The good old, old days

In Michael Crichton’s book Timeline, one character, Andrė, decides to remain in the past, specifically the year 1357, because he finds life then much more to his taste. Many readers probably identified with the longing for idyllic past with all of its simple charm and without any of modern life’s stresses. Alas, life in the pre-industrial age was not a bowl of cherries.  It may be that it was slower and less stressful but it involved much hard work and many limitations unimaginable today.

Let us discuss the basic needs for heating, cooking and light. Pre-electricity means wood or charcoal stoves, which often served all three functions. Someone, generally a lower-class woman, had to get up before dawn and get the fire going. Depending on the size of the house and its design, this limited heat did not necessary get to all of the rooms. Cooking and baking on a wood stove is an art that takes year to learn in terms of controlling the temperature. As for light, aside from the fire, people only had relatively expensive candles to extend their day.  To give a perspective, for the wedding of the daughter of the French King, Louis Phillippe (the Bourgeois) in the early 19^th century, the cost of lighting the ballroom was higher than the cost of the bride’s dress.

On the subject of clothes, pret-a-porter had not been invented, meaning you could not just go to the store and buy a pair of pants or a dress, not to mention underwear. Someone, a tailor or seamstress, had to make it specifically for you.  Each item was expensive, meaning that even the wealthy had very limited wardrobes.  As for cleaning it, without any washing machine, each item had to be taken to the river and cleaned by hand.  Talk about time-consuming and strenuous work.

The other great necessity, food, was also rather limited.  Food transportation was by wagon or boat only. Anybody distant from the few good roads or a body of water lived on what was locally available, which could lack variety and even quantity depending on the area and season. It is no surprise that most local peasant recipes involve maximum effort to attain the most benefit from any locally available food.

Of course, money solves most problems, even then. Unfortunately, money was also an issue.  The pre-industrial age was a time without bank credit, credit cards, checks or even paper money. Money was all about valuable metals and weight. Spain became rich because it plundered lots of millions of pounds in gold and silver, literally.  However, given the limitations of weight, transportation and raw materials, peripheral locations often lacked the money to conduct basic financial transactions. Those fur farmers in North America in the 17^th and 18^th century even traded in buck skins to complement the limited number of British, Dutch, French and Spanish coins they could get their hands on.

So, I personally am less excited about living the cold, dark, dirty and difficult life of 400 years ago. I am willing to put up with cell phone calls at inappropriate times, around-the-clock emails, bank account vigilance and even smog for the privilege of feeling warm, clean and fed and being capable of buying almost anything and going anywhere in this world. 2018 ain’t so bad, really.

Usual sights

Israel is a unique country in many ways, including typical behavior.  The following is a short list of rather commonplace phenomena that visitors might see in Israel that would surprise them but attract no notice by the locals.

Looking around, it becomes obvious, especially in certain cities, that Israelis love children.  It is not extraordinary to people out and about with four or more children in tow and a baby in hand.  The religious and Arab populations in particular tend to have large families but, in general, the more the merrier applies to children here, including two rounds of them in order to avoid empty nest syndrome. Also, numerous people, not just soldiers, pack guns openly here.  My father was rather shocked at the amount of weaponry among the guests at my first wedding.  I stopped noticing this long ago.  In terms of shopping, security guards and bag checks are routine and standard at every store and mall. Women automatically direct their bags for a check. As for fashion, due to a noticeable religious presence, some level of “modest” clothing is the norm.  In other words, a woman walking with her breasts exposed tends to attract much attention, most of negative.

Israelis in public tend to be quite friendly.  They routinely say shalom to people they meet, including strangers. Curiously, even non-religious Jews use Shabbat shalom in Friday and Saturday communication.  If someone needs directions, Israelis are very helpful if not always so knowledgeable. It is not an accident that Ways was invited by an Israeli.  He was probably tired of receiving incorrect directions. If someone collapses in an Israeli street, people drop everything and try to help.  The odds are that at least one of them is/was a medic or medical staff member. It is well known that Israelis are so happy or relieved to land safely (or return) that they often clap after the plane lands. This is a perfectly normal thing to do, right?

Alas, not everything is rosy. Israelis, like most people in the Mediterranean basin, tend to be aggressive drivers. Woe to the sleepy driver at light that turns green.  A sharp honk is quick to come. Also, the parking shortage in many Israeli cities brings out the worst of its hypertense residents as expressed in countless shouting matches for precious parking spots.  Age and gender have no impact on the ferocity of these territorial battles. On a more dangerous note, certain groups for ideological reasons periodically express their opposition to others by throwing rocks at passing vehicles.  The most notable perpetrators are the ultra-orthodox on holidays on any car that dare disturbs their peace, including ambulances sometimes, and radicalized Muslim Arabs, generally youth, that want to emphasize their non-Israeli identity by punishing cars with Israeli license plates.  Fortunately, this is not common but still somewhat expected at certain times of the year.

I wish to add a few words on behavior.  In terms of food, Israelis find it perfectly normal to eat vegetables for breakfast and a large lunch, not dinner. In terms of main dishes, alongside the usual carnivores, Israel has the highest percentage of vegans in the world, which is good news for travelling vegetarians. In terms of travel, due to the limited size of the country, even those who own cars often choose to travel to another city by bus if not train.  Intercity flights are generally not practical. Israelis, even those try to ignore it, are addicted to the news.  No news is truly good news here but unfortunately all too rare. Hebrew being of limited value outside of Israel and a few spots in the United States, Thailand and Turkey, just about all Israelis know English, albeit not quite as well as they think they do. They happily apply this language skill in helping stranded tourists and ordering items from the Internet.

Granted, some countries share part of these behaviors but Israel is still a unique experience for a visitor.

Mislabeling?

The purpose of a label is to provide essential information at a glance. Proper labeling is not only required by law but is also an essential marketing strategy. Yet, a walk through the supermarket shows that some companies somehow fail in this task.

In some cases, the grammar confuses the matter. For example, in the United States, you can buy “free range chicken broth.” Somehow, Garry Larson’s cartoon showing a boneless chicken ranch (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheFarSideGallery/comments/48yk32/boneless_chicken_ranch/) comes into mind. Can you imagine gathering a flock of chicken broth from the courtyard?  What tool should you use? Likewise, in Hebrew, one of Israel’s national department stores has a tag that literally says “clothes for men on sale.” The question of why these men are less desirable naturally pops into mind. Spelling also counts.  I wonder who the intended customers of “black painty liners” are.

Other labels are correct but somehow illogical. For instance, in Israel, you can buy kosher air freshener. Now, koshrut laws deal with foods and are quite a complicated business, both in terms of rules and the body issuing the seal. The latter ranges from the official government supervision to numerous private and more demanding bodies. I can see how paper towels might make contact with food, making it important for observant Jews to check the kosher label. However, as far as I know, air freshener is generally in the bathroom, at the other end of the story, so to speak. I guess that you can never be too careful. For that matter, why would anybody advertise not to mention buy “no fat, no sugar yoghurt?” I suppose it is making virtue out of necessity, i.e., this yoghurt may have no taste but it is not unhealthy. Similarly, I was caught by some Girl Scouts (who can resist?) and bought some thin mints, chocolate and mint being one of my favorite combination only outranked by chocolate and orange. I thus managed to ignore the fact that the label read “vegan cookies.”

The most annoying phenomenon is legally correct labeling hiding unpleasant truths. Cars “made in America” must have “all or virtually all” of their parts produced in the USA. I would like to know what this virtual reality is. The term “100% juice” on a label does not preclude other ingredients (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=101.30) I am not sure ignorance is bliss in this case.

So, a rose is a rose is a rose but will only sell if properly labeled. Enjoy your next shopping trip.