Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land

life through a mother's eyes August 12, 2009 |

It's hard to believe that it's been almost three months since I slept through the night. Actually it's a lot more than that if you count the fact that for the last month or two of my pregnancy it was almost impossible to find a comfy position to lie in for more than half an hour and so I was tossing and turning all night, re-arranging 56 pillows to support my belly, back, boobs, legs you name it... and getting up two or three times to pee as well. Fun. Not.

Liev is now getting on for three months old and it's totally amazing to observe all the tiny nuanced changes and developments he makes on an almost daily basis. He's getting close to doubling his birth weight and he's got those adorable chubby baby thighs you just want to pinch and kiss all day long. He's also got a pair of lungs on him that would put any opera singer to shame. If only the noise they helped to create sounded as sweet. He sleeps reasonably well through the night now - not nearly enough, but I know there are other new parents out there who would kill for 5 or 6 uninterrupted hours of silence in the night. His smile totally kills us and he's on the verge of laughing - we can't wait for that. Sometimes I look at his adorable little face and just stare in disbelief that he came out of me. I made him in my body. How insane is that?

Before he was born, I spent many an hour wondering what motherhood would be like. How it would change my life and whether it would be a change that I would absorb effortlessly or with a struggle. I have been working pretty much full time since the age of 18 - that's half my life - and I tried to anticipate how I would relate in a world without a job, at least for a while. How long would I want to be at home with him; would I be climbing the walls after three months or would I find myself in maternal heaven?

Well so far, I have been rather shocked to discover that I love being at home with him. I love, love love it and here's the kicker, here's the sad bit: I feel GUILTY about that. I feel guilty that I want to be a full time mother. I don't know for how long. Maybe six months, maybe a year, hell! maybe until he starts school. I don't know whether it is my own inner guilt about not working and contributing financially (and these are tough times), or whether I am channelling the desperate cut throat workplace we all sadly live in these days and feel that as a woman I still need to prove that I can "do it all" and work full time and be a full time mum and loving doting wife and keep a home that looks like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine (except it doesn't!) I waited an awfully long time to be a mother and it's an incredible totally life-altering experience I don't want to miss a day of. I certainly don't want anyone else raising my child and witnessing all his "firsts". That's my privilege and joy to discover.

Don't get me wrong though. It's not all a bed of roses, far from it. Being a mother is without doubt the hardest bloody job I have EVER done. It is exhausting, relentless, thankless (apart from those heart-breaking killer smiles he gives me) and incredibly unglamourous. I live in old track pants, shapeless t-shirts more often than not walk around covered in vomit and spit and I can't remember the last time I wore make-up and dressed up a bit. My husband and I hardly have a moment to ourselves, let alone together and I just totally fantasize about being able to go to the movies!

Still, despite all this, I wouldn't want to be doing anything else right now or be anywhere else but with my little boy. I am incredibly lucky in that I have a pretty fabulous husband who supports whatever decision I end up making. I know I don't have to decide tomorrow, next week or next month for that matter. I am sure I will change my mind often along the way too.

But right now, my track pants and shapeless t-shirts feel just fine.

a whole new world June 20, 2009 |

Without sounding like a confession dear reader, it has been six months since my last blog. I have been thinking about writing, planning to write, even fantasising about writing for months - everything BUT actually write! I must thank Paula - who left a lovely note on my last blog which I wrote back in December urging me to update and helped to give me the push I really needed to get going.

Well, here we go!!

Let's start with my most exciting (and undoubtedly most important) news - my darling baby son Liev Israel was born on May 30th, 2009 following a rather gruelling 30+ hour labour which threatened to end with an emergency c-section, but thankfully did not. My incredible husband Doron and tireless doula Debbie were by my side the entire time and I don't know how I could have got through it without them.

He was almost two weeks overdue - as long as they will let you go without inducing - and despite my hopes and somewhat idealistic dreams of having a "totally natural birth", I ended up having just about every medical intervention known to modern medicine. My little Strudel (as he was affectionately known in utero) just didn't wanna come out.

I really can't go any further without showing you some photos of the little man!

Liev one day old

First photo with my boy

The slumbering angel

We were home a couple of days later and this is the point at which every new parent has a mild heart attack. What the hell do we do now? It's incredible how such a tiny little creature can fill even the calmest, most together person with a sense of total overwhelming fear and apprehension. So much for my theory that at 36, I wouldn't be quite as freaked out as a young new mum - uhhhh - WRONG!!! It seems that my many years of being around other people's babies and countless babysitting favours did bugger all to quell my own fears and anxieties.

The sleep deprivation started during the labour. I went for almost three nights without sleep, which is kind of insane. Coming home with him we were faced with trying to work out his repertoire of crying. Is it hunger, dirty nappy, too cold, too hot, or just wanting a cuddle?

Doron had to go back to work after just two days at home with Liev. It nearly broke my heart to see him leaving that first morning, holding back his tears at having to leave us behind for the day. I admit (and hope by doing so that I will make other new mums feel better) that I spent many a moment in the first couple of weeks spontaneously bursting into tears. Motherhood can be so totally overwhelming in the beginning. We're only three weeks in now, but I know it's getting better every day. It is extra hard because we're pretty much doing everything on our own. My family are in Australia and Doron's family consists of an elderly father and three younger brothers, none of whom have ANY experience with babies.

Don't even get me started about the sleep deprivation! Still, I think everyone assumes that you're unlikely to get 7-8 hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep for quite some time, and certainly not in the first few months. I am learning to have a nap when he does during the day and not be quite so obsessive about cleaning the house, doing the laundry or checking my email when he goes down for a little sleep.

I am also learning that this whole experience must be taken one day at a time. Worrying about when I will go back to work - even if I will WANT to go back to work, worrying about money, worrying about moving apartment (an absolute necessity at some point in the near future given we live in a one bedroom apartment!), worrying about his future, our future; hell, even Israel's future! - it's just not worth the mental anguish! Deep breath. One...day...at...a...time...

You know, I was going to write about all the other things that have happened in the last six months since I last wrote, but you know what? It's just not important. What IS important is that Doron and I have been blessed beyond belief with the most precious gift a human being can be given - a child.

We chose Liev's name very early on in my pregnancy. I'd heard the name and liked it and Doron also liked it but it was important to him that the name had a strong, spiritual meaning too. In Hebrew, "li" means "my" and hence the popularity of names starting with "li", such as Liam (my people), Lior (my light), Liron (my joy) etc. The "ev" in Liev turns out to be an old Aramaic word meaning to be in one's prime and to have a source of inner strength as given by God. We loved the meaning and felt it was perfect for our little boy. Israel, his middle name, was my late grandfather's name and I wanted to honour his memory by naming our son after him.

It's kind of crazy to think back to where I was two and a half years ago. Newly arrived in Israel, footloose and fancy free (a nice way of saying single and lonely!), rattling around in an empty apartment until my things arrived from Australia. After the furniture came, I acquired a cat, about eight months later I acquired a boyfriend (soon to become husband) and now we are three - four if you count Sydney the cat and we are busting at the seams in this little flat.

I never thought that "Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land" would prove to become such an epic journey of self discovery, but I am so glad I've been able to document it along the way.

With Doron and our little Liev in tow now, I feel my journey - now our journey - has only just begun.

a momentous year December 27, 2008 |

"This has been a momentous year" my mother wrote in the delicately decorated birthday card I received from her in the post the other week. It's actually quite difficult to put in words quite how momentous it has actually been. I am distinctly aware of my yawning absence from the blogging world - well, my blogging world - but for some reason every time I have wanted to sit down and chronicle my experiences, something gets in the way. Perhaps that's life for you!

However, my growing sense of unease about NOT putting things down in words has been slowly gnawing away at me, devouring me and the little voice in my head is no longer whispering, but audibly yelling at me; "write, write WRITE!"

Yes, 2008 was indeed a momentous year for me - probably the most significant one yet. In many ways, spending some time now to write down some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the past twelve months will no doubt serve as a visible, written reminder of what's actually happened to me, kind of an inventory I suppose.

I've been in Israel for a little over two years now. In many ways it feels a lot longer than that. I seemed to have squeezed in so much... well, life... in that space of time. I began 2008 preparing for my wedding in April. Just to recap briefly, my husband Doron and I met the previous August. In what can only be described as a cliched whirlwind romance, we found ourselves co-habitating after just a month of knowing each other, getting engaged after three months of being together and getting married a day short of our eight month anniversary. For those who know me well, you will know that "short and snappy" is not my usual relationship style. Rather, I could be compared to the long drawn out, epic romance novel that always ended in heartbreak (usually mine, sometimes his or occasionally both of us). Lucky for me though, it seems I finally worked out the magic formula. The Gods took pity on me, a slightly aimless 30-something Jewish girl wandering the desert in search of her soulmate and voila! he dropped out of the sky - well, a local Jerusalem music venue to be more precise - but nonetheless, he might as well have come in on a lightning bolt, my life changed so dramatically, and so quickly.

Most of my friends were in a state of delighted shock when I announced I was getting married. Others, more cynically minded, thought it was "just another engagement" (I'd been engaged twice before so there was some justification for their cynicism). Even my husband-to-be refused to get me an engagement ring sighting the fact that he considered me to be a "flight risk" (although he still considers this an excuse nearly 9 months after the wedding!)

My mother and brother flew from Australia for our wedding which was just a couple of weeks before Passover. It was my mother's third visit to Israel and my brother's first. A very old and dear childhood friend also flew from the States and having them here was beyond meaningful and important to me.

About six weeks after I got married, my employer decided to lay me off - along with about a third of the organisation. My newly formed sense of stability was yanked from beneath my feet without so much as a warning and all of a sudden I found myself in a state of profound confusion with what was left of my ego dragging its sorry self on the floor behind me.

I am proud of how I picked myself up though. I didn't like the way I was feeling, it's not in my nature to slouch and funk. I wrote back in August about the summer fellowship program I did and how it helped to open the doors needed to start my own business. That's kind of when I stopped writing - not because something bad happened - quite the contrary - my life has been on warp speed since then.

Not long after setting out on the entrepreneurial road, I met with a young Israeli-American man who had heard about my initiative to promote Israeli performing artists internationally and wanted to see how we might work together. It turned out he was also in the process of establishing an arts organisation, with a strong educational focus and he and his growing team were looking for someone with the skills to develop exactly the area I had been with my new business. Following a few very positive meetings I decided to join his organisation, Omanoot (which means 'Art' in Hebrew) essentially taking my operation under the wing of a larger, more organised structure than I was able to build on my own.

Just a few months on and we've grown to a team of nine, with three interns and an awesome office in Tel Aviv, most ironically on Ahad Ha'am Street. It was Ahad Ha'am who dreamt of the development of an Israeli culture, from artisans to artists, which would provide an inspiration to the Jewish and the broader worlds.

Another rather momentous moment occurred back in August -- I became pregnant.
Doron and I both unequivocally agreed that we didn't want to waste any time in trying to start a family, partly because we both desperately wanted to and partly because we were being realistic. I was fast heading towards my 36th birthday and we knew it could take some time until I actually got pregnant. Neither of us dreamed it would happen quite this quickly! In fact, even after the positive home test, the positive blood test and the first ultrasound at 8 weeks showing our little jelly bean and his incredible beating heart, I still struggled to take in the fact that I was on my way to becoming a mother.

Strudel's first photo

2008 took a definite downturn at the beginning of November when Doron's mother Yael finally succumbed to cancer and passed away at the age of 69. She had been incredibly ill for more than a year and neither Doron or I were overly optimistic that she would make it to our wedding. But she did - and she looked marvellous. She and my mother walked me down the aisle to the chuppah despite the fact that every step was a struggle for her. Yael also knew she was to become a grandmother - something neither of us dreamed would happen. We're so sad that she won't be with us to celebrate the arrival of our son - her grandson, but we know her spirit is close by.

Yael Strusberg z'l

I am now halfway through my pregnancy - our little Strudel (our nickname for him until he reveals himself to the world!) is due in the middle of May. Doron and I recently celebrated our joint birthdays and went out to a lovely restaurant for dinner. I was wearing the same black wool Zimmerman dress I had worn almost exactly a year earlier at our engagement party except that this time the dress was noticeably tighter - both at the top where I struggled to squeeze in my now two-cups-larger overflowing pregnant boobs and at the bottom where I was now sporting a large cantaloupe-sized belly.

Frightening to think there's still 18-20 weeks of growth to go!

Just in the last week Strudel has decided to make us very aware of his presence - he's now big enough and strong enough for me to feel him kick. The first time it happened I stopped talking mid-sentence, rendered totally speechless by the bizarre experience. We soon discovered Strudel responds most enthusiastically to three sounds; Doron's voice, Puccini arias and Sydney the cat.

So, this has been 2008. Talk about highs and lows. Joy and grief. Life and death. Literally.

Wishing you and yours a year ahead filled with love, happiness and only good things.

ok, so it's been a while August 12, 2008 |

since I last blogged. I actually can't believe how much has happened to me in the last couple of months. I really need to blog more regularly because there is no way I can remember all the amazing things I have done recently.

The amazing closing event for the 2008 PresenTense Institute

What has taken up the majority of my time has been the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism which was an extraordinary and intense six week summer fellowship for young Jewish social entrepreneurs. We were a group of 16, most from North America, but a healthy sprinkling of us were from Israel too. For six weeks we lived and breathed our ventures and along the way we were privileged to meet with some of Israel's - if not the world's - leading figures in fields as diverse as social action, social entrepreneurship, environmentalism, hi-tech, venture capitalism and the arts and culture. The institute received some excellent publicity along the way and here are a couple of articles you might like to read:

Jerusalem Post: A Zionist Kick in the Pants
Israel 21c: Israel's bootcamp for social entrepreneurs

For me personally, the institute could not come at a more opportune time. I was literally just starting my business and it was essential for me to fine tune my concept, my business model, acquire a variety of important business skills and to network with the right people. PresenTense delivered all this and more. Over the course of the fellowship I was literally learning and doing simultaneously. Talk about a steep learning curve!

By the end of the six weeks, I absolutely understood what it was I was doing and exactly what I wanted to achieve. As I met with prospective new clients, I became consciously aware of my growing confidence and the increased ease I experienced when explaining to new people exactly what it was I was doing.

So now that I've "graduated" I am getting out there on my own and trying to get this business off the ground. I've already taken on three clients (two theatre companies and an incredible vocal artist) and hopefully more artists will follow soon. The real test starts now as my business will only take off if I can successfully secure international touring opportunities for my artists.

I also wanted to share with you a couple of fantastic theatre experiences I have had recently.

Last week my husband and I went to Jaffo in Tel Aviv to see the Nalaga'at Theatre Company. Nalaga'at is Hebrew for "Please Touch" and the company is the only professional deaf-blind theatre company in the world. We went to see their production, "Not By Bread Alone" and we were blown away by this company's incredible energy and unique performance style. What you must realise is that when I say "deaf-blind theatre company" I mean that each actor is deaf AND blind in the same body. The actors are accompanied by seeing-hearing stage assistants who help guide them through the various scene changes - but other than that, these twelve extraordinary performers hold their own and will leave you spellbound. If you are in Israel I cannot urge you enough to see this company and experience it for yourself - it will be an experience you will never forget.

Last night, I dragged my husband to another show (actually he's enjoying all this great stuff we are going to see these days!) in Givat Ze'ev, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. "One of A Kind" by the acclaimed Israeli theatre company, Nephesh Theatre. "One of A Kind" tells the story of the Ethiopian Zionist immigration to Israel during the mid 1980's when Ethiopia was experiencing both extreme famine and dangerous political destabilisation. This beautiful and sensitively portrayed production tells the story of one young boy, Andargay (which means "one of a kind" in Amharic, the Ethiopian language) and his family as they leave their beloved village and community behind for a distant land that has only ever been the stuff of dream and fantasy in their minds.

What made this an even more interesting performance is that it was specially organised for a large group of American kids currently in Israel on a Taglit Birthright tour. Close to 200 of them filled the theatre and within seconds the auditorium was cacophony of noise - screaming adolescents behaving more like 12 year olds than 18 year olds. They jumped on seats, screamed across the rows to their friends, initiated Mexican Waves and the two boys in front of us were dangerously close to exchanging fists with each other had it not been for the girls on either side of them who managed to calm their overflow of teenage testosterone. "These," I thought to myself ,"are nice Jewish kids?" They were downright feral! What surprised me even more is that their staff made no attempt to discipline them or calm them down. I thought back to the Australian Birthright groups I used to manage and in hindsight they were complete angels! No Aussie kid would EVER behave like these kids.

Following the play, there was a brief music concert by a very cool (but ear-splittingly loud) hip-hop group called "Cafe Shachor Chazak" which means "Strong Black Coffee" - five young Ethiopian Israeli kids from Netanya who brought the house down and instantly created a full on night club for these over-energized, over-sexed adolescents who couldn't wait for the excuse to run up onstage and get down and dirty with the young musicians.

To be fair to the kids, they were having an absolute ball and the experience was teaching them something important about Israel that chances are they would never have learned without coming here and seeing it for themselves. I think Doron was in a mild state of shock by the end of it - he has certainly never been exposed to such a large group of American kids before and certainly not such an unruly group. He turned to me at the end and said, "when I was a kid I thought me and my friends were badly behaved, but I've never seen anything like this before!"

We were kindly offered a lift on their tour bus back to Jerusalem, but we sat right at the front with the staff (we thought it would be safer there!)

As you can see, life has been far from boring the last few weeks and although I haven't quite cracked the nut on how to make a decent living out of this new venture of mine, I am certainly having an inspiring and creative time trying to work that out!

life is precious July 04, 2008 |

In a house not five minutes walk from ours, there is a family that instead of enjoying a shabbat meal together this evening, is instead in mourning. They are sitting shivah, the traditional Jewish seven day mourning period. The are mourning the loss of Bat Sheva Unterman, a 33 year old woman whose young life was brutally cut short when a maniac drove a bulldozer through her car three days ago.

In the seconds before her death, she committed the ultimate act of a desperate woman who knew she was going to die. She grabbed her five month old baby and threw her out the car window in order to save her life.

Little Efrat Unterman will never know her mother. Instead she must grow up with the knowledge that her life was saved and her mother's was not. How does a child deal with that knowledge, that burden?

On Wednesday afternoon, at the exact time of the terrorist attack, I was in the city centre, only a kilometre or so away from the site of this tragedy. I was having a coffee with a friend in a cafe. Moments earlier, I had met my husband in the busy pedestrian mall of Ben Yehuda St while he was on his lunch break. We hugged each other good bye and went our separate ways.

Not five minutes into our coffee, my friend's son rang her to say that there had been a "pigua" in the centre of town. "Pigua" means terrorist attack in Hebrew.
"Where?" she said.
"Somewhere near the shuk" he replied.
"Apparently some bulldozer driver suddenly started driving into people. Three people are dead and there are more than thirty others injured."

How could there have been a terrorist attack? Here we were sipping coffee in the centre of town and everything and everybody seemed totally normal. There must have been some mistake. Perhaps the driver lost control of the vehicle?

Then my phone rang. It was Doron, my husband. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Yes, I am absolutely fine. I am having coffee in Hillel St. I am okay."

He confirmed the same story that my friend's son had recounted. Within ten minutes my friend and I were both receiving phone calls and text messages from concerned family members and friends. I even got a text message from a friend in the United States. Bad news certainly travels fast.

As I walked home, I got a call from my mother. I knew it was only a matter of time until she rang me. I was going home as quickly as I could so that I could call her and reassure her that we were okay.

It suddenly dawned on me that this was the first time other people were calling me to see if I was okay. What a flipped out, crazy inversion!

It wasn't until that evening when we were both home that I was able to understand the full extent of the afternoon's tragic events. The news in Israel does not shy away from hard hitting and often distressing images. It's part and parcel of life here. As we watched the evening news, we saw the whole horrific episode unfold. We observed the absolute blind panic in the street as this lunatic rammed into a city bus literally toppling it onto its side. We saw the car that Bat Sheva had been driving, now crushed like a tin can. And then we saw the man himself. The cameras caught the terrorist driving along Jaffa St, ready to kill more innocent people. Suddenly three men jumped onto the bulldozer and seconds later we saw one of them fire a round of bullets killing the terrorist instantly. The next shot the camera captured was the dead man, slumped over the seat, blood pouring out of the cabin.

I don't think I have ever seen real life footage of a person being killed before. And being the news, it was replayed again and again and again. Eventually we just turned off the TV. Enough was enough.

The next morning after breakfast I went to check my email. A friend of mine had posted something on Facebook and I went to read what she had written. The note was titled "Baruch Dayan HaEmet" which means "Blessed is the true judge (God)". It is the custom of Orthodox Jews to say these words upon hearing of a death. The death my friend was referring to was the wife of her cousin. It was Bat Sheva.

I have often heard Israelis say that death and tragedy has struck almost every home in this country at some point. If you have been fortunate enough not to have someone in your immediate family who died -- in the army, or in a terrorist attack, you always know someone who did. That wasn't true for me. Until now. Does this make me a "real" Israeli now? Now that I have a direct connection to a grieving family?

This shabbat I found it virtually impossible to feel joy at my dinner table. I lit my shabbat candles and mechanically uttered the accompanying prayer. I sang with an empty voice and ate my dinner in virtual silence.

I did not know Bat Sheva and I know my connection to her is tenuous at best - but that does not make me feel any less sad that she is no longer in this world with us. I think of her baby, who thankfully is just an infant and it will be many years until she understands what happened to her mother.

Life is precious. It seems that life here is even more so.

Shabbat Shalom.

onwards and upwards June 15, 2008 |

Just in case you all thought that because I had got married, life around here was going to be dull and monotonous, think again!

Less than two months after our wedding day, I was rather unceremoniously retrenched at work. Well, me and 26 other people to be precise. A combination of factors (severe budget problems, the crashing US dollar and appalling management) all led to what was in effect a mass axing of close to a third of the organisation.

The day that it happened, I went home in a semi state of shock. I was numb. What had just happened? I've never been ousted from a job in my life! I've never been out of work full stop!
Doron and I had literally just paid off all our outstanding wedding expenses and we were beginning to talk seriously about buying a place next year. Needless to say, all those conversations have been put on hold.

I waited until Doron came home to tell him the news. He was as shocked as I was, but immediately he hugged me and reassured me that everything would be all right. Rather than staying at home that night, we went to the movies together and by the end of the night my shock and anxiety was slowly transforming into something new, but as yet unidentifiable.

After Doron left for work the next morning, I found myself alone in the apartment and stumped as to what to do exactly. Apart from when I was sick, I was never home in my pyjamas at 9am on a week morning. I had a shower, got dressed and did the handful of dishes left in the sink from breakfast. Hmm, I thought. The place could do with a bit of a clean...
Four hours later I collapsed on the sofa sweaty and exhausted but filled with a sense of deep satisfaction. I might be unemployed, but my apartment is spotless!

I made myself a cup of tea and sat down to think. What do I want to do with my life? What do I really want to do? Now that I have been forced into the position I am currently in, I can either use it to my advantage or continue to feel deeply wronged and pissed off at the cards life has just drawn me.

The truth of the matter was, I was ecstatic not to have to go back to my job. There were elements of the job that I enjoyed (mainly my interaction with students from overseas) and let's face it, the money was great. It was great for stability and security. But apart from that I never stopped feeling like a fish out of water. I was swimming with sharks who had PhDs. I am not an academic - not even a wannabe academic. I am an arts person. My body feeds on creativity and my brain shuts down when someone tells me that I have to staple pages on a 45 degree angle (I am not kidding about this by the way!)

I started to think about the things I love to do, that I am good at doing - things that I am passionate about and that I care about. I remembered what it was that I had wanted to do the first time I came to Israel in 2003 and participated as a writer-in-residence in Arad at the WUJS Institute's Arad Arts Project.

My dream was to work with Israeli artists and help to promote them internationally. Anyone who have been exposed to Israeli culture, be it through theatre, music, dance or the visual arts, knows what an incredible wealth of talent we have in this little country.
It has frustrated me for years that so little of this talent gets recognized overseas. Israeli artists are raw, passionate, deeply honest, exciting and very cutting edge.

And so, as I sat there, sipping my tea, I knew exactly what it was I was going to do. I was finally going to set up my own company and pursue my dream of exporting the very best creative talent Israel has to offer. I was going to put my many years of arts management, marketing and PR experience to good use and get this venture off the ground (finally!)

Proof that there is no such thing as co-incidence in life (example #1)

Some time ago - and long before I knew I was going to lose my job - I submitted an application for a summer fellowship at the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism (PICZ). I was thrilled to find out I had been accepted, even though I knew that I would only be able to participate in the evening sessions - thereby missing out on a very large part of the programming - because I worked full time.

Now that I am not working, I can devote serious time during the six week program to fine tune my business model, develop a business plan and budget and really define the vision, look and feel of my company. I have purchased a domain name for my website and my aim is to have the site up and running by the end of August. You can read my profile (and the profiles of the other fellows) by clicking on this link (just ignore the last sentence about my job - I am waiting for them to update it! ha ha!

I have now started to re-connect with old colleagues and friends and I am cultivating exciting new contacts here in Israel. I have been really thrilled with the response so far and I hope to confirm my first clients in the coming weeks.

I know I have a long road ahead and it is not going to be particularly easy. Starting one's own business anywhere is tough and inherently comes with a degree of risk. Thankfully, my overheads are low (me, my phone and my laptop are about the sum of "Israel Arts Management" at the moment!) but I really feel confident about this venture. Not just because I know I will give it my all, but because I really believe in what I am trying to do. To the majority of the uninitiated, Israel is a news headline, a damning story on the BBC, an academic boycott, a protest rally on campus...

In my small way, I know I can make a difference - not just show the world that Israel can compete with the very best on the world stage, but to provide a gateway of understanding and tolerance, appreciation and respect.

Great art goes beyond international boundaries. Great art feeds our souls, regardless of the language we speak, or the politics we hold.

Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
- Goethe

girl in her married bliss with apologies to edna o'brien May 07, 2008 |

First published in 1964, Girls in their Married Bliss is a romp of a read about two young Irish lasses, Kate and Baba in search of life and love. My mother gave it to me as a birthday present when I was about 14. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed like a rather grown up book to give to a girl of my age. Still I read - nay devoured - the book and when I came to write this blog, the title of O'Brien's coming of age story leaped to the forefront of my mind for some reason.

An awful lot has happened since I last blogged. Most significantly, I got married!
Like most weddings, it was a stressful lead up to the big day. The wedding planning itself was actually very smooth and not much (if anything) went wrong. For us, the most stressful thing was monitoring the situation of Doron's mother, who is very ill with cancer. It was a bit touch and go and most weekends for a couple of months before the wedding were spent in the emergency ward of Hadassah Ein Karem hospital.

Thank God she was able to be with us for the wedding, and she was even well enough to walk down the aisle together with my mother to accompany me to the chuppah.

With my mother and Doron's mother

Me and Doron

Although a bit on the cool side, we decided to have the chuppah on the outdoor terrace with the spectacular views of the Old City framing our canopy. I distinctly remember feeling like I was in a dream - the whole thing just didn't feel real to me.

A lot of my married friends warned me in advance to soak it all in and savour every moment because in a flash it is all over and the months of build up and preparation are gone. They were right. At the end of the night as we and the last of our guests sat at the only remaining table in the room we watched as the staff cleaned up around us, dismantling what only an hour or so earlier had been our beautiful reception and the two girls in the corner putting together the table decorations for tomorrow's wedding...

Buda and Pest with the beautiful Danube in the middle

A couple of days after the wedding, Doron and I flew to Budapest for our honeymoon. We spent five days there and one day in Vienna which was only three hours away on the train. A lot of people asked us, "why Budapest?" our answer to which was, "why not?" Budapest is a city rich in history and culture and as yet, not totally overrun with tourists. It is also a relatively cheap place to visit as the currency has not yet switched to the Euro.

I like to think of Budapest as a grand old dame who, with a little bit of cosmetic surgery, could look a million bucks. All around you, Budapest is filled with stunning architecture and with the backdrop of the Danube River, what more could you ask for? Sadly too much of this city has sunk into disrepair and it's incredibly sad to see such beautiful buildings slowly decay away. One hopes that the Hungarian government will address this problem sooner rather than later and start an active campaign to restore many of Budapest's most important buildings and monuments.

Doron and I returned to Israel just in time for Pesach (Passover) and we spent the holiday with my mother, brother and mother's cousins in Omer, which is near Beersheva in the south of Israel. A year ago I spent Pesach with the same relatives, except a year ago I was decidedly single and never in a million years would I have believed that one year later I would be sitting at the seder table with my mother, brother and... husband!

My mum and brother left during the middle of the Pesach break and as we said goodbye to them I was struck by the fact that although I felt incredibly sad that they were going, I did not feel alone, as I had a year ago when my mother was last visiting Israel. There is no doubt that the hardest part about making aliyah is leaving your family behind. Australia especially, is ridiculously far away. As my husband and I waved goodbye it really hit me that here I was, starting a whole new chapter of my life.

My mum and brother had a stopover in Hong Kong before flying back to Melbourne. For my brother especially, it was a major trip down memory lane as it has been some 13 years since he was last there. As I looked through the photo albums he was uploading to Facebook I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for a city that had been my birthplace and home for the first 23 years of my life, and still the city I have lived in longer than any other place in the world.

Was HK really that built up? Was the sky always that depressing shade of grey? Did my high school always look like a prison? With each photo, I was transported back in time to what I truly perceive was another life altogether. My primary school, our local supermarket, the neighbourhood park where we would get up to no good after school and saddest of all, our home for more than ten years, 40 Oxford Road, Kowloon Tong, which is now a hideous block of apartments, with no sign whatsoever of the gorgeous post-war low-rise apartment building which had proudly stood there previously.

I am glad my brother was able to make the journey back in time and take all those photos, but to be honest, I don't think I could do it. The HK I remember is no longer there. Certainly, bits of it remain - certain landmarks, even people (some of whom could be mistaken for landmarks!) but the essence of that place, that crazy city I grew up in, is no longer. It is a strange sensation indeed to know that you cannot revisit the site of your youth because it was destroyed, dismantled, built over, reclaimed and relabeled.

From Hong Kong, to Belfast, to Melbourne, to Singapore, to Sydney and now finally, Israel. What a strange journey I have taken and here I am living in Jerusalem with my gorgeous husband and slightly psychotic cat. If anyone had told me all those years ago when I was growing up in HK that I would end up living in Israel and marrying an Israeli, I would have died laughing, so unpredictable my ending up here has been.

I stopped momentarily to write this blog as I heard the siren ring out across the city for Yom HaZikaron, the memorial day for soldiers and all those who have lost their lives in terrorist attacks in Israel. The siren itself is haunting and it is impossible not to feel deep sadness as we reflect on this country which we love so much and yet causes us so much pain.

As the sun sets tonight, grief will transform to joy and celebration as Israel celebrates Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day) and its 60th anniversary. How Israelis make the psychological transformation I still don't fully understand, but I guess given I am one of them now, I somehow just make the mental leap like everyone else. It is a very tough thing to do, but the cross-over between the two is absolutely deliberate. We must never forget or take for granted how hard it was to fight for this land. Sadly, for now, our status as a fully recognised independent country is not a matter for the history books, it is still our front page news.

Chag sameach everyone and much love from Jerusalem.

two weeks and counting... March 24, 2008 |

Important note to reader: This is NOT my wedding dress!

I am finding it quite hard to believe that I will be getting married in two weeks today. The last couple of months have literally flown past and the surreal realization that I will soon be a married woman is slowly sinking in.

Virtually all the major planning has been done and we are now down to the small, pernickety details (which interestingly enough seem to take up the most amount of time!) Take buying wedding shoes for example.

First of all, I have to make it clear that I have a rather strong aversion to "wedding shoes". There is something so kitsch and useless about them that it makes my tummy feel a little queasy. Wedding shoes in Israel are rather special and tend to come in two styles; the radio-active white platform boot and the radio-active white SUPER platform boot:

Classic Israeli wedding shoes

I did manage to find a pair of (I thought) comfortable sandals with a small heel, but after wearing them at the dress fittings for less than an hour, I ended up with painful red welts on my toes where the straps were digging in slowly cutting off all circulation. A bride with bleeding feet is not such a good look. Looks like I am going to have to find another pair of shoes. Bugger.

Generally speaking though, I think we've managed to plan everything with the minimum amount of fuss and stress. Organizing the wedding ourselves has allowed us the freedom to do things our way with no interference from anyone. I look around my at other friends in Israel who are planning their weddings and although I feel for my girlfriends when I see them virtually in tears because their almost mothers-in-law are driving them to the point of near insanity, I can't help but smile internally and say "Phew! I am so glad I don't have to deal with that!"

On the other hand, I have really missed not having my mother here with me to plan things. I miss our talks at her kitchen table yakking away well into the night with endless cups of tea. I can picture us talking about wedding ideas, and I can imagine my mother with a piece of paper and pen sketching wedding dress designs because well, that's what my mum does and it makes me a little sad that we haven't been able to have that time together before my big day.

Still, thank God for Skype! We're able to talk all the time and in a way I feel that she has been with me the whole way, sharing each step of the journey. Next week she and my brother will be here in Israel and I can't wait to see them.

Before they arrive, my childhood friend Lisa will be flying in from the States this Thursday just hours (literally) before my Hen's Night (that's Bachelorette Party for my American readers!). Lisa has been an integral part of the evil planning for this party and I can honestly say I am a teeny bit frightened as to what they have planned for me! Lisa has known me for 27 years and that is a lot of accumulated dirt she has on me.

Yesterday, I had my second dress fitting and what a difference a week can make!
I went for the first fitting a week ago and although I had been warned by several people NOT to expect anything from the first fitting, it was still a bit of a shock. Basically the first fitting is to do the initial adjustments for the lining of the dress. You don't get to see the actual fabric for the wedding dress or even get the most basic sense of what it will look like at the end of the process.

I looked at myself in this rather shapeless garment that looked a bit like a night dress from the Victorian era and silently gasped. I think Keren, the designer could read my face and she tried to reassure me. "Don't worry! The is not what the dress will look like. We just to adjust the measurements so we can cut the fabric for the actual dress."

Ok. So fast-forward just six days and voilà! I have a wedding dress! Incredible! Although there is still work to be done on it, I was able to look at myself in the mirror and see myself wearing a wedding dress. When they placed a veil over my head I stood there and slowly sucked in my breath.

I...am...a...bride...

Jesus! I am beginning to sound like Muriel Heslop! (If you are asking yourself "who the hell is Muriel Heslop?" you clearly haven't seen the Aussie classic, Muriel's Wedding!)

Accompanying me for the day was my dear friend Tahlia. Tahlia and I worked together in Sydney and she recently made aliyah. As we were in the cab on the way to the moshav for the dress fitting, I realized how crazy it was that the two of us were sharing this experience together.

Just a year and a half earlier, the two of us would often sit together for lunch in the dining room of Shalom College, UNSW in Sydney and talk about my imminent move back to Israel and all my fears and inner conflict that went along with it. At that point, I truly had no idea where my life was headed and her own plans for aliyah were but a nascent thought in her own mind.

We had a gorgeous day together. After the dress fitting, we went to a lovely cafe across the road from Keren's studio and had lunch before wandering around the adjoining moshav shops and galleries that sell the most divine homewares you have ever seen. Seriously, this place is Homewares Heaven.

I have the feeling that the next two weeks will be somewhat of a whirlwind, so it may be a little while until I have time to blog again.

So until next time...adios amigos and wish me luck for the big day!

Express lane at the Jerusalem Rabbinut February 06, 2008 |

The other week Doron and I had to open our "marriage file" at the Jerusalem Rabbinut (essentially the government's religious council), an anachronistic, bureaucratic throwback well known to cause many a couple no end of misery.

The problem was, they had been on strike for weeks and there didn't seem to be any foreseeable end to it either. My first question (and perhaps yours as well) was, "what the heck were they striking about?" God??

Anyway, thanks to some good old fashioned Israeli protexia (inside help!) we were told that there was going to be a half day hiatus for the strike and that we should be at their offices at 9am the following morning.

And right on the dot of nine, there we were, with every bit of official paperwork I have ever been issued (bar perhaps my 5th grade school report) in the hope that I would have every document they could possibly ask for. On Doron's side, he had it easy. As a Jerusalem-native with parents who also registered their marriage at the same office some 40 years earlier, he was basically a shoe-in.

I, on the other hand, was expecting the worse. I was born in Hong Kong to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father, which although according to Jewish law, makes me 100% Jewish, still might have caused problems with the Rabbinut.

Israel's Law of Return enables all Jews with at least one Jewish grandparent to make aliyah to Israel. The fact is, according to halacha (Jewish law) you can have three Jewish grandparents and STILL not be Jewish (which personally I think is insane). The only thing that counts is the mother.

I had with me two letters from Rabbis in Australia. The first had been prepared for me when I made aliyah as my "proof of Jewishness". It was signed by an Orthodox Melbourne rabbi who had been connected to my mother's family for many years. The second letter I got from my own Rabbi in Sydney as an extra precaution in case there were any problems with the first letter.

The Rabbinut here holds a list of "accepted" overseas Rabbis - that is, a very specific, very short list of the names of rabbis whose name is accepted as being reputable and therefore whose word can be trusted. Thankfully, Australia's Orthodox community is well-respected here in Israel and by some small miracle, BOTH my letters were signed by "approved" rabbis.

Once this had been established, the whole thing was really a very painless exercise. We were shuffled around a bit, from one room to another (but so is everyone else). Pay your fee here, meet with the Rabbi here, meet with the Rabbanit (Rebbetzin) here...

Less than an hour after we walked through the doors we were done, approved and officially stamped! The only things left to do to complete the process are for me to complete a minimum requirement of "Kallah (bride) lessons" - about 4 hours worth I think.

Doron can do "Chatan (Groom) lessons" but it is optional for men (I will say no more lest I start to jump on my feminist soapbox!). Doron also needed two (male) witnesses to testify that he is a) Jewish and b) single.

Finally, a day before the wedding I need to go to the mikveh (the ritual bath) and then take the receipt with me to give to the Rabbi at the wedding.

It really is quite a process and although I knew the basics of it before I found myself involved personally, it is still an incredible eye-opener (especially doing it all here in Jerusalem).

Anyway, with this whole Rabbinut thing behind us, we have really been able to relax and get on with things.

The most exciting thing to have happened in the last week or so is the arrival of my dress fabric from China. I was sent via international courier and arrived in less than three days. It is truly exquisite and I can't wait for the dress to start taking shape. I am going to be meeting with the dress designer in a couple of weeks to give her the material and take new measurements so she can get going with everything.

One of my oldest friends in the world is coming all the way from Atlanta, Georgia for our wedding which is just amazing. I wrote about Lisa when I was in New York last year when we had our first reunion in about 10 years. We grew up together in Hong Kong and we've been friends since we were about eight years old.

As many of you know, Jerusalem was covered in about 15cms of snow last week. Waking up to a white blanket of snow outside our window was just magical. Pictures can't fully capture it, but here are a couple of pics!

The view from our balcony

Me outside the front of our apartment building

***

Postscript:

Dave Burnett z'l

I wanted to write this blog some time ago, but I found myself not being able to write anything once I received the tragic news of the death of my friend Dave Burnett, an incredible young man who died at just 22 years of age.

Dave and I worked together in the AUJS (Australasian Union of Jewish Students) office in Sydney for almost two years. Dave was just in Israel leading a 6 week Academy Birthright group of Aussie kids and then traveled on to Petra for a holiday. While standing on a lookout platform at the ancient historical site, the platform collapsed under him and he fell 20 metres below to an almost instant death.

When I found out what had happened (just hours after he died it turned out) I felt the breath literally leave my body. Shock turned to utter grief and even now, two weeks on, I find it hard to believe that he is no longer with us.

Dave was an inspiration to all those around him. He infected you with his larrikin sense of humour and his passion for Israel and the Jewish people was deeply touching and admirable.

I'll miss you Dave. You were one hell of an amazing guy.

bushwhacked January 13, 2008 |

According to my trusty WordWeb computer tool (it's like the online Thesaurus, but in my opinion better) the adjective "Bush" means the following:

Adjective: Bush bûsh
1. Not of the highest quality or sophistication

Now, I thought this was rather amusing and somewhat apt. However, it is rather embarrassing to share your moniker with a rather accurate description of your personality.

As I am sure most of you know, President George "Dubya" Bush was in town last week as part of his Whistle Stop tour of the Middle East. On his third and final day in Israel, the President confidently declared that there would be a peace agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinians before he leaves office at the end of the year.

Well, PHEW for that! I, for one, can sleep a whole lot easier now that Mr Bush has given me his personal guarantee that there will finally be peace in this eretz nehederet (wonderful land) of ours!

I think the only thing Israelis will remember about the President's visit last week was how bloody inconvenienced they were! For the majority of the three day visit, most of Jerusalem's major roads were closed to traffic (including the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway). Public transport did not operate, and most people either had to stay home from work (because they could not physically get there) or for people like me who live reasonably close to their place of work, were forced to go everywhere by foot. This, in itself is not a bad thing, except for the fact that we're in the middle of winter and it is really COLD outside Mr President!

The President and his entourage booked out the entire King David Hotel. Other guests who were booked to stay there at the same time were rather unceremoniously dumped and forced to find alternative accommodation. Bush's cast of thousands (literally) also booked out the nearby Dan Panorama Hotel, bringing a total of 800 rooms that were booked by his accompanying staff.

Security in Jerusalem was, as you can imagine, insane. The streets, emptied of traffic, were instead, filled with police, military, U.S security and secret servicemen and women. The King David Hotel was turned into Fort Knox, with the entire front of the hotel covered up by white plastic sheeting. Even the side of the hotel was covered by giant marquees so as to conceal all comings and goings from the hotel. Snipers adorned the rooftop of the hotel and ropes were secured from the roof to the ground all around the perimeter of the hotel should the need for his security staff to get to him in nanoseconds arise.

Hotel staff were also in lock-down and not permitted to leave the hotel for the duration of the President's visit.

Now, unfortunately for me and Doron, we live about 100 metres from the King David Hotel and so we were subjected to the full brunt of the security measures. Every entrance and exit to our street was cut off to traffic (including the pedestrian variety!) unless your Israeli ID showed your address to be local.

Mr Bush headed off about lunchtime on Friday, thankfully giving us Jerusalemites a little bit of time to run around and do our usual pre-Shabbat preparations. I noticed, with some amusement, that the brand new American flags that had been hoisted above the city streets were being pulled down almost as soon as the last car in the President's motorcade drove off.

Bon Voyage George. I hope you at least got to eat a decent falafel while you were here.

Planning a wedding in Israel 101 January 10, 2008 |

With less than three months to go until the "Big Day", the reality that I will soon be a married woman is dawning on me with increasing regularity.

As a slightly "older" bride (I have just turned 35), I am experiencing an interesting combination of emotions. On the one hand, it is a very strange sensation to realise that the years of just "being me" (or me plus cat!) are soon coming to an end. Even with my past relationships (and like any person of my age, there is a healthy trail of emotional baggage in my wake!) I was still "just me". I don't care what anyone says, marriage IS different. Psychologically, it's on a whole other level.

I think one of the great benefits of marrying a bit later is that I feel so much calmer. Life, in general, doesn't scare me as much now and I know I have dealt with most of my inner demons. I have accomplished a lot on my own and I am proud of what I have achieved. However, I feel I am entering a new phase in my life and my greatest desire is to share it with someone. The "just me" thing just doesn't do it for me anymore.

Who knows what celestial forces were in place when Doron and I met. Just over five months ago, we ended up going to the same live music gig at a local Jerusalem night spot thanks to two Aussie (non-Jewish) friends who had rather randomly met in Israel. It was an oddly fateful meeting. I certainly never thought when I woke up that morning that I was going to meet the love of my life and future husband later that day. In fact it's a miracle he even looked twice at me! The Israeli summers are unbearably hot and my greatest enemy, Mr Humidity, was out in force that day. Doron says he remembers my wild Jewfro hair that night with some amusement. Being an Aussie, I like the occasional beer - especially on a disgustingly hot summer's night - and so I had a couple of Corona's. Doron (a bit of a teetotaler) thought he'd met some borderline alcoholic.

Still, there was magic in the air that night - of that we are certain.
Three months later we were engaged.

Being the somewhat impulsive couple that we are, we decided against a long and drawn out engagement. Why not have the wedding before Pesach, we thought?
And so, before we knew it, we were hurtled into the alternative universe that is "The Israeli Wedding".

We knew that we would have a small wedding - perhaps a hundred people - and so this immediately disqualified us from most of Jerusalem's wedding venues, who cater for a minimum of 200 people. It didn't take us long though to find a wonderful venue, Merkaz Shimshon-Beit Shmuel, which is actually about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. It's a beautiful venue, but without a doubt, the star attraction is the downright stunning panoramic view of the walls of the Old City.

The next few weeks saw us traipsing around Jerusalem meeting with venue people, photographers, DJs, musicians and soon enough we realised that this whole wedding thing is BIG BUSINESS in Israel. All these people talked about "closing the deal" as if Doron and I were buying into some multi-national conglomerate. Eventually we did manage to find excellent people who we really liked and who weren't trying to shove their product down our throats.

Now my dress. This is quite a story.

The vast majority of Israeli girls rent their dresses and pay an absolutely exorbitant amount of money for the privilege. Dresses here, with very few exceptions, also seem to be designed for your average floozie, and personally, not being a prude or anything, I feel a little uncomfortable about the idea of standing under the chuppah wearing my underwear.

Just to give you an idea - here's a typical Israeli wedding dress:

Now, I don't really have any strong feelings either way about renting or buying - but I'll be damned if I am going to pay upwards of 6,000 shekels (about AUD$2,000) for something that makes me look like I should be cruising up and down Kings Cross.

Lucky for me, I have a fabulous mother who works in the fashion biz, and through a couple of her close contacts, I have been able to organise a wonderful dress (although it is still very much a work in progress!)

The fabrics - silk dupioni and hand-embroidered silk netting - is coming all the way from Suzhou in China from a dear friend of my mother's as an incredibly generous wedding gift.

In the next week or so, the fabric will be couriered to Israel and then I will take it to a small moshav near Netanya where my dress will be designed and made by a wonderfully talented Israeli designer, Keren Naftali.

Given I spent the first twenty-odd years of my life in the Far East, growing up in Hong Kong, I find it rather appropriate that my wedding dress is making a similarly trans-continental journey from Asia to Israel.

Although it is somewhat of a dream come true to be getting married here in Jerusalem, it is a little sad that so many of my relatives and friends will not be able to come. It's an excruciatingly long (not to mention expensive) flight from Australia. Still, we are blessed to have so many wonderful friends, and no small number of extended family members who will be here to celebrate with us.

The big hurdle ahead of us now is the Jerusalem Rabbinut. As an olah chadasha (new migrant) I need to bring quite a lot of extra paperwork to prove I am Jewish according to the Halacha. I am hoping that they won't give us too much hassle, but I have been told by friends to expect Israeli bureaucracy par excellence. We'll be heading there to open our "marriage file" next week (providing they end their strike). See here in Israel, even Rabbis go on strike...

Wish us luck!

wedding planning, thanksgiving, anzacs in beersheva and Israeli driving tests... December 03, 2007 |

Ok, so from the title of my blog, I think it is safe to assume that I have been rather slack on the old writing front. What can I tell you? It's been a busy month! Not long after my beau and I formally announced our engagement, a mutual friend of ours offered to host a l'chaim for us. Originally we had no plans to do anything too fancy (actually, anything at all!) but I am very grateful to our friend for ensuring that this did not happen. We ended up having an absolutely gorgeous engagement party at our friend's home in Jerusalem's historic German Colony. We were particularly touched when he presented us with a volume of teachings by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and all our friends wrote inscriptions on the inside cover. It is something we will treasure for many years to come.

Here's a photo of the happy couple (i.e. us!)

We had originally thought of getting married in June sometime, but for a number of reasons (none interesting enough to bore you with in this blog) we have now decided to have the wedding in early April. With only four months to plan, we had to get on to finding an appropriate venue quite quickly. We're having a smallish wedding (minute by Israeli standards!) and it is actually quite difficult to find suitable venues that accept smaller bookings. Thankfully we only looked at a handful of potential venues before settling on Merkaz Shimshon-Beit Shmuel, which is in the centre of Jerusalem - actually a five minute walk from our apartment. It has the most breathtaking views of the Old City - worth the price of admission alone! We are really thrilled with the place and I am sure it will be a magical setting for our wedding. Fingers crossed the skies are clear on the day so we can have the actual ceremony outside on the terrace.

***

More turkey peas (sorry, a family joke)

A couple of weeks ago it was Thanksgiving. Despite living in Israel, given the number of American migrants here, there are no shortage of Thanksgiving celebrations going on around the place. My good friend Elisabeth invited us to come to her apartment in Tel Aviv where she was hosting a Thanksgiving party with turkey, trimmings and all. I offered to make something and so I made (for the first time ever) a sweet potato pie. Can I just say, OMG! This pie is amazing. So amazing that I feel the urge to share the recipe with you. You don't need the excuse of Thanksgiving to bake this yummy pie!

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup evaporated milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon flour
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust - either Graham cracker (biscuit) crust or shortcrust pastry

Directions

1. Boil sweet potato whole in skin for 40 to 50 minutes, or until done. Run cold water over the sweet potato, and remove the skin.

2. Break apart sweet potato in a bowl. Add butter, and mix well with mixer. Stir in sugars, milk, eggs, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, ginger, lemon juice and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth. Pour filling into an unbaked pie crust.

3. Bake at 175 degrees C for 55 to 60 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Pie will puff up like a soufflé, and then will sink down as it cools.

***

A bit of R&R

Last weekend we decided to head for the Negev and visit my relatives who live near Beersheva. More than anything else we were in dire need of recharging our batteries and how better to do that that chill out in Omer for the weekend? Most of the weekend was spent doing bugger all except sleeping and eating, but we did manage a nice drive into Beersheva - a city which continues to undergo massive development as Israel's major southern city.

Two interesting places we checked out were; Tiv Tam - a massive supermarket (akin to megamarts in Australia) which I found slightly freaky due to the large Christmas tree planted at the entrance (balanced out nicely by an ad for Chanukah on the other side of the front door) and a large selection of pork products proudly on display. For a second I had to pinch myself and remind myself that I was actually still in Israel. The reason behind such flagrant disregard for Jewish (not to mention kosher!) traditions is largely due to the large Russian community in Beersheva, many of whom do not keep kosher and "celebrate" Christmas, not as a Christian holiday per se, but as a more secular one. Still - tinsel, Christmas cards and little plastic Santas seem ridiculously incongruous in this country.

Our second stop on the whistle-stop tour of Beersheva was the ANZAC cemetery and WWI memorial. "What?" I hear you say, "Anzacs, in Israel?" Here's some fascinating history for you:

On October 31st, 1917, 800 mounted Australian troops charged through Beersheva in then Turkish-occupied Palestine and captured the desert town, irrevocably changing the direction of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during World War I.

Anzac Day Commemoration in Beersheva

You should also check out Greer Fay Cashman's interesting article in the Jerusalem Post.

Have license, will travel

Following on from my earlier blog about the trials and tribulations of obtaining an Israeli driving license, I am thrilled to announce that I passed my test yesterday!
I ended up taking a dozen or so lessons with an excellent instructor (not too bad I thought, considering the fact that I haven't driven in over seven years!) and despite being very nervous about taking the test, in reality, it was quite a breeze.

Thankfully, I was only required to take a simplified practical test - but even so - many people warned me that Israeli driving testers rarely grant a license on the first test (even a transfer license like mine). I was told not to get my hopes up too much and certainly not to be too disappointed if I failed the first time, that was normal.

I admit that given my test lasted all of seven minutes, I was a little worried as to how I had done, but I really couldn't think of any major screw ups along the way! Two hours after the test my instructor called me to give me the good news, I had passed!

So now I am the proud owner of an Israeli driving license. When I actually start driving alongside all the meshugenahs in this country, I am sure it will be a different story altogether!