The following anecdote is an expanded version of a note I typed in English-transliterated Hebrew on my BlackBerry last summer. I offer it up this year as an example of the local flavor that one gets in Israel, and in honor of my imminent trip back to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
It's one of the stickiest days of summer, and people are in a mood. The sherut (shared taxi) is a van with seats so threadbare that the springs feel like they're screwing themselves into your legs just above your knees. After the 13th or so passenger boards, the driver's still standing around waiting for something. The natives are getting restless. I'm in the back, in the row of five seats across, over the wheels, which are creating a heat of their own. After a clamor, the driver finally enables the "air conditioning."
The guy in the middle of the back row, a Safed-kabbalist type in flowing white linen, fans himself unsuccessfully and yells at the driver.
"Nahag! Hamazgan hazeh al hapanim!" (Driver! This air conditioner sucks!)
Turning to the guy next to him (and between him and me), kabbalist narrows his eyes, and growls at his neighbor. "Don't lean on me, brother," he commands.
"What?" The dude next to him, confused, wasn't leaning on anyone. Sure he was visibly overheating, rivers of sweat running down his cheek and staining his clothing a damper version of its original hue. Things were a little packed, but he wasn't leaning.
"I said," he said, leaning over into his neighbor's lap as he enunciated, "don't lean on me. I know it's crowded. But there's nowhere to lean. You're leaning on me, brother. And I'm not leaning on you, so don't lean on me."
"Where do you want me to go?" asked the exasperated neighbor. "Should I go out the window? These aren't even windows. Just go with it. The air conditioner is on."
"The air conditioner? It's not an air conditioner. It's a fan," he says with the authority of an airconditionerologist. "It's not an air conditioner." He pauses mid-anger, realizing, perhaps that the emotion is misdirected. He recalibrates. "Nahag (Driver)! This sucks! Your air conditioner sucks."
The driver, either legally deaf or selectively so, remains unperturbed, silent, doesn't say a word. How else to deal with a job like driving 12 people in a van between cities as different as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv?
Look for more adventures in Israeli transportation this summer...
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