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07/01/2022

We are finally home; we are in Israel.

There has always been something about Israel that fixes my left-right orientation confusion. I am one of those blessed people who cannot carry a tune, though I love music, don’t know my left from my right instinctively, always go the wrong way when getting off an elevator in a hotel, and turn on the hot water in looking for the cold when in the shower.

I have been burned in the shower and lost so many times.

When I’m in Israel, I remember landmarks and where to go and I don't know why.

One of my all time favorite places is the shuck in Jerusalem. When we first started coming regularly after my daughter Rachel moved here more than 21 years ago, the shuck was a noisy outdoor and indoor shopping mall where you can find food, drinks, odds and ends and busy people. On Fridays, it bustled with the happy sounds of shabbos prep.

Not so much anymore.

It has become a happy tradition for my husband Bob and I to join Rachel and her husband Josh to shop with them on Fridays; we hop from stall to stall buying our favorite fruits and vegetables, special candies, nuts and to be tempted by rich halva from the “Halva King” to sample and buy.

We always buy more than we want or need and even some we taste, buy and don’t like.

Not so sure about the whiskey or pretzel variety that we just purchased.

We then go into the underground Boureka Bakery for oily, delicious, hot bourekas filled with vegetables, eggs or cheese, yummy.

This first week in the shuck we changed our routine and instead of a Friday visit we went on a Thursday night; it was as if my “familiar'' was turned into the “upside down”. The noisy bustle of busy shopping was replaced with loud thumping dance music with some of the markets morphed in packed bars. There was even one called ברברה, yes Barbara.

The whole place vibrated with sound and dancing, drinking people. One bartender led his circle in a rousing dance filled song. It was packed with fun for the dancers and the bystanders alike.

We did our shopping and decided to eat in Hatch; a very popular fast food restaurant beloved by tourists and Israelis. The place is tiny, indoor seating for maybe 16 maybe, with a long bar seating 10 out front. There is a tiny spot at the front corner that is for takeout and seating.

There is No such thing as a reservation.

We give our names and ask if there is a table for 6. We are told it will be 15 minutes and we agree to wait. Rachel and I go off to do some more errands and come back to find an interesting group of campers from London, a number of them handicapped, holding Hatch coupons and waiting 4 deep outside. Hatch is also now filled with seated people who are eating on the inside of the bar.

We continue to wait; Bob and my son in law Josh go to prayers.

We continue to wait.

The inside table for six, for which we had now been waiting over a half hour, opened up, our table at last! But as this is Israel and things are not always what they seem, we were wrong. The people sitting at the bar were next to get that table, not us.

Empowered by my Keurig win, I ask why we are not being seated; the camp group and their chicken wings get seated at the inside of the bar and we continue to wait. The hapless waitress, new to the job, forgot to tell us that the group previously eating at the bar was ahead of us in the line; we had to wait until they were done.

I argued that had we known that we were not next, the inside so small and crowded, we would have not waited this long for hamburgers and chicken wings no matter how good.

The nighttime vibe was not really for us for all kinds of reasons so when they offered us the now vacated outside bar of the vacated campers, we said no thank you.

I demanded to see the manager.

Confronted with so many guests, a waitress who did not give us the real facts and an unhappy me, the manager asked me what more he could do for us. I turned it back to him and asked, “ what can you offer?”

He responded with a 15 percent discount on the whole bill, and seats at the bar until the table opened up. I countered with 20 percent off. He said that he could not do that but he can do a bowl of 30 chicken wings.

We had a deal.

I cannot say that this was a win as sitting at the noisy bar in a crowded shuck filled with “very happy” people looking at you and your food, is not ideal for fine dining. It was capped off with some random guy asking for money and a bite of our food; he took an onion ring from my granddaughter’s plate. My son in law did not react well to that.

It was an adventure.

When the bill came, of course none of the discounts and free food was noted. That got quickly adjusted and we gave the waiter a 15 percent tip. I recommended that in the future the seating policy should be posted to forestall confused customers.

I’m sure that will not happen, it’s Israel.

Many will recognize my need to make a point when I feel there is injustice. Some would say why didn’t we just leave and avoid the conflict, My kids would roll their eyes and say,”again Mom, again”, good questions all. But as my daughter wanted us to have the Hatch experience, enjoy good food, and have an interesting time, she loves the food, we stayed.

We are looking forward to shabbos and time with our family in Israel. When you have family who live so far away you must make every effort to spend time together, the day to day ordinary and the adventurous.

We plan on doing just that.

Even though I can’t carry a tune and have been often warned not to sing, another story, I look forward to the magnificent zmirot around the Shapiro shabbos table; listening fills my heart.

Shabbat Shalom