Reflections at 75% Done

So, Helen has this nifty watch that can count down days until an event (thank you Uncle Jason & Aunt Meredith!). It shows 35 days left of the 140 (or 141) that we are here for. That means we're 3/4th the way through our trip. When we wrote about being 1/4th of the way through, it felt like we were just getting settled. Now it's the other extreme: it feels like going home is right around the corner.

I find myself thinking about community a lot as I contemplate leaving. An unexpected difficulty for me this Fall has been being in a perpetual state of receiving. At home, we like to welcome new people and help them out. Here, we are the new people! It's hard not being able to reciprocate with invitations back for shabbat meals or holiday meals next year (have we mentioned how small our apartment is and how impossible the kitchen is?)! I am much more comfortable giving than receiving, for sure. So, while there's stuff/things I will miss, what really makes a leave-taking difficult for me is not the material stuff, but the relationships.

Almost all of the community we have built here grows out of two places: Oberlin and the shul we joined, Ra’anana Masorti Congregation Amitai. From Oberlin, there is a network of (1) people Josh went to school with who made Aliyah (immigrated to Israel under the right of return) and are now long-time Israelis. On further thought, this group also encompasses people from high school and grad school; (2) friends of friends from our current Oberlin life; and (3) Oberlin alum who we had never met before coming to Israel but who--in their true Obie way--have cared a lot about making this a good experience. These Obie-related people have taken care of us for holiday meals, translated scary government forms, helped with homework, connected us with more communities that suit us well, and provided a little bit of home-away-from-home. As frustrating as the Oberlin communities can be, Obies truly do share a common something that makes going to new places a little easier.

From shul, the people we met the very first time we attended have opened doors to additional communities (musical communities, nearby conservative Judaism communities, youth communities), had us over for amazing meals, and answered endless questions about what to wear, what to bring, where to go for X, etc... In particular, we met a whole street of amazing families because we went to a house concert advertised through someone at shul. That event resulted in more holiday meals, homemade challahs, walking partners, more concerts, and more people to just run into around town. Ironically, a lot of these people are from Denver (small world!). At services, the warmth of the president, rabbi, and chazan make the space feel like another home away from home, and I will always be grateful to them for being so good at welcoming new people.

There's the musicicologists in Israel who have taken me for coffee, to faculty meetings (90 minutes of ....?), invited me to lecture in their courses, and told me about concerts.

Then there's all the folks in our daily lives whose names we don't know. The crossing guards, especially the one on our street who smiles at my horrible Hebrew attempts. The fruit-stand guys at the Green Onion who we visit almost daily (including the one who really thinks I should be Filipino given the way I look). The lone fruit vendor with his grocery cart on the corner of Ahuza and Bar Ilan (who wants to talk to us but we just haven't gotten there yet). The guys at the nuts/spices/dried fruits store. The parents we see every morning at Gabi & Alice's school. The list goes on and on!

I miss our communities at home a lot. We've lived in Oberlin for so long (18.5 years!), and we have many long-time friendships. These relationships in Israel are so young and fresh, it's sad to see them changed by time and distance so early on.

But for now, we're going to relish in the fact that we actually run into people we know when we are out and about on foot! And I'm holding the happy thought in my head of getting together with family and friends back in America in a matter of weeks.

The "situation"

the melting rubik cube is us. about
20 km to Tel Aviv.

So, we're having a "situation" right now. We definitely knew this could happen while we were here. I hear that American news coverage makes it sound really bad, and when I read Israeli news (in English) it sounds really bad, but despite being within 80km/50mi of Gaza, I am not experiencing anything other than a slightly heightened sense of ansty-ness. (80km is the maximum distance from the Gaza border to be included in the special security zone.)

Yesterday, schools were closed in Tel Aviv and gatherings of more than 300 people prohibited. We are north of Tel Aviv by about 20 km and have heard no air sirens and had no school cancellations. The public bomb shelters are open and there's one on our street if we were to need it. All residences built after a certain year have one room designated as a bomb shelter (it's H's room). This room has an extra thick door and an extra gate over its tiny window. You're not meant to be in there for long--just 10 minutes after the air siren ends.

I've talked to the girls about how this got started, the most immediate reasons for why it was started, how the retaliation is going, and what escalation means. I find it comforting and sad that the rockets sent into Israel from Gaza do very little damage--the power difference between these two sides is so huge. The girls' schools have done drills. Both schools cancelled after-school activities yesterday. They seem ok (although A wanted to know what happens if she loses her special friend, so I know her mind went to dark places) and I'll keep checking in with them (I'm sure Josh will too--he just had impossible work hours yesterday for having family conversations.)

This the public bomb shelter on our block.
There's stairs that lead down to the shelter.
Usually that door is kept shut.

I'm thinking a lot about the loss of life--24 Palestinian lives so far, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry--wishing for alternatives other than assassination for protecting Israelis, reading about Israelis admitted to hospitals from anxiety attacks (400+ rockets sent into communities around the Gaza strip over two days so far), learning about the Iron Dome, retching at some of the rhetoric in the Israel Times, and hoping this won't last long.

I would like the antsy-ness to go away so that I can focus better on my work, but then again... I do not want to normalize any of this.

Thank you to all who have checked in with us. I'm relieved to report that we could be oblivious to the situation if we wanted to.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

In 1913, Gertrude Stein penned the line "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" in her poem "Sacred Emily."  Over time, it's been modified and is often used to mean that things are what they are.

We've been in Israel for 3 months and we've done a pretty good job of resisting the urge to buy junk in the stores.  But we decided to have some fun today and get a large sampling of chips to taste and compare.

We started off simple: potato chips.  How could you go wrong?

The red and black bag is "Mexican flavored".  Sure enough, they were met with the response I expected.  Gabi said, "That's barbeque.  It stinks."  Alice immediately grabbed the water bottle and chugged away.

I have to say, those responses were better than what followed them tasting the sour cream and onion (that would be the orange bag) -- both of them spit it out.  I wish the camera was on to capture their faces of utter disgust.

Finally, the purple bag.  This is the barbeque flavored chip.  Alice seemed to like it.  Gabi didn't try it.  I thought they were quite tasty.

So next we turned to an old favorite: Doritos.

Well, to say that these weren't quite what we expected is an understatement.  The yellow bag elicited, "They don't taste like anything."  Sure enough, they're plain corn chips with a Doritos label.  The purple bag is "grill flavor."  It's basically a version of barbeque.  Alice definitely got chili powder while Gabi just agreed that they were spicy.

So take three: Cheetos.  They're a favorite back home (when we buy them, which isn't often).

The yellow/orange bag on the right was a miss.  The Hebrew at the bottom says, "A corn and peanut snack."  Neither girl like it, using words like yuck and disgusting.  I agree with them.

The blue bag might be the highlight of the experiment.  Here's a picture of what was inside.

Yup, dolphin shaped cheese puffs.  Gabi thought they were nasty.  Alice said, "They're like cheese balls."  That's about right.

Continuing my walk down memory lane is this bag:

The bag is pretty clear but in case you can't make it out, Alice modeled for us:

Yup -- bugles.

It's hard to be adventurous when you're looking at pictures of chips but we branched out next.

I'm not sure what the brand name is but it's something like "Beesli."  In reality, they're crunchy corn snacks that neither girl liked.  Barbeque flavor on the left; grill flavor on the right.

Our next one was the winner.

These are bomba brand snacks.  Bomba is probably best known for their kids snack puffs.  In fact, they sell a version that looks just like a cheese puff (not a Cheeto) but has a peanut butter taste.  They are just terrible.

These are different -- a corn snack with chocolate nougat in the middle.  It's no wonder Gabi kept going back for more.

We did try one non-chip item.

They're essentially pretzels with sesame seeds on the outside.  Plain, they're meh (at best).  But slather on some nutella and you've got a winner on your hands.

What did we learn?  A few things.  One, it's easy to blow $20 on chips in the grocery store.  Two, grill flavor and barbeque flavor are pretty much the same.  And three, that a rose is a rose is a rose -- anywhere you go in the world, you can find chips and snacks just like you get at home.