Aliyah Chronicles

Call me Shmulik (8/26/2010)

2010-08-26T13:44:00.001-04:00

I have been called “Shmu” since at least the age of 10. Well, either Shmu or Big Shmu, depending on who you were. When I was a little kid, my family used to call me Mully (that leads to another story—but not today). Both nicknames are incredibly American versions of my name.

Israelis who I am friendlier with tend to call me Shmulik, the Hebrew variant. It is a cultural thing. Similarly, here, only chareidim or true Anglos say “Good Shabbos”; everyone else says “Shabbat Shalom.” So, I accepted it as just another quirk of how we interact with them.

This past week, I felt a bit more like a Shmulik and a bit less of a Shmu.

After four years here, we passed another milestone this past week. For the first time, we had an entire family of Hebrew-speakers for a meal. Menachem and Oshrit Alfasi were not simply guests whom we invited on a whim. We had wanted to invite them for quite some time but were too uncomfortable with our communication skills. However, over the past few months, the kids (especially Chaya) had been pushing us to make the plunge.

The Alfasis live a block away from us and we daven together in Rabbi Rosner’s shul. Their second son is Moshe’s age and they have loved playing together for the past couple of years. Menachem is a rav in the army, stationed in the Chevron area. He only comes home a couple of nights a week, which we cannot relate to. They are a terrific family and we have gotten friendlier as time goes by, which led to the invitation for a meal.

In the end, while there were definitely a couple of awkward moments because Goldie and I were struggling to express ourselves, a good time was had by all. For a first start, they were a great choice—people we already know and like. Hopefully they will be the first of many. Our new location offers more potential invites among the neighbors and we are excited to continue our growth (in fitting in with native Hebrew speakers).

A couple of weeks ago, I related a story about our first time in Ikea. Goldie and I were trying to find a specific street and a restaurant there and stopped to ask a bus driver for directions. Although the bus driver did not know the answer, a man at the stop shouted out, “I know the street. Give me a ride and I will take you there!” And we did.

Well, earlier this week I had to go copy some keys for the shul. While I had gotten a ride to the hardware store, I had to make the mile-and-a-half return trip on foot; Goldie and the kids had the car in Modi’in for the day. On the way home, a car pulled over and the driver asked me if I knew where a certain road was.

My response? “Sure do. And if you give me a ride, I will take you halfway there and you will be on the right road for the rest of the way!”

There is no way I would have been so aggressive about getting a ride from a stranger before we came here. It is simply another thing I have learned from being here and a clear adjustment that my subconscious has made in helping me fit in.

Yet, there are still the maddening difficulties that crop up from time to time. One of the hardest things is to figure out the car. Of course, that means that the car ends up constantly needing attention.

Our car battery had been dying over Shabbat the past couple of weeks, so I took the car in to the dealer. After inspection, he showed me some meter and talked about loads and signals and monitors, finishing by adding that the meter clearly shows that the alarm is causing the problem. With the warranty due to expire in a matter of days, I rushed to get the car serviced by the alarm company.

They did their own tests. Their tests showed nothing wrong with the alarm, but that the battery was the problem. So I went back to the dealer and got a replacement battery (I paid a 5% premium at the dealer, but I wanted his warranty in case there was a problem). The dealer was astounded and asked me why I did not explain what I was told.

I actually had explained it, but here is the issue: when dealing with technicians of any sort, my weak Hebrew vocabulary inevitably leads me to be unclear in what I am saying. The technicians don’t understand me and I don’t understand them. I often feel stupid and embarrassed and I am not as successful in getting what I need because of the inability to express myself.

So I have a new (warrantied) battery and I am waiting for the inevitable. When the battery dies again and I go back to the alarm company, I hope that this will be enough proof to them that it is indeed the alarm that is malfunctioning. Unless, of course, it turns out that they were right and it is the dealer whom I need to trust a bit less. In either case, it is frustrating and annoying.

Hopefully, the growing pains will continue to be fewer and fewer as time goes on. While we may never be able to deal with repairs and technical stuff as well as we would like, our social circle and sphere of comfort continues to increase, which definitely has to be a good thing.

New Beginnings (8/19/2010)

2010-08-19T13:39:00.001-04:00

Kudos to Motti Eichler. As I mentioned, we moved to a new home last week. Although the move was less than a three-minute drive, there is a huge difference regarding the location within the city. Motti, who made aliyah with his family two years ago, was concerned that I might miss the old neighborhood. So, he hand-printed a special “Tznius Dress Only” sign and taped it directly across the street from our house.

My first reaction was shock. Then, when I realized that it was just a joke, I had a nice laugh from it. I know it may sound funny, but one of the things we are looking for in this move is the chance to see Bet Shemesh from a different point of view.

Two days later, our dry cleaner came by to drop off some things we had given him before our move. I am not sure how she connected with him, but for almost our entire time here, Goldie has given any dry cleaning we have to a very nice French oleh who does pick up and drop off service each week. Each year on Rosh Hashanah, he gives us a special gift and we have come to really like him.

He usually leaves our clean clothing hanging by the front door on drop off day, coming into the house once a month to collect whatever money we owe him for that month. This week, he made sure to personally deliver our clothes to us, for two reasons.

The first reason was obvious; he wanted to make sure he was going to the right house. The second reason became clear once I opened the door to let him in. He came streaming through the house, handing me the hangers with our things on them almost as an afterthought. He excitedly explained that “we” (I assume he meant French Jews) have a minhag that is a segulah for wealth and happiness in a new home and asked permission to do it for our house.

We agreed. He said, “We throw coins into six corners of the house and they are the symbol” and proceeded to run from room to room and fling half-shekel coins helter skelter into the corners. He then turned and hurried out of the house to resume his deliveries with our thanks accompanying him.

No matter how long we live here, I think the cholent pot that is Israel will ensure that we continue to have similar experiences. We continually expand our circle of friends and acquaintances and with that expansion comes a variety of cultural and ethnic variations. From our first Ethiopian bar mitzvah, to a Frenchman madly flinging coins at the corners of our living room, our lives are enriched by the people we meet and interact with.

Israel is just incredibly full of unique encounters. In truth, there are unique encounters to be had almost anywhere in the world. What sets Israel apart is that in Israel, these encounters are with people from our own blood. Our paths may have diverged from each other’s as much as 2,000 years ago. We have developed different customs and traditions. But, the blood of a Jew is the blood of a Jew and we are always enthused to participate or encounter someone else’s traditions.

And there is no end to them. Each time we turn around, we find something new and unusual that makes us pause and wonder at how different things are in our new life.

Goldie’s parents were here for a couple of weeks and we spent a Shabbat with them in Yerushalayim. The hotel we stayed at was not going to provide us with seudah shlishit so I went shopping Friday afternoon for all our needs. I had bought everything except for bread and was walking by a schoolyard that had a farmer’s market in it and decided to browse the market.

I happened upon a booth selling fresh bread and was piqued by the many healthful varieties of whole wheat bread they had. I noticed their teudat kashrut. Astonishingly, this street cart vendor had kosher certification for his cart and, after inspection, I realized that I could buy the bread. He was surprised that I was surprised; to him it was obvious that he would make sure his certification would extend beyond the bakery to his cart.

That evening, we (the men along with Chaya) went to the Kotel for davening. I had not been to the Kotel for a Friday night in 30 plus years. We joined a group from Teaneck to daven, but the entire time I was struck by the crowd in the davening area. The minyanim were so diversely scattered, not geographically, but culturally.

There were several large groups seemingly competing with each other in order to sing and dance the loudest for kabbalat Shabbat. Despite the fact that these groups might have friction during the rest of the week, that they might be so politically opposed to each other that one would think they would never get along, they manage to unite at least each week in a common cause. Each, in their own way, publicly and lovingly express their joy at welcoming Shabbat.

The next morning, Chaim and I did something else that I had not done in over 30 years—minyan hunting. When I was a student in yeshiva here, I used to wake up on Shabbat morning, leave my apartment, and follow the first person I would see in the street. Half the time I ended up in his shul and the other half I would be following him home. I davened in a lot of different shuls that way and also benefited from a bunch of random “do you have a place to eat?” meal invitations from some very nice people.

Chaim and I woke up early for the minyan we had planned to attend and decided to go hunting for another. We followed one guy, but he took us to his house, and then after following another guy we ended up in the beis medrash of Yeshivas Medrash Shmuel, with which some of you may be familiar. We even enjoyed an aufrauf there for the son of either one of the roshei yeshiva or the son of one of the rabbeim, I am not sure which.

On the subject of smachot, we participated in two special bat mitzvah celebrations this week as well. The first was Leora Gottlieb, the daughter of fellow 2006 olim Marc and Miriam Gottlieb (formerly of Cedarhurst). Marc and Miriam live in Neve Daniel, and it was a treat to see them and celebrate with them (especially the part where I overstuffed myself on Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream).

It was terrific. It was very nice to see other families who came at the same time as we had and are having an absolutely terrific time with happy kids and a supreme satisfaction with their choice. I know a few families who, despite all their planning, ended up moving back for various reasons, and it is encouraging to see others who are fulfilled and happy here.

The second bat mitzvah was Tali Levi, who lived two doors away from us in Woodmere. Tali was born a few weeks before we moved in to our house. With Batya’s arrival seven months after we moved in, they got to be friends and played together until we moved. Her parents, Gabe and Anat Levi, are close friends who supported our aliyah from day one and have really done their best to maintain the bond.

I have said it before, but Gabe was incredibly helpful when Goldie was sick, helping us get the right diagnosis and getting our tests and results “express” treatment. Anat’s personal kindness on the day of Goldie’s surgery will never be forgotten.

It is always a special joy to celebrate with people whom you have such strong connections with. We loved the bar mitzvah weekend for David last year and the bat mitzvah was no less terrific for us. Maybe even more so, because all the kids came to the bat mitzvah. We enjoyed being with them (especially when Ezra Levi came to our house for a sleepover with Mordechai—another pair of boyhood neighbor/friends) and sharing their simcha here in Israel. Anat’s remark that they plan on having all their family smachot in Israel if possible, means that they will be back many more times.

Being here they can experience those special “only in Israel” moments. We had one on Sunday night at Ikea (yes, we went again). We had to return some things and buy other things more appropriate to our needs and decided to have dinner at the in-store restaurant. While we waited in line, one of the security guards approached me and said, “Sir, excuse me. Sir? There will be a Ma’ariv minyan in ten minutes in the beit knesset right over there,” pointing to a side area.

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, how often does store security stop you to invite you to join him for Ma’ariv?

Back to Work (8/12/2010)

2010-08-12T13:36:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know—it has been a month or so. It is the summer—a time the kids refer to as the chofesh ha’gadol (big vacation) and adults think of as the onesh ha’gadol (big punishment). Each year during the summer, this column goes on an unannounced hiatus. It usually lasts one or two weeks. This year’s break, at a month, is the longest one we have had.

But I am still here, and no—I have not stopped writing. I do thank all the people who e-mailed or, even better, who said something to their relatives or friends here asking if all is well with Shmuel. Your concern over our well-being is gratifying, and it is also great to see that after four and a half years, people still read what I write.

Of course, in normal summers there is not much for me to write about anyway. How many different ways can I talk about the depth of emotion I feel when I go to the Kotel on Tishah B’Av? Do you really want to hear another discourse from me about how incredibly hot it is here in the summer?

I think not. So, I tend to take some time off in the summer and wait until school is starting, when things begin to get interesting. Interestingly, this year that was not the case, but I still did not write.

We have had a tough summer here in Bet Shemesh. There is nothing I can write or contribute to expound on the tragedy that struck the Menora (and Fogel and Klein) family. Their pain and loss is difficult for us to even comprehend. It was a difficult shiva house to visit. [Editor’s note: Shmuel is referring to the plane crash last month in Michigan.]

This was not because we are so close with either Shalom Menora or Sima Menora. I grew up knowing Shalom. He and his sisters were a bit older than us, but we still attended the same schools and knew each other’s families as children. Even when we moved here, we had no more than a “Hi, how are you” relationship with either of them. Yes, Sima guest wrote a column for me that led to her becoming a weekly columnist in the paper. But we aren’t close friends.

Yet the entire community felt at least a portion of their loss. I think it stems from the children. The children are really the central focus of life here and they all know each other.

Our son Chaim is good friends with Yehuda Menora, who was in the army instead of in the USA with his siblings. Their peer group is incredibly supportive of one another. From the minute we heard the news until a couple of days after the shiva, Chaim and a group of friends spent the majority of their time with Yehuda. Just making sure that he was okay and knew they cared about him.

Our Aliza shared a (two-person) desk in school with Racheli Menora, one of the sisters who died. We had to tell Aliza the news on the phone, and she has had a difficult time adjusting. While they too were not exceptionally close, they spent every day together at the same desk. Aliza won’t really talk about it, but she occasionally writes poems about her feelings that we come across and it is easy to see that she is having an issue understanding and coping.

I wish there were something more we could do, especially for the Menora family. All we can really do is tell them that we are here, davening for a complete refuah for Yossi Menora and for them to find some nechamah, somehow. I know that the entire community here would gladly do anything they could to show our support for them. It is not enough, but it is all we have.

Thankfully, some good things have happened in the last month as well. I have had a hard time trying to figure out where to start. After a long search for somewhere to move, Goldie and I decided to put off the long-term decision and take another rental. I am actually writing this from our new living room, having completed the move earlier today.

We like Bet Shemesh and would prefer to stay, and want to see how the different housing opportunities play out before we make a more “permanent” decision. The fact is that none of the homes we looked at for buying really felt like a good fit for us. We ended up moving about three minutes away from our old home.

Same schools. Same shul. We will miss a bunch of our neighbors, but others (who live right across the street from us) we won’t miss as much. In fact, we are hoping that this move, off of the border between our neighborhood and the next, will get us away from some of the neighborhood tensions that we have been involved with since coming to Bet Shemesh.

So we now live in Nofei HaShemesh, the neighborhood where we had intended to be (and would have moved to next year) had they not postponed the second stage of home building. The kids are all excited, and now that most of the process is done, Goldie and I are beginning to relax about it as well.

As with many moves, we had the need for some furniture and furnishings with the move. For the first time ever, Goldie and I headed to Ikea. Having never been there, we were stunned at the size of the store and selection. We really enjoyed shopping there. But the highlight was eating at the Ikea mehadrin food court.

Yes, there were all the foods you would expect in Ikea, from Swedish meatballs to Norwegian salmon—and it is all kosher. Cheap, too. And it was a good thing, because after two hours in the store, we were hungry. I have said it about other things, but this is part of what makes it terrific to live here.

I know that there has been some buzz lately in the Five Towns about our shul and the city of Bet Shemesh. Basically, we filed a permit with the city to have deeded land set aside for a shul within the neighborhood. Yes, the city did take us off the agenda and it caused somewhat of a firestorm here. Rabbi Rosner even wrote a letter to the local (Hebrew) newspapers, bemoaning that politics was going to stop our shul and community from growing as planned. Thankfully, that letter, along with some pressure from other sources (such as the Office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs) made a difference.

We have been fast-tracked to put up a temporary modular building within our neighborhood. As part of the deal, we are told that our application to be deeded the land will be resubmitted as well. While I don’t really believe that we will actually get the land any time in the near future, opening a fully functional shul building is a tremendous next step for our community.

If we can keep the momentum that this project is generating, we hope to reignite interest and development in our neighborhood.

Explorations (7/8/2010)

2010-07-08T13:33:00.001-04:00

At the end of our first year of aliyah, Goldie and I started what would become pretty much a weekly “date” of sorts for us. With Sunday being a regular working day, and Friday being the “day off” (but still a day of school for the kids), we started going to local cafés on Friday mornings. Initially, we spent the most time with Dani and Zippy Lieberman (who made aliyah on the same flight as us), but as time passed we started going with other couples or, more often, by ourselves.

Friday-morning coffee or breakfast (with coffee) is a great time to chill out and reflect on the week or discuss plans for the future. It is a good time to sit and enjoy the company of those with you in a relaxed setting, knowing that for at least those couple of hours you have no pressures to be anywhere or do anything.

At times, we would venture out of Bet Shemesh for our Friday date. We would sometimes head to Yerushalayim or Modiin for a pleasant change of pace, or, when the kids had a holiday day, as a special treat for the kids (nothing is more exciting for the little kids than a chol ha’moed Pesach breakfast buffet at a café in Yerushalayim). We even went to S’derot a few times when it was considered a “town under siege,” to support the business owners and community there. Yet, for the most part, we stayed within the confines of our home city.

Over the last couple of months, Goldie and I have begun to feel that we have not explored enough of the country. While most cities and towns in the area are a half-hour’s drive away, we have really kept to Bet Shemesh, Modiin, and Yerushalayim, with occasional forays to Tel Aviv. So we are taking our Friday-morning coffee/breakfasts on the road!

We have been to Ashdod a couple of times. The first time we went there, we were so hopelessly lost and hungry that we stopped at the first indoor mall that had a kosher café and spent a couple hours there. It was clearly an older mall and kind of run down—but we had no idea where we were going. Of course, after we left there, we found the center of town, a real hub of activity and many more café options.

A couple of weeks later, on our second trip there, we decided to drive through the little towns and villages along the way. It was fascinating. We tried to figure out the ethnic background of the residents (most often by the last names on the mailboxes) and if it was a religious community or not. Some of these towns, literally on the road to nowhere, are quite picturesque.

When we got to Ashdod, we decided that we wanted to see the beach and find a waterfront café. Finding the beach was easy—finding a café was less so. I finally asked a taxi driver where to go, and he gave us perfect directions to a series of seaside cafés, one of which turned out to have hashgachah. We enjoyed a terrific Israeli breakfast at Café Hila on the beach in Ashdod—I would recommend it.

We have also been to Rechovot (even though they have a religious community there, it’s not an easy place to find a kosher café on a Friday morning since the main restaurant there closes on Fridays), Mevasseret (we found a couple of terrific cafés there), and assorted places in the Gush.

Last week we tried Ashkelon. With the kids out of school and no camp on Friday, we took them along for the ride. They enjoyed playing on the sand and trying to spot jellyfish (it is major jellyfish season here). Although we could not find a kosher seaside café, we did enjoy the Café Café (a local chain) located in the majestic Ashkelon concert hall. Situated in the entrance hall, the café was wonderfully relaxing and soothing. It was a great morning topped only by Goldie’s discovery of what she is terming “our Israeli Target.”

On the way home from Ashkelon, we decided to stop for some groceries. On the highway, outside the city and any residential areas, we came across a store called “Supersol Big.” Supersol is a major supermarket chain in Israel, with several divisions. They have a boutique chain that has mini-supermarkets (with higher prices) in the high-rent districts of cities or wealthier neighborhoods. They have the standard supermarkets as well as a series of “Supersol Deal” supermarkets (we have one in Bet Shemesh) that are a bit larger than the average supermarket, with a better selection and cheaper prices.

We had never before been in the “big” Supersol. It was amazing. It wasn’t a supermarket. It was . . . Target. The building was huge—especially by Israeli standards. When we first walked in, there was a housewares section, with a clothing section behind it. Amazingly, the clothing section carried the same label as you find in Target in the USA. Goldie was stunned!

They had everything in that store. Electronics, toys, clothing, hardware, food, and more. It really was like being in Target, something that all the American women here kvetch about missing. In fact, when Goldie told a couple of girlfriends about the store, they started planning a special road trip just to go there.

Had we not decided to broaden our horizons, we never would have found the store. So we plan on continuing our exploration as much as we can over the summer and fall.

Before I sign off for the week, another “only in Israel” story:

We had been having some trouble with our air conditioning units and had our repairman, “Dr. Mazgan” (“mazgan” means “air conditioner”) out to fix the unit. About a week later, the problem recurred and Goldie scheduled a follow-up service call (free; the work was under warranty). He moved her to the head of the line and came within a couple of hours.

In fact, she moved so far to the head of the line that he brought his wife with him! They had been out grocery shopping, and instead of taking her home and then returning to our neighborhood, he decided to quickly stop by and fix our A/C.

To top it off, they had some perishables with them, so they brought them into the house as well and asked Goldie if they could put them in our freezer while he worked. Goldie and “Mrs. Mazgan” had a nice coffee and chat (in Hebrew), while her husband toiled away for half an hour in our attic. In Israel, a service call can sometimes also be a social call!

Sitting Alone in a Room (7/1/2010)

2010-07-01T13:29:00.002-04:00

This coming week, we will mark the fourth anniversary of our aliyah. Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday, and other times I have a hard time remembering how we lived before we came here. You have been with us most of the way, sharing in our trials, small and large, and witnessing our successes and failures (hopefully more of the former than the latter).

We have witnessed two wars together. We have seen the demise of the career of two heads of state (Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni) and the rebirth of another’s. In the same election we have seen the birth of a new reality for our new hometown of Bet Shemesh, as the city council and mayoralty went to chareidi parties for the first time. (Interestingly, in Yerushalayim, the exact opposite happened—the first chareidi government was voted out of office.)

Our family has overcome so much in this time. Of course, no hurdle was greater than Goldie’s illness. With the support of your tefillah and e-mails and messages of support, we were given a tremendous outcome and continue to daven and hope that it continues. It was the defining moment of our first year here and could have destroyed our aliyah; instead, it has become the anchor of our acclimation.

You have been there with us as we struggled to identify, understand, and cope with the myriad of challenges that have faced our children in their adjustments. Each one had issues unique to their situation. Issues much greater than the simple fact that their parents uprooted them from a home they had known and loved to a strange world 6,000 miles away from everything that was familiar. Yes, there was a language gap and educational gaps, but there was so much more.

Chaim and Chaya came in their teen years—years in which all the “experts” said that aliyah would destroy them. Yet somehow they were able to establish great friendships and quickly identify (each in his or her own way) how they could fit in and succeed on their own terms. Four years and two high-school graduations later, Chaim is about to start year two in YU (after learning for two years, full time, here in yeshiva) and Chaya is entering sherut leumi (national service) and beginning to prepare for university.

Aliza became a bat mitzvah in our second year and is entering 10th grade. She was always a social butterfly, with great grades, but sacrificed her academics to make friends. (Until we found out.) She struggled a bit in finding the right school, but is now thriving and, although she hates to hear it, will do quite well in following in her big sister’s footsteps. And, as we expected from the day she was born, she will continue to challenge us every step of the way.

Batya and Mordechai suffered greatly with Hebrew. In many ways, we had expected their adjustments to be the easiest, since they were so young and adaptable. Yet the language was torture for them. Their first seven months were terrible, and when things began to look up and make sense to them—Eema got sick. Yet now, here they are, finishing grades 5 and 3 and so comfortable in their schools and lives that they would be like fish out of water anywhere else.

Moshe, who was just over a year and barely talking when we came, is a year away from 1st grade and as Israeli as a Katz can be. He has grown so much, as have they all. It is incredible to consider just how much they have grown over this time.

Four years. Think about it. 208 weeks. More than half a cycle of daf yomi. Almost 10 percent of my life, 20 percent of my married life.

My oldest nephew was an aspiring combat soldier when we first moved here. We watched with pride, joy, and no small amount of terror when he joined an elite combat unit. Quickly tabbed as a leader, he went through commander’s school and was assigned to a special experimental unit.

He fought in Gaza and I have written about the people who meant so much to him during the war. From Dorothy Shapiro, now a 90-year-old woman who sent him a care package during the war, to my good friend Jason Schwartz who went to deliver the care packages and called me to tell me he was standing with my nephew at the border, it is this support that provides spirit and encouragement to our young soldiers.

My nephew’s service will be over in a few months. Tragically, he lost a close buddy in a Gaza firefight on erev Shabbat HaGadol, just two days before they were to be rotated out of Gaza. My nephew will never be the same and has suffered a loss that few of us can comprehend.

His service—from training to fighting to celebrating to tragedy—all fell within the four years of our aliyah.

I have gone from one job to another, both in non-profit but in vastly different spheres, in the four years we have lived here. I am actually lucky on this—many olim go through several jobs in the first couple of years as they try to identify what works for them. Interestingly, there are more lawyers-turned-gardeners and doctors-turned-vintners here than anywhere else. This is a frustrating land, but also a land of great opportunity.

You have been on our chol ha’moed trips, thrilling to the tours and new adventures. You have gone with us to Eilat and Teveriah (and G-d willing Netanya and Nahariah a bit later this summer) as we toured and experienced various parts of our homeland. We have walked the Kotel tunnels together and the Ir David water tunnel. We have gone to museums and shows, fairs and performances, all here in these very pages.

Think about how much we have lived in these four years. Think of all the people we have met and the places they have taken us.

No, I am not writing this as an introduction to my last article. I am not saying farewell. However, I wanted to give you a sense of how truly long we have been here and how much life we have lived in that time.

Think of how far your own lives have come in the last four years. Think back to how little your children or grandchildren were and how much they have grown. Think back to where your life was and what you were doing. Take a moment to reflect upon how much has happened to you and your family.

Why? Well, there is another four-year anniversary that we just celebrated a few days ago. About two weeks before we made aliyah, Hamas terrorists tunneled across the Gaza border and attacked Israeli soldiers, killing two of them and wounding and capturing Gilad Shalit, who has been in captivity ever since.

We have no idea as to his whereabouts or the conditions in which he is being held. Presumably, he is being held in isolation somewhere, sitting alone in a room and waiting. He has sat and waited for the entire time my family has lived in Israel—and he continues to sit and wait. Think about how long four years is. Think about how much of his life has been stolen by despicable terrorists and murderers.

Where is the Gilad Shalit flotilla, full of liberal activists and celebrities? Why do they not sail with an empty “peace ship” to the docks of Gaza City and demand that he be returned with them to his family and his home for the sake of peace?

I do not know the answers. I do not know what is the right formula to get Gilad home and allow him to rejoin them. I do know this: he has missed so much and we are not doing enough. May Hashem grant that he be returned soon so that his clock can finally restart, while ours continues to turn.

No Pomp and Circumstance? (6/24/2010)

2010-06-24T13:25:00.002-04:00

I had anticipated writing an article this week about the events surrounding the community of Emanuel. I have seen so many opinions and assumptions on this issue, which quite frankly has disgusted me. I was ready to wade right in, with some choice words of my own but I am so tired of the whole thing that I will only make one comment.

Since I believe that both sides are arrogantly manipulating their constituents in order to make a political point and that both sides are guilty of misinformation, I am outraged at the manner in which they have sidetracked my country into a circus. Neither side is “right” and both should be ashamed of themselves. I have no faith that anyone involved is being truthful, and it is a disgrace.

Thankfully, this space primarily serves as a journal of our experiences here in Israel as olim and this was a very special week for us. After four years of high school here, our oldest daughter, Chaya, graduated with outstanding grades.

The graduation ceremony was incredibly different from anything we would have expected in the U.S. We arrived at 8:00 p.m. and went home at midnight. Even though it had been almost 110 degrees earlier in the day, I was quite thankful that it was an outdoor ceremony. Even with A/C, an indoor room full of people on such a hot day would have been impossible to sit in. There were no caps or gowns, no pomp and circumstance, no processions, and very little formality. Although the mayor did attend and say some nice things.

The mayor had something like five graduations that night. He showed up late and subsequently the graduation started an hour after the scheduled time. The mayor spoke. The head of the school system spoke. The head rav of the school spoke. The principal spoke. A city councilman (whose daughter was graduating) spoke. The head of the parents’ council spoke. A student spoke. There was no valedictorian or academic address. Most of the speeches consisted of divrei Torah and personal messages or charges to the girls.

A major part of the graduation was the awarding of diplomas. Each girl was called up, a Mishna quote was given over (hopefully a quote that reflected upon the character of the girl), and then a personal message was read to each girl. She then hugged the principal, the assistant principal, the homeroom teacher, and the guidance counselor. Then she posed for a picture. With 52 girls in the grade this took well over an hour.

We were incredibly proud that Chaya was able to reach this milestone. It was such an accomplishment on her part that the principal made special mention of her at the graduation. Then, in a video about the students, she also said, “Chaya Katz literally did the impossible!”

In the U.S., Chaya was an indifferent student at best. We always felt that she simply did not care about grades and was more interested in being a friend or helping hand. Her grades were good, not great. We hoped that she would pick up a bit as she got to high school and possibly college, but assumed that we were getting the most out of her at the time.

After coming on aliyah, she did not do much to dispel that notion. Not having spoken Hebrew as a language (beyond learning Torah in school), she struggled to understand what was going on in class. Her principal told us not to worry about things for the first year, because Chaya needed to learn the language and develop friendships with her peers before she could successfully pass her classes and earn a bagrut certificate (similar to a Regents diploma) and graduate. She built a program for Chaya (and another new olah) to study independently with tutors and experience some classroom instruction as well.

The first year, true to expectations, was a disaster. At the end of the year we met with the principal to craft a plan for the upcoming year, Grade 10. She told us that in her opinion, Chaya was too linguistically challenged to continue in the school. Although Chaya had made tremendous progress socially, she did not think that Chaya would be able to pass the bagruyot (examinations). Rather than have to face angry parents after a wasted Grade 10, she advised us to find another school that might be able to cater to her needs so that she could graduate.

Chaya was devastated. She had become attached to her friends and the school and did not want to leave. I cannot imagine how hard it was for her, having moved to a new country and made new friends at age 13. Yet, she was being told that she would have to go through the whole process a second time, with a new group of girls. Girls, who like her, could not make the grade.

We had a simple goal: we needed to make sure that Chaya could go to college if she chose and that our aliyah would not cripple that possibility. Our oldest son, Chaim, had just finished a year-long program and gotten a GED (high school equivalency degree). We liked the program, and knowing that Chaya was having academic difficulties, we had already spoken to the coordinators about enrolling Chaya. Unfortunately, they would not take students below Grade 11, so we knew that we would have to wait a full year before Chaya was eligible to enroll.

So, in the meeting, after Chaya had tearfully expressed her sincere desire to stay in the school, I made a proposal to the principal. Work with us, I asked. I told her about the GED program and that we were prepared to send Chaya to that program for Grade 11, if need be. All we asked was that Chaya be allowed to remain in the school for Grade 10 to see if she could make the grades and pass the tests. I specifically told her that we would have no complaints against the school if Chaya could not keep up and that we had a backup plan if things did not work out.

The principal agreed. She turned to Chaya and told her that if she wanted to truly stay in the school, she would have to buckle down and get incredibly serious about academics. She could not afford to play games with school anymore, she needed to focus on learning and studying. Together, they outlined a series of mandatory classes that Chaya needed to pass in order to graduate; she was exempted from the majority of the electives.

We did not know what to expect. We hoped that Chaya would work hard enough to pass. We were prepared to augment her studies with tutors (as do most parents) and give her whatever assistance we could to prepare her, but knew that it all depended on Chaya’s ability to do what she had never really done before—excel academically.

Chaya blew us all away. I have never seen such an outstanding transformation. She worked incredibly hard and was more focused on school than we had any reason to expect. She studied and studied, and the work paid off. She wasn’t just passing her exams—she was scoring in the 90s on them, regularly.

At the end of Grade 10, we went for a year recap meeting with the principal. At the meeting, remembering the discussion from the year before, I asked her if Chaya would be allowed to stay in the school for Grade 11? She laughed. It wasn’t even in doubt.

She has not only passed, she has excelled. She has certainly earned the diploma that she was awarded, and she did it by wholeheartedly embracing her new school, her new friends, and her new life. She is proof that you can be a teenage olah and still be successful.

We are excited for Chaya, who has been the trailblazer for her younger siblings. She has so much to look forward to and so much to experience along the way. She will be the first of our children to fulfill national service (she will be working in a senior citizen’s residence this upcoming year) and will be the first one of them to go to an Israeli university (we hope).

She has flowered here. She has become such a complete person, despite all the trials and tribulations, including the various family crises which should have made it impossible for her. She can be difficult at times (I think that is the Katz side), but has an intensely beautiful soul.

She could not have done anything without the support of a terrific group of friends at her school, Ulpanat Gila. I thank them for being so open to Chaya, for making her a part of their lives, and for being such terrific friends. Mazal tov to Sarah Fuchs, Leah Fingerer, and Miriam Kinberg (all former Five Towners) as well as Ayelet Gross and Noa Aronson. We hope that your families all enjoy your wonderful success.

I also need to make a special mention of her principal, Mrs. Yael VanDyke. Israeli born, she trained herself to speak American English without a trace of an accent, because she wanted to get it right. She was a true partner with us in making Chaya’s journey so fulfilling. She went through so much with Chaya and with us, and we are grateful to her.

But most importantly, we are proud of our terrific kid. She goes about her business in a very unassuming way, avoiding attention and shying away from accolades. I normally avoid talking about her, but she will be in the U.S. for the next month and I know she will see this paper (when you see her, please feel free to wish her a mazal tov).

So Chaya, I want you to know how proud we are of you. We know how much you have been through these past four years. Each time we thought we were over the hump, another curveball came our way. Yet, you have persevered and risen to the challenge and filled us with wonder at your accomplishments. We look forward to so much more from you and your siblings and hope you are a rebuke to all those in the U.S. who say that teens cannot be success stories. They can, and you are. Way to go, strawberry girl!

The Candyman (6/17/2010)

2010-06-17T13:20:00.002-04:00

Those of you who don’t follow sports can probably skip the next few paragraphs as you won’t be able to relate. Watching (and attending) sporting events is one of the things I miss here in Israel. Yes, it was very cool when the Israel Baseball League had its only season (we were Bet Shemesh Blue Sox season ticket holders). But, overall, with the exception of football games (which air at night here), I really do not catch that many games.

I have a Slingbox connection to U.S. sports TV (which is how I get to watch my beloved Chicago Bears), but even when I tape other sports games to watch at a later time, the time difference makes it difficult to really enjoy watching. Most games that I tape are night games, and by the time I get home from work the next day, I almost always know the results in advance of watching, which ruins the experience. If the specific game is really important to me to watch, I end up spending the day avoiding all online activity or speaking to anyone who may spill the beans (and even that is less than 50% effective).

As a diehard everything Chicago (except the hated White Sox) fan, it was especially exciting that the Chicago Blackhawks reached the finals this year (and were crowned champions). What wasn’t so exciting was the schedule of games. Each game started at around 3:15 a.m. here in Israel. Since we wanted to watch “live” and not take the chance of getting the results before watching, we woke up between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. to watch the games (fast forwarding through commercials and breaks).

By the time Chicago won the series, I think I may have been happier that the games were over than about the fact that Chicago won. It was exhausting to be up every other day so early and a relief that I could go back to a normal sleeping pattern.

Even the Friday night game was a killer. Goldie and I had bought tickets for a comedy show on Motzaei Shabbat and instead of watching the game at 9:00 p.m. with Chaim, I watched it until 2:30 a.m. when we got home.

The show, Comedy for Koby, was outstanding, so I am happy we went. Comedy for Koby is an outstanding program of the Koby Mandell Foundation. Twice a year, a Jewish L.A.-based comedian, Avi Lieberman, brings three comedians for a multi-city tour here in Israel. The show plays to packed houses in Yerushalayim, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Bet Shemesh, Modiin, Raanana, and Efrat. With a private donor underwriting the tour, the shows raise money to send children who are from families with terror victims to a terrific summer camp program.

We had heard about the show, but for some reason, Goldie and I had not gone to one before. Our schedule did not allow us to go to the Bet Shemesh show; instead, we went to the Modiin show with two other couples, Jason and Chani Schwartz (Chani was a guest columnist in this space a few months back) and Dr. Herman and Mia Weiss (olim from West Hempstead). The Weisses had a friend from West Hempstead with them as well, Natasha Swirlowitz.

Everyone had a blast. The comedians were hilarious (we especially liked Bob Zany—great comedy name—who was funny from start to finish), and when Avi Lieberman had a dialogue with my boss (who is also a local Modiin rabbi) and skewered him, my entire week was made.

With the lack of English-speaking entertainment here outside the major cities (and even in the major cities the supply is limited), the Comedy for Koby show was a welcome oasis for us. We eagerly anticipate their next tour.

A couple of days later I went to be menachem avel the family of Izzy Naiman, ob’m. Izzy was the candyman in Rabbi Rosenthal’s shul in Chicago (the shul is now a Lubavitch high school). Each Shabbat, every child in shul would go over to Izzy and had to wish him a Good Shabbos and shake his hand in order to receive the coveted Bazooka gum that he would bring in from Israel on his annual trips.

In the ’70s and ’80s, Israeli Bazooka was generally only available in Chicago for Pesach. Having him import boxes and boxes of the stuff for us was a big treat and something every kid in shul looked forward to each week. Yet, as I look back, it was not the gum that made the biggest impact on me. The thing that stuck with me the most was his insistence that every child offer him a proper Good Shabbos greeting and that the boys shake his hand when doing so. It lent a dignity and formality to his greeting.

He also had a special policy of hosting us for a meal when we would spend a year in Israel. I still have the picture that was taken at the Plaza Hotel’s patio breakfast when Yaakov Lopin (a childhood friend of mine from Chicago who davened in the same shul) and I joined Izzy there for breakfast. Very fond memories. So I was dismayed to see the e-mail notice of his passing and resolved to be menachem avel his family.

Upon arrival at the shiva house, all I had to say was that I was “one of the Bazooka boys” and even though only his wife remembered me, the whole family “knew” who I was, so to speak. They told me how their father used to drive them crazy to make sure they shipped him gum when supplies were running low and how much joy he took in being the candyman in shul and in sharing the lives of all the kids of the community.

I was glad I went because it gave me a chance to share with them what an impact Izzy had on my life. You see, I too am the candyman in shul and have been for quite some time. While my father also was a candyman (albeit in a different shul) and I certainly was motivated by him as well, it is Izzy’s dignity and formality that I pass along in my shul as well.

Each child, boy or girl, greets me with a Shabbat Shalom before they get their lollipop (gum provides too many opportunities to ruin furniture); the boys all shake my hand. I see the joy and anticipation in their eyes when they come to greet me and I know that I learned a special lesson from the candyman. You see, I don’t think he really cared one way or the other about the greeting or the candy, I know that I sure don’t. What is important is the message the kids get.

They are excited to come to shul. They know that shul is a special place. A place of dignity where they are expected to act like adults and are made to feel important. That is the message that I learned from Izzy, a’h, and that is the message I hope to pass on to the next generation. Yehi zichro baruch.

Command Sergeant Major Yehoshua (Shuki) Sofer was shot and killed in an ambush by terrorists this week just south of Chevron. While the world media ignores the fact that another Jew was killed by terrorists in an ambush attack and continues to focus instead on the deaths of several terrorists who were killed by people who only shot in self-defense, we need to honor his memory and continue to support the Israeli Defense Forces whose only goal is the safety and security of our nation and our land.

Shuki Sofer, z’l, was supposed to be married this September. Yehi zichro baruch.

Spying out the Land - Part 3 (6/4/2010)

2010-06-04T09:43:00.002-04:00

I have written a special column for Shabbat Parashat Shelach for each of the past two years. I was originally inspired to write the first column by Nefesh B’Nefesh. They had a program in which they encouraged their olim to e-mail a top-twelve list of the reasons to make aliyah to twelve friends in chutz la’aretz in the week of Parashat Shelach.

I thought differently. While there may have been twelve meraglim who spied out the land in biblical times, I have no problems with two of the twelve. So I decided to write ten reasons instead of twelve, corresponding to the ten spies who influenced the Jews to not enter Israel. And instead of sending it to twelve friends, I address it to the nearly 200,000 readers of this paper.

Here, then, is the third installment of another ten reasons (in no apparent order) you should be joining us in making aliyah (please note that I expect the geulah at any time now, so the following reasons apply only on the off chance that the geulah has not yet come):

10. The soldiers — With one nephew completing his military service and another being drafted in a year, this is the longest gap our family will have with no one in the military for the next 20 years or so. So my siblings and I are certainly very aware of who is keeping us all safe.

We have tremendous pride in our soldiers. I have written about giving mishloach manot to them on Purim, our trips to bring presents to them on their bases, and how much love and concern we have for them. Yet it is their inner joy and love for us which is most overwhelming. The excitement and pride they feel in themselves is truly inspirational.

There is no doubt that being in the military is an incredibly maturing part of the lives of our youth, religious or not. It instills discipline and pride in them and can be an incredible bonding experience. All too often, they also learn about loss, as my nephew did when his buddy was killed on erev Shabbat HaGadol.

Yet, as I tell my children with a sentiment that is shared throughout our land, everyone has a time that is their time. What a great kavod that his time came while defending our country instead of in a meaningless car crash or other accident.

Each one of them knows what they face. Yet they also know that we love, honor, and care for them. This is a tremendous lesson that my family gets to learn all the time. Yours should too.

9. A three-day chag is extremely rare — This is a bit of a repeat. I have talked about having only one day of chag in a previous list and touched upon the fact that only Rosh Hashanah can be part of a three-day chag here. Then I took a look at the calendar.

Have you looked at the yom tov calendar for the next ten years or so (through 2020)? If not, let me be the first to tell you: You had better get used to the three-day yom tov, because you are going to be seeing a lot of it. There is not a single year of the next ten that does not have at least one three day yom tov. Years 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2017 are all ones during which you will get a triple dose of Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah three-day chagim. Out of the next 22 times there will be a three-day chag, only 5 of them will be held in Israel. All the housewives out there should be putting down the paper and starting to make plans for the move here right now!

As a postscript to this, I should add that no one here counts a yom tov day as a vacation or personal day. You just get the day off, with no repercussions (unless you are an hourly employee). Some companies don’t even count chol ha’moed days against you, while others do, and yet others take a novel approach and only calculate them as half a day off.

8. The semachot — I don’t mean to say that a simcha outside Israel is not joyous or meaningful (and fun to be a part of). Yet there is something about the way we celebrate life here that is simply different.

Attend a b’rit milah in Israel and you will be inspired. Yes, the circumcision is no different, but the “ritual” is so much different. From the moment the baby is brought in and the father and attendees begin singing the pesukim of Shema and Ana Hashem, everyone is immediately thrust into the role as participant instead of attendee.

Bar mitzvah celebrations at the Kotel (either putting on tefillin the first time or the actual day of the bar mitzvah) are events you can participate in, simply by going to the Kotel. Enjoy a Sephardi family singing and dancing their way from outside the Old City walls all the way to the Kotel every day if you want.

Even weddings are different—especially the Religious Zionist Israeli weddings. Things are so informal. I have been to outdoor chupot where the crowd sang, danced, and clapped along with an acoustic band who played through every pause in the ceremony. Every occasion is filled with a communal joy that is unique here.

7. Barack Obama is not our president — Enough said.

6. Israeli politics — Politics here reminds me of the reputation of Chicago in the times of the original Mayor Daley. You know what I mean. The days when people knew to “vote early . . . and vote often.” The days when voter registration drives consisted of a few volunteers taking names and birthdates off the tombstones in a local cemetery.

I didn’t like Olmert or Livni. You might not like Bibi. I personally feel they are all a bunch of crooks looking for a way to line their pockets. Yet it is so entertaining to see another round of indictments and realize that we have bad sides as well as good sides.

The one difference for us is the passion with which politics is discussed and voted upon here. In the USA, we never felt passionate about an election for one candidate or another. Well, maybe the school board and tax/budget elections, but nothing else. Here in Israel, the elections carry so much weight in determining who will build what and where, which groups get more funds and which get less, that the passions can sometimes be overwhelming. We feel like we make a difference much more here.

5. No separation of church and state — Public funding does not apply solely to parks and community centers. Mikvaot are municipally funded as well. Shuls often get siddurim, chumashim, and other necessary supplies as well. Organizations such as Puah and other religious charities serving the public get funds from the government, because we provide vitally needed services. There is recognition that the state must support social services not just for physical needs, but also for religious needs.

4. Help New York City balance its budget — I read the other day that over one million people attended the Salute to Israel Parade in each of the last two years. A million people create a lot of garbage and require a lot of police protection. The overtime for the security and cleanup of the parade is enormous.

Imagine if only 10 percent of those people made aliyah. A crowd of 900,000 people is still significant enough to make an impression of support, yet the city would save tens of thousands of dollars each year. In these trying financial times, you could provide much-needed relief to the entire city of New York.

3. Tuition — You knew this was coming. The only item to appear on each of the three lists is the incredibly low cost of tuition here. Have you gotten your registration forms for next year in yeshiva yet? Ha-Ha-Ha! We pay about $300 a year for preschool for Moshe, and half of that amount is a voluntary surcharge we agreed to in order to hire a rebbi to come in for a few hours each week. Even high-school tuition is only a few hundred dollars each month—for two kids!

Building fund? Why? The city builds all the school buildings and even pays for maintenance! The money that the lottery makes actually does go to education here. Classes are crowded, and the quality of instruction sometimes suffers because of that. However, even including the private tutors that we hire to supplement the kids’ education, the costs are so much lower here that it is astonishing.

2. No tax returns to file — We do have different tax rates based upon income, etc. However, since there are very few deductions, there is no reason to file. Only people who are self-employed or have unique situations to report have to file a return (if you are entitled to a refund for some reason or perhaps have overseas income to declare). Everyone else has their taxes paid via withholding, and the government gets the accounting for it directly from the employer.

Even getting a deduction for something like a charitable contribution is simple. The receipt is given to the payroll administrator and the credit is given to you as part of your next paycheck. What could be simpler?

Our tax rates are very high, as is the mandatory payment for medical coverage. Yet the record-keeping is pretty simple. I might not understand the basic form, but I know that it truly is basic and is evidence of a simple tax system.

1. Achdut — This one is a bit of a reversal for me. I have bemoaned the lack of achdut between the different segments of our community. This is definitely a problem here and is a serious concern. The fact that huge groups of Jews not only don’t get along, but actually despise each other, is troubling. I definitely feel that this is less of a problem outside of Israel.

However, the longer we live here and bond with our neighbors, the greater our sense of community becomes. While we cannot seem to make friends with the chareidim, we have friends from many cultures and backgrounds. Earlier this week, Chaya had a friend over for a day of studying. All our kids came and went throughout the day and barely noticed them. The fact that this friend is Ethiopian registered more deeply for Goldie and me than for the kids. They simply don’t care.

Our shul is a mishmash of olim (all Ashkenazi) and Israeli-born (mostly Sephardi) families. Yet we try as hard as we can to make everyone feel included and part of the community. The only barriers are language barriers. The other barriers are falling. I think this is great.

The more we can integrate and be viewed as part of the tapestry of Israel, the more we are able to bond with each other and make a contribution. Hundreds of thousands of Russians made aliyah in the most recent wave of immigration (one of them being my nephew’s aforementioned buddy who was killed in action earlier this year), and the country is different because of them. Joining with the thousands of English-speaking olim who have made aliyah, you can help us make Israel better for all of us.

Occasionally, I will use the last paragraphs at the end of my column to wish a mazal tov to friends or relatives here or overseas. This week’s mazal tov is a little closer to home.

When we are at a bar mitzvah or other celebration, Goldie and I often comment to each other how uncomfortable we are when the husband or wife publicly confesses their undying love for their spouse. The proclamations seem a bit much to us and more appropriate for a private conversation. So I want to simply wish a mazal tov to Goldie on our 20th anniversary this Friday. (I might also wish her a yasher koach, since living with me is no picnic.) As for all the rest, she knows what I have to say without my having to spell it out here.

NOTE: The previous two articles are available at the following links:

Spying out the Land: http://aliyahchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/08/spying-out-land-article-87-61908.html

Spying out the Land (again): http://aliyahchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/07/spying-out-land-again-article-117.html

Getting Ready for Another Move (5/27/2010)

2010-05-27T09:39:00.001-04:00

Shavuot is the only chag that I really think is not as deep here in comparison to chutz la’aretz. While I am no fan of having two days of yom tov, on Shavuot it feels as if we have less than a half day of true yom tov. That is, it feels that way for those who stay up for the whole night.

There is a strong school of thought here that people should not really stay up all night. The argument is that we should learn for a couple of hours and then go to sleep for five or six hours, returning to shul for davening. This would allow us to be refreshed and attentive for davening, while at the same time maintaining the practice to study Torah the night of the chag. I have a couple of friends who do this—they say that it adds to the value of their davening, and they are much more comfortable this way.

I was not ready to change, though. With the exception of that strange sense that I missed the chag (because it ended before I had a chance to really experience it), we had a terrific chag. Mordechai (age 9) was my chavruta for the evening. This was his first “all-nighter” and no matter how many of his friends went home, he was determined to stick out the whole night. And he did.

I had joked with him that he would fall asleep during Megillat Rut. I was wrong. He fell asleep waiting for us to start the Megilla. His older sister Batya made it all the way to laining before she too fell asleep in her chair. So at the end of davening I had the treat of waking them up and trying to get them moving toward their actual beds.

Shavuot marks the stretch run to the end of the year here. Not only for the schoolchildren who are looking forward to summer, but also for the thousands of your kids who have been here for a year (or two) of learning in yeshivot and seminaries. It is fascinating to see them rushing from place to place, trying to squeeze every last ounce out of the time that remains for them to stay here.

For the first time since our aliyah, all of our kids will be in Israel for the summer. (Chaya may go for a brief two-week trip before she enters into national service for the year—but that doesn’t count.) Aliza and Batya will be going to Israeli sleep-away camps. (For Batya, this will be her first sleep-away experience.) Mordechai, desperate to go himself, begged us to falsify the registration forms and claim that he is a year older. He argued that he is bigger than most kids a year older than him, so why shouldn’t he go? Sigh

This will be the first Shabbat in a couple of months that all of us will be in the same country. Yet, true to form, we will not all be together. Our shul arranged a weekend in Kiryat Arba/Chevron, and we will be taking the three younger kids with us to participate in the Shabbaton.

I was of two minds in considering whether to go for Shabbat. Although there is a famous psak that states that kohanim can go into the Mearah, I personally refrain from it. There is a difference of opinion, and although I cannot set the standards for others (my father in fact, holds by this psak), on a personal level, I am loathe to err in this matter.

We decided to participate when we discovered that the group is davening by the Mearah only on Friday night, so I would not be missing too much.

The older kids, who will not be joining us, have all spent Shabbat in Chevron already. They have gone with their friends, sleeping in empty school classrooms on Shabbat Parashat Chayei Sarah along with thousands of other Jews. So for them, this is less of an experience. Plus, they get to spend a Shabbat with their friends.

It is also good that we will all be together to help prepare and pack for our forthcoming move. We are still not sure where we are going to end up (we will hopefully clear this up in the next week or two), but we know we have to be out by August. So having Chaim home will certainly be a help.

We are trying to get him registered to drive our car. For the first four years that we own our car (purchased with aliyah tax reduction credits), Goldie and I are the only drivers automatically allowed to drive it. As our kids get their licenses to drive, we have to go to the tax offices and get a special release to add them as drivers to the car. Without this release, they are driving illegally. Not only can they get ticketed, our insurance could refuse payment on claims resulting from a kid driving the car without the release.

Chaim, not being Israeli, adds a new dimension to the situation. He has a New York driver’s license, is not an Israeli, and yet is still our son and should be allowed to drive our family car. We called our insurance agent to find out how to register Chaim, and he told us that we should actually get him an Israeli license first. Apparently, since he is our son and comes to visit several times each year for an extended period of time, it is possible that the authorities could rule that he is obligated to get an Israeli license as a non-citizen.

Getting the license requires that he get an eye test, submit a doctor’s certification that he is healthy enough to drive, take two driving lessons from a licensed instructor, and then pass a driving test. It will take a couple of weeks to do. Once he has his license, we will then register him with the tax authorities as an approved driver of our car.

Conveniently, Israel offers something called youth insurance. In it, you register the car and the driver with the company, and they give you an hourly (or maybe daily) rate. When the driver is going to take the car, you call in and activate the insurance. Once he is finished with it, you call in and deactivate it. Since insurance for teens is so expensive here, this allows us to minimize the cost.

With Chaya getting ready to take the driving test as well (it is a much longer process for her to get her license, with a requirement for nearly 30 private lessons with a driving instructor), this will come in very handy. Hopefully, having a couple of drivers who can run the occasional errand or carpool will be beneficial.

We just hope that the process will be as easy in practice as it was in planning. We confirmed some of it at the Customs Authority this week. We originally went to their office to get a permit to buy a refrigerator with aliyah tax credits. However, even though we were told that we had four years to use the refrigerator purchase rights, it turned out that it is only available for three years. So we will pay a few hundred shekels more than we originally planned to. What can you do?

We are all Jews (5/13/2009)

2010-05-13T09:32:00.001-04:00

One of the most striking changes we faced in coming on aliyah was getting used to the diversity of the people. That is not to say that our American neighborhood was not filled with people from various ethnicities; it was. We were one part of the mosaic of the neighborhood. Yet, as Jews, we had an affinity for other Jews in the area, since we had a common sense of being different. We shared a common bond in that we were Jews, and different from the majority of the country.

In Israel this is not the case. Yes, there are non-Jews here. However, depending on where you live, you might not see a non-Jew for days or weeks at a time. So we are all the same, so to speak. Yet, in many ways our community is still divided by “ethnicity.” There are Anglos, charedim, Sephardim, chilonim, Russians, Ethiopians, and others. And that is just our little corner of Bet Shemesh.

We tend to daven in separate shuls (Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Ethiopian, charedi, etc.) and socialize within our individual group. That is not to say that you cannot find a mix of people, or that we do not socialize across “ethnic” lines. We do. It is just hard to do so. With so many cultural differences, it is often hard to relate to a neighbor who grew up in a radically different culture than the one you grew up in.

Our children will not feel the same sense of separation that we do. Not only will they have much less of a language barrier, but they will have grown up in the “cholent pot” known as their schools.

In our children’s classes, there are children from all sorts of backgrounds. They play and study together. They make friendships and bond, regardless of the color of their skin or the background of their parents. And we love it.

I remember what I thought of Ethiopians when I first came here. They were different, not like me. They might be nice people, but since we were different, I didn’t need to really concern myself with them other than as part of society. I wasn’t thinking of having any friends in their community; they were too different from me. I’ll admit it.

And they are different. They dress differently and behave differently. Yet, this is one of the best lessons I learned in Israel (Gabe Levi, this is for you): A Jew really is just a Jew. Pull back all the layers, and he is still my brother. For an intolerant guy like me, that is a big statement.

We paid lip service to this idea when we first came. It took time and exposure to our neighbors for us to really get it. Yet, once we became more comfortable with ourselves as Israelis and began to really communicate with other people, the sense of commonality was incredibly enhanced.

Unfortunately, economic conditions perpetuate our differences. The Ethiopian community, for instance, is by and large a poor community. They came to Israel with nothing, and others are extremely prejudiced against them. In Bet Shemesh, one of the poorer Ethiopian housing projects is right next door to an Anglo community, with private houses and seeming abundance wherever they turn. This creates a sense of distrust between neighbors and a jealousy that can even turn violent.

I don’t have the answer to these problems and how we can help raise their standard of living. Yet I have an example. I have a friend and neighbor who I absolutely love, who is the epitome of what can be good here in Israel. His name is Amir Avraham.

Amir came to Israel in the 1970s, with the first wave of Ethiopian immigrants. He went to school and excelled. He wanted to be a lawyer, but his father told him that there was plenty of time for law school; first he had to study Torah.

He learned in the Gush and eventually changed his goal. Today, Amir Avraham is a teacher of Torah to children in a yeshiva elementary school. He and his wife Tamar are really outstanding people. We have a few (very few) non-Anglo friends, and they are two of them.

Amir davens in our shul. His sons go to school with mine, and all the children play together outside shul while their parents are inside. My kids are so comfortable with his that the fact that their skin color is different is really immaterial. They just don’t care. What makes Amir so incredible is his background.

His father doesn’t read Hebrew. He couldn’t help him with his homework or study with him, and I am sure at some point it is hard for them to relate. Amir has become part of another world. Yet the respect and honor he clearly shows his father is amazing. He constantly credits his father for putting him on the correct path.

Amir gives of his time to teach within the Ethiopian community. He doesn’t just lead by example. He arranges activities and educational opportunities. His gentle manner and sincerity are a striking contrast to the stereotype against which he is cast.

His son Etiel, a recent bar mitzvah, made a siyum on erev Pesach on all of Mishnah. He did a significant amount of the learning, including many meforshim, on his own. Clearly, the apple did not fall far from the tree.

Goldie and I were privileged to attend Etiel’s bar mitzvah celebration last week. Aside from the standard speeches by the rabbi, the father of the bar mitzvah, and the bar mitzvah boy himself, there was one more speech. Amir introduced the person who first taught him Gemara. He spoke of him with reverence and clear gratitude. It was clear to me that Amir maintains a special place in his heart for the person who introduced him to a new world.

Of course, after the speeches came the dancing. This was something I had been looking forward to for weeks. After all, ethnic Ethiopian dancing!! The first dance surprised me. It was regular music and the standard dancing. I even went over to Amir and said, “I know how to do this; where is the Ethiopian culture for me to experience?” He looked at me and smiled, telling me to be patient.

Eventually, at the end of the dance, they played a single Ethiopian song. It took a while, but the men eventually came to the dance floor and we got a taste of the music and the dance. Interestingly, Goldie told me that as soon as the music changed, the Ethiopian women who were not dancing (at least half of them) all rushed to the dance floor and participated.

After a break, the dancing began again. As you can see in the online video (shmub.mp4 at youtube.com/user/shmukatz) I had an amazing time trying it. In the video, Amir joins in the dancing (he is the shorter guy with the beard). We were so excited to experience some of their background and upbringing, and it was a tremendously fun night for us.

In the past, I have bemoaned the lack of achdut here in Israel. We allow the things that make us different to become so divisive that it becomes difficult to coexist. I am proud that there are still some things to bring us together.

I want to wish all my readers a terrific day of Shavuot together with me in Yerushalayim. I look forward to participating in bringing the korbanot of the chag. It will truly be an honor to share the first chag in our rebuilt Bet HaMikdash together. If this is delayed for some reason, enjoy the chag anyway. And remember, L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim hab’nuyah.

Turned Tables (4/29/2010)

2010-04-29T09:29:00.001-04:00

I promised myself that I wouldn’t do this again. Yet, it is impossible to avoid on a personal level. Living in Israel is incredibly emotional on a regular basis. We experience everything so deeply because it is tied up not only with our daily life, but our religious existence as well.

So I wasn’t going to talk about the teens that harassed my 11-year-old daughter and her friend or the stolen flags or the Yom HaZikaron siren at work. While they were all troubling events that bothered me a lot, I certainly wasn’t going to write about them. It just isn’t worth it.

Each time I do it, I get a bunch of angry e-mails telling me that I am a hateful jerk picking on people who are different than I. Then, a week or so later, I get the angry comments from my neighbors complaining that either i) I have upset their parents/family in the U.S. or ii) I am killing their property values. And I vow to never broach the subject. I make a conscious decision to omit a part of our lives in writing this, a journal of our lives.

However, a recent event changed my mind. It demonstrated to me that we are all victims of our own circumstance and need to do more to extricate ourselves from our prejudices and assumptions. We need to figure out how to make things work in a positive and loving manner because the alternative is not good. And it led me to talk once again about our neighbors in Bet Shemesh.

A few days after Yom HaShoah and before Yom HaZikaron, our daughter Batya was walking home with a friend from their afterschool activity. They were walking down the main street between neighborhoods when about 15 kids from the neighborhood across the street, standing behind a fenced in playground, started shouting at them that it is forbidden to stand in honor of the memorial sirens. While they weren’t threatened at any time, the shouting and yelling followed them all the way down the street and bothered them enough to lead them to tell their parents about it.

A few days later, on Yom HaZikaron, an announcement was made over the PA system at work. It said that at the time of the siren, all workers are to stop working for the duration of the siren.

I was initially puzzled by the announcement. Wasn’t it obvious that people do that? Yet, when I asked, I learned that in the past, there were workers in the building who did not honor the sirens and continued to work during the sirens. This troubled our director so much that he instituted a policy of instructing everyone not to work for that minute.

I just don’t get it. I understand the issues involved. I understand that there are people who are against the existence of the State of Israel. I just don’t understand their lack of appreciation for the people who die on their behalf.

Soldiers die so that they can sit and learn Torah in Eretz Yisrael. Innocents are killed in terror attacks simply because they are Jewish. These are the people we are memorializing and honoring. Simple gratitude means that you should join in as well, regardless of your politics or religious beliefs.

Some will say that these people never asked or wanted a State of Israel nor did they ask for or want the protection and sacrifice of those soldiers. To that I have a simple question. Are you so naïve that you think you would be able to live the life you lead if there was no State of Israel and no Jewish soldiers defending you?

Is it possible that these people think they would be better off living under Arab rule? Do they think they would be allowed to worship freely? Do they think they would not be terrorized, persecuted, harassed, beaten, and killed without restraint? Are they really that simple? If not, then they are obligated to be thankful for the protection and safety being accorded to them no matter who is providing it.

Or, if they really have such deep-seated objections that they cannot find it within themselves to do so, they are definitely welcome to vote with their feet. No one is forcing them to stay here. They are here, as are we, of their own choice and are free to go somewhere where they do not have to live an existence that is objectionable.

It was with this familiar sense of frustration that I heard some upsetting news on the morning of Yom HaAtzmaut. One of my neighbors gleefully called me to tell me that someone had put up a bunch of Magen David signs all over the main street in the charedi area and that I had to go see it for myself.

On my way to a Yom HaAtzmaut event, I was persuaded by my family to go take a look. What I found was not signs. It was spray paint. When my daughter saw it she mentioned that she had seen the group who did it the night before at about 1 a.m. Apparently, a group of teens went singing through the charedi neighborhood at the wee hours of the morning, spray painting the Magen David as a symbol of the Israeli flag all over the neighborhood, on building walls and sidewalks.

Although my initial thought when I heard about “signs” being put up was a sense of satisfaction, I was not pleased once I saw what was actually done. They vandalized the neighborhood, much in the same way that I have (repeatedly) railed against the charedim for vandalizing ours. Spray paint is spray paint and it is not any more “right” just because I agree with the message.

The incident had slipped my mind when I heard something new. There was apparently a confrontation. Either the spray painters happened upon a group of people from the neighborhood or their antics roused them. In either case, the vandals were attacked by pipe wielding young men and hurt, badly. A couple of them are still hospitalized.

When I heard this, I was also told that there is a group organizing to protest and to file a police report against those who hurt them. I was stunned. Here was a group of teens who were involved in vandalism and we are supposed to make them a cause célèbre to the community? I can understand their parents saying, “Hey, they spray painted and you put them in the hospital—the reaction was too strong.” But I don’t think the community can legitimately defend vandals.

And I realized that instead of ignoring the issue, I had a few things to say.

The first is that we were wrong here. If I can accuse the “other side” of wrongdoing, I have to admit guilt. We wronged our neighbors on this one and they have every right to be offended. The same way that we are offended when they spray paint on our property.

Secondly, I am concerned, not for my city, but for my country. The split between charedi and everyone else is getting worse, not better. It hasn’t flared up lately, but I don’t think that makes a difference. Every few days there is a story about a minor incident somewhere. I worry.

I worry about the fact that we cannot seem to get over our hatred toward one another and the feeling of superiority that exists between different segments of the Jewish population. I worry about the fact that the dividing lines are getting too strong to breach. I worry that instead of reaching out to each other to bridge gaps, we are pushing away from each other to make them.

Finally, I have realized that both sides are teaching a horrible lesson to the next generation. When nine-year-old Mordechai comments to Goldie when they are getting out of the car to go to the doctor in a charedi neighborhood, “Eema, take in the flags; we don’t want them stolen again,” I realize that he may have learned the correct practical lesson, but the wrong moral one.

Variations on a Theme (4/22/2010)

2010-04-22T05:58:00.001-04:00

The first article I wrote about making aliyah was about our motivations for moving as well as an explanation of how I had overcome my fears of being in Israel and sending our kids to the army. A close friend had passed away in a senseless accident, and I realized that we do not control when or how our time is up. So I asked myself, “Wouldn’t I rather be in Israel?”

Last Shabbat, Goldie and I hosted one of my coworkers and his family in our house for Shabbat. He was being tried out as a rav for one of the local shuls. They have a son Mordechai’s age, and the two boys really got along well together.

After Shabbat, when it came time for them to leave, Mordechai was distraught. He cried uncontrollably and would not be comforted. Realizing that this may be related to his friend Andrew’s leaving Israel, I tried to distract him by mentioning that we would be having two sirens on Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day).

He asked why we have the sirens, and my answer led into a discussion of the way we celebrate Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, and Yom HaAtzmaut. I explained to him that we want to remember the Shoah and those killed not simply because they were Jews who were killed in a kiddush HaShem, but also because their deaths helped create an environment where the world would help create a Jewish State.

We then spoke about our obligation to honor the memories of all those killed in terrorist attacks and in defense of our country, and how their sacrifice is what enables us all to live in safety. And I added that only once we have honored those who paid for us to reach this point can we celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut.

He confessed (as he has in the past) that he is scared to go into the army. He asked me how we could come to Israel, if doing so could put him in danger. I reassured him that he could choose to not be in a combat unit if he wanted. Then I asked him if he believed that Hashem was in charge of the amount of time we have on this world.

He answered yes. I then asked him if it is possible, by running away to a different place, to get away from Hashem and avoid his decisions. He answered no.

“Okay,” I told him, “I have one more question. We aren’t allowed to put ourselves in danger for no reason, but if it is time for someone to die, do you think it is better to die in America or in a holy land?”

He looked at me for a moment, nodded his head, and went off to bed, his tears forgotten and his worries a bit soothed. My nine-year-old and I had a very serious conversation and a terrific meeting of the minds. I was very proud of his ability to maturely consider what I had told him.

The very next night, we participated in a terrific Yom HaZikaron event in Jerusalem run by the Tuesday Night in Jerusalem show. This is a weekly show that I believe can be seen online via www.israelnationalnews.com and is broadcast on cable and DirecTV. Although it was not Tuesday night, they hosted what promised to be a very meaningful event. It was also all in English, which was a bonus for us.

The event opened with a brief speech and then the memorial sirens. This was followed by a men’s choir performing a version of “Vehi She’amda,” and then the program began. Rabbi Stewart Weiss, whom I had known when I was a counselor at Camp Moshava in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, was introduced as the father of Ari Weiss, z’l, a soldier who was killed in combat. Rabbi Weiss spoke movingly about Ari and the loss their family felt, but I was astonished by the following story he told.

They were sitting shiva when a woman came to visit them. She was no one they knew, and it was the only time they ever met her. She told them that she had lived her entire life in Israel until her son turned 16. At that time, she and her husband decided to leave Israel for fear of having their son go to the army.

They moved to California and lived there quite happily. Their son reached the age of driving. With his driver’s license came a car (as with all his friends) and that is when tragedy struck. Her son was killed in a car crash.

“I am jealous of you,” she told Rabbi Weiss, “because my son died a meaningless death in California, while your son died defending our land and people with a kiddush Hashem.”

I was astonished to hear the very words and concepts that I had been trying to share with Mordechai repeated. And proud that I was not the only person with that thought.

There was much more to the evening. We heard from Doron Almog, a retired Major General who has fought in many wars and was the first Israeli soldier to leave a plane in the Entebbe rescue mission. He had lost a brother in combat and had the option to leave combat himself, and he described his commitment to fighting for Israel to us.

The evening closed with another performance by the men’s choir. They first sang our national anthem, Hatikva, in which the audience joined them in song. Then to conclude the show they sang an Israeli song called “Al Kol Eileh.”

This song speaks of many things and their contrasts. You may be familiar with an English version of this song, but it is not a literal translation and loses a lot of the meaning. It is a song beseeching Hashem to watch over and protect us no matter what, and a prayer for us to always return to our good land.

The choir’s soloist opened the song, his voice sounding clear and strong throughout the theater. When it came to the chorus, the rest of the choir as well as the entire crowd joined in. It was a very powerful expression, one in which we all felt linked by the beautiful words of the song.

Each stanza continued thus, with the soloist singing the words alone and all of us joining in for the chorus. The song and the event closed with the entire crowd singing the chorus in Hebrew:

Over all these things, over all these things,

Hashem the good, please protect,

Over the honey and over the thorn,

Over the bitter and over the sweet.

Do not uproot that which has been planted.

Do not forget the hope.

Bring me back and I shall return

To the good land.

For olim, this sentiment and longing to come home to Israel has great meaning. And I leave you this week with this question: What are you waiting for?

Pesach 5770 (4/15/2010)

2010-04-15T05:48:00.002-04:00

I approach yom tov each year with a sense of anticipation, tinged with concern. I love the chaggim, especially since we made aliyah. I love the fact that we are forced to spend time together as a family and that we have an excuse to interact in positive ways in preparing for each chag. It might be building a sukkah, preparing for the Seder, or even making a cheesecake—whatever the activity, it all adds to the yom tov aura.

Pesach, with all its various preparations, really takes the anticipation to another level. There are so many different ways to make the holiday meaningful. I used to think that we had a specific formula for how to approach Pesach and that it was important to perform everything the same way each year. Israel has changed that, as well. While we cling to certain family traditions, we have made our own traditions, interjecting a bit of the culture in which we now live into our lives.

With only six yom tov meals to prepare, Goldie has also relaxed in her approach. We have a shopping routine (going to CheaperKol in Kanfei Nesharim to buy the American products before rosh chodesh in order to avoid the huge crowds), a cleaning routine, and even a cooking routine. Goldie is incredibly organized, so we switched the kitchen nine days before Pesach to allow her time to cook without being pressured.

As I mentioned last week, we kicked off the Pesach season as a family by visiting an army base near Arad. It really was awesome. The soldiers are so appreciative of everything we do, when really it should be the other way around. I tried to take the time to chat with as many of them as I could. At one point, one of them turned to me and said, “Hey, wait a second—didn’t we sit together on my flight to Israel in November?”

He was right. We did. I remembered him. It was so incredible to be a part of their lives, if only for a minute. Especially because of the incredible warmth and love they showed to my kids. My kids love soldiers. They are of course fascinated by all the equipment (I watched Mordechai peer through a night scope, and it scared me). Yet they are also fascinated by the people. They look up to them and feel pride that they can interact with them.

I also like the fact that the more they interact with them, the more the kids realize that they are regular people, no different from them. They have important responsibilities, but they are still normal people and they laugh and cry just like the rest of us. When we got to eat in the mess hall and the food was noodles, I thought Moshe was going to pass out in wonder: “I like spaghetti!”

We had a babysitter of sorts, Ariella Gluckstadt, one of the “camp mothers” who is assigned (I hope I get this right) to be a “mommy” to the soldiers under her care as they go through training. I am not sure, but I think this is something they do only for the “lone soldiers” who have come on aliyah without any other family and have no one to turn to when they are down or alone. She was terrific.

She engaged the kids and showed them whatever they wanted to see. She kept us company and introduced soldiers to the kids and really made friends with them. I am sure that she was chosen for her job by virtue of her great personality and friendliness. Which goes to show you that sometimes even the Israeli army can actually be smart. (A special shout-out to her uncle, Sandy Herskowitz. You have a terrific niece!)

The next day we went matzah-baking—another totally awesome activity. We came with mostly family members, with a couple of neighbor teens joining in. We were in the bakery for over three hours and went home with plenty of matzot. I can confidently say that there is nothing quite as exciting as making a brachah and eating the matzot you made for the Seder and all of yom tov. It was doubly special because we were able to get a time slot when Chaim could join us, having arrived the night before.

The Seder was nice. My brother Ely and his family joined us from Chashmonaim. The kids had a terrific time and we added a new wrinkle this year—a Ten Plagues kit. I try to personally engage the kids in telling the story of the Seder. I saw an ad this year on the Bet Shemesh e-mail list offering something I thought was unique.

The kit came with stuffed animals representing a lot of the plagues, as well as a glove with boils on it and other visual representations of the various plagues. It was a nice way to elicit discussion and excitement from the kids just when their interest was beginning to wane.

Chol ha’moed was nice. We spent a lot of time with the kids, highlighted by a trip to raft on the Jordan River. Goldie and I had done the exact same trip a couple of summers ago. I remember commenting on how low the water levels were at the time and expressing concern about the water situation. I think it may even have been the beginning of my obsession with the water levels here.

In any case, I remarked to the workers at the rafting place that the water seemed much higher this year. They laughed at me. I couldn’t understand why, as I remembered the water being much lower. They agreed that it had been lower, but added that this level, while an improvement, is nothing like what it should be.

We also went to the Ben & Jerry’s retail outlet in Modiin. That was really cool. They had a nice big sign on the wall stating that everything for sale was Kosher for Pesach and kitniyot free. They had a limited selection, but the flavor I was amused to see was the “matzalate” or something like that. Chunks of fried matzah in the ice cream. That’s something you don’t see in America.

Unfortunately, we did not get to eat the Korban Pesach this year; hopefully we will next year.

After Pesach ended, we did something we had never done before—placed an order for gas masks. Apparently, the government does not want to get caught having to mass distribute them in case of a war. So they give them out. Every few years they all expire, so you need to turn them in and then get a new one. Since we had never gotten them, when they issued the statement that they could be replaced, Goldie called and made an appointment to get them.

Rather than picking them up ourselves, we paid $6 for home delivery, which is pretty good. So now we have seven boxes of sealed gas masks in the house, which we hope to never use. I was concerned about it initially, but this is just another facet of who we are. Not that we need another reminder.

Of course, the reminders continue through the next couple of weeks. Yom HaShoah was earlier this week and Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzma’ut will be next week, so we will have plenty of reminders of who we are and how we got here. I only hope that no one steals the flags from my car this year.

Kinneret update. I am continually amazed by how good the rainfall was this year. There was much more snow than I thought, and the runoff of water from the melting snow has really impacted the water levels. Without any rainfall, and in a time of hot temperatures, the Kinneret level jumped some more. Since my last update (the week before Pesach) the Kinneret has risen 10 cm, to –212.66, but looks to have finally peaked. We need another few years like this, but we are much better off than we thought we would be. Baruch Hashem.

May He Bless the Soldiers (4/9/2010)

2010-04-09T05:44:00.001-04:00

On the Wednesday before Pesach, I took four of our kids to present gifts to 140 chayalim bodedim (immigrant soldiers who have no family in Israel) serving in basic training for combat. My regular readers know that this type of activity is a special thrill for my family.

Our shul had even participated by having the children draw pictures for the soldiers, complete with messages of support. For families of olim like ours, whose head of the household was already too old to serve in the military when they made aliyah and will have no true sense of what is involved, this is the only way to participate in helping the troops. We have never stood a post or manned a checkpoint. We can only imagine the hardships these young men and women face. So we try to make things a bit nicer for them and help ease their day-to-day lives.

Unbeknownst to me, the commander of the base decided to make a formal ceremony out of the presentation. They put out some light refreshments (for soldiers who had just trained in the field for four days, this was a special treat) and then assembled everyone for a formal presentation. The commander said some nice things to the troops and then asked me to say a few words.

I told the soldiers how proud of them we were and that our presence (and presents) were not something we needed thanks for but were rather an expression of our thanks to them. I told them how we are only giving from our money, which pales in comparison to what they bring to the table. I thanked them for their dedication and commitment to our country and in putting themselves and their lives (literally) on the line for our safety.

We greeted each soldier personally and even shared dinner with them in the mess hall (my kids loved it). It was inspiring and humbling to be a part of making their lives more comfortable and pleasant.

As we were still flying from that high, I got a call from my sister on motzaei Shabbat. She asked how we were and then told us that she had a terrible Shabbat with my oldest nephew, Yonatan.

For those of you who don’t know, my nephew Yonatan is in the final months of his service in a combat unit. I have shared a couple of stories of his in this column such as his draft day and the time he got a care package from a stranger in the USA. He has seen action in Gaza, identified and detained a terrorist carrying a bomb at a checkpoint in the West Bank, and carries our pride with him wherever he goes.

For my sister and brother-in-law, it has been a draining few years. They share in his fierce pride at all his accomplishments and are overwhelmed by his determination to do his best for the country. Yet, they are also gravely concerned about his safety, knowing all too well the risks that he faces and the possibility—shared by all families with children in the military—that he could be injured (or worse) in action.

My nephew had been taking a special course over the past few weeks. I am not sure what he needed to learn. I think it was some kind of new equipment that he needed to operate. So, for a few short weeks, he was off the front lines and spending weekends at home with his family.

On Friday, erev Shabbat HaGadol, he was at home (having completed the training course). He was due to rejoin his unit on Sunday. They were about to come off the line themselves, having almost completed a rotation in Gaza. One of his buddies from his platoon had even posted a note on his Facebook page saying, “LAST SHABBAT IN GAZA!”

That soldier never made it to Shabbat.

That afternoon, in an exchange of fire with terrorists at the border, two soldiers were killed in action with a third severely wounded. Maj. Eliraz Peretz, one of the two dead soldiers, was the commander of their regiment, a man whose brother Uriel had been killed in Lebanon a decade earlier. At his funeral, his distraught mother wondered what she was supposed to do on Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers); which son should she visit first? Which life, tragically cut short in service to his country, should she honor above the other? What a horrific concern for a mother. Especially since two other sons continue to serve.

The other fatality was my nephew Yonatan’s platoon-mate, Ilan Sviatkovsky, an immigrant from Uzbekistan—one of eleven buddies he had done almost his entire military service with. Yonatan is devastated.

He rushed to join the platoon immediately before Shabbat. He helped bury his friend. The senselessness is overwhelming. Why should a 21-year-old have to face such heavy issues?

He helped bury his friend. At 21.

Hearing this, I thought back to the young soldiers I had met a few days earlier. I cannot imagine how stressful it must be for them to hear of soldiers, such as themselves, being killed in action. Yet here they are, 6,000 miles or more away from their families, ready to jump in at a moment’s notice. They are training to defend us to the death. And they do.

I don’t know what it means, and I don’t know when it will end. The only thing I do know is how proud we are of them and how important our soldiers and our country are to us.

I had intended to write a column about our terrific Pesach and chol ha’moed. It isn’t within me to do so. Instead I ask that you take a moment to honor the memories of Maj. Eliraz Peretz and Ilan Sviatkovsky, yehei zichram baruch. Mourn for their loss. Feel for a mother who has lost a second son and for her daughter-in-law and the four grandchildren (one of whom is a 2-month-old infant) whose husband and father will never again walk through their front door.

Grieve for an immigrant family who has lost a son and brother in defense of their adopted homeland. Share the pain of 11 young men who have lost a brother-in-arms. They almost made it to the finish line when they lost one of their own. Yet they go on, knowing that his sacrifice and their loss is what makes us who we are.

The Pre-Pesach Frenzy (3/25/2010)

2010-03-25T05:37:00.002-04:00

The next time you complain about the kids underfoot for a couple of days during your Pesach prep, remember what I am about to tell you. Our children, including the youngest preschoolers, all had off from school since last Friday—11 days before the chag (In Israel, they are in school from Sunday through Friday). That means we had to entertain them for a week and a half in addition to preparing for Pesach, working at our jobs, and doing whatever else we might need to take care of.

In order to get them out from underfoot and keep them busy, many families will send their kids to Pre-Pesach camps. That’s right, camps. Enterprising teens and owners of private preschools spend the weeks leading up to Pesach distributing flyers and posting e-mail notices about their “amazing,” “best,” “superfun” and every other adjective you can name, camp.

Parents, in a frenzy of calculation, spend time analyzing the most important factor to them: which camp will keep my kid occupied for the longest amount of time. Sometimes a trade-off is made. For instance, Moshe has a private basement preschool that he goes to on early dismissal days and school vacations. He has been in the same preschool since we arrived in Israel. He loves the teacher and is incredibly comfortable there. Although we might have been able to find another program for him that would be longer, he stayed with Etti because it is simply easier for us.

This is an exciting time here in Israel. There is a frenzy of activity as the country gears up for the chag. Relatives (not just yours, but your neighbor’s as well) whom you may not have seen in a while, arrive from distant shores. Cleaning, cooking...the whole process is something that everyone is involved with.

In our office, the secretaries made a rotation that allowed them to work longer individual days, but still be home on other days in order to get their houses cleaned and readied. The local e-mail lists are full of “where can I get” questions and “what can I do” questions, and the spirit of yom tov is definitely in the air.

Interestingly, Pesach is the only chag in which the differences between Israel and Chutz La’aretz are minimized. OK, so we only have one Seder (which is huge) and we have more chol hamoed. But Pesach has always been, at least to me, a tremendously exciting family experience. A time when we really get together and spend time together maintaining family traditions.

Yes, we eat meals on every chag. I know the old adage that describes 90% of Jewish holidays as “they wanted to kill us, G-d saved us, let’s eat!” Yet, on Pesach, food is so central to the holiday that the seder and the meals take on much more meaning and are associated with much more emotional impact in my memory.

Of course, we also have some complications that you don’t. The kitniyot/non-kitniyot ingredients issue is a real pain. Well, actually, that is really the only advantage you have.

Another annoying thing is the clock change. Yes, you also changed the clocks already. But you would think that a country of Jews would get the concept of delaying the change until after the Seder so that we could start (and finish) an hour earlier. We get it right in the fall, switching to the early clock the week before Yom Kippur. I am sure that the real reason we lose out on Pesach is that it was made as a trade-off for Yom Kippur.

On the flip side, I was able to convince the rabbi to start davening at 9:00 a.m. on the first day of Pesach. It may not seem so late. But we are one of the latest minyanim in the area on Shabbat at 8:30, so this was a big jump. As a matter of fact, last Shabbat we started at 8:00 a.m. in order to get to Shema on time. We are very particular to make sure that there is enough time to make Shema and adjust davening time for 10-15 weeks of the year because of it.

Each chag, I try to remember to write a personal wish to my readers. I generally try to remind you that as a Kohein, I look forward to bringing your yom tov korbanot at the rebuilt Bet Hamikdash on the upcoming chag. This Pesach, I will do the same, but Machon HaMikdash: The Temple Institute has done me one better. They are offering reservations for a portion of a Korban Pesach.

As you know (or may not), on erev Pesach we will sacrifice the Korban Pesach in the rebuilt Bet HaMikdash (assuming Mashiach arrives) and the people of Machon HaMikdash dedicate their work and lives to preparing for the Bayit Shlishi. They want us to show our belief that the redemption is coming by reserving a share in a Korban Pesach. As far as I understand, they aren’t buying any animals, just making a commitment to you that the animal will be available when you need it. Kind of an “avoid the erev Pesach rush—make sure you are covered and reserve now” message.

Before you send me an e-mail or a letter to the editor telling me that this is kefirah or something of the sort, I want to state clearly that I am not advocating that people sign up for this. I did not personally make a reservation. I believe that Hashem will take care of all our needs when the time comes, or at least make it possible for us to obtain the necessary supplies. If he could miraculously make sure that there was room for all those who came to Yerushalayim for the chaggim in historical times, he can make sure that we all have an animal for Pesach.

But I do think the concept of anticipating the redemption is something that we lack and could use more of. Perhaps aliyah would be another way of expressing this feeling.

So I wish you and your families a terrific Pesach. When you come to the Bet HaMikdash to have your Korban Pesach slaughtered, if I am on duty, I would be thrilled to help you in this avodah. On the off chance that there is still no Bet HaMikdash by the time that Pesach arrives, let me wish you a wonderful chag and my brachot for l’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim habenuyah!

I wish a mazal tov to our publisher, Larry Gordon, upon the launching of his latest venture, the South Florida Jewish Times. Although it is not as impressive as say, the Bet Shemesh Jewish Times, it is a great step in providing news, community information, and items of general interest to a wonderful part of the country (plus, my snowbird relatives can shep a little nachas each week while they are in their Florida houses). I view Larry as a visionary with an unerring sense of what the community wants to know and learn about. I wish Larry and his family and the 5TJT/SFJT families continued success.

Kinneret Update: This will be one of my final updates of the season. I may do a rain season recap after Pesach, just to summarize how we did this year. This week, the Kinneret was down 4 cm, to –212.76, and looks to be at or near the high point of the year. With the arrival of the spring, the temps will warm up and the rains will stop falling. We will probably begin to see drops in the water levels over Pesach.

Saying Goodbye (3/18/2010)

2010-03-18T05:32:00.002-04:00

I just put Mordechai to bed; he was having trouble settling in. He spent the better part of an hour either near or in tears, and for a nine-year-old boy that is very tough. One of our neighbors, a family that has lived across the street from us for over two years, is moving to America tonight. Their son has been Mordechai’s friend from the day they moved in.

Although he certainly has older and closer friends, this has been a tough day for him. He was too young to understand what goodbye meant when we made aliyah. The permanence of not seeing his friends again was way beyond his comprehension. Yet now, having lived through it once, he clearly knows what it means for his friend to be leaving.

They said goodbye to each other earlier tonight, before I got home from work. Mordechai was upset and asked Goldie if he could wait up for me. From the minute I stepped in the door he latched on to me, and the questions began. Will Mordechai be able to go to his bar mitzvah? When can he visit? Why does he have to go?

I hadn’t thought that it would be so traumatic for him. After all, he has many friends on the block and always seems to be busy with several of them at the same time. He is constantly running from friend to friend, and it isn’t as if he is going to be lonely without this boy.

Now I am thinking something different. I am wondering if perhaps his anxiety and angst are not the result of losing this one friend, but actually are a reflection of the loss he had when we moved here. While he didn’t understand what saying goodbye meant before we left, as the days turned into weeks, months, and years, he learned the meaning. Getting past this separation might be the catalyst for releasing the pent-up frustration and sadness that the little five-year-old who came on aliyah couldn’t express when his friends disappeared.

Every once in a while we go through something like this. Something that reminds us of how deep our emotions are and how far we have come from where we started. We are reminded of the naiveté that we had when we first embarked on our journey of aliyah. We are reminded of how difficult this journey has been, and how much even the happiest one of us had to give up in making this move.

Mordechai is such a great success, in terms of aliyah. The kids all are (thank G-d). He prefers to read in Hebrew over English, and he is incredibly acclimated to being one of 31 boys in his class. He goes to his clubs and youth groups, he plays ball with his buddies (in Hebrew); he is just like every other one of his friends. Yet, he is probably the only one to cry this week because his friend is moving to the U.S.A. He is one of the only ones who remembers what it was like to lose his friends the first time and desperately wants to avoid a repeat.

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With a guest columnist two weeks ago and a week off, this is my first article since Purim. I am a bit of a rain fanatic, so I really can’t complain, but it rained here for a big chunk of Purim day. And the night before and the day after, and the whole week, for that matter. Rain is more important to us as a nation than having dry kids on Purim, so in principle I was very pleased to be blessed with rain. But I have to admit, it was a big bummer for the kids.

It rained the Friday before Purim when they went to school in their costumes. It rained most of the day while they were delivering their mishloach manot. (Another aliyah moment: the first draft of this had “shalach manot” the American way. Chaya read it and said, “Abba, you wrote it wrong; it’s “mishloach manot.”) It rained that night and the next morning, Shushan Purim. It rained and rained and rained. With Purim in Israel being such a kid-focused holiday (as a family, aside from the two mishloach manot baskets we gave as part of two different shuls’ group projects, we gave something like six mishloach manot to friends not on the shul lists; our kids gave something like 150 to their friends), the rain was . . . inconvenient.

Especially when it poured. The amount of rain that fell on Purim morning and afternoon was astounding. The kids were drenched. Rivers were flowing in the streets. I could not believe it. The most frustrating part was that it ended about ten minutes after we delivered the last package and only restarted as we headed out for the seudah, about two hours later.

For the seudah, we decided to treat the kids to an evening in Yerushalayim in order to see the Shushan Purim celebrations throughout the city and at the Kotel. We made reservations at a restaurant and were very excited about the plan. We had no idea we would be in the middle of more and more rain. So the plan was kinda washed out, but we still had a nice family meal together (sans Chaim) and enjoyed ourselves.

On Shushan Purim, I went to work in Yerushalayim and wore my Fred Flintstone costume. It is a terrific costume. I had to meet someone in town, and I got lots of positive feedback as I made my way through town. After the rains, Yerushalayim was quite cold; I should have worn warmer stuff. But there is nothing like being in the middle of Yerushalayim in costume on Shushan Purim. Everyone is enjoying, and you are just another reveler.

Kinneret Update: It has been three weeks since my last water update, and the news is good. The Kinneret stands at -212.80, a gain of 34 cm. (somewhere in the area of a foot) in that time. We went above the Lower Red Line a couple of days after Purim (for the first time since 2008) and despite the tremendous heat wave of the past week (with sand storms and the whole works), the level continues to rise due to the runoff of the melting snow from the mountains and hills in Northern Israel.

Our prayers were answered positively. This year’s rainfall has been above average. In fact, at almost 1.6 meters added to the Kinneret, it is the highest rise in the Kinneret in five years. Hopefully we will continue the water conservation of last summer. That conservation combined with new desalinated water sources having come online this winter should translate into a net gain of water in the Kinneret over a 12-month period from last fall to next fall.

Yet, we are still way short of what we need. Even if we gain another 10-20 cm. in the Kinneret, we are guaranteed to fall below the Lower Red Line sometime early in the summer. That means that the percentage levels of contaminants in the water are really too high. In order to be in a safe area, we really need to be at least 2-3 meters higher than current levels.

Hopefully, the coming years will continue to see at least average or above average rainfalls. The first of the desalination plants will be at full capacity later this year, which will add new water resources to the system. In 2012, more plants are expected to be added, as well. Once all the desalination plants are up and working, we can further reduce our drain of Kinneret waters and allow the lake to recover naturally. Once this is done, we can monitor our use and continue to use desalinated water as needed (it is more expensive than natural water) to ensure that we do not reach crisis levels again in the future. Let it rain, rain, rain—if only for a couple more weeks!

Soccer Mom Turns Soldier's Mom (3/4/2010)

2010-03-04T05:21:00.003-05:00

A couple of months ago, Chani (Pearlman) Schwartz, one of our good friends and neighbors, approached me with an idea for a column. Having had a tremendous experience when making aliyah with her parents, she was pained to see how some of her friends and their extended families struggled to deal with aliyah. I invited Chani to guest-write my column that week, and I was glad to share another person’s words and opinions with you. (Having a week off was an added bonus.)

At the time, I felt very positive about the experiment and resolved to continue inviting guest columnists with a Five Towns connection to share this space.

Sima (Fogel) Menora grew up in Far Rockaway. Her brothers lived a few blocks away from us, (one in Far Rockaway when we lived there, and one in Woodmere when we moved there) and some of her nieces went to school with our girls. Her son Yehuda was part of a group of teens who welcomed our Chaim with open arms and made his adjustment to Israel a positive experience.

In the “shameless plug” department, she sells real estate in Yerushalayim. If you will be in Israel for a vacation or simcha, feel free to look her up.

Sima came on aliyah at an earlier stage of life than Goldie and I did, so she has a much more experienced outlook than I normally reflect. I thought you might enjoy hearing a slice of her life as a contrast . . .

Sunday morning. In my mind’s eye, I see the first line of the article: Former perennially frenzied soccer mom seen dropping two soldier sons at six-o’clock bus to Be’er Sheva. I try convincing myself that I appear similar to the other Israeli moms, but let’s be honest—what’s a Far Rock girl doing at the Sunday morning soldier drop-off?

OK, some background first. Fifteen years ago, we were enjoying a summer month in Israel, breathing in the holy air, being parched by the lovely heat. With the family business undergoing change, a window of opportunity opened—we had a chance to make aliyah. What do you do when a goal you originally thought would take a lifetime to accomplish suddenly appears in your reach? Well, if you’re spontaneous, you grab it; and if you’re lucky, it actually works! And we were both spontaneous and lucky.

I had always assumed I’d spend my pre-aliyah year in the aisles of Costco—how can I make aliyah without six cases of Bumble Bee solid white? But we grabbed the opportunity and—call it G-dly intervention or just dumb luck (I prefer the former)—we sailed through our aliyah. Sold the house and two cars in less than a week and had Strand movers pack up our boxes and send them forth. Signed my six-year-old up for 1st grade with nary a word of Hebrew in his vocabulary. And here we were in The Promised Land.

Our first year in a furnished rental in Jerusalem turned into four, what with two new babies accompanied by pregnancies that had me more often than not on bed-rest. Eventually we built our home—our bayit ne’eman—in Bet Shemesh. The years passed. The kids grew. With my youngest searching for the right high school, I decided to take some time from my home jewelry-making business and go to work in the big city—selling penthouses in Jerusalem.

Somehow I thought just making aliyah was the great equalizer. I waited on the requisite lines for nursery school, at the bank, and to get identity cards for the whole family. I was sure that that earned us our citizenship. How about when I sat through the seemingly endless three-hour Chanukah parties in my kids’ nursery school? At one Chanukah party, a small fire broke out (Israelis tend to be a bit blasé about the whole kids-n-candles thing) and the teacher proceeded to extinguish the fire with a paper napkin. Sitting there with the other moms, I thought to myself, “Now I’m Israeli.” Rainy winters, hot summers, scraped knees. Hikes through water in the south, rappelling in the north, skiing down the Hermon—surely we were regular sabras!

Well, on this early Sunday morning my older boys search for rubber bands. (The rubber bands are a soldier’s necessity—they keep the pant leg tucked neatly into the army boot; if the boys are caught without the bands, they lose an hour from their precious bimonthly 48-hour Shabbat break). I join the search, but all I really see are a six-year-old and a nine-year-old on their frantic Sunday-morning search for kippah clips.

At the bus stop, I wave goodbye to the boys but wait an extra moment before returning home. I’m doing what moms all over the world are doing, raising kids and going to work, while my boys are doing G-d’s work of protecting this country. But still, as a tiny tear threatens to seep out of my eye, I hear myself whisper, “Now I’m Israeli.”

Sima Fogel Menora, formally of Far Rockaway and Chicago, now resides in Bet Shemesh. Currently employed at Habitat Real Estate in Wolfson towers, Sima finds the best deals in vacation apartments and homes, including sales, long-term and short-term rentals, new projects, and retirement homes. Contact her at sima@habitatrealestate.co.il

Blooming Israel (2/25/2010)

2010-02-25T05:18:00.001-05:00

Within the first month of beginning this series, Goldie and I (and Moshe) came to Israel on a pilot trip to check out places to live, interview for jobs, and generally check things out. I remember the articles I wrote about the trip, including the fact that I had suffered terribly from allergies while on that trip.

Israel in the spring is not a place for people with allergies. Everything is in full bloom, and the countryside is a sea of green with patches of colorful flowers all over. It really is quite beautiful and overwhelming when you pause for a moment to take in the surroundings.

When the commute to work is one of lush scenery and the amazing vistas of the hills of Yerushalayim, one cannot help but enjoy the trip. I understand the Israeli wanderlust that leads us to the hiking trails on a regular basis. Who wouldn’t want the joy of an unexpected “postcard-perfect” view from the top of some mountain?

Last Shabbat morning, I walked outside of shul for a minute and was overwhelmed by the beauty and serenity of the day. All was quiet and I could hear the birds singing and feel the warmth of the sun as it shone upon my face. In that moment, I felt transported to my youth as a camper in Moshava in Wisconsin, where I enjoyed waking early to experience that same sense of contentment with the world around me (if only for a few moments).

Those of you who are planning to be here for Pesach are in for a real treat. As I have been commenting upon the last few weeks, this year’s rainfall began nicely and continues to provide much-needed water to our ecosystem. You will definitely see wonderful, flowery scenery while here.

While this has certainly been evident in the rising level of the Kinneret as well as the various aquifers, the result on Israeli flora is incredible. The trees and grasses are all a thick lush green, flowers are blooming all over, and there is just a simple feeling of overwhelming vitality around us.

This lushness is an interesting contrast to the snowbound tundra that I “enjoyed” while I was in the U.S. last week. When you travel 6,000 miles, the last thing you want to experience is lost days of work because of a snowstorm. Yuch.

On the flight home, I sat with a father and his 12-year-old son, who were clearly chassidim from Brooklyn. We had a nice chat and the father mentioned to me that he was going to visit his father’s kever on his 30th yahrzeit. We often see people who come to Israel for such reasons, and this did not surprise me.

At the end of the flight, the father was telling me about the arrangements for the trip. He told me that he had actually been born in Israel and lived there while he was a young boy. Tragically, his father had been killed in a terrorist attack on a bus, and he had moved to the U.S. when his mother remarried.

He then told me something amazing: this trip was being financed by the Israeli government. Although he had only found this out in the last few months, the government has a policy to pay for the airfare and seven days of hotel stay for any child of a terror victim who wants to be in Israel for the yahrzeit of a parent. I had personally never heard of this policy and was both astounded and heartened when he told me about it.

Think about the commitment that reflects. Any child, every yahrzeit, year after year, plus a week’s accommodations in a hotel. The more I think about it, the more I like it; it shows an incredible level of compassion, support, and commitment to the memory of the victims and to the well-being of their families.

As we approach another holiday here, I am looking forward to a new experience. In the past, I had to spend time shuttling back and forth between the yeshiva and my home in dealing with my family and my job and the demands of Purim. This year, I will be able to spend the entire day of Purim with my family and then be in Yerushalayim on Shushan Purim for work—without responsibilities to constantly run back and forth.

I look forward to increased time with my kids, as we visit various checkpoints to bring mishloach manot to soldiers, a project that we undertake as a family each year. We pack up to 50 extra mishloach manot packages for the soldiers, but are often unable to deliver all of them. This year will be different.

I wish all the 5TJT readers a terrific Purim with their families. May we celebrate it together in a rebuilt Yerushalayim. Alternatively, on the off chance we are still in galut, I hope that the merit of all the mitzvot performed on this year’s Purim will enable us all to merit the redemption and celebrate each day in the rebuilt Bet Hamikdash.

Kinneret Update: The Kinneret is currently at –213.14, a rise of 14 cm since the last update (two weeks ago). We are 186 cm above the Black Line (and are almost guaranteed that we will not hit it in summer–fall 2010), only 14 cm short of the Lower Red Line, and 414 cm short of the Upper Red Line. Rain is expected in the North from Thursday straight through Purim (bummer for the kids—awesome for the water). Let it rain, rain, rain!

Economics of Scale (2/11/2010)

2010-02-11T03:33:00.001-05:00

I was listening to the radio on the way to work one day this week and was once again struck by how tiny our country is. The topic being discussed was wasteful spending by Knesset members. Apparently it was “discovered” that Knesset members habitually fly in business class on all flights, even short flights to Europe.

I am not sure who raised the issue to the public, but one report claimed that if they flew coach instead of business for shorter flights, the savings could be up to 400,000 shekels. Mentally doing the math, I realized that this is currently something in the neighborhood of $110,000.

While I realize that every last penny counts, which was something the commentators spoke about, the amounts made me wonder. Was it possible that the difference in cost was so small? I was prepared to hear half a million dollars at least—how could it be such a low amount?

I realized that a comparison to the U.S. government was unfair. Even a comparison to the State of New York would be unfair. To really understand things, we would need to find an area with fewer people and less land.

So I imagined a city—perhaps New York or L.A. We are talking about several million people and a bunch of government workers. Then I thought, “What if New York City had a similar report, that the city would save 100 grand on flights of four hours or less—would that be newsworthy?” I think it probably would.

Then I thought about one of those cities having to maintain a high-tech modern military. It is always a bit staggering to realize that a lot of the differences in culture and approach arise from the fact that the “worlds” really are so vastly different.

Those of you who are regular readers are wondering, “He was listening to the radio in Hebrew?” I know! I was also amazed.

I was flipping through the stations and there was no music to listen to. I stopped at one of the talk stations to hear the traffic report and didn’t bother to switch the station when the chatter came on. I figured that I would listen for as long as I got the gist of what was being discussed.

I almost switched it in the first minute. I understood that they were talking about something that a Knesset member had spoken about, and that they thought he was a hypocrite. Apparently, he himself had done whatever it was they were talking about only a few weeks earlier.

I kept listening to the discussion and the same few words kept coming up, words that I didn’t understand and were clearly central to the story. It was so frustrating. I understood almost everything, but without the one or two key words, I had no clue what was going on.

Unexpectedly, the announcer said two words in English—“Business Class”—and it was like he suddenly illuminated the whole story. I instantly connected all the dots and followed the entire discussion.

After a break, they moved to another story. It had something to do with Iran and a concern about their percentages. In Israel, the word for “percentages” is often used when discussing interest or penalty fees. So I was racking my brains trying to figure out why in the world Iran’s interest rates or financial system was of any concern to us. They brought some professor on the air—and, amazingly, they asked him the very same question!

In the middle of his answer, he used the word “plutonium,” and I immediately understood two things. First, they were talking about Iran’s nuclear-weapons capabilities, which is a major concern. Second, the discussion was too difficult for me to follow, and I switched stations.

For the second time in three weeks, the bulk of this column was written on a U.S.-bound flight. Puah’s annual dinner will be on Tuesday evening, February 16, at the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center in Brooklyn. I invite all my readers to please join us there and learn about some of what I have written about. It is an amazing organization that literally helps in the birth of over 1,500 babies each year worldwide.

As I sat down on the plane (window seat with no one seated in the middle seat), I commented to the woman sitting on the aisle about being lucky that no one was going to be in the middle seat. In the course of a two-minute conversation, I mentioned that I live in Bet Shemesh.

We both turned to settling in for the flight. After a minute or so, out of nowhere, she turned to me and asked, “Are you the guy who has been writing all the articles in the paper?”

I couldn’t believe it! We had spoken for no more than two minutes, I hadn’t even told her my name, yet she somehow knew who I was. She recognized me from pictures in the paper and made the connection when I said that I live in Bet Shemesh.

Of course, I am always tired and ready for sleep when I get to the plane, and my brain was not working right, so I forgot to get her name. I like to include names in these stories not just to add a little bit of a more personal connection, but also to give all the friends and relatives of the person something to kibbitz with them about in shul.

So to the lady in 47H, who works at Manhattan Day School, has two of three children living in Israel, whose husband (Shlomo) is Israeli and works in computers (I think), I am in awe of your ability to correctly identify me.

Kinneret update: The rains continued to fall last week, and we added 8.5 cm to the Kinneret for the week. The current level is –213.28, which is 172 cm above the Black Line, 28 cm below the Lower Red Line, and 428 cm below the Upper Red Line. Although it was cold and rainy in recent weeks, the current forecast calls for very little rain, and a heat wave, with temps passing 90 for two of the days. We are still in the rainy season, though, and we need more. Let it rain, rain, rain!

Misconceptions (2/4/2010)

2010-02-04T03:28:00.002-05:00

Last week, I was privileged to participate in the shalom zachor of my newest nephew, born in the U.S. to Goldie’s sister and her husband, Debra and Sruli Ehrenberg (Mazal tov!). As I have said in the past, we miss a lot of smachot being so far away (including his brit milah, which will happen after press time, so I don’t know the name yet), and it is terrific when circumstances allow us to be together.

As I was walking out the door at the end of the night, one of our friends walked out with me and we started to discuss aliyah in general, my family in particular, and his thoughts on the possibility of making aliyah with his family. He commented that it is a well-known fact that making aliyah with older kids (I define this as a teenager, even though his oldest is either 10 or 11) is a big mistake. Older kids ALWAYS have problems integrating into Israeli society, and they all end up becoming teens “at risk” and rebelling against religion and their parents.

This was not the first time I have heard these “facts” about aliyah. Although I have not personally seen it, Mishpacha magazine supposedly ran an article a couple of years ago telling parents that anyone who even considered moving to Israel with older kids was making a terrible error. (If I am misrepresenting the article, I apologize). Both friends and relatives questioned our decision to make aliyah at the time, citing this “fact” as a major reason we should reconsider our plans to move.

While I would certainly agree that there have been instances where children have indeed had horrible experiences in making aliyah, I must disagree with this as a general principle. I think that the common knowledge here is hugely mistaken, mostly because of perceptions.

When 5TJT publisher Larry Gordon proposed that I write this column, he was very clear in his goal. He told me that almost everyone knows at least one family that has made aliyah, and we all know what happens up to the moment our friend or neighbor gets on the plane. Thereafter, we only get snippets of news, hear about smachot or the opposite, and that’s it.

I believe that it is this syndrome that has led to the reputation of aliyah as a teen destroyer. Who are the teens that you in America or even your relatives in Israel are most likely to hear news about? Those teens who are troubled or causing trouble. When a kid is getting great grades and fitting in, this is not noteworthy, and therefore you rarely hear about it. After all, who ever heard of a crisis of kids fitting in?

It is only those teens who fail in school, can’t make friends, start abusing substances (heaven forbid), or doing other “wrong” things that you hear about. They are in crisis and that is certainly a tragedy, but I do not think that they are a majority or even a large minority. They are just more visible and therefore easily tagged as “the problem with making aliyah with teens.”

I know of many families, people whom I daven with every week and people whom we have met since making aliyah who have teens who have thrived in Israel. Yes, I also know families whose teens have gone the opposite way. However, I think that we all miss an important factor when talking about teens: There is no guarantee that this would not have happened in the U.S.A. had the family not come on aliyah.

As I recall, the “teens at risk” crisis exists in the U.S.A. as well. There are schools, organizations, and professional careers all focused on dealing with this crisis. They conduct lectures and workshops, and there is a literal frenzy of activity surrounding the serious mission of dealing with this issue and these kids, almost all of whom have not made aliyah. (It is inevitable that some of them are kids who have returned from a failed aliyah). I am sure you have seen them around town. I have.

Any one of the kids in crisis here in Israel could just as easily have been a kid in crisis in the U.S.A.

I firmly believe that success for a teen here is attributable to the same things that success for a teen there are. Good parenting, good planning, good friends, and a whole lot of luck (or siyata d’Shmaya). I know many terrific parents who did everything “right” and still have kids in crisis. I also know many not-so-great parents whose kids are also in crisis. Crisis does not differentiate between them—it finds the kids no matter who their parents are.

I would venture that if someone were to do a real study (and not just a simple poll of opinions) he would find that those kids whose parents did not have a plan for them when making aliyah, and adapt their plan as circumstances warrant, are the kids with a higher than average amount of problems. For those children, aliyah provides additional stresses and challenges that they are not prepared to cope with.

So I guess my message is this: Do not allow the fact that you have teens dissuade you from planning aliyah. Many, many families with teens have come and thrived, and you can too. Teens here have incredible freedom and independence. They thrive as a group and can be incredibly supportive as a social peer group. Your children will thank you for making them a part of it, if you come for the right reasons and you are honest enough to craft a realistic plan for them.

However, if you are considering aliyah not because you want to be here but because you think a “fresh start” would help your kids, your marriage, or your family unit as a whole, I would advise against it. Aliyah is hard work with huge challenges. Using it as an escape plan is unrealistic and will probably lead to more difficulties. Deal with your problems first and then come.

Kineret Update: The strike is over! They started releasing the updates on a daily basis again. As of February 2, the Kineret is 213.365 centimeters below sea level. This constitutes a rise of one full meter since the low point of the year. This is also the largest rise by this time (the end of January) in over five years!

We are 163.5 centimeters above the Black Line (the level at which all pumping from the Kineret must stop or cause irreparable harm to the Lake). We are 36.5 centimeters below the Lower Red Line (the level at which there are elevated amounts of contaminants—bacteria—in the water). We are 436.5 centimeters below the Upper Red line (or full), and the levels continue to rise. We will almost certainly be above the Lower Red Line by the end of the season, and we hope and pray for much, much more.

In two months, enough water went into the Kineret to equal the entire desalination industry in Israel’s annual output. Assuming usage patterns similar to last year, when combined with the opening of the new desalination plant last month, we can be fairly confident that we will not risk hitting the Black Line in 2010. We still need to gain 150-180 centimeters in water levels to get past the point where we will avoid returning below the Lower Red Line in 2010. Usage rates will continue to increase along with our population, so this is still a major long-term problem. But we are further away from a severe water tragedy, which is cause to be thankful.

Company Policy (2/1/2010)

2010-02-01T03:00:00.002-05:00

Finally. After all my kvetching, we finally seem to be having a normal winter. It rains on and off for several days in a row before returning to sunny and warm. I saw an article in the Jerusalem Post that announced that all the streams in northern Israel are flowing fully for the first time in seven years!

We had floods in the south (I also read that in three days last week they got half their normal annual rainfall, and that the southern reservoirs and aquifers are already full). It is truly satisfying to realize that we will probably have less stress about rain this year. Which is a relative statement.

Here is a benefit that I hadn’t known about. When the streams are flowing, the streambeds are flushed of all the accumulated waste and other materials that build up over time. In many places, this process, which is essential for the ecology of the area, has not happened for several years. It also provides a healthier chemical balance to the reservoirs and aquifers, which may have had higher concentrations of bacteria and other contaminants as their water levels lowered.

Even if we have above-average rainfall this year, we will still be in a critical situation as far as our water reserves are concerned. We will still need a couple more good years to get to a point that would be considered normal. And of course, I still cannot report the actual results of all the rain on the water supply. The water workers are still on strike and refuse to measure the water levels.

I know that it seems like I am in a “water rut” and cannot get off the subject. For people who do not live here, I don’t think it’s possible to explain how visceral the water issue becomes and how exuberant people can get over a couple of weeks of rain.

Winter also brings new and exciting experiences in Chaya’s search for a sherut leumi (national service) program for next year. Many of her old friends are busy evaluating seminaries and other programs to participate in next year; for many it will be their first experience in Israel.

Sherut leumi is run by the army (*ed note: it is actually run by private non-profits FOR the army) and is surprisingly well organized. In order to qualify, Chaya had to appear before a rabbi from the Jerusalem rabbanut and affirm that she is religious and is utilizing her option for national service. (Aliza has been talking about doing actual army service in a religious unit—don’t ask.) She then filed her approval for the program with the army. Throughout 12th grade, her school has had seminars and workshops to prepare the girls for the sherut leumi year.

Should they live at home, or in an apartment? (Many of the programs maintain apartments for the girls or shared apartments with girls from several programs). What part of the country should they be in? Are they looking for experience that may lead to a career, or just a positive experience in helping others before they begin developing a career track? And many other issues.

At some point, the girls register their details on the sherut leumi website, including a picture and other biographical information. I think that the schools also enter information (including recommendations) via the site.

Then comes the big day—when the girls can register to interview for the various openings. The more popular programs fill up quickly, so the girls are all at their computers, searching, identifying, and registering. The program coordinators sometimes reject specific applications, resulting in open slots for their programs, so it pays to keep checking. Otherwise, a personal site visit (usually as part of a group) is scheduled.

Chaya went on her first site visit/interview last week. Thank goodness it is finally over. Getting that first one done is such a relief, since it removes uncertainty about what to do and expect.

Chaya has decided that she wants to work with the elderly. She has visited senior centers as part of her school activities and she enjoys the interaction. Since this is not one of the more sought-after jobs, the competition is much less fierce and she will likely get to choose from several positions offered to her. (Aliza—if she doesn’t go to the army—has announced her desire to work with orphans or foster children, very competitive tracks.)

Chaya came back from the interview very excited. She is pretty definite that she does not want that specific job, but they liked her enough to ask her back to interview for a different job in the organization. And she is refining her concept of what she is looking for.

This is all very nerve-racking for her parents. Neither of us has any experience with this, and we are both incredibly anxious that things work for her. Knowing that she wants to live away from home causes us even more anxiety.

I am not sure how long the process takes (I admit I was playing games on my phone during the amazingly long and boring parents’ orientation), but at some point soon offers will be made and the girls will choose. And the parents will cry when they see (i) how big their little girl is, (ii) how far they have come in such a short time, and (iii) that it really is happening.

I haven’t shared any “only in Israel” moments in a while (the water authority being on strike doesn’t count). A few weeks before we made aliyah, Yehuda Daphna commented to me, “I would warn you to be careful about Israelis. You need to push there to get what you want.” He added, “But I am not worried about you; you know how to push,” which I think was a compliment. I was reminded of this comment several times in the last week.

In America, when someone would say, “Our policy is . . .” it would mean that the actual company policy was about to be stated and would be adhered to. In Israel, not so much. I don’t mean to say that that is necessarily bad, just that the cultural signals are different.

I visited the doctor last week. Nothing major. He decided to prescribe some sleeping pills for when I travel; I have tremendous difficulty getting a full night’s sleep away from home and I will be traveling for three out of the next four weeks (yes, I am writing this on my cell phone at 30,000 feet—baruch Hashem for the QWERTY keypad).

When I filled the first prescription at the kupat cholim (HMO) pharmacy, the pharmacist told me that I needed to replace my membership card, since the magnetic strip wasn’t working properly. This card is part of the incredibly well-computerized system. Every time I do anything in the kupah — see a doctor, get a shot, buy medicine, get a blood test, or whatever — they swipe my card and everything is automatically entered into my file. My doctor sees everything and can monitor everything from his computer.

The card is therefore your lifeline to services, and if it isn’t working, it is a real pain. If you lose your card, they charge you for the replacement. I think it costs $8 to replace. However, if the card isn’t working (they are really cheap and sometimes they peel or otherwise stop working), the replacement is supposed to be free.

On my next visit to the medical building, I stopped at the receptionist to order a new card. She took a look at the card and told me that they would be charging me for the new card, since I obviously rubbed out the magnetic strip by not keeping it in a safe place. And she said the magic words, “It is company policy.”

I objected and asked her for a pair of scissors. She asked me why I needed the scissors, and I told her that I was going to cut the card in half, since the last time my card needed replacing was when it split in half—and that time it was free. She repeated that the damage was obviously my fault and there was no way they should be responsible for my negligence.

So I took every single one of my credit, debit, ID, and membership cards out of my wallet—anything with a magnetic stripe on it. I showed her how all the other cards were fine and pointed out that only my kupah card was affected. I said that I shouldn’t be held responsible for the fact that they use cheap cards.

She thought about that for a second, she turned to the other receptionist, and they both nodded their heads and said OK. She pushed a few buttons on her keyboard and poof—my free replacement card was ordered. No need to call someone for an override or get the supervisor to approve. She had the ability to do it the entire time.

This morning, as I did online check-in, I wanted to move from a middle seat to a window (I like to sleep against the wall). For some reason the computer wouldn’t register the change, so I called El Al. The agent assured me that once I was in check-in, she could not process my record and I would need to complete the process myself. I explained that I did not want her to process my check-in, only to move my seat. She kept telling me that they do not have access to check-in. After a couple of go-rounds, she suddenly said, “Hold on; let me see what I can do.” After two minutes on hold, she came back and asked me what seat I wanted. Another 90 seconds, and voilà—I had my seat!

Culturally, we have learned that “It is company policy” or “I am not authorized” or even sometimes a simple “no” are just attempts at getting you to go away. If you accept the denial, they can move on to the next person. It isn’t laziness; it is simply the first line of defense. When we really don’t care too much about the outcome, we accept the “no” and go on to something else. Yet persistence often does work. People do want to help; they just need to know that it is important to you.

Some people think screaming or belligerence works. Often it does. But I prefer to be firm yet polite. (Usually.) I think that the other person appreciates the lack of screaming, and I find that even if I don’t get what I want, I am usually less upset than if I had lost my temper.

After I had finished writing this column, the flight attendants came by and asked if I would fill out a customer survey. She then gave me the Hebrew version to fill out. I still get a kick out of the fact that they have an innate sense that — as American as I think I appear—they can communicate with me just as easily in Hebrew.

For the second time in four years, I will be in the USA for Tu B’Shvat. The first time, I brought Israeli fruits to eat. This time I forgot. Let’s hope that next year’s fruits will be the fruits of terumah that I (as a kohein) will have been given in a rebuilt Eretz Yisrael.

A Water Strike (1/13/2010)

2010-01-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

Writer's block is defined in Wikkipedia as a condition "in which an author loses the ability to create new work." However you define it, I have had a pretty bad case of it lately. I have gotten a few e-mails asking if we are OK, and I think Larry Gordon was organizing a search party to see what happened to me. All I can say is that I sat in front of the keyboard for hours each week and had nothing to say. Unlike me, I know.

It is winter here, which in Israel usually means it is the rainy season. Many of you will now sigh and think to yourselves, "Oh no, not another article about how low the Kinneret is." Well, you are right-this isn't going to be one, although I will mention that as of January 1, the level of the Kineret is 213.94 and has risen 43 cm. since the lowest level of the year. We are 94 cm. below the lower red line. Last year it went down about 1.6 meters from the end of the rainy season to the low point, so to get to last year's starting level we need about 120 cm. of additional rain to fall, all in the next three to four months (or about 35 cm a month-a little more than 8 cm each week). Yet, as I said, that is not the focus of this column (although you should definitely pray for RAIN, RAIN, RAIN).

You might have found it curious that I noted the water level as of January 1 instead of a more current measurement. I had no choice, because there are no more recent measurements of the Kinneret. As you may recall from a column last year, the Kinneret is normally measured by the government's water authority almost every day of the year. The water authority then publishes the results via various media, including a website that notes the rise or fall of the water level since the prior measurement (I have created a link for it at http://bit.ly/kinneret). If you go to that website you will discover that no measurements have been posted since December 3. Why? Because the people who measure the Kinneret are on strike!

I was able to get the January 1 data from an independent weather service source. It appears that they are measuring the Kinneret once or twice a month in order to provide their web visitors a more accurate reflection of the rain results than the government.

You might think that this is no big deal, but it is a very big deal. In the last year, the government imposed a tax on heavy users of water, repealed the tax, instituted a "save the Kinneret" ad campaign, and finally raised water prices across the board for every consumer by 25 percent, no matter how much their standard usage level is. All of these measures were proposed in order to encourage water conservation in a time of national crisis in water levels.

The water crisis is literally a nationwide concern, since we live in a very arid environment. Running out of water would literally cripple the country.

Since this is such an important issue, I would think that the government would make sure that someone is monitoring the situation. Each up and down tick in the level of the Kinneret is a reflection of the water resources we will have for the coming year, and it should be imperative that they continue to keep this information at the forefront of the national consciousness in order to maintain the public's commitment to conservation. Plus, they need to keep a close watch on where we stand in order to determine if additional actions need to be taken.

Yet, in what can only be described as "Israeli sechel"-or lack of it-a strike by the water authority's workers is allowed to cripple monitoring activities and the effectiveness of conservation efforts. And no one seems to care.

We did get one piece of good news. The first of four planned desalination plants opened last week, providing a small measure of relief to the water system. It will take several months for the plant to get up to full capacity, but it is a start. Three other plants are in various stages of completion, but it will be a long time before we can breathe a sigh of relief that these plants have solved the crisis in a meaningful way.

The plants are another reflection of the Israeli system's attitude toward long-term planning. These are expensive undertakings, and no prime minister wants to spend a lot of money on something that will take years to be built. After all, they most probably won't be in office when the facility opens, so they won't get credit for the job. For them it will look like an expense with no return, since the rewards will be reaped in the future.

What a country.

In other news, PUAH had our annual conference on women's health and fertility issues last week in Yerushalayim. Over 1,500 people attended the conference which was deemed a success by the media here. In the course of the day, I was interviewed for Arutz 7 English Television (to see the report go to http://bit.ly/arutz7shmu). I was not expecting to be on camera, so if I look a bit surprised to be there, I was.

We are actually planning a mini-symposium for New York in February. As part of the annual dinner, we will be having a panel of experts (both rabbinic and medical) weigh in on a hypothetical case. Each side will explain their approach to the situation and Puah will then summarize how to merge the different opinions into a cohesive plan.

I am sure it will be interesting (especially since I am directing the video shoot). An ad for the event can be found elsewhere in the Five Towns Jewish Times. Please consider coming.

Finally, I need to wish a mazal tov to Stu and Francine Friedman on the marriage of their son Seth. The wedding was very nice, and we got to see a lot of the Five Towns yeshiva students. Their parents know who they are, and they all looked terrific!

California Dreaming (12/16/2009)

2009-12-16T12:51:00.002-05:00

Regular readers of this column will already anticipate the next few paragraphs. If it is my winter trip to the U.S., I must have gotten sick. Actually, we had a mini-epidemic in the house, with everyone getting sick. This also means that it must be Chanukah time. I think the only person who did not get sick so far (B'H) was Moshe. And, inevitably, my cold was at its worst for my flight to California and the first few days of my trip.

I was privileged to spend Shabbat with the kehillah of Rabbi Kalman Topp, the former assistant rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere. It was great to see him and see how wonderfully he has embraced and been embraced by his new community. Everyone we met spoke glowingly of him as an orator, a rabbinic leader, and as a great choice for their community.

I was in California for Puah's scholar-in-residence weekend with the director of counseling (English-speaking) Rabbi Gideon Weitzman. Rabbi Weitzman gave several lectures over Shabbat and, as part of our expanding Continuing Medical Education certification, we were hosted by the shul (Beth Jacob of Beverly Hills) for a CME symposium as well, along with Dr. Snunit ben Ozer, a local fertility specialist.

This was also the first opportunity for us to celebrate our recent selection as a winner of the 2009 Jewish Choice Award from GreatNonProfits. This organization conducted a survey of various non-profit organizations over (I think) an eight-week period. Out of something like 4,000 submissions of recommendations for various organizations, Puah was ranked number 1 in the International Jewish Non Profit category, a terrific honor.

I had a hard time booking tickets for the trip, which also included a stop in Dallas. I had reserved a seat for Monday night's flight to Newark, planning on going to Dallas before Los Angeles and returning on the direct flight from L.A. to Tel Aviv. However, I couldn't confirm my schedule by the expiration of the reservation and let it lapse.

The next day, when I was ready to purchase a ticket, my travel agent couldn't find any seats on the original flight. He tried changing connection cities for Dallas or leaving a day earlier and could not find anything that worked. I couldn't figure out why the planes had so suddenly filled up until I realized that my flight was leaving the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Apparently, many last-minute travelers took seats on the Israel-U.S. flights and there was simply nothing available.

You would think that I, as a person who works in the U.S. on a regular basis, would be cognizant of the U.S. holidays and how they might affect my schedule. Yet I seem to have adjusted to the Israeli calendar and enjoy the lack of "American" stuff on my schedule (except for Sundays - I don't think I will ever adjust to Sunday being a full day of work).

No Turkeys or fat guys in red clothing in my neighborhood. No bunnies or phony holidays that are excuses to make big sales. (Side note: Chaim spent the entire night/morning of "Black Friday" running from store to store with some friends, looking for bargains). My little kids don't even know what Thanksgiving is, and have totally forgotten the winter decorations and other "holiday" celebrations we would trip over throughout November and December.

Having ignored the calendar, I was forced to reorganize my trip, but in true "it always happens for the best" fashion, I was able to shorten the trip by a day and get home to the family a little faster, a couple of days before Chanukah.

Chanukah is one of my favorite holidays. I especially enjoy taking a post-dinner stroll through the neighborhood to see the various chanukiyot, which are lit in special wind-resistant glass boxes outside homes in Israel. Seeing home after home of chanukiyot reminds me that we are living in the Jewish land. This year, my celebration will be doubly enhanced, with two Shabbatot Chanukah to enjoy.

As we did last year, we're heading to Eilat for a Chanukah mini-vacation. This year, we're part of a group of 27 families staying together and joining each other for various day trips and tiyulim as well. We even have an option to tour Petra (in Jordan), which I had originally signed up for but decided to cancel so that I could spend more time with the little kids. I am helping arrange tours of one of the major dairies, which is located just north of Eilat.

We hope that you and your family enjoy a terrific Chanukah and get to enjoy special family time together reveling in the celebration of the miracle of the recapture of the Beit HaMikdash - if only for a very short time. We hope and pray that we celebrate the rebuilding of the final Beit HaMikdash at the same time. If not, l'shanah haba'ah b'Yerushalayim habenuyah.

A special mazal tov to our dear friends Dr. David and Shira Wiseman on the birth of their son. Mazal tov also to our friends and neighbors Motti and Penina Eichler (formerly of Cedarhurst) and Dr. Herman and Mrs. Mia Weiss (formerly of West Hempstead) who are celebrating their daughters' bat mitzvahs in the coming week as well. May we all continue to share s'machot in the future (especially the aliyah of you, our dear readers...)

More Firsts (11/18/2009)

2009-11-18T12:25:00.002-05:00

New olim struggle to reconcile their expectations in life with reality. Each day brings a new realization that things in Israel are incredibly different from what they had grown accustomed to in their former home. As time passes, experience replaces expectation, and we grow more familiar and comfortable with our surroundings.

Understanding that this is a process enables us to cope with all the stress and confusion that reigns in the first few years of life in our new country. With the passage of time, we begin to feel as if we are "settled in" old-timers, with an understanding of how most things work and how to get things done. This is the process of absorption.

Each family has its own unique process of absorption, which is really just the sum of their experiences. As a result, one family may become expert in special-ed. issues, another in building and construction or purchase of a new home, and a third in the workings of the health-care system (I chose these examples because these are three different areas which many new olim will most likely have to deal with at some point and are vastly different from anything they had been used to in their former countries).

With all the challenges that we face in adjusting, there is a natural tendency to look to others for advice, in the hope that we can avoid some of the more difficult lessons. The Bet Shemesh e-mail list has hundreds of postings each day. A vast number of them are "How do I...?" questions, "Here is how to..." answers, or "Does anyone know anything about..." inquiries.

Eventually, after a couple of years, we have even learned some of the answers. So we know how to maneuver through the health-care system and what to expect from the teachers in school. We sometimes even offer advice to the "newbies" in town, sharing some of our experience with them. And we forget that in our fourth year of living here, we are also newbies.

This week, Chaya's school had a parents' (with student) meeting to discuss next year's national service (sherut leumi) and the process of application and acceptance for the various institutions. We knew this was coming and were excited to be starting this next stage together with Chaya. Sherut leumi would be yet another first for us.

We realized that we were no longer behind the curve for this meeting. After all, many of the other girls are the oldest in their families, and thus their parents had also not gone through the process as parents; everything would be new to them as well. And we realized that, now that we understand most of what is happening (in Hebrew) during these (incredibly long) meetings, we are pretty much adjusted and can participate fully in all activities.

Yet, the information was so overwhelming. Having never done any form of national service here, we had no idea how extensive the programs are and how varied the structure and supervision provided. Should she live at home, or with a bunch of strangers in an apartment? Should she be in a large program or a small program? What are her career interests? Does she want career-related experience, or a program that is rich in helping others as more of a one-time experience? There are so many things for her to consider.

There are even strategies designed to optimize one's chances of getting into the program of one's choice, or at least in a chosen field. There was so much information to grasp and assimilate, and it comes during a year of great transition and experience for the girls.

Three days after the meeting, Chaya went to Poland with about 35 other eleventh and twelfth-grade girls in her school for a week of discovery. Thousands of other students from Israel (and the rest of the world) will undertake similar journeys to learn about the thriving Jewish communities of Eastern Europe and their destruction in WWII. They had prepared for the trip for months, and we could clearly see the anticipation building for her.

The day of departure was full of excitement in our house. The night before, I had gone with Mordechai to an Israeli professional-league basketball game in Tel Aviv with four of his friends. He attends an after-school basketball program twice a week. The program is run under the auspices of the Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv team, so Mordechai is considered a youth member of the club and has a photo ID card from them.

Each year, the youth members are invited to come (along with an adult of their choice) to 12 or 13 select games and attend for free. Mordechai went to a game last year, but the timing never worked out for me to participate. This week, the schedule worked out and we took a whole crew to the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv (another first for me).

We had a nice time. Having seen Michael Jordan play in Chicago Stadium and Patrick Ewing in Madison Square Garden, I can assure you that these teams did not come close to the talent level I expected for professionals, nor was the stadium anything to get excited about. Yet the atmosphere was exciting and the kids really enjoyed it. We sat just above a set of fans who apparently attend every game, come with a drum, and sing team songs throughout the game. (They stop only for halftime.)

Maccabi won, so the kids went home happy. I went home tired, having to chase five 8-year-old boys for three hours. That night, I was up till 1 a.m. making phone calls to the U.S. for work, and I had planned on sleeping through 7:15 and going to the office a little late that day.

But at 6:00 a.m., Aliza woke me to tell me that Chaya was on the phone at the airport, crying hysterically. The school staff had told her to bring only her Israeli travel papers and not her U.S. passport. Unfortunately, that was bad advice. The travel papers only allow exit and entrance from Israel, and are free for the first five years after aliyah. The theory is that immigrants will still have their passports from their country of origin. Amazingly, the system saves us money by not requiring us to get a passport until year six of aliyah.

In order to get into Poland, she needed her U.S. passport. So I quickly ran to the car and flew to the airport to get her the passport on time (39 minutes from phone call to delivery). She made her flight and is now somewhere in Poland. We will not be able to speak with her until she returns, but they were kind enough to give us the fax numbers of the hotels she will be in, and we are trying to fax her a daily letter. It will be interesting to see her reaction to the trip.

We are beginning to ramp up for the holidays here. No, we don't have turkeys, dried corn, elves, soldiers, or some big fat guy in a red suit displayed everywhere. We do have chanukiyot, chocolate coins, and sufganiot wherever we go. I guess it is a cultural thing, but I am reminded each year that we live in the land of the Jews and for the Jews.

We are all Israelis (11/11/2009)

2009-11-11T12:18:00.002-05:00

Last motzaei Shabbat, Goldie and I were privileged to host the "Meet the New Members" melaveh malkah for our shul. As a new shul in the community, our growth has been astonishing. We have grown from an average of 15 to 20 bar-mitzvah-age men per week to somewhere near 65 on average, with many more on the chagim. With the summer's influx of new olim behind us, it was a perfect time to have a "get to know you better" event-the first one for our shul.

For Goldie and me, volunteering to host it was a no-brainer. Our house is being sold, and we know that the new owners will want us out by the end of next summer. We have, admittedly, a large house with an oversized backyard (which we are renting at excellent terms) and we have no idea where we will be next year. So we decided to take advantage of what we had while we still had it.

Of course, being scheduled for November 7, we had a bit of concern about the weather. Sadly, there was no rain and we were able to have the entire event in our backyard. Having reached the mid 80s on Shabbat afternoon, the temperature was still hovering in the low 70s by evening and was quite comfortable.

Since the first meeting to organize the shul, we have tried to make everything in the shul as Hebrew-friendly as possible. While there are weekday shiurim in the rabbi's home and one Shabbat afternoon shiur in English, almost everything we do is done either exclusively in Hebrew or in both languages. Announcements, flyers, e-mails, the drasha during davening - no matter how tough it is, we translate everything.

That effort has paid off. The shul was founded and is almost entirely run by a bunch of English-speaking olim who are all in Israel for less than five years, Yet, somewhere around 20 percent of those who regularly daven with us and consider themselves members of the shul are native to Israel (plus one incredible Ethiopian family). Hebrew is their mother tongue.

We have been extremely conscious of trying to include the natives in shul activities and events, but it is hard to run a meeting when some of the people don't understand what is going on either because they don't understand Hebrew or they don't understand English. We were hoping that the Israeli born would turn out for the event, but it wasn't a sure thing. We even made a special point of calling them to let them know that everything would be in Hebrew.

Thankfully, the turnout was incredible. Over 90 percent of the families who daven by us at least twice a month showed up - Hebrew speakers as well as English speakers. Almost 70 people enjoyed a couple of interactive games and just a couple of hours under the Bet Shemesh night sky, enjoying each other's company.

In leading up to the event, and in consideration of the fact that they knew Goldie was just arriving from a trip to the U.S. days earlier, our neighbors Avi and Tania Fraenkel, who also daven in our shul, invited us for Friday night dinner. This was a huge help.

The Fraenkels made aliyah from London, and the meal was really a great experience for us. Tania's cousin, James ,was a student at Eretz HaTzvi my first year there. We actually learned together on a weekly basis for a while. He is in Moscow for a semester, and I hope to resume learning with him when he gets back to the UK.

One of the great things about living in an Anglo community is our common language and comfort of dealing with each other. Still, we are occasionally reminded that the world is a pretty big place with different ways to do things.

Avi is a terrific guy. He davened for us on the Yamim Noraim this year and blew shofar last year. I find him to be incredibly straightforward and totally unpretentious (I was sure pretentiousness was an English characteristic - but he must have missed out on that one). Yet, he is incredibly English in his performance of ritual and the ceremony surrounding them.

Kiddush was an event. Zemirot were not just sung, they were intoned. The entire meal was approached with a certain dignity that we weren't used to. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Yet, I was struck by how differently we approach things based upon the culture into which we were born.

We have been trying to figure out what we are going to do for the Katz family's more permanent home in Israel. Obviously, the more settled in we get in Bet Shemesh, the harder it would be for us to make a move. So, in response to the question I get most often, "Where are you going to live?," I would guess that for now, we are leaning towards Bet Shemesh.

It has been pretty quiet of late. There has been a lot of political maneuvering regarding the construction of new neighborhoods and which segment of society will be invited to live in them. Yet, if we decide to move, and it is into the heart of the neighborhood, I think we will be much more insulated from the day to day issues we currently deal with. Our kids may choose to live elsewhere, but we will probably be ok for at least 10 years. How much longer than that can you plan?

Of course, things can always heat up at a moment's notice. I think that even you in the Five Towns have witnessed some of what we experience here last week with a special visit to your community. I have been quoted already on this issue (even though I didn't realize my comments were being made for publication) and I am sure Larry Gordon will have much to say. All I will add is that you had to deal with figuring out where you stood for a single Shabbos. We live this every day.

Eema Come Home (11/4/2009)

2009-11-04T08:49:00.002-05:00

Before I say anything else: It rained! I don't mean for a few minutes or even half an hour. This was a real soaking rain that lasted for a couple of days and hopefully is only the start of things to come. We hit the low level of the year in the Kinneret, and now we need to have an outstanding rain season to get things back on track (we probably need two or three of them in a row).

As I wrote before the chagim, my new travel schedule will definitely take some adjusting to. I feel as if I am on an endless treadmill of running from trip to trip, and I am still not where I need to be in redefining my work schedule and routine to maximize productivity. I can foresee a time when I am much closer to my goal than I am today, which is encouraging; I am nowhere near there yet.

I haven't really had a chance to share our Sukkot experiences. Unbelievably (at least to me), I have been so busy moving from thing to thing that three weeks ago seems like three months ago, and I can't even remember what we did. We went jeeping (again), on a terrific hike with our shul, to a spectacular sound-and-light show at the David's Citadel Museum, and to the Latrun Tank Base. Yet, it is really a blur to me.

On the day before my trip, I was in a pretty serious car accident. Thank G-d there were no injuries (except to the cars). It was a scary moment, and I am still amazed that no one was hurt. The car was in the repair shop for two weeks, and I have to salute Goldie for dealing with it while I was in the USA so that the car was ready when I got back.

Right before I left, I wrote that the mayor of Bet Shemesh would be making a personal visit to the Five Towns. Although I was in Boston that evening and could not be there, I was wondering what those people who participated in the meeting thought about his visit. Please drop me a line.

As I mentioned, I was in the USA for almost two weeks. Against my previously stated policy, I spent two Shabbatot away from home. This was a planned deviation that allowed me to participate in our niece Tova Kreinberg's wedding to Yitzy Klapper. After ten days of a work trip, Goldie, Chaya, and Moshe flew in on Friday and we had the chance to spend a nice Shabbat together and visit with family.

We had a terrific time at the wedding. From the first day that we talked about making aliyah, the biggest drawback of the decision was missing family events. We've missed bar and bat mitzvah celebrations and a couple of weddings. It is tough to know that we voluntarily chose to exclude ourselves from these events. So it is very special and meaningful to us when we can be there for a simcha. And the simcha was awesome-very lebbidik and just a tremendous night.

The day after the wedding, I headed back home. This would be a milestone trip for me. In July, we had been contacted by a couple who were making aliyah and had been undergoing IVF treatments in New York. They wanted to know if we could serve as couriers for them once they opened a file in Israel with their HMO and hospital. Machon Puah provides such services on a regular basis, and I was asked to bring six embryos with me back to Israel.

As a person in fundraising and public relations, I rarely get to play an active role in helping couples. I generally meet the couples after they have finished being serviced by Puah. While it is exciting and inspiring to hear their stories and how incredibly they have been impacted by the Puah rabbis, I am a step removed from the process. So I was looking forward to doing something tangible in helping things happen for a burgeoning family.

The security people at the airport were superb. Even though they had been notified that I was coming in advance, they were very diligent in questioning me and verifying my papers. El Al staffers took me to the TSA checkpoint, where they too were waiting for me (having also been notified in advance). The TSA people seemed to have a clear protocol for how to process me, and they did everything by the book, which I appreciated. Once through that checkpoint, I was cleared to wander the terminal before boarding.

If you ever want to get a bunch of really funny looks in the airport, try walking through it with a frozen storage tank for human embryos. The tank is solid steel, about two feet tall, and most closely resembles the back half of a torpedo. I had it strapped to my wheeled carry-on, and I am sure that people must have thought it was some kind of bomb.

The flight crew of El Al was also terrific. As soon as I walked on the plane, they exclaimed, "The embryo guy is here!" They showed me an area for storing the tank and made sure it was protected from being jarred during the flight. They seemed as excited as I was to be a part of helping this couple. As I was exiting the plane, they had the tank waiting for me at the door.

My luggage arrived after less than 10 minutes of waiting. I assume this was in the merit of the mitzvah I was involved with, because I have never had such a quick exit from the terminal. As I waited to meet the couple, I felt my anticipation building. I had not done Birchat Kohanim in two weeks, and as I stood there I thought about the bracha and how it is used for birchat ha'banim, and that the kohein's bracha is infused with a blessing of fertility and health as a major part.

I took a look at the tank and realized that in my hands I was holding the potential family of a couple. I know it sounds corny, but I closed my eyes and said the words of Birchat Kohanim upon the tank in a personal prayer for the successful birth of these potential people. The entire process (especially meeting the couple) is something I will never forget, and it reminded me how important our work is.

As much as I loved that we were together with Goldie's family for the simcha, not having her home for an extra week was a killer. By the time she comes home (the day after this was written), we will have seen each other for 4 days out of 21. I have friends who have those kinds of trips, and I do not envy them.

Goldie is incredibly organized. She had a list of everything I needed to do, step by step. And the list was perfect. Nothing missing, everything taken care of. We just don't run well as a family when she isn't around. The kids' lives so revolve around her being here that it was just weird for them and hard to adjust to, no matter how much they love me.

If there is one thing I learned on my most recent trip to America, it is that people are still reading this column. Wherever we went, we heard, "I would ask how you are doing-but I already know!"

We were asked about our house-buying plans (we still aren't sure what we are going to do and if we are staying in Bet Shemesh), my ratcheted-up travel schedule (yes, it does look like ten trips each year), and a whole host of other questions about things we have experienced these past three-plus years. Living 6,000 miles away from the readers of this column, it is difficult to know if anyone out there is still reading. Thanks for making us a part of your lives.

In the "another simcha I missed by making aliyah" department, mazal tov to Mark and Barbara Silber and their extended families on Jonathan's bar mitzvah last week. As someone that I spoke to nearly every day in the USA, Mark is one of those friends who I think I will always miss.

Finally, I want to wish a special mazal tov to Goldie's brother David and his wife Marcia (who have done so much for our family in more ways than I can list) on Tova and Yitzy's wedding, as well as to my in-laws and family and the entire Leff family. Many of you may know that Marcia's mother, Judi Leff, a'h, left this world only days after she attended the wedding. I consider myself lucky to have been able to wish her a mazal tov in person. I knew Judi my entire adult life. She was a wonderful person and an exemplary mother and grandmother who will be sorely missed.

Meet the Mayor (10/14/2009)

2009-10-14T08:45:00.001-04:00

I had outlined a great article for this week. Chol ha'moed in Israel is always a treat, especially when the yomim tovim both land on Shabbat so we get a full week of chol ha'moed. Between concerts and the perennial ATV trip, we always have things to do and fascinating places to go.

However, I am also busily adjusting to a new travel schedule. My position at Machon Puah will require much more travel than I have been used to (no fewer than ten trips a year, versus three or four). In the past, I had been able to prepare for each trip as its own unit and schedule my time in the weeks leading up to the trip. This year, with trips scheduled to the USA in October, November, December, and January-as well as an anticipated trip to England sometime in November-December-I need to start thinking two and three trips ahead in order to make sure I maximize my efforts. And I have not been doing that.

So I will instead share an invitation with you-an invitation to meet some of the players in Bet Shemesh and find out for yourself what their vision is for the future of Bet Shemesh.

As some of you might already know, the mayor of Bet Shemesh, Moshe Abutbul, will be visiting the Five Towns on Tuesday evening as part of an international tour he is conducting to generate interest in the growth and development of Bet Shemesh. Shalom Lerner (the guy I voted for in the mayoral elections) will be on the trip as a member of the city council coalition. Part of their focus on this tour is generating further interest in Bet Shemesh as a destination for olim and investment.

As you know, Goldie and I have been debating our personal long-term plans for the past several months. Without a permanent solution for housing, we have been weighing the pros and cons of staying in Bet Shemesh versus leaving. It is a very difficult consideration. After all, we have planted roots with our neighbors and with our shul. Our children are extremely happy here and have terrific friends that they aren't excited about leaving behind. Perhaps most importantly, the community was incredibly supportive in a tangible way when Goldie was ill, similar to the tremendous emotional and spiritual support we got from our friends in the Five Towns.

We know the system here (at least enough to get around in it). We have a routine and quality of life that is terrific and provides us with great satisfaction. So leaving would be tough. Yet, as you know, I have grave concerns over the future of Bet Shemesh and the demographic shift that is being proposed by the current mayor and the Ministry of Building and Housing. I am also frustrated by the lack of achdut in the city and the friction that exists (thankfully for now it is not being expressed) between the various communities.

I believe that the future of Bet Shemesh could be bright . . . or perhaps not. And a lot of that future is tied to the people who will be coming to meet you this week. So please take a minute to stop by and meet the city officials who are there and ask them serious questions about the future of our city. It could continue to be a great destination for olim-but our voices need to be heard.

When the mayor invites you to consider investing in infrastructure, make sure he knows that it needs to be invested for all demographic groups, not just his own. When he talks about the diversity of the city, ask him why he supports vast expansion in the city for only one of the demographic groups instead of continued proportional growth designed to maintain the demographic balance that currently exists. Ask him what the plans are for continued investment in new neighborhoods for the religious Zionist and the non-religious citizens of the city. And pay attention to his answers.

We need you in Bet Shemesh; there is no question of that. Yet we have a responsibility of providing you with a place that you (and I) can continue to feel comfortable living in and be proud of. Make sure that the people making the decisions for my future (as well as all of your friends-those who live here and those of you who have not yet made the step up) know that the partnership they seek is not one-sided.

You can be part of the solution for all the residents of Bet Shemesh and help us continue to be a beacon for Anglos and native Israelis alike who share similar values and desires to be a part of the Jewish National dream. The first step of the process happens Tuesday. Take it.

Welcome 5770 (9/23/2009)

2009-09-23T08:39:00.000-04:00

The Yamim Nora'im are a time when we have to atone for the errors we have made, a time when each person asks forgiveness from those he has harmed, whether or not the damage was intentional.

Each year I wish a warm welcome to the many olim who have made the move to Israel and joined us in the aliyah adventure. I even try to list the Five Towns/Long Island families that I know by name. Last year, in listing the families, I omitted one family who joined our shul with their move to Israel. I left them off the list because they were on a "trial year" and did not arrive as olim.

Last Thursday, at our hachnassat sefer Torah (more on this later), I was reminded about this family and my commitment to include them in this year's list if they made aliyah. And I forgot to do so in my article a couple of weeks ago.

So I am especially pleased to wish a special mazal tov to Aaron and Aliza Miller and their family upon their aliyah this summer. Formerly from West Hempstead, they joined us last year and have been such an integral part of our shul and community, I had simply forgotten that they were on a trial and only made the move permanent as of this summer.

As with many other chagim or events, our approach to Rosh Hashanah is quite different here in Israel. In addition to its status as the New Year and the almost universal recognition of it as such among all walks of Jews here, it is also the only guaranteed two-day holiday in Israel and is looked at with a sense of unusual anticipation.

Our preparations are unique as well. For instance, consider the simanim that we eat on the first night with dinner. These are fairly easy to get in the U.S. All you have to do is head to the local supermarket and pick up fresh samples of any of the vegetables on the list. Leeks, carrots, beets, black-eyed peas, squash, etc. They are all available almost continually throughout the year.

That is not the case here. As I have written before, in Israel, if a fruit or vegetable is not in season, it is not available. The only way to get something out of season is to buy it frozen or canned. Some of them (like black-eyed peas this year) sometimes cannot be found at all, and we do without.

We also have huge competition here between supermarkets, all clamoring for a piece of the very lucrative two-day holiday grocery bill. I remember this as a practice around Pesach in the U.S. With a purchase above a set amount, you were entitled to five pounds of matzah for free, which makes sense and is tied in to the holiday very nicely.

Here in Israel, the promotions were also tied in to the holiday. Goldie got two free bags of apples (great for dipping in honey) as well as a honey cake from various shopping trips to Supersol in Bet Shemesh. I think they were also offering free honey as an option, but we had bought our honey at a 50 percent discount the week before in a different sale. Another store gave us a four-pack of Pepsi Max (no connection to Rosh Hashanah, but still free).

Rosh Hashanah is also a major school milestone here. The week after Rosh Hashanah is the preferred time for back-to-school night in all the schools (we had four of them this week). It marks the time that the learning is turned up a notch and is the final preparation for the major academic period that begins after Sukkot and runs through Pesach.

It also marked a major milestone for our shul. Having completed our first year as a kehillah, one of our members, Rabbi Menachem Alfasi (a native-born Israeli who serves as a rabbi in the IDF) and his family presented the shul with our first sefer Torah. It was completed only days before Rosh Hashanah, so on Thursday night, the last night of the year, we held a gala hachnassat sefer Torah in the shul.

The final letters of the sefer were written at Rabbi Rosner's home, and almost everyone who attended was able to add this special mitzvah to their account that night (even the policemen who came to secure the route for the procession to the shul were invited in and honored with the writing of a letter and joined in the singing and dancing on the way to the shul).

The sofer was very patient and allowed the children to watch as he wrote each letter (at the event, Goldie commented to me that our shul has a tremendous number of children).

We danced to the shul and enjoyed a terrific reception there, with divrei Torah from several rabbanim and a tremendous sense of togetherness. As we grow and more people move to the neighborhood and come to the shul, we have an increasingly greater sense of belonging to something that has great potential. We just need to further develop the land and make more housing available for our families.

On that note, I have to add that things have been quite settled lately. While there are occasional demonstrations from one group or another, there has been a pretty good sense of quiet and patience in the neighborhood.

A new development is opening up in Ramat Bet Shemesh Gimmel, which will be equally divided (designated housing use) by all segments of Bet Shemesh society-non-religious, religious-Zionist, and chareidi. The equal division will provide for the maintenance of the demographic status quo for the time being, which is really the main goal (of my community at least).

As a matter of fact, a further all-chareidi development was put on hold because an ancient burial ground was discovered at the site and the Antiquities Department has to spend several years examining it. So for now, we are hopeful that we will continue to build bridges with the neighbors and continue to coexist without the complications that have cropped up from time to time.

On a personal level, we still have to figure out what we will be doing long-term. Our lease ends next summer and we already know that we will need to move out. We hope that the development we had originally committed to will be somehow resurrected, so that we can remain in the place where we have developed roots. That remains to be seen.

It rained here on the second day of Rosh Hashanah (which was probably not so good for the grape growers, but great for the rest of us). Mordechai ran out to dance in the rain in the middle of davening. Hopefully, this was a sign of a good and healthy rainy season-something which we need. The Kinneret Lake is at -214.195, still 85 centimeters above the dreaded Black Line (which it looks like we will thankfully not reach this year).

I wish you and your families all a g'mar chatimah tovah-may we all have an easy and meaningful fast as we watch the Kohein Gadol perform the Yom Kippur avodah in the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash.

Haramat Kosot (9/16/2009)

2009-09-16T08:32:00.000-04:00

It is once again a few days before the Yom HaDin. As we all do, I too have striven to look back upon the past year and reflect about who I am, where I am, and what I could have done better (which is almost everything). As we all do, I need to ask one and all for forgiveness if I offended or upset them.

I view the mission of these articles as a vehicle for the encouragement of aliyah and the in-gathering of the Jewish people to Israel. Although there are certainly difficulties, and you have read about a lot of them, the general body of work is intended to demonstrate to you, the reader, that anyone can make the move here. If we can make it here, with all the trials and tribulations we have gone through, certainly you can too.

People often ask me why I write about the underbelly of life here if I want people to come on aliyah. My goal is to share the good AND the bad in order to present you with a fair picture of what life is like. I want every Jew to join us here, but I want you to do it willingly, with a full heart and totally prepared for what you will face. I think it would be unfair and dishonest of me to attempt to "fool" you with a totally rosy picture.

I believe this is especially important in regard to Bet Shemesh and the issues the city faces as it grows and develops. I often write that the views I express come from my personal experience as a result of my living right on the border of two neighborhoods. I also add that I do not think these events should, on their own, dissuade people from coming to Bet Shemesh in particular, just that the information should be part of a reasoned process.

We had neighbors right next to our house in Woodmere that I didn't care for, people who made life difficult (especially on Shabbat). They would make tons of noise and had their teenagers running amok at all hours, disrupting our kids' sleep. I had to call the police several times about them. Yet, on the whole, our Woodmere community was terrific, and we were glad to have settled in the neighborhood and on our block.

The same applies to our lives here in Israel. Do some of the charedim make me crazy? Yes! Are they all nut jobs? NO! Are they enough of a reason to keep you away? Maybe-but that is something you need to investigate for yourself. The point is that there is no perfect place to live, here or there. I would much rather have my imperfection than yours. Because I still have the Kotel, the kedushah of Eretz Yisrael, and I am getting the mitzvah of living in the land, among other things.

So please, do not take offense; I do not mean to offend, only to inform and encourage. After all, there is so much that we have to offer.

I experienced a new phenomenon (for me) this year at work. I got to work last Sunday, and there was a note on the bulletin board informing the staff that there would be a "Haramat Kossot" (literally a "lifting of cups") at 1 p.m. that afternoon. Having no idea what that meant, I joined the entire staff in one of the meeting rooms at the appropriate time.

In what is an annual get together, Rav Menachem Burstein, the head of the Machon, shared a brief d'var Torah and then spoke to us about the accomplishments of the prior year and his hopes for the coming year. He reminded us that we are in the chessed business and that as much as it is a job for us, we work with couples who are suffering great emotional distress and that we need to keep our compassion first in our hearts.

He reminded us to remember the couples we work with in our davening on the Yamim Nora'im, and he wished us a terrific year. The executive director, Rav Meir Bitton, also said a few words about always being careful in how we phrase things and in remembering that a Jew is a Jew, no matter what.

There was a table with refreshments, including apples with honey (apparently, unlike matzah, this is something we can enjoy time and again in preparation for Rosh Hashanah) honey cake, and a host of other snacks and drinks. We then spent a few minutes (no more than 15) together, something we rarely do as a staff. I thought it was a very nice way to encourage a sense of camaraderie and share mutual wishes of goodwill between coworkers.

That night I shared the experience with another Anglo, I don't remember whom. Their response? This is normal; everyone does it in Israel. It is especially prevalent in the army, where camaraderie and a concern for the well-being of your neighbor takes on extra meaning.

I was amazed. Such a simple gesture, and it is so genuine and well-meaning. It wasn't a big holiday party or dinner. Just a simple heartfelt brachah from one person to the next. And it happens all over.

At the supermarket, "Shanah Tovah."

From the taxi and bus drivers, "Shanah Tova."

From the teachers in school, "Shanah Tovah."

From the mailman, garbagemen, most of the people you encounter, "Shanah Tovah."

And from the Katz family to you, "Shanah Tovah."

I remember a drasha I heard a few years ago. It was a year like this year in which Rosh Hashanah's first day fell on Shabbat. I davened that year at Anshei Chessed in Woodmere. Rabbi Simcha Lefkowitz shared a thought about the loss of the sounds of the shofar standing in our defense and that the years in which this happened generally turn out to be dark years for the Jews (if I got the message wrong, I apologize to Rabbi Lefkowitz). He encouraged the kehillah to think about this and to concentrate with extra fervor for only good things in the coming year.

I cannot even begin to imagine applying this to our current existence. The world has spent a year hearing about the greed of the Jew that has reinforced the stereotypical image of our people as willing to steal from charities and the innocent. Here in the Holy Land we stand (as we always seem to be) at the edge of terrible options. Our enemies want to chop us to bits to destroy us. Even our friends want to chop us into little pieces to make life easier for them.

People are concerned about jobs, health, safety, and security. And we have no shofar to blast open the doors of heaven for our prayers. We must do anything within our power to add an extra dimension to our davening and secure the needs of our land and its people. I hope and pray that we get to blow shofar as part of the regular avodah on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in the Beit HaMikdash, with the coming of Mashiach. If not, l'shanah haba'ah b'Yerushalayim ha'bnuya.

I wish you and your family a truly meaningful Rosh Hashanah with inspired tefillah and a positive outcome. May you be zocheh to be awarded the things that are best for you (which in most cases should include joining Am Yisrael here in the land that was given to us).

Summer is Done (9/9/2009)

2009-09-09T08:18:00.002-04:00

Each summer I get the same concerned e-mail from Larry Gordon. "Shmuel," he asks, "where have you gone?" What can I say? The summer is a slow time of year for us. Many of our friends disappear on vacations. Even our kids head off for camp. So there isn't much to report, and I don't write as much. Hopefully we will now be back to regular life until the next big vacation.

I don't remember being this relieved for school to arrive when we lived in the U.S. School starts earlier here (September 1) and ends later (the last week of June), so you would think the summer break would be easier to handle. Yet, with no camp programs that run eight or nine weeks, the last month is a killer. With kids all over the place with nothing to do, and my first U.S. trip for my new job with Puah, August was a terribly hard month for Goldie.

She had to balance keeping the kids busy and involved with running the household and having to do everything all alone (in truth, she does everything even when I am there, but it is different when she is alone). I, on the other hand, took a couple of days off to do some fun stuff, flew to the U.S. for 10 days, and then came home to another couple of days off with the kids.

We went to the Bloomfield Science Museum (lots of fun, but needs maintenance on the exhibits), an amusement park, the beach, shopping, playing-everything we could to keep busy. Although there is nothing like being here in Israel, I sometimes miss the wealth of fun, educational, or cultural activities that we used to enjoy in New York. There are so many more things to do to keep little kids occupied-probably because there are so many more people there.

As I mentioned, I made my first work-related trip to the U.S. for Puah, my new employer. It was more of a "get to know you" trip than anything else, giving me the opportunity to meet the Puah USA staff and some of our supporters. I am amazed at some of the things Puah is doing in fertility and health issues and the incredible technologies that are involved in helping people have children.

As a benefit of the timing of the trip, I was able to take Chaim up to YU on the first day of orientation. He has been looking forward to this day since grade 4. I know it sounds like a cliché, but it was so much harder for me to drop him off than it was for him to take his leave of us. As any parent knows, while our pride in him has no bounds, our fears and concerns for him can be overwhelming.

We wonder if we made the right decisions for him in life. Schooling. Camps. Friends. Activities. And we had the extra worries about our aliyah and its impact on his life. Let's face it: he only really had one year of high school. He has a diploma and certainly did well on his SAT, but he hasn't written anything or been responsible to study and hand in homework for over three years. So we wonder if we hurt his career potential by making this move.

We personally know some families who have been successful in leaving a child or two behind in the U.S. to graduate with their friends. While we never really considered it as an option for us, it is certainly something we could have done to make sure he was better prepared for college. So we worry.

We also realize that our being 6,000 miles away means that he has essentially moved out. I know I covered this earlier this year, but it is definitely on our minds. Goldie had a terrific minute when he mentioned to her earlier this year that he is now open to the possibility of living in Israel long-term. He even mentioned a couple of yishuvim he would be happy in. So we still have hope on that front.

We are also quite excited with the arrival of several new olim families over the summer. Our shul is getting more crowded and we are getting close to a nexus point for the city, one in which the decision will be made about which direction the city will follow in the future. The municipality can show its equal commitment to the non-chareidi public by encouraging more of us to move here and by continuing to fund services to our schools and shuls. Hopefully they will choose this path.

Although there are many other families who have come on aliyah, I want to wish a special welcome to Dan and Audrey Rosenstein, who joined us from West Hempstead with their family, and to Donny and Ellie Fein, who came from Cedarhurst and have moved to Ramat Shilo (very close to our good friends Doni and Tzippy Lieberman, who often appear in these pages).

Water Update

My regular readers know that I have become quite fanatical about the falling levels of the Kinneret Lake. To refresh your memory, since our aliyah, the rainfalls in Israel have been well below average. Up till this year, consumption had been on the rise, leading to dramatically low levels in the Kinneret, our main source of water.

There are three significant water levels mentioned when measuring the Kinneret. The high water level of the Kinneret is 208.8 meters below sea level. At this level, the lake overflows and the floodgates of the Deganya Dam near Teveria are opened to allow the waters to flow into the Jordan River. This is called the upper red line.

The lower red line is 213 meters below sea level. At this level, the amount of unhealthy contaminants found in the water rises above safe levels. We are currently below that level, and have been so since around July 9, 2008. The next significant level of the Kinneret is the black line, at 215 meters below sea level. At -215, the water pumps of the Kinneret become exposed to the air and must be shut down, eliminating the Kinneret (which provides 40 percent of our total water supply) as a water source.

The good news is that the conservation efforts of the water authority here have had tremendous results. Last month they announced that summer water consumption in July had dropped 13.5 percent from last year's level. So the country is getting the message. As a result of this, in my estimation we will come incredibly close to the black line this year, but will not pass it (depending on when the rains begin to fall).

As of last Thursday (September 3), the Kinneret was 214.04 meters below sea level. Last year on the same date it was 213.72 meters below sea level. The lowest level last year was 214.43 meters below sea level, a drop of an additional 85 centimeters from the September 3 level. Assuming that the conservation efforts totally fail for the remainder of the year and we use the same amount of water as we used last year, the Kinneret should fall to 214.89, a mere 11 centimeters above the dreaded black line. An important 11 centimeters.

At that point, we all need to pray for rain-and I mean pray hard. There are desalination plants being built to help relieve the stress on the system, but they won't be ready for another couple of years, and we could have real problems before then.

Does Might Make Right (8/5/2009)

2009-08-05T07:56:00.000-04:00

This week, I am writing not at all about my personal experience, but rather about current events and my take on them. Over the past couple of months, the Israeli media has been abuzz with various protests that have been taking place in Yerushalayim (and for a couple of days even spilled over into Bet Shemesh). We have read accounts of uncontrolled violence and rage. We have heard accusations and counter-accusations. Yet beneath it all is a struggle for power that is all too familiar.

I am referring to various "protests" and "riots" that have taken place in response to two different actions taken by the Jerusalem municipality. The first was the opening of a parking lot on Shabbat to be used by non-religious Jews as well as non-Jews who visit the capital city on Shabbat. The second was the arrest of the chareidi mother who allegedly starved her three-year-old son.

Before you get nervous, this is not another "Shmuel hates chareidim" article. I certainly fail to understand the more radical of them, but in this instance I understand their motivations and even agree that-in part-they had no choice but to act as they did. And I wonder why it is that things have to come to such straits.

Many years ago, when the first non-religious Jews began to move to Jerusalem, the local rabbinate faced an immediate crisis. For the communities in the eastern part of the city, the only Jews that the majority of their kehillah had been exposed to were observant. They had never witnessed chillul Shabbat or any other of a range of transgressions of the Torah. The rabbis worried that these newcomers would have a detrimental effect on the Jews of the city.

One of the actions they took at the time was to institute the practice of crying "Shaaabbbiiis" whenever one saw another Jew desecrating the Shabbat. They wanted people to remind themselves that the Shabbat was a holy day, and therefore the call of "Shabbis" was not directed outward at the other Jew, but rather inward as a reminder to keep the day holy and special.

In fact, in story after story, the original rabbanim who were involved in protests and activities in honor of Shabbat observance were incredibly particular not to say anything to a Jew who was transgressing the Shabbat, lest it represent a halachically valid warning. A Jew so warned is then guilty of violating Shabbat on a Torah level and not a rabbinic level, something they wanted to avoid at all costs.

Unfortunately, as tends to happen, over the years and generations this practice has evolved into an accusation against the non-religious Jew - almost in direct conflict with the original intention.

About two months ago, the mayor of Jerusalem, responding to safety concerns within the city, opened up a municipal parking lot for use on Shabbat. It is important to note that (i) the lack of parking facilities in the city on Shabbat creates safety issues for pedestrians and emergency personnel who have to navigate the narrow streets of Jerusalem, which used to be filled with haphazardly parked cars blocking traffic; (ii) the lot is operated by non-Jews on Shabbat with no chillul Shabbat taking place in the actual opening and operation of the lot itself; and (iii) the plan was done with the consultation and eventual approval of members of the chareidi religious parties in the city council (who had rejected using the originally proposed lot and insisted upon the use of a lot further from the chareidi neighborhoods).

In my opinion, the demonstrations (which have at times turned violent) against the opening of the parking lot were unreasonable. The only chillul Shabbat being performed was that being done by private parties, not the municipality. Those who were actually driving and parking in the lot were certainly guilty of this, but they would have been driving on Shabbat with or without the parking lot being open. (The only argument that is even slightly valid is that these drivers might not have come to Jerusalem if not for the parking-but historically, that is inaccurate. They came and parked in the streets.)

I believe that these protests were a simple muscle flex being done by the fanatical minority. They saw an opportunity to inflame people and make a point to the mayor and the country that they are a power and force to be reckoned with. I also believe that the city overreacted and that things quickly got out of hand. I am convinced that these initial protests quickly became a game of chicken. I also think that the mayor, as well as the secular community, was outraged by the "betrayal" of the chareidi parties who had helped formulate this plan but who quickly abandoned it in the face of public pressure.

It was this climate (a climate that has continued with protests and sporadic violence each Shabbat) that I believe became the catalyst for the second crisis that arose. I believe that in their zeal to smack down the chareidim, no matter what the issue, the municipality overstepped its bounds with their next step.

Much of the following may be inaccurate, and for that I apologize. I am trying to sift through the media reports and accusations from both sides and the result is what I hope is a close approximation of the truth.

There is a woman in Jerusalem who I believe has a terrible illness. Her illness has led her to do a terrible thing to her own son, which is an unimaginable tragedy. She apparently withheld food from her infant son and allowed him to waste away. The police claim there is even a video, shot by the hospital staff with a hidden camera, of her removing her son's feeding tube in the hospital and at times putting some foreign substance into it.

Faced with this evidence, the hospital had no choice but to report her to social services and the police. However, when the police wanted to have her arrested, the hospital balked and refused to allow it to happen in the hospital. Instead, a plan was devised by the police (independent of the social service workers who were still investigating the issue) to have the woman arrested outside of the social services offices, in the heart of her neighborhood.

The chareidi community, outraged at the arrest of one of their own, quickly went on the offensive. The social services offices were trashed and torched, garbage bins were set aflame, street signs and traffic lights were destroyed, and general mayhem and mischief ensued. There were both violent and nonviolent protests in Bet Shemesh, as well.

My initial reaction was one of disgust. After all, the police and hospital had been very vocal about having evidence, and this was a horrific crime. How could the chareidim defend this woman and protest her arrest? In my mind I had convicted her of terrible things; the information being presented was simply too inflammatory.

The mayor, responding to the violence and threat to civil servants in the city, pulled all municipal services from chareidi neighborhoods. He publicly regretted the fact that the innocent were swept up in this punishment, but charged the innocent with restoring order and civility to the area so that services could resume. I thought this was a long overdue move that was certainly justified and commensurate with the crimes.

Then came the news on erev Shabbat that the mother had been released into the custody of a high-ranking chareidi lobbyist, who paid $100,000+ bail for her. A deal had been struck where the woman, after initially refusing to cooperate with the investigation, agreed to be evaluated by a psychiatrist two days later, on Sunday. I was upset that they had let her out. How could they cave to the demands of hooligans and rioters? Didn't the rule of law apply here?

On Monday, a story was released that the mother had failed to show up for her mandated evaluation. The judge was quoted as saying that he hoped this wasn't an effort to undermine the court system, and there were quick condemnations.

She eventually presented herself for evaluation at midnight a couple of days later. Within hours, the chareidi community leaked reports that the psychiatrist had concluded that there was nothing wrong with the mother and that she did not constitute a threat to the members of her family. In the ensuing days, the psychiatrists for the prosecution contradicted the original psychiatrists, and there have been claims and counterclaims of misrepresentations and lies. The original psychiatrist has written a letter retracting his evaluation and was discovered to be a disgruntled former employee of the hospital in question, as well.

A judge, having seen the evidence, remanded the woman to house arrest. She is allowed to visit with her other children, but not the one she is accused of starving. The judge also explicitly criticized the police for blowing things out of proportion. The investigation continues. So does the posturing.

Although in my initial reaction I was outraged at the behavior of the chareidi community, I think I am changing my mind. They were wrong to be violent, no question. But at what point do we realize that their anger was justified, if not their actions?

The hospital and the mental-health professionals both had the ability to insist that the woman be arrested or have a restraining order issued against her. Why didn't they? Perhaps it was because they felt that with the child in the hospital's custody and now being supervised, the woman did not present an immediate risk to him. Perhaps also because they had determined-in their professional opinions-that she did not present an immediate risk to the rest of her family or the public at large. The police, whose job it is to enforce the restraining orders and maintain law and order, did neither. They took it upon themselves to make a judgment in this case that they had no expertise in and no business making.

A woman is sick. Her child is sick as a result. That is a tragedy-not a public relations opportunity. There is a system to handle these types of issues. Help, both medical and psychological, were called for, not condemnation and ridicule. The state, which is responsible to be impartial in the effective use of its power, was supposed to reach out and help, and instead slapped down and figuratively "spat" upon this family and community.

Perhaps this happened because the police were smarting. The chareidim had been making a mockery of their efforts to maintain safety with the opening of the parking lots, and maybe they wanted to get them back. So they jumped the gun and made the arrest.

So I wonder-and this is really why I have gone through the whole sordid story with you-what would have happened if this had been a non-religious mother? Would the police have been so quick to act, or would they have let the system process the case normally, waiting for the professionals to decide the next step? If they had acted, would her community have "gone nuts" and effectively forced a quick decision on getting her out of jail, or would she still be sitting in jail waiting?

What if it had been someone from my community, the Religious Zionist community? There is no question that people would have been up in arms. But would we have gotten violent? Almost assuredly not! Would we have forced the issue by virtue of our threats? Again, no. So I wonder if maybe we, outside the chareidi community, are the fools here. They saw an injustice and acted swiftly, strongly, and decisively to address it as soon as possible. More knowledgeable people than I have weighed in on the situation and agreed that the steps taken by the government were indeed well beyond what was required. This family was most probably being persecuted. Amazing for me to say it, but the chareidi community's emotional reaction to the second crisis was probably right-even though their actions (which were the catalyst for a fair hearing) were still wrong.

This is why the juxtaposition of the two crises is so compelling. It is the reaction to the first crisis that most probably caused the second crisis. In one situation, a bunch of punks got together to cause trouble because they felt ignored. In the other, a community banded together and took action in protest of persecution. It is unfortunate that, for this community, they seem to go hand in hand.

Note: After the above was written, the child involved was released from the hospital. He was reported to have gained weight and has shown significant improvement since being removed from his mother's care.

Dog Days of Summer (7/29/2009)

2009-08-01T07:41:00.000-04:00

We have officially reached the dog days of summer here. As usual, the entire country is gearing up for the annual "everyone goes on vacation in the month of August" fest, which means the kids are home and bored and the weather is nice and hot. Not only that, but many of the Anglo families are on their summer trips overseas, so the shuls are half-full, too. And it is hot.

No, not hot like you think. You have it hot in the 90s and 100s for a day or two-or maybe up to a week or ten days-and then it cools down to normal temperatures in the 80s and even as low as the 70s. We have day after day after day of 90 degree heat for over a week, one day of 85 and then right back up to the 90s and 100s. The sun is incredibly strong and I do not know how anyone lived here before there was A/C. I guess that is why we have "Shemesh" in our name here.

Of course, our employers still want us to give them the full value of work for our pay, so the kids get to be bored without me in the house and Goldie home only part time. But they are used to it from the rest of the year-they come home from school early here, and almost all the kids in the neighborhood are busy playing outside from the minute they get home until the minute they go to sleep. So they are very independent and, at least play-wise, are very self-sufficient.

We are members of a pool at one of the local kibbutzim, so Goldie will at least have a nice free activity for them. They love swimming. We go to the pool every Friday and they cannot get enough of being in the water. But we definitely miss summers in the U.S. summer camps (day and sleepaway) that last the entire summer, days that aren't all 100+ degrees, and, my favorite-Sundays. I would gladly trade my relaxed Friday if it meant that I could get my family Sundays back.

We are looking forward to trying out a new activity for the Katzes this summer. Israel is a country of hikers and campers. We have never really been into camping, but after our very successful Lag B'Omer hiking experience, I got Goldie's OK to schedule a camping night or nights. She will probably end up sleeping in the car, but the kids will have an awesome time.

Since we are still newbies, our day trips, hikes, and basically anything we do is an adventure for us. We have been to one amusement park since we arrived, so that is definitely on our short list of things to do. Plus, the kids always love the beach, the zoo, and anything that involves food-so we have an outline for some fun days with them as well.

They deserve it. After a year of six-day school weeks, they are entitled to get out and have some fun. Things are definitely less structured here. We see it in the school year, when the kids play on their own and can freely roam the neighborhood safely. We see it at s'machot, where formality is just not so important. And we see it in the summer, where there aren't programs and camps for the whole season. After all, if there was camp, there wouldn't be family fun time.

I got an e-mail from someone wondering why the change in the headline last week. If you hadn't noticed, we decided to stop numbering the Aliyah Chronicle articles. You see, the prior article was number 120 and in keeping with an "ad meah v'esrim" theme, we had to make some change, and that was it. From now on, we are simply "Our Aliyah Chronicle," and I look forward to sharing our experience-the highs as well as the lows-with you.

As I write this, Tishah B'Av is still in the future. By the time you read this, I hope that you all enjoyed coming to the Beit HaMikdash to enjoy the avodah as much as my father, brothers, and sons enjoyed performing it. On the off chance that the geulah did not happen, I hope you had a meaningful and easy fast and are looking forward to a terrific August.

To the Grandparents (7/16/2009)

2009-07-27T04:37:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week, I got an e-mail from one of our friends, Chani Schwartz, asking me if I thought it would be a good idea to tackle a sensitive area of aliyah: the difficulties and tensions that arise in families when the children (even those who are grown and have families of their own) decide to make aliyah. She, as a new olah having just gone through the process, had been getting calls from some of her friends who are coming this year. One of the major issues that kept coming up in conversation was the lack of support from their families.

I actually checked the archives and saw that I had written an article a few weeks before we left about how tough it was going to be for Goldie’s family (two of my three siblings were in Israel at that time; we are all here now, so the transition on my side was not as difficult). At that time, we knew that it would mean missing s’machot and other family get-togethers, yet we also hoped that it meant something positive for our family’s growth. We were right on both counts.

I cannot say that our extended family has been universally supportive 100 percent of the time. Yet I know that they also believe in what we have done and that they even have some measure of jealousy for the fact that we can and do live here (some more than others, none more than David). So, for our part, we have not faced the situation where our family was opposed to our coming to Israel.

I invited Chani to be a “guest columnist” and not only give me a semi-vacation (as I got last week as well), but also to provide a different voice from the one you have been hearing these past few years. I still have things to say, but for this week, the floor is Chani’s…

Are Your Children Making Aliyah?
An Aliyah Letter To Grandparents

By Chani Schwartz

The summer is upon us, and aside from thoughts of finishing school, summer camps, and family vacations, there is something else that permeates the air and peppers each conversation: “Did you hear who is making aliyah?” Most everyone in the greater New York–New Jersey area will know of someone taking the giant leap and moving to Israel.

Just under a year ago, my family was the topic of that conversation. On August 12, 2008, my husband Jason and I uprooted our family of then seven children from our comfortable home, stable jobs, and loving community in Teaneck, N.J., to move across the world to Israel.

This summer will welcome a number of new olim from the United States, many of whom will be coming after an arduous and soul-searching process culminating in the decision that aliyah is indeed for them. Many of these olim will be coming with their parents’ blessing, but unfortunately many without. It is those families that have prompted me to write to you today. I have seen far too many families and heard far too many stories of families making aliyah without their parents’ consent.

My husband and I both grew up in Woodmere. We are products of Woodmere of the ’80s and ’90s. I want to direct this article to the parents and grandparents of the children choosing or contemplating aliyah. How will you react when confronted with that fateful call of “Mom, I’m making aliyah”?

Unfortunately, all too often, the parental response is that of dismay. Parents become belligerent and angry, and sometimes even refuse to speak to their children. In response, many exclaim, “How did this happen?” Moms and dads, let me explain it to you: You helped us.

It was you who saved to take us on the ultimate family vacation to Israel, taking pictures by the Kotel, which in turn made it into every bar/bat mitzvah video. It was you who sent us to pro-Israel schools. You were the ones who picked out our clothes when we had to wear blue and white on Yom HaAtzma’ut, and it was you who helped us sing the proper words of HaTikvah when we came home in first grade garbling the stanzas.

Certainly you cannot forget when you took us, rain or shine (often rain), as far back as each of us can remember, to the Israel Day Parade. It was on Fifth Avenue that you pointed out all the schools, the floats, Mayor Koch (if we got there early enough), telling us, “Look, he’s the Mayor of the whole New York City, and he’s Jewish!” and explained why it is so important that we show our support each and every year. Finally, it was you who allowed us our rite of passage to spend a year, sometimes two, studying in Israel, post-high-school. How can we not develop a love for Israel—a sense of entitlement that this is where we belong?

It’s hard to let go at any point in life. Not everyone has the luxury of having his or her children living right next door, but many do. But the question is, are you prepared to stay in the Five Towns the rest of your lives? What happens when you decide to retire and move to Florida? Do we have the right to ask you not to move and enjoy your retirement because we want you to stay nearby? When we do ask, what will you do?

Mom and Dad, you’ve raised us to be independent. You sought for us to be accomplished professionals. You hoped for us to grow up, get married, and have lives of our own. Part of that maturity is making grown-up decisions about what is right for our nuclear family.

Please do not think that we did this to hurt you. We understand what our decision means for you. We are taking away your grandchildren and not allowing you to see them grow on a daily basis. We will no longer have the fluidity to pop over as you or we please, and we are limiting your involvement in the practical raising of our children. Just know that it is a major loss for us as well.

Please consider that we are the ones leaving our family and friends behind. We realize that our children will be some of the few not to have their grandparents front and center for every siddur play and presentation. We are the ones that will not be able to join every family simcha. Yes, these are the choices we made; and yes, these are the consequences we will endure. But know that we make aliyah in the hopes of a better, albeit possibly harder, life for our family.

I am blessed that our decision to make aliyah was met only with support by my parents, who are still living in the Five Towns. That’s not to say there weren’t any tears (on both sides), wisps of regret in voices, and conversations brought to abrupt ends due to lumps in the throat. But to our faces, my parents were the picture of strength, admiration, and support.

They helped in every way possible, and they were there at JFK airport waving the entire time as we passed through the gates to board our plane until they could see us no longer. Having their support meant the world to us. It allowed the stressful process to be just a little easier, knowing we had our parental love and support. For that, I thank G-d…and my parents.

So, if the time comes and you are placed in this position, please be careful with your response. Think what you want behind closed doors, and even voice your concerns once to ensure your children have thought of all the angles. But to your children be supportive and be happy, and you will see how much it is appreciated in return. It makes all the difference.

Shmu the Activist (Article# 120)

2009-07-27T04:33:00.001-04:00

Last November, Goldie and I signed a contract to buy a house that (at least on paper) was supposed to be built in the second stage of construction in the new Nofei HaShemesh neighborhood of Bet Shemesh. (Some of you may recognize this as the neighborhood to which Rabbi Rosner and his family made aliyah.) Having been involved in the building of the neighborhood’s new shul since week one, we were very excited to make this commitment and finalize our choice of Bet Shemesh as our family home.

Throughout this process, as you have read, we have had some concerns about the future of the city and our interactions with some of our neighbors. Yet we felt so good about the neighborhood and our children’s adjustment to being in Bet Shemesh that we decided to take the plunge despite our concerns. We were excited about this opportunity and were looking forward, along with several other families, to be a part of a new beginning.

As time went by, we became more and more concerned about the changing of Bet Shemesh as a city. We came to a city that had a large, although minority, chareidi population, but was still known as a welcoming home to both the non-religious and religious Zionist populations. In the interim, we have seen increased tensions across the “fence line” (where we live), the election of a chareidi mayor, and an announcement by the Minister of Housing a few weeks ago that Bet Shemesh is going to be the flagship city for the development of new chareidi housing, with 100,000 new units to be built over the next several years.

As I am sure you can figure out for yourselves, adding 100,000 chareidi families to a city of less than 100,000 residents will significantly alter the city and its face. Should this plan come to fruition, I fear that the Bet Shemesh we came to will no longer exist—and it will become a Bet Shemesh that we are not sure we would want to be a part of.

Once again I feel compelled to comment that, in general, I do not have problems with the chareidi public at large. It is a fringe group of fanatics that cause the trouble. However, this fringe has yet to be reined in by their peers and, quite frankly, in my opinion the fringe sweeps up the general public in their hysteria (as evidenced by the recent rioting in Yerushalayim). It is the fringe who are trying to make our lives miserable, and if the city becomes a chareidi city we fear that it will only increase.

I am sure that this column will once again result in letters to the editor proclaiming outrage at my “chareidi bashing” and decrying the decision to run it in the paper. Many of you identify with the chareidi public and feel that I am being hypercritical of their actions. I disagree.

I do not think that you identify with any of the things these people stand for, not in the least bit. We have gotten letters in our mailbox threatening harm to us and our families because some of us have televisions. We have gotten letters (I will gladly e-mail you a copy if you don’t believe me) telling us that we do not dress properly in the privacy of our own homes and that such immodest dress is offending them when they look into the windows of our houses to which their eyes are “naturally drawn.” The Israeli flags in front of our homes and on our cars disappear overnight and are regularly burned by their children in Lag B’Omer bonfires. The list goes on.

This fringe stands for intolerance of others, for intimidation and bullying of people who have every right to act in the manner of their choice. Yes, we do tend to generalize when we lump all chareidim together—but the good guys need to take action to distinguish themselves from the bad guys, instead of being intimidated by them.

For example, the photo shown here was taken three weeks ago on a Thursday morning. In their never-ending harassment of us, some of the fringe guys decided to take up artwork. A week after spray-painting their “modest dress only” message in two places on the sidewalk next to our home (messages that I painted over the very same day they appeared), these fine neighbors came back and spray-painted 14 different messages of their hatred of our community overnight. On the sidewalks and on the retaining walls it was impossible to not see their message.

What would you say if this had happened on your street?

We know who the spray-painters are. Their entire community knows who they are. Yet nothing is done about it. Why? If this was something done in your neighborhood and you knew the guy doing it, and his kids were in your child’s school, and he davened in your shul—what would you do? Nothing? I doubt it.

As we cleaned up the graffiti, Goldie and I were accosted by various members of their community. They had complaints about dress, television, and many other issues. We agreed that they had a right to be concerned, but asked what justification they had for the spray-painting behavior. On the whole (with one exception) they agreed that such behavior was inappropriate. I asked them why they don’t do anything to stop such people. No answer.

There was one fellow who answered differently from all the rest. This man came over to me as I was painting over the sidewalk and asked me why I was making such a mess of the sidewalk. Incredulously, I responded that it was not I who had made the mess, it was his friends who had made it and I was just cleaning it up. He responded to me, “Oh no—this message is supposed to be here” and then walked away. Goldie commented to me that she would not have believed that such a thing could be said to my face if she had not personally heard it.

Would you stand idly by under these circumstances?

The latest set of graffiti prompted some attention from City Hall. Some of our city councilmen came to see the graffiti, and in our discussions with them they told us that MK Ariel Atias (Shas), the Minister of Housing and Construction—who had announced the plan to add 100,000 chareidi housing units—would be coming to Bet Shemesh the following week to discuss the plans with the mayor and representatives of the City Council. We decided to protest.

I filed a permit with the police and organized a protest for the morning of the meeting. The plaza in front of City Hall has room for only about 50 people, and we showed up with about 100. Before the protest, the security agent for the minister approached me and told me that the minister is interested in speaking with us before the meeting.

When he arrived, he did indeed come over to the barricades to speak with us. I showed him some pictures of the graffiti and asked him if he had considered what impact his plan would have on the current residents of Bet Shemesh. He responded that we obviously would not solve our problems while standing in the streets and that it was also obvious that there were many groups who have concerns. He then invited me to organize a meeting in his office to discuss the issues—which I did.

He was extremely gracious and open with us. I have to give him credit for that—and for his willingness to meet with us at all after he had publicly announced his intention to do the opposite of what we wanted.

We came with eleven people from various walks of life, and he gave us all as much time as we needed to present our concerns with his building plans, of which there were many. He then engaged in a discussion with us, explaining that he indeed shared many of our concerns, but that as the Minister of Housing and Construction he is responsible for solving the chareidi housing problem and that if we had concrete plans to solve our concerns as well, he would be happy to review them.

In effect, he said, “I feel your pain, but cannot help you.”

While this was happening, we were notified that building permits would not be issued for our own construction project to which we had committed, and that our purchase contracts were going to be revoked. Apparently, the Land Registry Office would not approve the plot subdivision of the project (or so we were told) and there is no clue as to when, if ever, the project will get off the ground.

So, we are again at decision-making time. We love Bet Shemesh. We really do. Our kids are happy here and we have built great friendships and bonds. Yet we are concerned for the future of Bet Shemesh and what will happen if the city indeed becomes a chareidi city—which is not what we signed up for when we moved here. So we have to consider what we will do.

Unlike many of our neighbors, we still have a choice. We do not have any encumbrances here, other than the emotional ones. We may stay and decide that we will deal with whatever comes our way. Or we may move to a city or town that does not face these issues. Wherever we go, we will face some kind of issue. There is no such thing as Utopia. When we lived in the USA we had issues as well, and choosing where to live was a conscious choice about which issues mattered and which didn’t. This is what we are facing here as well; it is no different.

My neighbors have harangued me for “airing our laundry” in public, in fear of my turning people away from Bet Shemesh as a place to live. Yet in my opinion it is not fair for me to continue touting the city as if there are no issues here and duping people into something they are not prepared for. Come to Bet Shemesh—but come fully prepared and with an understanding of the issues we face. I wish I had known some of them before I came here; ultimately we might have made the same decision, but at least it would have been an informed one.

The Next Step (Article# 119) 6/25/2009

2009-07-27T04:27:00.001-04:00

I am very excited to share some of our latest news. On July 1, I will be taking on the position of international director of development of Machon Puah: The Puah Institute for Medicine and Fertility in Accordance with Halacha, in Yerushalayim. For those who do not know of Puah, it is an 18-year-old global organization focused on helping Jewish couples become Jewish families. It is a terrific opportunity for me to grow, and as a new oleh (yes, I still consider myself that—more on this topic later), it brings a new stage of growth as an Israeli as well.

As part of the “shidduch process” with Puah, I met several times with different people in the organization. Of their 100+ employees, only a handful speak English, so most of the meetings were held in Hebrew. I am comfortable with Hebrew on a conversational basis, but this was an entirely new level of conversation for me. Furthermore, most of my daily interactions there (as well as written communications in the form of memos, e-mail, etc.) will be conducted in Hebrew. I am a bit intimidated by the challenge of going from a 10–15 percent Hebrew day to a 65+ percent Hebrew day, but I will have no choice.

I am sure that as time goes by, I will look back and wonder what I was so concerned about, but for the time being it is quite an overwhelming challenge. Yet I am sure that it will make my long-term adjustment as an Israeli much easier.

When we came on aliyah, I went to work almost immediately following our arrival (three days later). While it was certainly a great benefit to have a job to go to (many new olim spend months if not a year or more looking for a job), we also missed out on the many things that new olim do in exploring the country and familiarizing themselves with the language and “the Israeli experience.”

I didn’t take ulpan. I didn’t do any touring. I didn’t explore the city I am living in nor get a chance to participate in many of the special events that are geared toward newcomers and helping their acclimation to the country. Some of these opportunities are gone; others can still be seized.

Knowing that my Hebrew language skills are about to undergo an involuntary ulpan experience, I decided to see how I might do some of the other things that I had missed. I therefore decided to take a couple of weeks off before starting at Puah and use that time for myself.

Taking a break is not always the easiest thing to do. With everyone’s school schedules to coordinate and the various family events we have (and are thrilled to be a part of), our calendar becomes full quite easily. Although I have definitely enjoyed a few days here and there with my family (and a three-day holiday with Goldie in London, since I was there on business anyway), this would really be the first extended period of time that I had to do with as I pleased.

So far, my efforts have met with mixed results. Those days for which I have been able to coordinate full-day schedules for myself have been very productive.

I spent a terrific day in Yerushalayim, visiting the Begin Center, a Holocaust museum in the Old City, as well as a couple of archaeological museums in the Old City. At the end of the day, I went to the Kotel for a few minutes (as I get to do whenever I want to, ’cause I live here). I arrived at the Begin Center without a reservation (I had no idea I needed one). An English tour was not scheduled for several hours, so I joined the next Hebrew tour with a special headset to simulcast movie presentations in English for me. Although I definitely needed the headphones for the movies, it was gratifying that I understood the general tour without a problem.

I took Aliza for a special day in Tel Aviv, as well. We started the day in Bet HaTefutzot. In my research about the museum, I found that there was a special discount for new olim. I perked up at the thought of a discount, and when we got to the museum I asked if we still qualified for the discount after being here for three years. The ticket seller asked if I feel like I am new or not. I wasn’t sure and I said, “You know what, just charge me the regular price.” For 10 shekels, the guilt wasn’t worth it.

I then noticed that they had special headphones with an English language option as a tour aid. I turned to Aliza and asked her in English if she wanted to get the headset. The ticket agent looked up and said, “You are still speaking English to each other? You get the discount!”

The museum was very informative, but about two-thirds away from the end, Aliza began to lose patience and we rushed our way through. After enjoying a lunch in the museum coffeehouse (another Israeli treat—kosher food in the shopping malls and other convenient places) we then went to (Aliza’s favorite part) the Diamond Museum.

Although it was not necessarily something I needed to do, I knew that Aliza would get a big treat out of learning how diamonds are mined and made into gemstones. I wasn’t wrong. It isn’t every day that we get to spend time one-on-one with our kids, and this was a great treat.

Yet this isn’t a vacation, and the aforementioned kids and their needs sometimes dictate that I am around the house on certain days (especially at the end of the year with its various parties and graduations), and those days were mind-numbingly horrid.

I spend the better part of most days with Goldie. We work ten feet from each other (although that is now coming to an end), and with all the different things that we are involved with in our family, we are together quite a bit. Which has been pretty good so far.

However, being home alone is clearly not for us. We rearranged bedrooms (letting Batya take Chaim’s empty room) and did other at-home projects, and that kept me busy for a bit, but I learned quite quickly that I will not be retiring when the time comes. It would drive me crazy.

One of the days I stayed home was spent with Moshe, in advance of his “graduation” from preschool for 4-year-olds. Moshe has had a terrific adjustment here. Having brought him at age 1, Goldie made a decision (contrary to what many new olim do) to place him in a Hebrew-speaking gan in order to facilitate his Hebrew skills. It worked.

He is a terrific little kid. He speaks both Hebrew and English equally comfortably. He loves to have books of either language read to him, and as the youngest of six is a spoiled brat with a sunny disposition and a patient approach to the world.

His graduation, unlike the ones I attended for my other kids in the U.S., was filled with both mothers and fathers. In America, there was always another father or two in the room. In Israel, it is normal for the majority of fathers to come. Events are run in evenings specifically to encourage the participation of both parents throughout the year.

We really enjoyed this graduation and are excited to see Moshe move up to the next level of preschool. We had a choice of what to do with him for the upcoming year. Preschool has two levels for three years of schooling (ages 4–6). Most kids do two years of the lower level (t’rom chovah), moving up for a single year of the higher level (gan chovah) prior to first grade.

However, both the preschool administration and we feel that Moshe, being one of the oldest kids of his year, is too mature to repeat another year of t’rom preschool, and have decided to move him up a level and have him stay in the gan chovah for two years. We feel that he needs the challenge of moving to the higher level and (giving credit where credit is due) it was really Goldie’s decision to encourage his Hebrew language development that made this a possibility. She made the right call.

I have a meeting scheduled with the Minister of Housing for later this week. It is partly in response to some of the activism I am involved with here in Bet Shemesh and I hope that I can report positive results next week.

Children Move On (Article# 118) 6/18/2009

2009-07-27T04:17:00.001-04:00

This is going to be a tough week to write. I had originally intended to discuss changes in my life, both personal and professional. However, my denial of events couldn’t stop time, and our oldest son has left the nest—a change that was expected yet still traumatic.

Chaim boarded a plane on Monday night and headed back to America, this time quite possibly for good. We’ll still see him for vacations and on our trips to the USA, but he is entering college in the fall and has expressed his desire to live his life there. No matter where he ends up, this was our last full-time experience with him being home.

Had we stayed in America, he would of course be coming to Israel this fall with the rest of his American peers. After a year or perhaps two, he would have returned to the USA, and gone to university. Had he chosen a dormitory university, we would have seen him only on Shabbatot and vacations, yet he would still have been based at home until he either took his own apartment or got married.

Here in Israel, his peers are heading to either a year of preparatory college (in advance of university) or straight to the army. They too will come home for furloughs and weekend breaks. They will certainly set up their own lives once they finish their military service, yet the country is so small that it is much easier to maintain that parent/child connection that is so vital to us as parents.

Of course, it is possible that Chaim would have decided to stay in Israel for the long term (as did my sister, who only came back for brief visits after her year in Israel). This is not unheard of, and in a family of six children there is a good chance that this would have happened to us with one of our kids anyway—although perhaps not at 18, and not in this direction (moving from Israel to the USA).

We are actually a bit lucky that he was here for this year at all. His original plan was to go to college following a single year of post-high-school learning. Having earned his high-school degree quite early, he had intended to go to YU at 17, and he only decided to stay for a second year of learning late in the year. He was convinced to stay an additional year partially by his friends but also by the university itself, whose representatives expressed their concern about a 17-year-old’s maturity and ability to handle a rigorous schedule.

I am sure that many of you have already experienced this feeling of pride and sadness and can probably tell me that this is the way things go. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.

He goes with our hopes and dreams, all our wishes and plans for who he will become, the life he will lead and the family he will grow. He leaves having been a superstar in dealing at age 15 with a life-altering move of 6,000 miles to a land he never wanted to live in. He lost his friends and everything that was comfortable in his life, yet he somehow found a new life and a new existence here in Bet Shemesh. An emerging love for Israel was just the icing on the cake.

He has his own dreams and, for the time being, they do not intersect with ours. Despite all the hardship and struggles he went through in coming here, I think he is a much stronger person. He has devoted the past two years to his Torah learning and has become much more of a mentsch than we deserved for him to be. He will follow his own path, and we look forward to continued pride in him wherever he goes and whatever he does.

The departure was traumatic for some and not much of a big deal for others. Moshe, the baby, thinks that Chaim went to “Damerica” for a couple of days and will wonder where he is at the end of the week when he hasn’t come home. Mordechai was much more upset, saying, “I don’t want him to go!” and “If he goes, I go!” Batya was also quite upset. Aliza and Chaya were a little sad, but the tears only began to flow in earnest when Chaim went to say goodbye to Goldie, who did not take things well at all. She refused to go to the airport, because she didn’t think she could handle it, so she said goodbye at the door. With all the crying going on, I myself was able to remain pretty calm about the whole thing. But I definitely felt the passing of time and the realization that we are entering yet another stage in our growth.

My sister Bluma’s son had his own transition this past week, as well. Her third son, my nephew Idan, became a bar mitzvah last Monday and, for the first time ever, my entire family was able to participate in the simcha. In fact, my brother Ozer noted later that it was the first time since my wedding that all the Katzes were in the same room at the same time. There was someone missing for all subsequent s’machot, be it my brother-in-law or Goldie or our kids.

My brother-in-law Arieh is of Tunisian descent, so we had a really Sephardi celebration. Having been through this a couple of times, I am prepared for the constant barrage of candy from the women, the “Kooooolooloolooloolooloolooloo” yodels that serenade each person’s ascent for his aliyah, and even the different cantillations and nigunim. The only thing that makes me crazy is the amount of TIME they spend on davening. Everything is said out loud by the chazzan. Each word. One thing I remind myself at each simcha is that I simply do not have the patience to be a Sephardi.

My brother-in-law has a terrific family. Twelve brothers and sisters, and they really represent all walks of Israeli society, yet they are accepting and loving of one another in a way that is truly inspirational. I have come to know some of them, and their encouragement and support to us, both in making aliyah and in all the trials we have had since coming here, has made us feel so loved.

On Shabbat, my sister’s sisters-in-law all said to her, “You cannot serve or help in any way”; they wanted her to enjoy the simcha without having to worry about the details. It is apparently an unwritten rule in their family that you might need to work like a dog in preparing for the simcha, but once the day arrives everyone else pitches in so you can enjoy.

Goldie had such a terrific time with them that she asked Bluma if it might be possible for her (Goldie) to be adopted into the Uzan family (especially the ones with Temani spouses who were really the most fun of all the siblings) so that she could enjoy them all the more.

Of course, as generally happens, “when it rains it pours.” So, we missed the bar mitzvah of Yehoshua Rosner (Rabbi and Mrs. Rosner’s son), the first bar mitzvah in our shul—although we did get to the Sunday-night party in Yeshivat Reishit Yerushalayim and got to visit with former Five Towners Gary and Kiki Schickman, Martin and Debbie Rothman, Gary Wallin, and Bonnie Polansky, who we don’t usually see, as well as shul members Mutty and Penina Eichler, Josh and Daniella Rudof, and Jon and Sarah Paley.

We also missed the bar mitzvah of Chaim Jacobs (son of Zvi and Amy) in the USA. I remember Chaim as a teeny tiny kid posing with me as the extra-small and xxx-large models for a Yeshiva of South Shore sweatshirt (he was standing on a table and still only came to my shoulder). We apparently missed my cousin Shua and Devorah Ray’s daughter Kayla’s bat mitzvah in Chicago last month (our invite got sent back in the mail, taking over two months to make the round trip from Chicago to Israel and back; mail service here is spotty at best) as well as the birth of her newest younger sister Libby last week.

Mazal tov to them all. For those who we were able to share in their simcha, we were glad to be there and celebrate together. For the others: Why are you still in America?

Spying out the Land, Again (Article# 117) 6/11/2009

2009-07-27T04:05:00.002-04:00

It has been a few weeks, hasn’t it? For reasons that will be clearer next week, I took a mini vacation from writing. However, knowing that this week is Parashas Shelach (in Israel; you chutz la’aretz guys messed things up by having two days of Shavuot and missing the right week to hear Nasso, but it is OK—you will catch up in a couple of weeks), I couldn’t resist the lure of the keyboard.

Last year, in response to Nefesh B’Nefesh’s request that olim send a list of reasons (à la the original meraglim) to come live in Israel, I wrote a column entitled “Spying out the Land” giving the top 10 reasons

to come live in Israel (in correlation to the 10 meraglim who recommended against entering Israel) which I urge you all to reread by visiting http://tinyurl.com/lo6vwj. However, if those reasons weren’t enough, here are another 10 reasons you should embark on an aliyah adventure of your own.

10. It’s the economy, stupid. Although Israel has struggled along with the rest of the world, most indicators tell us that (gasp) Binyamin Netanyahu’s financial reforms (enacted when he was Minister of Finance in the previous Likud government) put Israel in a strong position to withstand the worst of the crisis. The shekel has proven to be a strong and resilient currency and inflation looks to be as stable as can be expected in these recessionary times. Make no mistake: we are suffering here too with layoffs, pay cuts, and a loss in income and assets, but it isn’t as bad here as it is there (although that is hard to prove to someone who is out of work).

9. Vacationing in Israel is much cheaper. There is a connection to this land that keeps so many of you coming back on a regular basis and/or sending your children here for a visit or even a year. Even with the recently lowered cost of airfare, it still costs several thousand dollars for a family to make the trip here before they even embark on a single day trip.

Europe is much closer too. When you are looking for that additional treat, the flights are incredibly cheap at times. Some of the deals require very little notice, but if you are flexible you can take advantage of great pricing. For instance, airfare for a weeklong trip to Italy was priced at $188 this week with similar deals for Hungary, Spain, and a host of other European destinations.

8. Gentile neighbors are a thing of the past. Unless you live in a major urban area or are specifically looking to be in a mixed-religion community, your family will not have that much to do with people not like you. Yes, I may rail on about some of the chareidim in Bet Shemesh (not all of them; only an acknowledged minority) but they are still Jews and they are still more like me than most of my former neighbors from Woodmere. I may not like/approve of their actions, but we are all one nation.

There is very little chilul Shabbat in our neighborhood—maybe 12-20 cars each week and even the most irreligious people have a basic “Jewish education” including Tanach and Jewish history. Bet Shemesh is a hamlet of sorts, as is Chashmonaim, Efrat, Neve Daniel, etc., but a main attraction of all these small communities, which seem to be Anglo magnets (aside from the English), is their existential Jewishness.

7. The food. I have always been a fan of Israeli food, enjoying falafel and shwarma as much as the next guy. Or at least I thought I did. When I began to eat “Israeli food” in Israel, I realized what a poor imitation I had in the U.S. No insult to the “Israeli” places in the U.S., but I rarely eat in them when I am on a trip to the U.S. Once you go authentic, you can’t go back to the imitation.

Even non “Israeli” foods are great here. There are a host of wonderful kosher restaurants overseas (that means over there), but you cannot experience the great range of options we do unless you live in a major metropolitan area. Even then, the sheer population advantage of kosher consumers we enjoy here allows for a much broader spectrum of choices and opportunities for a great meal.

Theme restaurants are kosher. Where else in the world can you enjoy the experience of eating a delicious kosher meal in total darkness, served by blind waiters? How about enjoying a meal from one of our several all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse chains? Pizza Hut? Sbarro’s? We even have a (mehadrin) kosher KFC (I think their coating is way too salty)!

6. Fitting in. This is both a positive and a negative. Here in Israel, there are so many communities that there is somewhere for everyone, no matter what their religious practices and/or political leanings are. There are like-minded people for almost everyone, which makes for a comfortable existence and life.

However, this also provides a natural breeding ground for disagreements and antagonism. Since we Israelis share a common bond as Jews, we have to look harder than you do to find the things that make us different. Our distaste for those who do not share the same beliefs/values is much stronger than we experienced in the U.S. (I am guilty as well) and emboldens people to do things they never would consider doing outside of Israel. This is reflected in the fact that in some (social) ways, you in galut enjoy more achdut than we do (a fact I have lamented often).

On the whole, being part of a united community vastly outweighs the negatives but I have to be honest and this point cuts both ways.

5. Leining the “right” parshiyot. We are technically all in galut. You are just in the furthest galut, being outside of Israel. Last year I talked about having only one day of yom tov for the chagim, but this year another funny quirk popped up—the last day of a yom tov fell out on Shabbat.

We celebrated one day of Shavuot as always (with Megillat Rut, Akdamot, and Yizkor all done on the same day—beginning at 4:30 a.m. after Tikkun Leil Shavuot). The next day, although flowing naturally from Shavuot, was a regular Shabbat for us and we read Parashat Nasso. You (as noted above) still had that day as Shavuot and read a special yom tov leining, delaying Nasso until the next week (when we read Bha’alotcha). Through July you will be a week behind us (you catch up with a double parashah on Matot-Masei). I am not in any way saying your way is wrong but wouldn’t it be better to do it the way it was originally intended to be?

4. The shopkeepers. We try to shop “Jewish” whenever we can in order to support other Jews. While it is almost impossible to totally avoid buying non-Jewish/Arab products (for instance, the overwhelming majority of cucumbers here are grown on Arab farms), we want to benefit the Jewish shopkeepers as much as possible.

While this is relatively easy to do in Bet Shemesh, it becomes harder in major cities. Almost all Jewish shopkeepers are aggressive and incredibly knowledgeable and helpful (as opposed to civil servants or those who work in service industries like bank tellers). They understand that their eagerness to please and their help in identifying just the right product leads to loyal customers and more business.

We have a couple of local “variety” type stores in Bet Shemesh about 200 feet from each other. One is more for hardware and the other is more for housewares. They are owned by a father and son and you could not find friendlier and more helpful people.

One of the main reasons we like them (aside from their good natured friendliness) are the little things that they do and know. We recently bought some coffee glasses in the housewares store and as Goldie peeled the labels off, she commented on how easily they came off. The owner responded that he stocks a specific brand of glasses and price tags in order to make it easier to peel the labels off prior to dunking them in the mikvah. That is service.

We patronize a local appetizing store owned by really nice Gerrer Chassidim. The owner greets us personally every time we walk into the store and makes sure to wish us a Gut Shabbos before we leave. At the shuk in Machane Yehuda, a storekeeper once told me that I could not shop in his store for Pesach products because his ingredients were kitniyot and I am Ashkenazi.

They might all be out to make a buck (or shekel as the case may be), but they are super friendly and their recognition of halachah and the value we place on halachah (even if the shopkeeper himself is not religious) is comforting.

3. Tuition, tuition, tuition. This is the only repeat from last year. I should really repeat my points about the holiness of the land, doing mitzvot in Israel, being in the land of the Tanach, or any of the other ones dealing with the fact that Jews belong in the land that was given to us and that it is the holiest place for us to be and enhances our every action (both good and bad).

However, as a regular reader of the Five Towns Jewish Times this past year, I have seen a recurrent theme in its pages: “The Tuition Crisis” and “The Cost Of A Jewish Education.” The costs are incredibly high and I am amazed that in this time of recession it is still possible to pay up to $30,000 to send a single child for a year to high school. What are you people thinking?

I may earn less and pay higher taxes, but the benefits in health care and education are incredible. I pay less than a 5 digit dollar figure to send all 5 kids to school, and there are so many schools to choose from here.

None of our schools have building funds, dinners, or any of the other fees and taxes that your yeshiva has been hitting you with. We are therefore less tied in to a specific school and it is not a big deal to send kids to different schools, allowing you to send each kid to the school that is best for him/her as an individual instead of them all being lumped into the same building for convenience/cost.

2. Davening. There are many wonderful shuls and chazzanim outside of Israel. However, most of the people in those shuls don’t fully understand the words they are saying. Hebrew is a foreign language to them. Even people who have studied the davening and can literally translate them don’t fully appreciate what they are saying.

Almost all of davening (all of Tehillim) is poetry written by David HaMelech. Most of us cannot fully appreciate Italian, Greek, or Latin poetry, even when it is translated to English because we lack the fluency to understand the nuances that make the poetry especially beautiful and meaningful. The same holds true for davening.

Israeli born Jews do not have such a handicap. Even immigrants stack up better than foreign Jews because they are forced to be somewhat fluent in order to conduct their everyday lives. Most of us know where the accents are supposed to be and pause at the correct moment. Singing a tefillah that you understand (especially as a group) is unbelievable.

1. Write your own Chronicles. I have enjoyed tremendous support from the overwhelming majority of my readers. Larry Gordon’s vision of enabling the average reader to visualize the aliyah process and connect a little more closely with Israel turned out to be prophetic in a way. Your support has seen us through many of the trials and tribulations we have faced and comforted us when we needed it most.

Yet, it is practically impossible to please everyone. I have heard it all: “Katz is too religious,” “Katz isn’t religious enough,” “How could you have done that in public” and of course, my all-time favorite “Katz is a jerk for beating up on the chareidim because we identify with them.”

Firstly, you only think you identify with them. I complain about those who do things that no one in the Five Towns would even dream of doing and behave in such an immoral way that it is impossible to defend them. I have repeatedly said that I understand that the majority of the chareidi public are nice people and want to live their lives the same way I do—without interference from outsiders. My complaint to them is that they (by their silence) enable the worst elements in their community to terrorize us all.

Yet no matter how many times I say this, there are always a handful of people who think I am an agent of evil and have no “right” to say (in a column that is supposed to be a journal of my personal experiences and thoughts in making aliyah) anything negative about this minority of people who have tried to enforce their standards on me and my neighbors. So please, come prove me wrong.

I would eagerly look forward to reading about your experiences and hearing your opinions, since you too will have made the sacrifice of uprooting your family and committing yourself to the future of our country and our nation. Having walked a mile in each other’s shoes, I have a suspicion that you might not be as critical of me as you are now. Or you might be. We’ll never know until you move in.

I am a total advocate for everyone to come here and add to the mosaic that is the population of our homeland. In another few years we will have 50%+ of the Jewish people resident in Israel for the first time in thousands of years. Mitzvot specific to Israel will become obligatory from the Torah then. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

On a separate note, mazal tov to Goldie’s brother David and his wife Marcia on the engagement of their daughter Tova to Yitzy Klapper of Hillcrest. We are very close with David and Marcia (and especially Tova who was in seminary in Israel when we initially made aliyah). We owe tremendous appreciation to them for all they have done for us over the years. They have always been staunch supporters of our aliyah, when other relatives were not, and we feel a special bond with them. Hopefully Yitzy and Tova’s aliyah plans will come true.

The Meaning of Service (Article# 116) 5/14/2009

2009-07-27T03:57:00.001-04:00

Although I have already written about our Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) experiences last week, my sister related a story about my nephew to me late last week that I want to share.

As you know, my nephew Yonatan is currently in the middle of his military service. Although his assignments change regularly, he is currently stationed either in Gaza or at the Gaza border, and you can understand that his parents and family are quite concerned for his well-being.

He comes home for Shabbat every few weeks and is occasionally given a couple of days off during the week as well. As it happened, he came home for an overnight visit the night of Yom HaZikaron and then had to leave quite early the next morning to what my sister thought was a routine company memorial assembly. It was only days later that he told her where he had gone.

Each year on Yom HaZikaron, the active members of the unit are assigned (in pairs) to visit the graves of the soldiers from that division who had been killed in action. They are given a biography of the soldier as well as family member information so that they can greet the family members (who almost always visit the graves on Yom HaZikaron) and offer their personal support or condolences.

I think the soldier whose grave they were assigned had been killed in the Yom Kippur war. That means that every year for 35+ years, two (different) soldiers have visited the grave to support and comfort the family. I do not know whether this policy holds true for every company in every division of our military or only for the company in which my soldier serves, but it says something about the value we place upon our servicemen and women and the sacrifice that some of them make.

Later in the week I got a copy of an e-mail that was sent by one of my relatives to his parents in the USA. He has been on his “gap year” in a yeshiva and had decided (with his parents approval) to stay for a second year as well. However, he does not feel that even this second year will be enough to quench the thirst within him, and he sent them the following e-mail:

Being a Jew, a son of the Avos and Imahos, one carries responsibility and the history of his nation with him. Being the Am Segulah (Chosen Nation) entails many things, one of which is that from the beginning of time till the end of time we will always be around.

We have seen Pharaohs come and go, Bavel come and go, Greece and the Romans come and go, Persia come and go. We have withstood the Crusades, blood libels, pogroms, and myriads of massacres. We have seen the sheker of Christianity, since its origin, lead to untold deaths of our people and of course the most recent, the terrors of the Shoah.

Yet throughout all these catastrophes, the horror of each of which it is impossible to relate to, there is one common denominator—“Am Yisrael Chai.”

Yes, of course on the individual level hundreds of thousands of millions of Jews died, but nationally we are here and flourishing.

For over 2,000 years since the Churban Bayis Sheini the Jews have been ripping their hearts apart in tears to return to Eretz Yisrael. Every single day a Jew prays to return to Israel, to rebuild Yerushalayim, and for Kibutz Galuyos—at least three times a day. Those 2,000 years of prayers started to be openly answered in 1948.

In 1948, the geulah started to openly unfold. The people exiled for 2,000 years returned to their homeland. What an unbelievable event. One can’t put into words the awesomeness of that event.

The world watched the Jew wander the earth for centuries. The Jew was beaten many times along the away, was near death at points, but the Jew never forgot where he was going. The Jew was walking with a “guide” (G-d) who promised him that he will make it back to his homeland against all odds. The Jew made many stops along the way, but whenever he got too settled and comfortable in one area, the Guide would remind him, at a cost, that he must not forget where he came from and to where he is going.

In 1948 the Jew made it home, and in 1948 the history of the Jew and the history of the world started wrapping itself up. In 2009, sixty-one years later, we can see history wrapping itself up and we hear the footsteps of Moshiach.

From the prophecies to the midrashim we can see their fulfillment in front of our eyes. I walk in the Rova and see the fulfillment of Zechariah’s vision of children playing in the streets of Yerushalayim.

I see the fulfillment of what the navi said, that when the Jews are exiled Israel will not bear its fruit; all one has to do now is to open the window of his home in Israel to see the beautiful forests and gardens.

With all the midrashim about B’nei Yishmael and other hundreds of sources, could it be more obvious that we are only moments away from the ultimate Geulah?

That being said, one must ask himself: “What role do I want to take in this wrapping up of history?” A Jew can no longer only think individually. He must think for the K’lal, for Am Yisrael. Now more than ever, one must gear his life on the question of: “What could I do for K’lal Yisrael now?”

A Jew can’t be self-centered and just care about what is best for him. That’s not the way a Jew thinks. At a time when there is the opportunity to live in Israel again, when there is more Torah learning in Israel than ever, where there is a Jewish army for the first time since Bayis Sheini, individuals must start thinking as one united nation. There is no space for the selfish in the Jewish Nation.

It is mind boggling that Hashem gave us Eretz Yisrael and there are still millions of Jews in the galus. What do they think about when they say the words “U’veneih Yerushalayim” in davening three times a day, or sing “L’shanah haba’ah” at the Seder?

“Next year in Yerushalayim—as long as we could stay comfortable and get rid of those rude Israelis.”

“We are too comfortable here in galus; it’s too hard to move to Israel.”

What small thinking. In Jewish history, have the Jews ever stayed in one place for too long? A true Jew, by definition, yearns to live in Eretz Yisrael. People in the galus are too comfortable for geulah.

What a z’chus to live during such a time. The questions I ask myself are: “What role do I want to play in the geulah?” “What have I done for K’lal Yisrael?”

The answer for that is—nothing yet. Yes, of course I am at a young age where there is only so much one can do for a nation, but I am at a pivotal point in my life where I can choose the path I take for the rest of my life, until my death.

So here is the question: “What will I do for K’lal Yisrael?” Hopefully many things bs”d, but one thing I can do now (as in the next few years) is join the Jewish army.

I want to take part in protecting and fighting for Am Yisrael, the same way Yehoshua’s army and the Chashmonaim did in our past. I wish with all my being to join Tzahal. I yearn with every inch of my body to fight for my country, my people, and my heritage.

What’s the difference between me and a Dudik Perez from Haifa? Is my blood any redder? I desire with my whole heart to join my brothers and fight right beside them. I feel it is my duty. They are Jewish and so am I.

What a great message and an inspiration. I do not know that this young man will end up following this dream and serving in the army; this decision is more than a year away. However, I do know that his sentiment and his emotion represent what I believe that we need more of.

This past Shabbat we had the privilege of joining our dear friends and former neighbors Gabe and Anat Levi for the celebration of the Bar Mitzvah of their son David in Yerushalayim. We are always thrilled to join our friends for their smachot here.

This simcha was additionally special. Gabe and Anat went out of their way repeatedly during Goldie’s illness to give us guidance, comfort, and support. They would kill me if I went into further detail, but I am grateful to have the opportunity to publicly thank Gabe and Anat for their kindness and support and wish them and their family a huge Mazal Tov.

Showing Our True Colors (Article# 115) 5/7/2009

2009-07-27T03:50:00.002-04:00

Getting back to normal life is always a bit of a change. When Pesach vacation ends, the kids have been off for more than two weeks and the schools generally wind down their activities in the last couple of months of the year here anyway. It is strange actually. Serious learning is mostly done “between the holidays,” with the time before Sukkot and after Pesach seemingly run at something like two-thirds or half speed. Yet, even with a shorter time period of more intensive learning than we had in the USA, they cover the Judaic subjects and even some secular subjects (specifically math) so much more comprehensively.

I think it all stems from less time being focused on the Judaic subjects. Hebrew is natural, so they spend less time translating and can cover a lot more ground in less time, freeing time for other subjects. I also think it is an outgrowth of the way (at least in our children's schools) many of the “home room” teachers stay with their class for two-year stretches (Mordechai’s morah has seen him through both first and second grades) and their familiarity with the students (and vice versa) make the second year much more productive. Of course, that is only my opinion and by many means of measurement we (as a country) are woefully behind, so…

In any case, as opposed to the frustrations of the pre-chagim fall term when no learning is done, this is a very busy time of year for the kids. Packed into these few weeks are sefirat ha’omer, several national holidays, and then finally Shavuot—so there is a lot for them to do, even if it means less focus on core subjects.

Yom HaShoah is the beginning of a week of special days, ending with Yom HaAtzma’ut, for the entire country. In anticipation of the festive week, Goldie and I went out and bought a couple of huge Israeli flags to display outside our house (we also bought four flags to fly outside our car windows). It is the season for such things, and our old flag was kind of tattered, so we knew we needed a replacement.

Last year one of our community representatives got a call from our across-the-street neighbors instructing us to take down the flags, which were offensive to them. This year, knowing we needed to replace our existing flag, I bought two seven-by-five flags and prominently displayed them. I also took orders for some of my neighbors, and we all were quite happy to hang the flags as visibly as possible.

Our kids asked us why we bought four flags for the car when we only displayed two of them. Unfortunately, that night they got their answer. (Warning: Rabbi Ginzberg should kindly skip ahead to the paragraph beginning “As I noted…”)

Mordechai had stabbed himself in the hand with a knife while cutting an orange, and I took him to the local night clinic belonging to our health plan, which is situated in Ramat Bet Shemesh Bet (a.k.a. Chareidi-land) to be checked by the on-call pediatrician. We were there for no more than 15 minutes and returned to the car to find that both of our flags had been broken off the windows, with just the plastic bases remaining.

Boy was I angry!

After quite vocally shouting that somebody owed me ten shekels for my stolen property, I got into the car and began to back out of my parking spot to leave when I was suddenly inspired. I slammed on my brakes and jumped out of the driver’s seat. Reaching into the back seat, I grabbed my two spare flags and proceeded to quite loudly inform the (very few) people watching that I WIN—and that I will ALWAYS display the flag, no matter how much they hate it.

I still have one of the plastic bases in the car window. I keep it there as a badge of honor. I want everyone to know what the hoodlums do and to be reminded that we do not give in to thuggery.

Of course, this year brought a new twist to the disgusting displays of our anti-Israeli brethren: black flags. Put up as an obvious rebuke of our Israeli flags, they are an obnoxious statement by people who clearly have no hakarat ha’tov. Thankfully, I only saw three of them this year (although one was directly across the street from our house).

As I noted last year, I personally feel that the close proximity of both Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzma’ut adds to the celebration and is incredibly meaningful, especially for the children. Even the littlest of them are taught to respect the memories of the fallen on both memorial days; and understanding the Shoah’s role in leading to the creation of the State of Israel is a major part of the spring curriculum here. In fact, an overwhelming majority of the 12th-grade students here have a trip to Poland (similar to the “March of the Living”) as their school-sponsored class trip.

A week later, on Yom HaZikaron, I took Batya (10) and Mordechai (8) to the Bet Shemesh municipal memorial service for the residents of Bet Shemesh who perished either in service to the country or in terrorist attacks. It was an incredibly moving ceremony and I never cease to be amazed at the tremendous respect that servicemen and servicewomen get in this country.

The memorial opened with the sounding of the air-raid sirens. Even though I knew it would happen, the sudden silence as a few thousand people stood in unison for the siren was breathtaking. The MC truly captured the essence of the day in his opening remarks, as he spoke about the losses the families and the country as a whole have suffered: Children and grandchildren never to be born. Husbands and wives never to meet. Generations of people taken away in the ultimate sacrifice to the safety and security of our country and our people.

After his brief remarks, they presented a slide show on large screens erected for the day. Every person’s picture was displayed as a narrator informed us of their birth dates and death dates as well as the war or terrorist attack in which the person perished. I didn’t think the kids were paying attention until both kids commented together, “Abba, a lot of people died in the Six Day War.”

After the slide show, a memorial torch (similar to an eternal flame) was lit adjacent to the permanent war memorial we had assembled in front of. A “Keil Malei Rachamim” was sung and then all the male relatives of the victims came up to the stage to recite Kaddish in unison in memory of their loved ones.

We left toward the end (the kids were getting antsy) after the singing of HaTikvah. I can honestly say that I really felt a part of Bet Shemesh that night. This city is so cosmopolitan, and we (admittedly) live in a very insular Anglo neighborhood. Even though some of our other neighbors (the ones I don’t like—you know who they are) hung up their black flags and totally disrespected the sacrifices of those who risk everything for the protection of every Israeli, everyone else united in a very positive way, and it was awesome!

In Batya’s school, the fourth grade puts on the Yom HaZikaron presentation for the entire school, and Goldie and I attended. I thought it would be sappy, but was again impressed by the serious tone and approach the girls took in putting on the dramatic performance.

That afternoon we went as a family to a local shul’s memorial assembly and transition into Yom HaAtzma’ut. They had a special Maariv davening, and when we finished we capped off the night by walking down to the local amphitheater to enjoy the municipal fireworks.

The next day we had a Katz family extravaganza. My sister (who decided to be a homebody) didn’t come, but everyone else went for a hike through the mountains here to a cave known as the Batcave (insert joke here) and a natural rock slide (the kids loved it). After the hike we were all joined by Bubbee and Zaidy at our house for a special Yom HaAtzma’ut BBQ.

It is truly a great time of year to be an Israeli and to live here in our land. As time goes by and we become more familiar with the language and the practices of our adopted country, we feel more and more comfortable in calling this place home. It is an amazing place of contradictions and dispute—but it is still the only place for Jews like you and me to live.

A special Mazal Tov to our good friends and fellow olim Dani and Tzippy Lieberman (who have appeared in these pages before) on the bar mitzvah of Avrumi, their bechor (firstborn). As Avrumi’s bar mitzvah teacher, I was especially pleased to participate in the celebration, and we look forward to sharing many more s’machot together.

Chagim U'zmanim L'sasson (Article# 114) 4/23/2009

2009-07-27T03:40:00.002-04:00

I hope you enjoyed your Pesach. I know that in some places it was quite cold leading into the chag, and I do not know what possesses you to remain in the frozen galut when you can enjoy the beautiful sunny spring and summer here in Israel.

Some terrific things about preparing for Pesach in Israel as opposed to other places: The vendors in Machane Yehuda telling me not to buy one of their products because it is kitniyot and therefore not for me; no price gouging (many items are cheaper or in larger-size packages than normal in anticipation of the Pesach buying frenzy); almost every brand of soda pop is available kosher-for-Pesach; and the list goes on.

I think one of the best benefits is that all the major supermarkets in Bet Shemesh (think Foodtown or A&P) sell their chametz and cover the shelves of chametzdik products, so you can shop almost anywhere here without concern, both during and after Pesach.

One thing that I found to be strangely missing…free Haggadot. We used to get a couple of them free with grocery orders every year, and they were perfect for sending with the kids to school so that they could mark them up and make notes in them. Yet, there were none this year, and we ran out of the ones we had kept in storage from prior years. We might even have to buy a couple of extras next year.

As with most of you, our celebration started a bit early, with birkat ha’chamah. With myriad shiurim and handouts, there was plenty of opportunity to learn about this mitzvah and how we have come to calculate the proper time for its recitation. I personally have some chavrutot with some of our alumni in the USA (online via Skype) and used Mordechai’s second-grade handout as a terrific source for them; it was written in simple Hebrew and covered the material comprehensively.

Our celebration in Bet Shemesh actually began a bit earlier that we had originally planned. The chareidi neighborhoods had erected a large grandstand with a sound system, and they ran a sound check (with music) at 10:30 p.m. the night before (Tuesday). Since we were davening at 6 a.m. the next morning, most of the neighborhood was already in bed trying to sleep, and this was a bit disturbing. Or at least so we thought…up until 5:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Apparently, one of the people running the chareidi mass gathering decided that too many people did not own their own alarm clocks and that it was his job to wake up the neighborhood. Which he did. Quite loudly. We were waking up then anyway, but I am sure that anyone who had planned on sleeping in and coming to the berachah and then going to daven afterward was not so thrilled.

I have to give the chareidim credit. Our neighborhood’s shuls all posted their own davening and birkat ha’chamah times and invited “the community” to join with each shul and say the berachah as a large group. None of them actually made an effort to join together. In contrast, the chareidi mass gathering was just that—thousands of people all together in one spot. (I understand that there were large gatherings at the Kotel and in multiple sites around the country that were very inspiring as well.)

If we could somehow get a bit of their achdut in that type of thing and give them a bit of our achdut in other areas, wouldn’t the world be a much better place?

We had originally scheduled our birkat ha’chamah to be at 6:45 a.m., but the sun had not yet come out from behind the mountains to our east by then, so we had a siyum bechorim and then went outside to birkat ha’chamah. It was really very beautiful. The families of our shul, headed by people mostly in their thirties and forties, have a lot of young children.

Inspired by a local fellow who had made an audiotape of himself at the last birkat ha’chamah (among other things on the tape, we hear his mother predicting that she would be dancing at the next birkat ha’chamah; sadly, she passed away five years ago), I decided to make a video of the entire thing. As I shot it, I could not help but wonder who among those in attendance will not be with us to make the berachah the next time around. Who will lose parents, spouses, or even children (we do live in a country where our youth are unfortunate victims of violent wars)? I know that this wasn’t the intent of the rabbis when they instituted this berachah, but I felt very much as if we were saying U’Netaneh Tokef instead of birkat ha’chamah and that it was Yom Kippur instead of Erev Pesach.

As I have mentioned many times, Goldie is incredibly organized, and we had almost nothing to do on Erev Pesach when we got home. We seized the opportunity to get in some pre-Seder naps for everyone, which would be helpful in an average year, and certainly one in which we woke up for 6 a.m. davening.

With 17 at our Seder, we had a packed house. Having one Seder means that there is just one chance for all of the kids to share whatever divrei Torah they have prepared, so the Seder can run a bit slowly. (On the flip side, it also means that there is only one day of Yom Tov, with much less cooking required.)

We enjoy the Seder every year, no matter the speed. Each year also brings a new revelation of some growth for one or another of the kids. This year it was Mordechai (age 8, grade 2) who made a major transition from last year, a transition that was totally enabled by the fact that we live in Israel.

In the past, he followed the story of the Seder and was definitely a participant. However, this year he read the entire Haggadah with us, word for word. The best part? He understands it—it is almost all in Hebrew, a language that is first nature to him (he prefers reading Hebrew over English). When I realized what was happening, I made sure to read the Haggadah slower than normal and found myself inflecting as I read the words. (Apparently, my Hebrew is better as well, and I too gained a new understanding of what I had read by rote for so many years.) He was so excited to “get it” and also to finally stay awake through the end of the Seder for the singing of Nirtzah songs, which he had learned in school. The littler kids were also a part of the singing, but it was clear that they were totally exhausted and out of it, while he essentially had his first “complete” Seder experience (the naps sure helped).

Interestingly, Pesach morning was cloudy and even rainy at times. Although it is a bit late in the year to be thinking of rain, it rained several times over Pesach, mostly in the very early morning, which was very nice. We were apparently very lucky with the weather we had on Erev Yom Tov, since it allowed us to say birkat ha’chamah on time.

We shared the chag with both sets of grandparents once again, which always enhances any celebration for the children. (My parents will be here for three months and are renting an apartment two blocks from us, while Goldie’s parents will leave a few days after Pesach.) Being away from the larger family-oriented events and celebrations is the major downside of being here, so we try to maximize each visit.

Day two of Pesach was Erev Shabbat (and still yom tov for my parents, who keep two days of chag) so we did not have enough time to really do a major tiyul. We were invited to join our neighbors the Greenzweigs (originally from Fair Lawn, N.J.—SECOND aliyah in 2006) on a hike in the mountains around Bet Shemesh, something we normally do not do. Since it was a short day, we split into two groups.

The first group (Goldie, her parents, and Aliza) went shopping in the Modiin mall. The second group (Chaya, Batya, Mordechai, Moshe, and I) joined David Greenzweig and their son Itamar (age 5, and Moshe’s good buddy) for a hike down Nachal Dolev (no, not the street—the actual valley). Chaim made his own group and dumped us all to go play paintball.

Goldie dropped us off at the top of a mountain and we actually did the hike in reverse. Much better than the normal way, which is practically all uphill. With all the kids (and me, who am not much of a hiker), we didn’t think we would make it uphill as a group.

Although hikes are not a normal part of our Israeli experience, it is a major part of Israeli life and something we definitely miss out on. The kids’ major class trips are generally hikes up some mountain or another, and vacation times find many, many, many Israelis camping and hiking throughout Israel. It is a cheap and time-exhaustive way of spending the day—and the scenery isn’t bad, either.

Our hike was very nice. The kids all got into the spirit, and even little Moshe didn’t complain too much about having to walk almost four miles through the mountains. The highlight for the kids was trying to find the trail markers as we went along and singing their Pesach songs (a great way to distract a four-year-old). I could get used to an occasional family hike, but I doubt Goldie will agree (not her thing).

Shabbat chol ha’moed saw the beginning of some real heat (it continued to heat up each day, reaching the 90s on the last day of chol ha’moed before cooling off to the 60s the last day of Pesach). We had some yeshiva guys over, one who kept two days and three who kept one day. I feel bad for all the two-day people. Not only did they have to sit around, basically alone (my sister drove in from Ramat Gan to visit with my parents that morning) for the second day, but they had a three-day yom tov (something incredibly rare for Israelis, although it will happen this Rosh Hashanah).

On Sunday we went to the Bullet Museum, located beneath a kibbutz near Rechovot, where the Haganah secretly manufactured over two million bullets in preparation for the War of Independence. We were astounded by the incredible planning and commitment of the people involved. We then went to a local mall for some bowling to complete the day.

The next day we went to Tel Aviv. I took Moshe to the park while the rest of the family enjoyed the Palma”ch Museum (I wrote about this museum a few weeks ago) and they joined us at Park HaYarkon, Israel’s largest park, for a few hours in the sun. We had lunch in the park and the kids played in some of the many playgrounds there. A good time was had by all.

The rest of Pesach was uneventful. With only one day of chag at the end, we were done on Wednesday night and the only major decision was: do we continue the after-Pesach conversion to chametz pizza run, or not? (We did, and got the fourth and fifth pies they made.)

Thankfully, this late in the year rain is continuing, with several post-Pesach days of rain in Teveria—exactly where we need it most. The Kineret is now at –213.29, only 29 cm below the lower red line. If the weather holds and Somebody Upstairs is kind to us, the conservation efforts already in place (two weeks ago, the Water Authority banned all watering of grass for the entire summer) will keep us from reaching the dreaded black line, and we can all pray that next year’s rainy season begins early, is very heavy, and brings an end to the current water crisis.

As I was preparing to send this column, I noticed a comment on the 5TJT website on my pre-Pesach column about baking our own Ashkenazi shemurah matzot in which I said that the matzot we had baked were nowhere near what the matzot were like in Egypt…

“Thought you’d be interested in hearing about the matzah shemurah that we eat at our Seder. It is special ‘Sephardic’ matzah: very thick and has a soggy cardboard texture (and taste). Apparently, this is closer to what our ancestors actually ate when fleeing from Egypt—it has a lot more water in it than the “regular” Ashkenaz kind, and a lot less flour/wheat. It tastes awful and is very hard to chew (kinda’ like gnawing on the sole of your shoe). Would you like me to send you some?”—Anonymous

Dear Anonymous: No thanks!

Matzot, Matzot Everywhere (Article# 113) 4/7/2009

2009-07-27T03:36:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the annual [spring] Pesach cleaning frenzy! As I am sure happens in most Jewish households, sometime around Chanukah Goldie looked up and exclaimed, “Pesach is only three and a half months away!” And thus began the countdown.

I have to give her credit. She has mellowed the past couple of years and has really been quite relaxed about a process that used to drive her nuts each and every year. Yes, she still obsesses, but with older kids to help and a simpler life here (and I really believe that is a factor—smaller houses and less storage space makes the cleanup a lot easier), she is very calm about it. Of course, the single-day Yom Tov and lone Seder also help.

I was actually speaking to a friend of mine, a former Chicagoan who has lived here many years and is very “Israeli” in attitude, earlier today. She commented to me that her husband had requested that they switch their kitchen to Pesach a day early this year so that he could cook for the Seder two days before Pesach and not on Erev Pesach as they usually do. She added that she was confused why Goldie and I had gone Pesach shopping two full weeks before Pesach—why the rush?

I guess we still have some America in us.

This is why we still do most of our shopping in an Anglo-friendly store (as my sister-in-law found out after she bought the kitniyot mayonnaise—“Kosher L’Pesach” on the label in Israel does not quite mean what it does in the USA); and why we over-obsess about buying wine, matzot, and other items; and why we plan our Chol Ha’moed activities as far in advance as possible (another no-no for the Israeli-born).

Another part of our new Pesach preparation schedule is the baking of our own handmade matzot. Our kids enjoy it, and this year I put together the entire chaburah, so it was almost all friends of ours (and my brother), which added to the enjoyment and general atmosphere. Our mashgiach commented that it was a pleasure for him to work with us, because we had “character.” I didn’t ask.

I graduated this year from putting the matzot into the oven to taking them out. This is much harder than it appears. If you leave them in too long, they burn and everyone complains that they are very burnt-looking (and -tasting—although they taste so bad that I don’t quite understand the taste complaints). If you take them out too quick, they look nice, but are doughy and chametz. I discovered that by slightly lowering the oven temperature I could get them fully baked inside without burning the outside (yes, I asked the mashgiach first; it was more his suggestion).

When all was said and done, we ended up with over 200 kosher matzot (I checked last year’s column and was quite amused to read how “proud” I was then to have gotten 160+). Of course, there was a scramble in dividing them over who would get which ones—but I let Goldie and the kids handle it.

I am simply excited (and looking forward) to have matzot at the Seder that we all had a hand in baking. We will make berachot on them and it is just a very powerful addition to the experience, at least for me. Even if they taste like cardboard and are nowhere near what the matzot in Egypt were like (they were probably more like pita than anything else).

As we approach another major chag, I would like to extend best wishes to all our friends worldwide and to you, dear reader, for a chag kasher v’sameiach and a truly wonderful and meaningful Seder. Hopefully it will be together as one nation in Yerushalayim—eating the Korban Pesach we will have offered in the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash. If not, L’shanah ha’baah biYerushalayim ha’b’nuyah!

Back to Politics (Article# 112) 4/2/2009

2009-07-27T03:14:00.001-04:00

As I write this, the new government is (finally) preparing itself to be sworn in. It will be called a “centrist” government by some, a “traitorous” government by others. And almost everyone will be unhappy with it in some shape or form.

The Right will be infuriated that Bibi chose Labor to be a part of the government and that he “suddenly” flip-flopped on the two-state solution. The Left will be aghast at the “defection” of Barak and his “desire” for power (remaining as defense minister) after committing to be a part of the opposition almost immediately after the balloting closed. And those somewhere in between will simply be upset.

I see things a bit differently.

As I have said in the past, we have to look through the same window that each of these people is looking through in order to understand their motives. We also have to understand that the prime motivating factor for each of these people is their desire to be the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.

Yes, they want to serve their country. Yes, they want their party to lead. Yes, they believe in the platform of their party. But those are only secondary concerns. The politicians have shown time and again that they will do anything they can to be “the guy” (or “the gal”). And they do.

Start with Tzipi Livni. Her party won more seats than any other in the Knesset, yet she is relegated to second-tier status in the race for the ultimate prize. However, she has seen how successfully Bibi Netanyahu ran the opposition the past several years, seizing every opportunity to say “See? I told you so!” without actually having to govern. She understands that her best bet at power comes not by being a part of the current government (no matter if that would be best for Israel or not—a point I am not currently debating), but by being a vocal member of the opposition and hoping that in the next election the disaffected voters—those who vote against the status quo no matter what—will flock to her banner.

Then comes Ehud Barak. When it initially looked like Kadima would try to make a power-sharing agreement, he was overjoyed to be in the opposition. Instead of Livni, he would be the vocal head of the opposition, leading all the disenfranchised to the Labor Party. Having lost their voters to the currently popular Kadima, this was the best way for Barak to rebuild his party to be a factor in the next elections.

Yet it was not to be. Livni and Kadima’s refusal to be a part of the government made Labor and Barak the midgets of the opposition. He/they would not be the leader of the opposition, and any “I told you so” moment would go to the credit of Kadima and not Labor. Many pundits were predicting that this might actually be the end of the Labor Party for this very reason, and Barak, both personally and as leader of the party, could not allow this to happen.

It was therefore inevitable that he would make a deal with Likud. Although it is not nearly as effective as being the leader of the opposition, there is still the opportunity for him to claim an “elder statesman” title, simply by inferring that they are truly the princes of the Left because “We did what we did for the sake of the country” in an effort to (i) moderate the voice of the government, (ii) serve the country, and (iii) further the peace process and at the same time make Kadima look as if they are solely interested in petty politics.

Of course, Kadima will spin this as the ultimate act of betrayal by Barak and Labor. In fact, the (incredibly Left-leaning) media has had an immediate and nonstop paroxysm of rage at this betrayal, acting as if this doesn’t happen all the time. (Interestingly, I read a fascinating article about the media’s adoration of Sharon’s betrayal of the Right in the Gush Katif pullout and the formation of Kadima, and how the media portrayed that group of betrayers as heroes and visionaries for doing almost exactly what Barak is doing.)

Finally, we get to Bibi Netanyahu. Through various miscues and the nearness of the Gaza war to the elections, both Yisrael Beiteinu and Kadima picked up seats at Likud’s expense. He ended up as the leader of the second-largest party, yet the only party leader who had a reasonable chance at actually forming a government. He also has a memory.

In his last incarnation as prime minister, and leader of the largest party, he was too arrogant in setting his policies and ignoring the opposition/minority partners in his government. His single-minded focus on doing things as he saw fit and his decision to give away large swaths of the West Bank are a big part of what led his backers to abandon him and both dissolve his government and later vote his party out of power.

He understands that his best chance at continuing his reign at the head of the government is to try to make the government one of all the people—at least as many of them as he can. He also understands that by aligning himself with a Leftist party, he will blunt some of the criticism that would normally come from that end of the spectrum. He was dying to make a deal with someone from the Left in order to portray himself as a bridge builder and consensus maker.

I have no idea what kind of leader Ehud Barak was as prime minister. I do know that the war he ran in Gaza as defense minister appeared to be totally different from the one that Peretz ran in Lebanon against Hezbollah. It appeared to be more focused, with attainable goals (whether or not we attained them is again a different discussion), and was fiercely supported by a majority of the country. And the body count was low (thank G-d). This certainly makes him an attractive addition to the government.

So whose gambles will pay off and whose are more risky? Well, Livni’s gamble to be part of the opposition will work if Bibi falters. So she is putting her fate in his hands, hoping that he will fail. If he is successful, she is sunk—as will be her party. They, who have very little social platform other than as claimants to the political middle, will have been exposed to the public as the party whose policies were simply wrong (and I certainly pray for that day).

Barak’s gamble is much more risky than Livni’s and also has a much greater payoff. If Netanyahu is a failure and Livni rises to power, he is done. He threw his lot in with Likud while at the same time betraying the Left, and I cannot imagine how he and Labor can show themselves to be the heroes of the Left in such a situation.

If, however, Bibi is successful in running the government and Barak can be credited for helping “moderate” the voice and approach of the government, then he can try to lay claim to a role as a responsible and patriotic member of the Left who did what he needed to do in a time of crisis and is the best choice to lead the Left out of the doldrums. He may not win the majority of seats in a subsequent election, but having gotten out of the shadow of Kadima and Livni, he and Labor at least have a shot at becoming the leaders of the Left again—if everything falls into place perfectly.

At this point, though, the big winner is Bibi. He can work both sides of the aisle now with Labor in his pocket, and no matter what happens he can certainly claim that he is the man who put together a more wide-ranging coalition than anyone else in the Knesset could possibly have. He can blame failures on the far Right and the Left and, should he fail, he still has a chance to ask the voters to give him a clear mandate so that he does not have to be beholden to the smaller parties and their interest groups in order to govern.

Bibi is a smart guy (hey—they all have to have some brains in order to have gotten where they are). After all the Kadima posturing, he was able to appear willing to meet with them and partner with them without really having to worry about their joining him, since he knew they couldn’t sign on the dotted line. He was able to moderate the power of the Right a bit with bringing in Labor, and he got Ehud Barak as defense minister, which he clearly seems to be thrilled with.

While the outcomes of, and apparent differences between, the two wars we have lived through may have been circumstantial, I personally believe that Barak is a better option as defense minister than most, and that he will actually lead the military well. I also think that having Livni outside the government is the biggest gain we have had in this entire election, so I am not terribly disappointed on those counts.

My disappointments? The biggest one is Bibi’s concession to consider the two-state plan. However, I am also a big enough boy to understand David Rotem’s (MK of Yisrael Beiteinu—see last week’s column) point that a two-state solution is almost inevitable now, and that we have to figure some way of it not being the end of our part of it. But I am not in favor of the two-state solution!

I know that many people will find the prior two statements to be impossible to reconcile. I really am not in favor of this solution. I will demonstrate against it, rally against it—whatever I can possibly do (within halachah) to stop it from happening. Yet, I recognize that these efforts are most likely going to be futile. It kills me, but it is sadly true.

So whom do I want to be in charge of either trying to get out of such a solution or at the very least trying to protect my country’s safety and security in the face of such a disaster? Tzipi Livni? Are you joking?

She (and the Left) want to give away the store—anything and everything—just to have the world like us and treat us as moral and humane members of the world society. Their blind desire for any deal at all is reckless and irresponsible, and there is no way I would want to see them in charge.

Am I thrilled with the back-and-forth Bibi and what will be his inevitable capitulation to the peaceniks in order to extricate himself from what he perceives as the death grip of the fanatical far-right-wing parties? Would I prefer that he stick to what got him here? Yes. But it will not be.

We have instead a government of compromise. A government that will be afraid to give away both too much and too little. A government that came to power because of the failure of the Gaza-style diplomacy of unilateral withdrawal, and that I really hope understands that safety and security are not purchased through gestures, but rather through responsible planning and responsible actions.

Yes, I know I ignored Yisrael Beiteinu. They got a lot of what they wanted, and it is hard to tell if they will continue to be major players or if, like Meretz, they will end up returning to minor-party status in the future.

Of course, I have lived here all of two years and nine months. I readily admit that my understanding is very likely to be limited and there is a strong likelihood that I am so totally misreading things that it is scary. Only time will tell. On all counts.

After rising 5 centimeters this week, the Kineret Lake is at –213.41, 41 centimeters below the lower red line. There is no rain in the forecast, and I am afraid we might have reached the end of the rain for this year. Hopefully, as the snow in the northern mountains melts, we will at least pass the lower red line. It will certainly be close.

Thank You, MK Rotem (Article# 111) 3/26/2009

2009-07-27T03:05:00.002-04:00

I had a unique experience last week. As part of our curriculum, the yeshiva normally spends a day touring both the Knesset and the Supreme Court buildings, learning about Israel’s governmental process and legal system. After the first couple of times, the novelty of the tour has run out—but it is interesting to hear the questions posed by our students and gain some insight into their perception of Israeli life.

Each year, we try to schedule a meeting with members of the Knesset, but for various reasons we had been unable to coordinate a personal visit in prior years. This year, Rav Yehuda Susman, our Rosh Yeshiva, spoke to the “candyman” in his shul in Efrat, who is also known as MK David Rotem of the Yisrael Beteinu party and is a current member of Knesset, and Rav Susman arranged for us to have a meeting with him.

I have to admit that I was fascinated. Although I did not vote for them, the enthusiasm and momentum that Yisrael Beteinu built through the elections was palpable, and I was incredibly curious to meet a religious MK from that faction. After all, a major spin of the party is that it represents the non-religious, specifically Russian immigrants (many of whom may not even be Jewish).

Because of time considerations, we did not get the chance to tour the Knesset as we normally do. Instead, we went to the Knesset’s Jerusalem Conference Room (I hope I remember the name correctly) where MK Rotem was waiting for us. The Jerusalem Room is a very large room, with a circular set of tables. Mr. Rotem sat at the head of the table with a microphone, and our students sat around the table and in folding chairs set up for the overflow.

Mr. Rotem opened the meeting by offering us a choice: we could hear him lecture about his party, his opinions, and the running of the Knesset (of which he has been a member for a bit over two years) or he would open the floor to questions. We chose the Q-and-A session.

First, I must state that I may err in my recollection of his answers, and I apologize to him (and his party) in advance for any such errors.

I also must admit that I found MK Rotem to be very engaging and persuasive. At least in my eyes, there is no question that he is an Israeli patriot and believes (passionately) in his party and its platform, and that their platform truly is the best long-term solution for Israel. He was thoughtful and took great care in formulating his responses to make sure that he wasn’t misunderstood (although he is Israeli born, he speaks excellent English—he has to; he lives in Efrat).

I would also add that while I definitely disagree with some of their platform, a lot of what he said made sense to me and should not be discarded as radical lunacy. Take the “oath of loyalty” that Yisrael Beteinu wants to require of all Israeli citizens (it was the first question asked of him). Although it is portrayed as an anti-Arab measure, he was adamant that it was an extension of a principal that is applied even in the USA. After all, the final step of the naturalization of a new U.S. citizen is the administration of an oath of loyalty to the United States. If the USA can require such an oath, why shouldn’t Israel be able to?

Yes, this is an oversimplification and an extension of the principal beyond what is required by the USA, (after all, none of us had to swear such an oath, and we are still American citizens) but the basic idea exists.

Furthermore, Israel is a country that is in a state of war with several neighbors (even if there is no active fighting at the current time) and has been in direct conflict twice with Arab militant groups in the last two and a half years. During one of those conflicts, Israeli Arab citizens actively aided the enemy. (According to MK Rotem, an Arab MK used his cellphone to call targeting information to Hezbollah terrorist rocket launching squads.)

American citizens doing such acts would be jailed. Could you imagine the outcry if it was discovered that a U.S. Senator or Congressman had aided Al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks? He/she would be tried for treason!

What Yisrael Beteinu is advocating is that such people be denied the benefits of Israeli citizenship and that the oath of loyalty is the litmus test. And they do not stop with requiring it of the Arabs. Any person wanting to benefit from the Jewish State would be required to take the oath, including all the Jews.

While this would be fine with me (I’d probably do it twice just to enjoy the experience a second time), many of my neighbors (ie: chareidim) would be less than thrilled. Swear loyalty to the Zionist State? Ha! But they would have to, in order to continue to benefit from the vast social services network which certainly pays them out much more than they (as a single group) pay in. And that is something that I definitely agree with.

Along with this oath is a requirement for National Service. Also a good idea. Chareidim are so active in chesed that they could easily satisfy this obligation with existing projects (although they would definitely be expanded) and the Arabs would have thousands of their youth putting active effort into building up their communities and benefiting the social welfare of their communities. Who wouldn’t be in favor of that?

He answered questions about the two-state solution, of which he is definitely not in favor, but understands that it is the most likely outcome and therefore wants to work to structure it to be something that can be successful for Israel’s safety and security. Other questions covered many topics, such as his feelings as an Orthodox Jew in a party advocating civil marriages and the opening of our markets to non-kosher foods; he patiently answered each one (he even admitted that he could not answer a question about our water crisis as it is an issue that he is not familiar with).

Perhaps the most astonishing of his answers was to a question about how he could reconcile living in Efrat with being a member of a party whose platform for an eventual two-state solution includes both population and land exchanges. He responded that he understood that it may cost him his home, but that he feels that such a land/population exchange would provide for defensible borders and an opportunity for coexistence. I was impressed by such honesty and forthrightness.

We had to cut the meeting short because we had to head to the Supreme Court to continue our day. Mr. Rotem was prepared to sit with us as long as we liked and was extremely accommodating. We appreciated it.

We will hopefully have a government within the next couple of weeks, and then it will be up to all the MKs involved to see that they move forward in maintaining our safety and security and the well-being of our homeland.

Mazal tov to former Five Towners and current neighbors Penina and Mutty Eichler on the birth of Yisrael Avishai and to former Five Towners and current neighbors Mark and Yosefa Krauss on the marriage of Gavriel to Kayla Kowal of Yad Binyamin.

The Kineret Lake is at –213.46, 46 cm below the lower red line. It is currently raining, and we hope and pray for lots more.

Water, Water Everywhere (Article# 110) 3/19/2009

2009-07-27T03:00:00.002-04:00

Purim was, as usual, quite awesome here. It might have been a bit chilly with temps in the 60s or so, but that certainly beats the frigid weather we used to face in the U.S. In Israel, even the secular celebrate Purim in some form, so you get to see a lot of people/kids in costume.

Several years ago I had designed a Fred Flintstone costume (sewn for me quite professionally by Bina Zaiman) that was really cool. Unfortunately it was stained with motor oil one year and inadvertently discarded. I loved that costume and decided that this year I would revive it (thanks to third cousin Shulamit Felsenthal for sewing it at the last minute).

Chaya decided that she wanted to be a box of popcorn and created her entire costume almost on her own (I sewed the popcorn necklace) and designed a mishloach manot to match. Aliza had planned to be a terrorist, but in a moment of teen indifference decided to skip the entire costume thing this year. Batya was Minnie Mouse, Mordechai a Power Ranger, and Moshe was an incredibly muscular Spiderman (all the superhero costumes here seemed to have padded muscles in them resulting in some incredibly sculpted little kids running around).

Chaim has been way too cool to put on a costume the past few years (see Aliza above), but at the last minute he decided to be a golfer. He grabbed my clubs and really put together a nice look. (I miss golf—there is only one very expensive course here that I am aware of and I haven’t played in almost three years)

The approach to mishloach manot is much different here. We belong to two shuls. Both of them have “community” mishloach manot programs and it is understood that with the exception of the four or five families that you are closest to, participation in the shul mishloach manot really does count (in Woodmere we had a huge list of people we delivered to each year, no matter what).

The focus here (at least in our part of Bet Shemesh) is on the kids. They throw themselves wholeheartedly into the celebration. Our kids packed their packages several days before Purim and had their lists all drawn up for me to prepare. I think that between the six kids they delivered around 130–140 mishloach manot bags. Yeah, I did spend the day in the car.

We had former Five Towners Chanoch (formerly Alan) and Naomi Schwartz and their family as well as our steady Friday double date couple Dani and Tzippy Lieberman and their family for the seudah. With a house packed full of little kids (ours and the Liebermans’) and teenagers (ours and the Schwartzes’), the atmosphere was definitely festive and fun. The only downer was my having to run out to the yeshiva for Shushan Purim at the end (try celebrating both regular and Shushan Purim—it is exhausting).

At the seudah, Goldie mentioned that she was glad that it hadn’t rained that day; there had been a 40% chance of rain predicted for Purim morning. I disagreed. Even though we stopped adding the special tefillah for rain in Shemoneh Esreih (and I have no idea why), we are in real trouble here. A few wet kids would definitely have been worth it.

Over the past month I have become more and more engrossed in the saga that is Israel’s water system. The ecological balance of the system is incredibly precarious and allows for very little error. Throw in a few years of low rainfall and disaster is sure to occur (as it is about to).

The best indicator of the current crisis is the Kinneret Lake. It supplies around 40% of the country’s water. Since the other 60% of the water comes from similar sources (aquifers, reservoirs, etc.) the Kinneret level pretty accurately reflects the level of those sources as well.

All of these sources are considered “renewable,” meaning that they are continually replenished by the rain that falls each year. Unfortunately, these resources are also finite and our consumption level is more that 95% of the amount of rain we get in a normal year. When rainfall is below normal, the reserve levels of these water sources are used. Unfortunately, this has happened for several years in a row and we are now in serious trouble here. Or will be soon.

The media here is covering the story regularly and the water authority’s conservation push is also making people aware of the crisis. I myself track the information via the water authority’s website (as I wrote a couple of weeks ago) and post the results on my Facebook profile in order to increase awareness of the situation.

My sister dropped me a note that she just saw that we are less than two meters above the Black Line—a Kinneret level she had never heard of before. She asked what that meant, and wondered why we are so focused on the Red Line?

There are several “lines” in the Kinneret. There is the full line/Upper Red Line, the Lower Red Line, and there is the new Black Line which was only defined last year.

The Upper Red Line equals 208 meters and 80 centimeters below sea level (–208.80). This is what the Kinneret has measured when full to capacity—before flooding. At this level, they open the Deganya Dam and allow the overflow to drain into the Jordan River to prevent flooding.

The Lower Red Line is –213.00. When the water level is below this line, the water is considered to have higher than desired amounts of contaminants and pollutants in it. This is not good! This level is also two meters above the Black Line.

The Black Line is –215.00. When the water level goes down to this level, the water pumps that the national water authority uses to pump water are exposed. If the water is below the pump level, they obviously cannot pump water. Assuming the other water sources are similarly low (having experienced the same drought that currently plagues the Kinneret), the loss of the Kinneret’s 40% contribution to the water reserves will quickly overburden the system and the country will be effectively dry. Also not such a good thing.

So why all the focus on the Lower Red Line? Well, aside from the health issues involved with drinking water having abnormally high levels of contaminants and pollutants in it, it is a key marker for how close we will get to the Black Line during the summer/fall, before the next rainy season kicks in.

Traditionally, the Kinneret loses about one and a half meters in height each dry season, but it is supposed to recover during the rainy season. However, the past several years have seen less than average rainfall and the levels never recovered. Each year’s high level was lower than the prior year’s high.

Last year, the Kinneret lost two meters from its high point of the year to the low point of the year. Yes, it was abnormal—most years are only one and a half, but it does makes sense. After all, as the water level lowers, the lake itself narrows. A narrower lake means that there is less cubic meters of water per centimeter of lake height than normal, resulting in more dramatic changes in height than in normal years.

If we were to duplicate last year’s drop of close to two meters of height from the Kinneret during the dry season, in order to ensure that we do not reach the black line, the Kinneret needs to be at least two meters above the black line at its high point (sometime in April/May). The Lower Red Line is two meters above the Black Line. The bottom of the Kinneret is something like –254, so this is not a significant factor.

It ain’t going dry—we are!

משיב הרוח (Article# 109) 3/5/2009

2009-03-17T06:55:00.002-04:00

Living in Israel has made us much more sensitive to the seasons and the balance of our ecology. Having grown up in the Midwest and spent the majority of my adult years in New York, I am a true city boy. The change of seasons was admired, but only for its aesthetic beauty, not because it had any meaning to me. Rain was an inconvenience, except in “drought years.” Even then, the real inconvenience was in adhering to the “no watering” rules and having a brown lawn.

We enjoyed having snow days and playing in the snow with our kids (although having to shovel a rather large driveway as well as both sidewalks of our corner house was definitely a pain) or playing “bucket hockey” on our driveway in the sunny summers. Weather was an experience, but not much more than that.

Intellectually, I understood that there were farmers whose livelihood could be destroyed by a badly timed storm or by a bad season. I even saw how disastrous it was one year when there was a drought on Long Island and a late rain came and practically ruined that year’s grape crop. But none of that had any real consequence to me or my immediate environment, beyond a higher cost for water or having to pay more for fruits or vegetables—which even when “out of season” would be generally available year round (since they were “in season” somewhere in the vast USA).

I even understood that the weather in Israel was crucial to the country. With farming being a major industry in Israel, it was obvious that rainfall was important, and as an Orthodox Jew I learned quite early on that we said “Mashiv HaRuach” and why. Yet it was more of an academic understanding, a religious belief without a tremendous internal meaning.

My whole world has changed in this regard. We live in a desert. The summer heat is unbelievable and there are parts of the country that are almost always hot. Being in the middle of the desert, with essentially only one source of water (the Kinneret Lake), we are very conscious of its importance to our lives.

We are also in the middle of one of the worst rain seasons on record (January was the driest month in Israel since they began tracking such things). As a matter of fact, we have not had “normal” rainfall in any of the winters that we have been living here, and the continued shortage keeps compounding the problem. Add in the fact that the entire world (not just Israel) seems to be facing tremendous rain shortages—with severe droughts in parts of the USA, Australia, and Asia causing food shortages and crop devastation—and our current drought takes on more significance.

Each year that we’ve been here, we have said the special prayer for rain that is inserted into the Shemoneh Esreh. I have wondered who it is that determines that we should start saying it, but we have done it every year. So I am assuming there is a system—and the system is saying, “We need help!”

Last year at this time I tried to keep abreast of the developments, but my Hebrew was not up to the challenge and I couldn’t find any real-time updates on the water levels. I knew there was concern about the water issue, but it didn’t seem to be a dire picture, just a matter for concern if things would get worse. At the end of the season we were above the “red line” that needs to be reached to ensure that we only have to conserve water instead of ration it severely.

We saw tangible results of the shortage in August when Goldie and I took a couple of days off in Teveria. We went rafting on the Jordan River. The rafting company told us that the water was extremely low and apologized that in several areas we would have to get out of the raft and push it because the water was so low. And we did.

We hoped things would improve. They didn’t. As I mentioned, this past January was the driest one on record, and the media has been abuzz with how dire the situation was. We were significantly below the lower “red line,” and a major crisis was brewing.

After months of hearing about how terrible things are and personally noticing the absolute absence of rain, it began to grate upon me. In the USA, beautiful sunny weather is the preference. But I began to be disgusted with it—every day, sunny and clear.

I will admit that I did miss the pleasant climate when I went to the USA. Snow? Freezing cold? Definitely not what I was looking forward to when I traveled. Yet, within a few days of my return to Israel I was again looking for rain and getting sick of the sun. (Friday rain was a specific desire—getting much-needed rain with the added bonus of a little-league rainout.)

It finally rained two weekends ago and we got about 10 centimeters of water in the Kinneret. It was a beginning, but not nearly enough. I began to add a desire for rain to my Facebook status, saying things like “Shmuel is looking forward to at least three days of rain this weekend—we need even more,” which definitely confused people. And I even got a message from a friend telling me, “Yes, unfortunately it is another disgusting day of sunshine. I cannot wait for the rains to return and those beautiful stormy skies with the delightful sounds of water pouring outside my window.”

I originally thought he was joking, and I made a comment about how he needed to understand how serious the situation was. He replied, “Unfortunately, you think I am joking. I meant truthfully what I said. I am completely sick of sunny days and they are not beautiful to me. I, of course, know the status, and another 12 days of the [amount of] rain we had last will ensure we pass the red line. We have been praying to get it and hopefully more. If it were rainy and cloudy till Pesach I would be the happiest camper.”

Well, the three days of rain came, and they were awesome! It rained and rained and rained. Of course, rain in Bet Shemesh is not nearly as important as rain in the North, which is what feeds the Kinneret. But rain in our area is an indirect help, providing water for all things that grow in the ground and eliminating the need to use Kinneret water for irrigation or watering.

Yet when the dust (or, in this case, rain clouds) settled, the level of water in the Kinneret had risen by 30 centimeters—the most water ever to fall in a single rain event since we began to track such things. It was terrific, and it seemed as if everyone was talking about it.

I posted updates of how much the Kinneret had risen and got several comments about it. I even found a terrific website to track the progress of the water (www.water.gov.il/water/console/kinnert_history.aspx). It gives you what the daily change is and the current water level. It prompted my sister to get me the URL of a different website that also gives you the shortfall from the “Red Line” and “Full Line” (www.kineret.org.il/main.asp), although the graph on that site is very misleading.

On my Monday-morning train ride to Yerushalayim, I made a point of looking out the window as we approached the station. Just outside the train there is a seasonal stream formed each spring by the runoff of the rains. When it rains, the water runs strong, but within hours it dries up. It was flowing well, something I had not seen in quite a while.

That stream feeds into another stream, which flows continuously throughout the year. On my way home that afternoon I took a look at that second river and was amazed. And very excited.

The second stream was not only flowing strong, I could see that the stream was clearly swollen with water. I could see grass and bushes growing on the banks of the stream that were partially submerged in the water. And it was exhilarating. I couldn’t believe that seeing water would be so stimulating, but it is.

So I hope and pray for more and more rain to come our way. We are now only 83 centimeters from the lower red line, and the runoff from the prior rain has not yet settled into the river. Six or seven days of this and we will pass the red line comfortably. We’ll still be 5+ meters from the normal values, but we will have averted the worst. So don’t forget to keep us in your mind when you are davening—we can use the help.

As we approach Purim, Goldie and I wish you all simchat Purim and hope that if not this Purim, then certainly by next Purim we should all be celebrating Purim together with a huge seudah in a rebuilt Yerushalayim.

A special mazal tov to our former neighbors and very close friends Yehuda and Carolyn Deutsch on the birth of their first daughter, Rochel Avigail. Enjoy her.

A special mazal tov also goes to my nephew Yonatan, who graduated from commander training this week. He did so well that the training school requested that he stay on as a teacher for future trainees. He declined. He didn’t want to waste his time teaching—he wanted to serve. So he pulled some strings to be assigned to a field unit (we don’t know where). However, in the end, they saw through him and he was assigned as a commander for new recruits in basic training. He now has to do the entire training over again with them, this time as their sergeant.

And finally, special Shabbat Shalom wishes to my good friend Dov Herman, who was peeved that I left his name out of the paper when telling a recent story about him. So please, everyone make a point of mentioning to him that you saw his name in the paper.

The Mixing Bowl (Article# 108) 2/26/2009

2009-03-02T16:18:00.001-05:00

Enough politics. Netanyahu is going to form the government, either a last minute bad deal with Kadima or a simple right wing government. No more talking about the elections this week.

I often get asked how I can live in Bet Shemesh, especially since I refer to the city as “Teaneck East” (the Rosh Yeshiva where I work lives in Efrat, which he calls “Occupied Scarsdale” so I am not alone in making this kind of reference). Don’t I wish that I lived in a more Israeli area, where my kids could integrate better and we don’t have to deal with the handicap of all the English? Actually, no.

A couple of weeks ago we hosted an Open House meeting for Mordechai’s school. Geared to parents of incoming first graders, the meeting was a chance for the parents to come meet the Principal and the Assistant Principal (Grades 1-1) and hear about the curriculum and activities.
One of the main things that stood out (at least to me) in the presentation was a sense of “one people - one nation” that we as parents in the school already knew prevailed. The school consists of 50% immigrant children from all over the world. Yet, when they are in school they do not segregate themselves into different cliques. They play as one, they learn as one and they get along very well.

Two years ago we had gone to a similar Open House to meet the same Principal and hear about the school (for Mordechai). I remember him telling us that during recess he occasionally hears students speaking English and that he asks them why they are talking Chinese – they are in Israel and they should speak Hebrew. At the time, we thought that his approach was quite rigid and not allow for the kids to express themselves comfortably in their free time. We were wrong.

I think that this approach forces the kids to interact as equals. Our kids have had incredibly successful integrations (for the most part) and I credit this to their quick adaptation to Hebrew. There are, however, still some interesting culture differences between people, as the Principal illustrated when we were talking about this specific topic.

He had gone on a field trip with the kids recently. As he sat on the bus, he noticed a couple of Ethiopian kids speaking ……whatever their native tongue is, and decided to let it pass. The bus was passing the airport and the kids were excitedly pointing out the planes, the buildings and all the fancy equipment on display. Each time they passed an industrial center, these boys would excitedly chatter and point to all the big buildings and technology.

Interestingly, the other kids did not react to any of this at all. They sat calmly in their seats talking, reading, playing, etc. However, a few minutes later the roles were reversed. Most of the kids were busy pointing out the windows and getting excited, while the Ethiopian kids were sitting calmly. What were the other kids getting excited about? They were passing a herd of donkeys.

Another thing that fascinates me is the “Israeli” label and how it is applied to different people/groups here. Most of us who live here are Israeli. I am and so is my family – we have citizenship cards to prove it. Yet, somehow we aren’t considered Israeli.

In fact, I know some Olim, who aren’t happy living in places like Bet Shemesh, Ranaana or Chashmonaim because of the high concentration of Anglos in those places. They feel that these places aren’t Israeli enough – whatever that means. They want a more “native” experience.

However, when you stop and consider it, there are almost no real Israelis. Everyone here is an immigrant at some point. Yes, there was a small Jewish community here in the 19th century, but most of us arrived here only within the last 100 years or so. Most of the people who are now called “Israeli” immigrated from Morroco or Iran or Iraq or any one of a dozen countries that made up Sephardic Judaism. The Ashkenazim are also immigrants, most of whom arrived within the last 75 years or so.

Yes, it is our land – our country as given to us by G-d. I am not trying to discuss those issues. My point is only that there is no such thing as a true “Israeli”ness that makes one person more Israeli than another. We are a conglomerate of the various people who make up our society (just like in most societies) and the trick is in understanding that we are all in this together and that this conglomerate is the definition of an “Israeli”.

So I don’t wish that I was in a less Anglo place per se. My kids are quite comfortable and are friends with people of various national backgrounds and I think this makes them better people for it. I (and my Anglo neighbors) bring a new unique approach to life that will add to attractiveness and success of my new country, just as I will be influenced (hopefully for the better) by the people who are currently here and those who will join us in the future.

The USA is called the “Melting Pot” by virtue of its successful blending of so many different ethnicities and backgrounds into a unique American identity. Since you already have that title, I guess you could call us the “Mixing Bowl”. We aren’t quite as large, nor do we do things on such a grand scale – but the idea is the same.

Coalitions (Article# 107) 2/19/2009

2009-03-02T16:10:00.003-05:00

Wanting to vote in the first Israeli national elections for which I am a registered voter, I made sure to schedule my arrival from the USA for the morning of Election Day. As I mentioned last week, there are no absentee ballots in Israel for the average citizen. The only people who vote absentee are government workers, such as embassy employees or Jewish Agency representatives. Everyone else must be in Israel on Election Day in order to vote.

In Israel, Election Day is a national holiday. All schools close (well, probably not the chareidi schools) and many offices close as well. This is done for two reasons. One is to encourage people to vote. The other is because almost all the polling stations are in schools, and the kids would not be able to attend in any case. We had been told that Israeli Election Day would be a big party, with people having BBQ’s and other family/community activities. Any national day off would be treated this way because we have so few off days since Sunday is a workday.

Since the kids were off, Goldie brought the younger ones with her to pick me up at the airport and we went straight from the airport to the voting booth. The kids were very excited to be with us, and having experienced the voting process in the mayoral elections just a couple of months ago, they knew exactly how to vote.

It is important to remember that in Israel votes are cast for the political parties—not for the candidates themselves. The leader of each party is usually the person at the top of their Knesset candidate list. Knesset members are elected on a proportional basis, calculated from the popular vote results. Israeli law does not allow for a party to have less than three seats, so there is a mathematical formula to calculate how many seats each party actually gets.

Voters are divided into districts, with each district having its own ballot box. In Bet Shemesh the districts are divided geographically and often consist of a couple of blocks (our block alone has over 150 families in it). The polling place (as I said, usually a school) is divided up by districts as well, with three to five districts assigned a joint ballot box.

Upon entering the school, we went to the classroom assigned to our district and checked in. Each eligible voter is mailed a voting card to tell him where he should vote and what district he is in. Voters can vote without having the card in hand, but it is easier to show the card. Once a voter checks in, he is handed his ballot envelope and votes.

Unlike the municipal elections, the atmosphere (at least in Bet Shemesh) was pretty low key. The parties had their information/lobbying booths set up outside the polling places, but there was none of the frenetic “color war” type of politicking we had seen in November. With the exception of the immediate vicinity of the polling place, there wasn’t the blizzard of campaign literature littered throughout the streets, and to the relief of my little kids there was almost no disturbing the peace with “victory parades” or taxis running around with roof-mounted loudspeakers blaring voting instructions.

It was actually a pretty quiet day. Toward the evening we seized the opportunity to spend some family time together and went out for dinner (kosher food court at the mall). This turned out to be a pretty popular activity nationwide; the papers all carried stories the next day about the incredible amount of people who turned up at the malls on Election Day.

Since I don’t understand the TV news well enough yet, I got most of my election result information online. Exit and pre-election polls here are not so terrifically accurate, so it was hard to tell what the final results were going to be, but we had a pretty good idea what was happening by the time we went to bed.

I had been concerned about this type of result. The results clearly showed a Right leaning electorate and a repudiation of the “make peace at any cost—even if it is our end” policies of the Left. However, the Right’s splinter parties definitely weakened the Likud’s mandate, and it is not the largest faction in the Knesset. I still believe that Netanyahu will be the next prime minister, but his position is definitely weakened by having his party come in second place.

I think some of Kadima’s strength also came from a panicky anti-Lieberman crowd. I think that the growing strength of his party in the pre-election polls got many people who would have voted Likud thinking twice about supporting Likud (who would be the most ideal coalition partner for the Lieberman-led Yisrael Beiteinu party) and they cast their votes for Kadima—not in support of Kadima, but rather as a rejection of Yisrael Beiteinu and a diminishing of Likud’s mandate. They wanted Likud to win, but not by much.

So now we are going to be stuck with a government that has a chip on its shoulder, since the largest party will be in the opposition and will constantly be sniping at its heels. Alternatively, there could be a national unity government, which would mean that Netanyahu made a deal with the devil to get them in. Any such deal would probably be less than thrilling to those who voted the Right in, but would be a direct result of all the factionalized voting that ended up splitting the Right into a whole bunch of smaller parties instead of a unified large party.

Now that the elections are over the rest is up to the politicians, and we can go back to regular life. We have been having a major drought here. Even though it rained a couple of times this week, this has been the worst rain season since they started keeping records and follows two below average rain seasons as well. The economic crisis is catching up to us here (many employers have instituted across the board mandatory wage cuts of 10–20 percent, CPI is down and continues to fall and economic growth is expected to decline for the first time in years), and we are growing more and more concerned about the rising threats of our neighbors (specifically Iran).

On the personal front we are coming to realize that our oldest son is going to fly the coop in a matter of months (four) and it is startling. The kids’ report cards just came in (Yay!—at least for the most part). We have begun to prepare for Purim and Pesach and are looking forward to having the Zaidees and Bubbees with us on yom tov. Life continues...