There’s no way I can prove it, but I KNOW, I just KNOW, that was not the way it’s supposed to work. At the Shabbat kiddush we were considering mishtaken mechir, which I didn’t even know existed until a few weeks before. This is a program that allows young couples to enter a lottery, the winners being able to purchase their first apartment somewhere in The Land at a substantial discount from the market value. I try, as much as possible, to discourage discussions about real estate (or anything else that might raise my blood pressure), but, in this case, we were discussing Economics, and that’s allowed (anything under the rubric of ‘social sciences’ is fair game, even politics – although American politics is by invitation only, show your credentials at the door or remain forever silent).

Barbara mentioned the children of someone we know, who had bid for apartments in some ‘under’ (under-served, under-appreciated, under-valued, who’d want to live there?) community, thinking they would have a better chance of winning than if they were trying for a place to live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc. And sure enough, they became the proud owners of an apartment in Kiryat Nowheresville. And like any self-respecting Israelis, what did they do? Game the system, that’s what! They’re not allowed to sell the apartment for seven years – those are the rules – but there was nothing stopping them from renting it out to some less fortunate couple who didn’t win the lottery, or to anybody else, for that matter. At which point in the conversation, I felt compelled (compelled!) to express my disapproval. Renting out your hard-won apartment was not the idea; you were supposed to LIVE in it. Of course, there was an immediate objection from the peanut gallery (there always is). What’s wrong with that? The rent money they’re collecting is helping them build equity for their own future.

What’s wrong with that? Let me count the ways. If the Israeli government wants to reward a small sub-set of the population that needs a financial boost, there are lots of ways it could do so, like offering them a discounted price on an I.P.O., for example. The fact that the apartment in question must remain with the purchaser for seven years should say something about the program’s intent: giving a leg up to would-be homeowners, not investors. (By the way, mishtaken mechir translates into ‘The Affordable Price Program’ not ‘Making a Quick Buck Program.’)

And if the purchasers have the means to live elsewhere for seven years while they rent it out, maybe said purchaser shouldn’t have been eligible for the program in the first place. Then there’s simple economics. The young couple Barbara was referring to are themselves renting a place in the Jerusalem area, almost certainly paying more per month than they are collecting from whoever is occupying the apartment in Kiryat Nowheresville. Not a good way to build a nest egg, as far as I can figure.

Some of the kiddush conversationalists remained for lunch, moving the few feet from our salon (OK, the living room) to the pinat ochel (OK, the dining room). The topic of our discourse was picked up, barely missing a beat. The question was raised with some validity and a lot of naiveté: Why should the building contractors be the ones who take a loss, having to sell their apartments below market value? Someone else saw the whole thing as smacking of ‘socialism,’ not a good thing to his way of thinking.

As for the plight of the contractors, consider it a quid pro quo. The government is saying, we’ll sell you the people’s land, and you can build lots of apartments – most of which fail the are-they-pleasing-to-the eye test – and sell them at inflated prices to rich folks who don’t live in the country, in exchange for which you, the contractors, will commit to build a laughingly small number of apartments targeted for average wage-earners who do live here. And, yes, there are those who insist that any time the government gets involved to lower costs – whether it’s a good idea or not – that smacks of the dreaded ‘S’ word, and we can’t have it. No sirreebob.

But wait, I see someone out there trying to get my attention. What is it, my friend? You want to know how we got started talking about mishtaken mechir in the middle of kiddush? Didn’t I say? The buildings in this new complex down the block that Barbara was checking out, those are them, two buildings with eight apartments and four buildings with six apartment, only two of these forty to be sold at market rate and the rest for a lot less to the lucky lottery winners.

One would think that it would be a proverbial walk in the park to sell two (count ‘em, two) apartments in a new project here in our beloved city. After all, there seem to be plenty of buyers for all the other new apartments springing up around town. But, according to Assaf, the fellow whom Barbara was dealing with, that hasn’t happened. His outfit, haderech l’matera, (The Way to a Target) was originally involved in promoting these two apartments but gave up when the parent company seemed to drop the proverbial ball. But he would be thrilled and delighted to show Barbara around and then to show Barbara and me around. And so I took a walk down the block because that’s how far away this project is from us – maybe five minutes if you’re walking very slowly – v-e-r-y slowly, hanging a left at mitzpeh Edna, the lookout spot at the end of the block.

Except it seems like another part of town. If you were standing next to me, looking out the window for a minute or two, you’d understand in a heartbeat what I mean. All the buildings in our neighborhood have a got-‘em-up-in-a hurry look about them, but they also have a lots-of-people-have-raised-their-families-here-with-some-success look. Not only have children thrived here, but trees, bushes, and shrubs have found ample room to take root. Birds of all kinds – pigeons, mourning doves, crows, parakeets, finches, Palestinian songbirds – like it here. And don’t forget the cats. We have a resident crew in front of our building that Lydia feeds several times a day. OK, the serenity of the moment is often interrupted by the beep-beeping of trucks backing up to deliver their goods to the stores across the way, but if you want stores, they gotta have stuff to sell. Likewise, if you want to have garbage disposal or recycling or mail delivery, there has to be traffic. Same way with busses.

Now imagine something quite different, one of the few parts of town on which nothing had been built, now cleared away and paved over, with some spanking new buildings. I should mention that the original circuitous Snake Path nearby has been replaced with a well-designed pathway connecting the two levels. You want trees? Someone has planted a bunch of saplings, all placed equidistant from each other. In twenty years, if they survive, these tiny trees will look like something. Right now, no self-respecting bird would land on any of them. I did see one little bird sitting on a roof top; the rest of the flock are probably outside my window wondering where the other guy went. We had arrived exactly on time, as had Assaf with the key to let us in. Would I be suitably impressed with this orphan apartment, enough for me to CONSIDER it as the future chez moi? Only time will tell. Well, maybe I will also – but that’s for next time.