Two weeks left

There's a well known Rabbi in town, Beryl Wein, who has a lecture series on Saturday nights in the winter. We've attended several in the years we've been coming here for an extended stay. The topic this year is 100 years later - how World War 1 continues to affect the world and the Jewish people today. I wish we were staying longer (for all kinds of reasons) to be able to hear all 10 lectures. He's a very good speaker, another one who doesn't use notes which seems to be de rigueur around here. 

As our time here winds down I've had to pack a lot of things into the calendar that I've more or less put off. This week it was getting together with Timna, an American-Israeli friend from Chicago who came back to Israel after 20+ years in the States. We met for coffee and then went to a play that a co-worker was in. The play, surprisingly well written and acted by an amateur theatre group, touched all the points on the emotional scale. 

Everyone knows The Hunt for Red October. This week it was The Hunt for Colonia. The first question is: what is Colonia? I've been hearing about it for years. It's supposed to cure everything. My friends swear by it. It heals cuts and bruises. It helps an upset stomach. It's good for aching joints. Etc. If it's such a great product you'd think you could find it everywhere. Actually not. There is one little hole-in-the-wall store in Tel Aviv that sells it. So on Wednesday Batsheva and I hopped on a bus to Tel Aviv (the sleazy part) for a little shopping trip. 

Tel Aviv has two central bus stations - the old one and the new one. Duh. The old one is really something to see. In its heyday, which wasn't so long ago, it was a destination in itself. It's 6 stories tall and was essentially a big shopping mall with a bus depot attached. Unfortunately it's in an unfortunate part of town. Up till a couple years ago there were a lot of homeless squatters who made camp in a park outside the station. It's not the sort of place you'd want to walk around at night. But during the day it's fine, and that's where the Levinsky Market is. The market neighborhood used to be mostly Turkish, and that's where you go for authentic Turkish products, of which Colonia is one. Then it was a matter of finding the shop. We looked into a couple of the small stores, and finally had to ask someone. Where can we buy Colonia? Everyone knew, of course. Go to the shop next to the bakery.  

The shop owner was typical of the small businessmen of a generation that I thought died out a long time ago. Surly. Unfriendly. But he was the Colonia guy, so you just have to put up with him. We asked for 8 one litre bottles. He had 7 on the shelf. He tried to sell us one of the larger bottles. We said no, we want 8 of litre size. He made a big show of looking for an 8th bottle and then miraculously, on the shelf below, he found an entire carton full one one litre bottles. We had to bargain, of course. After all we were buying in bulk. So he agreed to lower the price by 2 and a half shekels, to 35 shekels per bottle. 

Levinsky Market in the sleazy part of town

The shop, the ONLY shop, that sells Colonia.
Behind the owner is a shelf full.
The only other things he sells are large cans of anchovies, lots of olives
and some smoked and pickled fish.

From Levinsky we went to another market, the famous Carmel Market. It was a quick bus ride away. We walked around for a while and then went to get something for lunch at a great Yeminite restaurant called Mangana.

Busy, bustling Carmel Market

After lunch we made our way to the new bus station and caught the bus back to Jerusalem. Fortunately the traffic flowed and we got to Jerusalem at 430PM, a bit later than I wanted because I had to meet my friend Bevie at Hebrew University for a harp concert that started a 5. Traffic was pretty congested so I hopped in a taxi. We went a couple of blocks and then it was a parking lot. Traffic jams in Jerusalem are legendary, and this was epic. Long story short, I got there with 5 minutes to spare. The concert was lovely. It was the first time I'd seen a harp played from up close. Who knew there were foot pedals?

Hanukkah starts Sunday night. On Monday everyone is coming over here. I should think about what to make. On Wednesday we're going to Madrid, not something I'd recommend in the winter. But Batsheva is turning 70 and instead of a party she wanted to go abroad. I don't think she cared about the destination. No one consulted me; I would have said somewhere warm-ish like Greece, Sicily, Malta or Cyprus. The kids decided on Madrid, which is what happens when the kids are in charge. I'm not taking my laptop to Spain, so next week's post will be delayed by a few days.

Shabbat shalom and Hanukkah sameach from Jerusalem,
Peggy and Sid

Connections, Culture and Cocktails

Busy week ...

Started the week (Sunday and Monday) by going to our regular classes. After the Monday class I had lunch with my friend Bevie, who I've known for close to 50 years. And she looks almost the same as she did back then. It was supposed to be a quick lunch because she had things to do, but as usual when we get together it's not less than 3 hours. On the way to lunch we popped in for a quick tour of the new Ibis Hotel that (finally) opened on Ben Yehuda Street. It, like most things in Israel, has been under construction for years longer than it should have been. 

We had a bat mitzvah on Tuesday night. Naturally I couldn't show up without a visit to my hairdresser, Nabil. I met Batsheva at the salon, we both had our hair done and then went to lunch. Another 3 hour event.

By their head covering shall you know them. There are a number of communities on the spectrum of orthodoxy here. Most of our friends are modern orthodox, known in the vernacular as "kipa srgua" (knitted kipa). Just as it sounds, the men wear crocheted kipas and many of the married women cover their hair with scarves or hats, sometimes but not always. Women in this group are usually more participatory in religious activities, but not at the same level as men. (Feminist alert: You are not a man and never will be. There is no such thing as "gender neutral". Get over yourselves.) The idea of having a bat mitzvah for girls is fairly recent. Because girls don't participate in the same way boys do, a bat mitzvah is usually just a party, reminiscent of a sweet 16. Still this is a way to acknowledge that at age 12 girls are excepted to take on the role of an adult Jewish woman.

We went to the bat mitzvah of the granddaughter of good friends of ours from Chicago. I love these events. It's not about the party, it's about continuity. Another generation assuming the role of a Jewish adult. Of course, there is context. The grandfather is a survivor of multiple concentration camps. For him to see his grandchildren living in Israel, growing up religious, maintaining the values, practices and traditions, has a meaning that far exceeds the usual grandparents' and parents' nachas (pride). 

Proud parents Miryam and Eli, with bat mitzvah daughter Yael

Saba (grandfather) and Yael

Batia and Arnold

The culture part of this week's post was on Wednesday afternoon.  We've seen the permanent exhibits at the Israel Museum a thousand times; unless there's a special exhibit we usually don't go. This time there were four. We spent the whole afternoon there, which tested the limits of endurance. The exhibits were excellent, spanning archaeology, mythology, literature, clothing, photography and video.

We had lunch yesterday with Doris and Norm, friends from Chicago who are literally the accidental immigrants. They came on a visit a couple years ago and never went back. A health issue occurred that made it pretty much impossible for Norm to travel. They were fortunate to have people who cleaned out and sold their home, and shipped the items they wanted to keep. We got together with them during our last visit (summer 2018). They looked fantastic then, and continue to do so. They have a great apartment, kids, grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren who keep tabs on them, and have never been happier. They are both in their 90's and have been married 72 years. 

After visiting Norm and Doris, we went to our friend Ida's for cocktails. She's a great cook and hostess and has delightful friends. A wonderful way to unwind.

Ida with Jeff and Diane

Self explanatory

Ida with Sam and Debra

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem,

Peggy and Sid

Another calendar page turns over ...

Well here it is December and I'm mentally counting down the days we have left. Then I look at my to-do list to see how many things I can squeeze in and I'm starting to realize just  how little time that is. Considering we will be in Spain (more about that in an upcoming post) for a week at the end of the month, we only have 3 weeks netto, as they say here.

Besides joining a gym, I've been busy training with Shefa and my original krav maga teacher, Moshe. We met on Tuesday at a large public park, Gan Sacker, and trained outside, Yes, it was that warm. We trained for 3 hours, split between learning the finer points of momentum and leverage and disarming guns and knives. Very cool stuff.

Learning to push off an attacker.

It's hard to see, but that yellow thing is a gun. A training gun.

On Wednesday we went to Tel Aviv to meet Dori and Itzik, her bf, for lunch. We took the train and it was very quick and efficient. Once we got to Tel Aviv we had to take a local bus to the Carmel Market to meet Dori. The hardest part of the transportation was locating the bus stop. The train station is connected to the bus station by a bridge that goes over a major highway, so they are more or less together, which solves the confusion of two weeks ago when Sid went back to Sar-el. They have done a lot of renovations, but someone forgot to tell them to make signage for the buses. The bus parking lot is huge. The bus stop signs are small. I asked a driver where the #18 bus was and he replied, in typical Israeli fashion, over there. So we walked "over there", and finally found it. The rest was a piece of cake. We met at Erez Hatemani, one of the hole in the wall restaurants in the Yeminite Quarter, which used to be a slum and is now prime real estate. Location, location, location. It's very close to the beach and the Bauhaus neighborhood.  We sat outside; yes, it was that warm. It's always interesting to talk to young Israelis about their plans for the future, which usually include a several-months break before settling down to the working world. This, of course, is after the several-months post-army trip. I'm all for it. If you don't do it when you're young by the time you get around to it you're too old. These trips involve hiking, backpacking, hitchhiking. camping, hostels and local buses. 

After lunch Sid and I went to Liebling Haus, a new museum in the Bauhaus neighborhood. It opened in September with a special exhibit called Transferumbau (Transfer Agreements), which was the name of a program between 1933-1939 that made it possible to get some assets out of Germany. This is a little-known chapter of the pre-War Holocaust. Jews who had the foresight and means to get out of Germany and go to the Mandate were prohibited from taking assets with them. A program was set up between the German government and the Jewish Agency whereby Jews could sell assets, deposit them in a bank, and purchase construction materials with those funds. While Liebling Haus was being renovated walls that through time had been plastered over and floors that had been re-tiled were uncovered. Lo and behold German building materials from the 1930's were uncovered: wall and floor tiles manufactured by Villeroy & Boch, plumbing fixtures, doorknobs, building materials etc made by other German companies. The curators mounted photographs of the two families that lived in the building, along with photographic collages of the rehab work. A small and highly personal account of two families who were forced by circumstances to flee the homeland they loved, where they had lived for generations to a hot, dusty, primitive city where they didn't know the language or customs, but knowing they were among the lucky ones who got away with their lives and at least some of their possessions and assets.

Getting ready for an overnight guest and candles are in 15 minutes.

Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem,

Peggy and Sid