Sitting in Cafe Duvshaneet and Writing the Blog

As I write this, I am sitting inside Café Duvshaneet instead of sitting outside in my “usual” spot. It has been pouring, I mean, pouring in Jerusalem. It rained most of the day yesterday, and all night long I heard the rain and wind. In Jerusalem it rains “up from the sidewalk” to quote my friend, MAT). I can’t complain; for the past 3+ months we have had gorgeous weather with only a few rainy days (and the rain wasn’t like this!). I am actually wearing pants (as opposed to shorts or a skirt) for the first time since we left Cambridge in early August.

Things here have been okay, kinda busy. I was pleased with the results of the U.S. elections, although I was super tired after falling asleep on the couch while watching msnbc coverage until after 2 am and then waking up at 6:30 am to see who won. I do hope that the country can get something done now that the campaigns are over.

In the spirit of making the most of the rest of our time here, the boys and I went to the Tisch Family Biblical Zoo last Wednesday after school.

(Please ignore the non-family members in this pic. It was the best we could do...)

The zoo was a lot of fun, although it took a while for the CK to get into the groove. He wanted to see the cheetahs first (naturally - remember the "C" in "CK" stands for "cheetah") but it didn’t make sense to cover the zoo that way. (We arrived at the zoo at almost 3 pm, and it closed at 5 after getting dark around 4:30 or so. Had we had more time, we could have seen the cheetahs first.) The zoo is in a beautiful area, almost as if it is cut into the hills. At one point, the CK said, “G-d should live here. That way he would have a great view of Jerusalem."

(The white things in the trees, bushes, and everywhere are birds. There were hundreds of them. It was like someone TP'ed the area with birds!)

The zoo had many different types of animals, and next to many of the animals, there was a sign offering the biblical verse in which the animal was mentioned. Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows that I skipped the small animal section (which included multiple snakes, I am told) and waited for the boys on a nearby bench. As a group, we particularly liked the cheetahs (again, natch), servels (yeah, I hadn’t heard of them either), penguins, birds and bears. The zoo was closing before we could get to the giraffes (which bummed me out) and the gift shop (which bummed the boys out).

 (The penguin pic is for you, REG!)

From the zoo, the boys and I went to Canyon Malcha (the Malcha Mall) to meet Pentheus for dinner in the food court. While I know we have been here over 3 months already, I am still thrilled that all of the restaurants in the food court offer kosher meat options! I had a steak sandwich from Roza’s Express (we’ve been to the Roza’s restaurant near the Emek several times); Pentheus and the WK had "pita eem hodu" (pita with turkey); and the CK had a kosher McDonalds Happy Meal. We wandered around the mall for a while after dinner before taking a cab back to the dira. We had a nice evening, and it was good that the 4 of us could do something together out of the house.

On Friday morning, I walked the boys to school per our new schedule (which, by the way, has been working out very well). When I walked the CK to his class, every kid had at least one parent and/or grandparent there; it was clear there was some kind of class event that morning. I stayed with the CK for what turned out to be a learning session about Yitzchak Rabin. (Remember that the previous week, the schools had commemorated the Hebrew anniversary of Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination in Nov 1995.) The kids with their family members were divided up into 5 or 6 groups, and we sat around circular tables. Before the session began, Meital (the CK’s teacher) announced that there was to be no discussion of politics or the political situation surrounding Rabin’s murder; the point of the exercise was to learn about Rabin as a statesman and to commemorate his death. The kids put together a timeline of pictures from Rabin’s life and ended the timeline with a picture from the assassination. Minutes before he was killed, Rabin had been singing the song “Shir l’shalom” (Song of Peace) with thousands of Israelis at a peace demonstration in a square in Tel Aviv. When the song was done, Rabin folded up the paper with the words of the song. After the assassination, the song sheet was found, in Rabin's pocket, covered in his blood. 

A song of peace stained with blood.

After the kids put together the timeline, we discussed various scenarios and how problems could be resolved without violence. The first scenario concerned two kids who both wanted to read the same book at the same time and what could be done about it. The kids had all sorts of ideas, e.g., they could flip a coin to decide who read first, they could find something for the other one to do while one read the book, etc. One little boy suggested "they could read the book together” and the Israeli grown-ups commented that they wish others would be okay with that. It was a great session, and it was clear the kids (even the CK – glad I was there to help translate what was being said) got something from it.

Speaking of translating, my Ulpan has continued to go well. I certainly got more than the gist of what was being said to the kids on Friday at school, but I didn’t understand everything. While I guess that technically means that I speak Hebrew at a first grade level, I know that I am trying hard to learn as much as I can. Israeli cab drivers must hate me because I try to engage them in conversations, so that I can hear different accents and learn some new words. Yesterday in Ulpan, we learned “b’tueem”  (expressions), which was kind of fun. I hope I have an opportunity to use the expressions, aside from trying to fit them into conversation with Pentheus!

While on the subject of Hebrew, I need to get a new Hebrew-English dictionary. The one I am using is the one I used when I was in Israel in 1985, and the dictionary is from 1975. One of the women at Ulpan yesterday strongly suggested I update the one I am using because there are so many new and commonly-used words that just weren’t around in 1975. For some reason I find that very interesting: Israel became an independent country in 1948, my dictionary is from 1975, and I have been trying to use something that is almost 40 years old.

I think I mentioned that the CK has been taking weekly guitar lessons here in Jerusalem. His teacher, Orr (meaning “light”), is in a band that had a gig at Sushi Rechavia (a local sushi place that we frequent) on Friday afternoon, and we decided to go hear them play. I picked the boys up from school at the end of the day (11:45 am on Fridays) and we walked to the restaurant in the Rechavia neighborhood where Pentheus met us. The place was packed, and we were glad we got there when we did to get a good table. Pentheus and I were by far the oldest people there, and the CK and the WK were by far the youngest! Orr’s band was great. All of the songs except for 1 were in English; the lead singer, who also wrote all of the songs, has an American mother and an Israeli father. The songs and the music reminded us a little of the Indigo Girls with maybe some James Taylor and a touch of Green Day mixed in. (We bought a couple of CDs if you’re interested in borrowing them.) At one point, there was a “Call Me Maybe/ Someone Like You” medley which everyone liked. It was fun to go and to do something like that.

(Orr is the guy playing guitar at the far right,)

At our synagogue Friday night, there was a delegation of Attorneys General from the States visiting. Rachel Pear’s (the Rabbi’s wife’s) father is the former AG for New York state, and he leads a trip of AGs to Israel each year. We met Doug Gansler (AG for Maryland) and spent a few minutes with him. (Doug is going to be running for Governor of Maryland and I told him I'd stick it in the blog.) The AG for Kentucky (Jack Conway) apparently came last year, and Doug couldn’t convince Martha Coakley (AG for MA) to come this trip. It was an interesting group of  visitors, and, per usual, Rabbi Pear had an inspiring d’var torah (“words of Torah” technically, but really means a sermon). After services, we had Shabbat dinner at the dira with our friend who is on the USY year-long Nativ program in Israel. We so much enjoy hanging with her, and it’s always fun.

On Saturday morning, we went to a synagogue called “Pelech” in the Ba’akah neighborhood. Pelech is a modern orthodox shul, with a low horizontal "mecheetzah"  (separation between men and women). Those Pelech folks are serious about finishing their prayers -- they started at 8:30 am and by 10:20, we were done. Apparently, Pelech is known as the place to go if you want to get your praying over with. The services were okay, but without a lot of “ruach” (spirit or energy) or warmth in my opinion (probably because of how fast they were going).

We tried out Pelech because we had been invited to Pini’s house (the cyclist guy with whom Pentheus worked in 1990-91 when he was here with Digital whom we saw at Café Duvshaneet a few weeks ago) to Shabbat lunch. Pini and his family live in North Talpiyot, a fairly new neighborhood in Jerusalem; there are only 3 streets so far! Pini lives on the top floor of a beautiful building and has an amazing view of Jerusalem. Even though it was cloudy and a bit hazy, we could still see across the hills of Jerusalem to the Old City, different neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and even into Jordan. We had a lovely time with Pini and his family, and I could tell it was good for Pentheus to “talk shop” while catching up with Pini about the last 20+ years.

I had Ulpan yesterday morning and then met Pentheus at Grand Café in Ba’akah to take him to lunch for his birthday. We had a good time at lunch, and it was great just to talk and spend time together outside of the dira without the kids. We talked about some of the trips we want to take while we are in Israel, some about returning to the States and when we hope to get back to Israel again. We spent some time reflecting about our family adventure. It was really nice.

You’ll note I wrote that I met Pentheus “to take” him to lunch. However, when the “cheshbohn”  (bill or “accounting”) came, the pocket in my wallet where I keep my Visa card was empty. I couldn’t find my credit card. Pentheus paid for lunch (yeah, I know, it’s a joint card, but it’s the principle that I wanted to treat him), and we started backtracking to when I had last used my Visa. I called Sushi Rechavia and it turns out I had left it there on Friday afternoon. I told them I would be over to pick it up. I am really glad I found it.

After lunch, Pentheus and I walked in the rain to get the boys from school. I had hoped to take the kids to Ammunition Hill after school but decided not to do so because of the rain. Pentheus checked the hours of the Bloomfield Science Museum, and I took the boys there instead. We took a cab from the school to the Science Museum (via Sushi Rechavia so that I could get my card) in the Givat Ram (another neighborhood in Jerusalem) campus of Hebrew University. After we got out of the cab, paid the cab driver and watched the cab drive away, the CK commented that the museum looked deserted. The CK was perceptive – turns out the Science Museum is closed on Sundays. It was raining pretty hard by then, and we tried to figure out what to do. We found an employee of the Science Museum who told us that the Israel Museum was open on Sundays and that it was fairly close.

So off to the Israel Museum we went. We didn’t need to see the Dead Sea Scrolls because we have already seen them several times. The boys wanted to go to the exhibit on Hassidic Jews (that Dad and I had seen in October), and I think they enjoyed it. The boys certainly were exposed to more about the Hassidim than they had been before, and they were particularly  enthralled by the videos and movies in the exhibit. We then went to the Children’s Wing and breezed through it because we had seen the exhibit last month. We had a good time at the Gift Shop, where I let the boys buy up to 40 shekels (about $10). The CK bought a pen that looks like a match and a bunch of Chinese erasers (please don’t ask), and the WK bought a puzzle of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. I bought a t-shirt to sleep in.

Yesterday was Pentheus’s 49^th birthday. The boys and I had planned to go out for dessert and coffee (hot chocolate for the boys) with Pentheus last night but our plan didn’t quite work out. The CK was very unhappy about the place Pentheus chose and threw a fit. (The CK claimed he should get to choose the café because yesterday was his half-birthday.) I ended up staying home with the CK to play Uno, eat cookies and drink coffee, while Pentheus and the WK went out. I think everyone had a good time but I wish we had been able to celebrate together.

Today is Pentheus and my 12^th wedding anniversary. We’re looking for a babysitter so that we can go out to eat together later this week, but for now, we don’t have any plans. I am meeting my girlfriend (my friend from high school in Kentucky who is here with her church) for lunch in the Old City and then Pentheus has class tonight. Pentheus did surprise me though with beautiful flowers in a glass vase. He's a keeper, that one!