Choices

At work my boss held a viewing of "The Devil Wears Prada" during a staff lunch. Hubby was certain it was gonna be my final day at work since I did make a comparison a while back to the difficult Miranda character and perhaps she was onto me. Either she read my blog or saw the movie and saw the similarities herself - who knows. But anyhow, after the film we chatted about my previous glamor job at Sire Records in New York City and the feeling one had about being caught up in the whirlwind of glamorous parties, free tickets to everything cool and being on every New York City guest list. It was a glorious few years for me too in the late 1970s, early 1980s, when NYC was at its decadent party best. Ms. boss told me she also felt she had a glamor job at the beginning - but I can't see how you can compare being glamourous in academia with the entertainment industry. No way can they be in the same league.

But in the movie, Miranda talks about "choices". You make the choices which get you to where you want to go. Fair enough. I've done that often.

Yesterday morning I was reading the papers about Sean Lennon (son of John for those not in the know) coming to Israel for a Saturday night gig at Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv. In fact, Friday morning, as I was reading the papers at 9:00 am, he was already here and set to do a book signing at the Third Ear record store in Tel Aviv at 1:00 pm. Ahh choices. Should I go? Should I not go? If someone would have been my partner-in-crime and carted me off with them, there would have been no question, but to have to get dressed and maneuver my way through Tel Aviv - not an easy feat for a Jerusalemite - is energy burning.

And you might ask - why would I care so much about seeing a young man, whose music I never heard, who is the son of a legend?

Well, there's history behind all this. Before my glamor job, I spent the summer of 1970 doing my Beatles thing. I was 14 years old and told my folks I wanted to stay home that summer and not go to sleepaway camp. I'm sure they were miserable with my choice being that they had carted me away to summer sleepaway camps since I was 8 years old. And now I was back home and that left them with, well, a teenager to deal with. So much for THEIR summer vacation.

I had been Beatle mad since 1968 and collected everything about them. In the summer of 1970 (or was it 1971?) before John and Yoko moved into the Dakota apartment building, the couple stayed at the Plaza Hotel for a few months. I found out about this through older friends of mine. The girls were about 18 - 21 years old and I had "proven" myself to them when I happened to find out where Paul McCartney was recording the album Ram at CBS recording studios. I had cut school and sauntered over there in the freezing weather to see him walk in and out of the studio and watch him be gruff with his few fans that were there (between 2-6 of them). None of us wanted to bother him with photo-taking and autographs. We felt that if we didn't act like nuisances, he might, well, talk to us, invite us into the studio, have pity on us because we were freezing, etc. None of that did happen, but since I acted like the rest of the girls hanging outside, not taking photographs, not getting autographs, not yelling "OMG IT'S HIM!!!!", I was allowed entry into their exclusive clique. And that meant more to me than getting a useless autograph.

Throughout that year and the next and the next - I would get calls that one of the Beatles (even though they had already broken up by that time) had arrived in New York, with their whereabouts and I would choose whether I'd want to hang around there or not. I remember the fans being too shy to approach any of these guys, but I wasn't. One of the girls handed me a Beatles t-shirt circa 1964 and told me to give it to John. He walked out of his hotel - and I handed him the t-shirt. I told him "I know the Beatles are dead and all that - but you can have the myth". He laughed and gave me a warm 'thank you'. Another friend of mine gave him a Dr. Seuss book which we saw him reading in his limo. We had read his books "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works" and thought his writing was so cleverly written, and similar to Dr. Seuss books in a way, but of course more clever and wittier than Dr. Seuss. Once Yoko had her driver buy us all milkshakes and I, of course, was eternally grateful. She had been in my good books ever since.

In 1975, when Sean was born, one of my closest friends was a nurse at the ICU unit where he was and gave me hourly updates on what was happening and who she saw and how cute the baby was, etc.

So these are some of my memories of my teenage summers in NYC and there are lots more. I had some photos that people had taken through those years (not me - I didn't take the photos - remember - I was trying to act 'cool') and thought of digging them out and giving them to Sean. I didn't think anyone else in Tel Aviv would have given him such a meaningful gift as I would have. My mind started drifting. He's a handsome 31 year old and I thought of bringing with me some of my hot daughters so that he would fall in love with them and stay in Israel. But I chose to take it easy that Friday and just stay put where I was. Had I been younger and had more energy, I might have taken the other choice. But maybe Hubby will chauffer me to Tel Aviv tonight, let me hear what this young whippersnapper of a man sounds like and maybe I'll hand him that envelope of photos of his dad. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Girls

Yup. "What the hell is THAT?" I asked myself as I did the laundry and saw this thing that measured 6 inches long and 8 inches wide. It looks like a skirt. I placed it up to my waist and it didn't even cover the crotch area. My daughter sees this and tells me "You don't wear it up so high. You wear it around your hips." It still wouldn't make much of a difference, would it? I mean look at it. It's a micro micro mini and that's what these kids wear to parties? HELP!!!!

"I'm siiiick" croaked mini-skirt's owner into the phone today. "Call the docta fa me." Her voice was so croaky that the receptionist who answered her call was puzzled.

"That was a GIRL???"

Yup and my girls - all of them - have been giving me a run for the money lately. One of them, not happy with her non-sagging "A" cup, wants a boob job and is saving up towards it.

"How do you know the plastic surgeon is any good"

"Because I saw two girls who had theirs done by him and I like what I saw"

"They showed you their boobs?"

"Yes. After you get your boobs done, you show them to everybody."

Great. That's just what a mother wants. A daughter who shows her boobs to everybody.

a very special school

Thanks to my friend Esra'a, the head honcho at MidEast Youth who sent me this link about a really wonderful school in London, England with mixed Arab/Jewish pupils. It's really worth the read.

a different kind of birthday celebration

Eliyahu celebrates his birthday every year in Jerusalem. This year, this Jerusalem Peacemaker invited not only his Orthodox Jewish friends from the Jerusalem area, some coming from the settlement of Bat Ayin, but also his Palestinian friends from Ramallah were there, having received a special permit to come into Jerusalem to celebrate with him. As well, Palestinian musicians from Sawahare, outside of Jerusalem were also granted permits for this evening. There was a Jordanian couple there, who were studying at the Hebrew University - he is researching the Jewish community of the Jewish quarter in the Old City and claims he is the first Jordanian doing any research on Jews in Israel.

The special guest that evening was a Moslem visitor from Iraq, who was here because his young child needed urgent medical treatment and he received a special visa for this. He is very grateful that his kid was healed here and hopefully he will bring that thankfulness over to his country and tell his people we in Israel aren't all ogres (we are sure they hear that over there). People were curious, and asked him all sorts of questions like "did he meet any Iraqi Jews while he was here?" "Did his view of Israel change now" "What did he think of Israel beforehand".

The organization that brought his child here is called "Shevet Achim" translated as "tribe of brothers". Once the child is found to be operable, the organization obtains visas for the child and one parent.
Representatives of the organization were recently in Jordan meeting about 30 families whose children desperately needed medical attention of the kind that could only be found in Israel, with their advanced medical techniques and, well, Jewish doctors. You can't find Jewish doctors in Saudi Arabia so one's gotta go where one's gotta go!

There was woman from Bustan Leshalom an environmental justice group, based in the Negev, working mostly with Bedouin communities. The group seeks to restore an environmental balance together as well as fight injustices such as home demolitions which are rampant in the Negev as many Bedouin live in unrecognized villages and are forced to move into townships. Often their homes get razed if they don't move.

Palestinian representatives of Combatants for Peace were there. Eliyahu remarked how it is easier for Suleiman to be a head of a Palestinian peace movement as he was in an Israeli jail for 10 years and therefore, he wouldn't be considered a collaborator, as some are considered by their own if they join up with Israelis for some activity or another...



And of course there was food. You can't have Jews and Arabs together without food. Pasta salads, fruit, popcorn, cakes, baklava, pizza - it was a potluck and a potpourri of all sorts of things you can shove in your mouth. The music was great - Jewish musician Rebbe Soul provided the Jewish side of tunes and Mohammad and Mochi performed wonderful oud music.

I wondered out loud if there was a way we could not only gather together for Eliyahu's birthday - but wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in the same apartment building together. Where's Arkady Gaydamak when you need him to buy up apartment buildings and put Jews and Arabs in them together to make beautiful music together. We saw tonight it can be done.

Uncovering yourself

“That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m letting it all hang out.”

I overheard this conversation from where I was sitting in my office coming from the receptionist. Curiosity overcoming me, I came out to see what she was letting hang out. Quite newly married and an orthodox Jew, she had begun her married life covering her hair, which is a very difficult thing to do for most women, unless they are born into an orthodox lifestyle and look forward to shopping for wigs or hats and scarves, depending on how one wishes to cover one’s hair. But she had had enough and missed having her hair drape around her neck.

“Was it difficult for you?” I asked. “What about your friends where you live? Can they accept the change?”

“I only do it when I’m out of the neighborhood. I’m not comfortable uncovering my hair where I live.” But when she moves out of that neighborhood, it’s all coming off.

I completely understood where she was coming from.

Back in Toronto, I was a Hassidic woman, covering my hair with a wig, or actually quite a few wigs, because I never stopped being funky. I had a short one, a long platinum blonde one, a reddish one - medium length and an assortment of head scarves called Snoods. But after I cut out of the Hassidic lifestyle, I began to let go. The first step was uncovering my bangs. It horrified the hell out of some of our neighborhood rabbis and some even stopped speaking to me. I was on my way to hell and they didn’t want to be associated with me, I was sure.

After our move to Israel, the rest of the head covering came off after Rabin was murdered by an orthodox Jewish guy and I didn’t want to be associated with the group of people who wanted Rabin dead. It was easier if people couldn’t figure out how to label you.

But going back to Canada to visit my sister, I had to don my snoods again because her husband is the principal of an ultra-orthodox day school and if anyone in their neighborhood got wind of the fact that a sister-in-law of the rabbi was not ultra-orthodox and wasn’t a “head coverer” - oy vey - they would have problems marrying off their kids/grandchildren because it would cause a blot on the family’s “perfect” status. So I didn’t mind playing along for the sake of my family.

I know how terrifying it could be for this newly-married woman who uncovers her hair now to bump into a relative, where she least suspects it and then the secret is out. This happened to me at the beginning too. It felt funny and sometimes I’d avoid that person by running into a store, turning my head the other way or who knows what, but I really didn’t want some relatives to know that I’ve gone off the path.

But we’ve come to some compromise now. When the ultra orthodox relatives visit me in Israel, I don’t cover my hair, but I don’t wear trousers when I see them because I think that is even more mortifying for them than head coverings and I put on a dress/skirt so they are more at ease.

But I often wonder what about Moslem women who decide to uncover their hair and stop wearing the hejab. Do they also put it on in front of their more devout relatives? Do they freak out when they’re uncovered and bump into friends/relatives they don’t want to bump into? Do they run into stores to avoid them like I did?

I Quit

Well I Hubby would have said this about his smoking two years ago. Now that we're in the market for mortgage insurance, because he's a smoker it is DOUBLE the cost of mine. How's that for an incentive to quit?

We thought about it at work today.

"Well I do have life insurance on him. Should I just let him croak?"

"When they get ill from lung disease, it's a slow and painful death." said a co-worker

"Oh shit. Which mean's of course that I'LL be the one taking care of the bugger if that should happen."

Not good. Not good at all. There's some place around town that advertises a 90% success rate for stopping smoking. That's a good enough percentage for me. And they offer a money back guarantee if it doesn't work. It's expensive - about 4 months worth of ciggies. But then, after that, we'll see the money he spent on ciggies going for something more worthwhile - like clothing or restaurants or - furniture for our new place, instead of having to bring into the apartment dog-eaten chairs, and chewed up couches and a ratty-looking dining room table. Now there's an idea.

Plus in two years, his insurance mortgage can be cut in half.

Why didn't I think of this before?

gramma

I don't know if I'll call myself gramma, savta, bubby but I will be calling myself one of those come this July when my eldest daughter gives me a grandchild.

I knew about this for a while, but was sworn to secrecy, even from my children, until the 16th week hit.

When she took her pregnancy test in October, she told me she thought she was pregnant, her period was like 8 hours late or something ridiculous like that. Our family doctor had been on sabbatical for a year, and had no idea she had gotten married in the interim. When he walked in with the results, his face looked gloomy.

"I don't know if this is good news or not"

"What is going on?" asked my daughter.

"Well, you're pregnant" he said sadly.

"I'm SO HAPPY!!!"!! she shouted at him.

It was his turn to go "Huh?" and then she told him it's ok - she had gotten married in June and his mood definitely lightened up.

Then it was absolute torture for me not to tell a soul. Not even Hubby, though I managed to persuade my daughter to let me tell him 3 weeks later. I told a best friend at work, whom I know kept her mouth shut. On Thursday, I brought in to work a lumpy photograph of the fetus taken at the latest 16-week ultrasound. Its head, arms and chest were clearly visible.

"Would you like to see a photo of my grandchild?" I asked everyone and they all raised their eyebrows like "WTF?" I explained it's 16 weeks in the making and that's how everyone at work found out...

I thought of hiring labor coaches and my daughter asked me what was doing about that.

"Honey, I really think labor coaches are for women who don't have their mothers around. I'll be happy to massage your lower back, to breathe with you through your contractions and give you ice to suck on."

She thought and remembered the time I took her to the hospital nearly 15 years ago when she was 8 years old to watch me give birth to her brother. She remembered giving me ice too. Now the tables turn...

But she still worries and asked "How will you know what to do?"

"Because I've been through this five times, THAT's why." I still remember the pain, but it was wonderful pain. She doesn't understand how excrutiating pain could be so beautiful and wonderful. But she will.

A girlfriend for my son

For the past couple of months my son has been telling me he has a girlfriend. He is turning 15 next month and girls had never really been on his mind. Just computers and icq and soccer. But his teen mind is expanding and although I never met the girl formally (he never brought her home), he shows me messages they write each other, which I think is sweet.

But then he tells me she isn't that good-looking and there are prettier girls than this one.

"So why are you going out with her?"

"She ran after me. She's the one who wants to go out with me."

Oh, I see.

"What do you talk about when you go out?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

I guess talking isn't what he's into. They probably just walk alongside each other with nothing to say. I can see it. Two computer geeks have found each other.

He pointed her out to me in the supermarket last Friday.

"Right, she's not pretty?" he asked me.

I thought she was really pretty. Long dark hair, nice features but they didn't speak to each other, just a shy "hi" when they passed each other. Perhaps it was she was with her Argentinian father. Perhaps she's not ready to meet the folks of his yet either.

Later that evening, we teased him for being shy with her in the supermarket and the fact that they don't have these verbal conversations.

But I see him "chatting" away until the wee hours of the morning on ICQ. With her. She types and he types. And if they ever get married, they'll send each other typed messages and SMS's when they want to tell each other something - like pick up the kids this afternoon or buy some milk and bread when you come back from work.

But it looks like they won't be speaking much to each other soon.

Not those two computer geeks.

Palestinian-Israeli Comedy Night

I got an email two weeks ago about this small tour taking place and what enjoyable news it was for me. I had been toying with going plowing and planting with Palestinians, but sometimes that can be scary and stressful (not because of the Palestinians either), and because of the stress in my everyday life, I need something not-so-stressful. So when this item came up I immediately forwarded it to everyone I knew who was into peace activities.

The show I went to was last Thursday night at the beautiful American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem. The place was packed with many journalists there, curious as everyone else there, how this tour came about and who were these joksters anyways.

I went with my girlfriend because Hubby has been a troll of late and they don't like to laugh much. There was free wine and chips/pretzels at the entrance, and I thought if I had a couple of drinks (and probably the comedians thought so too), I'd loosen up and laugh a lot more.

Turns out I didn't need those drinks. The guys were so funny, my stomach hurt and my voice was hoarse from laughing for 2 hours straight.

There were 4 comedians - 3 Jewish, 1 Arab. Pretty much summed up the way the audience turned out as well. A smattering of Arabs and a whole bunch of Jews.

First up was Aaron Freeman, an African-American convert to Judaism, who had us in stitches about reactions to his converting - "Why? What they really want to say is "what's wrong wit' you!! You didn't have enough trouble? You want to be an extra credit target for the Ku Klux Klan?" He explained that Ethiopian Jews in Israel have no idea who Martin Luther King was, and after he explained everything to them - a bit of US history, slavery, the 1960s riots, the deep South, segregation, they were like 'Oh we see you Jews suffered too!" or something like that. Whatever. It's much funnier when you hear it live.

Then Charley Warady was explaining how it was for him to make aliyah - and when he passed a checkpoint, he thought it was a toll booth and threw a couple of coins in and drove through only to get shot at..."Gee they get so mad here when you don't have exact change.."

Ray Hanania, the sole Arab comedian, was up next. "I see you (the audience) as potential hostages!" and told us about his harrowing airport experiences because of his Arab heritage. "Are you on my flight?" is a question nervously asked of him by other passengers. And when he went to the bathroom on his flight into Israel, Alan Dershowitz met him on the way back to his seat to explain why there was someone else now sitting in his seat...

Yisrael Campbell, a ultra-orthodox-looking Jew, also a convert to Judaism, was explaining that he was the nephew of Jesus since his mother had been in a convent and it gets up great parking spaces in Jerusalem, like when he goes to the Church of Scotland he tells people - "I'm His nephew." "Oh sure, go right in". On his reasons for converting? "I was a vaguely Catholic but Catholic enough to know that I was going to hell, so I switched religions." He said that Jerusalem's clergy - Rabbis, Priests and Imams all got together to fight to Gay Pride Parade because they pleased "don't affect the peace of our city!" Huh? Where do they live? They don't get together when there are house demolitions in East Jerusalem or bus bombings in West Jerusalem - what brings them together?" He whispers - the Pride Parade.



I know, I should have written all that funny stuff up. But if YouTube works, I'll get it posted there.

After the show I introduced myself to Ray and told him I work in interfaith. He was very interested in interfaith work himself and years ago he said most groups were afraid it could get offensive, sensitive, or whatever, so he never pursued it.

Someone from CNN interviewed me afterwards, asking if I found any of this stuff offensive. I told her absolutely not - I had seen Borat and if I found THAT funny, this surely wouldn't be more offensive, and yes, I did understand Ray's jokes, I understand Moslem customs about multiple wives and burkas, etc. and that we should have more of this sort of intercultural stuff taking place here, but it breaks down barriers.

My friend and I went to the fireplace lounge to have a drink afterwards. The music was soft Arabic music and the waiters were elegant and genteel and made me feel like a princess. I was feeling so high. And I was sad on the other hand that there was so little of these types of evenings where we can just laugh all together at our government and religious customs. I went home by bus and heard two young men in the front of the bus speaking Arabic. It's quite unusual for Arabs to take "that" bus back from Jerusalem over the green line - they probably live in neighboring Azariya, which they did as they got off the bus just before the entrance of our suburban town. And no one hassled them on the bus, or gave a second glance, and I thought it should be like this all the time, shouldn't it. Just a cacaphony of Hebrew and Arabic all the time, everywhere.

Weekend update

Our housing crisis is nearly over. We finally bought an apartment, and it wasn't easy. We had driven the real estate agents bonkers, perused local real estate internet sites daily, called people up to see their homes, nearly made deals on a few of them and ended up buying from a builder. Hubby likes new. Though there were some good things about many of these apartments we saw, there were also not-so-good things. For instance:

"the toilets had been shit in by others before us"
"the house is build into the mountain"
"the bedroom has no windows"
"there's no cellphone connection here"
"it looks like we're living in the basement"
"it's too much of a walk-up"
"don't want to pay agent's fee"

etc. etc.

So we were called in to sign a contract last week. I took off work for about an hour to sign, fully knowing my "Miranda" boss from my office, would get highly upset at me leaving 1 hour beforehand (even though she was at meetings), but at this point having a place to live is more important than appeasing someone who can never be appeased.

Even the signing wasn't easy. Our lawyer trudged in and asked for a receipt when they deposit our checks.

Their sales agent was like "No way. We don't do that."

Our lawyer - "It's standard procedure."

Then they started hurling insults at each other and after 5 minutes of observing this, our lawyer got up and told us "We're not signing today."

Huh? After I put my job in jeopardy by leaving one hour earlier? But after haggling back and forth with their lawyers, we were called back to sign 2 hours later.

I signed about a thousand pages with trembling hands. This whole homeowner thing is so new and so traumatic at 50 when you've never had a home beforehand, and are used to living in other people's places. But I was so elated. No one can tell me to leave because they're selling their place, or blame me for damages to their place when there weren't any. And the kids might even be goaded into being proud of living in their own real home and begin to clean up - but that's a far shot, I know.

We took a look at our home this morning and walked up the 8 flights. The tiles I chose seemed too dark compared to what others had chosen. What to do now? The floors were still covered in sand - and the tiles hadn't been shipped yet to the site. Maybe there's still time to change. I'll be preoccupied with these types of decisions daily until we move in. My daughter walked into her room and said it smelled like shit. I suspect, but I didn't want to inspect up close, that the little dark, sand-covered 'stuff' was indeed shit, perhaps left by one construction worker who didn't want to go down 8 flights to use a port-a-potty. And it will be covered up by tile one day. Some people walk on air. We'll be walking on shit.

We went over to the other building where people already moved in and went up to the 8th floor and asked the owners if we could see how "our" apartment would look like fully furnished. This ain't New Yawk and the people welcomed us into their home and we saw it looked absolutely lovely, once the construction workers' shit is covered and tiles put on and bathrooms finished off. It really looks like a home.

And after 11 years in this country - I think we really could use a home right now. Next step - applying for a mortgage.

Moving – the curse of it all

We had to move homes on Wednesday to a temporary home for a few months, which put everyone in a horrible mood for most of the week up until Saturday – which weather-wise, was warm and beautifully sunny. The place we rented is a villa of sorts, in a neighborhood of private homes which was eerily quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of having lived on a main street for 5 years. There were lots wrong with our temporary housing but we had no choice.

1. No grocery store within easy walking distance
2. No central heating and we are freezing most nights – I had to borrow radiators which only warm up the immediate area
3. No gas for cooking – I had to call up the gas company and they said they'll come in 5 days
4. Ancient kitchen with broken knobs

I likened the place like Tara in Gone with the Wind – AFTER the civil war – when it wasn't the palace it was beforehand, but a worn-out home. Surely our place had also seen better days.

My 18-year-old Chronic Complainer, complained bitterly to the Arab movers on moving day.

"The only thing nice about this apartment is the front door." She cried.

"Great" I told her. "Because when I throw you out of the house, that's the part of the house you'll be seeing most of"

After the move, the movers complained bitterly of not getting enough "baksheesh" (tip) from me. I did give them something but not an enormous amount and don't know if their yelling and screaming was part of the culture or work ethic or what-have-you and Abdullah, my friend, who had hired them for me assured me that I had given enough. But I need to do this again in April/May so I really wanted to go more on the less-expensive side.

The next night Hubby and ex-Criminal daughter were fighting like cats and dogs, and my Son was frightened. I was busy shopping in the supermarket, getting stuff that can be baked or microwaved because I couldn't use the gas-top without gas.

"Mom, come home quickly. I think this house is cursed!!!"

"Honey, I've got a cart full of groceries. You think I want to come home quickly to a cursed house, full of anger and craziness? I'll sit with you when I get back home." I told him and shoved an extra chocolate treat for him in the cart.

On Friday morning I went to the nearest neighborhood grocery store to check it out. The stuff there cost a fortune, but the high concentration of Americans living in the area was evident by what the store stocked – Campbell's Soup, English Muffins, Cadbury's and Hershey's Hot Chocolate and Chow Mein noodles and more and more and more. I saw some familiar faces – all US ex-pats who welcomed me into the area – we like to stick together - and felt immediately more at ease in the new 'hood. One woman whom I hadn't seen in years gave me a very warm "Oh HI!!" and when she heard that we just moved and will probably have to move again in a few months, exclaimed "Moving is such a curse. It is such a curse."

Don't I know it.

And now for the weekend update

It was a harrowing weekend. We have to move on Wednesday into a temporary house for a few months and then God-knows-where-to, which has put everyone in our household in a funk. One nice thing was that we were invited to a dinner at our Messianic Jewish friends' home and I overlooked the fact that Mrs. Messianic Jew is a super-duper housekeeper. Daughter and I glanced at each other while she was cooking and something or other from the pot fell on the floor. It was immediately scooped up and thrown in the trash.

"If that happened in our house, we'd just leave it on the floor."

We giggled like female versions of Beavis and Butthead.

Her place was spotless even though she was cooking for 20 people with nary a dirty pot in sight, and the counters gleaming. I should hate her but I cannot hate anyone that feeds me and lets me take home tupperware-full of leftovers.

But the rest of the weekend should have gone in the trash together with the chicken bones.

Hubby went on and on how "this country fucks you up" and the kids were at war with one another the way teens do.

The 20 year old told on her 18 year old sister -
"MOM! She's using the dryer for only ONE SHIRT!!"

I was livid. It costs a fortune here to use the clothes drier and it is only used when it rains for 3 days straight and the indoor drying rack isn't fast enough.

18 year old took revenge by rushing down to the family computer and deleting everything in the 20-year old's file which included her resume and reference letters.

I was upstairs trying to watch Desperate Housewives and she was downstairs screaming and crying. They don't stop at 20 years of age. I yelled at the 18 year old to get out of the house immediately because an act of damage/destruction to another person's property is the most taboo you can get with me. Of course, she didn't listen and trudged up to her room only to come down later that evening in an outfit that made her look like a cheap hooker. And I really dislike my daughters looking cheap - at least look like an expensive one, dammit. But I knew she put on that outfit just to piss me off because she came down, smirked at me and admired herself in the mirror while I shook my head.

On builders, the messiah and Chinese food

"You really should be blogging this" - said a friend of mine after I updated her on our home purchase escpades.

I've been having blogger's block, I told her. I haven't blogged about anything. We've been negotiating back and forth between the lawyers of our builders and our lawyers and this has been going on for weeks with no result.

"It's like being in a bad relationship" explained my friend.

"Yep, but without the sex" I replied. But then I thought further.

"No wait a minute. There is sex! Why, the builder is fucking us!!" There. simple as that.

The only thing making me happy was the fact that our messianic Jewish friends invited us to their home for dinner. She is making "chinese" and I offered to bring along a big expensive bottle of sake. Not that sake is Chinese but in Israel it doesn't really matter and you can glump together Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese food all together - in Jerusalem they think it's the same thing.

My kids were invited as well as they are bringing other guests with kids around the same ages as mine. It's a plot I tell you. But - never mind. I told my daughter, the Complainer, this morning about our friends.

"They think differently about certain things than you and I", I tried to approach this delicately.

"What" she murmured.

"They believe that Jesus is the messiah and son of God and all that."

"So" she answered, aware that they were trying to entice my daughters with very cute guys, "why should I go out with someone who believes in Jesus."

Great question kid - so now I see you are ready to face these people and inform them of your very own savior and messiah which is, of course, the god of parties, discos, dj's, pubs, etc. And then you youngsters can hash it out for yourselves.

Bedouin food - not

Abdullah was standing in front of my house, which surprised me while I walked up the stairs to my apartment. As usual, I expected no one there. And my boy was sleeping and didn't hear him ring. I haven't a clue how long Abdullah waited for me.

As is my style, I generally don't invite guests over during the week because of my hectic life, but as is the style of the Middle East, Abdullah doesn't wait for an invite. He's a single Bedouin man in his early thirties who joins up in various non-political peace activities and is thinking about setting up a Bedouin tent in the vicinity of Maaleh Adumim for camel rides, music, coffee, tea and dialogue.

I chatted with him while I made him Arabic coffee and prepared dinner for my family. I invited him to dine with us. We sat at the table and unfortunately for him this was not Bedouin fare. Not at all. I had served salad, hot dogs with home fries, noodles with veggies and tofu. No kebabs, mejedderah or lamb. He ate a couple of spoonfuls to be nice but the look on his face was miserable. I thought again of that hysterical scene in the Borat movie where Borat thinks the Jews are trying to poison him with their deli sandwich. I hope he wasn't thinking we were trying to poison him. Actually with serving hot dogs for dinner, perhaps we were only poisoning ourselves. But never mind.

If he only just calls a few hours before he shows up at my door, I might even make him the food he is accustomed to....

(not celebrating) Christmas in Jerusalem

Well, it certainly doesn't feel like Christmas here. It's work as usual. Nothing is closed, except for the US consulate (and other consulates of course) and the Filipino caregivers have their day off today.

Last night two Breslov Hassidim, with long earlocks, came to my door to ask if I want to buy this ridiculously gigantic book of Psalms. I have Psalms thank-you, but I opted for their charity box. They took out their notebook to jot down my address and all that. It was cold outside so I invited them in. They seemed happy to get out of the cold. The men hardly looked at me (some ultra-Orthodox men do not look directly at women) even though I was modestly dressed but were friendly none-the-less and were grateful for an opportunity to say a blessing over the glass of water I gave them and blessed me and thanked me for my hospitality.

"Funny those guys coming over Christmas eve" said Hubby.

"Huh? You even think they KNOW it's Christmas Eve?" I answered - they may not have a clue being that they probably don't read the papers and don't watch tv.

"They're probably from the Tax department snooping around"

I rolled my eyes. I blame the Holy Ganga for Hubby's paranoia.

"Yeah, looks like we'll get a reduction on our taxes then won't we" I retorted. What's on display at our house, other than torn sofas, broken dining room chairs and a color tv that displays only a blue and red picture.

I added to the fun. "Maybe they're the Three Wise Men, only one is missing, so only Two Wise Men showed up at our home."

Today at our staff lunch, the president wanted to hear from us immigrants how we saw Christmas once-upon-a-time. I told her about one of my fondest memories of my two Catholic friends who, years ago, fought with their respective families and had nowhere to go for Christmas dinner. Seeing their distress, I ended up making their festive meal, turkey with all the trimmings. Despite the lack of Christmas tree and decorations in my house, I think we had a damn good holiday meal together. And it was pretty funny for them to be hosted by their Jewish friend and it put us all back in a good mood. The next memory was of my Sicilian friend's family's dinner where we pigged out from 4:30 pm until 10:30 at night, while her grandmother gave me a verbal thrashing for not going to Church, while the rest of the family chuckled and tried to tell her that I was Jewish and that's a good reason not to go to church.

Tel Aviv and Borat, the Movie

Ahhh. Nothing like a Sunday off. Reminds me of the Old Country. Today my work gave me off for Chanukah vacation - not all 8 days but 1 measly day. Better than no days at all though.

My daughter had to take her university/college entrance exam that morning. This exam has nothing to do with how intelligent you are because she is very intelligent and got the highest marks in her high school, but she feels like a complete idiot after studying for 3 months for this exam. English was easy, she told me but math and Hebrew were difficult for her. I spoke to some people who said these exams just show how quickly and accurately you can do these tests under pressure. And you learn how to solve mathematical problems quickly. Big friggin' deal. She lives in my house. She can definitely work/learn well under pressure. Who are they to judge.

But never mind the results. I celebrated the end of her tedious studying day and night and we went off to Tel Aviv to look at the sunset



and to go further north to Ramat Hasharon to Cinema City, a huge complex of 21 or so movie theaters. I hadn't been to Tel Aviv in 1 1/2 years. It's an hour away, but I never find the time to leave Jerusalem.



We got to the cinema just in time for the show. We laughed our asses off and I was surprised to see the audience about my age with few young people. Borat was hysterical speaking in Hebrew when he should have been speaking Kazakh and I'm thinking - man, has this guy put Kazakhastan on the map. Their government should go with it and do "Borat tours" of the country - it would be absolutely hilarious.

Funniest part was the nude wrestling, where it was difficult for me (but I managed) to get my bladder under control, I was laughing so hard.

Also hilarious was the part where he thought the bed and breakfast Jews were poisoning him with their deli sandwich they insisted that he eat. It reminded me of the time when I took my first trip to Israel when I just turned 17 -waay back in early 1973. Our car got stuck in the mud in an Arab village and one of the villagers came out of his home to help us up the hill to his home. They sat me down and served me tea. I had never heard of herbal tea back then especially not flavored teas like mint. So needless to say when I took a sip of it, I truly thought they were trying to poison me and I wouldn't drink it. I was terrified. It wasn't until a year later that I acquired a taste for it and realized that it was the tea of choice for many Israelis, especially of Moroccan origin. Just goes to show...

A tale of two towns

I went hiking last Friday with Jerusalem's Mosaic Club. We were a cozy group and began our trek from Mevasseret Zion, a now-wealthy suburb of Jerusalem, and the place where I began my life in Israel in its absorption center, where the sole occupants now are Ethiopian immigrants (perhaps the only non-well-to-do residents of the place). We passed by burial caves from the 2nd Temple period, and the tour guide explained that only wealthy people dug out their own burial caves and reused them for generations, while the rest buried their dead out in the field.



Our hippie guide apologized profusely for his not excellent English, but I really enjoyed his guiding - as he referred to abandoned settlements as abdomened homes and where the farmers grew weed, instead of wheat, and where we had to squish the red berries with our toes (instead of fingers) - stuff like that throughout the tour. He told us Bedouin tales in one of the caves of female demons and showed us the odd nest that the sunbird built.

Down in the valley between Mevasseret towards Jerusalem, we walked passed the newly built bridges (a sore spot with nature preservers) and highways, and a previously unknown place(to me) called Einot Telem where there was a small Jewish settlement up until the Arab riots of 1929. The soap factory was the only building left standing. Because of the springs, there was settlement there for hundreds of years. Right now there were unsightly water tanks and a big electro-magnetic-field-cellphone-transmitter on the site. We sat in the shade of the back of the former factory, where there has been some recent restoration done on the site to have our lunch.



We walked on the dirt road towards Lifta dodging cement trucks building the new highway fast and furious today. It ruined the serenity of the place.

I was always curious about Lifta, the abandoned Arab village of pre-1948 and in my 11 years here, never had a chance to roam around it.


It has been left abandoned and I was grateful that the picturesque buildings hadn't been razed. The place has a long history and we could peek inside an ancient building to see the Byzantine stones inside.



But don't lean on the walls of these buildings, they are in danger of collapse, warned our guide. Some of the better maintained buildings are now squatted in by hippies, junkies and a drug rehab center. The guide said he wasn't sure if the Arabs left on their own or were forced out in 1948 (I tend to think they were forced out by frequent attacks on them), but I do have an Arab friend who was born there who now lives in Jerusalem. Perhaps I'll one day go with her, if it's not too painful, and get a real tour of the place.

In the early 1950s immigrant Jews from Arab countries were placed there until enough room in the tent cities of that time became available. In 1967 the IDF did practice runs in that village and thus ruined many of the buildings.



The government/municipality doesn't know what to do with the place. One idea was to tear it down and build a shopping mall there (horrible idea), another was to make it into a upscale residence for Jews, another was to make it into an artists village. I think they should renovate it and use it as a tourist site (a living Palestinian village) the way they redo ancient Jewish villages and have descendants of the village guide people around in native dress. I don't see the Israeli government okaying this idea. It's too "political". But I still think it's a cool idea.

And the madness goes on

It started out mad - I woke up before six am, cooked up a macrobiotic storm for breakfast and lunch (miso soup with squash and wakame, tempeh, grilled tofu, brown/wild rice stew with cabbage, onions and celery) only to realize when I got to work that, hey! its Monday and that's when we order sandwiches/salads on the company account.

We finally found a place to rent for a few months. There are very few places that will rent to you for less than a year. The owner took full advantage of this and raised the rent $50 more a month for that privilege. It's a villa - private home - big and old and shabby and cold. But it's got closets and we could live out of boxes and leave the rest of our stuff like wardrobes and summer stuff and books fully packed until our permanent move (whenever that will ever be). Hubby wants to go through a lawyer for this lease, but the owner is saying she will just come with me to get a standard rental lease at the print shop and sign it. I spoke to others and for not complicated cases such as this, you don't need a lawyer. But as Hubby says he doesn't want to get "fucked" so he wants the lawyer. I called said lawyer today and he's out sick. He's a man. He could be sick for days. You know how it is - probably just a head cold.

So I don't want to get "fucked" by the landlord and have her sign up with someone else which will leave us stranded, so I may just get the darn thing signed just between the two of us this afternoon and screw the men. They make things so complicated.

At home- tried to get the 17 year old to wash dishes so that she could get her phone charger back from Hubby who took it away on Friday for not doing laundry. She was in a rush to go to a party.

"At 5:30 in the evening you're going to a party?" I asked.

Since when do parties for teens start at 5:30 pm? It's more like 11:30 pm until the wee hours. It's wonderful. These teen clubs in Jerusalem have parties till 5:00 am and the kids can't wake up to go to school or work or whatever it is that keeps them occupied.

She swore at us using the English "F" word, and ran upstairs while we went off to see the rental apartment.

Meanwhile, our present landlord thinks we're leaving the end of the week - he doesn't know it's mid-January. I'm too nervous to approach him until I get the rental agreement signed so he can see that we're just not apartment squatters. All this friggin chaos in my life. I should be thrilled actually because I have a light work week this week while all the bosses are away at meetings for an entire week and there's no pressure to get 100 things done in 1/2 hour. But I'm not.

And when I think of that fucking Iranian Ahmadinejad trying to blow us up in Jerusalem so he can bring on the Mahdi - I just think - "Man, go ahead. Make my day."

Pills for Life

I think I have the writer's block. I haven't been inspired to write. My family's getting on my nerves. All of them.

"Oprah said you don't just give kids an allowance. They have to work for it" said my 20 year old as I gave my 17 year old 30 NIS ($7) for her weekly Thursday night outings.

I should have thrown out the TV. It's no good for kids. They were right. They'll only learn how normal families work and it'll make us look even more dysfunctional. And the kids are right. She gets money for doing shit around the house. I ask her to do stuff like put on a tablecloth and she puts in on halfway and runs out of the house. I give her the cash to keep her quiet. I don't want her bugging me or stealing from her sisters or borrowing from her friends. I do everything the books (and Oprah) say I shouldn't be doing.

Hubby was threatening not to buy any apartment, which will leave us pretty much stranded. At dinner same daughter said - "You know, if you get mad at him these days, you can always wash his teeth in the toilet" - and we all laughed like madwomen.

My neck is killing me and it's from stress. The only thing I can do is try and listen to Johnny Cash or the soundtrack from Walk The Line to calm me down.

Emails and SMS's are coming in - help needed with olive picking in Palestinian territories, house demolitions going on and people needed for support, and interfaith stuff going on left and right and I'm not joining in on anything - just deleting the messages, as I would for something I see for sale and cannot afford. I'm restless and we've overstayed our lease. I'm nervous. And it's catchy. My married kid had excrutiating stomach pains and went to emergency this week, just when I had wanted to begin packing. They perscribed antacids, after checking her thoroughly. A nervous stomach they tell her. I gave her the number of a homeopath, feelig that I just about had it with the conventional medical profession. Shame that's it's a fortune here. Seems the homeopath did the trick. He seemed to have "felt her pain" and gave her tiny homeopathic pills which calmed her tummy right down. Maybe I should go see him - perhaps he has a few little homeopathic pills for my psycho life.

words of wisdom

It was one rough week.

We are still hoping for a miracle that the Landlord will sell us our present abode at a reasonable price. We had hoped by spending the last Day of Rest cleaning our place top-to-bottom and having it sparkle that the landlord could sell it as is. But he walked through the home quickly on Sunday to say he can't sell it without renovation and he would like us to leave as quickly as we can. It's now the end of that week and not a box is packed.

Which means we will have to look for a place for rent for four months, until we move into our new place - that is, if we can get the new place.

We are hoping that one bank will give us the OK to get a mortgage with them. It's an easier process than it used to be. You used to have to put 40% of the price down and above that get two guarantors to sign. So if you run away to America or Europe and leave all your debts behind, the banks would run after your guarantors. I've heard horror stories of guarantors that trusted their best friends and close relatives, only to find that they were stuck with the mortgage. Nowadays that has all changed and the banks will take back your house. But it's not that easy to be approved for a mortgage. Not all banks will approve. They have different criteria.

And all through this chaotic week I worked like a slave/dog at my job and Hubby had four teeth pulled. It wasn't easy. The freeze didn't take and he sat there for two hours writhing in pain because he didn't want to ever go through this again. Not to mention everyone called for him that Thursday. The seller of the new apartment who wanted us to sign the contract that day because it was the end of the month, potential clients, new immigrants who wanted to brainstorm with him about finding work, you name it, they called him. My son fielded the calls and told everyone that dad had his teeth taken out and couldn't meet them or greet them or come to the phone. No secrets there.

And my married kid was traumatized by her crazy Orthodox new sister-in-law of hers in the US but in Jerusalem for a visit, who decided that she had "ruined her child" because my daughter photographed her teen kid with a cigarette in her hand during a two hour outing last summer to our home.

"You piece of shit" (daughter recorded this conversation). "If I see you, I'll slap your face. You've RUINED my daughter. You took her to your home and let her hang out with your sister who looks like a street hooker!!! Your family are a bunch of low lifes (how on earth could she have found that out!!??)....." and the conversation went on with more threats between the two.

I told my daughter - not to worry. If I have to call that crazy woman I will and I'll tell her it wasn't a cigarette, it was a joint and that we're not street hookers, we're high-class escorts, and she should damn well know the difference.

Hubby, still suffering from his dental trauma, managed one sentence to calm my daughter down which proves you don't need a full set of teeth to sprout gems such as this.

"My shit in the toilet this morning looked better than her face."

And he laughed, and she laughed and I couldn't stop laughing looking at him...

Miranda

Well I got one of those Miranda bosses from The Devil Wears Prada. She happy about my work because I hear people tell me that, so I must be worth something, but she's always complaining whenever I'm around.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

Not unless I'm in your Will, honey - I thought to myself.

She was complaining about all the files I put on her desk for her tons of meetings she had that day. She wants them in her InBox. OK. Not a problem.

She shoots out her requests of me for one hour straight - order this book from Amazon, look for this and that on the Internet, answer her emails, file this and put this on the agenda and look through her hundred pages of notes, read her emails, answer what I can, write papers for her, prepare for her meetings, edit this, figure out what she has to do in the next hour, day, week and year, and write it all down in a list, categorize everything and all this has to be done in less than an hour before she leaves. And I do it.

alas - I'm no longer the princess slave I used to be.

Going through the ringer, Israeli style

For the past 11 years since I’ve moved to Israel from Canada, I always wondered why people complained of life being so difficult here. I find tedious day-to-day life similar to any day-to-day life in any other country. OK - I’ve been through the 2nd intifada and it wasn’t any picnic taking public transportation and eyeing everyone coming onto the bus to see if perhaps that person lugging a huge backpack over their shoulder was going to blow us all up. It wasn’t fun when my kids took buses to school then either.

The ping pong game in Gaza and Sederot going on now is terribly depressing, but it seems miles away, as distant as the war in Lebanon seemed from Jerusalem this summer.
My day is routine. I wake up. Get bread and milk for the family. Hubby, my darling chauffeur, drives me to work nearly every morning. I’m busy as heck at my job. I thank God that I do have a job. I run an errand or two before heading home to make dinner, straighten up, listen to my kids’ day, mediate their fights (”SHUT THE HELL UP RIGHT NOW!!”) and crash.

What could be so difficult?

And then we began looking for a home. We have been renting all our lives and never owned anything - so feeling nervous about being a senior citizen in less than two decades and having to dish out my meager pension to a landlord for rent - we decided it was high time to buy.

We’ve been looking at places to buy and rent since August, ever since my landlord who swore to me 5 years ago, he’d never sell our place, decided to sell. He has no buyer, his place looks like shit (and not because of us), it’s small - the only thing going for it is a huge terrace off the living room, and he’s charging a fortune for it. And he’s wondering why he can’t sell the damn place.

We’re hoping to buy a spanking new, larger place, quite a bit cheaper than what he’s charging for his dump and the move-in date is March or April. We’ve begged Mr. Landlord to let us stay on for four more months. After all, who will rent to us for only 4 months? There aren’t people clamoring to get into our place anyway, so let’s continue to pay rent. Hubby even offered him $100 more a month, but like Mr. Pharaoh from Egypt, the man’s not budging, and I don’t know how to bring about plagues and tell him it’s because of his hardened heart. He tells us we have to be out of our place in a week. We haven’t packed a friggin’ thing. He’s coming on Sunday to inspect our place and then decide whether he wants us out or in for 4 more months.
That’s one.

The other is trying to maneuver through the Israeli banking system. I went to one bank. She’s telling me she’ll give me a mortgage based on Prime. There are tons of different types of mortgages and she’s giving me the more risky one. Nah. I go to the next bank. And the next bank. I find them impersonal and they all make me nervous. I find out from one bank that I’m still considered a new immigrant. I can get a special immigrant’s mortgage at a fixed low interest rate for 20 years. The mortgage person is patient with me and speaks to me in English, which I find a relief. Who wants to make important life decisions in Hebrew when it’s not your first language? But I have to go to the Ministry of Absorption to extend this right, which is stamped in my “Immigrant’s ID” booklet for only 7 years instead of the 15 years it is today. And I better get going before the government decides to change the rules again.

Fine. What could be so difficult about that? After all, Israel’s come a long way with the way their Ministry of Interior office is handled nowadays. The place used to be every immigrant’s biggest nightmare 15 years ago. You’d wait to fill out forms which you didn’t understand for an Israeli ID card, Israeli passport, wait 5 hours and then be told “sorry, we’re closing for the day” or they’d decide to go on strike in the middle of your wait. Now, things get processed in a day. Passport expired? Not a problem. Go in the afternoon, wait 15 minutes and voila - you get a stamp with an extention! You’re out of there in a flash. So what could be the problem with the Ministry of Absorption?

Well, looks like they’re back to where the other Ministry was 20 years ago. I called up one number after another and was connected to numbers which didn’t answer and didn’t have voice mail. It was frustrating. I called up the main number.
“Does the immigrant department consist of only one person???” I was totally irritated. The Russian woman assured me it was an entire department.

“Then why isn’t anyone answering??? It’s 10:30 in the morning. One-half hour after their morning break!!” (government employees are well-known for their extravagant and must-have 10:00 breaks)

She proceeded to give me 6 other numbers. I called them all - no one answered.
The next day, all government ministries went on strike. I don’t care. I called them anyway. I pick a number - any number. Someone answers. I’m totally shocked.

“Aren’t you on strike?” I question her.

“Yes” she giggles

“Then can you help me out here?”

And the woman on strike gives me all the necessary information to make the appointment I need to have with them. Go figure.

The Hostage

My kids were making me laugh. Not on purpose though. Their English is horrible. Absolutely horrible. Worse than my Hebrew.

My daughter working in that fancy Jerusalem hotel, cheerfully informed me that she became a "hostage" at her work.

"Hostage?" I asked. She looked way too happy to be a true hostage. We tried to figure out what she meant.

"You wouldn't be smiling if you were a hostage in a hotel, even THAT hotel." thinking about some rich old smarmy man in that place.

"You know, I stand at the entrance of the hotel...."

My married daughter interrupted..

"Oh, you mean a Ho. You're a Ho! A Ho at the Ho-tel!!"

We were laughing hysterically.

At the end we figured out she was a Hostess for the hotel's restaurant, which was equally as funny - with "ho" at the beginning of the word.

Her pronunciation is horrible - simply horrible. We laugh at the thought of her pointing out to customers the dish of "pisghetti with ongions".

Someone in the hotel has a great sense of humor.

We Want Peace...

This is lovely - some of my friends are here in this short video.

Home sweet Home

Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted. I've got like 2 weeks to move from our place - and, well, we haven't really found any place to move to. I hope they won't get their bullies to drive us out of the apartment.

It's been tough finding a place to rent, first of all. I finally saw a 4 bedroom for rent on Thursday. A spanking brand new apartment in the newest part of town. I called the agent on Wednesday night.

"I'd like to be the first person to see this place. Can I come over tomorrow morning."

"No, you'll have to see it at 8:00 at night. That's the earliest I can show it to you."

Great. I called him again at noon to confirm our time. Then I called him again at 7:40 pm to make sure 8:00 was still ok. And we rushed over.

When we got there - someone else was there. He saw us and said he's gonna close the deal. The agent liar lied to me. He didn't book the guy for 8:10 like he should have. He had us all come at once. What a fucking dick. I was devastated to say the least. I cried loudly all the way home, and my kids consoled me. It's not meant to be, they said. It's God's will, said my husband.

Then my ex-Criminal got ahold of my cellphone with the agent's number on it, after blasting me for not being Israeli enough and not telling him off when he said the apartment is already rented. She said I should have said, "What is this? You can't rent the apartment to him, I called you first, blah blah blah."

So she calls the guy up and blasts him for treating her mother this way and what kind of an agent is he anyways. My 20 year old takes the phone and tells him he's a rotten businessman. He retorts "Don't tell me how to run my business." Dickhole.

After grieving for 12 hours, we had a miracle email from close relatives that said they want to help us buy a place. I think that now my dream of owning a place in this country will come true...

Past Lives

Do you believe you had a former life? I do. I'm always thinking about what I could have been in a former life.

There was the time when I was 17 years old and went to London for the first time. I had been dreaming about London since 1964 - Mary Poppins, Beatles, Petula Clark and others from Swinging London perhaps shaped my longing for the place. But it went deeper than that. There was a familiarity about the place I couldn't put my finger on. I wasn't familiar with all of England - not Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Cornwall, etc. London called to me. So when I hopped into a cab from the airport, he couldn't find his way around. I told him "I think you go up that way and turn a right". And when I was right, I actually freaked myself out enough to write Hans Holzer - the "former lives" expert living in NYC a letter. He wrote in scribbled German-English that he wasn't going to do a case study on me, unless I had recurrent dreams about a place, which I didn't.

How far back does one soul go? When I lived in New York, I hung around African-Americans and they'd nod to each other - "she think she black". I often wondered if I had once been a slave in the deep south.

Here in Israel I am constantly bumping into Franciscans friars and monks. A Jewish woman sang St. Francis' Dolce Amore which brought me near tears. Did I once know the man?

Was I once living in the time of the first temple, which intrigues me more than the second temple?

Why did the border between Pakistan and India feel so familiar to me when I was there last year, watching the people of Pakistan file back into their fields at sunset one Friday night? The feeling was almost magical. Did some of the lost 10 tribes not travel in this direction?

Why do I have such a strong desire to visit the Silk Route - Bukhara, Tajikstan, Turkmenistan, Samarkand - and not France, Denmark or the exotic Fiji Island. Not even the Bahamas. Was I once there, living in a hut or living in a palace?

If you believe in past lives, do you come back to rectify what you didn't complete in the last few? Is my constant battle/struggle with money and cravings for the good life a sign that I once was rich? Perhaps stingy rich and miserly - not giving any charity? Did I have to come back as me in this life to learn a lesson or two?

And do we have to rectify in this life the biblical feud between Sarah and Hagar in order that there be peace between their two sons?

Green Stuff

I managed to wrestle the computer away from my kid yesterday morning who was typing like a banshee at 5:30 am.

"Don't you have to go to school this morning?"

"That's why I'm up. Because if I go to sleep, I won't wake up in time for school."

But she went upstairs, saw her bed around 6:00 am and I couldn't wake her up for school.

Teens.

I went back down to the computer. Finally. It was mine. All mine. I see this plastic bag next to the computer with some green stuff in it. It looks suspicious. Is my daughter smoking the pipe? I called Hubby, the expert, for his opinion.

I opened it. It doesn't smell like anything illegal.

"Here you look at it." I shove the plastic bag at him.

He smells it. He even tastes it and hands it back to me. I taste it. It tastes like zaatar (hyssop). Whew. I think it even is zaatar - with salt.

I eat a big pinch of it.

It was delicious.

Yehuda Stolov of IEA and Ibrahim Issa of Hope Flowers

Discussing our "rewards"

The Hope Flowers School

Hope and Flowers

I went to a retreat at the Hope Flowers School in El Khader near Bethlehem on Monday evening. I had to leave work early because the special bus taking us there was leaving at 3:00. I had planned to go several times in the past to this place but for some reason never could. So I was happy to finally be able to visit. But not before I had my harrowing cab ride with a cab driver who should have retired 10 years before.

"How come you don't take cabs often? You should call me whenver you need a cab to go home."

"I walk from work to the center of town"

He turned around to look at my legs. shithole.

I tried to turn the conversation around to make it seem like I'm just one-of-the-guys.

Bad mistake.

"I'm going to the soccer game on Sunday with my son"

"Do you go to the games on Saturday (when there is no public transportation)?"

"Sometimes."

"I can pick you up from your house and drive you there. We can go to the games together. Don't tell your husband"

"Huh? Oh, I could never do that - because he's my designated DRIVER! He always drives me to wherever I want to go on a Saturday."

"Here's my card. Call me"

"OK" and I dropped the card on the street. Maybe some lonely old lady will pick it up and give him a call.

The guitar player Ofer Golany was with us, and we began our journey with him strumming a lovely rendition of the traveler's prayer in both Hebrew and English. He said he'd have to learn the Arabic version to be fair.

First of all, I love the name of the school. Hope. Flowers. It's a private Palestinian school that teaches co-existence to its 250 pupils. In better times, there were more students. But now people are hard pressed. At least the teachers here get paid which is more than can be said for public school teachers in the Palestinian public school system, where funds are sorely lacking in the civil service departments. Teachers have been on strike because they hadn't received a salary in 6 months. And if Palestinian kids are anything like their Israeli counterparts, you wouldn't want to teach for free. Never.

This was a large school and was housed in a lovely modern building - nothing run down about it, but it was already quite chilly this evening and I had to leave my jacket on throughout the sessions. They don't have any heating/cooling system in the building. It must be difficult for the kids to learn that way. I also noticed the large windows which were quite low. There were no security bars on the windows making me freak out at how dangerous this was - and I feel they were just lucky that there hadn't been any accidents, because a safety inspector in Israel would surely have closed the place down until safety bars were installed.

I munched on some petit beurre cookies that seemed burnt. I muttered to Ofer "I think the Palestinians get our reject cookies. The Israeli market would never let these go for sale in our supermarkets."

"I'm not thinking that." he said.

But I am sure I wasn't imagining it. I know my cookies and I felt my instinct was quite true. I don't think our hosts toasted the friggin' biscuits and really believe they get our reject cookies.

But getting back to our gathering - we were a small group of around 15 people - half Jews - half Palestinians. We discussed the subject of "Reward" from our respective sources and again it only confirmed that we have tons in common. God seemed to reward us the same way and for the same things. But after about 1 1/2 hours, the conversation went from reward to that of not getting rewards and the situation our hosts found themselves in.

We heard fireworks outside. There was a big gathering/party nearby as one of the townsfolk had just gotten out of an Israeli prison after being there for 4 years. His crime? Being in Israel without a permit. The people there live with green ID cards (not the Israeli blue ones) and can't get into Jerusalem easily, even though it's a 10 minute drive only. We were curious about the situation, about the school. What does a private school cost? In Israel it's about 7,000 - 10,000 NIS a year ($1,500 - $2,500), much cheaper than a private school in the States, but alot of money on a lower Israeli salary. They told us that this private school costs 200 NIS a year ($50), but many students could not even pay that tiny amount. Many families in this town are unemployed and are supported by relatives in the Palestinian Diaspora in Europe and the States. If they send $200 a month, it can really help out a family greatly.

The principal, Ibrahim Issa, said they are in Area C, which means it is under Israeli control, which means they are caught in between Israeli and Palestinian territories. For example, if they want to get a fast internet connection, they are not able to connect with the Israeli cable companies, and are not able to connect with Palestinian companies, so they are stuck. They're in no-man's land, so to speak. They tried several ways to get hooked up, but were scammed a couple of thousand dollars already. They would really like to get internet connections so the kids in the school could connect with Israeli kids and make a good "connection". But of course no one outside the school really seems to care if they do or not.

They asked the army to please clear the roadsides which are full of rubble so that the school buses can maneuver the roads safely, but for some reason, they aren't even allowed to do that. It's a security risk, they are told.

So even with all these hardships, Mr. Issa and his staff, continue to plug away at teaching co-existence to his 250 students. As we say in Hebrew - Kol Hakavod! (What an honorable thing!)

Religious debate

Christianity versus Islam - hilarious stuff

A place I could call home

I couldn't get to the party Alex was having for himself after his Laughter Yoga session in the Rose Garden, as much as I would have liked to. I had unpleasant things to do that day.

I woke up at 6:00 to clean my home. Not a fun task. The builders that own our apartment decided a few months ago that the place they promised me they would "never sell" was going to be put on the market. Someone was going to see it that morning and I didn't want him to think we were "dirty Americans". I know how clean these Israelis can be. Most of them keep spotless houses. Palestinians keep their houses spotless as well. I've only seen a few messy homes - lived in by American ex-pats mostly. I think I've only seen one messy Israeli home. What is it in our culture that half of us leave stuff lying all over the place and can't pick up a broom? Not that I want to leave this place at all - but I don't want to have that kind of "dirty" reputation. So I cleaned the cobwebs and shit off the corners of the baseboards and wiped handprints and cleaned the bathrooms until they sparkled. They still stunk though so I hid the stench through some patchouli incense. Thank God for incense.

We have been living in our apartment for five years and now we have to move. We have been looking for a place since August. And it has been difficult. Just the thought of packing boxes yet again... is so unsettling.

We're moving with one less kid this time, but moving is horrible. And the worst thing about it is that we have no place to move to - and we have to be out by December 1st.

There is a shortage of apartments for rent in our area - perhaps one or two a month come up. The one we saw without an agent was a total disaster. It wasn't in the old part of town, but the apartment was on the top floor (Hubby hates climbing stairs) and the doors all had holes in them. There was one closed room with steps in the middle of the room going up to the second floor.

"What kind of design is that?" shrieked Hubby to me as we walked through the dump.

The woman who drove all the way from Jerusalem to show us her place had to listen to Hubby's tirade.

"The place is a wreck!" he said to her in English.

"What's a wreck?" she asked.

I was hoping he'd be more gentler with her and not have to always be up front and honest as is his trade mark, but he didn't give a flying fajita.

He told her she'd be better off selling the place instead of renting it. Sure enough, I'd seen this place advertised over a month with no takers.

We've seen apartments for sale as well, thinking we had better get into the buying market before we get too old to get a mortgage here. They don't give mortgages to you past 75 years of age and I don't blame them. We can't qualify anymore for a 25 year mortgage or 30 year mortgage. It's down to 20 years now. Which means the downpayment has to be alot more than it would have been for a longer length of time. But never mind.

The agents have been as frustrated with us not liking anything as we have been with the apartments. Hubby doesn't want pre-fab and those are the cheapest ones - ones we can afford. I liked the one with the garden and brand new kitchen, in the old neighborhood. The kids don't want old neighborhoods because they'll be embarrassed to bring friends over. They want new. But new is $180,000 and that is too much for us. It's a bargain compared to Jerusalem where a run-down flat under 100 meters will cost nearly $300,000 and a lovely one double that. But we'd have to finance most of the cost - and the monthly payments would be high, too high for us - we like to enjoy having an occasional coffee out and a breakfast out and perhaps even a dinner out once every couple of months. We see too many people strapped for cash when the mortgage is too high.

There was a French real estate agent who took me and my two girls on a whirlwind tour of 4 apartments. He whizzed through the roundabouts making us all dizzy and talked loudly on the phone the entire time making us even dizzier. We liked a couple of the places, but again - the price wasn't right.

So if there is a good God in this world - we need a place that is affordable, lovely, and which my family will enjoy living in...

Spielberg Film archives

From an article in this weekend's Haaretz magazine, I came across this wonderful site . I especially liked the First Film of Palestine, dated 1911. It showed how Jews and Arabs got along really well then, celebrated together (during the Yarzheit (anniversary of the death) of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness in Tiberias there were Arabs together with the Jews during the procession) and built together during the Ottoman rule of Palestine. Maybe we ought to bring the Turks back in here. This film and more can be seen on the right hand side of the screen at Virtual Cinema.

It's Love and Peace and Rock'n' roll for this kid - Jerusalem

peace gathering - Jerusalem

Peace Gathering

I was invited to Eliyahu's home for his pretty regular monthly peace gatherings. This guy gets a cool bunch of eclectic folk into his home - and they come from all over - Bedouin, a visitor from Jordan, settlers from Tekoa and Elazar, visitors from Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, not to mention his guest speaker/chanter. He was Siri Om Singh, an African American Sikh who did kirtan, sacred chanting. What was interesting about this guy was that he wore the whole sikh get-up and is from Trenton, New Jersey. I expected him to say somewhere in the Punjab, but Trenton? Even more interesting was that his wife is Israeli and was the only one at the gathering, besides the tourists there, who left Israel for the US. Most others left the US for Israel.

"We have to have SOME kind of balance!" she laughed, as we all introduced ourselves.

My good friend or, rather, everyone's good friend, Ibrahim from the Mt. of Olives was there telling us that everyone is invited to stay at his home. He has a rabbi living with him and this Friday 30 rabbis will be coming over to visit him. That's alot of rabbis wandering around the predominantly Moslem area. But his neighbors are used to him and he's well respected so hopefully no Moslem extremists will give him a hard time for befriending so many Jews. I guess another reason is that most of the people living on the Mt. of Olives are his relatives in one form or another. His family numbers 12,000 souls.

He went on - "We should stop saying this is Jewish land, this is Palestinian land. It is God's land."

He spoke about the significance of Ramadan - how this time of year is to reflect on the people who do not have enough money to buy the wonderful food seen in the markets, and to give charity to those less fortunate.

During the break I spoke with a gentleman from Edmonton of Arabic heritage (Lebanese, Saudi). He had been on the Haj and told me his take on things, particularly with regard to the Temple Mount. He said the Israelites never referred to it as a temple - rather - it was called a Beit Hamikdash (House of the holiest). He went on to tell me Al Quds, the Arabic term for Jerusalem is from the Hebrew word Kadosh, meaning Holy. Mecca is from the Hebrew word Mikdash. He said the Israelites walked around the temple 7 times during the holiday of Succot, much like Moslems do in Mecca around the Kabaa.

"You see, Abraham taught his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, the same things." he told me, and indeed, as he voiced the similarities between us, I felt an even stronger kinship with my Moslem brothers.

We heard stories about biblical Noah from a Chassidic perspective from Emunah Witt, a familiar figure in Jerusalem, and a follower of the singing Rabbi, Shlomo Carlebach.

"We're told that if you love just one person, you bring love to the world. If you love just yourself, this can make it happen too."

Another Carlebach follower spoke about incense - that the incense used in the ancient Temple had several ingredients, with one in particular that smelled awful, but when put together with the others, was the one that had that heavenly scent. And that when the 3rd temple is rebuilt, we won't have any animal sacrifices, as the Israelites sacrificed birds, goats, and sheep in biblical times. Because it will be a time of peace and there will be no killing. Not even of animals.

It was difficult for me to pull myself away from this oasis of peace to go back home. It always is. But there are others. Many others coming this way.

Iftar

About three Jewish women, myself included, drove past the invisible borders of East and West Jerusalem and ventured into the Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina to share Iftar with our Moslem sisters. This is a very large neighborhood of several kilometers. West Jerusalem buses don’t go there so we had to drive there. Traffic was heavy and drivers were impatient trying to get home before the fast ended.

Fadwa’s home was beautifully set and although some of us brought food to share, most of the stuff, I’m sure, was made by her and her mother. I joked to some of the women there.

“Like you - today, I didn’t either eat anything ……. healthy”. And I dug into the food as joyfully as my Moslem sisters did.



I wondered if the fast always ends with most families sitting down to an enormous amount of food - lentil soup, chicken baked with veggies, rice, mejjedrah, salads, and for dessert - the first time I tasted kadaif.

One of the women read from the Koran with an English translation. It looked so much like our Old Testament with an English translation. She read about the fast before we sat down to our meal.



The director of the women’s group, an Orthodox Jewish woman (who only feasted on vegetarian stuff) told us about her discussion with her Arab pharmacist.

“Ramadan Kareem” she told him.

“How do you know about Ramadan?”

“Do you know I’m going to an Iftar tonight?”

“Why are you going to an Iftar? With whom? What kind of group are you with?”

“A group of women, Jewish, Moslem and Christian get together and we celebrate holidays together.”

He still couldn’t get it. “Why? Are you against anything?”

“No we’re not against anything. We’re simply pro-peace.”

“Oh peace” he shrugged. “It’s no use talking about it.”

“That’s exactly my point” she continued. “We don’t talk about it. When we get together, we live peace.”

City of David

Last time I went down to see the excavations being done on the biblical City of David was perhaps 10 years ago. We walked through the streets of Silwan and saw ancient stones and steps built into the hillside. It is believed that the palace of King David was built here, as well as the pre-Israelite Jebusite kingdom.


ancient City of David

Then there was the Intifida and it was no longer safe for Israelis to venture into this area.

This year, during the holiday of Succot, I ventured there again. It looked completely different.


Entrance to the City of David

This time, I entered a gated “village” built up for tourists and viewing promenades amidst lovely olive trees, etc. The paths takes you through Hezekiah’s water tunnel where Jerusalem received its main source of water from the Gihon spring. A tour inside the tunnel means you walk waist high in water with flashlights. I steered clear of the tunnel and walked along newly cobblestoned paths to the Gihon Spring - past Arab homes and Jewish homes standing side-by-side. My ideal dream of living in a mixed neighborhood seemed to be here (Alas that is not true, if you read the linked articles below - but it still remains my dream)

The history isn’t so simple and the present situation of the City of David/Silwan has its conflicts. In the late 1882 a large group of Yemenite Jews trekked across the desert and made their home in Silwan. There they lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors until the 1929 Arab riots. Some Jews are now reclaiming the site because of the biblical history attached to it and saying they are reclaiming the homes the Yemenite Jews left behind. The Arabs naturally are feeling like they are being pushed out. Last year, the municipality wanted to raze 88 Arab homes to expand the City of David national park amidst a lot of protest, myself being included in these protests. There’s a lot more to uncover, it is claimed. I’m sure there is. But not at the expense of people living there now. I suggested to no one in particular that they should build underground viewing sites so as not to disturb the residents living overhead. In fact one particular story here is quite heartbreaking.

There seems to be quite a few Jewish settler families who have bought-out homes from the Arabs in the City of David area.


Jewish home - City of David

I saw some Jewish kids on a gated street. I asked the kids if everyone inside the gate is Jewish. No, half are Arabs. Do they get along with their Arab neighbors? Yes - was their answer. I seemed satisfied with that, thinking this is certainly not Hebron where the tensions are awful between Arab and Jewish residents of that city. I’m not too sure they visit each other’s homes here, but they don’t seem to harass each other as much as they do in Hebron. I’m wondering how much the media revs up the situation as well. But I am wondering if I had spoken to Palestinians that day, what reaction would they have given me. I gazed below at a Palestinian woman drying her laundry on her rooftop.


A view of Silwan - Jerusalem

I walked down the steep hill past archeologists who were excavating a home adjacent to the Gihon Spring.


Sifting through City of David excavations

Arab legend has it that the water flows here from Mecca. My Jewish New Age friends tell me there are more crystals in the Gihon water than any other water source they know of. I felt the holiness of that place immediately. There was something special about it, though I can’t express it in words. It’s just something you feel.

As I walked back up towards the modern city of Jerusalem, past the Jewish and Arab homes, I felt a deep sense of tranquility in that area. Perhaps it was an illusion, perhaps not. The grape vines and beautiful gardens that peeked out from behind the walls and gates certainly contributed to it. But perhaps it was my wishful thinking.

Mudder-in-law

I went with my married daughter to breakfast yesterday morning. She had a bit of a run-in with her sister-in-law followed by her mother-in-law and ended up sleeping at my house for 3 days, not wanting to look at any of them (she's living at the mother-in-law's house until their apartment is ready for them to move into). Since that episode, mum-in-law took the phone out of her room so there'll be no more eavesdropping. I mean, shit, that sort of thing can bring governments down.

I gave her the pep talk about how she can run the world, or at least be a stand-up comedienne (I'm seriously thinking about videotaping her and putting her on YouTube), because we all end up in fits of uncontrollable laughter when she's around. Can't she make up material and imitate her in-laws?

Then she shows me her nightie she just bought and I hit the ceiling. The kid's been married since June and she buys a two piece red cotton thing with a Mrs. Simpson cartoon on the front.

"Honey, are you sure Hubby will want to stare at that thing every evening?"

"I'm not dressing like a slut" she protested.

"But you're married. You HAVE TO!"

I'm sure Shmuely Boteach would agree with me on this one.