I remembered this morning that I forgot to write about the main component of Yom CK that didn't go as planned. Late Tuesday afternoon, two of my long-time girlfriends (we grew up together but now live far away from each other) flew into Israel for their first time here. We made plans to meet them for dinner at Café Yan, the CK's favorite sushi place in Jerusalem (BTW, it's kind of scary to me that a 9-year old has a favorite sushi place in Jerusalem...) Café Yan is a kosher sushi place right under the Jerusalem Theatre (and coincidentally down the street from where the Bar Mitzvah was). We arrived there first and realized that Café Yan was no longer there. I suggested we check the tafreet (menu) at the new restaurant to see if we wanted to eat there instead. It took me much longer than it should have to see that the restaurant was not going to work for us - it served both meat and milk products (which isn't kosher because meat and milk are not supposed to be mixed) and the specialty was pork sausage kebab. Definitely not going to work for us. Instead, we wandered around the corner and ate at Sapori, an Italian restaurant that used to be Little Italy restaurant for those of you who may be familiar with the area. (It's two doors down from Olive and Fish and across from the King Solomon Hotel.)
Sapori was great, and we all enjoyed what we ate. It was also so great to spend time with my two girlfriends. More than that, I loved that my friends got to spend time with the WK and CK. One of them had visited us in Cambridge last month (and also in March 2014), so she already knew my boys well, but the other had only seen the CK when he was 5 months old and the WK in 2008 at my Mom's funeral. We have been so touched that they came to Israel for the WK's Bar Mitzvah and were so thrilled to spend so much time with them. (We left Jerusalem this morning 19 April to come to Tel Aviv, and I am already missing them!)
So back to last Wednesday. My sister and brother-in-law had arrived Tuesday night to stay with us in the dire, and we spent much of Wednesday with them. We all went to kikar tzion (Zion Square, the downtown, outdoor pedestrian shopping/restaurant area) to pick up some gifts and wander around. From there we went to Machene Yehuda, an old-fashioned outdoor market with hundreds of stalls selling everything from dead fish to gummies to clothes to spices to the most unusual vegetables and fruits. (http://www.inisrael.com/news/?p=984) The CK was very excited because his aunt gave him her camera "to document the day." This led to a rak b'yisrael (only in Israel) story: an elderly man came up to my sister in the market and started speaking very quickly to her in Hebrew. He then came over to me and started with "At m'deberet ivrit" (Do you speak Hebrew?) When I indicated that I did, the man went off on me, babbling about how my sister shouldn't let the young boy play with the camera, that it's not a toy, that maybe he'll drop it or lose it or break it, and why would she let him use it. I somehow don't see that happening in Market Basket in Somerville!
As you may know, in Judaism, the new day begins at sundown the previous evening, so, for instance, for Shabbat, we light the candles before sundown on Friday night, and Shabbat ends at 42 minutes past sundown on Saturday evening. Last Thursday, the day of the WK's Bar Mitzvah, was Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), which means that Yoni Hashoah began at sundown Wednesday evening. Yom Hashoah is a national Israeli holiday, and almost every store, restaurant, makolet (convenient store) closes at least for the evening of the holiday when it starts, if not for the whole day following as well. If you remember from reading above, the CK still hadn't had sushi as part of Yom CK, and we knew if he didn't have it on Wednesday night, it would be hard for him to have it in Jerusalem because of Bar Mitzvah events and Shabbat.. So the four of us headed down to the Emek (Emek Refaim is the name of the main street in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. We went to Sushi Rechavia, which the boys loved, but we had to eat early because the restaurant closed at 6:30 pm for Yom Hashoah. We headed hone and tried to get a good night's sleep before the Bar Mitzvah on Thursday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment