Tag: Living Financially Smarter in Israel

Aliyah, Start Up Nation

“It’s a Hate Crime against Anglo Olim!” Tel Aviv woman reacts calmly to cost of spices
“Does Nefesh B’ Nefesh know about this?”

By Chava Ewa

Last Updated 12/3/2020 at 12:30 PM

Tel Aviv: “It’s a hate crime! Ethnic discrimination! Racism!” cried Mindy R. “These stores and their discriminatory practices that make the food I like more expensive. It’s just because I’m Ashkenazi, isn’t it?“

Mindy, a Passaic native who now lives in Tel Aviv, tearfully described her experiences shopping for food at her local AM:PM supermarket. “These cultural micro-aggressions have got to stop!”

“They’re charging 21 Shekels for a tiny bottle of McCormick’s seasoning, and like 10 Shekels for a kilo of some random yellow spices I’ve never heard of.” Mindy complained. “Their motives are pretty obvious; they think they’re better than me and are trying to force me to be like them…. maybe I don’t want to serve yellow chicken and yellow rice and yellow vegetables for Shabbos like every Israeli I know? That’s why they made the jars of duck sauce so expensive, because they don’t want me to buy them! And yeah, I tried Amazon and Target but they don’t ship here.”

We headed to Mindy’s corner supermarket with her typical shopping list: jarred gefilte fish, duck sauce, and cream of mushroom soup (You know, the essentials!) in order to get the whole story from Rami the manager. “Am I racist against her? No way! That girl is one of my best customers; she easily spends 4000 Shekels every month!”

We asked Mindy why, if she felt uncomfortable at her local grocery store, couldn’t she just go to another store like Osher Ad? “I would need a car to get to a supermarket like that.” she said. “I would totally buy one, but groceries are sooo expensive.”

UPDATE: Stay tuned for tomorrow when this crisis migrates to Facebook and morphs into an angry rant on the popular page “Living Financially Smarter in Israel”!

Aliyah, Start Up Nation

‘Why has G-d forsaken us?’ Israelis calm after Target’s mass order cancellation

‘Why has G-d forsaken Us?’ Israelis react to Target’s mass order cancellationBy Chava Ewa and Mark Levy

Last Updated 9/4/2017 at 3:30 PM

Beit Shemesh: Target just cancelled all of its orders to Israel, and Israelis, especially the ultra-resilient Anglo Olim Community, are collectively LOSING. THEIR. MINDS. According to those Anglo Olim “In the Know”, the cancellation of 20,000 Target orders is an event sufficiently catastrophic to legitimately be described as a Nakba.

“We are weeping, we are praying, we are fasting. Surely this is a sign from HaShem to repent.” lamented Rabbi Shlomo K. of Efrat. “It’s like Tisha b’Av, only here and now. Hashem gave us something amazing and miraculous and suddenly he took it away.  And it’s no coincidence that this catastrophe happened right before the High Holidays …. it’s a sign!”

So to the best of our knowledge, here is what happened:

  • An affiliate of Target offered free shipping to Israel.
  • Apparently, they have never shipped anything to Israel.
  • Within 15 minutes, every Israeli had told every other Israeli about the great deal.
  • In order not to mess this up for everyone, Israelis prudently placed small ord…. JUST KIDDING! They went nuts and tried to ship swingsets! Also plastic sheds!
  • Israeli Customs saw this as an opportunity to levy new taxes, including a “Snack Tax” (really!).
  • Target, no doubt feeling a lot like someone who just got talked into buying Dead Sea products at the mall, pulled the plug on the whole thing.
  • The Jews went insane on social media.
  • The full force of 20,000 Jews complaining crashed the server used by the Facebook Page ‘Living Financially Smarter in Israel’.

Despite the majesty and wonder of Startup Nation,  Israelis do not yet enjoy access to the plethora of consumer goods which Target offers. “Whenever my mom comes to visit, I ask her to bring me just a few small things …. you know, like 8 boxes of pumpkin spice k-cups, a new car seat, and 3 kilos of Lawry’s seasoned salt.” explained Rivky B., a resident of Beit Shemesh. “But when my Facebook friends started posting about this free shipping offer, I thought it was a miracle …. surely Moshiach was coming …. or something!”

Rivky’s Israeli-born neighbor Aviva was sympathetic but not surprised. “They really should have been more suspicious, that offer sounded too good to be true.” she said. “But these Anglo Olim, they’ll believe anything. We have a word for that in our language… I don’t know if you’ve heard it, but it rhymes with ‘Tire’. You know, that would be a great name for an online newspaper. “