Maureen in Israel

(sigh) I guess it's time

2010-07-04T19:45:00.002+03:00

My poor mother. She's been politely asking me for months to update this blog. And I, being the forever disobedient, stubborn and lazy daughter, haven't done so.

But here I am, finally.

FYI, I think part of the reason I haven't updated is because of facebook... I figure almost anyone who knows me well enough to care what's going on in my life must be my friend on facebook -- so they know I'm fine and happy, and there isn't much more to say beyond that.

But I don't post that much on facebook anymore, either, so I guess it's time to at least update here. :)

So what's been going on at my end of the swamp?

Well, I'm busy at work, thankfully. And even more thankfully, I still love my job, and love the place I work. I feel incredibly blessed to work in an environment that seems to be as similar to having a giant, mostly understanding family as possible.

More importantly, I'm still ridiculously in love with my husband and being married to him. I have heard so many people talk about how hard the first year of marriage is. I guess it must be true, but I haveta say -- it isn't nearly as hard as living alone for most of my adult life was. Sure, there has been a learning curve, but it's been mostly fun and exciting... like taking the awesomest field trip, with the awesomest teacher.

We went to Sweden for two weeks at the end of May. That was an interesting trip. My husband's parents don't speak any English at all, and although his brother speaks some, his brother doesn't live with his parents. So either my husband had to translate for us, or we made due most of the time. His mom had bought an English/Swedish dictionary, and I had learned a bit of Swedish before we went... and it wasn't nearly as hard or stressful as either one of us had originally thought it might be.

And his parents are just great -- they're kind and funny, and they spoiled us rotten.

The last few days of our trip were spent with a friend of mine from our WUJS days, in southern Sweden. That was an interesting experience, because I didn't know her husband, and she didn't know my husband, and our lifestyle is vastly different from their lifestyle. But my friend and I had a great time, and we let our husbands do their thing without us most of the time. The extra bonus was their two-year-old daughter, who was just adorable and SO much fun to hang out with.

Now, there's a part of me that would like to just end this post and say that's it for what's going on in our lives... but then I'd be lying, and I'm not so good at that.

One of the biggest reasons I haven't posted in a few months (besides the laziness, of course) was that I couldn't talk about the biggest thing going on in our life -- I could have, I guess, but I didn't want to.

See, in our community it's considered as if we're inviting the Evil Eye (G-d forbid!) if we talk about pregnancy openly. And even when we find out that someone's pregnant, we do NOT say "congratulations" or "mazel tov", because again -- it's as if we're inviting trouble. We say "b'sha'ah tova," which means, "in a good hour". We wish women health and happiness and an easy pregnancy, but we do NOT congratulate them on something that hasn't successfully happened yet.

So for the last almost five months, I have been avoiding posting, and avoiding friends, and even avoiding emailing certain people, because I felt that without being able to share something so important to me, I would be lying by omission.

G-d willing, we are due at the beginning of November. My poor mother and father were put in a situation where we told them, but asked them not to tell anyone at all -- for 11 weeks! And G-d bless them, they kept it quiet.

But we're slowly coming out of the closet -- well, it was slowly, until this post, I guess.

But I do ask, very sincerely -- please don't post about it on my facebook, and do not say "congratulations" or "mazel tov". It's too early. G-d willing, sometime around the beginning/middle of November, we'll have plenty of time for those.

Right now, we would be very happy for prayers and happy thoughts, that our baby should be born healthy, and Baby's momma (me!) should be healthy, and there should be no complications along the way.

And *now*, I can say that's about it for what's going on in our lives.

I was going to rant a bit about politics, but I'd rather go finish my dinner.

Hope ya'll are well.

Happy end of December :)

2009-12-25T03:41:00.003+02:00

This entry is actually owed to my mom... who, the last time I was sleep-disordering and up in the middle of the night emailing her, suggested that the next time I would be up in the middle of the night, I might as well update my blog. So here goes:

As you may have guessed, if you've been playing along, life's been pretty busy around here. I posted last on my birthday, I think... which had come right after all the holidays... which had come right after getting married... which had come right after getting engaged... you didn't think life would actually calm down for me, didja?

So after my birthday, it was time to dig full-force into apartment hunting. Shaul and I were very demanding... we wanted something in crowded Nachlaot (the name of our neighborhood) that would be high enough to have a view, with a balcony, and not be yucky, moldy, paint-peely, and gross like my old apartment was. We wanted an apartment with an actual bedroom with a door (as opposed to a studio or "two room apartment" wherein the two rooms don't actually have a door between them. We also, of course, wanted it within our budget.

Since we got married, we had been living in two apartments... one brand-new studio apartment with a great balcony and a great view where we actually lived, and one cave-apartment with all my stuff. I was doing all the cooking at the old apartment and schlepping it to the new apartment. Laundry needed to be done at the old apartment. In the penthouse studio (okay, so it was on the 3rd floor, but it was the top floor, and we had it all to ourselves = penthouse), we had only a small, dorm-sized fridge, so almost all the food had to stay in the old apartment as well. There wasn't enough room in the new apartment for me to keep an entire week's worth of clothing, so at least once a week I needed to schlep dirty clothes back and bring clean clothes over.

Needless to say, it didn't take long before I was sick and tired of that.

(For the record, the penthouse was approximately 10 feet x 10 feet, or 2.5 meters x 2.5 meters.)

I had thought it would be relatively simple to find an apartment here, as we had what I considered to be a reasonable budget, thank G-d, and I had been seeing apartments in our price range listed on the real estate sites. Unfortunately, once Shaul would go to visit them, we'd realize the apartments were dark, no natural light, or old and yucky.

We made a deal that by the 25th of November, when our month-to-month lease would be up, we would move out of the penthouse and into the old apartment, so as not to be paying double rent and not to have to schlep so much anymore. We made another deal that we would stay in the old apartment no longer than one month, even if it meant that we'd move into a place we did not love, as long as it was a place we did not hate.

I have to also say that my landlord of the last 3.5 years was simply awesome. For a year and a half, I've been on a month-to-month lease, because he didn't want my lease to be something that could, G-d forbid, prevent me from being "free" enough to get married. And once I told him I was engaged, I got nothing but blessings from him... along with the freedom to keep the apartment month-t0-month and just let him know at the beginning of each month whether or not I would be staying. What a beautiful person he is!

Around two and a half weeks before we were due to move, we went away for Shabbat. As we passed one tall building, Shaul looked up and said something like, "I wonder what the view is like from that apartment." My answer was that if it were the top apartment, it might be pretty great, but anything under that, the view would be blocked by the building next door and the giant tree.

Also around that time, we found a small apartment in a tall, modern building in the area. I didn't really like the apartment much, and Shaul didn't love it, but it seemed like a better alternative than moving into the old apartment. It was a furnished apartment, which was problematic in that we already had a bunch of furniture, including a washing machine and a full-sized refrigerator. Also, the furniture was like something out of a modern, tacky motel... the couch was hard as a rock, the two living room chairs were small and uncomfortable, there was a strange "bar table" along the wall, and the bed wasn't suitable for us.

We talked it out, and we decided that if the landlord would take out all the unsuitable furniture, we could make the apartment work. On a Thursday afternoon, around 2 in the afternoon, I called the agent and told him our conditions. He said he would call the landlord's representative and call me back.

Meanwhile, Shaul decided one last time to go by the office of another agent we'd been dealing with. Until then, the agent hadn't had anything promising -- either stuff was *way* above our budget, or it was crud. But Hashem sent Shaul there that afternoon to pop in, just to try one last time.

The agent told Shaul that he'd just gotten a listing that day for an apartment he thought would be perfect for us. It was in our price range and had lots of natural light. The owner of the apartment would be in Jerusalem Friday morning, and Shaul should bring his wife (me!) to see it, since the owner wasn't in Jerusalem every day. They made arrangements for us to see the apartment at 8:30 the next morning.

At that point, I had a feeling that we would actually love the apartment. After all, I had already called the other agent and told him we'd take it, and Hashem is great for putting me in situations where I have to scramble to do "the right thing" after figuring out what "the right thing" even IS. Shaul didn't feel confident at all -- it was more like a "why not?" kind of thing for him at that point, because he'd been so disappointed in the other apartments he'd seen. (He went and saw almost all the apartments while I was at work, and only if something *might* have been suitable, did I arrange to go see them.)

That Friday morning, we met up with the agent and walked to the apartment. We came across the main street, walked around the corner and up the stairs. As soon as we walked into the apartment, we knew we loved it. We had balconies on two sides of the apartment. The balconies have big glass doors and windows, which means sunlight comes in from the south and the west. The bedroom of the apartment was almost as big as our penthouse. It was a brand-new apartment -- no one had ever lived in it. It even had a small room for the washing machine. It was unfurnished, and the apartment looked absolutely gigantic compared to the penthouse.

And I don't remember at which point Shaul realized it, but at some point during our visit, he said to me, "isn't this the apartment I pointed at last week on our way out of town, and said I wondered what the view would be like from up there?" And YES, it was! Absolutely -- and even though it's not on the top floor -- it has a pretty awesome view :-)

We couldn't believe that the apartment was in our price range, but sure enough, it was.

The landlord originally said he wanted a relatively small deposit, and I was very surprised. In Israel, the law sides with the renter, so the landlords often ask for huge deposits and co-signers in order to protect their investments. A few days later, when the agent got back in touch with us, she said he'd changed his mind and wanted a bigger deposit -- it was a huge disappointment for us, as he was asking for something at that point that seemed not to be realistic for us.

Fortunately, thank G-d, we came to a different agreement -- one much more like the way apartments are rented out in the U.S., and much more within our means. The landlord was even awesome in letting us officially start our lease on the day we'd move out of the penthouse, but we had the key over a week ahead of time, so we could arrange for it to be cleaned (from all the construction dust) and start moving little things in.

We hired movers, and we moved everything from the penthouse on our last day there, to the old apartment. The next day, the movers came and moved 90% of our stuff to the new apartment. I hadn't had time to finish organizing the last 10%, so we left it there temporarily.

We then had almost two weeks to finish moving out of my old apartment... I, of course, took until the very last day to finish... but finished on time, nonetheless.

Another awesome part of this is that we had ordered a bedroom set with mattresses, but they were likely to take two to four weeks to be delivered. The awesome guy at the store told him he'd try to put a rush on it, since we were a bride and groom, but he couldn't guarantee... so he arranged that on the day we'd move in, they would deliver temporary beds for us (my old bed wasn't big enough for two of us). Then, a couple of weeks later, or so, we would get our bedroom furniture and real mattresses.

The morning we were moving, the furniture delivery company called and told us they would bring all of our real furniture, and just a temporary set of mattresses, on the day we were moving in. We would have our real beds -- just with temporary mattresses, with the plastic still on them. The guy said it was the evening before an Arab holiday, so it was possible that they would deliver everything, but only assemble the beds, and then they'd be back the next week to assemble the rest.

As it turned out, they stayed and assembled the whole set for us, so on our first night in our new apartment, we got to sleep on real beds, in our real bedroom.

(For the record, we both would have preferred Jewish labor, but in this case it wasn't our decision.)

And now we're in our new apartment. Our miracle apartment, which we both love very much.

I'm *still* unpacking and trying to figure out where things can go... we have my old bed set up as a couch, and my gigantic folding table is our regular eating table... but slowly, slowly, things are starting to come together.

And at the moment, I'm up in the middle of the night on one of my sleepless kicks, but since we're going to our adopted family in Arad for Shabbat, G-d willing, I don't have Shabbat preparation work to be doing at 4 in the morning, so I've been able to share with you a bit of our awesome apartment miracle.

***

In other news, I love being in Israel at this time of year, because it truly is the Jewish country, and other than facebook, I could easily forget that it's xmas and the new year coming up. I also love being married to my awesome husband. I love my job, and I love my friends. I love my life, thank G-d!

Happy end of December to you, and may 2010 be a year of experiences that we easily recognize as good!

Happy birthday to me!

2009-10-20T07:14:00.004+02:00

I still haven't gotten the hang of being depressed because I'm another year older... I see it happen in other people, and I get it, but I have to say yet again -- my life gets better every single year I am alive.

Sure, there's stuff I'd like to do, and I wonder if I'll have the opportunity in this lifetime to do it... but whether I do or not, it doesn't change the fact that my life is freakin' awesome.

And this year, I have an amazing, awesome, terrific husband with whom to share my birthday.

And this year, I finally catch up with the age I was born... as Mom says I came out of the womb a 38-year-old midget, and I'm finally, finally 38. Of course, in many ways I'm much younger now than I was when I was born... so maybe I'm regressing. Whatever.

Here's a wedding picture for you hungry people :-)

More wedding stuff

2009-10-15T07:16:00.002+02:00

Posting two days in a row -- must be a holiday or something. ;-)

So back to the wedding stuff...

After the pictures, I went back up into the hall. Shaul was sitting and speaking with the rav, and there was crazy loud music playing.

I should tell you that when we left to go do the pictures, the tables had been set up by my family, but there were no tablecloths, plates, etc. (Apparently they had tablecloths for a baby boy's brit milah [circumcision] ceremony, and A, my good friend, nixed that idea and let them know they needed to have more wedding-appropriate tableware.)

When we came back, the tables had been completely re-arranged, and they magically had place settings.

I guess it wasn't really magic -- it was the people at the hall, inspired by the loud music, who got things moving.

Yet both Shaul and I are very sensitive to loud noises, so the one moment that I turned into a demanding bride was when I insisted to the hall director that they turn down/off the music immediately. As he was trying to explain to me that it was only for their motivation purposes, I was trying to explain to him that the loud music hurt both my fiance and myself, and it needed to be turned down/off RIGHT NOW. He got the point, and they turned it off, thank G-d.

We were then a bit afraid, because instead of having place settings for 80, as we'd theoretically expected and set up for, suddenly we were down to 64. I guess it was fine, however -- I don't know that anyone left because there wasn't a seat for him/her, because somewhere around 10-20% of the people who had RSVP'd that they would be there did not, in fact, arrive.

In Israel, btw, a wedding of fewer than 100 people is considered almost miniscule. I had many friends who were hurt, I think, by not being invited... and, thank G-d, many more who were kind and understanding, and if they were hurt, they didn't show me at all.

Anyway, after the pictures, I needed to pray some before people started showing up. We were expecting people to start arriving around 11am, with the first part of the ceremony set to start at 11:30, or as close to that as possible.

In Israel, the time for the bride and groom to start greeting guests is usually one hour before the ceremony is supposed to start. Generally, the bride and groom are both ready to greet guests within a few minutes of the expected time, but the ceremony starts between 30-70 minutes later than the scheduled time. I was insistent that if G-d would send us exactly what/whom we needed for the ceremony to take place, it would start on time, and anyone who missed it would miss it. Because of Shaul's health situation, and both of our needs/desires to start things on time, as well as the fact that we were having our wedding while many people would be coming on their lunch breaks, we really wanted to start on time.

After I did my praying, it was a few minutes after 11. When I walked out of the tiny room I'd been in, there were almost no guests yet. I was doubting the possibility of starting on time. By 11:15ish, one of our witnesses had not yet arrived.

And suddenly, it was as if the floodgates had opened, and everyone showed up. I was busy giving blessings to people who asked for them, loving seeing such beautiful, holy friends and family come for our simcha (joyous occasion), and Shaul was busy signing the wedding contract with our witnesses.

I'll try to get pictures up soon... but for the moment, it's time to start getting ready for work.

More another day...

Um, okay, I'm married now...

2009-10-14T06:59:00.002+02:00

My mom has been reminding me to update this blog -- guess time got away from me, as I was a teensy bit busy.

Even now, I don't have much time... I'm drinking my coffee, trying to wake up, while my husband (!) is at shul for morning prayers.

The last bit more than a month is something of a blur in many ways. The last few days before the wedding, I was going crazy trying to get everything done in time... I was making a Shabbat dinner for Shaul's family and mine - nine people - with almost everything made from scratch, because I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to food. And I figured it might be the only time I would have the opportunity to make Shabbat dinner for our families together, because it may not happen again in the future that everyone's in one place at the same time.

Shabbat day was spent with Shaul -- our last quiet time before the wedding. That evening, my amazing, beautiful, holy friend A came and picked me up from Shaul's and proceeded to kallah-sit (bride-sit) and take unbelievable care of me until after the wedding. I went to the mikveh (ritual bath) on Saturday night, then A sat up with me making lists and lists and lists, and running errands, and making sure everything was in order for the Big Day.

And the Big Day itself was amazing and beautiful, and I hope I can somehow remember it forever. I was spoiled in the hair/makeup chair, being taken great care of by two beautiful women who made me feel like a queen. I had a photographer from the time I got out of the taxi in the Old City, walking me through the alleyways on the way to the hall. Upon arrival at the hall, I pretty much promptly plopped myself in my queen's chair and didn't move, other than for pictures and praying.

Time for pictures was hilarious -- Shaul and I, followed by our families, made our way to the Kotel plaza, where we were photographed by hundreds of tourists. Some of the tourists -- from a Polish group -- kept coming up to us and congratulating us "congratulations! We are from Poland. Good luck to you!" etc. They kept following us around, until finally somehow they got the hint that we didn't actually want them in all of our wedding pictures. :)

Okay, that's it for now... coffee's done... I'll try to post more wedding story stuff, etc., over the course of the next few mornings.

It's not really a cliff-hanger, you know... I already told you I'm married :)

My tichel party

2009-09-07T06:41:00.005+03:00

So first things first: a tichel (pronounced with the gutteral 'ch' sound, as in chutzpah) is a hair covering.

Most orthodox Jewish women cover their hair in some way after they get married. It comes down from the Torah that a woman married in accordance with Jewish law should cover her hair.

The way women choose to cover their hair depends on what their community standards are. Some women wear wigs, others wear hats, others wear scarves... there are thousands of possibilities, but mostly it depends on their communities.

At the moment, I'm not going to go into all the details of hair covering, except to say that although I find it to be a beautiful concept -- saving a beautiful part of myself for only my husband, as well as a clear symbol of being married -- I also find it very difficult.

During my ugliest years, and due to life circumstances, I felt there were many of them, the one thing I always understood was beautiful about myself was my hair. I remember liking getting my hair cut -- not just because of the head massage, and definitely not because of what my hair looked like afterward (it has a mind of its own) -- but because the hairdressers would always ooh and aah over my hair.

But as of yesterday, I was one week away from beginning this special mitzvah, and some of my amazing, holy and beautiful girlfriends came together and brought me scarves and scarve and scarves... and told stories, and laughed, and sang, and experimented with how different scarves look on my head.

It was an amazing and special evening, and I felt really blessed to have such awesome people in my life.

And once again, time slides away from me...

2009-09-06T07:22:00.002+03:00

I really did mean to update here a bit more often during the course of wedding planning, but here I find myself seven days away from our wedding, G-d willing, and realize I haven't updated in like, three weeks.

Oops.

So here's the sitch:

Thank G-d, it looks like we've passed the bureaucratic obstacle course. We picked up the ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) on Thursday.

And as long as we have the groom, the bride, our families, the rabbi, the ring, and 10 Jewish men present one week from today, we're getting married in, oh, 172ish hours. Not that I'm counting. ;-)

Because we're doing a speedy engagement, even slightly speedy by Israeli standards, it means that there are people who are still now finding out we're engaged... and I'm sure that for a long time after the wedding, I'll be coming across people who had no idea I was even dating anyone, let alone engaged. That's what happens for keeping things so quiet, I know, and I hope that some of the people can and will forgive me for not having been in touch with them over the course of this period of time.

There are huge blessings all around us right now... things are coming together... I'm getting to know a cousin I barely knew... I love my job more than ever, because I'm finally working in a place where our Judaism (yiddishkeit) takes precedence over all else, so everyone there is thrilled for me, and ready to cut me some slack for being brainless nowadays. I love my chatan (groom) more than ever, also for being ready to cut me some slack for bring brainless nowadays ;-) I love my family more than ever, for being ready and willing to throw their entire lives out of whack to come join us for our wedding, and not complaining when we did it at what could possibly be the least convenient timing for them. I love G-d more than ever, for helping me through all of this craziness, and putting my future husband (no jinx) and I together at this point in time.

Life is freakin' awesome.

27 days and counting... no jinx!!!

2009-08-17T06:56:00.002+03:00

G-d willing, Shaul and I will be married on Sunday, 13 September/24 Elul.

We have the hall & food. We're working on the guest list and e-invitations. We have a photographer, though we're not sure for how many hours we're hiring her yet. We have places for our families to stay while they're here. We're in process with the rabbinate in Jerusalem to get through the bureaucratic process.

We're on our way.

We do still have lots and lots to do.

So I pro'ly won't be posting here very often nowadays either, since as much as I like to talk about myself, I simply don't have much time.

But all-in-all, life is awesome. I've been at my current job for almost a year, and I still love it. I'm engaged to the man in the world who is perfect for me. I have awesome friends and family. Yeah, life is awesome.

Um, old new news...

2009-08-17T06:52:00.002+03:00

If you're reading this, then chances are you already know that I'm engaged. But if you're not on facebook, you might not have any idea about the circumstances.

So I'm pasting below a note I wrote on facebook. I'll update another blog entry after this one, with other stuff.

from facebook:

So this will be quick-ish (as much as that's possible with my long-winded fingers, anyway).

Shaul and I met through frumster, an internet dating site for religious ("orthodox") Jews. He's Swedish, but he spent quite a bit of the last three years in the States. When we started writing, he was visiting his parents in Sweden. We communicated fairly regularly for about a month, before he came to Israel to visit in February.

We knew that he'd be leaving for anywhere between six weeks to three months, at the beginning of June. Way back in February, that did not seem like a big deal. By May, it seemed like a HUGE deal.

Because we knew from the beginning that our time together was limited, and due to the fact that I've felt somewhat like a teenage girl during this process, I pretty much dropped out of the lives of most of my friends.

I seem to have peculiar "luck" when it comes to my strong ability to "jinx" anything, any time, so other than the immediately close people here in the neighborhood and our families, very few people knew we were even in a relationship. Clearly, I never posted about it on facebook -- hence the reason so many of you were so shocked. ;-)

Shaul left Israel on 3 June, and when he left we didn't know when he'd be back. We did know he'd be coming back as a new immigrant. Thank G-d for Nefesh B'Nefesh, who brought Shaul HOME on 15 July.

In the Jewish calendar, Shaul's return was during a three-week period that has included tragedies for the Jewish people for a few thousand years. While it is absolutely acceptable to get engaged during that period of time, and thank G-d, many people we know did, our decision was to wait until afterward.

So Friday afternoon, after all of the mourning practices were lifted, we made it official.And now begins the fun period of time in which we get to plan a wedding. For personal reasons, we're planning on having something *tiny* and casual, and doing it as soon as possible. No jinx, no evil eye, we hope to be able to celebrate with all of our beautiful friends and family over time.

I ask your forgiveness in advance for anything I say or do, or don't say or don't do, while we're getting this together.

Thank you ALL for being such amazing and supportive friends and family!

The more things change...

2009-06-29T19:22:00.002+03:00

... the more they don't. Yeah, it's a little twist on the other familiar phrase, because I didn't feel like being SO cliche.

Anyway... the point of that phrase in general is that really, some stuff just doesn't change.

So for anyone out there who somehow thought that getting a new president in the US or a new prime minister in Israel was going to mean some substantial change in Israeli policy, Israeli public opinion, etc., or some miraculous change on behalf of the Arab world... um, you can stop holding your breath now.

Yeah, I'm being a little extra obnoxious. I am sicker and tireder than ever of this whole "Israel needs to make concessions, give up part of its Biblical and historical homeland, let a whole bunch of fake refugees move in (or pay them off), have open borders with people who clearly verbalize their hatred for us and intent to kill us, etc. and then there will be some sort of peace" baloney.

Now the world is trying to tell us that not *only* do we "have" to give up any "unauthorized" communities, but we're not allowed to build in the ones we have? What? Including ones that in almost any supposed peace agreement would stay within Israel?

And people keep focusing on how the world is telling us we cannot even build within our own communities to account for "natural growth," but what, exactly, is that? Yeah, the idea comes from the fact that people are raising their children in these communities, and now the kids are growing up and can't find homes inside their own communities.

But what about me? What about anyone else who wants to go live in peace somewhere within Israel?

Yeah, maybe people who grew up there should have some sort of priority on getting housing there... but there's no legitimate reason why I shouldn't be able to also get housing there.

And I have to say... as much as I love Jerusalem, the minute my life will allow me to move into one of those communities, then G-d willing, that's where I'll be.

Okay, so it's been almost two months...

2009-05-25T19:41:00.002+03:00

And I'm really only writing now 'cause my sibling asked me to, so here goes:

My life is amazing. I truly believe that it's amazing because I've decided it's amazing. I wish the whole world could decide that for itself, 'cause it would make the world a much, much, much better place to live.

I could on and on about how my life is amazing, but really, the fact is that I'm incredibly blessed -- and I remind myself of that when things do get rough.

I've been going through a pretty intense situation, with tons of ups and some downs, and some way ups, and some way downs, and it's been keeping me busy.

Fortunately for you, it's kept me busy enough that I haven't come here to rant about the ridiculous world situation regarding Israel.

I will say this... since I posted last, I've been in the Shomron for a day trip (Shomron = Samaria, which is part of what's often referred to as "the west bank"), which was amazing. It's such beautiful land, so much of it open space, so much of it legally purchased by Jews (and that's aside from having been given the land in the Torah), and it's unbelievable to me that people think we should just make that area Judenrein.

We went to a spot overlooking the gravesite of Yosef... one of the places that according to the Oslo Accords, was supposed to remain in Jewish hands... yet when the Intifada war started in 2000, Israel left it to be destroyed by Arabs. For years, Jews weren't allowed to go there AT ALL -- it's one of Judaism's holy sites... even the Oslo Accords gave the land to the Jews, yet NO JEWS were allowed EVER. Now, once a month, in the dark of night, under the protection of many, many military personnel, some Jews get to go pray there for a little while.

We went to a couple of communities of Jews, where the people there are just trying to live Jewish lives on Jewish land, where they don't even carry guns for their own protection, where they don't have full-time electricity, and they have to take into account that they could, G-d forbid, be evicted from their homes at any point.

It was definitely an eye-opening trip.

I've also spent Shabbat with friends in Gush Etzion, in a community called Tekoa. It's near Herodia, in Judea, also part of what's known as "the west bank." It was beautiful and amazing, and again -- ridiculous to think that at some point outsiders would think that community should be destroyed. RIDICULOUS.

And last week, I went to Hevron, to Judaism's second holiest site -- the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Avraham, Sara, Ya'akov, Rivka, Yitzchak, and Leah are buried... and, as our tradition tells us, so are Adam and Chava (Eve). (Plus the head of Esav, which is just weird to me.)

On the way to Hevron (Hebron), we passed through Kiryat Arba. I'd never been to either place, so I only knew what I'd read in the media.

I was shocked -- really shocked -- to see that Kiryat Arba is an actual city, with actual buildings, with real people, schools, playgrounds, flowers, etc. In my head, it was a few mobile homes and rifle-toting "settlers" who lived there.

And I was awed by the people who live in Hevron. They are literally surrounded by people who hate them. Surrounded. But it's so important to them to protect our sacred space, that they make their lives there. And yeah, for the most part, they have relatively "normal" lives.

I still find myself in awe at how I got here... geographically, spiritually, politically... How I find myself to be a religious Jew, living in Israel, and rather unbelievably right-wing compared to the way I grew up. But here is where I am, and I'm finally who I'm supposed to be, and deep down, I still have left-wing wishful thinking. But as a realist, I think about the situation here somewhat like my lefty family used to talk about communism -- in theory, it's good, but in practice, it can't work.

So in theory, yeah, it would be nice if everyone could play nicely together, or at least have quiet time outs when they couldn't play nicely.

But in reality, there's this beyond belief craziness that's projected sorta like "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine" when it comes to Israel. As in, we should be nice, play nice, be all warm and fuzzy to our Arab cousins within our politically-recognized borders, even though many of them openly call for our destruction. And we should give them control over our G-d given land that's outside of our politically-recognized borders, because even though we won the war, it's not nice to be the loser of a war, so we should feel sorry for them and let them have the land. And not only that, but we should actually all leave our G-d given, won-in-wars land, because they don't want us as neighbors. And not only that, but we should let them ALSO "come back" to live within our politically-recognized borders, because before they lost other wars, they used to live here... or their grandparents did, anyway.

I just can't grasp the concept that people really think like that. I just can't.

So even though my wishful-thinking-self deep down *wants* to believe that some sort of two-state solution could work, my *real* self *knows* it's not possible and wants to protect this land as much as possible.

I wish I could make myself do more... be more politically active... but just living here seems to take so much time and energy, that I haven't been able to summon enough to also be more politically active.

I guess the least I can do is rant here on my blog. ;)

The towel didn't work :(

2009-04-02T23:14:00.003+03:00

And here I was, innocently hoping that I could avoid some sort of political post in the days coming up to Pesach. Nope, no such luck.

Today a terrorist with an axe attacked a 13-year-old boy and a 7-year-old boy. He murdered the 13-year-old, and the 7-year-old needs surgery.

The 13-year-old died in front of his family.

It happened in a community not far from Jerusalem. It happens to be in a community where my former flatmate is the housemother of a women's learning seminary, and where most of my friends have learned either in the seminary or in the men's yeshiva at some point or another.

So, like in every attack, there's this breath-stopping fear that happens when we hear of it. Do I know someone who was killed? Do I know that boy's parents? His siblings?

In this case, no.

And every time that happens, the immeasurable guilty feelings at being thankful it wasn't someone I knew follow moments behind.

Then the guilt passes, and it's followed with sorrow and anger.

I cannot even begin to imagine the pain being felt by this child's family. My heart is torn in pieces thinking about it.

And yeah, I am furious. Gut-clenching, stop-breathing mad. But, like, I don't even know who all to be mad at anymore. The Arab terrorists? The terrorist-loving society that breeds and fosters anger and hatred? My own government, for not having the guts and belief to stand up for our land? The people who voted in our government? The world for pushing us to do things they have no business pushing us to do? G-d, for allowing this suffering to continue? Myself, for not doing more, not being more proactive politically, not davening harder?

All of the above and more.

G-d should comfort this boy's family, and give Yair Tuvia ben Michal a fast and full recovery. And G-d should have compassion on all of Am Yisrael and stop the suffering already. Amen!

What? A non-political post?

2009-03-31T22:05:00.002+03:00

Yep, I figure it's time to write, but I can't deal with the political stuff at the moment, so I'm going to wrap my head in a towel and hope it doesn't see me. (Douglas Adams fans will understand that, and the rest of you... well... I can only tell you that you're missing one of the most important pieces of culture on the planet, so oh well.)

So what to write about? Hmm... so many options... let's go with one of my favorite subjects -- me! :)

I've been at my current job for seven months now. Until recently, I really felt like, as a good friend of mine put it in explaining how he felt at his last job... like I was pretending I knew what I was doing, and I was afraid that any minute, someone would discover I was incompetent. (That's a paraphrase, for the record.)

It is honestly the first time in my life that I've worked so hard at something and felt so little understanding. Normally, I'd have long given up by now, if I had so much trouble understanding what I was doing.

But in this situation, it's been awesome. I learn a little bit more every day. I am intellectually challenged without being *completely* lost. My co-workers are awesome. My boss is great. There's enough flexibility in my schedule to keep me from having to be something I'm not (a day person), and enough stability to keep me from going off the deep end. My Hebrew has improved tremendously. My technical knowledge has improved tremendously.

In short -- I love my job. I post that on facebook pretty regularly, but I'm not sure if I've posted it here, or when that was.

I truly feel blessed to have this job. I don't remember if I ever posted all the awesome stuff that had to happen at *exactly* the right moments in order for me to get this job, but really, I consider it a gift from Hashem.

So it's also frustrating when I've had some stupid health issues that have prevented me from being the best employee I could be. Some of them are work-related, like headaches and a weird asthma attack caused when the guy cleaned our windows. Others are sorta-work related, in that most of the people I work with have many children, and said children are sick, so said parents bring the germs to work and share them through our recycled air.

I did finally come to the source of one of my problems, though... I apparently have a wheat sensitivity. I knew wheat didn't like me much -- it made me tired and made me crave more carbs. But I've come to realize that on the occasion that I have a bunch of wheat challah on Shabbat, I end up with sinus problems within 24 hours for at least a few days.

Most of the time, it's not an issue -- I make my own non-wheat challah, and i don't use wheat in cooking at all. When I go to most of my friends' for Shabbat, I take my own challah. But once in a while, I end up someplace without my own challah... or I just can't help myself, because something looks so yummy... and sure enough, sinus problems.

Thank Gd, I've been able to pinpoint that one... because I thought I was having colds constantly for months, and once I kicked the wheat, I was immediately better.

So anyway... I love my job, and I want to be better at it than I am, and I have faith that I will be. But meanwhile, I know I'm getting better at the pace I can, so it's fine.

Outside of work, I'm really, truly blessed with some of the most amazing friends, teachers and mentors anyone could ask for. Even my landlord is awesome.

Life isn't always "easy," of course... but man, life is good. I am so thankful, every day, for being able to live in Jerusalem, the Holy City in the Holy Land... having my great job... having great people in my life... and the ability to be who I really am, and be happy being this person.

I wish everyone in the universe could experience this.

For my fellow Members of the Tribe, I wish you a kosher and happy Pesach! You should be blessed with figuring out what's holding you back from being the person you should be, and have the strength and resources to move forward. Amen. :)

Guess it hasn't been as long as I'd thought

2009-03-14T22:14:00.003+02:00

I somehow had it in my head that it had been at least a month since I posted here, but I guess it's only a couple of weeks. Still, as long as I'm logged in, I might as well come up with something to say, eh?

Politically, we're in yet another interesting situation. Netanyahu is having more trouble gathering a coalition than most people had expected, being that the "right wing" parties comprised such a huge percentage of the overall votes cast. But he's not being so accomodating to the right wing parties, and the center party (kadima) has decided to remain in the opposition.

(Maybe I'll do Israeli Politics 101 another time.)

Meanwhile, there's a ton of negotiating going on over Gilad Shalit, the soldier who was kidnapped nearly 1000 days ago. Hamas wants hundreds of terrorists freed for Shalit's release. I don't know if they have had proof of life anytime recently, but I do know that no one has been allowed to visit him, if he is still alive.

It's really a nasty situation:

Our soldiers need to have faith that our country will do everything in its power to get them back, if they get caught behind enemy lines.

But we arrest and convict terrorists for a reason -- they commit crimes.

On numerous occasions, terrorists who have been released as part of ransom agreements or "good faith" gestures have gone on to commit more horrific crimes, sometimes using the knowledge they acquired in Israeli prisons to help them succeed.

Additionally, Hamas and other terrorist groups know that for every Israeli soldier, they can free hundreds of their soldiers. So they have a strong incentive to kidnap more, every time we concede to their disproportionate demands.

I feel awful for Gilad Shalit's family, but I honestly don't know if releasing up to 1000 terrorists and continuing to give the terrorist organizations a reason to kidnap more of our soldiers is the right solution.

The answer to what a unilateral ceasefire is...

2009-03-01T07:57:00.003+02:00

Apparently, the answer is this:

Hamas continues to reign terror down into sovereign Israel. More than 60 rockets have been fired since the "unilateral ceasefire."

Hamas continues to steal humanitarian aid being sent into Gaza.

Gilad Shalit is still not home. Nor has ANYONE in Israel or the international community seen or heard from him, to even know whether he's alive.

Hamas continues to say it will not recognize Israel. Now the PA and Fatah are considering merging with Hamas.

Do you really, really, REALLY think we have a peace partner somewhere in this? Really?

Politics

2009-02-03T22:59:00.002+02:00

I've been watching season 6 of The West Wing. I finished it this evening. It was good -- way better than seasons 4 or 5, I think, though it's been over a year since I watched them. But the writing was better, and the stories were better, and it's a freakin' awesome show.

It brought back so many memories. I know that I'm meant to be here, in Israel, in Jerusalem, living the life I live. I love it more than I can possibly explain. But watching season 6 reminded me of how into US politics I was... how much I loved campaigning... and while I can't say honestly that I miss that, I do wonder if I would have pursued it.

We're going to elections here a week from today, and for once I'm nearly completely undecided in who I'm voting for.

It's a heavy decision, when we're talking about 20% of our population living below the poverty line, which is already low. It's a heavy decision when we're talking about whether or not people should have equal rights in a country that is inherently inequal. But mostly, it's a heavy decision because I walk in front of bulldozers every single day wondering if this time I'll continue to be "lucky" and make it past alive. And it's a heavy decision because I want to go to Arad to see my adopted family, and to get there, I need to go through Be'er Sheva, which was hit by a whole bunch of rockets a couple of weeks ago... and because whomever we elect into power just might make Arad a border community of a palestinian state.

The US is such a big country, that it's hard to really feel like your own personal life is at stake based on who you vote for.

Israel has no such luxury.

Voter turnout may, in fact, be very low this year. A big reason for that is that so many of us don't know for whom to cast our votes. We get one vote -- just one. We vote for the party. The party has decided who the top spots go to, and the top people decide how to divvy up the different governmental positions.

I'm sure it's clear from what I've written that I'll be voting right-wing. My problem is in deciding how right wing, and right wing from which direction?

My choices are basically 3.5:

1. Likud -- sorta right wing, sorta not. I don't trust Bibi Netanyahu as far as I can pick him up and throw him. I think he's slick, and a politician at heart. But Likud has a strong chance of being the strongest party in the election, so every vote makes them more powerful -- perhaps powerful enough to NOT have to create a coalition with the lefties or the corrupties.

2. Yisrael Baiteinu -- strongly right wing, but not so much credibility due to lack of actually having *done* anything. May or may not negotiate a palestinian state, but at least has strongly come out against the so-called "right of return."

3/3.5 -- the national religious parties. These are the very small parties that actually believe that G-d gave us this land, and we displease G-d by not following the rules He gave us in terms of governing it. But the parties are split, with a coalition sort of deal... which wouldn't be bad, except that they've broken apart their coalitions in the past, so most of us don't trust them 100%.

I'm pretty sure I'll make a decision before I actually walk into the voting booth. I'm leaning in one direction now, and trying to get more information to decide whether or not it's the direction I want to go.

But man, it's tough.

When it comes down to it, I have Faith above all else... what's meant to happen is what will happen... but I also believe that G-d helps those who help ourselves, so we need to put in some efforts of our own.

So I'll keep thinking and researching, and do my best... but when it comes down to it, beyond the vote I place, the rest is out of my control.

Not so much fun for a control freak like me.

When is a cease fire not a cease fire?

2009-01-17T23:16:00.002+02:00

When it's a "cease fire" with Hamas.

Apparently, my government had decided upon a "unilateral cease fire." Um, okay. What's that?

According to what I can figure out right now, only a few minutes after the official announcement was made/explained, it's something like this:

My government can no longer handle the international pressure from the naive, at best, or antisemitic, at worst, people who are calling for Israel to stop the war.

So we'll say we're going to stop attacking -- unless they attack us first.

Now, if we keep in mind that even during the three-hour humanitarian "cease fires" that we've had over the last week or so, Hamas has attacked during nearly all of them, the chances are fairly small that Hamas is now suddenly going to raise the white flag and chill out.

So our army will maybe no longer have the approval to go searching for tunnels and terrorists to destroy them, because once again, in case you didn't catch it the first time, there's a unilateral cease fire going to happen.

But our soldiers will stay in Gaza, waiting to be attacked, and when they get attacked, they'll fight back.

I'm really hoping I'm misunderstanding this... but meanwhile it's past my bedtime, so I'm going to hope there's just a better explanation by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I called one of the chessed organizations the other day to request a name of an Israeli soldier who would like prayers said on his behalf -- I got Chen ben Faygie. (Ch as in chhhhhh, not "chop")

In traditional Judaism, when we daven for someone, we say the person's name, and we say he or she is the son or daughter of, and we say the mother's name. So in this case, my soldier is Chen, which means "grace," and his mother's name is Faygie.

So about a gagillion times a day, I daven for the safety and wellbeing of Chen ben Faygie and all of the other soldiers and people putting their lives on the line for Am Yisrael.

I'll be happy when the war's over IF, and only IF, the war will actually be over.

We'll see what happens...

Rocket/air raid sirens in Jerusalem

2009-01-14T22:30:00.003+02:00

We tend to be rather far removed from the war here... except for thinking about and praying for our friends, family, neighbors, etc., who are fighting in the war and/or live in the south (or the north, once again), we pretty much go on about our daily lives.

So today at lunch when I first heard a siren, I didn't think much of it. Then my co-worker asked, "Is that the rocket siren?" One of my other co-workers said she didn't think so... but the sound kept going.

We looked across at another table of co-workers, as they were looking back at us questioningly. We looked around the room, as at tables across the cafeteria, people were beginning to realize something wasn't quite right.

Someone opened a window, so we could be sure we weren't "just" hearing an ambulance. Nope, it was definitely the "something bad is happening" siren.

Since we live in Jerusalem, and we were all adults, we just assumed it was a test of some sort. I'm sure I was not the only one thinking to myself how awful, how unbelievably awful, it must be to hear that siren many times every day and know you have a mere 15 seconds to try to find shelter.

It's a terrible sound. It sounds like the movies from the 40's and 50's -- it's a wailing sound that steadily rises and lowers in pitch. It gets in your head and doesn't go away, even after the siren itself has stopped wailing.

Every day, tens of times a day, my brothers and sisters in the south hear that siren. Sometimes it's accompanied by an automated announcement screaming "Color Red! Color Red!" Often it's accompanied and/or followed by the sounds of the rockets exploding.

I heard it once -- today -- and that was more than enough for me.

When we got back to the office, my boss was explaining what happened during that time in her 12-year-old daughter's class. They were on break, and all the kids were terrified. They crawled under whatever they could find. Their teacher came out and had them run into the bomb shelter -- we have bomb shelters pretty much everywhere now, since we're under constant risk of attack. A few minutes later, only when it was clear that it was a false alarm of some sort, the teacher let the kids out of the sheltered room.

Apparently, it was some sort of "malfunction." That is, the siren system did exactly what it was supposed to do -- when a rocket was fired from Gaza in this direction, the siren went off.

Thank G-d, the rockets they have now "only" reach 30-40 miles inside Israel, instead of 80-100 miles. So the rocket was going to land somewhere between Gaza and Jerusalem, without actually reaching Jerusalem.

But please realize -- and I say this with all my heart -- please realize that if the extremism is not stopped now -- the next set of rockets WILL come from the "west bank." And they'll shoot rockets right on over eastern Jerusalem (maybe), right into my neighborhood and the neighborhoods around me, without a second thought about holy Jerusalem.

Remember -- they'rebooby trapping schools and homes now. They're purposely driving into areas crowded with civilians when they think their vehicles have been targeted by Israeli missiles. They're surrounding themselves with small children, and they're hiding in hospitals. Do you think they'll stop just because there will eventually be a "cease fire?" Really?

They are insane with passion for the G-d they believe in. I'm not saying all Gazans, all Arabs, all "Palestinians" are insane, G-d forbid -- but I am saying Hamas and even poor Fatah are insane. They have no qualms about causing civilian deaths... the murders of innocent children, whether Arab or Jew... they're not going to stop until they think they have won, or until we make them incapable of continuing.

So we need to stop them now, or those rocket and air raid sirens won't stop here in Jerusalem -- you'll be getting them wherever you are, too.

G-d bless our leaders with the abilities to make the right decisions. G-d bless our soldiers who continue to fight, and our soldiers who are out of combat because of their injuries. G-d bless all the civilians -- the real civilians on both sides -- who just want to have normal lives. Amen.

Why do other countries think they get to decide?

2009-01-11T22:39:00.002+02:00

If you don't live here... if you haven't lived under the threat of suicide bombings, bulldozer attacks, rocket fire, etc... you do not get to decide whether or not we open our borders.

What the heck is the US thinking by abstaining on that RIDICULOUS UN resolution? Abstaining?

Hamas, a terrorist organization hellbent on the destruction not only of my sovereign country, but my very existence as a Jew, gets a light reprimand to stop attacking our citizens IF WE OPEN OUR BORDERS TO THEM?

Huh?

Does this make ANY sense? Because I tend to think of myself as able to see most points of view, and find logic from *some* direction... yet on this note, there does not seem to be logic.

I mean, really... we are supposed to say, "Oh, thank you so very much for stopping your rocket fire. As a thank-you gift, we would like to invite you to just come on in freely into our country -- and, hey, as long as you're coming, why don't you bring some suicide bombers and belts with you?"

I don't think so.

Was the abstention supposed to be a gift? By not voting against Israel, they were voting for Israel?

Chickens.

Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, we deserve to take back the land we gave up a few years ago, when there was supposed to be some sort of peace attached to our withdrawl.

But at the very least -- the very, very, very least -- Gaza has a border with Egypt. Egypt -- an Arab, Muslim country that cries all the time about the poor, poor "Palestinians." So let Egypt open their border with Gaza.

Why aren't they? Oh, right -- because they don't want the terrorists any more than the rest of us do.

And why aren't they getting yelled at for having closed borders? (Remember, they're not getting fired upon every day, either.)

Because they aren't the Jewish country.

We have this teensy, tinsy sliver of land that we've been fighting over 100 years for. WE decide our borders.

If only we can get our cowardly, corrupt government to remember that.

There is no such thing as a cease fire with these people

2009-01-09T12:01:00.002+02:00

When you're watching the news, please try to remember that.

I as I wrote before -- during the last cease fire, almost 300 rockets were shot into Israel.

Meanwhile, they stocked up on newer and stronger weaponry -- so now instead of "only" shooting rockets 3-5 miles into Israel -- they go 30-40 miles into Israel.

If there is another "cease fire" before our holy soldiers can go in and destroy the terrorist infrastructure, we'll be doing this AGAIN in six months -- except next time, we'll be lucky if their rockets don't go 50-100 miles into Israel.

Hamas says repeatedly -- they want to destroy Israel.

This is not about the civilians in Gaza.

This is about the right of the citizens of a sovereign, recognized country -- Israel -- to live in peace.

We voted in our government. The civilians in Gaza voted in their government.

We paid and are paying the price for our decisions. They are paying the price for their decisions.

Democracy may be one of the best options available -- but you can't play the democracy game and then refuse to take responsibility for your votes.

Hamas still has Gilad Shalit in captivity -- as far as we know. They refuse -- REFUSE -- to follow the international red cross' rules of allowing visitors -- even IRC visitors -- to visit him, send in packages, find out the status of his wellbeing, etc.

Hamas has NEVER, to my knowledge, followed any international ruling they disagreed with -- UN or otherwise.

We need to fight this fight in the way it needs to be fought -- and if that means standing up against the UN, so be it.

Please, G-d, let my government have the strength and tools to do it.

Shabbat shalom.

It's been a long time...

2009-01-07T21:13:00.002+02:00

... since I could say that I'm really proud of my government. In fact, I'm not sure it's ever happened -- here, or in America.

But today, right now, at 9:15 in the evening on 7 January, 2009/12 Tevet, 5769, I say it -- and I mean it. For a moment, anyway.

So far, Israel is standing up against the outsiders who are trying to create a one-sided cease fire. So far, Israel is fighting the fairest, most moral fight possible under the circumstances. I may not personally agree with the three-hour cease fire used to transport "humanitarian aid" this afternoon, but I respect the belief behind it.

For the record, as far as I'm concerned, I would approve of the humanitarian aid, if I thought it were actually going to the people who need it, and those people weren't terrorists or terrorist supporters. It's fairly clear that Hamas gets first dibs on everything that comes in, and they have no problems taking the medical supplies and food for their fighters. They also get to use the three-hour reprieve to restock their weapons, food and medical supplies, while we spend the three hours watching over the supply caravans.

More than anything at the moment, I respect the fact that when the IDF fired on a UN school, where allegedly 30-40 people were killed, my government did NOT immediately start apologizing and backing away from the war.

Instead, they produced proof that Hamas has fired rockets from such schools in the past. There are witnesses who allege that it happened this time, too -- I don't know what kind of proof the IDF has, but as it's been proven repeatedly that Hamas cares more about destroying Israel than about protecting its own citizens, I have confidence that such proof exists.

Golda Meir once said something that still remains true today. To paraphrase: When peace comes, we may be able to forgive them for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. She also said that peace will come when they love their children more than they hate us.

She was a pretty crappy prime minister, but she was right on with those sentiments.

I read a pretty good op-ed today. He pretty much says everything else I have to say today.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167265397&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

In short, it's the sentiments above, plus the following:

During the "cease fire," Hamas still shot almost 600 rockets into Israel -- it's an average of 7 per DAY.

During the "cease fire," we hoped Hamas might actually spend time and energy trying to build its people up, instead of building its weapons caches to try and fight us.

At the end of the "cease fire," Israel still scrambled for diplomatic options, while Hamas started the rocket barrages.

The idea now of a "proportionate" versus "disproportionate" response is irrelevant. We were not responding proportionately for the last eight years while they were raining rockets down upon is -- we sat back and sucked it up. We left a beautiful piece of Eretz Yisrael in hopes they would stop shooting at us. We barely closed the crossings, even when we knew they were smuggling terrorists and weapons through them.

So if it's a bit loud and dangerous in Gaza right now, I am not going to apologize. Yes, with the very core of my being I feel bad for the mothers who are losing their children, for the children who are losing their parents, for everyone who is living every day terrified for their lives.

But I do not apologize. While letting our own citizens be terrorized and killed for years, my government tried the diplomatic options.

They didn't work.

So now it's time for us to protect the tiny sliver of land we were given.

G-d bless our soldiers and their families, as well as all of our citizens who continue to live under the threat of attack. And G-d bless the civilians in Gaza. Amen.

Tuesday update

2009-01-06T22:10:00.002+02:00

Lots of stuff going on, not so much strength and energy to write about it.

Here in Jerusalem, we're pretty well insulated from the vast majority of the war. We don't hear the CODE RED warnings going off all the time, and we certainly don't hear the explosions of the rockets.

I don't know of any of my personal friends who've been called up at this point. I'm sure there are some, but they're not the close-enough friends that I'm on the top of the list to be informed.

But still, there are signs.

Yesterday, the sky was crossed with vapor trails from the fighter planes traveling to and fro.

Today I could hear the military helicopters for most of the time I was getting ready for work.

Today was also a fast day. It was the 10th of Tevet, the anniversary of the beginning of the siege against the Temple.

We believe the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were evicted from worshipping as G-d told us to, because of free hatred. We also believe that one reason the world hasn't been redeemed yet is that we still carry symptoms of what caused that destruction in the first place.

So the 10th of Tevet is a day to focus on starting over again -- starting again to try and love our fellow Jews and non-Jews. To start again to try and be better Jews. We fast from sunrise to sunset in order to help remind us of what we're aiming for.

And I have to say... having the war in the background added an extra dimension to the day. When we were thirsty or hungry, it took but a mere second to remind ourselves that our soldiers were out there risking their lives, and suddenly our thirst wasn't so important.

Meanwhile, the world is starting to come out of its deer-in-the-headlights surprise at our operation and starting the kvetching about how we're overreacting and responding in an out-of-proportion manner to the Hamas rockets that have been raining down on our land for the last 8 years.

And I say, yet again, that there is not a single sovereign country on the planet, now or in any other time in history, that would have allowed this to go on for eight DAYS, let alone eight YEARS.

War is hard. It stinks. Yes, "civilians" will die. We hate it that civilians die. That's why we drop leaflets, send SMSs, etc., to tell civilians to leave their locations, because we're going in. I mean, sheesh -- we're doing everything we possibly can to avoid "collateral damage."

On the flip side -- they're aiming rockets at Jews -- anywhere they can. At least two schools have been hit -- the only reason people did not die was that we're keeping our children home from school for the duration of the war, in any region close enough to be hit by rockets.

I am not going to apologize for civilian Gazan deaths. If they want the war to stop, they need to start standing up for themselves within their own people.

And I hope they do it soon. Otherwise, I hope our leaders and soldiers keep doing what they need to do, to make sure we don't go through this again.

No fridge, and other war updates

2009-01-04T21:29:00.002+02:00

So my fridge died last week. I ordered a new one with the help of a co-worker. It was supposed to be delivered tomorrow.

But I got a call today that in fact, no, there will be no fridge tomorrow. See, the storage place is at the port -- which is currently closed because of the war.

I was mean to the lady before she told me about the war part... then I just felt bad. Really, except for the fact that I have to keep my soymilk on the windowsill, I manage just fine without a fridge.

It's a freakin' appliance.

People are missing their brothers/sons/grandsons/fathers/cousins/friends/etc., right now. My fridge? SO not a big deal.

On my way to work this morning, I noticed a lot of busses, but I didn't pay so much attention. Then I passed an elementary school and saw around 50 or so soldiers sitting on the playground, and then I noticed the handwritten sign on the fence announcing the name of the unit. These were soldiers being called away from their regular lives to go on war duty.

My daily prayers took a pretty serious turn after that.

Weirdly, it seems that no one from my office has been called up yet. At my last job, by the second day of the ground war I knew at least 25 people who'd been called up. Granted, there is a significant difference in the size of the workplaces -- this one is approximately 60, while my other was 800ish. But this one is more than 50 men (there are only 8 or 9 women in my company), and I think all of them are young enough to be in the reserves. I'da thunk that at least one or two would be called up. I imagine if the war goes on very long, they will be.

And it's a hard call as to whether to want the war to go on or not. The fact is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of tunnels running in and out of Gaza. Some of the tunnels are actually big enough that they run cars through them for smuggling.

These tunnels need to be eliminated. Now. And without just going in and bunker busting everything, and just flattening the entire place, it's going to mean a significant ground war.

(Not that I'm 100% averse to the former, mind you. Even my left-wing, softy side is wondering why we need to sacrifice OUR citizens, because their citizens decided to vote a terrorist regime into power. Alas, as Jews and Israelis, we do not sink to that level of doing what's safest, because we believe that what's safest isn't necessarily what's right.)

We lost our first soldier of this current war today. A 22-year-old from Jerusalem. His burial will take place in about an hour.

Please, G-d, let him be the last one we lose. Protect our soldiers. Give courage and strength to any "moderates" that may actually exist within Gaza, so THEY will do what's right. Amen.

And it's about freakin' time

2009-01-04T01:09:00.002+02:00

You might be thinking that the title of this post refers to the fact that it's been almost two months since I've posted here.

Sorry about that. Time's weird in Jerusalem, and I feel like it hasn't been nearly that long. But I'll be saying more in the coming days, I'm sure, so much so that you might just get sick of reading what I'll write.

Meanwhile, I'm jumping on now for a minute before I finally crash out to go to sleep, just to say that the title of this post refers to how proud I am that my weak-kneed, yellow-bellied government finally grew some intestinal fortitude and decided to do something about the rocket attacks that have been coming from Gaza for the last 3.5 years.

Last week, our military started an air war. Tonight they started the ground war.

Gazans have been warned flat-out -- if you store weapons or hide terrorists, you're a terrorist. Period. End of story. Stop it, or you are in danger. If you're hiding weapons in your mosques, your kindergartens, your hospitals, your homes -- you are to blame for the deaths of whomever is killed when we attack your weapons and terrorists. Period. End of story. If you hide guns in your "holy" places, it is YOU who are defiling those places -- not us. If you hide behind your wives and children while firing rockets, it is YOU who killed the wives and children -- not us.

Stop it, you inhuman cranks. If you want to fight -- fight, but don't be the cowards who let others die for them -- if you're willing to die for your cause, so be it -- don't make that decision for the little children.

Now I pray that our leaders have the tools they need, and give our soldiers everything they need, for this to be a successful mission. Our soldiers should be safe.

For any of you who are wondering -- the rocket attacks now have hit two places I travel through on a regular basis; Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Malachi. Both places are approximately 30+ miles from Gaza. That means areas like Tel Aviv are FAR within the boundaries of their missiles now.

If we don't get them now, they'll just continue to smuggle in more and more dangerous weaponry.

We have to do this now.

11-11

2008-11-11T08:12:00.003+02:00

I like days like this. The U.S. still writes dates in the month-day-year format, while the rest of the world (at least the parts using Arabic numbering) uses the day-month-year format. Which really, if you think about it, makes WAY more sense.

But on days like today, it doesn't matter, 'cause it's 11-11-09 or 11-11-09. Yay :)

There are municipal elections in Israel today. Our polls are open from 7am-10pm, but we do not have the day off work like we will for the national elections in February. However, for people who have to commute or generally work very long hours, their employers must give them enough time to vote today. It's pretty darned cool that the LAW states that. Unless something drastic has changed without me knowing, I'm pretty sure that there aren't many places in the US, if any, where the law requires that people have the opportunity to cast their ballots.

Our elections are weird. For municipal elections, we cast two separate ballots. One is for mayor, and one is for the party we'd like to see representing the city council.

We vote in a very old-fashioned way, too... they record that we've come. They give us envelopes -- one yellow, one white. We walk behind a cardboard divider and pick one piece of paper with a candidate for mayor's name -- also yellow -- and put it in the yellow envelope. We pick a white piece of paper with the symbol for the political party we'd like to see on the city council, and put it in the white envelope. We don't seal the envelopes. We walk out and put the envelopes into a box -- and poof! We're done. Very hi-tech.

On one hand, it seems like a municipal election is no big deal. On the other hand, we're talking about voting for the human component of what will have control over the holiest place in the known universe. We're talking about G-d's city, in which He Himself allowed a recognizable presence of Himself.

It's true that really, G-d runs the show now, too, so maybe it doesn't even matter who we vote for. On the other hand, He's made it pretty clear that we ARE supposed to be involved in our lives... in making the world a better place... so as weird as it seems that a mayoral/city council election could be one of the most important elections I've ever taken part in, I really do feel that way.

In other news, I've begun my 38th year on this planet. I turned 37 on 20 October and 1 Cheshvan, which were 10 days apart this year. For my first birthday, it happened to be on the eve of Simchat Torah, so I had friends over for ice cream sundaes after shul. For my second birthday, I went to a Torah lesson by my favorite teacher in the evening, then went to Rosh Chodesh tefillot at the Kotel and brunch with friends in the morning/early afternoon before going to work. I also hosted Shabbat dinner that week for a few friends.

I've been at my job about 2.5 months now, and I love it. Everyone I work with is terrific -- smart, funny, kind, patient, etc. The hours work well for me and are flexible enough that I don't have to be at work at the crack of dawn - or what passes for the crack of dawn in my world, which is 9am. ;) We get good benefits, like subsidized lunches, a fun day from work, snackies in the afternoons, all the coffee fixin's we could want, and a foosball table in the break room. (Korrie, the snackies aren't nearly as good as the ones in your office, but I'm glad, 'cause I would gain like 200 pounds if I worked in your office. ;)) I do not have to make phone calls.

Best of all, though, is that the job is intellectually challenging. I've been blessed with good brains, but I've rarely had the opportunity to put them to use -- and certainly not for so many hours, so many days in a row.

I'm still learning Torah whenever I can... there's webyeshiva.org, where they have interactive classes online. Plus my yeshiva, Simchat Shlomo, usually broadcasts the classes on the Internet and has them available in archives. Plus I go to one or two live classes/week.

I went running last night for the first time in a loooong time. The weather has finally cooled off, and I've acclimated enough at work that I am still human when I get home. It was an awesome run, though I remembered today that it's going to take a while of running outside before my body acclimates to the allergens. My eyes were dry and sore all day today.

All in all, life is amazing. I've hit some hard spots and, thank G-d, gotten over them. I have a great job and wonderful friends and teachers. I see and feel G-d's love on a daily basis, partly because I live in the place where it's easiest to see and feel.

I'm still working on improving myself, and I'm still looking for a husband... but meanwhile, I'm still more at peace now than I think I have ever been.

In fact, I'm so at peace that when someone on facebook posted a group picture from high school, it didn't even phase me. I've been getting back in touch with some people from elementary, middle and high school, and while I remember being miserable most of the time I was there, and I remember clearly how I felt, I've been blessed with forgetting most of the actual occurrences that were so hurtful. So now, it's like I get to meet people and automatically think of them as good people, without remembering what they were like 30 or 20 years ago. And in this case, the forgetting is beautiful, because we're all so different now than we were then, that it doesn't really matter what we were like then.

(Yes, there are one or two people I remember clearly in a negative way, and a few people I remember clearly in a positive way, but for the most part, I'm fairly neutral about most of them.)

I am the same person I have always been, yet I'm able to look at the world in a totally different way. That allows me to respond much differently, of course. I don't get stressed about much anymore, 'cause there's really no point. Most of what I might get stressed over I can't do anything about anyway, and then stressing at that point is a complete waste of time. If it's something I *can* do something about, well, then I have to decide -- do something about it, or stop stressing.

As my mom has in the signature of her email -- Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.

So yeah, look at things in a good way, and poof! they're good. Try it, it works.

Now I'm going back to my regularly scheduled life... which basically means playing on facebook a bit more, reading some Tanach, reading some Stephen King, and going to bed.

I wish you all a beautiful day... a beautiful night... a beautiful week... etc. You should all be blessed with health and happiness, and visiting Israel soon (anyone wanna bring me running shoes? ;))

G'night :)

Not that I have time to be writing...

2008-09-19T07:31:00.003+03:00

But I know it's been a few weeks, so I figured I'd pop on with an update.

My first few days at work were great... my trip to the U.S. was as great as any trip wherein I'd have to leave the Holy Land could be... I got to spend time with my family... my sib's wedding was awesome... I got to see my cousin in Connecticut (hi Cuz!)... I got to do a bit of shopping... and now I'm almost back in the swing of things.

I'm a huge fan of melatonin. I know it's not for everyone... it gives me some pretty crazy dreams, for example, but I didn't suffer from jetlag like I usually do when flying between the US and Israel.

I did let myself get a bit dehydrated my last couple of days in Boston, so I had to fight off an airplane bug a few days after I got back. But I'm blessed with a good immune system from those strong peasant genes o'mine, and I won my fight.

I do not get sick. There are people who say "don't say that! You'll jinx yourself!" and to them I reply, "I think positively. I believe in the power of my thoughts and words. I don't think that beyond my positive thinking and my pre-emptive germ fighting techniques of drinking water, eating protein, and getting enough sleep, that I have any influence on whether or not I get sick... but I'm gonna work those for all they're worth, and I'm gonna stay healthy. Period." :)

So I had a scratchy throat, sorta, and a sinus thing, for less than 24 hours last weekend. And then I was all better.

I completed my first full week of work at my new job. I love it. I love the people. I love the situation - hours, money, benefits, experience, etc. I am SO blessed to have had this job basically handed to me, and I'm trying to do all I can to make sure that my higher-ups will believe they made the right decision in hiring me.

So all-in-all, it's been a pretty awesome couple of weeks.

The one downer is what's going on in the political arena here. It appears we're going to have a new prime minister within a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, she will not have been democratically elected, or theocratically elected, and therefore, she should not be given the opportunity to run this country.

'Cause it's really all about one or the other. I'm not such a huge fan of either democracy or theocracy, but they seem to be the best ways of running modern-day countries.

In this case, however, when our extraordinarily corrupt, cowtowing, hypocritical prime minister finally gave in to public pressure and announced his future resignation, he did not say, "Okay, I know you're all angry at me, and most of you aren't happy with me running the country, so let's go to elections..."

Instead, his corrupt political party held a primary, and the corrupt winner of the primary now has two weeks to create a coalition in the government.

So now it's six in one, half dozen in the other... if she creates a coalition, we've got a ridiculous, non-democratically elected, corrupt prime minister. If she's unable to create a coalition, we get to keep our current ridiculous, corrupt prime minister a while longer.

Nice choices.

Not that I know what party I'd vote for if we went to general elections... but it certainly wouldn't be the party in which most of the top players have been investigated for fraud, etc., *and* who want to give away all semblence of a Jewish state in this land, with full Jewish sovereignty.

So I'm going back to my original plan... I'm just gonna keep begging Hashem to send us the redemption we need, even if we don't deserve it. And eventually, things'll work out.

As difficult as it is, I'm sticking to my original plan of not voting in the US elections, so I'm pretty much gonna keep my fingers shut about the sitch in that arena... except to say that on both sides there's some pretty serious mudslinging and allegation-throwing going on, and without actual research into the stories, it's pretty easy to sit back comfortably and believe you're voting for the "right" candidate because the other candidate is the most ridiculous choice on the planet.

So I just offer the opinion that neither candidate is perfect, and neither candidate is as bad as their opponents make them out to be... and a responsible voter will try to find the good points in both candidates as well as the bad points, before making a decision.

Heh... good luck with that. ;)

Year Number Five

2008-08-29T16:40:00.002+03:00

I had so much planned to write, and then things went nutso around here, so once again I find myself playing catchup.

On 11 August, I had my fourth anniversary of aliyah to Israel. I've mentioned before, the word "aliyah," is the noun form of "going up." As Jews, we consider it a "going up" to move to the Holy Land.

In 2005, I made an additional aliyah by moving to Jerusalem - the Holy City. A couple of months later, in January 2006, I got my first real job in Israel -- a job hiring people to do sales, fundraising, transcription, customer service, etc. for a big call center.

In June 2006 I moved into my current apartment in the hippest, most central location in Jerusalem.

But I was so tired from work and life that I didn't take advantage of living here in the least. I went through phases when I went to shul (synagogue), and for a while I would have a friend come over sometimes for Shabbat meals or I'd go to her.

When my friend moved out of Israel in December 2006, that was pretty much the end of my Shabbat social life. I spent most Shabbats alone -- which was sometimes lonely and sometimes exactly what I felt I needed.

In the fall of 2007, I decided to take a technical writing course. It's one of the few fields in Israel that seems to always be hiring, and it's excellent money. I knew that the chances were small that I'd find a job in Jerusalem, but I figured since I wasn't taking advantage of living in Jerusalem anyway, it was no big deal if I had to commute... or maybe I'd even move to the center, if the money was good enough.

But in February, 2008, my whole life changed.

It started in a tiny way -- I met a really nice girl at a wedding I hadn't really wanted to go to.

She encouraged me to go to the yeshiva another friend had been telling me about for 2.5 years. I had another friend decide to go with me to a special Shabbat dinner in the Old City. After the amazing Shabbat dinner, I decided my friend from the wedding was right -- I needed to go to the yeshiva.

I saw online that they had a class on the weekly Torah portion that started late enough in the evening that I could go. I went, and I really liked the class... the rav (rabbi) was awesome, and I felt like I left there a better person than I'd been when I walked in.

I'll skip most of the details, but suffice it to say that I loved learning so much that I started asking Hashem (G-d) for an opportunity to spend more time learning.

So He answered me by granting me an opportunity to be downsized from my job in April, 2008, with enough money to allow me to learn full time for at least two months, if not more.

The rav of the yeshiva allowed me to take classes without paying, and he tried to also find opportunities for me to make money. I met people in the community and made real friends.

For almost four months, I knew that I needed to find a job, but I no longer wanted to leave Jerusalem to work. I felt like I became who I am supposed to be, and it happened here in Jerusalem... I could barely leave Jerusalem for a few hours once in a while, so the thought of leaving every day to go to work was painful... and it was even more distressing to think about not having the opportunity to go to evening classes because of commuting.

So I decided I wouldn't work outside Jerusalem, even if it meant taking a cruddy job.

But I prayed and prayed to Hashem to give me a job that I could grow in... a job that would allow me to give tzedakah (literally "justice," but we use it as the word for charity)... a job that would allow me to invite guests into my home for Shabbat meals, etc.

Of course, I still wasn't ready to actually start actively looking for a job.

From the very beginning of the writing course, I always had confidence that when I decided to look for a job, I would find one. But again, I thought that might be outside of Jerusalem.

So I still had complete faith that when I started to look for a job, I would get one, but I knew that finding a job in technical writing in Jerusalem was going to be close to impossible -- there are so many tech writers with experience in Jerusalem that they usually have the pick of any openings... so there'd be no reason to hire someone with no experience for not a whole lot less money.

A few weeks ago, I became aware that I had seriously messed up on my financial situation. If I'd have done what I needed to do from the very beginning, I could have gone at least six or eight months without working if necessary. But I found myself at the end of three months with no money and a bounced rent check. Most of it was my "fault," but part of it was due to the mess-ups at my old job and at the insurance agent responsible for my severance fund.

Oops.

So I started looking for a job -- almost any job -- to get me through. I was afraid I wouldn't find something that would allow me to go to my sibling's wedding, so I assumed I simply wouldn't be able to find a job until after I returned from the States.

But once again, Hashem is awesome, and things changed.

After not hearing from my tech writing teachers the last few times I emailed them, I decided to try again. I sent my resume and a letter saying that I am seriously looking for work.

A few days later, one of my teachers called and said she needed my resume right away, right now, yesterday. I told her I'd just sent it, but she said she didn't have access to the folders where it was stored, so I sent it to her a couple of minutes later.

She called back sounding disappointed that I didn't have more experience in a particular kind of software, but she said she'd send my resume anyway to a company looking for someone. She didn't know if I'd get called, but if I did, I was to call my teacher back so she could give me tips for going to the interview.

I didn't think much more about it... but the next day or the day after, I got called to come in for an interview. As "commanded," I called my teacher to let her know I was going for an interview. She gave me a bunch of tips. I told her also that I was going on this trip to America, (I had told them in the original email I'd sent, but I don't think she saw the original email) and asked what I should tell the interviewer.

She told me the interviewer had been looking for the right person for over a month and was getting pretty desperate. She'd wanted someone with experience, but they couldn't pay enough to get someone she liked with the experience she wanted... so she told me to go ahead and tell the interviewer. She also told me that the interviewer (the senior tech writer, who also happened to be the only tech writer, in the company) had a journalism background, and she thought that would give us something in common... and that when the tech writer had asked for recommendations, my two teachers consulted with each other to decide whom to send -- and I was one of the ones they sent, because they thought my personality would work well with the writer and in the particular company.

You see where this is going, right?

So I went for the interview, and prayed that I would leave there believing I'd done the best I was capable of doing. And that's what happened. I interviewed well, while being completely myself. I tested well, feeling confident that I'd done at least "okay" on the test. I was honest with the interviewer about my trip. I told her that I'd be willing to start immediately, but that I needed to leave for the wedding. She asked me tons of stuff about my journalism background, which wasn't so deep, considering it consisted of my college degree and one internship.

The only thing I thought I messed up on was that I hadn't brought any of my journalism clips with me. She'd asked me in advance to bring samples of my writing, but I had only taken my tech writing portfolio and none of my newspaper stories.

During the interview, she mentioned that before they'd make a final decision, the person would need to meet with her boss, who was in military reserve duty. I forgot to ask when he'd be back, or when they'd be considering making a decision.

She asked me to email her some of my journalism samples, and I told her I would.

That was last Thursday, the 21st.

On Monday, the 25th, I got called to see if I could come in for an interview with the writer's boss on Tuesday.

Tuesday, I left my house a bit later than I'd wanted, and then I waited for a bus for a while... when it looked like it was either walk and get there super sweaty and probably on time, or take a taxi and spend money I didn't really have, but be clean, I opted for the taxi.

I had a great taxi driver. He spoke Hebrew to me, of course, and we had a nice conversation. He kept telling me how nice I am (no comments from the peanut gallery, please ;)), and wished me luck on my interview. When I got out of the taxi, I somehow knew I was supposed to have taken that ride, because I needed the quick Hebrew practice and the feeling that someone liked me as a confidence booster.

When I got to the interview, I had to wait 45 minutes past the time of my interview, because the boss was busy. But it didn't even phase me... the writer and the HR person kept apologizing, but I just chilled out in the lobby. After all, I've been in their place -- having set someone up for an interview, but the interviewer gets busy and runs late -- so I wasn't worried.

Eventually, I went in for the interview, which was conducted entirely in Hebrew.

Toward the end of the interview, the boss asked me what my salary expectation was. I was expecting the question, and I'd been told by my teachers what to say. When I gave the number that was 1.5x what I was making at my old job, the guy didn't flinch. He just asked the writer (who'd been co-interviewing) to step out with him for a moment and told me they'd be back.

A couple of minutes later, he came in and said something about me coming back the next day at 10 to discuss the compensation.

I wasn't sure i'd heard/understood correctly, so as the writer was walking me out, I confirmed with her that's what I'd understood. She said it was, and then she asked me if I'd be able to stay and start training, assuming the compensation meeting went well. I reminded her of my sibling's wedding, but she remembered and said that she really wanted someone who could help her get something finished in the next couple of days, and yes, she knew I would have to go away for the wedding.

So all afternoon Tuesday I wasn't 100% sure I had a job, but I was about 90% sure. They'd have had to offer me like, half of my old salary for me not to take the position. Otherwise, I could manage and if the salary sucked, I could always get some experience and then look for a job elsewhere.

Wednesday morning I arrived and "discussed" the compensation with the financial guy. It wasn't much discussing... he told me what they could offer me, and it was all I could to to sit in my seat and pretend to be nonchalant.

The offer was 1.25x what I was making at my old job, plus a performance review with a possible raise after three months, plus full retirement/educational insurance after six months, plus subsidized lunches, plus a flexible schedule. Oh yeah, and every person I had any contact with seemed really nice. And it's still within walking distance of my house.

Um, duh.

Of *course* I took the job. Heck yeah.

(Yes, it occurs to me that maybe there was room for negotiation -- but my rule when it comes to bargaining is that if I think something's worth it I'm going to take it at the price offered. And this seemed almost too good to be true, so I wasn't even about to mess it up.)

Now that I look at it, I feel like Hashem wanted me to have this job -- this specific job -- and that's why my financial stuff got all messed up. If it hadn't gotten messed up, I might not have started applying for jobs when I did. I wouldn't have prayed so much to find the right job.

Note: There was a HUGE damper on my excitement about my first days at work, when I found out a friend of mine... someone who I didn't know particularly well but who had a HUGE HUGE HUGE impact on my life and who I am... left this world on Wednesday. She was just a few years older than I am, with a 2.5-year-old son, and the cancer got her. She was one of the most beautiful people on the planet, and she took a little piece of my soul with her when she left... mine and hundreds, if not thousands, of others. My new boss thankfully let me leave early so I could go to the funeral. Tzivia bat Bayla should rise to the highest heights in the World to Come.

So there it is...

I am now a couple of weeks into my fifth year of living in Israel. I have gone through enormous changes physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally... and I have never been in a place -- physical, mental, spiritual or emotional -- that was better for me.

I have a job... a community of friends... a rav (who actually calls me just to check in, if he's worried about me for any reason. *That* took some getting used to ;))... a great landlord... a supportive "adopted" family in Israel... a supportive family in America...

I am so incredibly blessed.

Terrorist Boot Camp in Destroyed Synagogue

2008-08-07T09:31:00.002+03:00

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/specials3.asp

It's been three years since the disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria.

In those three years, it's estimated that Hamas has amassed thousands of rockets and millions of bullets with which to murder Jews.

I admit, when the disengagement first started looking like a reality, I was all for it. Really.

Naively, I believed that if we pulled out, we would be able to say to the rest of the world:

"See? We really do want peace! We're willing to forcefully pull our pioneers away from their homes, because we want peace so much. We're willing to give up land that was given to us in the Torah, because we want peace so much."

And I thought that the rest of the world would take a chill and the next time the terrorists shot rockets at us from Gaza, the world would be understanding when we sent our army back in there to kick some terrorist butt.

Now, I fully admit my mistake. I was wrong. And I feel sorta like one of the German Jews who naively thought that "this can't happen."

Since 2005, there have been thousands of rockets falling on sovereign Israeli land -- land that is, in fact, recognized by the world to be part of Israel. Thousands.

Children have panic attacks. Kids can't go to school or camp without worrying that there might be a rocket attack.

Ever been in a room when a balloon popped unexpectedly? Did you jump for a second? Of course you did. Now, magnify the volume of the sound of that balloon popping by oh, about a thousand. Combine it with sirens that go off screaming "Code Red! Code Red!" and the idea that you might be killed in the next 15 seconds. Now run as fast as you can, and see how far you can get in that 15 seconds. Imagine trying to live your life in such a way that you are never more than 15 seconds away from a bomb shelter.

Now imagine living like that for three years, knowing that the Israeli government is doing absolutely nothing to protect you.

Meanwhile, the smuggling of Hamas weapons has intensified, because there's no Israeli presence to help stop the tunneling -- and Egypt has a financial interest in selling weapons to Gazans.

And I haven't even begun to talk about the people who are now refugees in Israel, after having gone to Gaza at the direct behest of the previous Israeli governments and asked to be pioneers. The State has not given them what they were entitled to. There are some still living in tents, because they're waiting for the permits to build their homes. Others still can't find jobs. They're being taken care of by other caring Jews, which unfortunately doesn't include our own government.

Now, as seen in the video above -- I'd recommend watching the first 20 seconds or so, then skipping to about halfway through, because in between is a female terrorist reading aloud from a paper in Arabic, unless you understand Arabic and want to hear what she has to say.

It's like Billy Blanks' Boot Camp for Hamas Terrorists. Really, it has good music, though I assume the words are probably not so nice... and there were a few moments during the video when I had to restrain myself from doing the exercises they were doing.

They are readying themselves to fight.

And it's being held in a former synagogue.

The homes evacuated now lay empty.

Gaza is reportedly unbelievably overcrowded, yet when they were given hundreds of homes, they chose to destroy them as having belonged to Jews, instead of moving into them.

What about the world accepting our sacrifices in the name of peace? Yeah, right.

The minute the rockets started flying again after the disengagement, cries of "restrain yourselves!" came from the rest of the world.

The media reports that there are no injuries, as if the trauma of having rockets shot at you 24 hours a day has no affect.

People complain that Gazans are dying, because Israel won't let them in for medical treatment. I remind you: We have absolutely no obligation to treat them in the first place. We do, for the most part, because we are compassionate people... however, after having several attempted terrorist attacks by people who "needed medical attention," we tend to be more careful about who we allow through the crossings.

People complain when we even threaten to reduce the amount of oil and electricity allowed in, because it creates humanitarian crises. So why is Hamas using so much oil and electricity to create weapons and terrorist boot camp, instead of alleviating the suffering of the people?

Three years... and not a single thing, not one thing, has gotten better.

I am so sorry that I ever, ever supported the disengagement.

I Just Can't Help But Laugh...

2008-08-03T00:32:00.002+03:00

The headline is "Israel's Political Situation Dims Hopes for Peace Deal"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/middleeast/01diplo.html?ref=middleeast

Um, no.

Well, I mean, I guess, theoretically -- but whose hopes? 'Cause over here, in the actual Middle East, I don't know of a single person who had any realistic hope that we'd somehow have peace by the end of the year -- other than us religious Jews, who think there's hope for Divine Intervention at any moment.

Olmert? Bring peace? I don't think so. We're still pretty ticked off at him for sending our soldiers into a badly-planned war two years ago, without food and water, and then having them turn tail and run -- leaving Hezbullah in a situation where they can re-stock all their weapons.

And we're ticked off at him for not taking care of the Gush Katif refugees, or any of the other Jews who were yanked unceremoniously out of their homes three years ago, leaving them to fend for themselves in tent cities.

And we're ticked off at him for giving away dangerous, live terrorists in exchange for dead bodies.

And we're ticked off at him for being corrupt.

And we're ticked off at him for saying the houses of the terrorists would be destroyed, only to back off and not actually do anything.

So basically, there wasn't a snowball's chance in a very hot place that he could possibly make some sort of binding agreement regarding "final status issues" in any sort of peace deal.

When President Clinton scrambled during the last weeks of his presidency in 2000/01 to try and come up with some sort of peace deal -- there was at least the snowball's chance... but as we were sinking quickly into the "Second Intifada," it didn't happen.

Since then, I cannot think of one single concession that the "Palestinians" have agreed to -- not one. Not a single freakin' one. And they elected Hamas to govern them.

So the only person who will be bringing peace to this region any time in the near future will be the messenger G-d sends to bring in the Redemption. And for sure, that's more realistic than Dubya, Olmert and Abbas actually bringing peace.

Not Awake, Might As Well Post

2008-08-01T08:26:00.002+03:00

Well, that's a silly title, right? Yet true... I'm sitting and drinking my coffee, and trying to get my brain function raised to the minimum level it needs before I can figure out what I need to do today, and in what order.

I've never been a person who easily functions well in the mornings. Thankfully, I'm blessed with a mother who understands that, and a father who's also a night person. I really feel bad for night people who don't have either one of those.

Here I am, 36.8ish years old, and I've learned to function, though not easily and not well, before 9:30 or so in the morning. But I cannot tell you how many times I have had to defend my nightpersonness in the course of my life.

Non-night people seem to think it's just a situation of mind over matter. You should want to get up early and do things, and then 'cause you want to, you'll be able to do it.

Who said I didn't want to? Not me... 'Cause pretty much all of society on this planet has been designed for non-night people, so my life sure would be easier if I could simply decide one day that I wasn't going to be a night person anymore.

At my last job, most of my co-workers were particularly sympathetic, and they learned that it wasn't a good idea to speak with me before 10am, unless it was a matter of particular urgency. And it's not that I couldn't answer whatever they wanted to ask -- it's just that I didn't think whatever they had to ask was important for me to answer at 9:15am.

I had one particularly naive and daring co-worker and officemate who decided it was his responsibility to teach me that Torah says I should be waking up in the morning like a lion, ready to greet the day. He forgot that a lion can bite human heads off... though he grasped the concept fairly quickly.

Most people have a time of day at which they function best, and a time of day at which they don't function well. If their body rhythms don't match up with society's, then unfortunately, they probably never function at their peak capability.

How sad is it that there's this whole group of people for whom their true potential may never be revealed, just 'cause they're forced to be up and active when they function the most poorly, and have to sleep at times their bodies don't particularly want to? Bummer.

And how useless was this post? :)

But I'm now awake enough to at least get some outside clothes on and go buy eggs, so I can come home and finish waking up while I make challah. And I fulfilled the mitzvah of honoring my mother, since she's the one who suggested I post.

I'll probably update again fairly soon, actually... it's a pretty heavy time right now, politically, religiously, astrologically, and personally (not necessarily heavy in a "bad" way), so I have lots to say.

I just need to wake up first.

The Sorrows....

2008-07-16T17:21:00.003+03:00

I hadn't realized how much hope I had still been holding onto, that one of our soldiers might still be alive.

I hadn't realized how mournful I would feel when I found out they were both gone from this world.

I hadn't realized how angry I would feel when it became clear that one of the soldiers had been dead since the attack itself, and that Hizbullah made it TWO YEARS without ever, ever giving a clue as to the life or death of the soldiers.

For two years, these families, and this entire country, have hoped and prayed for Eldad and Ehud's safe return. We understood the possibility of their deaths, but we hoped and prayed anyway.

I don't understand how the world allows monsters to play by their own rules, catering to their whims, and yet won't "let" us play by the rules G-d gave the world.

The world doesn't make sense.

The soldiers are in a better place. I truly believe they were martyrs for the Jewish people, and they are serving G-d now from a more comfortable existence.

I am relieved for their families, because now they have a final answer... Karnit Goldwasser, Ehud's wife, will have the ability to re-marry if she chooses.

But I am sad... very sad. My heart hurts for their families and for the people of Israel.

And I am proud. Because as angry and sad as I am, I am proud that once again, we have maintained human dignity and not allowed ourselves to sink to the level of the monsters.

Please, G-d, bring us to a place of happy occasions once again.

Sharing the Sorrows with the Joys

2008-07-16T09:49:00.002+03:00

A few weeks ago, it hit me how utterly awesome it is that our entire nation shares simchas with each other.

"Simcha" is Hebrew for gladness/happiness, and it's also used to describe happy and joyous events like weddings, baby namings, brits, etc. "Simchas," or "Smachot" ("smay-chot"), would be the plural.

I remember years ago constantly being weirded out when I would say to someone that I was going to a wedding, and I would be told, "Mazal tov!" It wasn't *my* wedding, or my baby... so why were they saying "mazal tov" to me?

Because we, as the Jewish nation, share responsibility for each other. And it's also a commandment to make other people happy at their happy occasions... so the mere fact of being able to attend a wedding is an opportunity to fulfill a commandment. That means it's like a double "mazal tov" for the guest, in a way.

And we do it with genuine joy. Even those events we attend because we feel obligated cause us to feel happiness for the people involved.

It's truly a beautiful thing, then, to understand that wherever we go in this tiny nation, we share our happy occasions, our simchas, with each other.

But there's a flip side to that, as well.

Because it also means that when one person is in pain, we share that. It hurts us when we see other Jews in pain.

Today is the "prisoner" exchange.

As I was watching a cheesy British Biased Corporation (BBC) video of the Hizbullah prisoners being released, I was crying. I was crying for the families of those murdered by the prisoners. I was crying for the families of the kidnapped soldiers. I was also crying for my entire nation, because I am in pain with the belief that this was a no-win situation... but there was a no-win option and a losing option, and I believe we lost.

To use the terms "win" and "lose" seems ridiculous. We're talking about human beings (well, on our side. I have a hard time thinking of someone who dragged a father and his 4-year-old daughter out of their home in the middle of the night, proceeded to shoot the father in front of the girl, and brutally smash the girl's head as a human being), and winning and losing sounds stupid.

This isn't the olympics.

But this is the Middle East. It's a different mentality. The mentality here is hundreds and hundreds of years old. The mentality is that it's important to show your strength in order to deter the other side.

And lucky Israel, we get to be on the losing side of that.

We gave up five LIVE terrorists, along with 199 dead ones, for what appears to be the bodies of two of our kidnapped soldiers and the assorted body parts of 12 more.

Lebanon has declared a national holiday. There will be parades and celebrations for their victory.

We're preparing two funerals.

Kuntar, the vile terrorist, may G-d punish him with all he deserves, will be receiving a State welcome. It's said that Nasrallah might even leave his bunker to welcome him.

I would like to say that at least the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will finally have the knowledge of what happened to their sons/brothers/husbands/friends. But it's hard to find comfort in that, when it seems that this exchange will only make things worse.

If we're releasing five LIVE terrorists and 200 dead ones for two dead soldiers, what will we have to give up for Gilad Shalit, who we believe to be alive? (May he come home safely soon!)

So it's a hard day for Jewish Israel.

May we only have simchas in the future.

With Whom Could There Possibly Be Peace?

2008-07-02T14:07:00.002+03:00

Mom asked me the other day what the general reaction is to the upcoming exchange. I never did clarify with her, but I'm pretty sure she meant the deal in which we, Israel, will bend down and kiss Hezbullah's, Hamas', Syria's and Iran's feet. This would otherwise be known as the prisoner exchange.

Let's review:

Late June, 2006 -- Hamas (at least partially funded by Syria and Iran) attacked in the south and kidnapped Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier.

Early July, 2006 -- Hezbullah (at least partially funded by Syria and Iran) attacked in the north and kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, IDF soldiers.

Late July, 2006 -- Refusing to concede to the demands of terrorists by exchanging captured and imprisoned terrorists, we went to war in Lebanon. More than 100 IDF soldiers and something like 40 Israeli civilians were killed during this war. (Figures for casualties on the other side are given as approximately 1000, which could be true... but since their media was busted twice during that war for forged pictures and videos, one never knows. But yes, there were probably hundreds of casualties, mostly civilians.)

Again, let's recap in a different way:

They kidnapped our soldiers. They demanded we release terrorists from our prisoners. We refused. We went to war. More people died. We put our tail between our legs and ran home crying. We did not get our soldiers back.

Now, two years later...

We are going to release terrorists from our prisons, in order to get our soldiers back.

We do not even know if Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are alive.

Makes sense, right?

It's all over the Palestinian media that they're victorious... that they've proven that Israel will surrender to the physical force.

And they're right. 100% right.

2000 - Barak turned tail and ran out of Lebanon without finding a way for us to not look like wusses. The rockets started raining down in the North immediately afterward.

2005 - Sharon's government brutally yanked families out of their homes in Azza, saying that afterward, if the terrorists did anything from Azza, we would use force to stop them. Since then, thousands of rockets have rained down on Israel. Thousands. And we have done nothing.

2006 - They kidnapped our soldiers. We did nothing useful.

2008 - We agreed to a ceasefire in the south. Practically, that means that they're still shooting rockets at our civilians, and we're not responding -- because we're abiding by the terms of the ceasefire, even though they are not.

So is it any surprise that today a Palestinian from eastern Jerusalem went on a rampage with a bulldozer, killing some, injuring tens more, and terrorizing hundreds?

Not to me.

'Cause it only makes sense. They fight... we cower.

I don't usually get all religious here... but when I look at this from a Torah perspective, it just seems clear that our leaders have forsaken Torah in exchange for personal recognition.

G-d gave us this land. He/She/It told us what to do with it... how to conquer it... what would happen to us if we don't maintain our presence here... etc.

And if we would just listen to G-d, and do what we have to do, when we have to do it, He would not only protect us -- He would help us fix the world.

Jerusalem is, according to our tradition, the center of the world. It was here that G-d created Adam and Chava. It was here that Avraham bound Yitzchak on the alter. It was here that G-d's presence dwelt in a tangible form.

And anyone who doubts that Jerusalem is the center of the world need only open a newspaper in just about any major city in the world... because we're there, on a daily basis. Our tiny little scrap of land, with our still tinier city, gets worldwide press almost every single day.

If only we would care about ourselves as much as the rest of the world cares about what happens here...

Meanwhile, however, the other side has no incentive toward peace.

G-d bless the victims of today's attack, and the victims of all the previous attacks.

Arggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

2008-06-13T10:04:00.003+03:00

Probably one of the worst feelings in the word is embarassment. In Judaism, to embarrass someone is considered as if killing the person. It's a big deal to try not to embarrass someone.

In general, embarrassment is the feeling of not being good enough or smart enough in front of other people, I think.

Like, when we have to get up in front of a crowd and we're terrified about falling on the steps on the way up, it's because we feel like we'll look stupid if we do that.

Then there's a phrase, "the bigger they are, the harder the fall."

So here we are... the Jews... the ones who are supposed to be a Light Unto The Nations... that's pretty big. That means we can, and do, fall pretty darned hard.

We have allowed ourselves to be duped by the world into thinking we need to depend on other nations. We think that our survival depends on America's giving us weapons, or the EU's buying our produce and accepting our scholars.

Leaving Gaza and the homesteads in the northern Samaria region in 2005 was stupid, stupid, stupid.

We let the world persuade us that it would be for the best. We let our leaders tell us they would take good care of all the people they were forcing out of their homes. We let our yearning for peace convince us that once we left Gaza, if the terrorists kept attacking us, we would go in and kick butt, once and for all.

But now we know that isn't the reality. Now we know there are still pioneers living in the equivalent of shanty towns, three years later still waiting for what their leaders and our government promised them for resettlement.

Now we know that the terrorists shoot rockets at our cities on a daily basis -- Yesterday more than 50... more than 20 in a 30-minute time period!!

And now, now, we are letting the world talk us into trying to make a cease fire with Hamas, with Egypt as one of the brokers, instead of taking care of our own people.

Don't get me wrong -- I have friends in the army... if there is a "large-scale action" in Gaza, people will die on both sides, and selfishly, I don't want to hurt or have my friends hurt when, G-d forbid, our soldiers get wounded or killed.

But how much more of this are we supposed to take? When is crying "wolf" not tolerated anymore?

I mean, seriously -- Hamas has NEVER stopped calling for our destruction! Egypt has done NOTHING to stop the flow of arms into Gaza. What are we doing? A "cease fire" means NOTHING.

I am embarrassed that I was originally one of the pro-disengagement people. I hate feeling stupid.

Our entire country should be embarrassed that we keep letting outsiders make our decisions for us. It is stupid.

And I'm not just babbling -- we can do a quick run-through of the history of the State of Israel and see how clear this is.

1947 - The UN votes for Israel to have a state. The Arab Palestinians deny the authority and attack us harder than ever, immediately.

1948 - After being completely abandoned, and in fact being put in worse situations, by the British, we declare our independence. Most countries refuse to give us weapons with which to fight, and we win through G-d's miracles and the ingenuity He gave us (I mean, seriously -- we used loud noisemakers in lieu of weapons, and it worked -- that's miraculous.)

1967 - We try getting the world to understand that Egypt is going to attack us, yet the world refuses to get involved. We defend ourselves based on a Talmud principle (One who comes to kill you, kill him first.), and miraculously, we win in six days.

Then it starts going downhill...

1973 - The Arabs attack on Yom Kippur, and immediately we let the world start convincing us of what we should or shouldn't do. The war lasts for months, during which approximately 1% of our population is killed.

1982 - We invade Lebanon to try and stop the attacks from there, and then we let the world tell us how to run our war. The war lasts for 18 years, and when we finally decide it's over, we turn tail and run.

2000-2003 - The suicide attacks ramp up, and Israelis live in terror. We let the world influence how we react, always "showing restraint" and trying to explain ourselves when we actually do anything that might help us defend ourselves.

2005 - Present - We let the world convince us we should disengage. Now we see how that has failed miserably.

When we had leaders who did what needed to be done, we succeeded. When we let the rest of the world decide for us, we did not.

Most non-enemy countries' populations believe the world is a better place with Israel in it. But what they don't understand is that we need to follow the rules we live best by -- Jewish rules, which celebrate life, but are realistic enough to know that not everyone else celebrates it -- in order to thrive.

And we ourselves don't understand that if we would just do what we're supposed to do, not only would we be okay -- but the whole world would be affected by our behavior.

G-d willing, we'll realize it soon...

In Case You Missed It...

2008-06-12T07:02:00.004+03:00

A French (!) appeals court has finally ruled, bottom line, that the Al-Dura footage was faked.

Just a re-cap, in short:

1. You probably recognize the photo, even if you don't recognize the name.

2. The photo was taken from a video filmed on 30 September, 2000 -- Just two days after what is considered the beginning of the "Second Intifada." Because of the timing, poor little Mohammed Al-Dura became the symbol for the so-called victims of "Israeli agression."

The press all over the world ran with the story about how terrible it was that this little boy was caught in the cross-fire and killed by the IDF.

3. The filming was done by Talal abu Rahme, an Arab Palestinian cameraman who works for French TV and CNN. The footage was sent to French Channel 2, and broadcast with commentary by Charles Enderlin, the Middle East Correspondent stationed in Jerusalem (He was not present at the filming.)

4. Enderlin and French2 distributed the film footage, which had been edited to remove a few seconds of footage, to anyone who asked for it -- free of charge.

5. Between 2000-2004, evidence began piling up that the footage had been faked, and Enderlin had been lied to about the truthfulness of the video.

6. In 2004, a French media critic, Philip Karsenty, publicly called for the dismissal of Enderlin and his boss for having not cleared the record even after having discovered that the original footage had been faked.

7. In order to clear his name, Enderlin sued Karsenty for libel. The original court that "heard" the case did a clearly shoddy job of trying to find the truth, and the case went to appeals.

There are probably hundreds of websites with claims that each side is true, but if one simply views the evidence, it is CLEAR that the entire thing was faked. Faked. FAKED.

And since this video was one of the first faked videos out there, and it did such an effective job of making Israel look bad, other "journalists" have followed by faking other photos and video.

What really stinks is that there really are at least some poor Palestinian people out there who want to live in peace, at least I hope there are, yet they are unfortunately calling "Wolf!" long after most of their original sympathizers stopped believing the cry for help.

I'm Up to Good

2008-05-29T08:48:00.002+03:00

Weird title, yah? But it mostly fits... you'll understand in a minute.

See, the question we get asked most from folks we don't see or speak to very often is, "So, nu, what are you up to?"

And I remember when I was a kid, and some people still use the phrase, my grandma would say something about being "up to no good."

Since it's been a while since I actually mentioned anything here about what's going on in my own life, I figured I'd better update ya'll on what I'm up to... and the fact of it is, thank G-d, I'm up to good.

Four weeks ago today was my last day at IDT. It had been completely unexpected until just a few days beforehand. We knew the company was struggling, but we had no idea what kinds of cutbacks they were planning to make.

They slashed something like 150 positions... maybe more at this point, I'm not sure... and when a company is something like 750-800 people, that's obviously a huge percentage of the workforce.

Seeing as how I was planning on starting to look for something else anyway, and if I got "fired," I could get my full severance package, I volunteered to be one of the ones cut.

And while it's a bit scary being without income, I do not regret my decision.

See, for just a couple of weeks before that, I had been praying (okay, so like, I pray all the time, but this is something specific...) that I would have an opportunity to spend more time learning from Jewish sources. I wanted to attend classes, instead of just trying to catch one once in a while. I wanted to have time to read the books that had been sitting on my shelves asking to be read.

And I asked G-d that if it would be His/Her will that I should do that, G-d would make it possible.

Of course, I had no idea that meant I would lose my job... but hey, if Hashem's gonna make it so clear and obvious to me that I should take time to learn, who am I to argue?

It just happens (of course, nothing "just happens," as everything happens for a reason...) that I had just finally started attending a couple of night classes at a co-ed yeshiva that I love. So when my schedule suddenly opened up, I spoke to the rabbi who runs the yeshiva and asked what kind of arrangements I could make in terms of tuition reduction.

He said they usually ask for a certain amount for classes, but if someone cannot afford to pay that, the person should pay whatever he or she can... and if he or she cannot pay anything, that is absolutely no reason not to attend classes. He made it very clear, abundantly clear, that a lack of tuition was no reason or excuse not to come learn if someone wanted to come learn.

So that's what I've been doing. I've been taking classes about different kinds of Jewish philosophy, as well as Jewish law and learning how to read and analyze the written Torah.

Plus, I've been blessed with the opportunity to go to the Kotel, the Western Wall, as often as I'd like. That, in itself, is an amazing experience. I don't always feel a huge spiritual pull there, but the opportunity to be in the holiest spot on the planet is incredible. It's beautiful (if sometimes also annoying) to see the people coming there from all over the world.

And it gets even better... as a "religious" (blah, I hate that term) Jew, I try to pray at least twice a day, plus a set of short prayers before I go to bed. Usually, that means trying to squeeze in around 30-35 minutes of speed davening (praying) before work for the morning prayers, and taking a 10-minute break at some point during work for the afternoon prayers. It usually means skipping the non-vital parts and only hitting the highlights.

For the past few weeks, I have been able to take as much time as I want (or, as my ADD mind will allow) to daven and actually pay attention. The order of the prayers was put together by brilliant Jewish scholars, and there's a whole system to it. When one only hits the highlights, he or she doesn't get to experience the whole journey. I've been blessed with the opportunity to take the whole journey many times over the course of the last few weeks.

AND, though I haven't been showing much evidence of it here, I've been taking a lot of time to write. Many times, I've wanted to write, but I just didn't have the energy after a full day of work, etc. Now I've been writing pretty much every day. Mostly journal-like stuff, but also a bit of other stuff that might turn into something one day, G-d willing.

So what am I up to? I'm up to good.

But now it's time to really start looking for a job again. There are bills that need to be paid, and as much as I love what I'm doing now, it doesn't cover the rent checks. And it doesn't cover the cost of a plane ticket to America, where I am apparently going in September for my sibling's wedding. And it doesn't cover the cost of the crown I have to have put on my tooth. So I gotta get a job.

Meanwhile, I gotta get my act together and go apply for unemployment. I haven't done it yet, because I'm afraid of the bureacracy... but it has to be done. So that's on the agenda in addition to the actual job hunting.

Anyway, that's my entry for now. It's not deep. It's not insightful. It's not me ranting about the situation in Israel. It's just me... :)

My Crazy Country

2008-05-26T09:13:00.002+03:00

It just gets crazier and crazier.

The Prime Minister is going to be indicted any day for only some of the many crimes I am sure he's committed. It would be more respectful to the country if he would just resign, but he's got too much ego. And not that I know who'll replace him, but sheesh, please G-d, don't let him or her be any worse!

***

Meanwhile, Israel's talking to Syria? Why? Some say that it means Israel's willing to give up the Golan, and Syria's willing to break its ties with Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah.

Is this some sort of an alternate reality? Were there drugs passed around, and I wasn't part of the in-crowd?

'Cause that's the only way I can imagine either one of those things happening -- Less than two years ago, we were AT WAR in the north! Lebanon's being run by Hizbullah, which is getting its weapons and support from... Syria! Suddenly we're going to give up one of our most strategically-needed pieces of land, and Syria's going to make nice? There MUST be drugs involved.

***

And now, because of the Hamas terrorists who keep attacking the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel, Israel has decided to pull back non-combat troops from the Erez Crossing.

So let's think about this for a minute:

Do we want soldiers to die? NO!

Do we want civilians to die? NO!

Is turning tail and running away from the problem going to solve it? NO!

Because we are apparently not capable of doing what needs to be done in order to stop being attacked by rockets and bombs, we'll just run away from rocket range.

What happens as they develop longer-range rockets and missiles? I guess first, we'll evacuate Sderot and Ashkelon... then we'll evacuate Be'er Sheva and Tel Aviv... Eventually, we'll evacuate Jerusalem and Israel? G-d forbid!

I just don't, really, I don't understand this.

I am amazed that I was originally "pro-disengagement." I was one of the naive who thought that by giving them a piece of land, they might actually put some effort into becoming self-sufficient instead of relying on aid from the UN and EU. I was one of the naive who thought they might do better if they weren't constantly being reminded of their impotence by having armed Israeli soldiers around every corner.

I was one of the naive, period.

By the time the actual disengagement came around, I had already flipped to the other side. I knew it was being handled in the stupidest way possible, the most immoral manner conceivable. We ripped pioneers out of their homes, and gave a piece of Eretz Yisrael to the enemy. And we received nothing for it... not only did we not get piece, but the rocket attacks have never stopped -- and have only gotten worse.

***

A couple of weeks ago, I was involved in a debate with someone who is young, passionate, and naive. He reminded me quite a lot of what I was like seven years ago. I wasn't a citizen of the country. I didn't know anyone who'd died in a terrorist attack or a war. I came from a left-wing idealism in America, wherein I still believed that what people really, really want more than anything else is the ability to raise their families with food, housing, and peace.

I didn't understand people who said, "No, they don't want peace. The peace they want would only come about if we (Jews) were not here anymore."

How could that be? How could there really be people who care more about hating us than they do about raising their families in peace?

Yet it's true; there are people like that.

In this debate, I was trying to open this young man's mind -- even if only by a crack -- to the Truth. The Truth is that it isn't black and white. The Truth is that as much as we'd love to put our cultural beliefs onto others, the others have different ideas.

People have different cultures and different idealisms. They have different views of G-d and religion.

To the most extreme, there have been cultures in the past (and maybe the present -- I dunno) that believe in cannabilism. It's a fact.

There are also cultures that believe in peace -- even to the detriment of themselves.

So if there are those two extremes, what's to say there aren't a million other extremes? Including a group of people who believe that the only way to live is to be a particular religion, and if you're not part of that religion, you should die?

The young man is still idealistic and naive. Good for him. I gave him a bracha that he should have the same amount of passion in discovering the Truth, and I invited him to make aliyah and fight the system from within. At least for now, he declined.

***

It's easy being an armchair politician when you're not living on the front lines. I'm blessed with living in Jerusalem, and still we live on the front line of terrorist attacks. I cannot even begin to imagine what it's like to live in Sderot, where the rocket attacks are daily, sometimes tens of times a day.

And that's why I don't get it... if my stupid government keeps pulling back from strategic military bases, and negotiating with terrorists, the front lines are going to multiply exponentially.

What a crazy country...

Ever Hear of Burkina Faso?

2008-05-14T14:11:00.002+03:00

Yeah, me neither, until today.

I was at the Kotel this morning, and as I was leaving, I noticed that police officers had entered the women's section -- male police officers. So instead of simply leaving, I hung around for a bit, just to try and figure out what was going on.

After a few minutes, I gave up. Nothing exciting seemed to be happening, so I started to make my way out of the Kotel Plaza.

But on the way, I saw a limousine and some cars that definitely came from a caravan/procession/whatever, so I looped around to take another look.

I saw placards in the front windows with the Israeli flag and a flag that I didn't recognize. The top half was red, the bottom half green, and there was a small yellow five-pointed star in the middle. I had half-wondered if Dubya was going to make a surprise visit to the Kotel, though I knew that realistically it couldn't happen... and that if that had been the case, the security would have been way, way tighter.

After finding a seat so I could check out the sitch, I got to play a game I hadn't played in a long time: Observe Israeli Security Procedures.

See, I love watching the way Israelis handle security. The process definitely has its visible presence -- the Israeli version of the Secret Service security detail that protects the President and such -- but it also has its invisible presence, and its presence that's somewhere in between.

That is, there are people we see, and we know they're security, but they don't make a big deal of it... we don't see their weapons, and they don't look vicious. They do, however, look determined.

At the same time, things come off appearing disorganized. The limo's moved into place and the door opened for whomever, but lots of people milling around so that when the Important Person gets into the limo, it still can't actually leave... etc.

Anyway, the whole thing only took maybe five or 10 minutes. I saw that there was an entourage consisting of Israeli security and what I assumed was security from some African country. There were a few people (not security, I assume) wearing what appeared to be a form of traditional dress from an African country, and since the guards were almost ebony-skinned, it was my deduction that they weren't from Norway or some such.

I saw some guy in a suit get into the limo on one side, and someone who looked vaguely familiar from Israeli politics on the other... and a couple of minutes later, the whole procession left the plaza.

It was sort of cool, though. I tried taking a picture with my phone, but since I rarely use the camera, I couldn't remember how to actually click the picture... so I have a picture of what might be the top of the President of Burkina Faso's head.

I came home and looked up the flag, and that's how I found out it was from Burkina Faso.

After doing some Googling, I found that the president (whose picture looked a bit familiar when I found it) was indeed in Israel as of yesterday for some Presidents Conference.

So, like, I was 15 feet or so from the President of a country... cool, huh? Just wish I'd have known it ahead of time, so the picture would have been neater :)

The Eve of Shabbat, and Pre-Eve of Passover

2008-04-18T07:15:00.003+03:00

Pesach (Passover) is the Festival of Freedom. It is commanded to us by G-d that we celebrate this every year, and it's specifically written that the holiday must take place in the spring. The term Passover has to do with the Angel of Death "passing over" the homes of the Jews in Egypt while G-d "smote" (love this word) the firstborn of the Egyptians. (If they'd have just let us go after any of the first NINE plagues, they could have saved themselves this problem, but no...)

Supposedly, we left so quickly that we didn't have time for the bread to rise, so we ran with what we had (and the pots we'd "borrowed" from the Egyptians...), which was flat bread. (Which I'm sure bore no actual resemblence to the cardboard we eat nowadays.)

Interestingly, the first Passover seder was held BEFORE we left Egypt, when we were actually still slaves. Hmm. But the festival itself is about us becoming free.

This year, Pesach will begin on Saturday evening... I still haven't quite figured it out, but basically it means that Shabbat is not over yet when Passover begins.

It means a whole different level of preparation when this happens, because instead of being able to wait until the very last night before the holiday for having the house cleaned, it has to be done two nights ahead of time.

The house can always be cleaned to a new level, so it's literally a process that begins whenever someone begins it, but it's a rare person who truly feels done and finished before the deadline. According to Jewish law, the rule is that a Jew may not own any leavened products, or products that are derived from grains that *could* become leavened, during the week of Pesach (plus an extra day for people who live outside Israel, but that's a whole 'nother story).

So on the surface, no big deal, right? You brush the crumbs out of the cabinet, wipe down the inside of the fridge and voila! You're done.

Uhm, not exactly.

To make sure that there is not even a trace of chametz (these leavenable products) in our homes, we go to any of many different levels of cleaning and checking, depending on where we hold religously, and how much time and energy we have.

Some people use it as an opportunity for "spring cleaning," as well. (I have good intentions every year of doing that, but it seems that I'm working on getting rid of the chametz and miss the walls and windows most years.)

At the halakhic (Jewish law) level, dust is not chametz. We can clear the major stuff and then make a legally-binding declaration that any chametz left over simply does not belong to us. But if we find some later, it's psychologically jarring, because we obviously missed a spot somewhere.

Of course, this is all dealing with our physical surroundings.

At the same time, however, we have a huge opportunity to get free emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

See, freedom isn't what we sometimes think of it as nowadays. "Freedom of speech." "Freedom of religion."

Freedom is also being free to actually connect with G-d on a higher level. And one of the ways to connect with G-d at a higher level is to become a better person -- more like the person He/She/It would want us to be.

So while we're doing our physical cleaning and looking in all the nooks and crannies in our homes and offices, we can also take that time to look in the nooks and crannies within ourselves. What's holding me back? What's keeping me from being the most righteous person I can be, from living up to my Potential (still hate that word) as a human being and a "servant" of G-d?

Pride's a big one for most of us -- it inflates us and sometimes prevents us from remembering that our accomplishments wouldn't be possible without help from the Big Guy. It's not that we can't take credit where credit is due -- absolutely, we can and should -- but not beyond where we truly deserve credit for it. In fact, chametz, leavening, is absolutely symbolic of that false pride. Chametz is puffed up, just like we can get sometimes.

There are other things that hold us back... phobias that are absolutely real to us... smaller fears that we let control bits and pieces of our lives... traits about ourselves that we don't like, yet don't fix... etc.

So leading up to Seder Night and Pesach, while cleaning the clutter and chametz out of our homes, it's this amazing and fantastic opportunity to break free and stop being slaves to the clutter and chametz in our minds and souls.

And just like with our homes and offices, the cleaning could go on forever... but the trick is to figure out the most important stuff and work on that first. If there's time for smaller stuff, great... if not now, there will be later.

I'm exhausted at this point physically... but mentally and spiritually, I am totally psyched for this opportunity to connect with G-d at a higher level, and break free from my self-imposed slavery.

But right this minute, I need to go shopping, so freedom's gonna have to wait a little while longer.

War Games

2008-04-08T10:01:00.002+03:00

I live in a country that is constantly being attacked by its enemies. It's a fact. We are under rocket attack on a daily basis. We live with the threat of suicide bombers, suicide shooters, etc.

And we know that our enemies would love nothing more than to provoke us into a more bloody and devastating war.

So this week, starting this past Sunday, our Homefront Command, army, police, emergency medical personal, and pretty much everyone else are involved in war drills.

Until just a few minutes ago, it didn't really hit home what this whole thing means.

We've been hearing about it for weeks. We've known for days that there would be nation-wide air raid sirens going off at 10:00 this morning. We were warned in every branch of the press, so that we wouldn't think it was "real."

We have nation-wide sirens three times a year -- once on Holocaust Remembrance Day and twice on Memorial Day.

On that theoretical level, I knew that the sound would be slightly different. The ceremonial sirens are single-pitch sirens. The sound goes up to a certain level and remains steady for the duration of the siren. I knew this one would be different.

And of course I had forgotten all about it, until it started.

So I was standing in my living room, folding laundry (I'm off work today), and the sound caught my ear.

I stood still for a few seconds while my brain wrapped around what I was hearing. The pitch changed, going up and down like I've heard in movies about the U.S. in the 40's and 50's, when there were air raid drills fairly regularly.

I walked over and opened the window, so I could hear it clearly. And for a couple of seconds, a chill ran down my spine and goosebumps came up on my arms.

At any minute, literally, I could hear that siren for real. The tyrant ruling Iran could decide to fire missiles at us... or it could come from any one of our surrounding enemy countries. The missiles might have chemical warheads, or even nuclear capabilities.

Most people who do not live here could not possibly understand the implications this life has on us. Israelis value life to the utmost. Children come first. Can you imagine most bosses in America allowing their employees to leave early five or 10 times a year because one of the kids has a party in daycare or school? Can you imagine falling down in the street and having 10 people rush over to check to make sure you're okay and pick up your scattered belongings? Can you imagine your police or SWAT teams literally putting themselves in the line of fire to protect civilians?

I don't even know where I'm going with all this... except that all these thoughts were running through my mind during the two-minute siren.

Because while to the rest of the world, the events that are going on in my country this week are "drills," or "war games." But to the people who live here -- they're a likely reality.

Yet I still cannot imagine wanting to live anywhere else.

Fitna - The Controversial Short Film About Radical Islam

2008-04-02T07:43:00.002+03:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCrCsTMokTU

I watched it yesterday after work.

Very disturbing.

Some of it seemed contrived and theatrical, but most of it was simply footage taken from terrorists own propaganda footage or videos of imams preaching hatred.

VERY disturbing.

Parts of it were extraordinarily reminiscent of footage taken by nazis during the Shoah.

I am now considering it recommended viewing for all adults.

Six Days Later

2008-04-02T07:36:00.003+03:00

My race recovery complete, I am finally (as evidenced by the post below) getting around to updating again.

Thursday afternoon I ended up going shopping for some of the hippie clothes that I've been desperately wanting. I figured it was incentive to make sure that even though the half marathon was over, I would keep working on staying in shape.

I then went and bought a pizza -- mushrooms and onions -- and proceeded to bring it home and eat the entire thing. I think it's about the size of an American "small" pizza, maybe a "medium." I think it was eight slices. And it was freakin' awesome.

Until that night, when my stomach was UN-thrilled about processing it. I ended up waking up several times during the night to use the restroom -- but I wasn't getting any rest. :(

(I still say the pizza was worth it.)

Between walking to and from the race, running the race itself, and all the walking around I did afterward, I think I ended up actually walking/running about 35 kilometers on Thursday. (20ish miles)

Friday I needed to hit the Jewish bookstore and pick up a couple of books, and buy eggs, and then I could come home and focus on recovering and getting ready for Shabbat.

By Sunday, all the soreness was gone. I was going to try and run Sunday night, but when a friend of mine declined to go with me, I couldn't make myself step outside the house. I did, however, wake up early and go run 5k on the dreadmill at the gym on Monday.

And today being Wednesday, I am planning on hitting the gym at the end of the work day today.

Thank G-d for such a wonderfully easy recovery. I'm still gonna lose at least one toenail, but that toe's used to it by now :)

Running Through the Hills of Jerusalem - written on Thursday, 27 March

2008-04-02T07:26:00.003+03:00

I finally ran a race in Israel. I'm not sure I was the smartest in picking one, but I figure it actually picked me, so I'm not taking any responsibility for the bad parts... only the good.

Way back in November, I was still planning on running this race today, but then I let myself get out of training mode, and I gave up on the idea.

One day, about four weeks ago, I was running on the dreadmill at work next to a work friend of mine. Afterward, she mentioned she was training for the Jerusalem Half Marathon. I was worried for her, as it didn't seem that she'd be trained in time for it. On the way home that night, my mind couldn't stop calculating.

Could I do it? Could I train safely, without worrying that I was going to injure myself? It's not a good idea to increase mileage more than 10%/week, but when I did the math, I realized it was theoretically possible.

To test my ability to go from dreadmill to blacktop, I ran outside that week for my long run. Sure enough, I was able to do it.

When I wasn't more sore than usual two days later, I registered for the race. To make it even more fun, I decided to raise awareness and money on behalf of the heroic residents of Sderot - those people who live constantly under the fire of rockets.I couldn't participate in the group runs for the charity, because they started before I even finished work... but when I was putting in my mileage, I had the team and the heroes in my mind when things got tough.

I practiced hills -- or so I thought -- on my Friday morning long runs.I'm thinking it's not actually possible to practice these kinds of hills enough to be truly prepared.

They were vicious.

There were looooooong downhills, and then, of course, the uphills seemed three or four times as long as the downs.

But wow. What an amazing, inspiring, and yes, exhausting, day.At the start, I was with my friend. We looked around and were awed by the fact that there were representatives of every kind of Jew, and we were all going to run this race together.

Shortly after the start, my friend took off at her own pace, and I settled into my groove.

The path took us near the Knesset, the Supreme Court, and headed out toward areas I hadn't run before.

As I am not a fast runner, I seemingly had the course to myself for long stretches of time.On one of those stretches, about 1/3 of the way along, I found myself running downhill through the Jerusalem Forest. It was an easy slope, and the view was incredible. There were trees and parks, and I could see the residential areas not far away.

And it suddenly hit me that I was running a race in Eretz Yisrael. I was running on land that G-d gave my people thousands of years ago.

My run took on a serious spiritual aspect at that point. I looked around and was incredibly grateful to Hashem for bringing me to this place, at this time.

I was, to be perfectly honest, a little less grateful when the run started going up hill... and up hill... and up hill... and just when I was thinking it couldn't possibly go up hill any more, I saw words chalked in Hebrew on the road: "Warning: More uphill to come."

Oy.

Step by step, breath by breath, I moved forward. And as I plodded along, wondering about the lack of wisdom I had in deciding to do this silly race, I looked up and realized I was right beneath Yad Vashem.

Yad Vashem - our national museum dedicated to remembering the Shoah (Holocaust) in which more than 6,000,000 of our people were brutally murdered by the Amalek of the time.

And I was upset about running up hills for a little while?

Gee, G-d, nothing like a subtle reminder of the blessings I have, eh?

From that area, the race path started heading through residential areas to the southern end of the city.

The race volunteers and police were AMAZING about stopping traffic for us. Not once did I have to slow down my pace to wait for traffic to stop.There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people whose daily commutes were messed up because of the race. Buses were stopped for long periods of time. People gave up on waiting inside their cars and got out. Some people, understandably, were pretty ticked off at having their schedules thrown off.

Others, amazingly enough, were incredibly supportive. I must have had 100 people, at least, shouting encouragement my way, smiling and cheering me on.

As I was walking along at one point eating my gummies and chocolate, someone I had passed caught up with me and asked if I had extra -- of course I had extra! I gave her some lite salt, too (for the sodium and potassium), and as she was out of water, I gave her the bottle I was carrying (I had another in my fanny pack).

She was really struggling at that point, but within a couple of minutes she took off ahead of me.

The southern end of Jerusalem is where our big mall is, along with our train station.

Once again, I found myself thinking about what a miracle this country is. We're this teensy, tinsy little sliver of land, surrounded by armed enemies... and we have a big o'l, American-style mall in our holiest city.

By this time, I was around 3/4 of the way done with the race physically, and mentally I was 150% done.

I came across the runner I'd given candy to a few kilometers back, and she looked through... done... kaput. I was torn between wanting to stop and walk with her, and needing to keep going so as not to lose my entire rhythm.I admit, I took the low road on that one and just tried to give her a few words of encouragement before going on ahead.

Eventually, I found myself in a familiar area, and I knew I was nearly done. I was hot. I was tired. I was sore. And I was grateful.

I was grateful for having had the courage to do this. I was grateful for my friend mentioning it at just the right time, when I could still decide to do the race. I was grateful to Hashem for allowing me to first visit Israel seven years ago and fall in love with this country. I was grateful to Hashem for surrounding me with family and friends who encouraged me along the way. I was grateful to be running in the holiest city on the planet.

Mostly, though, I was grateful to be almost done. Heh.The sadistic race planners chose a path that was UP HILL for oh, the last mile and a half or so. Even the track itself wasn't flat.

I couldn't summon enough extra energy to sprint the last bit in, but I squared my shoulders, put a smile on my face, and finished at a strong, steady pace.

Then I immediately slowed to a barely-moving-forward walk and tried to get my lungs functioning normally again.

I found my friend -- she'd finished five minutes ahead of me -- and eventually the woman I'd run into on the path wandered over as she finished the race.Somewhere in there, I took the timing chip off my shoe and went to get my medal -- which is on a keychain. Guess which keychain I'll be using from now on?

And after stretching some, and drinking some water, we finally headed for home. I walked slowly, limping occasionally, and I enjoyed the looks I got from people who saw my race number pinned to my shirt.

I think around 10 people finished the race after me, according to the official results. But I was still ahead of the hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem who didn't participate at all, so I figure I finished in the top 1%.

It was a very long day... incredibly challenging... incredibly inspiring... but very long.

Yet I'm sort of sad it's almost over.

Thank G-d tomorrow's Shabbos. :)

I love Alan Dershowitz

2008-03-21T08:46:00.002+02:00

http://www.together4israel.org/index.html

The whole thing is about an hour and 40 minutes, but Dershowitz is one of the first speakers.

FYI, in under three months, more than 1000 rockets have already been fired from Gaza. So much for "disengagement."

I had a crappy run this morning, but I should have known better than to think I could run the morning after a fast day.

But my "crappy" run was nothing... NOTHING, NOTHING like having to live every second of your life waiting for the next siren telling you that you have 15 seconds... 15 SECONDS! to run for your life.

Do you understand what I'm saying here?

Stop. Take a look at your watch. Count out 15 seconds.

In fact, go outside... THEN take a look at your watch. Run. Run like your butt is on fire. Run like if you don't, you're going to die. And see how far YOU can get in 15 seconds.

Now imagine doing that while you're on your way to work. Imagine children doing it on the way home from school. Imagine the elderly doing it on the way home from the supermarket.

And try to figure out why on earth the world, my own Israeli government included, is letting this happen.

It doesn't even matter if you're left wing or right wing. If you believe any civilian has the right to live in his or her sovereign country in relative peace, you have to have sympathy for the people who run from rockets almost every day.

So no matter how crappy my run was, I could keep going by thinking about the people in Sderot.

http://runforsderot.connectionsisrael.com/Maureen.htm

To the Editors of The New York Times

2008-03-13T20:43:00.002+02:00

I wrote my first ever actual letter (okay, email) to the editors of The New York Times today:

To the Editors: Upon seeing the headline, "Israeli Raid in West Bank Imperils Talk of Truce" in my inbox this morning, I proceeded to read the article.

I am extraordinarily disappointed in the article and the journalists.

The lead, "Israeli undercover troops killed four Palestinian militants in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Wednesday, shattering a five-day lull in violence and threatening Egyptian efforts to mediate a cease-fire," is particularly incredible.

Only yesterday, the Times published another article by the same journalists: "Rocket Endangers Palestinian-Israeli Respite." The lead in that article stated, "Gazan militants fired a rocket at the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, fracturing a tenuous lull in fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, which escalated sharply in late February and early this month."

So how is it that the Israeli action could possibly shatter a "five-day lull in violence," if only one day ago, Gazan militants fired a rocket at Ashkelon?

In addition, the article from March 12th does not even mention the blatant murder of eight innocent civilians while they were studying Jewish texts, yet it apparently tries to compare the death of one innocent Israeli civilian with the deaths of "120 Palestinians, including many civilians." The article also does not mention the fact that Palestinian terrorists insist on using their own people as human shields, thereby creating terror among their own people as well.

I hope that you will reconsider publishing such blatantly biased articles in the future.

***

It's also just plain, bad journalism. They took the same lead and used it two days in a row, swapping out a coupla words. I never would have noticed, except that I was so ticked off at today's article, that when I saw the link beneath it to yesterday's article, I figured I might as well see what these morons had to say.

***

I'm really struggling with my right-wing vs. my left-wing tendencies at the moment.

On one hand, I desperately *want* to believe in the idea that people are good. I want to believe that people want peace. I want to believe that if we could just come to some agreements, the fighting could stop.

But on the other hand, the more realistic hand as I see it, I don't see one tiny shred of evidence that it can happen.

I'm just tired of fighting myself, and I'm tired of feeling guilty for wanting to live in the land that G-d gave us without worrying about rockets and suicide bombers and traitors.

I was at a taping of a Jewish television show the other night, and the host said something like this:

It's like the Jews are saying, "If we talk and make some agreements, we'll have peace."

And the Palestinians/Hamas people are saying, "No, we don't believe you have the right to make agreements, because you don't belong here at all."

And the Jews: "Okay, so we'll talk, and we'll split the land, and we'll have peace."

The Palestinians: "No, we don't think you understand. We want you out of here completely."

Jews: All right, so we'll talk, and we'll split the land, and heck, you can even have half of Jerusalem."

Palestinians: "What part of 'we are going to push you into the sea' don't you understand?"

***

When I was in Haifa, and leaning right, I had a friend who was able to sort of keep me in balance. He was a great debator, and he made me really think. And he used to tease me that if I made aliyah, I was going to become a settler, become totally right wing, and become anti-America, because that's what happens to Americans who make aliyah.

He wasn't all wrong.

I haven't become a settler yet, but I could totally see myself doing it. I haven't become totally right wing, but I can see myself going that way, too. I'm not even close to being anti-America, though, and I hope I don't get that way.

***

I did 10.4 kilometers on Monday, and 10.5 yesterday. Tomorrow I am shooting for 21 kilometers including warm-up and cool-down.

My awesome mom is sending me a package of running stuff that I ordered, including new running pants and a new sports bra. Mine have served me well, but they're pretty darned tired at this point (they're seven years old!), and my one pair of running pants without holes in it is way too big and meant for cold weather. I hope the package gets here in time... but even if it doesn't, I'll be stoked to have the stuff so I can keep running for fun, even after the race.

Interesting quandry

2008-03-10T07:44:00.002+02:00

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1204546441616&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Apparently it's a custom of the Muslims to have a mourning tent when someone in their family dies. They put up pictures of the deceased and friends and family come by to comfort them. I guess it's similar to Shiva, the initial seven-day mourning period observed by the immediate family of Jews.

We both have food ready to give guests, including sweets.

It's hard to imagine a Jewish family flying a Kach flag above their home during this time, but I guess it could happen. (Kach is the political movement inspired by Meir Kahane, a right-wing extremist... who, I must say, had some pretty good ideas along with all the ones most people tend to despise.) Though there's even a difference there, as this *IS* Israel, and therefore Kach is not calling for the destruction of the Jewish State.

So after the murderer who killed eight innocent civilians on Thursday night, including some teenage boys, and wounded others, was shot and killed, members of his family set up a mourning tent in East Jerusalem. According to the father of the murderer, he himself did not put up the Hamas flags, but on the other hand, he had to be asked by police to take them down.

One of his uncles tried to set up a mourning tent in Jordan... but Jordanian authorities made him take it down.

Now it's a quandry for many Israelis. Many see it as disgusting that here in Israel we're allowing the family to have their mourning tent, while "even" Jordan won't allow it.

From my point of view, I look at it in the same way I see flag burning in America. I would never burn a flag, and I don't approve of others doing it either, but I defend the right itself to do it. It's part of living in something resembling a democracy.

It's still hard to swallow. This disgusting person has now cast suspician on all East Jerusalemites. It will be a long time before we feel we can trust them again in any way, shape or form. It will add to the discrimination against Arabs, and not without good reason. How can we trust someone walking into work carrying a box or a bag and not suspect he or she's got a gun inside? Particularly when it doesn't seem as if the family or friends or neighbors of the murderer condemn the act publicly... and instead set up a public tent for visitors... it seems as if they're granting permission for it to happen again.

***

I did 18 kilometers on Friday, or a tad more than 11 miles, including warm-up and cool-down. I followed that up by two trips to the shuk - another mile in total. Later Friday afternoon, I walked to the Old City for Shabbat prayers and dinner, then walked home, adding another 4 miles-ish to the total for the day. All-in-all, around 16 miles for the day.

I was surprisingly un-sore on Saturday and Sunday. There was definitely some muscle tightness and a bit of soreness, but nothing compared to last week. Nice.

Yesterday, however, I was in a meeting with my boss, in his tiny little office, and sitting with one of my legs up on the chair.

After the meeting, I maneuvered my way out of the office and went to take a step -- and stumbled and almost fell, 'cause my foot was asleep. I twisted my foot and ankle a bit.

I stayed off of it for most of the day. I still walked home, but carefully. I gave up my idea of getting some extra exercise in last night, in favor of icing my foot/ankle.

It seems 95% fine today, thank G-d. I'll see how it goes later, 'cause I'm supposed to do about 10k on the dreadmill after work.

We can never forget where we are living

2008-03-06T23:27:00.003+02:00

This morning, on my way to work, my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder reared its ugly head.

As I was nearing work, I heard a siren. A moment later, a Hatzala motorcycle (an EMT on a motorcycle, basically) passed me. A few seconds later, an ambulance passed me, and my neck straightened a little. A few seconds later, another ambulance passed, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, and I got that rushy feeling in my ears as I waited anxiously to hear another siren.

I did not, but that didn't keep me from shaking and taking deep breaths to try and stay calm while I hurried into work to check the news online. Nothing there.

I changed my clothes and checked again -- nothing.

I did a couple other things and checked again -- still nothing.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief and could go on about my day.

Except that I'd been getting pretty complacent about living here, and it hit me in just a few seconds that the PTSD has not gone away completely, and probably it never will.

***

Tonight, I went to the hotel where a friend of my mom's, from her college days, was staying with her husband. They're on a tour around Israel, and they invited me for dinner at the hotel, so we could spend some time chatting, and exchange stuff -- they brought me stuff, and I'm sending stuff home for my mom.

We had a lovely dinner and great discussions.

A little while before 10, I finally decided it was time to go. As they were walking me to the main entrance, a woman from their tour group came up to us and said something like, "So I'm sure you heard what happened."

As it turns out, there was a terrorist attack tonight. The details still aren't clear, though it appears it was a terrorist who entered a yeshiva (place where men learn Jewish stuff) and started shooting. It looks like at least eight men were killed and many more wounded.

The tourists were concerned that I wouldn't be able to get home... that the busses might not be running... that I wouldn't be safe... so I tried to reassure them, and I reminded them that as cruddy as it is when these things happen, life goes on. We'll be getting up and going about our business tomorrow (though it's true that probably several times throughout the day, and throughout the Sabbath, our thoughts will turn to the wounded... the dead... their families and friends), and they shouldn't freak out about being in Jerusalem because of this.

Thank G-d, it's been a long time since we've had an attack in Jerusalem. And in just a few seconds, I realized we can never forget where we are living.

***

Now it's time to try and get some rest, as I am supposed to run 10+ miles tomorrow morning. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of thinking during that run.

Running for Sderot

2008-03-05T22:12:00.002+02:00

So I decided to add a component to my Half Marathon, to have an impact on someone other than myself.

I am now running for Sderot.

For those who don't know, Sderot is a town not far from Gaza, *inside the Green Line.* I repeat - the town is in non-usually-disputed (other than by staunch Arabs who don't believe Israel should exist at all) territory.

Over the course of the last week alone, hundreds of rockets have been launched at Sderot. Hundreds.

The only defense the town has is its "Color Red" signal that goes off approximately 15 seconds before the rocket is due to land.

Fifteen seconds. If you're holding your breath for 15 seconds, it seems like maybe a decent amount of time. When you're running for your life to find the closest shelter, it's the blink of an eye.

Many people have left Sderot, because they couldn't take the pressure anymore. When one of the rockets goes off, it is a painfully loud sound. Think about it happen more than 50 times in one day.

The ones who stay are absolute heroes. Some of them don't have anywhere else to go. Others have made the decision to stay, so as not to let the terrorists win. Whatever their reasons for staying - they should not have to live the way they're living.

Here are a couple of videos on youtube:

The first is what it sounds like when the siren goes off, and how people have to run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRz3nHwgjHY&NR=1

The second is about what it's like to live in that war zone day after day, year after year. There are English subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCHbihJImGo&feature=related

My primary goal is to raise awareness of the situation these people are living in... but my secondary goal is to actually help them by raising money.

If you want to donate, you can go to:

http://runforsderot.connectionsisrael.com/Maureen.htm

Btw, I did 10k today on the dreadmill, but I made a longer part of the distance my cool down. No puking -- that is a Good Thing :)

Back on the Streets Again

2008-03-03T22:44:00.004+02:00

And on the trails, and on the dreadmill, yada yada yada.

That is, I've been running again since July of last year, and I had planned to do the Jerusalem Half Marathon on K's birthday, 27 March.

Then I got out of training properly and gave up on the idea.

Then I finished my class and made it back to the gym and onto the dreadmill again.

Then there was this woman from work two dreadmills away from me last Wednesday, and we we running up a storm. In the locker room later, she said she wanted to do the half marathon.

I told her to be really careful, because she didn't have her mileage up to a point where training would necessarily be safe -- because this would be her first half marathon, and she has no idea how to train for it properly.

But she got me thinking... and jealous. 'Cause I never stopped wanting to run half marys, but when I let my weight balloom up exponentially, I knew I couldn't do one at that point.

So on the way home that night, I figured out a pretty safe training plan to get me through the four weeks between then and the event itself. I decided I'd hit the outdoor trail at the park on Friday morning and see how it went. I needed to see if my bones, ligaments and tendons were up to the task.

As it turns out, they are. My quads aren't so hip on the Jerusalem hills, but that's workable.

So today, before I could chicken out, I registered and paid my 110 shekels. Yep, it's official -- I'm planning on doing it.

Then this evening was gym day, so I hit the dreadmill after work. And since last week I did 9.5 kilometers in 75 minutes, somehow in my twisted, tiny little brain, I decided that this week I could do 10 kilometers in that much time.

Not my brightest moment.

I did it, and I did well.

But my second not brightest moment came after I ate all the wrong things as my "recovery" food (the best is to eat a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of simple carbs to protein)... carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, crackers, low-fat cheese, and dried apricots.

And a few minutes later, the nausea hit.

I've run myself nauseous before... that is, I've left the gym feeling a bit queasy, but by the time I got home, I was fine.

This time, I ended up curled over my desk at work for 20 minutes, followed by laying on the floor for 20 minutes, before finally feeling good enough to go to the bathroom -- and ended up puking anyway. Go figure. Next time, I'll try to remember to save myself the 40 minutes and just try to get it over with.

I hung out another 15 minutes or so, waiting to see if I'd need to do it again... and I decided I felt well enough to get out of that place.

But the problem was this -- how to get home?

I knew there was no way I could take a bus -- blah.

I was afraid to take a cab, 'cause cab drivers are crazy drivers.

So I decided to just go ahead and walk, like I usually do.

Except that instead of it taking me 35 minutes to get home, it took me almost 60. I had to walk SOOOOOO slowly. I had to stop to sit on a bench. I had to stop to let my tummy settle about 15 times, especially on the 170 stairs I had to climb.

But I made it home.

And thankfully, I had yummy turkey soup leftover from Shabbat, so that's what I had for dinner, after my tummy settled down enough to eat.

Now I have to do some research and see if I can figure out exactly what caused the problem. I know many runners end up puking, but since it's never happened to me before, I'd like to see if I can avoid it happening again.

Especially since I've already paid my money for this half marathon... so it means I have to be back on the dreadmill on Wednesday.

Maybe I'll cut back to 9.5K again :)

Thank G-d It's Friday

2008-02-08T14:08:00.000+02:00

I'm coming up on the end of my tech writing class, and I am incredibly thankful. I knew when I started that it would be exhausting, but now that we've been at this for almost five months, I'm completely and totally over it.

I've got it easy compared to some in my class. One of my classmates works six days a week, from 7am-3pm... she has a two-year-old daughter, and she's now almost nine months pregnant... and she lives outside of Jerusalem, so it's something like 45 minutes each way. She's been going to work, going home, coming back to class, not getting home until after 10:00 or 10:30 at night, and going back to work by 6:45am the next day.

Another one of my classmates commutes 1.5 hours each way to come to this class twice a week.

So I'm not complaining -- I'm really not -- but I am grateful to be almost done.

Of course, the next step is actually finding a job. Again, I am thankful that I can afford to be a bit picky. I don't like my current job, but I can swing being there another few months if absolutely necessary... so I can wait until I find someplace where I believe I'll fit in with the team, and I'll not hate going to work every day. (If it's sooner, rather than later, I will be thankful for that, too.)

And the fact that I dislike my current job so much adds to my exhaustion. I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of the hours. I'm tired of the stress. I'm tired of the baloney that goes on. I'm tired of the politicking. I'm tired of making phone calls. I'm tired of getting blamed for things that are not my fault. I am flat-out tired.

So between the job and the class, it's all I can do to make it to Shabbat every week. I haven't been down to see my adopted family in three months -- I don't have the strength. I haven't been going to the gym in the mornings before work or in the afternoons when I don't have school -- I can't force myself to wake up that early or go after a full day of work.

The good news is that if I can find a decent job in tech writing, I could theoretically be working fewer hours and making considerably more money. The US Government would like that -- I would actually be able to start paying off my student loans.

So I'm definitely thinking happy job thoughts.

In other news:

Both of my pregnant co-workers have now given birth. One gave birth almost two months early, four weeks ago today. The other gave birth a week early, at 5:45 this morning. Mazal tov! Thank G-d, they're healthy babies and healthy mothers.

I can't decide if I want to plan to vote in the U.S. Presidential Election this fall or not. What it comes down to is that although I believe the Dems are better for America, the Republicans are usually better for Israel. When it comes down to it, I don't know how much I trust myself to vote in the best interests of the United States instead of my homeland.

There was a terrorist attack in Dimona this week. The security fence that will separate the West Bank from the southern part of Israel has not yet been built. Now there'll be a push to get it built, one death, many injured, and even more traumatized people late.

And there's talk of building a fence to separate Israel from the Sinai Peninsula, too, since Hamastan (Gaza) residents broke through the border to Egypt and participated in a shopping and smuggling spree for food, cigarettes and, of course, weapons.

I am reminded of my trip to Gaza back in January, 2005. I was on a pretty right-wing trip -- at the time, I was quite a bit more moderate -- but something that really affected my way of thinking was when the guide outlined Israel's security history in recent years:

Terrorists started stabbing pedestrians in the Old City. Result: People started wearing stab-proof vests when walking.

Terrorists started throwing rocks at moving vehicles in "controversial" areas. Result: People started getting shatter-proof stickers for their windows to protect them from the rocks.

Terrorists started shooting at cars. Result: People started driving vehicles with bullet-proof windows.

Terrorists hijacked a bus and drove it off a cliff. Result: The drivers are behind a security bar now, and for a time the buses were armor-plated at the bottom so they wouldn't break into pieces if driven off-road.

Terrorists started leaving bombs in public places. Results: Calling the police whenever we see a "suspicious object." Renovation of mailboxes so that they couldn't hold bombs.

Terrorists started blowing themselves up in public areas. Results: Security checks before entering every single store, cafe, public office, etc. Renovation of bus stops so that there would not be as much dangerous shrapnel flying. Security guards at bus stops. Under cover security on buses. Building a wall to keep the terrorists out of Israel.

Now, with all the rockets flying into Israel on a daily basis -- what's next? Are we going to build a taller wall? Cover ourselves with a dome?

We keep being reactive to the changing tactics of the terrorists... I wonder what it would be like if we'd finally get fully proactive. Hmm.

Anyway, now it's Friday afternoon. I still need to run to the store to get grape juice and water, so away I go...

Happy Friday/Shabbat shalom! :)

Catching up

2008-01-08T08:12:00.000+02:00

Not a lot to say about any one thing... but lots of little things to throw around, so here goes:

The shrub is coming to visit... I'm not sure if he's supposed to arrive today or tomorrow. Most Israelis don't give a damn at all. Many, like myself, are more angry at the surrounding issues -- like that traffic is going to be messed up, and that the government has been spending much-needed-elsewhere money on cleaning up the area around the King David Hotel, so that the Shrub Entourage doesn't have its sensibilities offended by trash or a smell coming from the sewers.

'Cause obviously the press corps would be going back to the States and writing about that, instead of about their Main Attraction. Right. I mean, seriously, there's a walking bridge I go across on my way to work every day, and they were painting it yesterday -- 'cause someone from the Entourage might look up and notice it as they're going under it? Yeah, okay.

I'm embarrassed by our main English-language newspaper... I have no doubt that most American journalists do not even bother reading The Jerusalem Post, however as they're going to be here for a couple of days, I am sure they'll pick it up and read it.

And this morning, as I was skimming an article about what the Israeli government is going to do in order to try and get the American press corps to think about something other than their Main Attraction, I noticed bad grammar, missing words, and wrongly-placed punctuation. Don't get me wrong -- I do not copy edit every single thing I write, including this blog... however, it's ridiculous and embarrassing that a freakin' newspaper - the ONLY English newspaper that is published on its own, and not just translated from the Hebrew - cannot bother to have a decent copy editing team.

I was originally going to be a copy editor at the JPost, but they didn't have enough of a budget to pay me... and apparently, that's pretty common there. So they have an overworked team, working on tight deadlines with bad writing, and it's no surprise that there are tons of errors... but as we're going under the world magnifying glass again, it's a shame that we cannot prove that we know how to spell properly.

Things are crazy at work... we got a new project doing transcription for a national American radio station. We're on a 30-day trial at the moment, but if we pass it, it'll be a great project for us. We'll be able to offer part-time (or full-time) employment from home to something like 60 people or more. Nice.

But meanwhile, I'm supposed to be bringing in around 40-50 people in the next three weeks... in addition to the other positions I'm supposed to be filling. So I'm pretty tired, pretty much all the time. Such is life.

My writing class is wrapping up... it looks like we're going to go another three or four weeks. I figure it's going to take me a month or two to work on my portfolio, so maybe around April or May I'll start looking for another job. It'll be hard to consider switching... 'cause as much as I dislike my job and my company, I very much love most of the people I work with... and it'll be very difficult to leave them. Plus, the evil you know is better than the evil you fear... but I definitely plan on leaving my current job, 'cause I'm wasting away there and slowly losing my brain.

I'm a huge fan of Ritalin... After consulting with a psychiatrist a couple of months ago in order to figure out what to do about my regular meds, he asked if I'd ever considered taking Ritalin to help with my ADD issues. At the time, I laughed him off and told him I had no need for more chemicals to make my brain work better, as I'd developed coping mechanisms.

However, a couple of days later I was in class, and I realized that I had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on. I was completely clueless. And suddenly I realized that I was not, in fact, coping.

So I went to my regular doctor and got the prescription for Ritalin... and I am so happy I did. It's no miracle drug, but it is changing my life in ways I hadn't imagined. I'm able to keep my house clean. I'm able to daven (pray) and actually pay attention. I'm able to go to shul (synagogue) again, after many months of not being able to stand being there. I'm losing the scars in my palms that I've had because when I couldn't pay attention, I would dig my fingernails into my hands to try and re-direct my focus. I'm finishing tasks at work. My short-term memory is more than two milliseconds long.

It's freakin' amazing, and I thank G-d for making human beings smart enough to invent stuff like this.

It's such a shame to me that there are people who refuse to take medication for stuff like ADHD or depression, because they think they need to be stronger than their problem and just deal with it. Diabetics don't do that about insulin. Epileptics don't do it about seizure medication. Asthmatics don't do it about medication that helps them breathe. So why are people so stubborn about medications that could make the quality of their life go up so exponentially? Anyway, I'm a big proponent of better living through modern chemistry, and I'm glad I changed my mind about the Ritalin.

I guess that's about it for now... I should start trying to get ready for work. I wish I could go back to sleep, instead.

The People of the Book and our lack of education

2007-12-14T14:30:00.000+02:00

Jews are known as the People of the Book. We're known for valuing education. It started with an obligation we have to learn Torah on a regular basis, daily if possible.

It expanded into learning medicine, law, philosophy, and just about anything else. We have one of the highest percentages of college degrees of any people in the world.

So it's bizarre and ridiculous that in the Jewish State, we don't seem to give a damn about education anymore.

We've had two major strikes going on for the last two months.

The high school teachers were on strike, and the university professors are still on strike.

The high school teachers wanted more money and school reforms. Class size has gotten ridiculously high, in part because teachers don't make any money, so not enough people want to become teachers. There were other issues, too, but I'm not as familiar with them so I don't want to comment on them.

The university professors say that their average salaries have actually gone down, when we take into account the raises in the cost of living over the last decade or so.

The high school teachers returned to work on the day after Chanukah, having finally reached some sort of an agreement with the government.

But the damage done by the strike is irreparable. For more than two months, high school students were lucky to get two or three hours a day of class time. High school seniors will not be able to make up the learning they missed in time to take their exams next summer. The scores will inevitably be lower for lower-income students, because they will not be able to afford private tutoring or special classes to try and catch up.

The military will suffer, because the students won't have the same education level as past inductees.

And now, the university strike threatens to cause a cancellation of the entire academic year. This means that the people who are planning to apply as first year students next year may not have places, because the students from this year will still be first-year students.

Even if this semester is canceled, and next semester does, in fact, take place - it still means that the universities will be a semester behind.

The teachers and professors have been warning the government of the possibility of this strike for months, and they weren't taken seriously... or the government just didn't care.

(With the current government, anything's possible. They seem to be spending more time kissing up uselessly to the governments of Western countries and the Palestinian (non-)Authority, and scheming to keep from being indicted for corruption than they do actually caring about the country and its people.)

Meanwhile, many of the teachers and professors have had to find other work... work which usually pays more than the teaching itself, so when it's time to return to teaching, we'll lose many of those educators to other professions.

I'm glad the high school kids are finally going back to school... and I hope the university students can return/begin classes soon... but many of us are wondering how long the ramifications of these strikes are going to last.

I don't get it

2007-11-28T06:32:00.000+02:00

Annapolis: Folly, or folly?

'Cause they can't be freakin' serious. I mean, sure... it's pretty miraculous that some of those Arab nations showed up for the summit, or whatever they're calling it... but other than that, this whole thing is a waste of resources -- money, time and hope.

It's good to hope. It's good to hope for the possibility of "peace in the Middle East." But once your hopes are shot down time and time again, The Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome sneaks in, and it's easy to start looking at the whole situation as fairly hopeless.

So now, even though the Saudis and (gasp!) the Syrians apparently showed up for this event -- the idea that this could signal the start of something real is still pretty far out.

Maybe it would mean more if either of the leaders had any real power, but um, duh, Abbas is so powerless that he's lucky to be alive, and Olmert is pretty much only powerful 'cause he's good at manipulating the media and the minions, despite his history of corruption. And 'cause Sharon's still lying in the hospital somewhere in a coma. But he's sure not powerful enough to institute some of the changes the Palestinians and/or other Arabs would "require" for peace to exist. (Like, well, allowing ourselves to be pushed into the sea...)

I feel like we're acting like bad parents.

Parents encourage good behavior by rewarding it. When a child does something he or she shouldn't do, good parents find a way to signal that the behavior is not acceptable.

So... the Palestinian people, in a fair and monitored election, elected a terrorist group to be their government. They continue to shoot rockets into sovereign Israeli territory. They continue to attempt sending terrorists into Jerusalem. They continue to defend their belief that Israelis don't belong in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), by randomly choosing people to shoot at and sometimes kill.

And we go to a peace summit with them? Huh?

I just don't get it.

On shaky ground

2007-11-20T18:19:00.000+02:00

Heh, our company's having some challenges lately, and apparently we're going to lease out some of our space to outside companies. That means there's lots of construction going on.

So today, when the building shook for about half a second, my colleague and I looked at each other, and she asked "was that an earthquake?" My answer was, "or construction."

Sure enough, it turns out it was an earthquake.

I can handle that kind of shaky ground... it's those big ones that scare me.

Korrie, this one's for you

2007-11-12T15:56:00.000+02:00

Okay, since Korrie not-so-subtly jabbed me on Facebook to get me to blog, I figured I'd better get at it.

Honestly, I didn't realize it's been nearly six weeks since I wrote here. Ya'll can feel free to remind me (maybe more gently than jabbing?) when it's been a while.

Life's busy-busy-busy.

I'm running at least three days a week, plus working out an additional two or three days when possible.

I'm in class two nights a week.

I'm working a minimum of 45 hours/week, usually 50+.

I'm training a new interviewing manager how to interview -- and since his project runs from midnight-6am, we interview after 10pm.

I'm trying to be a bit more social, so I'm attempting to go out with friends at least one evening a week when possible.

So yeah, I've been busy.

So busy, in fact, that I took vacation days from work in order to try to clean up my house and work on my homework. I haven't completed either list of things to do, but at least I made progress in the right direction.

My boss is generally ticked off at me for not doing my job well enough, as far as he's concerned. He doesn't like the fact that I have principles that I will not compromise. Yet he's still better than the alternative of the new boss he's training for us... because the evil you know is better, and all that jazz.

I haven't been paying too much attention to what's going on in the news, because by the time I get home from work, I'm too exhausted to deal with the stress that comes from knowing what's going on in this crazy world.

I know that there's some summit being planned that will deal with Middle East peace-type issues. I'm sure there are lots of people who believe a summit like this is a step in the direction toward peace -- but I'm pretty positive that the vast majority of those people live outside Israel. Those of us who live here gave up on that a long time ago.

Our stupid fake prime minister (remember, our real one is still in a coma... not that he was all that great, but sheesh, compared to this one he was pretty good) is apparently planning on releasing more prisoners, even though we're still being bombarded by rockets from Gaza, and there are attempted terrorist attacks from the West Bank.

In fact, we're going to a conference to negotiate with someone who says that the Palestinians will refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state. His reasoning is apparently that since there are no other countries where religious and cultural identities are intertwined, Israel should not have that status.

Um, what about those terrorist Islamic countries wherein they intertwine religion and culture all the time? Like when they force women to travel with a chaperone and cover herself from head to toe, if for some reason, they absolutely must leave their homes.

I guess they don't count.

The other major news topic around here is that the secondary school teachers have been on strike for weeks, and there's no end in sight. This means that all the kids over age 14, if not younger, are hanging out all day with nothing to do. But the teachers in this country get paid for crap, so I don't blame them for taking a stand.

It does seem, however, that if the teachers aren't on strike, the students are. Sometimes it's the government organizations that are on strike. Occasionally it's the parents. Somewhere, someone in this country is on strike at pretty much every tick of the clock.

As you can see, with the status of affairs in my crazy corner of the world, it would take WAY too much energy to keep up with all the insanity.

And now it's time to return to my homework.

Happy, Korrie? :)

So much to yap about, and so little time...

2007-10-02T06:29:00.000+02:00

I've been thinking that I need to write here for about a week, but because of the holiday I just hadn't gotten to it yet. Now I've got too much to say, so I'm going to have to squeeze it in. At least you'll get the Reader's Digest version of everything, instead of the full encyclopedia.

The holiday:

Sukkot, we figured out, might be known to non-Jews as "The Festival of Booths." I was discussing it with a friend last week who had been trying to explain it to her non-Jewish relative in the States.

Basically, G-d told us that every year we have to go live in temporary shelters. There are a lot of specifications in order to make them kosher according to Jewish law, but the basics are that they have to have at least three walls and a roof through which there is more shade than sun, but it's still possible to see the stars. One is a "sukkah," and more than one are "sukkot," hence the name of the holiday.

Now there are a lot of ways of building a sukkah, and a lot of rules about who needs to do what in the sukkah and when. For example, it's a commandment to eat and sleep in the sukkah, but only Jewish males are bound by that commitment. That means that women get to sleep inside on comfortable mattresses, without the extra noise and mosquitos, while observant men are technically supposed to sleep in the sukkah.

Among the ultra-religious (although I hate that term, because it makes it sound like they're more religious, but they're just actually keeping stringencies...), pretty much every single family finds a way to build a sukkah.

So in Jerusalem, especially in the ultra-religious neighborhoods I walk through daily, it's pretty amazing to see all of the sukkot. They are not just in yards and on balconies. They're in parking lots, parking spots on the street, roofs, and even literally hanging off the edges of buildings. There are special support bars that people can put up so that if they don't have a balcony, they create one temporarily for the week.

(My digital camera was stolen in the break-in in May, so I can't put up pictures, unfortunately.)

And because Sukkot is a festival, it's also a time of lots of celebrating... so on my way home at night, I pass places with lots of singing and dancing and smiling... and I can't help but smile myself... Way Cool.

Work:

It looks like I'm getting a new boss. The short version is that my boss got a promotion and can't do what we need him to do for our department anymore. But there weren't a lot of options for replacing him, and the best option was apparently to give us to the head of our complementary department -- the Human Resources department. (In our company, Recruitment and HR are separate. We do a lot of work for each other, but we focus on our own stuff. That means we also argue a lot.)

She's actually new to being the head of HR, and she's really got her hands full with that department... so we're not sure how well it's going to work with her also being our boss. Not that we have much choice in the matter, of course.

And after 15 months of dealing with my current boss, it's sort of amazing that I will actually miss having him as a boss in several ways. Part of it is that we've learned how to work with each other... but part of it, I'm sure, is a version of the Stockholm Syndrome. (That's when kidnapped people start identifying with their captors.) So it's possible that as we get to know the new boss, and the old boss slides out of power, I'll realize that, in fact, this was even worse than I've thought it was.

Career:

I've started taking a technical writing course. That means at the end of the course, I could very well be the one writing your user manual for that camera you bought... and yes, I will take it personally if I find out you didn't actually read it.

It's about a five-month course. I'm learning how to write in particular styles specifically for tech writing. I'm also learning how to use different software that's used in the industry.

And so it means that in order to fit in the gym, work, and my course, my Mondays and Wednesdays begin by getting up around 5:45 (for those of you who know me, you realize this SUCKS) in order to make sure I can get at least 1/2 an hour in the gym before work. Then I work from 9:15ish to 5:30ish. I walk up the hill to my course, which goes from 6:00-9:30. Then I walk home, and get home around 10ish... and try to be in bed by 10:30 or 11. Oy.

I'm on a break now because of the holiday, but I have homework I need to do (though I'm really not supposed to do it on the holiday... in fact, I am not really supposed to be writing this, either, but oh well...). At least my schedule's a tiny bit more flexible. It sure was nice not getting up at 5:45 yesterday morning.

The news:

You didn't think that with all the crazy crud going on, I'd skip this, did you?

Except I could, theoretically, sum up my feelings about what's going on with two words: Oy Vey. Or three words -- What The Hell?

Rockets are still being fired from Gaza into Israel on a daily basis. Israel has declared Gaza to be an enemy territory. Makes sense, right? If Windsor was firing rockets into Detroit, Americans would be pretty ticked off.

Yet still, Israel is getting criticized for the decision. How could we even think about limiting the amount of electricity we supply to just enough to run the hospitals for a one-hour per rocket fired ratio? Because, after all, we should supply them with enough electricity to run their rocket-making lathes? Huh?

Meanwhile, Israel is releasing a bunch of "security prisoners." Around 90 or so, in fact. Gilad Schalit is still being held in Gaza somewhere, and Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are still missing after having been kidnapped by Hezbollah, but apparently that is meaningless when it comes to playing the international political game. Because once again, Israel makes concessions, and no one else is expected to do anything.

And next month we're going to yet MORE "talks?" This time in Maryland, apparently. So Israel will sit down with the PA representatives -- who, by the way, were NOT the democratically-elected officials... remember, that was Hamas? -- and be expected to concede more and more and more and get abso-freakin'-lutely nothing in return. Oh right, we're supposed to get some sort of peace out of the deal... and that's worked so well in the past.

One of the best determining factors of future behavior is past behavior. So why on earth does ANYONE think things are going to change? It's ridiculous.

But there's one political party in Israel that seems to be making some sort of sense -- Israel Beiteinu (Israel's Between Us, for lack of a better translation). Israel Beiteinu has a platform that pretty much goes like this:

Okay, let's do territorial concessions. Let's look at the facts on the ground... we have lots of Israeli Arabs in land blocks close to the West Bank. We have lots of Jews in land blocks close to what's considered acceptable Israel. So let's do some trading. The Israeli Arabs can be part of the Palestinian State, and we'll change the maps to include the Jewish blocks as part of Israel. That helps solve some of the demographic problems.

But of course the world starts screaming that the Israeli Arabs are, in fact, Israeli, and we should keep them. Why? They don't like us. They're discriminated against, whether we admit it or not. They don't do national service of any kind, even for their own people. Oh yeah, because the get treated better by Israel than they would by a Palestinian State... and this is my problem exactly why?

Israel Beiteinu is also apparently setting up some guidelines for the summit next month. One of them is that no, no, no way in hell are we going to build a road that connects Gaza and the West Bank, since Gaza is controlled by their democratically-elected chosen officials, Hamas, and that's a terrorist group.

If we had elections right now, I'm pretty sure I'd know who I was voting for.

Mean doctors suck

2007-09-17T15:52:00.000+02:00

My ear's been hurting -- or rather, a spot behind and just under my ear -- and I decided that the pain was bad enough I should really go to a doctor. I might not have done it, except that the pain was actually getting worse throughout the morning, and I had co-workers who would help me find a doctor and make the appointment for me.

Mind you, I hate going to the doctor. I've had too many mean, inconsiderate doctors in my life, and I avoid them as much as possible. But it hurts, so I went.

Here's the gist of the exchange:

Me: My ear hurts.

Dr. Butthead: Do you have problems with your ears?

Me: No. I get ear infections a couple of times a year, but they usually go away on their own.

Dr.: Temperature?

Me: No, I don't think so.

Dr.: Come sit over here. (Pulls out ear checker and checks my ears and throat) Well, except for too many earrings, I am happy to say I don't see anything wrong.

(Exchange about how yes, in fact there is something wrong... check again... maybe it's your jaw... maybe it's a tooth problem... nope, don't feel any swelling, everything seems fine.)

Dr.: Come over here, so I can check your blood pressure. (Sees my tattoo. Pushes my sleeve up even more so he can see it.) Oh, nice. (said in a very snotty tone of voice)

Me: (Trying to be polite) Yeah, well, nothing I can do about it now.

Dr: Why not? There's surgery. Laser.

Me: I don't have a psak (ruling according to Jewish law) that says I can. In fact, I've been told not to, because it's a health risk. (Thinking that I would not have it removed anyway, but whatever...)

Dr: Really? A health risk? (Still being snotty)

Me: Yes.

Dr: (while taking blood pressure) Do you have any problems with blood pressure in your family? (As he's checking mine three times, seemingly because he doesn't believe that someone my size could have a healthy blood pressure level.

Me: No.

Dr: 110/85. That's okay. (Me thinking: Okay? It's great, you moron. And it would be even better if I wasn't stressed about being at a doctor's office. Whatever.)

Dr continues: You know your weight is a problem.

Me: Yes, I know. I've already lost _____ kilos. (Insert large number in blank space)

Dr: (*laughing*) Really?

Me: Yes. (You asshole.)

Dr: What have you been doing?

Me: Watching what I eat. Exercising a lot.

Dr: Keep it up. A lot of it.

Me: (speechless. Did he frickin' just say that? Is he really that big of an asshole? This is exactly why I do NOT NOT NOT NOT go to doctors.)

He was so snotty. And the end of it is that he says I have a swollen lymph node. Maybe I'm getting sick. I should try and disregard the pain, but if it's really bad, I should take a Tylenol or an Advil. If it gets worse, he'll see me again (Like hell he will).

I left the office and started crying. I came back to my office and cried some more. One of my co-workers threatened to kill him for me. Another one said I should take her back up to his office and she'll take care of him for me. Another one is going to check with his father-in-law who is a big macher with one of the health funds, to see if there have been any other complaints against this guy.

So I still have a swollen lymph node. I still have no doctor. But at least I know I have really cool co-workers, who I am happy I can call "friends."

Three years and one day

2007-08-12T06:57:00.000+03:00

I've been thinking about what I want to write here, in regards to my anniversary. One thing I thought about was what I've gained (and sometimes lost) by living here.

I was priviliged to be able to study Judaism full-time for a year. But because I haven't kept up with it, I've also lost a large chunk of that knowledge. I'm now working on re-learning a lot, so I can continue to move forward.

I've gained a lot of weight, and lost (thank G-d) almost all of it at this point. It was part of the acclimation, I guess, in parallel with having no money (NO money), and being at the mercy of the absorption center kitchen for food.

I've gained a pretty apathetic sense of politics, living in a country where the politicians are full of corruption and the people don't seem to do anything about it.

I've added yet another field to my already-abundant list of jobs I've held. I have not lost my desire to work in editing, so that's something I'm slowly (very slowly) working toward for the future.

But most importantly, I have gained a sense of self I could never find before, and a sense of security in who I am in the world around me.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm still living in a country where I don't speak the language well, which leads me to not participate in the world as much as I could or should. I'm still insecure about a lot of things, not the least of which is my social life (or lack thereof).

But I feel like for 32 years I was never at home in my own skin, and three years later, I finally am. I want to continue to grow emotionally, spiritually and physically (by getting stronger, and not bigger, thankyouverymuch), because I don't believe any human should ever stop doing that for long. But I no longer feel like I have to change who I am, to force my square peg into someone else's round hole.

In a way, it's weird, because I'm still a bit of a rebel, and I probably always will be.

But what it comes down to is: I am finally home.

Stupid, stupid, stupid

2007-07-25T07:39:00.000+03:00

Really, as much as I try to convince people that I don't live in a backwards country, it gets tiring trying to convince myself of that very same thing sometimes.

Our national union is going on strike... again. This is the THIRD such strike in nine months.

When this kind of strike happens, we're without public services -- including garbage collection, government offices, mail, trains, border control (there's still security, but no way to get in or out of the country), the airport, some of the national health services, the ports, etc.

Last November, I was stranded in the Frankfurt airport for 15 hours without food, because of this kind of strike. It would have been another 12-24 hours, except that my flight was allowed to come back because of humanitarian reasons -- an Israeli girl had been in a horrible car accident in Germany, and she was being flown back to Israel for treatment. I just happened to be on that flight.

Now, it's the busiest tourist time of the year. So we're going to leave people stranded all over the world, including sitting on airport floors, because the Histadrut has decided *this* is the time to fight (again) for more money.

Don't get me wrong -- I am all about having the protection of unions. But not at the expense of the public.

As it is, government offices and post offices are only open to the public about 20-25 hours/week. Same with banks. For any normal person to be able to go to those, the person has to take a day off of work. No late hours... no Fridays... it really stinks.

The union is asking for a 10% wage hike. The government has offered 1%. Both of those are completely unreasonable.

I hope they can come to an agreement fast... it's hot in July. Too much time without garbage disposal will get ugly.

Entertainment through the "news"

2007-07-02T07:45:00.001+03:00

It seems to me that while the news gets sadder and more frustrating, it also gets funnier.

Today's headline that cracked me up:

"Trouble finding 250 eligible prisoners hinders release"

(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1183053079656&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

See, Olmert, in his infinite wisdom, agreed to try to release 250 Fatah Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in an attempt to boost Abbas' standing in the West Bank.

But the one thing he did that made at least a tiny bit of sense was that he agreed to release only prisoners "without blood on their hands."

I guess he didn't take into consideration that:

A: Our soldiers are too busy dodging rocks and bullets to hunt down many people for car theft.

and

B: If someone is in Fatah, of COURSE he has blood on his hands, you dummy.

Duh.

Fatah is a terrorist organization, you big flippin' idiot. What are you thinking?

G-d, I hate stupid people. And even worse, I hate stupid people who end up in positions of political power.

Donating blood

2007-06-22T13:43:00.000+03:00

I just had the best blood donation experience, ever.

It's been sort of a pain to donate here, so this was only the second time since I made aliyah that I've donated.

It's a pain partly because I only know two places to go to donate. One is not close to anything I would normally be near. The other is right in downtown Jerusalem, but I don't know what hours they're actually there.

Plus, there always seems to be something that makes it not a good idea for me to donate at that time... even when Magen David comes to my workplace to accept blood donations.

I have to have eaten.

I have to be feeling well.

I have to not have an open house at work that day.

I have to not have gym day that day.

I have to not smell bad, which is usually my problem on Friday mornings when I go out practically in my pajamas to do my shopping.

I have to have time, which I often don't anyway on Friday mornings.

So I did most of my shopping last night, because I wasn't sure if I'd be going to breakfast with a friend today. We didn't, so I had some extra time on my hands.

I put on a clean shirt and deodorant and body spray, and walked slowly downtown.

(The other awesome reason for me to go there is that due to the number of tourists who want to donate blood, there's usually someone there who speaks English.)

Anyway, the people were super nice. The only reprimand I got was for going so long without donating (a bit more than two years). There was an American nurse, and her assistant also spoke awesome English.

For anyone who might not know, before a person is allowed to donate a whole pint or whatever it is of blood, his or her iron level is usually checked. In the States, I used to ask them to take the blood from my ear, because I HATE having blood taken from my fingertip. It always hurts, and for a long time, too.

Today, I was tag-teamed, so while I was looking at the nurse and answering questions. the assistant had my hand and poked my finger for blood. It didn't hurt! Not even a little bit! No giant torture device, no ache, and no bruisy feeling, even now.

The Israeli nurse who actually took my blood was amazing. Seriously. I barely felt the needle go into my arm. I didn't feel it come out almost at all.

The people were super friendly, and nothing hurt at all!

I don't mind a little hurt when I donate, really. Whomever's gonna get my blood is going to be in a lot worse shape than having an achey finger and a bruisy arm.

But it was really awesome to do it and NOT have an ache or a bruise.

Anyway, wherever you live, if you're eligible to donate -- don't forget how much you could help other people by taking a half hour, or whatever it is, to donate blood.

Just do it.

How ironic...

2007-06-21T07:43:00.000+03:00

Here's a headline from Ha'aretz newspaper today:

"Abbas: No dialogue with 'murderous terrorists' in Hamas"

(full article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873266.html)

Heh.

There's also a typical Ha'aretz editorial that basically says "Even though it's true that Gazan 'refugees' might actually come to blow us up in Israel, we should give them refuge here."

That's why I hate Ha'aretz.

See, it makes total sense, if you look at it.

1. Gazans elected a Hamas government.
2. Hamas took over the country, just as they'd voted for.
3. Some people don't like Hamas. Hence, Hamas does not like them.
4. No one in Gaza likes Israel. I don't think I'm exaggerating here.
5. The people who don't like Hamas, who aren't liked by Hamas, don't like Israel. (See, it's a combination of 3 & 4.)
6. Let's let the people of #5 come to Israel, since their lives are in danger.
7. Now, Hamas has a much less crowded strip of land to rule, with fewer enemies within.
8. Israel, in its generosity, is rewarded with a stronger Hamas in Gaza, and even more people within our own borders who don't like us.

Yes, it makes total sense. If you're Ha'aretz. Stupid Ha'aretz.

I don't understand how almost NO ONE ON THE PLANET thinks that the people in Gaza don't have to take any responsibility for anything that befalls them.

The people in America are stupid, because they voted Bush in a second time, after he stole the election the first time.

The people in Israel are stupid, because even after Sharon was in a coma, and the entire "Kadima" party was under investigation for financial and/or sexual crimes, we still allowed that party to win.

Hamas did not steal the election. They were elected fair & square, by people who wanted them to rule over their people.

And now that their chosen party is ruling over them, I'm supposed to feel bad for them?

I guess maybe if I had a television, so I would *see* the images of those people, I would be more sympathetic.

But at the moment, I sorta feel like this: If those people are truly refugees, then let some Muslim country take them in and help them. I don't want them here.

Can there be war crimes, if it isn't a war between nations?

2007-06-11T07:23:00.000+03:00

I just read that the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is accusing Israel of having committed war crimes against Lebanese civilians last year during the war.

The report charges, "The often-repeated theme that Israeli officials articulated during the war -- that Lebanese civilians had to 'pay a price' for the military activities and political strength of (Hezbollah) -- is clear evidence that Israel's use of force in asserted 'self-defense' was in fact a pretext for wide-ranging retaliation aimed at Lebanese civilians. The principle of distinction (between soldiers and civilians) is an essential element of customary international law and international humanitarian law." (Detroit News, 6/10/07)

Right.

Because Israel wants to just waste millions of shekels and more than 100 lives of our soldiers just to hurt civilians.

I like the way "self-defense" is in quotes. Like, "sure... it's 'self-defense,' even though you have a big, strong military and all we have is our little militia who doesn't do anything but intimidate us and rule our government, so how could we possibly be doing anything to you for which you would need to defend yourselves?"

I also like the way they get self-righteous about the level of distinction between soldiers and civilians.

Because of course, allowing Hezbollah to shoot rockets at completely unaware and unarmed farmers and children is distinguishing between soldiers and civilians.

Once again, "they" believe Israel should be held to a higher standard than themselves.

The funny thing is, we do hold ourselves to a higher standard.

I have friends who are, or who have been, soldiers in Gaza, Judea and/or Samaria. They tell me stories of having children thrown at them, as shields between rock/bottle throwers and the soldiers.

They tell me stories of Israeli soldiers being shot while entering homes looking for terrorists, because instead of just bombing the house and being done with it, they go in one-by-one in order to protect the lives of the "civilians" harboring the terrorists.

Israel constantly puts the lives of our soldiers on the line in order to protect the lives of civilians, even though the line between "civilian" and "terrorist/harborer of terrorist/soldier" is much more blurred on their side than on ours.

The report's sort of right about one thing, for sure -- there were serious crimes committed during the war, by the Israeli military.

Unfortunately, the crimes I'm referring to were committed against our own soldiers.

The way our soldiers were treated by the stupid leaders of this country and of the military was disgusting. They were sent into battle without proper equipment. In preparing for the war, it was literally every man for himself when it came to scamming arms out of the armories. People were bringing equipment from home.

The soldiers were sent into battle in the heat of the summer without food or water, and expected to fight for their lives and the lives of all Israeli citizens.

Reservists who'd gotten soft during the previous years because their reserve duty was chopped to save money, were told to run 30 or 40 miles with full packs as "training," and then sent into battle.

I don't know what I think anymore. I have friends who want all Arabs within Israel, Gaza, Judea and Samaria shipped out to Jordan or any other Muslim country.

I'm not at that point yet... but I see why they believe the way they do.

What a crazy world...

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

A bunch of British academics are planning to boycott Israeli academics and academic institutions. Why? Because they say Israel denies Palestinians the right to education. Huh?

And it always amuses me when it's academics vs. academics. They're all so stereotypically left wing that it's like saying "I like your politics. I like what you're trying to say and publish. I like the fact that you don't like what your country is doing. But since you're from that country, it's all your fault."

Stupid.

***

I wonder how much news coverage the female Palestinian news anchors in Gaza will get. They've been threatened with being beheaded for appearing on camera without their heads covered.

"Because I don't like seeing your hair, I'm going to chop off your head."

Stupid.

***

A bunch of idiotic protestors at the G8 conference have ruined the fun for everyone. They took what was supposed to be a peaceful protest and turned it into a pavement-chopping, rock-throwing, dangerous free-for-all. Now there won't be protestors allowed.

Stupid.

***

Really, I could find so many more examples of why the world is crazy... but wasting my time and energy doing it would be... wait for it...

Stupid.

***

Now it's time for me to call and see if my landlord is home yet, so I can take him the renewed contract to sign, and the checks for the next year. Once that's done, then in the next few days I'm going to try to call an insurance agent someone recommended and get rental insurance.

That's about all the news from here...

Counting my blessings... and the usual rant about Israel's survival

2007-05-25T08:07:00.000+03:00

I lived in Hamtramck, a tiny little city inside the City of Detroit, for eight years. For one of those years, I was in Israel, and my house was only checked on periodically by my parents. My apartment was never burgled.

Now, I live in Jerusalem, the Holy City. And on the holiday in which we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai, my apartment was broken into. Go figure. (It turns out that one of the biggest days for home burglaries in Israel is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, when most Jews are in shul.)

I was not home at the time, baruch Hashem (thank G-d). Instead, I came home late in the evening after the holiday ended to find that the burglar(s) had broken the bars on one of my windows and just popped on in.

The only things that were taken were my awesome digital camera and some cash. And my sense of security, of course.

Since I didn't get home until 11:30 at night, I didn't want to call my landlord or the police. Instead, I stayed up until around 3:30 in the morning, stalling, because I was afraid to go to sleep. When I did finally go to bed, I went armed with heavy tools, other assorted heavy tools, and one can of bug spray on each side of the bed. I held the tools in my hands while I dozed on and off for a few hours, before I finally gave up on the idea of actual sleep.

The police were all very nice -- the ones on the phone, and the ones in person. They were all patient with my Hebrew, and none of them tried to switch to English when I didn't understand something -- they just repeated what they'd said more slowly, or used different words to make sure I understood them.

I had issues with reaching my landlord. I know he's unavailable in the mornings, but I'd called his house to see if his wife would know what I should do and when her husband would be home. The wife was very nice. She told me what to do, and that her husband would be home around 11am.

When I didn't hear from him by 11:30, I called his house again. No answer. I called again at 12 -- no answer. At 12:30, his wife answered. I explained that I was finished with the police stuff, but my biggest concern was the lack of bars on my window. She assured me that she would tell him as soon as he got home, and he would get the bars fixed.

After sitting around doing nothing productive for a few hours, I decided I might as well go to work. When I hadn't heard from my landlord by 4:45, I finally decided to call him again.

His wife had not, in fact, told him about what happened.

Nice.

He kept telling me that he'd been home since 12, and I should have called him earlier. I kept saying I'd been trying to call him all day, and that when I spoke to his wife at 12:30, she told me she'd tell him. Oy.

He said he'd try to have the bars fixed yesterday afternoon or this morning.

I came home and was trying to decide if I wanted to stay the night here or not. I had plenty of options, if I didn't want to stay here.

One of the most wonderful blessings to come out of this experience was the outpouring of warmth and hospitality from my friends and acquaintances.

I've always been a bit concerned that if something happened to me with no family in Israel, I would be alone. This event changed that. I had offers from friends, co-workers and acquaintances of dinner... a place to stay for as long as I'd like... even one offer for a friend to come stay here with me. It was amazing.

Also, as I was sitting here last night deciding what to do, I heard my neighbors outside looking at the bent bars. Once I realized what they were talking about, I decided to go speak to them and see if they knew when it had actually happened. I'd never really spoken to them before (not that I spoke much to them last night, but I listened while they talked amongst themselves in Hebrew), and it was also a good experience. They were kind and sympathetic and frustrated because they hadn't been around when it happened to stop it. (Of course, they're also concerned for themselves in this, as they should be.)

Anyway, at 9:30 last night, my landlord came and brought the window-bar-fixing guy. The guy took down the old bars, and he's supposed to come back and put the new ones in early this afternoon.

When my neighbords found out I would be without bars for the night, they made sure to tell me they'd be keeping an ear out, and they'd be available if I needed anything.

So, with lots of faith that Hashem would protect me, and my neighbors would be listening out for me, I actually slept last night. And hopefully the new bars will make me feel safer, too, and I'll be able to get past this.

****

My rant:

Recently, I heard the best definitions for "left wing" and "right wing" in Israeli politics that I've ever heard.

I was told that both the left and the right want peace. We want to live peacefully with our neighbors, without fearing for our lives. We want that our neighbors should feel secure, as well.

But the difference is this: The left wing still believes peace is possible, while the right wing has given up believing.

It wasn't so long ago that I changed my self-definition from "moderate" or "middle of the road" to "right wing." And once I heard that breakdown of the difference between left and right, I felt much more secure in my self-definition.

See, I don't believe anymore that our neighbors will allow us to live with any sense of security.

We've already had to build fences and walls (like the bars on my windows), to try and protect ourselves. Yet every time we find a way to give ourselves a sense of security, the terrorists (I'm not so right-wing [yet] that I'm going to blame all the Arabs.) find a way to kill that sense.

Right now, the war on Sderot has gotten to a point where something like half the residents have fleed the city.

And in the midst of this, a group of Israeli Arab "moderates and intellectuals" has released a set of documents outlining their "vision of what Israel should be." (See link for more information: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708666171&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull )

The end result?

The destruction of the Jewish State.

This is from the moderates? I'd expect it from "intellectuals," as they usually lean left and have their heads in the clouds anyway. But the moderates?

In these documents, the moderates want:

The establishment of a Palestinian state whose residents would have the right to move to Israel, and Israeli Arabs would be able to move to the Palestinian state.

The right of return to all the descendents of Arab "refugees."

The repeal of the Law of Return that allows Jews from all over the world to immigrate to Israel.

The State of Israel to be a "state based on equality between the two national groups."

The Israeli Arabs to have veto power over any issue that might affect them.

Now, some of the items above don't sound bad... until you look further into them and see that what it all comes down to is that Jews don't have any right to self-determination.

Is it any wonder that I've given up on the idea of peace?

40 years and counting

2007-05-19T21:06:00.000+03:00

Mom mentioned she'd hoped I'd written something about Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) in my blog, and I realized it's been a long time since I've posted here.

On Mother's Day, Mom called around 10:30pm. (Yes, I had actually called her earlier in the day, like a relatively good daughter... but she couldn't talk then, so she called me back.) We were chatting about whatever, when these huge BOOM! sounds started.

Thinking back, they weren't such a big deal to me. I assumed they were fireworks, although they sounded much closer than normal. I wonder, though, what Mom was thinking before I mentioned they were, in fact, fireworks. Poor Mom. I do realize what my parents go through with me living in Israel, and I am 100% grateful for their unwavering support of my dream and reality. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, and the size of your window will take this into account, no matter what happens in the future ;) )

The fireworks were so close, in fact, that I could see them through my front door, and I had to shut the door in order to be able to continue my conversation with Mom.

Yom Yerushalayim is the annual celebration of the unification of Jerusalem. It marks the day that the IDF took back the Old City, and, for the first time in 19 years, had access to our holiest site -- the Western Wall (Kotel).

For many years, until 1948, we had access to a tiny little section about as big as a standard doorway. But in 1948, when the UN Plan for dividing the land of Israel into two countries and an international region didn't work, we stopped having any access at all to the Kotel.

This was when Jordan wasn't anything like the "friendly" country it is today. Jordan controlled the West Bank and Jerusalem... and our holiest site.

So yeah, it's a big deal for us, and we mark it with celebrations every year. This year is particularly awesome, because it's an "0" year -- the 40th year. It's been 40 years since the Six Day War that allowed Jews to get to not only our holiest site, the Kotel, but also to many of our other holy sites, including the Cave of the Patriarchs, Joseph's tomb, Rachel's tomb, and others.

It's pretty amazing that after we weren't allowed to get to so many of our holy sites that we did not stop the Muslims from accessing their sites when we had/have control. But, as the Torah says, we're to be a Light Unto the Nations, so I guess we have to set a better example.

Anyway, this past Tuesday evening marked the 40th anniversary. There were events all week, but on Tuesday there was a parade.

Whenever I mentioned at work that I wanted to go to the parade, people laughed at me. "A parade?" they asked. "That's not a parade."

I knew it wasn't going to be America's Thanksgiving Parade, one of the three nationally-televised parades in the States, that was held in Downtown Detroit. But still, it was a parade, and I like parades.

I read the description ahead of time... it was to boast 11 floats, some tractors, some 40 dancing groups, and a bunch of workers' union people.

So I asked my boss if he minded my leaving early, so that I could go to the parade (it started at 6pm), and with his permission, I left. On my way out, someone said I should take lots of pictures. If she hadn't said that, I wouldn't have even thought to take my camera, so I'm glad she did. (I haven't loaded the pics onto my computer yet... when I do, I'll try to get some up.)

I was prepared for a small and not-very-fancy parade.

I was not, however, prepared to start weeping as the beginning of the parade neared where I was standing. Yes, weeping.

I was standing in a place where not so many years before I could have been murdered just for being a Jew, and now it is the Jewish country.

And leading the parade was the Police Band, marching and playing a traditional folk tune. It was a Jewish band, made of Jewish police officers, walking down a street in a Jewish neighborhood of the Jewish state.

It was pretty amazing to comprehend, and yes, I wept.

You can view the entire album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mgbayer/JerusalemDayParade

Thank G-d for Israel

2007-04-23T20:53:00.000+03:00

It's not that I don't love the U.S. I do. But I don't love it in the same way.

It's now officially Yom HaAztmaut -- Israeli Independence Day.

In 1947, the U.N. voted to give us Jews our own state. And anyone who understands the U.N. and the world at large understands this was truly a miracle from Hashem.

And as if that wasn't a big enough miracle, He/She/It then saved us from what looked like annhilation as the British pulled out and the Arabs tried to kill as many of us as possible.

On the fifth day of the month of Iyar, the British officially handed over the keys to the house, and the Jews proclaimed the name of our new state to be "Israel."

Because this year Yom HaZikaron would have fallen right after Shabbat went out, the commemorations and celebrations were moved to the fifth and sixth of Iyar instead of the fourth and fifth... that means today is the day for celebrating the birth and existence of the State of Israel.

It's an incredible experience to go from a day of mourning to a day of celebration, but every year we do it.

Thank you, G-d, for helping us get back our Homeland.

Yom HaZikaron - Memorial Day

2007-04-22T20:28:00.000+03:00

Although I wanted to go to the Kotel for the ceremony, I didn't have time to get there. Instead, I dropped off my backpack at home, grabbed a water bottle, and headed for the municipality. There wasn't a ceremony there, so I turned around and headed back home.

I was at one of the most popular areas in Jerualem when the siren started.

Everything stopped... almost.

Busses stopped. Taxis stopped. People stopped where they were, even if they were in the middle of crossing the streets.

One taxi continued driving, and two Arabs walked past me while I stood in awe of the way Israel mourns its fallen.

Coffee shops are closed. Movie theatres are closed. There will be no bowling or hanging out in pubs tonight. On television will be shows and documentaries about soldiers and victims of terror who have died. There will be ceremonies all over the country tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning, the siren will sound for two minutes.

Tonight's was only one minute, but it seemed like one of the longest minutes of my life.

Heroes and martyrs

2007-04-17T20:57:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was the day that the State of Israel commemorated the heroes and martyrs from the Shoah.

One of the things we do is stop and stand silently for two minutes while sirens sound nationwide.

It's bizarre.

I was at work, speaking to a colleague, but keeping an eye on the clock. About 15 seconds before the siren started, my colleague stood. I opened the window, just to be sure we'd hear the siren. As it began, the six people in my office just stopped in the middle of what we were doing and stood up.

The siren isn't an even sound. It goes up and down, and seems like endless wailing for the two minutes it lasts.

And then, as quickly as we'd stood, we all sat back down at the end.

We didn't immediately return to what we'd been doing. It was quiet for a while, as we all continued to think about the Shoah and what it meant to us.

Eventually, we went back to work.

I didn't find out until after Yom HaShoah was over that an Israeli Shoah survivor in the United States blocked the doorway of his classroom so the gunman couldn't get in while the students escaped through the windows.

Liviu Librescu, of blessed memory, was a hero.

Bearing Witness

2007-04-15T20:30:00.000+03:00

Today is the day of rememberence for victims of the Shoah (Holocaust), as well as the heroes who rose up to fight.

Kitniyot, a guy named Shelton, and a tumble

2007-04-05T21:38:00.000+03:00

Kitniyot:

Houston, it's a go on the kitniyot.

I'm still not sure about rice, but when it comes to legumes, I've decided I'm eating them. It's a combination of things that worked toward that decision, but the biggest part of it was that in my heart, it's more important to grow toward a unified Am Yisrael (people of Israel) than it is to hold on to a tradition that even people who keep it agree is pretty dumb.

A guy named Shelton:

Shelton Kang was a neat man who was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2002, lost his wife in 2003, and yet kept such amazingly high spirits that most people who had any sort of contact with him -- even through the Internet -- will remember him as someone who lifted spirits.

I knew Shelton only through his posts on the mailing lists, and through posts by his sister, Harriet. Harriet actually stayed with me when she was in Israel a couple of years ago, although I'd originally met her at the Phoenix half marathon in 2004.

Shelton and Harriet were supposed to go on vacation together about a week or so ago... but as they were preparing, Shelton went into cardiac arrest and died.

At the moment, I'm remembering his ability to see the positive in almost any situation... his talent for making people feel better... and his perseverance, despite his illness.

A tumble:

Today, long story short, I took a short trip on my way into work. It was a trip of about a foot or two, during which time the inside of my pant leg accumulated most of the skin from my right knee, and the sidewalk took the skin from my right hand. Both my knees are swollen, and the raw skin burns... but thank G-d nothing's broken, and I'm sure I'll heal within a few days.

It'll be frustrating to not be able to exercise like I've been lately, but I'll do some alternative exercise of some sort instead.

And if I start to get lazy and think about how I don't feel like exercising, I'm going to remind myself of Shelton.

Happy birthday, Kaybee Babee! (and other assorted stuff)

2007-03-27T07:02:00.000+02:00

My baby: Today, my baby sibling turns 29. It's weird... It doesn't bother me that I'm 35, but it bothers me that she's only a year away from 30. How's that work? Anyway, happy birthday, K!!!!

Pesach: Pesach's around the corner. My bathroom's clean and nearly chametz-free (think mouthwash, toothpaste, etc.), and my bedroom's nearly done. I started on one of my sets of bookshelves last night. I have another two sets to do. I have a couple of boxes that need going through. I still need to do my kitchen. But I'm taking it a little bit at a time, plus I'm taking tomorrow off work. Hopefully I won't have to pull any all-nighters before Sunday night.

I'm trying to decide what to do about kitniyot (legumes) during Pesach. Because halachically #1, I'm not bound by family custom since my family doesn't have a specific custom and #2, there seems to be basis for changing one's custom when moving to Eretz Yisrael anyway, I am free to choose to eat kitniyot if I wish.

I thought I had it all decided, but I have a new officemate who happens to also be a rabbi, and we've been having some discussions. He's bringing me sources today or tomorrow so I can do some research and make a decision.

Work: I'm having a hard time lately. My company has made some business decisions that I don't morally agree with. The problems are that #1, I get paid a pretty good salary for Israel and #2, I love most of the people I work with. Add into that my lack of fluent Hebrew (I know, I know, I need to work on that), and it's hard for me to leave my company. I'm still keeping my eyes out for something else, but I'm hoping that before too long I'll be able to take a technical writing class and go into that field. (I would have taken one by now, but the schedule of classes conflicts seriously with my work schedule.)

Life: My three-month plan toward self-improvement has been mostly a success. I'm getting in better shape mentally, physically and spiritually. So in four days, I'll start a new and improved version of my three-month plan.

That's about it for now. I'll try to update when I have a decision on the kitniyot... I'm sure you're all just waiting on the edges of your seats while I decide what to do.

Grrrrrr

2007-02-28T21:56:00.000+02:00

Ya'all remember that project I was working with that was closing? Around 200 people were looking for jobs. Around 50 found jobs inside our company, around 50 were fired as part of the "ramp-down," around 40 are still on the project, and around 60 have left to other pursuits or were fired for other reasons (can we say "fraud?").

The last day of the project was supposed to be tomorrow.

Supposed to be.

But of course on Monday afternoon miraculously AOL decided that maybe, afterall, we could keep around 50-70 people for the next two months.

Did you catch that part in the first paragraph where I said that there are only around 40 people left on the project? By the way, around 20 of them have already made plans for post-project closing.

So we're supposed to make 50-70 out of 20.

How, you might ask, do we do that?

By calling approximately 100 people... people who were fired and told "you're not welcome to apply for other jobs at IDT..." people who left the company because of other jobs, illness, vacations, whatever... and saying to them:

"I'm calling because we just found out yesterday (because of course in all of this no one bothered to inform recruitment until yesterday) that there might be an opportunity to extend AOL for a couple of months. Would you be interested in coming back?" (and, by the way, the pay's gone down, you can only work 4 hours/day if you want evening hours, you have to work on Purim and during Pesach, and you must commit to working for two months.)

So amazingly enough, we got almost a 15% positive response.

But during this phone marathon the Powers That Be from our version of AOL management have been infuriating me by making demands they have no right to make. Demands like "you should stay late because even though your day is supposed to end at 6, I'm going to send you an e-mail at 5:10 demanding that you call 40 people before you leave today and report on the results." Demands like "Even though your IM message clearly states that you are 'away,' I demand that you tell me exactly how soon I'm going to get the list of 100 people you called and what the results were. And even though I fired these people two months ago, I demand that you tell me why they don't want to come back to AOL."

This comes the day after my boss told me and my officemate of over a year that he's separating us... and on the same day, we find out that two projects we've recruited for are not happening, so we have an additional 30 people to find jobs for.

So yeah, all day pretty much my only thought that didn't include foul language was "Grrrrrrr!"

Thank G-d, we have a small gym, and there were women's hours this afternoon. So around 5:25 I told my boss I was going to the gym, and I would be back "later."

An hour and a quarter later, after some serious weightlifting and cardio, I went back upstairs, and things were at least a little bit better.

But I still don't know know where we're gonna get another 15 or whatever people.

Grrrrrrrr

Crappy weather, good television and PTSD and the like...

2007-02-26T21:28:00.000+02:00

I keep trying to remind myself that rain is a blessing in Israel. We never have enough of it, which I suppose is normal since we're, oh, about 70% desert.

But I've never liked rain, and I don't like it when I get soaking wet walking home. Even if I took the bus, I'd get wet, so I figured I might as well get the exercise.

One thing I'll say about it, though... when it's raining, I don't feel even a little bit guilty about not running errands. I'm fine walking in, changing into my pajamas, and staying in until it's time to go to work the next day.

And tonight's been awesome, 'cause my rockin' sister sent me seasons three, four and five of The West Wing.

I'd never seen the show they aired before airing the season premier. It's the show's response to September 11th. It had nothing to do with the story line. It was a show about why terrorism exists, and why Islamic fundamentalists hate America.

There's one bit of dialog that my mom had told me about, and I hadn't remembered until I saw this episode. There were a bunch of high school kids visiting the White House when a security lock-down takes place. The kids start discussing terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, etc.

A girl asks Sam "What do you call a society that has to just live every day with the idea that the pizza place you're eating in could just blow up without any warning? "Israel," Sam answers.

Thank G-d, and the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet and everyone else involved, that there haven't been so many suicide bombings lately. One in Eilat a couple of weeks ago was the first one in months.

But that doesn't stop us from feeling them anyway.

Whenever there's a loud noise, from construction or whatever, we stop what we're doing for a moment to get a handle on what happened.

Whenever we hear more than one ambulance siren, we stop to listen for more.

Whenever we're sitting in a cafe, consciously or subconsciously we watch the door to see who's coming.

That applies to people who've been around terrorist attacks and those who, blessedly, haven't been anywhere near them.

People have PTSD symptoms from events they never even experienced.

No matter how "quiet" things seem around here, we're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The other day, security forces caught a would-be suicide bomber who apparently was going to try to make his way into Tel Aviv. This was only different from the tens of attempts that happen regularly because the guy was on our side of the fence. Our army and special forces catch wannabe terrorists all the time on their side of the fence.

So thank G-d we're not complacent.

I just hope the world doesn't get too complacent about Iran... because if it does, the other shoe that will drop around here will have a nuclear warhead attached to it.

Blame it on Canada

2007-02-13T21:46:00.000+02:00

That phrase came up again recently in one of my list-serv's. And I think it's as good of a place to put the blame as any. (Because really, wouldn't you all think it was just a bit too typical if I blamed it on the Palestinians?)

And what am I trying to blame on someone else, you might be ask?

The fact that I haven't blogged in quite some time.

See, I could blame it on work... because, well, now that I think about it, work is partly to blame. I'm exhausted every day, and when I get home, I don't have the will to deal with thinking.

Or I could blame it on my boss, because he makes me tired.

Or I could blame it on my sister, because she sent me the first two seasons of The West Wing (but then she wouldn't send me seasons 3-7, so there's NO WAY I'm blaming it on her).

Or I could blame it on my three-month plan toward self-improvement, which is actually taking quite a chunk of time out of my days (making my own lunches, walking to and from work, taking time out to learn something about halacha every day, stuff like that). But if I blame it on that, I might backslide, and I wouldn't want that.

So I'm going with Canada.

I'll try to post more regularly.

On the comeback...

2007-01-21T21:41:00.000+02:00

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I posted. I don't even have any really good excuses, either. I could, of course, blame it on work... or my friend's wedding, but what it comes down to, in the end, is Pogo.

Pogo.com is where I spend most of my waking, home hours. I play lots of silly video games, and I pretend that I'm staving off senility by keeping my mind active.

Really, I'm avoiding washing the dishes.

But these three weeks have actually been pretty productive, too.

I've so far:

Read 9 books
Walked 15.9 measured miles (measured with my GPS unit)
Exercised an additional 6 hours and 15 minutes by walking or doing exercise DVD's
Washed several loads of laundry
Found jobs for about 40 people
Cleaned my house (sorta)
Had my friend the bride stay with me for four days
Gone shopping with my friend the bride
Spent the bride's wedding day with her
Saw a whole bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a long time at the wedding
And a whole multitude of other things...

Not bad, eh?

Of course, yesterday I woke up with a huge coldsore on my lip. I can't remember for sure, but I think I haven't had one since before I made aliyah almost 2.5 years ago. I'm not sure what gave it to me... it could have been the lots of smoke I was around on Thursday night... the two slices of tangerine I had earlier in the week... the not enough water at the wedding... the general, overall stress of work... but no matter what it actually was, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Pogo.

So in order to protect my health, I'm going back to my videogames.

Happy 2007

2007-01-01T20:46:00.000+02:00

Things are starting to look up a bit at work. Even though more than 50 people lost their jobs last week, there are still another 110 or so with jobs. The plan is to slowly "ramp down" as new projects come in, so that there won't be a need for layoffs.

Of course, that only works if the people can/will take the jobs we're offering. So far, they've been making such good money that it's difficult for them to change projects knowing they're in for a huge pay cut.

But at least we're trying.

Last week wasn't as bad as the week before, and this week seems to be better than last week... which is a Good Thing. I think I'd have been in for a serious nervous breakdown if they'd have continued as they were.

This past weekend, I went "home" for Shabbat. It's one of my adopted families in Arad... where I know I'm always welcome. I hadn't been in almost three months, so it was definitely a needed trip.

In general, life's treating me relatively fairly. I'm getting what I need, if not always what I want (or thought I wanted). Thanks, G-d. :)

My nutritious dinner

2006-12-21T20:56:00.000+02:00

This has been the week from Hell. Really. Actually... pretty much since the 3rd of December has been hell in my world on and off... and since it's work related, it's more on than off.

I mentioned the project being closed in another post. I don't know if I mentioned that out of the 200+ people on the project, I probably hired 2/3 of them myself. Some of them I consider friends. Some, I don't know at all.

And every day for the last 18 days, except for Fridays and Saturdays, I've had discussions with some of these people. They're sad. They're angry. They're terrified. And whether I like the people or not, I feel terrible for them.

And even up until a couple of days ago, it wasn't so bad.

Then, Tuesday, I got cursed out, and someone else left my office in tears, and it's gone steadily downhill since.

The cursing would have been funny, and might be one day in the future, if it wasn't about someone losing her job (and her marbles, apparently).

She was upset because I refused to schedule an interview for her, because she wasn't a suitable candidate for a position. She walked to the door, turned around, and said, "Thank you. I just want to say Happy Chanukah, and you can all go F--- yourselves."

I sat there in shock for a second and then immediately called the HR department to let them know what happened.

Not more than an hour later, another woman walked in... someone who is very sweet... and when I explained that the chances were pretty much nill that we would find another day job for her, she thanked me for my time and walked out crying. She had been looking for a job for months when we hired her only a few weeks ago, and now, during Chanukah, she's becoming aware that she's going to lose it.

I've been working 10- to 12-hour days pretty much since we were notified, doing what I can from my end to help these people.

I dream about work. Work is the first thing that enters my mind in the morning, and the last thing to fly through my head on my way to sleep. I had my first anxiety attack yesterday morning, and I'm thinking about actually calling a therapist. (I won't, of course... but I'm considering it, anyway.)

I almost forgot to light my chanukiah (candle holder for Chanukah) yesterday and the day before, because I was so exhausted when I got home.

This morning, I started crying when I got the list of people who had received notice that they were being let go. I actually cried three times, two in front of other people, because this whole situation is so bad.

So today, I decided that come hell or high water, I was leaving at 6.

But at 5:15, a young guy who isn't even on AOL walked into my office in tears. This is a 16-year-old boy/man who moved to Israel with his family when he was 13, and moved out onto his own when he was 14. He's had a hard life.

He not only got fired today, but then after he got fired, he found out his grandfather died.

It took every bit of my strength not to burst into tears as he was telling me. Instead, I hugged him, and sat with him while he cried for a little while.

I did not leave work at 6. I still made it out of work by 6:20, though.

Then, I decided that I needed exercise... so I walked home -- 50 minutes, mostly uphill.

During that walk, I had a lot of time to decide what I wanted for dinner... I decided on wine and sufganiot. Not the most nutritious of choices, but as I sit here sipping my second glass of wine, I believe it was a good decision.

The truth is a guideline

2006-12-17T21:17:00.000+02:00

I don't remember the exact quote, but it's from Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl. It's something like, "They're not rules, really... more like guidelines."

That seems to be the case with Israeli journalism.

When I was studying journalism in the U.S. just a couple of years ago, it was pounded into our heads how important every detail was. Someone's age should be correct. The spelling of a person's name is sacred. Math in an article should be correct (ie, "four killed in accident" should not be followed with "the victims were two boys and a girl").

And facts and quotes? Don't mess 'em up, or not only do you risk losing your job and any future jobs, but you risk being sued.

It's much different here.

I never realized it until a friend of mine was featured in an Israeli newspaper article. He happens to be probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest, person to ever enlist in a combat unit during peacetime.

The article included: completely posed pictures (not bad, in and of themselves), his age being wrong, his former job and salary being wrong, both he and his commander being misquoted, and more.

And when I questioned him, he said that his Israeli friends and family all told him that's normal.

Then, when my boss saw the article, and I explained about how wrong it was, he was utterly shocked that I might actually believe anything I ever read in a newspaper.

Wow.

Today, or in Friday's "real" paper (I'm not sure which), there was an article about my project closing. And not only was the copyediting horrid, but our CEO's name was mispelled, and a lot of the information was mostly false or conjecture.

Eeek.

So readers be warned... if you're reading The Jerusalem Post or Maariv, just know that they apparently don't care about the accuracy of the information they're spreading out.

Hmph.

Chanukah and stamps

2006-12-14T22:22:00.000+02:00

Chanukah:

Tomorrow night's the first night of Chanukah. Thank G-d, people in Israel don't give gifts so much, because I'm writing this at 22:23 (10:23pm for the Americans amongst you), and I am still at work.

In all fairness, I came at 13:00 (1pm), but I still feel like I've been here for 12 hours.

Anyway... Chanukah...

I made latkes yesterday for tomorrow night's dinner. Saturday, we'll have sufganiot (donuts)... maybe for breakfast... maybe for dessert after lunch... maybe all day.

It's weird, though... because it's once again so clear to me how different Israel is from the U.S.

When I was back in the States for Thanksgiving, it was like an alien could have come down anywhere in the Detroit area, and he/she/it would have known it was some sort of festive holiday wherein people decorated trees, yards and stores with lots of shiny stuff and people dressed in red and/or green outfits. No doubt about it -- x-mas was coming.

Here, though, I walked through a small mall yesterday, and I wouldn't have known it was Chanukah except that I saw that the bakery had the sufganiot, and there were some chanukiot (Chanukah candle holders) for sale. No extra decorations at all.

So we're definitely not in Detroit anymore.

Stamps:

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Chanukah cards.

She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Chanukah stamps?"

The clerk asks, "What denomination?"

The woman says, "Oh my G-d, has it come to this? Okay, give me 6 Orthodox, 12 Conservative, and 32 Reform."

(I got that from one of my mailing lists.)

Back in the real world... almost

2006-12-04T22:40:00.000+02:00

I've been back in Israel now for four days. While some things have changed quite a bit since I left, others haven't changed a bit...

Changed: My boss is suddenly very nice. It could be that he's afraid of going from five recruiters to one, since there are only two of us left. Hmm. I mean, I know he likes me (afterall, who wouldn't?), but if he were just mean or just nice, life would be so much easier.

Not changed: The Haredim (ultra-orthodox Jews) are ticked off because El Al flew a flight (or some flights -- it's unclear) on Shabbat. This was due to the strike last week -- there were people stuck in Israel and other countries. El Al decided to fly.

Note: I have mixed feelings about this, as well. While El Al has said this was an unusual circumstance and they don't plan to make it a regular thing -- if there is no outcry, they might consider flying on Shabbat regularly. This would mean that El Al employees would be forced to work on the Sabbath, or, in the future, risk not being hired if they are Sabbath-observant.

Changed: There are two new women at work -- one in my department and one down the hall -- who I don't know at all.

Not changed: There are still rockets raining down in the southern part of Israel, and we're still under terror alerts in the rest of the country.

Changed: For 11 months (today), I've worked specifically with the AOL project at my company. For most of this time, I've done most of the interviewing and hiring. We found out yesterday that AOL is probably going to cancel our contract at the end of the year. We have more than 220 people who need jobs now. I was on hand when they were informed... and now I get to try to help them find new jobs. (It appears that AOL is going to close all of its call centers except for the one in India. We may keep a smaller staff, but we're not holding our breath.)

Not changed: I still have jetlag.

I think it's time for bed...

World AIDS Day

2006-12-01T14:07:00.000+02:00

I almost forgot about it, until I went to Google something and saw it on the Google homepage. Go Google!

I remember when AIDS didn't exist.

I remember when it was considered the "gay plague."

I remember when AIDS in America was automatically a death sentence.

From Wikipedia:

"Globally, between 33.4 and 46 million people currently live with HIV. In 2005, between 3.4 and 6.2 million people were newly infected and between 2.4 and 3.3 million people with AIDS died, an increase from 2003 and the highest number since 1981."

More than half a million of those who died were children.

Also from Wikipedia:

"Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the worst affected region, with an estimated 21.6 to 27.4 million people currently living with HIV. Two million [1.5–3.0 million] of them are children younger than 15 years of age. More than 64% of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, as are more than three quarters (76%) of all women living with HIV. In 2005, there were 12.0 million [10.6–13.6 million] AIDS orphans living in sub-Saharan Africa 2005"

(For more from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aids)

Bono, and Bobby Shriver - chairman of DATA, founded (RED) - a way cool way of raising money and awareness.

http://www.joinred.com/

Basically, (RED) companies will donate part of the profit for some of their (RED)-designated products to help educate and treat HIV and AIDS.

I don't necessarily agree with all of their hype (as in, why not donate money directly instead of buying a $35 t-shirt?), but I definitely believe it'll increase awareness.

I learned about most of this stuff from my sibling when I was home last week. Thanks for the education, K!

Now, in honor of World AIDS Day, I'm gonna pop my RENT DVD in while I get ready for Shabbat. "Actual reality - act up, fight AIDS!"

Back at home

2006-11-30T07:07:00.000+02:00

I am finally home. It was a longer trip than expected.

My journey back to Israel began easily enough, with the only hiccup being that I hadn't realized that the luggage regulations had changed and now instead of 70 pounds per bag, I was allowed only 50. So I ended up paying $50 for the overweight bags.

On my puddle jumper to Washington DC, we had a funny flight attendant. Funny as in ha-ha, mostly, but also a little strange.

The ha-ha stuff was like when she made the announcement about how she was going to give us the safety demonstration and said "and ya'll can pretend to follow along." And when she was telling us about the food service on the flight and how the drinks were the general soft drinks, but for food, she was going to make barbecued chicken, steak, etc.

The strange was at the end of the flight when she thanked the two small children for being so well-behaved and followed it up with singing us Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" over the microphone. No kidding.

At least she had a decent voice. And didn't sing the entire song.

DC to Frankfurt was a long and uncomfortable flight. I hadn't switched to an aisle seat, and I ended up squashed by some grumpy man. He ended up being slightly less grumpy when I received my kosher meal, and it turns out that he and his wife have a vacation house about a mile from me. He was still grumpy, though.

Then I got to Frankfurt. And stayed in Frankfurt an extra 14 hours or so.

The national union in Israel had declared a strike. Since the strike began Wednesday morning, it was not even on my radar when I left Detroit on Tuesday morning.

So on Wednesday, as I was waiting and waiting and waiting for a gate to be given for my Frankfurt-Tel Aviv flight, I had no idea that I wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't until I went to the information desk to ask when a gate would be announced and got told I needed to go to the transfer desk that I realized something was wrong.

It turns out that Ben-Gurion Airport was closed, closed, closed. And there I was, stuck in Germany, of all freakin' places to be.

The kind people at Lufthansa even gave us meal vouchers -- 7 Euro for breakfast, 10 each for lunch and dinner.

Did I mention that in the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, there is nothing resembling Kosher?

So from 8am Wednesday until after midnight Wed/Thurs, I had a bottle of Diet Coke, a bag of animal crackers, and 1.5 liters of water.

But I did sleep in the airport. A lot. With the help of my little friend Nyquil Geltab.

When I got on the plane, I saw someone lying on a cot/stretcher with a curtain mostly around her. At first, I thought it was a flight attendant or something. It turned out that it was someone being transported to Israel who needed medical care.

And as I think I figured out when I checked the news after getting home -- I think that girl is the reason we got home. Most flights were still not being allowed in or out of Israel, but because that girl needed to get back here, our flight was given clearance.

Nothing like a little guilty feeling to round out a trip.

So now I'm home, and I turned the heaters on, and I have had the water heater on for the last hour so that when I get up, I'll have hot water for a shower.

And I think it's nap time.

Sleepless in Detroit

2006-11-22T10:46:00.000+02:00

I'm sitting at my mom's computer (after having fixed the refresh rate of the monitor to a tolerable speed - i love being a geek) writing this at 3:48am, 22 November.

My trip was fairly uneventful, thank G-d. I always pray for non-exciting travels. In my experience, "exciting" and "travel" aren't usually good together.

Of course, I don't mean things like "Oh, we were there when the albino giraffe gave birth to quadruplets!" exciting. I mean more like "We have to turn around and go back to the gate, because of technical problems (and it being more like the wing of the plane is on fire)" type of exciting.

So uneventful is A Good Thing.

The highlights:

Getting to the airport and seeing a guy I interviewed a few days ago standing there. I can't get away from work, even when I'm away from work.

Being one of the few people who actually knew someone awake enough at 2:00 in the morning to be able to talk on the phone. (Which is ironic, actually, since I'm usually the one looking around at all the Israelis and wondering how, on earth, they have so many people to talk to that they're on the phone ALL the time.)

Walking through Ben-Gurion airport in a daze after 23 hours without sleep.

Laying on one of the chaise-lounge-for-business-travelers things in the Frankfurt airport while boarding announcements were made repeatedly, bilingually and loudly above my head.

Being checked by the large blonde woman (who actually appeared very sweet, and not intimidating in any way) at the airport:

While in line, I knew this was not, in fact, going to be a Good Thing. Nope. Not at all.

While hundreds of people are in line behind you, the process goes like this:

Walk up to the security belt. Put your things on to be x-rayed. Stand with your arms straight out. Try not to giggle when the woman runs her hands up and down your sides several times, both from the tickling and from the thought that you might actually have something there they should be worried about. Turn around. Stare at point in far-off space while she runs her hands over your chest, under your boobs, down your front, all over your butt, down the back of your legs to the ankles, back up them, over your butt again, your sides, your chest (and under it), your shoulders, your neck, your arms.

I really thought no one besides a doctor, a massage therapist or my future husband would be touching me in those places. And I certainly wasn't expecting it to be in public.

I'm so glad I took my Blistex out of my waistband.

Arriving in Detroit and seeing my baby (sibling) at the airport.

Having a cold Diet Pepsi waiting for me in the car. (I still love Diet Pepsi. Why can't we get it in Israel!?! That Pepsi Max stuph is crap.)

And that was it for the travels.

We ordered Jerusalem pizza for dinner, and sat around the table for a bit. I distributed chocolate and stuff, played online for a few minutes and went to bed.

And now I'm going to flip through my sister's dvd's to see which ones I would most want if either I had the money or I were going to, um, copy any.

I'm such a rebel.

Post-spider...

2006-11-15T08:00:00.000+02:00

Because I know ya'll were wondering...

It took me something like three hours and a long IM conversation to muster up the courage to deal with that monster. (I know, it's still one of G-d's creatures... but as I said yesterday... when G-d's creatures are that big, they belong in the wild.)

I finally moved the box and stuff away, and tried to figure out what I could photograph next to the spider in order to make sure it was relatively universally understood how I really believed that thing could have killed me.

So for my work buddies (although I guess it's out in the open now where I work... ), I put it next to my ID badge. And for everyone else on the planet, I put it next to an American dollar I had.

Then it was a huge debate as to what to do with it...

The friend I was IMing with kept trying to convince me I should just flush it down the toilet. I kept saying that it might clog up the toilet... or it might not really be 100000% dead, and it might come back up and bite me... whatever.

(In his defense, it was before he saw pictures...)

Then, when I tried to just use a box flap and a stick to get it into a box, I realized the thing was squishy... and I couldn't handle it.

So I finally took one of my co-worker's advice: I put a piece of paper (towel) on it, and then used something to nudge it into the box. That way, I didn't have to look at it.

And amazingly, it went in peacefully.

I folded the box flaps and held the box at arm's length and took it to the dumpster.

Bleeeeeeeeeccchhhhh!

Then it was time for bed... so... I didn't turn the heater on in my room ('cause it was near the heater yesterday). I also left my bed lamp on for the first half of the night. Because I knew I was going to have to get up to potty in the middle of the night, and I wasn't going to be able to do that in the dark.

When I did get up, I had had one bad spider dream... not horrible, so that's good.

When I went back to sleep, I turned the light off... and then had only one more bad bug dream.

I think that's pretty good, considering.

Arachnophobia sucks

2006-11-14T07:20:00.000+02:00

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Â·rach·no·pho-bi·a (-rkn-fb-, -n-)

n. An abnormal fear of spiders.

I'm not sure my fear is, in fact, irrational. I mean, if you were bitten on the eye by a spider when you were two years old, and both your eyes swelled shut -- wouldn't you be afraid of them?

Sure seems rational to me.

Now, if there's a word to describe an irrational reaction to seeing a spider, that would fit me better. (Or even a picture of a spider.)

And what is all this leading to, you might ask?

It could be leading to the giant freaking spider that casually sat outside my bathroom door this morning, waiting for me to turn the light on and see it and go into a major panic attack in which I couldn't breathe properly, had to leave the room, tried to figure out if there was anyone I could call who could either a) come take care of that nasty, horrible thing or b) talk me down enough to be able to handle it.

Thank G-d, (really, Big Guy, I appreciate it) I had a can of cockroach spray here. K300, the weapon of roach haters in Israel.

And I actually HATE to kill bugs (except for mosquitos, which are evil). Really. I usually feel like "they haven't done anything to me, so live and let live." They're part of the food chain that G-d created, and just 'cause I'm bigger than they are doesn't mean I need to stomp them.

But the cool thing about K300 is that once you spray it, say, under the sink, no more roaches want to set up house under there for a while.

Okay, so I don't know what the long-lasting effects will be on me, as a human, but whatever. I'm sure not letting the roaches take over.

Anyway, back to the horrible, horrible, horrible spider...

Now, it's true that I have small hands. But even so, any spider whose leg span would be bigger than the palm of my hand should not be allowed in cities. It belongs out in the wild, with the rest of the wild creatures.

And this dude... this dude (dudette?) definitely exceeded size limitations for my small apartment.

Its body is at least the length of my thumb, and at least two-thirds as wide. And it has this pointy tush. That's weird.

The legs are at least two inches long. Or they would be, if they weren't curled up in death.

And really, I was sorry to have to kill it.

I really thought about whether or not I'd be able to trap it and just set it free. I did. I swear.

But who's to say it wouldn't accidentally get out and crawl up my arm and bite me?

Or decide it actually likes my cute little apartment enough to find its way back?

So death was the only option.

And approximately 1/4 can of K300 later, (it wouldn't die -- I can't help that), it crawled behind a box and curled up.

Later, after work, I'm hoping to take a picture of it and post it here, just so ya'll know I'm not exaggerating. Of course, if I do that... I won't be able to look at my own blog... but I don't have to anyway, so it's okay.

And if you think I'm exaggerating about not being able to see a picture... I'll tell you a quick story about that:

When my sister was in the U.S.Navy, she sent me postcards. One day, I got a postcard and without seeing the picture, I read the back. I don't remember what it said, exactly, but it did say something about how evil little sisters can be.

Then I flipped it over.

(Remember, it was a POSTCARD.)

There was a picture of a tarantula on it.

I dropped the postcard and screeched.

Then I realized what an idiot I looked like, standing on my porch, backing away from a postcard.

So yeah, I have an irrational reaction to spiders in all forms. Blech.

Okay... I'm going to have to walk past the spider and get ready for work...

And maybe by the time I get to work, I'll be able to stop shivering and shaking.

P.S. - I went to start getting ready, and the spider's legs had stretched out again. I thought it was still alive! So I got the good ol' can of K300 and gave it another dose. Since it didn't move, I'm really hoping it's actually dead.

P.S.2. - As promised, here are the pictures...

The first day

2006-11-12T07:04:00.000+02:00

Way back when I was first learning Hebrew, my teacher explained that the days were named by counting toward Shabbat. So since Saturday is Shabbat, Sunday is then "yom rishon," which means "the first day."

We go on to count "the second day," "the third day," etc., until we get to the seventh day which is usually just said as "Shabbat," although sometimes it's "yom Shabbat."

I work from Sunday-Thursday. Today is Sunday. So I have to make it through five of these counting days before my next day off.

The fifth day seems so far away from the first day... and counting that way just seems a bit too "in your face" for me today. I so don't want to go to work.

Bah. At least I can say I have only seven work days until I leave for a week.

Other events:

-The riots ended when the GLBTQ community decided they'd settle on a rally instead of a parade. The rally was held in a uni stadium with more than 2,000 police officers doing the security.

-I was supposed to go south for Shabbat. On Friday morning, however, I found out that pretty much the whole family is sick... so I decided to stay home and try to stay healthy.

-The U.S. had to save Israel's butt in the U.N. when an unfair resolution was put forward trying to keep us from defending ourselves against random attacks. Oh wait, that's not news.

The smell of burning on an autumn morning

2006-11-07T10:07:00.000+02:00

In Michigan, this is about the most perfect time of year. From the middle of October to the middle of November, the mornings are crisp and the air somehow feels clean. My favorites are the days when I can smell burning leaves, because somehow that makes it truly autumn.

In Jerusalem this morning, the weather feels just like a Michigan morning. The sun's shining. There's a very light breeze. The air just feels "right."

And there's even a smell of burning. But that... that just feels wrong.

Because we don't have so many trees here that drop their leaves. People don't rake the leaves from their yards and pile them up. There's not supposed to be that smell.

Instead, it's the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) people rioting in their neighborhoods to oppose the gay pride parade that's supposed to take place at the end of this week.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I have very mixed feelings about the parade being held in Jerusalem. It's not like it's just Jerusalemites or even Israelis who are putting this parade together. It's people coming from outside Israel for this.

Why?

I can't help but believe it is because Jerusalem is the center of three of the world's major religions, and it's an "in your face" kind of thing.

And "in your face" isn't necesarily bad, except when Jerusalem is in the world news enough, thankyouverymuch, and the last thing we need is more bad press. Especially when the press is because a bunch of people from outside Israel insist on being the cause of it.

On the other hand, Israel is a semi-democratic country, and we believe in the idea of freedom of speech, if not the actual practice. So why shouldn't there be a parade?

On the other hand, the mere idea of a gay pride parade in any of our neighboring countries would be cause for more than mere riots. So why should Israel get bad press whe no one's going to say anything about the other countries?

I don't have enough hands for this debate.

So I believe that the parade should be held, but at this point it's more to prove that the city shouldn't take orders from the haredim than it is the whole freedom of expression thing.

The things that upset me the most about this situation include:

The police are complaining about having to bring in reinforcements from outside Jerusalem to try to protect the participants in the parade. They're saying that it's going to make the rest of the country more vulnerable, since it'll be under-protected. So why weren't they talking about that last year when they were involved in evicting thousands of people from their homes? They knew this parade was coming -- why not activate people for this situation like they did for that one?

The rioting is disgusting. They're throwing stones and dirty diapers and other objects at police officers. They're setting the dumpsters on fire and blocking the roads. This is not, nor has it been, a peaceful protest. They've simply decided that they're right, and they're willing to hurt whomever they need to in order to prove it.

The rioters obviously care more about this parade than they do problems that face their day-to-day society. There are families without enough food. There are women who are unable to re-marry because their husbands refuse to grant them a divorce. There are abused women and children. There are drug addicts among them. And they're not protesting on the streets about any of that.

They don't pay taxes. Now that's a blanket statement, and probably somewhat unfair... but it's true that many, if not most, value learning in yeshiva more than they value working at paid jobs, so a huge percentage of them don't pay taxes at all. Some of the rioters don't even believe that the State of Israel should exist, since only the moshiach (messiah) can bring about a true Jewish country. Yet they don't have a problem taking advantage of the protections afforded them by the State.

It makes religious Jews look bad. Because while it's true that maybe even a majority of religious Jews are not in favor of holding this parade in Jerusalem, they've protested in other ways, like writing letters and holding demonstrations. They haven't behave like two-year-olds throwing temper tantrums. Yet when secular people look at the riots, all they see is that "religious" people are causing problems. They don't see the difference between rioters and other religious people.

And it took me 45 minutes to get to work today, because the rioters have forced the police to close streets, and my bus had to take a huge detour.

So yeah, I'm ticked off. I say, parade on!

Another month gone

2006-10-30T21:01:00.000+02:00

Where did the time go? I mean, really. I can't believe it's the end of October already.

My birthdays came and went ("regular" and Hebrew), and a good time was had by all.

On the eve of my regular birthday, my co-workers bought me a pizza lunch, some cute birthday socks, and a raunchy mug. I felt older at that point than ever... I mean, really, who gets raunchy mugs besides old people? (Although most of the time, I just don't care so much about my age.)

On my birthday, my co-workers and I went to breakfast... it's a place called The Waffle Bar, and it's the first time in two years I've had something resembling an American breakfast that I didn't cook myself. And man, it was good.

That night, two of my closest friends in Israel came for Shabbat dinner, which I'd cooked. One went home and the other spent the night.

Unfortunately, that Shabbat I spent sick, sick, sick. So after Shabbat, my friend drove me to the pharmacy so I could take advantage of modern medicine and make myself better. In reality, it took almost a week before I succeeded in feeling "normal," (a term that is always relative when describing anything about me), but I did feel well enough to go to work the next day.

That Monday was my Hebrew birthday, and my present was that my boss did not come to work that day, because he had an exam. So I brought in homemade cookies and cinnamon bread, and we chilled out around the office. It was interesting how many people from other departments commented on how happy we all seemed when he wasn't around. Go figure.

Then at the end of last week, my officemate's father went from having lung and brain cancer to the doctors finding it throughout his body. My officemate flew immediately to Hungary to be with him.

Apparently there's nothing more the doctors can do for him at this point.

And suddenly, at the end of a month filled with cruddy work stories, I was reminded once again about the most important things in life... and how life is just way too short to spend it being unhappy.

So, in my usual M.O., I'm going to carry on being as happy as possible and taking joy in every bit of life I can... and I'm going to work on fixing those things that don't allow me to be happy. That's my new-month-resolution.

It's been a long time... it's been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time...

2006-10-15T07:48:00.000+02:00

In more ways than one.

Of course, you could be looking at the date since my last post and thinking "yeah, it HAS been a long time."

But that's totally not what I'm referring to.

I'm referring to being a sports fan, even when the teams stink, and then that amazing feeling you get when your team makes it into the playoffs.

Then, I'm referring to being a sports fan whose team is IN the playoffs, but you're 6,000 miles away from home and get to celebrate alone. Without even a television.

A year and a half ago, when the Pistons went all the way to Game 7 of the World Championship, at least I was in a place where I had people to talk sports with... and once in a while, someone would even get up in the middle of the night to watch a game with me.

Now, though... I have only one guy at work who's not even from Detroit to talk about the amazing Tigers with.

But it still makes me happy that FINALLY, after oh-so-long, our Tigers are going all the way.

One of my favorite pre-aliyah memories is from going to C omerica Park with my Mom, Dad, and sibling. If I remember right, we got our butts kicked that day... but it was a family day, and it was fun.

I think I went to three or four Tigers games before I left, including hanging out outside the fence of Comerica Park to watch a few innings for free here and there.

Maybe I'll be able to find someone to glom onto to watch at least one game with... but if not, at least I can recall the feeling of live Tigers baseball and imagine all the other folks out there having a great time watching the games.

Losing English phrases

2006-09-27T22:48:00.000+03:00

I was in a pretty important meeting today. I'll spare you the details of my ongoing work sagas, but the short version is that I met with our newest COO-type person about a bad sitch I'd found myself in.

During the meeting, I was trying to explain to him that I don't mess around when it comes to saying what I think. I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but I don't have a problem most of the time saying what's on my mind.

In my head, I was trying to think of that phrase that has to do with bushes. I was thinking, "bushes... bushes... walking... pushing... something bushes..." So what finally came out of my mouth?

"I don't mess around. I don't like walking around bushes."

I guess he figured out what I meant.

1-2 Paragraphs

2006-09-18T08:01:00.000+03:00

Last week, one of the rabbis at my parents' Reform synagogue has a request from me. Here's how my reply went:

You wrote: "For my Rosh HaShanah sermon, I'm speaking about supporting Israel and the difference that each individual can make. Would you mind, in 1-2 paragraphs, telling me about your childhood, what made you decide on aliyah, and what you're doing now? Anything else that I could include about you that might inspire others to speak up and act out in support of Israel would be greatly appreciated."

You're hilarious. I'll probably write an entire book about these things... maybe two or three... and you want it in 1-2 paragraphs? HA!

The highlights, I guess...

Even though I didn't grow up with religion in my house, I did grow up hearing stories about my dad's Aunt Esther selling latkes in the park, to raise money for Palestine. I saw pictures of my grandma and grandpa from their trip here. I knew my family supported Israel from before its existence.

My first trip to Israel was the Michigan Unity Mission in January, 2001. It was toward the beginning of the intifada, and we spent a lot of time listening to speakers, meeting Israelis, etc.

I went to home hospitality when we were in our partnership region in the north. While everyone talked about how much food there would be, and how the families would stuff us, I ended up in a place where we had a little fish, some hummus and other salads, and bread. There might have been something for dessert -- I don't remember.

Long story short, I realized later that the family was very poor... and they had shared the little they had with the visitors from their partnership region. That was my "real" introduction to Israelis.

I came back, and lived here during the height of the "intifada," although most of us were bluntly calling it "war" by then.

And somewhere in there, I fell in love with the land; with the people; and with the ideology of Jews coming back to the land we were given thousands of years ago and making it a real place to live.

When I came back to the U.S. at the time for three reasons:
1. Finish my degree
2. Get my apartment and other things settled
3. Share my passion for Israel with as many people as possible

And that's what I did. Now, I work in a company where we are the largest employer of olim in Jerusalem. We're about 1,000 people, having grown from around 40 in 2002. I work in recruiting, which means I actually get to give people jobs. And when work is hard, as it gets pretty regularly, I remind myself that I am a piece of the process of the highest level of tzdaka -- giving a person a way to support him/herself. As well, because we are an outsource company for businesses in America and Europe, we're bringing much-needed money from outside Israel, to be used inside Israel.

I could go on and on about how important it is to support Israel, but until people actually *COME* here, they are not going to have even the beginnings of a real understanding of what that means.

Can it be dangerous here? Yep. No doubt. I had several friends who were refugees a few weeks ago, because they live in the north. At least once a month, the terror alert level in Jerusalem is raised to the extent that there's a security guard at nearly every bus stop in the city center. And there's regular crime, too, unfortunately.

Yet when I get to go on a bus and see a woman hand her baby to a complete stranger, so she can walk up and pay the busdriver, I remember why I'm here.

When I see someone fall down on the street, and I see 10 people run, not walk, to help the person who fell down, I remember why Israel is my home.

People don't have to agree with Israel's policies, but they need to understand that as Jews, they are going to be seen as representatives of Israel, no matter what they do. As much as the antisemites who say they're "not anti-Jewish, but just anti-Israel" want to convince people it's that, the fact is that they ARE anti-Jewish.

Israel is the only country, and the Jews are the only groups of people, who are held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. Millions of people are being murdered in Africa, and we get blamed for defending ourselves after being attacked by rockets. Thousands of baby girls are murdered or given up for adoption in China, but boycotts are organized against academics from Israel. If that's not because we're Jewish, why is it?

Anyway, before I start ranting even more...

What can each individual do to support Israel?

Among other things:

VISIT!
Donate money directly to Israeli charities
Write letters to the newspapers when they see the blatant unfairness of the worldview toward Israel
Be verbally supportive of those who choose to visit and make aliyah. It used to drive me crazy when Jews would freak out at my visits, or when I made it public that I was making aliyah. X-ians didn't do it. Non-religous people didn't do it. Only the Jews... and usually the Jews who hadn't been here yet. If they're afraid -- I can't be the one who says "come anyway," but I can at least be the one who says "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

Five years later

2006-09-11T06:51:00.000+03:00

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=dayOf911

I'm sure everyone's writing about 9/11 today, and I'm no different.

For an in-depth timeline of 9/11, check out the link above. I'm going through it now, and I keep getting chills.

Having been in Israel since 2 July, I had already experienced what it was like to live in a country where the threat of terror hung over our heads.

But it wasn't until 11 September that most of the rest of the world had to learn how to live like that.

I remember on 11, 12, 13 September, trying to figure out if I should go home. Was there going to be a war? Was Israel going to be attacked next? What was it like being in America?

But I stayed, and while Americans were mostly able to start working their ways out of being constantly afraid, the suicide bombings here happened more and more frequently.

I actually ended up bitter and angry at the way America was capitalizing on the tragedy. It seemed like every other commercial was saying "Now, more than ever..." and that would be followed with "you should be watching Channel 7 to keep up with what's going on in the world." or "you should protect your family by buying X life insurance."

[At the same time, we here in Israel were getting blamed for being attacked, because we "occupy" land where Palestinians live. (The fact that in pretty much every other war since the beginning of civilization, conquering armies were entitled to lands conquered doesn't apply to Jews.)]

Now, five years later, all over the world we're still afraid of terror attacks.

I wish America and those fortunate enough to have been free from such fear could return to the level of innocence it was afforded before 9/11.

Here comes another day

2006-09-05T07:22:00.000+03:00

I hate these sorts of days. I semi-wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. It happens around once a week, but usually I'm able to read for a while then get another hour or two of sleep. Today's even worse -- I made the mistake of opening my eyes and realized the dawn had arrived. It was 6:00, and although it was more than an hour before my real "get up time," (I don't wake up until at least 10, ever... but I do have to get up and go to work before 10), I knew sleepy time was over.

So I've been flipping through the news and blogs I like to check out, and listening to classic hip-hop, and I figured I'd write something a little different here from the usual complaints about current events.

I work in an American call center. Sure, we do stuff from Europe, too, but it's mostly American and our parent company is American. I work in Recruitment. That is, I work on hiring people to work in the call center.

I figured out not too long ago that one of the reasons I don't hate my job is that I get to do interviews. I get to ask people questions... and even if they're questions like "What's your dream job?" or "How do you think you'll handle it if someone starts screaming and yelling at you?" it's fun to listen to the answers.

It's not journalism, to be sure, but it's still getting to be nosy and getting paid for it.

But I don't love my job, either.

And the thing is, most of us crazy Americans who made aliyah don't seem to love our jobs.

Most of us left something certain or almost-certain to come here... to a country where we don't speak the language well... where just living day-to-day is literally a life-or-death gamble... where we're thousands of miles away from the family and friends we've left behind.

And even though trying to make ends meet in this country is almost impossible, the majority of those who come, stay.

Why?

Honestly, sometimes I've no idea.

Then I'll be on the bus, and I'll see a mother hand over her baby to a complete stranger while she goes and pays the driver.

Or I'll see the blind guy trying to cross the street and see the five guys yelling "Do you need help?" "Where are you trying to go?" and practically pushing each other out of the way to make sure the blind guy is okay.

Or I'll see the street cleaner with the kippah and tzitzit and remember that here, Jews do what we need to do in order to live in our own country.

So I'll go to another draggy day at work today, and remember that even if it's not my dream job, I'm a Jew in my country, and I, too, will do what I need to do in order to live here.

Are you really from Jerusalem?

2006-09-03T08:07:00.000+03:00

I was playing games at pogo.com on Friday, when someone else popped into the room in which I was playing.

The conversation went something like this:

(With no "hi" or anything before this...)

"Are you really from Jerusalem?"

"Yup."

"Well, I'm not from here, but I live here now."

"How do you get internet?"

Are you freakin' kidding me?

So I politely answered that Israel has amongst the highest number of home computers and internet connections per capita of anywhere in the world.

The answer I got?

"Wow"

What makes this even better is the fact that just about every day, I have to explain to people in Israel that about two-thirds of the members of the U.S.'s biggest internet provider are still using dial-up access.

"With a modem? Why?"

From here, it looks a lot more like the U.S. is backwards technologically.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

2006-08-29T07:25:00.000+03:00

Remember that story? I remember it something like this: A boy kept telling his parents there was a wolf. They'd run out to check, and there would be none. Then a wolf came, and the boy's parents didn't believe him. I don't remember what happened after that.

I also don't remember how many times the parents got duped before they finally got smart.

But world media are a bunch of gullible idiots.

It doesn't matter how many times Arab-Muslim propaganda is proven to be anywhere between exaggerated and completely false, the media eat it up every time it looks like Israel did something bad to the poor victims of Israeli agression.

This time, Reuters (who, of course, is always unbiased and honest and doesn't post false photos) claims Israel attacked one of their trucks with a missile.

Just go take a look at one of these blogs and see what you think:

The Jawa Report - http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/

Snapped Shot - http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/98-This-doesnt-look-right.html

Power Line - http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015118.php

Post-war babble

2006-08-17T08:49:00.000+03:00

I think I've been pretty good so far at keeping up with this blog. I did miss a week, but I made up for it in volume on both sides of that week.

I keep thinking, however, that even now that Lebanon II is over, that's all I talk about. It's true that it definitely still dominates our news, which I check about a gagillion times a day on the Web... and that we still have lots of friends and relatives in the army up there.

But there's good now, too...

E's smiling again. It took weeks, but I saw an honest-to-G-d smile on his face yesterday, and my mood got so much better, so fast that I can't even describe it.

My friend whose brother has been taking refuge in Jerusalem is taking his family home to Ma'alot this weekend, and the rest of the family's going up there for Shabbat.

As ticked off as I am about the way things are going right now, I am definitely pro-no depressing war. I'm afraid we're going back to war any day now, or, even worse, in another five years after they've gotten even bigger and better weapons, but at the moment, I can function again. I like that.

So, thank G-d, some things are starting to be better.

Terrific

2006-08-17T08:44:00.000+03:00

I can't even think of another title for this section.

Now this post-war situation looks something like this:

No one, no one at all, is going to force Hezbullah to disarm.

Because of this, a bunch of the countries who originally volunteered troups are backing out.

Lebanon says that only the Lebanese army will be allowed to have weapons (except for Hezbullah). Any other international forces will not be allowed to have them.

Israel is beginning to pull out of Lebanon, and not even the 2,000-member UNIFIL force is in place, let alone the 15,000-member force.

And by the way, according to Debka File (www.debka.com), two countries that say they'll send forces are Indonesia and Morocco.

Yeah, I trust them almost as much as I trust Hezbullah.

Just another day at work

2006-08-16T07:25:00.000+03:00

I work in the recruitment department of a large call center. For anyone coming across this blog who knows Jerusalem and the Anglo community, yes, it's "that" call center.

Every Tuesday, we have what we call an "Open Recruitment Event." That means anywhere between 20-60 people come, fill in our application; take our computer test and meet with someone in our department. The meeting ("screening" in our jargon) is to determine quickly if someone might be suitable for one or more of our available positions. If so, which position(s) the person would be most interested in. Then we set an appointment for a real interview.

Because we only have between 5-15 minutes with each person, we have few basic questions/conversation-starters we ask in order to get a feel for a person.

"Tell me a little bit about yourself."

"What is your work background?"

"How well do you handle pressure/stress?"

Shortly after I started, my colleague screened someone whose sister had been killed in a suicide bombing, and he was severely injured in the attack. On a regular basis, I speak with people who've gotten out of the army who tell me they've had to track/trap/shoot terrorists.

So now, with the war on (or on hold, whatever), it's no surprise that we're seeing people directly affected by it.

Yesterday, out of the 12 people I screened, two stick out:

One was a bit out of it, and apologized. She was going from our company to a funeral for one of the soldiers who'd been killed on Sunday.

The other was a young guy -- barely 20 years old. I asked him what he's been doing lately, and he said he just got out of the army a few weeks ago.

My first response was "mazal tov!" because that's what we say here when someone gets released from the army.

I mentioned it was interesting that he got out in the middle of the current situation, and he told me he got out because of the current situation:

"A few of my friends were killed in front of me, so I asked for a few days off to recover a little bit. They told me they couldn't do that, but they could release me... so they did."

I didn't know how to react. It went something like this:

"Okay, I guess 'mazal tov' isn't the best phrase for a situation like this. I'm really sorry about your friends... and I hope we can do something that will be good for you."

In the U.S., I read about soldiers being killed, and felt really sorry for their friends and family.

But here, if you read about one, it touches much closer to home.

And unfortunately, it touches this close to home on a regular basis.

I hate the UN

2006-08-16T07:10:00.000+03:00

I cannot figure out what good things the UN does. In fact, I hate the UN and its "Security Council."

So it's absolutely no surprise to me that someone like Kofi Annan would say, and even maybe believe, that he's not taking sides in an issue like this Israel vs. Hezbullah situation.

Annan and the other clueless folks keep saying that Israel's response has been "disproportionate."

And what, pray tell, would have been "proportionate?"

Would it have been better if Israel had sneaked into Lebanon, killed a couple Hezbullah terrorists and kidnapped a couple more?

Or would that have been considered "continuing the cycle of violence," like it is every time Israel succeeds at a targeted assassination?

No one, including this stupid "security council," comes up with good ideas for Israel to protect itself.

And now, Kofi and his "United Nations" are saying that it's not in their mandate to disarm a terrorist organization. Plus, to add insult to injury, it's going to take "weeks or months" to get an international force in place, instead of days.

So our boys and girls and men and women must remain in enemy territory, under threat, until the UN gets around to putting a force in place that most of us in Israel won't trust anyway.

Yeah, I feel secure.

(Btw, I think it's ridiculous that five countries would have veto power over anything. I think it's ridiculous that a country like Syria could ever get a place on the Security Council. And honestly, what the hell is a "Security Council" for, if it's not to help provide WORLD security in an organization like the United Nations?)