זאת חנוכה?

There's a lot going on in Israel during Hanukkah -- lectures, tours, shows, concerts, plays, etc. -- and we managed to participate in... almost none of it! You can look here or here to see what we could have done.

We had big plans, but two things kept us from carrying them out.  One was that Sheryl had a ton of Israeli students who waited to the last minute to finish up their college applications, and so she had too much work to do.  She was really happy to finish yesterday, though her schedule meant she had little time for anything else this week.

Even cooking, with which she usually graces us.  We had almost nothing but take-out for Shabbes, which hasn’t happened in our little apartment before.  Hannah, Elana Greenbaum, and Talya Kresch were with us.  We tried to get quality take-out (it wasn’t!), but we enjoyed seeing them nonetheless. Hope they don’t mind too much that they didn’t get any of Sheryl’s typical fantastic fare.

A bit surprising from my Euro-centric Jewish background, but there aren't a lot of latkes around Jerusalem.  For those of you who saw the video that Hannah worked on last year at Nefesh B’Nefesh, however, (and starring Detroit’s own Miriam Barth!) you know that Israelis are really into their sufganiyot.  Hannah even told us about something called “The Sufganiyah Challenge” where you eat one sufganiyah on the first night, two on the second night, etc.  We weren’t up for 36 sufganiyot, but you could  find that many places serving amazing, different varieties.

 

 

and, yes, that is a Tiramisu Sufganiyah on the right.

Anyway, while we didn’t get to do as much as we planned, there were a handful of highlights in the week that would like to share with you.

1. Tuesday.  I was sitting doing some work in the apartment and I thought I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it up there was a pizza delivery guy standing there.  “Apartment one?”  Yes, I replied.  “Korelitz family?”  Yes.  “Sher...Shar...Sheerel?”  (Israelis seem to have a hard time with Sheryl’s name.)  I was pretty sure we hadn’t ordered any pizza, but it was indeed for us. Turns out one of Sheryl’s Israeli students was so grateful for her help he had said he was going to get her a pizza, which she said was unnecessary, but she was really touched when she realized what was going on.  We all thought it was pretty cool (and tasty.)

2.  Tuesday night.  Probably the artsiest things I’ve ever done.  A performance piece called “YouMake ReMake” by Israeli choreographer Renana Raz, where dance and YouTube videos commented on one another.  And if that’s not enough, it took place in the galleries of the Israel Museum.  When I see that it print, it sounds kind of pretentious, but it was really good, at points funny and insightful.  One of the closing pieces was quite powerful and haunting; we won’t soon forget it.  I wish I could describe it to you, but there is no way to do it justice.

3. Wed-Sat.  There were two main reasons we didn’t end up doing more this past week.  Besides Sheryl’s work load, Zoe was gone for about half the holiday.  She went away with Bnei Akiva for a leadership training program Wednesday through Saturday night.  I think I mentioned in an earlier post that BA all but ends here in 10th grade, unless you take on a leadership role, which Zoe is doing.  We’ll have to wait 'til later tonight to find out exactly what that means.

4. Thursday. Think we’ve also mentioned before that Thursday night here is like Saturday in the States.  Which means that if you want to go out for dinner on Thursday, you sometimes need a reservation.  All the more so during Hannukah, when a lot of of people are going out.  And even more so when xmas falls at the same time, which (thankfully) brings lots of tourists to Jerusalem.  Unfortunately, when we went out to dinner with Allison and Benjamin Pollock this week, no one thought to do that.  We had wanted to go to Agas and Tapuah (Pear and Apple), which we just went to a couple of weeks ago with Rabbi Hadar’s father Yoram, and his sisters Tali and Bat-Sheva and her husband Wayne, but that evidently wasn’t going to work.  So after being told in no uncertain terms that there was no room at the inn, we were standing outside the restaurant trying to figure a decent place to go to that wouldn’t present the same problem.  After about ten minutes, we hadn’t made any progress when we suddenly had what can only be described as a Kresch moment; someone came outside and said they had just had a cancellation, did we want it?  (OK, doesn’t measure up the Kresch’s Grand Canyon story, but by us it was still a cause for excitement).  We had a great time, including getting to hear the owner (who inherited a love for opera from his Milanese mother) bentsch licht for Hannukah.

Hope your last day of Hannukah is wonderful. Shavua Tov.

What Happens in Israel...

  

תרבות ישראלית

So we've all had some nice cultural encounters recently, and some nice encounters with Israeli culture.

Hannah:

Zoe was gone last Shabbes (see below) but Hannah and her roommate Eliana were back, and we had a great time with them -- of course!  

They left right after Shabbes, though to go do some volunteering for a relatively new organization called Here Next Year,

which provides information, guidance, and general assistance to young kids here on gap year programs who are considering staying a bit longer, for army, national service, or college.  Some of them might be considering aliyah, but that’s not really what this group is all about.  Hannah and Eliana (who both attend Tel Aviv University) went to talk to students who might be considering attending there. (Sheryl actually stopped by on the way to an Akiva reunion.  But here’s a picture of her at Hannah’s event, wearing what she she describes as her frum and puffy outfit).

Hannah also stopped by the apartment for a few minutes later in the week (really not much more than that, though it is one of the perks of the year to get to see her for even a few minutes) ‘cause she was going to a local seminary to discuss national service, which of course Hannah also did.

Seth:

Danny Nevins was in town for a week of work, but we were really lucky to get together with him a few times (including a fly-by appearance by Hannah
on her way home from that seminary visit.

Wednesday night Danny and Seth went to the Jerusalem Jazz Festival, just in its second year.  (Don’t tell my Aunt Debbie, who will feel justified in recalling our debate from 35 years ago, and her insistence that I would eventually like jazz.  OK, fine, you win!)  It was conducted in conjunction with the Israel Museum; you got to listen to jazz and see a little bit of art at the same time. Such a cool (if I may borrow some classic jazz jargon) idea.   

We first went to listen to  an American group, the Jeff Ballard Trio.  He’s a great drummer, and we really liked his guitar player, too.  Maybe if I was more of a connoisseur I could comment on his sax player.  Then we heard the closing of a set by an Israeli group, the Hagiga Sextet, whose piano player was particularly fun to watch. The headliner was Rickie Lee Jones, accompanied by an Israeli outfit called the Non-Standards Project.

 

It had been raining all day, the heaviest rain of the year so far) but had all but ended by the time we left around 11, so Danny and I decided to take a longish walk home, including a short detour to visit the apartment he and Lynn had lived in 25 years or so ago when he was a student here.  It was a great night of music, art, and schmoozing.

Sheryl:

There is something here called Open Restaurants which took place recently. It started in Tel Avi, and has since spread out.There are food events throughout the city every day:  food demonstrations at restaurants, chef talks, food tours, even chef tours at the Israel Museum. Sheryl wanted to go to at least a dozen events but only made it to one.  She and Aviva Cohen went to hear Nomi Abeliovich, who did the background research for the Yoatam Ottolenghi book, Jerusalem.  This talk was in English and really wonderful.  Many of you probably know this cookbook which was an international sensation and they got to hear how it came to be.

First of all the setting of the talk was great.  It took place at the Abraham Hostel in the center of town.  Aviva had been there years ago but it is really very clean and hip these days with a lounge, bar, communal kitchen, and events.  It was filled with people from all over the world, back packers and lone, young travelers.  There is very little that makes Sheryl want to be 21 again but this place did.  

The talk took place in the lounge area and a screen was set up. Aviva and Sheryl really liked Nomi Abeliiovich, who is good writer, really insightful and had a great story to tell.  Her job was to research what foods were authentically Yerushalmi by going to bakeries, restaurants, private homes, markets, etc.  She had a lapsed Haredi take her through Meah Shaarim; she went into a basement bakery in the Eastern part of Jerusalem where all they make is one delicacy and they are the only place that makes it the world; she went to a Moroccan home cook making Shabbat dinner for her children using two bottles of olive oil for this one meal.  It went on and on.

She wrote down original recipes and gave them to Yoatam and Sammi and they tweaked them the Ottolenghi way.  A former Jerusalemite, she had a great grasp of the city.  Aviva and I were so glad we ventured out on a coldish night.  So put that on your travel plans to come here if you are a foodie.  You will have the most amazing trip.  Check out the website so you can see what you missed: http://open-restaurants.co.il/?lang=en

Sheryl and Seth:

Seth’s old teacher Jonathan Sarna is Israel for the year, and Seth and Sheryl have been going to a small series of talks he’s giving at Pardes.  (We also had a nice dinner one night on Emek with Jonathan and his wife Ruth Langer, who is herself an accomplished historian).  The lectures have been a lot of fun, as talks by Jonathan always are.  

We hadn’t been able to get together all year with Amitai Zuriel, whom some of you might remember was a Steinsaltz Ambassador in Detroit for a couple of years.  But he joined us for one of the lectures, and then we hung out a bit afterwards.  He’s still a super smart and super sweet guy.  What a treat.  Now that we’ve made contact, as it were, we plan on seeing him more  often.

Zoe

Most of us are aware that there can be some slight differences in the Jewish calendar in Israel and that of Jews living outside the Land of Israel.  What most Americans don’t realize, however, is that Israelis actually have an entire other month around Kislev: Hodesh Irgun. What?  An entire month we don’t even celebrate?!  It’s true, though it took us a while to realize what was going on.  Our first clue was Zoe’s extended absences from home, going out it seemed on a nightly basis.  Then she started taking things from our home, like folding tables and extra food.  Sometimes she returned covered in paint.  Then came a letter from school saying they understood that our daughter might miss some school, but that this would be ok with them.

Finally, Zoe was home long enough to explain to us what was going on.  It’s called Hodesh Irgun. And no, it’s not really an an extra month; it’s the name given here to the transition between the end of one year’s activities for Jewish youth groups and the start of the next year.  It’s a highlight of the year for them.  It involves all sorts of activities:  there are committees (Zoe’s was selling food at a kiosk, thus the extra grocery shopping and the borrowing of our table -- for serving); there is painting (thus her colorful appearance on arriving home) of their youth center with decorations apropos the new theme; there is evidently a lot of cheering, dancing, sleepovers, and more than one all-nighter.  It ends with a Shabbaton, entirely coordinated by the kids, including preparing the food.  Parents are actually invited Shabbes afternoon to see the newly painted walls and on Saturday night to see some of what the kids have been working on, including a daglanut/flag dance (although not done by Zoe’s age group).  (In Zoe’s branch, at least, this included  girls and boys , in contrast to back home where flag dances are the exclusive purview of girls).

The climax of the Shabbaton and the entire Hodesh Irgun is the moving up of each age group and taking on the name of the age group that had been ahead of them -- and the oldest kids (9th graders) getting a new, special name that belongs to them forever.

And that’s it for this little window into our cultural excursions.  If we don’t speak with you before, best wishes to all for a חנוכה שמח !

What happens in Israel...

A few random thoughts

Seth has a big project for Pardes due this week so he is no help with the blog which means you get me again.  Seth will end up taking over in December since I will be working on deadline.

I have been saving some general observations that I thought I could mention at some point in the blogs, but I think I will make this the theme of this week’s installment.  As observed on the street . . .

The Language

So the members of our family function at different levels in Hebrew. Zoe’s Hebrew is very good (though to be honest we don’t hear it much.)  Same goes with Hannah.  It is amazing how far I am able to go on my Hillel Day School Ivrit (kindergarten through 9th grade) that I learned those many years ago.  It has been a long time.  My speaking is not good but I do understand a lot.

For instance, Allison and I went to an Israeli movie Saturday night that I really wanted to see.  It was the new movie by Rama Burshtein who made Fill the Void, which came out a few years ago.  (That is a great movie by the way if you have not seen it.  I won’t give the plot away so that you can be surprised but it is an exceptionally done film in any language.)  So the new movie is called Through the Wall, and I watched the trailer on the computer and told Allison I was up for it.  I assumed I would not get that much of the movie but I have to say that I did pretty great and got almost all of it; what saved me was the fact that there were Hebrew subtitles which were so helpful because when they talked fast, I got none of it.  Anyway, fun movie. I liked it.

Also, the Rabbi’s talks at Shul on Shabbat.  I usually get the point.Some weeks I space out and once you are lost, it’s hard to get back to a place where you can follow the argument.

My vocabulary is definitely growing especially all the practical words I use all the time for shopping and getting places.  There are so many food words in the world!  So many nouns!

But speaking is another story.  When I have to run an errand, I usually look up the essential words I will need to express myself and then go to the store or wherever and give it a try. Sometimes when I speak, they start talking back to me in English and tell me I can speak in English but I say I want to try and they LOVE that.  I usually can get by.  No one ever makes fun of me.  I have to say that my best character trait for this experience is that I am both a little fearless and completely impervious to embarrassment in these situations.  It is a gift.  I do not know why I am not self-conscious about sounding like an idiot but there you have it.  So I will talk to anyone in my terrible Hebrew.  Cabdrivers love me.

Some observations:  in general, people start speaking English to me before I open my mouth.  Obviously, I look American.  Is it my clothes?  My hair?  The fact that I smile (I am not kidding)?  Who knows?

Imagine the most ridiculous situation to be in where you do not understand the language being screamed at you.  I am not talking about something dangerous or health related.  I think I had the experience:

So I have mentioned my spinning classes.  I think I have also mentioned the mall.  I spend a lot of time at the mall.  It is one of my favorite places which is interesting because I almost never go to the mall at home.  I don’t really like them much.  But Kenyon Hadar (or Hadar Mall) is different.  It is a microcosm of life where I get to see what goes on in Israeli society and it is hopping. You can learn a lot at the mall.  It is across the street and up half a block so it takes less than 5 minutes to get there.  My gym is there which is great.  So I go to the gym 4 or 5 times a week and usually around 8:00 or 8:30 before the mall is technically open.  You have access to it but only one entrance is in use and only the gym and Roladin café are open for business.  So I get to the mall, say hello to the security guy who is very nice, and get to see many of the shopkeepers getting to work, lifting their security gates, cleaning the windows and cutting the fruit at the smoothie stand.  It is very quiet with only a handful of people around.

So one morning a couple of weeks ago, I am doing my regular routine on my way to the gym on the second floor in the mall and as I get closer to the gym hallway, a man starts yelling at me and frantically waving his arms.  He is yelling words I do not understand and it makes me stop in my tracks because he seems so distressed.  But his yelling gets louder and his gesticulations increase and as I look over his shoulder I see that a motorcycle is coming at me and revving its engine and I see that there are lights and cameras and then I realize that I am ruining the director’s shot for an ad that has probably taken him hours to set up.

So I need an ulpan.  I have found where I am going to do it and it starts in January.

Men

A casual observation, not scientific mind you, is that men grocery shop here much more than at home.  At least half of the people in the grocery stores are men, at least half.  And very often when I see religious women they are accompanied by their husbands.  The same holds true for Arab women who are often accompanied by their husbands.  I do not see so many men grocery shopping in suburban Detroit.  I do not think I am making that up because I do not think I would have found it so striking when I noticed the men here if that were the case.

And these men know how to shop.  They shop like cooks.  I love watching them in the produce section.  They are hard core and really check out the goods.  When a guy has taken two full bags of tomatoes, I know they are good.  One time I asked an older gentleman about the cucumbers when I was at my main grocery store, Osher Ad, which can be a stressful place to shop.  He was already filling his second bag and I asked him if the cucumbers (melafefonim – it’s a mouthful) were good.  He was wearing a kippah and his answer to me was, “Of course.  Of course. We are in the Land of Israel, everything is good.”  And then he started to pick out cucumbers and hand them to me.  And lest you think that he was being a little idealistic with his Zionistic cucumbers, they were actually delicious.

Also, I see groups of men here in ways that I do not at home. Beside for sporting events, I do not think that groups of men just hang out together so much in the States, but I might be wrong about that too.  Back at the mall around lunchtime, I see whole tables of men hanging out for hours.  They are eating, drinking coffee, playing cards, playing some tile games, and laughing a lot.  They are having such a good time that I really notice them.  In threes, fours, sixes or even eights, they sit and enjoy each other’s company.  They touch each other a lot.  They put their arms around each other.  They hug. They kiss when they meet.  Especially the older guys.  They are so affectionate.  I am telling you the mall is a blast.

I thought it was a universal truth

There are things that we all take for granted as being true and that should translate to any culture, like the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, the laws of gravity, that people need food and water to survive and that dogs and babies are cute.  Whoa there! Guess what?  Dogs being cute is not the given you might think it would be.  As you know I adore dogs of all sorts and I find them charming and adorable, physically adorable.  So it came as a surprise to me that Israelis do not seem to notice, let alone embrace, the fact that their dog might be cute.  I found this out the hard way.  You know how in  Huntington Woods or anywhere else in the United States, the easiest way to get people to talk to you and be nice to you is to be walking a puppy?  How excited do people get?  They want to touch the puppy.  They ask you everything about the puppy’s provenance and share stories about similar puppies they know.  They get down on the puppy’s level and their human voices raise by several octaves.  I am not making this up, right?  So imagine my surprise when I am walking along the Mesilah (train track park) and admiring all the dogs with their owners and smiling at the dogs and their owners and laughing at the silly things the puppies are doing and I start getting the fish eye from the humans who it seems think I am strange and stalking them in some weird way.

They really do not get that I am enamored of their pup.  There is no exchanging smiles or desire to engage and share stories.  And just so you know, it is not just me.  A couple of weeks after we were here, Seth confessed to me that he felt bad because none of the dog owners would even look at him on walks and he wanted to tell them how cute their dog was.  So now it is this thing Seth and I share and we are not sure anyone else in Israel cares or notices.

This is what I can tell you about the dogs here: they are so Israeli ! First of all, the VAST majority of them are not on leashes.  How is this possible you ask, when you are walking in a park with children and old people and so many bad things could happen?  It’s crazy but the dogs are great.  They just go on their merry way and sniff the ground and occasionally pee on a tree and just do their dog things without barking or attacking anyone.  Half the time I cannot even tell who the dog belongs to because either the dog or the owner is a half mile up the road and, yet, it works out.  I see dogs, unleashed, sitting near owners watching the world go by and not a peep.  For those of you who know (and love) George, you know that he would not be so with this program.  Anyway, Israeli dogs are not into rules and do their own things but are independent, don’t need a lot of hand-holding, and are really solid citizens.  

And no one seems to think they are cute.

The Weather

So I have been wearing my winter coat.  It is not just me; I see others as well.  The temperature has been getting down to 50, sometimes in the 40’s at night.  I am always freezing anyway.  We have space heaters for the bedrooms and a forced air unit in the living room. They work well enough for me.

I love the weather in Jerusalem, not so in Tel Aviv.  That city is HOT. The first time I went was in the second or third week of being here when it was close to 90 in Jerusalem.  When I got off the bus in Tel Aviv, I could barely breath, there was a wall of heat that was so oppressive to me.  Tel Aviv is usually 10 degrees warmer than Jerusalem but now there seems to be even more of a discrepancy. Jerusalem gets crazy winds.  Plus there is all this dust that gets kicked up all the time.  This is a dusty place.

I once discussed with Allison Pollock if the weather was like Atlanta’s a bit and she said Jerusalem is close.  We will see if we get snow.  Happy to miss it.

The Bureaucracy

I know everyone says that it is a nightmare here with the bureaucracy and, in truth, since we have not made Aliyah, I think we are missing a lot of the more difficult stuff, but I have to say that when it has been encountered, it really has not been bad.  Just saying.  Getting our visas was a breeze and pleasant.  Seth had the nicest experience with the cable company when our internet was turned off because we did not sign up correctly and all it took was ONE phone call to the company and the guy took payment, got it all straightened out, reinstated our cable and transferred us to another department to check that our cable turned on while someone waited on the phone.  All in about 10 minutes.  I refuse to call the cable company at home because it is a miserable experience that will take a half dozen phone calls (where I have spent at least 30 minutes on hold) and still not be fully resolved.   Also, the Israeli took care of it while speaking a foreign language.  He said his English was not so great but it was.  (A cute aside:  When Seth called and got the cable guy on the phone, Seth asked if there was someone there that spoke English and the cable guy said, “Me.”  But Seth thought he was saying "מי?  which means, 'who,' in Hebrew and then Seth explained he needed someone who spoke English and this guy said, “Yes, me.” And Finally, Seth understood.)

Zoe’s school has been great with the bureaucracy and so flexible.  I had to go to the doctor (no worries, I’m fine), two different walk-in clinics, get an ultrasound and use my insurance plan and it was all great and went smoothly. People are just really helpful and nice.  I know that sounds counter to what the world says but I cannot complain.  In general, there is bureaucracy like anywhere in the world.  I find the difference with Israelis is that nothing is ever written in stone.  If you ask nicely and say there is a problem, people tend to help you and even break the rules a bit.  (As Seth says, some people say this is built into the culture, since so many of the founders were coming from places where by definition they looked at the State as something that had to be worked around).

As you can see, I have been noticing a lot.  Living in a foreign country gets you doing that.  I guess it is noticing differences and similarities.  But not that much feels strange here or really foreign.  I happened to mention this to Yehuda Rothner, the past director of Camp Stone, (See the Simchat Torah blog) when I saw him at shul. I said it was so strange that I was living in a foreign country and that it did not really take any effort to adapt to and he said that it was because it was not a foreign country, it was my country.  And that is the second Zionist moment for this blog.

Pictures for the week

The humongous cauliflower I bought at my favorite produce place on Derech Beit Lechem.  

It was so beautiful that the produce guy had a hard time parting with it.

Hannah at her weekly breakfast date with Eliana at Tel Aviv U, and the two of them making Thanksgiving decorations.

Thanksgiving pictures.  Sushi Thanksgiving on Thursday at Sushi Rehavia.  

And we did have turkey.  We did Thanksgiving Shabbat Friday night at the Kashuk’s and had turkey with all the trimmings.  They were both wonderful nights!

מַרְבֶּה תוֹרָה, מַרְבֶּה חַיִּים. מַרְבֶּה יְשִׁיבָה, מַרְבֶּה חָכְמָה

I guess if this week’s blog has a theme it is education.  Mine and others.  

So as I have mentioned, a good deal of my time right now is spent working.  I got through the November 1 deadline for college applications and am now working toward the final one on January 1.  While I finished with most of my Farber students, I ended up taking on more Israeli students.  I now have 10 or 11, but I have also done workshops at the Tel Aviv office for students on the Common Application,  so I have worked with about two dozen more there.  This has been an education for me, but I was thinking that the theme of education relates more to the Israeli’s themselves who are looking to get their B.A. in the States.  A couple of my students have dual citizenship but most do not.  Most are 22 and have done the army and spent another year traveling, working and testing and applying for college.  My Arab-Israeli student is younger since Arab-Israelis do not have to go in the army.  Sometimes I wonder if it is a good fit for these students to do undergrad in the States, but I get that they want an American experience and any opportunities that come with it.

I cannot talk about any of them too much (confidentiality rules) but it will be fun to let you know how they do in the end.  Money is an issue for almost all of them, which I tell them is true for Americans as well, although there is little financial aid for international students.  They are an amazing group of people.  The army tends to be the most important experience for most of them and some of them have been in intelligence units and so their work is classified.  They all travel as a matter of course and are just solid and independent.  Their English is very good and, as I mentioned previously, their math skills are impressive.  (Zoe can also tell you that the math education here is very different and very good.)  I have one student who was a commander in the army and if I ever were to be stuck on a desert island, I want him with me.  He is the craziest combination of competent, tough and sweet I have ever encountered. Another student was the Israeli national champion in a solo sport (don’t want to give away too much) during all of high school and still competes internationally.  They all have very different personalities but if I had to note one common characteristic they all share, it would have to be that they are all crazy honest, to an extreme.  

So there is my contribution to their education.  And then there is my education.

I started taking two classes at Pardes where Seth is studying.  My Wednesday class is “Sages of the Mishna” with Leah Rosenthal who is also Seth’s Gemara teacher.  This is a fun class where we get introduced to different figures of the Mishnah and see how their personalities are created through the stories and their interpretations that are passed down.  We had the third class this week and are up to Hillel.  Last week we had a field trip for the class.  We went to Moshav Beit Meir to their Shabbat Farm where you learn about the 39 melachot (prohibitions) of Shabbat and where they come from.  Learned all sorts of agricultural stuff and how to make wool, etc.  It was about a half hour outside Jerusalem and the area around this moshav is gorgeous - tree covered hills surrounded by winding valleys.  We then went to a women’s craft cooperative in Ein Kerem where women are reviving ancient crafts of weaving and basket making. Neither place had too much to do with the class except for showing us common work from the time we are studying (the Tanaim.)  The tour guide was very good and gave us a history lesson on the bus which was my favorite part, but I was happy to get a field trip and see more of the country.

My Monday class is called “Soloveitchik and Exodus” and is taught by Rabbi Reuven Grodner who was a student of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, or the Rav.  I have tried reading The Lonely Man of Faith about a dozen times and can’t understand a word, so I felt I needed to learn some of Soloveitchik’s wisdom some way.  The fun of this class for me has been all the stories that have been told about the Rav, first by Rabbi Grodner and then by this week’s substitute, Rabbi Aharon Adler who was not only a student of the Rav’s but his personal driver for three years.  Both of them told many stories about the Rav that were very inspiring.  Rabbi Adler happened to mention that the Rav and the Lubavitcher Rebbe were very fond of each other and had gone to school together in Berlin in the 20’s.  

He told us about the time that the Rav and the Rebbe met

and sent us to youtube to see a movie of the event which I did after class. It was a special moment to see if any of you are interested.  Just go  here. It is clear how important these two figures were to post-war American Judaism and how they breathed life, in very different ways, into Orthodoxy at a painfully low point in our history.

I have been thinking a lot about leadership lately and how sometimes in history people are blessed with exceptional leaders who get you through the mud and from one place to another, propelling history forward. Through my mishna class, I have developed two new heroes: although I knew about them before, I have decided that Yochanan Ben Zakai and Yehuda HaNasi were tremendous and greatly contributed to the survival of the Jewish people - Yochanan Ben Zakai during the darkest days of the destruction of the Temple and Yehuda HaNasi about a century afterwards. And then there are the Rav and the Rebbe.  Those who had experience with these two always say that you knew you were around greatness when you were in the same room as them, and I feel a sense of loss not having ever had the experience of being around someone like this. Maybe if we are very lucky, we will get the privilege of having a great leader in our lifetimes.  Whether we deserve it or not.

So this is some of my education going on.  I am struck by how much learning there is in Jerusalem.  One can spend all of one’s days studying with exceptional scholars.  And everyone seems to pass through this city so that there is a cultural richness in the air.   Jonathan Sarna is here for the year and is doing a four-part lecture series at Pardes starting next week on American Jews and politics that I plan on attending.  But there is always someone to see.

And last week I spent one of the most extraordinary nights of my life at a lecture at the Israel Museum.  The ceramist and author, Edmund De Waal was in town speaking as part of a conference on ownership and provenance at the museum. He was mostly speaking about his book, The Hare with Amber Eyes, which is one of my favorite books I have ever read. For those of you who have not read it, it is a family memoir of the Ephrussi’s, De Waal’s family on his father’s side, as told through the whereabouts of 264 Netsuke figurines from Japan,

the sole surviving possessions of the family’s vast fortune from before the war.  

The book is really like nothing else I have ever read, in part, I think because De Waal has an artist’s eye and is so thoughtful and perceptive.  The lecture, to a sold out crowd, was a retelling of the book and his efforts to write it, as well as a post book discussion of his art and life.  He has had major exhibits in Berlin and Vienna since the success of its publication.  De Waal’s art is also very interesting and is so much about loss and hiding and refuge and what you take with you; he incorporates Walter Benjamin and Paul Celan and is always grappling with the past.  The room was captivated by him.  It was a fascinating story filled with personal insight, but what added to the night’s emotion was the fact that De Waal had never been to Israel before and he had just spent his first day there.  He was so emotional about being here and kept having to stop his talk because he was weeping and we were all weeping with him.  When he ended, we were on our feet, practically cheering.  It was a night I hope to always remember.

So there is much learning going on on General Pierre Koenig Street (that’s us!)  Besides our own learning, Seth and I could not be prouder of Zoe and Hannah.  Zoe is doing amazing at Horev and works hard as usual. Hannah is taking nine classes at Tel Aviv U as required.  These classes are in incredibly hard academic Hebrew and she is surviving.  Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that she is an immigrant; she came here on her own when she was 18 and she is making a life for herself.  Even with her visiting family, this is her immigrant moment.  And so learning is essential.

We wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.  If we do not partake in turkey, I suspect that we will still give thanks.

קשה עלי פרידתכם — It’s hard to be away from you.

So sorry for our delay in writing.  Sukkot always tends to take over life in a big way and things were no different here.  We had to hit the ground running right after Simchat Torah.  Hannah started Tel Aviv University.  School for Zoe kicked in full swing, including having to take her first tests.  Seth was the same (without the tests!)  But I had my week of crazy deadlines which was accompanied by a nasty cold/virus that I got from Hannah.  Anyway, this is a long way of making excuses for not finishing the blog earlier.

Ok, back to Sukkot.

So on the first days of hol hamoed, while Zoe went up north with her Bnei Akiva branch, Seth and I went to Tel Aviv and completely indulged ourselves for around 30 hours.  We stayed at the Royal Beach Hotel, which is a fairly new Isrotel property that is so nice it even smelled great.  We treated it as our 20th and 25th wedding anniversary trip combined.  That sounds a little sad when I read it,  but there you go.

So the reason that Zoe was on a trip and we decided to take a trip is that the whole country uses Sukkot as the major vacation week for the year.  So when in Rome…..  

We shared a ride up with a friend of Allison’s whom we met the previous day at a fun and delicious meal in the Pollock’s sukkah.  It was nice to have door to door service. We dropped off our luggage and explored the city which felt huge and tall compared to Jerusalem.   The skyline is completely dominated by cranes because this city is under so much construction.  I would have loved to do a Bauhaus tour of Tel Aviv but Seth would have none of it.  He is a great husband but there are limits.  Bauhaus tours of TA are so my thing but not his.  We got to see plenty of Bauhaus on our walk anyway because it is everywhere.  When you take a bunch of displaced German Jews in the 1930’s and drop them onto a blank canvas of land and say build a city, what do you expect to happen?  Lots of great architecture and also lots of 21st century graffiti.

We made our way to the Sarona Market which is creative urban development and had lunch.

Passed an outdoor Science Fiction Festival which was crowded with young people dressed in crazy costumes- sort of a cross of steampunk, anime, and fantasy.  Strange.

Back at the hotel, we hung out at the pool for a bit (check out that view!)

This was a treat.  The pool was on the 4th floor of the hotel so we got this amazing view of the beach and the weather was spectacular.  Actually perfect.

Then we made it to dinner. Meatos Fish Market.  We went to their original (meat) restaurant the last time we were in Tel Aviv (something like 5 years ago?)  We liked that, but we really liked this.   The food was great.  (Whole fish for me again, of course.) It was pretty empty when we got there, but there was a nice crowd in the sukkah by the time we left.  Sat next to a French couple with their 2 year old daughter and got to see French table etiquette in action.  Not a peep out of the child for the whole meal.  When there was a slight kvetch, the mother explained to the two year old that food would be coming in its time and that she would be having dinner when it was served, etc., etc.  This is how French people are made.  

Tel Aviv is an amazing city so I hope it doesn’t sound too dismissive to say that the highlight for me and Seth might have been the hotel breakfast!

Just so you know, I am really good at breakfast buffets.  You can ask the rest of my family.  They always are a little jealous of my plating skills.  But no need to boast.  

We had to check out by noon, so we dropped our stuff at the concierge and headed off to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which has a breathtaking collection of modern art (including one of the greatest Klimt's in the world) and is well worth the time if you’ve never been there.  There were two special exhibits including one by David Tartakover, a contemporary Israeli artist who is very political and very powerful.  Some tough images but really thought provoking and he is really talented.

We were still full from breakfast, so skipped lunch and spent our last couple of hours on the beach watching the ting tong players and surfers

and back at the hotel pool where we experienced pure happiness on a covered pool bed that was very hard to leave (I was reading, The Goldfinch and Seth, The Corrections.)

We caught the train back to Jerusalem, which was a first for both of us.  So glad we did.  It is a slice of Israeli life both on the train and outside the window.  We got to see the Kresch’s apartment building as we passed through Beit Shemesh.  And then the views became something really spectacular -- winding through hills as we got closer to Jerusalem.

But duty calls and while I took pictures and listened to music, Seth got tapped to make a minyan for mincha.  So here we are during sukkot, on the train between Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem and you get ten men together representing a good slice of the Orthodox world.  A couple srugim kippot a la Seth, two massive streimels of the most elaborate fur, two Bratslavers with two white beanie kippot, and don’t know who else, except no known Sephardim, because the Sephardic guy said no if they were davening Ashkenaz.  Really? And just so you know, it is not easy to daven mincha when a train is winding through the mountains outside of Jerusalem.

Zoe and Seth  got one night of sleeping in the Sukkah in before the Chag ended.   Also, check out one of the many cats who live in the park that is our backyard.  The cats loved Sukkot.  Decided to move in.

The rest of the week was spent just hanging out, a lot of it with friends.  The Goldmeiers (all of them + Nati!) were in town and it was a treat to spend time visiting them on Shabbat.  

We were so lucky to meet one of Hannah’s apartment roommates, Eliana. She's great. And a hugger!We had been waiting to meet her for a long time so we were excited to have her stay with us for the last day of Sukkot, as well as Anna Warshay who was in town and got to share Zoe’s bunk bed.  One of my favorite meals so far was Simchat Torah lunch with us, Anna, Eliana, Madi and Abe and Yoni Nadel.  Talk about feeling like home but a little better.  It was a great day.  I will tell you about it.

So guess what Shemini Atzeret is?  I don’t know, I never have, and now that I have spent Sukkot here, I am even more confused.  All the Rabbis ended up giving their talks on how we need to acknowledge Shemini Atzeret, etc. but I think the lady doth protest too much, if you know what I mean.

But how great is one day of Chag?  There was so much time in between Yomim Tovim to spend appreciating the weather and the city; there were festivals everywhere and there was so much going on.  Israelis always seem up for a party.  I did not spend every minute shopping, cooking and eating.

This is how we spent Shmini Atzeret/Simhas Torah last day:

From Seth: I went with Benjamin and Asaf Pollock to the Bratslaver Bet Midrash for hakafot.  It was memorable (I particularly loved the boys’ rebbe who lead their choir jumping up and down on a not-so-stable-looking table and throwing candy to the boy’s non-stop the entire time.  I’ve only ever done something like that once before (25 years ago on a trip into Brooklyn) and had a similar feeling of being out of place.  The dancing was definitely spirited, but I was happy to leave, feeling like I didn’t belong there and almost as if I was at a performance instead of celebrating myself.

The women went elsewhere.  Zoe, Hannah, Eliana, Anna, the three Pollock women, and I  started off at Ramban and then walked up to Yakar.

Ramban was very nice.  After a slow start the women did their own hakafot and it ended up being a good turn out and good dancing (including with Talya Kresch).  We left after a while to check out the “It” place for Simchat Torah which seems to be Yakar.  As we approached up Kovshei Katamon, we saw the crowds outside the shul taking over the streets.  The men dance outside and they turn the inside over to the women.  Crazy, spirited dancing and singing with sooooo many young people.  Hannah walked in and said I think I know about 40 people here.  All people she has met in her few years in Jerusalem. When they reached the last Hakafa, they brought in the mechitza and the men came in so that the room was packed.  The men danced and sang on one side with the Torah and the women on the other.  And for the final Hakafa we sang Sholomo Carlbach’s Yerushalayim at the top of our voices and I knew that it was a not so thinly veiled reference and counterpoint to the Unesco vote on the Temple Mount which had happened right before the chag started.   We spilled back into the street which was showing no signs of letting up and ran into Hannah’s second roommate, Jess, who happened to be there.  It was the kind of place where that would happen.  Jess is South African and quite charming and beautiful.  

We walked home through very crowded streets and had a late but very fun meal that ended with Ben and Jerry’s.

Then we got up to do it all again.  Went to our regular shul, Nitzanim, where we ran into Yehuda Rothner, the recently retired director of Camp Stone and his wife, Adina. Had a great conversation with them about our year so far.  I think most people would agree that Yehuda’s goal in life is to get as many Jews to live in Israel as possible. He is a legend and deserves his own blog.  Maybe another day.  

My one regret from the day is that I went home early to check on lunch because the davening was very late.  I ended up missing what our lunch crowd described as the “most beautiful Tefillat HaGeshem they had ever heard.”  Now if you know our lunch crowd (see above) you know they have been around so that was saying a lot.  Tefillat HaGashem is the prayer for rain which is always done on this day.  We had not experienced a drop of rain since we arrived in Israel and we were so convinced that Sukkot would be rain-free we put our wood dining room table outside in our Sukkah. And it was.  But the beauty of that Tefillat Hageshem proved even more powerful the next day when the first rain in months came, right on cue.  That’s an “only in Israel” experience if there ever was one.

That night after the chag ended, Jerusalem has developed the tradition of keeping the party going with what they call “Hakafot Shniyot.”  It is just more dancing and music and fun.  Zoe and I went to a gathering off of Emek Refaim with Soul Farm and Shlomo Katz.  Very fun, especially when we ran into Hannah Korelitz and Eliana and much dancing ensued.  Zoe and I left a little early and on our walk home we got another huge holiday treat of bumping into Avi Greenbaum who was talking to Merav Edrei on the street.  Crazy Akiva reunion.  And then we went home and it was all over.

Happy, but missing you all, we’ll do our best to stay dry and warm as winter approaches.

What happens in Israel...