Late April 2007

! It has been several weeks of sadness, memory and meaning, here in HaAretz—The Land.

During the days of Passover I traveled to Jerusalem with a partnership of 15 and 16-year-olds from a Reform synagogue in Los Angeles and a high school in Tel Aviv to Yad Vashem, Israel’s powerful memorial to the victims of what the world calls the Holocaust and we call HaShoah. We had an excellent young tour guide who really knew how to connect the privileged young people with what happened to their people. We could see, on the grounds of the museum, the construction of the stage where the memorial service would be held about 10 days later. Then we walked up Mt. Herzl to the Herzl’s grave and the national cemetery. Where also we could see the preparations for Israel’s Independence Day. So much memory and and hope and pain symbolized on one little hill.

For Yom HaShoah the Hebrew school at the absorption center asked me to sing for the memorial—they wanted the theme from “Life is Beautiful”—not what I would have chosen, but OK! We planned it to coincide with the sirens that sound for 2 minutes as a national memorial. Everything stops then, I mean everything—classes, meetings, people walking on the street. On the streets and freeways, they get out of their cars and stand. Moving all by itself. During our ceremony I led “Eli, Eli” and Hatikva (reserving for myself the upper octave at the end!)

That went well, so they asked me to sing for Yom HaZikaron, when they remember the soldiers who have given their lives for this nation. This year was very solemn because of all of the soldiers lost in the war last year. And particularly for me, as I remembered Pnina Gershoni’s son Noam who was so badly wounded and is only now able to live on his own—also Avi Faintoch’s nephew Alon who was killed. So many people in mourning, and in particular pain because of the political situation now, but more on that another time.

This memorial was attended by several schools, veterans, and Ra’anana citizens, and held outside at a memorial in the city center. We had the sirens again, and laid several wreaths and bunches of flowers. For this ceremony I gave them “Yesh Kochavim” which they don’t know, because no one has set it to music here! And a setting of Psalm 23 in Hebrew. And again Hatikva.

So next is Yom Yerushalayim, for which I am dusting off “Hakotel” and “Yerushalayim” and other non-“Jerusalem of Gold” songs! (I mean, anyone can sing that!) I’ll be doing a duet with a young woman from Uruguay! It’s lovely to be “working” ceremonies again.

The language finally is easier—I am able to converse with Menachem, who manages the aparment building (well, only 3 units and his own home, but still, it is an old building!) and who speaks no English except “OK?” And I’m doing pretty well at the shops when I know what I want, and on the bus. I begin all conversations in Hebrew, and even at people’s homes shift back and forth (when there is a word I don’t know in Hebrew.) People are very nice about it. Recently I changed my official address, paid my city tax, and my water bill, at 3 different offices, and received directions from several others on the way, and managed all of it in Hebrew.

The classes are still hard, and there is a huge disconnect between what we study in class (mostly grammar) and what we need on the street. I suppose this is true for most language classes.

My new home is shaping up nicely—it is in the oldest neighborhood in Kfar Saba, in a 2-story building in a street of the same. There is a Yemenite synagogue at the end of the street, and the neighbors are nearly all Yemenite, mostly elderly. At the junction of my street and Tel Chai is an immense, ancient eucalyptus tree in the middle of the road—two massive main trunks, and a little sign that asks people please to drive around the tree!
On Friday around noon a farmer comes by with his horse and wagon, and whatever he has harvested for us that day, beets one week, onions the next, and last week watermelons!

The houses on my street are old, but my apartment has been completely redone—new kitchen, bathroom, new flooring and electric. Very very nice, and surprising to walk into from the hallway! And Menachem’s wife is an excellent cook who has fed me the most delicious food—kebabs of ground chicken and turkey, rice, tender little steaks when they barbecue, lots of vegetables, pitas, hummus and her hot relish made from equal parts garlic and hot red pepper guaranteed to ruin your breath for the day (but worth it!)

I have a long, nicely proportioned combination kitchen/sitting/dining room, a nice sized bedroom, and the “cheder katan” a little spare room that houses a daybed (for visitors, hint, hint) my music and work files, an ingenious Ikea desk that looks like a cabinet, a rocking chair and a huge TV Ronit Goldberg gave me. Now how to call for cable…?

Best of all, and what really makes my place special is the balcony—the size of a 3-car garage! I’ve started my herb garden, and am still working on a table and chairs so I can entertain and pay back some of the hospitality I have received in the last months! Israel, a new Galron bass who happens to run a plant nursery, has been thinking hard about what to put in two jardinières that I thought were huge, but are too small for most plants because of the intense sun. Last week he said “topiary ficus” but last evening at a Galron show he said “vines that grow quickly and will give you bright red flowers all summer!” Obviously that one gets my vote!

My washing machine is on the balcony (part of it is covered by a tiled roof) and I decided to “go Israeli” and not get a dryer. But the controls of the washing machine look utterly unlike anything I have ever seen, and the manual is in Hebrew! (The pictures do not help!) Once I figured out that the washing cycle is supposed to be 2 hours long (I’m not exaggerating here!) I used my dictionary to figure out the rest! And I hang the things to dry—the sun is so strong that my sheets dried in under an hour!

Thursday it was amazingly hot—I finished my laundry at 6 pm and all of it (I’m talking towels and heavy things like that) was dry at 8:30 pm!! The climate term is "sharav"--hot hot hot and windy. I have air conditioning in one room that I only put on that night for the first time, and it cooled most of the place (well it's not that big!)
But only last week Galron performed outside and froze to death, and today it was gorgeous and clear.Last Saturday night people celebrated Lag b'Omer—the break in counting the days between Passover and Shavuot, that commemorates when the epidemic finally stopped killing Rabbi Akiva’s students, and the persecution under Hadrian of Torah teachers and students, and the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai, who is supposed to have written the Zohar, studied by Kabbalists. During this time of counting, you aren't supposed to move, or shave, or cut your hair or get married, among other things.

On Lag b'Omer you can do all those things, and have the bar mitzvah party, and people set off bonfires--the neighborhood kids comb the area for anything that will burn, every day after school. So I went out after dining at Aliza and Tzvika’s, to see what it was about. And it was amazing! Not your American, controlled, roped-off affair, but a regular Israeli untidiness that upon inspection was mostly families and community groups toasting marshmallows, kebabs, and hot dogs! But the fires—so close together, little kids lighting their own, a scary sight.

I had been warned to close up my house before going out, because the air would be so full of smoke and soot. By 10 pm, I could smell the smoke, so I closed up and put on the air conditioning again. I woke in the middle of the night, went out on the balcony, and it was as if there was a thick fog!

So life here is interesting and new. Next job—buy a car so I can get a job.

Stay in touch—I love to hear from you! I’m looking forward to seeing Gene Shifrin from TBS when he’s here soon, and the summer visitors—Dan, Susie, Stephanie and the other teachers attending Pardes, the family Federation mission, and the Young Partners from P2K!