I will confess. I didn't know what the foam on a long stick hiding behind our refrigerator was until I read a post in the extremely helpful blog: How to Be Israeli. It also explained the large white cloths under the sink. Put the two together, and you have what apparently passes for a mop in Israel.
You somehow get the cloth wet (I have just started pouring some soapy water on the floor), and push it around with the foam on a stick. It works just fine to clean large areas of empty floors. The tricky part comes when you need to get under or behind furniture or into tight corners. I still find it very hard to get the cloth to stay on and the mop is too wide to fit into the corner of a room. Even with lots of practice, I just can't seem to get the cloth to stay put. My latest strategy is to clean the corners first, by hand, and then use the "mop" for the rest. There are some things I knew I would have to learn how to do that would be very different from home, but mopping was not one of them!
Israelis seem to have this method of mopping down, but I think I will be glad to go back to the sponge-on-a-stick variety that folds up to fit in the bucket.
