We all went to Masada last week.

A Country Full of Jewish Mothers

The after school schedule is dominated by the heavy social obligations of our two boys: Adar, 7 ½, and Nadav, 6 ½. The phone is either ringing from friends who want to visit them or want them to come over or the boys are calling their friends to see who they can visit or who can visit them. So it’s natural that sometimes during the course of these visits we give some snacks or candy. We know that the boys get the same during their visits to their friends houses. A couple of times we have had one of their friends over for dinner. We always have the kid call the parents to ask permission.
On the other hand, there has been that odd occasion when Adar or Nadav have returned to our house at dinnertime and declared that they were not hungry. It turns out that they had eaten more than just a snack at their friend’s house. They would real off a list of things they had been given to eat: potato chips, cookies, peanut butter sandwich, hotdogs (very popular).
Now it so happened, that two or three times over the course of the last few weeks kids visiting my children would all of a sudden around 6:00 PM or so, suddenly come to me if and say: Abba (Father) of ____________(Insert name of respective son), I am hungry.” And then he would look at me expectantly as if waiting for an instant seven course gourmet meal. I would always answer the same: “We are not eating dinner yet, food isn’t ready. Besides you will be going home soon, you’ll eat at home.” They would look at me strangely and then go back to playing without complaint. I always thought it a little strange. I mentioned it to my wife and she said that the same had happened to her a couple of times and she had basically answered the same as I had. (Ok, Ok, once I admit I gave this one kid a cheese sandwich just to shut him up and because he kept on asking).
So one day last week my son Adar went to a friend’s house who lived right up the street. After a while I called him to tell him to come home. The conversation went something like this.
“What are you eating?” I said.
“Burekas.” Adar said.
“What kind of Burekas?” (I am always interested in Burekas. I am a burekas addict; I have to eat them at least once a week. It’s one of the reasons I moved to Israel)
“Potato.”
“But we are having dinner in few minutes.”
“Can’t I stay a few more minutes? Ron’s Mom is making hotdogs for us also.”
“Why didn’t you call and ask if you could stay for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Ron’s Mom just started cooking for us.”
I gave him permission to stay, wondering why Mother of Ron hadn’t told Adar to call and ask Father or Mother of Adar if he could stay for dinner, when it suddenly hit me. It hadn’t occurred to her.
This was a country full of Jewish Mothers. If a kid is hungry of course she is going to feed them. What? She is going to let a child starve? Never!
No wonder the kids fully expect to be fed when they come over here. It’s what they get at other kids houses. A whole network of Moms’ feeding other children, snack food, hotdogs, burekas, cheese and peanut butter sandwiches. Now I got it. Now I understood. I explained it to my wife and she concurred. We both are still unsure if we are going to join the band wagon. But we shall see.
A few days after this happened I went to pick up Adar from another friends house and he wanted to stay to eat. Food was busily being prepared for the children: hotdogs were boiling on the stove and the microwave sounded as if it was working overtime. The Jewish Mother busily preparing the food this time actually was the father, who promised Adar that next time he would start preparing the food earlier so he could eat with them.
I guess there is nothing as exciting as eating hot dogs at a friend’s house.

*One more thing about how kids address parents. It is simply not in the culture here to call an adult Mr. or Mrs. last name. Adults don’t expect to be addressed in such a manner. So Father of…. Or mother of … is perfectly natural. Sometimes we will call each other that. We remember the name of the kid in our son’s class but forget the parents name. “Oh, your Mother of Itamar.” It’s almost an honorific though, I think.