“Kak mojna pamotch vam?”* asks the big, red-haired Russian butcher with a chesire-cat grin as I pluck the wet cotton shirt I’m wearing away from my skin a few times in order to circulate some air around my face. I have no idea what he just said to me, but I understand that it’s Russian and not Hebrew. I smile back at him and then turn my attention to finding a whole turkey in the meat counter before me. On the blue sticky note in my hand, I’ve written down how to say ‘whole turkey’ in Hebrew: Hodi Shalem. I forgot to ask how to say ‘do you have’. I remember it’s something backwards, like ‘have you’ instead of ‘do you have’, but I’m not feeling brave enough to attempt it. Instead, I quietly mutter, ‘hodi shalem, bevakasha’ **. I look behind me at the line but no one seems to have noticed my dreadful accent.
I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that I’m sweating in November. But after all, this is Israel. Southern Israel no less.
“kak?” ***asks the burly butcher, leaning closer to hear me repeat what I’ve just said. When I look perplexed and don’t immediately answer, he narrows his eyes and cups a hand around his ear. It’s torture. Why do they always think I’m Russian?
‘Ani lo medaberet russet,’**** I tell him, hoping this will clarify things. ‘anglit?’ I venture, hoping that he knows a few words of English. He shakes his head and turns around to ask one of his co-workers something in rapid Russian. The co-worker shakes his head too. I take a deep breath.
‘Hodi shalem, bevakasha’, I tell him again, a little louder this time.
I notice an elderly woman in line staring at me, and I can feel my cheeks burning. I must be as red as a radish.
‘Shalem?’ questions the Russian butcher in a suspicious tone.
‘ken’***** I tell him, repeating what must be an unusual request in this country. ‘hodi shalem.’
He stands back with a puzzled look on his face, says something in Russian to his co-worker and then tucks his thumbs around the chest straps of a dirty white apron.
The face-off continues for a few seconds, but I am not willing to give up. Just because Israel doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving doesn’t mean I won’t. I’ve never baked a whole turkey in my life, but I am certain I can do it. All I need is the turkey.
Seeing my desperation, the butcher points to a whole chicken in the meat counter to try and appease me. I shake my head and pull my arms out in front of me, trying to make it clear that I want something bigger.
I’ve forgotten the word for big in Hebrew, so I just keep saying ‘big, I want bigger bird. Turkey.’ The English doesn’t help, so I try making turkey sounds and flapping my arms a bit. I end up sounding like a sick chicken and I don’t want to know what I look like.
The butcher probably still has no idea what I want, but my attempts at a turkey call make him laugh. He has a deep-chested, open-mouthed laugh that shakes his big stomach. I feel like slinking out of the store and never coming back, but my determination wins and I stand my ground. ‘Hodi Shalem,” I say again, trying to keep a stern look on my face despite his laughter.
He holds up one finger and then disappears behind a set of thick, hanging plastic strips into a chilly-looking back room. The elderly woman who has been following our gestures from the line with great interest comes over to speak to me. “You know, you say ‘hodi shalem’. You mean ‘turkey’ but turkey is ‘hodoo,’ not ‘hodi’. You tell now you want whole Indian. This very funny.”

I am not amused, but try to wrap my brain around the ‘oo’ instead of ‘i’ at the end of the word in order to make sure I ask for a turkey and not an Indian in the future.

‘yesh li hodi shalem,’ says the butcher, returning to the counter with another chuckle, probably because I’ve been flapping around asking for a whole Indian and he is now reproducing my mistake to amuse the whole store. ‘aval at lo yechola lakarat et ze levad.’
The kind elderly woman comes to the rescue again. “He say he have whole turkey, but you not able to take,” she translates.
“Why not?” I ask her.
‘Llama lo?’***** she asks him.
‘Ze 20 kilo!’ he tells her.
“It weighs twenty kilos,” she tells me. I try the calculation in my head. Math has never been my forte, but I know it’s about two pounds to the kilo, which means this turkey weighs more than a small child. Not exactly what I had in mind.
“Doesn’t he have anything smaller?” I ask my new-found translator.
The butcher understands my question and cuts her off before she can finish.
‘ein,’****** he says emphatically, dragging a finger across his neck impatiently. I find this gesture both appropriate to a Russian butcher’s mime lingo and menacing for the point he’s trying to make. After all, no one is going to die just because he doesn’t have a normal-sized turkey.
I sigh in defeat and wipe another bead of sweat from my forehead.
“Kri off,” says the butcher, picking up a chicken that looks pathetically small.
‘ok,’ I tell him. Give me a f**g chicken then, I want to say but don’t dare.
He wraps up the skinny bird, puts it on the scale and then announces loud enough for the whole store to hear ‘ste kilos, ze tov le tanur.’
‘What did he say?’ I ask the volunteer translator. The whole store is now following our conversation with utmost interest.

‘Two kilo. That good for oven,” she tells me, patting my shoulder with a grandmotherly gesture of reassurance that things are going to be fine, what’s the big difference after all, between chicken and turkey. “Same same” she tells me.

As I leave the store with my 2-kilo whole chicken, a blast of hot air hits me in the face. I take my sunglasses off my hair and put them back on my eyes. Thanksgiving will not be the same. No matter what anyone says, chicken is not ‘same same’ as turkey on Thanksgiving. Next year I’ll have to try asking for a turkey instead of an Indian. At least I can carry it. That’s something to be thankful for.

*How may I help you? (Russian)
** Whole turkey, please (Hebrew)
*** What? (Russian)
**** I don’t speak Russian (Hebrew)
***** yes (Hebrew)
***** why not (Hebrew)
******there isn’t/aren’t any (Hebrew)