Third Time Is the Charm

Today was our appointment at the interior ministry. It was our third time there to get an Identity Card, having dragged our children there twice and walked away empty handed. And we almost blew it at the start. We were told that our appointment was for 8:00 am, though we knew from times past, that the ministry didn't open until 8:30. What to do? We compromised and arrived at 8:20. We walked up the stairs and into the room at about 8:22 and heard someone shouting our names. We answered, though we had no idea where we were going, but we saw a line of cubicles ahead of us, each holding two chairs, and facing a woman sitting in front of a computer and completely surrounded by paper. It was basically one very long desk with dividers so the customers couldn't see each other, but the clerks could walk around and grab other papers from each other. It was almost like a scene from the movie Brazil.

A note: This Identity Card or Teudah Zehut is the equivalent of a driver's license in the USA and you need it for everything. Since we are not Olim (people moving permanently to Israel) and not tourists and not students, the Ministry hasn't been quite sure how to handle us.

We found ourselves packed into a tiny cubical talking to a woman who was complaining immediately that we hadn't brought copies of everything and how amazingly late we were (that was before she said hello).

She handed us form after form and asked us to fill them out, which were in Hebrew, so Debra didn't know what they said or how to fill them out and of course she was absolutely UNhelpful. I was wondering, though never asked, why no one gave us these forms on our first two visits to fill out at home.

We quickly realized that the 13 or 14 year old boy standing behind her was her son who was with her in the office today. Why? No school, too old for camp, and oh yeah, he has some doctors appointment later so here he is. And yes, he probably is bored, but what can I do?

At random moments, she would mutter, I can't work with all this pressure. And then later, she would yell a question out and someone at another cubical would answer her back. Occasionally, she would yell an answer back at someone else. At one point, she was talking on the phone and grabbed a notebook, yes a notebook, and started writing numbers in it. My impression was that this spiral bound notebook with lined paper was an official record of something.

About two thirds of the way through the paperwork, before she had entered anything in the computer, Debra looked up and said to me, We really should be Ashkenazi, not Ashkenaz, are you ok with that? I mean, I always tell people in the US who ask that Askanase is really Ashkenazi, so Ashkenazi in Hebrew, right? Fine, I said, and we turned to the woman to ask if we could do that. She looked scandalized. She threw our papers back at us and we frantically started to add a "י" to the end of our names, when she threw two more blank forms at us (ones that we had already filled out), and told us we now had to wait until she was done with the next person in line. She muttered something about all the time she'd wasted with our paperwork, and without waiting from a word from us, she called out "Rosenberg!"

Debra tells me that this is how her grandparents must have felt at Ellis Island when they entered. She always wondered how her great-grandfather's surname changed from Nussenshuk to Silverman? It probably was a scene like this:
Name? Nussenshuk?
Nussenshuk? What kind of name is that? Take Silverman!

We quickly looked at each other and said never mind. And we gingerly gave her our paperwork back. She said, "ok" and returned to the filling out the paperwork as if nothing at all had happened. I then noticed that there was a woman standing behind us with a puzzled look on her face. I think it was Mrs. Rosenberg. Our clerk noticed that too and looked up at her. Then, with a voice like a bullwhip said "what are you standing there for!" Rosenberg, who looked very sweet, meekly went back to her seat.

Debra adds: I really felt, for the first time, some semblance of how an emigre to the USA 100 years ago probably felt. I had no idea what the forms said, I was scared of the lady who had all the power to give me this important document and, for g-d's sake, she intimidated me into taking a surname I wasn't completely comfortable with! (She did tell us that, if we decide to move here permanently, we can change it to Ashkenazi at that time. Ha! As if I'll go through that again!)

A minute or two later, another clerk came up and asked our clerk for the schedule, which, I should point out, was piece of paper from that notebook I saw earlier with names handwritten on it. She hollered out "Rosenberg" from the next cubical. And then our clerk looked up and said "we ask very private things here, like are you a convert or things like that, it's not nice if she's standing right there. Now she has her own place to sit so she can have privacy too." I smiled politely.

At some point, someone brought her a cup of coffee. Well, two actually, one for her son as well. I wanted to point out that she probably didn't need it today, but thought that probably wasn't the best idea. But I never saw her take a sip of the coffee and it was probably cold by the time we left.

At random moments, she would say something very nice or funny to us, or she would laugh when I was asking her about the pictures someone had put up on her cubical wall. And then the bull whip would come out again and she'd get mad at us for having written Susie Askanase's name as "שרה" (Sarah, which is her Hebrew name) instead of "סוזי" which is the transliteration of Susie. And she had to ask two different people what to do with my middle name because it was on my birth certificate, but only an initial on my passport. (She used my full middle name).

And then she tells us to tell her son that she'll be right back and walks off. Five minutes later she comes back with new forms that are typed out in Hebrew with our names and identity numbers. She attaches the photographs to them and tells us to go to another room and go to window #9. "Are we all done?" We asked very hesitantly. "Yes," She said, "Welcome to Israel."

We went to window nine expecting a line. No line. We handed the woman there our papers. She put them through a laminating machine, folded them up and handed us our Teudat Zehuts (identity cards). And we walked out.

Third time was the charm.

Debra adds: I was so proud of this card. I kissed Aaron. I felt like we had just "become real," like the Velveteen Rabbit. I went from there to my Ulpan class and showed the Identity Card to the class and teacher, really proud to have this.