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Jan. 27, 2012
A licence to be a real Israeli
Bureaucracy and cultural eccentricities make for exciting driving.
EMILY SINGER
There was a time when making aliyah meant traveling thousands of miles on foot or by boat, leaving behind family you might never see again, and with whom you could only communicate infrequently, and exposing yourself to multiple life-threatening hazards, diseases and hardships. Today, a person can get on an airplane, be served a hot, kosher meal by friendly airline personnel, fall asleep to a movie and wake up an Israeli citizen. Upon arrival, one is offered an array of benefits, including housing and education subsidies, tax breaks, and even cash. Still, aliyah is never easy. In this short series, Emily Singer shares her family’s aliyah experiences and stories from their first year in Israel, where they live on Kibbutz Maale Gilboa, a small religious community in the lower Galilee.
Every country has its own unique driving culture. Israel, home of the ingathering of the exiles, has several. Unfortunately, they are all driving on the same roads at the same time.
Israelis are notoriously aggressive drivers. My husband, Ross, and I often say that in Israel people drive how other people walk – if the guy in front of you is too slow, you simply “tap him on the back” and “suggest” he speed up or move the heck over. If that doesn’t work, you can always go around him, even if it means driving off the road or into oncoming traffic.
Our comedian friend, Yisrael Campbell, laughs about the fact that Israelis must take 25 driving lessons in order to get their licence. He jokes, “What are they teaching them? Lesson 17: Driving on the sidewalk....” He may be teasing, but now that there are parking meters on those sidewalks, it seems it has been decided that it’s easier to charge for parking than it is to ticket everyone for driving on them.
Driving conditions in Israel are getting better, however. People are much more sensitive to safety concerns than they were even a few years ago, we’re told. Radio stations play frequent messages that warn listeners to wear seat belts (in the front and back seats), to wear helmets when riding bikes and motorcycles, to drive slowly in the rain, to pull over when tired, to refrain from hitchhiking and even to be sure to change your tires and do other car maintenance. Once, when we were traveling back from Eilat, we passed a stand offering free coffee to sleepy drivers!
In Israel, we are able to drive using our American licences for up to a year. Still, one of us must get an Israeli licence right away, because it’s required to purchase a car. I stall because, ironically, I am nervous about driving to Haifa to pick up the necessary form. My plan, which I stick to like clockwork, is to put off my exam until the last possible week, so Ross agrees to go first.
Thankfully, since we already have other licences, we will not have to take the 25 lessons required of most Israelis. Instead, they have come up with an ingenious system in which immigrants take one initial lesson with a certified driving instructor, and then that instructor (whom you are paying very generously) determines how many more lessons you must take. He’s in charge of approving and arranging your test date, only when he feels you are ready (and he has enough money to put his daughter through college, apparently).
At Ross’ first lesson, the instructor marvels at what a great driver he is. Still, there are a few important points on which he needs to work. Most of them have to do with him needing to look obsessively in his mirrors. If he passes a cyclist or an elderly person driving one of those little golf carts, he needs to look in the side mirror to make sure they haven’t suddenly had a physically impossible surge of speed, enabling them to pass him back; if he drives past a garbage dumpster, he must look back to make sure the dumpster isn’t following him; when he brakes, he needs to look in his rearview mirror so he can watch the car behind smash into him. It is not clear when he is meant to look straight ahead. It seems that it will take at least two more lessons to brush up on these life-saving skills.
On the day of his big test, the instructor asks Ross to “warm up” by driving his previous students home. As they are driving, they approach a police roadblock. Out of the corner of his eye, Ross sees that his instructor pulls his seatbelt across his lap before reaching the block. As soon as they pass the police, the instructor releases the belt.
Ross passes his test with ease, and we go to buy our new car – a Toyota Verso. It is the length of a Corolla, but it seats seven, and is only available in countries where gas costs upwards of seven dollars per gallon. Cars are very expensive in Israel but we are fortunate to receive the tremendous tax break available to new immigrants – we pay only (I am not making this up) 75 percent sales tax instead of the 135 percent the rest of Israel’s citizens are charged.
Ten months after Ross gets his licence and we purchase our new car, it is time for me to start the licence process. As it turns out, I am an excellent driver the likes of which my instructor has rarely seen. Therefore, I will need only three more lessons. The one thing I need to work on, according to the teacher, is that I am too “aggressive.” I need to relax. What’s my hurry? As he lectures me on my speed, cars fly past us, honking. Between sips of coffee, he berates the other drivers, screaming aloud (as if they could hear him), “What is your problem? Don’t you have any patience?” This is when it hits me that, while the rest of the world hurries to get to work, he is, literally, at work, the one guy in all of Israel who is not in a hurry to get anywhere.
For the record, I am not speeding. I am, in my instructor’s opinion, coming dangerously close to the speed limit. Also, when I drive through traffic circles, I pull out too quickly. I should pull out more slowly and smoothly, while making sure that my entrance will not cause other cars in the circle to need to use their brakes. Oh, and I should assume the other cars are not doing the same, because “these drivers are crazy.” I think what he really wants to say is, “Make sure that when you drive, you do not cause me to spill my coffee.”
My final lesson is scheduled for the morning of my test. Towards the end of the lesson, the teacher instructs me to pull up behind a truck that is parked in front of a bus stop. The curb is painted in dark red and orange stripes, which, in this country, usually means “bus stop – parking forbidden.” I ask just to be sure. “You want me to pull up here? Right behind this truck?” He responds affirmatively. I wonder if this could be a trick, but I don’t ask, because he is busy explaining to me that I need to go into the post office to pay exactly 67 shekels in cash to the teller (which somehow, luckily, I happen to have). He tells me that he is going to run some errands, but I should call him when I am finished and he will meet me back at the car, which he is leaving parked in the bus zone.
I go into the post office, take a number and sit down. There are four tellers, and they appear to be unaware that there is a number system. It seems to go more in the order of who the teller knows and hasn’t seen since high school. I think about how my Zen driving instructor says I need to relax, and I calmly settle into my seat. This lasts but a few moments, until it hits me that if only he would have warned me about this little expedition, I would have brought my book with me, which is sitting trapped in my car at the testing site. But no matter ... be calm ... relaxed.... What’s my hurry? Breathe in, breathe out.
My number is finally called and I pay. Then I look around in vain for a bathroom. I think about walking over to the city centre to find one, but I am afraid my instructor will be waiting for me, so I figure I’ll find one when he takes me back to the mall to wait for my test. When we get to the car, the instructor informs me that the plan is actually to pick up another student. He wants me to sit in the back during her lesson and glean more driving wisdom so I will be better prepared for my test.
If I were a normal person, this would be a good time to mention my need to use the bathroom. But for better or for worse, I am not a normal person. I can get very shy in front of Israelis, especially Israelis who are likely to yell at me. OK, I am shy around anyone who might yell at me. And their cat. So I relax in my seat, trying to ignore the call of nature, hearing again how you shouldn’t go the wrong way on a one-way street, and you should stop at a stop sign even if it really seems unnecessary.
During the long ride, I finally get up the nerve to ask the instructor why it was OK to park in the bus lane. He responds that in Beit Shean people treat traffic laws more like “suggestions.” Then he demonstrates this principle by stopping for several minutes right at the exit of a circle, because he has run into a former student and has to see pictures of her new baby.
We eventually make our way back to the mall, where we get a five-minute break – whew! As I step out of the car, I see four busloads of Americans pouring into the building. I use my aggressive driving techniques to race through security, and beat them all to the bathroom.
The test is pretty uneventful. Before the tester enters the car, the instructor gives him a briefing. All the teachers are testers and vice versa. It seems that he is telling the guy to pass me. My exam lasts about five minutes, and I spend another 20 in the car with a teenager who is practically in tears, trying to pass her test for the fifth time. She has only had 25 lessons. Perhaps she will need some more.
Emily Singer is a teacher, social worker and freelance writer. She is currently working on two books. Singer and her husband, Ross, were rebbetzin and rabbi of Vancouver’s Shaarey Tefilah congregation until 2004. The Singers spent two years in Jerusalem and then moved to Baltimore, Md., where Ross was rabbi at Congregation Beth Tfiloh and Emily taught Judaic studies at Beth Tfiloh High School, until they moved to Israel in 2010. They have four children.
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