Israel for Beginners: A Field Guide for Encountering the Israelis in Their Natural Habitat by Angelo Colorni, author, and Avi Katz, illustrator, Gefen Publishing House, ISBN 9789652294838, 146 pages, No price listed
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—You may like and hate this book at the same time. Some of the short articles on different habits and places one finds in Israel are insightful, offering a wonderful new perspective even to readers who have visited Israel many times. On the other hand, too often author Colorni seems to be willing to sacrifice his narrative, and verisimilitude, by going for the pun rather than for clarity.
Israel for Beginners is a title suggesting an introductory guidebook. In reality, the book is a collection of essays on Israeli personality quirks, warts, idiosyncracies and cognitive dissonance. You have to enjoy puns (which I do) to want to continue reading this book beyond the first few essays; you have to be willing to suspend disbelief to pretend the jokes actually represent reality.
Cleverness is manifest throughout the book. At the beginning, for example, Colornia reports that for visitors reading Hebrew not only involves a new alphabet, it is learning how to read from right to left, without vowels and without capitalization. “Roughly, it is as though in English were written: nttrw rw cntns sht hslgn n hght s s t, ylhgr,” Colorni informs.
On Israeli drivers: “In the opinion of the average native, a dangerous driver is the one who overtakes him despite all his efforts to prevent him from doing so. The natives wade through traffic at such a speed that you’d think they don’t want to be late for their accident, whereas the reason actually is that they know how unsafe the Israeli roads are and they simply want to get off them as fast as they can.”
On Time: “While the time dilation effect predicted by Einstein in his theory of relativity remains an abstruse concept to most laypeople, it is quite obvious to many Israelis, who believe anyway that Einstein, being Jewish, has to be on their side on this matter. So, two o’clock, for example, means any time between three and five. Israeli diners reserve a table for seven p.m., arrive at 7:45, and complain that the table was not saved for them….”
On Fashion: “Contrary to many Western men who do not feel fully dressed before they put on a tie, the native finds a necktie uncomfortable and a bow tie just funny, and does not understand anyway why he should start the day by tying a little noose around his neck. For the native, the height of fashion is to wear two shoes that match. The native also feels he is too hard pressed to bother about keeping his clothes well pressed….”
There are more than 50-joke filled essays, with occasional facts, enough to make this book recommended reading not for the beginner, but rather for the old-timer able to recognize and appreciate all the satire.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com