Mazal tov! We went out last night and bought a new vacuum cleaner to replace the one we had that died on Friday. We bought a good ol' American-style upright one. I'd had the old one for about 12 years. The new one only has a couple of washable filters but NO BAGS that you have to replace. Halleluyah! I have not had a chance to try it out at home yet but for the first time in....like....EVER.....I am looking forward to Passover and the abundance of opportunies for cleaning this will provide me with. Just so I can use my new "toy".
Speaking of new toys, while we were out last night I bought E a new soccer ball. We'd lost all of his other balls. He is CRAZY about balls, anything with wheels, and things that go "BANG!". Such a boy! We've given E a beach ball to throw around in the house. It's great because it won't break anything. He loves to play catch with us in the house. When we go to synagogue on Saturday mornings, the mothers and babies and younger children usually sit outside and socialize/play so I intended E's new ball to be the one we take for him to play with there.
Last night in the appliance store where we bought the vacuum cleaner, E was running loose (BIG mistake) and he ended up running into the back warehouse storage room where all the new fridges in their packaging were all lined up like soldiers in nice neat rows. Nice neat rows that are just PERFECT for a teeny tiny little 2 year old boychik to get lost in. He vanished down one of these rows and round the corner and then for the next 15 minutes I was looking for him in there and trying to catch him. I kept calling him and I could hear him but it was like one big maze and it took me a long time to finally get close enough to grab him. He thought it was hillarious. Me? Mmmm. Not so much.....
Tonight I will not see the kids. DH is picking me up from work and we are going straight to our financial management workshop for an hour and from there to a concert in Jerusalem. DH and I haven't been out without the kids in........I forget how long.
Tomorrow morning from 8 until about 11, the Rehovot municipality is putting on a guided walk-a-thon of sorts. DH and I are planning to do that. There is a short route and a longer route. I would like to do the long route but someone has to be home by 11:30 to collect Y from the school bus when she gets home so we'll see how much we have time for. The weather has turned very warm so should be nice. I will take pics and post them.
We turn our clocks forward tonight. HURRAH! Our Fridays will be longer and therefore less rushed and I will be able to have a life outdoors with the kids every day after work now. If I can take them to the park for longer in the evenings after work, maybe they'll be more tired and bedtimes won't be such a battle, especially with E.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Weather
I am so proud of myself! Scroll down a bit. I've just managed to install a cute little weather/time gadget (yes, it's really called a gadget!) thingy on the right hand side of the screen. See it? Click on it and you'll get a full screen animated (complete with tall waving grasses and flapping birds) 10-day forecast for our city. Very useful!
Spring
I think spring has sprung over here. Well, not quite. It won't really feel like spring until we change the clocks this coming Thursday night. I CAN'T WAIT!
Here are some pics of our 6 floor building and the "bloomage" in the yard around it:
Here are some pics of our 6 floor building and the "bloomage" in the yard around it:
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| Walk going up to the door of the building |
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| Back yard of the building |
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| Construction going on down the block from us. They will slowly be working their way our direction and building these 8 floor monstrosities directly across from us where right now there is open land. |
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| No idea what kind of flower this is but it's so pretty! |
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| Nor this one but the blossoms remind me of brightly colored parrots.... |
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| Very strange looking blossom....but bright and cheerful. |
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| That's how they look on the tree outside our building. |
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| Hybiscus blossom - large and dramatic! |
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| Hybiscus bush |
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| Shesek (loquat) tree outside our building. |
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| Not-yet-ripe shesek (loquats)......when they're ripe they'll turn a medium shade of yellow/orange and they're about the size of a golf ball and pear shaped with 3 large pits inside. Very yummy! |
Our vaccum cleaner died on Friday and we were told it's not worth repairing. That's just great with Passover around the corner and all the house cleaning that that entails.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Snippets
I'm at work now but it's deathly quiet here today. Almost everyone else is out of the office at the monthly team meeting. I'm just lowly admin support so I don't have to go. I look forward to these days - to the quiet. I have to come to work to rest! I had a pile of work to get done but I've done most of it. The one thing that's left - transcribing from an audio file a half hour teleconference - is REALLY annoying. I did about half of it and can't be bothered to finish it today. Lucky it's not urgent.
We woke up to wet streets and raindrop diamonds on all the trees. It's supposed to be wet-ish through Friday then warm up. It's rather late in the year to be raining actually...
I bought some really nice ripe avocados last trip to the supermarket. Mashed them up last night into guacamole. Yummy on rice cakes!
Cousin C and I are still going back and forth with emails and keep finding similarities. We're both vegetarian, we both have a rabbit and we're both addicted to thrift store shopping! Talking to her is like talking to MYSELF!
Yesterday E fell asleep in gan about 15 minutes before DH arrived to pick him up and that's all the nap he got yesterday so bedtime for him last night was a breeze. We have WWIII getting him in bed most nights. He's like the energizer bunny. Even last night with only a 15 minute nap the whole day he was bouncy and cheerful until I dumped him in bed at 9 pm. Most kids get crazy if they're overly tired.
There's a meat restaurant across from the mall here that we've been meaning to try so we went out last night with the kids. DHis always happy for an opportunity to have some meat and even though I don't eat it I had fries and pita and hummous and a whole smorgasbord of salads. It's not a fancy place or haute cuisine by any stretch but it's large and spacious and clean and the chairs were comfortable and best of all the meal for the 4 of us only came to 67 shekels (~$18)! Would definitely go there again. We are desperately trying to get our finances under control and our budget balanced so we rarely eat out. Maybe 2-3 times a year for a proper sit-down meal. That's not including the odd time we order pizza in or go out for a cup of coffee Friday morning or whatever.
DH is up to his eyeballs with work at the moment - thank G-d! He has a 110 page report to translate by.....tomorrow I think. And with E at home in the afternoons it's just impossible. E is soooo cute but OMG is he a heck of a lot of work! A little terrorist. (And it's a shock to the system because Y was SOOO easy. Still is.) Yesterday E climbed up one of the big tall bookcases somehow and got down a large bottle of bubble solution that was in Y's room and spilled it all over the floor! <scream> Oh well. That's one way to get the floors clean. At times when DH is NOT busy, there's no reason E needs to be in gan past 1:15 but we're going to talk to his caretaker and see if we can leave E there later on an "as needed" basis so DH will have that option when he's under pressure with work.
Going to Mom's on Sunday evening for her husband's birthday. We're taking pizza from the cheap place here.
We woke up to wet streets and raindrop diamonds on all the trees. It's supposed to be wet-ish through Friday then warm up. It's rather late in the year to be raining actually...
I bought some really nice ripe avocados last trip to the supermarket. Mashed them up last night into guacamole. Yummy on rice cakes!
Cousin C and I are still going back and forth with emails and keep finding similarities. We're both vegetarian, we both have a rabbit and we're both addicted to thrift store shopping! Talking to her is like talking to MYSELF!
Yesterday E fell asleep in gan about 15 minutes before DH arrived to pick him up and that's all the nap he got yesterday so bedtime for him last night was a breeze. We have WWIII getting him in bed most nights. He's like the energizer bunny. Even last night with only a 15 minute nap the whole day he was bouncy and cheerful until I dumped him in bed at 9 pm. Most kids get crazy if they're overly tired.
There's a meat restaurant across from the mall here that we've been meaning to try so we went out last night with the kids. DHis always happy for an opportunity to have some meat and even though I don't eat it I had fries and pita and hummous and a whole smorgasbord of salads. It's not a fancy place or haute cuisine by any stretch but it's large and spacious and clean and the chairs were comfortable and best of all the meal for the 4 of us only came to 67 shekels (~$18)! Would definitely go there again. We are desperately trying to get our finances under control and our budget balanced so we rarely eat out. Maybe 2-3 times a year for a proper sit-down meal. That's not including the odd time we order pizza in or go out for a cup of coffee Friday morning or whatever.
DH is up to his eyeballs with work at the moment - thank G-d! He has a 110 page report to translate by.....tomorrow I think. And with E at home in the afternoons it's just impossible. E is soooo cute but OMG is he a heck of a lot of work! A little terrorist. (And it's a shock to the system because Y was SOOO easy. Still is.) Yesterday E climbed up one of the big tall bookcases somehow and got down a large bottle of bubble solution that was in Y's room and spilled it all over the floor! <scream> Oh well. That's one way to get the floors clean. At times when DH is NOT busy, there's no reason E needs to be in gan past 1:15 but we're going to talk to his caretaker and see if we can leave E there later on an "as needed" basis so DH will have that option when he's under pressure with work.
Going to Mom's on Sunday evening for her husband's birthday. We're taking pizza from the cheap place here.
Monday, March 21, 2011
More This and That
It was wonderful to be home yesterday. The holiday went off without a hitch. Not that I was expecting one. Friends and family delivered beautifully wrapped packages of sweets and other goodies throughout the day. I hate to think how many pounds I gained. So much yummy food! Cakes and cookies and chocolates and a variety of other sweets. If I didn't have diabetes before I think I probably do now. Salads it will be for me for lunches for the next few months.
Y dressed up as a fairy.
Y dressed up as a fairy.
And E was Winnie the Pooh...
Yesterday we walked to one of Rehovot's main streets to the Purim carnival. It was mobbed and noisy and way too hot for my taste but festive just the same.
I think it was on Thursday that we were in the car and passed this open area full of red poppies. You can almost see them....
I am trying again to figure out what all the Twitter fuss is about. It seems to me simply another forum for going "blahhhhhh" and letting whatever's on your mind fall out of your face in an even more immediate form than FB. Am I wrong? What am I missing? I mean, who can keep up with it all?
Teenagers! My ex and his wife had another baby about 2 weeks ago and this weekend they were giving her a name in the synagogue and T wanted to be there for it. She took the train to her Dad's on Friday saying she'd come back Sunday morning (Purim morning). Fine. At some point on Sunday I get an SMS from her that she'll come back Sunday evening. DH and Y had plans to be in Netanya yesterday morning which is about one train stop from where my ex lives so I thought it would be good if they could coordinate and DH could bring her back seeing as he was going to be close to her. There was a whole big mix up over that and in the end T tells me forget it, she'll take the train home this morning. Now, I'd say morning - in our book - would be up until 10 am or so. I was at work today and I didn't hear and I didn't hear and I didn't hear from her. I finally called her (I HATE having to call her up to find out what's going on or get updates), "Nu, what's going on? What are your plans? You said you'd be here this morning and it's now noon." With a "what's your problem?" attitude she tells me she'll be here "sometime". I was annoyed and she knew it. She has a sister at home bouncing off the walls who would love to spend time with her and if she had come home earlier she could have helped out with the little ones so DH could have gotten more work done today than he has. He's up to his eyeballs and super stressed. At 14:14 pm she SMSd me to let me know she was finally on the train. OK. That means she'll arrive in Rehovot around 15:40 and I get off work at 16:30. Not enough time for me to leave work, take her home and come back to work. I told her she'd have to wait for me for a while. At which she got all bent out of shape and told me I was driving her crazy!!!!!! I let her have it! I was driving HER crazy?! I gave her a tongue-lashing via multiple SMS messages. She also decided, rightly so, to take a taxi home. So out of this 4-day holiday weekend, I will get to see her for about 5 hours between when I get home and when I go to bed tonight. Does that sound fair to you? She's a good girl but when she spends (too much) time with THEM she turns into someone else that I don't like and it usually takes some time for her to get back on the straight and narrow.
Here are the next set of three YouTube clips by Alison Armstrong where she talks about How Women Think:
Thursday, March 17, 2011
This and That
I love makeup. I have a friend who is even more into make up than I am - especially eye makeup. Her eyeshadow always looks amazing. We recently went out for coffee and I asked her how she keeps her eyeshadow from creasing. She smiled and said she wished she'd known the secret 10 years ago, then proceeded to tell me about this base coat that she uses on her eyelids before applying shadow. It's called Shadow Insurance by a company called Too Faced. I ordered a travel sized tube of it off of eBay and the stuff is miraculous! Just smear a tiny speck of it over your lid before applying shadow and you're good to go for the whole day.
Just thought I'd share that little tip with you.
E started trying to say his own name this week! Except it comes out as "ow-wee" or "ah-wee". LOL
Sister D and cousins C and M are having coffee together tomorrow morning and I'm jealous that I can't be there to have a fabulous girly time with them. But I hope they all have fun and I look forward to receiving the reports back and, hopefully, lots of pictures.
Anyone who is married knows that men and women speak, think and feel in different ways - sometimes WAAAAY different! I have never seen such a good description/explanation as these by Alison Armstrong:
How Women Speak - Part 1 of 3
How Women Speak - Part 2 of 3
How Women Speak - Part 3 of 3
And on a much more serious side.....I just had the following email arrive to my inbox from our town's internet message board which DH set up:
"After the recent loss suffered by the town Itamar and the Jewish people, two women in Jerusalem started an amazing fundraising project to benefit the three surviving children of the Fogel family. These children have a long road ahead of them toward healing and recovery. Although we may not be able to help them personally with their emotional recovery, this is a small but meaningful way to help them ease the financial burdens that lie ahead. And that's where the people of Rehovot can help!
While we reeled and mourned the heart-wrenching tragedy, many media outlets cited the terrorists as merely "assailants" and we repeatedly hear in the news how settlers are "obstacles to peace." If Rav Udi and Ruth Fogel; if their children Yoav, Elad and 4 month old baby Hadas are "obstacles to peace"; then honor their deaths by saying proudly too, that I am an "obstacle to peace." T-shirts are now being produced with this statement because as one nation standing united, if they were "obstacles to peace" - are we not all as well?
Do the people of Rehovot not feel and share the pain of those in Itamar?
For more information and to place an order please visit http://www.obstacletopeace.com/ or email obstacletopeace@gmail.com.
All profits from T-shirt sales will be donated to the surviving Fogel children. May their memories be a blessing."
I like it - the message, and also the goal of raising money to support the three surviving orphans. I've ordered one of these shirts for myself.
Just thought I'd share that little tip with you.
E started trying to say his own name this week! Except it comes out as "ow-wee" or "ah-wee". LOL
Sister D and cousins C and M are having coffee together tomorrow morning and I'm jealous that I can't be there to have a fabulous girly time with them. But I hope they all have fun and I look forward to receiving the reports back and, hopefully, lots of pictures.
Anyone who is married knows that men and women speak, think and feel in different ways - sometimes WAAAAY different! I have never seen such a good description/explanation as these by Alison Armstrong:
How Women Speak - Part 1 of 3
How Women Speak - Part 2 of 3
How Women Speak - Part 3 of 3
And on a much more serious side.....I just had the following email arrive to my inbox from our town's internet message board which DH set up:
"After the recent loss suffered by the town Itamar and the Jewish people, two women in Jerusalem started an amazing fundraising project to benefit the three surviving children of the Fogel family. These children have a long road ahead of them toward healing and recovery. Although we may not be able to help them personally with their emotional recovery, this is a small but meaningful way to help them ease the financial burdens that lie ahead. And that's where the people of Rehovot can help!
While we reeled and mourned the heart-wrenching tragedy, many media outlets cited the terrorists as merely "assailants" and we repeatedly hear in the news how settlers are "obstacles to peace." If Rav Udi and Ruth Fogel; if their children Yoav, Elad and 4 month old baby Hadas are "obstacles to peace"; then honor their deaths by saying proudly too, that I am an "obstacle to peace." T-shirts are now being produced with this statement because as one nation standing united, if they were "obstacles to peace" - are we not all as well?
Do the people of Rehovot not feel and share the pain of those in Itamar?
For more information and to place an order please visit http://www.obstacletopeace.com/ or email obstacletopeace@gmail.com.
All profits from T-shirt sales will be donated to the surviving Fogel children. May their memories be a blessing."
I like it - the message, and also the goal of raising money to support the three surviving orphans. I've ordered one of these shirts for myself.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
I Found a Lost Treasure
My Dad has been married 4 times.
The first time he married young and fast because his girlfriend was pregnant. They were both 18, I believe, and married the week after high school graduation. A week later his wife told him she didn't want to be married to him any more. I guess after that she took off because my Dad told me on Sunday when I called him to wish him happy birthday that after she told him that, he went looking for her and couldn't find her. He said he even tried to work up the courage to jump from the balcony of the 2nd floor apartment they'd rented but couldn't do it. He went home to his parents crying and told them his week old marriage was over. His Mom gave him a sleeping pill so he could sleep and his Dad took him into their bedroom and sat with him on the edge of their bed for a talk and HE was crying. (Now my grandfather was NOT a crier. There was nothing remotely soft or emotional or fatherly about him.) The marriage was annulled and my Dad give up all rights to the baby. He only saw her once when by coincidence he bumped into his ex and the baby girl in the supermarket. He hid behind a display but did get a good look at the baby who had his blond hair and blue eyes.
Dad married again quickly and fathered a son, Matthew. That marriage lasted about 3 1/2 years.
Me and my brother are from wife #3 and now he's married again.
I've known since I was quite young about my Dad's past. He's always been very open about it and has mentioned many times through the years that he had a daughter by his first wife. Even when I was at his house for a visit last October, he mentioned it again. He went on to say that his ex remarried and her new husband adopted the baby. I have wondered so many times: Where is she? Is she still alive? What happened to her? What's she like? At some point my Mom had told me Dad's first wife's name and that he believed the baby's name was Dana. That information stuck in my head.
I have an interest our family history and genealogy and about 10 years ago was researching my Dad's family tree and that "hole" in the family tree really bothered me. I spent some time online looking for my sister then. I tried Googling her name, tried searching on various genealogy web sites but didn't come up with anything. Then I hired a PI from WA state to trace her. I gave him the little snippets of info I had which wasn't much to go on. At the end of the trace, he sent me a written report which included the ex's name, the daughter's name (which was Dannette, not Dana), a copy of Dad's and his ex's marriage certificate and a mailing address for the ex in AZ. I took a chance and sent a hand-written letter to the AZ address explaining who I was and asking about the daughter. I don't even remember what all I wrote there but the letter was returned to me as "undeliverable". (I just came across that returned letter again 2 days ago.) I was disappointed but felt I'd reached a dead end and didn't know what else to do so I dropped it until recently.
Then about 3 weeks ago my Mom sent me the links to the FB profiles of two cousins (sisters) from my Dad's side who I have had no contact with since I was maybe 3? 4? I don't even recall exactly what they look like but I do remember playing with them at my grandparents' house. I sent both cousins a FB message and the older one got in touch immediately and we've been having fun getting (re)acquainted and it's freaky how similar our interests and lifestyles seem to be. She is very interested in the family history research I've done so the night after I got back in touch with her I got out my genealogy binder to see what I could pull to copy and send to her and I came across that PI's report from all those years back. I was perusing it to refresh my memory and as I was looking at the ex's name and the daughter's name it occurred to me: CHECK FACEBOOK! And "click, click"...there were both the ex and the daughter! Just like that.
OH BOY. I didn't know what the daughter knows. I didn't know what her mother's told her, if anything. She might believe someone else is her biological father. I didn't want to destroy any family relationships with some surprise information like this so....better not contact her directly. I popped Dad's ex a message explaining who I was, that I was doing family history research and this was a piece of the puzzle and asked if her daughter would welcome contact from me. She responded quickly that she didn't wish to communicate on FB and provided me with her email. Over the next 2 days I corresponded with her, gave her a brief synopsis of Dad's marriages and children from each, answered a few questions and told her that if she thought it best that I "leave it alone", I would. She was in shock but after 2 days of corresponding I finally was contacted by a lost treasure....my sister!
As an amusing aside, as soon as the ex's and daughter's FB profiles popped up, I caught up with my brother on FB and told him I'd just found them. He was like, "HUH? WHERE do you find this stuff?" And then said, "Do you really think you should pursue her? I mean, what if she's a total fiasco?" My brother is such a positive person. So little faith. (Believe me, all the worst case scenarios had gone through my mind as well. What if Dad's ex freaks out? What if she's nasty about it? What if the daughter doesn't know anything and the mother won't put us in touch? What if the mother tells me she was killed in a car accident or drowned? Or she's in prison for drugs?) But then Dannette and my brother had their first FB chat. As soon as they finished he popped me a message, the subject line of which said: "Dannette is awesome!" And the body of the message said: "That is all." He's tooooooo funny! I messaged back: "You may kiss me now." Ha ha!
I got the first message from Dannette on February 23. She seems happy to have been found. Either that or she's a really good actress. ;-) We have been emailing most days, having fun getting to know each other. She has been married to Jeff for 24 years and has two kids - girl and boy. This past Sunday we Skyped for the first time for an hour and a half!! Fun! The video picture wasn't that clear but I kept thinking, "She looks like Grandma."
I still can't believe this has happened, that it turned out as well as it did and I am amazed at how well she "fits" into the family. I keep pinching myself and can't keep the smile off my face. I just feel soooooo lucky!
The first time he married young and fast because his girlfriend was pregnant. They were both 18, I believe, and married the week after high school graduation. A week later his wife told him she didn't want to be married to him any more. I guess after that she took off because my Dad told me on Sunday when I called him to wish him happy birthday that after she told him that, he went looking for her and couldn't find her. He said he even tried to work up the courage to jump from the balcony of the 2nd floor apartment they'd rented but couldn't do it. He went home to his parents crying and told them his week old marriage was over. His Mom gave him a sleeping pill so he could sleep and his Dad took him into their bedroom and sat with him on the edge of their bed for a talk and HE was crying. (Now my grandfather was NOT a crier. There was nothing remotely soft or emotional or fatherly about him.) The marriage was annulled and my Dad give up all rights to the baby. He only saw her once when by coincidence he bumped into his ex and the baby girl in the supermarket. He hid behind a display but did get a good look at the baby who had his blond hair and blue eyes.
Dad married again quickly and fathered a son, Matthew. That marriage lasted about 3 1/2 years.
Me and my brother are from wife #3 and now he's married again.
I've known since I was quite young about my Dad's past. He's always been very open about it and has mentioned many times through the years that he had a daughter by his first wife. Even when I was at his house for a visit last October, he mentioned it again. He went on to say that his ex remarried and her new husband adopted the baby. I have wondered so many times: Where is she? Is she still alive? What happened to her? What's she like? At some point my Mom had told me Dad's first wife's name and that he believed the baby's name was Dana. That information stuck in my head.
I have an interest our family history and genealogy and about 10 years ago was researching my Dad's family tree and that "hole" in the family tree really bothered me. I spent some time online looking for my sister then. I tried Googling her name, tried searching on various genealogy web sites but didn't come up with anything. Then I hired a PI from WA state to trace her. I gave him the little snippets of info I had which wasn't much to go on. At the end of the trace, he sent me a written report which included the ex's name, the daughter's name (which was Dannette, not Dana), a copy of Dad's and his ex's marriage certificate and a mailing address for the ex in AZ. I took a chance and sent a hand-written letter to the AZ address explaining who I was and asking about the daughter. I don't even remember what all I wrote there but the letter was returned to me as "undeliverable". (I just came across that returned letter again 2 days ago.) I was disappointed but felt I'd reached a dead end and didn't know what else to do so I dropped it until recently.
Then about 3 weeks ago my Mom sent me the links to the FB profiles of two cousins (sisters) from my Dad's side who I have had no contact with since I was maybe 3? 4? I don't even recall exactly what they look like but I do remember playing with them at my grandparents' house. I sent both cousins a FB message and the older one got in touch immediately and we've been having fun getting (re)acquainted and it's freaky how similar our interests and lifestyles seem to be. She is very interested in the family history research I've done so the night after I got back in touch with her I got out my genealogy binder to see what I could pull to copy and send to her and I came across that PI's report from all those years back. I was perusing it to refresh my memory and as I was looking at the ex's name and the daughter's name it occurred to me: CHECK FACEBOOK! And "click, click"...there were both the ex and the daughter! Just like that.
OH BOY. I didn't know what the daughter knows. I didn't know what her mother's told her, if anything. She might believe someone else is her biological father. I didn't want to destroy any family relationships with some surprise information like this so....better not contact her directly. I popped Dad's ex a message explaining who I was, that I was doing family history research and this was a piece of the puzzle and asked if her daughter would welcome contact from me. She responded quickly that she didn't wish to communicate on FB and provided me with her email. Over the next 2 days I corresponded with her, gave her a brief synopsis of Dad's marriages and children from each, answered a few questions and told her that if she thought it best that I "leave it alone", I would. She was in shock but after 2 days of corresponding I finally was contacted by a lost treasure....my sister!
As an amusing aside, as soon as the ex's and daughter's FB profiles popped up, I caught up with my brother on FB and told him I'd just found them. He was like, "HUH? WHERE do you find this stuff?" And then said, "Do you really think you should pursue her? I mean, what if she's a total fiasco?" My brother is such a positive person. So little faith. (Believe me, all the worst case scenarios had gone through my mind as well. What if Dad's ex freaks out? What if she's nasty about it? What if the daughter doesn't know anything and the mother won't put us in touch? What if the mother tells me she was killed in a car accident or drowned? Or she's in prison for drugs?) But then Dannette and my brother had their first FB chat. As soon as they finished he popped me a message, the subject line of which said: "Dannette is awesome!" And the body of the message said: "That is all." He's tooooooo funny! I messaged back: "You may kiss me now." Ha ha!
I got the first message from Dannette on February 23. She seems happy to have been found. Either that or she's a really good actress. ;-) We have been emailing most days, having fun getting to know each other. She has been married to Jeff for 24 years and has two kids - girl and boy. This past Sunday we Skyped for the first time for an hour and a half!! Fun! The video picture wasn't that clear but I kept thinking, "She looks like Grandma."
I still can't believe this has happened, that it turned out as well as it did and I am amazed at how well she "fits" into the family. I keep pinching myself and can't keep the smile off my face. I just feel soooooo lucky!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Purim and Pizza
Starting next Saturday night and through Sunday, we will be celebrating the holiday of Purim which commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people living throughout the ancient Persian Empire from a plot by Haman to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther. According to the Book of Esther, Haman, royal vizier to King Ahasuerus, planned to kill the Jews, but his plans were foiled by Esther, Ahasuerus's queen. Mordecai, a palace official, cousin and foster parent of Esther, subsequently replaced Haman. The Jews were delivered from being the victims of an evil decree against them and were instead allowed by the King to destroy their enemies, and the day after the battle was designated as a day of feasting and rejoicing.
Purim is characterized by communal recitation of the Book of Esther in synagogues, giving gifts of sweets, wine and fruit and baked goods to friends and neighbors, giving charity to the poor, a celebratory meal, and wearing of costumes. This year Y wants to be a fairy and E is going to be Winnie the Pooh.
What does dressing up in costumes have to do with the story of Purim? Good question. The best answer I've heard (and there maybe be many reasons but this is the one that "spoke" to me) is that when we read the Book of Esther, G-d's name is not mentioned even once. The Divine hand in the salvation of the Jews at that time was hidden, or "disguised", by seemingly natural events.
As part of the general "whooping it up" in this lead-up to Purim, Y's school put on a Purim carnival for 2 1/2 hours on Friday morning and the families of all the students were invited. The tables and chairs were taken out of all classrooms and each room was turned into a different station with different activities. Pizza, drinks and candy were being sold and there was a cotton candy machine.
There was a costume dress up and makeup room.
DH was planning to come with me but due to his bum knee didn't make it. So it was Mom and daughter time and it was much better than I'd expected. It was all super low budget but the kids had a blast and I was impressed with the variety of activities. The school obviously put a lot of thought and planning and organizing into it and fun was had by all.
Last night I came home and rather than my usual "Kids! Here are your cornflakes!" dinner call, I plumbed the depths in order to find the energy to make some whole wheat crust pizza.
I have a good easy crust recipe and I already had the pizza/spaghetti sauce made up in the freezer so we had 2 large pizzas ready within an hour. I didn't feel like doing it but was happy I did. We had that for dinner and I cut up what was left and threw the pieces in the freezer for quick, kid-friendly lunches.
Purim is characterized by communal recitation of the Book of Esther in synagogues, giving gifts of sweets, wine and fruit and baked goods to friends and neighbors, giving charity to the poor, a celebratory meal, and wearing of costumes. This year Y wants to be a fairy and E is going to be Winnie the Pooh.
What does dressing up in costumes have to do with the story of Purim? Good question. The best answer I've heard (and there maybe be many reasons but this is the one that "spoke" to me) is that when we read the Book of Esther, G-d's name is not mentioned even once. The Divine hand in the salvation of the Jews at that time was hidden, or "disguised", by seemingly natural events.
As part of the general "whooping it up" in this lead-up to Purim, Y's school put on a Purim carnival for 2 1/2 hours on Friday morning and the families of all the students were invited. The tables and chairs were taken out of all classrooms and each room was turned into a different station with different activities. Pizza, drinks and candy were being sold and there was a cotton candy machine.
There was a costume dress up and makeup room.
One room was turned into a petting corner with rabbits and guinea pigs and hamsters and snakes and a tarantula and chickens and a large tortoise.
In Y's classroom a large inflatible bouncy castle had been set up for the kids to jump on. It took up the whole room!
There were two teachers making shapes and various creatures out of balloons.
There was a gardening corner where the kids could choose between tomato, celery or cabbage plant and pot it and decorate the pot with stickers and then the teacher would wrap it nicely in cellophane to take home.
There was a ring toss competition for which Y got a prize.
There was a "bottle pool" instead of a "ball pool" - an entire classroom filled with empty plastic soda bottles.
Last night I came home and rather than my usual "Kids! Here are your cornflakes!" dinner call, I plumbed the depths in order to find the energy to make some whole wheat crust pizza.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A Day When Life Goes Through You
My heart is so, so, so heavy today. The Sabbath finished last night and, as most people do immediately after, I opened one of my favorite English news web sites to see what, if anything, I'd missed over the 25 hours of the Sabbath when we do not turn on the TV or use our computers. There I read of the beastial murder of 5 members of the Fogel family on the Sabbath (Friday night) - father, mother and 3 young children (out of 6 total) - who had all been either stabbed to death or had their throats slit in their sleep.
Read: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142843 and look at those pictures if you dare.
THIS is what we get from members of the Fatah movement, our supposed "moderate" partners in peace! What a joke!
IT IS SO UNFAIR! A beautiful family destroyed. FOR WHAT? Because they're Jewish and dare to call this country their own? What, in the name of G-d, did that dear, sweet, wonderful, pure, precious, miraculous baby girl do to anyone? How can anyone have such utter disregard for life? Five lives cut short. Just like that. In seconds. For no reason. It boggles the mind. There are no words except one: WHY? My stomach has been upside down all day and I can't stop thinking about those three children who survived and who are now motherless and fatherless and siblingless. How do you bury your son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren on the same day? How does one carry on after such a horror? How is it possible to have anything like a normal life?
Like I was saying in a previous post, on days like today life doesn't go by you. It goes through you.
I look at my childrens' sweet, happy, beautiful, hopeful faces and wonder how anyone could hate them enough to want to kill them. Just because they live on what someone feels is the "wrong" postage stamp sized piece of land?
I am very reluctant to talk politics in any public forum because my honest opinion about what goes on in this part of the world is not PC but on a day like today I cannot stay silent. My heart aches. I am ANGRY! On a day like today, I am reeeeeaaaally liking the word "DEPORTATION". The world must no longer refer to "them" by their made up name of "Palestinian." The world continues to support actions like Friday night's murders every time it uses their rhetoric when describing them. The world needs to get very clear about what is going on here.
To all Arabs in Israel...THIS IS A JEWISH COUNTRY. If you do not want to live in a Jewish country, there are MYRIAD other countries in which to live...MUSLIM countries...if you wish. Here in Israel, our minority citizens have every right available to the majority, which is more than can be said in Muslim countries. If you don't support the Jewish state...you should be deported. This is non-negotiable. (
May the Jewish people know no more pain and anguish. May our government strictly enforce a policy of deportation and stop paying heed to the clatter and din around us of those who would advise otherwise. May this land remain a free and peaceful land for all Jews and for those that support them and support this country being a Jewish land. May the entire world wake up from their slumber and realize that these Arabs who call themselves Palestianian are no such thing. They are Arabs. Their rhetoric is a military and political tactic to force the world into believing that Israel is not a Jewish land. And it is a complete falsehood. (thanks J.Rivkah)
May the memories of the five members of the Fogel family who were murdered be a blessing. Amen!
Read: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142843 and look at those pictures if you dare.
THIS is what we get from members of the Fatah movement, our supposed "moderate" partners in peace! What a joke!
IT IS SO UNFAIR! A beautiful family destroyed. FOR WHAT? Because they're Jewish and dare to call this country their own? What, in the name of G-d, did that dear, sweet, wonderful, pure, precious, miraculous baby girl do to anyone? How can anyone have such utter disregard for life? Five lives cut short. Just like that. In seconds. For no reason. It boggles the mind. There are no words except one: WHY? My stomach has been upside down all day and I can't stop thinking about those three children who survived and who are now motherless and fatherless and siblingless. How do you bury your son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren on the same day? How does one carry on after such a horror? How is it possible to have anything like a normal life?
Like I was saying in a previous post, on days like today life doesn't go by you. It goes through you.
I look at my childrens' sweet, happy, beautiful, hopeful faces and wonder how anyone could hate them enough to want to kill them. Just because they live on what someone feels is the "wrong" postage stamp sized piece of land?
I am very reluctant to talk politics in any public forum because my honest opinion about what goes on in this part of the world is not PC but on a day like today I cannot stay silent. My heart aches. I am ANGRY! On a day like today, I am reeeeeaaaally liking the word "DEPORTATION". The world must no longer refer to "them" by their made up name of "Palestinian." The world continues to support actions like Friday night's murders every time it uses their rhetoric when describing them. The world needs to get very clear about what is going on here.
To all Arabs in Israel...THIS IS A JEWISH COUNTRY. If you do not want to live in a Jewish country, there are MYRIAD other countries in which to live...MUSLIM countries...if you wish. Here in Israel, our minority citizens have every right available to the majority, which is more than can be said in Muslim countries. If you don't support the Jewish state...you should be deported. This is non-negotiable. (
May the Jewish people know no more pain and anguish. May our government strictly enforce a policy of deportation and stop paying heed to the clatter and din around us of those who would advise otherwise. May this land remain a free and peaceful land for all Jews and for those that support them and support this country being a Jewish land. May the entire world wake up from their slumber and realize that these Arabs who call themselves Palestianian are no such thing. They are Arabs. Their rhetoric is a military and political tactic to force the world into believing that Israel is not a Jewish land. And it is a complete falsehood. (thanks J.Rivkah)
May the memories of the five members of the Fogel family who were murdered be a blessing. Amen!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Winter's back.....
I really don't feel like working today. It's dark and cold and rainy/blowy outside and I woke up with a horrendous headache. It's supposed to be dark and wintery through the weekend with a promise of snow on Mt. Hermon up north and maybe even in Jerusalem!
On Sunday, we bought two pizzas and took them to Mom's house for her birthday. I bought her a pair of sparkly purple earrings which she LOVED!
E has most definitely reached the Terrible Twos. When he is happy and cheerful, he's cuter than a bug's ear but when he's not....LOOK OUT! He smacks, he spits, he screams, "no" seems to be the only word he knows any more. The rest of his vocabulary has gone down the toilet. How do you stop a kid from spitting? We tell him "no" very sternly and he KNOWS he's done something wrong but it doesn't stop him. We are trying to put him in his bed for time out when he does it. I have my doubts whether this will work either.
We only have one car which DH needs because he has to pick E up from gan (daycare) every day at 13:30. DH takes me to work every and picks me up so he can keep the car. Last June, I bought one of those electric scooters to get me the 4 miles to work and back. We have had huge problems with it and each time something goes wrong we have to take it back to the place in Tel Aviv where we bought it = time and cost of gas + major pain in the rear. Now our car is in for repairs and yesterday at 11 am DH had a meeting to go to so he took my scooter. While he was in the meeting it rained so the roads were wet and he had a little accident with it. Got a very nasty scrape on his knee cap and one elbow. When I got home from work he was still holding a gauze bandage to it and applying pressure to it but the bleeding wasn't really stopping. I made him go lie down and put his foot up and stop moving around. In the end I sent him off to the night clinic in a taxi and they put in two stitches and gave him antibiotics and made sure his tentanus shot was up to date (it was). He is in agony and can barely walk. He's taking aspirin as needed for the pain. I will probably leave work a little early to help out with the kids. Meanwhile we still have no car and it's freezing cold and dark and rainy out. How come these catastrophes always happen when we have no car and the weather is miserable??
You know how men think they've got to be in bed if they've got a hangnail? They milk it for all it's worth? Last night, DH kept asking me if he looked pale or if I thought he was shivering. Then he said, "I'm probably in shock." And then his face brightened as he said, "Or MAYBE I'm bleeding internally." I laughed and said, "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" I know. I'm mean. He tells me I'm cold hearted and unempathic.
I am eagerly waiting to Skype my newly found sister on Sunday. I can hardly think of anything else. I get choked up just thinking about finally being able to talk to her and see her after all these years of wondering where she was, if she was alive, what happened to her, what she's like, etc. I am dreaming of how and when I can make another trip so I can meet her in person and her family and give her a big bear hug.
On Sunday, we bought two pizzas and took them to Mom's house for her birthday. I bought her a pair of sparkly purple earrings which she LOVED!
E has most definitely reached the Terrible Twos. When he is happy and cheerful, he's cuter than a bug's ear but when he's not....LOOK OUT! He smacks, he spits, he screams, "no" seems to be the only word he knows any more. The rest of his vocabulary has gone down the toilet. How do you stop a kid from spitting? We tell him "no" very sternly and he KNOWS he's done something wrong but it doesn't stop him. We are trying to put him in his bed for time out when he does it. I have my doubts whether this will work either.
We only have one car which DH needs because he has to pick E up from gan (daycare) every day at 13:30. DH takes me to work every and picks me up so he can keep the car. Last June, I bought one of those electric scooters to get me the 4 miles to work and back. We have had huge problems with it and each time something goes wrong we have to take it back to the place in Tel Aviv where we bought it = time and cost of gas + major pain in the rear. Now our car is in for repairs and yesterday at 11 am DH had a meeting to go to so he took my scooter. While he was in the meeting it rained so the roads were wet and he had a little accident with it. Got a very nasty scrape on his knee cap and one elbow. When I got home from work he was still holding a gauze bandage to it and applying pressure to it but the bleeding wasn't really stopping. I made him go lie down and put his foot up and stop moving around. In the end I sent him off to the night clinic in a taxi and they put in two stitches and gave him antibiotics and made sure his tentanus shot was up to date (it was). He is in agony and can barely walk. He's taking aspirin as needed for the pain. I will probably leave work a little early to help out with the kids. Meanwhile we still have no car and it's freezing cold and dark and rainy out. How come these catastrophes always happen when we have no car and the weather is miserable??
You know how men think they've got to be in bed if they've got a hangnail? They milk it for all it's worth? Last night, DH kept asking me if he looked pale or if I thought he was shivering. Then he said, "I'm probably in shock." And then his face brightened as he said, "Or MAYBE I'm bleeding internally." I laughed and said, "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" I know. I'm mean. He tells me I'm cold hearted and unempathic.
I am eagerly waiting to Skype my newly found sister on Sunday. I can hardly think of anything else. I get choked up just thinking about finally being able to talk to her and see her after all these years of wondering where she was, if she was alive, what happened to her, what she's like, etc. I am dreaming of how and when I can make another trip so I can meet her in person and her family and give her a big bear hug.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
A Zippedee-Doo-Da Day
Friday was AWESOME! It was warm and sunny so a high energy day for me. You know when you have one of those days where everything just ticks along, falls into place, gets DONE effortlessly? That's how it was.
I gave DH a haircut. He was long overdue and looking scruffy 'round the edges. (When he says he's going to get a haircut, we always ask him, "Yeah? Which one?" LOL)
Got Y's dress mended.
Got the cooking done.
Bags and bags of fabric scraps got donated to a good cause.
I colored my hair.
I even got a 2 hour nap. (I am an accomplished napper.)
E got picked up from gan (daycare) early b/c he wasn't feeling well.
Grandma Irene got picked up from Netanya by DH and brought back to spend the weekend with us.
Training wheels for Y's bike got purchased - that's been on the "to do" list FOREVER....
The winter coat that I found at the 2nd hand shop got taken over to my friend's house for her daughter.
I decluttered our bedroom. Looks MUCH better even though I'm not finished.
Yay me! I wish every day was like that.......I guess the stars were in the right alignment.
I gave DH a haircut. He was long overdue and looking scruffy 'round the edges. (When he says he's going to get a haircut, we always ask him, "Yeah? Which one?" LOL)
Got Y's dress mended.
Got the cooking done.
Bags and bags of fabric scraps got donated to a good cause.
I colored my hair.
I even got a 2 hour nap. (I am an accomplished napper.)
E got picked up from gan (daycare) early b/c he wasn't feeling well.
Grandma Irene got picked up from Netanya by DH and brought back to spend the weekend with us.
Training wheels for Y's bike got purchased - that's been on the "to do" list FOREVER....
The winter coat that I found at the 2nd hand shop got taken over to my friend's house for her daughter.
I decluttered our bedroom. Looks MUCH better even though I'm not finished.
Yay me! I wish every day was like that.......I guess the stars were in the right alignment.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Weekend Countdown
I'm still at work and up to my eyeballs so...... I'm taking a break. How's that for logic?
I was thinking.....how come FB doesn't have a video chat like Skype does? How hard could that be to set up?
Last night was crazy. I was on the go from the minute I left work until 9 pm. DH dropped me off in town with the 2 little ones straight after work. Mom's bday is on Sat., Dad's is the 13th, neice #1's bday is the 11th and neice #2's bday is next month (I mail the gifts together). I wanted to get gifts for mom and the neices and a bday card at the mall for Dad. Then T called me from school saying she wanted to come home a day early so she could go to her Dad's. His wife just had a baby 2 days ago. So I dropped the little ones off at home with DH and raced off to the school to pick her up. On the way back stopped off and brought pizza home for dinner. Got home at 9 pm.
My ex remarried. They had triplets and immediately another one and now this is the 5th. Tehilla wants to help out with the older ones for the weekend. She's AMAZING with little kids. VERY responsible and mature for her age. She was an only child until she was 8 and now she's got siblings coming out her ears.
My weekend starts tonight. Hurrah! So much to do. My house looks like a bomb struck. Must find the energy to get it put back together. I want to get as much done tonight as I can so I can RELAX (yeah right) tomorrow. Decluttering our bedroom is on the agenda as well as coloring my hair and mopping the floors. Overly optimistic? Probably.
Cousin Cherie and I have been flying back and forth with getting to know you emails and pics too. It's freaky how similar we seem to be as far as lifestyle and interests. She's a vegetarian too. Even stricter than me.
Effie is sick. He had a fever last night. He's coughing badly like the rest of the country so he stayed home today. Have to start giving him inhalations. (I think I misspelled that word. It looks funny. O well.) He's SOOO yummy! I didn't know boys could be so cute. I was in such a panic after they told us he was a boy. What the heck does one do with boys? I'd been doing frilly dresses and hair bows and nail polish and dolls for 12 years and then the thought of doing jeans and soccer and toy soldiers....ugh. But it's not so bad. At least, not yet. He is much harder than the girls in that he's much more active, noisy, messy, aggressive, etc. Very naughty too. I tell people having a boy after two girls is like getting a Rottweiler after a miniature poodle.
Weather was perfect today. Warm sun, cool wind. Hope it stays like that through the weekend.
I was thinking.....how come FB doesn't have a video chat like Skype does? How hard could that be to set up?
Last night was crazy. I was on the go from the minute I left work until 9 pm. DH dropped me off in town with the 2 little ones straight after work. Mom's bday is on Sat., Dad's is the 13th, neice #1's bday is the 11th and neice #2's bday is next month (I mail the gifts together). I wanted to get gifts for mom and the neices and a bday card at the mall for Dad. Then T called me from school saying she wanted to come home a day early so she could go to her Dad's. His wife just had a baby 2 days ago. So I dropped the little ones off at home with DH and raced off to the school to pick her up. On the way back stopped off and brought pizza home for dinner. Got home at 9 pm.
My ex remarried. They had triplets and immediately another one and now this is the 5th. Tehilla wants to help out with the older ones for the weekend. She's AMAZING with little kids. VERY responsible and mature for her age. She was an only child until she was 8 and now she's got siblings coming out her ears.
My weekend starts tonight. Hurrah! So much to do. My house looks like a bomb struck. Must find the energy to get it put back together. I want to get as much done tonight as I can so I can RELAX (yeah right) tomorrow. Decluttering our bedroom is on the agenda as well as coloring my hair and mopping the floors. Overly optimistic? Probably.
Cousin Cherie and I have been flying back and forth with getting to know you emails and pics too. It's freaky how similar we seem to be as far as lifestyle and interests. She's a vegetarian too. Even stricter than me.
Effie is sick. He had a fever last night. He's coughing badly like the rest of the country so he stayed home today. Have to start giving him inhalations. (I think I misspelled that word. It looks funny. O well.) He's SOOO yummy! I didn't know boys could be so cute. I was in such a panic after they told us he was a boy. What the heck does one do with boys? I'd been doing frilly dresses and hair bows and nail polish and dolls for 12 years and then the thought of doing jeans and soccer and toy soldiers....ugh. But it's not so bad. At least, not yet. He is much harder than the girls in that he's much more active, noisy, messy, aggressive, etc. Very naughty too. I tell people having a boy after two girls is like getting a Rottweiler after a miniature poodle.
Weather was perfect today. Warm sun, cool wind. Hope it stays like that through the weekend.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Why Israel?
Israelis often ask me why I came and don't I miss the U.S. How do you answer that in a casual supermarket counter one-word answer? It is so complex. Of course I miss certain things about the U.S. My family and friends. The hugeness of it. The dimensions of the great outdoors. Certain food items. English books. Wall to wall carpets. Wooden houses and furniture. The abundance of SPACE - large houses, large rooms, large furniture, large windows, wide streets, long distances between one place and another. But would I want to move back? No.
For one, it would be like being a new immigrant all over again and I really don't want to re-live that experience. Once was enough. The slang has moved on, the technologies have moved on, the medical system has evolved, etc. I would have to re-learn all that. Even when I was in the U.S. in October I felt out of my depth at times. For example, putting gas in the car.....do you pump first then pay? Pay first then pump? How do you operate the pump? I never drove in the U.S. I got my license in Israel. So the pumping gas experience was foreign to me.
Secondly, I can't imagine raising my kids anywhere else. I don't want them to be a minority. I don't want them to be self-conscious about the fact that they are Jewish and therefore different from the culture at large around them. I want them to live in a place where their history happened. I want to be able to say to them, "Those are the mountains Lot hid in when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed." and "That is the valley where David fought Goliath." It takes the history lesson to a whole new level. I want them to live in a place where they are looked upon as treasures by every other mother and grandmother, not just me. And where every soldier that falls is in a very real sense, a family member.
So back to the question. Why Israel?
I have never come across a better answer to the question than the following article written by Daniel Gordis. (Daniel Gordis (http://www.danielgordis.org/) is from L.A., an American immigrant to Israel and Director of the Jerusalem Fellows Program at the Mandel School in Jerusalem.) I have read it so many times I can't believe my computer hasn't gone "pop!". And no matter how many times I read it, I am always in tears by the end. It could not be put more perfectly. (This essay was written in 2003 following a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.)
A Place Where Life Goes Through You
"Over the past few years, particularly on days like today when life here is anything but idyllic, people have asked us more than once why we stay. It's the kind of question that I'm never entirely certain how to answer.
For one, it would be like being a new immigrant all over again and I really don't want to re-live that experience. Once was enough. The slang has moved on, the technologies have moved on, the medical system has evolved, etc. I would have to re-learn all that. Even when I was in the U.S. in October I felt out of my depth at times. For example, putting gas in the car.....do you pump first then pay? Pay first then pump? How do you operate the pump? I never drove in the U.S. I got my license in Israel. So the pumping gas experience was foreign to me.
Secondly, I can't imagine raising my kids anywhere else. I don't want them to be a minority. I don't want them to be self-conscious about the fact that they are Jewish and therefore different from the culture at large around them. I want them to live in a place where their history happened. I want to be able to say to them, "Those are the mountains Lot hid in when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed." and "That is the valley where David fought Goliath." It takes the history lesson to a whole new level. I want them to live in a place where they are looked upon as treasures by every other mother and grandmother, not just me. And where every soldier that falls is in a very real sense, a family member.
So back to the question. Why Israel?
I have never come across a better answer to the question than the following article written by Daniel Gordis. (Daniel Gordis (http://www.danielgordis.org/) is from L.A., an American immigrant to Israel and Director of the Jerusalem Fellows Program at the Mandel School in Jerusalem.) I have read it so many times I can't believe my computer hasn't gone "pop!". And no matter how many times I read it, I am always in tears by the end. It could not be put more perfectly. (This essay was written in 2003 following a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.)
A Place Where Life Goes Through You
"Over the past few years, particularly on days like today when life here is anything but idyllic, people have asked us more than once why we stay. It's the kind of question that I'm never entirely certain how to answer.
It's about Zionism, of course, and the belief that the Jews need a place to call our own. And it's because there are specific qualities of our lives and our communities here that we could never duplicate anywhere else. And it's because you don't run and hand them a victory. And it's because there's something indescribable about living in the very place that the texts of your tradition refer to in hundreds of places.
But it's more than that, something far less cerebral, and I've always found it hard to communicate to those who asked why, when you get right down to it, virtually no one that we know (admittedly a narrow slice of Israeli society) is even thinking of leaving. Even today, a day when the sadness and fury in this city are so overbearing that neighbors scarcely look at each other, when kids tiptoe around the house, when everyone walks on eggshells because everyone is about to cry.
I got a letter a few weeks ago from someone I don't really know. She was writing about her own complex feelings about Israel, living here versus not living here and the like, and told me that she'd written to a mother of a child who was killed in the violence of the last few years.
That mother wrote her back, and in reflecting on why she still lives in Israel and has never once thought of leaving, told her that in America, she and her family had had a wonderful life, but had always felt that there, they essentially watched life go by. Here, she wrote, life doesn't go by you -- it goes through you.
That notion that this is a place where life goes through you hit the nail on the head. It captures that "je ne sais quoi" that so many of us feel, that explains our collective love for living in a place that many of the people we know are too frightened to even visit. There's an intensity about life here, tragic at times but compelling at virtually every moment -- that most of us simply couldn't imagine walking away from.
It's no surprise that that intensity is felt at the horrible moments. When five soldiers are killed in one day just hours after the signing of another alleged peace accord, or when a bus blows up (a kind of euphemism, of course, because buses don't just blow up on their own) killing sixteen people on the spot, sending a hundred to the hospital and terrorizing (and infuriating) the rest of the city, you expect that intensity.
Those are the kinds of things that might bring any society together, and do so in Israel with an immediacy and regularity which frankly, most of us would obviously much rather do without. None of that is surprising.
What is noteworthy, though, and what has so many of us so in love with this place, is that that sort of intensity strikes at seemingly the most mundane moments. The American press won't cover the mundane moments.
They're not sufficiently interesting; advertisers won't have it. So we'll make the network evening news today, when Americans can gawk at our burnt-out bus, the line of a dozen body bags neatly laid out on Jaffa Road in the center of the capital.
It will confirm everyone's impression of what life is like here, and it will fortify those alleged supporters of Israel who are secretly thrilled to have confirmation that they're right not to want to come, even for a visit.
But that is not the stuff of which life here is made, and especially on a day like today, it's important to remember that. It's important for us to recall, and for others to begin to understand, that to live here is to live in a place where very little gets taken for granted, where even the simplest things are often seen for the miracles they are.
My parents were recently here for a brief visit. When they arrived, my father told me about their flight over. They were flying El Al, and as the plane began its descent into Tel Aviv, the pilot got on the PA system (that's PA for "Public Announcement," not "Palestinian Authority") and said in English, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday, and thus I'll be retiring. This, therefore, is my last flight as an El Al pilot, and I wanted to thank you and wish you the very best."
Then, in Hebrew, almost the same thing: "Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday, and thus I'll be retiring. This, therefore, is my last flight as an El Al pilot, and I wanted to thank you and wish you the very best. I chose to make this announcement in English first, in a departure from general El Al practice, because I wanted my last words as a pilot to be in Hebrew. Shalom u-le-hitra'ot."
My father thought, and I agreed, that there's something extraordinary about a moment like that. This is a country where even the language we speak strikes many of us as a miracle. It's true that popular Jewish education has exaggerated a bit the revolution wrought by Eliezer Ben Yehudah. He didn't quite re-invent Hebrew, as Jews had written in mellifluous Hebrew constantly throughout history, through the middle ages and early modernity, long before he did his work. But he did restore Hebrew to the status of a spoken language after it seemed that Hebrew's days as a lingua franca were long gone.
True, this is now a country where English is ubiquitous, where "le-farmet" means "to format" and where "diskim" is the plural for "disk." It's a country in which foreign phrases from English and Arabic now pepper everyone's discourse and where so many millions of Israeli children speak Hebrew so naturally that there doesn't seem to be anything so extraordinary about our hearing Hebrew all day long.
But it's still a country where lots of us believe that even our language is a miracle. To many of us, waking up in the morning to a radio broadcast that tells you the news and the weather in a language that not too many decades ago, virtually no one in the world spoke, is miraculous. Sure, it would be nice if the news were different, and tomorrow's news will be brutal, because most of us will have dreamt of other things, and will awaken to a voice dragging us back into reality, citing the latest body count, the listing of times and places of funerals and analysis of all the diplomatic fallout.
But after that rude awakening, some of us will still be in awe. Really. For what makes it possible to get through the news and all that it implies is the simple realization that a Hebrew news broadcast is an extraordinary accomplishment. That, actually, is an advantage that we immigrants have over native Israelis. We're still struck by that stuff. We don't take it for granted. And that's why, even as lots of them stream out to greener and more peaceful pastures, we just watch and can't help but feel that they have no sense of the profundity of what they're giving up.
A couple of days after my parents arrived, I thought it would be fun to take them to an outdoor Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Reunification Day) concert that was being held in memory of two American students who were murdered last year in the bombing of the cafeteria on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University.
A couple of good bands were scheduled to perform, and it sounded like a nice way to both honor their memories and to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim without getting caught up in the annual debate over whether it's good to celebrate the "conquest" or the "liberation" or the "unification," all words that have so many overtones in Israeli life that I just usually sit the day out and avoid the stress. But this seemed important, and potentially fun, so off we went to the Sherover Promenade where the concert was being held. If nothing else, I figured, we'd get a great view of the city -- from West Jerusalem to the Old City to Scopus and then Jordan beyond -- on Jerusalem Day. That, too, seemed appropriate.
Thankfully and appropriately, the place was mobbed. The press later reported that 3,500 people attended the concert, a huge number for Jerusalem. It was a very mixed crowd. Young and old, from pre-teens to senior citizens, a few charedim and lots of "national religious" and secular, the dreadlock crowd to the yeshiva-dress-code of black pants and white shirts (also, today, the costume of choice for animals about to blow themselves up on a bus in a sickening homocidal gesture).
People without kippot (skullcap worn by religious Jewish men), with knitted kippot, with Bucharian kippot (a religious and cultural statement which cannot be fully explicated in this forum!). People who were there to dance up a storm, and those who were content to listen and watch. People who knew Ben and Marla and were there to honor their memories, people who didn't know them but still felt it important to go, and people who were there to honor and celebrate a city which much of the world still says we're going to have to split, or share or return. Or whatever. It must have been a security nightmare, so many people gathered so densely in an outdoor space so close to so many Arab villages, so the area was ringed with cops and other security personnel. But none of that prevented people from having a fabulous time.
Looking around at this scene, thousands of people out to celebrate a city (think about that for a moment -- when did we ever think that Baltimore, or New York, or Los Angeles, as much as we liked them, were miracles to be celebrated?) and to mourn a horrific loss of life, dancing and singing, swaying to the music, connecting with friends, marveling at the flickering lights of this ancient city visible from there as it is from no where else, it struck me.
This country is an unmitigated success. It's an achievement of cosmic proportions.
True, we've got an economy in tatters with unemployment, poverty and hunger. True, we're still lights years away from a workable peace agreement and too many people have died in the past three years, and as today proved again, will continue to die. True, the roads are far too dangerous and the streets too dirty. The public education system is a catastrophe. Israeli Arabs don't get their fair share, and neither do Jews of North African extraction. Yes, the democratic tradition here needs a lot of bolstering. And no question, the army has to be more careful, more disciplined. Those are all critical issues, and we have to address them.
But those are minor issues. Really. They can be fixed. This is our country, and if we mustered the will to fix those things, we could. I watched the hundreds and hundreds of kids at this concert (my two oldest kids, who had come with us, had long since disappeared into the crowd, having found friends, assuring us that they'd eventually make their way home and we shouldn't even bother looking for them), swaying and dancing to music almost exclusively about peace, totally at home and relaxed in a city that to many is synonymous with terror, conducting their evening in a language that not long ago people didn't even speak.
And I thought for a fleeting moment about where the Jews were 60 years ago, which to my kids is an eternity but isn't -- my parents were the age of our youngest kid at that point.Where were the Jews? Going up smokestacks, barred by FDR from American shores (while American Jews watched and did virtually nothing), blocked by the British from entering Palestine and imprisoned if they persisted in trying, thoroughly vulnerable to violence even here as the British watched (helped?) the local populations terrorize each other.
And look where we are today. Today's problems -- yes, even today's horror included -- seem minor in comparison. You can't survive here without some perspective. But with perspective, you can't help but see how much better off we are.
When the first of the two bands ended their set and played their best known song, "Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu" (rough translation - "peace will come some day"), a song in which the refrain is one Arabic word "Salaam", and the crowd went wild, cheering and singing along, I could scarcely believe my ears.
Ringed by security personnel because there really are people out there who would like to kill them, as we were gruesomely reminded today, these kids were still singing and clapping to songs about peace. Looking from the Promenade into an Arab village from which they probably wouldn't emerge if they actually walked down into it, they were still singing "Salaam" and swaying to a song they didn't want the band to stop playing. It was kind of too bad that the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad couldn't have been there for a few moments to witness this. For if they did, maybe they'd get it. They'll never, ever win. No matter how many busses they blow up, no matter how many people they kill. This is not a population or a generation that will be scared into leaving or into despair. The hope of this place runs too deep. You go to a night like that, and you know we're OK. Despite everything, despite all the scars, despite the wet blood still on the streets of our downtown, we're going to be fine.
Why would one stay here? I don't really get the question. I wonder about other questions. How could one leave? With even a thin, cursory sense of the tapestry of Jewish history, how could one not want to be here? (I can easily understand why many people cannot come. What I can't understand is those who don't genuinely wish they could.) Those are the questions I actually find harder to answer. Who wouldn't want to live in a place where even concerts are miracles?
And then, a couple of nights after that, a Bar Mitzvah party for a kid in our community. This was one of those classy, creative affairs that you don't forget. We were told to meet at Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem and then were bussed to a destination that we could only guess at. Eventually, we arrived -- all two hundred of us on four different buses -- at Beit Guvrin, about an hour west of Jerusalem, where there was dinner and dancing, more or less the standard works.
Except that there was a huge space for dancing, and the best band that I've ever heard in Israel. They were outrageously good and after a couple of sets of standard "Jewish stuff," they turned to the Beatles and onward, all the music that the parents' generation had grown up with. And this crowd, almost exclusively Anglo immigrants, partied, and partied hard.
Dancing and singing late into the night, it was clear. This was not just a great party; it was much more than that. It was a chance to celebrate, to let loose after almost three years of far too much stress, too much fear, too many tears. It was the perfect night for people desperate to feel joy, to forget the rest. Because we're tired, and hurting, but not despondent.
I looked around the crowd. Lawyers (lots of them!), venture capitalists, educators, therapists, a good smattering of high-tech folks (including, if I might be forgiven a blatant plug, the creator of by far the very, very best Web searching tool I know called GuruNet, which if you ever, ever search the Web you should definitely check out at http://www.gurunet.com/), some academics. A couple of government types. Different professions, a full spectrum of religious orientations, a reasonably wide socio-economic spread. Huge gaps between their political viewpoints, particularly on the subject of how to achieve peace, or how to live if you're resigned to peace never coming.
But most had one thing in common. They were immigrants. Mostly from the States and England, but from Russia and other places as well. And as such, it was a crowd who had chosen this life, elected to be here and thinks that being able to be here is about the greatest blessing life can offer. None of the despairing that one reads about in the Israeli press (though admittedly, also none of the poverty). Just a sense that out in the desert, celebrating a Bar Mitzvah surrounded by hundreds of other people who wouldn't want to live anywhere else, life just doesn't get better.
Towards midnight, it was clear that the party had to come to an end. After all, we had to leave as a group, and most people had to work the next morning. But the band wouldn't stop playing and the people wouldn't stop dancing. Finally, father of the Bar Mitzvah went to the band leader, whispered something in his ear and the band started to play HaTikvah (national anthem). For a split second, I was worried. I'm not a big fan of singing HaTikvah at every turn, and all too often, it strikes me as kitschy, or forced.
But there was nothing to worry about here. At the very first strains of HaTikvah, two hundred people who only a minute or two earlier had been wildly dancing up a storm stood perfectly still. Almost standing at attention, everyone sang. There we were, staring out at the desert hills, or up at the star-filled sky, or straight ahead at nothing in particular, singing words we understood and an anthem in which we deeply believe.
This was no Star-Spangled-Banner-Before-the-Ballgame moment. It was one of those existential moments, in which when you least expect it, you're reminded of what your life is all about.
Od lo avdah tikvateinu
Hatikvah bat shenot alpayim
Lih'yot am chofshi be-artzeinu
Eretz tziyyon vi-Yerushalayim.
Our hope is not lost
That two thousand year old dream
To be a free people in our land
The Land of Zion and Jerusalem.
It was one of those moments, when surrounded by people you knew and people you didn't, but people nonetheless whose life revolves around the same existential passion that yours does, when the power of this place overwhelms you. One of those moments when life doesn't just pass you by, but in ways that words can hardly attest, a moment in which life goes through you.
It's hard to know what will be the future here. I hope the country will make it, but some of us know that there's a chance that it won't. And the price our society has paid and continued to pay even today for wanting to stay here has been horrific. But despite all that, I don't think that anyone there at that moment had any doubt that it was worth it, or thought that there could be any gift greater than to have been born at this moment in Jewish history and to have the chance to be part of charting our future. When you think about it, what more could one possibly want from life?
Why would one stay? Like our friends, we never wonder. If we wonder about anything, we wonder how so many others could choose to live a life not filled with those moments. For the truth is, we didn't really need the buses to take us back to Jerusalem at the end of the night. Because even out there, in the desert, miles away from our apartments, everyone standing there singing HaTikvah knew and felt exactly the same thing.
That two-thousand year old dream has already come true. Even out there, in the middle of nowhere, we were already home. And especially on days like today, we're reminded -- we're home to stay."
But it's more than that, something far less cerebral, and I've always found it hard to communicate to those who asked why, when you get right down to it, virtually no one that we know (admittedly a narrow slice of Israeli society) is even thinking of leaving. Even today, a day when the sadness and fury in this city are so overbearing that neighbors scarcely look at each other, when kids tiptoe around the house, when everyone walks on eggshells because everyone is about to cry.
I got a letter a few weeks ago from someone I don't really know. She was writing about her own complex feelings about Israel, living here versus not living here and the like, and told me that she'd written to a mother of a child who was killed in the violence of the last few years.
That mother wrote her back, and in reflecting on why she still lives in Israel and has never once thought of leaving, told her that in America, she and her family had had a wonderful life, but had always felt that there, they essentially watched life go by. Here, she wrote, life doesn't go by you -- it goes through you.
That notion that this is a place where life goes through you hit the nail on the head. It captures that "je ne sais quoi" that so many of us feel, that explains our collective love for living in a place that many of the people we know are too frightened to even visit. There's an intensity about life here, tragic at times but compelling at virtually every moment -- that most of us simply couldn't imagine walking away from.
It's no surprise that that intensity is felt at the horrible moments. When five soldiers are killed in one day just hours after the signing of another alleged peace accord, or when a bus blows up (a kind of euphemism, of course, because buses don't just blow up on their own) killing sixteen people on the spot, sending a hundred to the hospital and terrorizing (and infuriating) the rest of the city, you expect that intensity.
Those are the kinds of things that might bring any society together, and do so in Israel with an immediacy and regularity which frankly, most of us would obviously much rather do without. None of that is surprising.
What is noteworthy, though, and what has so many of us so in love with this place, is that that sort of intensity strikes at seemingly the most mundane moments. The American press won't cover the mundane moments.
They're not sufficiently interesting; advertisers won't have it. So we'll make the network evening news today, when Americans can gawk at our burnt-out bus, the line of a dozen body bags neatly laid out on Jaffa Road in the center of the capital.
It will confirm everyone's impression of what life is like here, and it will fortify those alleged supporters of Israel who are secretly thrilled to have confirmation that they're right not to want to come, even for a visit.
But that is not the stuff of which life here is made, and especially on a day like today, it's important to remember that. It's important for us to recall, and for others to begin to understand, that to live here is to live in a place where very little gets taken for granted, where even the simplest things are often seen for the miracles they are.
My parents were recently here for a brief visit. When they arrived, my father told me about their flight over. They were flying El Al, and as the plane began its descent into Tel Aviv, the pilot got on the PA system (that's PA for "Public Announcement," not "Palestinian Authority") and said in English, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday, and thus I'll be retiring. This, therefore, is my last flight as an El Al pilot, and I wanted to thank you and wish you the very best."
Then, in Hebrew, almost the same thing: "Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing in Tel Aviv. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday, and thus I'll be retiring. This, therefore, is my last flight as an El Al pilot, and I wanted to thank you and wish you the very best. I chose to make this announcement in English first, in a departure from general El Al practice, because I wanted my last words as a pilot to be in Hebrew. Shalom u-le-hitra'ot."
My father thought, and I agreed, that there's something extraordinary about a moment like that. This is a country where even the language we speak strikes many of us as a miracle. It's true that popular Jewish education has exaggerated a bit the revolution wrought by Eliezer Ben Yehudah. He didn't quite re-invent Hebrew, as Jews had written in mellifluous Hebrew constantly throughout history, through the middle ages and early modernity, long before he did his work. But he did restore Hebrew to the status of a spoken language after it seemed that Hebrew's days as a lingua franca were long gone.
True, this is now a country where English is ubiquitous, where "le-farmet" means "to format" and where "diskim" is the plural for "disk." It's a country in which foreign phrases from English and Arabic now pepper everyone's discourse and where so many millions of Israeli children speak Hebrew so naturally that there doesn't seem to be anything so extraordinary about our hearing Hebrew all day long.
But it's still a country where lots of us believe that even our language is a miracle. To many of us, waking up in the morning to a radio broadcast that tells you the news and the weather in a language that not too many decades ago, virtually no one in the world spoke, is miraculous. Sure, it would be nice if the news were different, and tomorrow's news will be brutal, because most of us will have dreamt of other things, and will awaken to a voice dragging us back into reality, citing the latest body count, the listing of times and places of funerals and analysis of all the diplomatic fallout.
But after that rude awakening, some of us will still be in awe. Really. For what makes it possible to get through the news and all that it implies is the simple realization that a Hebrew news broadcast is an extraordinary accomplishment. That, actually, is an advantage that we immigrants have over native Israelis. We're still struck by that stuff. We don't take it for granted. And that's why, even as lots of them stream out to greener and more peaceful pastures, we just watch and can't help but feel that they have no sense of the profundity of what they're giving up.
A couple of days after my parents arrived, I thought it would be fun to take them to an outdoor Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Reunification Day) concert that was being held in memory of two American students who were murdered last year in the bombing of the cafeteria on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University.
A couple of good bands were scheduled to perform, and it sounded like a nice way to both honor their memories and to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim without getting caught up in the annual debate over whether it's good to celebrate the "conquest" or the "liberation" or the "unification," all words that have so many overtones in Israeli life that I just usually sit the day out and avoid the stress. But this seemed important, and potentially fun, so off we went to the Sherover Promenade where the concert was being held. If nothing else, I figured, we'd get a great view of the city -- from West Jerusalem to the Old City to Scopus and then Jordan beyond -- on Jerusalem Day. That, too, seemed appropriate.
Thankfully and appropriately, the place was mobbed. The press later reported that 3,500 people attended the concert, a huge number for Jerusalem. It was a very mixed crowd. Young and old, from pre-teens to senior citizens, a few charedim and lots of "national religious" and secular, the dreadlock crowd to the yeshiva-dress-code of black pants and white shirts (also, today, the costume of choice for animals about to blow themselves up on a bus in a sickening homocidal gesture).
People without kippot (skullcap worn by religious Jewish men), with knitted kippot, with Bucharian kippot (a religious and cultural statement which cannot be fully explicated in this forum!). People who were there to dance up a storm, and those who were content to listen and watch. People who knew Ben and Marla and were there to honor their memories, people who didn't know them but still felt it important to go, and people who were there to honor and celebrate a city which much of the world still says we're going to have to split, or share or return. Or whatever. It must have been a security nightmare, so many people gathered so densely in an outdoor space so close to so many Arab villages, so the area was ringed with cops and other security personnel. But none of that prevented people from having a fabulous time.
Looking around at this scene, thousands of people out to celebrate a city (think about that for a moment -- when did we ever think that Baltimore, or New York, or Los Angeles, as much as we liked them, were miracles to be celebrated?) and to mourn a horrific loss of life, dancing and singing, swaying to the music, connecting with friends, marveling at the flickering lights of this ancient city visible from there as it is from no where else, it struck me.
This country is an unmitigated success. It's an achievement of cosmic proportions.
True, we've got an economy in tatters with unemployment, poverty and hunger. True, we're still lights years away from a workable peace agreement and too many people have died in the past three years, and as today proved again, will continue to die. True, the roads are far too dangerous and the streets too dirty. The public education system is a catastrophe. Israeli Arabs don't get their fair share, and neither do Jews of North African extraction. Yes, the democratic tradition here needs a lot of bolstering. And no question, the army has to be more careful, more disciplined. Those are all critical issues, and we have to address them.
But those are minor issues. Really. They can be fixed. This is our country, and if we mustered the will to fix those things, we could. I watched the hundreds and hundreds of kids at this concert (my two oldest kids, who had come with us, had long since disappeared into the crowd, having found friends, assuring us that they'd eventually make their way home and we shouldn't even bother looking for them), swaying and dancing to music almost exclusively about peace, totally at home and relaxed in a city that to many is synonymous with terror, conducting their evening in a language that not long ago people didn't even speak.
And I thought for a fleeting moment about where the Jews were 60 years ago, which to my kids is an eternity but isn't -- my parents were the age of our youngest kid at that point.Where were the Jews? Going up smokestacks, barred by FDR from American shores (while American Jews watched and did virtually nothing), blocked by the British from entering Palestine and imprisoned if they persisted in trying, thoroughly vulnerable to violence even here as the British watched (helped?) the local populations terrorize each other.
And look where we are today. Today's problems -- yes, even today's horror included -- seem minor in comparison. You can't survive here without some perspective. But with perspective, you can't help but see how much better off we are.
When the first of the two bands ended their set and played their best known song, "Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu" (rough translation - "peace will come some day"), a song in which the refrain is one Arabic word "Salaam", and the crowd went wild, cheering and singing along, I could scarcely believe my ears.
Ringed by security personnel because there really are people out there who would like to kill them, as we were gruesomely reminded today, these kids were still singing and clapping to songs about peace. Looking from the Promenade into an Arab village from which they probably wouldn't emerge if they actually walked down into it, they were still singing "Salaam" and swaying to a song they didn't want the band to stop playing. It was kind of too bad that the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad couldn't have been there for a few moments to witness this. For if they did, maybe they'd get it. They'll never, ever win. No matter how many busses they blow up, no matter how many people they kill. This is not a population or a generation that will be scared into leaving or into despair. The hope of this place runs too deep. You go to a night like that, and you know we're OK. Despite everything, despite all the scars, despite the wet blood still on the streets of our downtown, we're going to be fine.
Why would one stay here? I don't really get the question. I wonder about other questions. How could one leave? With even a thin, cursory sense of the tapestry of Jewish history, how could one not want to be here? (I can easily understand why many people cannot come. What I can't understand is those who don't genuinely wish they could.) Those are the questions I actually find harder to answer. Who wouldn't want to live in a place where even concerts are miracles?
And then, a couple of nights after that, a Bar Mitzvah party for a kid in our community. This was one of those classy, creative affairs that you don't forget. We were told to meet at Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem and then were bussed to a destination that we could only guess at. Eventually, we arrived -- all two hundred of us on four different buses -- at Beit Guvrin, about an hour west of Jerusalem, where there was dinner and dancing, more or less the standard works.
Except that there was a huge space for dancing, and the best band that I've ever heard in Israel. They were outrageously good and after a couple of sets of standard "Jewish stuff," they turned to the Beatles and onward, all the music that the parents' generation had grown up with. And this crowd, almost exclusively Anglo immigrants, partied, and partied hard.
Dancing and singing late into the night, it was clear. This was not just a great party; it was much more than that. It was a chance to celebrate, to let loose after almost three years of far too much stress, too much fear, too many tears. It was the perfect night for people desperate to feel joy, to forget the rest. Because we're tired, and hurting, but not despondent.
I looked around the crowd. Lawyers (lots of them!), venture capitalists, educators, therapists, a good smattering of high-tech folks (including, if I might be forgiven a blatant plug, the creator of by far the very, very best Web searching tool I know called GuruNet, which if you ever, ever search the Web you should definitely check out at http://www.gurunet.com/), some academics. A couple of government types. Different professions, a full spectrum of religious orientations, a reasonably wide socio-economic spread. Huge gaps between their political viewpoints, particularly on the subject of how to achieve peace, or how to live if you're resigned to peace never coming.
But most had one thing in common. They were immigrants. Mostly from the States and England, but from Russia and other places as well. And as such, it was a crowd who had chosen this life, elected to be here and thinks that being able to be here is about the greatest blessing life can offer. None of the despairing that one reads about in the Israeli press (though admittedly, also none of the poverty). Just a sense that out in the desert, celebrating a Bar Mitzvah surrounded by hundreds of other people who wouldn't want to live anywhere else, life just doesn't get better.
Towards midnight, it was clear that the party had to come to an end. After all, we had to leave as a group, and most people had to work the next morning. But the band wouldn't stop playing and the people wouldn't stop dancing. Finally, father of the Bar Mitzvah went to the band leader, whispered something in his ear and the band started to play HaTikvah (national anthem). For a split second, I was worried. I'm not a big fan of singing HaTikvah at every turn, and all too often, it strikes me as kitschy, or forced.
But there was nothing to worry about here. At the very first strains of HaTikvah, two hundred people who only a minute or two earlier had been wildly dancing up a storm stood perfectly still. Almost standing at attention, everyone sang. There we were, staring out at the desert hills, or up at the star-filled sky, or straight ahead at nothing in particular, singing words we understood and an anthem in which we deeply believe.
This was no Star-Spangled-Banner-Before-the-Ballgame moment. It was one of those existential moments, in which when you least expect it, you're reminded of what your life is all about.
Od lo avdah tikvateinu
Hatikvah bat shenot alpayim
Lih'yot am chofshi be-artzeinu
Eretz tziyyon vi-Yerushalayim.
Our hope is not lost
That two thousand year old dream
To be a free people in our land
The Land of Zion and Jerusalem.
It was one of those moments, when surrounded by people you knew and people you didn't, but people nonetheless whose life revolves around the same existential passion that yours does, when the power of this place overwhelms you. One of those moments when life doesn't just pass you by, but in ways that words can hardly attest, a moment in which life goes through you.
It's hard to know what will be the future here. I hope the country will make it, but some of us know that there's a chance that it won't. And the price our society has paid and continued to pay even today for wanting to stay here has been horrific. But despite all that, I don't think that anyone there at that moment had any doubt that it was worth it, or thought that there could be any gift greater than to have been born at this moment in Jewish history and to have the chance to be part of charting our future. When you think about it, what more could one possibly want from life?
Why would one stay? Like our friends, we never wonder. If we wonder about anything, we wonder how so many others could choose to live a life not filled with those moments. For the truth is, we didn't really need the buses to take us back to Jerusalem at the end of the night. Because even out there, in the desert, miles away from our apartments, everyone standing there singing HaTikvah knew and felt exactly the same thing.
That two-thousand year old dream has already come true. Even out there, in the middle of nowhere, we were already home. And especially on days like today, we're reminded -- we're home to stay."
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