For the last month or so, with my best interests at heart, the baker down the street has insisted that we complete all our transactions in Hebrew. His bakery is only a block away from our apartment, on Aza street, but because of his rigid policy Marcia and I have been eating a lot of stale bread.
My language lesson/bread-stop each Friday morning is part of a larger routine. After I buy a challah at the bakery I usually step into the coffee shop next door to wave to Marvin, the owner, an oleh from Canada who has lived in Israel for 25 years. Along the same circuit I sometimes buy treats for Penn_E at the pet store owned by Eldad, a sabra, who says that Penn_E is spoiled. Last, I pass the Green Spot, a flower shop run by Ayalah and one of her daughters, also native Israelis .
We usually wave to each other wishing Sabbath Peace.
Why do I mention these people? Because I have learned recently that they, along with Marcia and me, are part of The International Jewish Conspiracy to rule the world; a subset of “The Jews,” the cancer that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks of when discussing Iran’s peaceful nuclear power initiative and his desire to cleanse the earth of me, my wife and our new friends.
We all have the same complaint. None of us has received the first penny from the conspiracy coffers.