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A person I don’t know

December 13, 2007 by

Over ten years ago, I joined a mailing list for people who were interested in making aliya to Israel. English speakers who already were living in Israel answered the questions of those who were contemplating aliya. I got to “know” many of the people on the list from their postings. There were the generous and kind ones (most of them), the intellectuals (some of them also falling into the first category), the “I know everything better than you do’s”, the “I may not know, but it doesn’t stop me from preaching’s,” “I made it in Israel, but you probably can’t’s” and other assorted people.

Some of the people were people I got to meet in real life and aside from having a very different physical appearance than what I had pictured, they were exactly who I thought they were. It is/was a very special group of people.

But not everyone on the list was an answerer… there were those who asked questions. One, in particular, had a a very winning way of asking questions. I read as he asked about aliya– where it would be good for him to live given his “black hat.” It seemed like only a few months before he was here and asking how to get a stain out of his shirt. In a fllash, he was asking about wedding halls, and in what seemed like no time at all, he was asking about maternity hospitals. Then he asked about pediatricians and recently asked for more information about where he could receive services appropriate to his daughter.

As I smiled at his latest posting, I realized that if I were standing behind him in a checkout line, I would not be able to identify him, yet, I have watched his life change over the years and find myself hoping that he will have the pleasure of seeing his family grow and that together he and I and my family and friends and millions more people I don’t know will enjoy living in a safe, secure Israel.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings, Relationships

The small things

November 29, 2007 by

Sometimes it’s the small things that are the ones that bring you the most joy.

I am blessed that my two daughters both live within a 10 minute walk of my home. I am able to see them frequently, usually for a few minutes or an hour at a time, and that feels very comfortable to me.

I see my younger daughter usually a couple of times during the week and almost always at synagogue on shabbat. We have always been close. I see her baby enough to see the day by day changes as her awareness of the world grows. Now that she knows her name and consistently smiles when she sees me, I am working on teaching her to give a kiss. Just yesterday when I said the word “kiss” I saw her pucker up her lips!

I see my older daughter less. The busy working mother of 5, pregnant with her 6th, she barely has time for herself, let alone spare time to spend with me. We talk on the phone, I catch a few minutes here and there when I stop by to drop off or pick up something or someone, and I call to her as we pass her home on the way back from synagogue on shabbat. Usually she and her husband and at least the two little girls come out to their garden to greet us– her little girls with their happy smiling faces and their cheerful voices! Sometimes her older children come out too.

And there are, of course, the family events where all of my children gather. I really am blessed.

But yesterday I received a call from my older daughter and she had a morning free! We left Modi’in on a sunlit day and drove to Jerusalem and spent time walking together and looking in shop windows and having lunch. We talked about the past and the present and the future. How sweet it was! After all of the years of mothering and the years of worrying and seeing her through difficult times, yesterday was such a wonderful affirmation of our relationship. Beautiful (as she always has been), intelligent, accomplished, and possessing a grace and serenity, there was my daughter, there with me. We finished our meal and walked back to the car through the bustling Jerusalem streets.

It was a perfect day.

And when I got home, who was there but my younger daughter and her baby and our new “adopted” daughter! More happiness, more pleasant conversation, more exchanging of kindness and compassion.

Later, after they left, my husband said to me, “Would you like to go out to dinner?” And so we did. Again, it was lovely just sitting and talking and enjoying life.

It was a perfect day

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Israel, Parenting, Ramblings, Relationships

Thanksgiving

November 23, 2007 by

Living in Israel is sometimes surrealistic. OK, who am I kidding? It’s always surrealistic to live in a country that is working and building and thriving at the same time as hundreds of millions of people are preparing for/waiting for/praying for its destruction. It is a country that at once is the best place to live (at least I think so) and is the most self-deprecating, self-destructive country I know. It is a country with a huge amount of intellectual capital with little of it residing in the people who are running it.

So it should not have seemed odd to have lived in two different worlds in the last couple of days. We were getting much needed rain in quantities that were awe-inspiring and the sun would then peek out for a few minutes and then the downpours would resume. Meanwhile, my cousin who was visiting in Manhattan was messaging me about the beautiful weather there. At the same time on Wednesday evening that I was waiting for my fresh mehadrin turkey to be brought to me by a man who lives in Kiyat Arba (outside of Hebron) I was watching the Fox News Network and I was back in the US, preparing for Thanksgiving with the Americans.

And last night, we had our turkey and cranberry sauce and all sorts of goodies including pumpkin pie (baked by my daughter) and apple pie (baked by me) and we enjoyed the company of our children and our current youngest grandchild– and felt thankful– grateful for the home we knew in the US, privileged to be able to come and make our homes here, and grateful to the source of all blessings for all of the blessings that have been bestowed upon us.

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Ramblings

The moral high-ground

October 25, 2007 by

Yesterday Israel commemorated the assassination of the late Prime Minister, Yitzchak Rabin. Twelve years ago, he was killed by a man who probably was unbalanced at the time and certainly was provoked by an agent of the Israel government, Avishai Raviv, who has since been sanitized and has disappeared from public view. The assassin has been in jail ever since.

People who teach the “Rabin Legacy” speak of “the right” as having killed Rabin. They speak of the rabbis and teachers whose speech led to it. This is of course, patently untrue. “The right” is not a monolithic group and it certainly does not have a tradition of killing its opponents. In addition, every person carries the responsibility for his own acts.

It was Rabin who pitted himself against “the right,” delegitimizing them in the service of his making a peace with the Arabs that even he knew was unlikely to come. It was he who characterized “the right” as being unworthy of consideration. His words and actions were harsh.

So now, each year on the anniversary of the assassination, the Rabin spokespeople talk about democracy and openness, and it was only last night that one of them said (referring to the assassin) “he and his whole disgusting family of insects…” and then went on in a high-toned manner to deplore “incitement.”

I think that Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination was a terrible, criminal act, but I despise the fact that those who revere him have used it to demonize a significant part of the population. If that is his legacy, it should best be forgotten.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings

Preparing for Rosh HaShana

September 10, 2007 by

It doesn’t happen often, but this year, we in Israel get to experience what we used to have in the US- a “three day yom tov.” One of the many benefits of living in Israel is that we have them only rarely because except for Rosh HaShana, all of the two day holidays outside of Israel are one day holidays in Israel.

How well I remember being on Army bases in the US with four and then five children, the only religiously observant family, celebrating two days of holiday plus shabbat. Oh my. Aside from the occasional Army couple or lonely single soldiers, we had few guests since everyone else was working and the children’s friends were at school. It was a long three days.

But now everything is different because those three days will zip by with family and friends joining us and with us joining them for meals and conversation and walks in the park. Holidays are such happy, joyful times here. But the three-day yom tov does bring its own sources of anxiety:

1. Where am I going to put all of the food I need to store to serve for the next three days???
2. Will there really be enough fresh vegetables to make a good salad for shabbat?
3. Will 4 potato kugels be enough?
4. Is it possible to stay on anything like a decent diet in the midst of this food orgy?

Tune in for the answers to these and other questions in our next exciting episode:
“Why can’t Yom Kippur be three days long?”

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Ramblings

For Vicki & Diane

July 31, 2007 by

Subtlety was never my strong suit.

Today my husband and I and our older daughter and her youngest daughter got up early in the morning (especially early for our daughter who only last night returned from BlogHer in Chicago) and drove to Ben Gurion Airport. A phenomenal thing happened there.

We were waiting for a planeload (yes, a whole plane full!) of new American immigrants to Israel. The old terminal at the airport was filled with friends, relatives, dignitaries, and anyone who wanted to greet our new family members who were finally coming home.

While we waited, a bus came toward us and on it were a group of Ethiopians who were also coming home. We sang to them “Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem” and with tears in our eyes waved our blue and white flags. And then the buses of American “Olim” started to arrive. We couldn’t suppress our tears of joy. We stood there holding aloft a banner with the names of the people we were waiting for on it. All around us there was music and singing and dancing and people of every age, size, shape, attire, and color were enjoying this moment together.

When finally we made contact with our new olim, it was really a feeling of family being reunited even though they were not members of our family. But at ceremonies like this, sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh, we come together and for a short time are everything we are supposed to be- warm, welcoming, and happy to see our family come home.

Filed Under: Family life, Israel

Comments & Life in Israel

July 20, 2007 by

First of all, I have once again changed the settings on my blog so that real people can write their comments on my postings. For several months it seems the only comments getting through had to do with medications. The spammers know all of the tricks! Anyway, if you would like to comment from now on, it is possible. Comments on past postings are also welcome and I will respond, if it seems appropriate.

And now to life in Israel.

Today I saw some friends and one told me about this incident that he witnessed…

He was in an area of Jerusalem that has recently become home to a large number of ultra-Orthodox people. He was standing near a bus stop where there was a young woman “more unclad than clad” waiting for a bus. As the ultra-Orthodox men walked by, they averted their eyes and said nothing. One of the ultra-Orthodox men walked by and looked in her direction and kept walking. A few minutes later, he returned with an apple and offered it to her. She was perplexed. She said, “For me?” He said, “Yes.” She still looked puzzled. He said, “Eve also didn’t know she was naked until she ate the apple.”

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings

Xmas in July

July 9, 2007 by

We get US TV programs late in Israel. Not all of them. However, when it is a series that is broadcast here in the daytime, chances are that people in the US saw it quite a while ago. And that is why today while I was sweating on the stationery bike at the local health club, I saw Dr. Phil’s Xmas show (part 2 of 3) from 2005. Yes, you got that right. We had Xmas on the 8th of July in Modi’in.

Everything from here on in, as you may have guessed, is old news. For you. For me, it was quite a revelation.

On this show, they were distributing toys and other play equipment to children who had been involved in Hurricane Katrina. Since I arrived in the middle of the show, I saw only the following: Dr. Phil and Robin distributing to the children ALL of the toys on the gift list that each child drew up for him/herself; an announcement that all of the children would be going to Disneyland; and their opening a gate behind which were a myriad of additional toys (including a laptop computer, electric cars, bicycles, etc.) that every child would get.

I saw the children grow more and more excited. I saw the parents with tears in their eyes. I stared incredulously.

I think I am no longer part of American culture. I found the over-the-top commercialism of it all sickening. I saw people in ecstacy over material goods. I saw people blessing Dr. Phil for being a true humanitarian. I couldn’t believe it.

What were they doing for these children? Were they replacing a loved toy lost in the flooding? a favorite book? or were they drowning out the child’s feelings of loss and sadness by overlaying a material goods ecstasy? Were they saying to these children, “here, now you can’t feel loss and pain any more because you now can fill yourself with all of these things.” Is the way to happiness and fulfillment through thousands of dollars of gadgets and toys? What about Dr. Phil’s advice to parents of children in crisis situations he gave on the very same show, “Keep a child’s world consistent; have consistent rules, expectations, bedtimes…” Is that what this was? Was there any sense of proportion to all of it?

And what did this show teach America?

It’s interesting to me. Israel has become more and more westernized during the time I have been here. To some extent its values have changed, but here, when faced with very similar circumstances (last summer’s Lebanon war when citizens of the north had to flee their homes for safety) the benefactor who took on the job of caring for the families provided air conditioned tents and showers, wholesome food, laundry services, entertainment and movies, classes and activities for adults and children. In addition, the refugees also received health services and psychological counseling.

And that seemed right.

It makes me wonder. Did people in the US seeing that show have the same reaction that I did? Or am I living in a culture that is really very different?

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Israel

There’s no place like home

April 5, 2007 by

If you’ve never spent a Passover in Israel, you cannot understand this fact: it is the only place to be for Passover.

The fun begins just after Purim. The stores begin stocking Passover goods. No, I am not talking about matza, which of course they bring in about then. Nor am I talking about gefilte fish which of course shows up around then. I am talking about housewares– all sorts- from dish towels and tablecloths to dishes and flatware and pans and pots. Suddenly, it’s impossible to forget that Passover is on its way.

Schools let out a full week before Passover. Why? Because all of the teachers need to clean too. There are all sorts of activities for children the week before Passover as their parents endeavor to find a place for them to be besides underfoot.

Yeshiva boys too stop their studies a week before Passover so they have plenty of time to do cleaning jobs to earn some extra money. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, they even show up when they said they will (mine disappointed me this year!)

Seder night, everything really is different. The street quiet down as everyone is having something of a seder, even those who would not consider themselves “religious.” The children, freshly scrubbed, enter into a new reality as they see their homes and their grandparents’ homes transformed for Passover.

But for me, the real highlight aside from hearing my just two year old granddaughter (she turned 2 on March 14!!!!!) ask the first of the four questions, was the first day of chol hamoed.

We drove up to Sachne (Gan HaShlosha) to drop off our son-in-law at the annual juggling convention. Sachne is a park with large beautiful deep ponds where the swimming is idyllic. The water was warm and the pond was almost devoid of people and we swam there feeling such happiness amid the verdant beauty. In the distance there were bougainvillea already in full bloom. There was the sweet sound of the waterfall downstream from us. It was perfect.

Of course Israelis love to get out into the country to enjoy nature on holidays. Only a week ago we too had been in a hike on a nearby mountain and we had enjoyed seeing the vast variety of wildflowers. However, that meant that going home was going to be something of a trial with the heavy traffic.

In the end, we chose to drive back through the Jordan Valley on a road we had not taken since the start of the most recent intifada. The trip was very pleasant. We looked over at the nearby villages in Jordan where the agriculture has developed notably in the past couple of years. We stopped at a service area and I was stunned to see TWO certified kosher for Passover restaurants! (in the middle of the wilderness).

We have lived lots of places. We have enjoyed all of them. But there’s no place like home.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings

Tragedy

March 16, 2007 by

From Ynet News:

Road accident orphans 8

Head-on collision near Hebron kills parents of eight, Palestinians stone rescue services

Efrat Weiss Published: 03.15.07, 14:09 / Israel News

Eight children were orphaned Thursday morning, when their parents, Rabbi Avraham (41) and Simcha (38) Cohen-Or, were killed in a head-on collision with a bus near Hebron.

One of the couple’s daughters was critically injured in the accident, and three others were lightly injured.

The accident may have occurred as a result of poor weather conditions, [it was snowing this morning] which caused the driver to lose control and collide with the bus at the intersection.

A Magen David Adom crew arrived at the scene in order to treat the injured, but found the parents already dead. Their daughter, who was critically injured, and three other victims, were rushed to hospital by helicopter.

While the MDA crew was working to evacuate the victims, Palestinians stoned the ambulances and police vehicles at the scene.

Since the beginning of the year, 89 people have been killed in road accidents in Israel .
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I am out of words.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings
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