Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Shave, Shawarma, Shalom and Shimon

The 10 of Av is here and it is OK to have one’s facial growth shorn. Since the 17th of Tammuz the bristles have been a fertile ground for all kinds of microorganisms and microinsects, demanding an extra daily treatment with a fruity liquid soap, or a body wash. One come to mind, and that is Fa. The memories of life among the silken landscape of America, or Europe. The landscape here is pseudo-Goth: the orthodox women prefer to dress in New York evening gowns, black and concealing, and grotesque en ensemble with church-lady-like shoes and a gait of a clumsy farm wench. And this is my community.

The date also permits eating meat, which is a subject of multitudinous complaints. Shawarma is not the Greek gyro, it is a mixture of unknown turkey cuts and unidentified kosher meat, sheep fat, diluted with an unknown kosher oil, melted generously all over. I think I’ll stay vegetarian. What would be the name for abstaining from meat, while still eating meat flavored foods and sauces? Though beef jerky is nowhere to be found in Israel, even among the Ishmaelites.

And I don’t think if Jews give more land to these tribesmen, or whatever else tangible for a promise of Salam (because the word means "take it from them using the salami tactic" in Arabic) written on the back of an old goat from Beit Jallah (the Jewish Beit Gillo, or Gillo, the town of King David’s father-in-law).

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