ביטוח לאומי Bituach L'umi ("National Insurance")

A couple of stories today about ביטוח לאומי Bituach L'umi ("National Insurance"). First of all, this is basically Israel's equivalent to Social Security in the States. Anyway, we should be able to get a discount from the city on our ארנונה arnona (something like property tax, except that it's a tax on residents which renters pay rather than the owner of the property, unless the owner lives there) because David is on נכות n'chut (disability). However, we need documents from ביטוח לאומי Bituach L'umi certifying that David really is on disability and also that he does not work.

Molly, the sister of our קבלן kablan (building contractor) who works in his office and who had gone with us to the city office previously to help us, had listed the things that we needed, so we called her to help us with ביטוח לאומי Bituach L'umi. However, when we got to the local office, we found that there was a שביתה shvita (strike), and the office was closed. I don't know if it was only the local office or more widespread. At any rate, this seemed a little odd to me. I think that, in the States, if workers in a major government office went on strike, the dispute would have been in the news for weeks in advance and it would have been quite controversial. But here, I had read nothing about it. Did someone have a dispute with their boss about coffee breaks???

I just figured that we'd have to try another day, but Molly, being Israeli, was more persistent. She called them for us on the phone, and, in the end, was able to get them to mail us the necessary documents! She put it on the speaker phone and, of course, they had music while we were waiting for a human to answer. But here was the other interesting thing: they had a song specially composed and sung for THEM! The words were ביטוח לאומי הביטחון שלי Bituach L'umi ha-bitachon sheli ("National Insurance in my security"). In Hebrew, though, it's a bit more catchy, since the root for the word ביטוח bituach (insurance) is the same as for the word ביטחון bitachon (security). Anyway, can you imagine calling Social Security and getting a song about them, especially such a self-congratulatory one! Amazing!