Guest Post: A Canadian's Guide to Israeli Supermarkets

This morning the Chicken and I divided to conquer: me to the market and him to the grocery store. It must have been an eventful trip –Fridays are always a mad house at the supermarket– because he immediately wanted to write a post. How could I say no when he was planning diagrams? Diagrams, for goodness sake. Just so you know, he used Chemdraw for this so if anything happens to look like a benzene ring, there is a reason for it. Also, this explains the odd picture quality and I lack the savvy to make it better. If you click on the pics, you will get a slightly better copy.

Let me begin by telling you my favorite Canadian joke.

Q: How do you get 10 Canadians out of a pool?

A: Say “Excuse me, could everyone please get out of the pool?”

I guarantee you that getting 10 Israelis out of a pool would not be that easy. One of the big adjustments that North Americans have to make when they move to Israel is dealing with the fact that Israelis are not as programmed toward avoiding conflict as we are. I don’t know exactly why that is, but I suppose when you grow up in a country that has fought a number of major wars in the past few decades, the shouting matches and long arguments that are a not-uncommon sight over here probably don’t seem like such a big deal. Every week, this important difference between our two cultures gets hammered into my head when I visit our local supermarket in Rehavia, otherwise known as The War Zone.

Here’s a classic example of Canadian supermarket behavior. When a checkout line becomes too long, Canadians seem to instinctively create an L-shaped line (Figure 1). This way, they stay out of the way of people who are still pushing their grocery carts around, thereby avoiding having people be angry with them for blocking their way. It also minimizes the chances of actually having to interact with anyone while they’re in the grocery store.

Figure 2 shows a naïve attempt to put this strategy in action at an Israeli supermarket. The Canadian, feeling uncomfortable since he is at the end of a checkout line where he is blocking cart traffic, instinctively forms the L-shape in order to minimize any chance of unnecessary human interaction. Unfortunately, this conflict-minimizing behavior is not recognized by the largely Israeli clientele, who do not perceive the Canadian as actually being in line. As a result, the L-pattern is not established, leading to increasing isolation of the Canadian as a “nub” on the line. The result is frustration and anger on the part of the well-meaning Canadian.


The situation is eventually resolved by the inevitable appearance of a frustrated shopping-cart wielding individual who must “break-through” the check-out line (Figure 3). If he has positioned himself well however, the Canadian can then take advantage of this opportunity to sneak back into line. This has the effect of causing heaving sighs and grumbles from those who were formerly “ahead” of him in the line (Figure 4).


The net effect of all of this is that the situation is exactly the same as it would have been if they had just done it the Canadian way, except this way everyone gets to go home much more pissed off.