A Mundane Day

B”H

Cheshvan 18, 5768
October 20, 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

The chaggim are over, we have reclaimed the routine of a six day work week and life is beginning to feel somewhat “normal,” whatever that means. Weeks without holidays to prepare for (and recover from) spread into a stream of days, one after the next filled with getting things done. I have time to finally unpack the last remaining boxes of books, winter clothing and rain gear. Where I will put them, I have no idea. I have time to plan a week of menus and shop more frugally. The laundry will all be done and now I have no excuse for a full ironing basket. With that in mind, I thought that in this letter I would answer a friend when she told me she really wanted to know what a mundane day in Jerusalem was like for me.

This letter will most likely appeal to the women among you. I can’t imagine men being interested in my lists and learning or my adventures procuring needed food items, etc. Hopefully, David will write the next letter, one that should interest the men: “How I Got My Israeli Driver’s License in 9 Easy Steps (give or take a few).” And we don’t even have a car.

As for me, on a mundane day I wake at about 6 in the morning. Above me there is the stone lintel from a Byznatine era column that was uncovered with much excitement in the renovation of this apartment. The column was probably built here before the 7th century, making the home we live in over 1400 years old!

By the time I am having my coffee in our 1400 year-old living room (usually Starbucks, one of the few things I ask people to bring me from America), I hear David coming up the stairs with his Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Shalom Gold. They are returning from neitz, sunrise, davening at the Kotel. David has been learning the Gemara in Brachos about how one should do no mundane activity before greeting the One who fashioned us. As a very early riser, he enjoyed his lone routine of exercise, reading the news and doing some office work before his 7 a.m. minyan. However, the more one learns, the more one does-and he just did not feel it was right to begin davening after immersing himself in those mundane activities. So, Rav Gold had the answer; although not the one my husband really wanted. However, now in to his second week of neitz, he says it enhances his entire day to begin by walking through the dark empty streets, dry off his shtender, moist with morning dew and say Shema just as the light permeates the Jerusalem sky with pinks and greys and golds.

He comes home quite hungry, so I make him breakfast, dress and now it’s my turn. The Kotel calls me, too. The streets are still quiet as I move down Misgav Ladach Street past a view of the Mount of Olives. Last month, we watched one afternoon from a distance as former Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira. zt’l, escorted by tens of thousands of mourners just hours before Simchat Torah, was laid to rest there. I whisper a prayer asking the holy rabbis buried on this mountain-- where the prophet Zachariah said the Redeemer’s feet will stand at the final war-- to petition the Heavenly Courts on our behalf to keep us safe and bring us all home in peace.

My route continues past Aish HaTorah, down many sets of stairs and over the excavation of an ancient marketplace at the back of the Kotel plaza. Each week, they uncover more evidence of the mundane lives of those who lived in my neighborhood centuries before me, when Jews could actually go the to Holy Temple. Today, my avoda is offered meters below the Har HaBayit, in the tunnels of the Western Wall. I enter where the Tunnels Tour begins and wind my way through the cave like corridors and cavernous rooms under houses where Moslems live. My goal is a beautiful women’s section, the closest we can get to the Kedosh Kedoshim, as close to the center of the universe as one can stand; then I pray Shacharit.

I would like to say that my kavana is amazingly better there. But that’s just not always true. The lists I need to add to and the conversation I had yesterday creep into my prayer and often I wonder how it is that I ended up at Shema. However, I just look up at the wall with its grey stones hewn into rectangles as big as Chevy Suburbans, draw inspiration from the spiritual refinement of women praying around me, and look down at my feet in utter humility. Although prayer is still a struggle, my awe is greater, as is my gratitude.

When I return home, David goes off to Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva and for me, the lists are waiting. I add what I remember, check my email and gather up a load of wash. My breakfast is usually rice cakes and hummos with tomatoes, which, even near November and even in shmitta remain delicious.

This morning I had a yoga class. I have long benefited from this form of exercise, but in America I was bothered because (except for Tzipporah Metzel’s class) every instructor tainted her instruction with yoga’s avoda zara origins. Sara, our instructor, punctuates her instruction with diveri Torah. She and several of my co-students, have known each other since just after the 6 Day War when, as spiritual seekers, they found themselves living together on Har Tzion, learning at the Diaspora Yeshiva and marrying boys also becoming observant there. One of these women, Chaya Makla Abramson, still lives on Har Tzion. She is a living miracle, a woman who radiates warmth and emuna, whose courageous story is told in her book, Who By Fire (Feldheim). Each of them has an inspiring story that, in the weeks since I have joined them, slip out and reveal to me the special nature of these pioneers, whose very lives as mothers in Israel, have helped us reclaim our inheritance.

It’s 11 a.m and I have to get groceries. This week I am using a new online delivery service called Digital City. This is one of the ways I know Hashem loves me! In Atlanta, I was one of the few who mourned the demise of Webvan. Digital City is all that and more. They buy from the grocery, the shuk, SuperPharm, the butcher, a wine store, fish market and cheese shop. I haven’t figured out if the hechshers are all good, so I still have to shop myself some weeks, but for staples DCity is great! My order took about 30 minutes to complete and I chose to have them deliver tomorrow afternoon.

The brick and mortar store I go to is Super Deal. It’s the second stop on the 38 and a short walk, down an alley past a bar and behind the old train station. So much for location, location, location. It hasn’t hurt their business as they have been there for years, and it shows in their assortment of mismatched carts and rustic produce bins. Surprisingly, I find everything I need here. American products cost 3 to 4 times as much. We do buy Philadelphia cream cheese at 16 shekels and Ortega Taco Shells at 28. Pancake mix and syrup are still part of our pantry and they are ridiculously high. Other than those few items, Israeli products are of good quality and reasonably priced. The checkout people do not like to speak English, so I try my best to give them the address and phone number in Ivrit. Arab boys will deliver “b’erev,” meaning sometime between 2 and 9 pm. I have learned it is best to take my frozen and dairy items with me.

After this monthly grocery spree, I usually catch the bus up to King George and walk over to Chofetz Chaim, a butcher on Agrippas. I like them because they have a wide variety of meat, some fish and are English friendly. The woman who works there fondly remembers living in the same building as Rabbi Emanuel Feldman in Baltimore. She helps me to understand the mystery meat here: like what is a #5, a # 3? London Broil is not like at Steve’s, it is twice as thick with a stretch of gristle in the middle, making it a lot of trouble to eat. Steak is entrecote. Period. Cholent meat comes in uniform square chunks similar to large ice cubes. I often strike up a conversation with another shopper who tells me how she cooks the cut she pulls out of the case. Once I bought what I thought was a simple boneless rolled turkey breast, and when I sliced it, discovered it was stuffed with what we think was ground meat. In a happy accident, I discovered turkey shnitzel. This makes a moist and flavorful breaded cutlet for Shabbos day. For 20 shekels, Chofetz Chaim delivers, so I buy enough for several weeks and take my bubby cart full of cold dairy items in search of an iced coffee.

Anglo-Israelis like me, find iced coffee on a warm October day is essential. I know I should really be drinking water, but there is reward in this creamy, sweet, energizing formula that refreshes in a way that water cannot.

I like to walk with other Jews on Jerusalem streets named Hillel and Shammai, Rishonim and Misilat Yesharim. Sometimes I will walk all the way home from town, and sometimes just wander until I think I better get my things to the fridge, so I catch the 38 down at the bottom of Ben Yehuda. I used to squeeze in a trip to the bank, but I finally figured out how to check my balance online, and that is all I need from that bank. They are not at all English friendly. After our klita payments are all deposited, we are closing the account and moving to one I hope will be more accommodating. When you get here, I will tell you where NOT to bank.

By the time I return home, put the groceries in the refrigerator, tend the laundry and check my email, America is waking up. I try to talk to Elise every day in between her work and school. She sometimes feels very alone over there, with her entire (all 3 of us) family here. So, I feel it is important to share my day and hear what she’s up to. I try to catch up and learn on the phone, thanks to VOIP, with one or two people in America each week. The days go by for me as well as you and the time frame is limited, so I don’t keep in touch as much as I like.

David comes home from yeshiva at 2 for lunch and has a couple of hours to run an errand or do some work. He really loves the learning, and although he is not working, just keeping up with a little business in America that helps us out, I feel he needs to do this now. Never has he been in a serious yeshiva that accommodates his lack of background and still challenges him. His years learning at the ASK Yesodei HaTorah in Atlanta laid the groundwork for this. One of these days, he’ll write a letter about Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva and many of you will want your husbands to learn there, too.

In the afternoons, I try do some of that unpacking I was talking about earlier or clean out a closet that has already accumulated things we do not need. Sometimes I have the opportunity to do something to help someone out, just like you often do. Sometimes I have an appointment at the doctor, or I have to wait for a repairman, just like you have to do. Once a month Rabbi Keleman gives an astonishingly life changing shiur in the Rova, and sometimes I’ll write. Like today.

And then it is time to make dinner, on a mundane day, it’s just the two of us. We eat together and David talks about his day; that means I usually get a taste of what he learned over our meal. Delicious. Today Rabbi Aba Wagensberg taught for an hour on tefilla. Tefilla, he said is taking our shopping list of wants and desires to Hashem, Who certainly knows –and gives us—exactly what we need to accomplish our mission on this earth. Why do we have to ask when He will always give us everything we require? Because prayer is for us. To take it into our heart that our mission is not to serve to procure our needs (the shopping list), but to serve Him-by taking what He gives us, and using it to bring ourselves to shelimut. Perfection, completion.

On Sunday nights, I attend a shiur Rebbetzin Heller has been giving for 18 years at Sara Rigler’s house. Now we are learning from Path of the Just on fighting the Yetzer Hara. I like her class because she, like Rabbi Keleman gives us “homework,” something concrete to do or notice to actualize the concepts she presented. This week, she talked about how the Yetzer Hara distracts us, keeps us busy with the mundane and overwhelms us and robs us of our inner space. The Yetzer Hara knows that if we focus on that inner space, there won’t be any room for him. This week our homework is to focus on our inner space for 15 minutes throughout the day: review our actions, examine our mistakes and plan what to do different the next time --- while we are doing something mundane.

On a mundane day, I do just about the same things any woman does. I wake, daven, do chores, shop and cook. It almost never feels mundane. Mundane days are not for Israel. Mundane days are not for Jews.

A mundane day does not start at the Kotel haMaaravi. On a mundane day, one does not do yoga with a woman who staked her claim in the land of our forefathers when it was far from fashionable, far from easy. Walking on streets named for holy books and holy men doesn’t ever happen on mundane days. However, I make them mundane by going through the motions of tefilla, riding on the bus with mindless thoughts or attending a shiur expecting what I hear to change me-without my doing the work to grow.

You can feel you are davening at the center of the world even if you are standing in your living room in Atlanta, Ga. That is not mundane. When you drive into the Kroger parking lot and pray that Hashem will open a spot not too far up the hill and that the vegetables will be fresh and the things on your shopping list will be in stock, that’s not mundane. As you drive to work or carpool and think about where it is that you really need to go in life—and open a spot inside to hear what Hashem answers; when we do this, there is never a mundane day.

Have an extraordinary day, and come home soon.
Love,
Renee ...

7 Shvut, it's Home

B”H

25 Tammuz, 5767
July 11, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Finally, after 6 1/2 weeks of living out of suitcases and 7 different places to unpack them: one hotel, 5 gracious hosts in 5 different cities, and a clean and simple studio apartment for 10 days of the journey and long wait; finally... the lift arrived. The lift. That is the 20’ container and a few extra feet of palettes with almost all of our earthly belongings. On May 3 the items left our apartment in Atlanta and arrived completely intact in the Old City of Jerusalem on June 18. A miracle.

Lots of people have asked in detail about the logistics and pitfalls of this operation. So, I thought that is what I’d devote this update to. Maybe its a dry subject, but so many of you want to know...

The honest truth is that we expected disaster at every turn, but only had to endure some high stress moments and were surprised by a few miracles.

How did you choose a shipper?
Back in March, I started combing the Nefesh b’Nefesh yahoogroup for shipping agent recommendations. I made a chart, a pro and con list and decided to contact two agents. My first choice got back to me, but the second, even after I tried again, never called. Mike from .... Movers showed up exactly on time to give me an estimate. It seemed reasonable, given the vast amounts of information I’d culled. This undertaking of shipping precious items 7000 miles is awesome for one who does not do this everyday, and Mike was patient, thorough and confident. He explained that there are four companies involved it the project (in other words, making money off our move):
1-the moving company in Atlanta who are responsible for packing to take up the least amount of container space and getting the shipment to the port.
2-the shipping line who oversees everything from port to port
3-the movers in Israel who pick up the goods from the port, deliver and reassemble in our apartment in Israel
4-All this is coordinated by the shipping agent. The shipping agent gathers all the information, what is going, where it is picked up, decides which shipping line, which moving companies, coordinates insurance, and covers of all the logistics including customs -as they act as our agent at the port. We could also purchase 220v appliances through them in the U.S., have them placed on the lift and delivered to our apartment with our shipment. Our shipper’s office is in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Is it better to buy appliances and furniture in the U.S. Or purchase it in Israel?
Honestly, I don’t know. We bought our refrigerator through the shipper because, after doing the math, it seemed like a wash and we wanted to have a fridge up and running the day we moved in. We purchased a dryer here in Israel because we did not know if the washer in the apartment was working and wanted to get the w/d at the same time if we had to. The washer is fine. I thought the dryer was a little pricey for a basic appliance, but it works great, the delivery guys were delightfully funny and prompt.

Did you hire packers or pack yourself? Why?
We packed all the unbreakable items, but the insurance would not cover any breakables that we packed. In addition to the estimate Mike gave me, we had to pay an extra $450 for which 4 women spent 8 hours and reams upon reams of newsprint packing our few precious heirlooms and many inexpensive drinking glasses in sturdy boxes.

Were you happy with your movers?
We were very happy with the crew that Peachtree Movers sent. They arrived at 8 am and by 11 pm, all of our furniture was dismantled and well wrapped, catalogued and numbered. We had about 160 boxes. Mike thought we’d fill a 20’ container and then some, he was right but I think it was quite a bit more than just “some.” The 20’ container costs about $7,000 and the “then some” 1.65 per cubic foot door to door.

That night, exhausted beyond belief, we bid goodbye to the crew, followed them across LaVista and down Sheffield. Ever so slowly and gently they drove, even over the speed bumps on Sheffield, giving us great security that our home would be in good hands, at least until the port.

The next day we had to deal with insuring all that stuff. It’s kind of a cart before the horse proposition. We had to list everything in all those boxes and every item of furniture with an estimated value customs and a replacement value for insurance with corresponding box numbers. We did not want to insure everything (i.e. boxes of office supplies, the kids’ stuffed animals and ceramics they made at camp) How do you list the box number before it is packed? This was a quandary because the shipping agent wanted the list before the movers took the load. I worked on it all moving day and got it in the next morning. Insurance costs 2% of covered items. In our case, $1500 that was not in the original estimate.

I should add here, that we were also charged an extra fee because the movers could not bring a container into the apartment complex. This meant they had to unload the truck they brought to us onto the container, entailing an extra move. I am not sure how much that was, because we were also charged a great amount because they could not bring a container into the Jewish Quarter to deliver. The total was another $1830 that was not in the original estimate.

That original estimate was beginning to seem not so reasonable.

Now begins the Suitcase Era. Or Eon. It was nice to be with our gracious hosts and we are just so grateful for their kindness and hospitality. But living in other peoples’ homes, our life in 6 oversized suitcases competing with us for space in guest rooms, became tiresome. And confusing. What bag was that skirt, important file, medicine, shoe in? Plus, I was really lonely for the familiar. Thank G-d for VOIP. The ability to make a “local call” during that time to continue keeping in touch with family and friends was more than miraculous to me. It was my lifeline.

What is VOIP, how does it work, how do you get it and does it really work?
Voice Over Internet Protocol works by connecting a box from the VOIP provider to any analog phone. We signed up with Broadvoice before we left. They sent the box to our address in Atlanta and we brought it to Israel. Our first day here, it was up and running. I spent several hours on the phone that day, I missed my friends so much! It usually sounds very clear, however, sometimes the call drops and sometimes it sounds garbled, but most of the time, it sounds like we are next door.

How did you find an apartment?
I am told that it was a miracle. We wanted to live in the Old City, so I contacted everyone I knew here, posted on yahoogroups for the Rova and yeshivot in the Rova, flathunting.com, luach.com and jangalo.com. I also emailed every agent I could find who had properties here. But it really was a miracle. One day, I saw the almost perfect place posted on luach.com. I talked to the agent, David “happened” to be here that week, took a look and knew it was for us. It has three bedrooms and a storage room, nice courtyard, a/c, renovated kitchen and bath...but only one bath. It has some problems, but that’s what’s nice about renting. They aren’t our problems. Number 7 Shvut is in a convenient, quiet part of the Rova and we really like it. Hope to have you as visitors soon!

Now comes the fun.

What happens when the ship arrives?
We were given an ETA of June 5 for the Zim Shangahi v17 to arrive at Ashdod. On June 4, I called the shipping agent to see that everything was in order. On June 6, they called needing documents -which we had already sent- and a signature on a document –which we had never received. And they needed it...yesterday, of course. The ship was not due in now until the 10th so we had time, but we still had to act fast.

June 7. Our documents did not arrive via the emails we sent yesterday to the shipping agent. We drop everything and take a cab with the documents they need to Talpiot where the shipping agent has an office in what was designed to be his living room. He had two employees there and at some point his daughter walked in from school. With a quick kiss for her dad she kicked off her little lavender crocs and crossed the office to go home. Very cute. The agent took a lot of time to quell David’s concerns. When will the move happen? Where is the truck parking? How are they going to deliver from there? What about the narrow stairway to our apartment? And did he mention the 90 degree turn in this narrow stairway? The shipper also expressed a concern. How are you going to make the final payment? Due before the move. Well, ok.

June 8: We took the cash to the shipper’s bank. It was open. (not always a given here) We stood in line a long time, got a teller who spoke no English, but we had the account number written down. She took the money, then surprisingly asked for more. The bank charged us 28 shekels for making a deposit!

June 9: Shabbos kodesh in Jerusalem. We have not a care in the world today.

June 10: no word.

June 11 Shipper: Where is the customs document? I need it NOW.
Us: We mailed it as per your instruction.
Shipper: We never got it. Who told you to mail it! I have to have it to get your lift released.
Us: Why didn’t you say something on Thursday?
We drop everything and cab it back to Talpiot. Sign the document.

June 12 Bad news. One in every 15 shipments is “randomly selected” by customs for a thorough examination. We are lucky number 15. We get to pay an extra $500 for this privilege.

June 13: We cleared customs without any taxes to pay. Now that, my friends is a true miracle. Not that we had anything to claim, but we have heard stories. Customs could have made us pay just about anything they wanted to charge us. They had all our money and all our stuff.

Now we hear our move will take place on Monday. But... there are more fees we have to pay. It seems there is a “congestion charge.” The day the ship arrived, the port was congested. It took more time to unload, and we get to pay for their inconvenience.

And um, also. There is a storage fee. It seems the ship really did arrive on the ETA of June 5 and not the 10, as we were told. And since we did not have our documents in...which we had mailed/emailed...which the shipping agent say did not arrive...we get to pay the rental on the storage for two weeks. Two weeks. We could have had our lift two weeks earlier and now we get to pay because no one told us it was here. See what fun? At least, after some tense haggling, the shipping agent agreed to split that charge with us.

June 14: Back to the bank to pay for the privilege of selection, congestion and storage in Israel. Another miracle, it was open again, and we were not charged for this deposit.

June 18: Moving day was sort of anticlimactic. It went without much of a hitch. We had to cajole the movers a bit to get the furniture into the proper rooms. There was a hamsin that week. So So HOT. Even the breeze was hot. The couch did not fit down the stairs, and the movers, hearing we were going to store it in a friend’s machsan, storage room, in Ramat Beit Shemesh, elected to leave about 20 of our boxes on the moving van rather than schlepping another load or two to our apartment. It was infinitely easier for them to pull the truck up to the machsan, unload the couch and “oops” look what we forgot. Now we have to figure out a way to get those boxes here ourselves.

June 19, 20, 21: I spent all day unpacking. Every box held a treasure. I have dreamed for so long of unpacking our belongings here, that I found myself savoring this chore. Each carefully wrapped heirloom and inexpensive drinking glass felt like a gift from Hashem- created, chosen and delivered especially for our home in Jerusalem.

June 22: Shabbat, our first night in our home in Yerushalyim. Now this is what I really call a miracle.

July 11: We’ve been here ar Sheva Shvut for about 2 1/2 weeks. We are developing a rhythm to our days again and learning how negotiate the necessities of life. Almost everything we need can be delivered to the Rova. I take the bus to the grocer, the butcher, the dry cleaners and they deliver for a few shekels. Fresh juice is dropped off once a week. And one of the highlights of my week is going to Machane Yehuda with my agala (cart) on Thursday morning to buy fresh produce and pastries for Shabbat. The summer visitors are dropping by, some for a short visit and a glass of lemonade, some for a liesurly summer meal. We truly hope you will be among them.

Come Home Soon,
Love,
Renee and David ...

A Few Days In

B”H

May 15, 2007

Dear friends and family,

In between all the stuff we have get done first in order to stay here, we do the things that are the reason we want to be here. David is learning every day at Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva, a new place started by Rabbi Shalom Gold (of “The Dik-Duk Book”) for men who got a late start in learning. Rabbi Gold decided to begin a night seder when he found out David will not be able to come next week when he starts work. I daven every day at the Kotel, we visit with friends and take walks every night in the sweetest air on the planet.


Yom Rishon
25 Iyar 5767
Sunday, May 13


This week we have to go to government offices to fulfill certain requirements in order to live here and take advantages of services. In Atlanta, I did a lot of organizing for this to ensure we’d have all the documentation in order. I’ve heard how horrible this process is. How long the waits, how uncaring the officials, how inept the system. I was terribly tense. Everyone says go early and we were getting a late start. David wanted to know exactly where we were going and I seemed to have two addresses for everything. He wanted to know what the purpose of each stop was, and I did not understand the meaning of the words: Ministry, Absorption, Muchedet. I had a complete meltdown. I wanted to crawl back into bed and stay there.

So David called Nefesh b’Nefesh. A very friendly woman answered the phone and took him through it all; step by step and address by address, including directions. She told him all the documents we’d need and why we had to go to each place.

We realized we’d waited too late in the day to get anywhere with the Dpt. Of Ministry –they close at noon. So we went to the Post Office to get our applications for health insurance. It seems a lot is done at the Post Office besides mail. Bills are paid, certain checks are cashed and documents are authorized. We arrived at about 12:30. The room was huge, filled with people seated in chairs-stadium style in front of a bank of about 12 windows. Above each window was a flat panel television screen playing nature scenes from something like National Geographic alternating with extreme sports (such as skydiving on skis, and parasailing with kites). On the screen were also two sets of large red numbers: a one digit number for the booth and a three digit number for the last person called. They were on person 163 and we were number 229. We found a seat and settled in.

There was a cross section of Israeli society there. I did not feel we stuck out because everyone looked so different. There was a chassid in a long striped coat who had helped us at the door to get our number. An elderly frum couple looking a little lost and wearing many layers of clothing came in, they must have been suffocating. We sat across from a arab worker with rough hands. Arab women in tight pants and their heads covered with scarves walked by. Two large black nuns came in with packages in a hand truck they pushed. Mostly we saw secular Israelis. About ten minutes later they had called person 164. We nested.

The whole scene: the vivd television screens, the stillness, the unlikely assembly and our lingering jetlag combined to create a sense of surrealism. We felt vulnerable to this system we did not understand. Our collection of warnings and well wishes did not offer comfort. We watched with anxiety as they ticked through the numbers and surprisingly, they made it to 229 within 45 minutes.

Once at the window, it all went rather smoothly. We chose Muchedet insurance because that is what our friends in the Rova unanimously recommend. We got our registration and we went home.

Not too bad for a jetlagged day one.

Yom sheini
26 Iyar 5767
Monday, 14 May 2007

Today we are off to the Ministry of the Interior where we will hopefully receive our Teudat Zehoots (identity cards), banking permission and other documents essential to citizenship. Why-we are often asked- did we decide to become citizens? After all, we have said our choice to be here was because it is, in a word, a mitzvah. However, it is a mitzvah to live in Israel-the Torah does not say anything about becoming a citizen of the medina (modern state of Israel)-as much of miracle its existence is.

Usually one’s decision on whether to accept citizenship or not is primarily one of economics or ideology. Financially for us, the tax perks/disadvantages balanced out no matter what we did. The deciding financial factor for us was health insurance. At our ages the cost of private health insurance was comparable to that in the US—just too much to pay on an Israeli salary.

Ideologically, we are mitzvah oriented, not medina oriented. This is a hot subject, controversial and often divisive among Jews-so what else is new? Many say if 5,000 (some say 10,000) American Jews made Israel their home, it would result in a dynamic cultural/political shift here. Maybe. G-d runs this show, albeit through natural means.
We are here as Jews, true to Torah values and will participate in the government as loyal Jews, true to Torah values. This week’s parsha was about this. We are not a nation like others.

Speaking of this week’s parasha. David was called to the Torah on Shabbat for the Levi aliya. You won’t believe the first line of the aliya: “The land will give its fruit, you will eat your fill and you will dwell securely upon it.”


---Off to become citizens, now.


B”H
The day could not have gone better. We arrived at the Ministry of the Interior office 40 minutes before they opened; it was just a short walk from the Old City and a glorious spring morning. When the doors opened, we followed the crowd up the stairs and into the reception area where we got our number and papers to fill out. Problem #1: the papers were completely in Hebrew. But the good news is we were number 8! So when we were soon called, we told the official-who could not speak English-that we couldn’t do this. She solved the problem in a completely Israeli way. She found a nice young man, with a much higher number, whom she astutely identified as an English/Ivrit speaker to help us. He did, and we were then ushered to the only desk with an English speaking official. Chani was efficient, courteous and wished us well as she presented us with our prizes-his and hers teudat zehoots! It only took 20 minutes. We’d heard such horror stories, people leaving in tears, coming back three times, the office closing before they got their paperwork completed. This was a kiss from Hashem. And now we could open a bank account.

Off we went up Jaffa Road, and Ben Yehuda to King George. There it was, Bank Leumi. We were told to ask for Vivian who speaks English, but she was not there. So we took a number. Taking a number is de rigueur here, have you noticed? Morris who speaks French, not English called our number. David thought it was ridiculous to have someone open our account who could not communicate with us, but I thought it kind of fun. Morris clearly wanted to help and our request to open an account not so unusual; it just took forever and we had to sign our names an inordinate amount of times on forms and stickers. We have no ideas what we promised or agreed upon with all those signatures.

While we were sitting with Morris who speaks French at the bank, Inna who speaks Russian from the Ministry of Absorption called to make an appointment. Olim (immigrants) have to go there after opening a bank account because there is an Absorption Basket-30,000 shekels (about $9,000.00 for a couple w/o dependents) deposited into a oleh’s bank account over the first year. Since we were right around the corner, she waited for us. She was delightful and went over the future deposits, different ulpan options, told us how to get driving licenses. Wow-it only took 10 minutes, and we did not even have to take a number.

Our final destination to become “official” was to the Muchedet. That involved a long walk up Jaffa Road, past Machena Yehuda almost to the bus station. It was getting hot and we were getting tired. The Muchehdet building was well marked and we went in to the information booth where we got a nice "welcome home" from the attendant. (No one has been that friendly, he was probably a volunteer!). We were directed to the waiting room where we-you guessed it-took a number. Within 30 minutes, we were called, processed and back in the sunshine on Jaffa Road.

It was 11:30 a.m. And we were done.

We decided to celebrate the raging success of our morning with a nice lunch. Don't Jews always celebrate with food? I remembered a good café at Tachana Merkazit, (photo credit) the Central Bus Station, that Elise and I once enjoyed. Tachana is a multi story building that houses a mall, complete with shuk style kiosks and internet café. There are, indeed buses. The top level is the Jerusalem station for intra-city buses. We navigated through the crowds and security, up the escalator and enjoyed the best sandwich I have ever had in my life, in the best city in the world.



Come home soon.

Love, Renee & David ...