"So, would you ever move back?"
I'm sure I'm not alone here. I'm sure that every single one of my friends have been asked that over the years, but the question always strikes me as an odd one. I've been living here for over 18 years - Israel is where I think of when I think of home. Most of my children were born here (sorry Nava...), it's where I've raised my family and its the only home they know. But there are plenty of expat Americans who now live in Toronto and I doubt if they've ever been asked if they are ever moving back...
So it got me thinking.
It got me thinking about the differences between the place I was born and raised and the place I adopted as my home. So here's what I came up with.
I apologize in advance for the length of this post but once I got started....
I'll stress that these views are my own so feel free to disagree...
1. Weather - pretty self-explanatory but in short, we rented a cottage in Tobrmory, 4 hours north of Toronto for three days during the second week of August. It was between 11 and 15 degrees and rainy. Did I mention it was August?! We snorkeled in the freezing cold waters of Georgian Bay and hiked in the rain. We had a great time but WHAT is up with that? In Israel during August you might get a sunburn and you have to drink a minimum of 10 glasses of water a day if you intend on staying as cool as humanly possible but you can pretty much bet your bank account that it DOES NOT RAIN between May and September. EVER.
2. Canadian drivers and traffic - although I have to admit that while Canadian drivers will always signal when changing lanes and are infinitely more polite and will let an army fleet into their lane with a friendly wave, they all drive like Miss Daisy. Seems everyone is in their car for no reason other than a leisurely afternoon drive. Not one person's speedometer was even close to the allowed speed limit and it took forever to get from point A to point B. But maybe I've just become an Israeli driver....
Trying to get from north Bathurst St. down south to Lawrence St. is like being in a video game. You have to weave in and out of each lane because they do not have separate left hand turning lanes nor do they have a separate set of left-turn traffic lights. So, yes, while you Canadians might have an advanced green once in a long while and yes, you can turn right legally on a red light, chances are you'll be stuck behind someone turning left for ten minutes and when you finally switch into the right lane, you'll be stuck behind the TTC. Good luck with that.
3. Coffee - I will apologize before I begin. Coffee in Israel is so much better. AND I DRINK DECAF... Sorry to all you loyal Starbucks and Second Cup fans, but Israeli coffee, (which is like European coffee) kicks your coffee's butt.
4. Shul - I'll keep this one short:
Shul in Israel : 8AM - 9:30AM
Shul in Toronto : 8:30AM - 12PM
I think it's clear who won this round.
5. Ice cream - while I have an ongoing love affair with both Gelarte in Modiin and ReBar in the Modiin mall - and we're talking superb ice cream and yoghurt here - I have to say it isn't Baskin Robbins' pralines and cream. It just isn't....
We'll call that one a tie.
6. Restaurants and Food - Israel wins this battle hands down and I'll tell you why: we can pretty much eat anywhere in this entire country. And not just fast food but most of the critically acclaimed gourmet restaurants that are considered the best in Israel are kosher. While Toronto has a few decent eateries, they are few and far between considering the population of Jews in the city. Yisrael and I wanted to go out for a late dinner one night sans the kids and it turns out that the owners of all these restaurants are all grannies and closed their kitchens by 9. NINE PM?! There was one - ONE! - place open until 10. It was a laffa place owned by Israelis. Figures. You could go to either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv at 11 PM and have a choice of where to eat. And the places are hopping....
In terms of food, things have really come a long way for Torontonians. When I was growing up you could only buy bread in a kosher bakery...now with the advances that COR has made with their kashrut supervision, you can get a multitude of breads in the supermarket. Costco has an enormous kosher section with high quality meats and other kosher items. But unless you're shopping at Sobey's or SuperCentre, you still have to read labels carefully... Stray from the safety of "kosher Bathurst" and you might run into trouble. In Israel, everything sold in every major supermarket in the entire country is kosher so shopping is quick and easy.
7. Bookstores - Toronto wins this one hands down. For those of you who are not familiar with Indigo/Chapters, it's roughly the equivalent of Barnes and Noble. For those literary lovers out there, you know of what I speak. Steimetzky's and Tzomet Sfarim just don't measure up. Bookstores across Canada and the US are not like they once were - they are now superstores carrying not only a gazillion books but book-related gifts, games, e-reader accessories and more often than not, come complete with an in-house coffee shop. You can literally move in there for an entire day. Couches, coffee, books and magazines (and bathrooms!) and you're pretty much set. There are computers everywhere to check out if your store has the book you want in stock and you can order the book right there and then if it's not on the shelves....obviously I live in a non-English speaking environment so it's unreasonable for me to expect a bookstore here to carry the quantity of English books that they do in North America, but a girl could wish....
8. Places of interest - CN Tower VS the Kotel - I put Toronto's most well-known landmark next to ours.
We win.
9. Holidays - While I love Boxing Day and appreciate all the lights and tinsel of December in the snow, nothing beats living in a Jewish country when it comes to holidays... All schools are off at the same time and while it might be nice to vacation in Florida during Christmas break it must suck to sit in class during Chanukah... And I have to say that having one-day Chag is the BEST!!! Just one of the perks of living here...
10. Kids/upbringing/culture - this is a big one. It's also a difficult one to broach without drawing a heated debate from someone out there. So I'll leave out the Toronto side of things and just outline the Israeli side. Kids are more independent here. Culturally, kids move about more freely here, often traversing half the country on their own by way of hitch-hiking. While I'm not a big fan of hitch-hiking, my kids do it all the time. Nava's most interesting stories and life lessons come from the 'tremps' she's taken in this country. We - and I'm speaking personally and generally - don't micro-manage our kids. We don't plan their schedules and we tend to let them make their own decisions about their future. We encourage (and often insist) that they figure out a way to generate their own money. Israeli kids - while still in high school - are waiters, shop clerks, babysitters, silver cleaners, dog walkers, dog washers, movers and schleppers...
And then there's the army. Kids at 18/19 in Israel are not kids anymore. Not when they are training to be soldiers, learning how to load a gun and be an: air force pilot, tank driver, marine, sniper, paratrooper, combat soldier, army medic or work in an elite intelligence unit fighting terror for the sole purpose of protecting their country. No. These are not your standard 18 year old kids prepping for college or furnishing their university dorms. We're doing something different here with our kids and we're raising a different breed of Israeli. And I daresay we're proud of that.
So....I'll take breath here, and finally answer that question that I was asked over the summer:
While I was taught never to say never, I'll risk it here. No, I would never move back. Hope that answers your question.
Shana Tova to one and all...
Wow! Beautiful! Although I do wish for slighlty cooler weather in our neighbourhood...
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