Spent an interesting evening on the seventh night of Chanukah with Shifra and Baruch Emanuel, the parents of Chana Goldberg (whose house we are living in). They live close by and are extremely gracious people. Baruch is a Holocaust survivor who was sent to Bergen-Belsen as a teenager. Towards the end of the war, when it was clear Germany would lose, the Nazis attempted to erase evidence of Bergen-Belsen and shipped the inmates by train to Auschwitz. But at that point the Russian army was approaching from the east and the American and British forces from the south and west. The transport train that Baruch was on never made it to Auschwitz. Baruch's mother died on that transport train. At one point the train was stopped and there was food available for people to eat. Baruch was too sick to get off the train and that is what probably saved him. Others gorged themselves and died because their bodies could not digest the food, after the starvation conditions at the camps. When he was liberated Baruch weighed around 50 pounds. He spent his first years in Israel as a farmer on a kibbutz - no running water, plumbing or electricity. Today he is in his eighties and plays tennis four days a week! An amazing story of survival.
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| Sufganiyot Heaven |
On the last night of Chanukah we ventured into the Old City with our trusty tour guides - Sharona, Shanie and Meshi. It was packed with people - apparently it is now very trendy to come to the Old City to see the Chanukiah and the Kotel. (Probably the first time we have caught the leading edge of a trend). And of course everyone chowing down on sufganiyot. But it was beautiful to see the candles and oil lamps burning low and lighting doorways and windows, virtually everywhere we looked. The Old City never fails to amaze and stir the emotions, no matter how many times we go there.
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| Oil Lamps in the Old City |
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| The Kotel |
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| Old Style Chanukiah |
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| Gabriella in the Old City |
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