Chag Samech and Chag Atzuv

My husband is a master of Derech Eretz, so I know he would encourage me to start this post with what I most appreciated about the last few days.  I'm taking his unspoken advice and starting there.

Monday afternoon, we met my former brother-in-law for lunch in Jerusalem.  He was visiting Israel with his second wife and their friends as part of a cruise that included stops in Haifa and Ashdod.  We first met when I was the age my 16 year-old daughter is now.  Though our paths in life diverged considerably, his sons are my cherished nephews and it was an extraordinary gift to share a meal and to be able to walk with him, even for just a few minutes, through the streets of Jerusalem.  It's been said that, when you live in Israel, eventually, everyone you know comes to visit. In the few months we've been here, we've had a handful of visits from people we know from The Old Country and I already see how that saying is not far from the truth.

Monday night, we ate in the sukkah of old and dear friends.  They had a few other families over and one guest described the experience of living in Israel so well, it bears repeating.  The joy of being a Jew living in Israel is not a non-stop feeling of ecstasy, for who can sustain that?  The joy of living in Israel is having a sense of shleimut, of wholeness, of contentedness, knowing that you are where you belong.  That sounded exactly right to me.

After dinner, a few of us went to the Beit Shemesh Festival, a free concert with lawn seating and a huge proportion of Jewish teens who all seem to know one another from camp, school and youth group activities.  Even though the music was not familiar to me, the mood was joyful, my host was full of simcha and I felt happy to be celebrating among a thousand or more other Jews during our national, week-long holiday.

Tuesday morning, we were privileged to return to Ben Gurion Airport to welcome more family Home. Their aliyah is a miracle to me. Although we are related through a marriage that did not last, we remained close over the years.  We lived a block apart in Baltimore and, for the past decade, we spent countless Shabbat meals discussing the merits of life in Israel over life in the US.

I'll be honest.  I didn't believe they would really come.  And yet, it was both surreal and thrilling to greet them at the airport and to follow them back to their new home.  I've watched dozens of families plan for aliyah and I have never seen a family do it like this.  They pulled the whole thing off - from making the aliyah decision to landing in Israel - in two months.  They were gifted with so much help from Above that one cannot but conclude that they most definitely got a personal invitation from Hashem to live here.  And now, we have the indescribable pleasure of having six more people who we love living here.

Tuesday afternoon, we ate our last meal  in our sukkah and I was surprised by the tears that sprang up in my eyes upon reciting the brief prayer for taking one's leave from the sukkah: "May it be Your will, Hashem, our G-d and the G-d of our ancestors, that just as I have fulfilled the mitzvah and dwelled in this Sukkah, so may I merit in the coming year to dwell in the Sukkah of the skin of the Leviathan.  Next year in Jerusalem."  I have never before felt so indescribably emotional at the end of Sukkot.

WARNING: This rest of this post contains sadness.

And then came Simchas Torah.  In Israel, Simchas Torah and Shemini Atzeret are the same day.  For as many years as I have been observant, I have had a painful relationship with Simchas Torah.  It all started 21 years ago when, during my first year living as a Torah-observant Jew, I experienced the shock of my first Simchas Torah.

As I did before every new Jewish experience that first year, I read all about the observance of Simchas Torah in advance.  The books I read proclaimed joyously that, "On Simchas Torah, everyone gets an aliyah! Everyone gets to dance with the Sefer Torah on Simchas Torah!"  So, in my innocence, I assumed that meant everyone gets to dance with the Sefer Torah on Simchas Torah.

I went to the synagogue in happy anticipation.  When the evening service was done and the mechitza was rolled away to make a large space for dancing, my excitement increased.

And then I noticed that all the women pulled out folding chairs, poured themselves cups of Diet Coke and began to chat among themselves while the men danced with the simcha of the Torah.

My disappointment was enormous.  My sadness was deep.  My resentment was huge.

Over the next few years, I tried to cope in creative ways.  One year, I organized a women's circle in my home during the hakafot.  A few dozen women came to share Torah thoughts with one another.  The next week, the rabbi of that community spoke about how men dancing with the Sifrei Torah are bringing down kedusha from the Heavens and that the women must be there to receive it or else their dancing is in vain. After that, the women were unwilling to leave the shul during hakafot.

One year, I tried to organize women's hakafot in a completely separate, private location.  I called a dozen or more Orthodox rabbis in Baltimore to borrow a Sefer Torah, but not a single rabbi would lend us one. And not a single rabbi could give me a reason that was any more compelling than, "It's not done."  And, to add to my pain, many of the people I spoke to in those years, rabbis included, made me feel that there was something wrong with me for being unsatisfied with the status quo, for desiring something different.

So I started coping with Simchas Torah by pretending it wasn't happening.  I successfully avoided attending shul on Simchas Torah for the next several decades by entering a kind of self-imposed Simchas Torah coma.

In the week leading up to Simchas Torah in Israel, I started re-experiencing all the old, traumatic  feelings of resentment.  "Why do Orthodox men act like they own the Sefer Torah?" I decried to anyone who would listen.  Even in places where women might have a chance to dance with a Sefer Torah, one often hears that, "In such and such a place, the rabbi gives women a Sefer Torah."  Again, proprietary, for men can only give women a Sefer Torah if they regard it as theirs to give.

Thus, with a heart full of ambivalence, I went to shul last night. This was my first Simchas Torah in shul in many, many years.  I'd like to say that the whole experience, my first Simchas Torah in the Holy Land, was completely healing.

But that would not be true.

"If our women are good enough to carry our children for nine months, they're good enough to carry a Sefer Torah for a few minutes." - Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

Despite the fact that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the spiritual inspiration for the Happy Minyan at which we daven here in Israel, permitted women to dance with a Sefer Torah on Simchas Torah, this is not what happened last night.

As expected, the men joyously sang and danced around the bima with children on their shoulders and Sifrei Torah in their arms while the women did one of three things: chatted, danced briefly and without much gusto or peered into the men's section to watch.  Over the hour or so I was able to stay in shul without crying, I did all three, but I felt precious little simcha.

At one point, at the request of an elderly woman from the congregation, the mechitza was opened so the women could actually see the Sifrei Torah.  Apparently, the mechitza opening coincided with a brief spurt of dancing on the women's side and I overheard one young man tell his mother that he was offended to have glanced over and seen women dancing.  So apparently, it is not enough that women are denied the opportunity to hold and dance with the Sefer Torah.  We must also be denied the opportunity to squeeze out some minuscule portion of our own simcha as we watch men cradling the Sifrei Torah we all love but do not have equal access to.  If given the opportunity, I would like to ask this young man just how much simcha he would feel if he was in my shoes.

One friend told me she likes hakafot less and less each year.  She doesn't want to feel resentful, so she asks Hashem to remove her feelings of resentfulness.  It's far from ideal, but it's an emotional/spiritual place I can aspire to be and I'm glad she shared those words with me.

I skipped shul this morning and prayed at home.  In the afternoon, I attended a Simchas Torah luncheon with 150 members of our congregation, during which I listened to some heartfelt words of Torah about a holiday I absolutely could not relate to.  The holiday he described does not exist anywhere in the realm of  my experience.  I spent most of the rest of the day at home learning midrashim related to the first parsha of the Torah, in which Gd creates all life.

I'm convinced that there is something fundamentally flawed in the way we observe this chag.  How can a chag that is supposed to be the epitome of simcha (joy) be so atzuv (sad) for so many?

My older daughter who is a thousand times more committed to formal tefillah than I am, explained simply that, "Simchas Torah is a man's holiday." She spent the day avoiding it almost as completely as I did, but she did so seemingly without pain.

In the future, I should probably lower my expectations for the day to, I don't know, let's say, zero.  I must tell myself that all the flowery talk about the day and its spiritual potential simply don't apply to me.

There are so very many things I love about being a Jew in Israel.

Regrettably, Simchas Torah cannot be counted among them.

The Obligatory First-Sukkot-in-Israel Photo Blog

It's just before Sukkot begins in Israel.  There's an energy, a happiness, that I'm feeling that is unique to this place.

Sukkot is visually overwhelming in Israel.  Whether you live here or are visiting for the chag, it's utterly impossible to fail to notice that Sukkot is coming.

On the way to ulpan yesterday morning, I started taking pictures to document what it looks like here.  In the 10 minutes between getting off one bus and getting on another, I was already overwhelmed with images.

For those already here, these images will be familiar.  For those of you not yet here, consider this a preview.

All over the streets of Jerusalem are stores and stands of all kinds selling all things Sukkot.

This was a couple with a modest stand of decorations setting up early in the morning on King George.

This one was in the Geula section of Jerusalem.  By 3 PM, the street was wall-to-wall people.  There were even women out in the streets :-)

I took this from across the street, so it may be hard to identify, but there is a huge pile of palm leaves for schach for sale (look between the cars).

Meah Shearim is a center of pre-Sukkot sales activity.

Geula is a very close competitor.

Seriously, the signs are everywhere.

Hauling schach home the old-fashioned way.

Hauling schach home the modern way.

WOW!  The largest etrog I've ever seen!!

A shop selling cots for those who want to sleep in the sukkah.

Carefully selecting each of the arb'ah (4) minim separately.

Iconic shot of religious men examining the minim.

Posters at the bus stop advertising a trip to Hevron and Kever Rachel for Chol HaMo'ed, (the intermediate days of the festival).

How can you not love a country whose buses wish you a joyous holiday (Moadim L'Simcha) in the language of your people?

Even the department store window wishes Am Yisrael a Chag Sameach.

Closer to Home, this is the welcoming entrance to our very first sukkah in Israel.

This is Gilad, our sukkah engineer.  The winds here are very strong, so the sukkah Gilad built for us will stand up to gale force winds.  Don't you just love a guy who cleans up after himself?

Our fabulous sukkah decorating team.  We paid extra to hire the apple queen this year.

Hard at the kind of creative work at which she excels.

You can't really feel it without being here, but this is a sense of the sukkah, just before the people, the food and the holiness of the holiday descend.

     What Daniel Gordis says is true.  In other places, Jews observe Sukkot.  

     In Israel, it is Sukkot.

Less is More

Part of the joy of living in Israel is the diminished emphasis on material acquisitions in favor of spiritual pursuits.  Like almost all our neighbors who have a car at all, we drive a modest car that's way more than five years old, and we are very grateful to have it.  Israel is a place where "it's good enough" is a useful motto for guiding one's material life.

The plastic bags, cups and plates here are far flimsier than what we used in America, but I have come to see them as good enough.  In fact, throwing away plastic ware after one use seems far less wasteful to me here than it used to.

We, and most of our friends, live in much smaller spaces with far fewer amenities than we had in America, but it's certainly good enough.

Offices, institutions and synagogue facilities are often much simpler here than in America, but they are functional and good enough.

In fact, fancy cars, excessive material possessions and ornately decorated homes can be seen as distasteful in the context of life in Israel.

All of this parallels an emphasis on spiritual development.  It's as if the material world, more modest, but by no means deficient, contracts itself to make room for spiritual pursuits.

In my own experience, this translates to more time spent praying, more time learning Torah, more time seeing, talking about and talking with Gd in every day life, more Torah classes and more potent (if sometimes far too fleeting) spiritual insights.

This video from Aish.com is genius.  The speaker is captivating and the message is a powerful one.  Whether we live in Israel or not, we all want a relationship with Gd.  We want more meaning in our lives. We want to stop chasing ephemeral goals and focus on acquiring something of significance, not just, for example, another pair of designer shoes.

And that's what Yom Kippur gives us a chance to find.

Gmar Chatima Tova - may we all be inscribed and sealed for a life of meaning and purpose.

Life Is Just Richer Here

A few days ago, I was walking toward my second bus stop of the morning and caught sight of the first sukkah I've ever seen in Israel.  I felt so happy, I had to stop and take a picture.

Then this morning, walking to my 6:45 AM bus, I saw two boys on swings near my home and was startled by the view.

When kids swing for a few minutes before school in a playground in Israel, it's possible to see Jerusalem in the distance.  And it occurred to me that there are dozens of other small pleasures of daily life and ways in which my life is so much richer here.

• Feeling closer to Hashem.
• Knowing I've corrected a 2000 year-old punishment by coming to live here.
• Having a stranger on the street smile and ask how I'm doing in Hebrew and being able to answer her in Hebrew.
• Feeling happy almost all the time.
• Seeing neighbors walking home from shul while I wait for my 6:45 AM bus.
• Making progress in ulpan, as evidenced by a willingness to talk to the cell phone representative in Hebrew.
• Giggles from our young adult daughters who share a common history, language, and a, ahem... cozy living space.
• Seeing Har Habayit (The Temple Mount) from the bus every morning.
• Beginning to think in shekalim.  
• Riding buses and feeling like a part of Israeli society.
• Seeing familiar faces on the bus.
• Knowing bus routes and times.
• Having a routine.
• Having people around who automatically understand me because we are on the same path.
• Witnessing kibbutz galuyot (the in-gathering of the exiles) every day by having classmates from 11 different countries (Azerbaijan, Chile, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, the US and Tashkent) in my ulpan class.
• Coaching and encouraging other families who are still a few steps earlier on the path Home.
• Seeing my younger daughter taking chances and becoming a fiercely independent traveler unbelievably quickly.
• Reading newspaper articles about Israel with the perspective of a resident, no longer an outsider.
• Having the earliest bedtime in the house and, not a small thing for a night owl like me, getting up earlier than everyone else.
• Quickly adjusting to a week that begins on Sunday.
• Buying soda bottles that say חג שמח (Chag Sameach - happy holiday)
• Learning which Israeli brands we prefer and being less and less overwhelmed at the grocery store.
• Walking the streets of Jerusalem listening to the Jerusalem songs play list on my iPod.
• Davening on the bus in the morning.
• Being amazed by bilingual kids who switch back and forth effortlessly.
• Going to the airport again and again to greet more family and friends who are coming Home.
• Being the home base for family and friends passing through Israel.
• And  realizing, as I go off to ulpan, our 10th grader goes off to school, our older daughter goes to her Sherut Leumi (national service) placement and my husband prepares for a class he'll soon be teaching, that we are actually LIVING here. 

Life is just richer here.  And if I would but take a moment to let it in, I can feel it almost every moment of the day.  I thank Gd every day that we got here in time.

There Is Joy

This was our first week as Israelis.  Well, not in the most literal sense, since Jewish immigrants to Israel become citizens from their very first moments in the country.  But this week, 8 weeks since we arrived on aliyah, we really lived like Israelis.  My husband earned his first shekel paycheck this week.  Our older daughter started her year-long Sherut Leumi (National Service) position.  Our younger daughter started 10th grade at a new school for English-speaking teens.

And I started ulpan at Beit Ha'am (which literally means, "the people's house" or, due to the art form that is translation, "house of the people") in Jerusalem.

A word about ulpan.  It's a 5-month commitment of intensive Hebrew study for new immigrants.  Five hours a day, five days a week.  Ulpan is a national institution in Israel, not quite as ubiquitous as the army, but every bit as much a part of most immigrant's experience as the army is for typical Israeli families.

There are 12 people in my ulpan class.  There are three Americans including me and a married couple, a woman from Ireland, a woman from England, a man from South Africa, a woman from Russia, a woman from Italy, two women and one man from France, a woman from Switzerland and our Israeli teacher.  That's kibbutz galyuot - the ingathering of the exiles, right there in my classroom.

Getting to ulpan means leaving the house in time to catch a 6:45 AM bus into Jerusalem, followed by a second bus which takes me to within a 5-minute walk of my classroom building.  In all, it's an hour and 15 minute commute.  But, at least at this early stage, despite the insanely early hour, it's a commute that makes me feel like I am part of the country in a way that nothing else has.

The 6:45 AM bus is packed with Jews.  Men and women on their way to work.  Kids on their way to school.  College students on their way to Hebrew University.  New immigrants like me on their way to ulpan.  Women praying or reciting chapters of Tehillim (the Book of Psalms).  Teens flirting with one another. Old people on their way to shop or visit with friends.  It's a massive, beating heart of Jews from all over the world and it delights me so much to be a part of it.

There is genuine pleasure in knowing exactly which bus to take, when it will arrive, at which stop to get off and how long it will take to walk to my destination.  In the first weeks here, when nearly everything was new, there was a low hum of anxiety each time we had to locate a new place to transact business.  But now, with the week just passed, we have begun our routine and, in that, there is joy.

Last night, as we promised one another before we left America but hadn't really done regularly, we spent Thursday night at the Machane Yehuda shuk, buying provisions for Shabbat. Thursday night in Israel after a week of routine has a very different feel than our Thursday nights here to date.  With a shock of recognition, I realized that Thursday nights in Israel, the beginning of the weekend, are like Friday nights used to be before I started keeping Shabbat. We have no school and no work on Friday.  The day is about preparing for Shabbat.  This morning, we were all able to sleep in a little later.  No Saturday morning cartoons, but a day of relative leisure. And, a short time from now, our well-earned Shabbat descends.  Lots of great meals and our first sleep-over Shabbat guests, one of my nephews from Baltimore and his yeshiva friend from Manchester, England.

I don't know by what merit we have been granted such a relatively smooth and comfortable transition, but I am grateful to Hashem every day for the privilege of living in His Holy Land and for the joy that accompanies the feeling of settling in.

Tachlis Aliyah

some tips for the last few months before your aliyah flight

Preparing for aliyah is HARD WORK and the last few months before the flight can be very stressful. No matter how much you want to live in Israel, it’s important to remember that the final stretch is hard for everyone. Besides the innumerable details that need to be attended to, there is also the emotional reality of leaving family and friends behind.

Of course, it's important to realize that none of us are likely to have to ride a camel in the desert for 6 months, cross a hostile border with an armed guard or sail in steerage for 3 weeks to get to Israel.  Considering to the price some Jewish people in history have paid for the privilege of making aliyah, we have it comparatively easy.

The following tips for managing the last few months before the aliyah flight have been culled from the recent experience of olim who have just been through the process of disengaging from their lives in America. Please email additional suggestions to make this list even more helpful for others.

ON THE COMPUTER

Make a master list of aliyah-related tasks. Download an Excel spreadsheet To-Do List template (try this one) or make a list with columns:

1. Task (e.g., cancel, sell, change address, buy, shred, give away, etc.)
2. Deadline
3. Whose responsibility?
4. Notes – phone numbers, who you spoke to,whether a refund is due, date of last payment, etc.
5. Optional categories – priority, current status of each task, etc.

Network

1. Join the community list of the community to which you are moving or any communities to which you are considering moving. Jacob Richman of Ma'ale Adumim put together a great list of community mailing lists in English. 
2. Nefesh b'Nefesh has a very active advice-giving listserv which you can join as soon as you open your aliyah file.
3. Use Facebook to connect with people who live in your future community. Ask people in your new community to help you friend others who live nearby.
4. Facebook is an especially important tool for older children and teens to connect with friends before they even arrive.
5. Send emails or Facebook messages to ask questions about how things are done in your new home, who to call for the sorts of things you’ll need (insurance, plumbing, computer set-up, etc.)
6. Find an aliyah buddy – someone already in Israel who knows a lot of what you need to know and who will answer your endless questions and, most importantly, will encourage you when your energy flags.
7. Ask, ask, ask.

Consider making digital copies of your family photos to save space.

If your current email address is associated with your Internet Service Provider (e.g. Comcast, Verizon, etc.), consider switching now to a free web-based email address like yahoo.com or gmail.com. Otherwise, your email address and all your contacts will disappear when you cancel your internet service.

Develop a sample budget. Nefesh b’Nefesh has sample budgets for families, singles and retirees. But remember, money is more fungible in Israel than anywhere else in the world.

AROUND THE HOUSE

Take out all cards in your wallet and make a list of what needs to be cancelled (e.g., store memberships, voter registration, library, frequent traveler programs, etc.) Add these tasks to your master list.

As early as possible, make a list based on every important piece of mail you receive. Add these vendors to the master list as a reminder to notify them, cancel them, and/or ask to be removed from their list, or whatever the appropriate action is.

Look through your checkbook and make a list of which bills are paid monthly and annually. Add to master list. Call each vendor (i.e., car and home owner’s insurance, utilities, credit cards, alarm system, mobile phone service, etc.) to arrange for cancellation of services and refund/final payment, including timing. Take notes as you are on each call because you will not be able to remember the details.

Make a list of which publications you receive. Decide whether to cancel subscription, submit a domestic address change or submit an international address change. Addresses for many national publications can be changed online. Some publications will not charge additional postage to mail to Israel for the duration of the subscription but will charge for a new subscription to an international address.

Go through the home room-by-room and make a list of items and what to do with them – send on lift, sell, give to family member, trash, donate/giveaway. Don’t forget small things like hampers, phones, hangers, surge protectors, small kitchen appliances.  Add each item, or each category of items, to master list.

Consider prioritizing your list of items:
A - items definitely being taken
B - items definitely not being taken
C – items that might be taken if there is room

Sort household items by category (i.e., sheets, pillows, blankets, tablecloths, Kiddush cups, challah boards, pots, etc.) Decide how many of each category you will take and make a plan to get rid of the rest.

Decide what you need/want to buy in quantity to add to your lift (i.e., OTC medications, Q-tips, non-perishable food, etc.). Add to master list.

Watch the conversion rate and decide what money you can change to shekels now. The Bank of Israel publishes the exchange rate for common currencies.  The dollar exchange rate has been hovering around 3.8 NIS.

UNCLUTTERING

Start by uncluttering the items that don’t hurt to part with. If you feel a twinge of reluctance over parting with an item and you have the time, set it aside for now. Uncluttering definitely gets easier as your aliyah date approaches.

There are three main ways to get rid of your unneeded household items: sell, throw away or give away.

Selling
The most important bit of advice about selling items is to reduce your expectation about what your used goods are worth. Most of us can’t maximize profit and also get rid of excess stuff on a tight timetable. Keep your eye on the goal – the date of your aliyah flight!

If you have time to photograph and list each item separately, you can make the most money.
Luach.com and craigslist.org are good sites for advertising household items for free.

If your shul or local Jewish community has a list (e.g. BaltimoreAchdus), that is also a great place to advertise items for free.

If you have the time and skill, setting up a blog and promoting it on luach.com, on your local community list and with every craigslist.org posting can generate much more income from the sale of your goods than any other method.

Yard sales are a lot of work for relatively little yield. If you have the space, try a basement sale. At least you won’t have to schlep your stuff outside and back in.

eBay consultants will list and sell your items for a percentage of the selling price. This might be worth it for high value items, but not for ordinary stuff.

If you have a few quirky items that might need a national market to find the right buyer, eBay is the place to go if you have experience. If you are just a few months from your aliyah date, this might not be the best time to learn how to sell on eBay. There are more important things that need to get done on a deadline.

Throw Away

It hurts in the beginning, but the feeling of being free of so much excess stuff is very liberating. Consider hiring a local person with a truck or a national company like 1-800-GOT-JUNK or College Hunks Hauling Junk. Expect to pay between $150 and $550 depending on how much junk you have.

Giveaway/Freebies

Considering combining a yard sale/basement sale with a giveaway. Designate categories of items as freebies and people who come might buy your better quality items if they are priced right.

Are there sentimental things that other people in your family might want to have?

See if there is a freecycle list for your community. Freecycle is “a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns.” If there is a local Freecycle list for your area, you join and send an email to the list with the item or items you want to give away and people respond  by email if they are interested. You pick the person you want to get your item and make arrangements for them to pick up, generally at your home. For the most part, I left items outside my house, marked with the person's name. This has two advantages. First, you don't have to coordinate a time to be home. Also, it eliminates any worries you might have about letting strangers into your home.

The major potential glitch with giving things away is getting people to come when they say they will. It’s easy to send an email saying, “I want your item for free,” and another thing entirely to come and get it. Use email to gently nudge.

Some charities will pick up at used household items from your home. Try Purple Heart, Salvation Army, Goodwill, Vietnam Veterans Association, etc. If you’re not sure where to begin, Google “donation pickup [your city]”.

Try to find a newly married couple or someone who is new to your community, coming in as you are leaving. They will be your best “giveaway” customers, especially for little things like hangers, trash cans, wall clocks, etc.

MISC TIPS

If they are available in your local kosher grocery, buy Israeli food products before you come so you can become familiar with brands and differences in formulas. Ketchup, breakfast cereals, etc. are different enough for a sensitive palate to detect.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the great "Ship-vs-Buy-In-Israel" appliance debate. Ask, ask, ask and then do what feels right in your gut.

Cell phones bought through a carrier are generally locked and will only work with that specific company’s system. However, if you have a cell phone that uses a SIM card, ask your American cell phone provider if your phone is a multi-band phone capable of being used overseas. The two largest cell phone providers in Israel are Cellcom and Orange. 900Mhz frequency is used by Orange and 1800Mhz frequency is used by Cellcom, so those are the bands that the phone has to work with in order to work here. If your phone will work on those frequencies, ask your provider about getting the phone unlocked. T-Mobile was always very good about doing this for us. Many times, we used phones bought and unlocked in America with a local Israeli SIM card. Unlocked phones are also for sale on eBay and at tigerdirect.com.

PREPARING FOR THE LIFT

Separate and clearly mark all items not going on the lift. The packers will pack everything not nailed down and they are FAST!

Since not all moving crews speak English, color code or number each box according to the room it will ultimately belong in and then label each room the day the lift is delivered. It will make the distribution of boxes go more easily and you won't have to move boxes around your new home.

PREPARING FOR THE FLIGHT

On NBN charter flights where everyone on the flight is making aliyah, olim have historically had no trouble taking extra luggage without penalty. The same is not necessarily true of group flights.

Consider packing a few pots, can opener, reusable plastic dishes, silverware, and drink ware so you can have viable meal service before your kitchen gets set up.

Make sure your kids can carry whatever they take on board the flight.

Remember that you will have to learn aspects of how to do almost everything in your adult life all over. Here’s a partial, somewhat random list of the kinds of things I had to learn over again during my first weeks in Israel (but not all in one day!):

1. What does it cost to mail a letter within Israel?
2. What does an Israeli mailbox look like and where do I find them?
3. Where can I get a calendar with local candlelighting times?
4. How do I fill a prescription?
5. What’s the conversion for anything I know in inches, ounces or Fahrenheit?
6. How does the Israeli credit/debit card system work? (Hint: It’s a hybrid unlike anything Americans are used to.)
7. Where can I buy [fill-in-the-blank]?
8. What bus do I take to get to [fill-in-the-blank]?
9. What’s the Israeli version of Lysol, Windex, Ajax, [fill-in-the-blank]?
10. Is this a good price for [fill-in-the-blank]?
11. How do I write a check in Israel?
12. What’s the best cell phone, Internet, insurance, VOIP, [fill-in-the-blank] plan for me?

It’s all a matter of attitude. If you’re easily frustrated, the transition will definitely be more difficult. But if you take it a little at a time, rely on the plentiful, generous help of others and remember to breath, your life in Israel can be richer than anything you can imagine!

Learning Never Ends

Yesterday was the beginning of our seventh week in Israel. While living in Baltimore, I traveled to Israel about 25 times, but this is the longest I've ever been here at one time. 

Looking back over the last 6 weeks, we've accomplished so much! We've been to a dozen official government offices. We've accumulated a whole data bank of information about Israeli driver's licenses, post offices, pharmacies, cell phone plans, insurance, banking, grocery shopping and the necessity of taking notes on the seemingly random opening hours of places where we do frequent business.

We've hired plumbers, handymen, installers and delivery men by the score.  We've unpacked, uncluttered and learned how to do laundry.

We've written checks for furniture, appliances, the first installment of our daughter's tuition bill in Israel and a used car.

This is what our used car looked like when it was new... 10 years ago!

We've learned how to exchange dollars for shekels, how to wire funds locally and internationally and how much postage it takes to mail a letter within Israel.  We've gotten a credit card, checks and ID cards for our medical plan.  We shopped at 5 different places to buy textbooks for our high school student and signed up for ulpan.

We've done a lot!

In the early 1980s, the US government issued a postage stamp that I loved so much, I bought a poster- size version and kept it in my office for years.  Little did I know how relevant it would still be 30 years later.

So yesterday, when we went to the airport to greet five families and two singles from Baltimore who were on the last charter flight of the summer, I was thinking of how much learning awaits them.
They are even newer newbies than us!

To the members of the Furman, Roshgadol, Sharaby, Singer, Spotts, Staiman and Werner families who just made aliyah from Baltimore (and Columbia, MD) and whose learning curve is just beginning:

WELCOME HOME!! 

Scott Furman and family - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Karen Furman - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Leora Roshgadol (with Beth Gordon whose already been here a few years) - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Sima Sharaby - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Singer Family - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Spotts Family - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

Arky Staiman with me and Elan

Werner Family - photo courtesy of Jacob Richman

The Lift Arrives: A Photo Blog

This is what our apartment looked like at 9 AM yesterday.

From this perspective, it looks so much bigger than we thought.  Makes me wonder, "What were we so worried about?"

Even though I felt a little conflicted about it, we paved over the potential garden so we'll have a great space for our sukkah.  It also ended up serving us well as a place to put boxes that didn't fit inside the house.

We last saw this beautiful vessel 6 weeks ago as it drove away from Hal Circle.  Just minutes after this picture was taken, lots of sweaty Jews were spotted in the immediate vicinity.

Besides for ourselves, we brought stuff for 11 families .  This is a small pile of what we starting calling OPS - other people's stuff. (I know what you were thinking, but I live in the Holy Land now :-)

After all the boxes (oy!) the few pieces of furniture we sent started coming in.  This was the first piece in.  My mother and sister will recognize this immediately.  It's the bottom of the hutch that has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  The very first boxes we unpacked went into the hutch.

We amuse ourselves by calling this the guest room.  Someday, we will actually confirm the rumor that there's a bed under the rubble.  If we find it, that's where you'll sleep when you come to visit us.

This is Elan sitting in his favorite chair, in his favorite home, in his favorite city, in his favorite COUNTRY on his birthday.  No wonder he's smiling!!!!

Shopping in Israel

Last night, during a completely typical erev Shabbat shopping trip to Rami Levi, my heart was full.  As I searched through the freezer cases for a bag of broccoli, I heard an announcement over the intercom calling people to come to the area behind the dairy section to daven ma'ariv (the evening service).  I saw men walking up and down the aisles, in between the bags of milk and frozen pizzas, waving any man back into the refrigerated section, encouraging them to come and make a minyan.  In the grocery store.

Some people find the secret to life in Israel in stories that take place on its buses and in its cabs.  Everyone is Israel has a story about a taxi driver! I don't know. There's something about grocery shopping in Israel that seems to really capture an essence of this place for me.

Another shopping in Israel lesson:  As we are rapidly learning, parents have to buy textbooks here.  So we've been on a multi-week search for the right books for our soon-to-be 10th grader.  Today, we went to a store on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem to snag the last few books on her book list  (almost done!).  Between the car and the store, we discovered that there's a street festival at that location every Friday.  Jazz music was piped in and the whole place was covered with a tarp to keep out (some of) the strong mid-day sun.  To my great regret, some of the pictures I thought I took ended up as video instead of still shots, but I hope these few photos will give you a flavor for the chavaya (experience).

Sign at the entrance, advertising another weekly event on Wednesday evenings.

Tupperware is being sold in the Holy Land.

A few craft tables covered by the tarp.

Regrettably, I can't figure out how get the video of the artisan breads to convert to still shots.  Too bad.  But here's a picture of a Porcupine challah I just couldn't resist buying.

Gorgeous, fragrant spices sold from open pans.  There's definitely a, ahem... different sense of hygiene in this country.