It seems like such a long time since I have reached out with a blog. I guess that after almost six months of doing this once a week, the hiatus feels super long. And indeed it is! But, we are back on line because, as you may have guessed, we are back visiting our family in Israel.
Now, we have to take a step back and tell everyone what machinations we went through to get here. As you know, there are very few airlines now that are flying to Israel, and this changes literally monthly (sometimes daily!). This means you book one ticket and then you adapt as the time goes on. El Al is the most consistent, but not always the most available. Otherwise, the most common routes these days are via Athens or Cyprus, or Dubai. We purchased tickets in July, flying via Munich. We learned that these were cancelled in November, so we were rerouted, via Emirates to Dubai and then on the Emirates version of Air Canada Rouge, FlyDubai. This meant flying 4 hours past Israel, and then retracing our steps via the Gulf over all kinds of places we normally would not visit, such as Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Maybe in the near future, the situation will change and visiting the neighboring countries will not be so unusual.
Before we land in Israel, a quick update stateside. Just to be sure we arrived in Israel exhausted (but happy) we visited Cleveland the previous Shabbat. We arrived there on Thursday which allowed us to have a treat in Cleveland’s best Kosher restaurant with Monty, Daniella, Tali and Ezra. Friday after the kids came home from school we set up for Shabbat and celebrated Tali’s 13th birthday with great Shabbat meals and some very creative cakes! Tali had a group of friends come over to share the cake on Shabbat afternoon. On Sunday we were treated to Ezra acing his Jujitsu class and then doing the same at basketball tryouts, and then we motored home in record time!
We landed on Friday afternoon last week (which is why there was no blog last week!) and headed off to Petach Tikvah for Shabbat at Gila and Ariel’s house. There were very warm greetings from Elisha, Ora and Adi, and time for some games and opening pre-Chanukah presents (what, you don’t give out pre-Channukah (or pre-Christmas) presents? What’s wrong with you?). There was, of course lots of good food for Shabbat. The neighborhood Ariel lives in just opened a new synagogue across the street from their house. It’s great for them and their kids enjoy going there; Elisha even led the completion of the service. After a lunch, some games and the park, we ended Shabbat and Barbara and I moved on to Netanya.
The rest of the week kind of creeped by or flew by, depending on your perspective. The above mentioned Dubai flight was a day flight, so perhaps because of that or because we are getting older, but jet lag was particularly stubborn on this trip. The nights dragged on and, the days were shorter because by the time we got up it was…later. However, by Wednesday we had no excuse; our friend from Baltimore, Michelle Schwartz was arriving at 8:30 AM so everyone had to be up and ready to roll. Barbara picked up Michelle from the train station and after breakfast we went to the Anu Museum, or the Museum of Us. This was formerly The Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University, which was a history of Jewish Communities outside of Israel. We were given a tour by Michelle and Eddie’s cousin Tzvika, a volunteer tour guide there. The new museum format was updated to stress the diversity of the Jewish People, with a lot of AV and Digital exhibits instead of the traditional artefacts and reading. It certainly seems to be better set up for kids than the last place. There is also some cool stuff on Jewish Comedy and Jewish Cooking which we checked out. It’s hard to compare, but I think we found it a bit watered down or oversimplified, as they try to pack 3000+ years of Jewish history into 3 exhibit floors, but we probably need to go back since we spent only about 2.5 hours and saw all 3 floors.
After the museum, we went back to Ariel and Gila’s and had dinner with the kids. We decided to barbecue since in December in Montreal, that’s a rarity, but here, there are few days that you can’t barbecue! After a great meal we picked up Michelle, and took off back to Netanya.
Thursday, we brought Michelle to her relatives (she’s here for her niece’s wedding) and then picked Elan from the airport and went off to Efrat, to see Nomi and the kids there. Everyone in both families is getting so grown up! Particularly Shlomo, who must have grown 6 inches since we saw him this summer. The BBQ concept went over so well the night before we repeated it on Thursday evening. Friday AM was Grandparent’s Day at Nadav and Shlomo’s School (Yom Sababa in Hebrew, a play on words because Saba and Savta mean grandfather and grandmother, respectively, and Sababa is slang for awesome, which we are…LOL). We got treated to concerts and activities including Nadav being in a guitar ensemble playing Chanukah songs. This was followed by shopping and preparing for Shabbat with Eitan and Aryeh hanging out playing next to us and Shoshana and Shlomo helping with all the preparations. Lot's of Chanukah music in the background too!
So, now that we packed 3 shabbat descriptions into one post, it’s time to sign off and send it around! Next week there will be a bit more about what’s going on here, the mood of the country, as well as the beginning of Chanukah and some fun things like volunteering and going to Nomi’s brother’s wedding! So, stay tuned!
We wish you a warm, wonderful Shabbat Shalom!
Happy Chanukah!
Merry Christmas!
Barbara and Bruce
Happy Birthday to Tali!
Happy Birthday to Adi!
Happy Birthday to Shlomo!
Happy Birthday to Danielle!
Happy Birthday to Zander!
Happy Birthday to Elaine!
Welcome to Haim Fruchter who is coming this week to be Canada’s representative in the International Adult Bible Contest (Chidon Hatanach)
Mazel tov to Caroline and Daniel Cruz and Grandparents Sheila and Bill Booth on the birth of a baby girl!
Sincere condolences to David and Carol Novosellor and the passing of Rabbi Moshe Novosellor, David's father. We had many a wonderful Shabbat meal and discussion in Rabbi Novosellor's company and he will be greatly missed.
Refuah Shelema and a Speedy Recovery to Yoseph ben Shendel
