Return to Sender

Let’s set aside the tensions and anxieties of these days, and for a moment turn to something more amusing: the Israeli Postal Service. It is no secret that this Service has never been anything to write home about. In fact, if you ever wanted to write home, they were not the wisest choice. Efficiency, speed, and customer service were never among their greatest strengths — qualities they share with similar services around the world, where “postal” and ^“service” are huge exaggerations.

In recent years our Postal Service has been downsizing itself — if one can further downsize that which is already downsized in quality. Residential mail deliveries have been reduced to once weekly; branch post- offices have been closed, street mail boxes have largely been eliminated. The Service has made some efforts to serve a dwindling clientele by assigning limited duties to neighborhood shops where one can mail letters, pick up special deliveries, or purchase stamps.

Last week a notice in my mailbox informed me that I should pick up a registered letter at the “Basic Needs Shop at 85 Emek Street*. When I got to Emek Street, surprise! The street was lined with apartment buildings, but no sign of any stores. But there, hanging askew on the side of the front porch of number 85 was a dilapidated, handwritten sign: “Basic Needs Shop.”

I had arrived. Only one detail was missing: where was the shop? Certain that it must be at the side of the building, I inspected the entire area, but found only discarded cartons, a bent, rusting tricycle, a broken dollhouse — but no shops, not even a door.