I guess I'm Russian now?

Living in Israel, I don't blend in. Between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority, my status as a tourist and an outsider is readily apparent. Normally this isn't more than cat-calls and people trying to get me to buy trinkets at their shop. Or the police randomly stopping me on the street to check my papers, but I digress.

There are a huge amount of Russians in Israel. Many of them have only one Jewish parent or one Jewish grandparent, which qualifies them for citizenship, but they don't have the typical "Jewish look"; the dark hair, dark eyes and dark complexion of Mizrachi Jews or the dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin of the Ashkenazi Jews.

Considering the tiny non-Arab, non-Jewish community in Israel and depending on where I am in the country, I am easily mistaken for being a Russian Jew both because it's a reasonable assumption and because of my looks. My Russian-like accent when I speak Hebrew doesn't help to rectify the situation either.

So two days ago, I'm standing at the central bus station in Tel Aviv waiting to head to the Machon, minding my own business and listening to the BBC on my iPod. A woman taps me on the arm and says something to me in Russian. I replied to her, in Hebrew, that I don't speak Russian. To this she shrugs in a dismissive kind of way, and continues speaking to me in Russian. After a minute or so I again said to her in Hebrew: "גברת, אני לא מדבר רוסית."

At this point she started to get really cross and raise her voice. In Russian. In public. At the bus stop in Tel Aviv. She's getting more and more frustrated that I'm not...doing whatever it is she wants me to do, and finally I say to her, equally loudly and in my best American-accented English, "I don't speak Russian".

This seemed, finally, to get through to her. I guess she thought I just didn't feel like talking to her, or was being a stuck-up Russian-Israeli kid who was too good to speak Russian to her; I don't know. She looked a bit sheepish and pointed at her wrist. So I got out my mobile and showed her the time, to which she gave a heavily-accented "תודה", and we continued to waiting for the bus.


Incidentally, "I don't understand Russian" in Russian is:
Я НЕ ПОНИМАЮ ПО-РУССКИ
ya neh pahneemahyu pah-rooskee


ETA:


Not me. Looks like me? I still don't speak Russian.