The Other srae

Daily life
is far
different
from the
sensational
headlines.

CARL ALPERT

SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Do they know?
Israel's insurance com-
panies have suddenly
more than doubled the
premium for earthquake
insurance.
Post office sees red.
If you're planning a sim-
cha in Israel, and are
printing up invitations to
be mailed in Israel, do
not use red envelopes.
The post office won't
accept them. Local mail
is sorted by an electronic
scanner, and the red
can't be read by the
machine.
Hebrew solutions.
The man who serves
drinks at a bar is called
a barman. The Hebrew
expression for that occu-
pation is — barman. But
if the pourer of the
drinks is a female, she is
referred to as a barman-
it, giving the word a
Hebrew feminine suffix.
Driven by despera-
tion. Many kibbutzim
are still struggling under
the load of enormous
debts. To help solve the
problem the kibbutz
movement recently con-
ducted a special course
in fund raising, given by
professionals, to teach
kibbutz representatives
how to collect contribu-
tions.
Second place. Mickey
Mouse literature has
been translated into 284
languages, some 70 more
than the Bible.
Square Meets Circle
is a love story, a delight-
ful little novelty book of
drawings, written in
English, in which the
principal characters are
a square and a circle who
seek to overcome appar-
ent incompatibility. It is
published by Gefen
Books.
Halfway. McDonald's
restaurants in Israel will
use kosher meat in their
hamburgers, but will be
open on Shabbat.
Favorite fruit. This
year's watermelon pro-

Hebrew Book Week in Jerusalem.

duction in Israel will top
200,000 tons, making it
the most popular fruit in
the country.
Where they come
from. Official records
show 3,903 foreign work-
ers from 71 countries
with permits to work in
Israel. Leading the list:
From the Philippines,
1,239; Thailand, 305;
Romania, 223;
Mauritius, 162. It is gen-
erally known that there
are thousands more who
are not officially regis-
tered.
Beware of green.
Research conducted at
Kibbutz Geva, and docu-
mented in a recent film,
shows that the color
green tends to repress

the sexual urge in chick-
ens. The farmers prefer
that their chickens show
less excitement, settle
down, and fatten up.
Hence the use of green
canvas and plastic sheet-
ing around the chicken
houses.
A cover-up job. Tel
Aviv's municipal bill-
boards blossomed recent-
ly with huge posters
advertising women's san-
dals. However, the san-
dals occupied only the
very bottom of the
poster; most of the space
was taken up with a very
shapely pair of women's
legs. Anticipating public
objections, the city
sought a court order to
have the posters

removed, but the two
sides finally reached a
compromise: The posters
will be reprinted, and
the legs will be adorned
with a pair of shorts.

In defense. Knesset
member Yosef BaGad, of
the Moledet Party, is fed
up with seeing all the
seats at public cere-
monies filled with the
same judges, Knesset
members and other pub-
lic officials and their
families. He has intro-
duced a bill in the
Knesset to make it
mandatory that at least
25 percent of the invitees
to such ceremonies be
from the ranks of amcha,
the man in the street.