The weekend, as we know it.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about our visit to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. As you may remember, the issues concerning the Temple Mount are difficult, both politically and religiously, for the Muslims and Jews. In today's LA Times, there is an article about the ban on non-Muslim prayer at the Temple Mount. I saw the article because our tour guide from our travels a few weeks ago put something about the article on Facebook. The article is interesting and brings up a lot of issues:  http://www.latimes.com/search/dispatcher.front?Query=temple+mount&target=adv_all

It's Sunday so the boys went back to school this morning. The CK came in our room this morning to request that if he didn't cry all week about going to school, could we please go out to sushi next weekend. I told him we'd have to see, and that I wasn't sure if I wanted to make that deal. I know we had a similar deal last week except it was to go to Waffle Bar for dinner, but the idea was to get the CK more comfortable with school, not to bribe him every week.

As I mentioned in an early post, the school uniform for the boys is a solid color shirt with the Bet Sefer Szold (Szold School) decal. The kids are supposed to wear blue shirts on days with gym, white shirts on days with a "teckes" (ceremony, or in this case, school assembly), and any color shirts on the other days. Today, when Pentheus walked the boys to school, he noticed that many of the kids were wearing white shirts (and the WK and the CK were wearing yellow and red shirts). Today is the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin in November 1995, and the Szold School was having a "teckes" to mark the anniversary. When he saw that the boys should have had their white shirts on, Pentheus ran home quickly to pick up the shirts and then bring them back to the boys at school. The CK's teacher, Meital, commented to Pentheus in Hebrew that she couldn't believe he had gone home to get the shirts and how nice that was. Pentheus explained to me that it's hard enough for the boys to fit in here and that he didn't want the white shirt to be another reason for them to stick out. I'm interested to hear from the boys how the teckes went. I had taken this picture of the bulletin board outside the CK's room but hadn't realized the teckes was today.

This afternoon, I asked the boys how the "teckes" went, and they both said it was good. Apparently, there was a slideshow about the life of Yiztchak Rabin. The WK asked if we could look on TV tonight to see if there is a television show about him, and he wants to go to the Rabin Center in Tel Aviv. (I do, too, so maybe we'll figure out a time to do that.)

Another "small world" example occurred on Friday while I was at Cafe Duvshaneet for my weekly Friday natool. This time I had called Pentheus and convinced him to join me there; in the past almost 3 months that we have been in Israel, it was Pentheus's first time at the Cafe. The Cafe was pretty busy, as it usually is on Friday mornings. When Pentheus and I were finishing our coffees and getting ready to leave, the Friday cyclists were starting to come to the Cafe. As you may remember, every Friday at 9 am, a bunch of cyclists meet at Cafe Duvshaneet. It's always interesting for me to eavesdrop on their conversations, which are both in Hebrew and English, to learn about what Israelis are thinking and saying. (Hmm, guess it doesn't sound so great that I just admitted I eavesdrop. I don't do it be nosy; it's more of a people-watching thing.)

At any rate, as the cyclists were meeting up, there were no tables or chairs for them. I commented in Hebrew that as soon as I paid the "cheshbohn" (check or bill), that we would be leaving. I went inside to take care of the cheshbohn, and when I came out, Pentheus was shaking hands and laughing with one of the cyclists. Apparently, Pentheus had heard one of the cyclists talking to one of the other cyclists and calling him "Pinni" (a nickname for Pinchas, a typical Israeli name). When Pentheus worked in Jerusalem for Digital Equipment Company for 16 months in 1990-1991, he had worked with a "Pinni" and this cyclist was the same guy. Pentheus went over and said, "Pinni?", and when Pinni responded, "Yes." Pentheus introduced himself again by giving his name. Pinni's response? "Oh, you're back!" This totally cracked me up - Pinni said, "Oh, you're back!" as if he had seen Pentheus just a few weeks ago, instead of not having seen him in over 20 years! Pentheus and Pinni caught up for a while. Pinni owns an outsourcing chip design verification start-up company in Jerusalem, meaning that other companies hire Pinni's company to do chip design verification for them (i.e., so that the other company doesn't have to do the verification work). This morning Pentheus received a Shabbat meal invitation for our family from Pinni. Pinni and his family live in Talpiot, near the "Tayelet" (a promenade overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem), which is about 45 minutes walk from our dira. Pinni says he has the best view of Jerusalem in town. We'll probably take him up on the invitation. It would be nice for them to catch up some more and for the kids to see the view of Jerusalem from the Tayelet.

We had a nice weekend. On Friday, after Cafe Duvshaneet, I took the bus to Rami Levy, the big supermarket in Talpiot. I didn't have much of a shopping list, but it's much cheaper to go to Rami Levy and I had the time to go there. I was angry though because the cost of the "nectar" (juice) that we buy at Rami Levy went way up. We used to get 3 boxes of nectar for 9.99 shekels (about $2.50), but now it's much more:

Now it's 4 nectars for 17 shekels on sale; otherwise, it's 4.74 shekels each! I also went to "Big Shop" the department store that is kind of like Target or Kohl's. I bought sweatshirts and hoodies for the boys and had the Szold decal put on them, so that the boys will have something to wear once they can't wear shorts and short-sleeves all of the time.

Friday night we went to Shabbat dinner at Daniella and Dror Keller's. We had a lovely time. Pentheus and I very much enjoy spending time with them. We talked about everything and it is always interesting to hear Daniella and Dror's opinions on things. The rest of our friends in Jerusalem are "oleem" (people who were not born in Israel but immigrated here), and "oleem" typically have a different perspective. We weren't supposed to arrive to dinner until 7:30 pm, and by the time we got home it was almost 11:30. The boys (never mind Pentheus and I) were very tired!

When Pentheus told Daniella and Dror about re-meeting Pinni at Cafe Duvshaneet, Daniella told us something interesting about the Cafe. Apparently, 10-15 years ago when the Oslo Accord broke down and there were widespread terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, the Knesset (Parliament) passed a law that required all eating and drinking establishments to hire an armed security guard to help protect the place. Cafe Duvshaneet refused to hire any security personnel and never had any security presence during that period.

The WK and Pentheus went to Shir Chadash for Shabbat services on Saturday morning, and the CK and I stayed at home. I was wicked tired and took a nap, which felt great! We had lunch meats for Shabbat lunch, and the boys went to Moshava Park for the afternoon. After Shabbat ended, Pentheus and I walked to the park to pick the boys up. We all went to Waffle Bar for dinner. The boys ordered waffles, syrup, and ice-cream, while Pentheus and I had more typical dinner meals. After dinner, we came back to the dira to get the boys ready for bed. We're still not used to school and work on Sundays!

The weather in Jerusalem has been gorgeous. We've definitely left the steamy days of Summer behind, but it's still sunny and high 70's-low 80's during the day. Because it is so nice, Pentheus had the idea that we should pick the boys up from school and have a picnic lunch. I made sandwiches, cut some vegetables, threw in some bottled water and a nectar, and off we went.

The boys were surprised that we both came to get them at school, but they were excited about the picnic. We went to a park behind the school, one where the CK and I had never been. Apparently, Pentheus and the WK had found the park when they had taken a walk on Erev Yom Kippur. The park is in Talbiya, another neighborhood in Jerusalem, between the neighborhoods of Rechavia and the German Colony. The only other people in the park were an Arab family, having a cookout to mark the Eid, a Muslim holiday commemorating when Abraham sacrificed his son, Ishmael. Here are a bunch of pics from the park:

And finally, here are some pictures of us from today. The boys each wanted to use the camera, so there are two pics of Pentheus and me, each with a different boy. And, I loved these photos of the CK and the WK. They may fight like crazy sometimes, but I know this experience in Israel has changed their relationship for the better.

Although we're in Israel, we've been trying to keep tabs on the upcoming storm. To all of you in Sandy's path, please be careful!!