Shopping

Hillel vs. Shamai or When is it OK to Tell Your Wife’s Friend She Looks Fabulous?

November 17, 2014

The sign on my front door read, “Men, please announce yourself.” It was a Friday around 1:00 PM and my arms were filled with pre-Shabbat shopping: challah from Pe’er, still moist chocolate rugalach from Marzipan, eggplant dip in Thailandi sauce from Tzidkiyahu. The Jerusalem Post, of course. I walked right in.“Don’t come up!” my wife Jody called down immediately from the living […]

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Supersol Gets Spooky Online

March 25, 2013

I hate grocery shopping in Israel. I might hate it in the Old Country too, but I don’t remember it so well. But here, I have no problem recalling my recoil. The aisles are too narrow, the lines are ridiculously long and slow, the store (in winter) has no heating, and whoever heard of a […]

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Cell Phone at the Supermarket? You Can Save Big

May 18, 2012

Israelis won’t be saying “hallo” on their cell phones, but that doesn’t mean low prices aren’t coming. A few weeks ago, a much-rumored new discount-priced Israeli cellular phone company called Hallo dropped its plans to launch after it emerged the company didn’t have the contacts in place it needed to operate . The company had promised an […]

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Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Pelephone?

April 3, 2012

Last week I wrote about my new iPhone 4S on the Israelity blog. I took a rather crafty approach in obtaining the phone. The local cell phone operators – Orange, Pelephone and Cellcom being the largest – are more than happy to give you a phone for “free” along with a plan with a minimum price of […]

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Fake Crab, Great Deal

December 7, 2010

A new Jerusalem-based group-buying site, appropriately called GroopBuy, is taking the Anglo community by storm. The site, which launched Nov. 1, is the brainchild of a 27-year-old new immigrant, David Shadpour, who says he created the business to help his fellow olim negotiate better deals. He might also have had his eye on Groupon, the […]

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Life as a Board Game

April 8, 2010

Our life has become like a board game. Specifically, one that I created 38 years ago. When I was in sixth grade in 1972, my friend David Saunders and I decided to create a Monopoly-like game with a dice, play money, and various cards which players would pick from a pile and then act on. […]

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The Paradox of Choice: Consumer Lessons for the Holiday Season

December 22, 2006

In his fascinating and compelling book “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz describes the process of buying a pair of jeans. At his local Gap, he tells a saleswoman that his size is 32 waist, 28 length. “Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy or extra baggy,” the saleswoman replies, then […]

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