The Chaggim, Part 1

The next three weeks are full of Jewish holidays.  It started last night with Rosh Hashanah, which is two full days.  Yom Kippur follows next week -- it's the Day of Atonement, the day on which Jews fast and pray to be sealed in the Book of Life.  After that, it's Sukkot (the holiday when Jews construct booths outside their homes) and Simchat Torah, when we finish reading the Torah and start right back at the beginning.  We'll get to these others in due time.

Rosh Hashanah, literally translated as "Head of the Year," is the Jewish new year.  It is also the first day of a period called "Yamim Nora'im" - the Days of Awe - a 10-day period of reflection and repentance for all not-good deeds done over the past year.  It's a holiday full of symbolism, from the apples and honey eaten at dinner to the round challah to the shofar that is sounded on Rosh Hashanah day.

One of the things that we were eagerly anticipating here was to celebrate the High Holidays.  All we've known is the holidays in the States.  There, it's a time for everyone (and I mean everyone) to dress up in their finest and make their way to synagogue for their annual appearance.  Synagogues set up overflow seating to accommodate everyone who arrives.

What's it like here?  Well, to some degree things are similar.  People come out of the woodwork to show their faces at synagogue.  There are large meals.  There is apples and honey and round challah.

But it's different too.  Imagine knowing that you have a 60-hour stretch where everything is going to be closed.  All restaurants.  All grocery stores.  All bakeries.  Everything.  It's pretty rare in the States because, if nothing else, Waffle House is open (unless there's a hurricane).  But in Israel, EVERYTHING shuts down for Rosh Hashanah.  Which means that the day Rosh Hashanah starts, town is hoppin'.  I took Alice and Gabi shopping and was surprised.  The spice shop had a line out the door -- people were buying dried fruit and chocolate covered yummies by the pound.  All of the lines at the grocery store were open (we've never seen that).  And the flower shop was doing a brisk business.

Services were something else, which probably isn't a surprise to those who read about our experience with the congregation earlier in the year.  They were entirely in Hebrew (makes sense).  They were in a different location (again, makes sense with more people there than normal).  And they were an hour.  Yup, 60 minutes from start to finish.  We racked our brains to figure out why and it comes down to the service leaders reading incredibly fast, minimal chanting and singing (as is common in the States), and everyone wanting to get home for their gargantuan feasts.

Lucky for us, we were invited to a college friend's house in Herzliyah for dinner.  Mort's wife's family is from Iraq and they go all out.  The meal starts with blessings and puns on various foods -- beets, dates, carrots, pomegranates, apples and honey, a squash-like thing, and fish heads (although we had beef, and it wasn't the head).  The girls did great and tried every single thing.  Some went down well; others found the side of the plate.  Then we ate, and ate, and ate.  Beef (sort of like brisket) with prunes and apricots, Persian rice, the squash-like things, homemade challah (with date paste and craisins).  And honey cake to top it off.

It's experiences like this that have made the trip so interesting so far.  And pictures like this one: Alice hasn't developed freckles; those are drops of pomegranate juice.

Happy Endings to Miniscule and Epic fails, pt. 2

So, y'all know that living in a foreign country isn't always going to go smoothly, right? Well, we know this too, so please don't worry about us as you read about the mishaps and mayhem that we get ourselves into (and out of). I do appreciate all the messages after the last post of fails but will try to write this post in a more balanced fashion so as to not worry so many people....

Ten days done now without Josh, and we've had a few more mishaps. The most epic one involved laundry, a balcony, and a big truck. Israeli buildings and apartments are secure. Concrete.  Three girls can jump without shaking any pictures. Nice locks. Extra locks from the inside. A special room that serves as a bomb shelter and happens to be where H sleeps. So, H and I are hanging laundry out to dry on this magnificent laundry rack on our balcony (see picture). The door is opened [note the passive tense] without fully clicking the lock into the unlock position, and we close the door behind us because the air conditioning is on. Yup. You guessed it. On the balcony, not clothed in street clothes, no phone, no key, no way of getting in. The only phone number I know by heart is Josh's WhatsApp, and it's 6am where he is. It's about 13:00 and I have visions of G&A needing to be picked up at 16:30 with no one showing up.

There's tons of people out and a very loud argument going on in the alley beside us between an older woman and the driver of a huge truck. They're very emphatic about their unhappiness, but I had no clue what the problem was. I ignore them, muster my courage, and call down to my potential hero סליחה, אתה מדבר אנגלית?״" In other words, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" Luckily, he did. I explain the problem and he asks if the door to the apartment is unlocked, I don't think so, but he runs up the stairs to test it.

Locked. He asks about an open window. Luckily (since we were doing laundry and there's no ventilation), the window to my bathroom is open a bit. So, he gets the angry driver of the big truck to move the truck under the window, turns into Spider Man, and gets himself onto the balcony that holds the air conditioner. He takes out one of the slats (see picture) of the awesome secure metal blinds all the apartments here have, reaches in to unlatch the rest of the blinds, hops through the window somehow, takes off his shoes so as to not track ughy stuff through our apartment, walks through the apartment to the sliding door.and lets us in.

My hero. He's happy to have helped and runs off before I can figure out how to thank him. Turns out he worked with the guy yelling at the older woman and they had to hightail it outta there. I think we would have needed construction equipment to get us into the apartment--windows would have needed to come off. It was not going to be pretty. See, happy ending!

We haven't needed the buses again, but that nice clean scrape looks

pretty ugly now. This picture was from a few days ago and now there's purple hues around it. But it doesn't hurt as much any more, so that's great news!

We always go out for one decent meal while Josh travels. This time, we planned on going to the Bleecker Bakery on the corner of Bar Ilan and Ahuza, a restaurant we walk by multiple times a day and are very curious about. I read the reviews, check the hours, get us all excited and we go out. And it's closed. grrrrrrr.....

We debate between a place called Burger Bar and Papa's Pasta and I check the reviews again. And we ended up at a different pasta restaurant (actually code for Italian restaurant) and everyone ended up very happy. Not only did they have menus in English and a waitress who was fluent, but the food was excellent. I had beautiful Nicoise salad, Helen had fettuccine in a cream sauce with sweet potatoes, Alice had a kid's margherita pizza, and Gabi had pesto pasta with (very salty) cheese. Paying was a tiny adventure because I kept waiting to sign the receipt so I could leave a tip. Turns out you don't leave tips on credit cards. So, then I had to get my big bill broken... But no big deal, and at least I had cash on me. It was about $65 for the four of us which is great for Ra'anana prices. (We proceeded to go to the grocery store on the way home and pay 1/3 of that for grapes, two boxes of granola bars, and deli meat turkey.)

The fridge is working, the girls' school lives continue to evolve with only normal mishaps (homework drama), and we're getting ready to have lots of days off for the holidays that occur once a week for the next four weeks. (3 off for Rosh Hashanah, probably 2 for Yom Kippur, a full week for Sukkot, and 1 for Simchat Torah.) Josh comes home in five days and then we'll get to experience the holidays here in Israel as a family!

the good, the bad, and the ugly, part 1

Well, it's fun to share the good, but the bad and the ugly are important too. I'm constantly reminding the girls that one of the best teachers is failure and failure happens with some risk taking.
Josh is gone for two weeks, which drastically reduces the Hebrew skills in 37 Bar Ilan St. While I'm sure Boston is enjoying his presence, we are going to have some painful growth in his absence unless we want to hold ourselves prisoners in the apartment with no food.

So, I give you Fails, pt 1 of who knows how many.

(1) after Josh leaves Saturday morning, we attempt to go to shul. We like those people and we like the oneg (whiskey for me, a wide variety of goodies for the girls). We know the congregation is meeting in a different place because it's a bar mitzvah and the normal place is too small. Three grumpy girls and one gung-ho Jan  show up at 2 Opsterland and the door is locked. But, we see a lot of people going in the door around the corner and the outside is set up for a nice nice oneg for lots of people... feels like a bar mitzvah. So, in we go.

Oops. We realized it was a modern Orthodox congregation right before walking into the front of the men's side. We made a few different turns in hopes of finding our own congregation and instead found the women's side. At this point, I'm curious enough to stay, but my hair is not covered, I'm in a sleeveless dress, and I feel pretty darn uncomfortable. So, home we went. I now know that we found a very nice (and I agree--they were SO very nice) orthodox congregation in the building across the street from where we wanted to be. And we were there at the wrong time. Oh well. Live and learn.

(2) Sunday, Helen has no school but the twins do. We try to do something new on Sundays with H, and since Helen and I love hummus, we went to a much lauded hummus bar near us. We had no clue what we were doing, but they spoke English. Do you want eggplant on it? (no) Do you want chickpeas? (why not) Eggs? (no) lemon juice? (sure) Zatar? (sure). We get a few pitas and sit down to sample. It did not taste good to us. At all. I have no idea what we did wrong, still... Oh well. That was disappointing. Sure does look yummy, right?




(3) Monday, I leave the apartment to work in a different space so that they can come into the apartment with the owner and fix the fridge. After working for four hours, I learn that we were given misinformation about the day. Not only is the fridge still broken, but I forgot to take out the store-bought hummus I had put in the freezer for a few minutes to try and keep it cold enough not to spoil. Frozen solid when I got home, and spoiled upon defrosting. Bummer, dude.

(4) Tuesday was election day. No schools are in session, so we head to the beach via bus. The first bus is a Tel Aviv bus that we're not taking all the way to Tel Aviv. Turns out I was supposed to tell the bus driver that so that he didn't charge us the Tel Aviv price (I didn't know there was a Tel Aviv price). He lectured me when we came to the front of the bus after the back doors didn't open at our stop. We missed our stop. Coming home was worse. Getting off the first bus, the driver didn't know we weren't all off the bus, closed the doors on me, and started driving. The doors didn't hurt, but getting myself extricated from them was scary and scrape-y. Scared the crap out of the bus driver, too. And a few passengers. And a few little Levys. And me. The worst part is that I bruised muscles in my right buttock [insert 9-yr-old giggles here]. The scrape cleaned up nicely.


(5) Wednesday (today) they came to fix the fridge. 30 minutes before arriving, I learn that the person we're renting from can't be here. Good thing I decided not to clear out. It was a simple part to replace, and they guy spoke English pretty well, but since equipment in the mechanical innards had frozen, we have to leave it unplugged for 24 hours. There goes more food. So frustrating.

And, some silver linings:
(1) (shul debacle) I'm genuinely curious about the orthodox congregation. Evidently they sing more than our shul does. A new hat for graduation wouldn't be a terrible souvenir for me to bring home... (oberlin profs often wear a hat instead of a cap with their regalia).

(2) can't find a silver lining yet. The best explanation offered to me so far is that homemade hummus tastes different than store bought. But, Josh makes that wonderful hummus recipe from the Zahav cookbook and it goes down just fine, so I'm not satisfied yet with the explanation.

(3) I navigated the sign-in process at the University just fine with my limited Hebrew. Yay me. My friend Daryl put it in nice perspective with a Facebook comment that left the day in a rosier light for me: "I think it's those little victories, like managing a sign-in process in a language I'm not great at, that make me enjoy living & traveling internationally so much: you constantly have that little rush of accomplishment and increased competency while just doing everyday things."


Also, I was hungry and grumpy when I got home but didn't take care of feeding myself cause I was so angry at the fridge (yes, I know that makes no sense). When Helen got home and I knew she couldn't have her normal snack of hummus and pita, I gave her money to go get falafel. I expected her to balk, but she took it, went and got falafel by herself, and brought me back on loaded up with everything on it. Yum. Ruined my dinner but saved the afternoon/evening.

(4) We had a great day at the beach. And we need to figure out which bus companies have back doors that open for riders, which don't, and how to get the little girls out a little faster when they do. A few more rides and we should have it down.


(5) We tried the Israeli equivalent of crazy eggs. We have crazy eggs when Josh travels, which means making scrambled eggs with whatever we can find in the fridge that seems reasonable. Tonight we had potatoes, eggs, and deli-turkey stuffed into pitas. It was surprisingly good and we'll reprise it when Helen gets home from her three-day school trip. But not for Josh. He hates eggs, in case you hadn't heard.

Five days done, ten to go.

We're 25% Done

It's hard to believe that we've already been in Israel for 5 weeks.  The time really has flown by and has left me wondering, "What have we spent our time doing?"  It's time for a summary post.

School
All three girls spend most of their time in school.  Helen is at an American International School in Even Yehudah (about 15 minutes north of Ra'anana).  She seems to be enjoying it and we know that she's doing well and learning some new things.  Not necessarily subjects but how to read deeper and think differently.  That's good and hopefully will pay off more later.

Alice and Gabi are at a local public school called Ziv School.  As a public school, classes are conducted in Hebrew.  Which is a problem for two girls who don't speak Hebrew.  Funny thing is, there are other new immigrants to Ra'anana who are in the same boat and a few are in their class.  So they have become friends.  And it's amazing what they are learning.  They're picking up some Hebrew, they're still doing math (but in Hebrew), and they're running around like 4th grade kids should.

Work
Jan told you about her work in a recent post.  Much of my work is the same -- answering emails, finalizing my trip to Boston (I leave tomorrow morning!), and working on projects.  What's different is trying to work at times when the office is open in Oberlin -- that's a major challenge.  I tend to have some virtual meetings during and after dinner but it's a small price to pay.

Play
We have gotten out and explored a bit.  The first adventure was our trip to Tzfat.  I don't know too much about Tzfat other than it was a hotbed of Jewish mysticism in the 16th century.  There are remnants of that, particularly the cemetery where some of the great Jewish mystics are buried.  But it's a hotbed of tourism -- we did some shopping and helped the local economy.  We also ate an interesting lunch at Lahuhe Original, a Yemenite restaurant.  They serve one thing - lachuch.  It's like a puffy, thick crepe filled with 3 kinds of cheese, za'atar, harif (if you like it hot), and olives).  Silly tourists that we are, we bought one for each of us when we probably could have shared 3.  But on the whole, they went down well.

We've been to the beach a couple of times, most recently last Friday.  As celebration for finishing their first week of school Jan took Gabi and Alice to the Herzliyah beach by bus.  Helen and I joined later and we all went to a kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming Shabbat) potluck, having been invited by a friend of an Oberlin friend.  TONS of food, good company, and an amazing sunset.

And, of course, the girls dug in the sand a bit.

And the last highlight was our 18th Anniversary.  We haven't gone out for a fancy celebratory anniversary dinner in a few years so why should this year be any different?  We went to Sarona Market in Tel Aviv and explored.  We discovered a love of halvah, sampled some pizza, had a beer, and drooled over the confections.

What will the remaining 75% of the trip be like?  We have no clue.  We will be exploring Jerusalem, Caesaria, Nazareth, and Tiberias with family in mid-October.  We hope to go to the Ramon Crater at some point.  And we expect to go to the Dead Sea and maybe Masada as well.  But we're taking things day by day, getting our work done, and enjoying what life has given us for this semester.