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Happy birthday to Aliza! Aliza was born 11 years ago on Simchat Torah (Simchas Torah back then); we left for the hospital in the middle of the fifth evening Hakafa. It had been our family custom to make her a party in the Succah on Shabbat Chol Hamoed each year since her birthday was Yom Tov.
Although we did have a party for her, we were also able to celebrate her birthday during the week since it no longer falls out on Simchat Torah for us. As expected, the Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah day was a dramatic indicator that we really were in Israel and were holding only one day of Yom Tov.
There were many others.
We lained Megillat Kohelet on the first day of sukkot (since Shabbat Shemini Atzeret was no longer sukkot for us but a separate chag). We only used Lulavim and Etrogim on Chol Hamoed (since we only have one day of Chag). We did not eat or make Kiddush in the sukkah at all on Shemini Atzeret.
But most disconcertingly, the laining on Chol Hamoed and the Tefillot of Musaf for Chol Hamoed are totally different. On Sunday (our first day of Chol Hamoed) I was in shul and they repeated the same laining for all four aliyot (in Chutz La’aretz the laining is comprised of several different days’ readings – in Israel it is a single day’s reading repeated over and over).
I came very close to stopping the laining to correct them, but stopped myself when I realized that nobody else seemed bothered by the apparent error. I have found myself doing that a lot now. I check twice before I come to a conclusion, since there are so many differences in the minhagim (customs) here.
Similarly, I had to take a pen out and make notes for myself in my machzorim, since they all have the musaf davening for chutz laaretz (which like laining is the readings from two different days) and I am no longer a “chutznick”.
Boy was the entire Sukkot hot. I understand that it snowed in Chicago. We were sweating like crazy on Yom Tov and throughout Chol Hamoed. Even with windows for ventilation, the heat in our Sukkah was simply overwhelming at times.
We invited our first guests for the Sukkot seudot (meals) which was a treat for us. We had been going out for one meal practically every week, so it was nice to have people join us in our home for once.
We also had the entire week for Chol Hamoed activities. While that may seem great, we weren’t prepared for it; there is an extra day, there was no Shabbat Chol Hamoed at all (although you had that too) and not having a van really inconvenienced us.
There are many families here that cannot afford cars, so we have to count our blessings that we have even a small car, but we cannot wait to get a van that fits our entire family so that we can have the freedom to do as we please as a family. Until then, we are either at the mercy of the train schedule (only one train per hour) or must hire private taxi/vans to go places as a family.
On Sunday we took the train to Yerushalayim and walked to Ein Yael. This is an open site (partially reconstructed) of a farm from the period of Roman rule in Israel. We met my brother and his family there and the kids all enjoyed a full day of activities and crafts as well as learning about life in that era. They built instruments, learned about weaving and mosaics and had a fun time.
For lunch (I just love this), my brother and I drove over to the local Pizza Hut (Mehadrin Hashgacha) and picked up a few pies. We brought them back to Ein Yael where we had a large family meal in the Ein Yael sukkah. Of course, it goes without saying that every attraction has a sukkah – just like in America (not!).
Realizing that we would be davening for rain later in the week and were also very tired from a full day on Sunday, we decided that Monday would be an “off day” spent relaxing and building storage for bikes and stuff (and our sukkah – when deconstructed). Goldie took the kids for lunch to a local coffee bar and Chaim and I spent the bulk of the day building a shed that we had brought with us from America. It was so hot and sunny that I ended up with a moderate sunburn by the end of the day.
As do many other municipalities in Israel, Beit Shemesh (our home) sponsors a series of events and activities over the Sukkot week. A highlight of the Beit Shemesh events is the free concerts provided in one of the parks over two nights. We decided to go the first night and see what it was.
Apparently, we went on the more “wild” night. There were several thousand people in attendance and the concerts were spirited (we especially enjoyed Lenny Solomon and Shlock Rock – Lenny lives down the road from us in Nofei Aviv). There were food booths set up, and fun kids activities as well as a lot of vendors selling toys/lights for the kids to play with. Although it was very loud, our kids seemed to enjoy it. (The night we missed included performances by Ohad and Chaim Dovid)
On Tuesday, refreshed and ready to go, we headed to a Kite Festival held in a Yishuv called Pnei Kedem. We had made reservations to go by bus and it was a good thing that we did. When we arrived (around 11:30) we had to wait about 15 minutes to get in. I understand that many people waited hours to get in, with some even turning back (Ruby and Beth Blumenthal had arranged to meet us there and turned around after they realized the line to get in was five kilometers long).
Pnei Kedem is essentially a bunch of caravan trailers dropped onto the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. I mean it. They are 20 minutes south of Efrat and the one lane road to go there winds around the various mountains before arriving in Pnei Kedem. These people are real pioneers. They have very few amenities and are really dedicated to living in the Yishuv.
The entire time we were there, the PA system was announcing that the proceeds of the day’s events were being used to pay for the construction of a Mikva, a gan for the kids and a permanent shul building. They also regularly invited the guests to consider making Pnei Kedem their home, with cheap real estate available.
They had planned on having about two thousand visitors that day; the police later told us that over seven thousand had tried to get in. Accordingly, the supplies and refreshments were very quickly depleted and it took quite some time for them to be replenished since the only road into town was literally crammed with people trying to get in.
While waiting in line for pizza, the guy who was running the pizza stand recognized me. Jon Blumofe had been a year ahead of me in elementary school and his pizza store (located in Neve Daniel outside of Efrat) was supplying the pizza. When I asked him where he lived, he pointed to the caravan right behind the pizza stand and said, “this is my house right here.”
He had moved to Pnei Kedem the year before. Apparently, his previous home in Kiryat Arba was a little too boring for him and he wanted to be in on the ground level of a new and (hopefully) growing yishuv. We saw a lot of people we knew there and I am sure that they went a long way toward raising the funds they needed.
Even with all the overcrowding and having to wait 90 minutes for pizza, we really enjoyed the day there (OK – maybe not the 10 minutes we spent looking for Mordechai who had wandered off to the top of the mountain to watch the kites being flown), especially bumping into familiar faces from America. We might skip next year only because we have done it already and they need to refine some of their event planning – but we still had fun.
We decided to give the kids a taste of Yerushalayim on Wednesday, making a visit to the Kotel (for Goldie and the little kids who had not been there in several weeks) as well as other “tourist” attractions there. We had not considered the fact that there would actually be tourists in these locations; the crowds were unbelievable.
Due to the overwhelming amounts of people and traffic (as well as security concerns), we could not be dropped off by our taxi anywhere near the Kotel, so we needed to walk about fifteen minutes to get in. With the heat, this was not a great idea with little kids.
After the Kotel, we realized that no taxis were being let into the old city so we decided to walk to Ben Yehuda to catch some lunch in Café Rimon’s very large sukkah. The kids had never seen Ben Yehuda, so this was a new experience for them. They didn’t really enjoy the shops, but they got a kick out of the different people who were there.
After lunch, we strolled up Rechov Yaffa to the Machane Yehuda indoor/outdoor market. Our kids had never seen anything like it and were totally fascinated by the entire place. We bought items from several different vendors and the kids really seemed to enjoy interacting with them as well as watching them interact with the crowd. They were also impressed with the quality and size of the produce on display there (especially the pomegranates, mangos and grapes) as well as the low prices.
By Thursday morning we were kind of tired again, so Chaim and I did some more work on the shed (it still isn’t finished, but we completed enough of it to allow us to put away some stuff and keep it out of the rain).
In the afternoon we took a train to the Malcha mall to go shopping. This was our first major shopping trip since our Aliyah and we tried to walk by every store so that we could get the lay of the land.
After picking up various items and finishing our tour of the mall, we decided to take a dinner break and head home. This meal was one of the highlights of my week. Not because the food was so great (it was ok) or the outstanding service (like any mall food court there is no waiter service). This was a big deal to me because we were able to go to the mall food court, buy the dinner of our choice (since we all wanted something different from each other we ordered from 3 different restaurants) AND TAKE OUR FOOD TO THE MALL’S SUKKAH WHERE WE COULD ENJOY OUR DINNER.
Where else can you do that? Roosevelt Field? Paramus? Old Orchard? NO – only in Israel can an orthodox Jew walk into the mall and not only find that he can eat at practically every restaurant in the food court, but that the owners of the mall had considerately provided a large enough sukkah for fifty people or more.
Simchat Torah was fun. Since everything is squeezed into one day, the davening runs a bit long, but we are done in one day – so we do have a benefit from it. Our shul has a ton of kids and is really very children friendly. This year, they bought tons of candy for the kids and they give different treats out for each hakafa.
Individual parents also get involved. Our ladies section is a balcony, and many of the women brought big bags of candies, lollipops and taffies and would randomly toss them down upon the crowd throughout the hakafot.
Many of the kids, knowing what was coming, had come prepared with plastic bags to store their goodies. I don’t know how much of the candy they had caught they were actually allowed to eat, but I am sure that the local dentists all walked home happy.
As I mentioned earlier, in every prior year of her life, Aliza’s birthday was on Simchat Torah. This year, with her birthday on Isru Chag she was not expecting any kind of celebration during the Yom Tov.
Aliza’s classmate and classroom buddy, Elisheva Aftel had her birthday on Hoshanna Rabba. Her mother Alisa called Goldie during Chol Hamoed and arranged to host a surprise birthday party for both girls in their home on Simchat Torah. So we did have the opportunity (at least for this year) to extend our annual sukkot birthday party.
Looking back, I don’t think we really enjoyed the Yom Tov to the fullest extent. We are still living a very hectic and scrambled life. We love it here, there is no question about it. As I keep repeating, adjusting to our new life takes a lot of energy and time.
I think we entered into Yom Tov all wound up and with the Yom Tov only being one day, we never really had the chance to unwind and enjoy ourselves as much as we could have. As we acclimate to our new environment, I think that will change and I am really looking forward to Channuka and Pesach.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Selichot at the Kotel (Article #23) 10/5/2006
Aseret Ymei Teshuva. A time when we strive to repent and bring ourselves closer to H-shem. A time when the children are caught up in the preparations for Yom Kippur and even Succot. A time for all night trips to the kotel…….
That’s right. In Israel, the Aseret Ymei Teshuva are a time for everyone to try to make at least one visit to the kotel. What better place to try to inspire yourself to do teshuva?
The Yeshiva went on a tiyul on Tuesday; it was actually a tiyul that I had gone on in the summer with the Southern Hemisphere (Australian and S. African) student, Ir David and the Davidman Center. While it certainly was not as thrilling the second time around (within 3 months), I will never tire of the emotions I feel when I realize that I am standing ON THE VERY SPOT where we believe David Hamelech had his palace, or that I am standing AT THE VERY PLACE where Shlomo Hamalech had his anointing.
The Tanach comes alive here in Israel. I cannot help but feel closer to G-d living here.
I can also say that Chizkiyahu’s water tunnels are a lot more fun without lights than with lights. My first time through the tunnel, none of the students knew where we were going, so they did not bring flashlights to go through. However, this group was much larger than the summer group and some of them knew that Ir David meant water tunnel, so they brought flashlights on the tiyul.
The ability to see where I was going made it a much easier walk. However, I think a major part of the thrill of the tiyul is the fact that you normally have to take it very slowly, using your hands to see where the walls and ceiling are as you make your way through.
The area around Ir David is actually an active archeological site. Interestingly, in the nine weeks since I had last been there, they had opened an entirely new section – including a new entrance into the water tunnel. Our guide had not even seen it.
Following Ir David, I went to the Kotel and left the tiyul to return to the office while the Yeshiva went to the Davidman Center to see the Southern excavations of the Kotel. Although I didn’t have the chance to daven there, being near the holiest site on earth less than a week before Yom Kippur is a powerful moment.
The kids all get involved too. I was amazed at the amount of children who were at the Kotel that day. It seemed as if there was a new group arriving every two minutes and the entire plaza seemed full.
Our kids also took part, but in a more unusual way. Both of our older daughters, Chaya (age 13) and Aliza (age 11) had after school tiyulim to visit the Kotel for Selichot and Tehillim and for a tour of the old city. Aliza’s began at six in the evening and she (and a friend) got back to our house at around three in the morning. Chaya’s ran all night from around ten at night until six in the morning!
They each reported that they had an awesome time (even though they didn’t understand the speeches) and that there were tons of other kids in the old city and at the kotel. My brother told me that on the night of my nephew’s tiyul there were so many busses going to Yerushalayim that their bus never got there – they just turned around and went back to Chashmonaim for Selichot.
This is apparently an annual outing for the school kids here in Israel. An Aseret Ymei Teshiva visit to the Kotel for Selichot. Can you imagine how we felt when we signed the permission slip?
Another major difference between Israel and America: the concept of “Acharei HaChagim” (after the holidays). It is amazing how many different things the schools put off until “Acharei HaChagim”.
The kids do not have their regular school days (for the most part) until “Acharei Hachagim”. Many extra curricular programs only begin “Acharei HaChagim”. We have been told to expect a total change from what we have been experiencing now, since “Acharei HaChagim” is the time when the entire system buckles down and gears up for some serious learning.
This attitude seems to pervade every area of life here. Need to have the gardener do some work? He’ll get to it “Acharei HaChag.” Looking to do some repair work in the house? The repairman will schedule you “Acharei HaChag”.
While we normally accommodate this attitude as much as we can, there was one fellow who I refused to let treat us this way. Our driving instructor.
In Israel, Olim who hold foreign driver’s licenses can drive within Israel for the first year after their Aliyah using their foreign licenses. For the second and third years they are living in Israel, while they can no longer drive within the country, they can still get an Israeli license with a minimum of fuss. If they wait too long, then they have to go through the whole licensing process including written tests, multiple (expensive) professional driving lessons and a road test.
Why is an Israeli Driver’s License so important? Most significantly, a new Oleh cannot purchase a new car using his lower tax rate benefits if he is not also the holder of an Israeli Driver’s License. Although we are still holding off before we get a new car, we want to have everything done and ready for when we need it.
Initially (as we were informed by our road test examiner earlier this week), the Israeli policy was to automatically grant an Israeli license to the holder of an foreign license. However, due to a tremendous influx of driver’s licenses (especially from countries like Russia) in recent years that were issued in return for financial payments, the government felt the need to filter out the inexperienced drivers from the experienced ones.
Accordingly, after registering an application with the appropriate governmental office, each Oleh with a foreign license must take at least one professional driving lesson as well as pass a road test in order to get an Israeli Driver’s License.
We had completed our paperwork and even given it to a highly recommended driving instructor in early August. Since all we needed was one lesson, we assumed we would be finished by the end of September at the latest. We had chosen this specific instructor based on a personal recommendation and a guarantee from one of his prior students that he knows all the examiners and that his students all pass the test on the first time.
He assured us that he would schedule lessons for us right away. Each time we phoned him, we heard another excuse about why he couldn’t get to us yet. He blamed the delays on the war, slow paperwork processing by the licensing agency (even though we had already processed all the papers by hand before he got them and even a shortage of teachers in his company.
After seven weeks of getting the runaround, we were pretty frustrated about the whole thing. We knew several couples who had already gotten their licenses and couldn’t understand why we were so delayed in getting processed.
We decided to pull out the big guns and Goldie asked me to call the instructor directly and stop being so nice about the delays. Which I did. The magic phrase was, “If you cannot schedule us for a lesson this week – we will call another instructor who will.” The lesson was scheduled within five minutes for Thursday morning.
The lesson was so tedious. Stop at the stop sign. No – a complete stop. When making a right turn, turn into the right lane. Look for traffic when you enter an intersection. And so on and so forth……
I was ready to scream by the end of my half hour “lesson”. I have been driving for over twenty years and although I have developed bad habits (the rolling stop), I know how to pass a road test. The instructor was overcautious to the point of driving me nuts and he made Goldie extremely nervous.
We went straight from our lessons to the road test facility (after a brief stop to pay the testing fee at…………you guessed it – THE POST OFFICE) to wait for our test. We had heard some real horror stories about how tough the test was and how many people fail the first time, so we didn’t know what to expect.
The test was a joke. As our examiner told us, his job is to simply make sure that our foreign licenses were not purchased illicitly and that we actually do know how to drive the car. Of the three drivers being tested in the same car, I drove for the longest amount of time; my part of the test was about four minutes long – with two of the four spent waiting at a red light.
So now we are licensed Israeli drivers. Of course we don’t actually have the licenses in our hands yet. The licensing authority (different people from the testing facility) needs at least a day to process the paperwork and their offices were closed on Friday and Yom Kippur, so one day this week I will pick up our temporary licenses. Our permanent licenses (the ones that you get in the US after a ten minute or so wait) get mailed to us in four to six weeks.
On Thursday night we got together for dinner with my sister, my brother and their spouses. When we were contemplating Aliyah, one thing I mentioned to both my siblings was that if we were to come to Israel I would insist upon our getting together on a regular basis. Living within thirty miles or so of each other, there really is no excuse for us not to, and we resolved to try to have dinner together once a month.
It is intriguing to see how we each have adapted to our new environment in different ways. My sister has been here since 1982 and is really very Israeli in how she does things. Her husband is an Israeli sephardi and she has been here for so long that she even thinks in Hebrew. She lives in an Israeli neighborhood and only two of her four children speak English (the other two will eventually learn).
My brother on the other hand has been here for six years and is still very American. He travels to America several times each year, so he is able to bring in many of the American products other Olim do not have access to, and he lives in a mixed Israeli/Anglo (English speaking) community. He certainly feels very at home here and is much more comfortable with his Hebrew and understanding of the society here than we are.
In contrast, we live in an overwhelmingly anglo neighborhood (although surprisingly, there are quite a few boys in Mordechai’s gan – age five – who only speak Hebrew) and are so new to the country that we don’t understand the news on the radio yet. We have a hard time figuring out where the bread crumbs are in the supermarket and think that we may have finally (after living here for three months) actually purchased bleach for the first time, after two previous failures.
So it is interesting for us to get together and talk about how we are all doing, since we have much more that just a simple age difference (six year range from my sister to my brother with me in the middle) between us.
Another great thing about living here……. we deliberately change the clock here on Motzeu Shabbat Teshuva so that the actual ending time of Yom Kippur is an hour earlier. This breaks up the day and psychologically seems to make the finish line much closer (even though it is the same 25 hours). We also try to hold off on moving the clock forward until after Pesach so the Seder doesn’t begin too late.
Shabbat Teshuva was a bit of a downer. Our Rav gave the drasha in Hebrew and speaks way too fast for us to understand him. I was also sick on Shabbat and was actually worried that it would affect my ability to fast (I made it OK but was a bit weaker than usual the whole way through). Goldie was sick on Sunday so we were really a bit off kilter entering into Yom Kippur.
What can I say about Yom Kippur. We started davening at 6:45 and had a one hour break, so the davening was long. Yet, it didn’t really seem to shlep much until Neilah. It was certainly weird to do the Birchat Kohanim for the third time that day during Neilah (we almost didn’t get to it in time to beat sunset).
Actually, our Rav has a makor (source) for changing the order of the davening during Neilah, shifting some of the selichot to the end of the davening in order to i) get to Birchat Kohanim before sunset and ii) have something to say for the final half hour after the Kohanim finish – without having to shlep exceedingly long.
Once again, the fact that no one really seemed to care that we went over time for about ten minutes did not seem to make a difference to anyone that I could see. We all seemed to be uplifted and inspired by the davening and I am certain that our geographical location paid a large part in that.
As we close in on our first one day Yom Tov, a point that someone made at Shabbat lunch a week ago really strikes home. We were talking about a specific family and asked our hosts, “Oh – are they Israeli, we didn’t realize.” To which our host replied, “What do you mean? WE ARE ALL ISRAELI”
Chag Kasher V’Sameach!
That’s right. In Israel, the Aseret Ymei Teshuva are a time for everyone to try to make at least one visit to the kotel. What better place to try to inspire yourself to do teshuva?
The Yeshiva went on a tiyul on Tuesday; it was actually a tiyul that I had gone on in the summer with the Southern Hemisphere (Australian and S. African) student, Ir David and the Davidman Center. While it certainly was not as thrilling the second time around (within 3 months), I will never tire of the emotions I feel when I realize that I am standing ON THE VERY SPOT where we believe David Hamelech had his palace, or that I am standing AT THE VERY PLACE where Shlomo Hamalech had his anointing.
The Tanach comes alive here in Israel. I cannot help but feel closer to G-d living here.
I can also say that Chizkiyahu’s water tunnels are a lot more fun without lights than with lights. My first time through the tunnel, none of the students knew where we were going, so they did not bring flashlights to go through. However, this group was much larger than the summer group and some of them knew that Ir David meant water tunnel, so they brought flashlights on the tiyul.
The ability to see where I was going made it a much easier walk. However, I think a major part of the thrill of the tiyul is the fact that you normally have to take it very slowly, using your hands to see where the walls and ceiling are as you make your way through.
The area around Ir David is actually an active archeological site. Interestingly, in the nine weeks since I had last been there, they had opened an entirely new section – including a new entrance into the water tunnel. Our guide had not even seen it.
Following Ir David, I went to the Kotel and left the tiyul to return to the office while the Yeshiva went to the Davidman Center to see the Southern excavations of the Kotel. Although I didn’t have the chance to daven there, being near the holiest site on earth less than a week before Yom Kippur is a powerful moment.
The kids all get involved too. I was amazed at the amount of children who were at the Kotel that day. It seemed as if there was a new group arriving every two minutes and the entire plaza seemed full.
Our kids also took part, but in a more unusual way. Both of our older daughters, Chaya (age 13) and Aliza (age 11) had after school tiyulim to visit the Kotel for Selichot and Tehillim and for a tour of the old city. Aliza’s began at six in the evening and she (and a friend) got back to our house at around three in the morning. Chaya’s ran all night from around ten at night until six in the morning!
They each reported that they had an awesome time (even though they didn’t understand the speeches) and that there were tons of other kids in the old city and at the kotel. My brother told me that on the night of my nephew’s tiyul there were so many busses going to Yerushalayim that their bus never got there – they just turned around and went back to Chashmonaim for Selichot.
This is apparently an annual outing for the school kids here in Israel. An Aseret Ymei Teshiva visit to the Kotel for Selichot. Can you imagine how we felt when we signed the permission slip?
Another major difference between Israel and America: the concept of “Acharei HaChagim” (after the holidays). It is amazing how many different things the schools put off until “Acharei HaChagim”.
The kids do not have their regular school days (for the most part) until “Acharei Hachagim”. Many extra curricular programs only begin “Acharei HaChagim”. We have been told to expect a total change from what we have been experiencing now, since “Acharei HaChagim” is the time when the entire system buckles down and gears up for some serious learning.
This attitude seems to pervade every area of life here. Need to have the gardener do some work? He’ll get to it “Acharei HaChag.” Looking to do some repair work in the house? The repairman will schedule you “Acharei HaChag”.
While we normally accommodate this attitude as much as we can, there was one fellow who I refused to let treat us this way. Our driving instructor.
In Israel, Olim who hold foreign driver’s licenses can drive within Israel for the first year after their Aliyah using their foreign licenses. For the second and third years they are living in Israel, while they can no longer drive within the country, they can still get an Israeli license with a minimum of fuss. If they wait too long, then they have to go through the whole licensing process including written tests, multiple (expensive) professional driving lessons and a road test.
Why is an Israeli Driver’s License so important? Most significantly, a new Oleh cannot purchase a new car using his lower tax rate benefits if he is not also the holder of an Israeli Driver’s License. Although we are still holding off before we get a new car, we want to have everything done and ready for when we need it.
Initially (as we were informed by our road test examiner earlier this week), the Israeli policy was to automatically grant an Israeli license to the holder of an foreign license. However, due to a tremendous influx of driver’s licenses (especially from countries like Russia) in recent years that were issued in return for financial payments, the government felt the need to filter out the inexperienced drivers from the experienced ones.
Accordingly, after registering an application with the appropriate governmental office, each Oleh with a foreign license must take at least one professional driving lesson as well as pass a road test in order to get an Israeli Driver’s License.
We had completed our paperwork and even given it to a highly recommended driving instructor in early August. Since all we needed was one lesson, we assumed we would be finished by the end of September at the latest. We had chosen this specific instructor based on a personal recommendation and a guarantee from one of his prior students that he knows all the examiners and that his students all pass the test on the first time.
He assured us that he would schedule lessons for us right away. Each time we phoned him, we heard another excuse about why he couldn’t get to us yet. He blamed the delays on the war, slow paperwork processing by the licensing agency (even though we had already processed all the papers by hand before he got them and even a shortage of teachers in his company.
After seven weeks of getting the runaround, we were pretty frustrated about the whole thing. We knew several couples who had already gotten their licenses and couldn’t understand why we were so delayed in getting processed.
We decided to pull out the big guns and Goldie asked me to call the instructor directly and stop being so nice about the delays. Which I did. The magic phrase was, “If you cannot schedule us for a lesson this week – we will call another instructor who will.” The lesson was scheduled within five minutes for Thursday morning.
The lesson was so tedious. Stop at the stop sign. No – a complete stop. When making a right turn, turn into the right lane. Look for traffic when you enter an intersection. And so on and so forth……
I was ready to scream by the end of my half hour “lesson”. I have been driving for over twenty years and although I have developed bad habits (the rolling stop), I know how to pass a road test. The instructor was overcautious to the point of driving me nuts and he made Goldie extremely nervous.
We went straight from our lessons to the road test facility (after a brief stop to pay the testing fee at…………you guessed it – THE POST OFFICE) to wait for our test. We had heard some real horror stories about how tough the test was and how many people fail the first time, so we didn’t know what to expect.
The test was a joke. As our examiner told us, his job is to simply make sure that our foreign licenses were not purchased illicitly and that we actually do know how to drive the car. Of the three drivers being tested in the same car, I drove for the longest amount of time; my part of the test was about four minutes long – with two of the four spent waiting at a red light.
So now we are licensed Israeli drivers. Of course we don’t actually have the licenses in our hands yet. The licensing authority (different people from the testing facility) needs at least a day to process the paperwork and their offices were closed on Friday and Yom Kippur, so one day this week I will pick up our temporary licenses. Our permanent licenses (the ones that you get in the US after a ten minute or so wait) get mailed to us in four to six weeks.
On Thursday night we got together for dinner with my sister, my brother and their spouses. When we were contemplating Aliyah, one thing I mentioned to both my siblings was that if we were to come to Israel I would insist upon our getting together on a regular basis. Living within thirty miles or so of each other, there really is no excuse for us not to, and we resolved to try to have dinner together once a month.
It is intriguing to see how we each have adapted to our new environment in different ways. My sister has been here since 1982 and is really very Israeli in how she does things. Her husband is an Israeli sephardi and she has been here for so long that she even thinks in Hebrew. She lives in an Israeli neighborhood and only two of her four children speak English (the other two will eventually learn).
My brother on the other hand has been here for six years and is still very American. He travels to America several times each year, so he is able to bring in many of the American products other Olim do not have access to, and he lives in a mixed Israeli/Anglo (English speaking) community. He certainly feels very at home here and is much more comfortable with his Hebrew and understanding of the society here than we are.
In contrast, we live in an overwhelmingly anglo neighborhood (although surprisingly, there are quite a few boys in Mordechai’s gan – age five – who only speak Hebrew) and are so new to the country that we don’t understand the news on the radio yet. We have a hard time figuring out where the bread crumbs are in the supermarket and think that we may have finally (after living here for three months) actually purchased bleach for the first time, after two previous failures.
So it is interesting for us to get together and talk about how we are all doing, since we have much more that just a simple age difference (six year range from my sister to my brother with me in the middle) between us.
Another great thing about living here……. we deliberately change the clock here on Motzeu Shabbat Teshuva so that the actual ending time of Yom Kippur is an hour earlier. This breaks up the day and psychologically seems to make the finish line much closer (even though it is the same 25 hours). We also try to hold off on moving the clock forward until after Pesach so the Seder doesn’t begin too late.
Shabbat Teshuva was a bit of a downer. Our Rav gave the drasha in Hebrew and speaks way too fast for us to understand him. I was also sick on Shabbat and was actually worried that it would affect my ability to fast (I made it OK but was a bit weaker than usual the whole way through). Goldie was sick on Sunday so we were really a bit off kilter entering into Yom Kippur.
What can I say about Yom Kippur. We started davening at 6:45 and had a one hour break, so the davening was long. Yet, it didn’t really seem to shlep much until Neilah. It was certainly weird to do the Birchat Kohanim for the third time that day during Neilah (we almost didn’t get to it in time to beat sunset).
Actually, our Rav has a makor (source) for changing the order of the davening during Neilah, shifting some of the selichot to the end of the davening in order to i) get to Birchat Kohanim before sunset and ii) have something to say for the final half hour after the Kohanim finish – without having to shlep exceedingly long.
Once again, the fact that no one really seemed to care that we went over time for about ten minutes did not seem to make a difference to anyone that I could see. We all seemed to be uplifted and inspired by the davening and I am certain that our geographical location paid a large part in that.
As we close in on our first one day Yom Tov, a point that someone made at Shabbat lunch a week ago really strikes home. We were talking about a specific family and asked our hosts, “Oh – are they Israeli, we didn’t realize.” To which our host replied, “What do you mean? WE ARE ALL ISRAELI”
Chag Kasher V’Sameach!
Friday, October 06, 2006
Shana Tova (Article #22) 9/28/2006
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!
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!
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)!
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