Day 252: Bob the Pedophile

Bob the Pedophile teaches Physics at my school. He’s American, about 70 years old, and a total creepster. First off, he’s a Republican, which automatically makes him a pedophile. Actually, I’m not even sure he’s a Republican; he’s one of those “I hate all politicians” and “Trump is no worse than Hillary” types who refuses to distinguish between decent and terrible. He also denies global warming, claiming that the earth has always experienced cycles of warming and cooling. He’s one of those people who knows a lot about something (Physics) and therefore thinks he knows a lot about everything. He’s an idiot. And a weirdo: Sometimes he comes up behind me and puts both hands on my back or shoulders for way longer than necessary. Either he thinks we’re bros because we’re both American or he really likes me. The best (worst) part about Bob is his wife, Felicia, who teaches English at the school. She’s a gapped-tooth Brit who stinks of smoke because she rips beaucoup cigarettes on her lunch break. Sometimes when I’m feeling blue, I imagine Bob and Felicia together at home in the evening, and I laugh. And then I cry. I don’t actually think Bob is a pedophile. I just really don’t like the dude and a pedophile is the worst thing I can think to call him. (And also he might actually be a pedophile.)

I’m telling you about Bob because when I need to rationalize our decision to leave Israel, I think of him. I mean, objectively speaking, why would we leave? COVID is nearly irrelevant in Israel at the moment, international travel is picking up again, and the ridiculously amazing weather just never gets old.

We’re also becoming real Israelis: We are now official owners of a machtzelet, a big woven mat Israelis use for picnics on the beach, on the grass, or in the middle of a parking lot. After we finish eating our pita-and-hummus lunch on aforementioned machtzelet, we play matkot (paddle ball), known by Israelis as their national beach sport.

Then we go home, take a shnatz (nap), eat dinner, and at 21:30, drive an hour to Jerusalem for our first mimouna, a Moroccan Jewish tradition celebrated the day after Pesach (Passover) to mark the return of eating chametz (leavened bread). Tables are covered with chocolates, candies, frothy concoctions of egg white and sugar, sweet jellies made of eggplant or cherry tomatoes, mofletta (North African Jewish pancake), and, of course, a giant fish head symbolizing the parting of the Red Sea. It is said that to be an Israeli, one must have a Moroccan friend and attend a mimouna. Looks like we’re official.

We’re also having some fun here and there. The Boss gets wasted once a month at outdoor wine-and-cheese parties with the neighborhood moms, Panini fills her existential void by shopping with her friends in downtown Tel Aviv, OG roller-blades up and down our block like she owns the place, Broosevelt is finally getting a little better at soccer, Boni is the talk of the town with her sparkly purple roller-skates, and I dominate in tennis twice a week. What more could we ask for, right?

Wrong. We gotta go. There’s no way we could stay. Surfing, sunshine, and falafel are not for us. We need to leave, I keep telling myself...

We need to leave because Israel has unique trauma. Yesterday was Yom HaZikaron (Remembrance Day), when Israelis commemorate fallen soldiers. It is not an exaggeration to say that every Israeli knows someone who has died serving their country. There is also a ton of PTSD here, much of which goes untreated. Two days ago, a disabled Israeli army veteran set himself on fire in front of the Defense Ministry’s rehabilitation department. War scars and self-immolation? My kids can barely handle no dessert.

We need to leave because they definitely can’t handle Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). Ceremonies and services are held at schools and military bases, and at 10:00 there’s a two-minute siren throughout the country. Everyone pauses what they’re doing and stands. Drivers stop on the road. The entire country is still. Panini knew about the Holocaust but lost it when she heard specifics about ghettos and gas chambers. We explained the Holocaust to Broosevelt and Boni, but they clearly didn’t get it. The next day, Little Broosevelt kept asking Siri, “How many people didn’t die in World War II?”

We need to leave because this country is sexist. Panini is the only girl in her entire school who knows how to shoot a basketball. Kids stare at OG because she has short hair. Broosevelt plays soccer with boys and Boni dances with girls. Ok, fine, Boni belongs nowhere near a soccer field.

We need to leave (skip this paragraph if you're not a weak Jew with allergies) because we are weak Jews suffering from terrible allergies in the land that never stops blooming.

We need to leave (skip this paragraph if you don't care about sports) because the basketball players here are the absolute worst: On one end, they hack the shit out of you if you get anywhere near the basket, and on the other the end, they call a foul if you even breathe on them. For a bunch of dudes who served in the military, it's downright embarrassing.

We need to leave because the Boss is getting too comfortable: friends, family, tiyulim (trips), etc. We need to get back to Chicago so she can get back on the grind of working full-time, taking the kids to school, making dinner every night, and listening to my god damn feelings.

We need to leave because Panini is surrounded by losers, brats, and bullies. Her soccer team hasn’t won a game since February, her private school classmates are a bunch of spoiled-ass rich kids, and she's getting harassed by some short French girl. The other day, Panini put her backpack on a chair, put her water bottle on the desk, and went to get a drink of water. When she came back, Francine the Dwarf had moved her stuff and was sitting in her seat. Panini told her to move, but Francine the Bully Dwarf didn’t budge. Eventually, Panini found a different seat, and then I was forced to bully her at home that night for not having stood up to Francine the Plucky Dwarf.

We need to leave because OG keeps correcting my Hebrew grammar, and I don’t want to stop loving her.

We need to leave because if Broosevelt keeps picking up his eggs with his hands, it’s goin’ down.

We need to leave because if Boni says “No thanks” one more time when the Boss and I ask her to set the table, she won’t have a plane ticket home.

We need to leave because my student is a Nazi. The other day, I was chatting with Fraulein Mailin who lived in Chile for six years. She told me her grandparents had actually moved to South America years ago, and I was like:

“Oh, really? When?” (“Hmmm...right after World War II?”)

“I’m not sure exactly.” (“My parents told me to never say anything about our past.”)

“Why did they move there?” (“Were they Nazis trying to escape?”)

“I’m not really sure.” (“This Jew can smell my Nazi blood.”)

We need to leave because I might be losing it: The other day as I was semi-paying attention to OG, she said, “Daddy, watch the whole dance,” and I was 100% certain she had said, “Daddy, watch me pole dance.”

Yeah, it’s time to go.

(Adolf Eichmann, logistics architect of the Holocaust, captured by the U.S. in 1945, escaped from detention camp, fled to Argentina in 1950, captured by Mossad (Israel intelligence agency) in 1960, executed in 1962)

Day 238: Hafuch

Do you know who your plumber is? What his name is? Where he’s from? What his back-story is? No, you don’t know any of those things, do you? Because you don’t take the time to talk or listen to your plumber. Maybe you’re busy with work. Maybe you don’t speak Spanish or Polish. Or maybe you’re just an elitist pig.

Well here in Israel, we take time to talk to our plumber, or at least listen to him share his entire life story.

Adi the Plumber was here a few weeks ago, and it’s fair to say I know more about him than I do about my own children. Adi struggled in school in Israel but when his family moved to Singapore at age 10, he did much better. In the late 1960s, Singapore was a young nation just starting to kick ass, and it looked to Israel for military expertise after Israel kicked so much ass in the Six-Day War of 1967. Adi’s father worked for the military and was hired by the Singapore government to help build the Singapore air force, which was non-existent at the time.

Before Adi was a plumber, he also worked on planes. Before that, he lived in our neighborhood and went to Aran, the school where our kids go. Currently, his grandkids go to Aran, and I’ve since seen Adi on the block picking them up from school.

If you’d like to know more about Adi, he is an amateur musician and some of his work can be found on YouTube. His main source of income, however, is plumbing, as he charges approximately $60 for about 10 minutes of actual work.

I admit that chatting with Adi was pretty interesting, as I learned quite a bit about his family and the history of Israel. But the whole situation seemed pretty strange because I was once, like you are now, a privileged jack-ass who demanded service from my workers, not conversation.

This experience was one of many demonstrating that everything in Israel is hafuch. 

Hafuch is pronounced ha-FOOCH, but the ch is not pronounced like the ch in choo-choo train. Rather, it is the wonderful Hebrew letter chet, pronounced like the ch in the familiar Hebrew saying L’chaim! (“To life!”), which even the most Gentile of you has heard when Jews make a toast.

Hafuch means backwards, upside down, or inside out. A broader, more liberal definition includes anything that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. In other words, something that’s screwed up.

The more time I spend in this strange land, the more I realize how hafuch everything is here.

The COVID situation is hafuch. Anti-vaxxer Israelis are forging vaccination certificates, and Israel bought so much vaccine that it’s now selling doses abroad.

Politics is hafuch. Israel has had four elections in two years because Netanyahu can’t maintain a coalition. But he somehow keeps getting the most votes in each election, thereby getting yet another chance to build a coalition. The Boss’ hairdresser shared some of his wisdom on the topic of politics: All politicians piss in the pool. Some, like Biden and Netanyhau, piss while they’re swimming. And some, like Trump, piss from the diving board.

History is hafuch. Earlier this week, we spent the day on a kibbutz in southern Israel with one of the Boss’ cousins, Yael. Turns out that Yael’s grandmother, mother, and aunt were on the “Kastner train,” which left Hungary in June 1944, made a strange, extended stop at the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, and eventually made its way to Switzerland, where approximately 1,600 Jews found safety. In exchange for this freedom, Kastner (a Hungarian Jew) gave Adolf Eichmann (the German SS officer in charge of deporting Hungary’s Jews to Auschwitz) gold, diamonds, and lots of cash. Kastner was initially praised for saving so many Jewish lives, and he emigrated to Israel in 1947 where he became an important government spokesperson. Soon, however, allegations surfaced that he’d been a Nazi collaborator, an Israeli judge ruled that he had “sold his soul to the devil,” and he was assassinated in 1957. Though the Israeli Supreme Court ultimately overturned the lower court’s ruling, Kastner’s legacy is controversial. (As a Jew and a history teacher, I strongly encourage you to do some Googling of your own.)

The weather’s hafuch. Two weeks ago in mid-March, it was 90 degrees.

Birthdays are beyond hafuch. Every one of the 30 dudes on my basketball WhatsApp group felt the need to wish one dude happy birthday with orange basketball and birthday streamer emojis.

The money and time spent on kids’ birthday parties is egregiously hafuch. OG turned 10 in March and Broosevelt and Noni turned 7. The Boss spent many hundreds of dollars on cakes and for a guy to juggle with fire, walk on stilts, and eat our pizza.

Our most recent tiyul (trip) was hafuch. Nearly all of the tiyulim we’ve been on this year have been with the Boss’ aunt and uncle. A couple of days ago, however, the six of us did our own tiyul to the north where we hiked around a nature reserve and splashed through shallow rivers. On the drive back, as we climbed through the hills surrounding the Jordan Valley overlooking the ancient city of Jericho, we should have been listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo or some other spiritual shit. Instead, I was forced to listen to the Boss belt out “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips.

Pesach (Passover) was hafuch. For the first time in our lives, we celebrated Pesach in Israel. Should’ve been a special day. A symbolic day. A day to remember. The only thing I’ll remember is that I was stuck with all the kids in a Tel Aviv suburb with one side of the Boss' family while the Boss spent eight hours in Jerusalem with the other side of her family sipping wine and snacking on matzah.

There’s a teacher here who’s most definitely hafuch. Your first grade teacher was likely a nice old lady with grey hair and glasses; Broosevelt and Noni’s 1st grade teacher (Shulamit) is a straight-up bitch. The Boss asked Shulamit if she could send cupcakes to school for the kids' birthdays. Despite the fact that everything in this country happens at the last minute, Shulamit insisted that the sending of cupcakes be planned far in advance. Yelling ensued, and the Boss and Shulamit officially have beef (again).

Panini epitomizes hafuch. In theory, she’s studying for her bat mitzvah, playing soccer three times a week, doing her best in an impossible English class, learning advanced Math in Hebrew, trying to keep up with both her Israeli neighborhood friends and her international school friends, and dealing with the trials and tribulations of being a tween. In reality, her soccer team has lost its last three games by a total score of 26 to 2, she doesn’t know how to combine like terms, she recently moronically complained that her “french fries tasted like potatoes,” and the other day on our glorious hike, she exclaimed, “I have another case of rashy thighs.”

OG is hafuch in her own special way. She and all the native Hebrew speakers/readers/writers in her class took a Hebrew reading comprehension test. She scored near the top of her class. I still don’t get it. What I also don’t get is how sweet little Ms. Rainbow Zebra tried to play her parents by asking the Boss if she could have friends over, and then when the Boss said no, she asked me the same thing. I said yes, the friends came over, and the Boss was not pleased. I was also not pleased, but I do respect the power move. You would think someone with this evil intelligence would finish her homework and not spend all day on the couch in a filthy Snuggie.

Broosevelt’s making me hafuch. He is obsessed with numbers: counting how many days until the Boss’ 96-year-old saba (grandfather) turns 100, the age of NBA players, and the height and weight of Pokémon. The other day as I was doing my business in the bathroom, I was fully engrossed in my reading material about the Ground-Fire Legendary Pokémon Primal Groudon.

Boni used to be a loser American with no Israeli friends. Now her world is hafuch: her social calendar is full and everyone wants to have a play-date with the silky-haired, gap-toothed grilled-cheese eater.

One final note: We’ve decided to stay in Israel for another year! Every day is beautiful here, the kids speak Hebrew and have friends, and the Boss is tan and slender. Wish us luck.

P.S. April Fool’s! As planned, we’ll be back in August. We figured that right as my Hebrew was really starting to pick up and right when I’d found a weekly basketball game and made some tennis friends and found my footing at work, we’d get the hell out of here.

Hafuch.