My Encounter with the Cops

My parents live across the street from Country Center which is a little shopping center in Modiin. It's very convenient for them and it's great for us too since they have a pizza and falafel store and a grocery store and lots of other convenient things. The only bad thing is that it means it's very hard to find parking there on Friday and at other busy times. My parents do have a garage but it would mean that I'd have to call up for them to come down to open the garage so I only use that when necessary. Friday was especially busy since there is also a bike shop and many people had to get their bikes fixed before Yom Kippur. My grandmother lives in the next building over and I just had to run up for a minute to get something from her apartment and my father was going to meet back at the car.

So I parked illegally. I had been told that cops won't bother ticketing our car since we have the Cypress license plates. We've tested it numerous times and have seen cops drive by our car without ticketing us so I felt comfortable leaving the car parked illegally for a few minutes. As I came out I saw a cop car with three policemen driving slowly past the car so I waited for them to pass and then I went to the car. My father came at the same time and I pointed out that the cops just drove by the car. Then a policeman knocked on my window and said something really fast in Hebrew. I didn't know what he said so I told him in English that my Hebrew wasn't very good and he should please talk in English.

He asked me all sorts of questions about the car and about how long I'm in Israel and about my Maryland driver's license. He called his supervisor a couple times and checked with the other guys who were in his car. He asked me to get out of the car and asked me more questions. Finally, after about 15 minutes he told me I could go but he warned me that I must always drive with my passport and I shouldn't park illegally otherwise he could take me into the station. He was actually pretty nice during the entire episode and wished me a gmar chatima tova at the end.