One Size Does Not Fit All

and what’s sauce for the goose may not be sauce for the gander – whatever that’s supposed to mean. There are principles, there are generalities, but they don’t always work, just as the clothes that fit me ten years ago are a wee too tight around the waist these days. What am I hinting at? A few articles ago I was waxing rhapsodic about the value of home ownership, and that works most of the time for most people. But, as I am implying, not always. Consider, if you will, the situation faced by our friends, Michael and Tehilla, when they had no choice but to sell their apartment and revert to renting, all of which I will explain below – as well as what it has to do with alleged topic of this article, something about fine dining.

The couple in question, along with their then young son, Yisrael, were part of ‘the class of 2008,’ a number of families who made aliyah the year after we did, most of whom had one thing in common, having to sell their homes in The States in a decidedly sub-peak market, and therefore not having the ready cash to buy any property over here. Our friends rented an apartment up the street from where we were then renting, which is how we got to know them, then moved to another apartment; then decamped to Ra’anana, where they resided for a few years. What drew then back to our sleepy community, I’m not sure, but there they were, back down the block from us in an apartment almost identical to ours. They were renting from a typical absentee landlord, and their place needed work. I could feel Michael’s pain. There was nothing he couldn’t have fixed, but it wasn’t his to do. So nothing got done.

All the while Tehilla was dreaming of owning a place of their own and finally, she managed to scrape together enough money for a down payment on an apartment. OK, it wasn’t in Ma’ale Adumim; that would have been way too expensive. What about Beersheva? Kind of out of the way, down where the Negev begins, but beggars can’t be choosers. You go where you can afford. We did get to visit them down there once. Nice apartment in a relatively new high-rise. A few bakeries nearby. But not much else going on. There are Anglos, the kind of people our friends should be hanging out with, somewhere in town, but not in their part of town. Can’t have everything.

Was that enough to make them decide to sell their apartment in favor of a cooler climate? Maybe yes, maybe no, but there was something else, something they hadn’t considered, and who would: insurance. When we bought our old apartment, we were able to put down 50%. (If we had purchased something the minute we arrived, we wouldn’t have needed a mortgage at all. But as we said back then in The Bronx, Who knew?) With that kind of a down payment, the bank didn’t ask us to get additional insurance. Our friends took out a much larger mortgage, and they sure as Hell needed to have insurance, whose cost kept increasing every year until……. We can’t keep doing this!

Looking Down from the 18^th Floor

Things did work out in the end for our long-suffering friends. They were able to sell their apartment and move to Netanya, where the sand is by the ocean, not all around. A woman whom Tehilla knows has a husband who is a very successful attorney, and that couple bought an apartment in a brand new hi-rise building, probably before it was finished. And then, because the fellow is now VERY successful, they went out and purchased the penthouse, keeping the other apartment to rent out, which is where our friends are now.

So there we were, looking out from the merpeset on the 18^th floor. If you look this way, you look back over the city. Why didn’t I whip out my iPhone and take a picture, so you’d see what I saw? A mixture of old stucco buildings, a few stories high, looking, shall we say, past their prime (although I’m sure the interiors have been up-graded time and time again) and a collection of modern hi-rises, all looking exactly alike – which is not meant to be a compliment. Let’s call the architecture ‘post-brutalist,’ if that’s a thing. Why do our cities look so ugly?

(As an aside: When I lived in The States, I never, ever, lived in a home that was built after we were born (in 1941) or perhaps when my parents were married (in 1927). And nobody thought twice about it. And if you think that’s old, how about the housing stock in the village of Auray, which is in Brittany [(That’s in France, for those of you who need Google maps to get around.] That’s where Benjamin Franklin’s ship landed when he arrived to work out a deal with the French government to support the Colonists. I was looking in a recent newspaper at a photograph of the village, and I wondered to myself if these were the same buildings that Franklin saw in1776. They sure look like it, but that is a compliment.)

However, if you move over or tilt your head to the left, you can see a glimmer of the sun shining on the ocean a few blocks away. Can we get a closer look?  Well, of course we could, once we finished the wonderful luncheon that Tehilla had prepared. We walked through the pathways that surrounded the collection of new hi-rises, wondering what had been there before – because something had, probably a collection of old buildings that went the way of old, disposable buildings. Of course, every block closer to the water must have added who-knows-how-much to the value of the real estate. We walked along the tayelet by the water and wound up at a small café where we could order coffee or whatever.

Was it us, catching Barbara and me at a good time, when we were visiting friends and we had no reason to feel stressed, or was the feeling of bonhomie coming from the town itself, from the people hanging out by the felafel stands, seemingly without a care in the world? We just felt cheerful and relaxed walking the streets of Netanya, in a way different from the vibes we got in Beersheva. Or maybe it was because our friends were relaxed, enjoying their new surroundings, within walking distance of an Anglo shul where they felt welcome and could participate, which makes life worth living.

Of course, as Barbara kept reminding Tehilla, there’s no place that’s perfect. Yes, the rent is more than they would like to spend, and dealing with a Shabbat elevator when you are on the 18^th floor is less than ideal, but you’re happy. That’s worth something, after all.

Hush Hush, Top Secret

And then, a month or so later, we got an e-mail from Tehilla. Hush hush, top secret. It would be Michael’s 70^th birthday, and she wanted to throw a surprise party, at least a meal, at a fancy restaurant, inviting some of their old friends from Ma’ale Adumim. First she mentioned a restaurant in Tel Aviv, then another place, before finally settling on Sea Dolphin in Jerusalem. (You thought I’d never get around to discussing a meal, didn’t you?)

How’s she going to pull this off?, Barbara and I wondered. How is she going to get Michael to travel to a distant city without spilling the beans along the way?

Take my wife – figuratively, of course. She will look for almost any excuse to leave our apartment, go someplace, and meet with somebody. And there are those of us, me, our friend Ron, and Michael, among others, who are the exact opposite, who are more than happy to remain in our comfort zone, often around a computer. Maybe it’s a guy thing. It’s not as if you have to drag me out of the house, but you do need a compelling reason. (An excursion to Power Coffeeworks and the shuk qualifies as ‘compelling’ – just so you know.) We could not begin to imagine what fanciful excuse Tehilla would have to invent to enlist her husband’s cooperation.

By the way, where is this place? That was my question. Even if you did know, as was the case with Ezra, or you thought you might know, as was the case with Barbara, how would you begin to explain it?

It only helps if you know the general area, where Shlomzion Hamalka (not to be confused with Helena Hamalka) intersects with Rehov Yaffo. Maybe it’s because it’s slightly off the beaten track and, hence, real estate is cheaper, but on these few winding streets, there are more restaurants than you can shake a stick at, more quality places to eat than there are in all of (gasp!) Teaneck, the exilic foodie mecca. But are they kosher? Actually, most of them are. The restaurant in question has been around since 1967 and only recently, seeing the handwriting on the wall – (or on the menu) bowed to the inevitable and is now supervised by the Jerusalem rabbinate.

Barbara and I got off the light rail and somehow found our way to where we were supposed to be, and there were Ron and Esther waiting outside for everyone else to show up. They’re not here yet? No. Is it really going to be a surprise for Michael? We’ll find out.

And, as if on cue, a phalanx of folks came marching down the street: Tehilla and Michael, with son Yisrael; Ezra and Shoshana; Natania and Liel, with Gefen in her carriage. If it had ever been a surprise for Michael, it sure wasn’t one now. Tehilla, how did you get Michael to come? ‘I told him (this is my paraphrase of what she said) that we were going to Jerusalem to meet his friends to celebrate his birthday, and that he needed to get off his ass, finish his computer game, and get ready to go.’ That’ll work. And so we all went inside, leaving a seat at our end of the table for Gil, who would ultimately show up.

To prevent any while-I’m-trying-to-order sticker shock, I had taken the precaution of checking out the restaurant’s menu on-line days before we were scheduled to show up. Just as I expected.

First of all, on our own, we never go to these fancy restaurants, and wherever we go, I never choose anything expensive. That’s if we are paying, or even if we’re going chetzi-chetzi with someone else. Tehilla made it perfectly clear that this meal was on her, but I still was looking for something on the cheaper side. (…Keep on the cheaper side, always on the cheaper side…). In case you don’t know already, the most expensive options in any restaurant in our part of the world are usually the fish entrées – as much or more than anything moo, which I don’t eat. (Entrecote, 168NIS; Sea Bass, 148NIS; Sea bream, 142NIS; and so on.) What else is there? The crispy chicken schnitzel is 88NIS, but that’s probably fried, so no, my pancreas would rebel. I could go for the fish & chips, only 96NIS, but ditto. I guess I’m going with the chicken breast – chef’s marinade, only 86NIS, and I’ll live to fress out another day.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Michael was busily wolfing down an enormous slab of steak. How is he doing that with his aphagia? (Not aphasia, can’t remember sh*t big time; aphagia, can’t digest your food big time.) But that was the other end of the table. Our end had the Casden-Aminadav clan, where we can chew and swallow and, an hour later, remember what we ate. And what we drank, which in our case was a bottle of Gamla Red Blend, 2023, an excellent choice by whoever decided.

When we had visited our friends in Netanya months before, Michael had lost some weight, definitely a good thing. Now he could tighten his belt even more. Be careful what you eat, and don’t eat past a certain time. It’s good to see friends looking healthier than they did six months ago. Maybe he’ll make it to his 80^th. Of course, I would be 95, trying to hang on for Gegen’s bat mitzvah. If we work at it, both Michael and I will qualify for the seniors-plus division of the Oy Vey Club, a notable achievement, by any stretch of the imagination. Hang in there all of you and keep us company.