Still on Strike (Article# 61) 10/25/2007

Finally. A quiet week. Mostly.

The Jr. High/High School teachers union is still on strike. Our older girls both continue to have modified schedules. Chaya again had a complete day off last week, and a second day where she only had one class the entire day (her math teacher was ill and she was scheduled for a double math class that day).

She is incredibly bored. For a kid who always loved snow days or any excuse not to go to school, even she has come to the realization that she cannot simply sit and do nothing all day. She has finished all her homework (even long term projects) and is going crazy with nothing to do.

Aliza also has shortened days. One day she decided not to wait for the regular bus home and instead went with one of her girlfriends to the mall where she met up with another two friends and they enjoyed a few hours together. Since the train station is at the mall, I met them for the train ride home and Goldie was able to pick us all up.

My nephew is much worse off. His school is totally closed and he has been sitting on his hands all day. He told my sister last week that he can’t take it anymore – he is looking for some kind of job to help pass the time. He has also done all of his homework and it is a shame when you consider that this is being carried out nationwide for 600,000+ kids.

Of course, the schools both still felt comfortable in charging my credit card for the monthly tuition fees. I will eventually call to ask them about it, but I am sure what they will tell me is that the money they charge me (very little in truth - $350/month for both kids – much, much less for Batya and Mordechai) does not go to pay teachers; it is for the extras that the government doesn’t pay for. These extras continue to be provided, or so they will claim.

Being immigrants, we have no idea what is extra and what is normal, so of course we will have no response to this.

It’s kind of like our bank statement. It comes every month, just like in the USA. Unfortunately, unlike the USA – we have no clue what this bank statement actually says. Review the credit card charges on the statement? No way! Too hard.

The only way we can figure anything out (and this holds true for most of our bills) is to look at each transaction on the website. Since there is much more detail provided on the website, Goldie is able to piece together what is what. Most of the time.

I had thought that we were unique in this regard. However, last Shabbat we hosted Ilan and Ahuva Prager on Friday night (their oldest son is one of Mordechai’s good friends from school and they live right across the street from us). Ilan served in the army and has excellent Hebrew. Yet, when the subject of understanding the credit card bill came up, they also admitted that they don’t even bother to try understanding it anymore.

So we set up automatic billpay from the bank with each utility and places like the kids schools and we hope and pray that there isn’t an error made in the computation of the charges.

The other kids are more or less finally settled in their “after the chagim (holidays)” schedule. School is a full day now (except for the early dismissal day – Tuesday). After school activities have all started and are moving forward full swing.

In a normal year, the fact that things only kick off after the chagim would seem silly to us, but not as crucial – since this is the way they do things here. With the strike, things are obviously different for the older girls.

On Erev Shabbat Goldie and I had a kind of weird day – existentially. We started off the morning with a Brit Milah (circumcision) for the son of one of our neighbors, the Yashar’s. It was their first son and third child and was a very nice simcha.

We went from there to the unveiling at the grave of Chaia Broderick’s father Mendel A”H, who passed away just before Sukkot and was buried in the Beit Shemesh cemetery on Erev Sukkot.

With all that has happened with the chagim and our own personal simchot, we have not really been there for Chaia these past few weeks and I know that it bothers Goldie. Chaia has been one of Goldie’s friends since 7th grade, and the only saving grace is that Chaia’s mother has been with her until this week and they have been a mutual support group since Sukkot.

As a Kohein, I stand outside at funerals, and due to the unique design of cemeteries in Israel, I can usually walk along the main road up to the entrance of the individual section of the cemetery where the burial takes place and then I watch the burial from afar.

After this Kevurah (burial), one of the members of the Chevra Kadisha (burial society) walked over to me as I stood 100 feet away in the middle of the road and pointed out that the section of the cemetery he was buried in had no other graves in it and I really could enter that section as long as I avoided any graves.

I was a little freaked out when first thinking about it, but by the time the unveiling came by I was OK and it was a unique thing to be at anything in a cemetery.

I am sure it was difficult for Chaia and her mother, especially since her mother was due to leave a few days later.

The other big news for the week was the birth of another nephew whose Brit Milah I am going to miss. My brother Ely and his wife Ilana had a boy on Erev Shabbat. I am going to be in the USA for the last two weeks of October (I am writing this on the plane), so I will miss the 5th Brit Milah of an Israeli nephew and the 6th one on my side (my brother Ozer made one on the second day of Pesach one year and we couldn’t make it).

When we got the call, my brother told Goldie that he had to put together a Shalom Zachor party in the next 5-6 hours and that nothing had been prepared. We had actually bought something for a local Beit Shemesh Shalom Zachor for that evening and Goldie packed some homemade cookies up and added it to what we had in hand and sent me (and 3 kids) off (30 – 40 minute drive) to Chashmonaim to deliver it to my brother.

When we got there, his mother in law told us that they had decided to merge the Shalom Zachor in with a shul oneg that was happening that night and that they didn’t need anything. Not only that, but all the kids were sleeping or out, so we didn’t even get to wish Mazal Tov to anybody (well – ok we did see the Savta {Grandmother}).

However, we get the brownie points for having driven out AND we got to give the Sladowsky’s (yes – originally from Far Rockaway) something for the Shalom Zachor of their first grandson (they had a granddaughter a couple of weeks ago) as well. We did leave the cookies behind as a treat for the kids, so we are heroes all around.

This Shabbat also marked the second week in a row without the street being obstructed by our Chareidi neighbors. They still came out to yell “Shaaaaabbboooooossssss”, but there were much fewer of them this week and they didn’t really stick it out. Hopefully in the coming weeks things will continue to return to normal. We will still hear them shouting at cars as they pass, but it will be mostly little kids shouting accompanied only by those adults who happen to be around. I can’t believe I just called that “normal”.

As I mentioned, I am now experiencing the least enjoyable part of my job. I wouldn’t want to give up traveling and having the opportunity to see relatives occasionally. Yet, being away for extended trips is definitely a downer. It is Shabbat that is the worst to deal with. I am away for about 7 of them a year and that is a lot of time – especially for the little kids.

After one attempt, we discarded the idea of being away for more that one Shabbat at a time, it was just too much for us. Ironically, that was the trip that coincided with the onset of Goldie’s vision problems and subsequent medical issues.

So we are back to the eleven day/one Shabbat trip. If I have a chance to see you while I am in, it was great seeing you. If not, I am sorry I missed you – maybe we will catch up with each other next time.