To every fruit, there is a season (with helpful seasonal Hebrew vocabulary!)

In Canada, there are seasons. Lots and lots of them. Well, four, but they’re all exciting and distinctly different. You’re probably familiar with them: winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Israel doesn’t have seasons, as such, a fact which has been driven home by this long, warm fall. And been hammered into our skulls with a recent two-week November heatwave חמסין / chamseen (hot wind from the eastern deserts) that’s left us parched and sweating, and left my plants wilting at a time of year when they’re usually starting to soak up the first downpours of the year.

(Interestingly, as this article points out, most Israelis probably call the chamseen by that name because it’s hot, which is חם / cham in Hebrew, in fact it comes from the Arabic word for fifty – meaning fifty days a year of icky sandy hot and dry conditions.)

Spring and fall are often called עונות המעבר / onot hama’avar, the transitional season. Meaning they’re neither here nor there – just seasons that get you from one place to another. (When you sit on the aisle in a movie theatre or airplane, you’re also sitting on the מעבר / ma’avar – exactly the same word.)

The term onot hama’avar usually crops up when we’re talking about health, and other problems, that come up during spring, and especially fall. Colds, allergies, migraines, skin problems – most Israelis are suffering from some combination of all these at the moment, compounded by the current hot, dry wind which has meant I can’t smile or my lips will crack.

Normally, the fall עונת המעבר / onat hama’avar (singular) is also the time to get immunized with this year’s flu vaccine, a fact driven into my head by my ulpan teacher. But this year the vaccines were late (for various international reasons and not due to a conspiracy and/or the fact we have no government!) and we haven’t gotten ours yet.

But however you feel about the weather, that’s actually NOT what a want to talk about. Because there are even more important seasons in Israel: seasons you must be aware of, seasons people argue heatedly about on Facebook, seasons you need to prepare for before you leave the house.

I’m talking about fruit seasons, of course.

I’ve already said many times that we’re huge fans of Israeli fruit. It’s cheap and more delicious than anything I ever

Feeling under the WEATHER...? Two things making me happy in the rain!

Feeling under the weather…?

And I do mean that literally, by the way.  I wouldn't blame you if you were.  We've had a LOT of weather to be under this winter so far.  The great news is that water levels in the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) are on their way back up to where they're supposed to be, which is one measure of how relatively water-secure this country is.

[QUICK ASIDE FOR ISRAEL WATER LESSON!]

The Kinneret was once Israel’s main source of fresh water.  Today, thanks to desalination, it is apparently only responsible for 10%.  Still a considerable chunk.  Water level in the Kinneret is measured against 3 lines: 

• UPPER RED = Full.  The level hasn’t reached this point since about 2002.
• LOWER RED = Lowest “normal” level.  Below this point will have environmental consequences.
• BLACK = Serious drought / environmental crisis.  The line dipped down below this round about October following 5 years of drought and insufficient winter rain.

(check a live version of this graph)

Oh, yeah, and because the whole lake is below sea level, the numbers run down – a “bigger,” i.e., more negative, number is WORSE, not better.

As you can see from this graph, we’re back above the black line thanks to this winter’s prodigious rain, but not all the way back up to that slightly more comfy lower red line. 

[END OF LESSON]

But while we're feeling flush (ahem) when it comes to water, we're also being deluged in a desert country that's ill-prepared to deal with an excess of water.  When it’s raining, the streets flood, programs and trips get cancelled, and it can be very dangerous to be out on the roads.

All of which means, it’s a lot better to stay home if you possibly can.  (Even though, without central heating, surrounded by dank concrete walls, it can get pretty miserable inside the house as well…)

So I wanted to share two things that I really

Seasons Change: Dreaming of Spring in Israel

Moving to Israel, everybody told us, I’d have to give up on spring – there are no seasons here. I wish I didn’t love spring so much – it’s such a cliché – but how could I not? The smell of rain clinging to everything in sight, the soft bounce of the dirt underfoot. Mud everywhere, but also life.

I only learned to love the seasons when I started gardening in our last home, a tiny Toronto bungalow with an equally tiny lot.

The backyard was a mix of sand and shade – a gardener’s nightmare where only ants could play. Grass refused to grow, though many attempts had been made over the years.

But over the eight years we lived there, with the help of two compost piles and countless experiments with hardy native species (and countless hours weeding out perennial sunflowers), things improved, slowly.

I knew it was getting better when I spotted snails. Though many gardeners are horrified at the thought of snails, chomping up pretty hosta leaves and oozing slime trails, I took them as a compliment. Where there are snails, there is moisture and decay. And where there is moisture and decay, there is life.

My backyard had come to life.

When we moved to Israel in August of 2013, it was more of a nightmare than a season. Back in Toronto, it was also the full heat of the summer, but there was hope of fall, and the ripening of tomatoes to console us from the heat, or what we called heat.

In Toronto, the heat isn’t an enemy. It doesn’t leap on your chest and keep you down for two months, three months, four. It doesn’t make you stop, panting, for water, every block on the way to the grocery store. It doesn’t make you duck into banks just to enjoy the air conditioning. It doesn’t make the kids cry as you weave drunkenly down the sidewalk, in and out of every patch of shade. It goes away at night and lets you sleep, or at least sit on the porch with a glass of wine.

Here, it was hot. And it wasn’t summer as I knew it. Nothing was growing – well, nasty-looking succulent plants with bulbous, waxy leaves, or spikes, or unattractive protuberances. Lizards skittered in the dappled light beneath trees. When lizards are happy to play in the shade, it’s truly a hot day.

But one day, well into what I used to think of as fall, it rained. Just a little – the random specks they call teef-toof. But then it happened again, and another evening, I had to buy the kids umbrellas. The rain had stopped by the time we got out of the store, but everyone around us knew – winter was on its way.

And suddenly, suddenly, the world came alive.

Another day, a sandy front yard I passed every day on our way to my son’s kindergarten was full of green stubble – grass! The next, all the bushes, it seemed, had new, pale-green leaves; a few, here and there. The ground was awakening at last.

Now, months later, we’re nearing the end of winter. We haven’t had enough rain, everybody agrees, but all is green and lovely. Cool breezes blow through the window, citrus trees exuberantly flaunt their colourful baubles: lemons, oranges, kumquats.

It turns out there are seasons in Israel, just not the ones I’m used to. Every Israeli knows them intimately.

Weird, wacky, wonderful (Hebrew) words: שַׁלֶּכֶת/ shalechet

It’s way too early to be thinking about fall, but there you go – that’s what I’m thinking about.  I accidentally put on my “Elul Hebrew Songs” playlist before Shabbos and ended up listening to a whole bunch of pre-Rosh Hashanah songs and getting into THAT kind of mood.

And with all these songs comes a word that comes up all the time in the fall in Israel that I had never really even thought about before… שַׁלֶּכֶת/ shalechet.

Morfix translates the word as “fall (of autumn leaves) ; (botany) exfoliation.”  Google, as “autumn, fall, or effoliation.”  But you’ll have to take my word for it – nobody says this in English the way Israelis do here, with its many heaped-on layers of meaning.

This is a lovely word that is a haiku unto itself.  It means, vaguely, “fallen leaves on sidewalks.”  But it also refers to the crunchiness of the leaves and the mood of the leaves and the ending-and-transitioning that is fall and even, kind of, winter in Israel, which isn’t really a season but more a dampness that descends for a while and then lifts.

It’s certainly not just “falling leaves” – because when people want to talk about falling leaves, they say עלי שלכת/alei shalechet, which would be redundant if shalechet was all about leaves.

Chanukah in Israel: why it’s simply better here

"Do they really celebrate Chanukah in chu"l???" (Outside of Israel - see this post!)

This Sunday, I brought English Chanukah songs for the girls I tutor.  One of them was amazed and asked me this outright.  She couldn’t believe that even in Canada, we celebrated Chanukah.

She knew that Jews everywhere celebrate most holidays, but Chanukah is so tied up in the Israeli psyche, our most nationalistic holiday besides Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day), that it must have seemed impossible to celebrate anywhere else.

And I have to admit: she’s right. 

Sure, you can celebrate Chanukah in chu”l, but you can’t feel it the way you do here.

I've always been humbug about Chanukah.  It's not that I hated it, but when we lived in Canada,

Baby, it’s cold outside: packing for winter in Israel.

If you’re making aliyah over the summer, you’re probably wondering how much winter stuff you should pack.  Israel is hot, right?  And dry?

Sure it is, but it definitely does get cold here in the wintertime.  And I’m Canadian; when I say cold, I mean COLD.   

The tricky part is that it gets cold… but only for a few weeks.  Just because it's shorter, though, doesn't make it any less cold.  Dumb and obvious but true.

(Okay, Canadian friends and relatives, feel free to mock me now at the thought that anything above freezing can be considered truly cold.)

How can I, a proud Canadian, whine about temperatures in Israel?

The cold here seems way colder than it did in Canada.  That’s because coming inside doesn't help: there's no central heating.  So warm jammies or nighties is a smart choice to pack, as much as you’ll curse the space they take up for such a short period of use over the course of a year.

It also means that kids in schools can get COLD.  Schools are not adequately heated and air conditioners (yes, they also have a “heat” setting) are often old and bad.

As tough as people outside of Israel think Israelis are, my kids' school was cancelled once this year due to rain (field trips are cancelled if there's any CHANCE of rain!), and more than once they brought the kids hot tea and soup to warm them up (on days I didn't consider particularly cold, but whatever).

So should you pack parkas, hats, and fluffy winter boots?

Bug OFF! More creepy crawly critters I’ve known in Israel.

If you're easily creeped out, maybe you'd better not read on.

Still here?

Good.  Because if you’re planning to move to Israel, you’re going to have to think about insects.

As I write this, I am literally pecking ants off my computer screen.  It's ANT SEASON here in Israel.

The first year we were here, a friend told us, "After Pesach, the ants come." 

I didn’t think she was lying to us, but really?  In Toronto, insects don't have a schedule.  Sure enough, though, days after Pesach, they arrived.  Right now, we’re in our second year, and, yes, in the middle of our second invasion by ants.

My 7-year-old son loves this, because it lets him make up rude rhymes for the song "The Ants Go Marching," in various multiples.  Me, not so much.

Ants, of course, are not the worst of it when you live in a hot desert-type country like Israel.  I guess the worst-case scenario would be the friend who got stung by a scorpion moving some furniture in his house.

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:

Things that are weird in Israel #13: Winter

Welcome to winter in Israel!  I have to start by saying that some places here are warmer than others.  Where we live, we don’t really get “winter” at all.  Other parts, like Yerushalayim, are significantly colder, and may actually get snow. 

I don’t think it’s ever snowed here (but it probably has, in some freakish event before the modern State of Israel).

That said, winter stops Israelis in their tracks like nothing else.  Literally nothing else.  In the face of war and terrorism, Israel is undaunted.  In the face of two inches of snow, nothing gets through.

“Getting ready for snow!!!!” shouted the headline in last Friday’s paper.  Okay, I’ve added the exclamation points.   “This picture, from the blizzard of last winter, may repeat itself around the middle of next week.  Forecasters:  “Expect a meaningful winter system.”  Weekend:  cold and rainy.”

“Is snow on its way to Jerusalem?” the article begins, tantalizingly. 

Seasons (don’t) change: 10 ways you’ll know it’s winter here in Israel.

Israelis love to make a big deal of the seasons changing.  Heck, you can even drive up to the northern Galil and Golan to see colourful leaves on trees.

But I’m not buying it.  It’s all just an act.

As far as I’m concerned, there are exactly two seasons here:  good weather and hot weather.

We’re in good weather right now.  I feel like a human being, as opposed to a wrung-out sponja mop.

Nevertheless, Israelis insist on referring to the bit from November to February as winter.  They walk around shivering and kvetching about the cold.  This is disorienting, because if I close my eyes, it could be any season. 

I hope this Top Ten list will help you orient yourself when it comes to figuring out if it’s winter.

Top ten ways you’ll know it’s winter here in Israel:

Haveil Havalim, the Vayeira Version

Welcome!  It’s well and truly Cheshvan now, “bitter” with the mixed blessing of wind and rain and all kinds of deliciously wild weather whooshing around me.  I’m going to reuse the banner I made last week for this post because I love it so much, and I made it, so I can do that.

If you’ve never been to the Haveil Havalim party before, you’re in for a treat.

What is HH?

This is a weekly roundup of what’s new and great in the Jewish / Israel blogging world.  If you haven’t checked out these great blogs yet, you really should. 

• Last week’s was hosted by Batya at Shiloh Musings.
• Next week’s carnival will be hosted by Ruth Palatnik (Rickismom) at Beneath the Wings.
• For more details, a complete schedule of future issues or to host an upcoming issue, please join the HH facebook group.

As the host, I get to break the posts up into categories.  So much fun!

NOTE:  If post(s) of yours are included here, be friendly and visit 2-3 other blogs listed here.  I’ve done my best to make them all sound tempting and fun.  Leave a comment to let them know you were there.

 

If I forget thee (Jerusalem)

therealjerusalemstreets, in her usual poetic style, on Highs and Lows Felt in Jerusalem:  “Real Jerusalem Streets is not just about the good stuff, / but what is really happening. / On days like this it is hard to know where to start / and what to post, there is so much to say.”

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.”

The dark side of... the sun (like how it can fade your laundry or kill you).

You may have heard that Israel is a poor country.
It's true.

But one thing we have plenty of here in Israel is sun.

Almost every day, almost all year 'round (except when my sister decided to come for 2 weeks last December).

This is cool for many reasons:
- Hanging laundry outside, where it can dry in hours
- Saving tons of energy with solar water heaters
- Planning outdoor events 10 months of the year without worrying about rain

As my son said when he was here, the boundaries between indoors and outdoors are just more pourous here.  Our "porch" window opens up and suddenly we are outside.  When air conditioning isn't running, people leave their doors open and come and go as they like.

But there is a dark side to all this sun.

The sun is powerful.

You don’t want to mess with the power of the sun.

The same sun that guarantees that all your whites will come off the line whiter than white also guarantees that your reds, oranges and pinks will fade to pink, in less than 24 hours in some cases.

Oh, and it will kill you, like it kills up to 480 Israelis every year.

Israel’s Weather – a hot topic

 

Brrrr.  Temperatures here in Toronto ducked down to around 10 degrees (Celsius) last night, making me wish I was back in Israel.  But I know I should be careful what I wish for… there’s a long summer still ahead.

I'm in Canada right now sitting shiva for my brother, but I hope this reprinted article will give you some insight into how Israelis feel about their weather!

In Israel, weather is a "hot" topic - a bad summer means particularly high temperatures and humidity, unlike Europe where it means a particularly cold and rainy season. While tourists flock to Israel to lie in the sun, Israelis leave the country in droves to get away from the summer heat.

In 2010, Israel weather forecasters saw the hottest year since records began. It started in early Spring with excessive heat waves and reached a peak in August with average temperatures over two degrees higher than in previous years. On one of the days, the meteorological office in Be'er Sheva, in the south of the country, recorded an all time high of 43.8 degrees celsius!

According to a study conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel, weather in the Middle East is being affected by global warming, as everywhere else. Hotter summers and shorter, drier winters are going to be the trend for the future. The study also predicts more extreme weather conditions with heavy rains and storms in the winter and hot, dry heat waves in the Spring and Autumn.

Even though it is such a small country, Israel's varied topography means it has more than one type of climate. The hot, humid summers and winter rains are typical of the Mediterranean climate in the northern and central areas of the country. But in the south, in the Arava and the Judean deserts, the desert climate means hot, dry summers with low humidity and some rainfall in the winter. Mount Hermon and the surrounding mountainous region in the far north, has a temperate climate with generally cooler temperatures year round and even some snow on high ground in the winter.

But even on Mount Hermon, there has been less snow in recent years, and therefore less water from melted snow and ice flowing into the tributaries which feed the Sea of Galilee (also known as Lake Kinneret) and the Dead Sea. The combination of higher temperatures and lower rainfall is endangering these two beautiful wonders of nature. Water is lost through vaporization during the hot, dry summer months and despite the relatively high rainfall at the end of the winter and the more moderate summer temperatures in 2011, the Sea of Galilee dropped 32 cm in August alone and the water level continues to be below the red danger line.

For a solution to the water shortage in Israel, the weather forecast for winter, 2012 needs to be rain, rain and more rain.

[Note:  although this was written for 2012, Winter 2013/2014 didn’t see enough rain either.   According to savethekinneret.com, the water level in the Kinneret (sea of galilee) is currently at –211.45 as of June 15, 2014.]

 

Sara Turgeman is the editor of http://www.this-is-galilee.com, an insider guide to the Galilee and Northern Israel. More information about the water shortage in Israel can be found at http://www.this-is-galilee.com/water-shortage.html

Copyright: you may freely republish this article, provided the text, author credit, the active links and this copyright notice remain intact. Any changes must have written authorization from the author who can be contacted at the above website (Contact Me).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sara_Turgeman

I’m told it takes 2 years to adapt to the weather in Israel.  If you’re a veteran olah, how long did it take you?

Sign up for free weekly aliyah tip:

Things that are cool in Israel #4: The Dude and the Drainer

Yom HaAtzmaut is coming – Israel’s Independence Day!  So it’s time to sing her praises.  Tra, la, la… here I go!!!

Praise #1:  Going Solar

In terms of natural resources, one thing Israel’s got plenty of is sunlight.  In the summer, probably TOO much, but that’s not entirely a bad thing.  Israel got into the solar water-heating thing very early on, and now you can’t go up and down a city block without seeing water heaters bristling on the roof of just about every building.

Apparently, 90% of Israeli homes have a solar water heater – or, in Hebrew, a “dude shemesh” (דוּד שֶׁמֶשׁ).  And now, so do we!

(The plain old word for water heater is “dude” / דוּד – you pronounce it just like he English word “dude” – phonetically, dood, to rhyme with “interrupting the post like this was very rude.”)

In the Merkaz Klitah, our electric dude was right in the apartment, and if we wanted hot water, we’d have to turn it on and wait 10-15 minutes.  It took me a few days to figure this out – when we first arrived, it was WAY too hot to think about heating up water, even for a shower (it wasn’t freezing cold out of the taps, anyway).

Here, we have a switch.  In the winter, like when we moved in, there isn’t quite enough sunlight for a steady supply of hot water.  These days, we don’t have to think about the switch… which means we’re saving a ton of money.

I love being part of a country where something like this – which would be revolutionary in Canada – is just a mundane feature of even the most junky, run-down apartments.

(Granted, in Canada, there’s not as much sunlight, so it would probably be silly to rely on it to heat a family’s entire water supply… for oh, about ten months of the year.)

Praise #2:  What’s this about Drainers?

Because so many people have raved about their dudes in past, and thus it has become kind of cliché, I thought I’d throw in a “bonus” rave, and here it is:  two-level dish drainers!

I bought a new one yesterday, having grown tired of our one-level drainer and wanting to move up in the world:

 

(excuse our post-Pesach kitchen “balagan”!)

This one is a sturdy plastic model; there are also metal ones available, but to me, the idea of metal and dripping water don’t mix.  No matter how “stainless” it is, I know at some point, there will be rust.

(Weird Word o’ the Week:  stainless steel in Hebrew = nee-rosta / נִירוֹסְטָה, a word I just figured out a few days ago is actually a non-Hebrew word combining the Latin-ish parts, “nee” (no) and “rosta” (rust).  Blah.)

Yeah, it’s kind of a yucky brown/beige colour.   I don’t know exactly why I think this is so cool, except for the fact that I’ve spent my entire life trying to fit stuff into a measly single-layer dish drainer, creating an effect my family refers to as the “Jenga” when anyone tries to get any one item out.

With this one, the layers are switchable, so if I decide I want cutlery and plates on the bottom, and pots / glasses on the top – la-bri’ut (“to your health” / לִברִיאוּת), as they say here when you sneeze.

Draining the Drainer

The only thing about this that is not cool is that it’s nearly impossible to buy a dish drainer that actually drains.  Unlike just about every model I ever saw in Canada, most come with a “tray” that sits underneath and catches the water.  Ew!  Why would you want to leave the water sitting to go moldy and make your cutlery stinky???

(I understand the utility of it if you’re drying dishes, say, on your bed or on a bookshelf… but in a kitchen, there’s almost always access to a sink, right?)

So if you peek underneath this new drainer, you’ll see that I have replaced the tray with one that actually drains, into the sink.  It’s not quite the right size, but given how long and hard I had to search for it, it will do for now.

Wow!  Usually, I only share ONE thing that’s cool in Israel… but this time, you’ve gotten not one (the dude), not two (the drainer), but THREE (the little language lesson about stainless steel).

To show your appreciation for this tremendous generosity, please Like, Share, Comment… let me know I’m not alone in my admiration for this great land of ours!

Ten favourite selfies in Israel! (#4 blew me away!)

According to Definition #7 at Urban Dictionary, a selfie is “An over used word meaning taking a picture of your self. This is mainly used by people who are too lazy to say "take a picture of myself."”

So that’s what these are – my ten favourite selfies since we arrived here in Israel.  If you’re interested in seeing the egg-shaped top of my head, you, my friend, are in for a treat!

Here they are in order… starting with #10:

#10:  Family bus trip to Nahariya (full story here)

 

Kind of a lousy picture, actually (I look like I’m kind of squashed back into my seat and / or about to leap up and eat the camera) but I had to get the obligatory “Egged bus” shot in this list somewhere.

#9:  Entering the Carmelit with Elisheva (full story here)

The world’s wonkiest subway, captured perfectly in this shot of two homemade crocheted hats.  Hard to think way back now and remember this cold December weather… and it’s only March now.  Sheesh.

#8:  The Bay at Old Yaffo (full story of my sister’s visit here)

I like how I pretended I was taking a picture of her but managed to sneak in my own big, egg-shaped head.  Urban Dictionary says this is called photo bombing, “Intentionally posing in other people's photos, for a later surprise.”  She’s known me for a long time, though, so I don’t think she was really surprised.

#7:  Harem in Old Akko

This was our Nefesh b’Nefesh Chanukah tiyul… Akko was kind of boring, though there were some highlights, like this nice dappled treed area.

#6:  Food Court in the Yerushalayim Merkazit with Abigail & Elisheva

This was nice.  My sister, my daughter.  Fleeting moment captured perfectly over a delicious fast-food lunch.  Well, fast food for me.  Salads for them… they’re both always eating salads.

#5:  Kotel with Abigail (once again, read the full story of her visit here)

Me n’ my sister n’ the holiest place n’ the world.

#4:  Waiting for Yerachmiel in the Airport

 

It was a Friday, very rushed, very crazy.  But since he would only be in Israel for 8 days, we figured it was worth it to drive down and meet his plane.  Crazy how excited you can get about seeing your own kid.

(If you came straight from the headline, sorry.  This picture is not actually likely to blow anyone away, but apparently, when creating a “viral-type” list headline, the Thing to Do Nowadays is choose one to get your readers hooked and scrolling.  Since you’re here anyway, keep on scrolling!  You’re nearly at the bottom… and #1 is worth it, I promise!)

#3:  New Ikea Store with Elisheva (full story here)

Fun, fun, fun, ‘till the cows come home (or in this case, two really cute stuffed toy mice for about 6 shekels each).

#2:  The Knesset (full story here)

Playing at Cub Reporter – having fun, getting paid.  This is the real reason I’m here!

And finally…

#1:  My most-favourite selfie since we came to Israel.

Well, I didn’t say they had to be of ME, right???

Like food photography (the amateur kind), selfies are a quintessentially modern preoccupation.  In the old days, film used to be way too expensive to waste on potentially-lousy pictures of oneself. 

Still – I think it’s a great way of getting a shot of yourself at times and places when nobody else is there to do it for you.  You just remember stuff better when you’re in the picture yourself!

Do you take selfies?   Do you usually share them, or keep them hidden in some metaphorical “drawer” on your hard drive?

Being a tourist in my OWN country!

Haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been busy.  With what???  Showing off this new homeland that I love so much to my sister, who’s visiting from Canada.

If you had only fourteen days in Israel (twelve when you subtract Shabbat), what would you see and do???  That’s the question my sister had to answer when she arrived at Ben Gurion two weeks ago today.

It’s hard to believe that almost a year ago (well, ten months), we were strangers here on a pilot trip.  My sister has been visiting for the last couple of weeks, which has given me a chance to do a bit of touristy stuff that I’ve really never had a chance to do – except this time, to do it as a real Israeli, kind of.

(Kind of because I gave my Canadian passport to the Arab-run hostel we stayed at in the Old City of Jerusalem… I think they’re Christian, but I was still nervous about what they’d do if an Israeli tried to check in.  More about the hostel later.)

So where did we go?

First of all, I actually wasn’t quite finished Ulpan (Hebrew-language boot camp) yet… my sister arrived a week before my final exam, so not exactly ideal timing, as it was the most intensive week of the entire course.  But I’m nothing if not resilient, and you can’t negotiate with holiday-season airfares.

Thursday:  Tel Aviv / Yaffo

My sister arrived on a Thursday morning, and didn’t want to just head north right away without experiencing a bit of the “merkaz” (central part of the country) vibe. 

I suggested that for the same train fare, we could spend some time in Tel Aviv and Yaffo (Jaffa) instead.  Well, she suggested Yaffo, which was a great call (apparently, she’d read up a little on the plane!). 

In Yaffo’s Old Port, we walked in the footsteps of Napoleon (kind of) and viewed a fascinating historical presentation / tour of an underground marketplace called Jaffa Tales.

Then, we headed to the shuk (market), not far away in the new city of Tel Aviv.  I don’t love the shuk in Tel Aviv; it’s bustling enough, but not much there is kosher.  Having said that, however, there’s a lovely bakery inside that makes the most luscious cheddar-cheese buns.  They’re not cheap, but I bought some to eat on the train back.

After that, plus a quick falafel break (my sister says this disproves my claim that there’s no kosher food around, but I really don’t count falafel stands), we hopped on a bus back to the train station.

This was the day of the big snow in Yerushalayim but Tel Aviv seemed completely unaffected and the day was lovely; brilliantly sunny and definitely warm enough for someone who’d just arrived from Toronto.  It was also Elisheva’s 18th birthday, so – after waiting 5 hours for a bus out of Yerushalayim – she joined us up north for an impromptu (read:  made by Ted/Akiva) birthday supper.

Friday:  Teveria

Okay, I admit – I didn’t want to travel anywhere on a winter Friday when Shabbos came in just past 4:00 pm.  So I sent my sister and Elisheva out to Teveria, thinking they’d have a grand old time seeing the Kinneret and whatever historical stuff is out there.  But no… it was a freezing, rainy, miserable day by any standard, even a Canadian one.  Everything there was closed and, oh, did I mention it was a fast day?  (the 10th of Tevet)  They came back frigid and miserable, but we had a nice cozy Shabbos together later on.

Sunday:  Haifa

My sister wasn’t really all that interested in seeing Haifa, but the weather – though chilly – had cleared up and I didn’t want to shlep around when there are some lovely things to see nearby.  I’m really glad we did.

The day was full of firsts, even for a “veteran” (4 months) Haifan (well, Krayot person) like me.  After a quick Metronit ride into town, we rode the funky-weird Carmelit subway line (world’s shortest subway, only 6 stops!) up the mountain to the Bahai Gardens.

From the bottom of the Bahai Gardens (the free tour walks you down the stairs and lets you out near the middle of the garden, so it’s an easy walk the rest of the way down), we found a very unhelpful Tourist Centre in the German Colony (no kosher food, as I predicted – even falafel) where I noticed in a brochure that there’s a cable car ride up the mountain. 

The unhelpful, borderline-rude woman behind the counter directed us to take the Metronit to a certain stop for the cable car… at which point we found out that it was nowhere nearby.  We were also aiming to visit the Cave of Eliyahu (Elijah), which was also nowhere nearby.  So we walked… and walked… and walked…

Finally, we reached the cable car, which looks a bit like a baseball hanging from a string and is run by several incomprehensible but friendly Arabs who mainly sit around eating lunch and pressing the button to make the cable car run.

The ride was slightly scary, but we made it to the top, which opens onto a disappointingly dull monastery (Stella Maris).  There was no information or description of the site whatsoever, although a priestly type in a long robe offered us a choice of ancient mimeographed brochures in our choice of German or Italian.

After that dullness, we rode back down and noticed we were spitting distance away from Eliyahu’s Cave, so we stomped off there, despite Elisheva’s warnings that it was weird and tacky and boring.

It was all that and MORE!  The cave itself was decorated in the type of Rabbinic art-kitsch that one can find in many living rooms – pictures of rabbis and holy sites.  There are some historical things up on the walls as well, which do provide a little interesting background, but it’s not exactly a tourist site.

Just as we were giving up and getting ready to leave, a bearded man in a long robe (his was white) came in carrying a shofar.  He asked in Hebrew who we were and where we were from and if we had any special requests, and then offered a really lovely and long bracha, after which he blew the shofar (also long) rather dramatically. 

In terms of showmanship, I felt that the Jewish site had won hands-down.  So there, monastery.

Another quick Metronit ride (one transfer) brought us home, and I was glad to be so close to home at the end of the day.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday:  Eilat / Petra

In an effort to help me not fail the ulpan exam, my sister took off that night by herself via Egged overnight bus for Eilat and Petra, where she stayed until another overnight bus on Thursday night.

Shabbat:  Home

To celebrate my birthday, completing ulpan and sister’s visit, and to commemorate my father’s fifth yahrzeit, we had a small but nice kiddush here for some of the people we know who live within walking distance.  It was lovely.

Sunday:  Caesarea, Akko, Rosh HaNikra, Yerushalayim

I accidentally or on purpose told my sister I didn’t want to leave for Yerushalayim until Monday, so she booked herself a tour of the north on Sunday.  I was just in Akko during Chanukah and wasn’t at all interested in going again, so she left by herself early Sunday morning on a train to meet her tour bus in Caesarea. 

I stayed home and wrapped up some stuff here, then headed straight to Yerushalayim, where I met up with Elisheva and checked into the most bare-bones hostel you can imagine.

Let me first say:  I am NOT a fussy traveller.  I have stayed in hostels before in all sorts of places.  Thus, I am no stranger to bare-bones accommodation.  Yet I can easily, comfortably state that this hostel was the biggest dump I have ever stayed in.  It was pretty terrible, but over the course of 3 nights (and the sleeping wasn’t too bad), we sort of got used to it.  (Or is that what they call Stockholm Syndrome?)

The hostel is in a very Arab part of the old city, and its location (just inside the Jaffa Gate) is the only thing it really has going for it… well, that and the price, which was ₪70 per night (about $20) in an “8-bed” (ie 4 bunk beds) women-only dorm.  As I said, I presented my Canadian ID because I wasn’t sure how much they’d love having an Israeli staying on the premises.  Still, I felt secure and comfortable – especially the second night, when I had a second blanket and they brought another heater into the room in an effort to put down the chill.

After I checked into the hostel, I figured I had about 4 hours to kill (turned out to be more like 6), so I wandered the Old City, which was really kind of great.  I let myself get lost, safe in the knowledge that my trusty GPS would get me out if I was stuck.

I headed back to the hostel to change into warm evening clothes, and met Elisheva when her classes ended at 7.   Eventually, my sister arrived at the Jaffa Gate from her tour of the north.  We took her straight to the Kosel / Kotel where everybody said a little something and marvelled at its antiquity and sanctity… or at least at the ability to sit down for a minute after a busy day of touring.

Afterwards, we got dinner with Elisheva at a lovely if rather pricey Asian place (formerly Japanika, now called Sushi Bar, on Shlomtzion Hamalka, off Yaffo).

Sleeeeeeeep… I was so tired from all that walking.

Monday:  Yerushalayim

A full day to be a tourist in Yerushalayim; my dream come true!  Woke to the sound of prayer calls, church bells and Arab schoolchildren, and stumbled out of bunk bed to find the CityTour / Egged “Route 99” tourist bus, which – for a very reasonable ₪60 – tootles around the city on a two-hour route that shows you the most important bits of everything, along with the names of 300 miscellaneous neighbourhoods that nobody in a million years is ever going to remember.

After the bus tour ended, we had three hours to kill before the FREE (!) walking tour we’d planned for the afternoon, so I took her to Machane Yehuda (the Shuk / Market) for lunch.  My idea of lunch in Machane Yehuda is:  buy cheese, buy pita, buy iced coffee, wash somewhere, find a sunny bench, eat. 

Her idea of lunch was a little more complicated, and shifted halfway through the search to include a salad and pesto.  But eventually, we both had accumulated a variety of delicious things and we made our way back (for various reasons) to a bench outside the Old City to eat them all.

  The walking tour was also two hours and it was GREAT.  It is literally FREE but they tell you up front that it’s nice to tip ₪10-15 at the end.  I figured if the tour was any good at all, it would still be worth it ($3-5?!?).  It was wonderful (and they only mention the tip thing twice – once at the beginning and once at the end, though they do plug some of the other tours they offer around the Old City; fair enough, I think). 

We got to see all four “quarters” of the Old City and the guide was clearly very, very experienced, pointing out historic sites and sharing fascinating legends about every part of the city.  Way better than just walking around and trying to notice things on your own.

We both tipped him happily at the end of the tour.

Not wanting to call it a day just yet (even though it was almost dark already), we headed back to the hostel to change (days were hot; nights were FREEZING) and then out again to buy tickets for the Sound & Light Show at the David Citadel Museum. 

The show was a little hokey, and probably would have been more enjoyable at a warmer time of year, but still impressive.  They project images on the stone walls of the Citadel (which has nothing to do with David HaMelech, our tour guide explained), showing the history of Yerushalayim from the earliest times… in a slightly whitewashed and somewhat more peaceful, calm manner than I suspect things happened in real life.

After that, we got dinner – tasty, tasty Big Apple Pizza on Ben Yehuda Street, and marched back home to sleep, exhausted.

Tuesday:  Dead Sea & Masada

This was a packaged tour that I bought online, and it was good.  Just good, not great, but good is sometimes good enough.  Ditto with the guide:  not tons of fun, but he did a good job, and he was guiding and explaining as he drove our little van, which he did expertly and well.  My sister told me afterwards that he was holding a microphone; I didn’t see that at the time or I might have been more alarmed.  I assumed it was mounted on the dashboard.

This was really my first time seeing and  appreciating the quite-deserty desert that covers most of this country.  We passed the mountains where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and they seemed – well, more mountainy than others I have seen before because they’re so bare – in the Rockies, mostly what you notice are the trees and forests.  None of that to distract you here.

We stopped at the Ahava Factory Outlet, which I assumed would be our only chance to buy Ahava products.  We both resisted, but it turned out there would be plenty more opportunities… the Ahava Company maintains quite a presence down there around the Yam HaMelach (Salt Sea, its Hebrew name).

Masada has never been high on my list of places to go.  I’m not sure how I feel about Jewish zealot groups hiding out from the Romans and their group suicide makes it a bit controversial that we continue to memorialize them.  Still – the views were breathtaking and I’m glad I went.  Happy we didn’t have to walk up like the many teenagers who were there with Birthright groups.  They have a lovely cable car, nothing scary like the one in Haifa.

Here we are, right up at the top!

The tour also stopped at the Dead Sea (Yam HaMelach), another one of my don’t-mind-if-I-miss-it sites, but it was interesting to feel the water – at first.  My sister brought a bathing suit, but I just took off my shoes and waded in a bit, swishing my hands around as I went. 

So this is interesting:  it turns out my entire skin is made up of a network of fine cracks that exist only for the purpose of letting in the sea’s deadly mixture of salt, sulphur and bromides to inside my skin, where they can inflict the most pain.

They did.  It was painful, almost right away.  I washed it off and it was STILL painful.  Later on that evening, my legs started to burn, and as I write this, two days and two showers later, they are still itchy from the “healing mud.”  Feh. 

Another one to chalk off the bucket list, anyway, and never worry about not having carped the diem.

Wednesday:  Yad VaShem, Home Again

I’ve been thinking of Yad VaShem (Holocaust History Museum) as sort of a flu shot.  It’s not that I WANT a flu shot, but it’s good for me and at some point every fall, I work up the nerve to get one.  Except that every time I’m in Yerushalayim, I have young kids in tow, and even Naomi is too young (kids under 10 are not allowed).

No pictures are allowed inside Yad VaShem, which is a very good thing.  The museum is free, and we declined to rent the ₪20 audio guide – figuring that a decent museum should explain itself to you.  (We may have been influenced in this snobbery by our mother’s background in Museum Studies.)

Despite this, there were about fifteen big groups making their way through the museum while we were there, blocking the exhibits with guides shouting out explanations of all the exhibits.  In the groups that included teenagers, many of the teenagers were wearing the audio guide headsets, listening to those along with their guide (simultaneously?). 

My sister thought this was ridiculously excessive and I agree – if so much work and thought has been put into the exhibits themselves, what good does it do to stand a bored guide in front of them to shout about it to the viewers?

Because of the clumping of the groups at the entrance to every room and in front of every key exhibit, it was  hard to pass through without getting a little annoyed.  And then, at the very moving exhibit of shoes taken from concentration-camp victims, an Israeli girl was giggling and pointing at them.  Sheesh. 

Still, annoyance fades somewhat as you pass through room after room of exhibits that are so overwhelming and painful and brilliantly-thought-out.  I was very much Holocausted to death (um, to coin an awful phrase) in Hebrew school as a kid, so I feel like I’m sadly inured to a lot of it… but at a few points it got through to me in a very moving way.

My phone started beeping loudly in the Hall of Names, which was embarrassing, as it’s meant to be a quiet place where you hear names intoned of victims of the Shoah (Holocaust).  Whoops – it was Elisheva, texting to arrange lunch.

After Yad VaShem, we made our way via Light Rail Train to the Merkazit (central station) to meet Elisheva.  Everybody got a salad except me – McDonald’s!  Elisheva said a big, passionate goodbye to her aunt, and then in a flurry of confusion, we boarded the 960 bus back to Haifa.

    

It’s been an eye-opening couple of weeks, being a tourist here in my own country.  The Hebrew I’ve learned has been very helpful, and although not a “vatik” (old hand) here, things don’t feel as fresh and new and scary as they did when we were here ten months ago on that pilot trip.

Yet I think I’ve enjoyed showing my sister around so much because it’s all new to me as well.  My sister’s really the first relative who’s visited – hopefully, there will be more opportunities to guide future relatives’ “tours,” and perhaps those, too, will be full of firsts (still lots of places I haven’t been!)… but at some point, it may start to feel like a “been there, done that,” kind of thing.

For now, though, it’s all just a heck of a lot of fun.

What did my sister miss???  If you had only twelve days in Israel, what would be on your “can’t miss” list?

Suddenly

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago, maybe even the beginning of October, but only realized a couple of days ago that I never actually posted it, so it's been sitting, languishing, if you will, here in my playbook. It's still true, despite a couple of fall heatwaves that have pushed temps up into the 30s again. )

Long sleeves are everywhere. Well, 3/4-length sleeves, anyway, where just a couple of weeks ago, you would have seen the same women in tank tops, or less.  For our first two months here (wow,2 months!), that has been my "quick" shorthand way of figuring out who's religious and who isn't. It hasn't been entirely foolproof, however, since many women wear t-shirts way shorter than anybody "frum" would wear in North America, and even pants (sometimes) and still consider themselves religious. 

Of course, clothing (as I have told Elisheva Chaya, probably too many times) is a mighty shallow way to judge someone or try to discern what sort of relationship she has with Hashem.  we shouldn't dress modestly just to impress other people... But sometimes we do, or assume other people are getting dressed knowing they will be judged by us...

All the cues here are different. Like the seasons:. If I close my eyes, it's definitely still summer.  open them, and everybody else knows it's fall.  As for who's religious and who isn't, those cues are totally mixed up as well... But luckily, as I've always said, I don't have to decide where each person stands in her relationship with hakadosh Baruch hu.

It's up to Hashem to sort us all out, and luckily, He can do anything.  Certainly, with full sun and temperatures still in the 20s, if He can convince women who'd rather be wearing something strapless that fall has arrived and they should put on a sweater , He is capable of great wonders indeed.

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Sent on the go in the Holy Land - please excuse my typos!!