Comments and Manners

"Nobody Loves Me"



Please y'all, submit some comments! My dear friend Kuri has been the only person to do this so far, bless her heart, she has kept me from falling into a blog-induced depressive state. It's all very easy and you do not need a Blogspot account to do it.



Manners



These anecdotes fall under the category of Israeli Observations.



#1: Last night I was at a seaside bar with a group of about 15 people. We were spread out at a large table and a smaller table. Now, I did not actually see this happen, but I did witness the yelling that ensued as a result....



Apparently, a young Israeli female (in her 20s) walked over to the smaller table, at which a young man and woman (part of party) were sitting. She picked up a pack of Camel cigarettes that was on the table and asked for one (as she was removing it from the package). The young man said, "No, those aren't mine, so I can't let you take one." The owner of the Camels was in the ladies room. He offered one of his cigarettes, but the lady refused it and took one of the Camels anyway, even as the man told her again that she couldn't have one of those because they weren't his. She ignored him and walked off with the Camel cigarette.



That's when the man started saying loudly across the bar, "That's really rude...you could at least say 'Thank you.'" etc. When I heard what happened, I was appalled. As was the man's girlfriend, who is Israeli and was sitting right there. She said she's Israeli but she would never do something like that. The man was going on about how not all Israelis are like that, but 95% of them are. The girlfriend got quiet.... I don't know if she disagreed with that assertion, or agreed but didn't want to say it out loud about her own fellow countrymen.

#2: On Friday, Sweetie and I were lounging by the pool in the evening when suddenly loud disco music started thumping across the street. It was coming from the neighbor's pool area and continued until we headed up to bed. Now, Shabbat (the Jewish holy day of the week) starts on Friday night. We assume that things are supposed to be kept relatively quiet during that time and until Shabbat ends on Saturday night. But, apparently not.

I asked an Israeli about this once, and he told me that Shabbat only applies to religious Jews and so others don't really care.

Okay, fine. Shabbat aside, isn't it still really rude to subject the entire neighborhood to your music? This would never fly in the average residential area in the US. The neighbors would ask you to turn it down and even call the police if they had to.

Does is not bother people here? There are lots of retired people living on our block -- does loud music outside not bother them?