"Raanana Diary: Life as Normal in Israel"

by David Mirchin (ES '79)

Raanana, Israel--Until two years ago, my wife, three kids and I lived in the very normal place of Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Normal", even if the students in the high school across the street from us sported about 16 different shades of hair color not found in nature, from fluorescent teal to fireball red. Then we moved to Israel. When we were back in Boston this summer for a visit, we were constantly questioned by incredulous friends and family, "How do you cope with bombs going off all around you?"

What I realized from just a few weeks in the States is that the media coverage provides a one-dimensional view of life in Israel, a picture of unmitigated danger and grieving. Now I don't minimize the security situation. We think about it and talk about it all the time. But what does not come across at all in the US is that daily life here goes on as "normal."

Well, normal for Israel.

Which means that a few days before the first day of the school year, August 31, we still didn't know whether our kids would have school or whether there would be the annual teachers' strike. I called the school for an update and was told that I need to listen to the 7:00am news broadcast on August 31 to know whether there would be school on that day.

But even if there is school, the nationwide education budget doesn't get finalized until "after the holidays" in late October. Which means that for almost two months, you don't know when your kids get out of school. Well, you do get a day's notice. The teachers do tell the kids at the end of Monday, for example, what time school ends on Tuesday. On Tuesday they learn what time school ends on Wednesday. And so on.

But some things are planned in advance here. Like skipping exams. On the last day of the Internet Law class I teach at law school, a student asked me whether my Moed Bet (second sitting) exam would be harder than my Moed Alef (first sitting) exam. Looking befuddled, she explained, to my surprised horror, that I am required to submit two exams, to be given a month apart. Originally, students who were in army reserve duty or had some other compelling reason for missing the first sitting could take the second exam. Now it's totally the student's option. She, for example, couldn't take the first exam because her grandmother's sister was having a birthday party that night. Other students had the compelling excuse last year that there was a World Cup soccer match between Turkey and Senegal. And when I submitted my grades last week wrapping up the second exam, I was told by the registrar that one student had a valid excuse for missing both exams, and I needed to give a third exam, to be given sometime "after the holidays."

To enjoy the country, and the drivers on the road, who consider it their national duty never to let you in their lane (because that would make them a "friar"-the word in Hebrew for sucker-the worst possible trait for any Israeli), we did finally purchase a car. Now you can't just drive a car off the lot here. And in fact, you can't even test drive a car. That's because most car dealers don't have cars. If you want a test drive, you need to order that in advance, and they send one from their nationwide facility in Tel Aviv.

But first you need a license. You used to be able to get an Israeli license by showing a valid foreign license. Then all these Russians showed up and were getting into terrible traffic accidents. The authorities started investigating and soon realized that the Russians could just buy their license, and had never really driven before. So now all of us have to take driving lessons and pass a driving test in order to obtain a license.

But before we could start the driving lessons, we needed to register with the Israeli equivalent of AAA, located in the windowless basement of the local mall. When we arrived, we were told we needed to pass a health exam. Concerned this would delay us another few weeks, the clerk told us not to worry, that the doctor was "across the hall." We did spy, across the hall, a teenage girl with multiple belly piercings, filing her nails. She escorted us down into the bowels of the underground parking lot, then into what we mistook for an interrogation center: an empty cinder block room, one bare light bulb hanging down. A small disheveled man with a misbuttoned shirt sat hunched over a single steel desk, with no telephone or pen. He was the doctor who gave us our "physical". He asked me to stand up, close my eyes, bend my knees and raise my arms in front. He said, "Open your eyes. How do you feel?" "Fine", I said. "Okay, you pass." I still haven't figured out what that was; something about feeling dizzy.

We now drive, send our kids to school, and lead a normal life here. And there are amazing things about the country. Like two-thirds of the country's 6 million people, we live within a 15-minute drive of the gorgeous sandy beaches of the Mediterranean Sea, where the water temperature is currently 85º. (As we say, the best thing about Israel is the weather, since the government cant' tax it.)

And as for safety, our 12- and 14-year-old kids, and all their friends, are able to do activities and have freedom that their Boston friends (or at least their parents) wouldn't consider-like staying out with friends till 2am in Park Raanana for Independence Day celebrations, or hanging out with their youth groups on the streets every Friday night till well past midnight. Because it's the Sabbath, not a single one has a cellphone. And we go to sleep, not worrying about their safety. That's just one of the many things that makes it meaningful and wonderful to live in Israel, facets that are not covered by the media. That's the part about life here that's better than "normal."

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David Mirchin works as a lawyer at Meitar Liquornik Geva & Leshem Brandwein, a law firm near Tel Aviv. He can be contacted at dmirchin@meitar.co.il.