Another Strike? (Article #31) 12/7/2006

Sunday began a busy week for us. Although they may be several decades apart, Chaya and my father share the same birthday. This year, with my parents visit to us coinciding with their joint birth date, my father decided that it would be a good excuse to throw themselves a big party and get the family together.

We had discussed the arrangements for weeks, and Goldie and I had volunteered to host, since Chaya was one of the celebrants. My father did not want us to go nuts over the arrangements, so we decided to have a small catered barbecue. Easier to say than to do.

I called many different caterers to get a price quote. I had prepared the menu in advance and had all the particulars typed up and ready for them. All I really wanted was for them to prepare the food and have a guy grill it at our house. No waiters. No service. Just one guy and a bunch of food. OR, if they could get the food to us hot, a simple delivery of BBQ foods.

I relearned the fact that the term “customer service” has no Hebrew equivalent. I couldn’t believe the amount of people who refused to quote me a price because it would be too much trouble for them to simply read the menu and make a calculation. Then there was the fellow who insisted that my menu was not correct and that “what I really wanted was……..” Another guy told me that my job was too small for him and would be a waste of time.

With only three days left before the party, I had still not found a caterer/take out place/whatever who could do the job for us. My sister (who was really trying to be helpful) kept calling me for updates, driving me crazy in the process. Goldie, having decided that the details were my responsibility had totally ignored the whole thing and her inattention was also a bit disconcerting, ‘cause I am used to her constant reminders of a job to be done.

So I was out of sorts and nervous, when I finally got a referral for a caterer at a local Yeshiva who agreed to take care of the whole thing. Whew.

On Monday night, our Yeshiva was having a Hachnassat Sifrei Torah for five Sifrei Torah that had been presented to us by one family. Of course, this meant that we were extremely busy at work, which made it an awful time to have to run home early for a birthday party.

As I expected, last minute planning and errands for the Hachnassa delayed me a half hour and Goldie was flipping out at the delay. In a demonstration of Newton’s Law, three different people called at the last minute because they weren’t sure where our house was and of course, the food came twenty minutes late, at about the same time as most of the guests.

Aside from people whose last name is presently or once was Katz, we were also joined by our sister in law from Teaneck who was flying back to the US that night and my good friend Steve Kirshner and his family (who in my father’s words “is practically a member of the family anyway”), who lives in Efrat. We had also invited my brother’s in-laws who have recently made Aliyah to Modiin and who my parents had joined for a Thanksgiving meal, but they had to cancel at the last minute because he wasn’t feeling well.

I thought the party went well. It was really an excuse for my parents to have almost all the children and grandchildren (minus a nephew and twin nieces in Chicago) in the same location and enjoy them. As I mentioned to everyone in the party, it is unusual for so many of the Katz grandchildren to be in the same place at the same time. We have always had the Kreinberg kids in one place and it was nice to finally have a Katz party.

On Monday, Goldie had been scheduled to go on a trip with her ulpan class. Goldie is really doing very well in ulpan. Her vocabulary is much better that mine – all she lacks is the confidence to make mistakes when conversing. Even the kids have better vocabularies than I do.

The Ulpan was going to Tel Aviv to visit the Tel Aviv tayelet as well as a history museum to learn about the immigrants of the 1920s and the pioneers who settled Israel in the early 1900s, but she hadn’t been feeling well for several days and I finally convinced her to go the doctor on Monday instead of her field trip. It was a good thing that she went because she had a bad sinus infection and she was supposed to fly to the US later in the week.

Thankfully, after some medication and a brief rest, she was able to join me at work for a Hachnassat Sifrei Torah of five Sifrei Torah that were presented to the Yeshiva.
It was a great event. We danced through the streets of Yerushalayim for thirty minutes with a music truck provided by the city, and then (my brother’s band) had live music and dancing outside the Yeshiva for another fifteen minutes or so before heading into the Beit Midrash and “delivering” the Sefarim to the Aron Kodesh.

We were joined by the donor families (the Kleiman’s and David-Pur’s) who had presented the Sefarim in memory of their father, whose yahrtzeit was that morning. There was a Suedat Mitzva with Divrei Torah by the Rav of the neighborhood (Rav Kalazon), the donors and other prominent Rabanim as well as very lively singing and dancing.

While I only joined the Yeshiva this year, it was clearly evident that the emotions involved from growing a Yeshiva from 16 students two years ago to over 70 students today and the presentation of five Sifrei Torah to the Yeshiva that it was a powerful and moving event.

On Tuesday I went in late and spent the morning with Chaim checking out a new school. It has been clearly evident that the schooling here is not working for Chaim. We feel a little duped by the Yeshiva he was enrolled in, since they promised one thing for us and we felt that they did not extend themselves 100% to make sure that it would happen. There was no Rebbi for weeks at a time, secular studies teachers came and went as they pleased and there was very little in the manner of education going on in the building, at least for the tenth grade. Chaim was itching to go to another school and when this opportunity came up, we decided to see what it could mean.

The GMAX program is essentially a one year program designed for English speaking students who want to go to college but will not be successful (for whatever reason) in obtaining an Israeli diploma. In Chaim’s case, the language barrier is huge.

At the end of the year, students take the GED (a high school equivalency) exam and if they pass, they are considered by many colleges and universities (certainly in Israel and even in the US – for instance Yeshiva University) as being eligible for admission. The program also prepares the students for Psychometric exams in Israel (the Israeli equivalent of the SAT) and has an optional SAT prep component as well for students (like Chaim) considering enrollment in American universities.

We had originally considered this program for Chaim as a backup in case we felt that he needed to make a change after a difficult year. Since this year had clearly been difficult for him, we decided to consider a change now. Chaim enjoyed the day and was excited that we were considering this option.

Although it is really geared to an eleventh or twelfth grade student and he might not be able to take the GED until he turns 17 without a special exemption from the testing service, we felt (and GMAX agreed after his interview) that there was a likelihood that Chaim could be successful in the program and this was a choice worth making.

After his visit, we went together to Kraft Stadium in Yerushalayim and I had the chance to watch his flag football team play in the Israeli Flag Football High School League (a victory of course).

Chaim was invited to play on this team by some of the neighborhood kids. Socially, Chaim is doing as well or better than his siblings and certainly better than we expected. He has a nice group of friends and feels included in everything, which is a big plus. Although it isn’t going to happen, he even mentioned to us that he was considering staying in Israel this summer to attend camp with his friends.

On the way home from Yerushalayim I got a warning call from my sister. She had heard on the radio that there was a big general strike called for Wednesday and the trains (my ride to Yerushalyim each day) would not be running.

In early November I had gotten caught in an airport strike which caused an eight hour delay in the processing of luggage upon my arrival in Israel. This was a strike that was called to specifically protest certain labor issues at the airport. The general strike was much broader in scope, and was directed at the entire government. Essentially, most nationalized institutions (including the trains) were included in the strike.

The airport closed. The passport offices closed. The central bank closed. There was no garbage or mail service (although post offices were open). Although the schools were open, preschools (Ganim) had the head teachers in school but not the assistants, forcing the parents to volunteer for two hour shifts as assistants in the school (washing the floors, cleaning the mess, cutting up fruits and vegetables for lunch – standard assistant teaching responsibilities – at least in Israel) to keep the Ganim open (Mordechai’s Gan was the only one in Beit Shemesh that did not close early).

Forced to travel by bus, I came to work almost two hours late (traffic and having to commute cross town once I got to Yerushalayim) and it was a major pain (although, for the municipal workers and religious council workers {Rabbis, Chevra Kadisha} who have not been paid in months I think it is more inconvenient).

Thankfully (?) we had a board of directors meeting that night and I was able to get a ride to the bus station, shortening the return trip.

The strike officially ended at 7 AM Thursday morning, after the courts ordered them back to work. Countless flights were delayed or cancelled. The trains (even though they informed people that the trains would be running in the morning) didn’t get back up and running until the afternoon, a fact I discovered only when I tried to get into a closed train station at ten to eight in the morning.

By Thursday night, most things were back to normal, with the exception of the airport. Since hundreds of flights we cancelled, the airlines were rescheduling flights over the next couple of days in order to get people to their destinations as quickly as possible.

This has caused yet another Charedi uproar this week in Israel. Apparently, in their zeal to get passengers moving quickly, EL AL chose to violate their long standing policy not to fly on Shabbat. As the premier airline for the Charedi and religious communities who comprise a significant portion (if not majority) of their clientele, EL AL has made a business decision (as a private airline) not to fly on Shabbat and these flights (either 18 flights by EL AL or 1 flight by EL AL and 17 code share flights by other airlines) have struck a very deep cord here.

There are calls for the religious public to boycott EL AL. Certain factions of the Charedi community are negotiating with Israir and other airlines to not fly on Shabbat in exchange for becoming the preferred Charedi airline. And of course, the not religious public’s hatred for Charedim and all people religious fuels the fire with their “good riddance” and “finally we will again fly EL AL without the smelly Charedim” comments.

I cannot imagine this is good for Israel or the Jewish people. Although EL AL offers a convincing argument that they did not force anyone to fly on Shabbat and offered all religious passengers the option of rescheduling their flights until after Shabbat, what is clearly missing is the fact that they forced Jewish people to desecrate the Shabbat for business purposes and we have no idea if any religious EL AL employees (or non religious EL AL employees who prefer not to work on Shabbat) had pressure placed upon them in any way.

I am sure that this saga will continue to play out in the coming days. Unfortunately, it seems to be an Israeli business maxim to do whatever you want first and then apologize (as offensively as you can) later. Sadly, this applies to both for the non religious and the religious groups. Hopefully there will be some agreement reached that works.

As tenants of any newly constructed home will tell you, the first few months you live in a home are filled with contractors coming to fix whatever isn’t working exactly right. We had A/C issues, plumbing issues, roofs leaking and a whole host of items that needed to be finished in the home we are renting as well.

Working with the contractors has been difficult and we had a major plumbing leak (from the shower upstairs) into our kitchen. On Thursday, we forced the plumber to stand in the shower room for 5 minutes until the water began to back up the drain and he saw the problem with his own eyes, and he immediately exclaimed that the problem affected the whole house and was a “major” job that he couldn’t fix and only the original builder could fix it.

We keep getting lip service from the landlord and his representatives. We see very little activity in fixing major items (the laundry room has an external water leak which results in peeling walls and mold forming on a regular basis) and minor ones (one of the bedrooms is missing the shutter cover exposing the room to the outside air). We are quite frankly frustrated (this seems to be a common issue here when the landlords are overseas) with the lack of progress in getting the house in proper working order.

We feel we have been patient, waiting for any sign of progress, but we are coming to the end of our patience and have spoken to our attorney regarding our options. We simply feel as if we have no choice. Hopefully the situation will change in the next ten days and we will not be forced into drastic measures.

Shabbat was mostly restful. My parents spent the Shabbat with us, they were scheduled to return to the US on Monday night. We also hosted our former neighbor Dovie Klein who had a Beit Shemesh shabbaton with his Yeshiva – Torat Shraga. Our Rav is a Rosh Yeshiva of Torat Shraga, so Beit Shemesh (and our Shul) are natural hosts for a Yeshiva shabbaton.

Motzei Shabbat, after the kids said their goodbyes to my parents, we started getting Goldie ready for the first of what will become her regular two or three annual trips to the US for work. This trip had been scheduled months in advance and Goldie was dreading it the entire time, she simply has no desire to leave Israel at all.

She kept on telling me that she had “no objection to canceling the entire trip” if I needed her, or that it would be OK for me to tell her I “don’t want” her to go. She prepared four pages of instructions for me on the running of the household (some of which I even plan to follow) and was freaking out about leaving for days.

Of course, her nerves translated straight to the kids, especially Batya, who decided that there was simply no way that Abba could take care of her properly and forbade Goldie from leaving. This quickly spread downward to Mordechai and Moshe and only a quick promise that they could take turns sleeping in either my bed or Goldie’s each night would calm them down, so now I have new roommates.

She took off safely and thankfully landed safely, but I am sure the upcoming week (9 days) will be busy.