December 27, 2017 ... time to say goodbye

It's 430AM, we're in the King David Lounge at the airport and I'm NOT happy.

This has been our best visit yet. We seemed to be busier than ever, yet there are so many things we didn't do. We didn't go to any of the museums. We were at the Kotel only once, during Sukkot. The women's side was so crowded I couldn't enter, so no note in the Wall. We did go to the Galilee for the Melabev hike, but we didn't do our usual 2-day trip. I wanted to go to Hamat Gader. We did make it to the Dead Sea. I didn't do any krav maga; in fact the only exercise I got was walking, which I did everywhere. I don't know if I should get on the scale when we get home. Actually I did try something new - pole dancing. Yes, folks, the latest craze for women, especially frum girls, is pole dancing. I read about it in the El Al magazine on the way here, and it turned out that the gym where I took my one and only and never again pilates class offers pole lessons. Believe me, it's way harder than it looks. The instructor has been doing it for 8 years and she's coordinated and graceful. I managed to get about 6 inches off the floor.

We ate out more than we ate in. I did very little cooking, but managed to eat a tree's worth of olives and about 5 kilos of bageles (not a typo - these are 2 inch diameter very crisp, round dry biscuits) and an equal amount of cheese. We tried a couple of new restaurants. Angelica, which everyone raves about, isn't a place we'll go back to. Jacko's is. The goose liver, which is my absolute favorite thing to eat in Israel because outside of France it's not available anywhere else, was sensational. I told Sid I could die happy after a meal like that.

The truth is, I didn't want to leave Jerusalem. There was so much going on that we had very little down time. The days when we had nothing scheduled I usually caught up on office work. We did a lot of cultural stuff - lectures, the Oud Festival, the operetta about the NILI spy ring, the Moroccan concert, the Frank Sinatra concert and we capped it off Sunday night with a performance of the Buena Vista Social Club, direct from Cuba. We had actually gone there last year when we were in Havana. This performance was better. My classes were wonderful. I took two classes at Pardes for the first time, and was almost able to complete a full semester. My Monday morning women's class just keeps getting better and better. I took 3 tiyulim (excursions) with a fabulous archaeologist, and one tiyul known in Hebrew as a yom kef, which means a day of fun. It consisted of performances by singers, a comedian, a Russian balled duo, and a fashion show. Obviously meant for women of a certain age, there were a few reluctant husbands who got dragged along. Mine wasn't one of them.

Socially we were also busy. A housewarming, a bar matzvah, a bat mitzvah, a cocktail party, Shabbat meals.

And we had excellent weather. It's not good for Israel, and they've already declared this a drought year. But for us it was great. We had a couple of days of rain, most recently on Sunday and Monday, when it poured. Otherwise sunny and in the 60's and 70's, which is unseasonable.

It's now Friday morning. The flights were fine and we had a nice driver from O'Hare - an Iraqi Assyrian  who's been in the US since 1980. The weather, however, is awful. It had snowed some time in the past week, not much but enough to be plowed. The temperatures are in the single digits + our infamous windchill. Not engendered to make me happy to be back. 

Already planning the next trip - some time in July for a month or 6 weeks.

Shabbat shalom from Chicago,

Peggy and Sid

PS - I only gained a kilo.

'Tis the Season

The Jewish year is filled with holidays and celebrations. In fact, there is only 1 month of the Jewish calendar that doesn't have any. Hanukkah is a minor holiday. In order to know what that means you have to understand what the major ones are. Basically they are the ones ordained in the Torah - Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot). The  post-Biblical holidays such as Purim and Hanukkah are considered minor, but still very important.

The holiday celebrates a miracle that occurred after a victorious rebellion in the year 200 BCE (give or take a few years) against the ruling Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, who essentially outlawed Judaism and profaned the Temple in Jerusalem. (Current scholarship claims it also had elements of a civil war, but I'll leave that to the scholars.) The miracle was that a one-day supply of untainted oil lasted eight days, which was how long it took to harvest, press and transport olive oil to Jerusalem. The oil was used to light the Temple's menorah, and had to be kosher. 

The only religious rituals are to light a special candelabra called a hanukkiah, and ideally place it in a window for all to see. No, it's not a menorah. A menorah has 7 candles, a hanukkiah has 9.

Hanukkah didn't become a big deal until the 20th Century, and for all the wrong reasons. Yes, I am a grinch. In certain parts of Europe it was customary to give kids a few coins, but that was about it. Because of timing, cultural influences, and let's face it, a dilution of Jewish traditions and practices, Hanukkah found itself competing with what I consider the unfortunate aspect Christmas - gimme gimme gimme. Today gift giving and decorating are what define both holidays for a lot of people. We aren't better off for the loss of spirituality.

Like any Jewish holiday, Hanukkah has it's culinary traditions, in this case oil. In Eastern Europe the  food that is linked to Hanukkah is latkes (potato pancakes). In the Middle East and North Africa it's sfinge (a churro type of donut). In Israel it's sufganiyot (jelly donuts). 

Latkes. I made two varieties this year - carrot/zucchini and traditional potato.

Sfinge. Yafit's specialty.

Original jelly donuts. Simple, uncomplicated, strawberry or raspberry, take your pick.

Over the years sufganiyot have evolved from basic raspberry or strawberry filled donuts to the astounding variety available today. Every year something new gets added. The latest twist is savory sufganiyot, filled with meat and tehina. Turn up your nose if you want, but they've really caught on. (Ever hear of chicken and waffles?) 

How do you pick just one?

When I look at sufganiyot I see way beyond temptation and calories. They are a metaphor for Israel. There are many reasons why Israel is the amazing success story that it is. Creative thinking, problem solving, dreaming big, asking why not and not fearing to fail. All of these characteristics are embodied in these wonderful pastries, which have gone from simple to astounding in just 70 years.

Wishing you a very happy Hanukkah and Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,

Peggy and Sid

Witnessing History

Ever since Trump was elected one of the threads of conversation among supporters of Israel is will he or won't he move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Many voiced the opinion that it was just the price of admission to get the "Jewish" vote. Others viewed it through the prism of candidate Trump - he had no need to bribe any particular constituency. Looking back on the campaign, it was more thematic than specific. He talked about the principles and values of flyover America that got him elected. The shock and reaction still reverberate. The Democrats would rather die than cooperate. The Republicans would rather go down in flames than cooperate. Appointments and legislation are stuck in limbo. Leaks coming from government departments border on treason. Every thing is politicized. Anarchy seems to be just around the corner.

Every president since Gerald Ford has promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, where it belongs. It is scandalous that the capitol of a sovereign nation isn't recognized, especially by its nominal strongest ally. I don't know of any other country that is subjected to this kind of humiliation. Moving the embassy has been a law in the United States since 1995, and was reaffirmed six months ago by Congress almost unanimously (a miracle considering how fractured Congress is). So how is it that every president since 1995 (Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump) has been able to get away with not enforcing this law? By a little loophole called a waiver, that has to be signed every 6 months. Since 1995 the one thing every president has in common is their adherence to signing that waiver. In May, when Trump signed, the reaction was deja view all over again. This was compounded when he decided the pick up the gauntlet of solving the Israel-Palestine crisis. A lot of people were disappointed and figured that Trump, like all his predecessors, was just saying whatever he had to say to get elected.

There was a lot of speculation during the past week about a forthcoming announcement concerning the embassy relocation. Will he/won't he? Is it just more hype? Will he again cave to the received wisdom that any change in the status quo will cause the entire middle east to go up in flames?

On Wednesday Sid and I watched the speech that will go down in history. As I listened to the precise and carefully crafted speech, I thought back to November 29, 1947 and May 14, 1948. People were glued to their radios listening to the UN Partition Plan vote and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel. I thought about the blood and struggle that accompanied Israel's creation, and the wars that have been fought ever since. I thought about ramifications and repercussions, about doing and failing to do, about risks for peace and land for peace. As he's done since the day he announced his candidacy, Trump made it clear that he was breaking the mold (Let Trump Be Trump). In so many words he quoted Einstein's definition of insanity and said enough is enough, no more.

No, the sky won't fall. Security has been ramped up for the promised 3 days of rage that will come and go. But this is nothing new. There is terrorism every day here, but it's not reported outside of Israel. Last week alone an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death in Arad. A 70-year old was the target of a car ramming. He was only slightly wounded, but a bystander was severely injured. A group of kids on a hike was attacked by an Arab lynch mob. The 70-year old and the parents accompanying the hikers were armed and shot their assailants. More Arabs will be killed and wounded because of their self-inflicted violence than Israelis. This has been the case ever since the first of the Arab refusals. The fact has to be mentioned, over and over and over, that if the Arabs had accepted the UN Partition Plan, which gave THEM a state of their own, today they would be making plans to celebrate 70 years of statehood. They would have had everything they claim to want - independence, sovereignty, self-determination. And all that hysteria and hyperbole about blowing up the peace process and the two-state solution? There is no peace and there is no process. If there was any intention by the Arabs of working things out, their leadership would have called for quiet rather than violence. The goal was, is, and always will be to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. They don't want a state, peace or prosperity. It's beyond me that people still don't get that.

And by the way, where was the outrage back in April when Russia recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capitol? Where were the demonstrations against the Czech Republic, which did the same? What about burning the flags of other countries, from Belgium to the Phillipines, that are looking at real estate in Jerusalem? Betcha didn't know that, right? Because it wasn't reported, because there was no rioting in the streets of Ramallah and Gaza, and because the press only reports what makes Israel and the US look bad.

No one should make assumptions about where this will lead. Personally I think the best possible scenario is the absence of violence and terror because there will never be peace until the Arabs decide that's what they really want. Golda Meir said there will be peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate ours. That was 45 years ago, and they are more willing than ever before to use their children as suicide bombers and human shields. A desire for peace has to come from the bottom up, because it certainly won't come from their leadership. In high school, when we studied about the 100 Years War, I couldn't understand how something could go on for that long. Now I do.

In spite of the hysteria, life continues as normal. We had a lovely couple of days at the Dead Sea, one of our favorite places in the world, and we celebrated another bar mitzvah - Moshe and Liat's son Yaniv. Last night we had dinner with Dori and her boyfriend Itzik in Tel Aviv. The big excitement was getting home. Our bus broke down about 15 minutes outside of Jerusalem. While boarding another bus that stopped to pick us up, someone told us if there were no seats left on this bus another would be coming in 5-10 minutes. We were more concerned with getting back to Jerusalem and didn't mind standing. But several people insisted on giving up their seats for us; there are advantages to being, ahem, older. When we got to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, the local bus to take us home was waiting and we hopped on. We didn't even get to the next stop and the bus hit a roadblock.  A police car had cordoned off the street and there was no place to turn around so we were stuck for about 20 minutes. We thought it might be more demonstrations by the ultra-orthodox fringe against having to register for the draft. But when they finally let traffic resume I saw the reason for the hold-up - the van from the bomb squad. False alarm, and a fact of everyday life here.

View from our hotel room with the Dead Sea and Moab Mountains of Jordan

Sid, relaxed after a massage

Shabbat shalom from Israel's capitol,

Peggy and Sid

Melabev

In 2013 Sid and I decided to see what it would be like to spend a few months in Israel. We selected the months of November, December and January. We got to experience Thanksgivukkah, the very first time Thanksgiving and Hanukkah coincided (an event that won't be repeated for another 10,000 years), in a place that would give the event special meaning. It was the year of the toaster oven turkey, the postage stamp size apartment, and the meter and a half snowstorm that paralyzed Jerusalem for 5 days. Our granddaughter Dori had made aliya and was getting ready to enlist in the IDF, our granddaughter Meital spent a semester at Muss high school in Beer Sheva, and we celebrated our grandson Nir's bar mitzvah. 

It was also the 10th Melabev Hike for Alzheimer's.

One day I was reading the Jerusalem Post and saw an ad for a hike being sponsored by an organization I had never heard of, in memory of someone Sid knew who had early onset Alzheimer's. I said we have to get involved with this. A couple of phone calls later we were signed up for a hike in the Judean Desert, along with about 50 other people. We have supported Melabev ever since.

Melabev was founded in 1981 for the comprehensive care of dementia patients. Services include day care centers, support groups for family members and caregivers, wellness calls, placing qualified home care workers, at-home therapeutic activities, a memory clinic, a proprietary software program of mind-stimulating exercises, a Neuronix Clinic and ground-breaking research unit.

I have toured their facility in Jerusalem and spoken with many on the professional staff. Everything about this organization impresses me, but some things stand out. They have a unit, composed strictly of volunteers, who make daily wellness calls to older adults living alone. In addition to saying hello, they provide practical help such as errands and home repair services, and referrals to other non-profits who provide medical equipment and meals. The at-home services include therapeutic activities such as art, gardening, fitness and cognitive stimulation for home-bound patients as well as in nursing homes. Support groups not only support families and caregivers, but also serve as networking centers for people who have to navigate the maze of bureaucracy in order to receive the benefits and services they are entitled to.

Melabev also has a research unit which developed Savion, a computer program designed to maintain and improve memory. The most exciting and optimistic breakthrough is Neuronix, which combines cognitive training and electromagnetic brain stimulation. The system has been proven to work in studies at Harvard and the treatment has been approved by the Israeli Ministry of Health as well as European Commission. Knowing how Europe feels about anything coming out of Israel, their approval really means something.

So yes, this episode is a request for funds.

Sid and I just completed a two-day hike in the Galilee for the 2017 Hike for Alzheimer's. We selected the "moderate" route; from time to time it was moderate, but at other times it was very challenging. When you do something like this there is a big sense of accomplishment, but in the end it's really all about raising funds for this remarkable organization. We urge you to donate in support:

http://hike4alz.melabev.org/hikers/

Just click on one of our names (or both if you insist) and sponsor us in any amount. Feel free to tell your friends. You will be doing a huge mitzvah and contributing to the quality of life for alzheimer's patients and their families. And maybe one day coming up with a treatment for this heart breaking disease. You will have our eternal gratitude.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem,

Peggy and Sid

The "moderate route" group. We started at Rosh Hanikra.

These nasty bushes were the challenge.
Thorns and thistles, and they hurt when you got stuck.

This is what serves as a trail marker in Israel.

Uh-oh. Are we lost?

This is Chen. At 4'10", she was the security guard and paramedic.
She was a paramedic in the Border Patrol.

We made it to the end!

Our post-hike stop was the Bahai Gardens in Akko.