It was during my youth, when I was a grown boy of about 14 years old and studying at an institution for young boys, aka the 'small yeshiva' in the Har Nof neighborhood.
In those days, which were, from the perspective of humanity, a simpler and more primitive period, a turning point, not to mention a technological revolution, took place in the Israeli communications field - a revolution that was destined to leave its mark on every man, woman, boy and girl in the Holy Land.
The public telephones that operated with tokens were replaced with telephones that operate on a telephone card.
These were days when you felt like you were part of an act of intergenerational change. Days when you knew that you were part of a larger plan that was creating a transition from the control of the old to that of the young, from the people of yesterday to the people of tomorrow, from the old generation to the future generation.
I was happy to be part of the future generation. I always wanted to be part of the group of people of tomorrow. I knew that tokens belonged to sly children who tie a string to a token and pull it out in the middle of a conversation. To old people who suffer from trembling hands. To unattractive women who rummage through large purses and empty their pockets full of tokens, in order to have a loud conversation that lasted fifteen minutes.
The phone card, on the other hand, was a thin card, pleasant to the touch, in a variety of shapes and colors, with which you could comfortably talk on any public telephone.
As in every social field, here too, the group of young men from the small yeshiva were divided into classes that placed us in stratified groups: the people of the lands, the poor, and the flightless who held a 20-call phone card. The bourgeois who used phone cards with 50 calls. And the extraterrestrials, people from the upper decile, whose phone cards had 120 calls.
It's such a shame that technological progress has regressed, and today this phenomenon is less common. Instead of colorful cards and crowds of people near telephones, which were suspiciously always near the coffee and tea corner, the boys hold cell phones like in the Middle Ages and have suspicious conversations from their private rooms, which cannot be listened to or participated in like they did back then.
In any case, the slightly embarrassing events that befell me later are only indirectly related to the invention of the miraculous phone card, since that card could be purchased at the post office, and there, precisely there, the story took place.
•
The post office in those days was one of the places that formed a central component of the identity of the average Jew.
In fact, a person's life could be divided into four parts: the time devoted to spirituality, the hours spent on pleasure and entertainment, visits to the post office, and spending time at the post office. The post office provided the tools that people needed in the modern world: money, communication through stamps and envelopes, and of course, telephone cards.
Without these three elements, a person would be likened to a mute, and some have said that his death was better than his life. But even his death would not be known to anyone, since it would not be possible to call and announce it.
Da Aka, whose branch was ironically managed by a grumpy woman who also enjoyed extraordinary longevity.
Her age was unknown to anyone, and although she was considered immortal, age made her movements difficult, and the line that on empty days stretched out in front of the store would snake its way to the beginning of the street on normal days. For hours we would watch the old woman who was never in a hurry, asking ourselves over and over again: Could it be that she would suddenly die now? Just like that, while she was handing over a stamp for regular delivery in Israel to a gentleman who had requested three of them?
Imagine the chaos that will ensue: a Star of David, rescue workers, the body covered in a sheet, gatherings of children and teenagers separately on the nearby street, and the other postal workers sobbing.
But in the black hearts of us, the customers, the nagging thought never stopped passing: Could it be that now the line will move faster?
The old woman didn't die, however, and the line moved lazily. After 37 minutes, I arrived near the porthole, and only a man about 40 years old, with a French beard and a well-shaven inner side of his cheeks, was in front of me. He approached the counter and smiled at the old woman: "This week was a bar mitzvah for Hallel.".
The old woman smiled back at him, and it was the first time I had seen her do that.
""How beautiful," she said with genuine happiness, "and has Tilda arrived?""
The man answered her at length, and I realized that my bad luck had placed me in front of a surreal reality: a man having a family conversation with the old woman. I coughed politely, but nothing happened. The old woman, suddenly looking decades younger, told the man with the well-groomed French beard about her sister-in-law, who was apparently a relative of the man's, and he pulled pictures from the inside pocket of his suit from the bar mitzvah.
""What will happen?" I asked impolitely, "There's a line here, talk about the Bar Mitzvah later.".
The man looked at me and said, "You brat, this is a private conversation.".
""A private conversation, a private conversation," I said, "but we don't have to suffer.".
The man's eyes narrowed and his French beard seemed to stick out in my direction. I didn't give up and said angrily: "Besides the fact that I wouldn't be proud of this picture, is this a Bar Mitzvah boy? Judging by the mustache, he already looks like a father of two.".
The man blurted out something in French that didn't translate to 'strong and gentle,' quickly paid the old woman and left the place, looking at me with disdain.
I forgot about the story.
•
A month and a half later, my father returned from abroad and came to visit me at the yeshiva. I left the institution and walked around the neighborhood with him.
Suddenly I saw my father's body tense up, he stopped talking to me and ran quickly towards a man who had come from the other side. They fell on each other's necks, kissed just like the French know how to do (three kisses on each side), and shook hands over and over again.
The man with the well-groomed French beard.
""My friend Rollo, Reuven," said Dad in a happy voice, "We haven't met in 15 years, we were roommates in yeshiva for 6 years. 6 years. Do you remember Rollo, bed above bed.".
Now Dad said: "Are you in the same neighborhood? You know each other, you must have met.".
""Not really, hello, hello," came a voice from my mouth that resembled the croaking of a not-so-smart toad.
""Yes," said Rollo, who apparently decided to take pity on me, "we meet here and there, you know, at the post office, at the post office, in line at the post office counter, things like that.".
Yes, things like that.
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