We’ve been trying to enjoy vacation as much as possible. Which has been made easier by a relatively low-key pre-Pesah season. Zoe and I have been on vacation, and it’s a slow season for Sheryl with work, so we’ve had plenty of time and a leisurely pace the last week or so. A small kitchen and having our one (!) seder hosted by the Pollocks means that Pesah Prep is all the easier.
Which is not to say that some things don’t feel just like home -- I had to make three or four runs to the stores the last couple of days to buy new items we forgot/didn’t realize we needed. Sheryl often comments on how ridiculous the amount of Pesah stuff we have is (a good-sized closet awaiting our return in Huntington Woods). We’re not there yet, but we were starting from scratch, so we had a few items to buy. No problem, though; just more items to add to Hannah’s “trousseau” when we leave this summer.
Sheryl and Zoe started the week off with a visit to "the Tayelet" (Haas Promenade) a lovely series of walkways not to far from our house. It’s got some of the best views of Jerusalem, 'though pictures don't really do it justice).
I was actually there a few weeks ago with a small group from Pardes. I crashed a little field trip with a small class that was discussing the whys and hows of teaching about Israel. The Tayelet is a great place from which to do that, because it’s connected to many, overlapping narratives about the city and Jewish history. Avraham, David, Talmudic times, Middle Ages, Modern history (itself divisible into many aspects, not the least of which being Israeli-Arab relations): all their stories are reflected from this beautiful outlook.
A slightly more ambitious outing was a self-guided tour we took of the Talpiot neighborhood, which borders our neighborhood of Baka. Actually, not entirely self-guided, as we were using a very nice guidebook loaned to us at the beginning of the year by my teacher/colleague/friend Susan Wall. We saw the spot (now an apartment complex) where Jerusalem’s first airstrip stood a hundred years ago. We also saw some of the homes of early founders of the State, including Eliezer Ben Yehudah, the “father” of modern Hebrew. Sadly, Ben Yehudah himself never lived in this house (he died during construction) but his wife lived there for many years and so the house is still associated with him. Today, it’s actually a hotel/hostel, though there is a visitor’s center addition on the back and evidently they sponsor some events there.
We Just checked it out from the outside.
A slightly more ambitious outing was a self-guided tour we took of the Talpiot neighborhood, which borders our neighborhood of Baka. Actually, not entirely self-guided, as we were using a very nice guidebook loaned to us at the beginning of the year by my teacher/colleague/friend Susan Wall. We saw the spot (now an apartment complex) where Jerusalem’s first airstrip stood a hundred years ago. We also saw some of the homes of early founders of the State, including Eliezer Ben Yehudah, the “father” of modern Hebrew. Sadly, Ben Yehudah himself never lived in this house (he died during construction) but his wife lived there for many years and so the house is still associated with him. Today, it’s actually a hotel/hostel, though there is a visitor’s center addition on the back and evidently they sponsor some events there.
We Just checked it out from the outside.
We did go in, though, when we got to S.Y. Agnon’s house. Agnon, as I’m sure you know, is widely considered Israel’s greatest writer, and it’s only Nobel Prize winner in literature (1966). Sheryl has actually been making her way through (in translation) his very long Only Yesterday. Anyway, Agnon had an amazing, often turbulent life (one small tidbit he lost his library/rare book collection to a fire in 1924, and then again during the Arab riot of 1929, an obvious tragedy for a man like Agnon) and they do a great job at this house/museum of giving you a sense of it and of his personality. At one point, the family had a view of the Old City and Temple Mount from their rooftop (evidently part of the reason for their having chosen the spot) but the growth of the neighborhood in the intervening years has obscured that.
From there, we made our way (after a fortuitous discovery of the Talpiot branch of Lechem shel Tomer) to Ramat Rachel. Most famous as the site of the recent Korman wedding, Ramat Rachel is also famous as being one of the first kibbutzim. I hadn’t been there since my first Israel trip 35+ years ago, but by then it had already added tourism to agriculture as a source of income, but not yet hi-tech, which was added to the mix about 15 years ago. The truth is we were pretty tired by the time we made it there, so we didn’t look around much. Rested, enjoyed the views, then headed back home.
From there, we made our way (after a fortuitous discovery of the Talpiot branch of Lechem shel Tomer) to Ramat Rachel. Most famous as the site of the recent Korman wedding, Ramat Rachel is also famous as being one of the first kibbutzim. I hadn’t been there since my first Israel trip 35+ years ago, but by then it had already added tourism to agriculture as a source of income, but not yet hi-tech, which was added to the mix about 15 years ago. The truth is we were pretty tired by the time we made it there, so we didn’t look around much. Rested, enjoyed the views, then headed back home.
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| On the way back from Ramat Rachel |
And our third recent outing was our most ambitious of them all. We decided to drive up to Tel Aviv. We didn’t really have plans. We had hoped to visit Hannah at Tel Aviv University, but she said she wasn’t going to be on campus that day. So we decided to visit the Diaspora Museum, which Zoe had never been to, and neither Sheryl nor I had visited since it was redone. The museum sits on the campus of TAU, so we figured we would combine museum-going with checking it out even if Hannah wasn’t there.
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| Outside one of Hannan's main buildings on campus |
Visiting the museum was clearly fortuitous planning, because what did we discover upon entering but a special exhibit on Bob Dylan in honor of his 75th birthday. (For those of you who don’t know, I am a rather large Dylan fan!) 
t was very well done. Further sign that this was meant to be was Sheryl sitting down to this fortune-telling jukebox, containing Dylan’s entire catalog. You sit down, it picks a song at random, and it plays what is supposed to be ‘your’ Dylan song. And what did it choose for Sheryl? Her favorite Dylan song, “I’ll Keep it With Mine”!
We started with that, and afterwards anything was going to be a let down. The new exhibit (some of it, thematically at least, is the same as the old exhibits) was actually quite enjoyable, but the the old exhibits were bizarre! Completely unchanged in over 30 years, run down, barely lit, just sitting there on the top floor. Hopefully they’ll get around to doing something with this space, but for now they are not doing themselves any favors by keeping it open. Really, just creepy. Yikes!
We took a short break in between touring to grab lunch at their Aroma Cafe, which is clearly used by museum visitors and TAU community. After the museum we spent a few minutes walking around Hannah’s campus. Not particularly impressive architecture, and it’s small (the entire campus could probably fit in the parking lot of OCC’s Orchard Lake parking lot) but it was a treat for us to be able to see where Hannah studies.
Of course the highlight of the day (the week. The month?) was heading a few miles to the east to finally see Hannah’s apartment. After eight months, it was about time! We did get slightly lost (I entered last year’s address into Waze. Oops) but we got there pretty quickly. Only one of Hannah’s roommates was home with her, Jessica, but we had a nice visit before heading back home.
And now Pesah is about to start. A few people in town. Including the Greenbaums, who kindly had us over for Shabbat dinner. Their apartment is near ours, and they usually daven at Nitzanim which we’ve made home this year, so I’ve seen Joseph and Avi a few times this week. Zoe and I enjoyed our search for chametz last night, and as I usually do, took care of the biur (burning) myself this morning. I figured there would be random fires around town (there were
We took a short break in between touring to grab lunch at their Aroma Cafe, which is clearly used by museum visitors and TAU community. After the museum we spent a few minutes walking around Hannah’s campus. Not particularly impressive architecture, and it’s small (the entire campus could probably fit in the parking lot of OCC’s Orchard Lake parking lot) but it was a treat for us to be able to see where Hannah studies.
Of course the highlight of the day (the week. The month?) was heading a few miles to the east to finally see Hannah’s apartment. After eight months, it was about time! We did get slightly lost (I entered last year’s address into Waze. Oops) but we got there pretty quickly. Only one of Hannah’s roommates was home with her, Jessica, but we had a nice visit before heading back home.
And now Pesah is about to start. A few people in town. Including the Greenbaums, who kindly had us over for Shabbat dinner. Their apartment is near ours, and they usually daven at Nitzanim which we’ve made home this year, so I’ve seen Joseph and Avi a few times this week. Zoe and I enjoyed our search for chametz last night, and as I usually do, took care of the biur (burning) myself this morning. I figured there would be random fires around town (there were
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| a little later, after it got going |
OK, it’s getting late and there are still some things to do some I’m gonna run. More Pesah later. In the meantime, Chag Kasher V’Sameah.
What Happens in Israel...
What Happens in Israel...
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