Letters from Lightstone: Sites and Sounds of Israel, Part 16

Follow ZoomerMedia’s Marilyn Lightstone as she travels to Israel this summer to bring you first-hand coverage of this culturally rich country. In this dispatch, she sends a letter to her friend Linda Nash.

Dear Linda,

Of all my friends, I think you’re the only one who likes to shop as much as I do, and as I know you’re keen to make another trip to to Israel, I thought I’d tell you about my shopping experiences.

Remember my writing that I would be leaving Toronto with only carry-on luggage and an additional empty fold-up bag? That was in anticipation of filling it up in Tel Aviv, and whaddya know! Mission accomplished!

We’re all (well, all of us women, at any rate) familiar with the term “shop ’til you drop,” and that’s exactly what I did today. I’m tickled pink with my purchases, and what made me even happier was that it’s sale time in Israel. If that weren’t incentive enough, tourists get 18% back from the V.A.T!

The salespeople were so warm and helpful that I took their photograph — a bunch of savvy ladies, both young and not so young and all of them earning a living by helping me make my personal contribution to the Israeli economy ;-)

I was given some excellent pre-departure shopping tips from my friend, writer Malka Marom, to whose list I’ve been able to contribute a few suggestions of my own. I thought you might like to have them on record for your next visit, so here goes…

– Rina Zim
– Sasson Kedem
– Bracha Bar-On
– Avivit Yithar
– Danielle Lehari
– Anne Fontaine
– Comme Il Faut
– Emanuel ( shoes)

A special thanks goes to my friend, Sunny Holtzman, who is not the keen shopper that I am, but acted as my personal guide and interpreter (he even went the extra mile and helped me carry my bags!).

I’ll wear one of my new Israeli outfits the next time we meet for dinner back home in Toronto…

More to come…

Marilyn

Marilyn Lightstone is the host of the nightly radio series Nocturne on the New Classical 96.3 (a ZoomerMedia property).