Touring Sites as Israelis

Some friends and family have told me that they are impressed that I have what to write about each and every week and I just want to say here that I do not take this for granted.  Since making aliyah Matt and I have been blessed with the ability to travel, explore, and really enjoy life.  Even when we experience the less good or crazy stories, they usually turn out to be hilarious when written down, so we are grateful for that too.  We try to make the most of every minute and this week has been no exception.

In just this short week I have toured the Baha'i Gardens, Bialik Street in Tel Aviv and Mukhraka (this week also included trips to Jerusalem and Binyamina for work, but I won't talk about those here).  

We love when friends come visit us.  Firstly we love it because we get to see our friends, but we also love it because it gives us a good excuse and motivation to do some touristy things.  Out first visitors this week were a couple we know from Chicago and with them, I got to go to the Baha'i Gardens (sadly - for him - Matt had to go to school).  The Gardens are part of the Baha'i World Center which is located here in Haifa.  

Things I Enjoyed: The Gardens are absolutely stunning to walk through.  You get an incredible view of the Haifa Bay as you descend the garden stairs.  We climbed down approximately 700 stairs during the tour (I felt this in my legs the next morning).  We learned about the Baha'i religion and the background of the Terraced Gardens.

Things I Learned: The Baha'i religion was founded by the Baha'u'llah in 19th century Persia.  It is based on the teachings of the Bab, of whom Baha'u'llah was an early follower.  The Bab is buried in a large shrine in the center of the Gardens, his remains secretly brought here from Iran and buried on March 21, 1909.  March 21 is the Baha'i New Year (it is also my birthday).  The shrine was around for decades before the Terraced Gardens began to be built in 1987.  They were fully completed in 2001.  There are 9 terraces above the shrine and 9 terraces below the shrine.  Each terrace represents one of the Bab's 18 disciples.  There are approximately 100 professional gardeners who maintain the gardens daily.

Our second set of guests were friends from Jerusalem who came to stay with us for Shabbat.  With them, we took advantage of the fact that they came with a car and drove over to Mukhraka.  Mukhraka is the highest point on the Carmel mountain range and houses a monastery dedicated to Elijah the Prophet.  

Things I Enjoyed: To get to Mukhraka you drive through the Druze towns of Daliyat el-Carmel and Issafiya, which have beautiful and interesting architecture.  You can climb to the roof of the monastery and get a breathtaking view of the entire north of the country.  From there you can see the Hermon Mountain to as far as Tel Aviv, you can see from Nazareth to the Mediterranean.  Matt taught us about the history of Elijah at this place.  

Things I Learned: Mukhraka is the location where Elijah faced off against the prophets of Ba'al and God sent down fire from heaven to consume Elijah's offering (I Kings 18:17-46). The word Mukhraka is Arabic means "burned place".  The Carmelite monastery has been located at this spot since the late 1800's and houses a 12-stoned alter, reminiscent of the alter Elijah placed there which he constructed from 12 stones.

In the middle of the week, while in Tel Aviv for work, we were taken to tour Bialik street as part of our training.  Bialik street is home to Beit HaIr (the former Tel Aviv City Hall), Haim Nachman Bialik's house, Reuven Rubin's house, and some Bauhaus architecture.

Things I Enjoyed: Being able to visit important historical tourist sites as part of my job. Touring sites that teach me about the creation of the modern Hebrew language while being guided in Hebrew.  Seeing the beautiful and thought-provoking artwork of Rueven Rubin, including the original of a poster we have hanging in our apartment. Learning new things and gaining a new appreciation for Tel Aviv.

Things I Learned: The street was name Bialik Street while Bialik, the national poet of Israel, was still alive and living on the street. Bialik was able to make a good life as a poet and author because he married a rich woman.  If you see a photograph of Bialik with a mustache it means it was taken outside of Israel, whenever he came back to Israel, he shaved his 'stache.  Bialik and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of modern Hebrew, disagreed about certain words.  Bialik won out by using the words the way he thought they should be in popular literature (ex: we say כרובית, not כרוביה).  Rueven Rubin, whose house is now an art museum of his work, painted a large scene of a Passover Seder where the seder plate is missing the shankbone. Next to the plate, however, a Palmachnik (an elite fighter of the pre-state underground army) is extending his forearm, symbolizing  the sacrifice made to establish the freedom of the modern State of Israel.  Jesus is also sitting at this Passover table.  The building that housed the original Tel Aviv City Hall was built with the intention of it being apartments or vacation rentals.  Bauhaus architecture and furniture are designed to be functional rather than beautiful.  Many guests of the Bauhaus museum ask if this is IKEA furniture.  Besides artists and poets, most of the original inhabitants of Bialik street were doctors.  

There is so much to see in our small little country and we'd be happy to show you around if you also want to be our guests!

Have a great week,

Stef and Matt

Singing Our Way to Independence as Israelis

I feel the need to open with a word about Boston, but I actually don't really know what to say.  Sitting here in Israel, where terrorist bombings and rocket fire have been the "norm" during the years I have lived here, it seems surreal watching the news from Boston.  While what is currently happening in Boston is massively disrupting daily life, what I have learned living here is that you need to push on with normal life as much as is allowed by the circumstances.  To all our family and friends in Boston, hang in there.

Over the course of this past week I have been consumed by song: listening to songs, singing songs, new songs, old songs, sad songs, happy songs (ok, I'll stop, this is starting to sound like Dr. Seuss book).  The barrage of song actually began with a moment of silence.  

As Matt and I readied ourselves for Yom HaZikaron (full name: Yom Hazikaron l'Chalalei Ma'arachot Yisrael v'l'Nifgaei Peulot Ha'eivah, Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism), Israel's memorial day, we headed out to walk over to our community tekes/ceremony (for more on the Israeli tekes, see last weeks post).  Our timing was a little off and we were still 50 or so meters from the park where the tekes was being held when the siren went off.  We, along with everyone else who was walking in our direction, stopped in the street to stand at attention while the minute long siren reminded us to pay respect to Israel's fallen soldiers and victims of terror.  Like a "freeze scene" from a movie, as soon as the siren finished, the statuesque bodies around us began to awaken, continuing their previous movement as if nothing had happened.  

Our community tekes, lead by high school students from the local public school, focused broadly on Israel as a nation, but more specifically on the 161 men and women who fell in Israel's wars or terrorist attacks from our neighborhood.  The names of these 161 scrolled continuously across a screen, beginning with those who fell in the 1948 War of Independence all the way up to the most recent just 7 years ago. The 10-15 students, who made up a small choir and band, alternated between song and reading throughout the course of the next hour.  Slow, sad songs, from all eras of Israeli music, followed by poems or letters to fallen soldiers from grieving parents, back to sad song, repeat.  Not all the songs were deliberately about fallen soldiers or victims of terrorism, but the lyrics of each song played on our emotions and tugged on our hearts.  One song in particular got into my head and didn't leave all week (maybe because I kept playing it over and over again on youtube).  The song, called "הקיץ האחרון" ("The Last Summer"), was first popular in the early 90's, but was recently performed by a contestant on the latest season of Israel's "The Voice" who I think did an even better job than the original.  The chorus of the song reads: Remember that you promised not to cry / Because the sky is big and tears are small / Close your eyes every first rain / And think of me.  In the moment, hearing these words sung by this teenage girl in a park that surrounds the community monument for local fallen soldiers on Yom HaZikaron, made me want to do nothing but cry, but I held it in.  (listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1IjRa2uNr4 )  

While we didn't personaly attend, many of our friends congregated in community centers around Haifa to partake in another Israeli institution, the שירה בציבור, shira b'tzibur, public sing-along.  At first thought, getting together for a public sing-along on a day when many people are mourning lost friends and relatives seems disrespectful, but then you stop and think about the role of song in Jewish and Israeli culture is makes perfect sense.  We sing to express how we feel when we're happy and we do the same when we're grieving. Our holidays revolve around song, even the most solemn prayers on Yom Kippur are sung with vigor. Even during the Omer, an extended mourning period on the Jewish calendar between Passover and Shavuot, vocal singing is permissible even though playing and listening to instruments is forbidden.  

The songs did not stop after that night.  The next day we sat at home and listened to the radio - all stations were playing slow, sad songs as is the custom here.  As the day turned into night, we geared ourselves up for the drastic shift from Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence day.  The juxtaposition of these two days, one of immense grieving and one of ecstatic joy, makes for a challenging transition, but makes clear the sacrifice of Independence.  

This time we congregated in the courtyard of the local synagogue for festive, song-full evening prayers.  What we were unprepared for was that everyone would show up in full-on holiday clothes.  Needless to say that Matt and I felt slightly under-dressed, which is a pretty tough thing to do in Israel.  The religious community in Israel views Independence day as a religious, not just national holiday.  The night continued with more song as we headed down to a local outdoor venue to hear Ivri Lider and Mosh Ben-Ari, Israeli musicians, play in concert.  A fun night was topped off with some spectacular fire-works.

The next morning we joined some friends for a visit to an air-force base located not too far outside Haifa.  When they invited us to join we thought it was a great idea, apparently, so did thousands of other people (which meant lots of sitting in traffic and listening to old Israeli music on the radio).  In addition to getting to see really cool airplanes, helicopters and rockets which were specially put on display for Yom HaAtzmaut, we also got to do some pretty amazing people watching.  The visitors to the army base represented an incredible cross-section of Israeli society: religious, secular, hareidi, Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ethiopian, Russian, you name it, they were there.  Seems like all types of people like a good military fly-by. 

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

Yom Ha... Season as Israelis

This week marked the beginning of one of the most poignant times on the Israeli national calender, a period I like to refer to as Yom Ha... season.  Within the span of one week three major commemorative holidays occur: Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day).  The emotional roller-coaster that the close proximity of these holidays create was thoughtfully designed when established by the Knesset (Israeli government).  By concentrating these national commemorations across eight days, we have no choice but to see how the Holocaust, Israel's many wars, and Israel's independence are intrinsically tied.  

This week began with Yom HaShoah, whose full name is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah, "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day".  As indicated in the name, this day is not only for commemorating the millions of lives that were lost, the millions that were murdered at the hands of the Nazis, but also for acknowledging and celebrating the heroism and resistance that is so often overlooked when talking about the Shoah (Holocaust).  This point was driven home this year at the national tekes (ceremony) whose theme was the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.  

A couple words about Israeli tekesim (ceremonies).  The tekes is an Israeli institution, and there seems to be a pretty standard formula that goes into any tekes, whether happy or sad.  There is a host who guides you through the ceremony and announces the speakers.  There are often soldiers standing at attention. There are generally readings (poems, excerpts, testimonials,etc.), there are always songs - sometimes sung by famous people, but more often sung by a choir with choreographed dance moves, there are speeches - in our case, the President and the Prime Minister, then a Rabbi - in our case the Chief Rabbi - offers a prayer and then everyone stands to sing HaTikvah, the national anthem.  

Now back to Yom HaShoah.  Matt and I tried to figure out where a local tekes was happening (in Jerusalem we always knew where to go), but we couldn't find one in our neighborhood.  That left us sitting at home to watch the national tekes live-streaming on the computer, which in the end, I'm glad we did.  Like I mentioned above, this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the largest and one of the most significant acts of resistance by the Jews during WWII.  On the eve of Passover 1943, in response to the impending deportation of the residents of the Ghetto to concentration camps, Jewish insurgents attacked the Nazi forces, throwing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades.  After a number of weeks, the uprising was eventually suppressed by the Nazis, but only after tens of thousands of people died.  While only a small moment in the vast horrors of the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising has taken on epic significance in the Israeli collective memory as a point of pride, a time when the Jews of Europe stood up to defend themselves.  The message of both the President and the Prime Minister on this solemn anniversary was: we tried, but didn't have the means to successfully defend ourselves then, but now we have a Jewish army and this will never happen again.

On the morning of Yom HaShoah in Israel (this will happen again next week on Yom HaZikaron) a siren is blared across all of the country for two full minutes.  During this time people stop what they're doing and stand at attention.  Cars stop, even on the highway, and drivers get out to stand and pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.  I find this to be an extremely moving and powerful moment.  On the bus on the way to my office we got stuck in some traffic. As we sat there I kept checking my watch, knowing that the siren was meant to go off at 10am.  At two minutes to 10 I looked around my bus and realized that the majority of my fellow passengers appeared to be pushing 80.  This made sense as we were just a few stops from the shuk, the outdoor market, which, as I have noticed when doing my shopping, is the central hang out for the retired and elderly in Haifa.  The realization that the vast majority of people around me where alive during the Holocaust, some of whom were probably survivors themselves, gave me chills.  I looked at my watch again, it read 10:00, but I didn't hear the siren.  The hum and rattle of the bus was so loud.  I looked outside and saw that the people on the sidewalk were standing like statues and our bus had come to a stop.  But no one on the bus seemed to notice.  I immediately stood up in my seat, opened the small window next to me and put my ear up to the opening.  Above the sound of the bus I could faintly make out the sound of the siren.  At this point a handful of other people on the bus also picked up on what was going on and were too standing at their seats.  Most people just sat there.  A couple of women, probably in their early 80's, were carrying on a conversation throughout the full two minutes, the woman sitting next to me kept sitting, reading her book of tehilim (psalms).  Another woman not far from me kept asking a young man why the bus had stopped.  We really couldn't hear a thing. The whole time I stood there debating whether or not to say something.  Should I whisper to women around me that the siren was sounding or should I just stand silently and hope they figure it out.  What I really wanted to do was shout to the bus driver to turn off the bus!  By the time I had weighed all my options in my head, the siren had ended, people were walking around and the bus was moving again.  I sat back down in my seat feeling a mixture of confusion and disappointment.  What if I didn't do the right thing?  Had I let the people on my bus down?  

Later in the day I was uplifted by a friend's 6 year old son who explained to me how his kindergarten teacher taught them how to stand still and quiet and how they practiced doing it before the actual siren went off.  Even at a young age, children are taught the importance of paying respect, not just in their minds and words, but also in a physical outward expression.  I think this is an important lesson to learn.  

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

Pesach Part II: Three Cities, Three Days, Three German Colonies

One of the highlights of our chol hamoed travels was our three city tour of Israel's German colonies.  A little background: in the late 1860's a group of German Protestants belonging the Temple Society (known from here on in as the Templers) came to the land of Palestine and began building settlements, aka colonies.  Drawn to the holy land because of their messianic beliefs, they set up agricultural communities and built homes and churches, hoping to hasten the return of the messiah.  The Templers ran into a few problems during World War II as a result of their German nationalism and were labeled enemy nationals by the British and many were subsequently deported to Australia.  Apparently sporting the Nazi flag in British mandate Palestine was a quick way to get kicked out.  National and religious beliefs aside, the Templers did leave quite an architectural mark on the land of Israel, particularly in the country's three largest cities: Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  (For more on the Templers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templers_(religious_believers) ).  

Our new found interest in the German Templers was kindled by our seder host, and licensed tour-guide, who lead us and our family on a walking tour of Tel Aviv's old German colony, known as Sarona.  Unlike it's counterparts in Jerusalem and Haifa, Tel Aviv's German colony has pretty much been abandoned since the Germans were kicked out.  Over the years some of the buildings were used as temporary government offices, but for the most part, the area was associated with Nazi Germany and deemed "poisonous" by the locals (including Ben Gurion, who wanted to knock it all down).  Just recently, the city decided to do something with the abandoned space and beautiful old buildings and turn Sarona into a quaint shopping center with open space and boutique shops.  The area is currently a construction site and so we had to climb through a fence to go see it... trespassing shmespassing.  The question that remains is what the area will be called, since the name "Sarona" still carries with it all the lingering negative feelings.  Side note: Did you know that the German Templers in Sarona coined the brand "Jaffa orange" which is still used to market Israeli oranges today?  

The following day our Uncle, Aunt and cousins met us up in Haifa to experience a little of our new hometown.  We figured we should carry on the theme of the previous day and visit Haifa's German colony too.  The German Colony here is a big wide street situated just below the immaculately kept Bahai Gardens.  The huge old German buildings have mostly been converted into shops and restaurants, one of which was kosher for Passover so we ate dinner there (sadly the food wasn't so good and our Pesach gnocchi tasted more like tater-tots).  On this trip, we learned that the Templers were actually responsible for building a lot of the early infrastructure in Haifa, so, I guess we owe a thank you to the Templers.  

Our last stop on the Templer tour was the next morning where we all (us + aunt, uncle and cousins) met up with some other cousins for breakfast on Emek Refaim, the center of the German Colony in Jerusalem.  This stop was really just breakfast, not so much touring/exploring, since this German settlement has been completely incorporated into the city.  You might not even know the architecture is uniquely different than the rest of the city if no one pointed it out to you.  

Even though this happened before Pesach, I am going to boast here that I actually visited two OTHER German colonies in the past month as well.  Another tour-guide friend and I drove around a couple moshavim (small agricultural towns) not too far from Haifa where the Templers had also settled.  I bet not too many people can claim to have visited 5 German colonies in the span of a month.  Duly added to my accomplishments list.  

Since we were in Jerusalem we decided to visit some of my (Stef's) old friends in the Old City.  One of the challenges of the political atmosphere of Israel, and particularly Jerusalem, is that Jews and Arabs live in such close proximity, yet rarely have much direct contact.  This leads to a lot of xenophobia, and really just estrangement, for people living in the same city.  For these and just purely social reasons, I have made it a point to keep in contact with a few of my Arab Israeli friends who I have met over the years.  One of these friends is a jeweler who has a shop in the Old City shuk.  A few friends and I happened upon his shop a number of years ago and I have frequently gone back to visit.  When I still lived in Jerusalem I used to more regularly stop by and would sometimes help him with odd jobs around the shop, like the time I bagged little beads and hand wrote the the labels (I could still pick out my hand writing on our most recent visit).  I have brought my parents to his shop and he now knows Matt as well.  He deals a lot with foreign dignitaries (including Obama's entourage when they were here) and he helps run big events in the Jerusalem municipality like the "shuk" part of Hutzot HaYotzer (a big art festival in Jerusalem).  Yet, every time I walk into his shop he recognizes me and smiles and we chat for a while and he often gifts me a little charm which I add to my necklace - this trip I got a little evil eye bead.  

My other friend is a guy I met while studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  He and I were in the same Hebrew class.  We had a little group of friends, we hung our during breaks from class, even went on a trip to Tiberias in his dad's big tour-guiding van.  While we didn't keep in such close contact after that semester, we did eventually find each other on facebook.  It was on facebook that I learned he had opened his own coffee shop just around the corner from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the heart of the Christian Quarter of the Old City, not too far from where he grew up.  On my last trip to Israel before making aliyah I found his shop and we reconnected.  This time I got to introduce him to Matt.  Although we couldn't order a coffee at his shop since it was Passover, it was nice to simply catch up, hear about his two kids and his dreams of moving to America.  

As Passover wound down, the anticipation of finally getting to make homemade pasta with my new pasta machine exponentially increased.  So when the day finally came and we switched our kitchen back to normal, the pasta making commenced and we have eaten pasta for every meal since (with no exaggeration).  There were a few hiccups in the learning process (mostly related to trying to make the dough on a flat surface like the pros do without the liquid part spilling everywhere), but all the different types of pasta we made came out delicious.  Next up: homemade ravioli, yum.

Even though Pesach ended earlier this week, we officially closed out the bread-less season this Shabbat by baking and eating our "Schlissel challah."  Schlissel means "key" in Yiddish and there is a not-so-widely-practiced custom on the Shabbat following Pesach to bake a challah that either has a key baked inside of it (turns out that's not so healthy to do) or is shaped to resemble a key (the safer option and the one we went with).  

In the book of Joshua, after the Israelites' first Passover in the land of Israel, the manna, which had sustained them for all those years in the desert, ceased to be provided from the heavens.  They were now on their own to tend the soil and produce their own sustenance.  The key symbolizes a form of prayer, asking God to open up the gates of livelihood - a.k.a. we know we don't get miracle food handed to us anymore, but we could still use a little help.   Entering the land of Israel ourselves, Matt and I were also at first provided with manna, in the form of sal klita payments (a financial grant provided by the government).  Now, that manna has stopped and we are on our own to fend for ourselves in this harsh economic climate.  While we will both work hard to make sure we stay afloat, a little prayer and a symbolic challah can't hurt.

Wishing you all a great week ahead,

Stef and Matt