In Hebrew: זרים

Phonetically: zah-reem

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I squinted at the check-out screen for a long moment, trying hard to make out the long strings of Hebrew text.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and I was in IKEA, picking up a few items on my own while I had some free time, and the only option I had for completing my purchase … was the self-check out registers.

I had scanned everything, bagged it up, swiped my credit card.  I was done.

… But now there were three buttons on the screen, all in Hebrew, and I had no idea which one to pick.

I struggled with my pride for a moment – maybe I can pick one at random, hope it’s the right one?  After all, it’s a 33% chance of success, right?  That’s pretty good odds.

… But if I hit the wrong button, I may have to start all over again.

I exhaled, hard.  Swallowed my pride.  And reached out to another customer walking past me.

“Tzli-chah? At yeh-cho-lah lah-ah-zohr lee? Ani lo yeh-cho-lah lik-roh beh ivrit.”

“Excuse me?  Can you help me?  I’m not able to read Hebrew.”

“Beh-tach, sure,” the woman replied immediately, picking up on my accent and switching to English.

“It’s asking how you want your receipt: only printed, only texted, or printed and texted to you.”

“Ah! Ok, great – thank you! Toh-dah toh-dah!“

She smiled and walked to the next register as I finished my transaction, our whole exchange lasting less than 30 seconds.

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Now – I’ve had variations of this exchange *hundreds* of times in the past three years.

🧀 At the deli counter when I’m ordering cheese and want it sliced

⛽ At the gas station, when I ask the attendant for help because I can’t read the prompts on the screen

🍽️ At restaurants, when I need them to repeat the specials in English or bring me an English menu

🛍️ Every in-person purchase I’ve ever made, from the grocery store to buying new monitors for my home office

And 100% of the time, every Israeli I’ve asked for help has tried to help me.  And even if they can’t speak English, they usually try to find someone else who does.

One time, I couldn’t find dryer sheets at the grocery store, and one of the employees (who didn’t speak any English) cheerfully spent several minutes trying to help me through my broken Hebrew, some miming, and with the help of the right images Googled on our phones.

My life here, in all the fullness I have, is literally not possible without me relying on the kindness of strangers every single day.

And that comes with *so* many feelings.

The biggest one is a deep feeling of gratitude.

Every time someone helps me when I ask (and I have to ask a lot), my faith in humanity gets a little boost.  

But there’s also weird, even irrational, feelings of shame around it for me, too.

😐 I’ve been here for 3 years – my speaking and reading should be better by now, shouldn’t it?

😐 I’ve always been “the independent one”, the good big sister taking care of my younger siblings.  Now – the roles are reversed, and everyone seems to have to take care of me

😐 All my life I’ve naturally been a great communicator (I have a college degree in Journalism for heavens sake) – who am I if I can’t communicate?

Every time I need to ask for help, these feelings bubble up

And I understand the rational rebuttals:

🧠 Hebrew is one of the hardest languages to learn – and I’m starting it from scratch in my 30s

🧠 I moved here just before a global pandemic hit – which radically altered my early timeline here

🧠 I build a profitable business fairly quickly to help financially contribute – and my clients are all English speaking, needing English content

And I do try to remember those things.

But the shame feelings 👆 still bubble up whenever I need to ask for help

All I know is that I do better when I focus more on being grateful for the daily kindness of strangers.

Which really is to be a beautiful thing to see and receive so often

So I will keep trying to focus more on that 🧡