Sam the furrner

We almost just had a riot on our hands. The non-Jewish kitchen staff accidentally put out milk plates for a meat meal, and Oh G-d, by the way the religious kids were acting you would have thought that the apocalypse had come early.

Look, I understand that it’s frustrating and that re-koshering the kitchen and throwing out some ceramic plates is all going to be a hassle. But that’s not an excuse for dramatically striding across the room, giving a nasty look to the kitchen workers, and growling, “Zeh lo tov” (this is not good), and then storming out of the room. It’s not an excuse for throwing a hysterical fit and having loud arguments with the other religious residents about what we have to be doing to save the kitchen. Why?

Because it was just an honest fucking mistake.

It made me miserable to see the looks on the kitchen staff’s faces, because they just looked so humiliated, and I was embarrassed to be ethnically/religiously related to people who could make other people feel as ashamed as this over an accidental mistake. I counted a grand total of one religious person who managed to keep a serene expression on his face, who assured the kitchen staff that everything would be okay, and who quickly and calmly tried to contain the “contamination” to minimize the hassle of making the kitchen kosher again. Meanwhile, most of the religious residents just stood around looking pissed off or verbally expressed their displeasure to the kitchen staff.

Frankly, I would classify today as a day when I was embarrassed to be part of the Jewish people. Most of us just stand around whining about things, making others feel like shit, and only a small fraction of a percent of us ever actually do anything to fix the problem.


On a happier note? I love how protective certain people in the army get of people like me, aka foreign people. At the gibush for combat jobs, I remember how any time someone learned that I was foreign they immediately tried to be as helpful as possible to me. Though it annoyed me, several girls in my squad kept trying to be helpful and translate things into English for me…even stuff I understood perfectly. I remember as I was leaving to go back to Jerusalem, my commander tried to make absolutely sure that I knew how to get home (outside of the bigger cities sometimes it’s hard to find reliable bus information in English), and I remember as one unit gave a presentation on what the unit does—in extremely fast Hebrew—the commander interrupted and said something like, “Speak a little slower so that Sam can understand everything, too.”

At the army thing the other day, I had to take a 300 question questionnaire that was only available in Hebrew. When an officer who was interviewing me found out that I was foreign and that I had to do the questionnaire in Hebrew, he suddenly became extremely concerned for my welfare. He said that if it was too difficult for me to do in Hebrew he would personally arrange for someone to sit with me and say every question in English for me.

The best part of that day was the interview. The officer (soooo good looking!) asked a couple details, like about my name/birthday/parents’ names/etc. After asking about my parents, he said, “And where do you (plural) live?” And I said, “What do you mean, where do I live or where do they live?”

“YOU MEAN YOU MADE ALIYAH ALONE???”

As I confirmed this, he immediately stopped taking notes, turned over his folder, and started asking questions about how I could possibly make aliyah alone, and all that hoopla. He was totally freaking out, “But…but…but….you can make so much more money in the US! It’s so much safer there!!!” But then every couple seconds he’d say, “Col HaCavod!”

Eventually we had to continue the interview, so he turned back over his notes, but every couple of minutes he would let out a noise of disbelief and be like, “Wow, I still can’t believe you made aliyah alone,” followed by the phrase, “Col HaCavod….” After a few more minutes the officer formally ended the interview. As I stood up and began to head back to the testing room, he stopped me and said something like, “On a personal level, not as an officer interviewing you, I want to say that the story of your aliyah has really moved me.”

I MOVED SOMEONE! Haha, awesome.

I wanted to be like, “And your sexiness has really moved me.” But instead I just blushed and scurried back to my tests. Hopefully once I’m actually in the army the idea of a man in uniform will lose its appeal, otherwise I’m going to be swooning every ten seconds.

But wow, I never thought aliyah could be an ego booster. I feel like every five seconds someone is telling me how great I am for giving up “everything” in order to come to Israel, etc etc.



Also, as I’ve mentioned before, a girl keeps trying to name me in a synagogue. She was really pushing for me to do it this very weekend. She keeps telling me that it’s weird/stupid for me to go around in Israel with such a foreign name and that I should choose a nice Hebrew name, because that’s actually what G-d wants. She says that especially in the army I’m going to want an Israeli name.

But in my limited experience with the army, I actually much prefer having an English name in a sea of “Avi”s or “Lior”s or “Shoshi”s or whatevers. I like that when my name gets called in the Lishkat Giyus, I’m the only one who stands up, unlike with some Hebrew names. I like that at the gibush I was the only girl in the group whose name the commander and all the other girls remembered, because it was foreign and I was foreign. I liked that at the army interview yesterday several of the soldiers remembered that I was “Samantha,” yet couldn’t tell you the names of any of the other girls in the room.

My whole life in the US I was one of many Sam’s or Samantha’s or Sammy’s, and now when I finally get the chance to be the only one I’m supposed to change my name?