Not Israeli Yet

I realized today that I am not Israeli. Here's how:

I woke up a little late today as the kids slept in. Once we got them off to Gan, Debra and I headed up to the bank. We waited in line for 7-8 minutes to withdraw a little money and deposit a couple of checks. I then waited another five minutes or so to deposit an American check (which is at a different teller). So we were in and out of the bank in about 25 minutes, which was faster than I thought, so it wasn't stressful at all.

From there, I took a bus downtown and faced my fear of the Jerusalem Municipal Government to deal with our property tax (In Hebrew it's called the arnona). In Israel, unlike in the states, the property tax is paid by the renter, not the owner. As my parents own the apartment, we would be paying it in any case. But if one meets certain conditions, one can get a discount on the Arnona. I was told that as we are both students, we would get an 80% discount off of the 3000 Skekel (~$850) tax.

When I went there in January, I didn't even get past the information desk where they handed out the numbers. I was told that because I was self-employed, the student discount didn't apply. I did not need the letters that stated that we were students (Which I had brought with me), but I needed a affidavit from a lawyer or an accountant stating my income in the months of October, November, and December. I got the letter from my Israeli accountant three weeks ago, and went there today for round two.

I got to the information desk again, and the man looked at what I had: an affidavit and a filled out form applying for a discount. He looked at me without emotion and asked if my wife worked.

"No," I said, "she's a student too."
"Then you need an affidavit to that effect."
"From her? From her school?" I asked.
"No. From Bituah Leumi." He replied. That's the national health insurance.

So I walked the three block to the insurance office, got my number, and sat down to wait. As I was doing my homework I noticed that there were several people arguing in front of me. Apparently, the number display had skipped one woman's number, or she had missed it, and wanted her turn. The other person had the number that was actually displayed. They were both obstinate that it was there turn, and the woman with the later number was angry when they asked her to sit down and told her she would be next. I went back to my homework. 20 minutes later I looked up and realized my number was next. I was walking out of the office two minutes later with affidavit in hand. I spent 25 minutes there - again less than I expected. No worries. Back to the Municipality.

I went to the information desk for round three and the woman handed me a number without a word. I was slightly worried that I would wait and be told I was missing a form, but I sat down and pulled out my homework. When I looked up a minute or two later, I saw a friend of mine from Pardes. We got to chatting, though we looked at each other in worry when a woman noticed an unattended plastic bag on the information desk. She asked loudly if it belonged to anyone and no one answered. To my American eyes, someone had come up, asked a question, put the bag down, forgotten it, and walked away. To Israel eyes, this was a potential bomb.

Within five minutes, the entire office was evacuated. About 70 of us went out to the outdoor plaza in front of the municipal building. My friend and I kept chatting. Luckily, it was a beautiful spring day, so hanging out chatting with a friend was no big deal. As I looked around, I realized that many of the others outside with us were not very happy about being asked to wait longer for the bomb squad to come. Some seemed downright angry. A half an hour later, we were still outside and I wandered down the street to buy some lunch as it was close to noon at this point.

When I returned, the tail end of the people outside were just going back in, but when I got back into the office, I saw my worst nightmare. The number counter was already past my number! I had a flash of having to get a new number and wait another hour, but luckily the next clerk to open up was right in front of me and I sat down.

I talked to her for maybe five minutes. Turns out that self-employed people need to bring their Tax returns from the past year for a discount and so I did not need the affidavit from the accountant, I needed forms I didn't have yet. But I did need the form from the health insurance. Then she told me I need another affidavit from my parents that we aren't paying rent. As she saw my face fall, she quickly said that she would give me the 80% discount, and sometime before the end of the year, I should bring those forms back to the municipality and they would work out the proper discount. She was very nice about the whole thing and printed out a letter listing the forms I needed to bring. I left with a bill for 625 skelels ($175) and six months more to deal with the rest of the forms.

In the end, it took me three trips and in total, it took me a little over three hours to deal with the whole thing. That includes three trips to the municipality, the trip to the other office, and the suspicious object. I felt pretty relaxed about the whole thing as I expected it to take me much longer. And that's when I knew I wasn't Israeli: I wasn't angry or stressed about any of it - it was exactly what I expected!