Keeping Things in Perspective as Israelis Part II

(Warning: this is a long one)

Being responsible for a group a tourists sometimes means you need to spend a week in the hospital.  Which is precisely how I spent much of this last week, but thankfully it was only 5 days.  And also thankfully, the kid ended up not actually being sick, story to follow.  

Just as I sent out last week's update, I went to check my work phone and realized it was off.  My battery had died about an hour and a half earlier and when I plugged it in to recharge, I forgot to actually turn the phone back on. 30 seconds after turning it on, my phone was buzzing out of control.  There were text messages and missed calls from basically everyone I work with.  I quickly called someone back to find out that one of my participants had been rushed to the hospital.  

Let's rewind a few days.  One of my participants got sick, nothing out of the ordinary, just classic upset stomach/potential food poisoning type symptoms.  After a few days with no symptom relief, he saw a doctor who prescribed some pain killers and told him to rest.  He went to work the next day anyway.  Since this participant works at a hospital (a different hospital than last week's story) and he was still feeling pretty off, he decided to walk downstairs and check himself into the emergency room.  Anyway, when I got the call from him that he was there, I hopped in a cab to go meet him.  We were there for a good 6 hours while they did a basic work up on him, including some blood tests, and they re-hydrated him with an IV (it seems that everyone who comes into an Israeli ER gets an IV regardless of why you're there - pretty sure I saw a guy with a broken leg also get an IV).  In the end, they said it was probably food poisoning, they sent him home, told him to eat plain foods and prescribed the same pain killers as the previous doctor.

Now fast-forward to Friday at 5:00pm.  I was just about to start cooking dinner when I had to abruptly leave and rush to the hospital. By the time I got there, my participant was already checked in to his own semi-private room (with an incredible view of the Mediterranean Sea, may I add).  The doctor explained that one of his blood tests from the previous day's visit to the ER had come back showing traces of bacteria in his blood. This, I found out, is quite dangerous and could lead to heart damage, which is why the hospital had actually sent a cab to pick up my participant from his dorm and bring him directly to the hospital.  No one I have spoken to has ever heard of a hospital here doing that before (maybe it's because he volunteers at the hospital?  such VIP treatment...). Nevertheless, he would have to stay in the hospital for at least a few days while they did more tests and pumped him full of antibiotics. I helped arrange that a few of his friends would bring him his stuff from his dorm and keep him company over Shabbat and I actually made it home just in time for candle-lighting and Matt had cooked Shabbat dinner in my place.  (So glad a married someone who can also cook).  

The next few days became increasingly frustrating as I spent long days in the hospital trying to get straight answers about this participant's condition.  Every visit from the doctor - a different doctor each time - seemed to come with a different story and a different diagnosis. "He has bacteria in his blood, but we don't yet know what it is."  "He hasStreptococcus Viridans, which is very dangerous and can cause heart damage and he needs to have an EKG right away."  Back to "we still haven't gotten conclusive results on the bacteria." And then "He could be here for up to two weeks with intravenous antibiotics" to "It seems that there was a contamination in his blood test and the bacteria is not actually in his blood and he will likely be released tomorrow."  And then "I don't know who told you he would be released today, but we're still waiting for conclusive results from his blood test and depending on how it comes out, he could be here for 6 weeks."  

At that point I lost it and demanded to speak to the head doctor on the floor. I needed one person to tell me exactly what was going on because after 4 days of sitting in the hospital, my participant, who was now feeling completely healthy, was itching to get out of his hospital bed and, let's be honest, I was not looking forward to spending another day there either. A nurse brought me into the doctors room and I demanded to be told all the most up to date facts and when we would be getting out of there. The answer was inconclusive, they were still waiting for test results. The doctor did manage, however, to insult me in the process: "Well, maybe you just didn't understand what the doctors have been telling you. Where did you learn your Hebrew from anyway? How well can you understand Hebrew?" I told him I understand Hebrew just fine which is why I have understood that every doctor has told me something different. He then confirmed that we would not be leaving the hospital that day and sent me away.

My blood boiling with frustration, I walked down the hallway, replaying what just happened in my head, trying to hold back tears. An elderly woman, whose 85 year old husband was 2 beds away from from my participant, saw me pacing the hallway and asked me what was wrong.  I sat down to speak with her and as soon as my mouth opened, the tears began to flow. I explained how I couldn't get a straight answer from a doctor, how my kid felt completely healthy and was more-or-less wasting hospital resources at this point, how I didn't know what to tell him when he kept asking me if he could just check himself out and go home, and how I felt like an idiot reporting back to my office and to the kid's parents that we still don't know what's going on after 4 days.  

To calm me down, the woman just starting telling me her life story. Both she and her husband are Holocaust survivors. She was just a young girl, 5 years old, when the war ended and came to Israel on a boat full of ma'apilim, illegal Jewish immigrants trying to come to British mandate Palestine.  The boat she was on was intercepted by the British and was rerouted to a detainee camp in Cyprus. After statehood was declared in 1948, she finally made it to Israel, grew up, married her husband and started a family. She had two children, a boy and a girl. Her son was later killed while serving in the IDF in the first Lebanon war. Her daughter, who had been in the hospital visiting earlier, now has children of her own and they are proud grandparents. Her husband, however, is very sick and she doesn't know how long he will have to spend in the hospital. She doesn't drive and she had to take two buses from their home just outside Haifa to come visit him that day. 

I sat there and listened. Here is this woman who has suffered a tremendous amount in her life and here am I crying because a doctor insulted my Hebrew and my perfectly healthy participant is stuck in a hospital while they complete further tests. Talk about keeping things in perspective. I thanked the woman, mostly because I didn't know what to say, but also because I was honestly grateful for her opening up to me the way she did and helping me reevaluate my situation. She told me to stop thanking her and sent me away to go get myself something to eat.  My participant was released from the hospital the following morning when it was confirmed that the first clood test had indeed been contaminated and he had been fine the whole time.

Later in the week I took my group to Atlit, a British mandate detainee camp near Haifa. Tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants were interned in this camp, similar to the later camps in Cyprus, between the years 1939 and 1948. The majority of my participants were unfamiliar with this part of Israeli history.  As I watched their faces in near disbelief that Jews were imprisoned for trying to make their way to what would become the State of Israel, I thought of the woman in the hospital and prayed for her husband's quick recovery.  

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekends,

Stef and Matt

Keeping Things in Perspective As Israelis

Well, it happened.  After 8 months of writing to you weekly, I missed a week.  It was bound to happen eventually.  At least this time I had a good excuse.

My summer participants arrived!  After months of prepping and searching for their internships, they are here and our program has begun.  Let's just say, I've been busy.  In the last week and a half I have received more phone calls and text messages than the previous 8 months.  It is really amazing what happens when 25 new people suddenly come into your life.  But not just any new people, 25 new people who are dependent on you for, well, basically everything.  As it turns out, I have a pretty great group and aside from a few minor glitches, everything has been running smoothly.  

I'll share one quick story.  For months and months I was basically playing a vicious game of phone tag trying to set up a participant's internship at one of the hospitals.  I was trying to plan ahead, settle the internship in plenty of time before the participant arrived and get as many details as I could so I could pass the info along to said participant and our Boston funders.  The volunteer coordinator at the hospital, however, had a different sense of the necessary timeline.  As far as she was concerned, we could call her the day before and it would all happen.  As this was not going to work for me, we spent many many weeks going back and forth until I got almost enough information to satisfy me.  The last step was for me to meet her in person before the summer began.  She was not going to have this.  We compromised and agreed that instead of meeting ahead of time, I would come with the participant on his first day and we would meet then.

Come day one of summer internship, I accompany my intern to the hospital.  We locate the correct office and we find... a note with my name on it  tucked into the doorknob.  I read the letter outloud, translating into English, which said that she was sorry she couldn't come in that day, but we could go directly to the lab where my participant would be working and meet the lab director there.  She left his phone number.  So began our scavenger hunt.  As the two of us wandered around a massive hospital that neither of us had ever been to before, meandering through winding hallways, asking for directions at every corner, getting into the wrong elevator, which was actually the right elevator, peeking our heads into hospital rooms we probably shouldn't have been in, I decided it would be a good time to share my "new to Israel" philosophy with my new-to-Israel-participant.  

"Sometimes (aka often) annoying and frustrating things.  People and things aren't where they're supposed to be.  Expectations aren't met.  Conventions and manners are broken.  You feel lost and confused.  But, when you stop and think about what's happening, it's actually a funny story.  Even in the moment, think about the way you'll tell this story to your family and friends and how absurd and hilarious it will sound.  That is what helps gets though the day."

And ultimately, that is why I write this blog.  To give me a chance to keep things in perspective and to laugh at myself and my life at least once a week.  Thank you all for reading and to my Dad for noticing that I didn't write last week.

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

P.S. Happy Anniversary to my (Stef's) wonderful parents and Happy Graduation to Brittany (sister/sister-in-law), who is graduating from UCSB this weekend!  

Comparison Shopping as Israelis

One of the hardest things to stop doing after making aliyah is converting shekels back to dollars. I still find myself, when trying to figure out if something is expensive or not, calculating how much it would be in US dollars. This practice is obviously not fair (to me) and can only lead to frustration.  We have generally come to terms with the fact that as Israelis we will be making less money than we could have in the States and most products will nevertheless cost more than they did in the good ole USofA.  Such is life here (but thank the lord for trips back to visit family, aka trips to Target).  

The one place where I have completely stopped converting back to dollars is the grocery store.  Even pretty early on I got to know the average prices of food stuffs and felt no need to compare to what we paid back States-side.  But now, instead of comparing to dollars, I incessantly compare between grocery stores, which is both a blessing and a curse.  A blessing because the prices between stores really do differ and in pretty significant ways.  For example, there is a cooking oil that I sometimes like to use called Zeitola - a combination of olive oil (zeyit) and canola oil.  Sometimes I have a hard time even finding this product because you never know when it's going to be in stock or not (more on that later), but when I do find it, the prices are all over the board.  The average price I pay for Zeitola is 17nis (nis = new Israeli shekel).  This morning, at the Chareidi market (more on that later, too) they were fully stocked with Zeitola and it was only 14nis!  When I continued my shopping expedition (going to multiple grocery stores in one trip has become the norm), I found that our local branch of Shufersal Sheli was also fully stocked with Zeitola, but selling it for 23nis!  These two markets are less than a block from each other.

These "extreme" price differences can drive one crazy (here's where the curse part comes in) as you travel from shop to shop buying different products in different places, trying to keep straight in your head who has the best prices on what where.  And there is no logic to it.  Our corner store, which is generally the most expensive overall, has the cheapest tomato sauce in our entire neighborhood.  The Chareidi market, which generally has the best prices, is least consistent in stocking the products you're looking for, so every time you go in it's a gamble on whether they'll even have what you want anymore.  I used to go this this store for two products in particular, carob spread and 100% natural apple juice concentrate, which were cheaper here than anywhere else I had seen. Neither of these products are stocked there anymore, which has taught me the lesson of not getting attached to certain products or prices.  You just never know.  

To add the the shopping madness, I like to do my fruit and veggie shopping either at the shuk (open air market) or at the independent  fresh produce stand.  Quality and prices are much better than super markets.  I also generally buy my fish at the fish monger and my meat at the butcher, which adds two more stops to my shopping excursions.  I'm not sure the prices on fish and meat are any better than the grocery store, but I like the experience and freshness of going there.  

Many of our Israeli friends have moved past this madness by driving to the big discount super markets (those with cars) or simply moving past the price comparison shopping and ordering all their groceries online, after which they get delivered directly to their door.  We might get there one day (we'll see what comes first: a car or succumbing to online shopping), but as for now, I kind of enjoy my crazy shopping method.  

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

Convenience of Observance as Israelis

I think I can now officially give the tour of the Bahai Gardens myself as I attended my third guided tour of the Gardens this week in the span of one month.  This visitor friend and I, however, went on the Hebrew tour - a first for me - which I found out is more-or-less exactly the same as the English tour.  Each time I go on the tour, which involves walking down hundreds of steps, my calves hurt slightly less the next day.  If this keeps up, I will soon have calves of steel.  

This week also included an excursion with my tour-guide friend.  This time we went to go check out a water-hike she will have to guide this summer with a group.  The hike itself was fun and refreshing and also provided for good people watching, mostly an array of high school groups that included secular Jews, Druze, and Beis Yaakov girls, among others.  

As we drove up to the hike and it came to be around lunch time, we decided to pull over into a gas station to grab some lunch.  Gas stations do not generally provide gourmet food options, and we knew this going in, but we were hoping to just grab something quick to go and continue on our way.  We were pleasantly surprised to find descent looking packaged sandwiches in the refrigerator section, that while clearly not so fresh, would do the job just fine.  As we deliberated over which sandwiches to buy, it struck me that this was kind of an amazing moment.  I am standing in a gas station convenient store off the side of the highway trying to decide if I want the labeled kosher dairy, parve or meat sandwich.  Had we been in any other country in the world, I would be buying an apple and a bag of chips if I was lucky. A kosher sandwich would be no where in sight. It is easy to take the abundance of kosher options in this country for granted some times.  

And it's not just kosher concerns, but Jewish observance in general that is made so easy by living here.  You never have to request special days off and use up all your vacation days for Jewish holidays because everyone has off.  You don't have to explain to your boss why you have to be home by a certain time on Friday afternoons (and why that time changes throughout the course of the year) because (if you even work on Fridays) everyone here knows that Shabbat is coming.  You don't have to justify bringing little black boxes with leather straps on an airplane because the security people at the airport are familiar with tefillin.  Your doctor will tell you not to worry since the medication she is prescribing you right before Passover is kosher for Passover, without even being prompted. And you can partake in all the wine and cheese at the Wine and Cheese Festival, since after asking the cheese vendor if his cheese was kosher, he replied "of course!" as if that was completely obvious.  

I know as time passes we will become accustomed to these realities.  It will become normal that we live in a Jewish country that is (more-or-less) in sync with our personal Jewish lives.  But for now, I openly appreciate the convenience of Jewish observance and recognize how unique this place is.  

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

Free Groceries as Israelis

It seems that there has been a holiday here every week since Pesach... and that's because there has.

We celebrated the last of this season's holidays this week with Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, called as such because we have been counting the days - 49 days in total - from the beginning of Pesach until now.  On Shavuot we commemorate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai and we count from Pesach, aka the exodus from Egypt, to Shavuot as an expression of our anticipation and excitement for Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah.  As "excited" as we are, sometimes we need a little help to remember to count every day.  To do this, Matt set a nifty reminder on his phone that beeped at the same time every night.  It was actually a little sad when the phone beeped the evening after Shavuot and we no longer had to perform our little nightly ritual.  I guess there's always next year.

Shavuot also marks the festival of the grain harvest in Biblical times.  During Passover we began the barely harvest and by Shavuot, the 7 week party, known as the grain harvest, comes to a close.  You would think then that the traditional food of Shavuot would be grain based, but then you would be wrong, we still haven't gotten over all the carbs we ate in our post-Pesach binges.  No, on Shavuot, we eat cheese.  Why?  That's complicated (aka I don't really know).

Since we were just having a quiet meal at home with no guests, we decided to make ourselves a big lasagna with homemade noodles (thanks, pasta machine!).  We headed off the day before the holiday to stock up on groceries at our local Yesh.  Yesh is a pretty bare-bones supermarket chain, no fancy frilly things, and it stocks pretty basic items.  So as long as you don't need anything that's even slightly exotic, Yesh is a fine place to shop.  It also helps that it is our closest walk-able supermarket.  

The word "yesh" in Hebrew translates more or less to mean "have" - yesh li = I have.  Colloquially, however, when someone exclaims "yesh!" it is used to mean "Yes! Alright! Got it!"  

Since we frequent the Yesh often enough, I signed up for their credit card a few months back which gets me discounts every now and again.  This time, when we went to go pay for our groceries, comprised mainly of cheese products, the cashier said "you have 100 shekel."  Having no idea what she was talking about I asked "100 shekel for what?"  To which she replied "all card holders are receiving a gift of 100 shekels," therefore making our groceries for the day completely free.  To which Matt replied, "Yesh!" 

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt

Yom Yerushalayim / Haifa as Israelis

This time of year in Israel, you can't really go a week without a holiday.  This week we celebrated Yom Yerushalayim - the day that celebrates the unification of Jerusalem after the 1967 war.  One year ago on this day I announced to my students and school community that I would be leaving Chicago to pursue my dream of aliyah.  This is what I told them:

Yom Yerushalayim 2012/ 5772

Following the 1948 War of Independence, Jerusalem was divided. The Western half of the New City became part of the newly formed state of Israel, while the eastern half, along with the Old City, was annexed by Jordan. During this time period, many ancient synagogues, libraries and centers of religious study in the Old City of Jerusalem were ransacked or were totally and deliberately destroyed.  For the next 20 years, Jews were denied access to Old City and no Jews prayed at the Kotel.

In early June, 1967, East Jerusalem was captured by the Israel Defense Forces during theSix Day War.  Jews all over the world celebrated the event as the liberation of the city, Jerusalem was once again unified.  Today we commemorate this day, dubbed: Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day , to celebrate this momentous victory. 

While the Six Day War, the unification of Jerusalem and the return of the Temple Mount and the Kotel to Jewish sovereignty ushered in a new era in Israeli history, it also marked a turning point for North American Jews. 

For American Jews it marked the beginnings of Israel as a major communal concern and made it a central part of the communal agenda.  Prior to 1967, Israel largely had been the concern only of a small group of Zionist activists. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a recent article: "The Six-Day War made us all Zionists, if not literally then psychologically. The American Jewish connection to Israel was sealed.”

In the war’s opening hours there was a widespread sense that the young experiment in Jewish sovereignty might be snuffed out before its 20th birthday. Jewish leaders across North America organized prayer vigils and rallies, where they sounded dire warnings of a second Holocaust.  Synagogues drew crowds comparable to the High Holy Days, and thousands descended on Israel’s diplomatic missions offering to stand in for Israeli soldiers deployed to the front. Fear of Israel’s annihilation, coming barely two decades after the end of the Holocaust, forged a nearly universal sense of political unity and prompted an outpouring of fund raising.

Beyond financial support, in the years immediately following the war, North American aliyah spiked.  In 1967 itself, only 739 North American Jews moved to Israel.  Only two years later the number had grown to 6,419 – a nearly sixfold increase from the highest yearly figure to date.  In 1971, 8,122 immigrants came, a number never equaled before or since.  

While the immediate fervor did eventually die down, North Americans have continued to make aliyah in small, but steady streams.   Many of us here is this room can think of friends or relatives who have moved from their comfortable lives in America to pursue their national, religious or ideological aspirations by making their home in the Jewish State.  

While it saddens me to think about leaving the people and the places that I love here, this summer, a life-long dream of mine will come true when my husband and I make aliyah and move back to Israel.  My personal history with Israel is long and complicated, but I want to share with you now a few of the moments that have pushed me along in my journey and ultimately led me to make this life changing decision.    

The first time I packed a bag to go on trip to Israel was in my 2^nd grade Hebrew School class.  Now, we didn’t actually go to Israel, but our teacher did actually make us pack a suitcase to bring along as we explored Israel through books, pictures, movies and games in the classroom.  I don’t remember what I thought my connection to Israel was at that time, but I can say that that trip was the beginning of a long journey. 

The first time I really went to Israel was with my family after 6^th grade, but this was not your average family trip.  We didn’t go for 7 or 10 days or speed through dozens of tourist sites.  We instead went for an entire summer and lived at a kibbutz-style ulpan near the beach in Netanya.  My whole family shared one dormitory-style bedroom and we all took Hebrew classes each morning.  In the afternoons, the Ulpan would sometimes take us on trips, or we would hang around with the other kids.  We ate all our meals in the communal dining hall and spent our evenings eating grilled-cheese sandwiches and dancing the (hot new dance craze) Macarena at Duke’s Place, the local pub (yes, it was 1996 and I was 12 years old).   It was on this trip that I first realized being Jewish wasn’t just something that we did in shul, it was also a national identity.  I wanted it to be MY identity.  

I made it back to Israel in 2001 on USY Israel Pilgrimage.  During that summer, my group spent one full week in an army preparatory program, Gadna.  We donned uniforms, slept in barracks, learned to shoot an M-16 rifle, and cleaned up after hundreds of soldiers while on kitchen duty.  When that week ended, I had literally never been so tired in my life – I slept for 24 hours straight.  But what I really left that week with was a sense of the importance of a Jewish army, a Jewish Defense Force.  I had taken the security in Israel for granted for too many years, I thought to myself.  And I became determined to join the IDF after I finished high school.

I had a plan.  My parents weren’t too keen on the idea of me moving across the world (I didn’t even tell them about the plan to join another countries’ army), but I somehow convinced them to let me sign up for Nativ.  The plan: I would go on Nativ and just never come back.  I didn’t really get much further in developing my plan when the second intifada broke out full force.  A few months before I was meant to leave for Israel, a bomb, that killed many including two Americans at the Hebrew University, where I was about to go study, was the last straw for my parents and they pulled me off of Nativ.  My plans changed.

I went off to college, but found myself longing for Israel.  I decided to major in Jewish Language and Literature, which allowed me to study Hebrew and read Israeli poetry for my degree.  When it came time to think about spending my junior year abroad, it wasn’t even a question that I would go to Israel.  My parents agreed, but only to pay for one semester of tuition at Hebrew U since they thought that if I’d stay the whole year, I wouldn’t come back and finish college (they may have been right). 

When I returned to this continent, I was committed to making my way back to Israel.  In a conversation about my dream of aliyah, my mom actually gave me some pretty sound advice: “Why don’t you live there for a bit before you make a life commitment.”  And so that is what I did.  I applied to only one graduate school program, located in Jerusalem and hoped and prayed that I would get in.  I did and I spent the next three years of my life living, studying and working in Israel. 

I learned what it meant to live your life by the Jewish calendar.  I felt how the holidays match the seasons.  I saw the places from our history, which I had only read of, come to life.  I bought my groceries, went to the bank and hailed a cab in the language of the Torah.  I drank Coke that said Shana Tova during Rosh HaShana and bought sufganiyot from the corner store during Chanukah.  I witnessed an entire Nation stand still in remembrance of those who were killed in the Holocaust and for those who gave up their lives defending the land.  I experienced the camaraderie of a people as they banded together while rockets fell and I grieved with the entire people as kidnapped soldiers came home in coffins.  At the end of the Pesach Seder, I said L’shana Ha’baah B’Yerusalayim, Next year in Jerusalem, and I really meant it. 

Over a number of visits during those years, my family came to accept the fact that I was at home in Israel and that someday I would make a permanent move to the holy land.   However, before I could do that, I needed to give back to the American Jewish community that has raised me.   I wanted to become a teacher to share my love of Judaism and Israel with my students, to leave an impact on the community that had taught me so much… little did I know how much of an impact my future students would leave on me.  

What ultimately solidified my decision to make aliyah was my husband, Matt.  We met while we were both studying at Pardes in Jerusalem.  While I knew my plans for aliyah were off in the future, his plans were right around the corner – he would study for a year, go back to the US to work for a year and then make aliyah and start his life in Israel.  When we began dating, it put a bit of a wrench in his plan.  Matt decided to put off aliyah in order to wait for me to pursue my dream of teaching, but we both knew that eventually the time would come for us to go Home...

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,
Stef and Matt


P.S. While Yom Yerushalayim came and went for us this year without much recognition, we did get to celebrate "Yom Haifa" the next day with some friends from Chicago and their parents who came for a visit.  We played tour guide and got to show off our new home town, ending the amazing fun-filled day at the Haifa Wine and Cheese festival (where we ate a lot of cheese and acquired 6 new wine glasses).  While there are times that we miss living in Jerusalem, we are really happy right where we are.  

Acts of Kindness as Israelis

Over our time spent here (8 months already!) many people have been extremely kind to us, maybe even more than we deserve.  In earlier posts we reported of near strangers (who have since become friends) letting us live in their apartment while our place was having repairs done.  We've already spoken of the numerous appliance and pieces of furniture that we received for free from new friends and neighbors, and even 7 months after moving in we still feel a great sense of gratitude when looking around our fully furnished apartment.  

We witness and are the recipients of many acts of kindness in our daily lives.  While I recognize that this phenomenon is not only unique to living in Israel, it has definitely made our transition to being Israelis a kinder, smoother one.  

For example, we don't have a car.  For the most part, we don't mind.  We both have decent public transit options that take us to our respective places of employment.  We live in walking distance to many things that would require a car, like the grocery store, our bank, movie theater, restaurants, etc.  But there are certain things that having a car would make a heck-of-a-lot easier.  Luckily for Matt, many of our neighbors also study at the University of Haifa and consistently offer Matt rides to and from school.  This cuts out a good 20 minutes of commuting time and the price of a bus ticket (act of kindness #1).  It is not uncommon for me to get an unsolicited call from a neighbor-friend telling me they're driving down to the big discount supermarket and invite me to come along.  This way I can buy things that are hard to carry and, to top it off, for less money (act of kindness #2).  We even have these amazing neighbor-friends who have two cars and often let us borrow one when we need to run a car-worthy errand or drive somewhere inconvenient. This is really above and beyond (act of kindness #3).

In my line of work, I rely on a lot of people's generous acts of kindness.  This usually comes in the form of complete strangers offering me advice and helping me find new and relevant contacts.  For those who don't know, my job right now is to find 25 college students from Boston summer internships in Haifa.  The real challenge is that there is no internship culture in Israel and most Israelis don't know what internships are (unless they also used to be American) or at least they aren't familiar with the American conception of a summer internship.  What this means for me is that not only do I have to explain to them what on earth I am asking from them, I also have to convince them why they would want to do this.  You would be surprised by how many people, that I randomly call out of the blue who have never heard of me or the organization I work for, give me the benefit of the doubt and at least listen to me long enough to understand why I'm calling.  Sometimes this turns into an actual internship position, other times not, and yet other times it goes like this: "I don't think I can take an intern, but what you're suggesting sounds really interesting. Here is a list of 10 other institutions that do similar work to us and here are the personal emails and phone numbers of people I know who work there, they may be able to help you.  Best of luck!"  They could have just said no and hung up the phone (act of kindness #4), which I actually expected to happen a lot more often, but which has not really happened at all.  

I have made a number of "friends" at the shuk (fruit and veggie market) where I like to do my grocery shopping.  I like the experience of shopping there over a supermarket - it's crowded, you're surrounded by dozens of stalls piled high with colorful foods and you pay each vendor separately for their goods, which gives you a chance to chat with tons of different and interesting people (I realize that this may sound like someone else's nightmare, but I love it).  Since I have an accent in Hebrew (which I try to cover up, but can't fully escape) the vendors usually figure out early on that I'm an immigrant.  This usually leads to conversations where they ask me where I'm from and why I came here and they tell me about that one time they visited the US.  Since I have been going for a while, some of the vendors now recognize me and we have become "friends".  The benefit of this is that fairly often, they'll weigh my produce, give me a price and then throw a few more of whatever it is into my bag (act of kindness #5).  While I know this isn't just kindness, but also good business practice, since it works in making me want to come back to their stall, I appreciate it nonetheless.  

Last but not least, I was the recipient of a random act of kindness from a complete stranger yesterday.  I was standing at the ticket counter buying my train ticket.  The woman at the counter told me it would cost 13 and a half shekel.  I fumbled through my wallet and came up with exactly 13 and a half shekel, what luck!  The woman then told me that actually the ticket I wanted was 17 shekel, which I did not have exact change for. I started to scoop up all my change and handed her a 100 shekel bill, which was the only other currency I had.  I then heard a young guy over my shoulder say: "Don't break a 100 for a 5 shekel difference," and he threw down a 5.  I looked at him with a stare of confusion and he just said: "Don't worry about it" (act of kindness #6).  I obviously thanked him profusely and ran to catch my train.

Later that day when a neighbor texted me asking if I could watch her baby for half an hour while she went to pick up her older one from Gan (nursery school), I didn't hesitate in saying yes.  Maybe it was one of those "pay it forward" type of things, although I would have said yes regardless of what happened to me earlier, but either way, we received so much and I am happy to give back wherever we can.  

Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,

Stef and Matt