Any olim chadashim reading? Like really chadashim? Here’s a tip from Uncle Benji: go to Ulpan. A lot. Like nine times a day. If I could do this whole thing again, I’d take my first 6 months off and do an Ulpan full-time. Of course (all together now): If my aunt had…uh…
Ok, if the guy in the kipah and the extremely tacky t-shirt had a sheidel, he’d be an awkward religious woman.
My Hebrew ain’t bad but Naughty by Nature won’t be singing “Feel Me Flow” about it anytime soon. (Hi-do you know me? My name is “worst attempt in history to sound cool.” So nice to meet you.) Just a few days ago, I stopped in Roladin, the bakery chain with a location near where I work. I size up the burekasim and tell the woman behind the counter “shtay tapuach adama, shtay tiras.” (Two potato, two corn) Although only .00323 seconds elapsed before realizing the error of my ways and yelling “tered! tered!” (spinach! spinach!), the damage had been done. I may as well have continued ordering in Martian (do they have an Ulpan for learning that language?)
When I went back today and ordered the same thing, correctly of course, she remembered me and couldn’t hide her smile. I said, “you come to America so I can laugh at you!” to which she answered, "I ehm lahf-eeng weeth you, noht aht you." Right. And Hamas is shooting with Sderot, not at it.
They better not be telling this story at the Roladin company Christmas party. I’m definitely going back in disguise next time.
How I'll be dressed for Roladin next time, or...Just a typical day on Sderot Rothschild.
(Why does Spiderman need a uni-cycle?)
Oh yeah…YES THEY DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cue the scary “Psycho” music.AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!
23 comments:
maybe this religious young man just wants to say that it is a mitzva to reproduce and g-ds will to do so. :)
pretty unlikely thought though ^^
I am laughing NEAR you! :-D
May I just say that I was a great ulpan student, did my homework, understood every word my teachers said and even spoke in class.
On the street. Nothing. I understood nothing.
While ulpan is good for a foundation upon which to build language skills in this country, ulpan Hebrew is not the basis of conversation with real Israelis (note: they hate it when you correct their grammer).
Whenever I make Hebrew mistakes at a restaurant, the waiter wants my phone number, declares his undying love and promises to be loyal for life. Does that happen to you, too?
;-)
what about tuna - that's gotta be the least appealing (but surprisingly yummy) topping for Israeli pizza. Next to the extra-sweet Israeli ketchup of course. Corn ain't so bad now is it?
You get service at a restaurant?
The day I try tuna on pizza is the day... Ok, I'm never trying tuna on a pizza.
Benji, you hafta stop talking about our Jerusalem meals in your blog. And don't knock it till you try it. I offered you some, and I'm pretty sure my sister did too. :-)
OOOH - funny note - my CAPTCHA ends in CYJ. I'm emailing to to you cause I know you won't believe me.
This is my first time reading your blog. Pretty funny stuff...
That pizza looks like it is covered in boils. There is some ten plagues correlation, but I'm not getting it.... PS Hysterical tshirt/kippa combo.
Awwwwwww...I like corn on things...even pizza. It's good :(
I love your blog! You are hysterical... thanks for making me laugh out loud.
You can be sure that at any given moment some Israeli is ordering a vile pizza with corn and tuna, and is flushing it down with grape flavored juice.
So many comments to make, so little time.
First of all, my kids hate the pizza in this country, don't know why. I find it yummy, (but not with corn or tuna--especially ISRAELI tuna).
Which isn't as bad as its reputation. We finished the last of the thirty cans of tuna we brought on our lift a few weeks ago, and it's really not that bad. But why can't Israel import solid white tuna?
As far as ulpan goes, I love my ulpan, am learning alot, and have made friends there (for that reason alone, new olim should go). But I hate it that I am immediately identified as an olay, even though my hebrew is pretty good.
And my kid, glancing over my shoulder asked why a religious guy is wearing that shirt. I told her he obviously can't read.
'Course I get service in a restaurant. Perks of being a blond in Israel. Plus, being a girl, I do have some other attention-getting features--and I don't mean my stunning personality. ;-)
And in all seriousness--olim chadashim should definitely learn Hebrew and try being more Israeli. That's why we're here right? If I wanted to live in mini-America, I'd just go there instead of being here.
Which means that you should at least try corn on your pizza once. And then when you say, "Hey, I don't remember eating corn." You can think of the pizza you had yesterday. :-)
"If I wanted to live in mini-America, I'd just go there instead of being here."
Where is mini-America?
i LOVED getting pizza w/corn!!! yummy! i remember being a little weirded out when someone ordered duck on their pizza from dominos over there!!!
"Which means that you should at least try corn on your pizza once. And then when you say, 'Hey, I don't remember eating corn.' You can think of the pizza you had yesterday. :-)"
Best comment ever! Benji - promote this woman.
Hmm. Good point. May I just say I had too much Tel Aviv sun yesterday and my brain was frazzled?
Though, if I had to guess where mini-America was I would say Las Vegas.
And thanks Mitchell! :-) There must have been some benefit to yesterday's brain-frazzliness (I know that's not a word, I'm still in Tel Aviv).
1. I haven't yet tasted a decent pizza in this country.
2. My mother-in-law makes tuna pizza which pizza Blasphemy.
3. For years I tried to understand what was printed in English on T-shirts here until I realized that it was actually poorly translated Chinese.
Tuna doesn't belong on pizza and no, it's not a good substitute for pepperoni. Neither does corn, but better than tuna.
And Benji, are you sure this aliya moment is brought by the letter alef (your tag) and not the letter ayin (עלייה) - gotta love Hebrew U ulpan - where you can't say a word on the street but can understand Ph.D.s and Ha'aaretz -- but the free dailies - that's another story!
I did Ulpan full-time at first, and I'm attending part-time now, and while it has helped, it wasn't nearly as useful as meeting Israelis at clubs who don't speak English and trying to flirt. It's fantastic. Especially when they're wearing one of those is-that-English-or-any-other-language-for-that-matter? t-shirts. True story.
But otherwise, switching sentences from active to passive and back again in Gimmel Plus Ulpan for 5 hours a day, 6 days a week didn't do shit for me. The shuk was a lot more helpful. Especially the creepy rebbe-looking guy with the veggie stand just a little after it switches from clothing to food.. he always accosts me. That's where I first learned the tzivui for לנגוע. "Hamudah! Rotzah ananas? Gezer tari? Tov la'aynayim hayafot shelach!" (grabs me... not in an appropriate location) "Al tig'a bi!!" I didn't even know that verb before. My Hebrew education had been too spotty--6 different teachers between the US and Israel, no consistent curriculum for teaching vocabulary, so lots of repeats and lots of skipped ones... but it just popped out. Like a revelation from God that told me how to avoid being raped by scary-veggie-guy. It was entertaining. (Well, not until after my roommate noticed I'd been detained and ran up to save me from him. It was a little scary before that.)
Sexual assault: the ultimate crash-course in Hebrew, nu?
I also get proposals from waiters in restaurants when I make mistakes in my Hebrew. Not when I outright ask for an English menu, though.. then they want nothing to do with me and don't even come to take my order unless I threaten to rugby-tackle them down when they next pass by the table. But if I make a few mistakes in genders of adjectives... I could have a date every night for weeks. Thoroughly entertaining.
Ilana-
Benji didn't get the corn tomorrow joke. I explained it to him and he said he would take my word for it. Good humor is apparently lost on him.
Go spend more time in the sun!
ok that sderot line was terribly funny. (note the adj choice of 'terrible)
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