Aliyah Reality

Israel soldier gets 21 days in prison ... for yawning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:28:00 +0000

It wasn't me......seriously......I was busy in my trauma class at the time this happened.

Had I been forced to be at one of these ceremonies, I would probably be in jail with this guy, truth be told.

Click for article

RIP blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:10:00 +0000

For those dedicated Dressler blog fans, all one of you, I just deleted my "other" blog. I was approached by Army intelligence who "suggested" that I remove it, after they applied the waterboarding treatment to me......just kidding, there was no waterboarding.......nor any army intelligence. Just me trying to keep things kosher, as they say. So goodbye to that.

Things are otherwise good. After all, I am able to come home every night this week, after I was told the opposite. Which is a good thing. So far so good with the army. Meeting a lot of great people. Very very interesting.

New beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (elana) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:33:00 +0000

Back to blogging after a long break. I guess you could say that I'm running on the Israeli calendar where nothing really gets done until 'after the chaggim'.
Or maybe I'm just being lazy...
Either way, it's been a long time.
Some bullet points to summarize our activities these past 2 months or so...

-Our move went smoothly in the end. The movers were hard-working and fast.
-I passed the driving test, white knuckles and all.
-Kids started school and slid right in, no hard adjustments...just 3 happy little heads-held-high marching into the gans.
-Rich's mom came for a visit and generously helped us 'iron out' some kinks in the house...she also did a lot of laundry and dishes :) and we had a great time with her at the beach and zoo. Our guest room is now known as "Bubby's room" :)
-This past Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippor were the first in a few yrs that I was able to go to shul, thanks to the planning of a few friends who organized a rotation with a few moms, allowing everyone 2 hr chunks of freedom from the kids.
-Our sukkah took about 5 minutes to build, thanks to the 3+ walls that make up our porch and the pergula we had built during the renovations of the house. Rich just had to slap on the schach. Talk about a great holiday!
-Had a huge Chanukat HaBayit (Housewarming) party on the first day of Chol HaMoed. Lot's of great people stopped by from the neighborhood, and a couple of ex and current Baltimoreans as well. House was still standing by the end, which was all we were hoping for!
-Thanks to the generosity of Rich's dad, we spent Chol HaMoed Shabbat and Sun. in Eilat. Lot's of fun.
-Rich spotted and killed our first scorpion in the backyard. They're unfortunately pretty common around here...makes me nervous, especially for Ami who loves to just hang out outside, looking at lizards and bugs and plants. We've taught him to look but not touch until he shows us what he's looking at, but still, he's a boy...so he's had more supervised backyard romps since the discovery of our friend, the scorpion.
-Hila, our 2 yr old, has been officially potty-trained for about 2 months! No more diapers in the Dressler house!! It feels surreal after 5 1/2 yrs, straight, including a stint of couple of months with 3 kids in diapers! Thank G-d #3 is so eager to be like her big sis and bro. Definitely makes life easier for me!
-Rich officially started the army 2 days after Sukkot but it's been pretty light so far. His first day involved a lot of sitting and waiting for a piece of paper and the week following that he had some tiyulim (trips) to the Old City and to some museums in Tel Aviv. I think it was the army's way of gently easing soldiers into their lair :).

Today starts Rich's first week of reality, although we have no idea what that means. One of his commanders told him he needs to stay at the base all week and another said he'd be able to come home. Some say this week involves a lot of physically grueling training and others tell him that it's fluff.

To sum it up, we know NOTHING. I guess we'll have a bit of a better idea about things by the end of his year and a half, although I'm not sure what good it'll do us then!

I'm approaching the whole thing kind of how I approached aliyah: expect nothing. Be prepared for it to be hard and have all the ducks in a row, ready to grab whatever opportunities come along.

So far that has meant taking care of all the house stuff before Rich went went in. I've also made sure the kids are sorted out and occupied with chuggim (after school activities) and I've lined up a babysitter for a day or two a week to help w/ park, dinner and baths. Friends have been very sweet and generous with their offers to help out too. We'll see how much help we'll need. Kind of hard not knowing anything about Rich's schedule these next few months.

I got a call from the editor who I was working for way back in May and she said there is finally work on the horizon. It will probably start this week, thank G-d. Glad to start working again for 2 reasons...
An army salary is not exactly generous. We need whatever income we can get.
Now that everyone is settled into school and the house is pretty much done, I have a whole morning of free time that is beginning to feel a little too 'free'- I need something to occupy the time. Although the free time definitely served me well today, allowing me to post this update!

We'll post more as our new army chapter unfolds...

"Get back to where you once belonged...."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:22:00 +0000

I thought this was a very nice new website for returning lost objects - just wanted to share it with everybody. They have an English mirror site as well.....

http://www.ebood.co.il/

We're Moving!!

noreply@blogger.com (elana) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:46:00 +0000

Monday's the big day!

The work in the house was finished earlier than expected, thanks to our incredible, hard-working contractor. Hiring our contractor Reuven turned out to be the best move we could have made. We're so happy with the result. To say we'll be living in the house of our dreams is not even accurate because we never even dared to dream we'd be living in such a great house...IN ISRAEL, no less!

So Reuven finished up earlier than the time he had originally told us, right around the same time we started having trouble finding movers. We had a couple of movers come to give us estimates and by the time we got back to the guy with the best deal, he was already booked. We called the second-to-best deal and it was the same with him. Started to get freaked out when Reuven recommended someone he knew and they agreed...and we said 'heck, why not move up the moving date?' ... and so we did.

Now comes the not-so-funny part...

The movers who were available didn't send anyone out for an estimate and we had to pester them a whole bunch for a faxed contract...which, when they finally sent it, was wrong. So this past Thurs, we were back to pestering them again for a new contract (which they were in no rush to send) when we got a phone call asking if they can come to our place to check on an estimate. We were relieved they seemed to finally be getting their act together and they showed up on Fri afternoon. The guy was great...very together and he lives here in M.A. too. We said 'it's a go' and he presented us with a contract which we signed, feeling relieved all the while. The guy left and we were putting away the receipt when we realized that 'Hey! The moving company name is different than we thought!...oh...uh,oh' Turns out this was a completely different mover who originally hadn't returned our calls and who just now decided to come and give an estimate...not the guys who were supposed to be sending us a new contract to sign, with whom we had a verbal agreement. We quickly called him and told him our mistake and he basically said 'tough luck...I've hired my guys already. We'll be at your house Monday morning, no matter what.' So we called the original mover who wouldn't talk but insisted we call back Sun morning with whatever we had to tell them.

We're dreading the call and hope that their not giving us a contract allows for a smooth break from them...but then again, this is Israel where things like this are difficult. I have a feeling there will be quite a bit of yelling involved.

Tomorrow is also my driving test. Kind of dreading that too. Trying not to think too much about it, though...which has turned out to be quite easy with the move coming up.

Looking forward to having all of this behind us and just settle into our new home.

Kids are excited to move into their own home and have new bedrooms which they were able to choose color of. Well, I chose Ami's because when asked what color he wanted, he answered "Brown. And blue. But I like orange. And yellow, too."
So green it is.
And of course Gali wanted pink in no uncertain terms...which Hila will have to live with too because they'll be sharing a room again.

Rich and I were talking about how the novelty of the new house will wear off after a day or so when they realize that our neighbors now are no longer right outside their front door. This past year, whenever they were bored or just wanted a change of scenery, they ran across the hall to see who was home. It's also going to involve more of us carting them around to friends instead of them going on their own next door or to one building over.

Believe it or not, Hila has become just as independent as the older two in this regard. Or she thinks she is. Thurs she told me "Wanna go nesstdoor." I said Ok and left the door open while she went to knock. I heard the door open and figured someone let her in. I was thinking it was too quiet so I went over and knocked...and knocked...and no one answered. So I cracked open the door and said "Hello?" and heard a little lone voice yell back "No! Go out nesstdoor!" Which roughly translates to "Leave me alone...I'm about to make trouble." It turns out that Hila let herself in when no one answered and was having a ball by herself, thank you very much.

So, as you can see, it's going to be a tough transition.
But hopefully our wonderful neighbors will visit frequently (hint, D and G :)

Thank G-d, we are so blessed....

Looking forward to writing the next post from the new house!!

Polyester Warrior

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:20:00 +0000

So, again, much time gone by without updates. And again, there is so much going on that we don't even have time to write.......

At any rate, the army called, and I was a soldier, if only for 3 hours this past Thursday. In the process, they dropped me from my civilian health insurance to be on the army's policy - now I have to go back and change it....argh.

I got a deferment to November, which is just what I wanted. I am going to be a doctor, a.k.a. "medical officer" for ~18 months of total service (including training). So, all that I did there was get "processed" (ID card, blood type, uniform, etc.) and then my paperwork to say that I need to come back in a few months. They even gave me a "password" to listen for on the radio in case of an emergency - how funny is that.....! I thought of requesting a different password, something like "mushroom pizza" or "sun-dried laundry", things that are a bit closer to my heart, but then I thought better of it.......

And the uniform. Gevalt!!! 65% polyester - basically, these things are walking greenhouses. Not the greatest thing given how hot it can get here. The minute I put it on, in a well AC'ed place, I started dripping.......not a good start.

In all truth, the induction process was quite painless (save for the vaccinations). The people were all very sweet, very conscious that they needed to be "gentle" with the new recruits. Most of the people that I was with were 18 - this army thing is probably the most significant thing ever to happen to them. Some were a bit freaked out. Others came dressed like they were going out to a club. Weird. One girl had a passing resemblance (in how she looked and dressed, and yes, tattoos as well) to Amy Winehouse. Bouffont and all. Strange.....what can I say.

At one point, I had to go to the "officer" to get my "assignment". In retrospect, the entire induction process was run by the enlisted folks. Of note, the enlisted guy told me when I went in to meet the officer that I had to salute him. I had to gently tell the kid that I had no idea how to salute anybody and ask him if he could show me how. He did. And I did not get thrown in the jail for my saluting performance to the officer, so I will assume that I did it OK.....

Storm has hopefully passed

noreply@blogger.com (elana) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:50:00 +0000

The most stressful few weeks of our aliyah so far have (hopefully) just ended. A whole bunch of things happened at one time, making life interesting, to say to least.

The first thing that came along was a call from the Israeli Defense Force asking Rich to come in for a meeting. We had a feeling it wasn't just to say "Welcome to Israel" and we bit our nails for a week and a half until the meeting day. It turns out that the army is apparently experiencing a major shortage with doctors and are drafting people to staff the clinics on some of the bases. The cut-off age is usually 35 and lucky Rich was 34 when we made aliyah, turning 35 in November.

They told him they'll be taking him in 3 weeks.

Well, that freaked us out just a bit.
When it comes down to it, the job would really just be a regular 9-5 job at a base (give or take some late nights and early mornings). Because of Rich's "old age," they wouldn't put him anywhere dicey.

Really the main point of stress comes from the timing. They told him he starts the 30th of June. First of all, that's three weeks notice...and it's also not even a whole yr after we made aliyah! Second, we get the keys to our house in mid July and start renovations soon after that. We move at the end of Aug. I have absolutely no idea how to get everything done alone...with 3 kids who are home from school and camp (Aug is a slow month in Israel with no planned activities for kids). Feelin' the stress.

But here's the good news we found out yesterday:
Because Rich is in an observation period in a doc's office right now, the army can't take him until he's done! So thanks to a lot of string-pulling by some pretty high-ups, the army's delayed for a few months. Until after we move, thank G-d.

Another high-tension point was our house...
We were told when we bought the house that it had a permit to build in a dead-space open atrium area in the mid of the house. We factored that in when we bought it, figuring that we would have enough room after building.

Well, along came the glitch:
No really knows FOR SURE if we can or can't build. Some have told us absolutely not and others ask "What's the problem?"
So we've been chasing people for a few weeks, trying to get some kind of concrete answer.

But you know how it is: It's Israel. There are no concrete answers here.

Again, thank G-d we might have solved this problem as well.
Just met with our amazing contractor today and have developed a plan that might bypass some of the issues.

Things seem to be working themselves out.
We're hoping the same will happen with the lady who banged up our car while it was parked. Hopefully she'll cave and pay up when she realizes that 3 witnesses are hard to argue with.
(This, by the way, is the 3rd time our car has been banged into within 3 months by the fine variety of drivers here.)

Rich's work has lightened up a bit as well, relaxing him a little. My assignments have gotten smaller too which is nice for now.

So we're back to standard- operating procedure around here now. We like it like that.

Ever wondered how to say "Master Of The Pan Flute" in Hebrew?? Wonder no longer.....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:53:00 +0000

Just got this from our Visa card company over here........tell me, how cool is THIS!!!

Discounted tickets to "Zamfir, Master Of The Panflute"!?!?!?!

And people still live outside of Israel.......fools!

Another day, another Hebrew humiliation.....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Not to get too down, but.....

I just started working here in Maale Adumim - at Clalit, here in "Kikar Yahalom", for those that know the area. I am loving it, the people are great......just wish I didn't have to break my teeth so much. I realize that it is just going to have to take its time.

Note to self - למשש and לממש are only one letter off, but have quite different meanings. Lucky, the 6th year medical student that is working with me is kind enough to correct my without adding too much to my "humiliation"!

I will try to write something about the pinnacle of Israeli health care in the next few days -בדיקת דם כללית - "general blood work", which roughly translates to "trying to flush as much money of the HMO/Kupa down the toilet as possible, all the while obtaining a completely false sense of being in good health, while actually treating my body as a septic tank"......

Yom Ha'atzmaut

noreply@blogger.com (elana) — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:51:00 +0000

Rich and I sit here now sunburned, dirty, exhausted and incredibly happy. We just put the kids to bed after a day that started at 7:30am and just now ended at 8:30pm. We started with friends near the Dead Sea and ended with friends in Alon Shvut, Gush Etzion for a bbq.

What can I say. Nothing that would be able to capture the feeling of today.

We planned with friends from Ma'aleh Adumim (also originally from the Baltimore/ Silver Spring area who've been here 3 yrs or so) to get together at the same park near the Dead Sea (Tzukim) that we went to with the kids and our neighbors on Chol Ha'Moed. We thought if we got an early start we would beat traffic and crowds. We arrived at about 9:30 and were met by a fairly large crowd at the park already.

People know how to do park-outings here. They do not take a cooler with food and some towels like those of us who don't know any better.

No- they bring the bbq's, at least 2 huge coolers, 3 additional boxes filled with drinks and more food, chairs, tablecloths, pots and pans in some cases, a tent, a boom-box, games and balls, towels, robes, and I'm sure a lot more that I didn't even see. They come with the grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. And they take up a lot of room.

Our friends brought a tent and we brought a lot of food between us, so we were half-way there, anyhow.

The kids, of course, had fun in the pools and it was nice relaxing and enjoying the gorgeous view of the Dead Sea and the Jordanian mountains.

We get such a kick out of traveling a half hour to get to these gorgeous places. What a difference from Baltimore where we would travel a half hour to get to Sears! Given, there are parks in the Baltimore area, and given, we didn't venture out to them very often, but somehow, it's different here.

Here, it's not just venturing out and packing everyone up and dragging the kids around to nice, pretty places like in the States. Here, you pack everyone up and and you go places that make your heart swell. You feel something real...
and here is where my words fail me.
(and where you must forgive my raving a bit)
How to describe?
It's like discovering something about someone you love that you never knew before...that makes you swoon and love them more.

Sitting here, thinking about our day...which was fun but not extraordinary in any way, feels so unreal. Just knowing that we are here in Israel...on Yom Ha'atzmaut... and we are a part of this country, the land, the people- it's completely overwhelming. To think of the sacrifices people made for us to be able to be here and walk on this ground...To think of the hundreds of years we have been pining and wishing for the chance to live here- and poof- here we are.

Little ol' me- living a dream that has eluded so many for so many yrs.
I don't know what we did to deserve it, but I thank G-d for the chance He's giving us. And I thank G-d we were able to know it was a chance we had to take.

long overdue update

noreply@blogger.com (elana) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:15:00 +0000

Well, now you're in for it. I have an empty house and nothing to do (well that's not really true if you count everything I'm putting off right now), so I thought I would post a little something about the goings-ons around here. It's been a while, I know.

Pesach has just passed...incredibly quickly. We decided to take our friends' advice here and jam-pack our holiday full of activities to keep the kids busy and and to avoid the dreaded "I'm booooored" pronouncements. It totally worked. We all had so much fun and were so busy running ourselves ragged that there was no time for boredom.

First of all, before Pesach even started, the kids' days were full of activities. All the schools have vacation starting the week before Pesach and just as I was starting to freak out about how was I going to clean and prepare with 3 kids hanging around, out came the coveted little scraps of paper sent home in their backpacks. Each one, a different advertisement for pre-Pesach day-camps ("kaytanot") run by pre-teen girls clearly sent directly from Heaven.

We chose one to be run by an older sister of a boy in Gali's class that would meet across the street from us in the B'nei Akiva building. Ami and Gali both went and had a blast. They went to the park every day for picnics and did arts and crafts out the wazoo, even painted their faces, as seen in the pic. Then, when that was over at 1 pm, they came home, ate, and left for kaytana #2. Our neighbor's 9 yr old daughter ran a mini-kaytana for her 3 yr old sister (the cute little one hugging Ami in the previous post), our kids, and one other one in the building. (Devra and Gidon, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times, S.R.'s the absolute best.)

So the cleaning got done.

In fact, this yr, for some reason, things seemed to fall into place much easier than in the past. There's such a different feeling here than we used to have in Balt. It just seemed calmer. When we went back to visit Balt. in the beginning of March, the supermarket had a huge Passover food section set up and people were stocking up! When we came back, there wasn't a matza to be found until maybe 2 weeks before Pesach. We read a few pre-Pesach dvar-Torah's (articles) and went to a few shiurim (speeches) and the common theme seemed to be "Relax! It's not spring-cleaning time. This is supposed to be a happy time and don't drive yourselves crazy!"
I'll take it!

It felt very fluid...like this is life- it's no big deal.

We had our seder (by the way, having one was AWESOME!) with friends who have kids around the same ages as ours. We had a great time. They did a lot of role-playing and made it fun for the kids. At one point, the father disappeared and there was a knock at the door. The kids opened it and it was "Moshe" who ran in all dressed up, telling everyone to pack quickly and leave Egypt. Other than Hila, who found that terrifying, everyone loved it.

Though it was a bit bittersweet because it was the first time we were away from family and we missed everyone and the yearly routine we're used to.
Hopefully, we can host family next year! (Hint, hint!)

Chol Hamoed, as I said earlier, was jam-packed with activity.

Monday we went to a nature reserve near the Dead Sea with natural springs for swimming and we took two of our neighbors along for the ride. Unfortunately, the ride there didn't go too smoothly...we had a fender-bender on our way. Cars were stopping suddenly around a bend and we stopped in time but the car behind us didn't and bumped us. It was a very slight bump but the car's back bumper was pretty banged up. The guy who bumped us (Moti, who else??) seemed like a mentch at the time and he'll hopefully continue to be one when he has to pay.

We continued on our way and the kids had a blast swimming and walking along some streams.

Next day, Tuesday, we drove to Hebron. They host a music festival twice a yr and all of Ma´arat HaMachpela is open to Jews...usually some parts are restricted and Arab-controlled. Rich went in with Gali and Ami while Hila and I listened to the music festival and then we all walked around the city with the thousands of other party-goers. The security was pretty high and soldiers in camouflage lying by the side of the road with guns pointed to the hills was a pretty common sight. So the area was pretty well-protected. The kids played in a playground in the Jewish Quarter and we watched families unload huge baskets with 5 course meals they packed for lunch. We were a little jealous watching them eat while we munched our soggy matza sandwiches.

I was struck by the scene of the playground and took a pic of the kids playing with a huge cement barricaded wall behind them and a camouflaged army lookout on top of the building behind it. I can't imagine living there and having that become a normal sight. The people living there are so strong and brave and I don't think I could ever even imagine being in their shoes. What strong faith.

The next day, Wed, we went to a part of Nahal Pratt in a reserve about a 10 min drive from our house. The drive was a little scary, as it was along a very narrow road winding down the mountain. Maybe a half a foot of land between the road and the steep drop- and no guardrail. Thank G-d no cars were coming the other way (we had a very early start) but we weren't so lucky on the way out. As I write this, I still have the sinking feeling in my stomach thinking about the 2 times cars passed us on our way up and out of the reserve. I think a few more inches and our car would have tipped over the side.

Anyway, the reserve, itself, was worth the terrifying drive. It was gorgeous. Friends from our neighborhood met us there and showed us where they usually set their stuff up away from the crowds. They have a daughter in Gali's class and they played together in the streams and pools. They were telling us that they go sometimes on Friday mornings. It never really occurred to me to do something like that... amazing to have that choice now! It's so close-by that it would be no big deal to take a quick little morning trip.

Thursday we went to my cousin's apt in Neve Yaakov for lunch. Our grandfathers were brothers. She grew up in Canada and is a little older than me so we never really knew each other before. It was nice getting to know her and her family. She has 6 kids and the youngest 2 are Ami and Hila's age. I have such a small family and almost no contact with any other cousins, so it was a great feeling to introduce the kids to their cousins and to know that we have family nearby.

Earlier in the week we met Rich's cousins for dinner in Jerusalem. His cousin Sheryl lives with her family in Ber Sheva and her brother was in from the States with his family. They all came to Jerusalem - Sheryl's newly married daughter lives there. Sheryl's grandparent was siblings with Rich's grandfather.

Everyone always asks if we have any family here and we say no but the answer is beginning to change as we meet "new" cousins. It feels more like home because of it.

Next day we were off again at the crack of dawn to Herzliya where we were invited to a Bat Mitzvah of friends who just made aliyah from Baltimore a well. We decided to leave really early and have time on the beach before going to the restaurant. We arrived so early that we found parking right next to the beach and had our pick of places to settle on the sand. We had a good two hrs of fun before changing in the car and walking over to the Bat Mitzvah. We were invited out for Shabbat lunch, so we took our time coming back, not having to cook much for Shabbat.

And then it was over! Pesach sped by for us.

Kids went back to school on Monday after playing at home with their friends on Sunday (no 2-day Yom tov's for us!)
No one had a hard transition back, thank G-d. All marched right in, ready to have fun. Hila was especially happy to go back to "my Bely" (Beverly, her daycare provider).

Bonus pics....

I dare you to try to be this happy!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:26:00 +0000

Fox = Cat??

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:08:00 +0000

"It happened again that they (Rabban Gamliel, Rebi Elazar ben Azariah, Rebi Yehoshua, and Rebi Akiva) were going to Jerusalem......

When they reached the Temple Mount and saw a fox coming out from the place where the Holy of Holies had been, they began to cry; Rebi Akiva laughed."

Babylonian Talmud
Makkot, Daf 24b

Shikaron

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:31:00 +0000

This picture was taken along the Eastern (retaining) wall of Har Habayit/the Temple Mount. As was explained to us by R. Ariel, it produces something of a high, like smoking marijuana.

From Aish.com -

"...Henbane. This is the most common plant in the Wall. The Hebrew name for this plant is Shikaron, which is a form of the word for drunkenness. The name is possibly derived from the poisonous, intoxicating substance contained in the plant."

Battle of the Bands - Kotel/Western Wall style

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:49:00 +0000

This story will hopefully be contained/made relevant by my next posting, but at any rate, today, Rosh Chodesh Nissan (1st of the month of Nissan) I went with my neighbor Alex up to Har HaBayit (aka the Temple Mount). As part of this, we davened "netz" (earliest minyan possible, it was already moving at 5:30am).

There was an eclectic mix of groups - ashkenazi, sephardi, chasidish, etc.

Here below is netz, or actually a few minutes before it, from today at the Kotel/Western Wall. And yes, the answer to your next question, there really WERE that many birds there this AM - they were quite loud, as you can easily hear......

Far and away, the group that stole the show, took the prize, whatever metaphor you want was the "yeshiva boys from Otniel" (at least I think from Otniel - they were definitely yeshiva boys, and there was a group of them going to Har Habayit that we saw later, but maybe they were different...)

They made me proud!!!! See the yeshiva boys below......(hint - notice the few people that were also davening there totally staring at these kids like they are from Mars...)

A Refreshing Definition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:26:00 +0000

I was reading this article in the Jerusalem Post and was struck by a great comment by Assemblyman Dov Hikind of New York.

I join him in his "hatred"!

Dov Hikind - "...and while on the subject, I hate being called an Orthodox Jew."

Interviewer - "Why?"

Dov Hikind - "Because only God knows how Orthodox you are...what I am is a proud Jew who does what he thinks is right. I always explain to [critics] that I'm not only in politics; I am also an individual who stands up for the things that are important to me..."

Click here for the original article/interview

What a country! Free narcotics!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:05:00 +0000

I went to the big yearly family medicine convention today, held in Ramat Gan. Was very nice, got to meet a lot of people in my field.

Observation #1) I thought that I had seen doctors go after drug-rep junk before. Oh no. Never had a I seen such a display as today. Granted, I threw myself right into it. I now have enough highlighters to paint our new house. But still, I mean, come on, have some pride.......

Observation #2) Indeed, as the title goes, free narcotics. They gave me some meds with codeine in it as a sample. Which in reality is not big deal, but that would never happen in the US. I found a nice bit of irony in that pretty much next to where they were handing out the codeine, there was a stand for the drug buprenorhpine, which is used to wean people off of opoids/heroin that they are addicted to.....at least the person that set out where the tables would be for the drug reps had a sense of humor!

Paranoia(?)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:07:00 +0000

We have been playing with a tool for our blog called "Sitemeter" - it lets us see who has been on our blog's pages (yes, we know who you are, or at least where you live.....).

Elana and started to browse through the list of visitors that have come to our blog, and wouldn't you know it, but it seems like this person, from Kfar Kasem, keeps coming to our website. For those that don't know what Kfar Qasem is, it is an arab village in israel with a history.

At any rate, we started to get a little freaked out. I mean, why would some arab guy from around the corner from us want to keep coming to our blog. Isn't that a little weird?

So as we looked down our list of visitors, we noticed that this person came to our website all the time. Pretty freaky.......and then, Sitemeter has a feature that you can see who is on your website/blog at that specific moment. And to our horror, this person was on!!!

We started looking at each other, a bit scared, talking about how we have to take down all of our pictures, make sure we have no identifiable information on the website, etc. We were freaked out.

Then, it actually dawned on us. This mystery person from Kfar Qasem was......us. Our IP must get detected as going through Kfar Qasem for some reason. No strange guy sharpening a knife, looking at our pictures. Just plain, old, boring, us.

I suppose that we should really be taking it easier.

While I am on the topic of violence and paranoia - it was just announced that the Bloods (gang) are going to be having an initiation in the area that we lived in Baltimore. They will be hitting a car, and then assaulting the driver that comes out - some sort of gang initiation.

Yeah, probably should not be reading anything into THIS story about living in a dangerous place or anything.....nah.

Purim Outfits

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:04:00 +0000

...and now for a breath of fresh air....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:08:00 +0000

I had heard of the "Israeli Initiative" from Rabbi/Member of Knesset Benny Alon for some time now - I have been looking at it more and more - I highly recommend having a look at it at the very least.

Finally, somebody puts a concrete alternative to the insanity in which we currently find ourselves sinking deeper and deeper.

Click here for the link.

Back to MA

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:51:00 +0000

After coming to the end of a great trip for everybody, we are going to be coming back to MA - we should be arriving late WED afternoon.

As with pretty much everything else in our lives, dear reader, please don't take our lack of writing to mean that nothing interesting is going on. To the contrary. there is just WAY too much stuff to write about, and not nearly enough time to dedicate to putting it down on paper.

One rather cute/nice experience today while I was doing some clinical work. I frankly had been worrying a bit about my transition to clinical medicine in Israel, basically in connection to the language. Of all things, I had a patient today who saw me (here in Baltimore) and immediately would only talk to me in Hebrew. As a matter of (funny) fact, his first question to me was how he could translate "lay-cha" to a family member (it is roughly equivalent to "mucous/phlegm", at least in reference to a cough, I explained to him - thank you Chana Shapira.....). To my own pleasant surprise, I actually survived the encounter without making too much of a fool out of myself. At least there is hope!

Hope to write more when we get back to Israel....

Audio of the Baltimore Chug Aliyah event

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:22:00 +0000

Elana and I were asked to talk to the Baltimore Chug Aliyah during our stay here in Baltimore - here is the audio file for those that might be interested.

You should know, it is a large file and you will likely need to increase the volume to hear the audio.

Special thanks to Rivkah Lambert Adler (also known as the "Baalas Bat Aliyah Blog") for having put the talk together, and to Gavi Zeitlin for having recorded it.....

Best song in a long, long time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:30:00 +0000

Yeah, I know, total gashmius......a part of me still loves this stuff - Manic Street Preachers

Please put down that gun...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:46:00 +0000

Anybody that lives in Israel gets pretty comfortable around people with weapons (that is, if you subscribe to the idea that "we" are the good guys...). So I was a little surprised at the weaponry that I see all over the place here in Manila.

Granted, I like it when people have guns around me, which I know is a bit of a hard thing for many "Americans" to stomach, at least in the public arena. However, I was a bit taken back with the fact that the guards here carry......shotguns. And while not "sawed-off", these things have a really short barrel.

You don't have to be a gun-nut to figure out, if they have to use things, G-d forbid, others may get, well, taken down with the bad guys. I dunno, I get these sense that in Israel there is a bit more of a premium on hitting just the bad guy than here.

Now, you may think that I may be a bit odd in being taken back by the shotgun phenomenon here. Fair enough.

But in today's paper (they dropped it off at my hotel room) they talked about how the heads of the police and army (mind you, I am NOT making this up here.....) had a media-publicized round of target practice. Why might one ask? Because, it would seem, according to the head of the police here, that the cops are not too handy with their weapons (loosely stated).

Beit Neeman B'Yisrael

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:38:00 +0000

So we bought a house a few weeks ago, here in Maale Adumim, just up the street from where we are renting. That said, I am not sure if saying that we “bought” it is grammatically correct – the whole process of buying real estate here is much more dragged out here that in the US.

Here, one starts making payments towards the final sale price pretty soon after signing the contract. From my experience in the US, typically there is a down payment, then a lull, than a really huge check at the end (“settlement”).

Not so here – one basically starts paying 2 rents/mortgages once the contract is signed. So, to say that “we bought” a house may not be correct, but we have signed for it, and it will, at least per the contract, become ours in July.

The house is really nice, I am very excited about it – it is 4.5 bedrooms, nice “salon”, mirpeset (balcony). The master bedroom is new; it has cathedral ceilings, walk-in closet, a lot of space. We are going to have a “garden” as they call it in back, overlooking the Dead Sea. Balls thrown out the back of our house will be gone forever to the wadi (valley) below – there is a “security patch” between the garden and the wadi for police to use, but aside from that, it is a pretty steep drop-off.

The house is a 2-family (“du-mishpachti”) unit, just up the street from the Mitzpe Nevo neighborhood in Maale Adumim. The house is technically in “Klei Shir”. It is in a more mixed neighborhood, vis-à-vis religious observance than where we are renting right now.

All in all, we are very excited to be able to, finally, settle down.