 At the border, Israeli immigration officials applied what he calls the "English" version of his name, which had an Eastern European, Ashkenazi sound to it.Giladi writes that "in one way, this 'mistake' was my key to discovering very soon just how the Israeli caste system worked.After leaving al-Mejdil, he reports that he wrote letters trying to get a government job elsewhere and got many interviews, but when it was discovered that his face didn't match his Polish/Ashkenazi name, he was rebuffed, advised time and again that "we'll give you a call."