Well it was quite a month here in Wartime Tel Aviv, and we at the Daily Freier have a lot to tell you. Roxy Cruz is our resident designer of The Daily Freier’s product line of Israeli Barbies to include the Hamas-Gaza War Barbie Collection, the Covid Barbie Collection, and our Startup Nation Barbie Collection. Now she is back with her Brand New Collection of Missile Shelter Barbies, with some honorable assistance by our Tel Aviv Living Editor Aaron Pomerantz, who purposely went to new shelters to collect weirdos. So Behold, The Daily Freier’s newest Barbies!
Ken Idan: Single, 32 years old. Tall for an Israeli guy, dark hair that will fall in 3 years, beard, Birkenstocks. Works in a low-level clerical job at a high-tech company. He is the default Israeli boyfriend. Nice, cool, reads manifestation books, and claims to practice yoga. Uses spirituality as a marketing tool to attract girls. Tells people about a psychedelic experience he had in Peru that changed his life, but forgets to tell them that the experience was only him having a massive case of diarrhea and talking to his deceased grandmothers who were asking for their Tupperware back. Always has an AM:PM 35 Shekel bottle of wine handy in case some girl says yes to him coming over to her mamad.
Barbie Gila: Single, 31 years old. Cosmetician. Always with her friend Sarit, who is also a cosmetician. Calls everyone “mamush” and “motek”. Almost as aggressive and territorial as her dog, a pinscher named Versace, and believes she has a chair that only she can sit on at the miklat. Used to be engaged to Yossi, but they broke up after her brother Tzahi scammed him for 250,000 Shekels and he left her to think about life in Thailand, where he came back married to Alice. Thinks she is very fancy and sophisticated with her white wine and fake designer bags. Inseparable from Sarit, who rolls her eyes every time someone tries to speak to them.
Barbie Miriam the Brazilian Single: Miriam is 28 years old and owns 11 shirts of Brazil to make sure people know where she is from… but men don’t care and women don’t talk to her anyways. Men come up and speak to her in Spanish, she tells them that she speaks Portuguese, and then they say they know because they learned Portuguese when they visited Argentina. Always smiling, always happy, and men are always so nice to her. She’s 2 years away from becoming a real Israeli after finding out those guys are only interested in her arepa. But arepas are from Venezuela.
Barbie Shulamit: Goes to the miklat with a small radio, shouting live disasters and where the missiles and shrapnel fell. “It is in Florentin now.” “Took an entire building down in Petach Tikva”. Comes accompanied by a foreign caretaker who is totally horrified so she has a nervous smile all the time.
Barbie Yochevet: A 49 year old Barbie who is suspected to sleep in jeans, considering how she appears in the miklat within minutes in an absolutely collected outfit and combed hair. Always carrying a bag containing her belongings and passport, in case we get rescued like Private Ryan.
Ken Ori and Barbie Osnat: A couple in their 40’s who have 5 children and haven’t been to a party in 7 years. So in order not to traumatize the children in the miklat, they turned it into a Midburn camp where the kids can lay on mattresses, drink wine, drink beer, and watch football.
Barbie Dorit: Looks at everyone entering the miklat and evaluates their fashion. Looks people up and down, judging them and why they are still wearing pajamas at 11:00 AM.
Ken Yaki: A 58 year old divorced high-tech guy with no children. Counts the “booms” out loud like nobody can hear it. He is a Missile Sommelier, telling everyone, by the intensity, speed and noise, if it is from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas or if it is just a door that closed somewhere. Incredibly unhelpful to the anxiety of Barbie Alice: a foreign woman married to Ken Yossi for 5 months and new at the Middle East rodeo. She thinks we are all going to die every time and already enters the miklat crying. Ken Yossi lost his shid with Ken Yaki and wanted to whip him with one of the fairy light cables of Ken Ori and Barbie Osnat’s Midburn, but chilled out after he was offered a beer and a pill from Barbie Roxy’s collection.
Barbie Roxy: Alternating between clean pajamas for 5 weeks. Heavily medicated. Took a blue pill she found in a drawer. Praying, yet also drinking. Studying Kabbala for self-improvement but does not rule out exorcism.
* Special thanks to local reporter E.Jas for superb reporting from the field!