"Brazil" in Miami

I loved the Terry Gilliam movie, about the Kafkaesque future with mindless, confounding bureaucracies, and trying to fight through them. Well, Wifey and I had a taste of it yesterday...

In the continuing saga of trying to prevent D2's Israel trip from becoming an updated, real life version of "Private Banjamin," Wifey met me at my office and we took the People Mover Downtown, to the New World Tower, for a visit to the Israeli Consul.

The building's security guard punched in an elevator code, and we went up to the 12th floor, the Consul's temporary headquarters. As soon as we exited the elevator, we stepped into an Aldous Huxley set.

There was a big metal detector, and no humans. All of a sudden, a voice boomed, in a scary Hebrew accent "Who are you and what do you want???!!!" I looked again, there was no curtain with a little man behind it...

I started to try to explain, heard a familiar (from my in laws' speech) "Accchh!" and then a small Israeli man came out. Right away, he pointed at Wifey's purse. "No bags allowed. Take it out!" I tried to explain that we took the train, and had no place to leave the bag." Clearly, the fellow empathized. He repeated, this time more annoyed, "No bags."

I told Wifey I'd try to ditch her bag, and she should go in with our papers. (I kept thinking about the old WW II movies, where guards asked if "Za papers are in order."

I went downstairs, and asked the friendly Cuban guy to hold Wifey's bag. I offered him $20. He declined the money, and took the bag, warning me not to tell the Israelis, since they discouraged potential terrorists like us from leaving their bombs be handed off to folks in the building's lobby...

I should say here that Wifey and I get it. Israel was born under seige, following the Holocaust, and daily fights for her survival, surrounded by millions who want to destroy her. We get it. Still, the truth is, as a pundit once wrote, the Mideast crisis pits clearly the rudest folks on the planet (Israelis) against the most warming and welcoming (Arabs and their culture).

Still, as we saw last week, when Hamas launches a rocket intended to kill kids in a school bus, you have to weigh manners versus morality...

I returned to the 12th floor, bag-less, and Wifey turned to me saying the man patiently explained to her that it was clear --D2, as the daughter of Wifey (and Israeli) would have to put in military service when she went "home." Agh!!!!!

After clearing the metal detector, and being stripped of our cell phones/detonators, we were buzzed into an even MORE Orwellian room, where a flat screen blasted Israeli TV. There were about 20 desks randomly arranged, and after a few moments, I realized there was a bullet proof window, where a man sat speaking Hebrew to a Consul employee. We sat, and watched what appeared to be Israel's version of "The Daily Show," with a host who looked less Jewish than Jon Stewart...

45 minutes later (which seemed like 2 hours, as we were cell phone-less), a tinny voice beckoned us to a second window. A nice young fellow with a Kippah, who had spoken to D2 the day before, knew why we were there.

Sure enough, he explained that, in Israel's view, Wifey (and her children) are STILL Israeli citizens. Doesn't matter that the Ds were born in South Miami, or that I'm NOT Israeli, or that Wifey is a naturalized US citizen --they only care about the birth in Haifa, well, a bunch of years ago...

The clerk copied all of our passports, Wifey's Certificate of becoming American, our marriage license, and Wifey's birth certificate (at least we THINK the crumbling document is her birth certificate --it might well be a lost Dead Sea Scroll...)

He typed up an official looking letter for D2, saying that she was allowed to visit Israel, just this one time, on "only" her American passport, since her mother's "papers were being updated." I guess they WEREN'T in order...

I thanked the young fellow, wished him good shabbos and happy Pesach, and we waited to be buzzed out.

I retrieved Wifey's bag, and left some money, telling the guard, with a wink, that I had found the money on the elevator, and wanted him to have lunch with it...

I figure D2 should be ok. I told her I thought she had a 90% chance of being allowed out of "her other country." She's spending the weekend in Panama Beach with a fraternity "formal," with some fellow she choosed to tell us little about. If she can navigate a UF fraternity weekend, she should be ok for Israeli bureaucrats...

And as I looked at Wifey on the People Mover, I had a new appreciation. Previously, she was, to me, just a nice Jewish girl, who happened to be born in Israel, but culturally was American, from Canarsie and Miami.

It turns out I'm married to an International Woman of Mystery...