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ALIYAH DIARIES

On Friars

Kally Rubin
Kislowicz

and Flowers

ue to my ongoing status
as a non-native Hebrew
speaker, I’m not always
Dsure if I’m being offered
a deal or played for a fool. Then again,
it’s not so bad to be a fool.
Israelis are not an easily frightened
bunch. Our geographical location
makes it unreasonable for us to be
overly fearful every time we are threat-
ened by our neighbors; we weathered
COVID with a relatively brave face;
and, while the Great Chocolate Recall
of 2022 has us mildly concerned, we
know that, short of a hummus recall, A friar is akin to a sucker: someone who so I did what I thought was rational: I
gets taken advantage of, someone who
put but one bag of green beans in my
we will likely be just fine. Real Israe- doesn’t get the best possible deal. And cart.
lis are pretty tough. In fact, anecdotal from preschool through Parliament,
evidence suggests that they have but from the Kinneret to the Red Sea, there “You know those are on sale,” the
one true fear: being a friar. employee who was restocking a nearby
is no greater insult than being called a shelf told me. “You should buy two.”
friar. No one can bear the thought that
somebody somewhere is paying less or “Thanks, but I don’t want two.”
getting more. “But you’ll save money!” he said, shak-
ing his head at me pityingly, assuming
I respect this. I don’t want to be taken that it was the size of my brain, rather
for a fool. than the size of my freezer, that was
But sometimes being a friar is in the guiding this decision.
eyes of the beholder. There is a popular clothing chain
At the grocery store, a big sign adver- nearby that is always advertising some
tised a sale on frozen vegetables. One kind of sale. Buy-1-get-1-at-50%-off is a
package of frozen green beans was 30 common one, but they often run more
NIS, but they were selling 2-for-50 NIS. complicated deals, such as: Spend 500
I have a small freezer. I only needed NIS, get the next 100 NIS free.
one package of green beans. The only Let’s say I look through the store and
other frozen vegetable available was find only 400 NIS worth of merchan-
peas, which are objectively gross. And dise that I want to purchase. It can’t

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