Fridmanim, Friarim, and Dosim

Fridmanim, Friarim, and Dosim: 3 negative slang-stereotypes here in Israel. I am proud to say that I can be considered all three. Allow me to explain:
Fridmanim in plural, or Fridman in singular, is the mocking term for Ashkenazim in Israel. Its a play on the common Ashkenazic last name -"Friedman". It's not just a nickname though. It comes with specific connotations. Fridmanim are nebby. They are goody-goodys. They play it safe. They are, well... boring. Take Friday night for example. Fridmanim make chicken broth that we call "chicken soup". Sephardim make a thick and spicy lentil-meat soup. When you get engaged, Fridmanim stand around and drink Scotch while Sephardim get dressed up in these ornate costumes and paint orange tatoos on everone's hands. I think you get my point. But back to me... I think if you had to look up Fridman in the dictionary, it might just say Rena Landman. (I always was, by the way, one of those kids who believed that the word "gullible" wasn't in the dictionary). I am Miss play it safe, growing up I was always a goody goody, and now that I'm a student again, I know that nothings changed....

I additonally learned this week that Fridman men are thought to be "cold" people. You know, unfriendly, impolite. When I was told this, I had to reconcile this with my own theory until now: a man who is cold and impolite is because hi smom failed to train him properly. I never took these characteristics to be a cultural phenomenon. But these women were quite convincing, and explained that Sephardic men are just not like that. They are warm, polite, sensitive. I'll take their word for it, they probably know more Sephardic men than me. Let me see... there's Ariel Cohen, Sady Benzaquen, and Avi Bitton. I'm out. Yeah, I'd say they know more Sephardic men than me.

Anyway, Fridmanim are often Friarim too. Friarim (Friar in singular) are losers. Just plain losers. They are the people who get dumped on, taken advantage of. For example- At school, every teacher has 3 recess duties. I, the "new girl" has 4. So in fear of being known as a "Friar", I asked the vice principal (Peter Pan) what the policy is. She explained that because I assist in many classes, I can take a break during a regular class, and I can be on-duty for recess. Okay, sounds reasonable. So I'm stll a Friar, just a justifiable Friar.

This brings me to the last, Dosim. Dosim are dati Jews, pronounced "dosim", to mimic a yeshivish mispronunciation of the word datiim. The connotation here is shlumpy, sloppy people who keep weirdo laws. My English mentor, a woman in her forties, normally comes to school in jeans. The other day, she came in wearing a long shlumpy jean skirt, a big bulky sweater, and sneakers. As soon as anyone walked into the teachers' room and saw her they cried out in laughter, "What happened to you, all of a sudden you're a dosi?" She laughed too, and said that the give-away was the jean skirt with the sneakers. Now I'm sitting there in my jean skirt thinking, should I be offended here? Granted, mine was short and tailored, and I was wearing tights and shoes, but I'll be the first to admit that come summer, I might be found wearing sneakers with a jean skirt...So I asked them- "Am I a dosi?" They assured me-- no, no, you're "b'seder". That was a close one. Maybe they'll re-evaluate me in when the warm weather hits in a month. Wish me luck.

Because not all the teachers in my school grew up observant or are currently observant, there are many rumors about dosim that fly around that need to be confirmed or rejected. I am one of only a couple dosi teachers in the school who has the ability and privelage of doing so. So though its somewhat of a mocking term, at least I'm known as a reputable dosi with answers. Last week some teachers were asking whether its true if dosi brides wear wigs to their weddings. A couple of days ago, one of the teachers asked me if its true that the dosi men buy their wives a piece of jewelry before Pesach. If such a practice exists, they explained, then they were jealous. I said, Yeah, it exists, in Charedi-ville. But Charedi-ville is different than Dosi-ville. But thats for another time.

Lice: as commom as a cold

Warning: reading this entry may cause some of you to feel itchy for the rest of the day. Readers beware.

Today I was teaching my first grade class Torah, and all of a sudden, one of the girls shouts out "a louse just fell out of my hair and onto my book!! I walked over and looked down at her book, and I did indeed see a louse. It was tiny, black. About the size of a poopy seed. I took a tissue and killed it and threw it out. It caused a lot of commotion in the class, but everyone settled down and we continued to learn. While this may have been the first time something like that happened in my presence, lice here is as common as a cold. It's not just common, its also not something Israelis are at all embarrassed about. One day one of my students, who normally wears a ponytail, came in with a very beautiful braid. I said, "wow, thats beautiful, who made that for you?" she said "my mother, its because I have lice." "Wonderful," I said, as I slowly inched backwards. You hear something like that and you can't help but be paranoid the rest of the day.

Back in September, when I was just starting to get acquainted with the school and the kids and all the policies, one of my students came to me crying saying, "I have lice and it itches me. I want to call my mother." I thought that was a legitimate request. I was all ready to take her to call home, heck I thought they'd send her home, but I figured I'd check with the homeroom teacher first. She turned to the kid and yelled at her, "You know we don't deal with lice here! When you go home, tell your mother to take care of it!" While I can't say the teacher's tone was appropriate, I have since learned that that is indeed the school policy. It is against the law to send a kid home for lice here.

I was getting my haircut for the first time here, so I said to the lady who was going to cut my hair, "I'm a little scared of lice." She laughed at me and started combing and cutting etc. She said, "I haven't seen lice in years! They must have died out or something.." Just as I was begining to feel reassured, the mother sitting next to me said, "No, my kids have lice all the time, I just think its disgusting to clean it out" I responded "Thats not fair for the rest of us..." But I don't think she really cared for my opinion.

Theres a woman in our community who is a proffessional lice lady. She coined the name "Kinanit". You hire her to pick out the nits and lice, she charges by the hour. This kind of thing exists in Brooklyn, but not here. The local newspaper did a whole article about her. The day after the article came out, everyone was buzzing (no pun intended) about it at school. "Did you see?" "Did you read?" They thought it was absolutely ridiculous!

When you move to Israel, Nefesh B'Nefesh tells the olim, "Don't try to change the country; you won't succeed. Just take it as it is..." Merry Rosman told me the same thing, but she gave me permission to change the policy on lice. I will try to make her proud. Next on the list of necessary reforms: chocolate chip cookies. I've got my work cut out for me.

Disco Wedding

Last night I attended the wedding of my co-worker's daughter. He is the head of maintenance at school, (remember-- the 65 year old man who sat next to me at he Chanukah party...). He is not dati so I was preparing myself for a wild party. It was way out, in a hall near Netanya. I had volunteered to drive some co-workers because I didn't want to stay to late, and this way I could make sure I got home at a reasonable hour. Normally I would never offer to drive out of Modiin, but with our new GPS (thanks folks!) I felt I could go anywhere (though this would be my first time actually using it...). Yaakov entered in the address of the hall for me and told me which buttons to press, and I was all set. I warned my "carpool" ahead of time that I wasn't familiar with the route, and though I had the GPS, they should keep their eyes on the road to help me out. The wedding was called for 7:30 and the chupah for 9. Knowing how unlikely it would be for them to start on time, we figured we could leave Modiin at 7:30 and be there by 8:30-8:45. Deciding what to wear took some careful thought. After all when I asked the security guard if he plans on wearing something nicer than his uniform, he said, "What's the big deal, I'm not the groom!" He wasn't joking. That got me a bit nervous. Anyway, I decided to go with a low key outfit and stilleto heels. I hopped in the car and picked up my co-workers and we were on our way. Of course, the minute they got in the car they asked me how much I bought my car for and how much the GPS cost...The route was pretty simple and we continued on the highway for a while. I wasn't looking at the road signs at all, I was simply following the GPS. Apparantly my fellow passengers weren't looking at the road or the GPS. About an hour into the ride we were approaching a roadblock with soldiers and, one of my coworkers perks up and says, "Why are we entering the shtachim?!!" Oh Dear. We were entering Ariel, on the West Bank. We must have taken a wrong turn, or didn't take a right turn, and here we were, nowhere near where we needed to be! It took us a little while longer to find our way out of the mess, and back in the right direction. My car mates were very supportive and took full blame for the error, well... they questioned my GPS too, but at least none of the blame was on me! In fact, they told me what a good driver I was and how calm I had been throughout our confusing journey. We got to the wedding close to 10, after a 2 hour car ride. We missed the chupah and most of the meal, but we were just in time for... disco dancing! The bride and groom came out to flashing white lights, bubbles (yes, bubbles), and a loud, booming, floor-shaking rythem, and everyone started to boogey down. A whole group of us teachers cornered a little section in the corner of the dancefloor and stood around (me) or danced (them) to the rythem. On the dancefloor I had an opportunity to check out all the outfits. Bride- nice big poofey dress, nice hair and make up. Groom- all black suit (including shirt and tie), and slicked back hair in pony tail. Interesting. Friends of the couple- some in shirts and slacks. some in dressy outfits. mostly in jeans. As you might have guessed, I stood out like a sore thumb. And it wasn't because I didn't have cut-outs in my sleeves for my shoulders (is that a worldwide trend these days, or just here?). It was because I didn't have big fake jewelry, or big hair, or big platform shoes. My dainty stilletos and Sophie's jewelry made me look like the first lady compaired to the rest of these people. No matter. I had a good time, and we left within the hour. We got home in half the time that it took us to get there. I was home by 12 and in bed by 12:15. Not so bad considering I made it to bed around the same time as Sunday night after my midnight meeting...

Mom's visit

It was really a treat to have my mother with us last week. I have a free day so infrequently that the fact that I had a couple of days to do some errands and sip an ice coffee WITH MY MOM was really a novelty. My mother landed Sunday night and on Mon we drove to J-lem to visit my grandfather. He was very disappointed that he wan't able to feed us on Taanit Esther, but he sent us home with enough to make up for it. We raided his Pesach pots, because I'm making Pesach for the first time and he won't be cooking at all. After we loaded up the car with our million plastic bags, we headed out to the shuk. There we filled in whatever other Pesach items we needed, and of course bought some food to break the fast. When I say "some food" I really mean a ton of food. My mom in the shuk is like a kid in a candy store. We bought so much that we had to make two trips to the car. Fruit, veggies, fresh bread, fresh cheese, nuts, and of course "g'viniyot". Whats a g'viniya- you might ask. Cheese Danish. They're not so easy to come by here, but the Fruchters of Queens can't break fasts without them. Its the carrot at the end of the stick. In fact, if there is evidence that there will not be a cheese danish at the end of the fast, it just might not be worth it to finish the fast. My mom was getting a little tired and was weakening with the smell of all fresh bread and pastries, "do you want to break your fast?" she asked, looking at me for support. "Mom, hang in there," I said, "we'll find you a cheese danish for later and you'll be fine." and thats exactly what happened. Gviniya in pocket, she held out and we continued on our way. That night was Purim. We all went to shul to hear the megilla and we stayed afterwards for a carnival. They had break-fast food there. Shame we spent the whole day and a whole week's salary on break-fast food at the shuk. Oh well. We ate that food for the rest of the week-- breakfast, lunch, and dinner... There's always room for g'viniyot though, they were finished by the next morning.

Purim day was fun, we had a seudah with my grandfather's wife's family. We were an ecclectic bunch-- including charedi, granola, and normal (thats me). Ayelet had a fabulous time because 2 of my grandfather's charedi step-grandaughters were dressed as clowns. Ayelet thinks that any clown is Nachum the clown from Uncle Moishe. She followed around these 2 teenagers the whole afternoon, calling them "Nachum." There was singing and dancing and a birthday cake for Grandpa. We had a great time and headed back to Modiin with some time to relax a bit.

We were back to errands on Wednesday, and made a trip to Home Center. Home Center is supposedly the Bed Bath and Beyond of Israel. But don't get your hopes up. Its half the size, half the quality, and at least half the pace at the checkout counter. We got some things there, including yet another set of plastic drawers. I decided that you can only consider yourself a true Israeli if you have one set in each room. I'm proud to say we've reached that mark!

Whenever we have visitors come, everyone always asks, "what did they bring?" My mother brought us lots of goodies and clothing, toys and books. When my parents are here they don't buy many things to bring back. Snickers are kosher everwhere, so gone are the days where you would stuff a whole dufflebag full of those. Gone too are the days when you would buy Marzipan rugelach and bring them back... or KFC chicken. I don't want to take this personally, but it's hard not too. I mean come on- is there really NOTHING here, in my country, thats worth buying to bring back? I was pleasantly surprised then when my mother explained to me that she was on a misson to bring back some of the tiny tik gavs (knapsacks) that I described in an earlier blog for her friend's grandkids (hi Judy!). I take full credit for those purchases. Maybe I should begin to endorse more Israeli products on this blog, hmmm....

We had a great rest of the week and in short, it was just wonderful to have my mom here. We accomplished a lot together and had a good time doing it. She got the water stains off my dishrack, I got her hooked on nana tea, and now she knows how to say cheese danish in Hebrew. Could you ask for anything more?

V'nahafoch Me: Purim

Forgive me for talking about Purim even though the rest of you are probably on to Pesach already... there are just a couple things I have to get off my chest before I approach the next holiday. For most of my life, Purim seemed like an after-thought, or at best a last-minute thought. As a kid you get the costume a couple of days before and have a fun day with family and friends, and of course "trick or treating". As an adult I was either in college- which didn't really account for Purim, or in SAR, where we worked Purim day. I always dressed up in SAR as the same thing, a chinese woman, because all it required of me was to throw on this red kimono that I have (many say I look Chinese, so I didn't even need the eye-liner). Mishloach manot was whatever I could throw together, trying to look creative without investing much effort. Here I am in Israel where Purim is neither an after-thought nor a last-minute thought. Purim starts to be discussed the day after Tu B'shvat. Just as the dried fruit is being rolled out of the stores, in roll the tiny wine bottles and tiny chocolate bars. Purim costumes and accessories line the toy stores and halls of the mall. People devote coffee and lunch breaks to "What are you dressing up as?" Once Rosh Chodesh Adar rolled around, there was a note on the door of Ayelet's gan every afternoon, instructing the parents what to dress the children in the following day. This brought on a lot of undue stress! It would be 4 o' clock in the afternoon and suddenly I would have to start putting together a clown costume, or an animal costume for the next day! I too had to dress up in many different costumes through out the week prior to Purim. To put it lightly, these Israelis get very into it.

As I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, the teachers in my school decided to dress up in a theme costume- and after I made sure that all my co-workers had signed up, I too signed up to partake in the group costume of Alice in Wonderland. I signed up to be one of the playing cards because I figured I could spend the least money on that, just 2 pieces of oak tag and a marker. The school had its costume day on Sunday the day before Taanit Esther. After almost 2 weeks of wearing a different costume each day, I was relieved that this would be the last. I worked on my costume on Saturday night, the Ace of Spades. Sunday morning, I show up in school, expecting to see a whole school's worth of teachers dressed up like rabbits and cats, caterpillars and cards, but alas I am one of 4 people who actually came dressed according to the theme. All my students run over to me and ask me what I'm dressed as. That's not a good sign, I think to myself. When I explain that I'm a playing card they say 'ohhh, you're the Ace.." Only they can't pronounce the word "Ace" so it comes out sounding like an inapporpriate word. Anyway, when I realized that I was only 1 of 4 in theme costume, I felt a little in the dark-- to say the least, and when I noticed that NONE of my fellow first grade teachers came dressed in part, I was somewhat... insulted, offended. I asked one of them, who was dressed like a ladybug, "what happened, why arent you dressed according to the theme?" she answered- "eh, thats just boring". yeah, ok, boring. Like a ladybug is so much more exciting. As I listened to myself think like this, I couldn't help but notice that yet another milestone has passed- I, just like any authentic Israeli, cared about my Purim costume! who would've thought?!

As a Judaic Studies teacher, it was common to give a lesson comparing Purim to Chanukah. After living in Israel I have a couple of things to add to that list...
Chanukah is an 8 day holiday celebrated for 8 days. Purim is a one day holiday that is celebrated for 2 weeks. On Chanukah, the fresh caramel sufganiyot made you think you died and went to heaven. On Purim, the store-bought hamentashen are not even worth trying. Even the pre-packaged Angel cake is better than that, and thats not saying much. Compared to Chanukah, I found that I spent a lot more money preparing for and celebrating this ever-so-short holiday of Purim....
mishoach manot shul fundraiser: 150 shekel.
personal mishloach manot: 100 shekel.
blonde wig for myself and cowboy hat for Yaakov: 40 shekel.
Wearing a costume in the middle of March and being "normal" : Priceless.