lizrael update

Hebrew vocabulary for new parents (הורים).

I’ll soon be coming on five years of Israelihood, and of course every day I’ve added new academic and obscure Hebrew to my arsenal. But expanding vocabulary is more than just learning new words; it’s about knowing what even the most familiar words mean in new contexts.

For instance: being a mom.

Here is part of a growing list:

לידה - birth: a new life is born, an older life is freakin exhausted.

טיטול - disposable diaper: the only carbon footprint you don’t give a crap about.

מטפלת - nanny: the ‘other’ woman.

פרות - fruits: what your nanny loves to feed your kid by the bucketful.

עצירות - constipation: what happens to your kid after a bucketful of fruit.

שלשול - diarrhea: what happens to your kid after a bucketful of fruit.

רוק - drool: nature’s toy disinfectant.

שיניים - teeth: cute little pearls of evil.

אמא - momma: a name by which I am automatically able to make tears dry, monsters disappear, and someday buy Rated R movie tickets for my 15-year-old.

Have a good flight from Discount.

I love the ‘טיסה נעימה’ campaign from Discount Bank in Ben Gurion airport. Here’s a sample:

In case Google Translate is off by a word or two (ha!) here’s the gist:

New Zealand? Take a right at HaSharon shore, a left in Australia and where all the sheep are - there.

If you happen to be traveling soon, check out the London ad, it’s pretty good too.

Birthing in Hebrew.

I always thought when it came to my childbirth experience here in Israel, I’d end up automatically speaking, pleading and moaning in my native tongue. Despite Israeli hospital staff. I figured they probably get that all the time, and who doesn’t speak English in the medical field?

Well… it didn’t happen that way. I birthed my little Israeli son in Hebrew. Somehow, I had that frame of mind turned on. Or maybe there was this other-person coming out of me. A person who could do anything, in any language.

I need to be schooled.

Today we volunteered at a ’shuk kach-ten’ - kind of a giant yard sale where you bring junk and take other people’s junk. It was at the elementary school in Tzur Hadassah.

It was also the first time I have entered an Israeli school while it was in session. Kids running everywhere. Not unlike my own elementary school days… just, the screeching, laughing and taunting were in Hebrew.

I looked around at all these kids and their parents and their teachers… It’s absolutely true that the culture of education - and more importantly, the culture of schools - in Israel is completely different than what a lot of us Anglos grew up with. You could say here it is… without… certain elements we were raised to value.  

After exiting the building quite bewildered, I went up to my husband and posed the following: “What the %#@! were we thinking having a child in Israel? Do you realize we are those immigrant parents? Elementary school was bad enough for me in English… How is my kid going to survive in this with me as a mom?”

American Pie Pizza. Only, not.

American-style pizza of true cheesy quality is not as easy to find around Jerusalem as you’d think. Big Apple Pizza (which just opened a new branch on Ben Zakai, my old hood) has done a good enough job, but they’ve grown so much you get that American sold-out feeling.

If you want a small, colorful pizza joint, I’d highly recommend American Pie Pizza on Bet Lechem street. I’ve had it before today, but today was the first time I actually went into the place.

The odd thing about walking into American Pie Pizza, though, was that as soon as we heard the other customers speaking, we realized everyone in the store was… French. Then we turned to the pizza guys and started ordering in Hebrew, and they told us to hold on and turned to the French and answered them… in French.

Quoi?

Ok, odd nationality-food mixes aside, the pizza was delicious and I learned how to say ‘mushroom’ in French. Highly recommended experience.

A White House of thunder and lightning.

I’m sure someone already realized this and mentioned it… but…

I learned today that with Barack Obama in the White House, and Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, the Americans will be led by… thunder (רעם - Rahm) and lightning (ברק - Barack).

Hmm.

So that’s what they do with your tonsils…

In case all that talk of crabits made you hungry, how about some tonsil skewers? C’mon, they’re a great source of unnecessariness:

Courtesy of Tzidkiyahu, a Talpiot Israeli grill joint I still love even if they serve Tonsils for 72 shekels. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what the Hebrew side of the menu said.

Beware the crabits in your cards…

Is it passe to make fun of English spelling mistakes on Israeli marketing products? Eh, I still find it amusing and I’m sure one day my kids will make fun of me for the Hebrew mistakes I make in the little notes in their lunchboxes.

Anyway, I am offering a public service announcement about what is either an unprofessional Israeli credit card company or a dangerously itchy STD you can get from your wallet:

This is pretty impressive considering it seems to be part of their official company title: Israel crabit cards, ltd.

Just stay away from the crabits and you’ll be ok.

Hebrew-speaking dogs.

I’m sitting on my couch and I hear a scratch at the door. My first thought is, did a jackal from the forest across the street come all the way upstairs to haunt me?

My second thought is, it does, however, sound like a dog.

After peeping through the door, I realized it was a dog. A big, fluffy, yellow, gentle, wet and smelly dog. And it was indeed ‘knocking’ at my door.

This is the second time a dog has confused our apartment with their owner’s. Tzur Hadassah is filled with domestic dogs who are sent to roam free and come home whenever they please.

We tried to shoo it away but it insisted on coming inside. He probably lost track of the scent of his trail since it’s really the first or second big rain we’ve had here.

But I felt sorry for him, probably wanting to be home curling up in his pillow. I realized we could send him home with a few key words.

Shev. The dog sat and I checked his collar for a house number. Nope.

Bo. We made him come towards the steps to go downstairs.

L’mata. I tried to encourage him to go downstairs but he needed more, he needed company, so we bo‘d him all the way down, until he started wandering over to the apartment building next door, which looks exactly like ours.

Hebrew-speaking dogs. There’s no place like home.

Not my kind of hot dog.

As we know, there are always going to be some things that get lost in translation. And one of those things will always - always - be the weiner hot dog.

Big Willie? Really? That’s the kind of hot dog I want to eat at a gas station rest stop on erev Shabbat?