A retail guide to the Holy Land

Our little town has several small cosmetics stores. My wife used to shop at one of them. Some weeks ago, she returned a small item – an eyeliner or some such thing that smudged and ran shortly after application – and requested either store credit or a refund. The proprietor responded, “If all my customers were like you, I wouldn't have a business.” Words were exchanged. Voices started to rise. My wife finally left the item on the counter and walked out, astonished that the store owner, rather than admit to a problem, had chosen to insult the customer. What was he thinking? That she would apologize and meekly continue to patronize him? Or were his other customers so mindlessly loyal that offensive behavior didn't affect his business? Or was he just in the mood to be nasty and if word of his nastiness got out, so what? Whatever his mix of motivations, one fact remains: When you call a person evil – and that was the implication – if that person really is evil, what impact? “You got the right one, baby.” But when you attempt to make decent people do and think what you want by abusing them, the reaction you get may not be to your liking. Which brings me to Star Trek. The original series. The one that ran from September 1966 until its abrupt cancellation in June 1969. The series with those two splendid exemplars of Jewish manhood, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, a.k.a. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, self-righteously schlepping the WASP ethos through the galaxy. Come back. All is forgiven. We need you. Be that as it may, we focus here on the series' third-most-famous episode. “City on the Edge of Forever” and “The Trouble with Tribbles” come in ahead by most reckonings, but “Day of the Dove” matters here. “Day of the Dove” – that heavyhanded November 1968 anti-Vietnam offering, replete with Shatner's Stop the War NOW! voice-over, since discreetly edited out of most versions. The relevant contretemps took place in a bookstore in Beersheba when the conversation somehow got on to Star Trek. The proprietress explained to me, rather heatedly, how that episode dealt with the Israeli-Arab conflict, and when it aired in Israel there was fury. How dare the Americans intrude themselves thus? When I suggested that the episode was really about Vietnam and few Americans paid sustained attention to things Israeli that (or any) year, she wasn't having it. America was clearly trying to boss Israel around and using Star Trek to send a message. I left without purchasing anything. By this point, perhaps you've concluded that I'm not exactly enamored of Israeli retail sales strategies. True, but then I delight in buying as little stuff as possible. Still, “persuasive communication” fascinates me. Marketing was the only subject I enjoyed during my brief stint in business school and later did my doctoral dissertation on advertising. So when an Israeli psychologist explained to me, “The person who shouts the loudest wins the argument,” I asked if she really considered shouting as persuasion. She looked at me as though I were some priggish American dullard who just didn't get it. Yes, shouting can be persuasive. Yes, if you regard verbal bullying and a total lack of respect for your partner in conversation – you don't show respect by getting in somebody's face and screaming – as persuasive. Yes, if you believe that you can alter reality by the noise you make and truth is measured in decibels. Yes, if your views thrive best in an atmosphere where everyone's talking, loudly, at once, and chaos relieves you of the need to consider what anyone else might mean. A few months after my Beersheba encounter, I took a course on how to start your own business in Israel. The instructor told me much the same thing – the person who shouts loudest wins. I suggested that this might not be a good way to run a business. Or anything else. He shrugged it off with “It's cultural.” True, responded I, different cultures do things differently. But that raises the question of why. He offered no answer. I never did start my own business. But I remember when the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise did. The scene: a wonderful old spoof shown on, if memory serves, Saturday Night Live. The actors receive word that their series has been canceled. Gradually, they talk themselves into believing that they're really on a space ship. Contracts? Studio? Production facilities? Marketing? Audience? Who needs it? “We're going to Alpha Centauri!” Or was it Rijal Nine? Moral of the story: Don't alienate your customers. Or your suppliers. Or those who will remember your rudeness long after the subject is forgotten. And never make enemies you don't need to make. Especially when you've already got enough. • The writer is an American oleh.

A retail guide to the Holy Land

I’m not exactly enamored of Israeli sales strategies, but then I delight in buying as little stuff as possible.

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A retail guide to the Holy Land

I’m not exactly enamored of Israeli sales strategies, but then I delight in buying as little stuff as possible.

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