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!