Bonus: The Pitcher, Revisited

Mishy Harman (narration): For lack of a better way to describe it, I’d say that my high school English class was more of an exercise in shelling, blasting and precision artillery than in grammar, vocab and reading comprehension.

OK, let me back up: On September 1st, 1998, I found myself walking into a new school, on the first day of tenth grade not knowing a soul.

One of my first friends was another new kid, Ariel. Ariel Harpaz.

Ariel and I met in English class. We were both in Dovrey Anglit, the English speakers section, and I knew we’d be friends from day one. He was, and still is, the craziest kid I’ve met.

Our English class met on Mondays, for a double period, separated by a twenty-minute-long recess. Ariel and I sat next to each other, at the back of the classroom. And almost immediately we took heavy fire from Aviv Ponger, a mischievous Australian kid, who had made us practice targets for his mechanical-pencil-turned-spitball-gun.

Ariel and I tried to retaliate, but it was clear that we were no match for Aviv’s mini-bombs.

And then, towards the middle of the year, everything changed when Ariel got his license and bought a red Kymco motorcycle. Now, this was big news. Ariel was one of the only kids in our grade who had a bike, and it made him instantly popular. But as far as English class was concerned the implications were even more dramatic: We could now leave school during the break, hop on his motorcycle, drive to the nearby central bus station, buy a hundred-and-fifty grams of chocolate-covered-raisins (otherwise known as ammunition), drive back to school and spend the entire second period pelting the back of Aviv’s head with the candy.

Now other than the fact that Ariel drove so fast that I would literally kiss the ground when we got back to school, this was pure joy. For the rest of the year we turned our English classes into a never-ending food fight. We perfected our aim, Aviv perfected his aim, and the ensuing mayhem would test the limits of our teacher, who – ironically – was called Ivria, which means the Hebrew one.

Till, one day, it all came to an abrupt end – an errant chocolate-covered-almond (that wasn’t even supposed to be in the bag with the raisins) hit the girl sitting next to Aviv. I nearly got expelled. Game over.

Ariel and I left the world of food fights for good. Or, at least, so I thought.

Less than a month after we graduated high school, we all went into the army. Just by chance, Ariel, my English class partner in crime, was drafted into the same unit as two of my closest childhood friends, Shai Satran and Yochai Maital, who years later would create Israel Story with me. They all became good friends. So Ariel’s always been part of the show’s orbit. He even made a cameo appearance in one of our earliest stories, about self-inflicting bee stings as a way of getting sick days from the army.

But as we all learned over the years, the epic bombardments with Aviv Ponger were nothing more than child’s play for Ariel. This whole time, he was actually engaged in a much more important food fight. A high stakes food fight. A crusade for recognition.

A few weeks ago, on a hot Friday morning of mid-summer, Shai and I met up with our friend Ariel. He wanted to fill us in on a story, and then we were going to go to his favorite hummus joint, Pinati.

Pinati’s an iconic workers’ restaurant on the corner of King George and Ha’Histadrut streets in the center of Jerusalem. Here’s Ariel.

Ariel Harpaz: It’s important to say that Pinati is known for its hummus, and it’s probably the best hummus in Jerusalem. And it’s definitely the best Jewish hummus that I’ve come across.

Mishy Harman: And we should just say that Pinati, it’s just like one small room.

Ariel Harpaz: Yeah, Pinati is a place that has four tables inside, and each table has five seats (it’s actually four seats and they can squeeze in five), and you sit with people you don’t know as you eat.

Mishy Harman (narration): But Pinati is much more than just a dive. It’s a Jerusalem institution.

Local politicians go there to appear connected to the people, famous athletes pop by for hummus after practice, and for the past two decades it has also regularly fed one extremely loyal client – Mr. Ariel Harpaz.

Ariel Harpaz: We used to cut school and go to Pinati every day.

Mishy Harman (narration): And it was then, over countless plates of hummus in the late nineties, that Ariel noticed a problem. He was constantly thirsty.

Ariel Harpaz: I used to drink a lot of cups of juice while we were eating.

Mishy Harman (narration): Calling the phosphorescent petel liquid served at Pinati “juice” might be a bit misleading. As Ariel pointed out, petel is more like the Israeli version of kool-aid.

Ariel Harpaz: It’s a very cheap syrup that’s… you add water to. And in Pinati you have two flavors – you’ve got one a grape flavor and you’ve got lemon flavor. And it’s usually… Each cup is two shekels.

Mishy Harman (narration): But although two shekels wasn’t that much, even for a high school kid, it started adding up.

Always the businessman, Ariel went up to the owner, Meir, who sits at the cash register, and asked how much it would cost to get unlimited petel refills.

Now Meir’s not one for change. In fact, Pinati’s menu basically hasn’t changed at all since Meir’s father opened the place in 1974. But Ariel was a good kid, and clearly a thirsty kid, so…

Ariel Harpaz: He thought about it for a few seconds and then he said, “it will cost you eight shekels, and you have unlimited amount of petel.”

Mishy Harman (narration): Needless to say, Ariel was thrilled. But it didn’t take long before he noticed that the new unlimited refills policy solved the monetary problem but introduced an interpersonal one instead. He kept on handing the waiters his empty cup, till more or less all they did what bounce like yoyos between the juice dispenser and Ariel’s table.

Ariel Harpaz: I felt bad that I kept on harassing them for more and more and more juice. So I came to the owner and I asked him, “can we change this deal from unlimited juice to a pitcher of juice?”

Mishy Harman (narration): At first Meir claimed he didn’t have a pitcher, but Ariel asked him to check again.

Ariel Harpaz: So he goes behind to the storage room, and he… I see like things are flying, you know, he’s moving tables and boxes and stuff and he finds a pitcher. So he brings back the pitcher and now I have a pitcher. We’re talking about a very cheap, plastic pitcher. It’s like half a gallon of juice.

Mishy Harman (narration): And so, thanks to Ariel’s sheer doggedness, a new item at Pinati was born.

Or, sort of… See, every time Ariel would come in for some hummus, which was very often, he’d ask the waiters for a pitcher.

Ariel Harpaz: And the waiters always said, “we don’t have a pitcher! We don’t know what you’re talking about.” And every time was the same story. So I had to look at the owner, and the owner would catch me in my eye and say, “ah, him? Give him everything her wants. Give him anything he wants.” And then they would go back and get me my pitcher and I… you know, this went on for like a year, a year-and-a-half. Every time I had to prove to them that they have a pitcher, and I deserve it.

Mishy Harman: Cuz’ it wasn’t on the menu?

Ariel Harpaz: It wasn’t on the menu…

Mishy Harman: So it was like one of these items that like only real regulars, people in the know, would know to ask?

Ariel Harpaz: No. It was only me for a long time [giggles].

Mishy Harman (narration): In an unprecedented move, Meir officially modified Pinati’s offerings. And Ariel was, for all intents and purposes, the father of the pitcher.

That was his claim to fame.

Ariel Harpaz: Many people who know me, I mean, at some point will hear this story. This is a part of who I am.

Mishy Harman (narration): And he’s very proud of it.

Ariel Harpaz: I mean, I invented a concept.

Mishy Harman: You realize that like a pitcher is something that exists in many many places around the world.

Ariel Harpaz: What I invented was not a pitcher. I invented the option to change something in Pinati, the open-mindedness to change. I brought change to Pinati.

Mishy Harman (narration): For years he’s been telling us that he regards this as the pinnacle of his creative life.

Ariel Harpaz: This is definitely one of the most important and and greatest achievements of my life. I don’t know if that means I haven’t achieved much, or this is just really important [Shai and Ariel laugh]. Anyway. [Shai and Ariel laugh].

Mishy Harman (narration): Now, the walls of Pinati – like many family-run restaurants or dry cleaners in the States – are full of pictures of all kinds of celebrities who walked through the door posing with the owner. But here’s it’s not about bragging rights for the establishment. In Pinati’s case it’s the folks in the photographs who are dying to be seen on the wall.

Ariel Harpaz: Prime Ministers, actors, any person who is who and who in Jerusalem, or if he came from the big city Tel Aviv he usually gets awarded as well.

Mishy Harman: It’s sort of like a sign that you’ve made it, if you get on the wall at Pinati, right?

Ariel Harpaz: Yeah. There’s no bigger respect in Jerusalem than having a picture in Pinati, on the wall.

Mishy Harman (narration): Pinati, as you’ll recall, is a really small place, and there isn’t that much wall real-estate. That means that competition to make it onto the wall is fierce. Even Teddy Kollek and Bibi have been bumped. Only Herzl and Begin, Meir recently told me, have everlasting wall immunity.

But Ariel was convinced that as the inventor of the pitcher, he should be up there, immortalized. For him, more than anything, it was a matter of recording his accomplishment for posterity.

Ariel Harpaz: I need to have a picture on the wall, with my pitcher, to prove for rest of history, that I invented the pitcher. And this is why the story is so important, cuz’ I don’t have children. This is the closest I have to children, is to have a picture in Pinati.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel made his case to Meir, the owner, who mulled it over.

Ariel Harpaz: I just want to point out one thing about Meir – Meir is like this very old fashioned, Kurdish, Jew. Very typical Jerusalemite. He knows everyone, and he’s basically a celebrity in Jerusalem, and he’s really amazing with people and he’s really really street smart.

Mishy Harman (narration): By the time Meir decided – after much deliberation – to grant him this tremendous honor, Ariel was already in the army, and the matter got postponed a bit. But ultimately he came in and posed for the camera.

Mishy Harman: Can you describe the picture?

Ariel Harpaz: The picture is a picture of one of my friends, the owner, Meir, and me with a pitcher, that proves beyond doubt that I’m the inventor of the pitcher.

Mishy Harman (narration): Yet life, and an uncomfortable dispute among Ariel’s friends as to who should be included, next to him, in the picture, got in the way. As a result, the photo never went up on the wall.

Meanwhile, Ariel moved away, first to Tel Aviv, then abroad. He studied law, started businesses.

And many years later, he returned to his old stomping ground.

Ariel Harpaz: At this point I haven’t been to Pinati like five, six, seven years. And I was going out with this chick, and we go to Pinati. And we come especially from Tel Aviv.

Mishy Harman (narration): It was a Friday afternoon, which is the busiest time of the week at Pinati, when all the soldiers coming home for the weekend pop in for a quick hummus.

Ariel Harpaz: So anyway, we get to Pinati, and I’m standing outside and like suddenly one of the waiters sees me and he comes and he hugs me and then a different waiter looks at me and he sees me and he comes and hugs me. And the owner sees me and he comes and kisses me. And I’m feeling like, you know, a lot of respect and love my way and I’m really excited. You know this is Pinati, and I mean this was an important place for me, you know, growing up. The real reason Pinati is so successful is because Meir makes you feel so important when you come there. It’s like ‘where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.’

Mishy Harman (narration): So with that royal homecoming reception, Ariel and his date sat down to eat.

Ariel Harpaz: And we order, and then Meir, the owner comes by me, and I asked him, “do people still order pitchers here?” And then he looks at me and he says, “what?!” (he disgusted with what I’m saying). “Everybody orders pitchers. It’s the biggest thing here.” And then he walks away, and as he walks away I realize that this guy… It seems like he’s not crediting me for inventing the pitcher.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel was stunned. His fear had come true – his invention had been forgotten.

Ariel Harpaz: Not only did he embarrass me in front of my girlfriend. I’m like sitting there just like shocked. I mean I feel like he spat in my face.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel, you might have already ascertained, is not one to take a perceived slight lightly. Especially not when it comes to something as weighty as a his liquid legacy.

Ariel Harpaz: I look at him and I tell him, “Meir, ten year ago, I came here. You only had cups of juice at the time, and I told you…”

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel went on to recount how that had led to him harassing the waiters for constant refills, and how he came up with the idea of the pitcher. He reminded Meir that even after the invention it was always a struggle, and Meir would have to instruct his waiters to give Ariel whatever he wanted, till they decided to make it official with a picture on the wall, which never went up.

Ariel Harpaz: And the reason we did all this was so I don’t come here ten years later and hear this bullshit that you tell me that I didn’t invent the pitcher. He looks at me, and then he says “mechila, mechila, mechila. Kol mila shelcha emet. Ata avi ha’kankan. Ata avi ha’kankan.” “I ask for your forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness, every word that you spoke is true. You are the father of the pitcher, you are the father of the pitcher.”   

Mishy Harman (narration): Redeemed, Ariel took his date, and went back home.

Ariel Harpaz: And I realized that I have about four weeks before his memory blacks out again, and this is like my golden time to get the picture back on the wall.

Mishy Harman (narration): He found the image in an old email account, and printed out several different options.

Ariel Harpaz: I don’t know if I should do an A4, A5, A6. I just don’t know how to deal with this. And I have no one to consult with, cuz’ everybody first of all thinks that this is the dumbest story they’ve ever heard, they can’t believe I’m wasting my time on this. Usually I’ll talk to like my business partner, and – you know – I’ll have like a creative team help me out, work out my problems, but this is just wasting their time on something that only I think is important, cuz’ they’re not from Jerusalem. They don’t understand the importance of this.

Mishy Harman (narration): He also went back and forth on whether to include a caption. He decided to go for it.

Ariel Harpaz: ‘La’bayit ha’sheni shelanu, be’a’hava, avi ha’kankan.’ ‘To our second home, with love, the father of the pitcher.’

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel framed the picture, and – with a mixture of excitement and trepidation – made another Friday afternoon pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When Ariel walked in Meir said hi, as usual. But Ariel couldn’t tell whether it was because he remembered him as the father of the pitcher, or else was just being friendly.

Ariel Harpaz: He always remembers me as a person, like he says hello and he knows me, but he doesn’t remember my name or why he knows me. We need to tattoo on him that I invented the pitcher.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel sat down, ordered a hummus and – of course – a pitcher of petel, and took his time.

Ariel Harpaz: And then I waited till the place was almost empty, and I come to him and I said, “you remember what we said?” And I pull out the picture. And he said, “sure, no problem.” Like fully nonchalant, as if it’s like most normal thing and no problem at all. And then he said, “leave it here, I’ll put it up tomorrow night.” And I look at him, and I said, “tomorrow night?!” It’s like Saturday night, Pinati isn’t even open on Saturday night.

Mishy Harman (narration): Feeling that something was a bit fishy, Ariel became adamant. “What?!” he said impatiently, “I came especially.”

Ariel Harpaz: “I’m not waiting, we have to do this now.” So he said, “but I can’t, people are eating next to the spot.”

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel asked Meir where he intended to hang his picture. Meir pointed to the corner, where an orthodox couple were finishing up their meal.

Ariel Harpaz: Maybe the worst real-estate on the wall!

Mishy Harman: What made it bad real-estate?

Ariel Harpaz: This spot is as you walk in, it’s on the far left, and it’s on the far low corner. Far left low corner. So no one… It’s not visible to everyone eating because if somebody’s sitting next to it, you can’t see it.

Mishy Harman: But on the other hand it’s not that far from the juice dispensers.

Ariel Harpaz: Yes, it actually is the closest picture to the juice dispenser.

Mishy Harman: Which is itself kind of an honor.

Ariel Harpaz: The fact that it’s next to the juice dispenser, I mean it’s, maybe, I mean… from the poetic point of view is beautiful, but it means nothing cuz’ you want a good real-estate inside the place.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel was disappointed, no doubt. But he tried to console himself. After all, he was so close now.

Ariel Harpaz: Inside I’m trying to convince myself that it’s OK. That we know… I mean every real-estate is good, on the wall in Pinati, and I can’t be a pig. [Sighs].

Mishy Harman (narration): After so many years, Ariel’s dream was coming true. His picture went up on the wall of Pinati.

Ariel Harpaz: And then we had like a whole five-ten minutes of me and my friends and different people around taking pictures of my picture on the wall, with Meir, without Meir, posing, and you can see in the pictures that I’m very proud. I sent this on WhatsApp to all my family and friends, and like this is like a glorious day for me.

Mishy Harman (narration): In fact, I remember receiving those pictures from Ariel at the time, and imagining just how happy he must be. You can see them too, by the way, on our website.

Anyway, just before leaving Pinati, a jubilant – if always practical – Ariel did one last thing.

Ariel Harpaz: I looked at Meir in the eye, and I pointed at him, and I told him “Meir, I don’t want to come here in twenty years and find out that your son is running the place and is telling me that I didn’t invent the pitcher. Therefore, the picture needs to stay on the wall. And he said, “don’t worry, don’t worry, no problem, no problem.”

Mishy Harman (narration): Famous last words.

Ariel Harpaz: I promise myself that I’m going to continue on going to Pinati every once in a while, to supervise that my picture is still on the wall.

Mishy Harman: You had doubts?

Ariel Harpaz: Ummm… Yeah, I had doubts. Cuz’, I mean, if somebody different comes in now, more important, I mean they might switch your picture, I mean, who knows?

Mishy Harman (narration): But the next few times Ariel came to check, he was pleased to see his smiling self, in the far left corner, holding up his brainchild – the pitcher. It seemed as if Ariel could relax. His legacy was safe. A few months ago, I got a flurry of frantic text messages from Ariel. He had just learned – to his utter astonishment – that his picture was no longer on the wall. And he wanted our help.

Mishy Harman (narration): Ariel thought that showing up at Pinati with a radio crew might not only increase his chances of getting back on the wall, but could potentially even land him a better spot, right behind Meir, at the cash register.

And that’s how Shai and I found ourselves, on that sweltering Friday morning, helping Ariel reclaim his rightful place in history.

Mishy Harman: So we’re now in a strategy, a planning strategy conversation about what’s gonna happen. And Shai, myself and Ariel are in the studio, we’re about to go to Pinati. It’s Friday afternoon.

Shai Satran: So the first thing, once we’re there is to check on your real-estate and see what’s there?

Mishy Harman (narration): That’s Shai.

Ariel Harpaz: No, the first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna sit down, and order a hummus and relax.

Mishy Harman: Are we gonna order a pitcher?

Ariel Harpaz: We will. Oh, by the way, important thing – the pitcher these days has changed. It’s like a high-tech pitcher, and has maybe a sixth, like fifteen percent juice of the original one.

Mishy Harman: How does that make you feel, as the father of the pitcher?

Ariel Harpaz: I have no problem with Meir’s economics. It’s fine with me. [Shai laughs]. As long as there’s a pitcher and I am acknowledged as the inventor.

Mishy Harman: Cuz’ you know, a lot of people they’re like… If they invent something they’re really particular about it staying exactly the way they invented it.

Ariel Harpaz: No no. I don’t… I’m not… I mean, I invented a concept.

Mishy Harman (narration): Shai, who was an officer in the army, was eager to get back to the nitty-gritty planning.

Shai Satran: Do we need to like plot this out like military style?

Ariel Harpaz: Yes.

Shai Satran: Do we need like matarot, mesimot? Like what’s the overarching goal?

Ariel Harpaz: OK, the number one objective is to get this back on the wall. We’re gonna see if we manage to get it behind Meir, better positioned. And if not, we’re gonna accept it, and we’re gonna take any space that we’re offered. If my picture stays on the wall in general in Pinati, and specifically behind Meir, for the rest of my life, I will be credited as the father of the pitcher, and I can die quietly. What we are doing today is setting the record straight.

Mishy Harman: Do you think we’re gonna succeed?

Ariel Harpaz: I have no doubt in my heart. The picture is going up on the wall.

Mishy Harman (narration): With that, three childhood friends in their mid-thirties set out on a mission. Like any good commander, Ariel gave us a final briefing.

Ariel Harpaz: We’re gonna arrive to Pinati, we’re gonna be sitting at the table. I want all the equipment to be out, the radio equipment, the recording equipment. I want Meir to be aware that there’s something happening. That there are journalists sitting and eating lunch.

Mishy Harman (narration): And we, like good soldiers, asked some clarifying questions.

Mishy Harman: So if he comes to the table and says, “hey, Ariel, want a pitcher?” We can start talking about the pitcher?

Ariel Harpaz: I mean, if it’s up to us, we wait till the end, we finish eating, we understand who’s against who, and then we attack the problem.

Mishy Harman (narration): Yup, that’s us, about to attack the problem.

Mishy Harman: OK, so we’re entering, we’re entering Pinati.

Mishy Harman (narration): Everyone seemed genuinely glad to see Ariel. We sat down and casually ordered some hummus.

Mishy Harman: Should we get a pitcher?

Ariel Harpaz: Betach.

Mishy Harman (narration): “Betach,” sure, Ariel said.

Ariel Harpaz: Meir.

Meir Micha: Ken.

Mishy Harman (narration): When we were done eating Ariel approached Meir.

Ariel Harpaz: Ma ha’matzav?

Meir Micha: Gan Eden.

Mishy Harman (narration): Once again he relayed the entire saga.

Ariel Harpaz: Ata zocher et kol ha’parshi’ya she’haya lanu?

Meir Micha: Eize parshiya? Im ha’kankanim, ken, ve’ha’tmuna.

Ariel Harpaz: Yaffe!

Mishy Harman (narration): Everything he says is true, Meir acknowledged. But I have a problem – there’s a waiting list for getting on the wall.

It was clear that Ariel wasn’t going to take no for an answer and Shai and I exchanged a worried glance hoping this wasn’t about to get out of hand.

Ariel Harpaz: Lo yitachen she’miseho yagid li she’ha’kankan lo ani hemtzeti oto. Ze lo yitachen.

Mishy Harman (narration): It can’t be that I don’t get credit for my invention, Ariel complained. It got a bit testy, and Meir even called Ariel a nudnik, basically a pain in the ass. Ariel in turn said that Meir should be ashamed of himself.

But then, realizing that his best way out of the situation was probably just to give in, Meir got up on a chair, found a tiny square of bare wall underneath the fluorescent light, and started banging in a nail.

Seeing his picture back up there, a huge smile appeared on Ariel’s face.

Ariel Harpaz: Yaffe!

Meir Micha: Ata merutze?

Mishy Harman (narration): “Are you happy?” Meir asked, as they hugged it out. “We’re like family,” he said. And just before we left, unsolicited, he promised Ariel that the picture would stay up. This time for good.

Mishy Harman: Achi, we made it! Harpaz, any last words?

Ariel Harpaz: I want to thank everyone who helped me get this… just helped me get here. Thank you guys. It was dirty and ugly, but it worked.

Mishy Harman: OK, it is December 9th, I am going into Pinati to speak to Meir and see what has happened since we aired the story about Harpaz’ picture. And also mainly to see if Harpaz’ picture is still on the wall.

Mishy Harman (narration): Like everywhere else these days, Pinati is take-out only. It’s a bit depressing, to be honest, but Meir is his good old self.

Mishy Harman: [In Hebrew] What’s up, Meir?

Meir Micha: [In Hebrew] Wonderful, thank G-d. All is good.

Mishy Harman (narration): Earlier this year, during the first lockdown, Pinati was forced to shut down for an entire month. And amazingly, that was just the second time ever – since its opening in the 1970s – that Pinati didn’t serve hummus on a weekday. The other time?

Meir Micha: Lebanon War. That’s it.

Mishy Harman: So what’s it like for you now to be take-away only?

Meir Micha: I miss the costumers. Look, it’s very sad now. See? Empty place. People eating outside in paper plates. We used to listen for the noise of the chairs and the cups and the spoons and the water. Now it’s very very sad.

Mishy Harman (narration): Still, I was hoping that there would be one thing at Pinati that hadn’t changed.

Mishy Harman: So Meir, is the picture still up on the wall?

Mishy Harman (narration): Meir looked at me, gestured to the wall, and cracked a wide smile.

Meir Micha:  I will never ever take this picture from the wall.

Mishy Harman (narration): Just like that, Ariel Harpaz, the inventor of the pitcher, joined the ranks of Theodor Herzl and Menachem Begin, as the only people who will never be taken off the wall.

In fact, Meir told me that ever since our episode aired, Ariel’s picture has become quite the attraction.

Meir Micha: People start come and say, “excuse me, can you tell me about the picture of the juice?” And it’s continue. People call me, all over the world, said, “ah, we heard the Israeli Story, it’s so nice, so fun.”

Mishy Harman: So it’s been good for business?

Meir Micha: Fantastic for business [Meir laughs]. And I’m very happy.

Mishy Harman: So Meir, last question, we’re going to be re-running the story now for Hanukkah, do you have anything to say to Israel Story listeners around the world?

Meir Micha: Happy Hanukkah, thank you very much!

Mishy Harman: [In Hebrew] Great. Meir, thank you thank you.

Meir Micha: Mishy, thank you very much. Come to visit. You want some hummus now?

Mishy Harman: I just have to run back, I have a two-week-old baby. I just had a baby.

Meir Micha: Ah, so take home. Just a minute.

Mishy Harman: [In Hebrew] How sweet you are. Thank you Meir.

Meir Micha: [In Hebrew] Give me a large hummus, small chickpeas and two pitas, three pitas to take home for his kids.