P.P.S. to Election Day

I am indeed being “foreignized rapidly and with facility”: only a few weeks of living here and I'm nearly as pushy as the sabras (native-born Israelis). While standing in line at my neighborhood supermarket, I became increasingly annoyed at the guy in front of me who wasn’t moving forward, so in typical Israeli fashion I pushed my way past him. That brought him back to Earth. “Slichah!” (excuse me) he protested. I shrugged and gestured to him to go ahead. If I’d been a little quicker with my Hebrew, I would have said “Atah tzarich hazmanah?” (you need an invitation?). Or, as my father likes to say, he who snoozes loses. I can only imagine what a holy terror I will seem to polite Midwesterners when I return to the Galut with my newly acquired minhagim (customs).

On the other hand, I don’t want to give the impression that life in Israel is all pushiness. People here are at the same time very warm and friendly. Just today a high school teacher sitting on the bus next to me struck up a very pleasant conversation with me. As I noted in an earlier post, there seems to be less “civil inattention” here, which can manifest itself in different ways. It means that people are less inhibited about offering their opinions and advice (even when it’s unsolicited), but they are also more open to engaging in dialogue with strangers. Perhaps these habits and customs reflect the fact, as George Mosse was once jokingly informed, that Israel is not so much a polis as a shtetl.

Speaking of the polis, Wisconsin's primary is today. I'm waiting eagerly for the results.