, since their "model" is:

Whoa! That kid is downright frightening! He (she?) seems to be calling out for help right here on the box - look what they've done to me! Please come and save me! Put my hair back!

And of course, the grand finale:

Here's hoping that things look up for China, and for all of us non-native English speaking countries...

Must be out of my gourd

I find that even now, after having lived here in Israel for so long, some basic things still take me by surprise and make me laugh. I don't mean important things, like the multitudes of political parties, or working Sundays. It's the dumb little things that get to me. For example, we often mistakenly assume that we're familiar with the produce section here in our supermarkets. You know, after you learn the name of an item, you figure that it probably translates over to whatever had that name back in the old country. But that's not necessarily so.

This was brought clear to me this past month, when I walked into our local grocery store. I'm pretty familiar with d'laat, which we've bought as needed over the years. Pretty much any dictionary translates d'laat as pumpkin. So it's a pumpkin, right? The thing is, you can't usually buy a whole pumpkin here - it comes cut up, and has a lighter, less orange color to it. That's okay, it didn't ever bother me. Generally I use it for soup, and you certainly don't need a whole pumpkin as an ingredient for vegetable soup. Anyway, I walked in, and found two pumpkins that hadn't yet had the chance to be cut up:


Those don't really look like good old Halloween pumpkins, do they? Oh, well.

By the way, this week's edition of Haveil Havalim is up, and you can see it here. Haveil Havalim defines itself as: a carnival of Jewish blogs -- a weekly collection of Jewish & Israeli blog highlights, tidbits and points of interest collected from blogs all around the world. Enjoy!

How can we be sure?

Here's an item found by one of my Chicago correspondents: my dear brother Avy. On my recent visit to the States, he had a photo of this ready to show me as I arrived at the airport. Pretty impressive.

I eventually saw this in the store - not too surprisingly, it was in the fancy imported foods section, and is not a native American product. It seems to be British, as we might also understand from the "biscuit" reference.

I was, of course, mildly tempted to open one and take a bite, just to see if the Yorkie Police would appear to arrest me. I managed to resist, and instead looked a bit more closely at the wrapper. The thing that somehow grabbed my attention the most was the small purse that this stick figure is holding. Apparently that's the international symbol for "girl," one hand on her hip and the other clutching a handbag.

There are plenty of snide things that I could say about the Yorkie bar, but I think I'll leave this one open for free association...

Can't believe I almost forgot...

the most common "no kitniyot" marking, quite funny in its own right:

It says: Kasher LePesach, with no fear of kitniyot."

Somehow that strikes me as a little too dramatic. No fear of dragons, I could see. But kitniyot just aren't that frightening...

Kitniyot Confusion

As we all likely know, Pesach (Passover) is upon us, and we've been busy shopping for unleavened products. Back in America, knowing what is kosher for Passover is pretty straightforward - either your product says OUP or it doesn't. Here, things can get a little complicated, as the majority of the population eat kitniyot, which we Ashkenazim are not (yet) allowed. Kitniyot is generally translated as legumes, like beans and peas, but every year the Jewish definition seems to spread out to include more and more products. I remember that as a kid we used peanut oil on Pesach, but now peanuts have become accepted as kitniyot, and not at all allowed. Quinoa, a recently popular (and quite yummy) seed, is totally unrelated to legumes, but is still looked upon with suspicion (it just seems too good to be true, I guess), and so some still don't eat it on Pesach.

Anyway, shopping here in Israel is usually fine, but finding non-kitniyot products isn't always easy. I once came upon some cookies that said in big letters "Kosher For Passover" - only after we brought them to our friends did we notice the small note on the other side of the box that "for kitniyot-eaters only." Although I haven't seen anything since then that was quite so misleading, getting the hang of what's what can be tricky.

Here's a box I really appreciated - with a huge, clear marking on the front:


Most packages aren't quite so forthcoming. A lot of products keep the same year-round label, but add some information to the timestamp. This one says "kashlap," which is the abbreviation for "Kosher Le(For) Pesach."


Sometimes a year is included on the label, which seems a bit strange.


I mean, it may be unwise to eat a product from a previous year, but does it make it less kosher for Pesach? It seems to me that people can rely on the kosher label for the kosher information, and the date stamp for the date information. Of course, I don't get consulted on this very much...

I've never understood this one - maybe someone out there can enlighten me.


It says "Kasher Le Pesach Erev Pesach, which I understand to mean that it was made before Pesach. Maybe this is some kind of stringency that I don't know about?

Now, sometimes the organization that supervises the general kashruth of a product is not the same as the one who does the Passover supervision. In that case, each organization can only testify to what they've done, so on the same package, it will say "Kosher during the year, but not for Pesach" and then, elsewhere, say "Kosher Le Pesach." This to me seems ridiculous - surely there's some less confusing way to put the label together. Here's an example, with the conflicting decrees on the top and bottom of the same can:


This is the same concept, I think, but really bizarre.


Here, the label reads:

"Only during the year"
Kosher Le Pesach

What's with the quotes? Is the can being sarcastic? I guess here it's one organization supervising both situations, but the "only" kind of throws you off - it seems to me that it would be clearer if it used "also" instead.

And now we come to the kitniyot. Here's how the basic kitniyot-only label reads:


It just says "Kosher Le Pesach, for those who eat kitniyot." Pretty easy.

This year, I saw one that I don't remember from previous years. It's not so exciting, but it was new for me. It says "Kosher Le Pesach, from kitniyot."


And here's the one that makes me stop in the aisle and start talking to myself, trying to work out what the heck it means:


It says, Kosher Le Pesach, also for those who don't eat kitniyot. Of course, now that I've written it out in English it looks pretty easy, but in Hebrew, the positives and negatives get me all mixed up, every time, and I have to start thinking it out. "Okay, I'm the one who doesn't eat kitniyot, so it IS okay... for me... yeah, this one is okay." Phew.

Good thing this only lasts for one or two shopping trips. Happy Pesach!