Shopping in Israel

Shopping in Israel is a cultural experience in itself. I never thought I'd say this, but the salespeople here make Jim--our most enthusiastic salesperson at FDB--look like a kitten. (Meow.) They're pushy! I keep saying that I'm not going to buy anything that I don't really love, but twice now I've felt pressured enough that I couldn't really say no. Both involved sellers bringing down their prices--a skirt from 60 to 45, and a pair of shoes from 100-something to 80. I'm left questioning both purchases.

I'm basing this post on two experiences, a trip to a Druze village on the way to Kibbutz Hannaton and my first visit to the Machane Yehuda shuk today. "Good quality, good quality." "Take two, I give you deal." "Here, here, take, take." "Come, come." "Follow me." They like to repeat things, and if you start pulling away, they just insist more. It's so hard! Devorah Kramer, another RIS student, said that it's what makes them good salespeople, but I've never seen anything like it in the US. I thought Jim was pushy!

The shuk needs an entry of its own, but I'll have to make due with someone else's youtube video. One street, thousands of people, more fruit than I've ever imagined in one place:

(I didn't spend that much time near the fish. I was having trouble with the smell alone!)

I couldn't have been there more than an hour, but I left exhausted anyway. For $47 I managed to buy: ten pitot (5 NIS), a pomegranate (2 NIS), a large container of grapes (13 NIS), two dragonfuit (one red, one Costa Rica) to bring to my Rosh Hashanah hosts so I can be selfish and save my challah for myself (10 NIS), a pair of off-white pants (20 NIS), a pair of Wal-mart quality white, non-leather shoes for Yom Kippur (40 NIS), and a pair of black sneakers (80 NIS). The sneakers are my second questionable purchase because they only had them in velcro. I'm not sure how I feel about having velcro shoes--sort of like I'm back in elementary school--but it is true that my shoelaces won't come untied this way, and it's got to be better than shoes with holes in them (read: my current pair). And if worst comes to worst, 80 NIS is only about $21 and there are about a million shoe stores on Yaffo street (which the salespeople made me forget in the moment, of course).

There's also a store across from the shuk that looks to have some pretty good skirts for 30 NIS, but by the time I got back there I was exhausted and my hands were full of packages. Next time.

Overall, I would call today's trip successful. I am very glad to have found a place where the rotten exchange rate doesn't make everything too expensive for Walmart-price-cheapy me. I do wonder, though, whether time will make me resistant to Israeli salespeople or whether I'll always be this much of a push-over.