Post Script

Couldn't resist one more post.  This blogging business is kind of addicting.



Long Island Sound the day after

We seem to be attracting severe weather - Jerusalem has a 50 year snow storm while we are there and now in New York the first blizzard of 2014.  Luckily it is so cold that the snow is very light and easy to shovel. Toby and Gabriella are getting a real taste  of winter weather - shoveling, scraping windshields and sledding yesterday in 14 degree weather.  They seem impervious to the cold but I froze my butt off and couldn't take it. Had to retreat to the car and turn the heat on. Even Michelle tolerated it better than I and she is constantly cold in San Francisco.

Now we are doing the final packing and getting ready to go.  One of my recurring nightmares is traveling with an enormous amount of very heavy luggage - so this is definitely a 'welcome to my nightmare' moment.  Five big suitcases at the weight limit, a small suitcase, back packs, violin, clarinet, various other carry ons - and my fantasy is packing like the Clooney character in Up In The Air... but it occurs to me, we are coming off the greatest experience and I should stop whining and get on with completing it.  We'll be home soon.  (And then we have a day to put our house back together and get ourselves mentally ready for school and work - not the ideal planning scenario but such is life.)

And now this is really it! Crossing Rashbag is officially signing off. Next step is figuring out my next blog topic :).  Love to all.  Dan

Last Post for Crossing Rashbag Blog

Well the inevitable is here, the last post for Crossing Rashbag.  It has been a great ride and highly enjoyable to describe our experiences and I am so glad that I did it, because we could never reconstruct/recall aspects of the trip, without some reminders.  (Thank you Adam Heller, for encouraging me to start the blog.  I remember thinking to myself, I am such a luddite when it comes to technology that I will never be able to pull this off but Adam insisted it was easy to do, and he was right.) Of course, in keeping with my technophobic nature, my early efforts were lame and I was highly frustrated until I got an IT consultation from my number one son. But it all worked out.

We thought it was cold in Jerusalem (actually it was cold.)  But Israeli cold is an entirely different animal from New York cold.  (About 10-15 degrees fahrenheit different).  We are staying with Michelle's sister Sara in Larchmont. It it hitting the low teens at night and 'warms up' to 25 or so during the day.  It's the type of weather that lets you know it's there.  Sort of like Tel Aviv in August.

Bundled Up

Today we took a walk in a local nature preserve and it was definitely invigorating as well as beautiful.  Luckily Sara has a bunch of cold weather clothing so we had some protection.  I have to acknowledge that I have officially become a 'west coast wimp' - my blood is too thin to tolerate the cold like I used to.  Or maybe it is old age creeping up...

The long road is ending

Not the Hula Valley

It is back to San Francisco for us on Saturday and back to work/school on Monday. Yikes! We will all be experiencing some culture shock.  But the memories linger.  I read somewhere that research has shown that experiences, like trips of this nature, are more meaningful, last longer and provide greater psychic benefit than material things (notwithstanding that pre-war Martin 00028 that I covet). Anyway, maybe I will keep blogging about something else - you never know.  Regards to everyone and thanks for your support along the way.

Last Days

Getting down to the wire.  We leave tomorrow starting with a 5:45 am wake up to get to Ben Gurion Airport for our 9:40 am flights.  I am on El Al non stop to NYC, Michelle, Susan and the kids are on Turkish Air through Istanbul.  (Shorter flight for me, better food/plane for them.)

Gabriella and Buddies

Toby and Gabriella have had lots of farewell parties at their school, which has been totally nice.  And not to be too boastful an Abba, but they also got glowing report cards. The teachers told us they loved having Toby and Gabriella as their students. (They even described Toby as 'civilized' which amazed me, because he seems to have become so argumentative and aggressive since being here.  But maybe he saves that behavior for us. Gabriella was just all around great.)  I am so proud of how the kids met the challenge of a difficult learning environment, adjusted, made friends, improved their Hebrew and weren't wimpy Americans. :)  It has been fun to watch the growth.  And it is sad that just when all of us are feeling comfortable, we have to leave.  But I suspected that it would be like this.

With Alejandra, her teacher

Today we took a last touring day to Caesaria National Park (amazing ruins on the coast north of Natanya) with the Roths. We are really going to miss them!  It has been so nice to have been in Israel with them - the best tour guides in the country and wonderful friends!

Soon it is back to reality for all of us.

PS.  Everyone safe and sound in New York as of the evening of 12/29.

Mishpacha Meer in Israel

Caveat to readers - the subject of this post may be mostly of interest to the Meers and the Dashes (or maybe just to me as I write it, because my family knows this stuff). But anyway, here goes:

I have not written much about my extended family, but I have cousins in Israel.  My Dad (Samuel Meer, of Blessed Memory) was the second youngest of eight children. My Mom, on the other hand, had only one sibling, her older brother Frank. (Can you guess who grew up in the orthodox home and who grew up in the commie household?)  My Dad's brother Lou had two sons, Mosely and Fred (both of Blessed Memory).  Fred made Aliyah in the 1960's and met a wonderful Sephardic woman (Simone Sebbag) at his Ulpan. Simone's family was chased out of Morocco, settled in Antibes on the French Riviera and opened up a restaurant (early Moroccan/French fusion).  We visited Simone's parents in Antibes in 1966 and I remember having a fantastic meal and looking at a binder full of sketches by Picasso.  Apparently Picasso frequented the restaurant because he loved to hear the Spanish folk songs that Simone's grandmother would sing for him. Instead of paying for his meal he would do a quick sketch. (I always wondered what happened to that binder...for sure a cherished family heirloom.)

Anyway Simone has three adult children (who are second cousins to Toby and Gabriella) and a number of grand kids. She lives near Jerusalem and we tried several times to get together so the families  could meet.  Unfortunately we did not find the right time and then the clock ran out. We were invited out for Sukkot but Toby and I were under the weather.  Then Simone had some health issues, and then before we knew it, December was upon us, with the snow storm.  (Simone is very observant so driving to her house for Shabbat was out of the question.) Oh well, it will have to be next time.

Acclimation Indicator

Q:  How do you know when you are fully acclimating to Israel?

Kumquats for the taking

A:  When you scavenge fruit from a downed tree.

Michelle and I passed these branches from a Kumquat tree on the street (part of the snow clean up) and we immediately scavenged a bunch of ripe fruit.

Starting Our Last Week In Israel

Our next to last Shabbat in Jerusalem. A clear, sunny day, but still cold. Gabriella and Toby spent the morning making a music video with Shanie and Meshi.  Pretty funny stuff with some break dancing moves thrown in (Very cute, but I don't think the break dancers in Flatbush, Bed Stuy or South Central have anything to worry about).

The Old City remains a magnet for us on Shabbat.  It is interesting to see the emphasis and attention shift towards Christmas and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as December 25 approaches. It is also really nice to not have the constant, commercial drumbeat of an American Christmas season - there is no Black Friday and X number of shopping days left!! here.  The focus is religious, as it should be. I will definitely miss that.

Where is that antique?

So we wandered through the city to the Kotel, paid our respects and ended up at our favorite falafel restaurant in the Muslim Quarter. The shops in the Old City are 90% overpriced tourist traps, but some of them, you suspect, have buried treasure - it's a question of can you find it and would you know it if you saw it?

Why are they smiling? (Because they go home in 8 days.)

Still have snow on the ground and our central heat is basically non functional.  So we bundle up in layers at night and the kids fight over the hot water bottle (instead of the kindle fire).  The new family theme song is 'Steam Heat' from the musical Pajama Game, with the lines:

"I've got a hot water bottle,
but nothin' I've got'll take the place of you
holding me tight"

In the mornings we have had to scrape frost from the car windows.  I showed the kids the credit card technique - they thought that was quite the innovative use of a cc.

I know it's here somewhere

And basically capping our Israel adventure was the near miss bus bombing outside Tel Aviv today. Or as Gal told me, "Welcome to the Middle East".

Hasidic Variety

I have been struck by the range of styles among the orthodox communities in Israel. I should stress up front that these thoughts are observational and subjective. I have not talked to anyone or done any research on the subject.  I've often seen 'black hat' men, especially in Jerusalem, resplendent in their standard uniform of black suit, white shirt and a variety of hats (veritable peacocks), walking very fast (Where are they going, I always wonder?) with super serious expressions on their faces. (Probably late for Torah study). All that studying could explain their pale, slightly unhealthy pallor. Then you have the 'hippy' Hasids, cool, younger guys with long peyos, shortish beards, suspenders, alpaca wool hats from Peru and the like, hanging out in the squares of Tsfat's old city and the hip neighborhoods of Tel Aviv.  And today, Michelle and I were treated to some street theater by the 'Na Nachs'.

We were sitting outside Michelle's newest favorite falafel joint after her Ulpan, eating a 'hetsi lafa' (that is half of a lafa or wrap - no pita for us), when we heard some thundering, techno Hasidic hip hop music blasting from a van down the street. Then a few men with peyos, beards and wearing white knitted kipot came out and started dancing around the van to the music.  According to Jewish Humor Central, these guys are known as the 'Na Nachs', ecstatic orthodox followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Apparently they go around various cities dancing to the music with the intent of 'bringing joy to passersby'. They did look very blissful - and had definitely taken a slug of Reb Nachman's kool aid. We just watched with amusement - I had not seen this flavor of observance. I guess you've been in Israel awhile when you just shrug this stuff off and don't even get the camera out.

Interior of Ethiopian Church

After this dose of religious fervor we took things down a notch with a visit to the Ethiopian Church on, you guessed it, Ethiopia Street. This church is a beautiful building with a circular architecture, patterned after similar structures in Ethiopia. Nice to wander around inside (shoes off before entering, please).  Oriental carpets grace the floors of the outer circle, surrounding an inner room.  Very different from other churches that are built to resemble the shape of the cross.

Drum and flowers in an alcove

Snowblind, the Aftermath

Nice Boots

Jerusalem continues to dig out of the snowstorm and we do the same at 1 Rashbag. Michelle, Susan and the kids got into the act and bailed out the front porch area with the bucket, the dust pans and added a new tool, a cooking pot, to the fray. Schools were closed for four days and opened late (10 am) on the fifth and sixth days. Which is fine with me because the roads can freeze up over night and frankly, the way people drive around here, the morning rush hour is challenging enough without adding icy streets to the mix.  Michelle has missed so much of her Ulpan that she arranged to meet some friends from her class for coffee on Monday, so they could practice. (She is taking her Hebrew very seriously - she hardly talks to me at night because she is so busy studying her flash cards.)

Fun in the Snow

Toby and Gabriella, on the other hand, enjoyed their snow break and were happy to be out of school.  They are both funny though, vacillating between counting the days until they are home and the next minute talking about how boring it will be when they are back. We are all at that stage where the end is clearly in sight and we are anticipating the return and feeling sad about leaving, at the same time. We have all made connections and friends here, in our separate spheres, and it will be hard to leave. And we still have a bit of uncertainty about where we are spending our last 4 days in Israel.  We have to vacate the Rashbag house on 12/25 but we don't leave Israel until 12/29 (a communication lapse on dates with our house swappers).  We are debating between staying in Jerusalem (so Michelle and the kids can stay in school until the very end) and heading to Tel Aviv.  My vote is Tel Aviv, just because we haven't spent that much time there, we can see a few final sites and be closer to the airport for the final departure.  Plus it will be warmer - the girls are spending each evening wrapped in blankets, clutching hot water bottles and shivering from the 'bone chilling' (40 degree) weather. It's really not that cold, it's just that space heaters don't cut it and the house is very damp.  (These California girls just don't have a clue about cold weather, although Susan did grow up in Chicago, but that was long time ago). I keep talking (ad nauseum, I'm afraid) about my college winters in upstate New York, but it falls on deaf ears - I get a lot of  'yeah Dad, whatever...'. But still, I love them just the same.

Local Park

YMCA Courtyard

Snowblind (continued)

The unprecedented December snowfall is fun for a day or so, even with having to improvise cold weather clothing (plastic bags on the feet, socks on the hands for gloves, etc).  The kids are having a blast stomping around in the snow, throwing snowballs and building snowmen (especially Toby as he pelts his sister.)  The snow has a high moisture content and is ideal for packing.

View from the YMCA Tower

We have a lot of standing water in our front porch area because the drain is clogged and I spent Friday morning bailing out snow and water with a bucket and a dust pan.  (Have to use what tools are available because I have not seen anyone with a snow shovel).  Then the sun came out and Michelle and I took a walk towards the Old City. Absolutely beautiful, winter wonderland in Jerusalem but very slow going as the sidewalks are 6-8 inches deep in snow and slush and many intersections are flooded.  We made it as far the as the YMCA on David Ha Melech and went to the top of the tower for the first time.  Great 360 degree views of a snowy city.

It is not all fun and games

But the fun stopped when we lost power at around 2:30 in the afternoon.  There has been a lot of damage from downed trees and power lines and tens of thousands of people are without power in Jerusalem. Apparently about 60% of the West Bank is without power as well.  We also heard that some people in Tel Aviv, wanting to see the snow in Jerusalem, ignored police warnings to stay off the highways and ended up getting stuck on the freeway to Jerusalem for up to 11 hours. Big fun that.

Spending the late afternoon in a freezing, dark house left a bit to be desired but we got out the candles and the flashlights.  Luckily we were invited to Shabbat dinner with friends or it would have been a long night. And then at around 8 pm power was restored (Baruch Hashem!).  So we were spared a cold, cold night huddled under the blankets. But clearly people are suffering in this weather.

Saturday brought more snow mixed with rain. We started to take a walk but did not make it far before the cold, wet weather turned us back. Toby hit Gabriella in the face with a snow ball (totally lucky shot) so she was not too pleased.  Just another quiet Shabbat at the Levin-Meers.

Snowblind

Bob Dylan said it one way in 'You're a Big Girl Now' from his Blood on  the Tracks album:

'a change in the weather is known to be extreme...'

Jerry Jeff Walker put it another way in 'London Homesick Blues':

'Well it's cold over here
and I swear,
I wish they'd turn the heat on...'

Preparing the ordnance

Why am I quoting these obscure lyrics? Because I can? Because I've sung the songs?  Because I drive my family crazy by singing a song when someone says something that triggers a line in my memory? NO!

The reason is because it's snowing in Jerusalem!! A rare event that has everyone pretty excited. It's all over the local news. The first December snow here since the 1950's. Schools closed, big flakes drifting down, definite accumulation, kids having snowball fights, front end loaders doing duty as snow ploughs.  The only negative is that it's very slushy, because it has been raining for the last two days and it is not that cold. Utah powder it's not.

Gabriella to me:
'Dad it's the first time that snow is falling on a house that I have lived in, not just visited.

And then:
'I have never even made a snowman, how pathetic is that?'

(Well, now she can cross that one off the bucket list.)

Of course, if it is cold enough to snow, we are going to be cold, by definition.  Especially with a dearth of winter clothing, central heat that masquerades as central air and tile floors that give you frostbite, if you step on them with bare feet.

Bubby (aka Susan, Michelle's Mom) has been walking around in sandals until today. Why didn't Bubby pack any shoes, you might ask? (A good question but one that I am not prepared to pose at this time, because I know what's good for me.) Admittedly, it is hard to pack for summer and winter. Also, the summer-like weather lasted until virtually the end of November. Michelle and the kids have sneakers but no one has cold weather jackets, hats, gloves etc.  I brought my hiking boots, thinking we might do some serious hiking in the desert (which we haven't done yet but still might), but they have a hole on the top, limiting their utility in snow and slush. But it definitely beats slogging through the slush in running shoes. Actually I am very glad to have my hiking boots, especially compared with some of the clothes I packed. Before we left Michelle said, 'you must have a sports coat for the high holidays...'  (Little did we know that the rabbi would show up in sandals and an aloha shirt on Yom Kippur).  I read an article before the trip describing Israeli society as 'aggressively informal' and now I know what they meant.  But it is great fun to experience snow in Jerusalem.  And luckily I have not had to drive anywhere.

Rashbag Snow

Aspen it Ain't