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Our first Rosh Hashana in Israel.
Truthfully, our lives have been so hectic that it almost snuck up on us without our noticing. We have been dealing with so many different adjustments and mini surprises along the way, that we don’t have the opportunity to look too far down the road at things.
I had returned home from America on Wednesday morning. Despite the flight being totally full, I really had no complaints. Got my aisle seat and the right meals, and I even had the opportunity to nap on the flight too.
I came back loaded with gifts for the kids from their grandparents as well as two bricks of American cheese (they cost $25 a brick here) and some frozen deli and hot dogs (can’t get a decent hot dog here). I also brought back a shipment of paperback books for the girls school, saving them delivery time and a ton of money on shipping costs.
I was very popular when I got home, all the kids were very excited to see me. I think they may have been excited to see the size of my suitcases as well, since they eagerly dove into them searching for booty.
With just a couple of days left to go before the chag, there was little I could really do to help Goldie to get ready. There wasn’t a lot of cooking to be done since we were eating out for two meals (the community has been terrific here – we get invited out every week). She had really been busy while I was gone, arranging the meals, seats in shul and everyone’s schedules. Adjusting to the fact that I will travel regularly will definitely take some adjusting for us, but it is what we wanted, so…
Goldie’s biggest issue is dealing with the myriad of repairmen who come to fix the various unfinished areas in the house. The exterminator (ants – yuck), the plumbers, the stucco guys, the carpenter, the list goes on. Then there are the installers, the dishwasher guy, the laundry machines, the phones, all the people who need to get into the house to set things up. Since she goes to ulpan four mornings a week, does work via the computer and is also responsible for all the chauffeuring, shopping, and anything else about the home, each time she has to stay home for a repairman is a major inconvenience.
The worst are the A/C guys. We had not had air conditioning for a quarter of the house (our bedroom and one kids bedroom) since we moved in five weeks ago. They had come to the five separate times to check out the problem and still had not solved it by Erev Rosh Hashana. Twice they came to the house and refused to climb out to the roof, and on Thursday evening, the wrong repairman showed up and the guy with the right equipment didn’t even bother to call and cancel!
Thankfully, by Erev Rosh Hashana they got the unit fixed (one of their workers had drilled a hole in the compressor, so it wouldn’t hold any coolant). We were thrilled to have the whole house up and running (finally) that we didn’t even notice that they had inadvertently shut down another A/C unit (covering several bedrooms) while they fixed the first unit. After a couple of frantic phone calls, I climbed up to the attic and they talked me through resetting the cutoff switch. Whew.
We spent a lot of Erev Rosh Hashana trying to reach many of our friends and relatives in the US to wish them a Shana Tova. Of course, each of our kids tried to reach their friends as well. With the time difference, the window of opportunity was small. Many of our friends had the same thought and called us, so our phone lines were busy the entire day.
The first night of Rosh Hashana (and every chag) is always full of excitement. The little kids are full of wonder and eager to show off their various projects. The bigger kids try to hide their excitement by acting nonchalant.
This year we broke out of that mold. Clearly, being “somewhere else” made a difference. The fact that the “somewhere else” was Israel made it even more striking. In unexpected ways.
To start with, the whole country is excited for several days before the chag. EVERYONE wishes you a Shana Tova; from the supermarket clerk to the telephone operator, the whole country is buzzing with excitement the whole week. It is unreal. Our dry cleaner delivery guy (he does weekly pickups and deliveries to our home) even brought us a gift basket. It is just so different from what we are used to.
A major difference for the kids is the giving of “Shana Tova” cards. In America we will occasionally get one in the mail from other adults or families. In Israel, the children all prepare their own homemade Shana Tova cards and give them to their friends on the last day of school before the chag.
It was so exciting for them to get these cards from their friends at school. It really made them feel like they fit in. They couldn’t wait to get home to show the cards to us. The only negative was that it came as a total surprise to them and they had nothing prepared to give to their friends. I guess they have something to look forward to next year.
Once Yom Tov started we saw other differences, things that said to us – something has changed.
I love the bread here. For some reason, Challa and bread here tastes SO MUCH BETTER than it does in America, at least to me. That first taste of Challa with honey brought home in a big way, the fact that we were actually in Israel for Rosh Hashana.
Eating the simanim was also different. The kids are a year older, so they understand a bit more about what the simanim mean. Also, since the whole country is so focused on the chag, the anticipation level for all the special Rosh Hashana things is at a fever pitch by the time we got to the simanim.
Of course, they tasted better too. Our Rimon (pomegranate) was most likely picked within a week of our eating it. It was so much better than we are used to that I cannot adequately describe it. The dates were awesome; the whole series of fruits and vegetables were terrific and it made such a difference.
Davening was also a change. In the US, we were used to the Chazan leading the singing, sentence by sentence with a break for everyone to say the words to himself or herself. Here, once a song has been recognized, the entire shul joins in (in full voice) to finish the entire song together without a break – and I do mean the entire shul. I know it uplifted my davening, Goldie’s too. The proof? The fact that davening lasted for six hours each day (from 7 AM to 1 PM) really didn’t bother us too much.
In one of our Erev Rosh Hashana phone calls a friend asked me if we still thought they should consider moving to Israel (they will be here this winter checking things out). After all, I write about how tough things are and how hard things seem for us.
In truth, I understood the question. I do write a lot about the tough things, partly because there is nothing remotely interesting about “we went to the grocery store and bought six containers of milk……”, at least not after the first time I wrote about it. The things that occupy a large part of our attention are the hurdles and adjustments that we have had to make as time goes on.
Being here is definitely a lot of hard work. Yet, I can see a time in the future where it will be less hard than it is today. And it will continue to get easier as time goes on. Everything is tough at the beginning. We are learning how to do everything that we used to take for granted, and we are doing it for eight people. It is bound to be hard work.
But it is worth it.
As I have said before, there just is simply no place like Israel for a Jew to be. It truly is the land of our fathers. We truly are “home” here. For better and for worse.
While we get an emotional and spiritual lift simply by being here, we get as much or more of a lift because of the people we are sharing it with. They have really begun to make a difference in our lives.
Everyone here has that same love for the land of Israel and for the people of Israel that we do. We have all made tremendous sacrifices (some more than others – but each in their own way) to be here. So we have a shared sense of camaraderie that binds us and makes us naturally predisposed towards friendships and kinship.
Many of these people have gone through what we are; almost all of the others have parents who came here as foreigners. While we all had different agendas, motivations and goals, there is nowhere more than Israel where you can really say that a Jew is a Jew. We fight. We disagree. We will shout at each other and oppose each other with great fervor BECAUSE WE ARE ALL PASSIONATE ABOUT THE LAND THAT WE LOVE.
Yet, somehow, at the end of the day, we all have it in ourselves to turn to the cashier in the supermarket, the garbage man, the bus driver or whomever we come across and greet them with “Shana Tova”.
What a country!
Friday, October 06, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
A Tale of Two Cities (Article #21) 9/21/2006
When I got to the airport on Sunday morning, I discovered that the yeshiva’s travel agent had not done a very good job of making my reservations. He had neglected to order the glatt meal for me (although I got lucky there) and hadn’t bothered to reserve a seat for me—so I ended up with a middle seat. At six-foot-two, I am a rather large guy, so a middle seat would not have been my preference.
A side note about kashrut: I believe that it is not so easy to actually find treif food in Israel. Most things have some form of hashgachah on it. However, there are many different hashgachot and they use various different rulings in how they determine what is acceptable as kosher. Accordingly, our yeshiva recommends that our talmidim eat from “mehadrin” hashgachot as a minimum, and we try to apply that standard to our family as well. Therefore, I requested the glatt meal on the airplane—I am in no way saying that the El Al hashgachah is not valid, I just prefer to order the glatt as an extra stringency.
I had deliberately stayed up almost the whole night motzaei Shabbat in order to make sure that I would be tired for the flight to America on Sunday. Unfortunately, as a day flight, I really couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep, and the people around me were also all well-rested, so they were making plenty of noise throughout the flight.
By the time we got to New York (Kennedy Airport), I was tired and ready to get moving. Immigration was a breeze. From the time they opened the plane until I was at the baggage carousel, I think 12 minutes had passed. Then I waited for the luggage.
And waited.
And waited.
It took over an hour for my luggage to appear. I don’t understand why it took so long. There were a lot of other people who were still waiting when I left, so I guess I was lucky, but it should never have taken so long.
By the time I got out to get my rental car, I was nice and grumpy. It didn’t help that there are almost no signs that make sense in Kennedy and it took me three tries to find the train to the rental car and get on the right train (silly me, I thought the trains would be clearly marked as to which was which).
I had reserved my car online from Dollar; Dollar had quoted a rate which was the cheapest by a lot—at least $10 less per day. It didn’t take long to discover why they were so cheap.
They had one person manning the rental counter with a long line. I think I waited 45 minutes to get my paperwork processed. The line to pick up the car was just as long. By the time I drove out of the rental car lot it had been more than three hours after we had been let out of the plane. I was disgusted by the inefficiency at JFK.
I was also somewhat disappointed. The Young Israel of Hewlett (my shul before we made aliyah) was having a picnic/BBQ that afternoon, and I had planned to catch the end of it, surprising all of our friends. However, by the time I was out of the airport, it was way too late to try to make it to there.
Being back in New York was kinda weird. The first adjustment was the car. It was way too big. In Israel, the rental car we are using (until we buy a car) is much smaller—all the cars are smaller. The American cars are much larger and have tons of room.
Back at home, Goldie was not having an easy time of it. It is of course a rule that whenever things happen, they will happen at the most inopportune time. It is tough to be the only parent when you are used to having a team. I know she feels more comfortable when I am in the house, and she has told me that she never feels safe when I am away—even if it is only for a late meeting.
Compounding all of this is the fact that we simply have no comfort level yet. We live in a foreign country, where nothing is familiar to us. We have developed no routine or standard approach to daily life. Everything is new and strange to us and until we have spent months adapting to the changes, each day takes an enormous amount of effort.
Of course, inevitably, things that could have gone wrong at home, began to. Aliza (and several other of her new olim classmates) spent an hour crying in school because they don’t understand what is going on in class. Then, the s’ ulpan was moved to a different building and Goldie had to scramble to arrange transportation for them. The repairs to various systems (like the A/C) are ongoing. The car battery died and she needed to go get the car replaced. So Goldie had a tough few days after I left.
It was strange to go back to our old neighborhood and see everyone for the first time. Since we have tried to adapt so hard, and have invested so much energy and emotion into making new friends, we have not really had time to miss the friends we left behind. We have spoken to people on our internet phone, and have kept in contact via e-mails and instant messaging, but it isn’t the same as actually being there.
Driving was also much different. In Beit Shemesh, where we live and do most of our driving, there are almost no traffic lights. Wherever there is an intersection of major cross streets, there is a traffic circle. Drivers enter and exit the traffic circle when there is an interval between cars which makes for a pretty orderly flow of traffic. I love these traffic circles. It eliminates a lot of wasted time spent waiting for a traffic light.
I had approached driving in Israel with concern. Goldie was even more worried. The reputation of Israeli drivers and driving was that it was very dangerous and discourteous. However, we have found driving in Israel to be pretty comfortable, orderly and calm. Goldie drives into Yerushalayim without concern and we have been pleasantly surprised by how easily we adapted to the driving patterns. So it was strange to be sitting at red lights again.
I enjoyed the trip to New York. I was busy running around to see people (fundraising is after all a major part of my job), connect with our alumni at the various universities they attend (I had a really nice breakfast with our YU alumni and a great lunch with the NYU guys), visit friends and see how they are doing and also spend some time with our family.
The Yeshiva of South Shore happened to have their back to school night while I was in New York. So I decided to hang out there so that I could see all the people who I had worked with and wouldn’t have the opportunity to make a special visit to see. It was really funny to watch everyone’s reaction as they saw me at the entrance to the building.
I really enjoyed that shocked reaction all week; it was just very exciting to see everyone (in both cities).
Although the trip was a “business trip,” there were various things Goldie wanted me to pick up for the kids and the house that simply aren’t available in Israel. So I made sure to pack an extra empty bag to bring stuff back in. In the end, my mother-in-law bought so many things for the kids that I was very lucky to have thought of bringing that empty suitcase with me.
Among the things that we needed were paper blinds for all of our main floor windows. Most windows in Israel have trissim (shutters) that roll up and down for privacy, except in our neighborhood. In our neighborhood, the majority of the houses—including ours—do not seem to have trissim on the main floor.
When you consider the fact that the main floor is about five feet below ground level and that we have a lot of windows, privacy becomes a major issue. Each day at 7:00 p.m., the construction workers across the street assemble to wait for their bus home. The workers are all Thai, so we have had to deal with 20 or so Thai workers literally staring into our home as we eat dinner, do homework and go about our lives. Plus, I am sure that the neighbors are sick of seeing into our house.
In the end, after measuring the window space, I had to buy 14 different packages of blinds at Home Depot. Of course, they didn’t fit into my suitcase, so I had to tape them together into a bundle and shlep them with me through the airport, on the plane and everywhere else I had to go on my way to Chicago.
The arrival in Chicago was as great as the arrival in New York was awful. Mine were the third and fourth bags to hit the carousel and I had a great experience with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. They greeted me at the door with a bottle of water, and were so cheerful and fun. And they had the cheapest price too.
As a Chicago native, I find it ironic that I will most likely be visiting Chicago more often now that I have moved to Israel than I did when I lived in New York. Our yeshiva has strong Chicago connections and we have a significant amount of Chicago alumni as well.
At my first meeting the first day in Chicago, I got a panicked call from Goldie. Her terrible week was continuing. She was panicked and incoherent because of something with the kids. After a lot of trying to figure out what she was saying, I finally caught one word. “Nit.”
We had been warned over and over that no matter how lucky we had been in the past that there was no way we would escape the lice issue. Apparently, everyone in Israel has this problem and usually more than once. There are many families who simply don’t care if their kids get it or if they pass it on to others.
Goldie was totally panicked. In her words, “I was so sure that we would be different, that I would make sure that they were clean and we would not get lice. I knew people had said that it was inevitable, but I didn’t really believe it could possibly happen to us. I think I was more shocked that it actually happened than I was about them having it.”
Goldie learned a lot about hair lice this week, having to deal with two cases of it in the house. Chaia Broderick was great. She ran to our house immediately and jumped right in, calming Goldie and helping strip linens and check hair.
She also called one of her friends, a teacher in the s’ school, who came to our house on her way to a Bar Mitzvah (all dressed up) just to show Goldie what to do. By the end of the day, they had gone a long way in getting Goldie back to normal, but I really felt bad that she had to be alone when this happened (not that I really wanted to deal with hair lice—but I still felt bad).
The time in Chicago started much slower than New York. After that first day, where I was able to get stuff done, I hit Erev Shabbat and then Shabbat. I was able to do a little more shopping (a new wireless router and a camera and mike to set up Skype for the kids to talk to their grandparents and friends via computer) as well as prepare notes for a couple of speeches.
These articles are running both in New York and in Chicago. When we scheduled this trip, I had been asked to speak in Chicago about our experiences and perspective as new olim. I spoke at Seudah Shlishit in my parents’ shul, KINS, as well as twice on Sunday (once between Mincha and Ma’ariv at Or Torah in Skokie and once at a special event organized by Religious Zionists of Chicago whose newsletter runs these articles).
Goldie had wanted me to try to move my return up a day or two (partly in shellshock from what had happened while I was gone). However, it was a good thing that I stayed, because I had come to Chicago to prepare for a parlor meeting we are having there after Yom Tov and I really needed to get some wrinkles straightened out on Monday.
I will be flying back via Newark on Tuesday, overnight into Wednesday, and I will have a couple days to prepare for Rosh Hashanah—our first.
As we prepare to enter the new year, we are filled with mixed feelings. We are of course excited that we have begun our lives here. We are also worried about the various issues that can crop up for us, and about the kids and their acclimation into the school system and the neighborhood.
Not everything is guaranteed to go well, and we hope that Hashem answers our Tefillot this year as positively as he did last year (making our aliyah possible).
On behalf of Goldie and all the kids, we wish one and all a Shana Tova Umetuka, health, happiness and that Hashem grant that your Tefillot are answered with the best possible results for you and your families.
A side note about kashrut: I believe that it is not so easy to actually find treif food in Israel. Most things have some form of hashgachah on it. However, there are many different hashgachot and they use various different rulings in how they determine what is acceptable as kosher. Accordingly, our yeshiva recommends that our talmidim eat from “mehadrin” hashgachot as a minimum, and we try to apply that standard to our family as well. Therefore, I requested the glatt meal on the airplane—I am in no way saying that the El Al hashgachah is not valid, I just prefer to order the glatt as an extra stringency.
I had deliberately stayed up almost the whole night motzaei Shabbat in order to make sure that I would be tired for the flight to America on Sunday. Unfortunately, as a day flight, I really couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep, and the people around me were also all well-rested, so they were making plenty of noise throughout the flight.
By the time we got to New York (Kennedy Airport), I was tired and ready to get moving. Immigration was a breeze. From the time they opened the plane until I was at the baggage carousel, I think 12 minutes had passed. Then I waited for the luggage.
And waited.
And waited.
It took over an hour for my luggage to appear. I don’t understand why it took so long. There were a lot of other people who were still waiting when I left, so I guess I was lucky, but it should never have taken so long.
By the time I got out to get my rental car, I was nice and grumpy. It didn’t help that there are almost no signs that make sense in Kennedy and it took me three tries to find the train to the rental car and get on the right train (silly me, I thought the trains would be clearly marked as to which was which).
I had reserved my car online from Dollar; Dollar had quoted a rate which was the cheapest by a lot—at least $10 less per day. It didn’t take long to discover why they were so cheap.
They had one person manning the rental counter with a long line. I think I waited 45 minutes to get my paperwork processed. The line to pick up the car was just as long. By the time I drove out of the rental car lot it had been more than three hours after we had been let out of the plane. I was disgusted by the inefficiency at JFK.
I was also somewhat disappointed. The Young Israel of Hewlett (my shul before we made aliyah) was having a picnic/BBQ that afternoon, and I had planned to catch the end of it, surprising all of our friends. However, by the time I was out of the airport, it was way too late to try to make it to there.
Being back in New York was kinda weird. The first adjustment was the car. It was way too big. In Israel, the rental car we are using (until we buy a car) is much smaller—all the cars are smaller. The American cars are much larger and have tons of room.
Back at home, Goldie was not having an easy time of it. It is of course a rule that whenever things happen, they will happen at the most inopportune time. It is tough to be the only parent when you are used to having a team. I know she feels more comfortable when I am in the house, and she has told me that she never feels safe when I am away—even if it is only for a late meeting.
Compounding all of this is the fact that we simply have no comfort level yet. We live in a foreign country, where nothing is familiar to us. We have developed no routine or standard approach to daily life. Everything is new and strange to us and until we have spent months adapting to the changes, each day takes an enormous amount of effort.
Of course, inevitably, things that could have gone wrong at home, began to. Aliza (and several other of her new olim classmates) spent an hour crying in school because they don’t understand what is going on in class. Then, the s’ ulpan was moved to a different building and Goldie had to scramble to arrange transportation for them. The repairs to various systems (like the A/C) are ongoing. The car battery died and she needed to go get the car replaced. So Goldie had a tough few days after I left.
It was strange to go back to our old neighborhood and see everyone for the first time. Since we have tried to adapt so hard, and have invested so much energy and emotion into making new friends, we have not really had time to miss the friends we left behind. We have spoken to people on our internet phone, and have kept in contact via e-mails and instant messaging, but it isn’t the same as actually being there.
Driving was also much different. In Beit Shemesh, where we live and do most of our driving, there are almost no traffic lights. Wherever there is an intersection of major cross streets, there is a traffic circle. Drivers enter and exit the traffic circle when there is an interval between cars which makes for a pretty orderly flow of traffic. I love these traffic circles. It eliminates a lot of wasted time spent waiting for a traffic light.
I had approached driving in Israel with concern. Goldie was even more worried. The reputation of Israeli drivers and driving was that it was very dangerous and discourteous. However, we have found driving in Israel to be pretty comfortable, orderly and calm. Goldie drives into Yerushalayim without concern and we have been pleasantly surprised by how easily we adapted to the driving patterns. So it was strange to be sitting at red lights again.
I enjoyed the trip to New York. I was busy running around to see people (fundraising is after all a major part of my job), connect with our alumni at the various universities they attend (I had a really nice breakfast with our YU alumni and a great lunch with the NYU guys), visit friends and see how they are doing and also spend some time with our family.
The Yeshiva of South Shore happened to have their back to school night while I was in New York. So I decided to hang out there so that I could see all the people who I had worked with and wouldn’t have the opportunity to make a special visit to see. It was really funny to watch everyone’s reaction as they saw me at the entrance to the building.
I really enjoyed that shocked reaction all week; it was just very exciting to see everyone (in both cities).
Although the trip was a “business trip,” there were various things Goldie wanted me to pick up for the kids and the house that simply aren’t available in Israel. So I made sure to pack an extra empty bag to bring stuff back in. In the end, my mother-in-law bought so many things for the kids that I was very lucky to have thought of bringing that empty suitcase with me.
Among the things that we needed were paper blinds for all of our main floor windows. Most windows in Israel have trissim (shutters) that roll up and down for privacy, except in our neighborhood. In our neighborhood, the majority of the houses—including ours—do not seem to have trissim on the main floor.
When you consider the fact that the main floor is about five feet below ground level and that we have a lot of windows, privacy becomes a major issue. Each day at 7:00 p.m., the construction workers across the street assemble to wait for their bus home. The workers are all Thai, so we have had to deal with 20 or so Thai workers literally staring into our home as we eat dinner, do homework and go about our lives. Plus, I am sure that the neighbors are sick of seeing into our house.
In the end, after measuring the window space, I had to buy 14 different packages of blinds at Home Depot. Of course, they didn’t fit into my suitcase, so I had to tape them together into a bundle and shlep them with me through the airport, on the plane and everywhere else I had to go on my way to Chicago.
The arrival in Chicago was as great as the arrival in New York was awful. Mine were the third and fourth bags to hit the carousel and I had a great experience with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. They greeted me at the door with a bottle of water, and were so cheerful and fun. And they had the cheapest price too.
As a Chicago native, I find it ironic that I will most likely be visiting Chicago more often now that I have moved to Israel than I did when I lived in New York. Our yeshiva has strong Chicago connections and we have a significant amount of Chicago alumni as well.
At my first meeting the first day in Chicago, I got a panicked call from Goldie. Her terrible week was continuing. She was panicked and incoherent because of something with the kids. After a lot of trying to figure out what she was saying, I finally caught one word. “Nit.”
We had been warned over and over that no matter how lucky we had been in the past that there was no way we would escape the lice issue. Apparently, everyone in Israel has this problem and usually more than once. There are many families who simply don’t care if their kids get it or if they pass it on to others.
Goldie was totally panicked. In her words, “I was so sure that we would be different, that I would make sure that they were clean and we would not get lice. I knew people had said that it was inevitable, but I didn’t really believe it could possibly happen to us. I think I was more shocked that it actually happened than I was about them having it.”
Goldie learned a lot about hair lice this week, having to deal with two cases of it in the house. Chaia Broderick was great. She ran to our house immediately and jumped right in, calming Goldie and helping strip linens and check hair.
She also called one of her friends, a teacher in the s’ school, who came to our house on her way to a Bar Mitzvah (all dressed up) just to show Goldie what to do. By the end of the day, they had gone a long way in getting Goldie back to normal, but I really felt bad that she had to be alone when this happened (not that I really wanted to deal with hair lice—but I still felt bad).
The time in Chicago started much slower than New York. After that first day, where I was able to get stuff done, I hit Erev Shabbat and then Shabbat. I was able to do a little more shopping (a new wireless router and a camera and mike to set up Skype for the kids to talk to their grandparents and friends via computer) as well as prepare notes for a couple of speeches.
These articles are running both in New York and in Chicago. When we scheduled this trip, I had been asked to speak in Chicago about our experiences and perspective as new olim. I spoke at Seudah Shlishit in my parents’ shul, KINS, as well as twice on Sunday (once between Mincha and Ma’ariv at Or Torah in Skokie and once at a special event organized by Religious Zionists of Chicago whose newsletter runs these articles).
Goldie had wanted me to try to move my return up a day or two (partly in shellshock from what had happened while I was gone). However, it was a good thing that I stayed, because I had come to Chicago to prepare for a parlor meeting we are having there after Yom Tov and I really needed to get some wrinkles straightened out on Monday.
I will be flying back via Newark on Tuesday, overnight into Wednesday, and I will have a couple days to prepare for Rosh Hashanah—our first.
As we prepare to enter the new year, we are filled with mixed feelings. We are of course excited that we have begun our lives here. We are also worried about the various issues that can crop up for us, and about the kids and their acclimation into the school system and the neighborhood.
Not everything is guaranteed to go well, and we hope that Hashem answers our Tefillot this year as positively as he did last year (making our aliyah possible).
On behalf of Goldie and all the kids, we wish one and all a Shana Tova Umetuka, health, happiness and that Hashem grant that your Tefillot are answered with the best possible results for you and your families.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Back to School (Article #20) 9/14/2006
The kids began what is sure to be our Israeli educational adventure on Sunday. The school year actually began a couple of days late this year; many of the schools in Central and Southern Israel had been turned into temporary shelters for the people of Northern Israel who had fled their homes in the face of the Hizbullah Katyusha onslaught.
The communities really opened their houses and their hearts to the Northerners, yet there we so many of them that needed accommodations that it became necessary to use the school building for them as well. With the cessation of active hostilities, the schools emptied and the government announced a late start to the school year to give the schools an extra day or two to prepare their buildings for the new year.
We had been told that the school day in Israel is much shorter than that in America and that we would have our kids home a lot more than usual. I guess that Beit Shemesh is different than other communities; our kids’ normal school schedule runs from around 8 AM to 3:30 PM (for Mordechai, Batya and Aliza) or 4:45 PM (Chaya) four days a week, 1 PM on Tuesdays and Noon Fridays (with the exception of Chaim whose High School starts Minyan at 7:30 and ends three days at 8 PM and twice at 6).
When we heard that the first day of school was a half day, with a noontime dismissal, we weren’t surprised. For years, the schools they went to in America also started with a half day on the first day, following their normal school schedule only from day two of school and onward.
Goldie has signed the kids up for various Chugim (after school activities) on the days they get out early, and we were prepared for them to finally get out of the house and be in school all day. They returned from their first half day excited to have gone (for the most part) and bearing various notes from their teachers telling us the school schedule for the near future.
I’m not sure why, but it takes at least a week for the kids to go to their full schedule, with the High Schools (3 days) and Preschools (2 days) being the quickest to ramp up, and the Elementary Schools bringing up the rear (no clue – we are STILL on an abbreviated schedule).
Many of the notes home are sent in Hebrew only. We have to focus when reading them, and often need assistance in translating some of the words. We also have to work hard in translating the text and work book homework assignment, since their instructions are also exclusively Hebrew.
There are so many other issues that we face in dealing with school. Many of them are language based.
Moshe (19 months) goes to a private Gan/daycare so that Goldie can attend Ulpan. He had some separation issues in parting from Goldie at dropoff, but by day three – he was fine. He is having the easiest transition so far and we have even caught him using Hebrew words for toys and other playthings.
Mordechai (age 5) goes to Gan Chova (Pre1a?) in a building down the block from us. He speaks very little Hebrew and was terrified to go to school the first day. He had a lot of worries about the Morah understanding him, and his ability to interact with the other kids.
The first few days were awful for him (and us too). He definitely has had a very hard adjustment to school. We can see how scared he is to go to school and how it affects his behavior all day. No matter how many times we hear that this is “normal” and that he will adjust very quickly to the new school and new language, we worry – it’s our job.
He told us that he sits patiently when the Morah reads a story and that he can’t play with most of the boys, since they don’t understand English. Yet, he has made a couple of new friends, and has expressed interest in playing with them outside of school. Even though he clearly misses his friends (more on that later), he seemed to be a little more contented at the end of the week, although it could simply be that he learned to be more patient and less upset.
Batya (age 7) and Aliza (age 10) were assigned buddies by their school. A buddy is a student who speaks both Hebrew and English and sits next to the Oleh student. They have permission to talk during class, translating what the teacher is saying to their “buddy”.
In theory this is a great idea. In practice it doesn’t work so well. If the buddies take a minute to translate the lesson piece by piece, they miss hearing what the teacher is saying while they are busy translating. So the buddies often wait until the lesson is complete before attempting to translate. This leaves a lot of information that needs to be given over, and the translations are usually lacking key points.
While Aliza is only marginally frustrated by this since she is just plain happy to be here, Batya struggles with this. Both of them are highly motivated to learn and really want to work hard to please themselves, their teachers and their parents. So it is very tough for Batya to come home each day to tell us, “I learned nothing today, I didn’t understand anything.”
The first few days she also came home telling us that she had no one to play with during recess. She is a really slow eater and by the time she finishes her snack or sandwhich, the other kids are already engrossed in a game or activity and she is left out.
As a parent, this is very difficult to hear from your child. We explained to Batya that she can join the game AND eat her snack at the same time, and then we (Goldie) called the school to speak with the Yoetzet and see what could be done (we are still working on it).
The Yoetzet is the person whose function within the school is to be an advocate for Olim and their children within the school system. This person is an English speaker and can often help navigate the unfamiliar territory for new immigrant families, of which we are one. They are there for us to call upon when we need help.
Of course, since the Yoetzet was not going to be in for the rest of the week, we will have to wait a bit to get things in order. This should not really be a surprise since it seems that a prevalent attitude here is, “We’ll take care of it right away – some time next week.”
Aliza actually had a great week, even though she was clueless at school. Even though she has no idea what is going on in the classroom, she is old enough to be able to make homework “dates’ with other s, so she ends up learning the material eventually. But the big news of the week was regarding her chug.
Aliza was originally going to do only a dance chug once a week after school. She then heard about auditions for a play being put on in the winter and asked us if she could try out. Out of 200 s, she was one of 20 to get a call back for a second audition and one of 9 to be awarded a part. She was thrilled when she got the call, and we are really proud of her.
Chaya (age 13) has begun to make more friends and is slowly getting more comfortable with living in Sheinfeld instead of Ramat Beit Shemesh. She is also having language issues at school. This is compounded by the fact that the curriculum here is much different than we had in America, especially Math.
The Israeli education system has many weaknesses and is VERY different from what we are used to. They have large class sizes and are often short on resources. There is a tendency to avoid dealing with special needs children. Yet, they do seem to have a much stronger emphasis on introducing advanced math at a younger age.
She has no idea what is going on in many subjects, but we had hoped that Math is universal and would therefore be easier. For homework, Chaya’s Ninth Grade class was reviewing the material they covered last year, and when Chaim saw the material he told us that it was the same math he learned last year in Ninth Grade.
We were told to expect this, but it is still a shock to hear that we need to get her a tutor to augment her education simply because the curriculum in Israel advances much quicker than the one in America. Hopefully she will catch up quickly so that she can feel accomplished and capable of participating in Math discussions.
Chaim (age 15) seems to be content. As the first kid to speak about his desire to return to the US, we were concerned that he may have major adjustment issues. However, he has told us several times that although he wants to go back to Americe, he is happy in his current school and we can clearly see that he has made friends with several of the local kids from other schools.
Goldie (age – no way) is also a student for the next six months. She started Ulpan on Sunday and is really working very hard to learn the language.
Originally assessed as a good speaker with very little confidence in her ability to speak. She was assigned to the third level class (out of four – YAY GOLDIE). She initially thought that level was too easy, and moved to level four. However, after she saw the amount of homework assigned to that class, she decided to give her old class a second chance (with 6 kids, staying in the harder homework is impractical).
I feel bad for Goldie. She is spread so thin. She takes Ulpan four morning a week. She has to be at every meeting in the school for each kid. She has to shop and take care of the house. She has to run all our household errands. She has to help with homework. She has to be in the house for each repairman, installer, vendor or whomever needs to get into the house and fix something. And much much more………………….
She has so many different things to worry about in getting things set up at home. On top of all of that, we had not had online access until this week, so she is very far behind in her work which also creates a lot of stress for her.
She is really working hard to make things go smoothly and I admire her for that. She has displayed patience and caring whenever things go wrong and has been very committed to keeping us all happy.
On Tuesday we had a handyman come in and install some hanging rods into the master bedroom closet (the only real closet in the house). On Thursday we got most of our Aronot (closets) delivered. One of them arrived damaged and will hopefully be replaced this week. It is nice to have our clothes hanging in closets instead of on the shower rods, yet another sign that we are settling in.
Goldie and I enjoyed our first “kid-free” Friday. We had a chance to go shopping together to buy things for the house and unpack a bunch of boxes. We also had a chance to sit together to talk about the upcoming week a bit and plan.
Our niece Tova joined us for Shabbat. She is in the Shaalvim s Shana Bet (second year) program in Yerushalayim. She had been in Israel for about a week, and it was nice to have her sit with the kids, especially Moshe, to give us a breather.
On Friday night I was talking with Mordechai about my upcoming trip to America. After his rough week at school, Mordechai was highly stressed and went into “meltdown.” After the Seudah he and I were laying together on the couch while he cried.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. His response, “I want to go with you to America and play with my friends!” He really had a rough week and is missing his old surroundings.
However, these issues are not unique to the Katz family. Many Olim face similar issues and have to deal with language, housing and other problems as much or more than we do. Many of our issues resolved themselves or will take adjustment for us to cope. And we will adjust.
On Motzei Shabbat we went to a special event at the shul. By the time you read this, I will have left – but I was originally scheduled to leave to America on Sat. night. However, our shul ran a special program to meet and greet the new residents/members. In order to attend the event (and save some money), I postponed my departure about ten hours.
At the event, the shul ran a “speed dating” style game. Each couple was given two index cards and told to pair up with another couple with whom who they had not yet shared a Shabbat meal. They were given index cards and a pencil and told to get as much information about the couple that they could in five minutes. At the end of each round a buzzer was sounded and couples were asked to find knew partners for another round.
After a few rounds, couples were randomly asked to introduce one of the couples that they had “dated” to the rest of the crowd and give the crown as much info about them that they had noted during the dating round.
It was a fun event, and we learned a lot about our neighbors. I stayed up most of the rest of the night and packed for my trip to NY the next morning. Ten days away from home, running around NY and Chicago trying to meet alumni, parents, donors and get things done.
As my first trip back since making Aliyah, I am wondering what it will feel like.
The communities really opened their houses and their hearts to the Northerners, yet there we so many of them that needed accommodations that it became necessary to use the school building for them as well. With the cessation of active hostilities, the schools emptied and the government announced a late start to the school year to give the schools an extra day or two to prepare their buildings for the new year.
We had been told that the school day in Israel is much shorter than that in America and that we would have our kids home a lot more than usual. I guess that Beit Shemesh is different than other communities; our kids’ normal school schedule runs from around 8 AM to 3:30 PM (for Mordechai, Batya and Aliza) or 4:45 PM (Chaya) four days a week, 1 PM on Tuesdays and Noon Fridays (with the exception of Chaim whose High School starts Minyan at 7:30 and ends three days at 8 PM and twice at 6).
When we heard that the first day of school was a half day, with a noontime dismissal, we weren’t surprised. For years, the schools they went to in America also started with a half day on the first day, following their normal school schedule only from day two of school and onward.
Goldie has signed the kids up for various Chugim (after school activities) on the days they get out early, and we were prepared for them to finally get out of the house and be in school all day. They returned from their first half day excited to have gone (for the most part) and bearing various notes from their teachers telling us the school schedule for the near future.
I’m not sure why, but it takes at least a week for the kids to go to their full schedule, with the High Schools (3 days) and Preschools (2 days) being the quickest to ramp up, and the Elementary Schools bringing up the rear (no clue – we are STILL on an abbreviated schedule).
Many of the notes home are sent in Hebrew only. We have to focus when reading them, and often need assistance in translating some of the words. We also have to work hard in translating the text and work book homework assignment, since their instructions are also exclusively Hebrew.
There are so many other issues that we face in dealing with school. Many of them are language based.
Moshe (19 months) goes to a private Gan/daycare so that Goldie can attend Ulpan. He had some separation issues in parting from Goldie at dropoff, but by day three – he was fine. He is having the easiest transition so far and we have even caught him using Hebrew words for toys and other playthings.
Mordechai (age 5) goes to Gan Chova (Pre1a?) in a building down the block from us. He speaks very little Hebrew and was terrified to go to school the first day. He had a lot of worries about the Morah understanding him, and his ability to interact with the other kids.
The first few days were awful for him (and us too). He definitely has had a very hard adjustment to school. We can see how scared he is to go to school and how it affects his behavior all day. No matter how many times we hear that this is “normal” and that he will adjust very quickly to the new school and new language, we worry – it’s our job.
He told us that he sits patiently when the Morah reads a story and that he can’t play with most of the boys, since they don’t understand English. Yet, he has made a couple of new friends, and has expressed interest in playing with them outside of school. Even though he clearly misses his friends (more on that later), he seemed to be a little more contented at the end of the week, although it could simply be that he learned to be more patient and less upset.
Batya (age 7) and Aliza (age 10) were assigned buddies by their school. A buddy is a student who speaks both Hebrew and English and sits next to the Oleh student. They have permission to talk during class, translating what the teacher is saying to their “buddy”.
In theory this is a great idea. In practice it doesn’t work so well. If the buddies take a minute to translate the lesson piece by piece, they miss hearing what the teacher is saying while they are busy translating. So the buddies often wait until the lesson is complete before attempting to translate. This leaves a lot of information that needs to be given over, and the translations are usually lacking key points.
While Aliza is only marginally frustrated by this since she is just plain happy to be here, Batya struggles with this. Both of them are highly motivated to learn and really want to work hard to please themselves, their teachers and their parents. So it is very tough for Batya to come home each day to tell us, “I learned nothing today, I didn’t understand anything.”
The first few days she also came home telling us that she had no one to play with during recess. She is a really slow eater and by the time she finishes her snack or sandwhich, the other kids are already engrossed in a game or activity and she is left out.
As a parent, this is very difficult to hear from your child. We explained to Batya that she can join the game AND eat her snack at the same time, and then we (Goldie) called the school to speak with the Yoetzet and see what could be done (we are still working on it).
The Yoetzet is the person whose function within the school is to be an advocate for Olim and their children within the school system. This person is an English speaker and can often help navigate the unfamiliar territory for new immigrant families, of which we are one. They are there for us to call upon when we need help.
Of course, since the Yoetzet was not going to be in for the rest of the week, we will have to wait a bit to get things in order. This should not really be a surprise since it seems that a prevalent attitude here is, “We’ll take care of it right away – some time next week.”
Aliza actually had a great week, even though she was clueless at school. Even though she has no idea what is going on in the classroom, she is old enough to be able to make homework “dates’ with other s, so she ends up learning the material eventually. But the big news of the week was regarding her chug.
Aliza was originally going to do only a dance chug once a week after school. She then heard about auditions for a play being put on in the winter and asked us if she could try out. Out of 200 s, she was one of 20 to get a call back for a second audition and one of 9 to be awarded a part. She was thrilled when she got the call, and we are really proud of her.
Chaya (age 13) has begun to make more friends and is slowly getting more comfortable with living in Sheinfeld instead of Ramat Beit Shemesh. She is also having language issues at school. This is compounded by the fact that the curriculum here is much different than we had in America, especially Math.
The Israeli education system has many weaknesses and is VERY different from what we are used to. They have large class sizes and are often short on resources. There is a tendency to avoid dealing with special needs children. Yet, they do seem to have a much stronger emphasis on introducing advanced math at a younger age.
She has no idea what is going on in many subjects, but we had hoped that Math is universal and would therefore be easier. For homework, Chaya’s Ninth Grade class was reviewing the material they covered last year, and when Chaim saw the material he told us that it was the same math he learned last year in Ninth Grade.
We were told to expect this, but it is still a shock to hear that we need to get her a tutor to augment her education simply because the curriculum in Israel advances much quicker than the one in America. Hopefully she will catch up quickly so that she can feel accomplished and capable of participating in Math discussions.
Chaim (age 15) seems to be content. As the first kid to speak about his desire to return to the US, we were concerned that he may have major adjustment issues. However, he has told us several times that although he wants to go back to Americe, he is happy in his current school and we can clearly see that he has made friends with several of the local kids from other schools.
Goldie (age – no way) is also a student for the next six months. She started Ulpan on Sunday and is really working very hard to learn the language.
Originally assessed as a good speaker with very little confidence in her ability to speak. She was assigned to the third level class (out of four – YAY GOLDIE). She initially thought that level was too easy, and moved to level four. However, after she saw the amount of homework assigned to that class, she decided to give her old class a second chance (with 6 kids, staying in the harder homework is impractical).
I feel bad for Goldie. She is spread so thin. She takes Ulpan four morning a week. She has to be at every meeting in the school for each kid. She has to shop and take care of the house. She has to run all our household errands. She has to help with homework. She has to be in the house for each repairman, installer, vendor or whomever needs to get into the house and fix something. And much much more………………….
She has so many different things to worry about in getting things set up at home. On top of all of that, we had not had online access until this week, so she is very far behind in her work which also creates a lot of stress for her.
She is really working hard to make things go smoothly and I admire her for that. She has displayed patience and caring whenever things go wrong and has been very committed to keeping us all happy.
On Tuesday we had a handyman come in and install some hanging rods into the master bedroom closet (the only real closet in the house). On Thursday we got most of our Aronot (closets) delivered. One of them arrived damaged and will hopefully be replaced this week. It is nice to have our clothes hanging in closets instead of on the shower rods, yet another sign that we are settling in.
Goldie and I enjoyed our first “kid-free” Friday. We had a chance to go shopping together to buy things for the house and unpack a bunch of boxes. We also had a chance to sit together to talk about the upcoming week a bit and plan.
Our niece Tova joined us for Shabbat. She is in the Shaalvim s Shana Bet (second year) program in Yerushalayim. She had been in Israel for about a week, and it was nice to have her sit with the kids, especially Moshe, to give us a breather.
On Friday night I was talking with Mordechai about my upcoming trip to America. After his rough week at school, Mordechai was highly stressed and went into “meltdown.” After the Seudah he and I were laying together on the couch while he cried.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. His response, “I want to go with you to America and play with my friends!” He really had a rough week and is missing his old surroundings.
However, these issues are not unique to the Katz family. Many Olim face similar issues and have to deal with language, housing and other problems as much or more than we do. Many of our issues resolved themselves or will take adjustment for us to cope. And we will adjust.
On Motzei Shabbat we went to a special event at the shul. By the time you read this, I will have left – but I was originally scheduled to leave to America on Sat. night. However, our shul ran a special program to meet and greet the new residents/members. In order to attend the event (and save some money), I postponed my departure about ten hours.
At the event, the shul ran a “speed dating” style game. Each couple was given two index cards and told to pair up with another couple with whom who they had not yet shared a Shabbat meal. They were given index cards and a pencil and told to get as much information about the couple that they could in five minutes. At the end of each round a buzzer was sounded and couples were asked to find knew partners for another round.
After a few rounds, couples were randomly asked to introduce one of the couples that they had “dated” to the rest of the crowd and give the crown as much info about them that they had noted during the dating round.
It was a fun event, and we learned a lot about our neighbors. I stayed up most of the rest of the night and packed for my trip to NY the next morning. Ten days away from home, running around NY and Chicago trying to meet alumni, parents, donors and get things done.
As my first trip back since making Aliyah, I am wondering what it will feel like.
Clean Clothes (Article #19) 09/07/2006
Happiness is having working laundry machines.
As we get more and more settled, we reach more and more mini milestones. We had brought new laundry appliances on our lift, and with its arrival the week before – we were ready to have them installed.
One of the first things you learn when planning Aliyah is that Israeli and European appliances have much smaller capacities than American appliances. So, partly to take advantage of the import tax benefits awarded to olim, but also partly to make sure that we have the largest machines available, we brought in some Maytag laundry machines.
Since we bought the machines for the purpose of exporting them to Israel, we bought 220 voltage machines and got professional installation and 1 year’s service included in the price. When the lift was unloaded, we left the equipment in their boxes, since we knew we would need professional installation and we had so much other unpacking to do anyway.
On Sunday I made arrangements with the Israeli installation company for them to come to the house on Thursday to install the equipment. They told me to make sure that everything was out of the box and in the laundry room.
The Yeshiva’s new group of Talmidim arrived on Monday on their group flights. We had spent the prior few weeks working shorthanded to get the Yeshiva ready. With several of our people in the reserves in the war and many vendors (especially the contractors) shorthanded from the war – not only in manpower but sometimes in supplies as well due to the uncertainties in the ports, I was amazed that it all came together.
This group of talmidim will probably always be special to me – since this is my first year in the Yeshiva as well. Every time we go on a tiyul – it will be my first time on that tiyul as well as theirs. Part of the joy of this experience is the fact that my job allows me to experience the country and the people in the same way as these young men will.
They arrived in the Yeshiva mid-morning, tired but still excited to be here. After getting assigned to their rooms and having lunch, they enjoyed some brief welcoming shiurim and we went on the “opening day” tiyul to the Kotel.
We started the tiyul at the “Tayelet”, a park that overlooks a great deal of the city of Jerusalem, including the old city. While there, the Shana Aleph boys had the opportunity to tear Kriah upon seeing the destruction of the Beit Hamikdosh.
They then went straight to the old city, where they deliberately entered from Sha’ar Tzion in order to reflect upon their first visit to the Kotel. The tiyul was moving and it was a treat to do it with the boys and see how they reacted to the Kotel and the tiyul as the “kickoff” of their year.
On Tuesday I was preparing to leave the Yeshiva after a day of orientation for the guys. They were about to embark on a walking tour of the neighborhood, a basic review of where everything is, when I got a phone call from one of the Rebbiem telling me that there was a major security alert issued for the Jerusalem area.
Apparently there was hard information about a serious credible threat for an impending attack in the area and the security services were literally searching each and every vehicle entering Jerusalem that afternoon. Although we did not feel threatened, we followed our procedure to cancel any off campus activities and used the opportunity to review our emergency contact and action plans.
I had arranged to take the day off on Wednesday, since I had really only had a couple of days to unpack since the arrival of the lift. There was a whole list of things that needed to get organized. Goldie prioritized which rooms she wanted cleared out so that she could feel a little more at home, including putting the washer and dryer into the laundry room.
Goldie was thrilled that I would be home, since she had spent the week either staying home for various contractors/repairmen or chasing kids all over the place. She took the opportunity to get out of the house and take the kids for a ride and out for lunch.
About an hour after our lift had been delivered, our dining room table came apart. Apparently, the runners had been unscrewed and then screwed back in by the movers in the US, weakening the holes and resulting in the whole thing collapsing.
Thankfully, we were insured for the move and the furniture repair guy came to the house to install a new set of runners and put the table back together. We also got our telephones installed by the phone company at the same time. So by the time everyone got home, I felt that we had made significant progress toward getting everything in order.
Wednesday night, I unpacked the laundry machines. When I went to put them into the laundry room, we were horrified to realize that they wouldn’t make it through the door. No matter how hard I tried to angle them or turn them sideways, I just couldn’t make it work.
Goldie came to take a look at the machines, and while she was upset that it didn’t seem like there was any way to get them into the laundry room, she was thrilled to discover that they have more capacity than our prior machines back in the US. In a family with six kids, having a large washer and dryer are really very important.
When I took a look at the wall that was in the way, I realized that it was actually a sheetrock frame that was behind a bathroom sink and that there was actually a wide gap between the wall and the tile around the sink.
Knowing that the installers were coming the next day and that there would be no other way to get the machines through the door, I did what anyone would do – I removed about a foot of the wall (with a hammer – shhhhh don’t tell the landlord). I will have a repairman fix it, but I got the machines in and the next tenants will have access as well. (And I did tell the landlord)
I cannot describe how happy Goldie was to not have to shlep stuff to a neighbor to get clean clothes. Some simple things can make a major difference in your life. She happily did laundry for days.
On Thursday we had a technician come to the house to look at one of the A/C units (covering the master bedroom) that has not worked since we moved in. According to Goldie, it was probably the repairman’s first day on the job.
He had no clue where the compressor was, and kept referring to the installation manual to figure out what was what. When he realized that the compressor is on the roof of the house, he refused to climb on to the roof to take a look at it.
His excuse, “I cannot go out on the roof – I have no life insurance.” No matter what Goldie said to him, he would not agree to go to the roof and check the unit. When she asked him to look at one of the dampers on a different unit to see why it was blowing very weakly, he said, “I cannot do anything – at least it is blowing!”
Truthfully, stories like this are not common. While they do happen here, I would say that the majority of the people we have dealt with have been pretty competent, or at least compassionate. Most people are so nice to us, especially if they find out we are new olim.
By Friday, Goldie had reached the end of her rope with the kids. They were so bored with nothing to do, and were driving her up a wall. She spent the day prepping knapsacks with schoolbooks and school supplies; the first day of school was Sunday and she wanted to make sure that the kids were prepared.In Israel, even second graders have departmental classes, so a 7 year old might have 5 or more teachers on any given day. Additionally, books are shlepped back and forth, so there is a big focus on preparing all the books needed in the knapsack for the next day’s learning.
With the exception of Mordechai, who is terrified of going to a Hebrew speaking pre1a and is concerned that he won’t understand the Morah or the kids, our kids are excited to begin school. One positive with Mordechai is that just last week the city government approved a new pre1a for religious people. This program opened up in a building at the end of our block – so this could be huge for the Katz’s.
The chessed committee in our neighborhood is terrific. They made sure we got called prior to Shabbat to find out if we needed meals or anything else. We have made a special effort to stay in shul after davening to shmooze with people in order to get to know them, and it was nice to see that the people in the community have the same thoughts.
We were invited to a Kiddush hosted by Gershon and Tzippi Tokayer in memory of the Yahrtzeits of both of their fathers (Tzippi also runs the hospitality coordination for the chessed committee). This was another great way to meet people and try to make friends not just for the kids, but for ourselves as well.
We enjoyed a terrific Shabbat lunch with an English couple (the Grosses) who have both been here for many years (their six children were all born here) who were really very gracious in opening up their home to our family of 8.
Chaim walked a half hour uphill in the brutal sun to visit his classmates who all live in Ramat Beit Shemesh. If that wasn’t enough, he invited them all to join him for a walk back and they stayed by us through the end of Shabbat.
For the most part the kids have assimilated pretty well. I am sure the real stress will come when we try to deal with the first day of school which will have passed by the time you read this article. There is just no way to prepare for the onslaught of information that the kids will have to process, in adjusting to a new classroom, new friends and a new language. Hopefully it will all go smoothly.
Last week I wrote about a BBQ at my sister’s home where our kids got a chance to meet each other for the first time. This week I got an email asking why it took us eight weeks to get the kids together if they had never met before.
As it happens, this was a great question, since it allowed me to reflect upon a very basic difference between Israeli and American lifestyles. You see, there is no “Sunday” in Israel like there is in America. In Israel, Sunday is a regular day for work, camp, school or whatever.
Since our kids were all enrolled in various summer programs, they were occupied from Sun-Thurs; our lack of a car made getting together at night very difficult to arrange, especially when considering that our little kids needed to get to sleep at a normal hour.
So we really had to wait until the programs all ended and the kids were to be home all day in order to work things out (having a car then didn’t hurt either) and get them together. After all, since they had never actually met it wasn’t like they knew that they were missing something.
An interesting side benefit of the no Sunday issue is that many people have off on Fridays instead. This summer, the Friday off day gave me a chance to help Goldie and/or do stuff with the kids. However, during the winter all of our kids have school six days a week, so they will all be in school on Fridays, leaving Goldie and I alone for the day. Without kids. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Mazal Tov to Michael and Jennifer Stern and their family upon their Aliyah this week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)!
As we get more and more settled, we reach more and more mini milestones. We had brought new laundry appliances on our lift, and with its arrival the week before – we were ready to have them installed.
One of the first things you learn when planning Aliyah is that Israeli and European appliances have much smaller capacities than American appliances. So, partly to take advantage of the import tax benefits awarded to olim, but also partly to make sure that we have the largest machines available, we brought in some Maytag laundry machines.
Since we bought the machines for the purpose of exporting them to Israel, we bought 220 voltage machines and got professional installation and 1 year’s service included in the price. When the lift was unloaded, we left the equipment in their boxes, since we knew we would need professional installation and we had so much other unpacking to do anyway.
On Sunday I made arrangements with the Israeli installation company for them to come to the house on Thursday to install the equipment. They told me to make sure that everything was out of the box and in the laundry room.
The Yeshiva’s new group of Talmidim arrived on Monday on their group flights. We had spent the prior few weeks working shorthanded to get the Yeshiva ready. With several of our people in the reserves in the war and many vendors (especially the contractors) shorthanded from the war – not only in manpower but sometimes in supplies as well due to the uncertainties in the ports, I was amazed that it all came together.
This group of talmidim will probably always be special to me – since this is my first year in the Yeshiva as well. Every time we go on a tiyul – it will be my first time on that tiyul as well as theirs. Part of the joy of this experience is the fact that my job allows me to experience the country and the people in the same way as these young men will.
They arrived in the Yeshiva mid-morning, tired but still excited to be here. After getting assigned to their rooms and having lunch, they enjoyed some brief welcoming shiurim and we went on the “opening day” tiyul to the Kotel.
We started the tiyul at the “Tayelet”, a park that overlooks a great deal of the city of Jerusalem, including the old city. While there, the Shana Aleph boys had the opportunity to tear Kriah upon seeing the destruction of the Beit Hamikdosh.
They then went straight to the old city, where they deliberately entered from Sha’ar Tzion in order to reflect upon their first visit to the Kotel. The tiyul was moving and it was a treat to do it with the boys and see how they reacted to the Kotel and the tiyul as the “kickoff” of their year.
On Tuesday I was preparing to leave the Yeshiva after a day of orientation for the guys. They were about to embark on a walking tour of the neighborhood, a basic review of where everything is, when I got a phone call from one of the Rebbiem telling me that there was a major security alert issued for the Jerusalem area.
Apparently there was hard information about a serious credible threat for an impending attack in the area and the security services were literally searching each and every vehicle entering Jerusalem that afternoon. Although we did not feel threatened, we followed our procedure to cancel any off campus activities and used the opportunity to review our emergency contact and action plans.
I had arranged to take the day off on Wednesday, since I had really only had a couple of days to unpack since the arrival of the lift. There was a whole list of things that needed to get organized. Goldie prioritized which rooms she wanted cleared out so that she could feel a little more at home, including putting the washer and dryer into the laundry room.
Goldie was thrilled that I would be home, since she had spent the week either staying home for various contractors/repairmen or chasing kids all over the place. She took the opportunity to get out of the house and take the kids for a ride and out for lunch.
About an hour after our lift had been delivered, our dining room table came apart. Apparently, the runners had been unscrewed and then screwed back in by the movers in the US, weakening the holes and resulting in the whole thing collapsing.
Thankfully, we were insured for the move and the furniture repair guy came to the house to install a new set of runners and put the table back together. We also got our telephones installed by the phone company at the same time. So by the time everyone got home, I felt that we had made significant progress toward getting everything in order.
Wednesday night, I unpacked the laundry machines. When I went to put them into the laundry room, we were horrified to realize that they wouldn’t make it through the door. No matter how hard I tried to angle them or turn them sideways, I just couldn’t make it work.
Goldie came to take a look at the machines, and while she was upset that it didn’t seem like there was any way to get them into the laundry room, she was thrilled to discover that they have more capacity than our prior machines back in the US. In a family with six kids, having a large washer and dryer are really very important.
When I took a look at the wall that was in the way, I realized that it was actually a sheetrock frame that was behind a bathroom sink and that there was actually a wide gap between the wall and the tile around the sink.
Knowing that the installers were coming the next day and that there would be no other way to get the machines through the door, I did what anyone would do – I removed about a foot of the wall (with a hammer – shhhhh don’t tell the landlord). I will have a repairman fix it, but I got the machines in and the next tenants will have access as well. (And I did tell the landlord)
I cannot describe how happy Goldie was to not have to shlep stuff to a neighbor to get clean clothes. Some simple things can make a major difference in your life. She happily did laundry for days.
On Thursday we had a technician come to the house to look at one of the A/C units (covering the master bedroom) that has not worked since we moved in. According to Goldie, it was probably the repairman’s first day on the job.
He had no clue where the compressor was, and kept referring to the installation manual to figure out what was what. When he realized that the compressor is on the roof of the house, he refused to climb on to the roof to take a look at it.
His excuse, “I cannot go out on the roof – I have no life insurance.” No matter what Goldie said to him, he would not agree to go to the roof and check the unit. When she asked him to look at one of the dampers on a different unit to see why it was blowing very weakly, he said, “I cannot do anything – at least it is blowing!”
Truthfully, stories like this are not common. While they do happen here, I would say that the majority of the people we have dealt with have been pretty competent, or at least compassionate. Most people are so nice to us, especially if they find out we are new olim.
By Friday, Goldie had reached the end of her rope with the kids. They were so bored with nothing to do, and were driving her up a wall. She spent the day prepping knapsacks with schoolbooks and school supplies; the first day of school was Sunday and she wanted to make sure that the kids were prepared.In Israel, even second graders have departmental classes, so a 7 year old might have 5 or more teachers on any given day. Additionally, books are shlepped back and forth, so there is a big focus on preparing all the books needed in the knapsack for the next day’s learning.
With the exception of Mordechai, who is terrified of going to a Hebrew speaking pre1a and is concerned that he won’t understand the Morah or the kids, our kids are excited to begin school. One positive with Mordechai is that just last week the city government approved a new pre1a for religious people. This program opened up in a building at the end of our block – so this could be huge for the Katz’s.
The chessed committee in our neighborhood is terrific. They made sure we got called prior to Shabbat to find out if we needed meals or anything else. We have made a special effort to stay in shul after davening to shmooze with people in order to get to know them, and it was nice to see that the people in the community have the same thoughts.
We were invited to a Kiddush hosted by Gershon and Tzippi Tokayer in memory of the Yahrtzeits of both of their fathers (Tzippi also runs the hospitality coordination for the chessed committee). This was another great way to meet people and try to make friends not just for the kids, but for ourselves as well.
We enjoyed a terrific Shabbat lunch with an English couple (the Grosses) who have both been here for many years (their six children were all born here) who were really very gracious in opening up their home to our family of 8.
Chaim walked a half hour uphill in the brutal sun to visit his classmates who all live in Ramat Beit Shemesh. If that wasn’t enough, he invited them all to join him for a walk back and they stayed by us through the end of Shabbat.
For the most part the kids have assimilated pretty well. I am sure the real stress will come when we try to deal with the first day of school which will have passed by the time you read this article. There is just no way to prepare for the onslaught of information that the kids will have to process, in adjusting to a new classroom, new friends and a new language. Hopefully it will all go smoothly.
Last week I wrote about a BBQ at my sister’s home where our kids got a chance to meet each other for the first time. This week I got an email asking why it took us eight weeks to get the kids together if they had never met before.
As it happens, this was a great question, since it allowed me to reflect upon a very basic difference between Israeli and American lifestyles. You see, there is no “Sunday” in Israel like there is in America. In Israel, Sunday is a regular day for work, camp, school or whatever.
Since our kids were all enrolled in various summer programs, they were occupied from Sun-Thurs; our lack of a car made getting together at night very difficult to arrange, especially when considering that our little kids needed to get to sleep at a normal hour.
So we really had to wait until the programs all ended and the kids were to be home all day in order to work things out (having a car then didn’t hurt either) and get them together. After all, since they had never actually met it wasn’t like they knew that they were missing something.
An interesting side benefit of the no Sunday issue is that many people have off on Fridays instead. This summer, the Friday off day gave me a chance to help Goldie and/or do stuff with the kids. However, during the winter all of our kids have school six days a week, so they will all be in school on Fridays, leaving Goldie and I alone for the day. Without kids. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Mazal Tov to Michael and Jennifer Stern and their family upon their Aliyah this week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Welcome to Beit Shemesh (Article #18) 8/31/2006
We finally got our lift.
It’s funny how things turn out. We had waited and waited with increasing frustration for our lift to arrive. Yet, when all was said and done, it really did arrive at the perfect time for our needs.
We spent the first two nights in our house sleeping on air mattresses. We had moved out of the summer rental home that came with all the furnishings included (beds, oven, washer and dryer, etc.) in order to make way for the returning owners.
I should make clear that the majority of olim spend much more than 2 nights on air mattresses. Most olim come to Israel with at least a week to wait before their lift arrives. They come with air mattresses and borrow a mini fridge from a Gmach and rely upon the good graces of their neighbors for things like oven use (after the first week or so – when people stop delivering daily hot meals to your door) and laundry machines. Some live like this for a month or more while waiting for their lifts to arrive.
So, sleeping two nights on air mattresses should not be that big a deal. I guess we were spoiled by living in the furnished house, because we couldn’t deal with the air mattresses. The adults and older kids didn’t sleep and we were just miserable.
Thankfully, the Weinsteins furnished the home with an oven (albeit a small sized European style oven) and a fridge – so we had those conveniences. Yet, the lack of beds and furniture was definitely a strain on our family of 8. I think the strain was compounded by our weariness of having to live without our normal, familiar stuff. We were just ready to be “home”.
On Monday night, we took the kids to meet my sister’s family for the first time. With the exception of one nephew who had visited us in America last winter, the kids had not actually met each other, ever. My kids were even a little irritated with us that they had an uncle that they hadn’t seen in their entire lives.
We headed back to the house pretty late and after dropping the kids off, I drove my brother’s car back to his house so that he could have it available to him the next day when he returned from his summer vacation in America.
The next morning we rented a small Hyundai for one month’s time. We still haven’t settled what we are going to do about buying a new/used car/van, but knew that we needed transportation, so this was a good compromise. While I was out picking up the car, Goldie called to tell me that the movers had arrived with the lift.
We had a great experience with the movers here in Israel. They actually arrived on time at around 8:30 AM and the whole unloading process took about 4 hours to complete. I have to say that the entire crew was amazing and very pleasant to work with.
On Monday night we had (on the advice of our shippers) taped a number on the door of each room in the house. As boxes and furniture was unloaded from the truck, all we had to do was tell the “shleppers” what room number the item belonged in and they knew exactly where to go. It actually got to the point where they recognized where certain items (like Rubbermaid containers of kids clothing) would go and they would tell us what room they needed to go to.
Although NY definitely had a worse heat wave than we did, the month of August has been brutal here. Tuesday was no exception. We went through something like 15 liters of liquids for a crew of 5 guys.
I was amazed by the guy who worked inside the truck. His job was to carefully unpack the truck and bring each box or item to the edge of the truck for the shleppers to bring into the house. It was hot like an oven in the truck and I could see the sweat pouring off of him. Yet, he just kept going without complaint.
The shleppers also did a great job. They worked quickly and tried very hard to be careful with each item. As they unloaded the truck, the crew chief was busy in the house reassembling our beds and making sure that the major furniture was unwrapped and placed in the right spot.
By the time they left, we had boxes everywhere and a ton of unpacking to do.
We decided to set up the living/dining room first and then move on to the kitchen before trying to set up beds for the night. We really made good progress that first day. We had most of the kitchen set up and ready to go as well as almost all of the living/dining room.
We started to move the dining room table when it suddenly collapsed! Apparently the move had weakened the screws that kept the table together and they came apart. After the shock wore off, we shot a quick email off to the Beit Shemesh email list asking for repair recommendations.
That night, we replaced the air mattresses with real mattresses. Yet, with the exception of Chaya, we still were all sleeping on the floor. Our room as well as Aliza and Batya’s room still had no A/C (it still doesn’t) so we couldn’t use those beds. We had bought brand new beds for all the boys and the movers only assembled things they had taken apart, so those beds were still in their boxes.
It didn’t make a difference – we finally slept soundly.
Chaim and I spent our entire Wednesday building beds. We started the day building bunk beds for Mordechai and Moshe. Anyone who has ever built something manufactured in a foreign country (in this case Vietnam) will attest to the fact that the directions are impossibly difficult to understand. Although there were only 7 steps in the entire process, since each step actually had 15 – 20 parts and the pictured instructions bore little resemblance to the pieces in front of us, the assembly took some time.
In the afternoon we built Chaim’s loft bed/workstation. It comes with drawers, a trundle bed, a computer work desk, bookshelves and oh yes, a loft bed on top. The assembly instructions were very long, and therefore very easy to follow and we had everyone in assembled beds by Wednesday night.
I had taken half a day off on Sunday to help Goldie with the initial move into the house. Initially, I had made an arrangement with the Yeshiva to take the entire week off whenever our lift arrived. However, since my boss was busy fighting in Lebanon, I needed to be in the Yeshiva as much as possible to help make sure that we were ready to open.
So, I went to work on Monday and only took Tuesday and Wednesday off to unpack and set up the house before returning to work for a half day on Thursday.
Thursday afternoon (after building a desk) we took the kids to a special “Education Day” fair sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh. The kids all had activities (Chaim went on a tiyul in the Beit Shemesh hills, Chaya stayed home and the rest of the kids had arts and crafts and other supervised activities) to keep them busy while we attended the seminar.
The sessions were very informative and we were happy to have attended. The opportunity to meet other olim and hear their stories was also terrific and the fact that we got invited to Shabbat dinner (by the Rudolphs who made Aliyah last year from Cedarhurst) was an added bonus.
Chaim started Yeshiva on Friday and we attended the opening day father/son minyan and breakfast together. Unlike American schools, we had been told to expect a certain amount of chaos and disorganization from Israeli schools. We weren’t disappointed.
The school schedule for the first week wasn’t finalized and the building is still under construction. They weren’t sure what the final dismissal time would be and they were very laid back about it. However, Chaim seems to like his Rebbe and his classmates, which to us is the most important thing.
Goldie attended a graduation ceremony for Batya and Mordechai’s ulpan that morning. Both kids gained a lot from their participation in the ulpan programs and were excited to finish and be declared “prepared” for the school year.
That afternoon Chaim and I went to Home Center which is supposed to be like Home Depot in the US. It isn’t. The selection is not as good and they simply don’t have certain things. So, we only took care of 30% of our list that day.
Eventually, we will either buy things in America and bring them in or adapt our needs to the goods available. Since we have not yet done either of those things, we weren’t thrilled when we left the store. Yet, we did see the Block’s (they moved to Chashmonaim from the 5 Towns this summer for a trial year) at Home Center which was a treat.
On Friday afternoon, the neighbors started to arrive with cookies and cake. We also got a visit from the “furniture doctor” who prescribed an insurance claim and a quick fix for the dining room table.
We had a great first Shabbat in Sheinfeld. We had an official welcome both on Friday night as well as on Shabbat, and the entire shul sang V’Shavu Vanim Li’Gevulam for us each time.
There was another new family in shul that week (the Lehrers) that had also recently moved here from London and who turned out to be our backyard neighbors. When I went to introduce myself to them I discovered that he is Lisa Zahn’s brother (Lisa and Levi Zahn’s son Zevi has gone to school with Chaim for the past 10+ years)!
I was personally greeted by the gabboim (one of whom is Gershon Tokayer who made Aliyah from the 5 Towns 14 years ago and whose wife is on the chessed/welcoming committee for the neighborhood) and felt that the entire shul was very welcoming. Many people made special efforts to introduce themselves to us when they heard we were recent olim and we really felt as if they made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable.
Shabbat afternoon, we farmed the kids out (it is amazing how quickly the kids make friends and disappear) and enjoyed a visit from Naomi and Raizy Schwartz (Olim from the 5 Towns four years ago) who had just returned from an American visit the day before.
I tried to tell Naomi some stories about tiyulim we had gone on and things that had happened to us, but she kept interrupting me by saying, “I read about that already!”
On Sunday, Goldie began the “week with the kids”. All the summer programs we had the kids enrolled in are now finished, and with the exception of Chaim who started Yeshiva on Rosh Chodesh, all the kids are home. And bored. And driving Goldie nuts.
I wisely went to work nice and early on Sunday to attend a staff meeting in anticipation of the arrival of our Northern Hemisphere students on Monday. We finally have all of our staff together (4 members were called to the reserves during the war) and had a chance to bring everyone up to date on what we had done to prepare the Yeshiva and the building for the year.
On Sunday evening, Goldie made a special trip to Yerushalayim. She met me at the Yeshiva and we went to Talpiyot to order closets for all the kids rooms (there are very few houses with built in closets in Israel) and some bookcases for my home office.
I always enjoy negotiating prices with the various tradesman (even those who refuse to lower their prices). I especially love feeling that I got myself a good deal until I realize that the 50 shekel discount I got is the equivalent slightly over $10. On small items, the negotiation is sometimes $2 to $5 all told and it is jarring to realize that I may have spent 10 minutes arguing over $2.
We had a much better week this week. I would say that we felt that we made a lot of progress and there were a lot less emotional lows.
There is still a lot more work that needs to be done before we can say that things are back to normal; we have tons of finishing touches to get the contractors to complete in the house (A/C, painting, kitchen table installation, plumbing repair, etc.), we have major appliances that need to be installed, we have many boxes yet to unpack and we still have no phone or internet (and hence no internet telephone line for America).
Since Goldie is much more focused on things being organized than I am, they irritate her much more than me and I often find myself reassuring her that life will not always be as messy as it is right now. We often hear people tell us that in 6 months we will be laughing at the situations we were in. We often feel that we wish it were already 6 months down the road so that we could begin laughing.
Yet, through it all, we still tell people that we feel as if we were chosen by Hashem to make this move. Even when we think things are going poorly, we will freely admit that we have had a much easier Aliyah than many people – in many different ways. We only hope that we continue to be blessed with more positive growth and as few setbacks as possible.
Mazal Tov to Marc and Miriam Gottlieb and their family upon their Aliyah last week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)!
It’s funny how things turn out. We had waited and waited with increasing frustration for our lift to arrive. Yet, when all was said and done, it really did arrive at the perfect time for our needs.
We spent the first two nights in our house sleeping on air mattresses. We had moved out of the summer rental home that came with all the furnishings included (beds, oven, washer and dryer, etc.) in order to make way for the returning owners.
I should make clear that the majority of olim spend much more than 2 nights on air mattresses. Most olim come to Israel with at least a week to wait before their lift arrives. They come with air mattresses and borrow a mini fridge from a Gmach and rely upon the good graces of their neighbors for things like oven use (after the first week or so – when people stop delivering daily hot meals to your door) and laundry machines. Some live like this for a month or more while waiting for their lifts to arrive.
So, sleeping two nights on air mattresses should not be that big a deal. I guess we were spoiled by living in the furnished house, because we couldn’t deal with the air mattresses. The adults and older kids didn’t sleep and we were just miserable.
Thankfully, the Weinsteins furnished the home with an oven (albeit a small sized European style oven) and a fridge – so we had those conveniences. Yet, the lack of beds and furniture was definitely a strain on our family of 8. I think the strain was compounded by our weariness of having to live without our normal, familiar stuff. We were just ready to be “home”.
On Monday night, we took the kids to meet my sister’s family for the first time. With the exception of one nephew who had visited us in America last winter, the kids had not actually met each other, ever. My kids were even a little irritated with us that they had an uncle that they hadn’t seen in their entire lives.
We headed back to the house pretty late and after dropping the kids off, I drove my brother’s car back to his house so that he could have it available to him the next day when he returned from his summer vacation in America.
The next morning we rented a small Hyundai for one month’s time. We still haven’t settled what we are going to do about buying a new/used car/van, but knew that we needed transportation, so this was a good compromise. While I was out picking up the car, Goldie called to tell me that the movers had arrived with the lift.
We had a great experience with the movers here in Israel. They actually arrived on time at around 8:30 AM and the whole unloading process took about 4 hours to complete. I have to say that the entire crew was amazing and very pleasant to work with.
On Monday night we had (on the advice of our shippers) taped a number on the door of each room in the house. As boxes and furniture was unloaded from the truck, all we had to do was tell the “shleppers” what room number the item belonged in and they knew exactly where to go. It actually got to the point where they recognized where certain items (like Rubbermaid containers of kids clothing) would go and they would tell us what room they needed to go to.
Although NY definitely had a worse heat wave than we did, the month of August has been brutal here. Tuesday was no exception. We went through something like 15 liters of liquids for a crew of 5 guys.
I was amazed by the guy who worked inside the truck. His job was to carefully unpack the truck and bring each box or item to the edge of the truck for the shleppers to bring into the house. It was hot like an oven in the truck and I could see the sweat pouring off of him. Yet, he just kept going without complaint.
The shleppers also did a great job. They worked quickly and tried very hard to be careful with each item. As they unloaded the truck, the crew chief was busy in the house reassembling our beds and making sure that the major furniture was unwrapped and placed in the right spot.
By the time they left, we had boxes everywhere and a ton of unpacking to do.
We decided to set up the living/dining room first and then move on to the kitchen before trying to set up beds for the night. We really made good progress that first day. We had most of the kitchen set up and ready to go as well as almost all of the living/dining room.
We started to move the dining room table when it suddenly collapsed! Apparently the move had weakened the screws that kept the table together and they came apart. After the shock wore off, we shot a quick email off to the Beit Shemesh email list asking for repair recommendations.
That night, we replaced the air mattresses with real mattresses. Yet, with the exception of Chaya, we still were all sleeping on the floor. Our room as well as Aliza and Batya’s room still had no A/C (it still doesn’t) so we couldn’t use those beds. We had bought brand new beds for all the boys and the movers only assembled things they had taken apart, so those beds were still in their boxes.
It didn’t make a difference – we finally slept soundly.
Chaim and I spent our entire Wednesday building beds. We started the day building bunk beds for Mordechai and Moshe. Anyone who has ever built something manufactured in a foreign country (in this case Vietnam) will attest to the fact that the directions are impossibly difficult to understand. Although there were only 7 steps in the entire process, since each step actually had 15 – 20 parts and the pictured instructions bore little resemblance to the pieces in front of us, the assembly took some time.
In the afternoon we built Chaim’s loft bed/workstation. It comes with drawers, a trundle bed, a computer work desk, bookshelves and oh yes, a loft bed on top. The assembly instructions were very long, and therefore very easy to follow and we had everyone in assembled beds by Wednesday night.
I had taken half a day off on Sunday to help Goldie with the initial move into the house. Initially, I had made an arrangement with the Yeshiva to take the entire week off whenever our lift arrived. However, since my boss was busy fighting in Lebanon, I needed to be in the Yeshiva as much as possible to help make sure that we were ready to open.
So, I went to work on Monday and only took Tuesday and Wednesday off to unpack and set up the house before returning to work for a half day on Thursday.
Thursday afternoon (after building a desk) we took the kids to a special “Education Day” fair sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh. The kids all had activities (Chaim went on a tiyul in the Beit Shemesh hills, Chaya stayed home and the rest of the kids had arts and crafts and other supervised activities) to keep them busy while we attended the seminar.
The sessions were very informative and we were happy to have attended. The opportunity to meet other olim and hear their stories was also terrific and the fact that we got invited to Shabbat dinner (by the Rudolphs who made Aliyah last year from Cedarhurst) was an added bonus.
Chaim started Yeshiva on Friday and we attended the opening day father/son minyan and breakfast together. Unlike American schools, we had been told to expect a certain amount of chaos and disorganization from Israeli schools. We weren’t disappointed.
The school schedule for the first week wasn’t finalized and the building is still under construction. They weren’t sure what the final dismissal time would be and they were very laid back about it. However, Chaim seems to like his Rebbe and his classmates, which to us is the most important thing.
Goldie attended a graduation ceremony for Batya and Mordechai’s ulpan that morning. Both kids gained a lot from their participation in the ulpan programs and were excited to finish and be declared “prepared” for the school year.
That afternoon Chaim and I went to Home Center which is supposed to be like Home Depot in the US. It isn’t. The selection is not as good and they simply don’t have certain things. So, we only took care of 30% of our list that day.
Eventually, we will either buy things in America and bring them in or adapt our needs to the goods available. Since we have not yet done either of those things, we weren’t thrilled when we left the store. Yet, we did see the Block’s (they moved to Chashmonaim from the 5 Towns this summer for a trial year) at Home Center which was a treat.
On Friday afternoon, the neighbors started to arrive with cookies and cake. We also got a visit from the “furniture doctor” who prescribed an insurance claim and a quick fix for the dining room table.
We had a great first Shabbat in Sheinfeld. We had an official welcome both on Friday night as well as on Shabbat, and the entire shul sang V’Shavu Vanim Li’Gevulam for us each time.
There was another new family in shul that week (the Lehrers) that had also recently moved here from London and who turned out to be our backyard neighbors. When I went to introduce myself to them I discovered that he is Lisa Zahn’s brother (Lisa and Levi Zahn’s son Zevi has gone to school with Chaim for the past 10+ years)!
I was personally greeted by the gabboim (one of whom is Gershon Tokayer who made Aliyah from the 5 Towns 14 years ago and whose wife is on the chessed/welcoming committee for the neighborhood) and felt that the entire shul was very welcoming. Many people made special efforts to introduce themselves to us when they heard we were recent olim and we really felt as if they made a conscious effort to make us feel comfortable.
Shabbat afternoon, we farmed the kids out (it is amazing how quickly the kids make friends and disappear) and enjoyed a visit from Naomi and Raizy Schwartz (Olim from the 5 Towns four years ago) who had just returned from an American visit the day before.
I tried to tell Naomi some stories about tiyulim we had gone on and things that had happened to us, but she kept interrupting me by saying, “I read about that already!”
On Sunday, Goldie began the “week with the kids”. All the summer programs we had the kids enrolled in are now finished, and with the exception of Chaim who started Yeshiva on Rosh Chodesh, all the kids are home. And bored. And driving Goldie nuts.
I wisely went to work nice and early on Sunday to attend a staff meeting in anticipation of the arrival of our Northern Hemisphere students on Monday. We finally have all of our staff together (4 members were called to the reserves during the war) and had a chance to bring everyone up to date on what we had done to prepare the Yeshiva and the building for the year.
On Sunday evening, Goldie made a special trip to Yerushalayim. She met me at the Yeshiva and we went to Talpiyot to order closets for all the kids rooms (there are very few houses with built in closets in Israel) and some bookcases for my home office.
I always enjoy negotiating prices with the various tradesman (even those who refuse to lower their prices). I especially love feeling that I got myself a good deal until I realize that the 50 shekel discount I got is the equivalent slightly over $10. On small items, the negotiation is sometimes $2 to $5 all told and it is jarring to realize that I may have spent 10 minutes arguing over $2.
We had a much better week this week. I would say that we felt that we made a lot of progress and there were a lot less emotional lows.
There is still a lot more work that needs to be done before we can say that things are back to normal; we have tons of finishing touches to get the contractors to complete in the house (A/C, painting, kitchen table installation, plumbing repair, etc.), we have major appliances that need to be installed, we have many boxes yet to unpack and we still have no phone or internet (and hence no internet telephone line for America).
Since Goldie is much more focused on things being organized than I am, they irritate her much more than me and I often find myself reassuring her that life will not always be as messy as it is right now. We often hear people tell us that in 6 months we will be laughing at the situations we were in. We often feel that we wish it were already 6 months down the road so that we could begin laughing.
Yet, through it all, we still tell people that we feel as if we were chosen by Hashem to make this move. Even when we think things are going poorly, we will freely admit that we have had a much easier Aliyah than many people – in many different ways. We only hope that we continue to be blessed with more positive growth and as few setbacks as possible.
Mazal Tov to Marc and Miriam Gottlieb and their family upon their Aliyah last week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)!
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Homecomings (Article #17) 8/24/2006
We had a really difficult week.
It began well. Chaim (our oldest) finally joined us last week on Monday. He had spent 6 weeks at Camp Manavu while the rest of us were busy acclimating to our new country, language and lives. With not much to do here for him, we felt that a summer in familiar surroundings would be good for him. Not to mention the fact that he was still angry about our decision to move, and we wanted the other kids to have a positive summer.
He was nervous about coming. Being in America and hearing all the news reports about what was happening here, he expressed genuine concern for his safety in “a war zone.” Although we reassured him that we were in a safe area and far from danger, I am sure that he was not thrilled.
However, as the date of his flight approached, he began to adjust and we would catch him saying things like, “when I come home” or “please just make sure my stuff gets delivered home and isn’t still in Greece.” I think he slowly came to an internal decision that he needed to make the best of things and try to make things work (plus we told him that he earns a mid-year trip to America only by proving to us that he is continuing to work hard and learn well in school).
When it finally came down to flying here, he was really very calm about it, flying on his own and having no issues in getting to the airport.
His youngest siblings were so excited that he was coming. When I called to tell Goldie that his flight had landed and I had just spoken to him on his cellphone, I could hear them cheering in the background. I must have gotten 8 cellphone calls during the 45 minute ride from the airport asking for progress reports. And the welcome he got was really very nice.
The morning of his flight, I made a call that has become a regular ritual with me – the “so has my stuff left Greece yet?” phone call. I was especially irritated that day because it seemed like everyone else was getting their shipments, but not us.
When I got through to my shipping company, I got the boss on the phone and really complained to him about the fact that I seemed to be the only person that had still not gotten their stuff from Greece.
Interestingly, for the first time, he agreed with me. Apparently, he had purchased the shipping space from a reseller of cargo space shipping. They purchase large volumes of space from the main cargo ship line at a steep discount and then pass along some of their savings to the end consumer. While the main ship line had made alternative arrangements to get containers from Greece to Israel, the reseller had not and had been taking quite a beating from their commercial customers about it.
My shipper then placed a series of phone calls (with me on the line) to find out when I might expect my stuff to leave Greece. On our sixth phone call, about 1 hour after my initial call we heard the magic words, “Greece? What do you mean? That container was delivered by rail to Ashdod yesterday!”
While I was definitely relieved to hear that the shipment had made it to Ashdod and had been in country for at least 2 days by then, I was quite angry that my shipper had no clue about that fact and would not have known about it at all had I not called to prod them about it.
They promised to call me back as soon as they got a more specific update including when I could expect delivery. When they called me, they told me that they did not think that my container was actually IN Ashdod, since there was no record of it there. Since there was no record of it in Haifa, they told me it must still be in transit to Ashdod and would arrive later Monday or Tuesday. Still, when I headed off to the airport to get Chaim, I was excited that we finally seemed to be making progress.
However, by Wednesday when they still couldn’t find the container I began to get seriously worried. After all, where could it have gone?
I must have called the shippers a dozen times on Tuesday and Wednesday and they kept telling me that they had no answers, that the ports were all overloaded and that maybe their American agent (the originating shipper) could help.
Although in retrospect it seems as if we got all excited over nothing, the whole delay with the lift was extremely stressful and aggravating. We had made so many plans based upon getting the lift before we moved from the “temporary” home into the “permanent” home and it just didn’t happen.
I should say that the delay did help give us more time to make the decision regarding housing and give our original landlord every opportunity to make things work. So there are definite benefits we got from the lift delay, but overall the process was tiring and maddening.
Late Wednesday afternoon they finally called with the “good news” that a paperwork snafu had given them the impression that my container was still in transit even though it was actually in Ashdod. They would have it straightened out by Thursday and hoped to have a delivery within another week, and also, since the shipment has arrived in country – here is your final bill.
I wanted to tell them that a paperwork snafu had resulted in their check being mailed to Liberia, but didn’t think that my container would get delivered any faster if I did that. Ironically, true to form, the initial “final bill” that they presented me was not correct and needed to be recalculated.
Since my lift was finally in country and the people whose house I was renting wanted us out of the house BEFORE they came back from their vacation, we also needed to settle up our lease. We had made the commitment to take our “backup” house, and were negotiating specific terms with the landlords (the Weinsteins, a really nice couple from Teaneck).
They were so accommodating to us and we really felt comfortable in dealing with them from the get go. Thankfully, the Weinsteins were in Israel on vacation during the week, so the major barrier to getting things done, the seven hour time difference, was negated. They had sent us a draft of a lease from their attorney the week before and we had returned it with our attorney’s comments on it.
Then, their attorney got called to miluim in the army so his wife (also an attorney) took over the case. However, she was busy taking care of the family, so she really couldn’t give her full attention to finalizing the lease – which we needed done by the end of the week since we needed to move out.
The Weinsteins were trying to have their vacation and finish the final touches to the house while also dealing with their attorneys and us. Once they got a different attorney assigned to the lease, we all thought there would be quicker movement. However, this fellow doesn’t speak English very well, and was also hard to reach and there was a point on Wednesday night that I was sure that the deal was going to fall through.
The fact that my attorney was due to leave the country Thursday morning for his own vacation didn’t help things. His partner took over for him quite admirably, but I certainly felt a sense of pressure.
However, by Friday the points had all been ironed out and we were comfortable enough that we had an agreement (even though it wasn’t signed) that we went to pick up the keys and have a walkthrough of the house with the Weinsteins. On Saturday night we moved some bags over to the house and on Sunday we moved in completely (or as completely as we could, considering the fact that almost all of our things are still in Ashdod).
Along with all this activity, I somehow also tried to find time to do my job at the Yeshiva. Since my boss, Rabbi Benni Pflanzer had been chosen by the government for an extensive tour of the Northern border area as well as the South of Lebanon, the rest of the administrators and Roshei Yeshiva all tried to take up some of his responsibilities so that we would open on time.
With enrollment almost doubling this year, we made dramatic construction expansions to the existing Beit Midrash and Chadar Ochel as well as adding new classrooms and other facilities to accommodate the larger student body. My boss was running the whole construction project and his unexpected absence left a big whole.
Although I was hired to take some of his responsibilities, the organization was not really prepared to just have him suddenly be out of the picture for over a month and it has been a difficult time for the entire staff in its own way. This was compounded when we heard the news that one of our secretaries husband had lost his second first cousin in the fighting.
So it will be easy to understand how excited we were when Rabbi Pflanzer unexpectedly walked in the office door on Thursday morning to greet us! He had been given the weekend off and stopped by to make sure we hadn’t messed things up too much. It was really great to see him.
Although he had to return to the army after Shabbat, he hopes to be discharged from Miluim in the middle of the week and will certainly be back in time for the beginning of the school year.
His family has had it tough. He had been in America for two weeks prior to getting called up, and he really had very little chance to be with his wife and children over the summer. Hopefully he will get a chance to spend time with them when he comes home (which is certainly much more important than anything he has to do in the office) and maybe take them on vacation if possible.
Since Sunday is a full work/school day, Friday is family day for me. I have no work and have the opportunity to get things done at home or perhaps tour around. Since Chaim had just arrived, we decided to take him to the Kotel and Machane Yehuda on Friday.
However, on Thursday night, we went out to the car to drive to the makolet and couldn’t get the car to work. My brother has a satellite controlled alarm system and it does not work well in Beit Shemesh. To make a long story short, it was not until 9:30 AM on Friday (after several hours on the phone with the alarm company, my brother in the US and the car’s mechanic) that we were able to get the car working.
Thankfully, we were able to get to the old city and had a chance to daven at the kotel. While we were there, there was a group of young boys (possibly from a camp) in the outer plaza who had and assembly and were singing songs together. Goldie was really very moved by it.
In the morning, when we were still unsure if the car would work at all, we went to the makolet to buy the various foods we had planned to get in Machane Yehuda. When we left the Kotel, we decided to head off to Ben Yehuda for lunch and for Chaim and Batya (the other kids were in Gan or Camp) to have a chance to tour.
I always find it entertaining to see whom we will bump into when we get to a real tourist destination. This trip didn’t disappoint as we got to visit with the Abbittan family and Murray Englard as we made our way to lunch. It was a real treat for us to see familiar faces.
We were quite happy to have everyone together for the first time on Shabbat. We took advantage of the long day to stay inside and rest, knowing that the beginning of this week would be tough.
By Sunday afternoon our shipping company had told us to realistically expect a Tuesday delivery of our lift. While there was still a chance that the customs people would want to hold it up for a full inspection, the port is incredibly overloaded and they just want to get the stuff out. It actually would have been a great time to smuggle in a bunch of computers or appliances – since they simply don’t have the time or manpower to inspect anything.
Sunday night our older girls were in a camp performance, so the boys all went shopping for household items. Of course, we couldn’t find even half of what we were looking for, and even those things we did find took us a long time. I still don’t know where the bleach is, or the bug spray or even the crockpot liners. Eventually we are sure to find everything, but it is so annoying to go to the supermarket and not come home with all the things on your list.
We slept on air mattresses on Sunday night, and the air conditioning on our second floor is not working properly. The first floor gets cold enough (and since we cannot figure out how to tell what temperature the units are set on – we keep pushing up and down on the remote control), but the second floor needs servicing and we hope that it is done this week.
We are beginning to realize how many different things we will have to take care of as the first tenants in this house. There are so many different things that need tweaking and adjusting. However, we are grateful that the house was still available and are looking forward to finally being able to settle into a normal routine there.
With all the ups and downs we had in the last few weeks, this past week should not have been so difficult. However, I think that it is the combination of all the various frustrations and setbacks that we had that finally got to us. Which it did.
There were a lot of tears this week. Certainly no shortage of frayed nerves and short tempers. Yet, as upsetting and truly trying that the week was – we seem to be much further ahead of where we were last week.
Chaim – is home. Our family – has a home (finally). Our lift – about to be home. My boss – will be home by the time you read this newspaper. We’ll have our phones turned on and (hopefully) our appliances all installed by the middle of next week. In a week and a half the kids will start school and life will really start off for us – no more vacation home, no more running around – just the regular everyday life of your (un)average Israeli family!
It began well. Chaim (our oldest) finally joined us last week on Monday. He had spent 6 weeks at Camp Manavu while the rest of us were busy acclimating to our new country, language and lives. With not much to do here for him, we felt that a summer in familiar surroundings would be good for him. Not to mention the fact that he was still angry about our decision to move, and we wanted the other kids to have a positive summer.
He was nervous about coming. Being in America and hearing all the news reports about what was happening here, he expressed genuine concern for his safety in “a war zone.” Although we reassured him that we were in a safe area and far from danger, I am sure that he was not thrilled.
However, as the date of his flight approached, he began to adjust and we would catch him saying things like, “when I come home” or “please just make sure my stuff gets delivered home and isn’t still in Greece.” I think he slowly came to an internal decision that he needed to make the best of things and try to make things work (plus we told him that he earns a mid-year trip to America only by proving to us that he is continuing to work hard and learn well in school).
When it finally came down to flying here, he was really very calm about it, flying on his own and having no issues in getting to the airport.
His youngest siblings were so excited that he was coming. When I called to tell Goldie that his flight had landed and I had just spoken to him on his cellphone, I could hear them cheering in the background. I must have gotten 8 cellphone calls during the 45 minute ride from the airport asking for progress reports. And the welcome he got was really very nice.
The morning of his flight, I made a call that has become a regular ritual with me – the “so has my stuff left Greece yet?” phone call. I was especially irritated that day because it seemed like everyone else was getting their shipments, but not us.
When I got through to my shipping company, I got the boss on the phone and really complained to him about the fact that I seemed to be the only person that had still not gotten their stuff from Greece.
Interestingly, for the first time, he agreed with me. Apparently, he had purchased the shipping space from a reseller of cargo space shipping. They purchase large volumes of space from the main cargo ship line at a steep discount and then pass along some of their savings to the end consumer. While the main ship line had made alternative arrangements to get containers from Greece to Israel, the reseller had not and had been taking quite a beating from their commercial customers about it.
My shipper then placed a series of phone calls (with me on the line) to find out when I might expect my stuff to leave Greece. On our sixth phone call, about 1 hour after my initial call we heard the magic words, “Greece? What do you mean? That container was delivered by rail to Ashdod yesterday!”
While I was definitely relieved to hear that the shipment had made it to Ashdod and had been in country for at least 2 days by then, I was quite angry that my shipper had no clue about that fact and would not have known about it at all had I not called to prod them about it.
They promised to call me back as soon as they got a more specific update including when I could expect delivery. When they called me, they told me that they did not think that my container was actually IN Ashdod, since there was no record of it there. Since there was no record of it in Haifa, they told me it must still be in transit to Ashdod and would arrive later Monday or Tuesday. Still, when I headed off to the airport to get Chaim, I was excited that we finally seemed to be making progress.
However, by Wednesday when they still couldn’t find the container I began to get seriously worried. After all, where could it have gone?
I must have called the shippers a dozen times on Tuesday and Wednesday and they kept telling me that they had no answers, that the ports were all overloaded and that maybe their American agent (the originating shipper) could help.
Although in retrospect it seems as if we got all excited over nothing, the whole delay with the lift was extremely stressful and aggravating. We had made so many plans based upon getting the lift before we moved from the “temporary” home into the “permanent” home and it just didn’t happen.
I should say that the delay did help give us more time to make the decision regarding housing and give our original landlord every opportunity to make things work. So there are definite benefits we got from the lift delay, but overall the process was tiring and maddening.
Late Wednesday afternoon they finally called with the “good news” that a paperwork snafu had given them the impression that my container was still in transit even though it was actually in Ashdod. They would have it straightened out by Thursday and hoped to have a delivery within another week, and also, since the shipment has arrived in country – here is your final bill.
I wanted to tell them that a paperwork snafu had resulted in their check being mailed to Liberia, but didn’t think that my container would get delivered any faster if I did that. Ironically, true to form, the initial “final bill” that they presented me was not correct and needed to be recalculated.
Since my lift was finally in country and the people whose house I was renting wanted us out of the house BEFORE they came back from their vacation, we also needed to settle up our lease. We had made the commitment to take our “backup” house, and were negotiating specific terms with the landlords (the Weinsteins, a really nice couple from Teaneck).
They were so accommodating to us and we really felt comfortable in dealing with them from the get go. Thankfully, the Weinsteins were in Israel on vacation during the week, so the major barrier to getting things done, the seven hour time difference, was negated. They had sent us a draft of a lease from their attorney the week before and we had returned it with our attorney’s comments on it.
Then, their attorney got called to miluim in the army so his wife (also an attorney) took over the case. However, she was busy taking care of the family, so she really couldn’t give her full attention to finalizing the lease – which we needed done by the end of the week since we needed to move out.
The Weinsteins were trying to have their vacation and finish the final touches to the house while also dealing with their attorneys and us. Once they got a different attorney assigned to the lease, we all thought there would be quicker movement. However, this fellow doesn’t speak English very well, and was also hard to reach and there was a point on Wednesday night that I was sure that the deal was going to fall through.
The fact that my attorney was due to leave the country Thursday morning for his own vacation didn’t help things. His partner took over for him quite admirably, but I certainly felt a sense of pressure.
However, by Friday the points had all been ironed out and we were comfortable enough that we had an agreement (even though it wasn’t signed) that we went to pick up the keys and have a walkthrough of the house with the Weinsteins. On Saturday night we moved some bags over to the house and on Sunday we moved in completely (or as completely as we could, considering the fact that almost all of our things are still in Ashdod).
Along with all this activity, I somehow also tried to find time to do my job at the Yeshiva. Since my boss, Rabbi Benni Pflanzer had been chosen by the government for an extensive tour of the Northern border area as well as the South of Lebanon, the rest of the administrators and Roshei Yeshiva all tried to take up some of his responsibilities so that we would open on time.
With enrollment almost doubling this year, we made dramatic construction expansions to the existing Beit Midrash and Chadar Ochel as well as adding new classrooms and other facilities to accommodate the larger student body. My boss was running the whole construction project and his unexpected absence left a big whole.
Although I was hired to take some of his responsibilities, the organization was not really prepared to just have him suddenly be out of the picture for over a month and it has been a difficult time for the entire staff in its own way. This was compounded when we heard the news that one of our secretaries husband had lost his second first cousin in the fighting.
So it will be easy to understand how excited we were when Rabbi Pflanzer unexpectedly walked in the office door on Thursday morning to greet us! He had been given the weekend off and stopped by to make sure we hadn’t messed things up too much. It was really great to see him.
Although he had to return to the army after Shabbat, he hopes to be discharged from Miluim in the middle of the week and will certainly be back in time for the beginning of the school year.
His family has had it tough. He had been in America for two weeks prior to getting called up, and he really had very little chance to be with his wife and children over the summer. Hopefully he will get a chance to spend time with them when he comes home (which is certainly much more important than anything he has to do in the office) and maybe take them on vacation if possible.
Since Sunday is a full work/school day, Friday is family day for me. I have no work and have the opportunity to get things done at home or perhaps tour around. Since Chaim had just arrived, we decided to take him to the Kotel and Machane Yehuda on Friday.
However, on Thursday night, we went out to the car to drive to the makolet and couldn’t get the car to work. My brother has a satellite controlled alarm system and it does not work well in Beit Shemesh. To make a long story short, it was not until 9:30 AM on Friday (after several hours on the phone with the alarm company, my brother in the US and the car’s mechanic) that we were able to get the car working.
Thankfully, we were able to get to the old city and had a chance to daven at the kotel. While we were there, there was a group of young boys (possibly from a camp) in the outer plaza who had and assembly and were singing songs together. Goldie was really very moved by it.
In the morning, when we were still unsure if the car would work at all, we went to the makolet to buy the various foods we had planned to get in Machane Yehuda. When we left the Kotel, we decided to head off to Ben Yehuda for lunch and for Chaim and Batya (the other kids were in Gan or Camp) to have a chance to tour.
I always find it entertaining to see whom we will bump into when we get to a real tourist destination. This trip didn’t disappoint as we got to visit with the Abbittan family and Murray Englard as we made our way to lunch. It was a real treat for us to see familiar faces.
We were quite happy to have everyone together for the first time on Shabbat. We took advantage of the long day to stay inside and rest, knowing that the beginning of this week would be tough.
By Sunday afternoon our shipping company had told us to realistically expect a Tuesday delivery of our lift. While there was still a chance that the customs people would want to hold it up for a full inspection, the port is incredibly overloaded and they just want to get the stuff out. It actually would have been a great time to smuggle in a bunch of computers or appliances – since they simply don’t have the time or manpower to inspect anything.
Sunday night our older girls were in a camp performance, so the boys all went shopping for household items. Of course, we couldn’t find even half of what we were looking for, and even those things we did find took us a long time. I still don’t know where the bleach is, or the bug spray or even the crockpot liners. Eventually we are sure to find everything, but it is so annoying to go to the supermarket and not come home with all the things on your list.
We slept on air mattresses on Sunday night, and the air conditioning on our second floor is not working properly. The first floor gets cold enough (and since we cannot figure out how to tell what temperature the units are set on – we keep pushing up and down on the remote control), but the second floor needs servicing and we hope that it is done this week.
We are beginning to realize how many different things we will have to take care of as the first tenants in this house. There are so many different things that need tweaking and adjusting. However, we are grateful that the house was still available and are looking forward to finally being able to settle into a normal routine there.
With all the ups and downs we had in the last few weeks, this past week should not have been so difficult. However, I think that it is the combination of all the various frustrations and setbacks that we had that finally got to us. Which it did.
There were a lot of tears this week. Certainly no shortage of frayed nerves and short tempers. Yet, as upsetting and truly trying that the week was – we seem to be much further ahead of where we were last week.
Chaim – is home. Our family – has a home (finally). Our lift – about to be home. My boss – will be home by the time you read this newspaper. We’ll have our phones turned on and (hopefully) our appliances all installed by the middle of next week. In a week and a half the kids will start school and life will really start off for us – no more vacation home, no more running around – just the regular everyday life of your (un)average Israeli family!
Coming Full Circle (Article #16) 8/17/2006
From Woodmere to Beit Shemesh
Status report: Our lift is finally somewhere in Israel (more on this next week). My boss is still in the North (in and out of Lebanon). The truce is hours old and has already been violated. We didn’t get our soldiers back. They can still shoot rockets at us. They aren’t totally crushed.
Shabbat two weeks ago was my birthday. Goldie decided to surprise me by arranging to have Amy Schneider (our buddy family) bake a really terrific birthday cake for me for dessert on Friday night. I knew something was strange when she allowed the kids to stay up late to play outside, but was totally surprised when the Schneiders and Airleys showed up with the cake.
Shabbat afternoon after the meal we made what has become a regular trip for us to see what our new home looks like. Our rental home in Ramat Beit Shemesh was under construction when we first saw it last April. Although it needed a serious amount of work, we were assured by the owners and the builder that it would be ready by August 1 and possibly earlier. With our space needs (having 6 kids) we took a gamble and agreed to rent it.
Of course, since we knew we were arriving on July 6th, we needed to make temporary arrangements for housing for our first 3 weeks. We initially found a rental in the Sheinfeld area of Beit Shemesh to rent, but when a home became available within blocks of our future home, we decided to take it since it would give us a chance to get used to a new neighborhood. Both houses were furnished homes, being offered as summer rentals by their owners who were to be vacationing in North America.
We also chose to rent the house for 6 weeks instead of the needed 3. We did this both to give us time to unpack our lift in the new home while still living comfortably in the summer rental and also just in case the house was not ready on time and we needed someplace to stay for an extra week or two.
In the ensuing months, we had gotten calls from various neighbors telling us that the project was moving forward with a lot of activity from the builders. We took this as a good sign (despite the various warnings by my siblings and other friends) that the house would not be ready on time.
Within days of our arrival we went to see the house which we assumed must surely have been close to ready, by the reports we had gotten. Apparently “ready” has many meanings. We had a hard time getting into the house itself since the exterior stairs leading to the front door were not installed and we had to climb a steep concrete ramp. When we finally got up the ramp we were treated to what looked like a massive garbage dump totally surrounding the house.
When we entered the house we saw that each room had walls, a floor and for the most part ceilings. There were no plumbing or electric fixtures anywhere in the house. The kitchen was totally bare. There were no doors installed. The interior staircase was another steep concrete ramp, with board nailed into it for the workers to use as stairs.
We were horrified. Here we were, three weeks away from “moving in” day and the house was nowhere near ready. Remembering that the rental market in the area was really very tight and that there was no way we were going to be able to move in on time, we began to panic. What would we do? We knew we only had a place to live for 6 weeks and then we were stuck, but even worse, all our furniture and belongings were due to arrive the first week in August – where were we going to put them?
We couldn’t even blame the owners. They live 6,000 miles away and rely upon reports by the builder and their decorator. They were repeatedly assured by the builder that August 1 was a realistic date and that the house would actually be ready earlier than then.
So we began to make a weekly trek to the house, checking on the progress. We even began to take other families with us, to see if their thinking matched ours. The unanimous opinion was that we needed to make alternate plans – and fast.
So we started to talk about various options. Some people offered to put us up in there basements. Others suggested that we look into a short term apartment rental. Yet, since our lift was full of our things, we needed to have somewhere to put our stuff, and those options wouldn’t work. We needed to find another home.
And we did.
We had talked about a home in the Sheinfeld area of Beit Shemesh in our pilot trip last April. However, when we talked to the landlord, we felt that the rental was out of reach for us. We explained our budget to the landlord, yet he felt that he could get more for the house so we both decided to move on.
Fortunately for us, as I suspected, the rental market in Beit Shemesh did not support the rental amount he had been looking for, and he did not find a tenant between May and July. This prompted a call to us, and we took a look at the house.
As we got closer and closer to August, we began to see progress in the Ramat Beit Shemesh house. We still didn’t think it would be ready, but it was tantalizingly close. On the other hand, we had originally intended to live in either the Sheinfeld or Aviv neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh and the second house fit the bill in that regard.
The decision became even tougher to make because we had begun to make friends in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Although we have only been here a month and a half, the kids have all begun to find a niche and it wasn’t easy to think of having to do the whole “getting to know the neighbors” thing again.
Goldie had spent a lot of her time making all the arrangements for schools, gan, doctors, etc., and we realized that all that effort would go to waste if we moved. In one way, the war delays worked slightly in our favor since we were able to postpone the decision because our lift was in Greece, so we did not need a place to deliver all of our stuff to.
As soon as we found the “backup plan” house, we contacted the owners of the RBS home, telling them that we had identified an alternate option and that while we would try to hold out as long as we could, that we needed to do what was best for our family and make sure that we had a place to live.
We kept on waiting for the house to be ready, but the first completion date and then the second completion date both came and went, with nothing more than assurances that FOR SURE we would be in within a few days. So we kept visiting the house and hoping we would see that things were finally ready.
I spent almost my entire work week trying to figure out what needed doing for the opening of school. Without my boss, we are really short handed. He has been the key operations person since we opened our doors, and is really the go to guy on all business matters. His absence has left a big void for us to deal with.
Had we had some warning or expectation that he would be gone, we could’ve handled it a lot better. Yet, there is no planning for a war and the need for him and the many other reservists to drop everything to be there to protect us all.
On Sunday night we went to dinner with my sister and brother in law in honor of my birthday. Goldie and I took the Bnei Brak bus bus to Tel Aviv. Halfway through the ride, Goldie looked around and realized that aside from us and another couple seated directly behind us, the rest of the bus was seated by gender. The men sat in the front and the women sat in the back with the two married couples seated as the buffer zone right in the middle.
On Monday I got a call from a car broker that he had found a used 8 seat van for us. We cannot buy a new car until we get our Israeli drivers licenses (at the earliest) and the lack of a car has been a tremendous inconvenience. Even though the taxis are plentiful and cheap, it is just not practical to take a taxi everywhere we go.
The “metzia” was a 14 year old minivan with 380,000 kilometers on it that I could get for the extremely low price of 30,000 shekels (a little under $7,000). This is actually a good price here, but it is still astonishing to think of paying that much for such an old car.
I arranged to have the car inspected by a mechanic on Tuesday to make sure that it was indeed in good working order. This was the best $150 that I have spent here, since the mechanic discovered problems with the oil system as well as the gear box that could have been costly to repair.
Goldie went with a girlfriend to the Beit Shemesh shuk that day. Apparently, Beit Shemesh has an outdoor shuk twice weekly and she was thrilled with it. The fruits and vegetables were cheaper than those in the supermarket (although you still have to check and make sure that Teruma and Maaser were taken) and many of the other items were also great bargains.
She was at one specific fruit vendor and had brought several items up to the counter to pay for them. While the vendor was weighing her choices, she turned to her friend to chat. When she turned back to pay the vendor, she discovered that he was busy adding some onions into her bag from the bin in front of him!
When she asked what he was doing, he said, “but the onions are so fresh and good, I was sure that you really needed more!” She made him put them back, but I don’t think he put back more than one or two since we still have a ton of onions in the house.
On Thursday night, Goldie prepared supper for some new Olim. Amy Shneider was coordinating meals for 3 new families who had moved in that day via Nefesh B’Nefesh. Many of the people in this area have gone on vacation, and there simply weren’t enough people for her to ask. When she told this to Goldie, Goldie immediately volunteered.
She was asked to cook for the family of Darren and Dina Shaw who had made Aliyah from England. When Dina discovered that we had ourselves made Aliyah only one month earlier, she was astounded that Goldie had volunteered to cook for her family.
Friday is my day off, so we had a ton of errands to attend to. Our first stop was the bank, to make deposits and see if we could finally order a credit card. The bank was very crowded, since many people have Friday off. The line for the teller was very long.
They have a really cool machine at the bank to make deposits. I signed the back of my check, and swiped my ATM card. Without filling out any deposit slip or envelope, I slid my check into the machine and a scan of the check appeared on the screen. I was asked to enter the amount of the check into the machine and then got a receipt for the deposit. Of course the charge for making the deposit was 15 cents.
We met with a bank officer and ordered a credit card. When we were done, we also asked her about the fees for using the ATM and the teller. She told us that we actually have 1 year’s worth of a 50% discount on all fees as Olim. She was astounded to hear that such things were free in the US.
We went from there to get haircuts for all the Katz men. Although there is no comparison to getting our hair cut by Sol on Central Avenue, I have to say it was a very interesting experience. The first hurdle was trying to explain how we wanted the hair to be cut in Hebrew. Take a minute and try to do it. Not easy.
We also felt bad for the barber (a nice young Israeli who looked like he had just walked out of the Beit Midrash with a white shirt, black pants and his Tzitzit hanging out). As a non English speaker, he has a tough time trying to explain to Moshe (18 months) and Mordechai (5 years) to sit still or look down so that he could cut their hair properly.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the atmosphere. The whole place was filled with religious people. While that is often the case in many 5 Towns haircutters as well, how many of them have the Kumzitz CD playing? When was the last time you were getting your hair cut and everyone in the store (including the person cutting your hair) was singing along with the Jewish Music playing on the stereo?
Our last stop was the new grocery store that opened up. The parent company of one of the major local supermarkets had taken over a chain of supermarkets, one of which was directly across the street from their RBS store. In order to protect against a monopoly, the 2 stores were forced to combine and allow a competitor to enter the market.
The newly combined supermarket opened this week (the competitor will open soon) and we went there to stock up, since their prices are much cheaper than the makolet we have 2 blocks away. It is astounding how much more the neighborhood makolet charges simply because they are convenient. It is almost like shopping for groceries at 7-11.
When we went to check out we picked a line at random. Our line seemed to be moving well, until the woman 2 people in front of us tried to pay for her groceries. It looked like she was trying to pay by check or cash, since she had both in her hands. She was actually trying to do both, making a cash payment for part and a check payment for the balance.
Unbelievably, the cash register in Israel could not process such a transaction. You either have to pay all in cash or all by check, not a combination. So she decided to pay by check. Two checks. One dated that day, and another a few weeks away.
Since “Tashlumin” (installment payments) are a normal part of the Israeli business world, the same cash register that could not accept a cash payment upfront with the balance paid by check had no problem processing two checks (one of them post dated) for the purchase.
We paid via debit card, since our credit cards will not be available until later this week. I cannot wait until we get the credit cards, if only for the opportunity to pay by tashlumin and get an interest free loan from the grocery store.
I got a call on Friday that Rav Benni Pflanzer, my boss who had been in the reserves and in and out of Lebanon for the prior two weeks had been given a Shabbat leave to spend with his family. I had the chance to speak with him for a few minutes and it was nice to know he had a chance to be home, if only for a day and a half.
I also got a call from my sister. She had been to Haifa that morning for the Brit Milah of a new nephew. She made every effort to attend the brit with all her kids, since this Simcha immediately followed the shiva for the Grandmother of the new baby (I went to Haifa the week before to be menachem avel for this family). The birth itself came during the shiva, with the new mother going straight from the shiva house to the delivery room.
While at the shul, there was an air raid alert followed by 2 large explosions that shook the entire shul. A few minutes later, there was another alert followed by 2 more explosions. In all, 4 Katyusha rockets landed just 3 blocks away from the shul where the Brit was being held.
She described how truly terrified she felt, since there was nowhere to hide in the building. She also told me how guilty she felt afterward for possibly exposing her children to such danger and how terrible she would have felt had something happened to them.
She mentioned that her husband actually thought that where the rockets landed was a miracle. Apparently, they landed in the highway just outside a high tech office building district, blowing out all the windows of the mostly glass buildings. It being Friday, all the offices were closed – so no one got hurt!
When she described the location to me, I mentioned that I thought I remembered the buildings from my drive out the week before. Her response? “You should – they landed right in the middle of the highway that you were on!”
We hosted Nesher and Chaia Broderick and their family for Shabbat lunch the next day. It was nice to spend time with “old friends” and hear all about their NBN experience and how it differed from ours. We had actually had a few minutes on Thursday night to visit with them and Shulie and Ronnie Baruch who had also come in that day, but it was nice to have a leisurely time to catch up with each other.
On Saturday night I got a ride to Chashmonaim with Dudy and Jenny Rokach who are here for a two week vacation. They were actually visiting some friends in Modiin, and were gracious enough to give me a ride so that I could pick up my brother’s van which I am using for 10 days. He had made arrangements to lend his van out to someone else before we decided to make Aliyah and the other family had returned to the US.
I cannot describe how much easier life is with a car. Mordechai and Batya (age 7) started a mini ulpan on Sunday. This ulpan is run so that the new olim can get a feel for the normal Israeli school day schedule/routine, before school actually starts. Goldie was able to drive them to and from the ulpan and take Aliza to the doctor (cold and congestion) as well as drop me off and pick me up from the train.
She went to the store to pick up school supplies for the kids and was able to offer a ride to other olim, who also had no car. Having the car is incredibly liberating.
The “truce” was ratified on Sunday as well. I will be the first to admit that I am not yet in tune with Israeli politics and Israeli thinking. However, I do know that (as I wrote in the first paragraph of this article) PM Olmert clearly stated that the government had 3 goals for the war. As I see it, none of them were accomplished (the worst being that we did not get our soldiers back).
Over 100 soldiers were killed and approximately half that many civilians were killed as well. The armed forces were completely handcuffed by the government and the medias ability to instantly “spin” every action, as well as our policy to warn terrorists (via leaflet) exactly where our forces will be in the next few days so that they could have time to set as tough a trap/ambush as they could. Twenty percent of the country either lived in their bomb shelters or as refugees in communities nationwide. To what end?
Yes, we destroyed thousands of rockets and killed hundreds if not thousands of terrorists. Yes, we advanced as far as the incredibly strategic Litani river. Yes, we showed the world that we can attack at will.
Yet, we did not achieve our stated goals. We failed in the mission that we set for ourselves. And the Prime Minister had the audacity to publicly state that he thinks the war will serve as a conduit for his plan to give away more land. I hope that we have time and the opportunity to make a change before that happens.
I think change is sometimes necessary. Not only on major issues but on minor ones as well. We took another look at the RBS house on Monday night. Although we had been told that we could move in on the day before, we found no faucets (and therefore running water) anywhere in the house, loose wires where many light fixtures/outlets were supposed to be, open 10 foot pits at the sides of the house and came to the general conclusion that it was not only impractical, but possibly also dangerous for us to occupy that house.
While we really did not want to do so, we will be notifying the owners of the house (whom we thankfully did not sign a lease with) that the house is still not ready and we cannot live in it. They have told us that they have a backup tenant in case we back out, so they can at least cover themselves.
Interestingly enough, we started the whole process of searching for a home in the Nofei Aviv and Sheinfeld areas of Beit Shemesh. We almost decided to go to Chashmonaim and actually did decide to go to Ramat Beit Shemesh.
As someone mentioned to me about the war as well, the plan is not one that you or I have seen. The war happened exactly as it was supposed to happen, according to the plan upstairs. The same thing applies to our house. All our plans were for naught; someone else’s plan took priority and we will be right where we were intended to be from the start.
Mazal Tov to Nesher and Chaia Broderick, Dov and Lauren Greenberg and Gary and Suzanne Wallin and their families upon their Aliyah last week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)! Mazal Tov also to Ronnie and Shulie Baruch and their family who also moved to Israel last week (although not via NBN)! A special welcome to Benjamin Baruch who was the inspiration to his parents making the move and is a special friend who always finds a way to make my day!
Status report: Our lift is finally somewhere in Israel (more on this next week). My boss is still in the North (in and out of Lebanon). The truce is hours old and has already been violated. We didn’t get our soldiers back. They can still shoot rockets at us. They aren’t totally crushed.
Shabbat two weeks ago was my birthday. Goldie decided to surprise me by arranging to have Amy Schneider (our buddy family) bake a really terrific birthday cake for me for dessert on Friday night. I knew something was strange when she allowed the kids to stay up late to play outside, but was totally surprised when the Schneiders and Airleys showed up with the cake.
Shabbat afternoon after the meal we made what has become a regular trip for us to see what our new home looks like. Our rental home in Ramat Beit Shemesh was under construction when we first saw it last April. Although it needed a serious amount of work, we were assured by the owners and the builder that it would be ready by August 1 and possibly earlier. With our space needs (having 6 kids) we took a gamble and agreed to rent it.
Of course, since we knew we were arriving on July 6th, we needed to make temporary arrangements for housing for our first 3 weeks. We initially found a rental in the Sheinfeld area of Beit Shemesh to rent, but when a home became available within blocks of our future home, we decided to take it since it would give us a chance to get used to a new neighborhood. Both houses were furnished homes, being offered as summer rentals by their owners who were to be vacationing in North America.
We also chose to rent the house for 6 weeks instead of the needed 3. We did this both to give us time to unpack our lift in the new home while still living comfortably in the summer rental and also just in case the house was not ready on time and we needed someplace to stay for an extra week or two.
In the ensuing months, we had gotten calls from various neighbors telling us that the project was moving forward with a lot of activity from the builders. We took this as a good sign (despite the various warnings by my siblings and other friends) that the house would not be ready on time.
Within days of our arrival we went to see the house which we assumed must surely have been close to ready, by the reports we had gotten. Apparently “ready” has many meanings. We had a hard time getting into the house itself since the exterior stairs leading to the front door were not installed and we had to climb a steep concrete ramp. When we finally got up the ramp we were treated to what looked like a massive garbage dump totally surrounding the house.
When we entered the house we saw that each room had walls, a floor and for the most part ceilings. There were no plumbing or electric fixtures anywhere in the house. The kitchen was totally bare. There were no doors installed. The interior staircase was another steep concrete ramp, with board nailed into it for the workers to use as stairs.
We were horrified. Here we were, three weeks away from “moving in” day and the house was nowhere near ready. Remembering that the rental market in the area was really very tight and that there was no way we were going to be able to move in on time, we began to panic. What would we do? We knew we only had a place to live for 6 weeks and then we were stuck, but even worse, all our furniture and belongings were due to arrive the first week in August – where were we going to put them?
We couldn’t even blame the owners. They live 6,000 miles away and rely upon reports by the builder and their decorator. They were repeatedly assured by the builder that August 1 was a realistic date and that the house would actually be ready earlier than then.
So we began to make a weekly trek to the house, checking on the progress. We even began to take other families with us, to see if their thinking matched ours. The unanimous opinion was that we needed to make alternate plans – and fast.
So we started to talk about various options. Some people offered to put us up in there basements. Others suggested that we look into a short term apartment rental. Yet, since our lift was full of our things, we needed to have somewhere to put our stuff, and those options wouldn’t work. We needed to find another home.
And we did.
We had talked about a home in the Sheinfeld area of Beit Shemesh in our pilot trip last April. However, when we talked to the landlord, we felt that the rental was out of reach for us. We explained our budget to the landlord, yet he felt that he could get more for the house so we both decided to move on.
Fortunately for us, as I suspected, the rental market in Beit Shemesh did not support the rental amount he had been looking for, and he did not find a tenant between May and July. This prompted a call to us, and we took a look at the house.
As we got closer and closer to August, we began to see progress in the Ramat Beit Shemesh house. We still didn’t think it would be ready, but it was tantalizingly close. On the other hand, we had originally intended to live in either the Sheinfeld or Aviv neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh and the second house fit the bill in that regard.
The decision became even tougher to make because we had begun to make friends in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Although we have only been here a month and a half, the kids have all begun to find a niche and it wasn’t easy to think of having to do the whole “getting to know the neighbors” thing again.
Goldie had spent a lot of her time making all the arrangements for schools, gan, doctors, etc., and we realized that all that effort would go to waste if we moved. In one way, the war delays worked slightly in our favor since we were able to postpone the decision because our lift was in Greece, so we did not need a place to deliver all of our stuff to.
As soon as we found the “backup plan” house, we contacted the owners of the RBS home, telling them that we had identified an alternate option and that while we would try to hold out as long as we could, that we needed to do what was best for our family and make sure that we had a place to live.
We kept on waiting for the house to be ready, but the first completion date and then the second completion date both came and went, with nothing more than assurances that FOR SURE we would be in within a few days. So we kept visiting the house and hoping we would see that things were finally ready.
I spent almost my entire work week trying to figure out what needed doing for the opening of school. Without my boss, we are really short handed. He has been the key operations person since we opened our doors, and is really the go to guy on all business matters. His absence has left a big void for us to deal with.
Had we had some warning or expectation that he would be gone, we could’ve handled it a lot better. Yet, there is no planning for a war and the need for him and the many other reservists to drop everything to be there to protect us all.
On Sunday night we went to dinner with my sister and brother in law in honor of my birthday. Goldie and I took the Bnei Brak bus bus to Tel Aviv. Halfway through the ride, Goldie looked around and realized that aside from us and another couple seated directly behind us, the rest of the bus was seated by gender. The men sat in the front and the women sat in the back with the two married couples seated as the buffer zone right in the middle.
On Monday I got a call from a car broker that he had found a used 8 seat van for us. We cannot buy a new car until we get our Israeli drivers licenses (at the earliest) and the lack of a car has been a tremendous inconvenience. Even though the taxis are plentiful and cheap, it is just not practical to take a taxi everywhere we go.
The “metzia” was a 14 year old minivan with 380,000 kilometers on it that I could get for the extremely low price of 30,000 shekels (a little under $7,000). This is actually a good price here, but it is still astonishing to think of paying that much for such an old car.
I arranged to have the car inspected by a mechanic on Tuesday to make sure that it was indeed in good working order. This was the best $150 that I have spent here, since the mechanic discovered problems with the oil system as well as the gear box that could have been costly to repair.
Goldie went with a girlfriend to the Beit Shemesh shuk that day. Apparently, Beit Shemesh has an outdoor shuk twice weekly and she was thrilled with it. The fruits and vegetables were cheaper than those in the supermarket (although you still have to check and make sure that Teruma and Maaser were taken) and many of the other items were also great bargains.
She was at one specific fruit vendor and had brought several items up to the counter to pay for them. While the vendor was weighing her choices, she turned to her friend to chat. When she turned back to pay the vendor, she discovered that he was busy adding some onions into her bag from the bin in front of him!
When she asked what he was doing, he said, “but the onions are so fresh and good, I was sure that you really needed more!” She made him put them back, but I don’t think he put back more than one or two since we still have a ton of onions in the house.
On Thursday night, Goldie prepared supper for some new Olim. Amy Shneider was coordinating meals for 3 new families who had moved in that day via Nefesh B’Nefesh. Many of the people in this area have gone on vacation, and there simply weren’t enough people for her to ask. When she told this to Goldie, Goldie immediately volunteered.
She was asked to cook for the family of Darren and Dina Shaw who had made Aliyah from England. When Dina discovered that we had ourselves made Aliyah only one month earlier, she was astounded that Goldie had volunteered to cook for her family.
Friday is my day off, so we had a ton of errands to attend to. Our first stop was the bank, to make deposits and see if we could finally order a credit card. The bank was very crowded, since many people have Friday off. The line for the teller was very long.
They have a really cool machine at the bank to make deposits. I signed the back of my check, and swiped my ATM card. Without filling out any deposit slip or envelope, I slid my check into the machine and a scan of the check appeared on the screen. I was asked to enter the amount of the check into the machine and then got a receipt for the deposit. Of course the charge for making the deposit was 15 cents.
We met with a bank officer and ordered a credit card. When we were done, we also asked her about the fees for using the ATM and the teller. She told us that we actually have 1 year’s worth of a 50% discount on all fees as Olim. She was astounded to hear that such things were free in the US.
We went from there to get haircuts for all the Katz men. Although there is no comparison to getting our hair cut by Sol on Central Avenue, I have to say it was a very interesting experience. The first hurdle was trying to explain how we wanted the hair to be cut in Hebrew. Take a minute and try to do it. Not easy.
We also felt bad for the barber (a nice young Israeli who looked like he had just walked out of the Beit Midrash with a white shirt, black pants and his Tzitzit hanging out). As a non English speaker, he has a tough time trying to explain to Moshe (18 months) and Mordechai (5 years) to sit still or look down so that he could cut their hair properly.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all was the atmosphere. The whole place was filled with religious people. While that is often the case in many 5 Towns haircutters as well, how many of them have the Kumzitz CD playing? When was the last time you were getting your hair cut and everyone in the store (including the person cutting your hair) was singing along with the Jewish Music playing on the stereo?
Our last stop was the new grocery store that opened up. The parent company of one of the major local supermarkets had taken over a chain of supermarkets, one of which was directly across the street from their RBS store. In order to protect against a monopoly, the 2 stores were forced to combine and allow a competitor to enter the market.
The newly combined supermarket opened this week (the competitor will open soon) and we went there to stock up, since their prices are much cheaper than the makolet we have 2 blocks away. It is astounding how much more the neighborhood makolet charges simply because they are convenient. It is almost like shopping for groceries at 7-11.
When we went to check out we picked a line at random. Our line seemed to be moving well, until the woman 2 people in front of us tried to pay for her groceries. It looked like she was trying to pay by check or cash, since she had both in her hands. She was actually trying to do both, making a cash payment for part and a check payment for the balance.
Unbelievably, the cash register in Israel could not process such a transaction. You either have to pay all in cash or all by check, not a combination. So she decided to pay by check. Two checks. One dated that day, and another a few weeks away.
Since “Tashlumin” (installment payments) are a normal part of the Israeli business world, the same cash register that could not accept a cash payment upfront with the balance paid by check had no problem processing two checks (one of them post dated) for the purchase.
We paid via debit card, since our credit cards will not be available until later this week. I cannot wait until we get the credit cards, if only for the opportunity to pay by tashlumin and get an interest free loan from the grocery store.
I got a call on Friday that Rav Benni Pflanzer, my boss who had been in the reserves and in and out of Lebanon for the prior two weeks had been given a Shabbat leave to spend with his family. I had the chance to speak with him for a few minutes and it was nice to know he had a chance to be home, if only for a day and a half.
I also got a call from my sister. She had been to Haifa that morning for the Brit Milah of a new nephew. She made every effort to attend the brit with all her kids, since this Simcha immediately followed the shiva for the Grandmother of the new baby (I went to Haifa the week before to be menachem avel for this family). The birth itself came during the shiva, with the new mother going straight from the shiva house to the delivery room.
While at the shul, there was an air raid alert followed by 2 large explosions that shook the entire shul. A few minutes later, there was another alert followed by 2 more explosions. In all, 4 Katyusha rockets landed just 3 blocks away from the shul where the Brit was being held.
She described how truly terrified she felt, since there was nowhere to hide in the building. She also told me how guilty she felt afterward for possibly exposing her children to such danger and how terrible she would have felt had something happened to them.
She mentioned that her husband actually thought that where the rockets landed was a miracle. Apparently, they landed in the highway just outside a high tech office building district, blowing out all the windows of the mostly glass buildings. It being Friday, all the offices were closed – so no one got hurt!
When she described the location to me, I mentioned that I thought I remembered the buildings from my drive out the week before. Her response? “You should – they landed right in the middle of the highway that you were on!”
We hosted Nesher and Chaia Broderick and their family for Shabbat lunch the next day. It was nice to spend time with “old friends” and hear all about their NBN experience and how it differed from ours. We had actually had a few minutes on Thursday night to visit with them and Shulie and Ronnie Baruch who had also come in that day, but it was nice to have a leisurely time to catch up with each other.
On Saturday night I got a ride to Chashmonaim with Dudy and Jenny Rokach who are here for a two week vacation. They were actually visiting some friends in Modiin, and were gracious enough to give me a ride so that I could pick up my brother’s van which I am using for 10 days. He had made arrangements to lend his van out to someone else before we decided to make Aliyah and the other family had returned to the US.
I cannot describe how much easier life is with a car. Mordechai and Batya (age 7) started a mini ulpan on Sunday. This ulpan is run so that the new olim can get a feel for the normal Israeli school day schedule/routine, before school actually starts. Goldie was able to drive them to and from the ulpan and take Aliza to the doctor (cold and congestion) as well as drop me off and pick me up from the train.
She went to the store to pick up school supplies for the kids and was able to offer a ride to other olim, who also had no car. Having the car is incredibly liberating.
The “truce” was ratified on Sunday as well. I will be the first to admit that I am not yet in tune with Israeli politics and Israeli thinking. However, I do know that (as I wrote in the first paragraph of this article) PM Olmert clearly stated that the government had 3 goals for the war. As I see it, none of them were accomplished (the worst being that we did not get our soldiers back).
Over 100 soldiers were killed and approximately half that many civilians were killed as well. The armed forces were completely handcuffed by the government and the medias ability to instantly “spin” every action, as well as our policy to warn terrorists (via leaflet) exactly where our forces will be in the next few days so that they could have time to set as tough a trap/ambush as they could. Twenty percent of the country either lived in their bomb shelters or as refugees in communities nationwide. To what end?
Yes, we destroyed thousands of rockets and killed hundreds if not thousands of terrorists. Yes, we advanced as far as the incredibly strategic Litani river. Yes, we showed the world that we can attack at will.
Yet, we did not achieve our stated goals. We failed in the mission that we set for ourselves. And the Prime Minister had the audacity to publicly state that he thinks the war will serve as a conduit for his plan to give away more land. I hope that we have time and the opportunity to make a change before that happens.
I think change is sometimes necessary. Not only on major issues but on minor ones as well. We took another look at the RBS house on Monday night. Although we had been told that we could move in on the day before, we found no faucets (and therefore running water) anywhere in the house, loose wires where many light fixtures/outlets were supposed to be, open 10 foot pits at the sides of the house and came to the general conclusion that it was not only impractical, but possibly also dangerous for us to occupy that house.
While we really did not want to do so, we will be notifying the owners of the house (whom we thankfully did not sign a lease with) that the house is still not ready and we cannot live in it. They have told us that they have a backup tenant in case we back out, so they can at least cover themselves.
Interestingly enough, we started the whole process of searching for a home in the Nofei Aviv and Sheinfeld areas of Beit Shemesh. We almost decided to go to Chashmonaim and actually did decide to go to Ramat Beit Shemesh.
As someone mentioned to me about the war as well, the plan is not one that you or I have seen. The war happened exactly as it was supposed to happen, according to the plan upstairs. The same thing applies to our house. All our plans were for naught; someone else’s plan took priority and we will be right where we were intended to be from the start.
Mazal Tov to Nesher and Chaia Broderick, Dov and Lauren Greenberg and Gary and Suzanne Wallin and their families upon their Aliyah last week with Nefesh B’nefesh!! May your Klitta be Neimah (May your absorption be pleasant)! Mazal Tov also to Ronnie and Shulie Baruch and their family who also moved to Israel last week (although not via NBN)! A special welcome to Benjamin Baruch who was the inspiration to his parents making the move and is a special friend who always finds a way to make my day!
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