A Bacon Lover in a Kosher World

Going to Israel, I knew that I was going to have to make some sacrifices. All of these sacrifices, in my mind, resided in the realm of food. I enjoy food, particularly Amurrican food, food that I would have to leave behind. I would have to give up bacon for five months, which would be a huge sacrifice in it of itself. Besides this, I knew that foods that are "non-Kosher" would be incredibly difficult to find. Upon arrival, I confirmed that I would have to make these sacrifices, and I learned about many more over the course of the first few weeks in the country. Another sacrifice that I live with is living in a city that basically shuts down for the weekend. Now by shut down, you probably are thinking "Oh things will open by noon. Annoying, but doable." Wrong. When I say shut down, I mean shut down. Completely. From Friday afternoon until Saturday night, almost everything is closed for Shabat (Jewish Sabbath). No light rail, no buses, no grocery store, or no stores of any kind for the most part. If you go into Friday night without any food, you're out of luck, and you'll have to wait until Saturday night to replenish. But, of course when talking about the Israeli transition, everything comes back to food. The lack of some meats is particularly frustrating. Obviously nothing off of a pig is readily available, and hamburgers are also scarce. Thankfully, there's a Palestinian burger joint just up the street from the student village, and a Domino's pizza place just beyond that. When I get to the point where I just can't take it anymore and need some "real meat", I go to one of those places. Because of the lack of good meat, I've had to adjust. I've had a lot of chicken, eggs, and spaghetti for lunch and dinner over the last few months. Sometimes I just give up, go to the student store, and have a coca-cola and Cheetos for dinner, but these are rare occurrences. Another adjustment to Israeli society started just this past week, and despite my mental preparations, has caught me off guard. This week is Passover here in Israel, the celebration of the end of slavery in Egypt and the start of the Israelite's journey to the Promised Land. As we all know, in Exodus, God says to eat unleavened bread (without yeast) during the Passover feats, to emphasize the haste of the meal and the fact that the Jews could be leaving at any moment. Over the past few days, I've tried unleavened bread for the experience, and my reaction was along the lines of "This is nice, I'm glad I can say I had this, but I wouldn't eat this daily or go searching for it at the grocery store." It's essentially tasteless, something that you quickly tire of, making you go look for something with flavor. When I sat down to the traditional Seder (Passover) meal, I ate unleavened bread along with the rest, and then thanked God when the meal was over so I could return to "real bread". Little did I know that during the entirety of Passover week, "real bread" would be taken off of the shelves and would not be available for purchase. I'm not just talking about loaves of bread, I'm talking noodles, cereals, anything with grain in it. What does that leave? You guessed it: unleavened bread. For the rest of the week. I saw people at the grocery store with their entire carts filled with the stuff, as there was nothing else to buy. Doing my best to be a good Israeli, I grinned and bought some of the stuff too. I'm munching on some right now. The taste hasn't improved, but this is Passover week, and I'm here for the experience.