The Blogs: Dishonesty—That’s My Policy!

I was walking in downtown Jerusalem. At an intersection, I waited for the little red figure to turn green. When it did, I crossed to the middle of the street, beyond which the next little figure was already green. As soon as I stepped into the crosswalk, that figure turned red. It took just five paces for me to reach the opposite sidewalk, onto which I turned.

A car pulled up alongside. A slim young woman with religious headgear opened the window, shook her fist, and gave me a piece of her mind. She seemed less worried about my safety than annoyed at having her jackrabbit start delayed by a microsecond.

Although many words in Hebrew slang are Arabic, one of them, Dugri, is Turkish. Israelis use this to mean “blunt,” “straight from the shoulder.” Many Israelis like to talk Dugri. They want you to know just what they think: about things, about life, about you. They consider this “honesty.” Others, raised elsewhere otherwise, may call it something else.

The houseware shops on HaPalmach are small and crammed with merchandise. I bought a lithium battery, then turned to leave. An old woman leaning on a cane stood in the doorway facing out, but made no move to exit. I walked up behind her and waited. At length I leaned over and said, “Slicha, Excuse me.”

She took a few steps, then turned to me as I came out, her face dark with fury. “It’s your problem,” she barked. “Just push, and leave!”

I stared at her, thinking, “Are you serious? You’re angry at me because I said ‘Excuse me,’ instead of shoving you out of the way?”

I said nothing, of course. Where I come from, it is thought impolite to snap at old ladies leaning on canes. It was dishonest of me to stay silent, for sure. Guilty as charged.

I walked away, wondering where exactly I was, and how I got here.

Encounters like these don’t happen every day. But they do happen often enough to keep you sharp.

I took an inter-city bus to Rishon LeTzion for an appointment. We entered the town and neared my stop. I was the last passenger on the bus. I approached the front and stood next to the driver. He drove right past the stop.

“You didn’t stop,” I said.

“You didn’t buzz,” he said.

“But I’m standing next to you,” I said.

“How should I know why you’re standing there?” he said. “Maybe you like the scenery.”

Whatever Hebrew fluency I had flew out the window into the scenery. “May I please get off the bus?” I managed to ask.

He graciously agreed to let me off. “You can take the 172 to go back if you want,” he said.

In-town Jerusalem buses are studded with buttons to buzz the driver that you want to get off, but I had no idea what to press on an inter-city bus. I later asked half a dozen people—one of them an Egged bus driver!—and none of them knew which button to press on the inter-city buses. I even asked Google Lens to explain which of the array of buttons above the seats was for stopping. Google wasn’t sure. (!!) “It might be the one marked with ‘S,’ for ‘Stop,’” said Google. It wasn’t.

So I did not learn how to buzz intercity drivers, but I did learn what such drivers think of people who have the gall to want to get off without notifying them. I could see how good they feel about being honest. Always happy to help.

My wife and I got a fascinating insight into this concept of social candor one Shabbat, when a friend who was going out of town asked if we could host a new oleh who had just arrived in Israel.

When we met Ido, we were a bit surprised to note both his Israeli first name and his Israeli accent. It turned out that he grew up around the corner from where we live.

He had moved to the US about 30 years before with his wife and two sons. His marriage ended. Both sons, each of whom had served in the IDF for a year, stayed behind in America. He had worked a high-tech firm started by Israelis that still employed many of them.

“Israelis like to speak their mind, you know,” said Ido.

I nodded. I knew.

“When my kids heard me speak to co-workers and other people,” he said, “they would say, “Dad, you can’t talk like that!!

“My kids have become American,” said Ido. “But I’m Israeli. So of course I can talk like that.”

Here is what I did not say to him: “So you left your Americanized kids there and came back here.” For me, former American, soft-edged dishonesty of this type is the best policy.

According to the bestseller Start-Up Nation, Israel punches above its weight in military daring and high-tech innovation because Israelis are not shy about speaking up and disputing army or corporate superiors. Well, good for them. The next time I am invited to join IDF Intelligence or a Bitcoin startup, I will keep it in mind.

Later the same day that I came to Rishon LeTzion, I boarded another bus to leave town. There I saw, as a spectator, another bus driver incident that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The bus I took turned out to be going in the wrong direction. (Look, I was having a bad day, OK?) The driver kindly agreed to take me to a place from which I could proceed.

At a nearby stop, I heard an Israeli woman’s voice from the back.