Turned Tables (4/29/2010)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Variations on a Theme (4/22/2010)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over all these things, over all these things,

Hashem the good, please protect,

Over the honey and over the thorn,

Over the bitter and over the sweet.

Do not uproot that which has been planted.

Do not forget the hope.

Bring me back and I shall return

To the good land.

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

Pesach 5770 (4/15/2010)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That soldier never made it to Shabbat.

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

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

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

He helped bury his friend. At 21.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saying Goodbye (3/18/2010)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sima Fogel Menora, formally of Far Rockaway and Chicago, now resides in Bet Shemesh. Currently employed at Habitat Real Estate in Wolfson towers, Sima finds the best deals in vacation apartments and homes, including sales, long-term and short-term rentals, new projects, and retirement homes. Contact her at sima@habitatrealestate.co.il This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it