Chofesh (Chanukah Vacation) - Part 1

Tomorrow the boys have school after a 10-day break during the Jewish holiday of Chanukah. I think I can speak for most parents in Israel (and for many U.S. parents with kids who will begin winter break in another week or so) when I say that I CAN'T WAIT until vacation ends and the boys go back to school tomorrow! I love my kids, but 10 days of vacation, especially when we have very few friends and no family in Israel, is a hell of a long time!

We tried as hard as we could to make the vacation good, and we did a lot of cool things. On the Friday before Chanukah started, the WK and I went to Tel Aviv for a Human Rights March, sponsored by ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel). There were about 5,000 people marching, a number I am told is lower than both last year and the year before. Although the numbers weren't mighty, the enthusiasm certainly was. We marched with about a dozen people from B'tselem (my friend Jessie's group), including four Palestinians who work for B'tselem and who needed permits to attend the March in Tel Aviv. The WK and I learned about many of the other civil rights groups in Israel, and it was a great experience for us. The March ended in "Kikar Rabin" (Rabin Square), the park in which the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated in Nov 1995. Here are a bunch of pictures from the March.

 "Bibi isolates me" referring to PM Netanyahu

(Combatants for Peace - Not through gun sights)

(The WK and Jessie's twin sons)

(signing the banner for the Coalition Against Racism in Elections)

(the Rabin memorial with the initial "graffiti" written after his assassination)

Shabbat was relatively low-key for us. We invited a friend of the CK's and his family to Shabbat dinner Friday night, and we had a nice time together. We discussed the reviews of various "sufganiot" (fried donuts that are typically eaten during the Jewish holiday of Chanukah) places in Jerusalem, and prepared ourselves to participate in taste tests of our own! We had a couple from synagogue join us for Shabbat lunch, and we very much enjoyed their company. In the afternoon, the boys went to the Park Moshava, as they often do, and Pentheus and I napped, as we often do. After Shabbat ended, we lit candles for the first night of Chanukah. The CK used his new chanukiah that he received as a gift from Papa!

Sunday morning, the boys and I took the train to Tel Aviv. The train takes longer than the bus (90 minutes as opposed to 55 minutes) and costs a bit more (22 shekels instead of 18 shekels), but the time and money are well worth it for the views of Israel from the train window. The boys had a good time running around on the train as well, and we had fun.

Sunday afternoon, the boys and I went to the Palmach Museum. The Palmach was the elite underground armed forces during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine (before Israel became an official state in May 1948). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmach) The Palmach Museum was incredibly interesting, and it's set up very well. The Museum essentially tells the story of a group of Palmach members from the time the group was formed until after the state of Israel was founded, and the boys and I loved our visit. We each had what looked like a huge cordless phone (think mid-1990's), and every time we walked into a different room in the Museum, the English commentary began. The Palmach   Museum was pretty powerful, and I can understand why visitors had to be older than age 6. The CK stuck by me for much of the Museum, but I know he enjoyed it very much as well.

 After lunch at Yotvatah B'eer (the same place we frequent in Tel Aviv every time we are there!), the boys wanted to hang out on the beach, and that was totally okay with me. Although it wasn't really "beach weather" (it was in the low-60's), the boys played in the sand and made sand castles. I took some beautiful pictures of the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea.

Sunday night, Pentheus joined us in Tel Aviv and we had dinner with friends of Pentheus's from 15 years ago. We ate at Regina's, a Mediterranean/Italian restaurant, in the remodeled train station in Neve Tzedek, the first Jewish neighborhood in Tel Aviv. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neve_Tzedek) We had a great time with his friends (the Sela Family), and the food was really good, too. The CK and I stayed in a hotel Sunday night, and Pentheus and the WK returned to Jerusalem. The CK and I had coffee and fruit juice at Yotvata B'eer (where else?!) Monday morning with the cousin of a family friend, and then headed to Shuk HaCarmel, the outdoor market in Tel Aviv. We bought some gifts for people in the States, and I picked out my Chanukah gift from Pentheus and the boys. The CK and I had a nice time together in Tel Aviv, and I am glad we had some "alone time" together.

Wow - and special shout-out to Graham!

I know it's been over a week since I have posted a new entry, and I am doing what I can to write a few entries to catch up. This entry, however, deals with something that happened just today, and when I think about it, I can't help but laugh first and then think some more.

At synagogue today, during kiddush (the brief period after morning services where light refreshments are served and congregants chat before going to Shabbat lunch), a man came up to me and asked me if I were "the woman who writes the blog about being in Israel"? When I replied that I was, the man told me that he had made aliyah just 2 1/2 weeks ago, and that he had somehow stumbled across my blog. (Seriously, stumbled is the word - I think he said he was looking on google for something about air conditioning.) He told me that when he found my blog, he read it from beginning to end at once and that there was so much in it that resonated with him as he begins his life living in Jerusalem. He thanked me for writing the blog and for offering the right amount of description and feelings to which he could relate but not too much of the gory details. It was clear after he listed similar experiences he has had that he really did read the entire blog!

At this point, we formally introduced ourselves to each other and started talking. His name is Graham from Sydney, Australia. I was very appreciative, certainly, of Graham's kind words and flattered that he had found me, but, of course, I wanted to know how he knew I was the author of the blog. Turns out Graham saw my younger son at synagogue and couldn't figure out why he looked so familiar. Graham kept thinking about it and then realized that the little boy was the one who was milking a cow in the picture from the blog he had been reading. Graham said he thought, "Hey, that's the CK!" and then followed the CK to the woman Graham assumed was the little boy's Mom. How funny is that!?

Graham and I had a lovely conversation, and I enjoyed hearing his story about how he got to Jerusalem. Graham actually only lives about half a block from our dira - we can see each other's dira from our windows. Graham said he knew we lived close because whenever I wrote in the blog about the distances from our dira to where we were going, Graham thought we must be neighbors because the distances were exactly the same from where he lives!

As flattered as I am that Graham found my blog and my perspective helpful and supportive during his first few weeks as an Israeli citizen, I must admit that it also made me think a lot about what Graham has done. I mean, I know our coming to Israel with young children was
not easy and that these past 4 1/2 months have been quite an experience, but Graham has made aliyah, actually picked up all of his possessions, said goodbye to family and friends in Australia, and moved to Israel. Makes me think about what we've been doing in a different light. We're leaving Jerusalem in just over 2 weeks now - almost a shorter time period than a vacation to Israel might be. Honestly, every single day for many weeks now, we think about the fact that we are leaving - what it means, how we feel about it, when will we be back, what it will be like getting on that plane, what it will feel like getting off that plane, etc. I've drafted multiple blog entries in my mind, sure that what I am thinking at that point, is how I am feeling overall. The truth is, that we have many mixed feelings about leaving Israel. Over the next couple of weeks (after I hopefully catch up on the important day-to-day stuff going on), I'll try to write about some of those feelings, in the hopes that it will make me feel better and prepare me for that Turkish Air flight.

(here's the picture from which Graham recognized the CK!)

Scenes from an Israeli "Machberet" (Notebook)

It’s been almost a week since I wrote, but I’ve been “taking notes” all week in my “machberet” (notebook) that I keep in my purse. I feel like I have a lot to share, but mostly my notes are on things that have happened and conversations I have had, rather than a chronological day-by-day account. I’ll try to put some order to this post to let you know what’s going on here and how things are going as we head into our last month in Jerusalem.

Last weekend, we had lots of company. A family who used to live in Cambridge and made aliyah several years ago was invited to dinner Friday night. (This is the family at whose house the CK had an allergic reaction to “Sheleg” (Snow), their white, fuzzy dog.) We hadn’t seen them since we had Shabbat dinner at their house before Rosh Hashanah. They brought challah from “Borekas Ima” (Mom’s Borekas), a bakery with the best challah in Jerusalem (at least in my opinion).   We had a lovely dinner and spent a lot of time talking about Israeli politics, especially about the UN upgrade in status of Palestine to a non-member state. What I heard from our guests, as well as from the other people whom I have bugged about this issue, is that Israelis are generally upset about the upgrade in status, primarily because of the “unilateral” nature of the UN vote. Many people I have met are, in theory, in favor of a two-state solution, but are upset that a Palestinian non-member state emerged from the UN instead of from negotiations with Israel. That being said, I read an online article this morning in Slate, which argued that UN vote (in which 138 countries voted in favor of a Palestinian upgrade) was in fact the example of “multi-lateral” action and that a “unilateral” action would have been if the Palestinian Authority had declared itself as a “state” without any negotiations with, and voting by, other UN countries. Everyone keeps saying that the upgrade "changes nothing on the ground" but I'm not sure that is true, considering the 3,000 new units Netanyahu initiated last Friday in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Other Israelis believe Netanyahu's actions have just complicated the issue and reflect punitive action by the Israeli government. As I have written before, it’s never boring here in Israel!

Over the Shabbat, Shir Chadash (our synagogue) hosted a group of Hebrew University students involved in a "chevruta" (study session), so we hosted overnight a young man from Winnipeg, Canada and 3 young women at Shabbat lunch. It was nice to meet them, and I think the boys enjoyed listening in on our conversations. I remember being here for the year in 1985-86 with Young Judea, a Zionist youth group, and thinking it was cool to spend Shabbat with Israelis. I hope none of the Hebrew U kids felt like they “missed out” because they were spending time with Americans who were visiting Israel, as opposed to being with people who actually lived in Israel.

I’ve been reading novels by Sayed Kashua, an Arab-Israeli journalist who also writes for Ha’aretz, the very left-leaning Israeli newspaper. The first book I read was Let It Be Morning, a fictional account of an Arab-Israeli journalist (hmm, suddenly it’s not sounding so “fictional”) and his family’s experiences living inside the Green Line (i.e., in Israel proper and not the West Bank territories) during the time when a peace accord is signed by Israeli and the Palestinians. The book provided a perspective to which I haven't been exposed much, and many of his Kashua’s insights and the reality of being Arab in Israel were both fascinating and heart-breaking. I just started Kashua’s first novel, Dancing Arabs, and am already engrossed in the story. I’m glad I am reading them now, especially in light of the UN vote last week, and as everyone wonders what changes, if any, will result in Israeli society as a result.

Earlier this week, when I was reading Let It Be Morning at Café Duvshaneet, a man tapped me on the shoulder and asked me in Hebrew, if I had been in Young Judaea. When I answered “yes” and looked at him, I realized it was Amir, my “madrich” (counselor), from my study abroad program in 1985! I totally recognized him but might not have noticed him because at the table where he was sitting, his back was to me. Apparently, Amir saw my face when I got up to use the restroom. It was fun to catch up with Amir, but it was totally freaky to see him! When I told Jessie (who made aliyah to Jerusalem in the early 90’s) that I saw Amir, she couldn’t believe it - there are probably a half-dozen people from my study abroad program who now live in Israel, most of them either in, or just outside, Jerusalem, and I run into him at Café Duvshaneet!

On Tuesday, the boys and I went to “Canyon Malcha” (the Malka Mall) late in the afternoon, after their Hebrew tutoring session. It was raining hard, and we needed to get out of the house – the boys had “the actives” (the CK’s word) and Pentheus had work to do. The boys picked out their Chanukah presents from Papa (my Dad) – two English books (each!). The boys were so excited to get new books, and they wanted to stay up reading until late Tuesday night. We had to take the books away so that they could get some sleep. Of course, by last night they had finished (actually, devoured is more like it) the books and are asking for more.  At the mall, the CK also bought a new “kippah” (“it’s MIT colors,” the CK exclaimed!), and a “chanukia” (a menorah or candelabra used specifically for lighting Chanukah candles). When Chanukah starts on Saturday night, I will take a picture of the chanukia with candles lit and of the CK in his new “kippah” saying the blessings!

On the way home from the Malka Mall, we saw our first fire trucks since we’ve been in Israel. We’ve seen plenty of ambulances and police cars (and, yes, the CK is still announcing aloud what kind of siren we are hearing, as if to inform us that it is not a “tseva adom”), but never any fire trucks. We can’t speak to all Israeli fire trucks, but the two that we saw were the same color red as in the States but were much shorter. It’s kind of weird, I think, that for almost 4 months, we didn’t see any fire trucks.

Yesterday, I went to Tel Aviv for the day to go to the Rabin Center and have lunch with a friend who made aliyah 7 years ago. I took a #14 bus to the “tachanat merkazit” (central bus station) in Jerusalem and then took the #480 express bus the 70km to Tel Aviv. I am not good about directions and get nervous traveling alone, so it felt kind of like a big deal that I went by myself, even if that sounds silly. The Jerusalem-Tel Aviv bus fare is 18 shekels (about $4.50) each way – pretty inexpensive. In fact, my cab ride from the “tachanat merkazit” in Tel Aviv to the Yitzchak Rabin Center/Museum was only one shekel less than my bus fare and entrance to the museum was almost 3 times as much!

The Rabin Center was great – inspiring, informative, and very well-done. Opened only a few years ago, the museum tells two parallel (“mahkbeel” – I learned that word yesterday) stories: the story of the State of Israel and Israeli society and the life story of Yitzchak Rabin. The way the information was presented was innovative (everyone wears headphones, and the audio for each section begins automatically when you stand in front of a specific display). Both stories (of the State of Israel and about Rabin himself) were presented with surprising candor, warts and all. The set up of the museum is moving; it starts and ends with a “surround screen” showing actual footage of the peace rally at which Rabin was assassinated.

The photo above illustrates some of the vitriol against Rabin - the photo second from the top calls Rabin a "bogehd" (traitor) and the wall in the background of the bottom photo has "death to Rabin" written on it.

One of the coolest things I saw in the museum was Rabin’s actual living room in his house, where Rabin was before he went to the peace rally to speak. They essentially picked up the room and placed it in the museum, exactly as it was, down to replaying the soccer game that Rabin was watching on TV. Note the Nobel Peace Prize propped up on top of the TV, in the same way we might prop up a TV guide or a photograph!

I also took some time yesterday afternoon to get a mani/pedi and to get my eyebrows done. There are certainly places to do that in Jerusalem, but I wanted to go back where my sister Karen and I had gone in mid-October. I even allowed them to put nail polish on my fingernails (which I almost never do), so that I can look extra nice for a wedding Pentheus and I are attending next Tuesday in Jerusalem. (For those of you who care, and I imagine there are only 1 or 2, I am wearing OPI "Been There, Done That" on my fingers and Essie "Smokin' Hot" on my toes.) I got some natool afterwards and headed to the “tachanat merkazit” in Tel Aviv to return to Jerusalem.

On Friday, I am going back to Tel Aviv with the WK for a Human Rights March (http://www.acri.org.il/en/2012/11/26/human-rights-march-2012/) sponsored by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Jessie had initially told us about the march, which is the flagship event for more than 130 civil rights organizations in Israel and thousands of human rights activists. The march is ahead of International Human Rights Day held annually on December 10 and promotes key human rights issues including rights for migrant workers, GLBT people, Palestinians in (and outside of) the Territories, women, Negev Bedouins, and many more. I have no sense as to how many people will be there or what the experience will be like, but I am glad that the WK is joining me. I am sure it will be interesting to participate.

To end this post on a less serious note, here a bumper sticker I saw on a car yesterday:

It reads, "teenok matok b'auto" (sweet baby in car) - the Israeli equivalent of "Baby on Board"!

Haifa (Part II) and This Week in Jerusalem

Now, where was I when I last left off? Oh yes, our week so far, starting off Saturday morning in Haifa (Part II).  After a pretty good night’s sleep, we woke up and went downstairs for a huge breakfast buffet at the hotel. The buffet was filled with typical Israeli breakfast foods (16 types of cheeses, 10 different salads, and 6 fish items – I counted) plus some of the boys’ favorites from the States (French toast, hot chocolate, and sweet pastries). We ate a big breakfast and had lots of hot drinks; the WK counted that with the natool coffees, teas, and hot chocolate, our family consumed 10 different cups of liquid at breakfast (and that’s just the hot drinks!)

It was still raining when we left the hotel shortly before 10 am and walked about 50 meters to the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art. Pentheus had heard of the museum and very much wanted us to take a look. We used the museum passes that we had bought on Thursday and were able to enter the museum without paying. Although the museum was small, the Tikotin was very interesting. There was a photography exhibit we enjoyed, and we saw the 1965 and 2003 “reprise” of Yoko Ono’s performance art "Cut Piece" wherein members of the audience used scissors to cut off pieces of Yoko’s clothes until she remained in a bra and tights on stage. Like I said above, very interesting!

After the Tikotin, we returned to our hotel to relax a bit and then check out. We moved our belongings to the car and gathered the food we had purchased on Friday, so that we could have a picnic lunch later in the afternoon. We headed out to the Baha'i Gardens and Shrine (about a 7 minute walk), where we had made arrangements for a tour in English at 12:30. The Baha'i faith, which began in Persia in the mid-19th century, believes in the unity of all religions and sees all religious leaders (Christ, Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, and most recently Baha' Allah) as messengers from G-d who were sent at different times in history to fit the changing social needs but who brought substantially the same message. (http://www.bahai.org/) I'm not sure you can tell from the pictures below, the Baha'i Gardens and Shrine are on the side of a mountain in Haifa. One can enter from the top of the mountain and view the gardens on the way down to the Shrine or vice-versa. Unfortunately, when we arrived there, we were told that both the Gardens and Shrine were closed for the day, due to the heavy rain and concern about the steps being too slippery.

We were very disappointed, especially because it wasn’t really raining at that point, and there were lots of people waiting at the gate with us who felt the same way. We weren’t sure what to do next, as every other museum (except for the Tikotin which we had just seen) closed at 1 pm on Saturdays, and because it was Shabbat, we weren’t going to drive anywhere else in the area. I consulted the section of the Frommer’s book on Haifa, and announced we were going to walk to "Mitzpeh Shalom" (Peace Park) to start our picnic lunch earlier than planned. The walk to Mitzpeh Shalom took 45 minutes, with a bit of stopping and starting. Mitzpeh Shalom is lower on the mountain than the Ba’hai Gardens entrance, but there are no steps going directly down. Instead, we had to walk from the Ba’hai Gardens entrance all the way to the end of the street and make two quick right turns, so that we could then walk all the way in the other direction to Mitzpeh Shalom.

Our picnic lunch was good – yogurt, bread, cheese, fruit, pretzels and a couple of Israeli candy bars to split. It wasn’t raining at this point, and the sun was out. The boys were able to run around a bit, and we all looked at the various sculptures in the park. There were other people enjoying the park as well – a man was playing guitar next to his girlfriend and there was a group of Arab men barbecuing and enjoying a water pipe.

After killing a few hours at Mitzpeh Shalom, we continued down the street (and down the mountain) until we came to the lower entrance to the Baha'i Gardens and Shrine. We had hoped that because it wasn’t raining anymore, that there was a chance they would open up the area to visitors again, but that wasn’t the case. At that point, the only thing we could do was to turn around and walk back up the mountain (the same way we came down) to wait for Shabbat to end when we could get into the car to leave. We took our time getting back to where the car was parked (particularly because we were walking uphill), and there weren’t too many complaints from the boys. As we walked by the Baha'i Garden entrance, we saw that the gates were open as were the steps to the first viewpoint! Although we could only see a bit more of the Gardens from the bottom of the first set of steps, the views were great, and we were so glad we got to see something!

Here are some other shots of Haifa, (especially for you, MKG) - Haifa is truly a beautiful city.

We left Haifa around 5:30 when Shabbat had ended, and we drove to Givatayim, a suburb of Tel Aviv, to have dinner with Colonel Aharon and Rachel Bar Nir, good family friends of Pentheus’s family. The Colonel and Mrs. Bar Nir are probably in their seventies, and it felt like we were having dinner with any set of grandparents. Mrs. Bar Nir worried the boys didn’t eat enough healthy food (to be honest, the food wasn’t so great), but the boys certainly enjoyed the chocolate cake with frosting and the chocolate candy she gave them. We had a lovely time with the Bar Nirs and were so glad that we saw them. We had been trying to find a time to get together since we arrived in August, but our schedules hadn’t matched. We left the Bar Nirs about 8:30 or so and drove back to Jerusalem. Both boys fell asleep in the car, and it was nice to have some quiet for a while. When we returned to our neighborhood, Pentheus easily found a parking place, and the boys went right to sleep. Pentheus and I unpacked from the weekend and watched some college football on TV. (I couldn’t get the Michigan-Ohio State game, for which I understand I should be thankful!)

Sunday morning the boys went back to school, and I had Ulpan. In Ulpan we watched a video on ynet.co.il about the "y'reed m'cheerot“ (street fairs) that were being held in Tel Aviv. At these “street fairs” shopkeepers, artists, manufacturers, etc. from Southern Israel brought their products to Tel Aviv to sell their wares in an effort to recoup sales that they lost when their business were forced to close during the recent rocket attacks. From the video we learned words and phrases such as "mechamem et halev" ("warms the heart"); "lefargen" (to award/reward); and "sheetapone" (flood, as in of people or water). We also learned the word "m'ahdahniya" which is the word for "deli", but almost everyone in the Ulpan class challenged our teacher and said that the word is never used. Our teacher insisted that it was, so I wrote it down. Little did I know that within the next 24 hours I would see the word used not once, but twice, to mean exactly that - "deli" or maybe "smorgasbord":

In the first picture, the sign says that Italian deli take-out food is on sale on Fridays, so that it can be eaten over Shabbat. ("M'ahdahniya" is the first word in the second line of the sign. Note that Hebrew is read from right to left.) The second sign at a store near the Emek offers a "deli of soap products" available at the store. ("M'adanhniyot" [the plural] is the first word in the first line.) Guess the word is used!

Sunday afternoon, Pentheus and the boys went bowling in Talpiyot and then returned the rental car. They called me from outside the rental place to invite me to join them for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Little Italy, and I thought it was great. I ordered a lamb, sweet potato and arugula pizza which was delicious! (I thought I had taken a picture of the pizza but I don't see it on my camera.) The CK liked my pizza more than the pasta he ordered, so I ended up sharing my meal with his - the sacrifices a mother makes for her son. J We'll definitely be going there again before we return to the States!

 Before going home from Little Italy, I stopped by the Inbal Hotel, across the street, to make an appointment for a massage! When Operation Pillar of Defense and the "tseva adom" started, good friends in Cambridge sent me a voucher for a massage to let me know "in a hands-on way" (their words, not mine) that they were thinking of me. It was a very sweet idea, and on Wednesday, I had an awesome massage! The voucher allowed me to use other facilities at the spa, so before the massage I used the treadmill, and after the massage, I sat in the sauna before showering. It was a very relaxing few hours! The gift was much appreciated, and I definitely needed it.

On Monday, I left the house at 7:45 am to walk the boys to school and didn't return home until after 2:30. I sat at Cafe Duvshaneet for a few hours in the morning, drank my natool, and wrote the previous blog post. Then I walked to the Emek and did a bit of shopping. The CK had a birthday party to attend, and I bought a birthday present for him to bring. I also went into one of the gift shops on the Emek and bought "chapatzei noi" (gift items - I can't think of what we call them in English - they are nicer than just knick-knacks but not super fancy. Feel free to supply the English word for me.) for the boys and a pair of earrings for me. I had the "chapatzei noi" shipped to the States so that they will have something from Israel waiting for them when we get home. I then met my friend, Jessie, for lunch at the Grand Cafe. Jessie and I had a great time, as we always do. I have loved seeing her while we have been in Jerusalem, and I will miss her a lot when we go back.

On Tuesday, while Pentheus and the CK were at the birthday party for one of the girls in the CK's class, the WK and I did a bunch of errands and kept busy. The CK needed a few new textbooks and a stencil with geometric shapes for school. I had been to 3-4 different stores near the dira but hadn't been able to find the stencil, so the WK and I went to a store further away. After the store, we went to "Canyon Malcha" (the Malka Mall) to buy some wine glasses (because I have somehow managed to break 4 of them from the dira!) and went out to dinner. I think I have mentioned this before, but I love the fact that all of the restaurants in the Food Court at the mall are kosher. The WK and I split a steak sandwich from Roza's and then bought gummy candy for dessert. (Gummy candy, another thing I will miss a lot when we return to the States.)

Last night I went to my first book club in Israel. Jessie had invited me to join the group temporarily, and I enjoyed meeting the other women. All of them, except for one woman, have made aliyah to Israel from the United States. Only a few of us had read the book, so after about 20-30 minutes, we started talking about other things. All of the women are very interesting, and I liked listening to their stories about what brought them to Israel and what their lives here are like. I'll be in Israel for one more book group, and I look forward to meeting with them again. 

Nothing too exciting today. The house cleaner came again, which was good, because we're having company to Shabbat dinner tomorrow night and a couple of guests to Shabbat lunch on Saturday as well. I went to the grocery store and to Ace Hardware to get a few things we needed. (By the way, "mafteach bragim" is Hebrew for wrench.) I had a splitting headache when I returned from shopping and tried to lay low this afternoon. I had asked the CK to go to the department store with me this evening because he desperately needs some new clothes. He has outgrown almost everything we brought from Cambridge, except for some of the shorts and t-shirts which he can't really wear now because it isn't warm enough. I had planned for the CK and me to have dinner out when we were shopping, but the CK really wanted to stay at home to read his book. Instead, the WK and I went to dinner at Katamon HaYashan (The Old Katamom) café. The WK and I spent a lot of time talking, and we enjoyed being together.

Despite the fact that the boys’ behavior hasn't been so great for a lot of the time we’ve been in Israel, it’s still been amazing to watch the boys grow and change during this experience. The boys have clearly gained more independence, in more ways than just going to Park HaMoshava or the “makolet” (corner convenient store) by themselves. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but the boys have adopted a more “Israeli” manner in the way they communicate. It’s not just that both the CK and the WK are much more likely to speak out about something they don’t like (see note above about not knowing if this is good or bad!), but they’re also more curious about what’s going on around them and more likely to think about things from a different perspective. Sometimes I think Pentheus and I have been so focused on our day-to-day living in Israel, that we forget about the big picture. I wish we could see into the future and hear what the boys as adults will tell their families and friends about the crazy 5-month adventure during which they lived in Jerusalem!

It's just after midnight early Friday morning, and the UN General Assembly just voted 138-9-41 to recognize Palestine as a non-member state. I can hear the fireworks in Jerusalem as those who supported the UN resolution celebrate. I can't say that our time in Israel has been boring!

Open House, Haifa (Part I), and Lots of Cows

Wednesday evening, the CK had a “bayit me’areach” (open house) at the home of one of his classmates from Kitah Alef (first grade). The kids in each class are divided up into groups of 5-6 kids, and three or four times a year, these small groups meet in one of the children’s homes to do a special art activity or group project. Because Israeli schools typically do not include Kindergarten or Pre-K, there are no “feeder” schools from which the Kitah Alef classes are populated. The idea behind the “bayit me’areach” is simply to create bonds between the Kitah Alef children because, presumably, the kids in Kitah Alef will most likely be in their class for at least the next 5 years, and possibly 11-12 years, if the kids go to the same high school as well. I had thought that the “bayit me’areach” only happened in the Szold School, but apparently, these occur across the country in all Kitah Alef classes.

When I brought the CK to his "bayit me’areach", he initially requested that I stay at the house with him and the other kids, but I told the CK I wouldn’t be staying. I thought that my being there would constrain the experience for him, and I didn't want to “mess up his groove.” The CK was totally okay with my not staying, and, in fact, the second we arrived at his classmate’s apartment, the CK ran into one of the rooms and played with the other kids. The CK had a great time overall, and we were all glad that he went, even if this is the only one he will attend. During the bayit me’areach, I had a natool and pastry at a nearby café and researched our trip to Haifa that started on Thursday morning.

So, the whole family went away for a long weekend to Haifa, then to Alon HaGalil, and then back to Haifa. Pentheus and the WK picked up a rental car late Wednesday afternoon and then picked up the CK and me from the CK’s bayit me’areach. We left the dira Thursday morning and drove straight to Haifa, about a 2-hour trip from our dira in Jerusalem.  Our first stop in Haifa was the Israeli Train Museum in the port of Haifa. There was nothing about the Train Museum in our Frommer’s book, but we had read about it in Things to Do in Israel with Kids. When we decided to go to Haifa, Pentheus remembered it from the book. The museum was great – we climbed in, on, and around actual trains, and we learned about the different types of wheel arrangements (Co-Co, as opposed to Bo-Bo, etc.). Another building of the Train Museum was filled with lots of train-related items, like the actual tickets from the past 65 years, different types of train whistles, telegraph machines, schedules, etc. The museum was really neat, and the boys had a great time. The WK kept saying, “This is awesome!” Big “yays” to Pentheus for remembering it.

(I love this picture with the old, wooden trains in front of the super modern-looking building!)

After the Train Museum, we tried to get lunch. We followed the directions in Frommer’s to go to Yotvatah restaurant (remember the Yotvatah B’eer in Tel Aviv, where the boys, my Dad and I had dinner and breakfast, and where my sister Karen and I had dinner?) at the end of the beach boardwalk, but we couldn’t find the restaurant, just an empty building. When I called the phone number in Frommer’s, and the line had been disconnected, we figured we needed to find another place to eat. We looked around and in the area where we were in Haifa, there weren’t many restaurants. We drove more into Haifa and found a restaurant called Abu Zhid, and after we looked for parking for a long while, we found a spot and were seated at the restaurant. Unfortunately, there was nothing on menu for us, except for hummous and very expensive fish entrees, although Abu Zhid had a great variety of (non-kosher) meat and true seafood. Instead, I went to a “makolet” (convenience store) down the street from Abu Zhid and bought yogurts, pita breads with za’atar or melted cheese, bananas and water, and we ate a “picnic” lunch if that’s what it’s called when one eats on a park bench on the corner of a busy street.

From lunch we went to the National Maritime Museum, also in the port of Haifa. There we bought “museum passes” that allowed us entry to many of the Haifa museums. I think we paid 50 shekel/adults (about $12.50) and 40 shekel/child (about $10), and we used the pass to get in to 4 different museums. The National Maritime Museum was kind of interesting, and had a good exhibit on piracy, but none of us thought the museum was that great. The most compelling part of the museum, at least according to the boys, was the National Geographic video that explained how ships are made (and, to be honest, I think anything on a TV screen would keep the boys mildly entertained). We kind of sped through the museum and headed for the Clandestine Immigration & Naval Museum right next door.

We all enjoyed the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum. Aside from having lots of interesting items and information about the illegal immigration by the Jews during and after the Holocaust and World War II, the museum included one of the actual boats, the Af Al Pi Chen (Nevertheless) that was  used to transport illegal Jewish immigrants from Europe. Inside the museum, we found out how our street, Yordei Hasira, got its name, and read the story about the 24 seamen (23 members of the Hagana and a British major) whose ship disappeared whilst on a mission to destroy fuel depots in Tripoli. Parts of the museum reminded us, especially the CK, of the illegal immigration camp in Atlit and the Hagana Museum in Tel Aviv, both of which we visited last month.

Unfortunately, the Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum closed at 4 pm, and by the time we arrived there, it was after 3:15. We wish we had gone to that museum before going to the National Maritime Museum, which didn’t close until 5 and didn’t have that much we wanted to see. The CK gave me a particularly hard time about it, which wasn’t that much fun for me.

From there we drove to Alon HaGalil, a moshava (a one-time collective farming community but now a small town) about 40 minutes away from Haifa, to visit Pentheus’s friend, Uri and his family. Pentheus worked with Uri in 1990-91 and remained in touch with him over the years. Pentheus had last seen Uri when Uri had been in Cambridge in 1999 for a business meeting, and I had met Uri then as well. Uri, his wife Michal, and 3 daughters are “good people” and we had a great time with them. They live on a fairly large plot of land and have 3 dogs, a cat, and a horse. Despite the fact that it was pouring rain (and dark) when we arrived in Alon HaGalil, we all went outside to meet the animals and to feed/pet the horse. It was a lot of fun.

Uri and Michal, had planned for us (Pentheus and me) to go to a movie with them Thursday night, and Uri’s youngest daughter (Yasmine, who is a junior in high school) was going to hang with the boys, but we couldn’t find a movie we wanted to see enough to get us out of the house during the horrible rain storm, complete with thunder and lightning. (We did, however, teach Uri the phrase “chick flick” when he read us the descriptions of the movies that were playing.)  It ended up being a great low-key evening during which we sat at the kitchen table and talked with Uri and his family while the boys drew pictures and played “Go-Go” (the next generation of the stupid Supergoal card game that I hate) until they fell asleep on the lounge chairs in the living room.  After the boys finally went upstairs to sleep, the grown-ups stayed awake and talked until after midnight.

We had many great conversations with Uri and his family. They all speak English fairly well, and the conversation bounced between Hebrew and English. I learned a lot of new Hebrew words (“l’tzachtzeach” – to brush teeth; “l’havreesh” – to brush hair; “sheegrah” – routine; “l’ahbehd” – to process; “madeem”- uniform; and “t'zoonah”- nutrition, to list just a few). At one point, Uri’s two older daughters, one of whom is in the army right now and one who is 3 years out of the army and in University now, had an “argument” about whether Operation Pillar of Defense had been a “lechima” (fighting action) or a “milchama” (war). After going back and forth for a while, the daughter who is in the army now said that if she and her friends are the ones doing the actual fighting in the thick of it, then they get to decide what it was – and, according to her, it was definitely a “milchama.”

I could write for a long time here about the “hafsakat aish” (cease-fire), in terms of what the English newspapers and the people with whom we talk are saying about it, but I am certain that I would not do the analysis justice. Accordingly, I’ll just offer a few sentences. There are lots of articles in the Jerusalem Post about how Netanyahu didn’t do enough and that the “hafsakat aish” was weak, and plenty in Ha’aretz about how Netanyahu did the right thing by not engaging Israel in a brutal ground invasion. I’ve heard some people talk about how upset they are with Netanyahu because they voted for him based on his promise of security and his hard stance against Hamas, and others praise Netanyahu for his restraint and for still seemingly being open to resolving the conflict, even if it involves working with Hamas, albeit via a middle party like Egypt. (I must admit, it’s scary that Egypt, torn between facing loss of aid from the U.S. and loss of face in the Islamic states in the Middle East, acted as the middleman - not quite the uninterested party.) The two things on which almost everyone agrees, at least from what I have read and heard, is that the “hafsakat aish” is likely only temporary, and that Netanyahu's handling of the conflict improved his relationship with Obama and the Obama administration. (As an aside, in the last few days, the WK has stopped sleeping with a kipa on his head, and the CK is down to sleeping with only 4 stuffies, instead of 5.The CK is still hyper-attentive to any siren, but it doesn’t stop him from doing what he wants to do.)

It rained all night on Thursday and it continued on Friday. After a leisurely breakfast with Uri and his family, we planned our day. We had wanted to go to the National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space, but it was closed on Fridays. We looked for other museums that were open but didn’t find any. It didn’t matter because at the CK’s “bayit me’areach” on Wednesday night, the mother hosting the event had told us about “Shveel Peerot Hachalav” a dairy farm in Beit Lechem HaGlilit, near Yokneeam, about 15 minutes from Uri’s house. Despite the rain, our family, plus Uri, Michal, and Yasmine headed out to the farm. We had a great time – feeding calves, petting and milking cows, making butter and chocolate milk, and learning all about the dairy farm. I have never heard the word "peetma" (nipple) used so many times in one hour!

We left the dairy farm, said our goodbyes to Uri and his family, and picked up a quick lunch of homemade pita (made by the wife of the man who sold them to us!) with chocolate (for the WK), za’atar and hummous for Pentheus, and hummous for me. (The CK preferred to eat a few jelly beans, potato chips and a bite of a candy bar instead. We decided not to push it because he had a big, healthy breakfast that morning.) We drove back to Haifa and checked into the Nof (View) Hotel, which truly has the best “nof” in Haifa. Windows on both sides of our room showcased panoramic views of Haifa – one side the city and the other the beautiful port. We took desperately needed showers (remember, we had been at a working dairy farm in the rain!). After Shabbat started around 4:15, Pentheus and the boys then took a walk around Haifa, and then we got ready for dinner. We had pre-paid for the dinner buffet at the hotel, and it was okay. There was a decent selection of meat, chicken, and fish entrees, plus a lot of salads, side dishes, and multiple desserts. After dinner, we went to bed fairly early and got a good night’s sleep.

Favorite Hebrew Word of the Day

I've been struggling to write this blog post. I've thought about what I wanted to say, written and subsequently deleted sentences multiple times, and then started typing again. I'm not sure what the difficulty is. The day had big highs and huge lows, and I've cried more than once. Maybe I will try to write this post again in a day or two. For now, I'll just say that I learned a new Hebrew word, and I am happy to be using it: "hafsakat aish" - cease-fire.

Another Rocket Siren in Jerusalem (we're all okay)

2:15 pm Jerusalem, 20 Nov 2012.

We just had another "tseva adom" alerting us that a rocket was launched at Jerusalem and that we needed to seek shelter. After the alarm stopped, we waited 10 minutes, per protocol, before leaving the boys' room, which is the "safest" room in the house. The boys were in the middle of their Hebrew class in the living room, and I was literally italicizing the word "exactly" in the second paragraph below (about the location of our hotel in Tel Aviv) when the "tseva adom" sounded. Overall, the boys (plus Pentheus and I) seemed to do "better" than last time. At the beginning, the CK was crying and wanted me to hug him; then, the CKwanted to stand by himself ("I don't want anyone to touch me.") next to the bed. The boys' Hebrew tutor was with us during the alarm, and I think her presence made it easier for the boys, although because she is 18 now, she only heard her first "tseva adom" last Friday night, too. The difference being: unfortunately, she has had to practice and "prepare" for things like this. She said that Jerusalemites were referring to Friday night's event as an "azahkha emeht" ("real" alarm, as opposed to a drill). It turns out that the rocket this afternoon landed in an open field about 15 kilometers from us. While I know that 15 kilometers is relatively far away, it's pretty damn close, too.

The boys seemed to be able to "bounce back" fairly quickly after this one, as I can hear them in the living room reading Hebrew aloud with their tutor. I know it's only been a few minutes and perhaps none of this has hit us (no pun intended, I assure you) yet, but it's kind of sad and disturbing that we have been able to "adjust" to this so quickly. I mean, we've had 2 sirens alerting us that missiles aimed at us have been launched, but we go right back to whatever we were doing. I don't want to "get used to it"! I guess, though, that's the only thing we can do - get back to whatever we were doing. The other option is to let the sirens paralyze us, which would be worse.

I have deleted my initial sentences from this paragraph because they were all about how there had not been alarms about missiles aimed at Tel Aviv since Sunday and Jerusalem since Friday night. I had written about how we continue to listen to the news and read the English Israeli newspapers online to find out what's going on in the rest of the country. I just heard about some of the details related to the stabbing at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv this morning, and I have to admit it's a little weird knowing that just last month, Dad, the boys, and I stayed at the hotel exactly across the street from the Embassy. I keep reading articles about how close we are to a cease-fire but I don't know how accurate the reports are. One analyst has said that the fact that Hamas launched a rocket at Jerusalem may be a sign that a cease-fire is close, and that the rocket was an effort to "save face" with Hamas supporters before a cease-fire goes into effect.

Everyone is understandably nervous about what's going on. Wherever we are, people are talking about it - at our synagogue, on the bus, in restaurants. The buses that used to play music now only play the news; the typical "mahkolets" (convenience stores) where we go to shop run out of English language newspapers before we get there. We all feel for Israelis living in the South, and now that we have had a small taste of what they've been experiencing for months, our hearts ache, especially for the children. I read in the Jerusalem Post today that 85% of all children under age 10 and 50% of all teens in Southern Israel suffer from PTSD. I can easily believe it. Here's an ad from today's newspaper in which a bank is offering special deals to those in the South whose homes were destroyed by the rockets.

The reality is that I know we are all thinking about it. As I walked the boys to school on Sunday, I made some comment about how things are getting back to normal, and the CK said, "Yeah, but I bet everyone is scared." I agreed with him but also told him that we can't let that stop us from doing things we wanted to do. The WK has still insisted on sleeping with his kippa on every night "to keep him safe," and I doubt the "tseva adom" this afternoon is going to stop him from wearing it any time soon. When the CK hears any loud noise (like an ambulance siren or a car alarm), he states aloud, "That's just an ambulance siren, not a 'tseva adom'" as if he physically needs to hear the words to convince himself of their truth. But, we're living our typical lives as much as we can, and doing what we need to do.

As I think I have mentioned, our Ulpan teacher has been great about teaching us practical words and phrases as part of our class. Well, at Ulpan on Sunday morning, all of our new words and phrases came from watching ynet.co.il, an online news source based on Yediot Achronot, an Israeli newspaper, on a laptop. To be honest, I hadn't expected the words "teel" (missile), "ahzahkha" (alarm), "charahdah"  (anxiety), and "beeroot" (interception) to be so practical, and I didn't think I would need to know how to say "From the roof, he could see that the two rockets landed in the open field." By the end of Ulpan, I knew a lot of new words, but I was really sad, too. At Ulpan today, we used many of the words from Sunday and added on more - "p'geeah y'seera" (direct hit), "rahsees bohair" (burning remnant), "cheesool" (assassination/elimination), "mahtach" (barrage), and too many more. Kind of wish we were back learning relevant words from a video detailing sites of the Old City as seen from a Segue like we did in our second Ulpan session!

The boys and I have continued to go out to see the sites. Sunday after school, the CK and I went to the former Central Prison of Jerusalem which is now a Museum for the Underground Prisoners. Sort of like the one we saw last month at Akko, the prison was used to hold prisoners, both political ones like those who fought for the Jewish underground (the Haganah) and criminal prisoners (Jewish and Arab). There was absolutely nobody else there except for the CK and me. We saw a movie in English, and visited each of the 58 rooms in the museum. (Seriously, the CK wanted to see every single room, which we did. The CK was upset when we were getting ready to leave because we hadn't seen rooms 36 and 48, but we did end up seeing them after all - they were on the same hallway as the bathrooms we used before we left the museum!) One of the interesting things we saw was the doors to the prison. The bottom opening of the door is raised 6 inches from the floor and the top opening is only at the 4 feet mark. Doors were made this way to make it difficult for prisoners to escape - a man can't just run out the door; he would have to remember to lift his feet and duck his head:

The labor work the CPJ prisoners did was to make gravestones and coffins for the British soldiers who died in the conflicts.

After the museum, the CK and I walked a bit to downtown Jerusalem and hung out for a while. Then we met Pentheus and the WK at Luigi, an Italian restaurant near the San Simon Park about 10-15 minutes from the dira. Dinner was only ok, except for the foccacio which was yummy, but we had a good time.

Yesterday after school, the WK and I spent the afternoon together. We took the #13 bus downtown and then took the "rekevet kala" (light rail) to Har Herzl, at the southwest terminus of end of the rekevet kala line. Our goal was to go to the Herzl Museum (also called the World Zionist Organization Museum) and to walk around the Har Herzl Memorial Park, where Theodor Herzl, Zev Jabotinsky, Yizchak Rabin and many other Zionist and national leaders are buried. Har Herzl also acts as the military cemetery for war veterans and those killed by acts of terror. When we arrived at the Museum just after 3:30, the Museum was closed; despite the fact that my Frommer's guide stated that the Museum was open until 5 pm, the Museum actually closed at 3:15. But at least we could walk around the Memorial Park.

Despite everything that is happening, we're still very glad we are in Israel, and as we think about leaving at the end of next month. Pentheus and I get more and more sad. To be honest (and this won't surprise many of you), I have cried almost every day this week thinking about having to leave. When I picked the CK up from school, the first thing Meital (his teacher) said was, "Chaval sh'ohzveem" (Shame that you're leaving), to which I responded, through tears, "B'vakasha, ahl t'dahbree ahl zeh" (Please, don't talk about it.) It's not that I don't want to come back to the States; I, we, all of us do. We've missed our friends and family terribly. It's just hard to think about the end of our adventure. I do know one thing, and I couldn't have said it better than the bumper sticker I saw on a car on the way back to the dira after lunch today: