Yesh Matsav

Yesterday evening we held a small day after birthday celebration for Michal at our small place. To get ready for the event, I ran around trying to locate all those traditional birthday party necessities, such as decent goat cheese, charcuterie, wine, and of course some birthday candles for the gateau au chocolat that I bought from the French baker in Neve Tzedek.

To get the candles, I went to the local branch of a supermarket called AM/PM. It’s one of the few chains in Israel that is open all the time, and in our neighborhood, the branches are primarily staffed by Russians. I approached the young Russian woman working behind the counter and told her in my minimal Hebrew,

“Ani lo yodaa ech l’hagid b’ivrit, aval ani tzarich “candles” (I don’t know how to say it in Hebrew, but I need candles.” While saying this, I simultaneously made an up and down motion with my thumb and index fingers that, for some strange reason, I thought conveyed the cylindrical shape of a candle. The young Russian cashier thought for a second and responded, “ah, yes!”

She walked over to a wall, reached up, and, looking satisfied, showed me the “candles” which came in two varieties: extra sensitive, and flavored. Deeply confused for a moment, I soon realized that she had mistaken candles (along with my weird hand gesture) to mean condoms. So I told her, “oh no, that’s for something different.” She giggled, turned a little red, and after I found the burning variety of candles we had a good laugh as I paid for them on my way out.