The Jewish Home | JULY 14, 2022
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Israel Today
The Shuk By Mrs. Barbara Deutsch
W
e are finally home; we are in Israel! There has always been something about Israel that fixes my leftright orientation confusion. I am one of those blessed people who cannot carry a tune, though I love music, don’t know my left from my right instinctively, always go the wrong way when getting off an elevator in a hotel, and when in the shower, turn on the hot water in looking for the cold. I have been burned and lost so many times. Yet, when I’m in Israel, I remember landmarks and which way to go; I don’t know why. One of my all time favorite places to visit and shop while in Israel is the Jerusalem shuk. When we first started coming regularly after one of my daughters moved here more than 21 years ago, the shuk was a noisy outdoor and indoor shopping mall where you could find food, drinks, odds and ends, and busy people. On Fridays, it bustled with the happy sounds of Shabbos prep. Not so much anymore. It has become a happy tradition for my husband and I to join our kids on Fridays to shop with them; we hop from stall to stall buying our favorite fruits and vegetables, special candies, and nuts and are always tempted to sample and buy the halva from the “Halva King.” We always buy more than we want or need; some we taste, buy and don’t enjoy. We are unusually shocked by the sticker price. Who needs to spend $100 on halvah? Not so sure about the whiskey or pretzel variety that we just purchased. After we are finished shopping, we then go into the underground Boureka Bakery for oily, delicious, hot bourekas filled with vegetables, eggs or cheese – yummy. This first week in the shuk, we changed our routine and instead of a Friday morning visit, we went on a Thursday night; it was as if my comfortable “familiar’’ was
turned into the “upside down.” The noisy bustle of busy shoppers was replaced with loud, thumping dance music, loud singing, with some of the stalls morphing into packed bars. There was even a happy place called Barbara, yes, Barbara. The whole shuk vibrated with the sound of dancing, partying, and drinking people. One bartender led his circle of people in a rousing dance-filled song; the shuk was now a fun-filled stage for participants and bystanders alike. We finished our shopping and instead of bourekas decided to eat in a very popular fast food restaurant beloved by tourists and Israelis. The place is tiny, indoor seating for 16 maybe, with a long bar with seating for 10 out front in the center of the shuck. There is also a tiny spot at the front corner that is for takeout and seating. There is no such thing as a reservation. We put our names on the waiting-tobe-seated list and ask when there will be an available table for 6. The young hostess tells us that it will take about 15 minutes; we agree to wait. My daughter and I go off to do some more errands and return to find an interesting group of campers from London, a number of them handicapped, holding special coupons from the restaurant and waiting 4 deep outside. The restaurant has now filled up with yeshiva boys who are eating along the bar. We continue to wait; my husband and my son-in-law go to prayers. We continue to wait. The inside table for six, for which we had now been waiting over a half hour, has opened up – our table at last! But as this is Israel and things are not always what they seem, we were wrong. The people sitting at the bar were next to get that table, not us! Empowered by my previous “Keurig win,” I ask why we are not being seated; the camp group and their coupons get seated along the inside of the bar. We continue to wait. The hapless hostess, new
to her job, forgot to tell us that the group seated previously at the bar was ahead of us in the line, she explained. We would have to wait until they were done. I pushed back, arguing that had we known that we were not going to be next, the inside being so small and crowded, we would have changed plans and not waited this long for hamburgers and chicken wings no matter how good. The shuk nighttime vibe was not really for us for all kinds of reasons, so when they offered us the outside bar now vacated by the campers, we responded with a “no, thank you.” Frustrated, I demanded to see the manager. Confronted with so many guests, a hostess who did not give us the real facts and an unhappy me, the manager asked me what he could do for us I turned it back to him and asked, “What can you offer?” His offer was a 15 percent discount on the whole bill and seats at the bar until the inside table opened up. I countered with a 20 percent off request; he shared that he could not do that but that he can give us a bowl of 30 chicken wings. We made a deal! I cannot say that this felt like a win. Sitting at the noisy bar in a crowded, frolicking shuk filled with “very happy” people looking at you and your food is not ideal for dining as a family. The whole experience was capped off with some random guy asking for money and a bite of our food; he took an onion ring from my granddaughter’s plate.
But it was an adventure. When the bill came, we gave the waiter a 15 percent tip. I recommended to him that in the future the seating policy should be posted to forestall confused customers. I’m sure that will not happen; it’s Israel. Many will recognize my need to make a point when I feel there is injustice. Some would say why didn’t we just leave and avoid the conflict. My kids would roll their eyes and say, “Again, Mom, again” – good questions all. But as my daughter wanted us to have the full shuk experience, enjoy good food, and have an interesting time, we stayed. We are looking forward to Shabbos and time with our family in Israel. When you have a family who lives far away, you must make every effort to spend time together; be it the day-to-day ordinary and the adventurous. We plan on continuing to do just that. Even though I can’t carry a tune and have been often warned not to sing – another story – I look forward to the magnificent zmirot around our daughter’s Shabbos table; everyone sings. Listening fills my heart. Shabbat shalom. Barbara Deutsch is currently the associate principal at HANC 609 and a longtime reflective educator, parent, grandparent, and new great-grandparent. Even after all these years, she still loves what she does and looks forward to working with kids every single day. She is vacationing in Israel for the summer.
