Homecomings (Article #17) 8/24/2006

We had a really difficult week.

It began well. Chaim (our oldest) finally joined us last week on Monday. He had spent 6 weeks at Camp Manavu while the rest of us were busy acclimating to our new country, language and lives. With not much to do here for him, we felt that a summer in familiar surroundings would be good for him. Not to mention the fact that he was still angry about our decision to move, and we wanted the other kids to have a positive summer.

He was nervous about coming. Being in America and hearing all the news reports about what was happening here, he expressed genuine concern for his safety in “a war zone.” Although we reassured him that we were in a safe area and far from danger, I am sure that he was not thrilled.

However, as the date of his flight approached, he began to adjust and we would catch him saying things like, “when I come home” or “please just make sure my stuff gets delivered home and isn’t still in Greece.” I think he slowly came to an internal decision that he needed to make the best of things and try to make things work (plus we told him that he earns a mid-year trip to America only by proving to us that he is continuing to work hard and learn well in school).

When it finally came down to flying here, he was really very calm about it, flying on his own and having no issues in getting to the airport.

His youngest siblings were so excited that he was coming. When I called to tell Goldie that his flight had landed and I had just spoken to him on his cellphone, I could hear them cheering in the background. I must have gotten 8 cellphone calls during the 45 minute ride from the airport asking for progress reports. And the welcome he got was really very nice.

The morning of his flight, I made a call that has become a regular ritual with me – the “so has my stuff left Greece yet?” phone call. I was especially irritated that day because it seemed like everyone else was getting their shipments, but not us.

When I got through to my shipping company, I got the boss on the phone and really complained to him about the fact that I seemed to be the only person that had still not gotten their stuff from Greece.

Interestingly, for the first time, he agreed with me. Apparently, he had purchased the shipping space from a reseller of cargo space shipping. They purchase large volumes of space from the main cargo ship line at a steep discount and then pass along some of their savings to the end consumer. While the main ship line had made alternative arrangements to get containers from Greece to Israel, the reseller had not and had been taking quite a beating from their commercial customers about it.

My shipper then placed a series of phone calls (with me on the line) to find out when I might expect my stuff to leave Greece. On our sixth phone call, about 1 hour after my initial call we heard the magic words, “Greece? What do you mean? That container was delivered by rail to Ashdod yesterday!”

While I was definitely relieved to hear that the shipment had made it to Ashdod and had been in country for at least 2 days by then, I was quite angry that my shipper had no clue about that fact and would not have known about it at all had I not called to prod them about it.

They promised to call me back as soon as they got a more specific update including when I could expect delivery. When they called me, they told me that they did not think that my container was actually IN Ashdod, since there was no record of it there. Since there was no record of it in Haifa, they told me it must still be in transit to Ashdod and would arrive later Monday or Tuesday. Still, when I headed off to the airport to get Chaim, I was excited that we finally seemed to be making progress.

However, by Wednesday when they still couldn’t find the container I began to get seriously worried. After all, where could it have gone?

I must have called the shippers a dozen times on Tuesday and Wednesday and they kept telling me that they had no answers, that the ports were all overloaded and that maybe their American agent (the originating shipper) could help.

Although in retrospect it seems as if we got all excited over nothing, the whole delay with the lift was extremely stressful and aggravating. We had made so many plans based upon getting the lift before we moved from the “temporary” home into the “permanent” home and it just didn’t happen.

I should say that the delay did help give us more time to make the decision regarding housing and give our original landlord every opportunity to make things work. So there are definite benefits we got from the lift delay, but overall the process was tiring and maddening.

Late Wednesday afternoon they finally called with the “good news” that a paperwork snafu had given them the impression that my container was still in transit even though it was actually in Ashdod. They would have it straightened out by Thursday and hoped to have a delivery within another week, and also, since the shipment has arrived in country – here is your final bill.

I wanted to tell them that a paperwork snafu had resulted in their check being mailed to Liberia, but didn’t think that my container would get delivered any faster if I did that. Ironically, true to form, the initial “final bill” that they presented me was not correct and needed to be recalculated.

Since my lift was finally in country and the people whose house I was renting wanted us out of the house BEFORE they came back from their vacation, we also needed to settle up our lease. We had made the commitment to take our “backup” house, and were negotiating specific terms with the landlords (the Weinsteins, a really nice couple from Teaneck).

They were so accommodating to us and we really felt comfortable in dealing with them from the get go. Thankfully, the Weinsteins were in Israel on vacation during the week, so the major barrier to getting things done, the seven hour time difference, was negated. They had sent us a draft of a lease from their attorney the week before and we had returned it with our attorney’s comments on it.

Then, their attorney got called to miluim in the army so his wife (also an attorney) took over the case. However, she was busy taking care of the family, so she really couldn’t give her full attention to finalizing the lease – which we needed done by the end of the week since we needed to move out.

The Weinsteins were trying to have their vacation and finish the final touches to the house while also dealing with their attorneys and us. Once they got a different attorney assigned to the lease, we all thought there would be quicker movement. However, this fellow doesn’t speak English very well, and was also hard to reach and there was a point on Wednesday night that I was sure that the deal was going to fall through.

The fact that my attorney was due to leave the country Thursday morning for his own vacation didn’t help things. His partner took over for him quite admirably, but I certainly felt a sense of pressure.

However, by Friday the points had all been ironed out and we were comfortable enough that we had an agreement (even though it wasn’t signed) that we went to pick up the keys and have a walkthrough of the house with the Weinsteins. On Saturday night we moved some bags over to the house and on Sunday we moved in completely (or as completely as we could, considering the fact that almost all of our things are still in Ashdod).

Along with all this activity, I somehow also tried to find time to do my job at the Yeshiva. Since my boss, Rabbi Benni Pflanzer had been chosen by the government for an extensive tour of the Northern border area as well as the South of Lebanon, the rest of the administrators and Roshei Yeshiva all tried to take up some of his responsibilities so that we would open on time.

With enrollment almost doubling this year, we made dramatic construction expansions to the existing Beit Midrash and Chadar Ochel as well as adding new classrooms and other facilities to accommodate the larger student body. My boss was running the whole construction project and his unexpected absence left a big whole.

Although I was hired to take some of his responsibilities, the organization was not really prepared to just have him suddenly be out of the picture for over a month and it has been a difficult time for the entire staff in its own way. This was compounded when we heard the news that one of our secretaries husband had lost his second first cousin in the fighting.

So it will be easy to understand how excited we were when Rabbi Pflanzer unexpectedly walked in the office door on Thursday morning to greet us! He had been given the weekend off and stopped by to make sure we hadn’t messed things up too much. It was really great to see him.

Although he had to return to the army after Shabbat, he hopes to be discharged from Miluim in the middle of the week and will certainly be back in time for the beginning of the school year.

His family has had it tough. He had been in America for two weeks prior to getting called up, and he really had very little chance to be with his wife and children over the summer. Hopefully he will get a chance to spend time with them when he comes home (which is certainly much more important than anything he has to do in the office) and maybe take them on vacation if possible.

Since Sunday is a full work/school day, Friday is family day for me. I have no work and have the opportunity to get things done at home or perhaps tour around. Since Chaim had just arrived, we decided to take him to the Kotel and Machane Yehuda on Friday.

However, on Thursday night, we went out to the car to drive to the makolet and couldn’t get the car to work. My brother has a satellite controlled alarm system and it does not work well in Beit Shemesh. To make a long story short, it was not until 9:30 AM on Friday (after several hours on the phone with the alarm company, my brother in the US and the car’s mechanic) that we were able to get the car working.

Thankfully, we were able to get to the old city and had a chance to daven at the kotel. While we were there, there was a group of young boys (possibly from a camp) in the outer plaza who had and assembly and were singing songs together. Goldie was really very moved by it.

In the morning, when we were still unsure if the car would work at all, we went to the makolet to buy the various foods we had planned to get in Machane Yehuda. When we left the Kotel, we decided to head off to Ben Yehuda for lunch and for Chaim and Batya (the other kids were in Gan or Camp) to have a chance to tour.

I always find it entertaining to see whom we will bump into when we get to a real tourist destination. This trip didn’t disappoint as we got to visit with the Abbittan family and Murray Englard as we made our way to lunch. It was a real treat for us to see familiar faces.

We were quite happy to have everyone together for the first time on Shabbat. We took advantage of the long day to stay inside and rest, knowing that the beginning of this week would be tough.

By Sunday afternoon our shipping company had told us to realistically expect a Tuesday delivery of our lift. While there was still a chance that the customs people would want to hold it up for a full inspection, the port is incredibly overloaded and they just want to get the stuff out. It actually would have been a great time to smuggle in a bunch of computers or appliances – since they simply don’t have the time or manpower to inspect anything.

Sunday night our older girls were in a camp performance, so the boys all went shopping for household items. Of course, we couldn’t find even half of what we were looking for, and even those things we did find took us a long time. I still don’t know where the bleach is, or the bug spray or even the crockpot liners. Eventually we are sure to find everything, but it is so annoying to go to the supermarket and not come home with all the things on your list.

We slept on air mattresses on Sunday night, and the air conditioning on our second floor is not working properly. The first floor gets cold enough (and since we cannot figure out how to tell what temperature the units are set on – we keep pushing up and down on the remote control), but the second floor needs servicing and we hope that it is done this week.

We are beginning to realize how many different things we will have to take care of as the first tenants in this house. There are so many different things that need tweaking and adjusting. However, we are grateful that the house was still available and are looking forward to finally being able to settle into a normal routine there.

With all the ups and downs we had in the last few weeks, this past week should not have been so difficult. However, I think that it is the combination of all the various frustrations and setbacks that we had that finally got to us. Which it did.

There were a lot of tears this week. Certainly no shortage of frayed nerves and short tempers. Yet, as upsetting and truly trying that the week was – we seem to be much further ahead of where we were last week.

Chaim – is home. Our family – has a home (finally). Our lift – about to be home. My boss – will be home by the time you read this newspaper. We’ll have our phones turned on and (hopefully) our appliances all installed by the middle of next week. In a week and a half the kids will start school and life will really start off for us – no more vacation home, no more running around – just the regular everyday life of your (un)average Israeli family!