The group of spectacularly perfumed young people in the car couldn't have looked more prepared for the graduation party - prom night, Israeli style - of Gymnasia Herzliya, a Tel Aviv institution. The young high-school graduates, though, who know by heart the script of the television series that they watched throughout their childhood, know exactly what's missing in this picture. It's a critical item, glistening ivory in color, of about 15 meters in length. It's waiting for them in a parking lot in the upscale North Tel Aviv neighborhood of Ramat Aviv, exactly where they arranged. They park their family car, which has finished its role for the evening, and approach the limousine.
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"Why don't they open the door for us?" shouts Yaniv Kaminski, who is outfitted in a tailored black suit and holds a rose wrapped in plastic in his hand.
Four teenagers - three boys and one girl - get into the limo and sit down on the spacious leather seats. "Yishai, shut the window, let's make ourselves `a little distance,'" Kaminski says to Yishai Cohen, a chauffeur for Classic Limousine, a company that rents limos. Cohen replies that he will report everything to Kaminski's father. "Call my Dad now if you want. He gave me an order to pamper myself at the bar," the young Kaminski says.
"Wow, this is the biggest car in the world," exclaims Ya'ara, a blonde, wearing a black baby-doll dress and matching shoes,who is wrapped in a tight embrace with bright-eyed David. She fixes her gaze on the seemingly endless bar. "I want champagne," she says.
"This makes Natalie's Mercedes look like a toy," observes Liron ("Barchash") Ovadia, whose bleached hair spikes are blunted by the roof of the vehicle. He tries to scratch off one of the neon stars that decorate the sides of the limo and change colors. "Barchash, it doesn't peel off," Ya'ara laughs.
While his pals are savoring the big moment he has created for them, Kaminski is again thinking a few steps ahead. "Tell me, Yishai," he asks, "how much do you want for a Tel Aviv-Eilat trip?" Cohen replies that it would be more than Kaminski can afford. "Don't ask too many questions, just name a price," Kaminski insists.
"Okay. $1,300."
"How about $1,000 and it's a deal?" Kaminski says just before the limo stops. Michal and Anna, wearing red satin evening gowns, enter the car. "Wow, what style! I could live here," Michal screams. "Take my picture in the limo, in style," she orders.
The limo then heads of the Nahalat Yitzhak neighborhood, to pick up Dana. Kaminski takes the rose and gets out of the limo for a brief foray into the dusky street, to pick up his date. He returns in a state of shock. One of Dana's neighbors, who happened to pass by on the street, shouted at them that it's not right to show up in a limousine and show off in front of people who don't have money.
"Who was that crazy woman who leeched onto me?" he asks Dana. "She absolutely chased us."
Michal, who is already in high spirits after drinking a little wine at home, moves quickly to end this scene, which is not part of the prom-night script. "Hey, everyone, let's drink a toast. Mr. Photographer, can you take our picture making a toast?"
Kaminski opens the champagne, takes a sip and almost chokes. "Long live love," someone says, and others chime in: "To a lot of beautiful days like this one," "Bottoms up, guys," "Lehayim." They all drink and chortle, and sing "their song," which is played through a sophisticated sound system. Each has a class graduation ring on his or her finger and they seem on the brink of bursting into tears as their emotions well up. Yet a certain sense of discontent seeps into the unadulterated pleasure: How can the moment be frozen in time? "Can you pretend you're holding up your drinks for another toast for my camera?" Michal says. A click sounds.
"Refill!" Yoni calls out, brandishing his empty glass. Dor decides that he has to go by his place to pick up his digital camera. He calls his mother on his mobile phone: "Mom, be a sweetie and bring down my camera." "We're already a lot more than fashionably late," Ya'ara remarks (saying the last two words in English). "With this limo, it would have been fashionable to arrive an hour ago, too."
The group frolics in the moving living room, shouting orders to the chauffeur, heaping compliments on each other and on themselves as a group ("Write down that the people in this limo are the cool guys of the class"). The girls compare outfits ("You have no idea what's like to walk on these," Anna says of the transparent stiletto heels she's wearing) and put on lip gloss. The glasses are filled again.
The way from Nahalat Yitzhak to Kibbutz Shfayim, north of Tel Aviv, goes by very fast, considering that everyone wanted it to last forever. Suddenly they all whip out cellular phones. "Mom, you won't believe it, I'm in an incredible giant white limousine that's absolutely s-t-u-n-n-i-n-g," Ya'ara reports in real time. "There's champagne and a television set with a DVD of `Titanic' and leather sofas, you have to see it to believe it. I feel like Pretty Woman, like Julia Roberts."
Ovadia's call home strays from the script a bit: "What? Now you're cleaning? What kind of cleaning?" he asks his mother, clearly perturbed.
The world's sexiest
The limousine pulls up at the entrance to the party venue in Shfayim. Cries of amazement emanate from the crowd: "Some show!", "What style!" Seeing Ovadia, someone calls out, "Hey, a guy from Hatikva just slithered out of the limo," referring to a disadvantaged southern Tel Aviv neighborhood.
Kobi Salinsi stands to one side and observes Kaminski and his friends make their royal entrance. "What's a limousine? It's just rented," he says. "C'mere, I'll show you real style." He takes out a set of keys and insists on showing off the car in which he and his group arrived: a new black BMW, which belongs to the mother of one of his friends. But no one is going to ruin the unforgettable limo experience for Ya'ara. "I don't believe we just got out of this incredible thing," she shouts.
Cohen, the chauffeur, wasn't surprised to discover that his clients were a group of high-school students. In the past month he has driven dozens of brand-new graduates to a series of balls. After a dozen parties in which Classic Limousine took part in the past few weeks, and four more for which it has orders in the next two weeks, Cohen notes that the "import" of the American model of high-school graduation balls has "definitely given the business a boost."
Usually, eight students get together to rent a limousine and chauffeur for the evening, sharing the cost of between $250 and $300. Sometimes two couples rent a limo. "Two years ago you hardly saw this," Cohen says. "This year a lot of schools are holding Hollywood-style proms - they all grew up with American movies and they're going with it. So far, just about everyone I've chauffeured has been from the central region of the country. I had one order from Be'er Sheva. It's turning into a huge thing and it's still catching on. In one or two more years, it'll spread to other areas, too."
People from other regions may not have ordered his limo, but similar graduation festivities have been held in Yavneh and Petah Tikva this year.
A whole series of professionals - fashion designers, hair stylists, barbers, make-up experts, hoteliers, catering companies, impresarios and deejays are making a living from realizing the dream of Israeli high-schoolers to emulate Brenda, Kelly and Steve of "Beverly Hills 90210" television fame. And the fancy parties they are holding look more suited to Beverly Hills than to recession-ridden Israel.
"It started five or six years ago, but this year it's become something hysterical," says the fashion designer Galit Levy, who turns out ball gowns for students who flock to her store on northern Dizengoff Street from the beginning of May.
"It used to be that people wore something from home for the graduation party," she says, "but today they start getting ready for the ball months ahead. That's terrific. They're like brides, but not so uptight. They want to be the sexiest girls in the world - open backs, tight fit, heavy cleavage, to go all the way, like the models."
According to Levy, most of the 12th-grade girls order dresses that cost from NIS 1,500 to NIS 4,000. One girl bought a dress for NIS 8,000 especially for the graduation ball. "But that's just the start," she explains. "Then they need matching sandals, jewelry, a hairdo, a professional make-up job."
Do they come alone, or with girlfriends?
Levy: "Usually they come with their mother, not with friends, because they want to be unique and be sure no one copies them."
How does Mom react?
"Mom doesn't argue. She says, `Buy what you want, sweetie, let's iron the [credit] card.' We're talking about the top percentile here, I don't think you'll see this in Be'er Sheva. Some of them pay for the dress in 18 installments. By next year it'll probably be all the rage everywhere."
Norms of affluence
The graduation parties are held in banquet halls, lavish garden facilities and prestigious hotels. The cost ranges from NIS 200 to NIS 300 per celebrant. The organizers try to reduce the entrance fee for those who can't meet the payment. As for the costs of the clothes and other preparations, each student has to survive in the brutal jungle of brandnames with the financial wherewithal available to him or her.
"I bought my dress today," Kinneret Shmueli, from Rotberg High School for Science, Technology and Creative Arts in Ramat Hasharon, revealed in the lobby of the Dan Panorama Hotel on the Tel Aviv seashore, where her school's graduation ball was held two weeks ago.
"It cost NIS 300, but write that it cost NIS 900. All the girls spent NIS 900 and they all got ready a long time ago. We have one couple in the graduating class that arranged to go to the ball together when they were in 10th grade."
Some, though, will prefer to forget certain aspects of the unforgettable night: "I am ashamed to say it, but I bought my dress at Zara," says Efrat of the colorful striped dress she is wearing, which cost less than NIS 300.
The party is in addition to, not instead of, the graduation ceremony at school. The difference is that teachers, parents and guests from outside the school are not invited to the party. The filtering process doesn't bother Eddy Schwartz, the principal of Rotberg, who in any event has no interest in attending the parties that the graduates of his school have been holding in the past few years. Schwartz, who takes a negative view of the festivities, reached an agreement with his 12th-graders that the ball in the hotel would be held only after everyone completed their required school work.
"As a group of adult citizens, they have the right to organize any party they like for themselves," he says. "These parties are definitely not to my taste, and I never accepted them. Nor does the school support or encourage the phenomenon."
What's wrong with a fancy party?
Schwartz: "I find it something alien, artificially implanted, a kind of cheap attempt to emulate the norms of a society of abundance that are not appropriate for the Israeli culture or for the values that the education system promotes. This is a decades-old American tradition, which the kids in Israel are adopting artificially. In Israel we have existential problems and economic distress, and it's wrong that the message being transmitted in a society that encourages economizing is for people to spend such large sums for one evening. At one stage I thought it was a passing fashion, but unfortunately, I can't ignore its spread from one year to the next.
"I'm no longer an optimist, but I was glad to see that this year there was a group of students who were against the ball. Some of them even distributed protest flyers in the last matriculation exam."
Boyfriends or girlfriends who are not members of the graduating class are not invited to the parties: Y., from the affluent community of Herzliya Pituah, relates matter-of-factly that she won't be able to bring her soldier-boyfriend to hers. The luxurious venue where the party is taking place is strictly off-limits to outsiders. Many of Y.'s girlfriends find themselves in the same situation, but this limitation does not dampen the excitement or spoil the preparations. The main thing is that the new dress that is already hanging in the closet will be there for them so they can dance and celebrate on the shore of the artificial lake.
"We are aware of the ball from the beginning of the year and we really look forward to it," Y. relates a few days before the big day. "Our party will be more magnificent than the one they had last year. I am going to wear a long strapless gown that goes down to my feet. I went with my mom to the mall to buy it. I wanted to buy it as soon as possible, so I would be relaxed. My girlfriends and I arranged to meet so each of us could show the dress she bought especially for the party."
So you wanted to avoid the disaster that happened to Brenda and Kelly from "Beverly Hills 90210," who bought identical dresses for a party?
Y.: "Exactly."
The new mythology
Adi Maor, the general manager of the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv, says that in the past five years, he has become an expert in high-school graduation parties. This year nine such affairs are being held at the hotel.
"Usually I don't allow teenage parties to be held here," he notes. "This is a five star-plus hotel. But this isn't a children's disco party, it's a ball. The kids spend a lot of money and make a big effort ahead of the event. They want to feel grown up and rich. The atmosphere is decorous, respectable, and their behavior is adult, refined. It's a classic event. You won't find hummus and hotdogs here."
Maor looks pleased to see large numbers of teenagers celebrating in the banquet hall, knowing how many rooms above are vacant. "We have copied the parties of the American colleges," he says. "Every year there are more events, despite the criticism of the phenomenon. It caught on because it's out of the ordinary. It's once in a lifetime."
The balls follow a similar pattern: a glittering reception with festive (and alcohol-free) cocktails, an ethnic buffet, including salmon eggs from Scandinavia and gourmet French hors d'oeuvres, followed by a guest performer. Some parties reserve a hall as a casino, where the graduates play with chips (there is no gambling with real money). Dancing until the wee hours concludes the unforgettable night.
"It used to be in community centers, now it's in hotels," says Ze'ev Keren, the operations director of the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv. "First the kids come together. They each make their entrance so they can show off the dress or the tuxedo they bought for the event, like in the prestige balls in American style. We are good copycats."
Market research firms in the United States monitor the proms industry closely. According to a study conducted by the Conde Nast concern, such high-school parties brought in $2.7 billion last year. The company publishes Your Prom, a magazine with 5.2 million readers, which is one of a range of monthlies that deal with preparations for proms. Last year teenagers in the U.S. spent $416 million to hire limousines and $172 million to send flowers. Why? Because there are some things that happen only once in a lifetime and they have no price. And the price is constantly rising.
The Israelis are no patsies. They see it on television and at the movies and they also want a prom of their own, so they go ahead and organize one, step by step, according to the familiar formula.
"You have to understand, this isn't a party or a ball, it's a prom," Moran, a graduate of Alliance High School in North Tel Aviv, explains with a smile.
"The ball is an event that is terrifyingly serious," says Dr. David Gurevitz, head of the popular culture track in the School of Communications of the College of Management. "The participants take seriously their role in the glorious narrative of princes and princesses. There are two worlds here, which are totally deaf to each other. On the one hand, you have Vicky Knafo, the single mother who has gone on a one-woman march to protest the cuts in the social welfare allowances; and on the other hand, you have people who are immersed in money and embody a show-off culture that centers on one thing: hedonism."
Gurevitz sees the phenomenon as a kind of cinematic production. "Life is packaged as a glittering event. Everyone wants to be part of a glittering production in order to give meaning to our life and acquire a memory that we will be able to cling to, a kind of outsized personal myth that you take with you. The feeling is that if you don't produce a film, with all the fabricated and synthetic, larger-than-life moments, you will not be remembered. People will make tremendous efforts, even if they don't have the wherewithal, to prove they do have it so as not to drop out of the race and fall by the wayside."
According to Gurevitz, the Israeli version of the prom is a kind of subversive rite of passage, which sprang up as the antithesis to the major passage into adulthood - induction into the army.
"With all its dumbness and egoism," he observes, "this is a balancing process involving a personal fantasy that emerged in the face of the collective fantasy. It's a youthful counter-myth and a form of escapism that endows personal pleasure with meaning, in the face of the sense of self-sacrifice and suffering that the old myth dictated. It's a desire to have a good time for its own sake and to show off, deriving from a deep emotional internalization of the idea of consumption. It's a ceremony in which the youngsters celebrate themselves, a celebration of kitsch and detachment, of hedonism and insensitivity."
The Israeli prom, Gurevitz sums up, is another expression of the bourgeoisification of Israeli society.
"The cinema and the commercials and the store chains create lifestyles for us in which every spontaneous event becomes a production. This is human engineering at its finest, reflecting the loss of intimacy and the bankruptcy of the myth of the group of buddies with guitars on the beach, which we saw in [the Israeli film] `Late Summer Blues.' Our desire as a society to be like America turns childhood into a reproduced experience. Children sing the songs in commercials as folksongs and appropriate a nostalgia for a reality that is not ours. The larger-than-life party becomes part of our fabricated biography."
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