Myth 48… Shavuot, sales, bbqs and a pie dish

 

Hi all,

So it was back to work with a bump this week after our mini-break, but never fear… now only a 4 day week! (Yes you folk in the UK also have 4 days, and we will even have work to go to on monday while you sit around enjoying 2nd day chag, but who cares.)

We sadly didnt get to the beach today, it was a little hot for missus +bump, (you think its hot in London, its double in Eilat, 41 oC) but headed to the shops instead There were sales galore for shavout, a ‘minor’ festival back home but here, any excuse for a sale! The funniest one we saw was in GAP. 20% off on all things white! The items had to be 50% or more white to count as being in the sale! Ridiculous? Maybe something for Tu b’av, but shavuot really!

The next shop we went into was a kitchenware shop, looking for the standard pie dish with removable bottom for our cheesecake. Again a lovely sale was on., but this time is was by one get one half price… really why would i want 2 of these things in my house! (one for meat?) As we were umming and arring over the ‘deal’ an older couple (around 60ish) came up to us and asked if we wanted to go in halves with them. They would by their super duper 100nis dish and we would get our more moderate, no frills one for 50nis. However we would by them together and split the discount. Everyone is a winner. The funny, unexpected thing about this was that they approached us in such an open and unabashed manner and then when we went to the checkout, the assistant helped calculate the savings for each of us like she had been doing it all day for every other customer (who only wanted to buy one dish, but wanted to take advantage of the ‘deal’)

Moving swiftly on from our shopping antics to something slightly more interesting (much like the discussions arising from the recent hendon ‘counter demonstration’, or the KLBD facebook page) we found out a whole bunch of our friends were going to Jeru for shavuot (only slightly more interesting i told you!). Eitherway we decided to host a small bbq for the remnants of the ra’anana crew that were staying put. We invited 6-7 friends for late sunday lunch ‘al h’aish’ (on the fire, aka bbq)Quickly word spread that we were having something and the invite list began to grow, quickly it passed the double figure mark, into the teens, past the big 20 and not as it stands we have 25 guests for lunch!

Now this is all fine, we are totally happy hosting everyone (and it allows us to return all the outstanding invitations, and secure the next few week’s meals), but i just dont think we ever realised how settled we are here. I think things have just been quite hectic over the past months, we have been here for 11 of them! I dont think i have even taken a step back to realise and appreciate how we have settled, how at home we feel here, and how many  friends we have managed to make in a short amount of time.

It is always difficult moving to a new country, new city or new town (mill hill to hendon was epic) but making the effort to befriend new people and creating a new circle of dependable people really have helped us adjust to life here. Not saying it has been an easy journey, the first months in retrospect were much harder than we thought and appreciated at the time, but now were happy, settled, and enjoying life out here….You should try it!

Shabbat shalom & chag sameach

Sam

Myth 47… Week off

Hi folks,

Going to Cesaria for a weekend away. There will be no beach photos on fb sadly, the ice-cream man will be without 2 of his most loyal customers and no blog will be written from the overpriced internet connection. There will however be, no doubt, photos of us clowning around the ruins, making fun of the ridiculously expensive golf course and continuing to work our tans. Cant promise the bump will appear in any of them though!
If you are bored, have a read through some of my posts and boost my numbers. Also you may want to consider signing up to get this by email as i am contemplating the future wider publication of this blog after our one year mark….
Shabbat shalom xxx

Myth 46…Army part 2

Hey folks,

So there i was, in a tel aviv army base, having had interview, tests, meeting with a lovely guy from the ‘helping olim find their way through the labyrinth of the army’, and finally the doctor.

A lovely russian woman, i was the last appointment of the day, she is trying to get me done and dusted as quick as possible. BUT there is a slight problem, apparently there is some microscopic blood in my urine. this is completely normal she tells me as old blood cells die and are replaced every minute. But if my sample has over a certain amount in, she can no accept the sample and can not process me further. Ok i say, great, so whats next. She replies that i just need to go home, make another appointment and the day before the appointment drink lots of water to dilute my next sample. She was quite specific. Not the first ‘go’ of the day, but 2nd or 3rd. Not the beginning, but somewhere in the middle, as clear as possible (no yellow allowed).

Fine i say getting up to go, this is not going to be completed today, im happy with that, i will not get my ‘profile’ (which is the end of the drafting process and determines what options would be available to me- or someone signing up for longer than me, my options were already clear). Great, thanks for your time i say as i get up to walk out the door. my pleasure she says, oh but 1 more thing… you are not allowed to leave the country.

WHAT!! I cant leave? today is monday, pesach is friday, im flying back tolondonwednesday, not a chance that im missing that because of some farcical process that you have just told me how to cheat! Well she continues, if you do not have your profile, it means you have started your draft process but not completed it, so you cant leave until its over… what i could possible do is if you come back tomorrow, i could try to sort you out…. ok, tomorrow 9am is a date, she gets up and leaves the room.

Shit, what happens if she cant sort me out, what happens if this army crap ruins my holiday, what happens if i try to leave Ben gurion and am impounded in some army jail for fleeing the country, going AWOL. yes they were all my thoughts!

So next morning comes around, quivering i knock on her door, come in she says with not a care in the world, she already has a queue outside her door with the next day’s recruits. Sit, she orders, will you promise to come back after your holiday she asks, um yes, will you promise to come to me to finish your tests, um yes i guess, ok good she says, i will give you a temporary profile that will make you officially exempt on medical grounds to be enlisted into the army…. great! Now, she warns, this is only temporary, and will expire in 6 months so you must get your tests completed before then…yes yes of course i will, right away miss, i respond just happy to get out of there in one piece, and with freedom to enable me to walk through ben gurion, sneak out of the country, without having to look over my shoulder and jump at every shadow!

So thats how it has ended, for the time being, i am officially exempt.

Fast forward to this week just gone, i received a letter inviting me along for me wee test again!! Part 3 will no doubt follow in a few weeks time

Wishing you all a beardless shabbat shalom xx 

 

 

 

Myth 45…Army part 1

Hey readers,

We all know that there is compulsory conscription here, it is a know fact that people who make aliyah may have to go into the Israeli army. Yet, despite all the research i did before i came, i never actually expected that i, yes me myself, would actually need to go. I mean of course i KNEW that i might, but somewhere deep down i never expected that it would actually happen.

My research on the subject was quite thorough, nefesh b nefesh have a great online resource (and a not so great phone resource) which i trawled through methodically. There was a handy table http://www.nbn.org.il/aliyahpedia/army/576-army-service-for-men.html showing that me, at 24, married, would need to do 6 months. Ok, great, 6 months, but what will i really do, will it really be of help to me, what will it be like, will i actually end up doing it etc. all these questions have been buzzing around my head… until 2 months ago, around 7 months after we made aliyah, i got a letter.

I had heard the army generally take between 6-12 months to get hold of you, and they had found me (well my address is on my id card which i got when i came here, not really rocket science…or brain surgery either http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I). My letter ‘invited’ me to a full day at one of the main army bases in tel aviv (tel hashomer), it even came with free bus tickets, how nice!

Painting the scene…it was a monday morning, we were leaving on holiday for pesach on the wednesday eve (important to remember) and here i go to the army, feeling quite exciting  and patriotic actually until i turn up that is! After getting in to the base (a story in its own right) i i am directed into a upstairs corridor to wait an interview. Sitting there, also waiting, was about 100 israeli 16yr olds. I kid you not, they were 16, i felt like i was their madrich and we were back on camp. (they have their 1st meeting while still in school to give the army some idea what they would like to do in around 6 months -12 months time).

Anyhows, over my first shock quickly and on to my next. Waiting and waiting…around 2 hrs to begin with ( i brought a book) until my interview turn came. so i sat down with a 17 yr old girl who began questioning me (in hebrew) about my entire life. literally from start to finish, a time line of every year, where i lived schools subjects summer camps year off yeshiva uni work, you get the picture. Then we moved on to some hebrew tests to work out how good (or bad) my hebrew was, what level i could read, write, what random hebrew words i know (very few from the sheet she gave me). Then to some other language tests (i passed english, phew!) and some other random questions to make sure i wasnt fibbing first time round.

Two hours later, finished, now on to a small maths/logic test, another hr wait, then on to the doctor to finish things off for the day. (there was a whole plarva about actually getting an appointment with one of the doctors, the systems had crashed, kids were running around screaming at the receptionists that they had been waiting all morning to see a doctor, u know standard israeli things).

While i was waiting, and shmoozing with an american i had bumped into, a soldier stopped us both and introduced himself to us. His name was Max, fromcanada, and his army job (for 2 years) was to be part of a small team of 3 foreigners that help others find their way around the labyrinth of the army. Unbelievable find!! just what i needed, some inside knowledge. 

We had a chat, i explained my situation and he advised me as follows:

1) my 6 month service was too short for anything ‘fun’ (you can read into that as you wish)

2) therefore my 4 options for the 6 month service were- a) drive a truck (sounds great, but the 1 month of reserve duty a year is a nightmare as you can get a call anytime that they are looking for a truck driver in eilat, can you drop everything and drive something please). b) mechanic (also sounds good, but again you will be taught to fix the front right wheel of a tank, and every tank that comes through, you fix the wheel.) c) warehouse, pack boxes of food for soldiers and stack shelves of shirts/trousers d)kashrut supervisor, a random base anywhere in the country checking lettuce and rice.

Now yes, the army do need people for all of the above, but they have people already. They are not crying out for more volunteers or soldiers (the charadim take note).  Max also advised my job (which i do quite like) does not have to be kept (and at 6 months away, will probably not). He also advised that if i hang around a little longer, once i have a child, i will get an automatic exception. (the insurance for the army is too high for them to pay, if anything happened to me (bitten by a bug when checking lettuce, or falling into a pile of smelly army uniforms and suffocating) they would have to pay to keep wife and kid.

3) Finally he advised that there is no rush. The army like any large company is a very slow moving machine. Yes he could push for me to be enlisted the wednesday after pesach for 6 months, but then again if i took my time doing everything, and let the army contact me (as opposed to calling up asking to move enlistment date forward, obviously), i could think things over and decide if this was a right step for me to take along my aliyah journey.

Yes there is a part of me that wants to ‘do my bit’ for the country and it would be great for my hebrew, but loosing my job and spending 6 months fixing the front wheel of a tank doesnt appear to be such an appetizing though…

Part 2 to follow next week

Shabbat shalom xxx 

 

Myth 44…Yom Hazikaron/ Yom Ha’atzmaut

Hey readers,

Its an hour before Shabbat so i hope to get some decent writing completed with enough time left at the end

Its been a seriously crazy and exceptionally fun week here. It all began with 3 days of ‘work’, which was mostly catching up from Pesach backlog but at the same time winding down for the 4 day weekend ahead. Laptop closed on Tuesday afternoon and i met Elana in TLV. We followed the throngs of people towards Rabin square all rushing to make it there before the 8pm minute silence (more on that later). What followed was a moving and uplifting ceremony with 40,000 people all commemorating the 22,867 soldiers & civilians who have fallen for their country since 1860 which was the year the first jewish settlers left jerusalem’s secure walls to build new settlements. Wednesday itself was slow, another siren at 11 am, a quieter shopping mall, people head down concentrating on their shopping and not really window shopping etc. Wednesday night the entire country erupted in music, lights, bunting and israeli flags. Shul was busy and filled with happiness (i sneakily suspect that the israeli places were slightly more ‘pumping’) followed by our 1st bbq of the weekend. Then we hit Ra’anana park which was filled with what seemed like every teenager inisrael! where we ‘partied’ like true oldies until 3am, when the party was just beginning to heat up (hadag nachash came on at 4).

Then to thursday airshow in netanya, small bbq 2, then on to a park round the corner with the rest of the neighbors for bbq 3 and 6 hours in the sun. Little bit of ‘one touch’, more meat than you shake a stick at, beer galore, back home for a quick change and back out for dinner, 2 movies back to back, more nosh (no bbq sadly). Then finally today, we just wanted to kick back and relax, so headed out to herzeilia for our second (but first proper) beach friday trying to strike the balance of sun cream, sun tan & sun burn!

Now yes, that was a very interesting insight into our week! but not probably in hindsight not the most interesting blurb (except maybe for our rents?).

I touched last week on the Yom hashoah siren and i would like to expand a little as we have had 2 more sirens, each with different feelings associated.

The first was on Wednesday night, we had just passed through security to get into rabin square, there were thousands of people all rushing to get a good spot, and suddenly the siren started (well not really suddenly, it came on at 8, but suddenly for us). The ENTIRE square stopped moving. People who were running to the seats stopped, people chatting to friends stopped, people just walking through security stopped, its bizarre that i am going on about it, yes i just said the entire square stopped, but i cant emphasize it enough.

Everything went eerily silent (apart from the siren of course).  it was like a scene from a movie. (click maybe?) no one moved. it was crazy.

And it was not just rabin square, the entire country just stopped everything they were doing. Not one of the 6 million people (well maybe some of the arabs, some crying babies, doctors in surgery?) did anything during that minute apart from stand and think about the fallen soldiers, our fallen soldiers (i say that not just as an israeli but as a jew and zionist).

The more i write about it the harder it is for me to fathom. I have never experienced anything like that before in theUK, maybe the annual 2 minutes silence at a school assembly or at a football ground before kick off but the countrywide siren really means that everyone has a reminder and an exact time. The drivers stop their cars (something i have never seen at 11.00 on 11/11), the workers down tools, people stand at their desk, coffee shops quieter…

Though as this isIsrael, standard, sadly, people are stupid, israelis are israeli, people must take things to the extreme. No one can be screwed over as they pay their respects to the country.  No they must be doing the screwing. 2 people were injured on the roads after the minute ended in minor traffic accidents. Some drivers raced to get in their cars as soon as the siren stopped in order to start driving around the parked and slowly moving cars as they began to pull on the the road again. Some people still had to get ahead of the car in front even at the time of national mourning, which caused 2 injuries.

Fast forward to 11am siren, this time me and Elana are at home (national holiday and all that) so we decided it would be nice to stand on our balcony and watch the motorway and industrial area in the distance grind to a halt, which it did majestically. There we stood, two olim, with little direct connection to anyone who has fallen for israel, gazing out on a silent city, contemplating how many more people would have to give their lives to Israel before there was peace….we hope and pray it can stay at 22867.

Shabbat shalom

 

Myth 43…Yom Hashoah thoughts

Hi all,

A short one this week (again), my time keeping has not been great of late!

I was not expecting this to be such a ‘big deal’ here, yes of course it has great meaning and significance but it honestly took me by suprise the amount of respect for the day.

This is no normal armistice/VE/VJ day, Cenotaph march by, poppy appeals etc. but something quite different all together. It is not the yom hazikaron of next week which is probably closer to most people’s lives. Its quite difficult to describe the Israeli reaction to this day in the current political climate. Bibi using some jewish guilt on america over Iran, Elli Wisel  advocating that nothing can or should be compared to this, people using the photo ops to score political points, or even just the furore over benifits that survivors are entitled to from the state.

On Wednesday night everything was closed (much to our suprise, having planned to go out to dinner with Noodles) but no one announced that things would be closed, they just were. There is no law that placed need to close that evening (they were open the following morning) yet people just did.

A siren sounded at the same time across the entire country (an engineering feat in itself) and youtube records the stopping of traffic on the motorways, for that mintue everything stopped and it was an incredible feeling knowing that everything had stopped and you were part of a nation that was stopping to remember.

Thats all folks,

Shabbat shalom xx

myth 42…london for pesach

Hey folks,

So happy pesach to everyone, yes we are only keeping 1 day here so only really had 1 seder (though did join in with a second, i told mum i would participate from shulchan orech onwards!) however yes those wise ones will point out that we will indeed have to keep both the last days as chag runs into shabbat. Technically we could go out and get some hummus/rice to eat on shabbat (as it wouldn’t actually be chat for us, and we can’t ‘own’ bread today to have bought it for shab). Not 100% how things work in regards to selling/buying back chametz on friday after chag in israel, would i have to have kept a chametz free shabbat too if i were in israel? When would my rabbi have bought them back? Is the contract with the man from last week only a ’7 day then it reverts back to me’ contract, or a more ‘it is yours now…. 7 days later, can i buy it back please’? (what happens if he were to say no??!!) Maybe one for my LORA

Anyhows we have been here for a week, and my oh my what an action-packed, non-stop week it has been. We literally have not stopped seeing anyone and everyone, friends, family, extended family, extended family friends, you name them, we have (or have tried) to see them. Not the most relaxing holiday as you can imagine but definitely nice to catch up with people that we could see (and apologies to those we could not).

I know i have taken many a bash out of NW london recently (rightly and wrongly) but i must admit i can see the bubble is alive and kicking, the standard and comfort of living is high, and the support network is organic, familiar & as reassuring as ever.

The question we have been asked a few time is to rate the last 9 months on a scale 1-10 as compared to the previous 9 months spent living in london. Both elana and i have given a healthy 9 (independently) to out new lives in Israel which is higher than most people have been expecting. Once the family situation has been noted, the close friends (who we are now beginning to develop and blossom in the ra’anana crew) there is not much else that bring the score down. Yes Hebrew is still an issue, granted, but more than that… we stubble to pick holes.

Now I’m sure subconsciously somewhere factored in is our will to succeed in the move, a more independent scoring could put us at a 8.5 or 8, but still a high scoring nonetheless. In retrospect i wish i would have asked some of the people in response hope they would rate their current life, maybe something for motzie or a later date, to compare with what a projected figure would be if they moved out in the next year. (i am getting the feeling that when people talk about moving in the ‘next year or two, or in a few/couple of years, or i would like to raise my children there’ etc. I’m a little more cynical of their plans. Not in a bad way at all, just in a ‘don’t let me get my hopes up that you will be moving out to israel, only to crush (or insert a less harsh word) when the date is delayed’ type of way.

We have (or i have) become a little more blasé when talking to friends, both close and extended, who express a desire to move but not the balls. Again not in a detrimental way at all, and to caveat this with my promise to support, help and answer question from anyone or everyone who asks about aliyah, just it can be frustrating when people feel the need to justify themselves to us (me) about why they have not moved yet/pushed back dates. We (i) are not the aliyah police, yes i may berate people anonymously for their lack of action but everyone’s needs are different. Yes people should seriously consider moving, but only at the right time for them. Striking the balance between cajoling a friend to realistically consider themselves in Israel in the near future, and pissing people off by preaching and patronising them is tough! (though that is where the blog comes in handy!)

Chag is basically in, no one will be reading this till Motzei shabbat so there will be no backlash until Sunday, when we will be packing bags for our monday flight out of here:-)

Chag sameach & shabbat shalom xx

ps.Saving a longer ‘army’ post for another day due mainly to timings and relevance.