I have finally achieved the status of an accepted guy in Israel.
I was called a "son of a bitch" yesterday.
Now I can relax and feel at home here.
I am proud of myself.
I was driving around with my best buddy Avi Babyiof, with his work putting in closets in peoples homes and he delivered some materials to an industrial area.....someone he knew.
These guys are all tough dudes...working class Israelis....macho fearless tough guys.
So Avi got into an argument with the guys over a check Avi did not want to accept.
There was a guy he never met who got really pissed off.
I was not sure if it was close to punches being thrown.
I pulled out my camera to shoot the argument as a souvenir.
The big bad Israel tough guy looks at me and says in hebrew....
"Look at that son of a bitch taking a photograph of me."
I put the camera down.
Then another dude came around to my window and asked me in a challenging way.
"Are you from the newspaper?"
I said no, I was only a tourist and that Avi was my friend.
That ended it all.
It was really not serious.
A conflict like this would be serious in the USA but in Israelit just rolls off their backs like water off a duck's back.
The Israeli working class dudes are tough and fearless.
A hard life.
What a country!
