4 | SEPTEMBER 28 • 2023 J
N
for openers
First Aliyah . . . Then IKEA
M
y wife and I have
moved to Israel.
Some people
move their furniture and
appliances in an industrial
shipping
container,
called a lift.
We did not.
We bought an
airy and empty
apartment in
a fairly new
building in (the
biblical city of)
Beit Shemesh. We planned to
buy about all of our furniture
at the new IKEA branch in
(the biblical city of) Eshtaol.
So, we arrived at IKEA with
a team of helpers, ready for
the mammoth expedition.
We had done extensive
planning for this expedition.
I had done a reconnaissance
mission, exploring that
branch of IKEA in an earlier
trip. My wife had spent
hours upon hours on the
IKEA website, checking the
measurements of attractive
items against the floorplan
of our apartment, and
developing a list of the
winning products. We had
done a practice run through
our local IKEA in Michigan,
to discover if that table looks
big enough and that chair
feels comfortable.
The IKEA in Eshtaol
looks and feels just like the
IKEA in Michigan: wide
aisles, bright lights, lines on
the floor leading customers
through the maze of
departments, products with
Swedish names. The store
uses some English, too, along
with the signage in Hebrew.
Unlike IKEA in Michigan,
the Israeli IKEA highlights
items useful for Jewish
observance: In a display of
storage boxes, for example,
one bears the label, “Purim
costumes.”
‘ASSEMBLING’ A TEAM
Our team arrived punctually
at nine in the morning. Our
high-school student grandson
and his friend went straight to
the warehouse section, armed
with the list of items we had
already identified by IKEA’s
product number.
Our married granddaughter
and our son (her father)
accompanied us through the
shopping maze, each pushing
a cart. One member of our
team has mobility limitations;
the staff at IKEA provided
a motorized vehicle right at
the entrance. We need some
of everything; we chose
some items at nearly every
department of the store.
We coordinated operations
with the boys in the
warehouse by cellphone.
We also used the cellphone
when we lost each other in
the maze. When the battery
of the motorized vehicle
gave out, we alerted a staff
member, and another helpful
staff member showed up to
replace the battery.
The store became
progressively more crowded
during our expedition;
Friday is not a full workday
in Israel, so people have
time to shop. Young couples
brought their children
along on the shopping
trip. Even close together in
crowds, the customers from
disparate segments of the
Israeli populace treated each
other politely, respectfully
maneuvering to make room
for fellow shoppers young
and old, Jewish and Arab,
religious and secular, Black,
Brown and white.
ORDEAL AT CHECK-OUT
About three hours later, when
we arrived at the check-out
line, we had four shopping
carts filled with household
goods of every description,
while the boys brought seven
large rolling pallets piled high
with large items from the
warehouse. We advised other
shoppers not to get in line
behind us, as we anticipated
spending a long time at check-
out, and other lines, we pre-
dicted, would go more quickly.
The young woman doing
checkout valiantly pointed
her laser at bar codes on all
our purchases. She looked
through the piled-high items,
trying to record every item,
each item once, and no item
twice. The expected delay
materialized. The cashier
alertly noted that one item
from the warehouse came in
two huge cartons, carton one
from a certain model, carton
two from a similar but not
identical model. We needed
to return the mismatched
carton to the warehouse and
bring the matching carton
to check-out. Fortunately,
we did not have to do that
ourselves.
The cashier summoned a
crew to make the exchange.
Some members of the same
crew helped us bring the
heavy items across the store
to the shipping department.
Now the boys could go home,
having completed their part
of the expedition.
The crew, like nearly all
IKEA
PURELY COMMENTARY
continued on page 8
Louis
Finkelman
Contributing
Writer