Koby the truck driver has had a good week and we’re all happy for him.
“One kilo less,” Michal announces, and people cheer. Koby takes a bow.
“Tips?” Michal prompts him.
He shrugs theatrically, milking this moment.
“You must have done something different,” Michal says. She is good at generating these positive group dynamics and she knows Koby is popular. He always makes people laugh with his honesty about how he can’t resist cookies and potato chips. Other than Koby, the only two men who come regularly are modern Orthodox husbands of women who are in the group, who let their wives do the talking and take care of the babies while their wives participate.
I am in the back row of this community center classroom, sitting with the other English speakers, and I run my hands along the books on the shelves behind us. We stay quiet most of the time. I would like to read The New York Times on my phone right now but I won’t risk getting a death-ray stare from Michal. These meetings are one of the few places in Israel where it is frowned upon to be absorbed in a screen. Michal, who looks lovely as she always does in a belted black dress, runs a very tight ship. But, like so many successful benevolent dictators, she wields love as much as scorn. With her messy brown hair, tasteful makeup, and guileless eyes, she is very happy when we lose weight and so disappointed when we gain.
“When I was with my friends watching soccer, I just went ahead and took out my container of vegetables. Okay, okay, I’m human, I ate one handful of nuts, a big one – I know, Michal, three points – and then I ate the vegetables,” Koby says, his belly poking out just a little from his new T-shirt, one which he bought three weeks ago, he told us, when he went from XXXL to XXL.
“That’s great, Koby,” Michal says, beaming as if she just heard a relative was cured of cancer. “And they didn’t make fun of you?”
“They did,” he says. “But I made fun of...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.