Kosher L'Pesach (Article#81) 4/17/2008

Pesach food shopping is tougher here than in the USA. I know it sounds strange, but in the USA you can go into the local kosher supermarket (and in many cases the regular supermarket) and easily identify which items are kosher and kosher for Pesach. Not here.

With a Sephardic majority here in Israel, many of the companies make items that Sephardim will eat, but Ashkenazim will not eat, and mark them – Kosher for Pesach. Things like bamba snacks, peanut butter and cereals are easier to spot and avoid. Yet, there are things like yogurt and ice cream that come with ingredients we would never have thought to be careful about and are not acceptable to us as Ashkenazim (my sister, whose husband in Sephardic, eats everything).

Because of this confusion, Goldie likes to get more American products than she normally would buy, to make sure that she knows she is getting the right thing. Also, when it comes to Pesach and its’ food needs, the specific recipes she has are designed for products that they just don’t make here – like decent chocolate syrup (what is Pesach without Bosco or UBet).

Last year, our neighbors Sandor and Suzie Joffe told us about a specific supermarket they go to in Yerushalayim that specialized in American Pesachdik products – Cheaper Kol. We found it to be such a good place for picking up most of our needs that we decided to make a return trip this year. Since Mordechai was off of school for vacation (a mere week and a half before the chag – I can hear all the Yeshiva teachers in the USA saying “why don’t we get that much), we took him along for the trip.

As expected, Cheaper Kol was a zoo. It was however, much more organized than the normal Israeli supermarkets, with clearly marked “Kosher for Pesach” aisles. They even had matza farfel, which is an incredible rarity here in Israel (although I don’t see what the big deal is, my kids can make a box of whole matza into farfel in about 85 seconds). We filled up 8 boxes of food and took advantage of tashlumin (monthly no interest payment plan) on our credit card for the first time.

Tashlumin are an Israeli innovation. In order to entice the purchaser to spend more, the vendor will agree to defer some of his payment over time. So you can hand in a credit card to pay for your groceries and have it paid for (interest free) over the next 3 months instead of at the end of the month.

While on line we played jewish geography with some other customers and met a few people who knew someone who we knew, so the 45 minute wait to pay wasn’t as incredibly boring as it could have been. We really saw a big difference between shopping in Yerushalayim and shopping in the 5 Towns.

Even though the supermarket catered to Americans and other English speaking customers, they still could not get into the full customer service culture. Walk into Brach’s, Gourmet Glatt or Supersol on a busy pre Pesach day and you will see each row with baggers packing the groceries for the customers so that things will move faster. There are people working in the store who actually know where products are and are willing to help you find them. Not so much here.

Of course, as usual, the prices here don’t go up as much for Pesach either. So you give a little and you get a little.

There is a big market in Pre Pesach mini day camps in Bet Shemesh. With such a large break for vacation, enterprising teens open their backyards to groups of kids to make a little pocket money. This is a win/win situation for everyone involved (OK – maybe not for the parents who actually host the camp and have to deal with the noise and mess). The kids have a great time and are kept busy. This in turn is a terrific boon to their parents, who have work/Pesach preparations to take care of.

Once they come home, with all the time on their hands, they drive Goldie nuts. Since it is incredibly hot here already (high 80’s minimum every day), they can get really cranky. Every day I am thankful that the movers gave us the wrong size container and at no expense I was able to toss a few additional things onto the shipping container that I had never intended to bring with us. One of those things was our hard plastic wading pool.

It doesn’t have a plug anymore, we use duct tape to seal the drain. And after a winter of being exposed to the elements, it needed a big cleaning. Yet, now that it is needed, it is a HUGE lifesaver for us. Some days it seems like there are 20 kids crowding into the pool. The kids are busy, they are out of the house and they are having an awesome time.

So we, just like you, are gearing up towards Pesach. We will have only the one Seder and a two day Shabbat/Yom Tov, which allows for more chol hamoed and day trips for us all (which we are looking forward to, especially with Bubbee Shoshana and Zaidee Shelly coming in from NY). So on behalf of Goldie and our entire family, we will simply wish you a Chag Kasher V’Sameach. We hope that you and your families enjoy a wonderful chag and (in the off chance that it doesn’t happen between the time I write this and Pesach) look forward to the rebuilding of the Bet HaMikdash so that we can enjoy the Korban Pesach together in Yerushalayim next year.

P.S. Please also remember to say a quick prayer for my nephew and all the soldiers. He has not yet been told if he will even be allowed to be home for Pesach (although my understanding is that with the tensions on the Syrian border – the odds are not so good). So he may be stuck on a base somewhere, maybe even manning a post. So remember him and all the Chayalim. And think kindly of his parents and family who will have an empty chair at the table and an empty place in their hearts, missing his presence