The Israeli Concept of Time

A couple weeks ago, when setting the date for the rifle range, the officer in charge of my course kept repeating, make sure you’re early for the shooting range, make sure you’re early. Five minutes early is better than a minute late. So on and so forth. I got the idea that it was extremely important to arrive on time. I woke up that morning at 5am and played a bit on the computer; I made breakfast with Moo, and got to the station a few minutes early, promptly at 8am. I signed in and asked the desk officer who I am going with. He said to wait a bit; the instructors were not even there yet. I went to go sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. There were half a dozen people waiting as well, most seemed closer to grade school than high school or army age. It seemed this was just another example of the “hurry up and wait” school of thought. We ended leaving the police station for the range at 9:30, after loading the police vans, finding ice for the drinks, picking up all the paperwork, etc. At the range, the same thing happened, apparently the signup list is not for who arrived on time, it’s for pushing to the front of the line. Even though I was not in a supermarket, it made it feel like Friday. Eventually, the instructors did their speeches to my group, and since by that time most everyone had cleared out, we had the place to ourselves and took our time. They let us practice with one clip first at 30 meters, and because I was confused with all the new Hebrew terminology and had the instructor screaming in my ear (to simulate a pressure filled situation), half my practice shots found other targets, the ones which did find the mark were all too high. Exasperated, the instructors took our small group of five and explained everything all over again, imbuing us with wisdom such as “if your nose isn’t smashed against the stock and pressing into your hand, you’re going to miss” and “don’t think, just shoot”. I also found “don’t spend too much time aiming, just find the target and shoot” interesting. The final round was half standing and half crouching, they dry drilled us a bunch of times to ensure we understood all the commands, and it went really great. I got 15/15 in the target at 30m, and got my license card. I got back to the station around 2pm with a newfound appreciation of “Israeli time”.