Pre-Channuka Shabbat December 16-17, 2022

 With Canada out of the World Cup, are there still people interested in the “Mondial” tournament except for the countries participating? Of course! Why do you think it’s a World Cup? In particular, the semi-finals were very polarizing here in Israel. As you may know (like I said, you may have stopped following when Canada was jettisoned from play by more experienced teams), one Semifinal was Argentina and Croatia, and one France and Morocco. All over Israel you can find lots of French Expats, and lots of Moroccan Expats (kind of like Montreal, except in the Jewish community where the Moroccans appear to outnumber those from France). Argentina is a sentimental favorite too, because of Lionel Messi, who has visited Israel several times. Indeed, the bars and streets were very busy watching soccer. In Netanya, where we have our apartment, the city centre square has a large screen with lots of chairs set up for people to sit and watch the games. So, the France-Argentina finals on Sunday will be a big deal here!  

Back to the events of the week…we pick up in Petach Tikvah. Ariel and Gila cooked up a storm, supplemented by some take-out from Jerusalem. We went to synagogue (including services on the grounds outside their condo building, attended by over 100 people under the stars!) and played with the kids. Elisha, Ora and Adi were in great form, with the biggest problem being how to make sure everyone gets a turn sitting next to everyone else (more complex than solving a Rubix Cube). Saturday night we went out with old friends Michal and Ronen Sela. Ronen was a vice principle at our kids’ school over 20 years ago and they lived on our street. It was great to catch up, follow the exploits of their kids who are growing up (some even having their own kids) and coincidentally, celebrating Ronen’s birthday. 

 In the planning for this extended stay in Israel we built in work time for the first couple of weeks, but that did not preclude doing other things…such as taking advantage of the beautiful weather (yes, I know, cold and snowy back home this weekend, sorry) and taking a long stroll along the beach in Netanya. The surf was quiet, a few “polar bears” were swimming, others boating, but at about 20C it was the perfect temperature for a walk. On Monday morning, we went wine tasting to a winery that we had never heard of that happened to be in the vicinity of Netanya. Alexander Winery is run by the grandson of a Tunisian Family who learned wine making in Italy and brought this art to Israel. It’s a small boutique winery which produces 50-60000 bottles a year, almost all for export. They have won multiple awards using grapes from Northern Israel (very much like Nappa valley grapes) and have developed a local vineyard and are working on wines which are based on grapes grown in the warner Mediterranean climate near Netanya. I must admit, the selection of wines we tasted were all excellent! 

A sidebar. Residents of Montreal are likely to agree that municipal or even provincial construction projects appear to take a tremendous amount of time. The refurbishing of the Lafontaine Tunnel in projected to take 3 years. The Ville Marie took 4 years. Repaving one block of Emerson in Cote St Luc took almost 4 months!! Not to mention the project in downtown Montreal, when the destroyed the sidewalks to redo the infrastructure, paved them after 6 months, then destroyed them again to put in Hydro, then again to put in gas…you get the idea. So, here’s the contrast. Going to Elan’s home on the outskirts of Jerusalem (or just about anywhere else in the city) necessitates coming in on highway 1, going through “Knisat Hair” or the Gateway to the City, which was more like “The Bottleneck to the City” into lots of traffic, twists and turns. This time, as we are speeding along highway 1, Waze tells us to take highway 16. We had never heard of Highway 16! OK, so this is a highway that was built with a tunnel through a mountain, started about a year ago and completed 18 months ahead of schedule! We bypassed the congestion and traffic and this new highway took us right to the Begin Expressway, which bisects Jerusalem and takes us to the highway to Efrat. We probably saved 20+ minutes in the process. This is reminiscent of building two tunnels that cut down travel to Haifa by 20-30 minutes which opened when Monty and Daniella lived there. I can’t say I know how they pull of these engineering feats, and I am sure that the lack of freezing weather contributes to the efficiency. However, it’s very impressive to see 2 or 3 lane highways being widened all over the country and infrastructure projects that are completed on time if not earlier! 

 So now, the piece de resistance! Unfortunately, we rarely get to go to school recitals for the kids. So when we learned that Shlomo and Nadav’s school was hosting a Grandparents day on the 16th of December, we were very excited. They called the day “Sababa”, a play on words. Sababa is used in Hebrew slang like we use “awesome” (a bit overused, but you get the idea) and is also a play on the Hebrew words for Grandfather (Saba) and Grandmother (Savta). So we got to see the kid’s school, a presentation on a project the whole school took part in on Acts of Charity and Kindness within their community, Hanukkah songs and music by the school band. That topped off an evening program on Thursday night when I took Nadav and Shlomo to a family learning session which was attended by lots of kids and parents at their school and gave me the pleasure of studying with 2 grandsons in person! 

 Following a successful Grandparent’s day, we will spend Shabbat in Efrat with Nomi, Elan, Shoshana, Shlomo, Nadav, Aryeh and Eitan and lighting the first Hanukkah candles here. 

With Hanukkah starting on Sunday night, we hope that everyone has a bright and inspiring Shabbat Shalom and A Festival of Lights that brings warmth and peace to all. Barbara and Bruce 

 Happy Birthday Elaine! 

Happy Birthday Danielle! 

Happy 12th Birthday Shlomo! 

Missing Auntie Rose who would have celebrated her 102nd birthday today. No one celebrated life like Aunt Rose!