Introducing: The unique Israeli holiday celebration you’re not going to want to miss! (with video)

Yes, it’s one of my favourite unique Israeli holiday customs: hakafot shniyot! And I can’t believe I haven’t written about it before (or maybe I have?).

Outside of Israel, most people keep 2 days of chag so they're all partied out by the time Simchas Torah ends. But here, it's all one day, so people want to keep right on partying. Not to mention -- if you wait until AFTER the chag, you can have a BETTER party: one with loud music, live or otherwise, stands selling snack foods, bubble blowers, and other kitschy glow-in-the-dark accessories, and much more. PLUS you can record it on your phone. Which I did last night.

Hakafot shniyot - second hakafot - are pretty popular regardless of how religious the community is. They take out the sifrei Torah and announce which hakafa it is, starting each one with a round of "hosha na"s -- very much like the real thing. I don't know if there's any halachic basis to any of it, but basically it's a lot of fun and not a lot of rules.

That said: This year, they WERE enforcing a very strict "tav yarok" (תו ירוק / green tag) which is basically the green passport system. To get into the area in front of the main shul here, you had to show either the COVID passport app or a test from within the past 24 hours (that's how little kids were able to get in). Even with the COVID passport app, they were making you recite your Teudat Zehut by heart while the guards held the tav yarok so you couldn't see it and borrow your friend's. If you passed the test they were giving out wristbands.

Here's what it looked like around here last night...

It's not Israel, it's YOU (and other ugly lies of aliyah)

"It's not Israel, it's you."

At least, that's what I tell myself sometimes.

"It's all your fault," I tell myself.
Most of these thoughts start with the words, "That's what you get..."

That's what you get for living in an older building, without a vaad bayit.  A building that isn't maintained.  A building where the tenants seriously don't care about anything as long as the thing doesn't fall down around their ears.  A building where the neighbours physically threaten us

The horrifying truth about Lag Baomer bonfires

There's so much I love about the period between Pesach and Shavuos here in Israel.  But there's one thing that absolutely disgusts me.  I'll tell you in a minute and see if you feel the same.

When we lived in Canada, this time of year was pretty dull and featureless.  There's Pesach... Yom HaAtzmaut, if we remembered it... Lag Baomer, if we got our act together to get to a bonfire... and then Shavuos.

It was okay, but nothing special.

Here in Israel, it's a VERY special time of year, especially if you measure by how many days the kids have to wear white shirts to school.  In many religious schools, often kids are supposed to wear white shirts for Rosh Chodesh and any other special occasion... and these seven weeks give us PLENTY of those. 

My son's school also has them wear white shirts on Fridays, bringing the white-shirt days up to an uncountably high number:  two days for Rosh Chodesh Iyar, Yom Hashoah, a couple of Fridays, Yom Hazikaron, and more that I'm probably not remembering.  Some chains actually have sales on white t-shirts with school logos just to help parents stock up.

I love all these special days, especially Yom Haatzmaut, which comes smack-dab in the middle of the solemn sefirah period and means we can celebrate Israel's birth with music, which we don't normally listen to during this period (I'm aware that different people observe this different, halachically -- consult your rav for details if you're not sure).

But here's what I don't love. 

What I hate, if you'll allow me to use a strong word.  What disgusts me.

Lag Baomer

Our bad neighbour–a Yom Kippur story without a happy ending

There are a few things that make me sad here in Israel, believe it or not.  I’m about to tell you about THE thing that has made me the most miserable over the last 2-3 years.

EDITED TO ADD:  Before you read on, be aware – I was attacked on Facebook about some of the strongly negative thoughts I’ve expressed in this post.  I know it’s unlike me.  I’ll get back to the happy stuff soon, I promise – I am still in love with this country, don’t worry.  And I’ll share a couple of those negative comments below – just for fun.

I believe it’s important to share not just the good stuff.  Everyone who works in aliyah, whether professionally or just for fun, like I do, has a responsibility to present both the good and bad side of what goes on here, and I hope you know I always try to do that.  I love Israel, love aliyah, love our lives here -- but I'm also realistic and try to present the reality on the ground, not the rose-coloured glasses version some people claim is all they get before they arrive.

I’m saying this because I’ve gotten in trouble for posting negative stuff before.  Even though this site is about 90% gung-ho and positive, there are some people who simply won’t let you share your thoughts if they’re at all down.  If you’re one of those people, I suggest you st0p reading right now even though there’s an exciting bit with firetrucks a little further along.

So.  Still with me?

Good.

What's making me miserable these days is our neighbour.
We live in an almost completely religious neighbourhood, and he wears a kippah and you know, I wouldn't have been surprised if you told me before we moved here that there were evil, horrible people who wear kippahs.  I would have said, "Of course there are."  But meeting one in person is just making me sad, sad, sad.  It's bringing down my whole experience.

He plays music.  Super, super loud music.
We're on the ground floor.  In an apartment which is nearly perfect in terms of almost all

Nine (9) things I wouldn't have to tell a Canadian neighbour

I get alarmed sometimes, living in Israel.  There truly are moments when I just look around and realize we’re living somewhere utterly foreign, and I ask myself what we think we’re doing here, when it is so, so painfully clear that we don’t belong… such as when we have less-than-pleasant encounters with various neighbours in our building.  Sheesh.

This is a neighbourhood full of “characters,” and sometimes it’s fun and you can laugh it off.  But sometimes, you just want to cry and wish everybody could be Canadian, so you wouldn’t have to fill them in on the basics, such as…

1. Turn off your music -- it's 2 a.m. and I'm trying to sleep.

Israelis are sometimes strange about noise.  I have a personal theory that because it's such a small country, and you really can't get away from other people, they don't even bother trying.  There are no boundaries.  "If I feel like listening to music, then you feel like listening to music," is pretty much how many Israelis feel about their tunes. 

Also, this particular neighbour is a weird, too-thin skittish little guy who you just figure has got to be on a pile of something addictive, though obviously, we have no proof.  His behaviour has been pathological in the past. 

The fun part is him trying to convince us that this is what Israel is like, and if we don't like it, we should go back to Canada, where people are quiet and polite.  Which brings back memories of calling the police on inconsiderate neighbours in a few different situations... and, yes, of having them called on a party I held at one point.

But I think one difference is that this guy doesn't care, he'll just turn it right back on after the cops leave, just to show me he can.

2. That's not music, it's cats yowling.

I may not be the best candidate to move to the Middle East.  Some people really enjoy "Mizrachi" music, the swirling, wailing sound of notes that go up and down seemingly at random.  Then again, some people like chummus, which tastes like dirt paste.  Okay, to be honest, everybody here likes chummus—with a passion.  Except me.

I want to show up outside this neighbour’s door at 7 a.m. with

When NOT to come on your Israel pilot trip…

I never thought I’d be saying this.  Keep in mind:  I’m not saying don’t come at all!  A pilot trip is one of the best investments you can make in your own aliyah!  Please come visit before you move here. 

But what I’m saying is… think before you plan.  Be nice to those of us hosting and welcoming you to our communities.  Pretty please?

Why mention this now?

We’re in the middle of the last week of school, and also, I suppose, the start of the aliyah season, because we have several pilot-trip families converging on KShmu over the next couple of weeks.  Which is terrific – I’m always so, so,  happy to show off our community if I can.

Ordinary bad things

You never think about the ordinary bad things when it comes to living in Israel.

Years before we came here, I read about a family who made aliyah, and then one of their sons was killed riding a bike.

It really made me stop and think.  These kinds of things happen in Israel?  Ordinary, bad stuff, like bike accidents, car accidents, slipping, falling, all the normal terrifying things that can happen to anybody, anywhere in the world?

Yes, sadly, it’s true.

It’s the extraordinary tragedies that people expect here, and then the everyday, ordinary bad things kind of sneak up instead.

When we first made aliyah, I slept with a tichel (head scarf) handy every night, in case I had to get up and make a run for the shelter in the middle of the night.  True, things were “hotter” then in the north, with Syria making all kinds of threats, and Israel getting in the way as it does. 

But also, I just expected it.  This was Israel, after all.

Gradually, I let down my defenses.  The extraordinary bad things that one expects from watching too much news simply weren’t happening.

Now, our gas masks are

How to choose a health care provider (kupat cholim) in Israel

Let's assume you'll never get sick in Israel, shall we?

My teacher in ulpan had a cute habit.  When we were learning about ailments, she refused to use the first or second person - "you're sick; I'm sick."  She would only let us talk about ailments in the third person:  "he's sick; she's sick; they're sick."

So in honour of Morah Sarah, let's do that here, too.  Let’s assume you’re going to pick a kupat cholim (health care provider) and never need to use it.

Because, I'll admit, I've been holding back. 

In all these years of blogging, I haven't really said anything about how to choose a kupat cholim, one of the four healthcare provider networks that exist in Israel.  I feel like I don’t know enough, but the truth is, I’ve been navigating this system long enough to know a thing or two.  So I’ll try to help you straighten things out as far as healthcare is concerned.  If you have questions, ask below and I’ll try to answer.  I’ll also give a list of links for good information at the bottom of this post.

What are those words again?  Practice saying them; you’ll be using them a lot here (but hopefully never in the first person):

• קֻפַּת חוֹלִים / kupat choleem = sick fund, usually translated into English as “HMO” for people from the U.S. who don’t understand any other approach to healthcare
• Note, the above is the vowelled spelling.  Without vowels, it’s usually spelled “קופת חולים” for clarity.  Pronunciation is the same:  kupat cholim.
• It’s sometimes abbreviated as קופ"ח / koopach
• קֻפָּה / koopah = “fund,” like a supply of money, but sometimes people use this as shorthand to refer to your particular health plan
• The plural is  קופות חולים/ koopot choleem = sick funds.

How do I choose???

Here are the 4 choices (4 kupot cholim), in English alphabetical order:

• כללית / Clalit
• לאומית / Leumit (not to be confused with BANK Leumi!)
• מכבי / Maccabi (pronounced ma-KAAAAA-bee, not the way English speakers say it in the Chanukah story)
• מאוחדת / Meuhedet (the "h" is actually a "ch" but this is how they spell it)

All of these 4 have offices all over the country, though one may be more prevalent in a given area, which will probably factor into your decision-making.

These days, most new olim are asked to choose their kupat cholim at the airport when they arrive.  If you don't know your choice, however, you can still do it at the post office like in the old days.  There may be other ways to do it as well. 

Don’t let anybody force you to pick at the airport if you aren’t sure yet!

But the question everyone asks is:  how do I choose???

(Assuming, of course, that you and your family will never get sick!)

How to choose YOUR OWN best destination in Israel

How up are you on your Israeli geography?

One of the things I found most maddening before we moved to Israel was place names.  Beyond Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, I had barely heard of other places here.  Maybe Beersheva, because it’s in the Torah.  Some places were in the news (Chevron), so they were somewhere in my consciousness.  Others, not so much.

That quickly became a problem when we started planning to move here.

Maybe this is something you’ve experienced? 

Anyone who has been anywhere in Israel, even if they’ve never lived there, has anywhere between three and a dozen places to recommend.  They’ll come up to you anywhere, anytime, and spout this list like it’s gospel (or, you know, the Jewish equivalent).

Telling Kiryat Arba from Kiryat Shmona

These places are not all cities.  Some are cities, some are neighbourhoods within cities, some are kibbutzim or moshavim, some are, I don’t know, hilltops somewhere with a few idealists in trailers parked on top.

5 surprises when you go to shul in Israel (with a helpful vocabulary list!)

Considering it’s called the Holy Land, and considering that so many of us move here for religious reasons, I guess it’s strange that I haven’t said anything about going to shul before now.

When my sister was here visiting last year, she also mentioned that she’d been all over the place but hadn’t set foot in a shul.

Life in Israel is like that.

Are you wondering what shul will be like when you make aliyah?  Here are 5 things that may surprise you when you finally get there:

1.  It’s not called shul.

This may be obvious to you, but then, you’re probably smarter than me.  Smart enough to put two and two together and realize that Ashkenazim like me, and our quaint Yiddish expressions, are not in the majority here.  (Us Ashkenazim tend to see the world through Ashkenaz-coloured lenses.)

Shul here is known as בית כנסת / beit knesset.  Everybody calls it that – even Ashkenazim.

Which is another thing, by the way:  in Canada, I grew up thinking of the Jewish world as divided into Ashkenaz and Sefardi.  It turns out we’re the only ones who call them Sefardim.  Here in Israel, these “eastern” / southern Jews are better known as “eidot hamizrach,” or “mizrachi” (which means eastern, go figure).

But within that “Sefardi” realm, there are so many different types of – uh-oh – shuls.  Just within a couple of blocks of here are Moroccan, Tunisian and Yemenite shuls.  Whereas, since we’re a minority, Ashkenazim tend to have the local “Ashkenaz” shul, and not have as much of a choice.  We’re black and white; they’re a whole entire rainbow.

And the truth is, if you accidentally say shul, everybody will know what you’re talking about.  I don’t even think you’ll offend anybody.  But that’s not what they call it.

Have you told your kids about shemittah?

You might know already that here in Israel, this is a shemittah year.

Shemittah is the 7th year of a 7-year cycle found in the Torah, and all year long, Torah-observant farmers aren't working their crops in the usual way.  Yet thanks to a few modern loopholes, many of us, even here, are just buying fruits and vegetables the normal way.

I've been studying shemittah for the last couple of months with a wonderful group of KShmu ladies, using a book called (surprisingly enough!) Shemitah, by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon.  (There are lots of ways to spell Shemittah!)

If you live in Israel, your kids may find out about shemittah in school if they’re old enough.  But for younger kids, there’s not really any way to find out what it’s all about (at least, not that I could find). 

When I lived outside of Israel, I knew nothing about it… let alone knowing enough to share some of the main ideas with my kids.  We read about it when we read the weekly parsha, and that was that.

The laws of modern shemittah observance can be complicated and daunting for adults, but it really does boil down to a few simple principles.  And my favourite thing to do once I’ve learned something, is to turn around and find a way to transform it into a kids’ book.

So I’ve taken some of what I’ve learned, from Rabbi Rimon’s book and other sources, and turned it into a short, sweet rhyming song. 

(think, "This is the way we wash our hands..." but with a few fun poetic twists and turns)

Here’s the result… a little book called Sharing Shmittah, a “learn-along” song for the whole family.

Things that are weird in Israel # 14: Worms (vs Snails, and which you’d rather step on after rain).

Further to my coverage of the brink-of-disaster weather reports last week… this being winter, we did indeed have some weather.  Blue skies now, and the sun’s shining, but I admit, it’s been a rainy few days.

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago what’s missing here in this rainy season.  I took a whole bunch of pictures before I came to my senses and realized that you were never in a million years going to guess based on a random picture of a puddle.

Still.  Try to forget you saw the headline up above and tell me what’s missing from this random little Kiryat Shmuel puddle:

Coming true

Quick, fill in the blanks!

A bird ___.

A ____ surfs.

The travellers ___.

We eat ____.

The players play the ____.

In English, nouns and verbs have their own separate lives.  Sometimes they intersect (“a surfer surfs” “a traveller travels” “the players play” “a guard guards”), and sometimes, they don’t (“a bird flies” “we eat food” “the players play the game”).

In Hebrew, the two are closer together and far more flexible than in English.   Where in English, they’re always conjugated slightly differently, in Hebrew, nouns and verbs are often completely interchangeable.  For example:

• השומר שומר / hashomer shomer = the guard guards
• הגולש גולש על הגולש / hagolesh golesh al ha golesh = the surfer surfs (on the surfboard)
• הנוסעים נוסעים / hanosim nosim = the travellers travel
• הוא אוכל אוכל / hoo o-CHEL O-chel (same spelling, slightly different emphasis) = he eats food
• המשחקים משחקים במשחקים / hamesachakim mesachakim ba-mischakim (same spelling, slightly different pronunciation) = the players play the games

But today I realized there’s one example where English is more flexible.  There is no verb in Hebrew (that I know of, which isn’t saying much!) for “to rain.”

Still alien? Passing the one year mark.

I did an experiment this morning.

I woke up, stretched etc as usual.  And then thought to myself, “I’m waking up… in Israel.”

Nothing.

“Here we are… in our apartment… in Israel.”

Nope.  No response.

I guess I was trying to shock myself back into feeling the newness of it… except it really isn’t new anymore.

Last Wednesday was our “aliyahversary.”

If aliyah was a baby, we’d have been blowing out candles, feeding it cake.

It might be taking its first steps by now.

Savouring the soil: exploring Kiryat Shmuel with Nefesh b’Nefesh Go North pilot trippers

Talk about sudden transitions.  A year and a bit ago we were here on a pilot trip.  And yesterday, we stepped into the role of olim vatikim (experienced, or long-time olim) met and spoke with a pilot trip of 20 prospective olim coming to check out northern Israel. 

Our task, along with five other KShmu residents’, was to speak briefly about What We Like About Kiryat Shmuel.

I really should put the word “hosting” in quotes, because the event wasn’t at our tiny place, but in the lovely home of true veteran olim – a couple who have been here for 17 years and raised 5 kids in Kiryat Shmuel. 

Pit stop between Akko and Haifa

As part of a packed Nefesh b’Nefesh Go North pilot trip itinerary, KShmu wound up as one very quick stop on the journey between Akko and Haifa (which, okay, the whole Krayot region kind of is).

The highlight of the event was the 5-minute bus tour of KShmu, which left from our friends’ house and did a nice, leisurely figure-8 around the neighbourhood, ending at the train station – one of the area’s best features (having grown up in a suburb, I don’t count it as a strike against KShmu that one of its nicest attributes is that you can get out of it easily… but some might!).

It was great to get the bus tour… not least because nobody gave us a tour when we first moved in and we’re still trying to figure out where the library is.

On our own pilot trip, beyond the 3-day Nefesh b’Nefesh intensive tour, we got a couple of brief private walking tours (Maaleh Adumim, Ramat Beit Shemesh) and one private car tour (Rechovot), and I think it really made a difference in helping us get a feel for each city.

(Although in the end, we didn’t choose any of those places!)

Questions from the pilot trippers

The pilot trippers asked a variety of questions about life in KShmu:

1. Does Kiryat Shmuel have its own ulpan?  (No, but the one in Kiryat Yam is very close.)
2. Is there a Young Israel shul here?  (No, I think the only northern Young Israel is in Karmiel; there are a variety of shuls, but none with davening and/or shiurim in English.)
3. What kinds of schools does KShmu have?  (A variety, for all ages, including dati le’umi torani, yeshiva-type schools and Chabad, plus a very active Bnei Akiva branch.  Many residents also choose residential schools for high school, either in the north or in the centre of the country.)
4. What is there for Anglo retirees to do here?  (umm… umm…)
5. How much do apartments and houses cost?  (It varies; from $250K and up to buy, from $600 and up to rent.)
6. Where’s the nearest hospital?  (There are 3 in Haifa, including Rambam, a tertiary-care facility; plus, Clalit has the big Zevulun clinic a few minutes away beside the Kiryon mall; plus, there are good clinics of Clalit along with Macabi and others, in the area.)
7. What are the work opportunities here?  (There are lots of medical-related jobs in Haifa.  For high-tech, jobs, you can either working from home, in Haifa, or in nearby communities like Yokneam… it’s also very easy to commute to other areas – I work one day a week in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, and know somebody who takes the train every single morning to Nahariya.  I also know lots of olim who have found factory and other employment in the area.  Plus, you can always tutor English!)

All great questions, none of which I thought to ask when we visited communities on our own pilot trip.  Though, to be fair, others did a lot of the asking for me.

Apples to oranges?

I don’t know how KShmu stacked up against the other towns they saw. 

To be fair, a place like Akko, Maalot or Karmiel is a city, while KShmu is just a neighbourhood, and a small one at that (so small that when I talk to people who live in Haifa, I have to explain that yes, I do live in the same city as them, and tell them exactly whereabouts we are…).

I hope a few of them were able to see possibility in the place, in any event… or at least, not come away thinking we’re crazy for choosing to live here.

The pilot trip blur experience

On our own pilot trip, last February, we shlepped around from place to place, gathering information, but also meeting people, seeing the inside of Israelis’ houses for the first time (nicer houses than we’d be able to live in, but that’s mainly because of the logistics of fitting in a big group). 

Picturing ourselves living here every day of our lives.

You don’t have a lot of time for musing on a pilot trip.  You don’t have a lot of time for personal reflection… and if you do the group thing, you’ll spend all your time in an English-speaking Nefesh b’Nefesh bubble, not exactly feeling like you’re in the “real Israel.”

Separating terroir from trivialities

Most of the thinking I did on our pilot trip was influenced by small and insignificant things.  Like if someone had a nice painting in her house when she welcomed our group, or  they served tasty cookies, it counted (subconsciously) as a plus for that city. 

When you only have 20 minutes to decide if you’re going to live in a place, you can’t really pick up a ton of meaningful information, no matter how many questions you ask, so the trivialities take on a disproportionate significance.

But maybe as you walk from house to house, view to view, city hall to city hall, you soak up through your feet a little of the soil of each place, its terroir, as the French say [thanks to an astute French friend for fixing my spelling!].  A little of what makes it and its produce – in this case, the people living, growing and thriving there – special and distinct.

I don’t know if KShmu is right for any of the potential olim who were here yesterday, but I wish them and all pilot trippers a klita ne’ima, a pleasant absorption; sinking and being absorbed gracefully, and peacefully, into the dusty terroir of this eternal land.

[photo credit:  Akiva Teddy MacLeod]

Things that are weird in Israel #7: Chad pa’ami, a poem about plastic cutlery

First, some background.  Israelis adore their plastic cutlery, which is mysterious because it is some of the most awful I have experienced in my entire life. 

The spoons are the worst – most are shaped in such a way as to slice the sides of my mouth every time I use them. 

The other cutlery here isn’t much better – the forks snap, leaving tines scattered everywhere in your food, while the knives have wimpy handles that don’t let you accomplish much of anything.

And don’t get me started on the plastic beverage cups, which, where I come from, would be known as “baggies.”  They do have a sort of ring arrangement around the top that prevents them from collapsing utterly when raised to the mouth or lowered to the table – usually.

Nevertheless, the past week having been Pesach, and our dairy Pesach stuff having apparently been thrown away instead of packed meticulously for our lift (!), we have been dependent on plastic cutlery, also known as “chad pa’ami” (חד פעמי), which means “single use” and is a catchall phrase for anything you can use one time and never again – generally because it has fallen apart along the way.

Until our lift arrived, plastic cutlery was pretty much all we used at the merkaz klitah… so it felt really sad to have to go back to it for this week.

(Yeah, they did community kashering in KShmu, so theoretically, we could have hauled all the regular dairy cutlery to be boiled…)

So now that Pesach is over, I’ve written a poem, in tribute to the plastic cutlery that’s been “plaguing” me all week long (get it?  Pesach – plaguing?).

Chad paami, how I hate thee
All the mouth sores, scrapes and cuts
For Passover, but moreover
All the damage still remains.

All that plastic, trash fantastic
All our money down the drains.
And the mouth sores, scrapes and cuts.
Eating messy, like a klutz,

All those flimsy plastic handles
Stacked beside the yom tov candles
How my mouth bleeds and bemoans,
While around our table groans

The creak and crack of chad paami
Scraping matzah - double whammy
Now the chag is gone and through
So I can say I'm sick of you!!!

And look! 

While googling, I turned up this picture, but I have also seen these in the stores… for people who can’t be bothered buying an actual pot (or cannot afford one):  it’s a chad paami POT – made of TINFOIL. 

If the quality is anything like the rest of the chad paami in this country, I would fear for my life when using this thing…

Please – share your terrible chad paami experiences (Israeli or otherwise) in the Comments section below!

Neglected dog next door :-(

Kind of the opposite of Toronto:  in the winter, maybe (just maybe) it's okay to keep a dog outside with no shade, food or water (okay, not really)... but with summer coming, I really fear for this dog.

Plus, he stands there barking at every single person going past, often late into the night.  Very obnoxious.

Since the dog arrived in the neighbourhood (shortly after we did), I sort of assumed there was nothing we could do.  Probably by extension from the Broken Windows Theory - this street and all the yards are kind of run-down, even by Israeli standards, so I figured nobody from the city would care.  Plus, the language barrier.

But last night, I broke down and finally contacted the Haifa equivalent of the SPCA.  We'll see if they're able to do anything about it.

Purim, not purim, and my not costume

To celebrate Purim outside of Israel (or, as people here say – “in chul”), you have to wade through a whole lot of not-Purim to get there. 

Maybe you're lucky, and live in a Jewish neighbourhood, so you don't have so much wading to do. 

(Probably not luck; you probably chose to live around other Jews, and good for you.)

But either way, you've got some wading to do. 

I use that word deliberately. Wading isn't easy ; it's not swimming, it's not walking... It's kind of like the worst of both worlds. 

It's not something fish do. It's something we gawky humans do when we're out of our element. 

Hmmm.

Purim outside of Israel can be a fun bubble, unlike, say, Yom Kippur in chul.  If you see someone in costume - and I always made a point of wearing a costume - you wave, shout greetings… it's tons of fun. 

Me in costumes past:

This year, I didn’t care so much whether I wore a costume, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. 

Okay, partly it’s because I’m a bit blue, or blah, or whatever you want to call it.  I’m away from everyone I love (except 4 important people I love!) and don’t always feel that festive.

But also – here, you don’t need the costume to feel like it’s Purim.  It just is.

A Conservative rabbi once tried to convince our conversion class – and it took some doing – that there was no such thing, really, as “having a bar mitzvah.”  All you have to do to is wake up on your thirteenth birthday (or the day after; I forget) and you are bar mitzvah.  You can’t make it happen, and neither can you stop it.

Sure, you can get all dressed up, have an aliyah (great!), have a party if you like.  But none of those things make you bar mitzvah… you either are or you aren’t.

It’s either Purim or it isn’t.  Here, it is.

I feel like, all those years outside of Israel, every year we’d get dressed up and pretend it was Purim.  Now that we’re here, we don’t have to pretend.  No more wading – here, we’re in our element.  It’s all around us… Purim is in the air.

Even if you do nothing at all, it really is Purim.

I felt the same way on Yom Kippur, when the thousands of Jews around here who aren’t shomer mitzvos (observant) brought their lives to a standstill.  For 25 hours (give or take), they didn’t go to the beach, didn’t drive their cars, didn’t open their stores.  Because whatever they personally happen to believe, it really WAS Yom Kippur.  You can’t argue with it, it just is.

So we did the mitzvos of the day, and celebrated with friends (KShmu BBQ!), and it really was kind of great, despite my semi-funk.

GZ really really really wanted to dress up as a pirate, so he dressed up as a pirate and had a wonderful time. 

Naomi Rivka had a couple of costume options, but really really really didn’t want to get dressed up, so she simply… didn’t.  She wore the same clothes she wears to school every day.

(Believe it or not, she really is having a wonderful time in this picture – she’s just rapt, surrounded by English-speaking teenagers, which, for a displaced 9-year-old, is as close as you can get to heaven in Israel.)

Slightly dishevelled pirate after a few minutes of partying hard with strawberries:

(Yeah, these people really do have a beautiful backyard.  They’ve been here many years and own a private villa (house) in the nice part of KShmu.)

Ted/Akiva got dressed up, of course.  There’s a Superman shirt underneath the suit, which is itself the “Clark Kent” part of the costume, so the whole thing really IS a costume… he didn’t actually WEAR a suit to bike to an Israeli BBQ on a hot sunny day!

And I didn’t have strong feelings one way or another – and didn’t wear a costume… sort of. 

Akiva bought me a clown nose, and at first, I was just going to pin it (still in the packaging that says “clown nose”) in a half-hearted way to my regular clothing.  But at the last minute, I pinned it in a half-hearted way and added a toy stethoscope, becoming, in the process, a medical clown.

It turned out, I was not the only medical clown there.  It’s a popular profession here in Israel, and one of the aforementioned teenaged girls dressed up as one as well.  Her costume was better than mine - her father works at the med school at the Technion and she had a real lab coat, as well as a colourful clown wig (scroll up and you’ll see it in the picture of Naomi Rivka).

Mine was a costume, but low-key; it wasn’t really a costume.  And I was okay with that.

Here’s the thing:  my secret Purim shame.

Growing up, we dressed up every year… for Hallowe’en.  And it was great!  We could dress as anything we wanted, the sky’s the limit.  Trick or treating, UNICEF boxes, the works.  I loved it.

Then, a few months later, along would roll Purim.  Which wasn’t a “real” holiday, because nobody outside of our family and Hebrew school had ever heard of it.

It also wasn’t a real dress-up holiday because… my mother’s rule… you could ONLY dress up as someone from the Purim story. 

As a mom, I think I can understand her reasoning now:  why not take advantage of this “duplicate” costume opportunity to strengthen and reinforce our Jewish education?

Even better:  why not take a real stand against the non-Jewish majority culture, emulating Esther, even, by being super-Jewish in your story-of-Purim costume?

But there are only so many characters in the story, especially for a little kid who’s never actually read the whole megillah.  Not so many characters, and I think I was all of them at one time or another:  Haman, Esther, Mordechai, the king, Vashti.  Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Booooooooooorrrrrrrring!!!

(Oops – I guess my Terrible Purim Secret is not so secret anymore!)

It wasn’t until I became religious, as an adult, that I realized this wasn’t an actual rule.  I learned the rules, and not only were costumes not even IN the rules, but among frum families I met, I discovered that the kids could dress up as anything they wanted. 

Barring tznius concerns and what Elisheva likes to say in a thick chareidi accent, “tarbus hagoyim” (non-Jewish culture), the sky’s the limit.

Not just because they don’t get to celebrate Hallowe’en (poor frum kids), but because they probably aren’t so concerned that their Jewish education will be watered down or threatened by a non-megillah-related costume.

And I guess it’s the same thing here.  My wearing a costume or not wearing a costume wouldn’t have changed anything about the nature of the day.  I could wear one, if I wanted to, but there was no pressure. 

So I sort of did, and sort of didn’t.

I can’t say what I’ll do next year.  We’re living minute to minute here, so I really can’t even say what I’ll be doing next week, let alone twelve months from now.  Will I wear a costume?  Maybe, maybe not. 

But whether or not I join in, it will be Purim, in a way that I’ve honestly never experienced before. 

I suppose it helps also that if you do wear a costume, you can actually WEAR it, rather than toss a parka on over it so you can slip and slide across the ice to shul to huddle in the warmth as you hear the megillah.

The one constant of Purim, wherever you may find yourself, is the theme of “venahafoch hu” – “and it was turned around.”  The “fate” of the Jews turned from bad to good, while the “fate” of Haman went “from bat to verse,” as the terrible vampire poet joke goes.

Whatever we may be wearing a year from now, I’m excited to see what next Purim in Israel will bring… and may there be many more to come.

A quick tour of K Shmu aka Kiryat Shmuel

Enough of you seemed interested in my descriptions of Kiryat Shmuel, our new neighbourhood, to warrant another post with a quick tour of the neighbourhood.

First, like almost any place in Israel, it can be ugly here.  This is our building, which I’d classify as Pretty Darn Ugly, even by Israeli standards.  It is redeemed a bit by the beautiful little girl standing in front.

 

That flowery “lawn” will be a dust bowl within 2 months, so it’s probably at its most charming right now.

But the upside of Ugly is Cheap – apartments here range from ₪1800 for a 2-bedroom (that’s what we’re paying) all the way up to about ₪3000 for the same number of rooms in a heck of a lot more spacious layout in the good part of “town.”

Some houses in the good part of town.

These are nicer than where we live, obviously. 

Basically, you get what you pay for.  Cheap = Ugly; Expensive = Pretty.  But it’s nice to know, if you are thinking of moving into the area, that there seem to be rentals available in just about every level and price bracket, as well as a good assortment of properties for sale.

The last house pictured, by the way, has been under construction since we moved here, with no end in sight.  They are making progress… just very, very tiny progress.

I’ve referred a few times to “downtown” Kiryat Shmuel, and here it is… a makolet (mini grocery store) and a post office.  I think there’s a hair dresser somewhere as well.  Upstairs, tucked in and hidden around the back, is the local “vaad” – the folks you pay for your water and sewage.  Somewhere near there is a teeny tiny public library, but we have yet to find it.

Someone in the post office is apparently learning English (notice the sign taped up to the partition):

Notice they’re not post-office related words at all:  strudel, milk shake, stereotype?   Weird.

This is the Merkazi Beit Knesset (central shul - Sefardi):

Downtown KShmu also features a really nice park with actual, natural shade trees (a rarity around here):

… Right across from a very noisy, active Bnei Akiva “sneef” (branch).

 

… and a community centre where Naomi goes to dance classes once a week (doh, forgot to take its picture). 

This corner is quite the hangout on a Friday night, after all the sensible people are tucked in safely at home with a book.  Teenagers take over the playground, the yard, the street and don’t give it back until morning.

Back to the central part of KShmu, where we live, we have the “main park,” a huge Shabbos hang-out for families and kids.

And the nice new food store – it just opened right before we came.  There’s also a Clalit health clinic, if you peer at the top-left corner.  It’s bigger than it looks, taking up the entire second storey above the food store.  Naomi Rivka says the food store is a trick because it looks like it’s 2 levels, but it’s really not.

 

And then… it’s back towards our block, the old part of town.  No idea when this area was built, because my theory is that the salt air ages everything to look decades-old inside of, well, a decade. 

There are a few private houses here, along with some older ground-floor apartments that are “almost” like houses because they’ve been built out with patios, etc.

(Notice the motorcycle parked just inside the doorway?  Not that there is a door.  Most of these older buildings omit that nicety.)

In my experience, most places – even those that look terribly run down on the outside – look decent, and even possibly VERY nice, on the inside.  I think nobody bothers with outside maintenance unless they have to, ie if something is threatening to fall off their house with disrepair.

Naomi’s teacher, for instance, lives in a building with a dingy entrance very similar to the one here with the motorcycle in it.  But when we went in a couple of weeks ago on Shabbos, it turns out the apartment itself is beautiful, modern, and spacious, with a full-sized ground-floor patio.

I guess folks here take the Pirkei Avos saying “don’t look at the jug, but rather, at what it contains” seriously.

This is our nearest miklat, shelter, because these old buildings and houses were not built with shelters of mamads (part of the current building code). 

Conveniently, but mystifyingly, there’s a shul that uses the shelter as well (see the sign above the door).  And there’s a sign on the door that says something about where the keys can be found.  This sign fails to reassure me.

A parkette with bench across the street that is pleasant right now, in the spring, but probably brutally hot in the summer:

 

And we return, at last, to the dingy apartment block we call home.

 

Thanks for stopping by!!!