Of jobs and prospects, and people

So let’s see…home? Check. Car? Check. Cat? Check! What is left? Oh, yes, a job!

So here’s the latest on that: I have a good relationship with Kehilat B’Vat Ayin (the small congregation) but they can’t hire me because they just don’t have the need for a volume of services. Maybe in a year or so, because they are growing very quickly, but not now. However, they have hired me to chant the haftarah from the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur—a paid gig. And real “work” since this is my least favorite thing to do, and there are something like 46 verses to learn! But it is great experience, and will add to my abilities.

The president of the congregation told me “you can say ‘no’ you know!” My reply “oh, Joel, I never say ‘no’!” So I have started working on it, and a very nice residual of my problems with the language is that the “decoding” of the Hebrew is MUCH easier, now (it used to be hard, hard!), and I also know what most of it means!

Plus they will give me some bar/bat mitzvah students, which will bring in a little more money.

I interviewed at Beit Daniel, a large Progressive synagogue in Tel Aviv. We were supposed to be talking about my singing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but we actually spent the whole hour talking about the future of Beit Daniel and how they need someone to lead services and help add more programming to what they already do. They have a cantor, but he is spread pretty thin already. They just built a huge education center in Jaffo (right next door to the cultural arts center where I auditioned for the Arts and Culture Committee!) And they will be building a big synagogue there, too, for which they will need leaders. So…what? I don’t know! I will be singing with the cantor at services this Friday (31 August) so we’ll see.

I attended services there last Friday evening, and introduced myself to the cantor. The services are quite different from Reform and Conservative services in the States. Very interesting, and there are 2 songs I have learned just from attending services at the various places here. So I plan to teach them Aaron Bensoussan’s Lecha Dodi (the clappy one, you Temple Beth Shalomers!) And I don’t know what else I will do. The whole service is “musical” on the last Friday of the month, whatever that means!

And the issue of the holidays has not been resolved, but I have decided that even if I only work at B’Vat Ayin on Yom Kippur AM, if I have a job at Beit Daniel after, that’s OK.

A week after my audition before the Arts and Culture Committee I received a very nice letter congratulating me upon receiving the status of “artist” from the State of Israel. They said that my music was “excellent and unique” and that I passed the audition with the highest possible score. It was such a validation of who I always thought I was and what I thought I could do and what I have worked SO hard to do. Plus it is a little more money per month from the government, for two years. Probably not much, the “extra beer or sandwich” quote from Showboat comes to mind! But “ain’t my life a whirl!”

Also on the job front is a job at Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem, doing translation from Hebrew to English (of medical stuff, not my forte at all, but we’ll see!) and writing/editing English parts of the website and other documents. I have an interview there on 3 September. They sent me 2 things to translate, and with the help of some software and my many dictionaries and common sense, I think I did pretty well. But we’ll see. If the work is never more sophisticated than what they gave me I think I will be fine. And again, my Hebrew will improve. And it is part time, I can work from home most of the time, and only go into Jerusalem once or twice a week.

Later on the same day of the interview Galron will perform at the hospital for a special program. So I will travel in with Yakov Schreibman, Galron tenor and Vice Pres. of Hadassah Ein Kerem. Between interview and performance I will have a chance to wander the historical village of Ein Kerem, and will tell you about it next time.

And now some random thoughts and observations.

When I received the interview at Beit Daniel, I rewarded myself with a falafel lunch at my favorite stand which happens to be close to my home. I sat down to enjoy my food, and an Arab family came up to order food. There was a mother, her sister, a grandmother, niece and a little boy. The little boy pulled up a chair next to me, mom gave him his food, and we munched together for a while. Then the other family members got their food and sat all around my (and the little boy’s) table. We all smiled, I helped with napkins, then they opened a 2-liter bottle of Coke, started pouring cups for everybody, and poured me one too! It was just hospitality-as-usual for them, but a sweet moment for me. In the states the news from here focuses on politics and military issues, and on the moments of family horror and pain. But never on the small kindnesses and civic cooperation that happen every day, especially around where I live.

A legendary characteristic of Israelis is their willingness to hitch and give rides to strangers. I have seen lots of kids and soldiers and even families who stand by the side of the road and get rides. And I have seen lots of people stop and give them. So I was invited to dinner at Aliza’s and volunteered to make dessert. And the stupid peaches I bought to make pies were not ripe. So I went to Tiv Tam, the only grocery open on Shabbat, and bought nectarines.

As I went back to my car, a man maybe a little older than me asked “At holechet lemalah? (you are going up?)” As usual, I smiled but didn’t actually understand what he meant, so he repeated it, and I said “yes” and then I figured out he was asking for a lift! It was 11:00 in the morning, I thought, “yeah, OK, let’s live a little!” So he got in the car, and then we made small talk in Hebrew, and I dropped him off in Ra’anana, and it was another sweet little moment, very Israeli.

My life is full of these moments, from everyone I meet, in every capacity, from government to the shops to the people on the street. An amazing way to live.