Israeli Bureaucracy II: A New Hope

I began my last entry with an unintentional falsehood, and in the interest of full disclosure, I feel it my duty to clear things up. I stated, only two days ago, that as of then, I had absolutely nothing to do. I then proceeded to explain how I needed to acquire a work permit, which would qualify as "something to do," under International law. I apologize for any embarrassment that my friends or family might feel as a result of this non-truth coming to light, and I know that, as I atone for it for the next ten to fifteen seconds, I have a strong support system behind me. I will get through this, no matter how hard the road ahead appears to be. I thank you in advance for your understanding, and may God have mercy on all of us.

Ahem.

Okay, NOW I have absolutely nothing to do. At all. And I mean it. And here's why.

On Sunday night, I was invited to a get-together in honor of a friend who finished a tractate of Mishna. I think. Okay, I wasn't paying much attention to that part, I just knew that a bunch of people were getting together to celebrate something Jewish, despite the fact that it wasn't a Jewish holiday. Future Rabbis reading this, please feel free to comment and explain exactly what I attended. But the point is, while at this party for a Jewish cause at a meat-eating-extravaganza restaurant, I met someone who had recently gone through the process of acquiring a work visa in Israel. From her, I learned that I, indeed, needed an additional letter from someplace in Jerusalem I'd never heard of, along with an official stamp, before I could actually get a work permit. I am so very thankful I met her, as she certainly saved my ass big-time.

So it's Monday morning. And instead of going to Misrad Hapnim, as I'd been planning since 1:03pm the previous day when I discovered it closed, I made my way to Misrad HaSochnut, the Jewish Agency. I was supposed to meet a man named Tziki. When I arrived at 9:01, I learned that Tziki was off, but his assistant, Damian, could help me. I stuck my head in his office, noticed that he was on the phone, and patiently sat around the corner, waiting for his call to wrap up. A minute later, a woman in her mid thirties came into the waiting area where I was sitting, stuck her head into Damian's office, and a minute or so later, as I heard him hanging up the phone, I heard her go into her spiel on why she needed help. Not wanting to cause a scene, I waited twenty minutes until they were through. But can you believe the chutzpah? Actually, in Israel, yes. Yes you can.

Once I got into Damian's office, it was about 9:30, and it seemed like things would go pretty quickly. He looked at the letter from my Rabbi that indicated my Jewishness, did a Google search of my Rabbi's name, saw that he exists, and stamped the letter from the Rabbi. This made some sense to me, as I guess the Jewish Agency is verifying the verification that I am Jewish. Let's not get into whether Googling someone proves their existence, let along their knowledge of my Jewishness. Next, he put together a letter for me, which serves a function that continues to escape me. It has my name, my address, my phone number, my passport number, and a stamp from this office. I figured that it was just one more bureaucratic step that was required in this involved, unfortunate process, and I was just happy that I knew that I had to go to this office in the first place. So he finishes typing the letter, and he hits the print button, and the paper jams. He tries about thirteen or fourteen more times, and the paper jams every time. You can tell he's getting a little exasperated and embarrassed by the eighth or ninth time. I ask if I can help, and on the first try, I get the paper to go through. Only he'd been abusing the ten-year old printer for the previous ten minutes, and when I finally got paper to go through, the damn thing printed an HP demo sheet. And then it did another one. And then jammed again. I struggled to get the thing unjammed, and finally got the letter to print. But he was out of black ink, so you couldn't read a single word on the thing. In the meantime, he'd moved on to doing other work around the office, despite the fact that we were in the middle of a conversation and there were three people waiting for him. When I showed him that he was out of ink, he tried to email the file to himself, only there were no other computers in the office with both email and a printer. Then he tried to put it on a USB stick, but the stick wouldn't work. Then we sat in his office and looked at each other for a while, with him alternating between apologizing every couple of minutes that things weren't working and pretending that he was trying to make things work. After twenty minutes of this, someone appeared across the hall and opened Tziki's office. We went in there, printed the letter out lickety-split, and I was out of there faster than you can say "Falafel, hold the tachini." In truth, it probably took longer than that to get out of there. It was on the 14th floor. Anyway, by this point it was 10:30.

I went to Misrad Hapnim, only about a 10-minute walk away, and waited on line to make an appointment. I got to the front fairly quickly, and was "informed" that I needed to make an appointment over the phone between 10:00am and 2:00pm, and was given the appropriate number. I tried to call for about five minutes, and the line was busy. I later learned why the number is always busy, but we're not there just yet. I started walking around the massive office, looking for someone to help me skirt the rules. I turned a corner and saw my friend Roseanne waiting on line outside the door of the office of Yuchi, the Director of Visas. She had a similar, but somewhat more complex problem, and also needed help from someone high up. She recommended that I go speak to Nava, the Manager of Visas, in an office down the hall. She had started with Nava, and had been sent to Yuchi when Nava was unable to help. Thinking my problem simpler and possibly more within Nava's realm, I waited outside her door for fifteen minutes until the desperate person who had been begging for help emerged, and I went in with my most charming smile. I got five or six words out before Nava said to me, in one of the less friendly tones I've heard, that she had no time for me, and that I needed to speak with Yuchi.

So now it was time to wait for Yuchi. And wait I did. I was fifth on line, and waited for an hour and a half or more. Someone was in there for half an hour. I heard shouting. Maybe some crying, too? There was also an angry American guy walking around the office, cursing at the employees, who seemed to need some visa help. After I'd been waiting an hour, he walked up to Yuchi's office, knocked on the door, and barged in on her and someone else. Now, I'm sure this guy had a very important problem, and I'm also sure that no one helped him because he acted like such a colossal jackass to everyone. Finally, after considering leaving several times, I made it into Yuchi's office. We spoke for two minutes. I told her my story. She told me she would see what she could do. I followed her into the next room, and couldn't believe what I saw there. It was one woman with a headset, and a huge appointment book. That's right, one woman. Hundreds of people calling every day, trying to get an appointment for their visas, and there is a single (grumpy) individual who answers the phone for four hours a day. And when she speaks to people, and makes them their appointments, she scribbles their appointments in a huge, handwritten binder. My mouth agape, I watched Yuchi open the book to the front, find a space on the margin on page three for December 4th, and write my name and phone number. And that was it. In her office, out of Misrad Hapnim in eight minutes, appointment for six days later in hand. It was a little after one in the afternoon. There went my plans of sitting at Misrad Hapnim every day for a week until someone helps me, leaving me, as stated earlier, with nothing to do at all.

Weeee!

Now the question on my mind is whether I get the visa on the day of my appointment, or whether I'll need to come back for it several months later or something ridiculous like that. The Israeli Bureaucracy was easy on me this time, but there is little doubt in my mind that the moment I let my guard down, it will take me out. It's just a matter of time...