"Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on.....ehhhhh......"

I recently talked to my friend Noga who's been following my adventures. I was interested but not surprised by her impressions of my writing. She was a tad irked (ech omrim "irk"?), not as much by what was on this site as much as what was NOT. "If I didn't know you, I would wonder if you were enjoying yourself in Israel. You make fun of things a lot but you don't always talk about what's great." The thought had in fact crossed my mind before; street cons, the toilet paper lady, and cold showers. Maybe she has a point. Those who know me are well-aware that I'm not cynical about life here (apparently unlike every Israeli, according to their opinions of themselves). It's just more fun to make fun of the ridiculous stuff in life.

"But why did you make fun of the toilet paper lady?" asked Noga. "It's not just in Israel-they do that in Europe!"

"Yeah, but I'm not IN Europe."

Nevertheless, the following is dedicated to Noga to let her know that I do think there's plenty of great stuff in this country. With apologies to Julie Andrews and the typical Yom Ha'atzmaut-ish "Top ___ Things about Israel", these are a few of my favorite things...

• I love that the women are not only hotter than Mitzpe Ramon in July but that they also have a Passover Seder. (Much like the fourth dimension, my human brain is incapable of processing this.)

What? It's been four weeks since a Bar Rafaeli reference???
(For steamier pictures, click here.)

• I love the outdoor cafes/kiosks on Rothschild and that Israelis universally agree that Starbucks (the altar to which American consumers bow their heads and pray) stinks.
• I love that the Ulpan teachers talk to you like you're four and that immigrants from all over the world come together to speak the same language.
• I love that falafel is a healthy snack (OK, maybe I just love choosing to believe the American myth while I scarf it down forty-seven times a week.)
• I love that people I know from all over the place are always visiting this place, the center of the Jewish world (no, it's not the Upper West Side.)
• I love that I can tell a joke about Rosh Hashana at a comedy club here and know that it will be understood by everyone in the audience.

"Kippur? I hardly know her!" (Settle down, that's not a real line.)

• I love wearing jeans to virtually any social event.
• I love the kumkum and the utter shock on every Israeli's face when they ask "but how do you make coffee in America???" in the same manner that teenagers ask how we survived before cell phones. (Since it takes an hour for my dud to heat up during the winter, I plan to shower in the kumkum until March.)

George Jetson, meet the "kumkum"

• I love that it's 12:48 AM, tomorrow is a work day, and Cafe Aroma is still hopping. HOW DO THESE ISRAELI PEOPLE DO IT??? (This warrants its own post.)
• I love cab drivers and how they're genuinely interested in what I'm doing here (and not because I have to tip them.) Sabras/tzabarim say this will wear off. I say we'll see.
• I love expanding my already unrivaled vocabulary of ridiculous Hebrew and Arabic slang and that Israelis think I'm fluent because I can say I have to go the bathroom 47 different ways.
• I love arsim (from afar. When they're leaving me alone.)
• I love Friday in Tel Aviv.
• I love English words which are directly absorbed into the Hebrew language. "Slicha, yesh li peepee!"
• I love how warm and proud of each new immigrant the former olim are and how so many treated me to an "aliyah beer" or dinner. I'm excited to pass it on to the next generation. Shoshana K., I'm waiting for you.
• I love how cheesy American pop music is welcomed with open arms here. For this reason, someone hypothetically can sit in the barber's chair, get a proverbial spring in his step when "Backstreet's Back" comes on, look around, and realize that nobody finds it the least bit weird that said song is being played. This is all hypothetical of course. It never happened.
• I love that I went to World AIDS Day and had my AIDS awareness raised by two macho sperm kicking a soccer ball. (Ok, Noga, I'm back to making fun of this country now.)

This is just a short list. So, my loyal readers, I ask you: what do you love about this place?

Back and Better than Ever

Hello, my loyal readers-is anybody still out there? To paraphrase the famous '80s commercial, don't hate me for not writing. No excuses. Visitors from the States, Ulpan, first-year craziness...I guess the "no excuses" attitude lasted all of one sentence. Hopefully 2007 will bring many new posts, stories, Youtube links, pop culture references, and of course, laughs and distractions from politics and this man...

"The first reason I'm a major tool is the following..."

So you may have noticed the new award banner at the top of this page. If a contest happens in the forest and nobody knows about it, does it make a sound? The "People's Choice Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards" received no publicity, I failed to send out even a single email to friends, there was no voting (instead, the use of ratings from the last 7 months or so on israelforum.com), and I won the bronze for Best Humor Blog because the third place winner (Aussie Dave) had already won in another category. I'll take it though. Supposedly Dave is going to relaunch the original JIBs (Jewish and Israeli Blog awards), complete with publicity and a little organization so stay tuned. In any event, it's nice to know that people out there are laughing. Let's keep the laughs coming...

King of the Freiers

Well, my loyal readers, I come to you with a sad admission. I, Benji Lovitt, am a freier. I'm far from the first immigrant to discuss this concept but I may be one of the few to use the word to describe myself. For those of you living outside of Israel, in the words of fellow blogger Brian Blum, a freier is the Israeli epithet for “sucker,” someone who gets taken advantage of. For an Israeli, being a freier is the worst possible outcome of any encounter. David Bogner claims that Israelis will do anything to avoid being a freier, especially on the roads. "One of the ways this manifests itself is through the need to constantly move forward in traffic. The person at the front of the line is the clear winner… and everyone else is a freier!" As for where this cultural attitude came from, I'll leave it to the sociologists.

My pathetic adventure began a few Fridays ago, walking home on Sheinkin Street from the shuk. The streets are always packed on Friday mornings, as people are taking advantage of valuable weekend time before things close down for Shabbat. This day was no different. As I walked down a block void of commerce (just outside this building...)

...I came across a guy doing a card trick on a makeshift table, surrounded by a few people. Being that the weather was so nice and I was in the heart of the people-watching district of the city, I stopped to watch. (To any of my friends who may already screaming "Nooooo!", I reject that you might have suffered a different fate from me were you actually in my shoes and not reading the story from the safe confines of your office cubicle.) The guy was doing the classic "follow the ace" trick and, lemme tell ya, David Copperstein he wasn't. This guy had the sleight of hand of Dom DeLuise. The observers surrounding the table were raking in the Jewish dough. This guy, 100 shekels, that guy, 100 shekels. It was like taking bamba from a baby.

What do you get when you cross Cheez Doodles with peanut butter?

Have you ever stood next to a hot craps table in a casino? When everyone just keeps winning and winning, and the dice are on fire? You can only stand there for so long before saying, "I GOTTA get me some of THIS!" It happened to me on a gambling trip to Lake Charles, Louisiana after college. I'm not a gambling man but when everyone around you is winning hand over fist, you simply can't just stand there and not want in on the free money.

So I jumped into the action. The guy moved the cards around, asked me where the ace was, and I pointed to the middle card. He said, "show me your money", presumably to make sure that I truly had what I wanted to bet. I took out my wallet, looked into it, and pulled out a 100 shekel bill. He flipped the card over, and...WHAT??? WHERE IN G-D'S NAME IS MY ACE?????? I stared at the card in shock, swallowed hard, and handed my money over to the guy, knowing immediately that something had gone horribly wrong in a very unkosher way.

No eems, vehs, or avals about it, this guy was a con. He switched cards as I was looking in my wallet. Dumbfounded, I sat down on the park bench next to two guys at a loss for words. We started talking, with me repeating "I can' t believe it" and "what an @$$h#$%!" over and over again. When I suggested to the people next to me that I confront the guy and call him on it, they told me that I couldn't prove anything (even while confirming that the guy cheated) and besides, I don't know who this scum is or what he might do. Unbelievable.

When I called a friend of mine who will remain nameless, he was nice enough to let me know that I had fallen victim to the classic street con, the "three card monte." As explained here, the lucky pedestrians who were winning left and right were in on it, and their fleeing from the scene of the crime went according to the script as well. Oh, and one more thing: he once lost $100 on the streets of New York the same way (although the guy may have used a different method of cheating.) I was further consoled by the very next person I told, who revealed that he too once fell victim to one of the classic New Orleans cons which I remember hearing as well.

What is the moral of this story? That this could only happen to a male. I'm not the most competitive person I know by a long shot, but when I saw the ability to make a quick buck, I couldn't resist (and apparently, neither could my friends.) At least 100 shekels is only about $25, I told myself. Am I such a freier? No? Well, maybe I'm just an idiot.

Stay Dry, Tel Aviv

Hello, my loyal readers...sorry for the long delay. Lots going on, lots of visitors from America. But there's a pot of blogging gold at the end of the rainbow. Here's a recent pic from Kikar Rabin after one of our daily rainstorms.