Chanukah etc. Dec 31st

Where were we?  Ah yes, right before Chanukah.  So the kids have very few days off and we grumble about missing Sundays and three day weekends.  When are we supposed to do anything as a family?  Visit friends who live in a different city or go to a science museum or a hike?  The options are limited.  Apparently the idea has been floated in the Knesset to have one Friday or one Sunday off per month for exactly this reason but so far, no luck.  Maybe in April with the new government (that seems to be the new answer to all our social ills...)

Here's how we spent our vacation (the kids had off Friday through Tuesday of Chanukah)

Friday:  Sleep in and get ready for Shabbos.

Sunday:  Leave much later than planned but have a lovely time at the "Gan HaMada" (Garden of Science) at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.  I was excited to drive through the campus and imagine one or more of our kids studying there one day.  And it felt a lot like outings we used to take when we lived in California which may have been the most significant aspect of the whole trip...

Panpipes

They had a special exhibit on the brain, complete with an inflatable model 

Crank the handle and watch the liquid hug the sides as it spins

Moon bounce  -- pull gently on the handle and the pulleys pull you back up

But only age 10 and up, so Aharon Akiva made a personal version for Hillel... 

This exhibit demonstrated how the ocean waves can be harnessed to generate power for home use

Monday:  Get Sushi in Yerushalayim before heading to Galita in Kibbutz Tzova.  The kids keep calling it the "Chocolate Factory" but technically that's not true since they don't make the chocolate there, just run workshops and a gift shop and show a short film on chocolate making.  The workshops are really creative and fun, and the chocolate is delicious!  The younger girls were so excited about their creations which were admittedly very cool.  Shoshana built a house out of chocolate, Hodayah made a car and the older two made truffles.  Hillel was tired and cranky and would have been a disaster in the chocolate workshop room, so he and I took a walk into the Kibbutz and looked around which was interesting for me because it seemed like an old school kibbutz complete with a "beit tinokot" (baby house, though I believe these days kids live with their families and not in a children's house).

In process... 

Shoshana's finished product.  Note the missing bite in the corner of the yard and the other items visible on her desk where she set up the house for the photo shoot before she began eating it :)

Tuesday:  Together with the Gotliebs (Judah's sister & family) we hiked near the Dead Sea, a hike that Judah had done with the Yeshiva boys a few weeks ago.  He was so impressed he thought to  take us back there.  It was really beautiful, and the drive there helped solidify my thinking that Aharon Akiva will not attend the High School in Kiryat Arba or Susia.  The schools are supposed to be great schools but the drive goes through some areas that get a bit more excitement than I want for his regular commute.  They're also dorm schools which we're not excited about and he's not that interested so that's that.

The whole area used to be under water and occasionally you can see shells along the trail

Judah and his sister, Shimona 

Good segue into one of the themes of the week which is the high school application process for Aharon Akiva.  There are SO many choices.  And I keep getting emails about open house nights and shadow visit days and I sometimes read them and put them on the calendar but they're all in Hebrew so even though I can read them, it's an effort and if I am in the middle of something I save them for later and then sometimes forget to get back to them and miss dates.  So tonight is the open house for Mekor Chaim and tomorrow is open house at Horev then we have a break.  Have I mentioned that there are so many choices?  An eighth grader needs to decide if he wants to be in a boarding school (very common here, even if they're close by) and the schedules can get very intense with classes from morning until night.  There are schools with agricultural tracks, music specialties, emphasis on the spiritual, the academic, etc.  Now I am already back from the Mekor Chaim information night.  I will report on all the impressions and process when he decides where he's going!

Shabbos Chanukah with my family was lovely and Sam Daffner was with us which was a real treat!    I keep remembering that in the US it's break time because here it's business as usual.   The electrician came last week and removed the decorative hanging wires which was welcome progress and I successfully got work permits at the police station yesterday.  The workers all have to have background checks before being allowed into the community and get temporary permits for a maximum of two to three months, (depending on the type of work being done).  Lots of hopeful workers milling about outside the building.  It's an experience going there and I once again wished I had a magic wand, this time to provide shaded benches and a refreshment stand and maybe even a friendly respectful worker outside updating people on how long everything would take and assisting with paperwork.  The contractor said that the tile guy was sick but he thinks that really tomorrow he'll come and replace our missing floor tiles, which would also be welcome.  Hillel enjoys taking fistfuls of gravelly sand and throwing them into the kitchen, so floor tiles wouold solve that problem :)

I think I mentioned my reaching out to the rabbi in Alon Shvut who is working on coexistence projects?  Well, he emailed me to let me know about an event yesterday afternoon to see if I would be able to attend.  It turns out that Tiferet was home and Hillel was in a fine mood so I said I would be back in about an hour and left.  I had never been to this location before and was following directions from what I remembered the rabbi had described when we first met a couple of months ago.  It involved driving parallel to the main (two-lane) highway on a bumpy dirt road past an old low building that looked like it may have been a barn and then an old stone house with a "private residence" sign hanging on it.  I called him and left a message that I couldn't find them and was going home but he called me back right away and came out to direct me  Turns out I was right there but without knowing the area, I was not sure it was a smart place for me to be wandering around.

The first speaker had already started speaking to the group of American college students who were seated in a circle around a wood burning stove in the one room log cabin that Shorashim uses as its meeting place.  I sat down and when I looked up I saw that the woman sitting on the other side of the speaker was a former student of mine from JCHS!  We were both so surprised.  I was glad to hear the speakers, first the two rabbis and then the Palestinian man (who has a very interesting story and is writing a book) and get a sense of their sequence and presentation routine.  After they were done, Adi and I got to catch up for a few minutes before her group left and I headed home to make dinner.

I think I should write shorter and more frequent posts... Sorry!    I keep changing the title as the days pass and I add more bits.  Happy Solar New Year to everyone who is noting it.  It's a completely invisible occurrence in this community and except for my Romanian cleaning lady who celebrates Christmas and New Year's, you wouldn't even know it's a special day anywhere!   

December 16th

Chanukah :)  It's the first time in a long time when it doesn't feel like a national afterthought in Christmas' shadow.  Not that I ever cared so much about that aspect, but I am surprised at how much I am enjoying the feeling of being in a country where the holidays are my holidays.  Funny moment:  Our yishuv has set up some decorations for Chanukah, a chanukiah at the traffic circle near the entrance, very nice.  Then I was driving up the hill and saw a series of what looked to me like down-pointing arrows and I couldn't understand what their point was.  I know that they have been doing lots of beautification work on the entrance area and then I realized.  They're dreidels!  I'll try and get a picture of them for next time, but here is a picture from a neighbor of our chanukiah.

Aharon Akiva and Tiferet have now both had their first babysitting jobs, and I imagine they will have as much work as they want.  People post on the local Yahoo group all the time looking for sitters.  

Shoshana commented that "there are more chances for doing mitzvot here than in Oakland" after we gave a boy a ride up the hill from the highway and into the yishuv near where he lived.  Now, it's debatable whether Jewish leadership has more impact in Israel or in the diaspora but it was an interesting perspective coming from her -- she sees me and others giving rides to people all the time (which, by the way, is completely normal here, so many people don't have cars and the busses run too infrequently to be relied upon).  Many small moments.  

Today she came home from school and said that it was as good as a normal day at OHDS, which is as good a report as we have had all year!  That was something.  Both she and Hodayah came home with cardboard dreidels with the letter "pei" instead of a "shin" and a note from their ulpan teacher that this is their first Chanukah in Israel and they finally get a "pei" (which stands for "here" instead of the "shin"outside of Israel which stands for "there").  

Judah picked up a variety of donuts at the central bus station this afternoon and Shoshana came to the local bakery to peruse their selection.  You can't get donuts all year, just around Chanukah, but now they have many choices!  Chocolate glazed, caramel filled, sprinkles, custard, just like in America!  When I lived here as a child there was one kind.  Jelly.  Hope you like it.  They keep a little container of powdered sugar and a sifter near the donuts so you can give them a fresh dusting before packing them up.  I thought that was cute.  

Yesterday the host of the morning Tanach shiur (with Tamar Farkas) organized a field trip to Shiloh.  Judah has been there before with the shul and was there with Aharon Akiva the next year but I had never been.  People find it meaningful because it was the first place the Mishkan stood, for 369 years or something like that, but many people especially go because it was where Chana prayed for a child before having Shmuel.  So that was meaningful.  And the tour guide made an off-hand comment that she had grown up there when she was young, so I asked her if she knew my friend's family (I had a friend 5th-8th grade who had moved to Jerusalem where I knew her but I remember her telling me that she had lived in Shiloh before and how beautiful it was and how she would play in the open fields nearby).  She was friends with her older sister and knows the family, so she took my number and said she would pass it along.  

In the background is the area the archeologists believe is likely to have been the spot of the Mishkan.  It was cool to hear our guide explain what the clues are -- hewn stones creating a rectangular clearing of the right size, location on the hill, etc.  She also said she really hopes they find compelling evidence of this as the location because they already built the visitor's center movie theater with the windows/ screen facing this clearing with a short film on the area's history and it would be too bad if it was the wrong spot... As an aside, I know two kids who want to be archaeologists when they grow up.  Not as common an answer in Oakland to "what do you want to be when you grow up" :)

A model of the altar.  Hillel thought it made for a great slide and went up and down several times before I had to pick him up because the group was moving on.  The building in the background is a relatively recent structure from the time of Turkish rule built on Byzantine era mosaic floors.  Very cool.  

Tamar ensuring Hillel's safety :)

I am continuing to figure out food (cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, dairy (except cream cheese), pitot, and chummus are better here.  I can't find fresh baby carrots, snap peas, snow peas, fresh corn tortillas, or affordable almond milk or almond butter.  I did finally find where they sell bean sprouts and oat bran in my supermarket.  Well, they don't have the oat bran anymore but the natural food store next door has lots, so that's my new address for oat bran.  Which is important for Oat Bran Muffins which are sometimes useful for Hillel to have...

The kids have school tomorrow and Thursday but are then off Friday through Tuesday so one of my jobs tomorrow is to try and map out a schedule for us, whether it's day trips or an overnight somewhere.  Of course, that's what the entire country is doing and several of my Facebook groups are buzzing with questions and suggestions about what to do so I am not at a loss for options...  My family (mom & her husband, sister and her son, brother and his wife and three kids) is coming for Shabbat and we are all looking forward to that.  They were last here right before Tiferet's Bat Mitzvah, so almost two months!

Someone asked for pictures that show how the houses are built with a top level and a bottom level but staggered so people have yards and light.  This is the back of our street, looking up and down from the park in the middle:

I don't know if this helps, but maybe we can talk it through on the phone while you're looking at the pictures :)  

OK, I should sleep.  Chag sameach!

December 5

I don't know that I can keep up with snazzy titles for each post.  Too much pressure, and the point of this is to stay in touch with people in the US, not to write my Magnum Opus!  So unless there's actually an obvious theme, I will just stick with the date.

Judah has left for his trip to the US, recruiting for the Yeshiva in LA, SF Bay Area, Atlanta, Kansas City, NY & NJ.  He will have his first Shabbos in Oakland which promises to be a lovely experience and then be with his mom in NJ before flying home.  We'll have dinner with Shimona (my SIL) and Erez & family and I have the older three kids out for lunch at friends and I will either be at home or at a neighbor's house, depending on Hodayah's preference :)  We miss him, but it's fine, and the kids are looking forward to his bringing back all the things we have been ordering online and having delivered to my MIL's house in NJ...

OK, I promised pictures of the living room with the bookcases:

The remaining steps before it's "done" are finish unpacking boxes, install light fixtures, crown molding, finish painting and put up curtains and pictures.  Not much :)  

OK, taste-of-local-living moment.  In our local Rami Levy (not the one where there was the attack on Wednesday, though we had amazing security on Thursday!) you can of course find a selection of Chanukiyot, since it's Kislev :)  

And, for the gluten free, borekas and malawach without gluten (they actually have a whole gluten free section in the baking aisle)

And I still get a kick out of finding that the very strange and difficult word in Hebrew is actually English...

There is a shul in the "Merchav Mugan" (literally "Protected Clearing," aka bomb shelter) in the back of the store and a daily mincha minyan at 3:00 pm

Here is Hodayah's library at school 

And her reading corner which she points out she likes because it's right next to the English section

And cool bottle cap art on the walls of her school depicting shivat haminim (the seven species)

I attended a meeting last Thursday that was the first of a series that will go through March.  It was an interesting experience and I am considering that before I do much here I need to get educated about the lay of the land (no pun intended) and where everyone is holding.  Slowly, slowly!  It was a small group comprised of Jews, Muslims and Christians from around and I figure that if nothing else, I will learn more about the relevant perspectives.  I do feel more and more often like I am itching to get back to work but when I think about it rationally, I don't think that it's a smart time to commit to a regular job.  It is, however, a fine time for reconnaissance and meeting people, so there we have it.  Hillel spent the day with my sister in Katamon (in J-m) and he did great!  She runs a small daycare and apparently he went to sleep at nap time with no trouble and had a fun day.  Maybe he is ready for school :)  

This morning I went to a lecture at Givat Oz VeGaon, a nature preserve near the main intersection down the highway given by Miriam Adahan who, in addition to being an accomplished author, therapist and speaker is also an old friend of my mother's from Berkeley and I wanted to say hello.  Remarkably, Hillel was great and played around and was very sweet and I just stood at the back, right outside the tent and she was using a microphone so I could hear just fine.  She spoke in Hebrew and someone was offering a simultaneous translation in English for people who needed it and they had headsets.  It was a good setup and it was interesting for me to see how someone here does a presentation on positive parenting;I noted how much overlap there was between what she said and what I have heard from Hedy and elsewhere, so it was all very familiar (good thing if I want to do something similar in some context!).   Anyway, at the end she mentioned that she was working to get her system (re. helping kids learn to exercise control when they become upset and feel better about themselves) incorporated into the school system and she gave me her card and we will be in touch.  

I am impressed by the movie selection at the local Matnas (like a JCC).  Last time they screened "Bethlehem" and this week they are showing "Honor Diaries."  These are serious films that deal with difficult and sensitive topics.  Sometimes I feel disappointed when I hear people in my social circles talk politics, so it's especially nice to feel that the movies are avoiding complacency and encouraging thought and awareness of different perspectives.  

Kids continue to feel mostly better.  Now someone says that "Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays are okay days" but it's a lot of two steps forward one step back (or some variation on that theme).  When I hear the American kids who have been here longer speaking so fluently I look forward to when our kids will be able to do that.  I believe they will, despite their environment which has many Anglos in it, and it's just a question of time.  

The process for getting Aharon Akiva into High School has officially begun with an information night which I did not attend, though I did appoint a friend to download what I missed.  She brought back a handout which is essentially a series of deadlines and procedures and I have yet to look at it carefully or get the report on the meeting.  She did say it was nothing groundbreaking.  One of the big questions on that front is dorm school vs daily commute.  Even the dorm schools they come home Tuesdays and on Thursday for Shabbat, and sometimes more.  I don't love the idea but mainly want him to be in a school that's a good fit for him.  

Construction has not been making progress :(  Mustafa, our contractor, came by yesterday afternoon and brought color swatches for the cabinets, which, of course, are not made anymore because that company went out of business.  We'll find something pretty close and it will be fine, but he said he would send the carpenter by again.  Well, he came by this morning while I was at the parenting lecture.  I know that there's a culture of casual, but I would have voted for some communication before showing up and hoping that I'm home, especially since they prefer not to communicate by email so I can't send sketches or photos etc.  Oh well, all fine.  I am not really in a hurry, but Judah wants to be able to host his students for Shabbos and I would like to have the cabinets and countertops in by then.  I figure if I set my standards really low for house construction and repair progress, then I won't be disappointed!  I am not prepared to be more intense about keeping everything moving (even though my neighbor asked me, "Are you being tough enough?  You gotta stay on top of them!") and honestly, sometimes I adjust my ideas of what I want as I spend the weeks living here and letting the ideas percolate.  So it's all good.  

Oh, I was able to get the video of Hillel puddle running off my phone and to the computer: 

My high school principal has been visiting Israel and the school asked me if I would help set up his schedule for visiting the various gap year programs while he is here and set up dinners with alumni.  So I have been a bit busy with that and it was fun that there are so many connections, even just setting up the meetings.  One secretary says are you married?  To whom?  Judah Dardik.  Oh, send him and Shimona my regards (they were in camp together).  The contact person for Mechon Maayan is my neighbor up the street, the one for Midreshet Moriah lives on the top of the Yishuv and are friends of ours.   The director of Torat Chessed is the son of our Mesader Kiddushin who is also Judah's family's rabbi in NJ since forever.  The person he will meet with at Midreshet HaRova also lives in Neve Daniel etc.  Small world and then some!

Bnei Akiva just finished their "Chodesh Irgun" which I admit I don't totally understand, but the kids spend extra time at the "snif" (local branch of the youth movement) and prepare dance presentations with lots of synchronized flag action, repaint their walls, and there's a changing of the guard with the counselors and leadership.  Shoshana will be able to start in a few weeks.  I was in Ezra when we lived here and we never had anything like this.  The kids are even allowed to miss school the next day and the busses all come on time and then again 3 hours later.  Aharon Akiva participated more than Tiferet and I am kind of glad to be back with the routine.  

OK, moving on with my Friday.  Feel free to ask anything I am not covering here :)

Shabbat Shalom everyone!  

November

OK, Two more weeks!

As has become the sad norm, the media brings horrifying news and images alongside examples of humanity and kindness.  The juxtapositions of these form the backdrop to what normal looks like here.  I choose hope because the alternative is too terrible and perhaps because I am naive.   In any case, I have learned that the appropriate response to tragedy is action and I am trying to figure out what action is called for here and now.  I met this morning with Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger of Alon Shvut who is a cofounder of the Roots project (www.friendsofroots.org) and whose network includes people from several different organizations.  We discussed several interesting ideas and I felt good about the meeting. My central thought moving forward is to learn more about what we already know regarding effective conflict resolution strategies (one can obtain an academic degree in this discipline, clearly there is a substantive body of literature that is important to explore) and to avoid investing in "preaching to the choir" since they're not the problem... It struck me how much more evolved the Bay Area is in certain respects than here, and I wonder how much we can learn and borrow from the culture there that encourages such awareness both of self and other.

In more personal Dardik news, we have begun the construction process and we are enjoying the open feeling.  I am looking forward to the floor tiles being replaced and having a real gas range, though having Tamar's two-burner portable electric unit is a step up from my one-burner unit which gave out a couple weeks ago.   As you can see in the pictures, Hillel has been an enthusiastic helper and is enjoying our indoor sandbox...

 

We had another round of minor colds, etc. and earned a visit to the medical center because of fever and ear pain.  No medical assistants, just when people leave the doctor's office, that's your cue to walk in.  And if you make your appointment online, you may or may not get the doctor with whom you had booked your appointment because he might be in Beitar that day.  We were advised to make appointments on the phone if the specific doctor was important.  Noted.  

After a week of glorious weather last week we are back to rain, which we need and is a great blessing.  Shoshana and Hodayah each have little cheapo umbrellas which they are excited to take to school with them on rainy days.  Hillel loves the enormous puddle we have in our front yard.  I see it and think, drainage engineering needed!  He sees it and thinks, SPLASH!   I have a cute video too but can't get the email to go through. 

I got a small job helping my former high school principal arrange his visits to various programs here. I am glad about that because I am happy to be doing something supportive for them and it's nice for me to feel that I am doing something productive besides housework and childcare (not to knock the importance of those, it's just a different type of feeling accomplished).  I should actually probably be doing that instead of writing now during Hillel's nap but it's been two weeks and I don't want to let more time than that elapse without an update or people might stop checking in :).  

We were in the Old City two Shabboses ago with the Yeshiva and that was pleasant and easy for me.  We were put up in an apartment very close to the Yeshiva that was clearly outfitted for large Shomer Shabbat families.  I counted beds and mattresses and found that a family of 13 could stay comfortably and there was grape juice for kiddush in the fridge, liquid soap in all the bathrooms, torn paper, shabbos candles set up, etc.  It felt very welcoming.  On our way back home, we stopped at Kenyon Hadar in Talpiyot (Kenyon= mall, from the root k.n.h. meaning "acquire" or "purchase".  We discussed the difference between a "kenyon" and a "canyon" which had been the source of some confusion for the younger children).  Mostly because we could, we got pizza and sushi.  I think that was a first for us -- our family eating at a mall!  

This Thursday we are going to my brother's place in Modiin for Thanksgiving dinner.  My sister and her son will be there too along with my stepfather (my mother is in the States until early next month).  I think that my brother's family has been waiting for years to be able to have all of us together (next year, B"H, with my mom too).  Shameless showing off:  Here's a picture of my nephew Yarden on his second birthday (just last week, so he's exactly 3 months older than Hillel) and the unbelieveable cake his mom/ my SIL made for him:

Okay, I think that's got to be it for now, I miss you and I'm sorry I don't get to call and write more often.  The 10 hour time difference is hard, because once I get the kids off to school there is a small window of time before I go next door for class (if I am not driving kids to school who, ahem, missed the bus.  Again.) and then when everyone on the West Coast is waking up I am doing the evening routine until I am so tired I just have to go to sleep.  Some things never change!  Until kids go to college :)   Mazal tov to Shoshana and Jeremy and Rochelle and Lorne, we are so thrilled at the news of Shira Rina's arrival!  Lots of brachot to all of you.

Two Degrees of Separation

I am feeling deeply sad after yesterday's hard losses and thinking about the differences between how these attacks are felt from within the community (which can be defined in several legitimate ways) and without.  Noticing the difference between how it feels when I read about it in the New York Times versus the Jerusalem Post.  Even more personally, on the Facebook posts or Blog Posts on Times of Israel.  One difference, aside from the obvious immediacy and the resulting discrepancy in the level of anxiety that people feel about being personally targeted, is that it seems that everyone knows someone who knows the victim.  Dalia Lemkus's younger brother is in 8th grade at Aharon Akiva's school.  She was Liron Kopinski's first cousin.  I decided not to try and find childcare to go to her funeral this morning, but part of me felt like I needed to go and be there with her family.  Sad, frustrated, anxious about the future.

On a more mundane level, the kids seem to be getting more used to the rhythm of school here.  They continue to figure out navigating the support systems available to them -- Ulpan in school, the "Bnot Sherut" and various aids and programs in place to help new Olim.  We have had many fewer tearful nights and anxious mornings and I have been flexible in letting certain people take the day at their own pace when it seems needed.  Thankfully, we have a car, so if someone misses a bus, I can drive to school.  And stop at the bakery on the way for fresh rolls :)

We very much enjoyed having Jay Goldman here for Shabbat -- ask him to tell you about his time here!  We had dinner with Shimona and her family along with a neighbor and his kids (his wife is in the US for business) and then lunch with Adami and Tamar in their new house.  He caught great weather and such clear days that we could see the Mediterranean on the West and the Jordanian hills on the East.  Beautiful.  Feel free to follow his lead, the guest room awaits!

Now that the Bat Mitzvah is behind us, my attention is returning to the house repair and renovation projects that were delayed a bit in the early fall.  I needed to make final decisions about the kitchen (now done) and the process of collecting bids from contractors and maintaining timely communication with them seems to lurch and stall.   One of the fellows who came by must have been using Google translate because his text had phrases like "knowing that you are a very joyous aspects of work because I am a very beautiful work."  Of course, his next text was in Arabic so that didn't help at all!  The whole topic of who one hires to do construction work has reemerged as a controversial topic on our town message board (security concerns, don't-be-judgmental replies, don't-be-naive counter replies... you get the idea) and I can't help but compare the situation here to whatever a parallel would be in the States (early 1900s South?  Colonial times?).  On the one hand, the stereotyping and fear feels familiar, but at the same time there are real differences.

Shoshana and Aharon Akiva are both in after school classes that fill in some of the educational gaps we have since the schools here are not the same (we really do miss OHDS...).  AA has creative writing on Tuesdays with an American Olah and Shoshana has Art on Thursdays with a lovely Dutch woman who has a studio in her basement.  Shoshana also has Zumba for girls which I think is a hoot.

This Shabbat we'll be in the Old City with the Yeshiva and staying in an apartment there, so no long walks to the Eldan hotel like over Rosh Hashana (but no breakfast buffet either :)  We are still getting lovely invitations from people here and looking forward to getting time with them.

No Halloween!

This is a very short post, more of an afterthought but the last post was so long (sorry!) that I didn't want to add to it.

My kids didn't even know that it's Halloween and when I mentioned it to Hodayah this morning she said, "So that's why they had all that Halloweeny stuff on Webkinz!"

No ghouls coming out of people's lawns or spiders or anything.  No focus on candy at the supermarket.  No conversations about trick or treating.  I love the absence of all of that.

Lest you feel sorry for the poor children here who are deprived of the opportunity to go their neighbors houses collecting candy, save your tears!  Over Sukkot, the kids here went "Mishnah hopping."  Our neighbors next door organized the families around here and divided up all of Mishnayot Sukkah and the kids went from house to house (boys shifts and girls shifts) and someone in each family who hosted taught the Mishnayot they were assigned and provided refreshments (generally candy) which the kids added to their bags before going to their next stop.  Kind of similar experience except that the focus is, at least structurally which I think counts for something, on the learning and not on the candy.

Catching up

Sorry -- I think it's been over two weeks since I last wrote.  Sukkot was great; we had my father and Judah's mom with us and wonderful meals in our Sukkah and the Gotliebs.  The first night we had really intense winds, like Hollywood spooky movie intense and some raindrops but we didn't have to go inside.  Our sukkah turned out amazing, thank you Judah, see pics below.  Our great view was not obscured by solid wooden boards and it did not even come close to blowing over.  In fact, a neighbor's schach blew partially off on that first windy night and they came to sleep first night and eat in our sukkah for first day lunch because we were invited out.

Shoshana in our newly assembled patio furniture in the freshly built sukkah.  If you look carefully, you can see the plexiglass panels against the fence.  

Panoramic view from the sukkah

Sunset off our porch.  

I do not miss three day Yom Tov at all.  It's really great having that middle day off!  On Friday, we met up with the Rozens, Fisher Cohens, Joseph Gershony and Sophia Gluck for a short hike to a cave with scores of bats (very cool) and then a natural rock slide which the kids thoroughly enjoyed.  As a matter of fact, Hodayah's class took a field trip back to the same place yesterday!  So she was an experienced hiker there :)

Shabbat was peaceful and then Sunday we headed to a National Park near the Old City where visitors can participate in sifting through the rubble that resulted from less-than-careful removal of material from an area on the Temple Mount.  My nephew found a coin from the Second Temple era!  Very exciting.  

Gefen looking at his coin with his dad.  Other noteworthy finds from this project are in the glass display case seen in the picture. 

Gefen with his coin!  They will take it to the lab and let him know what else they find out about it.  They wrote his name and phone number on the little envelope.  

Monday we went to Mechon Hamikdash where they are quietly and peacefully preparing the vessels for an eventual third Beit Hamikdash.  They have no political involvement and are very careful to stay outside that particular arena but the tour is very interesting.  Their plans for the Third Temple include heated floors (for the poor bare feet of the Kohanim!) and an underground parking facility!  The copper sink was much bigger than I expected and also is built to have heated water and a built in thermometer.  I will spare you all the details but it was really interesting to be in an environment where the Third Beit Hamikdash was seen as a question of when, not if, and there was so much hope and anticipation surrounding it.  (We also met up with Lisa there too who was in for a few days from Italy!)

After Yom tov it was good to get back the routine for a week, though because Tiferet's Bat Mitzvah was that weekend we weren't quite back to business as usual yet.  We did find her a dress, the Dvar Torah was finished, and the invitations were picked up and delivered by hand (certainly no time to mail them!). We hosted a small kiddush in Shimona and Erez's backyard for about ten families (trying not to create overwhelming experiences) and had my whole family here for Shabbos.  Eighteen people in my dining room which still has boxes piled everywhere!  

Sunday Tiferet stayed home from school to get ready and practice her speech and the neighbor across the street made her a really cool hair style (which she learned from watching YouTube videos :)  It was like a bun of braid and involved a special donut shaped foam contraption that lives inside the bun.  Very high level stuff.  

Bat Mitzvah was really great; I know it's obvious and I really do understand that it's not a coincidence, but it still felt really cool that I knew and liked everybody in the room!  Many friends from Oakland were there and a high school friend from Seattle who now lives in Beitar and a surprise visit from Yitz  which was a great moment (sorry, huge!).  I did end up hiring a DJ last minute which was absolutely the right decision because tracking the music and getting forty REALLY excited eleven and twelve year old girls dancing is decidedly not my strong suit.  Tiferet's classmates and friends from Bnei Akiva were amazingly lively and enthusiastic, they danced up a storm, wrote and performed a song for her, threw confetti on her, lifted her on a chair and sat quietly through all the speeches even though they were in English and I imagine most of them did not understand much.  Rabbi Rosenblatt flew in for the occasion and spoke beautifully and I felt that it was celebratory, respectable and not over the top.  

The girl who you don't recognize is a very lovely friend of Tiferet's who got a camera for her Bat Mitzvah a couple months ago and took pictures for us.  

The other big news of the week is that our bookcases arrived!  The carpenter built them for our space and we are very excited to be able to unpack our boxes (and boxes and boxes) of books and I am most of the way done.  I had meant to take before and after pictures but you will have to imagine the before and wait for the after because I am not quite done.  It's a big step towards feeling normal in our house after months of boxes just piled in an empty room.  I drove into Yerushalayim last night and gave Judah and two of his colleagues a ride home.  Then I was putting away books and noticed that one of my passengers was the author of one of the books.  Then I thought about it a bit more and resisted the temptation to start counting the number of books we have in our library whose authors are now our neighbors...  We have about 50 cardboard boxes in the front of the house (which Judah dragged to the covered part after it started raining last night).  I need to load them into the van and drive them up to the cardboard recycling bin (ah, curbside pickup...).

I am deliberately avoiding politics here but it was terribly sad for everyone and I was feeling very mindful of the 3 month old baby whose parents had waited for so long to have her and then the 22 year old.  Rabbi Glick is the brother of a neighbor here so I first got an email through our neighborhood listserv asking for prayers and then I saw the news.  There are no words.  Well, there are lots and I make speeches in my car when I am alone and feel probably the same as the rest of us do except that it's in front of me all the time.  

Anyway, wishing us all a Shabbat Shalom and a peaceful future.