The Commuting Subculture in Israel: Secrets of a Thursday Night Stepford Wife

as posted in Blogs.TimesofIsrael
by Zahava Englard

The transatlantic commuting population in Israel has grown in recent years into an impressive subculture within Israeli society. Many immigrants, mainly from the United States choose to keep their jobs in the States and travel back and forth, some doing so every week, leaving for the States late Sunday night and returning to Israel on Thursday evening.

Imagining the difficulties and complexities involved in living with a transatlantic commuting husband, I decided to investigate the extent of the toll it takes on the wife living with such an arrangement. I had an opportunity to discuss what it is like to live with a commuting husband with a woman who recently immigrated to Israel with her three children, as well as to observe her over a period of time in an exploratory capacity. For reasons you will soon find obvious, fictitious names were required to protect the identities of the people involved in what amounts to an exposé. I present the following based on my eyewitness account:

The night is slowly approaching and Sara has done all she can do to make things right. The pressures are great in having a husband that constantly commutes 6,000 miles to a job in the States. It seems commuting husbands imagine that life is set on the pause button while they are away and fancy an ambiance of perfection upon their return. For tactical reasons, Sara allows her husband to indulge in this fantasy.

Her homemaking prowess intensifies each Thursday morning in anticipation of Avraham’s return that evening. The heck with the rest of the week – she honed her procrastination skills to an art form. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a lifestyle alternative – she works much better under duress. And so, in the several hours prior to her husband’s return, the house is clean, the laundry is done, dinner is ready, everything for Shabbat is ready, the gas tank is full and she finally watered his plants which inexplicably revived despite her torturous neglect during the week. Yes, she’s a regular Stepford wife. Or at the very least, she is quite the actress.

“You see,” confesses Sara, “I am hardly the proverbial homemaker.” She explains that when Avraham is away, she dawdles, she dallies, she mucks about, she basks in clutter, and she has mastered the “sweeping everything under the rug” technique to a literal science. Sara likewise discovered that the dryer makes a great last minute catchall. Her closets are in an open at your own risk status – way too many skeletons. I spy a reminder post-it note − REINFORCE HINGES! next to one closet door that bulges ominously at the seams. Visitors are encouraged to sign a waiver. But, by hook or by crook, come Thursday evening Sara manages to pull off a flawless home façade – a masterful deception!

(Tip: Forget the music…the aroma of freshly fried onions on the stovetop, combined with a flowing scent of Channel and a violent action movie in the DVD player, soothes the savage beast.)

Continuing with the spirit of her charade, for all you lovers of wet, slimy things out there, do not fret – Avraham, on his return “visits” to his home in Israel, had occupied his down time by building a fishpond in the front yard and “those fish in the pond have indeed been fed,” Sara boasts. No thanks to Sara of course, but rather to the expert care provided by one of the neighborhood boys that she just today cleverly employed as her “pond boy” due to the wave of warm weather these past few days that fell over central Israel. Sara explains, “Once the cold winter weather sets in, the fish are not fed since they hibernate.” Now that’s a gripping detail you don’t come across everyday, I thought. As Avraham’s wife, Sara is steadily enchanted with oodles of fishpond trivia. And “Yes,” she says, “I feign fascination while mentally retreating to another world. Did you even have to ask?”

Regrettably, I discovered that until her hired pond-boy’s arrival onto the scene, the pond suffered a few casualties under her tutelage. “No matter,” Sara says with a wave of her hand, “Avraham will be coming through the door any moment now; the props are in place and the curtain will be going up. No need to even mix a Martini – he prefers Scotch on the rocks. I take it straight up,” she admits, “a requisite for success. My performance, as always, will be impeccable!”

“So, what’s for dinner?” I ask her.

Fried fish of course. She never skips a beat.