Yesh Matsav

Michal and I were invited to attend a seder last on Wednesday evening (erev pesach) at the apartment of a friend of our friend, Lisa. We didn’t know whose house we were going to, or who would be there until we arrived, but Lisa did let us know that it would be a mostly English language affair with expats. Expats are an interesting phenomenon anywhere in the world, because while locals have had little choice in choosing their homeland, expats usually have a story as to why they chose to adopt a new one – often something from which they’re running from, or running to.

Expat number one was the very nice and eccentric host, an older lady with victorian style white braids adorning her head named Dorothy. She had moved to Israel, I think, in retirement and was very much living the Tel Aviv life in a simple and un-renovated, but very nice and very typically-Tel Aviv apartment in the center of town. We delivered the gefilte fish on the kitchen counter that we had brought as our seder contribution, and were quickly shooed out of the kitchen into the next room to meet some of the guests.

As I entered the room I immediately heard a heated discourse from someone we’ll call “John,” an American in his late 40s or so, on the distinct aural characteristics of the Friulian dialect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friulian_language). Usually when I enter a party where the conversation topic is something that esoteric, I usually think to myself “oh shit, I’m outgunned even by the small talk.”

But once I learned that John was in fact a linguistics professor at the University of Haifa, I calmed down, realizing that he was just your average lovable academic, unaware that nobody else in the room cares about what you study. His personal immigration story was interesting, though. He came 14 years ago as what he calls “an early economic refugee” from the US when he couldn’t find an academic job. He brought with him a Japanese wife, who eventually left him and their two daughters to return to Japan. The younger daughter was at the seder, and although she had a perfect Brooklynese inflected American accent, was far more fluent in Hebrew, her native tongue. She also brought along a friend of hers, a 100% Thai girl, we’ll call her “Sumalee Bromberg.” Her Thai mother came with her a number of years ago and opened a Thai restaurant in Tel Aviv, eventually marrying an Israeli (hence the last name). Sumalee doesn’t speak a word of Thai, however, and for all intents and purposes is completely Israeli.

The seder was led by a very nice and very intelligent young guy in his 30s named Daniel who works as a translator. Daniel arrived in Israel about 14 years ago as a “blackhat” from Sydney Australia to study in a Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He eventually traded in the sthteymel and peyeses, however, for a far more colorful wardrobe and shaved head; leaving behind the yeshiva buchers for the warm embrace of Tel Aviv’s gay scene. For some reason Daniel also brought along his little white haired french poodle named Gucci to the seder, who was very excited about the erotic potential of Michal’s leg.

Three other people in their late 20s were also at the seder: one from South Africa, one from Australia, and one from Hungary (although her English accent didn’t reveal that at all). At one point during the evening we had asked what had brought them here. The South African guy told us that he had always felt the call of living here, and that he knew that it was where he belonged. When asked about what they were doing for work here in Zion, it turns out it was not exactly working the land or milking cows. Rather, they served the country in a different way, working as service representatives for an Israeli internet porn company. Apparently, some enterprising Israelis, including a professor from the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzilya, developed a Youtube-like porno site that has been quite successful. The service is subscriber based, so when a subscriber calls in with a problem (I hate to think of some examples) the customer service people are there to address it. Only workers with English sounding accents are hired so as not to betray to the mostly European and North American clientele that the website is based in the Holyland, which I suppose might arouse some serious conflicted feelings of guilt. Unfortunately, they had to leave the seder early to go to work – they staff a nighttime shift, which I imagine is a peak period of internet porn usage.

So there you go. Apparently not all immigrants to Israel are moving from Brooklyn to the territories, and not all are leaving severe economic and political circumstances (e.g. Russia or Ethiopia). Everyone has a story.