A Bit Of Teach And Sympathy

The big demo last motzei Shabbat in support of the month long teachers strike wasn’t the first demonstration that Rabin Square (formerly Israeli Kings Square) had been filled to the brim with, with angry or hopeful revellers. There was 4/11/95, the anti war demonstrations of the early 80s, the anti Oslo Accord demos and Maccabi Tel Aviv’s first big win in 1977.
I couldn’t make it this time due to prior obligations but I did send my kids and their mother with considerable magnanimity and sympathy for the teachers cause. What cause one may well ask? Like a true belligerent dilettante I don’t really know the details but my gut feeling is that any protest against the Finance Ministry, or the Ministry of Public Enslavement as I am wont to call it, (notwithstanding who ever is in government) is something working indirectly in my interest.
I work in the public service if that’s the appropriate term for the civil service in Israel. Either term seems to be a misnomer in our environment. In fact I have this theory that Israel is such an unwelcoming place because Israel sees it's raison d’être as being a refuge from anti-Semitism, rather than giving good governance for the people by the people. And who apart from us would choose to migrate here? We aren't refugees. I don’t want to go on about the lack of a meritocratic public bureaucracy round these parts. But what these self righteous born again laissée faire exponents try and pass off as for striving for efficiency feels more like harassment. And if you’re unfortunate enough to be working under these so and sos, then you’ll have experienced their methods for achieving their so called aim, efficiency. What I've experienced is a reign of institutionalised office harassment, their basic technique being to smother you with work overload, meted out with unhealthy doses of humiliation. And if you haven’t experienced it first hand you can get a sense of it following the stagnation on the news.
Why is it only now that I wake up to the great lost spirit of a fair go, so prevalent in the Australia I left, the Australia my parents arrived to as refugees and could by working reasonably forthrightly get ahead and enjoy upward social mobility, and what they couldn't achieve themselves then their kids could? Basically the principle of a fair go is the difference between Australia and the Middle East. There is no such thing here. No room for it. That’s probably what none of the pollies or diplomats from the west visiting the Middle East will ever quite cotton on to.
And who could be more convenient for these contractual anus envy employees of the Finance Ministry to choose as victims of their efficacy cleansing than members of the professions most identified with working mothers; teachers, nurses, social workers etc etc? Well it’s a no brainer isn’t it? And as for those women who can’t manage to morph into men in high heels well they can go off and consol themselves reading books about the glass ceiling. Glass ceiling: by definition it refers to an unacknowledged discriminatory barrier to advancement, especially for women and minorities. “No! That’s not us,” I hear your deferential minds pleading.
Do you spend about 50 hours a week working somewhere east of Checkpoint Charlie; figuratively speaking of course, though that’s small consolation? Does the sub culture of the organization where you work eat you up? Do you leave work all too often feeling a fugitive from an S&M parlour? It makes me a shitty husband and a stroppy father. I know ‘cause when someone’s parents bankroll us an overseas holiday I rediscover myself; another person, something more akin to the person I always thought I’d become.
I don’t mean to be abrasive but… it’s been quite a while that I’ve been racking my brains for a fitting translation of the Hebrew turn of phrase לא רואים אותך ממטר.
What I’m driving at is the sense of “glass ceiling”; that is, Israeli society in relation to me.
How long have you been plodding along at your job? What does the line, “They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within,” do for you? More than 20 years on the job and they don’t know you from a bar of soap? It doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll never be this or that enough, not religious enough, your Hebrew not good enough, your personality not pushy enough, too apathetic in their eyes, too naïve, your gait not Neolithic enough; in short not Israeli enough. My interim conclusion is that in spite of certain individual exceptions to the rule, Israeli society DOESN’T WANT to know US from a BAR of SOAP. (Yep, that’s about it! as far as a translation for "לא רואים אותך ממטר"goes)
Take a cross section of the qualities that are imitated and admired by the junta of frustrated Power Rangers regulating us. And pragmatically speaking those are the same qualities required for advancement. Keep your eyes open and you’ll see it all around you, assholes manipulating and aggrandising their careers on the backs of those weaker than them, all in the name of enforcement. Their public relations people bandy around vague notions like sacrifice and public service, impartiality and legitimacy. But those clean words are just a sham. Behind the plaster office partitions its all about aggression, egotism and hostility. In their monoculture self-fulfilment has only one fundamentalist meaning, their way.
So if you don’t join them becoming a sadist, in order to survive you’ve got to become either repressive or suppressive. In their order of things those are the choices.

Maybe I’m just a kibitzer or maybe I’m touching on an unspoken taboo. Like it’s nigh unforgivable to break ranks isn’t it?
Did you come over here with some vague notion of making some difference, too? Do you feel your impact on your peoples’ history goes beyond being a statistic in someone else’s demographic equation? Does it make you feel exploited?
Maybe the solution is taking a leaf out of Rich Dad Poor Dad? Branch out on your own, create assets and reduce liabilities. But how does one make a fresh start?
There are no doubt plenty of good-hearted philanthropists out there in the Australian Diaspora setting up foundations and funds so that young people living in this country or coming to Israel can made a good start at life and get a good education well into university. That’s all very well and commendable but there’s probably a whole bunch of not so elderly ex pat Australians here in Israel who are just emerging from their mortgage belt debt, who have paid their dues and still have the imagination and energy, not to mention the experience and language skills to try and make a difference to this country; but need a helping hand to learn some new profession or start up some new type of business or occupation or invest their superannuation.
Someone out their ought to have the nous and organisational skills to work out an appropriate set up and criteria framework for helping us make Australian migration to Israel assertive and meaningful.