לך לך Lech Lecha, etc.

The first verse in לך לך was the first one I ever learned by heart. I was in second grade and had just started learning חומש. I always enjoyed studying תנ’ך (Bible). I like the combination of its religious and historical significance. It definitely influenced my decision to major in History and to move to Israel. I guess I could say that studying History helped my develop an awareness of the world around me, and תנ'ך made me feel like I had a place in a specific part of history and gave me direction for where I wanted to go in the future. I have thought about the beginning of לך לך, the beginning of Abraham's journey, countless times throughout the years leading up to my move to Israel and the years since. How could I not? I have no doubt that these first few words we are told God said to Abraham speak to anyone who has made the decision to move to Israel. And I wonder... was Abraham nervous? Sad? Did he look back? When I was in second grade this was a simple Bible story. It was nice to read about- a good story to start off my Jewish education. I recently made a comment that maybe this is where the brainwashing started, but that blame remains on Bnei Akiva, etc (see previous blog posts- there are plenty about that). I'm trying to think when it went from being just a thing I learned in school to something I constantly thought about- something that drove me to make the biggest decision of my life until now.

So that's that. Just a thought. In other news, life picked up where it left off except this time around I seem to be sick less often, less stressed out, less overtired, and overall just better off. I'm at gan five days a week instead of six. I finished my huge assignment from last year lifting a huge weight off my shoulders and making me feel pretty darn proud of myself. It was a challenging year and I did it- woohoo. Long story short- I'm not writing a thesis in the end. While this was something I really want to do, it probably wasn't a good idea and it's another weight off my shoulders. Unfortunately the alternative is a class that used to be on Thursdays (my free day) but is on Wednesday. How does one take a class at 12:30pm on a day they're supposed to be at gan from 9-4? Excellent question. Thanks to my amazing and supportive boss, I am not too worried about it. The class is only going to meet a few times during the year and the co-teacher with Wednesday off is going to switch with me when she can. This gets me my morning hours back so I only lose the afternoon. This week she couldn't switch but I got to spend the morning in a different gan (their kids are so much better at clean-up) and got some hours back that way. Hopefully in the end it will all work out and I will still merit real vacation days for a cool trip somewhere (Greece, anybody?). The class is with a professor I've had before and many classmates I've been with before so I actually don't feel terrified every time I walk into the room. The professor asked me which class I had with her. I of course had no idea what it was called as I referred to it in my head as "the class with the teacher with bright white hair". I'm not sure that was the answer she was looking for. The best thing about not writing a thesis is that I will be 100% done with my degree by the beginning of next summer. That is pretty darn exciting.

In other news, Gila finally decided to get her butt back from America. This means that we can actually start planning our very own גן (daycare) to open for next Fall. If anyone knows about real estate, small businesses, contracts between business partners, licensing, insurance, and any of that technical stuff please let me know. We are also collecting information about places in the area- where they are, how much tuition is, how many kids, how many teachers, etc. Any and all advice and information is greatly appreciated as we embark on this crazy and challenging project. This is something we've been talking about doing for a really long time and I am so excited about turning this dream into a reality.

A blog post would not be complete without mentioning how adorable my niece is. We continue to have our Tuesday playdates after gan. Sometimes she even picks me up. My wonderful niece Rinat Hodaya will be turning 1 in just over a week and I am excited that my parents are coming in next week for the festivities. It also happens that Hodaya's English birthday and my Hebrew birthday overlap so we'll have double the parties. Joint fingerpaint party anybody? It has been amazing watching her grow over the past year. She just started walking and is so much fun to watch. This picture captures a rare moment- Hodaya actually sitting still.


So that's what's going on. I've been living in Israel for over three years now and time is flying. So much changes and so much changes the same (maybe the topic of another blog entry but I've been managing to stay away from rants). Lets just say my three year olds at gan aren't the only ones learning new things and having new experiences every day about the harsh (and okay, also not so harsh) realities of the big world around us.

Until next time...

can't stay still

Today I went back to work. Kids aren't back yet but the staff was back learning CPR (may we never need it- my co-workers decided I'm the go to resuscitater) and getting the classrooms ready. I cleaned the fishtank and when I put the fish back they looked like they were starting to die. Better luck with the kids, I guess. My boss asked me if I had a chance to rest over vacation. Rest? What rest? How can I rest when...

I finished my last day of work at 4 on Thursday August 5th. That night I went to the Jerusalem Wine Festival. All I can say is members of this community need events like this more often. I think the tipsiness did a lot of us a lot of good. I got home after midnight, and felt so nice and lightheaded as I stayed up for my 3am sheirut ride to the airport. Thanks to a sobered up Jay and friend for helping me load my bags when the sheirut came (they just happened to be walking down the street... at 3am). After a McDonalds chicken sandwich breakfast (it was as gross as it sounds) my flight took off at 6am. I got to Boston around 4pm and waiting around until Chava's flight from DC arrived. We got home in time to get ready for shabbat, and then Sunday night I was packing again- this time for the long awaited sibling bonding trip to Maine.

On Sunday morning I was up bright and early to catch an 8:50am train to Portland, ME. Who said anything about relaxing on Sunday in America? When we got to Portland we watched the Portland Seadogs get their tails smacked around by the Richmond Flying Squirrels. It wasn't pretty. The little kid next to us was quite vocal about his frustration. It was kinda adorable. Chava and I wearing matching Portland Seadogs hats was also probably kinda adorable.

After the game we went down to Casco Bay and took a sunset ride on a schooner. It was really neat and we got to help hoist the sail!



The next day we were up bright and early to drive the three or so hours to Bar Harbor, ME. I survived my first real experience with highway driving. Go me. Chava and I spent two days hiking in Acadia National Park. The mountains were high and the views were stunning. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.



The best part is, Chava and I had a great time and didn't kill each other. Go sister bonding! On Wednesday morning we drove south along the coastal route which had even more stunning views. We drove down Main Street in at least five different small towns on the way and stopped (on Main Street) in Belfast for a late breakfast. We got back to Portland in time to eat lunch at the Green Elephant, a really yummy vegan place, and then I caught a train back to Boston.

On Thursday my mom took the day off so we could spend some quality time together. We had lunch at Milk Street Cafe and went on the swan boats together. What a perfect day in beautiful Boston.

On Friday I went to Target. Nuff said. Saturday night I had the very special treat of going to JP Licks with Mimmer and Isaac who was in from Brooklyn. While many members of our old gang were missing, this might have been the highlight of my trip. There is nothing like hanging out with childhood friends. It was just like old times.


On Sunday I was up bright and early again- this time even earlier than the Sunday before. I caught an 8am bus to NYC, met up with Janice in the bus station for a luggage hand-off, then hopped on a bus to Teaneck to see my wonderful and adorable and brilliant little cousins Aharon (11), Adina (9), Eitan (7), Tani (10), Shimmy (7 1/2), Lila (5) and Akiva (3) (those kids are from two families, FYI). Since they all adore me, it was a really fun twenty four hours with them. It's fun when Aharon comes up with ploys to keep me in the country. He's a smart kid.

On Monday morning I played with Lila and Akiva a bit more, had lunch with my friend Heather, and then took the train to Metuchen to see my aunt and uncle and one of my cousins and his new wife. I hadn't seen them since before I made aliyah. I haven't seen my other two first cousins in I don't even know how long. Maybe I can fit them into my next trip. Three hours later I took the train back in the direction I came from to NYC. Penn Station at rush hour was horribly frightening, but I somehow made it onto the subway going in the right direction to Queens for my friend Dan's wedding. And wow, what a wedding. Bucharians are CRAZY and certainly know how to party. I take back anything I said about chuppahs already being boring. Can you say chuppah-dance party extravaganza? It was so great seeing friends from Maryland and getting to celebrate Dan and Dina's special day. And thank you Dan for the meaningful brachah. I'm so glad I could work this momentous Jewbox simcha into my busy travel schedule.

(picture credits: Shira Stern)

I spent Monday night in Kew Garden Hills. Thank you Rebecca #3 for the wonderful hospitality. In the morning I road a bus full of Jews to the subway, then took a subway full of Jews into the city to hang out with the one and only Ezra Butler. We were soon joined by my friend Brian. I'm glad Ezra's blindness went away before our time together was through. Maybe I'm a healer? Who knows? Thank you Brian for carrying my bag around NYC. Ezra- you are a wimp, but I love you anyway, and will miss you terribly. Brian made me miss my bus to Philadelphia but made up for it by buying me ice cream. Fair enough. I wound up taking the NJ Transit for the third time in 36 hours to get to Philadelphia.

I overjoyed to see my Grandma Elka in Philadelphia. This was nothing short of a miracle. Just a couple months ago she dehydrated, became completely incoherent, and I was told she wouldn't make it until the end of the week. The weeks after that were extremely difficult. We held our breaths as she improved and hoped she would make it to meet her greatgranddaughter who arrived from Israel a few weeks later. ברוך ה' יום יום She met her great granddaughter and it was love at first site. Hodaya's pictures are all over my grandmother's room and she is constantly the topic of conversation. I am convinced that the picture of her hanging above Grandma Elka's bed is what gets her through the day. While my grandma is in poor health, she has finally accepted almost around the clock care and in my opinion is in better shape than ever. I am grateful to the nurses and health aides who put up with her and take care of her and was blessed with another visit full of scandalous family tales. I look forward to the next one. I also had a surprise run-in with my friend Tzippy who called me from down the street. I only got to see her for ten minutes but hey, that's about as much as anyone else got of my time.

I arrived back in Boston on Thursday evening. On Friday I had another highlight of my trip- the much anticipated JP Licks- Taam China doubleheader with Gila and Rafi. Lisa joined us for part of it (I mean, why shouldn't I hang out in Boston with friends who also live in Israel?). The ice cream and Chinese food was all delicious and my stomach amazingly didn't get terribly angry at me.



On Sunday I was stuck at home because of the rain. On Monday, despite the rain, I went to Brookline to play with more little cousins. Aharon, Adina, and Eitan were visiting their grandparents and were joined by Devorah and Yonatan. They are all so cute and so funny!



Monday afternoon meant the end of my trip. I got in a cab and we went through the cold and rain to the airport. I had a seven hour layover in Paris so Spotty and I did some exploring. We're going to cover Paris one layover at a time, or maybe one time I will actually go on a real trip there. This time we went to the Jardin de Luxembourg and then crossed the Seine to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. Fun stuff.


I got back to Israel Tuesday night. My bags got back Wednesday night. I survived my first shabbat back in Katamon and now my first day back at work. Real life resumes. Maybe I'll even start working on my thesis. I can't believe I have lived in Israel for three years and that this was my sixth trip back to the US since I made aliyah. Every trip back is a different kind of experience, as is every time I return home to Israel. There's a reason I can't stay still. I still have a life in the US to keep up- friends and family to see and new places to explore. I am happy to see any friend who will make time for me and grateful to the ones who do. I'm glad Chava and I finally got to take a trip together even if it wasn't to Iceland or a roadtrip through the Pacific Northwest (maybe next time). It was great riding the swan boats with my mom even though I've been on them a zillion times before. Now that I'm back I'm extremely anxious about getting schoolwork done in a reasonable amount of time but I"m also exciting about starting shana bet of gan with the little ones when they return on Wednesday.

Life in Israel Year 4: here we go. Who knows what adventures await me.

על אלה אני בוכיה

When I was younger I spent four summers at Camp Moshava. When people ask me why I made aliyah, I tell them it is all Bnei Akiva's fault. There is much to say about my experiences at Moshava. It's hard to say I had a blast. I learned what it meant to be a Jewish kid from Boston in a sea of New Yorkers. For whatever reason I kept going back, and the brainwashing continued. The staff at Moshava took a two-pronged attack. The word "aliyah" was said on average every ten minutes. There was lots of flag waving, and we were constantly told that moving to Israel was the best thing ever. We dressed up like pioneers arriving in Israel for the first time and nearly every shiur was about the holiness of the land. On the flip side, Tisha B'Av was an incredibly intense day. At camp they were really into setting things on fire. Thinking back, watching an outline of the walls of Jerusalem seems almost tacky, but it was a powerful image for an eleven year old to see. At camp we did everything from the egg dipped in ashes the evening before to sitting on the floor for most of Tisha B'Av day. There were depressing movies to watch, stories about the Holocaust told, and everything was done to make us feel the sadness of the day. I was at Moshava for Tisha B'Av for ages 10-13. When I was 14 I was on an NCSY program in Israel and we read Eicha on Mount Scopus overlooking the Temple Mount. The next year I was in Newton, and it was almost a culture shock. My family does not have the tradition of an egg dipped in ashes and while there was Tisha B'Av programming out there, it hardly compared to what I had experienced the five previous summers.

Tisha B'Av 2007 was very strange for me. It was just a few weeks before I made aliyah. While I attempted to feel sad about the lack of a Beit HaMikdash and what we no longer have as Jewish people, I couldn't help feeling the excitement of moving to Israel and of the miracle that Israel exists once again as a Jewish homeland. Once the nine days and Tisha B'Av were over, I could finally make the final arrangements and purchases for my aliyah. I still think about that summer and the brainwashing (debated putting that in quotes, but lets be honest) that took place those four summers at Moshava. After nearly three years living in Israel, I am no doubt still thrilled to be here. I am living the dream and being part of the miracle that is modern day Israel. At the same time, I miss the blissful Zionism instilled in me as a young teenager. When in takes me several tries to convince Bituach Leumi that I do not owe them hundreds of shekels, it's hard to get excited about being here. Tisha B'Av poses another challenge. While there is plenty to mourn in Jewish History and the current state of things for the Jewish people and Israel, at the same time I find much to celebrate every day when I look around and see how far we have come.

כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה
"Everyone who mourns for Jerusalem merits and sees her in her happiness"

This morning I read about this idea in Yitchak Mirsky's book הגיוני הלכה (a present from my brother upon graduating high school a heading off for a year at HaRova, where the brainwashing continued and aliyah became a true part of my life plan). The question is raised, why is it in the present tense? Shouldn't it be that one who mourns Jerusalem will in the future merit and see her in her happiness? A comparison is made to Yosef's brothers attempting to comfort Yaakov when Yaakov thought Yosef was dead. Yaakov could not be comforted, and over time he realized that the reason he could not be comforted was that he knew Yosef was still alive and that they would one day be reunited. There is a similar idea with the pasuk about Rachel Imeinu crying for her children until they come home to their land. She is crying in the present because she knows her children are still alive and that they can one day come back.

When we mourn for the Beit HaMikdash and what once was, it is not like mourning for a person. There is no set timeline for mourning after which we move on and enjoy the memories but no longer feel sad. By actively mourning for Jerusalem, we remain aware that it can be rebuilt, and we see the opportunities for bringing things back to how they once were. That is why one who mourns "merits and sees" in the present and not future tense. We are like Yaakov mourning for Yosef. We know we can be reunited with the שכינה in Jerusalem and in our lives in general.

On Sunday night before Tisha B'Av I went to two shiurim by Rav Alex Israel and Rav Binny Lau in preparation for Tisha B'Av and in memory of Marc Weinberg z"l, a close friend and former neighbor of my friends in Modiin. Rav Alex talked about the different portrayals of God in Eicha and how the authors relates to Him. It is different in each chapter. In one Yirmiyahu is yelling at God for the misery He has caused, and another is more about bemoaning the actions of the Jewish people that brought upon the destruction the punishment described. Rav Lau made an interesting point about the Tisha B'Av experience. On Tisha B'Av we force ourselves to miss. We do it because it's what we're supposed to do, and while the feelings may truly be within us, they are not felt naturally. He explained further that when it really comes down to it, we're not just missing what we once had. What we're missing and feeling bad about is our actions- how we behaved and the opportunities that were lost.

While I am not sure if this was Rav Lau's intention, it gave me a new perspective on Tisha B'Av. I think fasting, sitting on the floor, and the other restrictions we place upon ourselves on Tisha B'Av are important, but I think there is a more active role we can play in experiencing the essence of the day. We can mourn for what we lost and pray for it all to come back, but we need to take more active roles in realizing our own potentials in this process. As much as I celebrate the accomplishments of Israel, I am very much aware of the problems here. I know that last night in a few places there were panel discussions intended to create a dialogue between secular and religious Jews. This is definitely a good step. I have been thinking about what I wrote on the essay I submitted to Nefesh B'Nefesh when I applied for aliyah. I wrote that one reason I wanted to make aliyah was I felt I had much contribute and that it would be more meaningful for me to make this contributions to society in Israel.

On Yom Haatzmaut as my roommate and I partied in town into the wee hours of the night, I told her that I was grateful for Yom Haatzmaut because it brought me back to the excited-brainwashed-Zionistic teenager I was as a camper at Moshava. On our way to town we were stuck behind this huge group of teenagers that kept spontaneously bursting song, often getting random passersby to join in. It was exactly what a needed -- a reminder of how I turned the brainwashing into a personal dream and now a reality. This new take on Tisha B'Av is helping me put the other half of things into perspective. One one hand I am never about to downplay the tragedy that was the destruction of Jerusalem, pogroms, the Holocaust, and the countless random acts of cruelty done to Jews around the world on an almost daily basis. On the other hand I know that if I'm going to miss what once was, I have to force myself to do so. I can stare out my window towards the Old City walls (which I can barely see from my room) and wonder about what it was like, but missing it takes something extra.

The type of mourning we demand of ourselves on Tisha B'Av is very unique, but I definitely understand why the phrase above is in the present tense. If we can appropriately mourn for Jerusalem, it means we can become aware of what it will take to, at this moment, appreciate the merit of seeing it in her happiness-- the happiness of 1948, 1967, the continued flourishing of our homeland.

Being Brave

Today at gan we celebrated the birthday of Avigail. Back in January when the kids started having birthdays, I really wondered how Avigail would fare when her time came. She had six months to go, but at the time she almost always played on her own, barely said a word to anyone, and never approached the teachers for help if she was upset about something. The kids picked up on her vulnerability and made a game of sneaking up on her and roaring like lions. It was an important lesson for the kids to learn that it's not right to do something they know will make a friend upset. It was also ultimately good for Avigail. She had to learn to stick up for herself. The other thing that set Avigail apart from the other kids was that she couldn't jump. In general her fine and gross motor skills were well behind the other kids, but jumping is a big thing for little kids. It is also something each birthday boy and girl is called upon to do as part of their party in gan. Every Wednesday morning there is an exercise class with "Ariel HaGadol" (Big Ariel) as the kids call him (there is an Ariel in our class, as well as a Tamar, so Tamar the music teacher is "Tamar HaGedolah"). The class is wildly entertaining to watch. Ariel has the kids crawling like dogs, slithering like snacks, walking like monkeys and giraffes, and of course jumping like kangaroos. The kids go from one side of the room to the other. Avigail would be maybe one fifth there by the time the kids reached the other side, but Ariel was very patient and Avigail was extraordinarily determined. As for jumps, she did the movements but never quite got her feet off the ground.

The point of this story is... Avigail's determination always amazed me. She seemed totally oblivious to the comments and progress of the other kids. All she cared about was getting her feet off the ground. Then one day she did. For maybe a week she couldn't stop jumping. She was constantly hopping around the room and outside as if to keep reassuring herself that she could in fact do it. She's still really quiet. Her presence in gan is barely noticed. But when I do pay attention, I notice how much better she holds a paintbrush, how she quietly joins in the games of other kids, how she'll spend ten minutes getting two pieces of Lego together, and how she'll stand up for herself when another kid tries to grab a toy away from her.

I have mixed feelings about birthday parties at gan. Some kids just don't want to be in the center of attention. Even the most outgoing kids freak out and hide behind their parents when asked to get up and jump in the middle of the room. Then there was the kid who handled the pressure by climbing on tables. Today Avigail shined. We were all blown away. She sat confidently on the birthday chair in front of everyone, fully participated, and of course her jumps were spectacular. My mom likes to quote my grandfather, "be careful of those quiet ones." It's fun to think about what the kids are like now and what they will be like when they're older. Who will be the doctors and lawyers and who will work their way up in the Knesset. Whatever Avigail does I feel like she will do it slowly and quietly, but one day shock us all.

What's the moral of the story? Yes, Katamon is just like gan. Maybe I'll get to that part a little later. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I was brave to move to Israel, I might be able to afford my rent. I guess they have a point. Moving so far away from everything and everyone was a big leap of faith and no small thing. But whatever, that part is done. When I think about being brave I think about how I finally called families and spoke to them in Hebrew about participating in my class' research project. I was reading off a script but it was absolutely terrifying. I was expected to get up to twenty families and I got five. Even that was exhausting. I'm lucky to have a professor who is an olah herself and was extremely encouraging even with my relatively minor success recruiting families. Another brave moment of the past few weeks was standing up to my coworkers. The fight is on for the most desirable hours for next year. I might be at the bottom of the pecking order, but that wasn't going to stop me from at least telling my boss what my requests were. My coworkers basically acted like babies but I stood up to them. Maybe I stood up to them in my far less than perfect Hebrew, but I did it. I let them ramble about so many things they think I should do differently but when it comes to how my time is going to be used, I wasn't going to let them get away with them anymore. I even told my boss on them :-)

I still have way too much to figure out and challenges to suck up and be brave about. Oh yeah, why Katamon is like gan (besides the obvious reasons)... well, lets just say I have now realized that when you finally manage to be comfortable in your own shoes and just be yourself being bold and brave comes naturally. No more faking it, no more games. Honesty is a pretty cool thing. Being honest with myself was a big one. Yeah, it's corny, I know. Deal with it.

I continue to learn so much from the kids at gan in the smallest ways. I look at them now and realize that woah, they have come such a long way, some of them in the least expected but most incredible ways, like Avigail. I have come a long way too, whether it was in baby steps, monkey steps, or giant kangaroo leaps.

What I've been learning in gan

I've decided that there's no better way to be absorbed into Israeli society than to spend a year in gan (preschool). In the past seven months my Hebrew vocabulary and fluency has improved like I never thought it could. I sit side by side with the kids learning new words and new songs. With most songs now I do not simply fake the hand motions. I also know the words. It's cute because the kids sense that I'm not as "on top of things" as the other teachers, but they seem to appreciate that about me. Gan also provides me with a fascinating sociological study of Israeli life. The kids are constantly hitting each other, grabbing toys, and in general are always worried about what they're playing with. It often takes two minutes to convince a child that they can safely go to the bathroom and that I will make sure no one swipes the blocks they were building with. A lot of it has to do with there being so many children in one room, but I'm sure some of it comes from a general tension in the air that they see in their parents and feel themselves.

At the same time they are happy, wonderful, growing, and learning every day. When they aren't hitting each other they are simply wonderful and I love spending my days with them. I learn to appreciate the little things in life like the tractor working on the road outside the gan and the way a half-pita looks like a boat. Most of all I have enjoyed learning about the holidays with them and hearing them sing songs, especially the children of olim like myself. Their parents, while struggling to keep up with their children's growing vocabulary, positively glow when they hear their children singing new songs in Hebrew. One boy came to Israel just two weeks before gan started and didn't speak a word of Hebrew. He loves singing, but usually sang whatever English song sounded like the Hebrew one being sung at the time (Itsy Bitsy Spider came up a lot). Now he sings along and easily converses with his friends. Of course he still bursts into long winded stories in English and wonders why everyone gives him weird looks.


I wrote about Purim before and how fun it was to celebrate in gan. Last week we celebrated Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day. What better way to celebrate than with the next generation of Israelis. They were so cute dressed in blue and white, waving flags, and singing songs about being at home in Israel. One day they will understand the significance of the day and how miraculous it is that they live here. Listening them sing "כחול ולבן, הצבע שלי" ("blue and white are my color") literally brought tears to my eyes. Just as miraculous was spending Yom Haatzmaut with my niece, the first sabra Zibman. One day we'll tell her how her great great grandfather once met with Chaim Weizmann and Rav Abraham Kook in Chicago to discuss the prospect of a sovereign Jewish state.

In other news, I had another great trip back to the US. It was tough fitting it all into two weeks but somehow I did it. First three days were spent in Philadelphia, next three days in Boston, four days in Maryland, and then another week in Boston. I was constantly on the go as always, visiting with friends and family. I am grateful for the friends who accommodated my often restrictive schedule to drive me places, feed me, and simply hang out. You guys tell me how great it is that I travel so much to see friends, but I can't imagine not doing so. Here's to many more wonderful times together.

Also while I was in the US my Grandma Rose got the most wonderful surprise. A former student of hers who lives in the area and had recently reconnected with my family surprised her with a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear from Winston's. He was her student in third grade which was at least forty years ago. It made her day- no, her month- and she is still talking about it. She's also still talking about how magical digital cameras are. I took her picture with the flowers and showed her how I transferred the picture to my computer. I explained this to her about six years ago when she bought me my first digital camera, but you know how forgetful 98 year olds can be.


For the three weeks before I went to the US I was battling pneumonia. I finally got it properly diagnosed a few days before I left (shoutout to my Terem buddy). Thankfully I started feeling significantly better a few days into my trip. When I got back it was wonderful feeling healthy again, and being healthy meant I get to actually play with my niece, who came over with her abba just a few minutes after I home from the airport. Doesn't she look great in her new Red Sox hat?


Because I was sick, I fell behind in my schoolwork right after I finally caught up. Besides that my motivation to get work done this year has been almost non-existent. Despite that, I just submitted my proposal for my thesis. Hopefully my desired adviser will like what I wrote, officially accept me, and that my topic will be approved by the head of my department. I am so excited to finally be making progress with this thing even though I know there's a long, long, long road ahead of me. I am starting to feel a little more in control of my time as there is much work to do but more flexible deadlines in place. Trying to work on feeling more confident and motivated! And trying to have more fun. This morning before work I sat at a cafe reading the newspaper and drinking an icecafe (think Frappaccino). It was absolutely wonderful. Gotta do that more often. I've also been to three parties in the past week and looking forward to throwing another one in my apartment in a couple weeks. Maybe I'm finally enjoying being social around here.

In short, I'm happy at my job, making progress in school, continuing to make friends here, and I absolutely adore my niece.

But can you really blame me?

checking in on a sick day

My lack of posting might make one think that nothing in the past few months has been as exciting as the birth of my niece. Well, that's pretty much true. Hodaya is now four months old, unbelievably cute, and a joy to have around. I love how alert she is when I read her books and how adorable she looks in her Red Sox clothes that finally fit.

But besides having the cutest niece in the world, plenty of else has been going on. I just had a brilliant five week streak of not being sick. That streak ended two days ago, which is how I have the time to sit down and write a blog post. Working in a gan has essentially destroyed my immune system. At the end of January I took a much anticipated trip to Eilat with Lisa and Alan which combined with drugs brought me back to 100%. This time around we went down on a Friday and stayed through Tuesday. For shabbat we stayed in a studio apartment in one of the residential neighborhoods of Eilat. It was cool being around the real people who live there. It's such a gorgeous area. Our apartment had a view of the Red Sea and we basically spent 25 hours eating and sleeping. None of us had a non-cellphone clock, so we had absolutely no idea what time it was all day. We are convinced it was 4pm for at least three hours. Our trip included ATV-ing (a skill that for me could really use some more practice), eating steak, and being pulled through the water crazy fast on this big round blow-up thing. Most of all I enjoyed being away from the kids and having time to put my feet up.

Work at the gan is going great. Since my last post we've celebrated Chanukah and Purim in gan. Gan makes holidays so much more exciting. Purim was like a week long celebration which started with us turning the dramatic play area into a beautiful castle. The Erev Purim celebration was particularly good because no parents were there and the kids could just enjoy themselves without forty strange adults in the room. The kids are still insanely obsessed with me. When I come into the gan they barge at me with hugs and shouts. When I come before lunch time they are often in the middle of a story and I create a huge disturbance. It's awesome. I am starting to feel less of an assistant to the assistants as I get a better sense of what to do throughout the day and am given more responsibilities. For example, I am now in charge of making challah on Fridays. Pretty neat.

At the beginning of January I finally handed in my last paper for last semester (Spring 2009)... only ten weeks late, without consulting the professor for an extension. Thankfully he gave me a 91. I also finally retook the test I failed last Spring and got a 76 so I am now officially eligible to write a thesis. Now I just have to actually meet my thesis adviser in person, come up with a topic, and get started. In the meantime I am trying to finish off first semester which this virus is sort of impeding on.

Purim in Jerusalem was fabulous as always. I dressed up at Max from Where the Wild Things Are. A fair amount of my friends recognized my costume immediately. It was fun walking around in a crown all day. My shadow looked really neat. I went to three seudahs and delivered mishloach manot all over the area. It's always a good excuse to visit people I don't see often.


I'm looking forward to my next trip to the US which is in three weeks. Sadly it's going to be a short one, but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone... and to being away from the germy little ones for two weeks. This year is flying by. I can't believe I have known those 22 kids for six months now. Some of them have come a long way, and some of them cry even more than they used to. Being two and a half is tough.

I feel like there are a zillion other stories I wanted to share over the past few months but made myself wait until my schoolwork is done. Well, it's more or less done. Now maybe I'll remember the stories. I have a goal to be caught up on life my Pesach. We'll see how that goes.

Pictures speak louder than words

Presenting my niece, Rinat Hodaya, born November 1st. Rinat Hodaya means "A Joyous Expression of Thanksgiving." I kinda want to call her JET for short. Or I'll just call her Hodaya.

Monday November 2


Wednesday November 4


I wish Hodaya a long, happy and healthy life, full of Torah, mitzvot, wonderful friends, and crazy adventures.