I was driving back from a meeting in Jerusalem and the talk on the radio was about the Rothschild Str. protest and the excessive price of cottage cheese, an Israeli breakfast staple. The price in Ramat HaSharon, someone reported, was 7 shekel (250 gram), while in another suburb was 5 shekel. The same product is about 4 shekel in New York. No one mentioned that there is no IVA on the food in New York nor the Kashrut overhead. The issue was: What is the "just price" of the cheese? It was a very important point because the greedy, swine-capitalist "tycoons" are overcharging the population, out of sheer evil. The protests are all about that. There is no "Social Justice". Israeli papers and radio (I dont watch TV) are constantly talking about the tycoons, throwing oil on the yellow envy that feeds our brand of equalitarism. (What tycoons? Our millionaires are self-made entrepreneurs, big only in Israel).
We have two Nobel Prizes in Economy yet "just price" was the point in discussion. What is the just price of cottage cheese? Israelis debate economy in ancient medieval concepts.
In the synagogue, people calculates the hour when the Tisha Be'Av fast ends counting visible stars. The stars rise following their Aristotelian circles. The faithful have never heard of the Galilean revolution. I should not be surprised, since they (we!) also pray to the new moon.
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