Wednesday, Wednesday (a few days late)

It's almost 5:30 Friday afternoon, and I have some time to write before we leave for synagogue for Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath, which starts shortly before sundown on Friday night and ends after sundown on Saturday night) evening services and then Shabbat dinner with Rabbi Pear of our synagogue here and his family. At the moment, we are watching "Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince" on cable TV in English with Hebrew subtitles.

So, to catch up on the last few days...  We've been doing so much walking around (my FitBit is registering in the 14-17,000 range each day!) during the day and going to sleep later than usual at night that it really has been hard to get up in the morning! Wednesday morning, we did manage to get up and ready, eat breakfast, and make it to synagogue for services by around 8:15 am. We went to Shir Hadash (literally, "New Song"), the synagogue we joined when we lived here for 5 months in 2012. We were welcomed warmly, and it was great to see some familiar faces.

As many of you know, my Dad passed away in mid-June, and, according to Jewish tradition, I am in mourning period for the year following his death. One of the mourning actions involves saying the Mourner's Kaddish. (See http://divreiwek.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/merle-barbara-weiner-wekstein-zl.html for more information on the Mourner's Kaddish.) At any rate, I was the only woman at the service, and one of only 2-3 people who was in mourning. I'm emotional enough on a regular basis, but add being in Jerusalem again and grieving for my Dad, and it's not hard to believe that I was crying during the prayer. I made it through the Kaddish, and when the service ended, several of our friends came to me to ask for whom I was saying Kaddish. My Dad had visited us in Israel and had been to synagogue with us several times. It felt good to talk about Dad and share the grief, if only for a little while. What was weird was that I hadn't seen or spoken to any of these people in almost 20 months, but, still, I was comforted. Just as Rabbi Pear had asked me for whom I was mourning in Sept 2012, these people asked me for whom I was mourning now.

After services, the WK and I walked around the old 'hood for a while. We visited our old dira (apartment) and even saw our next door neighbors, who had just returned from a trip to London. It was great to see them and to catch up - it felt as if no time had passed. The WK and I then walked to the boys' old school, the Henrietta Szold, about 15 minutes from the dira. Although school doesn't start until September 1, we were thrilled that the principal of the school and the gym teacher (who had been the coach of the WK's soccer team) were meeting to prepare for the next year. When we walked into the office, they recognized us immediately and kept saying in Hebrew how sweet it was of us to come visit! They, of course, asked after the CK as well. We chatted for a bit with them, and it was really nice.

The WK and I then took my oft-walked route up HaG'dud Ha'Ivri Street and then down Palmach Street to Cafe Duvshaneet, my favorite coffee house in Jerusalem (and quite possibly in the world, too). Uriel, the owner, instantly recognized me and welcomed me back to the Cafe. The WK and I had a danish and some natool and read the day's Jerusalem Post (in English) to catch up on the news.We were both tired and hot, and it was delightful to sit and read in the Cafe.

It's now late Saturday afternoon when I am continuing this post. I didn't have a chance to publish this before we went to Shabbat services. At services last night, though, I realized that I realized that I hadn't yet mentioned the azaka (siren) that went off about midnight Tuesday night. You'd think that having a rocket aimed at my son and me would be something I would remember to put in the blog! The WK and I had come back to the hotel after dinner at Roza's and, although we were exhausted, we were trying to unwind after a busy day. We finally fell asleep around 11:30 or so, and I woke up to a long, monotone, high-pitched sound. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was an azaka and that we needed to get up and to a safe place. I heard a lot of people outside our hotel door, and when I opened the door, the majority of hotel guests were there, all of us in our pajamas. It turns out that there is no heder mugan ("protected room") in the hotel or a miklat (shelter) nearby. Because the hotel building is many years old, there was no building code in place then (like there is now) that required there to be a designated area. The safest place in our hotel is either under the stairs against the far wall (away from the windows) or under the stairs on the first floor. Everyone was very calm and almost blase about the azaka. Everyone else was Israeli, I think, and they were talking amongst themselves about how the hafsakat-aish (cease-fire) had been broken. After a few minutes, everyone went back into the rooms. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, it was almost as if I had dreamed the entire thing. The WK barely remembered the azaka. I haven't decided whether that is good or not. Certainly, thank G-d, we (and everyone else in Jerusalem) were okay, although they did find pieces of shrapnel shot down by Iron Dome on Derech Hevron (Hebron Street) a few blocks from the hotel.

So, anyway, now back to late Wednesday morning at Cafe Duvshaneet.... I had planned to take the WK to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Memorial and Museum or "Hand and Name" literally). It would be a huge understatement to say that Yad Vashem is an intense experience - a museum filled with photographs, histories, artifacts, stories, etc. about the Holocaust. We wouldn't have gone with the kids when were here in 2012 because both boys were too young. The WK is almost 12 1/2, and he's old enough probably to understand (as much as anyone can understand) what he is seeing. However, while we sat in the Cafe, I decided it wasn't a good idea to bring the WK there. He didn't need to see that yet, and I asked if it would be okay if we went somewhere else instead.

I pulled out my phone to see if there were tours of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) available for that day, but, unfortunately, the Knesset was not in session and the building is being renovated. I looked up the Israeli Supreme Court to see what its hours were. There was a tour in English slated to begin in an hour, so we decided to go to that. We took a cab over to the Israeli Supreme Court, which is next to the Knesset and near the Bird Sanctuary where the CK had been with his guitar teacher right before we left Israel in Dec 2012. In the cab ride over, we chatted with the driver in Hebrew. When I mentioned that we had wanted to go to the Knesset, he commented that the Knesset was filled with ganavim v'shakranim (thieves and liars) anyways, so it was better to go to the Supreme Court!

The Supreme Court is a beautiful building - Jerusalem stone, lots of windows, natural light streaming in. We were on a tour with 2 OU (Orthodox Union) Birthright (http://www.birthrightisrael.com/) groups. As I looked at those "kids" it made me think about my first trip to Israel in 1985 when I was 18. A French couple and an orthodox man from Williamsport, PA joined us on the tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable, but it was clear from what he said that there was a spin to his tour. He mentioned Supreme Court cases that involved controversial issues and "left-wing" topics, including Palestinian rights, Women of the Wall, payment to settlers who have left areas turned over to the Palestinian Authority, etc. He talked about how all of the natural light and windows are intentionally symbolic of the "transparency" of the Israeli government and rules of law. It was as if our guide couldn't possibly imply that Israeli society or law was flawed in any way, despite the many difficult issues involved. We enjoyed the tour a lot. We had hoped to sit in on a session, but, unfortunately, the Court was not hearing cases then. (For those of you who are interested, there are up to 15 Supreme Court Justices in the Israeli Supreme Court. A minimum of 3 Justices hear a case, but for big issues or complex cases, the Chief Justice can order that up to 15 of the Justices preside. Currently, there are 3 female Justices, although until 2 months ago when one of the female Justices retired, there were 4 out of 15.)

Wednesday night, the WK and I walked to our old favorite "fast food" place, Mana v'Hetzi ("Manna and a Half), for schwarma and lemonade. We then bought some gummies from another store in the shopping strip and hopped into a cab to meet our friends for a game of Mini Golf Extreme on the roof of a shopping mall in the Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem. The mini golf course was in terrible condition, and we were the only people there, but we had a great time. We cabbed back to the hotel and went to sleep. It was the end of another long day!

(Yikes, I am only up to Thursday - more later, I hope!)