Although they won't admit it, one of the major cultural differences experienced by Westerners coming to Israel is the discovery of a paper shortage.
It's a strange shortage. After all, Israel has plenty of paper. It's more visible than ever during election campaigns, when the leaflets that are dumped on public roads can litter entire cities. Israel also has plenty of trees. You know about them, because you've deposited some of your hard-earned pennies in the JNF pushkeh.
Israelis would never think of using a fresh sheet of paper for a memo. We prefer to re-use the back of a printed page. Each such campaign provides the nation with enough scrap paper to last until the next election.
Paper has become one of the most sought-after national commodities. Publications are sometimes photoreduced and printed on smaller pages. Administrators give lectures begining with, "Do you realize how much money we save by using less paper?" We'll ignore the fact that the publications were easier to read when printed on larger paper. We'll also try to ignore the photoenlarged printed memos that urge the staff to save paper. Finally, we'll ignore the fact that, no, I don't know how much you saved by doing this.
The dollar price of paper has not changed since I've come here. Standard letter-sized or A4 paper cost about $3-5 per single ream, and considerably less when it's purchased in wholesale quantities. In shekel terms, the price has gone up, but so has everything else.
Three to five dollars per ream is comparable to the cost for the equivalent product in some locations abroad. It's not expensive. There are many other ways to save money. However, when they want to save money, the People of the Book (oops - that Book is OK because it's written on parchment) chose paper as the target for their savings.
Children from one school came home singing a jingle that they made up, "Don't waste paper". It's a takeoff on a radio commercial to conserve a more serious deficit, water. Unfortunately, schools restrict the number of photocopies that are allocated to teachers. With major cutbacks in the Ministry of Education budget, they are convinced that a reduction in paper will solve their problems. It's easier to requisition a projector in some schools than to photocopy handouts.
Napkins and toilet paper come in various degrees of absorbency and softness, but it is common to buy "cr�pe." Yes, you've heard the word before. Let me remind you - your last arts-and-crafts project used stiff, scratchy, cr�pe paper.
Most napkins don't absorb grease and spills. They are a bit less efficient than wiping your hands on the table. They should be used for writing letters - but that becomes a conservation issue. Furthermore, many Israelis write letters on the back of campaign literature.
Those who feel that the local napkins are not absorbent enough should try the local wax paper. After all, we know all about absorption. It's our specialty. We have an entire ministry working on it.
Restaurant patrons from abroad sometimes ask for Real Napkins. These mistakes on their table are not less absorbent. They simply aren't real. After all, our visitors are Real People.
Those who come from Western countries never seem to learn how to conserve paper like Israelis. They can put up with other cultural differences, including the manners, the mores, the wars, and the water.
However, paper is somehow different.
It's where we draw the line.
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The toilet paper was up for a debate in the Knesset. Now, this is true. They actually discussed toilet paper in the Knesset. It was an important enough issue. I guess things were slow with the Arabs at that time so they were looking for a topic. The problem was that it was impossible to compare prices of toilet paper because they were different sizes and lengths and widths, so the Knesset had to make a law so that people could understand what they were buying. They did have a discussion and at the end of the discussion the Knesset decided that they're not going to bother dealing with the length of the toilet paper because the toilet paper manufacturers lobbied against it and the government caved in, but they did agree to was to standardize the width of the toilet paper. The width of each sheet is now 10 cm and has been every since the law was passed. So, you'll always know how wide your toilet paper is, but you'll never know how long it is. That's the result of their compromise. Sometimes when you make a compromise then everybody is unhappy. Compromises don't always lead to beneficial circumstances.
They did set a standard as a result of the discussion, but it was a useless standard.
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