If you ever want to even start to understand Israeli society, then it is very important to know that in Israel, rules are almost always regarded as suggestions and, are therefore, not strictly followed.

That is just so Israeli! In general:

Israelis park in the most insane spots you will ever see and are crazy drivers. You might wonder how a car got onto the sidewalk or if they parked in an illegal spot. Apparently, some sidewalk spots are legal, which is crazy, but there definitely not all legal! Israelis can also be crazy on the road, not just when they are parked off to the side. When driving, or biking or even walking in Israel you have to be extra careful of the cars around you. Israel has many accidents, injuries, and deaths on the road every year. In the beginning of corona in Israel, the overall deaths in Israel were down a fair amount including corona deaths. That is because there are usually so many deaths on the road every year, that even with people dying from corona, there were less deaths because for a couple of months people were limited to driving to the grocery store, doctor, and a few other places, and intercity travel was forbidden.

There are literally millions of roundabouts on the roads. Not so much in big cities, more near highways and in smaller cities.

Only in Israel, or at least I’ve only seen this in Israel, there are nice restaurants right next to or on top of gas stations. When we were in Caesarea we got delicious sushi from a nice restaurant right next to the gas station. There is also a fish restaurant in Jerusalem on top of a gas station that Ima wanted to go to.

Tel Aviv is a really nice city for walking and biking and that is good because the traffic is so bad that it can often be quicker to walk or bike than drive. The problem with walking and biking in Tel Aviv is that it is usually too hot or there is bad weather, but sometimes you can get lucky.

That is just so Israeli! Corona-wise:

Everyone has gone through a lot during this virus, but, personally, I think being in Israel was just so much more confusing. It is typical Israeli nature to have things change over and over again even at the last minute, but when the rules for what you could and could not do changes hundreds of times in a small period of time, with multiple changes throughout a day, it was hard. Our school went online right away, not every school was so quick, and for the first month of online school we often found out our schedule for the next day at 10 or 11 at night, including what time we started. After Pesach, it was better and we usually got a schedule for the week, but we still got the schedule very late Saturday night for school on Sunday morning. I know it’s hard to give information right after shabbat but I don’t know why they couldn’t send our schedule for the following week on Friday.

We were told on Thursday May 14th that we were going to school the next week two days a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays from 9:00-1:30 and it would only be the seventh and eighth graders and maybe eleventh or twelfth. We were going to be split into smaller groups ‘capsules’ of 15/16 girls. Later that same Thursday we were told something else: that there would be a full week in school starting Sunday with the whole school there at once. And of course we got about 30 other announcements as to how school would be the next week.

We returned to school on May 18th (Naomi and I actually went back on the 19th) because Israel was really on top of coronavirus. Of course, as soon as we went back to school, girls were hugging each other, touching, sharing food and not wearing masks. The first week back you actually did not need a mask by law because of the heat, but after that we were supposed to be wearing masks. No one ever is wearing a mask properly and a couple of girls and teachers wear their masks on the chin only. We had a grade wide conversation one day where our whole grade, around 60 girls, were squished into my small classroom sitting right next to and practically on top of each other for an hour and half and not everyone wore masks.

When we were out and about in Israel last month, I saw lots of tape lines on the ground six feet apart outside of stores, showing where customers were supposed to stand. The ironic thing is that I didn’t see the tape doing it’s job. Israel had instituted lots of measures to prevent the spread of corona but I didn’t always see the measures in action.

How did that car even get there?

Once when we were in Tel Aviv and in the car, I wanted to go to Rebar, so I put in the nearest location and the traffic was so bad that it said it would take half the time of driving if you walked.

-Alexandra