Neither Iran nor Bibi: This is the real reason Israelis fly abroad | Nir Kipnis

There is no other nation in the world that loves to tour it like Israelis. Sometimes it is funny to the point of the grotesque: the situation with Iran is heating up, the US President is threatening a "war from hell", the Iranians are promising to shoot in response (also) at Israel and... let's go live to our correspondent at Ben Gurion Airport for a conversation with Israelis who are afraid that their flight for a vacation will not take off on time! Admit it, it's delusional.

This situation has many reasons, which we usually tend to attribute to the mental realm: talking about "letting off steam", about the need to relax and about many other things that are worthy in their place, but would not be possible if not for the financial aspect.

It is interesting to examine the love-hate relationship we manage with both the State of Israel and the big world, not through security, "Peace Now" or later, "Yes-Bibi No-Bibi", equality in the burden, or rising antisemitism in countries that were once considered friends, but through the shekel in the pocket. We will return to the departures hall soon, but first a quick security check in the form of a feeling of frustration growing precisely among many Israelis of the type that "can afford it".

I consider myself a "flexitarian": I am not a vegetarian, but I strive to reduce meat consumption as much as possible for animal welfare reasons. I will not go into the philosophical dimension of things now, but only add that for me meat is not food but a state of mind. Therefore, when the urge overcomes me, I turn to one of my favorite restaurants from the carnivorous era of my life and sink my teeth into a bloody entrecote or a juicy hamburger.

Cut and loss

Fate would have it that on Saturday we hosted a couple of friends who eat almost only meat, as is the custom of those on a ketogenic diet ("keto"), so I decided to serve roast beef. For this, I jumped to the butcher to buy a nice piece of sirloin.

After staring at the display case, a spectacular piece weighing two kilograms was found for me. A little more than I wanted, but the piece was so beautiful that I didn't want to damage its integrity. The price gave me a slight shock: 215 shekels per kilo, which is 430 for the piece I chose. I know that for good raw materials you have to pay — and as a "foodie" I am usually willing to bear the extra expense — but 430 shekels for a two-kilo piece? Alas...

We sat down at the table, sipped good wine, ate the salads I concocted and cold meats we brought with us from the long trip to Madrid. The two told us about their experiences during the weeks that had passed since we last met. It is a couple that loves to eat and drink — they go out, spend and pay, but recently this pastime is also accompanied by a growing sense of bitterness at the bill stage: the feeling is that some restaurateurs have given up on the hope of expanding their customer base and have moved from marketing to overcharging, in an attempt to get more precisely from their loyal customers.

If this sounds like a conversation of the privileged, I will not try to push back against this claim at the threshold. Yes — we love to go out, eat and drink, and of course understand that the cost of living does not skip over restaurateurs either. But there is a difference between a moderate price increase as a result of rising input costs such as raw materials, wages and rent, and the fact that in many restaurants a bill of a thousand shekels for a couple is no longer an exceptional event.

Attraction at the supermarket

How does all this drain into the terminal at Ben Gurion Airport? Very simply: we flock abroad not only to see breathtaking landscapes, classical architecture and museums, but also — and perhaps even mainly — to feel "large" (generous) without coming out a "freier" (sucker).

Naturally, I focused on the field close to my heart, the field of culinary, but things are also valid for shopping: clothes, cosmetics, toiletries and actually, in almost every field. It is not for nothing that the AIR B&B era, which moved many of us from staying in hotels to staying in guest apartments, became one in which shopping at the supermarket was also added to our shopping experience.

Strolling around an average supermarket in Europe or North America, even in countries that are considered relatively expensive, arouses admiration not only for the selection and variety, but mainly for the prices. Once they returned from abroad with Toblerone chocolate and Paco Rabanne perfume, today there are those who return with a trolley full of products from the supermarket.

My previous column dealt with the lust for life of Israelis, with the fact that we love to be (and feel!) "large". Well, a visit to almost any possible country in the world is an ultimate connection between the desire to be "large" — the preferred feeling for Israelis, and the lack of desire to come out a "freier", the thing Israelis loathe the most.

In Israel it is hard to be "large" without coming out a "freier", because "coming out a freier" does not necessarily mean paying 250 shekels (more than 70 euros!) for a bottle of wine in a restaurant, but paying this amount for wine that you know costs the restaurant 50 shekels. Even if you add to the wholesale price of the bottle the relative cost of maintaining the place and the staff, you will find that the restaurant will come out with a reasonable profit even if they charge 100 shekels for it. Has anyone encountered wine at this price in a restaurant in Tel Aviv recently?

So it is true that if you are a true foodie, you have no other choice. You console yourself with the fact that you have no affection for real estate or collector cars, grit your teeth, open your wallet and return home with mixed feelings: yes, it was tasty — but at what price? If you want, more than any other motive, this is what pushes citizens of a small country surrounded by enemies, but with a strong currency and an average salary of about 4,300 euros per month (about 15,000 shekels), to go on vacations whenever possible.

Rest and ventilation from news flashes are a great bonus, but what pushes us to Ben Gurion Airport and from there to the world is mainly the fact that when we stand on our strong shekel we feel taller, both in centimeters and in foreign currency.