Cindy's Israel Adventure

How I Finally Felt Better, and Understood All (with Thank-Yous at the End)

2009-02-13T08:00:00.005+02:00

I had a cathartic evening last Friday night. Daniel, the director of the Beit Daniel choir begged and cajoled me into agreeing to sing with them one last time for services last evening. I was dreading it--every moment spent there, once I understood I wouldn't get Jaffo, felt like a rejection. Really painful, and somehow shameful, as if I finally was proven to be the imposter I always felt. And before and during this evening, when talking to people, even at the bank, I got weepy--when will I grow up?

But I took the train, Daniel picked me up at the station. We rehearsed, I ran into the rabbi I did Yom Kippur with, who held my hand and spoke solid comfort, and said that of course the head rabbi would write a letter of recommendation for me, and that he would sign it too. He was very sweet, and I was blubby, as usual.

Before the service, as the choir lit our own Shabbat candles at the proper time, as we always did during our rehearsals, I cried to think of the end of that, included among so many endings for me. Then I asked Daniel not to talk about me during the service, and he said he could see why he shouldn't.

The service. About halfway through the sermon about Tu b'Shevat, I suddenly looked around, and thought "Sheesh, I was so unbelievably LUCKY to have actually worked here, and served these lovely warm people, and been considered for Jaffo!! And the other congregations, too! I have come so far from my origins, and proved myself to be tough and brave, and now I know my own value!" And up went my prayer of thanks. Suddenly I felt SO much better. By the end of the service, when finally Daniel talked about me (he lied!), I was ok, moved, but not weepy (thank G-d!)

Apparently he had let people know that it would be my last service, and about 400 people were there. Daniel read the card they had made for me, and gave me a gift, and the congregation smiled and clapped, and poof! I was leaving another congregation that loved me. And I'll get my letter. During the kiddush, so many people came to talk, and I got a CD and so much love, I felt almost myself again. (It has been a couple of months since I was with my Koleinu friends, after all!)

Daniel and Lia, his lovely girlfriend from Brazil, drove me home, and what they said to me, I was suddenly able to hear. Earlier that week I talked with a friend from home--she asked me, "won't you miss anyone?" and I couldn't think of anyone!) But I will miss Lia and Daniel, the choir members, and the people from the congregation of Beit Daniel who wanted from me and appreciated what I could give, and Rabbah Galia and Rabbi Gilad (who just might be Prime Minister some day, and I will come back just to vote for him!) It was always about the synagogue, the congregation. My work.

And then I came home to emails from 2 congregations (in California...) who want to meet with me. As Daniel said, I only need one to go for me, whether there or somewhere else! Whatever these 3 years was really about seems clearer now. Not about the people who let me down, or who didn't believe in me, not even about Israel, but about ME. For me finally to believe in my own abilities. Letting go of so much, to find what I really need. I will be very careful about what I take on again, too.

I'm thankful that I realized all of this, and understood it now, as I prepare to find my new "home."

I'm also more grateful than I can say to all of you, who have stuck with me this whole time, and offered me such support and love. If you would like to follow the next stage of my journey (..."Cindy's US Adventure" maybe?) let me know!

Position Wanted

2008-12-10T10:00:00.002+02:00

Well, dear readers, I'm coming home. Anybody know of a cantorial soloist/music director job that's open?

In the end, all of the prospects one by one turned to dust, and it's time for me to come back to the States and try to find a congregation to serve. My skill set is enriched by my improved Hebrew, experience living as an Israeli, and all the new melodies and songs I have learned.

I loved living here, so much. But I couldn't build a life, or make a living. And it's too hard to be alone.

My lease is up in March, so I'll be back by the middle of the month, with luck (though I haven't had much luck lately...)

And if you hear of a job, please keep me in mind!

"Autumn" in Israel

2008-11-04T17:47:00.003+02:00

Last week the temps dropped to ... 70F, and people started wearing wool sweaters, sweatshirts, and heavy jackets! I'm still stifling, except at night, when it goes to about 65F!

Tonight, just at dusk, the power went out. Nothing to do but light a bunch of candles, finally do the dishes (!) and then sit in my little room doing sudokus, listening to mellow Chet Baker jazz on the computer, and drinking a nice red wine!

Am off to Vienna on Sat 6 AM --such uncivilized departure times here! Have booked my ticket to the Lipizzaner horse show at the Spanish Riding School (my little-girl wish come true!) for Sunday. We will do 9 concerts in 10 days, starting in Vienna commemmorating Kristallnacht, and finishing in Budapest for a closed reception dedicating a memorial to Daniel Pearl, where the US Ambassador will be in attendance.

I spoke with Rabbi Azari about Jaffo today--everything is up in the air. I wonder if I will lose that, too. Well, nothing I can do. He knows I am here to do whatever is needed, and heaven knows I have been patient. Why am I here?

Picked up another job, doing QA for a nice bunch of consultants who are building a business and website at the same time. Money is not great, but negotiable after 3 months, and I started today. It's more nit-picking, like I do for the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (hereafter, NITE) (makes it sound like a spy agency!) I like the people I work for, and it is all from home, which is nice. So I think I have put together mostly a living wage.

That's it for now...more after the trip!

Yom Kippur, Leaving Galron, and a Party

2008-10-21T10:31:00.004+02:00

Yom Kippur services went very very well, especially considering the Rabbi had a drippy cold and lost his voice and I didn't truly know what I was doing. I had tunes for most of the big prayers, and made up the chanting for the rest. I was "on" for all of every service, even the Torah services. They actually sang along with me by the end of each block of services with the tunes I was making up, so I was definitely doing something right! There are different musical motives for each of the sections of the prayers.

The evening service that started everything was about 2.5 hours long, started, with the fast. about 45 minutes before sundown. I was exhausted after, and didn't feel that it went very well (though everyone else was happy) gave myself a good talking-to about deserving to be there, and having done months of preparation, and I needed to stick my head up, shoulders back, and trust my work and my gifts. Then I slept, better than I have for a while.

Morning service started at 9, went until 1:30, without a break. I stood up the whole time (in flats, but, still!) and sang the whole time (not exaggerating!) Then we had a 2.5 hour break, and started again at 4, and went until 7:30 pm. The day went very well, I hit my stride and people were very enthusiastic! And by the end, while my brain wasn't working, my voice was big and strong as usual! All in all I got through 5 amidahs and 5 viduis, 4 complete Avinu Malkeinus, all with ALL of the text--nothing like the US machzor! I put in enough "traditional" nusach in each to make people think I knew what I was doing!

You have to realize that there is no "congregation" in Jaffo yet, so nearly every person who attended the services were people who saw the signs outside the building, and walked in. We had about 150 in the evening service, and many told me afterwards that they loved the feel of the service and would be back the next day--and then they came back! (I was always good at customer retention!)

Rabbah Galia called me after I got home, and told me she had heard wonderful things about the services, and that Beit Daniel is priveleged to have me working with them, and asked me to be patient, and that she is sure that I will be the "voice" of the Jaffo congregation. Very sweet, esp. since she also had been working the whole holy day! (And I stressed that the privelege is ALL mine, and I meant it.) It was a very good start, (I know that I am always referring to my work at Beit Daniel as "good starts"--it's a process!) and will help convince the senior rabbi that I should be there more often.

They have booked me for Oct 24, and that's a start. It just will take time for me to finally become the best candidate in a group of possibilities. Exactly what happened at TBS in Cols--I know how it works, with patience and hard work and continual learning, and NO POLITICS until I can do everything they need me to do. I'll get there. And it gives me a real goal to keep going for.

The next night I went to services in the big synagogue (BD from now on!) and everyone, everyone wanted to know how it went if they weren't there in Jaffo, and congratulated me if they were, and Rabbah Galia (who has been my mentor since she first saw my resume and heard my CD last October) greeted me publicly from the podium when I came into the sanctuary at the start of the service. Cantor Freddy invited me up to do one of my signature prayers, then Galia and Freddy invited me up to sing the closing song. Further indication that I'm "om the team." Which I have been for a while, but I don't get quite enough validation (who does?) I'll be satisfied for a while, now. Once the holidays are over, Freddie and I will sit down with the Hallel, which we do every Rosh Chodesh. I have bits and pieces, but not the whole thing, with the tunes they know.

So my second YK finished!

I am leaving the Galron choir--I love the singers, and they have been lovely to me, but I have serious personality conflicts with both the "conductor" and the manager. So I will find another choir that does similar music, and whose management will be delighted to have me. Ironically, Koleinu members will be visiting Galron at the end of November--and I will not be there at all.

Last Saturday evening I had a dinner party to celebrate the marriage of my friends Yaakov and Dalia (they are the first in the slideshow, with their daughter Aurielle.) Yaki's and my friend Eva, whom we met in the absorption center, was visiting here from Prague with her sister, and they were with us. And Stephanie and Jeff from the States rounded out the congenial group. Neshikah the cat was particularly sociable that evening, and stayed with us! We ate and laughed, and it was lovely to entertain friends!

We are preparing for a concert tour of Vienna (one of our concerts will be a commemmoration of Christallnacht), Bratislava, and Budapest. The trip is heavily subsidized by a group that promotes better relations between Christians and Jews in Eastern Europe. I'm very excited to be part of the trip, the concept, and the music. (The cat sitter will cost me more than the trip!)

More soon...meantime, stay in touch!

Acharei haChagim (After the Holy days)

2008-10-03T22:45:00.003+03:00

So long since I have written here, though I write all the time in my head! Now where's that robot to write my thoughts?

Preparing for Yom Kippur, pages and pages of transliterated Hebrew that I will chant using a series of melodies that fit the tone of the day...yes, to the purists, I will learn the "right" way for next year. But after learning numbers of Sephardic and Israeli melodies for texts I have perfectly good Ashkenazic tunes, I'm finished. I will be lucky to get my mouth around the Hebrew correctly. I'm serious, pages and pages of transliteration. But this is the way I have always worked, and I will do it from the real Hebrew sooner than most people might think!

Tonight I finally made the roster of clergy--"Chazzanit Cindy Leland" (though when they talk about me from the bima they just say "Cindy" which apparently is enough to make all heads turn to where I am sitting in the congregation.)

The congregation members are so sweet to me. I have been befriended by a Holocaust survivor, Ayalah, who in my darkest hours finally gave me the comfort and then the advice I needed: "Be happy. Make yourself be happy. You have your health, you can work. You are beautiful and talented. Be happy!"

When you get that message from someone who lost everybody and everything, you listen.

And there are so many more, people who shake my hand when I light the candles and stumble through the Hebrew sentences that follow the blessing (I know that, at least!) And the ones who close their eyes when I sing after the silent prayer, or whose eyes light up when I start Carlebach's "L'cha Dodi." And the rabbi who commented after my first Shabbat morning service "I really liked your Nishmat Kol Chai" only I made it up as I went along (successfully, that day) and happened on something nice. Can I reproduce it? I doubt it!

So I have stopped assessing my life, and am simply living it. Working, looking for more work, working on the chazzanut, finding time for a new choir (more about that later) and trying to make room in my habits for friends. Though, right now every conversation is punctuated with the phrase "acharei haChagim" (after the holy days.)

My newest choir is one I found by chance--reading an English-speakers' digest of email messages, I found one: "Soprano urgently needed!" Well, I just had to check it out, and they do need me. The choir, the Alie Geffen Chorale, is comprised completely-but-one of Russians! They sing sacred classical music--Shubert in Hebrew, Mozart in Latin, Mendelssohn, Tchaikowsky in Russian, just lovely lovely stuff, and I know almost all of it from my "former life." I sang most of it in English, but to have Mendelssohn's "He Watching Over Israel Slumbers Not Nor Sleeps" in the original Hebrew, from the psalm--oh, it is magic.

So I was hooked, and then I learned that they are prepping for a concert tour of Vienna (for a performance to commemmorate Kristallnacht) then to Bratislava and finally to Budapest. And the best thing is that it has been heavily subsidized by some group and will cost me only $350! So I really HAD to agree--I could never get to those places on my own.

And it turns out that my friend Alice from Columbus will be in Budapest when I am there!

I am moving on, moving forward. Beit Daniel has booked me for an October Shabbat (besides the holiday) and I will have more. I will.

Doors closing, what about the windows? The answer below.

2008-08-02T21:13:00.004+03:00

Life has been, life--some bad, some good.

Bad: After a year of increasing misery, I broke up with the very unsatisfactory man, and only after found out what a sick, lying pig b----rd he really is! A very close call. Next relationship, if there is one, will be on my terms, no alternatives.

Told the whole story to a good friend here, and have a new sister! Good!

Made a new friend originally from the UK and very sensible and supportive. Makes me laugh, takes me out. Am finally seeing Tel Aviv--good!

Auditioned for the Israeli Opera (they asked me, after all, but wanted a mezzo--not exactly me, but what the heck?) Chazzanut, good, but the required Handel aria--bad! Oh, well.

Last week at Hadassah, my boss came back from a meeting with the big-wigs, to tell me that after the holy days in the fall my job will be eliminated. Bad.

Last night, Cantor and composer Jeff Klepper was at Beit Daniel, visiting at the end of a trip here. For those of you who don't know his work, his work along with Debbie Friedman's, revolutionized and revived Reform and now Conservative liturgical music. Jeff contacted me after he found my blog, and let me know he would be in town. We ended up singing his Shalom Rav and Oseh Shalom together, without rehearsal--the best kind of fun I know, anyway, and a special thrill because it was Jeff Klepper! And we were good. The congregation absolutely loved it, and everyone was very nice after the service, and this morning, too, especially Cantor Freddy. Good!

And finally last night I realized that I need the bima time--it is a kind of hunger that gnaws at me day and night. When I am up there, singing, I am healed and healing, whole. I need to find an accompanist/partner, and make it happen. This must be my main objective (once I have an income, since I like to eat, too!) Truth is always good.

Now off to work on Yom Kippur. I will be the cantor in Jaffo! Good!

Five goods, three bads--the goods win! Nice to know.

Stay in touch, my friends!

Watch this space...lots of stuff coming soon...

2008-07-22T22:37:00.003+03:00

Well, for one reason or another, I have been journalling and emailing my thoughts and not writing here. But any minute now I will be back. Having passed through the fire, and clean, and ready for business!

But tomorrow I am in the office, at Hadassah, to earn my "daily bread"! So patience for just a few more days, and pictures, and stories! And pictures! And stories...

"Please wait..

a long time coming...

2008-06-14T22:04:00.002+03:00

Well, it has been a combination of finally having a "real life" here (meaning work, and lots of it, and not so much time to reflect and observe) and so many things going on (Israel's 60th anniversary, seeing friends, Galron things) and I have not had much time or inclination to write.

So tonight you get an update!

On Israel's 60th--picture July 4th, with a lot of editorials and polls saying the government should not spend a lot of money on a celebration, but put it toward the many social issues all countries have. The big buzz was Bank HaPoalim's marketing gesture of having flags made, only the magein (star) was wrong--the top point should point at the band of blue at the top of the flag, and Poalim's star had it so that the top point was pointing at blank white space. See the picture. They put the flags in ALL of the newspapers--everybody had one! It was quite a scandal!

On Lag b'Omer the medurot (bonfires) were spectacular and scary in some cases. Mike Cummings (who has been here for months--we have emailed and phoned but not met) had a lovely falafel dinner and some beers and a long talk, then went out to see the fires. No supervision, no fire department presence, just a lot of kids playing with fire! Mike commented about OSU football games and how people burn cars randomly--that never happens here, and Mike and I think it is because Israelis of all generations get the firebug out of themselves on this one night!

Shavuot I simply couldn't face--an all-nighter studying Torah, in Hebrew. I stayed home and made myself a meal with lots of cheese!

The fourth weekend in May saw the gathering of all of the Reform/Liberal congregations for a convention. The Shabbat services took center stage, and I was asked to lead the service (representing Beit Daniel) for the reading of the Torah--my first in over a year and a half. I studied the liturgy (there is more/different here) and put together my "book" and drove to the site the week before to be sure I knew where it was. Then there was "the day" and I met Cantor Evan Cohen, an emigre from the US who offered to help me and whom I joined for several prayers in an earlier part of the service. When my turn came, I was BACK IN THE SADDLE! What I didn't know, I had made up--and everyone sang along, because what I need is inside myself already. It was the loveliest chaos with all sorts of diverse people called to make the blessings before and after the readings. One was for all the people who came from other countries to live here--40 people, including me! I finally saw that I'm really "on the team."

Later in the day was the Cantor's Concert--I sang with Iris Weiner, Evan Cohen, and others. It was lovely...

A week later I led the Friday evening service with guitarist/singer Boaz. We worked out the issues of pitching his songs higher, and then I pitched all of my a capella stuff WAY TOO LOW!! It was terrible, to talk the song instead of singing it, and it was my own damned fault--I have lost the "feel" of starting some of the songs so that I can start and then the congregation can join. I will get it back , but I need more experience.

But as usual, everyone heard what they wanted to hear. (In this case, that's good!)

The next day I traveled with the senior rabbi of Beit Daniel, Rabbi Meir Azari, to a private home to "do" a bar mitzvah. My first mincha service, my first Ashrei (yes, my "born" Jewish friends, go ahead and laugh!!) and I was sweating it. Lots of new liturgy, and an audience of people who have spent their lives avoiding the synagogue so they didn't know much of anything to sing along.

I did it, they were surprised to see a woman, but not averse, and the young man aquitted himself admirably. And I DID it. And supported Rabbi Azari. On the way back to Tel Aviv, I told him how nice it was to meet Evan Cohen and Meir told me "you know, none of the cantors in Israel are 'ordained'"--well I didn't know that, and it made me feel much better.

So I am working on the parts of the Saturday morning service I don't know, and working for Hadassah, and figuring out when I can get back to the States to see my kids.

That's it, and good night!

The Galron Singers

2008-04-27T23:12:00.002+03:00

We performed last night at the Cultural Center in Rishon Letzion last night, the longest performance we have made in a while. I still know only about 85% of the words, but the words I know, I understand (mostly!) This time we performed a few songs that we have learned together (as opposed to me trying to catch up.) One was a rock-and-roll medley of songs by Yehudit Ravitz, and a medley of French chansons, that builds up to me singing "La Vie En Rose" to new Hebrew lyrics, very loud. We had to do an encore, which really never is done here, after a performance like this one. It was a great success.

Before the performance we had an hour and a half of that distinctly Israeli experience--singing together, with a pianist, and the words projected on the screen. I only knew a few of these songs, but it was such pleasure to hear an auditorium filled with people singing their heads off, just for fun! One of the few songs I knew was "HaFinjan" which was led by the very elderly man who wrote the words!

Click on the link below, or above this post, and visit Galron's English website (translated by me!) You will be able to hear some of our music, and you can leave a comment for me by picking Members, then clicking on my photo. It would be so so nice to hear your comments! And sign the guest book, too--just be sure to scroll down to see the options (and the scroll bar is on the left, the Hebrew way!)

http://www.galronsingers.com/index.php

Chag Sameach!!

2008-04-12T20:22:00.002+03:00

We are in full holiday mode here--all the stores are having sales, and people are sprucing up their homes. Mine is still spruced from last year, so I can save my money except for the gifts I will take to my hosts. At least this year I know the customs (bring something for the household--pretty plate, table runner, flowering plant or something else nice) and will have Chag Pesach lunch at the same place I had it last year--Janine and Danny Gelley's. They have kindly invited me so many times that I feel like part of the family. AND Janine always asks me to sing, so this year I will be warmed up and ready with something I haven't sung for them before (don't know what yet, but they are South African, so I can sing in English--good time for Gershwin or Arlen!)

My seder will be at the home of one of the rabbis at Beit Daniel. Typical of all invitations here, he truly was happy that I would be there. Of course, he said something about leading the songs, so I hope I know some! It will be a wonderful to experience a Progressively religious seder here!

I wish you chag sameach, a happy and kosher Passover, and may you liberate yourselves from whatever slavery exists in your lives. And may we all remember those who need freedom, all over the world.

And if you are not one of "my people" happy Spring, healing, growth and happiness!

Well, I call it progress!

2008-04-12T19:36:00.002+03:00

Just when I was in despair, thinking that I never will learn to speak this language I love so much, I had a whole conversation in Hebrew last evening after services at Beit Daniel. An elderly man greeted me, and then we spent fully 10 minutes talking about the great composers Lewandowski and Sulzer! What a thrill it was to actually be talking! (I think it helped that I knew the work of these great composers, and the arrangements, and love them as much as this gentleman did.)

And I can talk! Whoo-hoo!

Spring!

2008-03-26T16:26:00.003+02:00

I put up 2 photos (not fabulous quality, but I took them with my not-fabulous-quality cellphone!) of what many vacant lots look like now. This field is in the big Kfar Saba Park. Every time I pass it there are different kinds of flowers. And now the orange trees are blossoming (while still having mature oranges on them...) and the air is citrus-scented. I must have been still in a fog last spring, because I don't remember the flowers or the blossoms! Enjoy...I am!

Purim in Israel

2008-03-22T18:36:00.002+02:00

All week we were in full-holiday mode--people in costume or masks (kids and grownups!), people carrying or ordering cellophane gift baskets of food. Silly music on the radio, lots of fun. Fundraising for Sderot and Ashkelon.

Personally, I was helping host the Prima Vista choir of the Musicschule of Leverkusen Germany. Galron and Prima Vista performed at the Kol Rinah choral festival at Kibbutz Ein Gedi, Yankele Schreibman and I met them and had a tour of Hadassah hospital, and I traveled with them on a tour of the north, around the Kineret, up on the Golan Heights (they are really high, and accessible only by a 2-lane road that snaked and hairpinned its way up. I'm glad I went by bus, because I think I would not like to drive it!) All through this beautiful land there are land mines and bunkers left from the war.

Later that day we toured some sites important to Christians, and then traveled to Nazareth Illit, to tour a chocolate factory and then perform at a nursing home (they performed, I carried music stands and ran for water!)

I was also preparing to chant chapter 3 of the book of Esther at Beit Daniel. I borrowed a kimono from my friend Pnina Gershony, and Thursday evening went to Tel Aviv, hoping people would be dressed up, hoping I would be OK. The synagogue was MOBBED! At 6 they had a party in the sanctuary for kids and parents, with a live band, and tons of food and things for sale. When I arrived at 7:45 the party was still going on, and everybody was dressed in some kind of costume! We settled down for a short evening service, but the hilarity continued--the cantor led the Chatzi Kaddish to the tune of "Ani Purim!"

Then we all went downstairs to the social hall for the megilla reading (here starts some background for those who have never experienced Purim in community.) There were cushions, low chairs and other chairs all over the room, with space for another band, and the table where we readers would sit. Tables lined the walls and were scattered among the seats, filled with food, wine, vodka and fruit juices (you are supposed to drink as the megilla is read, until you can't distinguish between the names of Mordechai (the uncle of Esther) and Haman (the bad guy.)

The second band had a gorgeous girl singer, and we sang some songs before starting to read. We read 2 chapters, then the band played some more music, then I started. My chapter is where Haman is introduced, and during the reading, whenever Haman's name is mentioned, everybody makes noise! (Anybody remember PeeWee's Playhouse? "Whenever somebody says the secret word, everybody scream real loud!") So every time I read "Haman" it was crazy! I got through it, not my finest hour, but perfectly acceptable, and after, Rabbi Azari did his sweet shpiel about me being new to Beit Daniel, etc.

I repaired to the drinks table--there was lots of vodka, but no cups! Fortunately I had my nearly empty water bottle! I had my drink, and enjoyed the rest of the reading. One of the women who read has become my new ideal--she read with such ease and humor, and when she got to the appropriate place in the text switched the tune to the kid's song with the same words! She was amazing!

At the end, the band started playing in earnest, and we all danced and sang and had a wonderful time. There was a rendition of "Ani Ma'amin" ("I Believe"--text that originated during the Holocaust, and usually is set to solemn music) that rocked!

OK, so it wasn't "Shushan Surfari Dreamin'" or "Shushan 'Cross the Mersey" or "Ahhhhh-hashverosh!" But for years I have been making Purim mine...this year Purim made me its!

Next day, the readers assembled at a retirement home in Tel Aviv, and did the reading again, not so rowdy, but enjoyed just the same.

I took lots of pictures, but only have posted a few--I'll put more on if people request it!

Beit Daniel, the Next Chapter

2008-02-15T21:06:00.003+02:00

I am a regular at Beit Daniel services, now, leading parts of each Friday service (sometimes all) and generally having the second aliyah in the morning service. I'm starting to learn the melodies I don't know, and the texts I need to know. I take a different music book with me each week to try to either identify what tune they are using, or where I can find an alternative. A lot of little blue and red and green stickies! But I know that I can "cobble" together a Friday evening and Saturday morning service that will do.

I'm meeting the congregation members, a few at a time. And getting to know the cantor and rabbis. Everyone is very sweet, supportive, completely accepting. But what is my status?

Tonight I learned!

I went to the erev Shabbat service, was prepared to introduce a new melody for Oseh Shalom (Jeff Klepper's, which TBS loved.) I was thinking it would be better to do it when there was a busload of Americans (we have them 2-3 times a month) because the Americans would know it. As I parked my car, 4 busloads of people were going into the building--all Americans! (How many signs do I need?) We had 600 people at the service! One of them was Leon Sher, a prominent cantorial soloist from the states who has written some nice melodies for the liturgy. I had met him at the Zamir Choral Fest a few years ago--reintroduced myself, then the service started.

Time came for the silent prayer, and after, time for me. Swallowed the butterflies (parparim in Hebrew!) and hummed the Oseh Shalom as an introduction to my Hebrew version of "May the Words," then sang that, and when I went into Oseh Shalom for real--fully 450 people sang with me! I dipped in and out of the soprano harmony, and what fun we had!

Back to my seat, most relieved and so happy!

During the announcements, Rabbi Azari thanked me, said that I made aliyah a year ago, and have been helping out in Beit Daniel services, and that when the congregation in Jaffo is developed, Cindy will be part of it!! In front of all of those witnesses! Now I know.

For Adon Olam, Rabbi Azari asked if there were any cantorial soloists among the guests--I pointed at Leon, and he was invited to come up to help lead the closing song, and then, so was I! It was one LOUD closing song, but again, such fun!

After, Leon thanked me, and remembered that we had met at the Choral Fest. We talked about how we had heard that the Israeli Reform synagogues all had their own melodies--then we had Debbie Friedman's Ahavat Olam, and others! At the kiddush people were lovely as usual.

Rabbah Galia asked me how it went--good, good! Then she told me how impressed she has been by my flexibility and assertiveness in being part of each service. And how the congregation loves me--how many people have talked to her about me. I am so grateful, for so much.

Now, it won't a "job" as it was at TBS. There is no "Hebrew" school--the kids already know that! No religious school... So a big component of an American congregation is not an issue here. I'll be paid on a "per service" basis, as I was when I started this amazing journey 10 years ago. So what? That's how they do it here! But what potential! It's very exciting to be involved in bringing the sweetness of the Reform movement to Israel! They are "feeling their ways" and have accepted me as a fellow pioneer. Still a little unreal. No, still COMPLETELY unreal. Only it is real, and mine.

PS--I will be chanting a chapter of Esther for Purim. When I checked it in my "big book" (parents of my former students will know this!) another "sign"--the chapter starts with the 5 verses I always chanted at TBS.

Old News to Me, But Not to You!

2008-02-15T20:12:00.002+02:00

My second chance leading the service at Beit Daniel, 2 weeks ago. On the supplement, instead of "Guest Chazzanit" they just put "Chazzanit"--wonder if that means anything? It went really well, even though I worked with a young guy with a guitar--and no rehearsal!

Aside from a misunderstanding about the length and content of one song (oh, I am really blowing with the wind now!) and me skipping a verse on another, (oops!) on the whole it went VERY well, and it was nice to have a partner. We worked with the female rabbi, and she was very sweet and organized (and my original champion.)

After, I did the kiddush (though I didn't know they wanted me to, and took my sweet time getting downstairs!) and then everybody wanted to talk to me. SO many nice comments (voice, music, service,) and a few that really meant something special. Several said how much they enjoy my services, what a nice change it makes from the cantor and how I seemed more relaxed tonight, which made them more comfortable. (They didn't know I spent the WHOLE DAY SHAKING with fear. Literally.) I don't know where this fear comes from, but it has been my companion for so many years. If only I could make it my friend. We'll see if I live long enough!

To the cantor, who gave me a bear hug--I asked if it was better, he said "MUCH better, in fact on another level entirely!" and then went on to praise (again--he loves it) the Yihyu L'Ratzon that goes into the Hirsh Oseh Shalom. He thinks it isn't long enough and wants me to make it longer with a solo for me at the end because "with the clapping and singing they forget how you made them feel at the beginning!" Well!

And then a woman came up, and we 3 talked, and she said to me, "do you have the siddur Hebrew?" and the cantor said, "oh, yes, she has it all!" (Oy, did I knock on wood then!) That was one of the things that brought my "score" on the first service WAY down--the pronunciation. Then the head rabbi, I asked how it was, better than the last time? "Oh, yes, yes! I enjoyed the service very much!" So I feel pretty good!

Then a lovely dinner at my dear friend, sister, Aliza's--can that woman cook! I helped with the dishes and made myself a refrigerator dish of leftovers for Sunday when I work! Nice to be at a place where I know where the refrigerator dishes are, and can feel free to make a doggy bag!

That catches us up to the next post, which already I wrote!

Sheleg Al Iri-Snow on My Town

2008-01-31T19:36:00.000+02:00

I watched the news on TV and internet, and when I knew it was snowing in Jerusalem and the North, I grabbed my keys and my camera, hopped in the car, and went there! Drove through pelting rain, hail, fierce winds, up into the mountains, absolutely SURE that I wouldn't see any snow. But as I rounded the last curve to Ein Kerem, I could see white!

But I wanted to see it on the Old City, so into town I went. The snow had been about 4 inches thick, but by the time I got there was turning to heavy slush. Messy, and the roads were bad even by Columbus standards, but I made it, and on the way caught a few pictures. Made my way to the Goldman Promenade, to see what I could of the old city and the mosques.

I'm generally a bad photographer, but I have some good software, and I think the results were pretty good!

Shabbat shalom!

2008-01-26T18:31:00.001+02:00

Things are progressing at Beit Daniel. I am now singing parts of every Friday evening service, and attending Saturday morning and Musaf services regularly, learning the "flow" of the services.

It has been a little frustrating, because I have had trouble connecting with the rabbi about my services, and I like to KNOW what I am doing (even though I seldom do!)

I had been trying to confirm my next solo service, unsuccessfully for 2 weeks. And last week I still had not heard from them, but I dressed and put on a good attitude and went for the choir "audition" for the rabbi and cantor. For the service itself, I was prepared to do MiChamocha and Hashkiveinu (a new one I have been working on for weeks.) But I didn't know if they wanted me to do them or what!

I have this vision of myself at that person--the one nobody really wants but who nobody has the guts to tell them. But still I go.

The choir was good, rabbi and cantor very happy. After, I talked to the rabbi--he hadn't received any of my messages!!! He asked me to be patient and that we would continue to do parts of the service for a while--so OK!! Then I talked to the cantor about the service later that evening, he said my choices were fine, and that I should be prepared to step in because he was sick! I said, "sure!!" (But you simply cannot imagine how terrified I became at that moment!)

But the cantor did fine, the old performance adrenalin that has served me so well served him too! So at the appropriate time I went up and did the one Nick and I did the whole last year I was at TBS. I did it the other service, too, and it was new, but people got it by the end. But that was months ago, and I didn't know if they would sing. But they did!! And smiled, and then I chazzaned the last part of MiCham. and went into the new Hashkiveinu...they loved that too! I got ready to go back to my seat, but the cantor said, "Hey--do VeShamru, too!" So I said "sure!," and everybody had a chuckle, we sang, and then I was done! Whew...

After the service, lots of strokes. I guess I really am on the team. I really can't express how terrifying this is. All the people from my past who told me I couldn't do the things I wanted to do are still in my head. The fact that I converted, that I don't know anything, that I have no business even trying this...it's all there, never goes away. I know there is no "lightening bolt" but still I wait for it!

This morning I arrived a little late, walked into the sanctuary, and the rabbi and cantor were talking with a guy who had his back to me. I greeted people, then went to my usual seat. The guy came to sit behind me--it was Doug Cotler! For those who don't know him, he is a soloist at a big synagogue in California, a prolific composer of beautiful Jewish music, such as "Listen" and "Standing on the Shoulders" and many more. I performed with him (with the choir) when he came to Temple Beth Shalom a number of years ago. So I stood up and said, "Doug?" and we started talking. His congregation is here on a trip, and there they were to see a Reform service here.

He taught the congregation "Amar Rabbi Akiva" which I haven't sung in too long. ( I will use it as an opening song sometime soon!) I had the second aliyah, and Doug's whole group came up to do the next! All in all it was a lovely morning, and I talked to everyone during the kiddush, met the rabbi, posed for pictures (feeling a little like Forrest Gump!)

I had a taste of what it will be like at Beit Daniel--a "mecca" for Reform congregations from the US and the rest of the world. Who knows who else I will see?

Festival Sovev Kineret

2008-01-24T17:58:00.000+02:00

Several weeks ago I went, with Pnina Gershoni, to a festival of Israeli music held at the bottom tip of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee.) Attendance was open only to members of Mila, the Israeli society of choirs, choral groups, and a professional organization for conductors. I had been hearing about festivals like this one, but had no idea what it would be like. For about $250 we got 2 nights at a very nice kibbutz guest house, breakfast and dinner for 2 days, and entrance to the festival events. The first night we were treated to a concert by HaKol Over Chabibi, an amazing singing group backed by an incredibly talented band that could have stood on its own. Before the concert we found Aliza, and a whisper went through the crowd "There's sachlab!!" and a general rush to get some. It's a thinnish hot pudding made from milk and powdered vanilla orchid root. Sprinkle the top with grated coconut and chopped peanuts, and eat with a spoon. It was good, but I'll have to have more to understand why everyone was so excited!

The next day there were sessions where different choirs performed (all "amateurs" performing Israeli music arranged by their conductors.) Some ok, some not so much. You could see the influence the conductor had over the quality of the singing and the arrangements. (Pnina, Aliza and I thought Galron should have been there--we would have blown them all away!) (If we do say so ourselves!)

A presentation about Rachel Shapiro and Leah Goldberg (2 extremely prolific poets whose work has become the "Israeli songbook") featuring Dafna Zahavi (David's daughter) and Gabi Argov (Sasha's daughter-in-law and pianist for Koleinu when we were here) and another concert in the evening.

Basically it was an intensive 2 days of music! I knew about 30% of the songs, had at least heard another 30%--not bad for a newcomer, I think!

After the fest Pnina and I, Aliza and her husband Tzvika, and Avi Faintoch (Director of Mila and of Galron) and his daughter Gal had a little tour on the way home. First we climbed and climbed this huge mountain, bare of trees, until we got to the top--Kochav HaYarden, the ruins of a Crusader fortress with a view of the whole valley, clear across to Jordan! It's a national park, where they run a bird sanctuary especially devoted to griffin vultures. I got a very good picture of a pair.

Then to Beit Shean, a settlement first occupied in the 5th millenium B.C.E. Later it was a seat of government for the Egyptians, and was where the bodies of Saul and his sons were displayed after the battle at Mt. Gilboa. Throughout the centuries it was conquered and destroyed by invaders. Its citizens changed with the ages, too, going from Jewish to Egyptian, Assyrian and back to Jewish. When the Romans took over, pagans, Jews, and Samaritans lived together, and great public buildings went up, including an immense amphitheater. The whole place was mostly destroyed by a huge earthquake in 749 C.E.

They have been excavating since the 1920s--it truly is an amazing place.

Then lunch in an Arab village near Mt. Tabor--at least 20 different salads, wonderful breads, a leg of veal that had been boned and then stuffed with savory rice; a pie stuffed with kabobs and vegetables; thin, tiny lamb chops; the best falafel I have had yet. Needless to say I didn't need dinner that night!

My Other Favorite Subject

2008-01-07T10:10:00.000+02:00

Music and food...my favorite subjects! The vegetables here are simply divine, and I have started experimenting. We eat a LOT of salad here, but we don't limit them to just lettuce. So here is a recipe I recently developed. Fennel is mostly water with vitamins and minerals, so you can eat a lot of it without guilt! And eating 5 to 7 walnuts a day reduces your risk of heart disease, increases good cholesterol and decreases the bad.

לבראות "LiVrioot"- to your health!

Yummy Fennel Salad
6-8 small servings

2 large bulbs fennel
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 tablespoons fresh zahtar (hyssop) or marjoram, or chopped parsley
3/4 cup California walnuts

(1) In a medium saucepan, heat 3 cups water to boiling. While the water heats, wash the fennel bulbs, cut off any green parts. Cut bulbs into quarters and remove the cores. Slice the fennel, and put into the boiling water for 5 minutes (no more!), then remove and drain well.

(2) While the fennel is still hot, place it in a non-reactive container, add the lemon juice and olive oil, and mix thoroughly. Add salt and pepper (don’t skimp) and the zahtar, and mix again. Can be made ahead to this point; refrigerate.

(3) Chop the walnuts very coarsely, place into a shallow skillet over medium heat, and toast, stirring very often, until nuts are crisp and golden brown. Do not leave them while toasting—they will burn very easily.

(4) Before serving, toss the toasted walnuts with the fennel, taste again and add more salt and pepper if needed. Can be served cold or at room temperature, but I always eat one serving while it is warm!

Onward and Upward

2007-12-31T22:53:00.000+02:00

Just a note before we begin: Now that I have to work and study, I have less time to synthesize and write. Therefore, this blog will become less "epistle-y" and more "bloggy" (without the rants and politics and telling you what I ate for dinner!) You can "unsubscribe" by replying to the email.

After feeling a little like moving here will mean that I never get to serve a congregation again, there is some news.

I had another meeting with the rabbi at the Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv, to try to see what they had planned, if I was "in" or "out" or what. He finally told me what I needed to hear-that he and the other staff and the congregation love my voice and manner on the bima.

That they were 2 years behind in their plans to expand the Jaffo congregation because they couldn't find a cantor.

That they already rejected 5 other cantors because the congregation didn't like them.

That they want somebody who can expand the services and contact with the congregation and greater community, who understands that Friday evening is warm and fuzzy with people who want to be there, but that the bar mitzvah services on Saturdays and other days consisted of 150 guests and 5 congregants. (Gee, that sounds familiar!)

That I just need to tell him which parts of the service I want to do each week (this week: opening with a hasidic nign, and doing Yihyu l'ratzon and Oseh Shalom) in any of the 4 services, until I am ready to do a whole one. (The first was sort of like jumping into an empty swimming pool--I landed on my feet, but it was pretty rough! I have learned A LOT since then!)

So I just need to get working, on some repertoire and the Hebrew. I can tell you I feel a lot more motivated now! And I will do another erev Shabbat service in a month.

I stressed that I didn't want to step on Freddy's (the cantor) feet. Rabbi Azari told me that he (the rabbi) had built the congregation over 20 years from nothing, brought in the 2 other rabbis (one is a woman) and if he could let others in, Freddy had better do it too! (But I have made Freddy into a friend-partly because I treat him as if he has forgotten more service stuff than I ever will know...which is true!)

So it is mine for the taking. Really almost like 10 years ago, though I am starting with some repertoire at least, some knowledge and a lot of "bima time," even if it is American Reform and not quite what I need here. I am in for some hard and scary experiences...just as I had in Columbus. And now I really have to learn the language! I can't just fake it as I could in Columbus, because nobody except Rabbi Apothaker knew the difference!

You all know me-I am not afraid, I don't know what I am doing, but somehow I will make it. (I just can't think too much!)

Working on a new Hashkiveinu, one by Isaacson from L'Maasei Breishit--which has singable chazanut and nearly all the right words from the siddur--just have to replace one line. This is the hardest part--finding stuff I can do without accompaniment, in Hebrew, with the same words as the siddur, or which can be stretched or shrunk to fit what is there. I'm so glad I bought as many books as I did. And that on Yom Kippur I just made up melodies to fit the texts. Exhiliarating! So off I go to study. Happy New Year!

Not in Kansas any more!

2007-12-29T21:39:00.000+02:00

I have new neighbors, on the other side of the mirpeset (balcony) wall and the first thing they did, literally the first night, was start shiva (7 days of public and private mourning) for some member of the family. Each night for a week, at least 50 to 100 people trooped up the steps and into the apartment. At 3:30 and 4:30 pm they did a service out on the mirpeset--loud, loud. Completely unfamiliar singing, etc.

Finally shiva ended, there were 2 nights of quiet, and last night, they are doing this amazing Shabbat service together--must have been 50 people, with either women or young boys singing at the tops of their lungs. And it was this sing-song chant that sounds EXACTLY like the "Corn Dance" at the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico! Fascinating, living in a world far different from my former world, to live right next door to yet another.

Today on Shabbat, I went out to do my 6 kilometers, and passed some of my very different neighbors. "Shabbat shalom" I said, with a smile. "Shabbat shalom!" they smiled back at me. These are some of the people the world considers dangerous. Worth thinking about.

A few reflections after one year...

2007-12-28T14:40:00.000+02:00

A long time between posts--the job and daily life have made writing difficult! I am constantly writing in my head, but sadly all of it stays there!

A moment to remember Benazir Bhutto--a woman my own age who was a pioneer. Beautiful, meticulously educated, charming, and BRAVE. What courage it takes to live and to act. She had it, and the world is poorer for her absence.

Last week I celebrated one year here, and find myself without anything profound to say, except that I love it here, and am glad I made it through the year!

So these were just a few of my thoughts today.

I made a wonderful batch of homemade chili last week--can't get chipotles, but found some firey dried peppers and put in some liquid smoke, and the result was quite good! But it made me hungry for my enchiladas with green sauce. I have everything I need in my pantry or on my balcony, except tomatillos. So last week I began a holy quest for tomatillos, canned or fresh, I don't care. However they are apparently unavailable here, except in a tiny window at some kibbutz someplace. Finally I ordered seeds online, and once I have grown the plants, I guess I will have to preserve the fruits--I hear they freeze well. That will be one hell of a batch of enchiladas when finally I get them!

Funny what you get hungry for. They have tasteless cardboard flour "tortillas" but if you are brave you can get wonderful wheat flatbreads that look exactly the same, and taste and "feel" much better.

It's funny--the weather today was just like a sunny, clear, dry day in September. Temps low 70s, enough dry leaves down to smell and crunch. Only it's almost January!

I took my first yoga class in a year yesterday. It was great, and the teacher was similar to mine in Columbus. I hadn't realized how much I missed it--felt very emotional after. And the muscles between my ribs (the "intercostals") are SORE! Yoga taught me so much about compassion for and acceptance of myself, and I was happy to feel so good during the class--haven't lost anything!

As I always do on Friday, I walked down to the main shopping street to get my Friday International Herald/Tribune (includes an English language HaAretz, and the TV guide!) (Important because the listings change every 3 weeks--I am not exaggerating!) Past every house or apartment building I could smell cooking, savory smells full of spice and time. Maybe fish in a spicy pepper sauce, or whole chickpeas and onions in a tomato sauce, or the scent of kebabs. So much lovely food, so few mealtimes!

And the street (Weitzman) filled with people shopping, some slowly, greeting and talking with friends, some in a BIG hurry. Wonderful scents from the flower stalls and spice stores, kids running everywhere, babies in prams, gorgeous first strawberries of the season, finally some decent corn. Racks of clothes and shoes and books and bread outside the shops. And everybody talking on their cell phones, sometimes 2 at once!

So I'm off to make a pot of sweet potato soup. Shabbat shalom!

A foot (or feet!) in the door!

2007-10-03T21:08:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday evening the rabbi from B'Vat Ayin called and asked me to be both rabbi and cantor for services THE NEXT NIGHT! "Of course!" I said...then went to work again. Put it together, with melodies I thought they would know, and wrote out the Hebrew for "we continue together" and "please rise" and "please be seated" and "continue in silence" etc. Read the Torah portion for Shabbat Sukkot in Hebrew and English, made some notes in English for a sermon of sorts (my d'vrei Torahs are always short, and sometimes pithy!) Got my stuff together, and went to Rosh HaAyin.

A very small but enthusiastic group finally arrived, and we had a lovely hour together. Everything went smoothly except for "Yedid Nefesh" for which I have learned the Israeli tune and I have heard it in all the services I have attended here. Well almost every service, because I started it, and nobody there knew it!! And it was a singing crowd. So we used the tune I always have used, but things fell apart because in the states we only ever did the first verse--of, like, six! So it fizzled, and we all laughed, and went on. Everything else was nice, and I felt pretty good and again, not particularly nervous.

So gig number 2! Again, once I have the tax stuff worked out, I'll get paid. A HUGE advantage to last minute gigs is that there is no time to worry about it!

And then yesterday Beit Daniel asked me to be the cantor on October 12. I meet with the senior rabbi on Sunday to plan the service.

Throughout the year it took me to get here, I kept saying that I thought there is a place for me here, in Israel, to show the people that there is another way to be Jewish, that there is an alternative to "Orthodox or nothing." But the voice in my head invariably said, "oh, you are SO full of s--t!"

Now I think that voice was wrong. (Hooray!!)

On to Yom Kippur

2007-10-03T20:40:00.000+02:00

So four (4!) days before Yom Kippur, I got a phone call from a rabbi of a congregation in the seaside city of Netanya. Their guest cantor had just cancelled, and the rabbi from Beit Daniel (in Tel Aviv, where I have been interviewing) had recommended that they talk to me. Of course I said yes, and we met the next day with the man who would be doing the reading parts of the services.

A word to you who aren't familiar with Yom Kippur--it is a 25-hour fast, with no food or water. Services begin the evening before, with Kol Nidre, a prayer sung by the cantor on behalf of all of the people in the congregation about vows undertaken but not completed. Here in Israel, the text covers last year and the next. (So the text is different from that in the Reform prayerbook in the US. More on this later!)

The next day continues with a 5-hour set of services in the morning, then more in the afternoon, continuing until the sun sets. A lot of liturgy, a lot of singing. You have to know a LOT. ( I know SOME.)

We spent 5 hours going through the liturgy, in a typically Israeli meeting. I am my serious, focusing, not-quite-panicked self. They were taking turns talking on their phones, making jokes, singing songs I don't know, talking about past services, and what the guest cantor was supposed to do, and leaving the room and coming back. I had to use my yoga breathing to stay calm.

I spent the next 3 days trying to fit what I know into what was needed. Nearly all of the texts were different from the music I had. Much of the music I had wouldn't work with the text or a capella, or with a Hebrew speaking congregation. In the end, I wrote out a lot of texts and simply made up chants to go with them. "Improvising" is what I called it! Cantor Jack Chomsky from Columbus scanned and emailed me the music for a special text for the Musaf service, from two different transcriptions. I knew the beginning of one, and fortunately, the text in the service here is about half of what it is in the Conservative books in the US, so that's the one I picked. Though I plan to learn the other one, too, for effect! (Thanks, Jack!)

It is against the law to drive for the 25 hours of the fast, so I had to get there early, before they closed all the roads. They found an elderly widow (originally from Argentina, 25 years here) who graciously let me stay with her. What a sweetie! She and I spoke a combination of Hebrew, Spanish and English, and were friends by the evening. She is not religious, and was very worried about my being offended that she was eating and not going to synagogue--of course, I was not, and we were very comfortable together.

In the evening, I dressed in white (but not the dressy-with-stockings I used to wear!) and put on my 10-year-old canvas shoes, and carrying my music stand, walked to the synagogue. I worried a bit about walking home by myself (more about this in a minute.) Then we did the Kol Nidre service, and what I knew, I did, and when I didn't know what to do, I sat, serenely in silence. (Something I have learned to do here!)

When I came out, all of Netanya (in fact, all over the country) was out in the streets! With bikes, scooters, blades, wheelchairs, and on foot--old, young--like a street fair, but without vendors. Just everyone out in the soft night together. Like nothing I have ever experienced!

So I slept peacefully, and got up the next day to do it again!

This was a long day, very different from what I knew before, but amazing fun! As I said, a lot of the words were different, and I have a lot to learn for next year. And I found I wasn't particularly nervous (all those years of chariot racing on the bima at TBS--you know, where every horse has its own reins, and the driver has to control them all) gave me a patience for mistakes, and a pretty good poker face! The reader made mistakes, I made mistakes, we stepped on each other's parts sometimes, and once, I started a song and the congregation took it to another place, but they all knew I was new here and when I was at my best, I was pretty good.

And all that said, even with all I didn't know and the fact that the guy leading the services and I had 5 hours to plan them, it was very successful. And I received the 2 compliments I like best: "I ordinarily don't like a woman's voice doing the traditional prayers, but YOU sound like a CANTOR!" and "You took our prayers to heaven"--and afterwards the family who are notorious for NOT liking anything in the services invited me to break the fast at their home, with their family, where they went on and on about it!

And the rabbi of the synagogue will tell other rabbis, including the one from Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv, who recommended me, and I will work here. And learn what I need to learn. And teach what they need to learn. And make the mark I am on earth to make.

The next evening at Galron rehearsal, my friend Gila told me she sent her nephew's family to the services to hear me, and that after, one of them said that it felt like my voice was "the voice of God"--higher compliment I don't think there is!

So I get my check next week (after I go to the income tax office and get a form that exempts me from paying tax on this income, and register as a freelance worker. The good news is that I know where the office is, and what I need to ask for!)

Random Rosh HaShanah Musings

2007-10-02T19:50:00.000+02:00

So instead of waiting and writing a grand masterpiece (as I have been doing, sadly only in my head!) I'll share several posts of topical natures!

Rosh HaShanah here was fascinating--I was not working, but had three days' worth of interesting experiences. Everywhere I went, people were wishing me a happy new year "Shanah Tovah!" It was unreal. The guy who checks your trunk before you can go into the underground parking at the Kfar Saba mall greeted me with a paragraph of blessings for health and wealth and peace. You can't imagine how it makes you feel.

Here, the new year is becoming all about presents--remind you of something? All of the ads on radio are about matanot--gifts, gifts, gifts! And since I was invited to many peoples' homes for the holiday, I was out there with everyone else! And of course, money spent on other people doesn't count, right?! But I also found myself out "spreading sweetness and light" to quote P. G. Wodehouse. Called nearly everyone on my address list, stopped in to hair dresser, the baker who makes the most delicious pitas, and the adorable young woman who sold me my car (the little jar of honey in the picture was from her.) It required only thought and time--and what pleasure it gave. So I have Learned Something.

On Erev Rosh HaShanah (the evening before the first day) I went to Kibbutz Nir Eliyahu as the guest of Shoshana and Arye Shalmon (Arye is a Galron bass.) We drank apple tea and ate honey cake, while Arye and I decided what to sing together (we did "Bo V'Shalom"--he sang the verses while I "doodled" a harmony, then we sang the choruses together.) After a while the family gathered, we all talked for a while (I doing a fair amount of Hebrew!) and the grandkids opened their new year presents of new socks and underwear! A fun tradition, and they have really cute socks here!

Then we all walked to the kibbutz dining hall, which was beautifully decorated for the new year. Long tables with bread and honey and fish appetizers (gefilte and spicy Moroccan fish.) Around 250 people gathered, lots of kids and multiple generations. Lots of talk and noise, and people having a great time. We ate wonderful salads, then it was showtime!

There were kids that read about the new year with a grandpa, and a 5-year old dressed as a princess who was the new year and tossed flowers everywhere. Then songs, and a description of the new year symbols, arranged on a round plate like those used for Passover seder.

Then I was introduced, and I sang something, then Arye and I did our piece. And through all of it the kids were running around and about half of the people were listening--and it felt like working the family Erev Rosh HaShanah service at Temple Beth Shalom!

So I was comfortable, and we sat down and ate, and ate! Wonderful food, and talk. And I ran into a woman from Zimbabwe with whom I was in the Hebrew language ulpan when I first got here! Small world...

Then the next day I went to the Orthodox services with my teacher from the ulpan--and heard the Shofar from behind the mechitza (a sort of barrier to separate the men and women.) But mostly during the service she and I chatted, and I helped her figure out where we were in the service.

Later that day I had a meal with South African friends, Janine and Danny Gelley. I have been to their home so many times that I know the family and friends--very pleasant! Aliza Regev was there, too, and Janine made us sing there, too!

Finally on Friday I had a lovely meal at Ronit and Razy Goldberg's house, with Razy's brother and his family. It was a comfortable way to celebrate the second day of Rosh HaShanah.

Meanwhile all week I could hear Shofar practicing from my apartment balcony!

An Interesting Day

2007-09-03T21:07:00.000+03:00

With the help of Yakov Schreibman from Galron, who also happens to be Vice President of the hospital, today I went to Jerusalem for an interview at Hadassah Hospital (at Ein Kerem) for a job involving translating pamphlets, bulletins and press releases from Hebrew to English, and to work on the English part of their website. A week ago they gave me two documents to translate and they evaluated the translations today. (I subscribed to a translation service, and ran the text through that first, just to get the idea of the document then did my best.) They liked it, gave me one more test "on the fly" which I passed, so I am hoping to hear that they want to hire me--my "day job!" We will see.

After the interview I changed clothes, and went to explore the biblical village of Ein Kerem. In addition to being a village rich in Christian history, considered to be the birthplace of John the Baptist. There are several monasteries and historic churches there, but they were all closed when I was there. So I found an interesting set of stone stairs, and climbed and climbed. On my way I saw ancient stone houses built right into the mountain, with tiny courtyards behind iron gates, riots of pink and purple bouganvilla, iron shutters and doors painted turquoise. I found several artists' studios, one of a painter, and one of a ceramicist, with gorgeously colored, meticulously detailed tiles and jewelry. I went down one really narrow alley and could hear someone playing a flute or recorder--very sweet sounds. But it was really hot, so I finally went back to the hospital (to clean up and change clothes, yet again, for a performance by Galron!)

We did 7 songs throughout a lovely ceremony to dedicate a new auditorium to be used for teaching by the emergency room staff. One surgeon made an imaginative, funny, interesting presentation chronicaling the changes in equipment used for teaching medicine over the years--complete with a glance at ancient and medieval paintings on the subject, every one of which had all of the observers watching the teacher, not the body in front of them! Oh it was funny! He took 10 minutes, and we would have been happy with 20! (We all know how unusual that is!)

I sang the solo in the "gospel" "Garden of Peace" and afterward I must have had 25 people stop me and say how they enjoyed it, and the rest of the music by Galron. It is amazing how people respond to our performances! I enjoy them more, now that I know most of the words, and most of the choreography!

Driving home down the pine-studded hills around Jerusalem in the late summer sunset I could the sky as it turned that inimitable Mediterranean pinky-goldy-pale blue the color that Jerusalem stone holds and reflects. I love living in a place where the sky does that!

Of jobs and prospects, and people

2007-08-26T22:02:00.000+03:00

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.

Audition to be considered an "artist"

2007-08-08T14:58:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I had my audition before the Arts and Culture Committee of some government branch, for them to determine if I am an "artist" or not. If so I get some money each month for 2 more years, and they do some job prospecting on my behalf. You have to be invited to appear before the committee.

Well, warming up on the drive down (inflicting suffering on my friend Yakov who generously wanted to go along with me--a year ago I would not have allowed him to come along--gotta "do it myself") I realized that my poor voice has been so underused that it required me to really warm up carefully, for a long time. So instead of panicking, I just took the time, and by the time we had to go in, I felt reasonably sure of myself. Then in the 2.5 hours I had to wait before my turn, I warmed up more! Nice people also waiting, made friends with a French composer/singer and a classical guitarist. He played and I sang along on "ooh"...magic, and such a pleasure to improvise again. We exchanged telephone numbers and may get together to jam sometime. It was a relaxing way to spend an hour of the waiting time!

So then I went in and they first were surprised that I would be both unamplified and a capella. Then they wanted my name and what I would do first. No other info! Faces blank.

So Summertime was first. I have been doing a hummed intro, low, then go into it in the original key. Sing and finish with a 2.5 octave ooh-to-hum. No applause, but a third of them smiling broadly.

Then Israel Alter's Tzur Yisrael chazzanut (cantorial stuff, complicated, hard, and impressive) (I said, in Hebrew, "next I have a piece of chazzanut because that's my profession") from the morning shabbat service. I've done it about a thousand times, and am completely comfortable. They loved it! All of them talking to each other, then I asked again in Hebrew "another?" They said yes.

So I sang Babi Yar (in English, by the Yiddish songwriter Shuka Driz, who wrote a lot of the songs that came out of the Holocaust), a song we did in an arrangement with Koleinu. I've done it many times as a solo, too. It's very dramatic, and by the end they were all nodding and smiling at each other.

We chatted (finally one of them said "you can speak English" then everyone laughed when I said "Oh, thank God!") So one woman asked me pointed questions about the soloist stuff and where and with whom I have studied, and I was able to say the other things I have done and can do and then she was satisfied. "Are you working here?" "Not yet, but I led services in Rosh HaAyin and submitted my CV at Beit Daniel, so I will be working here!" "Well, ok! Thank you, and good luck!" "Thank YOU!"

Then out to be happy and eat falafel and listen to Yakov go on and on about how great it was!

So whatever happens, I did my best, and feel good about it.

Early August 2007

2007-08-06T20:14:00.000+03:00

There are no drive-throughs here.

Got a kitten, she's adorable and a great addition to my life (see pictures below). I named her Neshikah (Hebrew for kiss) except when she is "fighty and bitey" she is Neshek, (Hebrew for gun or weapon.) But she sits on my chest when I take naps!

I mentioned a while ago that I had a sort of interview at a congregation in Rosh HaAyin. The young woman who is the rabbi and I planned the service, and enjoyed working together. The service was really nice (only had to fake half), sweet and spiritual rabbi, nice congregants, very enthusiastic board--but no money yet. So we're all still talking. They have partnered with a cong. in the US (to raise $) so I volunteered to sing when they come. Also they are looking for someone to teach an adult Torah chanting class and bnei mitzvah. I don't think my Hebrew skills are where they need to be, to teach, yet. But it's all early days, still. And read on!

Today I got an email from my friend from the choir, Aliza Regev--she received a call from Beit Daniel (biggest Reform synagogue in Israel, in Tel Aviv) looking for chazzan/its for the high holidays! Sent my Hebrew and English CVs right away, along with the MP3 of my Kol Nidre from last year's Dispatch article. Cross your fingers for me.

Also I received an invitation to appear before a committee to give a presentation to convince them that I am an artist. I have made a scrapbook/portfolio with publicity (it had to be print, with picture, and my name) and have to sing 2 songs. I haven't completely settled on what to sing. It will be a capella, so that limits me somewhat. I thought I'd do my version of "Summertime" that gets loud and soft, starts with humming and ends with 3 octaves of oohs then hums. Jewish composer, fairly familiar song I hope.

The second has me going back and forth. I'm deciding between a piece of chazzanut from the morning service that lets really be free. Hebrew, from what I do.

Or the Ladino song "Cuando El Rey Nimrod/Avram Avinu"--I start very slowly, lots of doodling. Then set the beat with clapping (they can do this too) Verse, chorus, chorus on "dai, dai", 2nd verse, chorus, flashy slow ending. They will know the song, but if there are only like 3 of them it will be very hard work.

I'll let you know what happens!

Am learning how to use Microsoft Word in Hebrew. Very cool features I am working on getting into my package!

Late June--notes from abroad

2007-08-06T20:07:00.000+03:00

So here it is, in brief: Am trying to buy a car, so I can get a job (you have heard of "chicken and egg"?) Shopped around, here there is no hard sell, and they all give directions to each other's dealerships! Settled on Hyundai Accent, 2008, last week. Took my financial info in today.

Still not sure about the car--tonight I talked for about 15 minutes with a loan officer (all in Hebrew, on the phone, my worst nightmare! I can't get by with my sincere but uncomprehending smile!) and while he was nice enough, even by Israeli standards (they are notoriously prickly sometimes) I don't know if they will give me the financing.

But I can't tell you how often I have presented myself at an office (gov't, or cellphone or bank) and had the clerk tappety-tap on the computer and frown and call managers, and tap some more and call some more, and then suddenly ("chick-chak" as we say in Hebrew) say "OK it's fine. We're done" Leaving me, well, confused!

So I am patient and if the car dealer won't give it to me, surely the bank will, where I now have quite a few shekels on deposit! I'm not worried--will deal with it, whatever it is.

Learned today how to go to a machine that is an ATM and get printouts of statements, and all kinds of other cool stuff--I was sent by the car saleswoman (her name is "Lee-aht") because the bank info wasn't what she needed. Instructions (civilized) in English, printout in Hebrew (OK because I knew what it was, since I asked for it!) Life here is deductive reasoning at its most intense!

June 2007

2007-07-31T13:20:00.000+03:00

I thought you would be interested in something that happened to me today (Jerusalem Day in Israel, to commemmorate the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967) But first read a little bit:

Born in London and raised in Israel , Shuly Nathan, singer and storyteller, made history with the song 'Jerusalem of Gold'.

At the age of 16 she started playing the guitar, singing and collecting folk songs. During her army service she worked as teacher for illiterate adults in a new border settlement in the south of Israel . During that time she participated in several amateur radio programs.
Writer and composer Naomi Shemer heard one of the programs and Shuly Nathan was asked to appear in the annual Independence Day Song Festival in Jerusalem, not in the actual contest but with an "ornamental song", a request by Jerusalem 's mayor, Teddy Kollek. The song was "Jerusalem of Gold", which mesmerized the audience and overshadowed the whole festival. Shuly was asked to sing it again, and the entire audience stood up and joined in.
Two weeks later the 1967 war broke out and the song became the anthem of the war, a prayer for the reunification of Jerusalem .

OK, so this morning we had an assembly to celebrate Jerusalem Day, at which "Shuly Nathan" would be singing. Great, I thought--never heard of her! But we talked about her in class (and have been singing Jerusalem songs all week.)

So it turns out that the director of the language program (at the request of whom I have now performed three times) knew Shuly and had told her about me. I didn't know this.

So I'm in the front row, and after singing, in her beautiful, natural soprano, several songs to open her show, she introduced the Naomi Shemer song, Chorshat HaEkalyptus (Beside the Jordan is an English title.) Then she asked for me to come up and join her! I said (in Hebrew, I'm proud to say) that I only know the chorus, and she said "come up--I'll sing the verses!" So, of course, I went up, while my fellow travelers applauded, and we sang together--I "doodled" harmony when she was singing and we alternated melody/harmony for the rest. Wow! What a thrill!
After the show, she and I talked, and it turns out she is a member of Hod v'Hadar, the conservative synagogue not two streets away from me in Kfar Saba! She invited me to come, and said she would introduce me around and we'd talk about work for me there!

So we hugged, I sat down, and on with the show.

But then she called me up again to do "Al Kol Eileh" (For All of These)--another by Naomi Shemer, and again for "Oseh Shalom" by Nurit Hirsh (ya-ah-seh shalom only the audience didn't know when to clap, so I did my famous Get-Ready-To-Clap motions, and by the end we all knew it!)

After the show, she and I talked, and it turns out she is a member of Hod v'Hadar, the conservative synagogue not two streets away from me in Kfar Saba! She invited me to come, and said she would introduce me around and we'd talk about work for me there!

So, once again, out of my willingness to stand up and possibly make a fool of myself, came a wonderful experience and more possibilities.

I wish you a day of the same!

Also in June I participated in a celebration of the language schools all over Israel that immigrants attend (me too!) There were about 1400 people there, mostly immigrants from ALL over--Ethiopia, South America, all over Europe, all over the former Soviet Union, even some Asians--you can just imagine the different faces and shapes! As they paraded at the beginning (think Olympics) I wondered what I was doing here.But as the chairman of the event spoke and then sang, himself--to warm and enthusiastic response--I thought, "oh, yes, THAT'S why--they love music here!" (Do any of you remember Bill Moss at Sharon's high school graduation? Well, it was not like that!)

Some of the immigrants spoke of their experiences (in Hebrew) and I sang--2 songs, one in Hebrew and one in Ladino (the Spanish spoken by the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, and who settled all around the Mediterranean.) A family from Venezuela sang the most amazing, bouncy song, in Hebrew, about dreaming in Spanish! It's something everyone talks about--that once you start dreaming in Hebrew, you "get it"!

The "paid talent" was a late 30-ish young man who also sang--in the intro they talked about his TV and radio experience (still don't know his name but will find out tomorrow.) Anyway, he sang one of the songs that I sang (he arrived after I performed) and when he asked the crowd who knew the song, everyone pointed at me and pushed me up to sing with him--so we had a duet, and I got another round of applause. And my next gig will be a paying one for the municipality of Ra'anana. Really, the woman who runs the language program might as well be my agent! (Well, actually she is!)

This is an amazing place. As hard as things are sometimes, I still think there is a place for me here, though I will have to learn more patience...

May 2007

2007-07-31T13:16:00.000+03:00

Thanks to all of you who have written lately, and I look forward to hearing from all of you when you have time!

This week I helped the Partnership 2000 people greet the latest Columbus Jewish Federation Family Mission. We planted more outside the Kfar Saba Stadium, then hd a great meal together. I presented the families with their tree-planting certificates and had a chance to talk to nearly everybody. I knew only a few people but they all knew me! I had great talks with Rhoda and Aaron Edelman, who were with Koleinu on the trip in 2005-2006, and Leah Salis, with whom I studied Hebrew before I came here. And it was a pleasure to get to know a lot of other folks from Columbus.

So, here’s the latest news, not in any particular order:

I got the car loan—I was proud enough of myself to have conducted the telephone interview all in Hebrew, but then getting the loan—wow! (I am still easily amused…)

So next is a job. I get a monthly stipend of support from the government, and today I signed up for 2 more, because I am unemployed at the moment. With the car I will be able to visit synagogues and find my next job.

I'm in the process of applying for status as "musician", which will give me another monthly check, for 2 years. I have to first apply, and then my info is sent to a committee. They decide if they want to meet me for a sort of audition (2 pieces, max. 7 minutes.) To that interview I take all my clippings and my demo CD and resume. At the end they decide if I am or am not a musician. (I am.) We’ll see what happens.

Here there are many (thousands) of choirs, all with different levels of ability, but all of them pay their conductors. The conductors occasionally are composers, but far more often are arrangers. I have done this, with both adult and children's choirs. And I will have a perspective different from the native Israelis. If I can get a part time job at a synagogue and one or 2 choirs I can make a living.

Most people get frustrated very quickly, but I have been lucky. The one thing I was perfectly prepared for when I came was to spend a lot of time and energy on the bureaucracy. I have not had any problems, unlike many of my friends. It's all about my attitude. I have had unheard-of customer service from my bank and cell phone company (people are amazed at my stories!)

I know the place is dangerous. But I live in a place that has been untouched by the violence since the wall was built. Something always could happen (anywhere) but I feel better being here. I am not afraid at all. I am where I want to be, and where I am needed and really appreciated for who I am. I love it here! I always wanted to live in an interesting house or an interesting place—now I am doing both!

The language is the hardest part, but I'm managing that too, improving every day. I'll continue to attend classes until work interferes.

And every time someone wants me to sing, I do.

Last week I attended a Hebrew study session with a group of Spanish speaking immigrants (Israeli citizens for 5-12 years) hosted by the Reform synagogue in Ra'anana. My purpose was to study with them and then when the national Minister for Immigrant Absorption and Mayor of Ra'anana came for a sort of "town meeting" on the subject of immigrants' needs, to sing one song and lead the group in another. OK. I went, but by the time it came to sing we had been studying for 2.5 hours and I for one was tired! So I led the song, skipped the solo, handed my resume to one of the Mayor's staff who wanted it, and went home, feeling that, except for the studying, I had pretty much wasted my time.

But this week I got a call from the municipality office of the Mayor of Ra’anana, the woman to whom I gave the resume. Again the conversation was in Hebrew, and when she asked if I wanted to be paid, I of course said yes! No idea how much (didn't seem polite to ask, and will be more fun just to see.)

Today I went to pick up my payment—and to my surprise got 200 shekels, about $50.00. Not to sing a solo, not for a show—but to lead the group in one song. They could tell that I was a professional, and decided to pay me as such.

So I earned my first money, singing. Just what I had in mind at the beginning of this adventure!

Late April 2007

2007-07-31T13:14:00.000+03:00

! 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!

Early April 2007

2007-07-31T13:11:00.000+03:00

Well, it has been an eventful month—here are only a few of my impressions.

First, I LOVED seeing everyone in Columbus—what a pleasure it was to sing for services at TBS and to see so many of my dear friends from the congregation (and other congregations, too!) afterwards. And throughout the week, spending time with Koleinu singers, family members, and others of whom I have thought so often. Thanks to all of you who made special efforts to call, e-mail, and visit with me.

Then to Germany, for the tour with the Galron singers (the choir from Israel I joined, and who have been a family to me since I arrived in Israel.) I never imagined going to Germany at all, much less to sing. But I found myself in Leverkusen (on the Rhine between Cologne and Dusseldorf.) Our first performance was in a small church very close to the Musikschule and our hotel. The Musikschule is run by a young man who has made Jewish music a special study, and through the school has developed a track of study that focuses on klezmer music (mostly instrumental music of Eastern Europe, that came very close to being eradicated during the Holocaust.) The klezmer band is very, very good, featuring a beautiful young woman on violin and a man who plays clarinet, and a very young woman who plays amazing strummy guitar and can make it sound like a balalaika! None of them Jewish, but all of them with the Jewish “soul” like mine! Lovely music performed well, and with style.

Then we took the stage, and did about half of our program, only about an hour. [Background for those of you just joining us: Galron performs without holding music, so I had 2 months—8 rehearsals—to learn the alto parts of 28 songs, all but one in Hebrew, all with some sort of choreography (not complicated, but I still needed to know where to be!) I ended up learning about 75%, and faked the rest. I felt pretty good by the end.] The one song in English was one in which I had the main solo—fun!

The audience was very enthusiastic, clapped along when they were supposed to, and enjoyed it very much. So—first one down!

We performed at the main synagogue in Dusseldorf, and at the cultural center in Wiesbaden, each performance getting better. Between these performances, though was one that I want you to know about.

We traveled to Duisburg, and after an afternoon on a boat touring the largest man-made river-based shipping harbor (in the world? Or in Europe? I don’t know!) We walked up the river to the synagogue. I noticed the razor wire and the enclosed guard booth first. OK. But after, I noticed, close to the river, a brick building—actually the remains of a stairwell, going up 3 stories, with doors and windows bricked up and a tree growing at the very top. Unusual.

Beside this structure was something else—a one-story half building, open on all sides, with some pillars supporting two peaked parts of the roof. More unusual.

Inside the new synagogue the architecture was very modern, disjointed—odd. To get to our dressing rooms we went up stairs, then across a wooden walkway, artistic, OK. But when I walked across it a second time, quickly, and alone, I felt it quiver, then shake. Unnerving.

On the wall of the 2nd floor hallway, between the doorways, were photos. Leftmost was a photo of the Great Synagogue of Duisburg, an interior shot of the bima (place central to the services, and where the Torahs are kept.) Very grand and beautiful, in a 19th century style.

The next photo was an exterior shot of the building, with the dome, an impressive, massive building.

The next photo was a shot of the dome, as it was burning, on Kristallnacht.

(If you don’t know about Kristallnacht, please stop reading this email now and Google it. It will be one of the most important searches you have ever made, and far more important than anything I could write.)

From our dressing room window I could see another stairwell out in the park. And other ruins recognizable from the photos. My mind got going.

This new synagogue was built, with great courage, on the ruins of the old. And as I spent the evening in it, between performing and dressing and leaving, I realized that the new synagogue was also a warning to the people who entered it: Never forget that the potential for evil and danger to us is always present, anywhere.

And yet, as I left the building with my group, off to have some of the best Italian food I have ever eaten (never yet having been to Italy!) I also realized that the synagogue in the ruins is also testimony to the Jewish ability to look to and learn from the past, live in the present, and let the future bring what it may. This is one of the reasons we continue to survive, wherever we are.

I found the Holocaust to hang in the air of Germany. Undiscussed, unacknowledged, but when Jews are present, it is present too. Galron has performed there four times in about 12 years, and one of the veterans told me a story of their first visit. During the last dinner with the planners and the choir, the night before they returned to Israel, the director of the Musikschule, feeling expansive, asked who in the room had family members who were killed in the Holocaust—12 of the 16 choir members raised their hands, and poor Jurgen was shocked, then overcome. He did not understand (who does?)

But nearly my whole family is German, and there were a lot of things I learned about them while I was there—that gave me a context to understand some homey, tiny details I never knew I noticed. One of the waitresses laughed one morning during the excellent breakfast, and my heart caught—somehow my Grandma McGee Fuhrman Ayers was right there in the room with me! When I told the woman about it we wept together. And laughed!

So now I have returned to my new life—and it is finally “home.” Having returned on a Saturday, everything was closed, but I happen to know the only grocery that is in fact open on Shabbat, so I walked there and got my eggs, hummus, Bulgarian cheese, and cabbage for my salad. And walked home among the palm trees, 3-foot-tall snapdragons (seriously!) and counted my blessings yet again.

Next (and soon): My new apartment, what a great country this is, and “people who need people.”

Chag sameach, happy Easter to some of you, happy, safe, healthy, and kosher Pesach to the rest! Photos of Germany soon!

February 2007

2007-07-31T13:10:00.000+03:00

“Days in the Life…”

Shalom and greetings from once-sunny-and-lovely, now dark-and-cold Ra’anana Israel! Actually, I think the initial period of cold was more an effect of my mind than the actual temperature, but the hot water bottles (2 of them, covered in Kelly-green felt—very British!) sure made a difference! And we need the rain, though level of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) has not benefited as much as we would like.

My life has settled into a routine of class, study, homework, learning the music, words and choreography (now don’t laugh at THAT mental picture!) of the music for the Galron choir tour of Germany, and now the music for a second choir I joined, mostly because the music is easy, and I have a chance to work with Jeanne Rabin, a consummate performer, and talented choir director. She has taken this disparate group of novice singers and in 3 months has turned them into a choir on par with Koleinu! So I will learn a lot from her, and she and I have become friends.

Last week I had to go to Jaffo (southern Tel Aviv—yes the ancient port city!) to open my “tik” file at Israeli Customs, because the ship on which my stuff is traveling will come in soon. (My sister Pat and I had a laugh about the reference to “someday, my ship will….!”) Everybody told me “take ALL of your documents, with copies. Take a snack. Take a book. Expect to spend all day, and to be sent from office to office.” OK, so I loaded myself up, caught the 502 bus to Tel Aviv, found the 46 to Jaffo, found the office immediately. Walked in—the place was deserted, except for one very pleasant clerk, who invited me to sit, took passport and ID book, stamped my immigration book, typed into the computer, then looked up, smiled, and said, “OK you are finished!”

“What?” “No, it’s in the computer—we’re finished!” “Em…well, thanks!” And to myself: “wait! What about my snack? Time to study my music?” So off I went on a gorgeous sunny day, to explore this very old place. I sat in a park at the top of the hill that overlooks the ancient port on the Mediterranean and thought of all of the thousands of years of people that lived on the shores, fished the sea, and sailed it in search of commerce and conquest. Explored the amazing flea market—street after street of everything you could possibly think of, from rugs to hookahs, modern kettles to commercial deep fryers, cheap jewelry to old, old silver menorahs and other truly unbelievable Judaica and Islamic artifacts. Coffee stalls, and juice stands, and wonderful little pastries!

(And I made it back again, too!) All by myself! My Israeli friends are divided between “Kol haKavod!” (well done!) and “So do you want a medal or something?” Any time I get on the right bus going the right way without the bus driver yelling at me because I’m slow and tentative; any time I get off the bus and actually walk the correct direction and find my destination right away; any time I transact my business, do a little sight seeing and make it home without incident—I want a medal!

“What Price Your Homeland?”

I could write about a lot of experiences, but one is really standing out to me, both because it affects every single person here, and because of the situation of our troops in Iraq and their families and friends.

Israel’s war during last summer was a terrible thing for this tiny country, this remnant of a people hanging on to this land with everything they have, against the feeling of the entire world. Every person I have talked to was ravaged in some way by the war. Someone close to them was wounded, or killed. The memorial services are still going on—several per week! The Galron choir will perform for one of them next week, in Kfar Saba. Memorial songs are still being written and performed for huge gatherings of mourners. These soldiers, as tragic as their losses are, will never be forgotten, not for a moment, not by one person who knew them or knew of them. We average Americans have no idea what this is like!

As I have listened to the ceremonies, learned the identities of these beautiful, brave young people, looked at memorial websites and done my best to sign the guestbooks in Hebrew, I have been shocked by the realization that the American people have not taken the casualties of the Iraq debacle into their hearts, or minds. American soldiers go, are wounded or die, and are sat with in hospitals and nursing homes, or mourned by a tiny fraction of those who should remember who they were and what were their sacrifices for the American people. In the end, although it is a government that condemns their soldiers to serve and die, whatever the “reason” offered to the public, the soldiers serve us, the people. But we don’t know them, and if we catch a story about them on the evening news, we shake our heads and forget them almost immediately.

The Israeli people know their soldiers, and understand their sacrifices, only too well. These people have suffered, in living memory—they remember the suffering, and the pain this land has absorbed since the state of Israel was established. The suffering continues, and the absorption of pain continues—and the Israeli people show at once a depth I have never known in any others, and an optimism that befits a people who have experienced miracles, big and small.

I want to know these people, to work and live among them, to learn to feel deeply and believe in miracles, to find a way to fit in and serve—these are some of the reasons I am here.

January 2007

2007-07-31T13:06:00.000+03:00

So I need to remind myself never to go more than one Shabbat without writing! I’ve had so many experiences, all extremely interesting and many quite foreign to me: a day of touring the Galil valley and the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), erev Shabbat dinner in the home of a Druze family, celebrating their holiday of Chag HaKorban (Day of Sacrifice—only the Druze religion is a secret one, so I never found out the significance of the day. It is also celebrated in Islam as an Eid, but apparently for a different reason.)

Also, learning about the migration and living habits of cormorants (as thousands of them perched and swooped among the trees around and above us. They are quite large birds, and manage to sit quite easily on what appear to be small branches!) This last was with Galron alto Pnina Gershoni and her husband. Their son Noam, who was injured so terribly this summer, was finally released from hospital and is back in his own apartment, though attending physical therapy every day. It is a miracle that he survived and has recovered to the extent he has, so far. But people come from all over the world to Israel’s trauma centers because they are the most advanced in the world (sadly because they have had to be.)

Another lovely Shabbat dinner with Aliza and Tzvika Regev, a wonderful luncheon party with some Galron singers and spouses at Ronit and Razy Goldbergs’s house, and a memorable weekday dinner with Shuka Pinsberg and his wife Ronit. Ronit Pinsberg grew up on a moshav (farm) and is yet another amazing cook! Simple dishes, perfectly cooked, with the best vegetables—one little gem after another. She was disturbed at the thought of me cooking for myself, and sent me home with leftovers from the dinner, soup, grilled chicken breasts, potatoes, avocados, oranges, and sweets. Truly overwhelming hospitality everywhere I go.

But even with the steady and inventive attention from my friends and their friends, and all of your many emails, which I just love getting, some of this experience has been hard.
I am the proverbial “stranger in a strange land.”

My Hebrew improves slowly—even writing and reading as well as I do, to live and get around, you gotta read the signs, and the bank statements, and the phone bills! Translating or just getting the idea of names and contents of shops, signs inside government buildings, and the forms there, and labels in the grocery store (I only buy things that have the picture of their contents on the outside! Fortunately the goat cheese has a goat on it, etc.) And a typical day includes the language classes, entirely in Hebrew, so constantly I am lost just in the homework directions, for example. And up and down four (4—arbah!) flights of stairs 5, 6, 7 times a day!

So one day I was listening to an amazing CD—drummer/singer Shlomo Gronich and the Sheba Choir, made up of Ethiopian children who have made aliyah with their families (sometimes, without) and they sang the African American spiritual “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home, a long way from home.” And I had another of those “what was I thinking?” moments!

And then the phone rang, and it was someone who had heard about me and knew I sing, and did I want to sing with their group on Tuesday nights? “It’s a new group and we’d love to have you!” This is a group that is made up of members of a Reform synagogue in Rosh HaAyin (east of Tel Aviv) but they don’t sing for services (OK—that is weird to me and I will tell you more after I attend services there tonight.) So I said yes, and they picked me up, and I sang with them. Everyone is amazed at how quickly I pick up their music—but I have had to sight read and learn quickly for a long time—good practice!

A “long way from home” but no longer that lonely child.

This week I cooked a dinner for a party my flatmate and I had, to send off one of her best friends who leaves the merkaz next week—somehow with 2 saucepans and one sauté pan, I made a feast (kosher dairy, no less!) of brushetta, risotto with veg. broth from scratch, and the four of us ate nearly everything. New local strawberries with cream for dessert…But cooking for me means being home, so the circle is complete!

So, to Galron (the Koleiniks want to know this!) Finally last Sunday (after 2 rehearsals in which I was overwhelmed and seriously thinking I wouldn’t succeed) we rehearsed only with Gali (she is a firecracker of a gorgeous young woman who choreographs our songs for performance. She also is gentle and encouraging and knew I was really stretching. Somehow with her guidance, I managed to sway, step and sing through 3 hours worth of repertoire. I had all the notes (remember, the alto!) and most of the words at least of what we rehearsed that evening! So I certainly feel better about that!

Because of Aliza and my Galron family my life is so much better than it might have been! I don’t have a car, so people have to shlep me everywhere (when I can’t walk, which I still love to do!) And because I have been here before, I know just enough people to be greeted wherever I go—as if people are waiting for me. It’s the most amazing feeling.

One special experience was attending the Kfar Saba Partnership 2000 Steering Committee meeting—the counterpart to the committee I worked with in Columbus! Aliza drove, and we met at the Chatzav Veteran Art Center (Koleiniks will remember that special place where physically and psychologically wounded soldiers come for art therapy, and prove the magic of the human drive for creativity!) And there were Ilan Jarus, Shai Felber, and Janine Gelley! It was a great pleasure to chat with them and to open the meeting (at Aliza’s insistence, really!) singing “Mi HaIsh” (yes, Aliza on soprano, and me doing my best on alto!) And then to hear the reports about the P2K projects for which I voted funding as a member of the Federation’s Allocation Committee.

Incidentally, here in Israel, if you say you sing, you’d better be prepared to do so! I have given command performances in the language classes (the music teacher was late, and the other class took forever to file into the classroom,) and my teacher said, “Seendy, sing!” So I sang “Tzena, Tzena” and she sang along and clapped, and then started “Kol HaOlam Kulo” which I took up, and she and I at least had a grand old time! Sadly, only one or two of the other students knew them…it is nice to know that the kids at TBS do!

Another time we were “talking”—at the beginning of class, about ourselves and what we do, in Hebrew. I had my Ipod shuffle (thanks, Isaac!) and the teacher asked what I was listening to, and when I said “Sasha Argov” (one of the great Israeli composers/lyricists) she asked what was my favorite song, and then made me sing it! So this week when we learned “moom-cheh” the Hebrew for “expert” she said as a fill-in-the-blank, “Seendy moom-chah b’_______” and the class, in one voice, answered “singing!” I think that bodes well for my future!

And all of my friends, Israeli, Danish, French, Columbian, Uruguayan, etc, etc, have the best time laughing at me, as I prove that I read well, write eloquently, sing passably in Hebrew, and completely fall apart when I have to speak! I am assured that “it will come—how long have you been here, 3-4 months?” and when I say, well, 3 weeks, they laugh even more and tell me that I must have “sahv-lah-noot”—patience!

Well, I cannot tell you everything—who has time to read all of this? But all of you are on my mind, and every day there is something that makes me think of you and how I wish you or your kids could see it with me.

Yallah, yallah—yes, I am new here, and still “high.” But I am always new, right?

End of December 2006

2007-07-31T12:48:00.000+03:00

I'm sitting in a café, watching the skies clear (after 2 days of torrential rain here, and snow in Jerusalem and the mountains!) and the people passing. I have completed my first week, and it has been fascinating, fun, scary, COLD, and exactly what I had in mind when I undertook this adventure.

People here are extremely welcoming to new olim, and I have had interesting discussions with so many. Yesterday I was talking to a man who sold me two small table lamps—he said "oh, but it is your first week—you are still a tourist!" And yes, he's right in a way. But as a tourist I never had to light the boiler for 20-30 minutes before I could take a shower! Or open the gas valve before lighting the burner to make some soup. Or squeegee off the bathroom floor because there's no tub or shower stall, just the sink and shower and a floor drain!

And tourists have some sort of heating system! We have a sort of wall heater that we plug in and it cycles on and off, but doesn't make a dent in the freezing air. (I have thought often of the blankets and quilts coming over in my lift!) My flatmate and I each bought (get ready for this!) hot water bottles! Certainly low tech, but quite effective, and a cheap way to thaw one's feet. But I can imagine that this building stays pretty cool in the summer, and I suspect that one summer will make me very happy to be cool in the winter.

No, I don't feel like a tourist! I am starting to be able to get around on the bus—to the nearby towns of Kfar Saba and Hod HaSharon. Next week I must go to Tel Aviv to submit my college diplomas to be validated by the government. They want grade transcripts, but I don't have them, and I don't think 30-year-old transcripts will mean much anyway!

So I will go without them and deal with it anyway. (A tourist wouldn't do that either!)
This week was spent mostly in going from one government office to another. Three of us went with a volunteer who shepherded us through the tasks of getting our identity cards and opening bank accounts, etc. Monday I had an appointment at an office in Kfar Saba—they simply said, take the number 29 bus, and ask the driver to let you off at the "misrad klita"—so I did. Only he told me to get off at the wrong place, and then I had to figure out where I was, and where I had to go, and then get there! I did it, I'm happy to say, and only one hour late—I talked my way in, and by the time I left, the official was shaking my hand and wishing me luck!

Friday night I went to Aliza Regev's home for dinner, and met her husband and two of her sons—a truly lovely evening. Those of you who think I am a good cook…I'm not, compared to Aliza! We started with pumpkin soup with almonds, then had bourre (fish) in a spicy pepper sauce, with salads of roasted sweet red peppers, roasted eggplant and mushrooms in a savory sauce. Then she brought in chicken baked with a confit of sweet onions, a huge green salad, and perfect little latkes! Everything hot and perfectly seasoned. Memorable, memorable. It will be a long time before I summon the courage to cook for her! (Or indeed have pots and pans!)
Saturday evening I went with Aliza and Pnina Gershoni to a concert celebrating another choir's 20-year anniversary. The first half of the program was the choir (not up to Galron, but who is?) and the second was this amazing, gorgeous little man, 70+ years old, with the sweetest, strongest tenor/baritone voice. He opened with the a capella song about the flute in the desert by Sasha Argov—beautiful!

Actually, "yoffe" as we say here! Just a huge amount of energy and showmanship—he played guitar, and led us in singing some traditional Israeli songs (I knew several, and could hum along or harmonize with the rest.) He mimed, he danced, told jokes. We left the theater at midnight—I should have so much energy at that age!

Sunday evening, Shuka Pinchas (Galron tenor) picked me up at the merkaz klita (absorption center) (Shuka lives in Ra'anana) for my first rehearsal with the Galron choir. It was wonderful to see all my friends (and several singers new to the group.) I was adopted right away, and had the phone numbers of 10 people in my book before rehearsal started! And then the rehearsal—everything in Hebrew! We are preparing for a tour of Germany, and I was told I have to sing alto—ALTO! Most of the songs are familiar to me, but I always sang along to the CD on the soprano line! And the music in Hebrew, too! This will be a huge challenge, but imagine the accomplishment! (Oh, and when we get back I go back to soprano and have to learn it all over again—not to mention the choreography!!)

Today I started the ulpan (language) classes—in level Bet middle (sort of low intermediate) where I will have to work very hard. We have a workbook, and are doing a lot of reading to ourselves and in the group, then answering questions verbally and in writing. I'm glad to have started, and will be gladder after a week or two and I figure out what I'm doing.
Tomorrow I go with Ronit Goldberg (Galron sop.) and her husband to Kineret ("Sea of Galilee")—on the way we will tour the Galil (the valley)—finally I get to see something!And Saturday Pnina Gershoni (Galron alto) and her husband will take me to a nature preserve and to a Druze village for shopping.

My flatmate is very nice, and from Sweden. She has been in the flat for a month, and did some modest but meaningful decorating—the place would have been very bare indeed (and I think quite depressing) without her efforts. (When Shuka showed up at my door, he was shocked to think of me there—it's more of a barracks than a "home." But it is my home for now, and I'm content. There are lots of families here—I cannot imagine making this move with an infant or toddler. But most of these people are coming from places where life is or has become extremely difficult for Jews. This is especially true in South America and France. So the merkaz is a lively place filled with the cacophony of many people trying to communicate in languages not their own, of kids blowing off steam in the sheltered courtyards, of new friends calling to each other.

A friend from Chile has a roommate who was the organist for his synagogue in Argentina! So we all got out our laptops and started sharing music—so interesting to hear trends in Jewish music from all over the place. Since I have made a study of traditional Israeli music that is not generally known outside here, I'm able to expose them to lots that they have never heard before. I think it gives us all a sense of the culture of the people we have joined. And I have borrowed CDs from Galron friends, to learn even more. Am making a particular study of Ehud Manor…