My heart is in the East, but my Israeli shekel ends up in the West

It began with some hesitation. It was 2008, when a company with a sense of what was fashionable recommended to me a British website called ASOS. It wasn’t cheap – the British pound then traded for seven shekels – but I had no choice. At the time, as it is now, fashion chains in Israel ignore young women with a size 42 to 44, as well as the fact that they have to wear something when leaving the house.

Twice a year, when the pound dipped under six shekels, or when the website offered great deals, I’d allow myself a blouse, a dress or even a pair of shoes. The choices and range of human sizes made me dizzy, but this was obviously not a permanent solution. I continued trying to buy clothes locally, hating myself in fitting rooms and returning home empty-handed. The change, what is called the “game changer,” arrived with the launching of deliveries to Israel from the British website Next. Even when taking into account the exchange rate, the price differential was jaw-dropping. A polo shirt for my partner, costing 199.99 shekels (now $57) on a sale in Israel, cost 57 shekels on Next. A set of 100-percent cotton sheets for a double bed, costing between 440 and 699 shekels in popular Israeli chains, cost 220 shekels or less on Next.

And then came the cheap deliveries from the iHerb website. Food supplements, soap and shampoo, sunscreen products, organic products, all of them available at the click of a button, and cheap, so cheap: Vitamin B12 costs 30 shekels less than the equivalent product in Israel. Thirty shekels! And what about tampons and feminine pads? How is it that delivery by plane from 6,000 miles away costs less than a trip to the neighborhood pharmacy? I get my period in Israel. In what dystopic scenario am I supposed to resort to personal importation of hygiene products from America? For those finding this difficult to deal with, imagine having to import toilet paper yourselves. Yes, it’s that extreme.

In recent years, with the burgeoning of online orders, importers have tried to cancel the exemption from value-added tax on personal imports worth less than $75. Uriel Lynn, the president of the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce, even argued, in an article to the Walla website in July 2020, that this exemption channels local purchasing power to foreign suppliers, and that its revocation would “save collapsing businesses.” Lynn neglected to mention one of the reasons for driving local purchasing power overseas: the existence of exclusive importers. Go to the website of importers Diplomat or Schestowitz, which the Competition Authority refused to call monopolies, and discover that most of your weekly purchases appear there. Try and count how many chains and brands at a mall belong to one retail chain, and understand why prices don’t really vary from one store to another.

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I’d be happy to exercise my “purchasing power” here in Israel, but that would be financial suicide. Besides, I’m not harming farmers or local producers, since these importers are only producing profits for themselves. They buy products overseas and sell them here, at prices that are three to four times more expensive than anywhere else. Why is that? Don’t tell me “everything went up.” When the shekel was a powerhouse and everything was cheaper for them, when one-time finance minister Kahlon lowered customs, did they lower their prices? No need to answer that one.

In the meantime, it appears that none of the contenders for the prime minister’s job is prepared to stick his hands into this bubbling cauldron of lobbyists. As long as things remain the way they are, most of our household expenses, other than on rent and vegetables, will continue to provide a livelihood for people living overseas. To paraphrase medieval poet Yehuda Halevi, my heart is in the East but my wallet is in the far West.