Over our time spent here (8 months already!) many people have been extremely kind to us, maybe even more than we deserve. In earlier posts we reported of near strangers (who have since become friends) letting us live in their apartment while our place was having repairs done. We've already spoken of the numerous appliance and pieces of furniture that we received for free from new friends and neighbors, and even 7 months after moving in we still feel a great sense of gratitude when looking around our fully furnished apartment.
We witness and are the recipients of many acts of kindness in our daily lives. While I recognize that this phenomenon is not only unique to living in Israel, it has definitely made our transition to being Israelis a kinder, smoother one.
For example, we don't have a car. For the most part, we don't mind. We both have decent public transit options that take us to our respective places of employment. We live in walking distance to many things that would require a car, like the grocery store, our bank, movie theater, restaurants, etc. But there are certain things that having a car would make a heck-of-a-lot easier. Luckily for Matt, many of our neighbors also study at the University of Haifa and consistently offer Matt rides to and from school. This cuts out a good 20 minutes of commuting time and the price of a bus ticket (act of kindness #1). It is not uncommon for me to get an unsolicited call from a neighbor-friend telling me they're driving down to the big discount supermarket and invite me to come along. This way I can buy things that are hard to carry and, to top it off, for less money (act of kindness #2). We even have these amazing neighbor-friends who have two cars and often let us borrow one when we need to run a car-worthy errand or drive somewhere inconvenient. This is really above and beyond (act of kindness #3).
In my line of work, I rely on a lot of people's generous acts of kindness. This usually comes in the form of complete strangers offering me advice and helping me find new and relevant contacts. For those who don't know, my job right now is to find 25 college students from Boston summer internships in Haifa. The real challenge is that there is no internship culture in Israel and most Israelis don't know what internships are (unless they also used to be American) or at least they aren't familiar with the American conception of a summer internship. What this means for me is that not only do I have to explain to them what on earth I am asking from them, I also have to convince them why they would want to do this. You would be surprised by how many people, that I randomly call out of the blue who have never heard of me or the organization I work for, give me the benefit of the doubt and at least listen to me long enough to understand why I'm calling. Sometimes this turns into an actual internship position, other times not, and yet other times it goes like this: "I don't think I can take an intern, but what you're suggesting sounds really interesting. Here is a list of 10 other institutions that do similar work to us and here are the personal emails and phone numbers of people I know who work there, they may be able to help you. Best of luck!" They could have just said no and hung up the phone (act of kindness #4), which I actually expected to happen a lot more often, but which has not really happened at all.
I have made a number of "friends" at the shuk (fruit and veggie market) where I like to do my grocery shopping. I like the experience of shopping there over a supermarket - it's crowded, you're surrounded by dozens of stalls piled high with colorful foods and you pay each vendor separately for their goods, which gives you a chance to chat with tons of different and interesting people (I realize that this may sound like someone else's nightmare, but I love it). Since I have an accent in Hebrew (which I try to cover up, but can't fully escape) the vendors usually figure out early on that I'm an immigrant. This usually leads to conversations where they ask me where I'm from and why I came here and they tell me about that one time they visited the US. Since I have been going for a while, some of the vendors now recognize me and we have become "friends". The benefit of this is that fairly often, they'll weigh my produce, give me a price and then throw a few more of whatever it is into my bag (act of kindness #5). While I know this isn't just kindness, but also good business practice, since it works in making me want to come back to their stall, I appreciate it nonetheless.
Last but not least, I was the recipient of a random act of kindness from a complete stranger yesterday. I was standing at the ticket counter buying my train ticket. The woman at the counter told me it would cost 13 and a half shekel. I fumbled through my wallet and came up with exactly 13 and a half shekel, what luck! The woman then told me that actually the ticket I wanted was 17 shekel, which I did not have exact change for. I started to scoop up all my change and handed her a 100 shekel bill, which was the only other currency I had. I then heard a young guy over my shoulder say: "Don't break a 100 for a 5 shekel difference," and he threw down a 5. I looked at him with a stare of confusion and he just said: "Don't worry about it" (act of kindness #6). I obviously thanked him profusely and ran to catch my train.
Later that day when a neighbor texted me asking if I could watch her baby for half an hour while she went to pick up her older one from Gan (nursery school), I didn't hesitate in saying yes. Maybe it was one of those "pay it forward" type of things, although I would have said yes regardless of what happened to me earlier, but either way, we received so much and I am happy to give back wherever we can.
Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,
Stef and Matt
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