I know that in my previous post, I wrote how I think I will miss the boys when they begin school tomorrow. While that is likely true, I also am looking forward to it! The boys were difficult and cranky this morning, and we had a hard time motivating to get out of the dira so that Pentheus could work. The CK was in a bad mood and complained a lot, which wasn't much fun. I wish I could say his mood improved radically as the day went on, but it didn't. Kids in Israel begin learning English in schools in the 4th grade, and I think it's just very hard, especially for the CK who knows that the kids in his class won't speak any English. Also, I think we're all nervous on the first day of school. I tried to be extra patient, but am not sure I succeeded.
Uri, the boy from the WK's class with whom we played last week, called to see if we wanted to go to a park, so we walked to his house to get him. We actually went to 2 different parks with Uri. At the first one, "Gan Hachatool Shemen" (The Fat Cat Park - so named because there is a statue of a fat cat) Uri and the WK played ping pong with real paddles this time (see earlier post about using Frisbees as paddles), but without a ping pong table. They sort of hit the ball back and forth and tried not to have the ball touch the ground. The boys also played Frisbee. The CK had brought his cheetah stuffie, and played with it a bit. I had brought "lachmahniyot eem shoko" (rolls with chocolate spread), "necktareenot" (nectarines - sometimes the words are more English than Hebrew) and "mayeem kahreem" (cold water) for us to eat/drink because it was very hot - 97 F. After a bit, we went to Gan Tsfeera (the Park on Tsfeera Street) because it had a lot of playground things to do. I learned the words for the spinning thing (I don't know it's called in English, but you get on it and turn the middle circle to go fast in circles), slide, ladder, and swing sets (actually, I already knew that one). At around 1:45, we called it a day and walked Uri home. Then we went back to the dira to meet Pentheus for lunch and some downtime.
Many of the major holidays in Judaism (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah) occur in the Fall, and we are trying to find a synagogue we like so that we can "join" a place for the holidays and find a community. We tried out two synagogues on this Shabbat. Friday night we went to Eretz Chemda, a fairly orthodox synagogue very close to the house. There were very few people, especially women, there for the Friday night service. The "mecheetzah" (barrier that separates men and women during prayer) was horizontal which meant that the men were in the front of the room, and the women were at the back of the room behind white panels (as opposed to vertical where the men are on one side and the women next to them on the other). I was the only woman there for the first 20 minutes of the service, and I wasn't getting much out of the experience. At least when the mecheetzah is vertical, the women can typically see what is happening at the front of the room; I couldn't see anything except the white barrier. Eventually, a few other women joined me. I had thought it was going to be more progressive but I was wrong.
Saturday morning we went back to Kol Haneshema, the reform synagogue where we had gone the first Friday night in Israel (where I ran into friends from years ago). We went back there because we wanted to see what a Saturday morning service is like. The people were again very friendly although there was a much older crowd than we expected. Apparently, because this is the last weekend before school starts, many people are on vacation. At any rate, the boys were asked again to open and close the ark where the Torah is kept. The sermon about this week's Torah reading was in Hebrew, and Pentheus and I were pleased that we could sort of follow it. We didn't get a lot of the words but certainly got the gist of it. Pentheus remarked that if we joined a shul where the sermons were in Hebrew, our language skill might increase!
Saturday afternoon, we had lunch with Amos and Channa, our neighbors across the street. It was lovely to be invited over. Their youngest son, a junior in high school, and their "uncle" joined us. (While Shlomo was introduced as an "uncle" we got the feeling he was a longtime family friend and not a "real" uncle.) Channa had prepared lunch, and, clearly, she didn't know much about our tastes. Poor Channa served quite possibly our least liked foods - mushroom crepes, hot tuna casserole, and mushroom/rice stuffed eggplant. I felt badly for the boys - even I wanted to make a face at the selections. Amos was very kind when he saw the boys weren't eating and said quickly in Hebrew that "no-one needed to eat anything that he didn't like." Our family had a lot of salad and challah at the meal, although Pentheus really liked the tuna casserole. Amos and Channa have a new kitten who has been living with them for 3 days. The kitten (as of yet unnamed) had a blast with the CK and WK, as they pulled strings and played games with her. (By the way, the dog Tsiyon that the CK likes so much turns out to be Amos's daughter's dog. At the end of our lunch, Tsiyon came over to meet unnamed kitten. We're not sure yet how it went.)
What was very interesting to me was that at one point, Amos asked Pentheus and me why we were taking this 5 month adventure. We don't really have a great answer to that except that we had the opportunity and wanted to do something. Then Amos asked us why we chose Israel as the place to go. We had to stop to think for a minute. Honestly, we never considered or discussed going any place other than Israel. We both feel connected to Israel and our Judaism, we speak Hebrew, and we wanted our family to live here for a while. We don't have a better answer than that.
Tomorrow I'll write about my birthday and other stuff going on, if I get a chance, but I want to close now to get some sleep. We're all getting up early tomorrow morning for the first day of school and for the boys to see Prime Minister Netanyahu! One very funny brother-in-law suggested that in order to make the first day easier, that we should teach each boy one sentence in Hebrew; that way, the boys could have something to say. I thought it was a great idea. My brother-in-law then suggested that the WK's Hebrew sentence should be "Stop the settlements!" and the CK's sentence, "End the occupation!" He further suggested that the boys shout their Hebrew sentences when Netanyahu is around. That would make for a memorable first day!
Oh, the box of books I sent on 30 July arrived today. We now have 28 books for the boys and a few for Pentheus and me. We feel like we need to ration them, as the CK wanted to read all of them today!
Wish everyone luck tomorrow!
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