In the ease-of-living category, Israel has progressed light-years since I made aliyah some 40 years ago. Light years.
When I first arrived, everything seemed difficult. Getting a land line for a phone took two years. Withdrawing money from the bank meant standing in line for 45 minutes. To buy a shirt at the Mashbir, you had to wait in one line to get a ticket for the item, and then take that ticket and wait in another line to pay the cashier.
The common complaint voiced by new American immigrants – everything is just easier in the States – rang true.
Today, less so.
First, because Israel has changed dramatically over the last 40 years and is no longer the developing backwater it was back then.
Second, because America has also changed – and not always for the better. Try mailing a package at a US post office or checking out at Walmart; neither is particularly efficient.
Yet despite all this progress, one aspect of life remains simpler in America: birthdays.
When one birthday becomes two
Growing up in Denver, Colorado, everyone in my family, all my friends – and everyone in my universe – had one birthday, and it was the one on the Gregorian calendar. That made matters simple: My mother was born on September 15, my dad on March 20, and my sister on March 10. All I had to do was remember one day for each member of the nuclear family. How difficult was that?
I obviously knew my own birthday and barely thought about my Hebrew one until my bar mitzvah. Even then, it didn’t seep into my consciousness and really become a part of me until I made aliyah, and it appeared on my ID card.
In addition to revitalizing the Hebrew language, the reborn State of Israel also made Hebrew birthdays a thing, though – truth be told – until The Wife and I had kids, it was a relatively small thing. We knew our Hebrew birthdays but mostly ignored them and celebrated what we quaintly called our English birthdays.
And that worked out fine until we had offspring. That’s when things got complicated.
At home, we blew up balloons and had a cake on their English birthdays, but in the preschools it was the Hebrew date that was marked.
The result was that for each child, we now had to remember two days – not only the English one but also the Hebrew one – which, if we’re honest, does not roll off the tongue of many immigrants in a January-February-March sort of way. Remembering the dates became an exercise in mental gymnastics.
As the kids got older, each solved the problem differently – which is how we ended up marking four children’s birthdays four different ways.
The Lad’s Hebrew birthday happens to fall on the day Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Not a great day for a party. He opted to go by his English birthday.
The Lass was born on Pearl Harbor Day – another day not screaming “celebration.” So, we went with her Hebrew birthday.
The Youngest was born on Shushan Purim – a terrific day for a family celebration anyway, so we marked that rather than his March 6 birthday.
And then there was Skippy.
Born on an innocuous day in late December, corresponding to the 13th of Tevet, he should have been simple. He wasn’t. I always sang “Happy Birthday” to him on his English birthday – until he got married, at which point he suddenly began celebrating the Hebrew date instead.
Who can keep track?
Apparently not me, and this year it came back to bite me.
“Hi, Abba,” Skippy called on a Friday morning earlier this month, around noon. “How are you?” I immediately got suspicious because he never calls that early.
“Fine, son,” I replied. “And how are you?”
“A little sad,” he said. “You forgot my birthday.”
Indeed, I had. And for a couple of reasons, I was mortified.
First, what kind of father forgets his son’s birthday – especially a son who spent much of the past year in reserve duty? This is one area where life in Israel has definitely not become easier. And second, by forgetting Skippy’s birthday, we lost some valuable leverage over our son.
We love our kids, The Wife and I do, but they are not necessarily world champions at remembering important dates. And I am putting that delicately.
On my birthday, I sing “Happy Birthday” to myself in the family’s WhatsApp group so they remember. And with our 40th wedding anniversary coming up in April, The Wife and I have been reminding the kids for months, hoping they might actually mark the occasion, one way or another. If they do, it will be one of the rare occasions – and I say that out of love.
Though I’d like to think their forgetfulness is caused by the whole English date vs Hebrew date confusion, I’m afraid that’s not it. Rather, as [comedian] Jackie Mason might have said, “It’s not their business.”
In their world, it’s the parents’ job to remember their kids’ birthdays – not the other way around. But was I really that different? My dad used to send me a check on my birthday; did I ever send him one?
After getting used to the initial hurt of not getting a call from all of my children on my birthday, I did, however, come to realize that even this has utility. When my son forgets my birthday, he actually has given me a gift – the gift of always having something to hang over him, to make him feel bad about. And that, frankly, beats getting a new tie.
But now that I forgot Skippy’s birthday, I’ve lost that leverage – not only over him but over the whole brood. The balance has shifted. Never again can The Wife and I guilt them for forgetting our birthdays or wedding anniversary, because I missed Skippy’s.
In a follow-up call that Friday, I asked Skippy again what he wanted for his birthday.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve given me enough just by forgetting to call.”