Israel’s recent decision to allow UK tourists in leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand I would love to go there on holiday again, feel the warmth of the sun on my body, swim in the Med, soak in the atmosphere of the bustling markets and streets and see my friends and relatives. On the other hand, unless I get myself some kind of ultra-tight, corset-like, vice-gripping, girdle-esque burkini, then the prospect of my relatives seeing me absolutely horrifies me.
My mother emigrated to the UK from Israel, leaving her vast family behind, when she was but a teenage bride. This meant that every year or two she took me and my siblings on extended summer holidays to see the family.
Arriving at the old Ben Gurion Airport, back in the day, dozens of the Israeli family members would turn up to greet us. There used to be a glass wall to the baggage reclaim hall, and people from outside the airport could peer in and watch the arriving passengers claim their baggage.
Whilst we were waiting around the carousels for the eventual appearance of our hefty and bulging suitcases - literally packed to bursting with gifts for everyone (my mother would even take gifts for my grandmother’s neighbours) - we would be spotted by our excited relatives who would scream our names and bang on the glass, desperate to draw our attention. At that moment I would first see my grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.
How exciting it all was! I would run to that glass wall and greet my cousins with utter joy and we pressed our faces and hands against each other’s on either side of the glass.
Upon exiting the airport with our towers of cases - it must have looked like we were making Aliyah - the roar of welcome from the relatives was truly deafening. Little did I know then that that was probably the closest I’d ever come to being an international rockstar.
There were tears, whoops of delight, kisses, hugging, and cheek-squeezing. Strong uncles would hoist up our overweight cases from the trolleys, hand luggage was taken off our hands so we could walk free and unencumbered, my cousins fair whisked me along on the air. We were treated like royalty. Had it ever rained in July in Tel Aviv, no doubt twenty umbrellas would have been held over our heads for us, or we would have been held aloft in a covered sedan.
In a great big convoy we would make our way to Old Tel Aviv where my grandparents lived and all squeeze into their house. And that’s when the public, unabashed, open scrutiny of our bodies would begin. As my mother opened up the suitcases and dispensed her many gifts, the relatives would discuss with each other how our bodies had changed. Whether my mother and siblings had put on or lost weight, and, if they had, where they had gained or lost it from. How much I had grown. How much I had grown or not grown in comparison to my cousin Lilly who was the same age as me. All a teeny bit bemusing and embarrassing, but nothing compared with what was to come.
When I hit puberty these situations stopped being a little bit awkward and became outright agony. An English girl does NOT want her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and relatives’ neighbours discussing whether or not she’s developing, is really growing into a woman now, or needs a bra. And on no account does she want them to have it confirmed or denied whether or not she’s started menstruating. Thanks for your interest but honestly I’ll tell you on a need-to-know basis. As you were.
The Israeli relatives had no filter whatsoever when it came to anything and anyone. Nothing was too personal. Someone got a big arse, they talked about it. Someone put on a few kilos, they talked about it. Someone didn’t get their eyebrows threaded nicely, they talked about it. But they didn’t do the nice and considerate English thing of talking about it behind their backs, they discussed the minutiae of your body’s vagaries whilst you were right there.
Maybe it’s all very healthy to have no inhibitions. Perhaps you just have to get into the Israeli mindset. Shove your way to the front of the crowd at the bus stop no matter who was there first; pretend you’re a dolphin in the sea; haggle over the price of the halva in the Carmel market; forget to say please and thank you; beep your car horn very loudly every few seconds for no reason, and then loudly discuss everyone’s salary and weight.
The teenage years were distinctly uncomfortable at times. My aunts and uncles, yes, even my uncles, thought nothing of staring at my body like I was an interesting specimen, often making me wish the ground would open up and envelop me. My grandmother never sympathised with me when I’d come home to her and complain about creepy old men blatantly staring at my fourteen- year-old body with their tongues hanging out. Exasperated with me and fed up with my lamentations, my grandmother would finally shout, in Hebrew, “Aval lama yesh lahem enayim?” (“but why do they have eyes?”) and then go on to inform me that looking was harmless and never hurt anyone. So what if they look? Let them. But it did hurt me and it frustrated me I could never convince my grandmother, a pragmatic and capable woman who’d come from Tehran, that it was plain wrong. Sadly, on more than a couple of occasions the invasiveness went beyond the ‘harmless’ staring.
To me, a second generation Londoner and a second-wave feminist despite my young age, the early 80s seemed like a time when women’s liberation and feminism should have reached everywhere! To my indomitable grandmother, who’d been one of fourteen children, had seven of her own, built her own house with my granddad and lived in frugal poverty, there were bigger issues to worry about than how big the eyes were of the staring man at the grocers.
Over the years, a booked holiday to Israel was all I needed to galvanise and motivate me into losing weight. Nothing could have prompted me to shed a few kilos more than the fear of my relatives fat-shaming me. Forget your calorie-counting, diet pills or slimming club support circles, just get yourself a large bunch of Israeli relatives.
These days I’m lucky if anyone turns up to the airport at all and so, when I go, I’ll be able to slink (well, to be really honest with you, not exactly slink) off to a small and cheap seafront hotel, furtively get into my reinforced swimming costume and pretend I’m a whale swimming in the sea.
I’ll be thinking about twelve year old me who got her first period whilst we were on holiday in Israel. It was a Saturday morning and I remember being both a bit thrilled and a bit disappointed at the same time. I went to quietly tell my mother, whispering it into her ear, and how she smiled and nodded and sorted me out with the necessaries. A couple of hours later, it being a Saturday the entire family descended upon my grandparents’ house, where we always stayed. Suddenly, with everyone sitting around the room post-lunch, my mother took it upon herself to announce it to the entire clan that her daughter, me, had that very morning begun her periods. Cue clapping, much ululating, and my grandmother producing a very large box of chocolates from the ‘special cupboard’ to be passed about in celebrations. My eyes must have been wider than those of the creepy staring men at the grocers - but in abject horror. “See” said my mother to my aunt, triumphantly, “I told you Misha would get her first period before Lilly.”
