Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land

no easy solutions and no easy conclusions

2011-07-24T14:15:00.005+03:00

Time for my bi-annual blog posting! How times have changed - I used to have seemingly endless opportunity to transcribe my thoughts and blast them into the blogosphere, but my one and two-year olds definitely keep me busy.

Still, occasionally events take place in my life that compel me to write and such an event took place last week; the after-effects of which are still playing out in my conscious thoughts and even in my dreams.

So, before I get into that story, I need to back up a little and update you on where I'm at these days.

Firstly, I've now completed my Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educators Program (yeah!) I've finished my course, handed in my major assisgnment (designing and writing my own 15 hour teaching course), completed my student teaching and observed four babies being born at Sha'are Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem (that was a truly amazing experience and totally deserves another blog all of its own). All that's left to do now is take the international exam at the end of October - pass it (!!!) - and then I will be a fully qualified Lamaze Childbirth Educator.

I'm in the process of building my own website and promoting myself and hopefully I will be able to start teaching expectant women and their partners in the very near future.

So, the second major life change is that I also have a new job. I deliberately avoided applying for anything that a) didn't really seem like a great job and b) positions that I felt wouldn't give me flexibility as a working mother with two very young children.

This position was a maternity leave cover, full time for three months, but with a very strong chance of continued full time employment (hence why I went for it). The job is a very creative marketing position with a not-for profit organisation that produces award-winning documentaries about the international threat of radical Islam. I'll say right upfront that it is absolutely NOT an anti-Muslim organisation. Their films highlight the very real and ever-present threat of extremist religious fundamentalist muslims - the Al Qaedas, the Jihadis - people for whom their one goal in life is to wipe out democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, rights for women, gays and lesbians - you name it (remember there ARE no homosexuals in Iran).

So, apart from being very interesting work that intersects so many of my interests and passions, they also happen to be the most parent-friendly organisation I have ever come across. I can leave work at 3pm every day so I can go and pick up the kids from their daycare in Modi'in.

We really looked hard to find a great daycare that we knew the kids would be loved and cared for by really professional staff. We also wanted them to be together, because they are close and I knew it would be an easier adjustment for them both if they were together. So far, so good (more or less!) Our daughter has adjusted effortlessly. She hasn't cried once! Our son is having a harder time adjusting, but we fully expected this, especially as he's two and has been at home with me almost continously since he was born. He cries a bit in the morning when I leave him, but the ganenet (kindergarten teacher) has told me that he stops crying almost immediately and doesn't cry at all during the day. (I hope she isn't saying that to make me feel better!). She also said he plays really well with the other kids, and eats and naps well too (ha! better than I could manage!) Certainly when I have come each day to pick them up, they are both very happy and playing with the other kids and seem to be very relaxed and at home there.

On their first day last week, their ganenet sent me some photos of them which I thought was a really lovely thing to do to ease a worrying mother's anxiety!

Amalia playing with her new friend

Liev playing in the garden

I've rather skimmed over this major transition - but I can't express how unbelievably stressful the whole thing was for us. I basically had a week to find quality daycare for the kids (in summer this is no mean feat given most gans close for at least a week in August), work out how to get to and from work (in Jerusalem - in the Old City no less!) and be able to drop the kids off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon (their gan is on the total opposite side of Modi'in) and in the end there was no other way to do it other than to get a car.

We're renting one at the moment, because we want to see how things go over the next few months, and at this stage a long-term position is not a definite. It's so weird to be driving every day, especially after having had a license for about 10 years and never having driven! Still, having a car is such a liberating experience! I don't think I will ever be able to go back to being a public transportation girl!!

So, back to the story I started to mention at the beginning of this blog.

So my first day at work. As you would expect I was a little stressed, a little nervous. I had a new job, I was driving in rush hour traffic for the first time, dropping Amalia off at her new day care - oh, and I forgot to mention that the night before my first day at work my son woke up in the midde of the night with a raging fever and so my husband had to stay home with him (like that's ALL we needed) and then at 3pm when I left to go home and pick up my daughter, I was stressing that I wouldn't get there in time and so I thought (stupidly I might add at this point) I would try a slightly different route home in order to bypass the worst of the inner-city Jerusalem traffic.

Big mistake. BIG BIG MISTAKE.

Somehow I got myself heinously lost. Totally and utterly disoriented. My GPS was not helping me one little bit because where I was driving was too close to East Jerusalem (i.e the Arab part of the city) and the GPS is not programmed to pick up signals from there. Who knew my GPS had a political standpoint?

Given the traffic was so heavy (and let's not forget what maniacs Israeli drivers are) I had no choice but to continue with the flow of the traffic. There was no opportunity to turn off the highway, no u-turns and no familiar signs. Before I knew it, I couldn't even READ the signs as they were all in Arabic. I realised that I was very much inside East Jerusalem now. All the while, I was looking for a way to turn around, but the chaotic traffic that surrounded me would have put me at huge risk for a massive accident and so I just continued in the only direction I could - straight ahead.

Another few minutes and I am still driving through Arab neighborhoods and more and more people are looking at me as I drove by. I'll admit I was really beginning to feel nervous. As I tried hard to maintain my focus and calm, I vaguely caught sight of a sign on the side of the road that said something about "Area A" and "Palestinian ID card holders only". What that actually means for those of you outside of Israel is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) have designated control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas. It is also illegal for Israeli (Jewish) citizens to enter such areas without a permit.

Somehow I had managed to drive straight into the West Bank.

Ok, so I think it is fair to say now that I was somewhat peeing my pants by this point. The roads were now pot-holed and unsealed. Drivers were chaotic and unpredictable and I was even more nervous at this point to draw yet more attention to myself. I was hoping against hope that if I just continued straight I would finally get back on to a main road or find a checkpoint where I could ask for help.

I finally did spot a checkpoint, and in the distance I saw the Israeli flag flying. I breathed a massive sigh of relief and tried to calm myself until I got there. What was confusing my though was the fact that the cars ahead of me were moving swiftly through the checkpoint, which didn't make any sense to me. It is well known that the Israeli army search cars coming from the PA and going into Israel extremely thoroughly and there are chronic delays. I soon realised why I was moving through so quickly. I was not driving OUT of the PA, I was driving further INTO the PA! The Israeli side was on the other side and from where I was, there was no way whatsoever to get across, other than continuing straight and then attempting to find somewhere to turn around and get in the line to go out again.

Checkpoints are crazy places. Chaos rules and being a sweltering hot July day did not make things easier. Thankfully I sat in air conditioned comfort, but even with the cold air blasting me to the maximum, I was still sweating from fear. The bumper to bumber traffic snaked around a traffic circle and at this point my instinct just told me to get the hell off the road and somehow try to find my way back. At this rate, I was only a couple of kilometres from Ramallah.

I pulled the car off to the side of the road where two young men were selling fruit from a stand. I did my best impersonation of a lost tourist and asked them for help (in English naturally!) They spoke just a handful of words in English, but I think they more or less understood that I needed to get back to the other side of the checkpoint. Now, I know this sounds crazy, but again, at this point I did not have a whole lot of options, my adrenaline levels were at an all time high and all I had to go on was my basic instinct. Did I think the kid selling fruit was really a terrorist in disguise? No. Was part of me worried that he might do me harm? Yes.

Still, as I said, I was desperate and so when the young man offered to show me the way back by hopping into my car, I agreed. I should also point out that I was at most 400 metres from the checkpoint, but I was desperate not to make any more errors and so that's why I agreed to let him in my car.

He was a nice young guy and he genuinely wanted to help me. Sure, he also wanted to sell me his fake designer perfume and aftershave, but didn't hassle me when I said no. He got out, I thanked him profusely and slowly nudged my way into the now very SLOW queue of cars waiting at the checkpoint for the Israeli side.

Just when I thought I was home free, a young boy, no more than 10 or 11 years old, walked by my car and tried to sell me a bottle of soft drink. I waved at him to indicate, no thank you and looked straight ahead. Obviously, this was not the answer he was looking for and he started to pound my driver's side window with his fists. I continued to stare ahead hoping he would just go away.

He didn't and instead, he just got angrier. Before I knew what was happening, he tried to open my door and I realised that I hadn't locked my doors. I grabbed the handle and just slammed it shut and managed to locate the central locking on my car (remember, this is a new car! I didn't know where anything was!) Once the kid realised I had locked the doors, he got angrier still and continued to pound away with his fists and yelled obscenities at me in Arabic (I got the basic gist).

Suddenly, the car ahead of me rolled forward and I was able to shift up that tiny bit closer to the checkpoint and the Israeli soldiers I could now see ahead of me. The kid ran away, knowing he'd get in trouble if he got caught and I just held myself together long enough until I could roll down my window safely and yell for a solider's attention.

A young man came up to my car and immediately realised that I was not, shall we say, a local. By now, my accumulated stress boiled to the surface and released itself in an outpouring of tears. Somehow I managed to say that I had got horribly lost, that I didn't know where I was, that I was trying to get home and please could someone help me.

The soldier smiled at me, told me to take a deep breath and relax. I was okay, everything was fine and I was now back in Israel. He gave me instructions on how to get back to the main highway (In real terms I was only off course a couple of kilometres - but I might as well have been on a different planet!) Once I was waved through, I just hit the gas and got home as quickly as I could.

This little "experience" added two hours to my journey home and of course there was no way I could pick my daughter up. I was constantly on the phone with Doron and as he was home with Liev, he was able to drive and pick her up thankfully. I tried to explain to Doron what was happening to me, but it wasn't until I finally got home that I was able to explain the full extent of my experience to him and he truly understood what an emotionally fraught experience I had just endured.

To be painfully honest, I actually had a full blown panic attack when I got home. I cried uncontrollably and I could still feel the stress hormones surging through my veins.

It wasn't until the next day that I was able to relax and calm down properly and start to evaluate my experience more objectively.

The more I thought about things, the more complex it became. The more questions I had in my head and the more troublesome it became for me on so many levels.

Yes, I had a traumatic experience. Getting lost and being in a known hostile environment where my safety was genuinely at risk was a legitimate fear. Many people over the years - not just soldiers; civilians too - have been kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in the West Bank.

Was I over-reacting though? Was I allowing myself to feed off the media frenzy, both what I absorb locally, and what I read internationally? Surely not ALL those people want to kill me? Surely it is only a tiny percentage? And it's not the kid selling watermelon by the side of the road, or even the angry little kid who hated me because I wouldn't buy soda pop from him and because I was white, affluent and (probably) Jewish.

Despite the very real fear I was experiencing at the time, I couldn't help but look at my surroundings. Literally just a couple of kilometres on the other side of the Green Line and I was on a whole other planet. The roads in the PA are horrific, the conditions appalling. The poverty and degradation was palpable. Just a 20 minute drive away is the city I live in, Modi'in - the picture of modernity and middle-class comfort. You could not draw a greater contrast if you tried such is the aching gap between the way I live and the way the Palestinians live.

As thin and tenuous a line as I know it is, I am not going to get into the political mire of blame here. This is not a blog about my personal political standpoint or beliefs. It IS however, a blog about my deepest personal feelings, even the ones that make me feel very uncomfortable to verbalise.

The thing I found the most surprising about my whole experience was that after I had relaxed about it, the one person I really wanted to speak to and "debrief" as it were, was my friend Shaden who I studied with during my Lamaze course. Shaden is a great friend, a woman I have a lot in common with (our birthdays are only a day apart too!) and I respect her enormously. She is also my only Palestinian friend.

What I wanted to say to her I wasn't sure. Would I offend her? Would she think I was crazy? The best thing about our course was that politics and religion had no place in our classes. We were seven women all learning to become childbirth educators, learning how to empower women - all women - to give birth with confidence and to help improve maternity care for women everywhere.

I normally find that at the end of a blog I am able to draw some nice neat conclusions, but here I draw a blank. I don't have the answers (yet) and I am unable to say "this is right" and "this is wrong". People simply have to understand that life here in Israel is, and never will be, simple.

Whether you associate yourself with the'right' or the 'left' or somewhere in between - as far as I am concerned, no one has come up with a workable solution. The crisis that exists here is so multi-layered, so complicated, so deeply emotional that it just cannot be "fixed" - with a signed agreement brokered by whatever U.S. President happens to be in office, a security fence, a checkpoint, or even a so-called "two-state solution". To assume such tactics can solve these problems is beyond naive.

And so this is where I will leave this blog. I am sorry I can't end it more decisively, but I hope that baring my emotions has given you all some food for thought about this land that I - and many others - call home.

blog archives

2011-02-15T21:11:00.003+02:00

In case you want to read past blog entries, just click on the little tag that says "pull" on the top right hand of the screen. It will open the drop down page containing all my previous blogs. Happy reading!

tough decisions

2011-02-13T20:05:00.009+02:00

Unwittingly, I feel like I experienced a major rite of passage today. It's been building up over the last week, but today was the culmination and boy did it hit me square in the guts.

So let's back up to a week or so ago. A friend emailed me with a link to a job he saw advertised and said something like, "hey there. Not sure if you are still looking for something, but I saw this and thought of you..."

I checked out the link and saw that it was for an amazing job. And not just any job. This was the ONE position I had wanted - coveted - for more than four years. I am not going to mention what the job was because as you will see, ultimately it is not really all that important. The one drawback I could see from the outset was that it was a maternity cover position for six months. Still, I thought to myself, who knows where it could lead to if I got it. Women don't come back from maternity leave all the time, or she might take more time off, or maybe it could lead to another position at the same place, or it could open doors to other amazing opportunities... I let my mind wander and allowed myself to play career fantasy for a few minutes.

I actually waited until the 11th hour (literally) to send my application. It was not like most jobs where you can simply send your CV and a cover letter. This job didn't allow you to send either.
Instead, you had to read a number of jargon-filled attachments and application guidelines and then fill in a very detailed and convoluted internal application form. Words like "behavioural competencies" and "organisational skills profile" made my head hurt and after five hours of solid work on my application I rolled into bed at midnight utterly wiped out.

Two days later I got a call from them inviting me for an interview. I prepared myself as best as I could and kept an open mind. I figured I had to go for it otherwise I would forever be asking myself, "what if?"

When I left home the weather was cool, but sunny and pleasant. By the time I arrived in Tel Aviv, the heavens had opened up and I got caught in a torrential downpour. Despite being well dressed for the weather (raincoat, hat, gloves, scarf, umbrella and boots) I still managed to get soaked to the bone in the less than 10 minute walk to the interview.

Luckily my raincoat, hat and umbrella kept my top half relatively dry, but from the knees down I was literally dripping. My feet sloshed with every step and I couldn't believe this was how I was going to be seen for THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB INTERVIEW I HAD EVER HAD IN ISRAEL!

Thankfully, I had about 20 minutes before I was called and that was long enough for me to squeeze the excess rainwater out of my skirt (although I felt bad about leaving a puddle in the reception area where I was waiting) and I fluffed my hair back to some semblance of sleekness. A lipstick refresher and I was almost feeling normal again (except my feet were still squelching).

I was met by the director of the organisation and invited to enter a conference room where two other people were waiting for me. One was the assistant director and the other was the woman whose position was being replaced during her maternity leave.

I sat down and placed my rain-soaked coat and accessories on the floor next to me. I was given a glass of water and told that I would have about 30 minutes for my interview and that each person on the panel would take it in turns to ask me questions and at the end I would have a few minutes to ask any questions I had.

I felt like I was somewhere between doing an oral exam in high school and being on trial for some criminal offence. It was intimidating, unnatural, painfully formal and rigid. Hmmm. Not unlike the application form that I had spent half the night up writing.

Anyone who knows me well knows I like to talk. In this situation (like my 200 word limit for each answer in the application form) I was politely interrupted if I went on too long and told that "sorry, but we need to move on to the next question."

The half hour went like that and I walked out of the interview feeling somewhat deflated and not at all confident that I had made a decent impression. I also felt edgy and stressed and to make myself feel better, I went to a nearby mall and bought my son a cute pair of pyjamas. (It really did make me feel better).

I got on the train home and started to think philosophically about the whole thing. I applied. I got an interview. I followed it up. No regrets. Move on.
And then as I was exiting the train station in Modi'in, I got a call. It was the woman going on maternity leave. She wanted to do a follow up interview with me right there on the phone, IN HEBREW, to check my language skills (a percentage of the job requires reasonably good Hebrew). I was put on the spot, but what the hell, I just jabbered away as well as I could in Hebrew and realised that I managed pretty well for about 20 minutes.

When I finally got home I realised that maybe I hadn't sucked as badly as I initially thought I had. And then I began to think more seriously about what it would mean if I was actually offered the job. I had to delay more in-depth thought until after the kids were in bed and I was able to discuss it with Doron when he got home from work.

It all got a bit more complicated the next morning when I received an email from the director telling me that it was down to me and one other candidate and was I available for a second interview in a week or so.

Honestly. I am not being falsely modest. I truly believed I stank in that interview. I couldn't believe I had been shortlisted to one of two applicants. I now had to think very seriously about what would happen if I was offered, and subsequently accepted, the job.

As a maternity cover position, the most important thing to remember is that there was no guarantee of future employment beyond this point - and my instinct was telling me strongly that this woman fully intended to return to work.

The salary was decent - but not great. But after doing the maths and calculating the net income after tax, pension and of course day care costs, we worked out that I'd be taking home about 1,000 NIS a month i.e. bugger all.

Putting the children in full time day care meant I would get to spend about 2 hours a day with them.

My ability to study for the Lamaze Childbirth Educator course would be severely compromised.

It was beginning to become clear to me that unless I was able to magically morph into Wonder Woman complete with invisible jet, I was unlikely to be able to manage everything. Something - or possibly multiple things - were going to be sacrificed.

But this was my dream job. Opportunities like this didn't come up every day. Or any day for that matter. What kind of a test was this I thought to myself? What the hell was I supposed to do?

The more I thought about it, okay, agonised over it. Lay awake at night thinking about it, I realised something very important.

The fact that it was this amazing job that I had dreamed of getting was irrelevant.
The length of the contract was irrelevant.
The money was irrelevant.
The only thing that mattered at all were my children.

And that was my kick in the guts. That was my dose of reality, my rite of passage.
I told myself that there will be other great opportunities in the future, when the timing is right. But my kids will not always be so small and vulnerable and utterly dependent on me to be there for them day and night. They need me and I need them.

I wrote to the director this afternoon and thanked him sincerely for the opportunity to interview for such a wonderful job. I also told him I was withdrawing my application. As I was finishing the email, my son Liev came up to me with his arms outstretched and wanting me to pick him up for a cuddle. He wanted to play on my computer. I let him press the "send" button. He laughed when he did and then he clapped at his job well done. He kissed me. I cried.

No one ever said a rite of passage was easy.

just had to post a pic of my beautiful children

2011-01-28T22:19:00.001+02:00

new beginnings

2011-01-13T20:41:00.005+02:00

I've discovered something interesting about life in Israel since becoming a mother. I've discovered that this is not the family-friendly society I thought it was - well, in the work world at least. In that environment I am persona non grata it seems. You see, here in the Holy Land prospective employers think it's totally acceptable to grill you on your marital and family status (all asked in the most innocent of enquiring tones of course). Being the unsuspecting novice, I answered honestly - although what else could I do really? - and surprise surprise, that's the last I ever hear from them.
The last interview I attended lasted for more than an hour and even included an impromptu second interview with the CEO, so I figured I stood a pretty good chance. Did I hear a thing? Nope, nada, zilch, klum.

Initially, I didn't even make the connection with having kids, I just thought I was having a run of bad luck and that the "right job" was just around the corner waiting for me. Still, the string of rejections was having a pretty pummelling effect on my self-esteem and it was only after talking to a number of friends that it dawned on me that perhaps it wasn't me at all, but more a case of the category that I now fell into.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. I thought about the last place I worked. Almost without exception they fired women immediately upon their return from maternity leave. Totally illegal, but they would keep them quiet by offering them a very attractive payout. So what's behind the anti-mother sentiment? (And it sure as hell doesn't apply to fathers! Men don't routinely get asked if they are married or have kids in job interviews) Well, employers figure, little kids get sick all the time, especially when they are in daycare, which means mummy will have to take lots of time off to look after said sick kiddies which means a loss of productivity, which means a loss of profit. Oooh crap, don't want to risk that. Better give this applicant the wide berth eh?

And then there is a whole other argument I found myself considering. Say for the sake of argument I did find myself a great job, with lovely family-friendly, pro-mummy co-workers who had no problem with me working flexible hours so I could leave early to pick my kids up from daycare. (Does that sound as fanciful as I think it does??!) Well, the shorter hours that mothers generally work means a rather significant cut in salary and after tax, cost of child care etc I would be lucky to clear about 2,000 shekels (about $450 Australian dollars) a month. Oh, and I'd get to spend about two hours a day with my children.

Sounds fabulous, doesn't it?

So, back to Square 1 it seemed. That is, until I received an email in my inbox a couple of weeks ago. It was from the woman who ran the childbirth preparation course Doron and I attended before Liev was born. She was now offering a course to train other people to become internationally certified Lamaze childbirth educators. Talk about a sign from up above!

The course is a 15 week program (1 full day of study a week) with a written exam at the end in order to qualify. Following that I will be able to start my own business and run courses for parents-to-be right here in Modi'in (and potentially other areas).

If someone had told me even three or four years ago that my career would take a turn like this I would have laughed. "What, me? A Lamaze instructor, are you insane?" But the amazing thing is, everyone I have told so far has responded with overwhelming enthusiasm. Without exception, people seem to think I was made for this field. As surprised as I have been by people's reactions (I fully expected at least a few, "what the's") I have also been so reassured that I am pursuing the right direction.

It's true what people say, having children changes you (whether you like it or not). It literally changes the person you are, or thought you were. It forces you to see the world in a totally different perspective and makes you realise what an awesome responsibility you have now.

Having children in Israel, without my family here was also challenging. It adds a whole other set of fears, anxieties and stresses that perhaps otherwise I wouldn't have experienced had I given birth in Australia.

Having experienced all this first hand - and having two children under the age of 2 - makes me think I might actually have a reasonable amount of wisdom to pass onto couples and women who are about to have their first baby. I also have a number of friends in Israel who are single mothers - both by choice and circumstance - and I thought that I would also love to offer a childbirth preparation course exclusively for single women. As far as I know, the only women-only courses here in Israel are for religious women. When a girlfriend of mine who was expecting her baby (conceived through an anonymous sperm donor) attended a course like this - precisely because she didn't want to feel miserable and lonely in a couples group - ended up hating her course and felt judged and uncomfortable which I think is just awful.

A single-mothers Lamaze course would also provide these mums-to-be with an instant support network and friendship circle so vital once baby has arrived.

I am truly so excited to embark upon this new chapter of my life. Through my despondent and depressing search for work, I stumbled upon an incredible opportunity which will allow me to both remain at home with my children while they are still so young and simultaneously pursue an exciting and challenging new career that I feel has the potential to open doors I never previously even imagined.

And so it seems that Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land is about to begin a new adventure and I look forward to sharing the journey with you.

the one about the mouse

2010-12-12T21:45:00.005+02:00

WARNING: this blog probably won't be enjoyed by extreme animal lovers (i.e. the kind of people who think even cockroaches should be humanely treated and gently shooed out the front door rather than squashed underfoot).

Ok, so about two weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch talking to my mother in Australia with my 18 month old son sitting next to me watching Tellytubbies and my 6 month old daughter rocking away in her little chair by my feet when all of a sudden I caught sight of a little grey tail scoot down the wall behind the TV.

"Argggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I yelled in my mother's ear (sorry mum!) "Shit! I think I just saw a mouse!"

"A mouse? Are you sure?"

"Definitely a rodent!" Smallish. But rodent. Yucky. Dirty. Disease-carrying. Rodent.

I found it almost impossible to continue the conversation with my mother as I was too preoccupied on keeping an eye out for my unwelcome house guest and making sure he didn't make a move towards me and the kids. I said good bye to my mum and called my husband.

"Doron. You are not going to believe this, but we have a f%$#ing mouse in the house!"
"A what?"
"You know! Achbar sadeh! A field mouse!"
"Are you serious? How the hell did he get in the house?"
"I don't know!!!!!!!!!! But I am here with the kids and I have an effing bloody mouse, rat, rodent thing running around and I don't know what to do!"
"I'll look for him tonight and see if I can catch him. If not, we'll call someone."

I hung up the phone and stared at the wall opposite me. Not only was the mouse near me and the kids, he ran right next to my son's toy box - surely a perfect hidey hole for a little mouse. I was too scared to touch anything (I know - I'm such a wuss) and I didn't want the kids to sense my fear, so we just kind of did other stuff and waited for Doron to get home from work. Thankfully our little friend didn't show himself again that afternoon.

After we put the kids to bed, Doron poked around the corner of the living room I had seen him, but he seemed to have moved on. We left the balcony door open a little that night hoping he would run out during the night.

No such luck. Sighting #2 happened a couple of days later, on a Friday morning when we were all in the living room and Mr Mousey decided to make a dash from under the sofa (we were sitting on it ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!) back to the direction of my son's toy box.

Doron got up and started to look for him. He jiggled the toy box and a couple of minutes later, the mouse ran out and ran across the carpet right in front of me and back under the sofa. Doron and I screamed and the children spontaneously burst into tears. Shit!

I took the kids into another room so that Doron could have a go at catching the mouse but after 2o minutes or so, he declared defeat having lost all sight of the little bugger.

We decided to call an exterminator who said he could drop by before Shabbat. Great, we thought! We're going to deal with this problem properly now!

The exterminator, a man called Amos from a nearby town, arrived a couple of hours later and confirmed we had a mouse (bloody genius eh?) He found several tell-tale mouse droppings around our kitchen and laid several sticky traps for him. He told us that most likely that night after we went to bed, the mouse would come out, be attracted to the traps and he'd be caught by the morning.

"I'll drop by again on Sunday and pick up the mouse and the traps for you." he said with total confidence.

"How much do we owe you?"

"350 shekels"

We had to stop our jaws from dropping. 350 shekels to come over and spend 10 minutes laying some traps that cost all of 20 sheks at the local hardware store?

Well Amos. Your traps didn't work. Mr Mousey laughs at your silly traps. Sunday came and went and Mr Mousey is king of the castle and is making our lives hell. We kept the door to Liev's room closed all the time, after I discovered mouse droppings in HIS COT!!!!!!!!

Then a couple of nights later, Doron found droppings in Amalia's cot!!!!!!!!!!! They were not there when I put her to bed the night before (she is in our room) and so that means (sorry to creep you out people) that he was in her bed while she was sleeping. The mere thought of it makes me want to vomit.

We could hear him munching away on my books in the living room and we saw him run down the back of the pipes of the kitchen sink. He was even getting into my wardrobe and eating the paper that was stuffed in the toes of my expensive Kenneth Cole high-heeled shoes. Bastard. THIS WAS WAR!

We'd also bought our own traps. More of the sticky kind (Mr Mousey was somehow able to remove the bamba* from the trap and not get caught on it! How???) and the other kind of trap that he has to walk into to get the food which triggers the door to shut on him (but doesn't hurt him) He avoided those ones and decided to stick to my abundant collection of fiction instead.

(*Bamba is a popular peanut snack here in Israel and apparently mice are very fond of it as well)

And now we arrive at last night. I was eating some dinner and watching telly and Doron was out taking a walk. All of a sudden I heard the little bugger munching away in the corner of the room, somewhere inside my bookcase. He was louder than usual, as if he were saying to us, "Munch, munch, munch. You can't catch me you pathetic humans. I will eat my way from Jane Austen to Markus Zusak and then I will feast on your babies' fingers! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Something just snapped in me. Mouse. This is your last night on earth. Enjoy the time you have left my friend.

When Doron came home a few minutes later, I told him that the mouse was in the bookcase somewhere. With the kids all tucked up (and safe!) in bed, we decided to engage OPERATION MOUSE. We slowly took the books off the shelves and built a wall from one corner of the wall to the other, effectively cornering him in a small confined space. Sure, he would be able to climb over the books eventually, but we were counting in him being a little bamboozled initially and that would give Doron time to give him the old one-two with his shoe (I warned you that animal lovers would not like this blog).

About half an hour later, all the books were on the floor and Doron finally caught sight of him - eating a BLOODY PIECE OF BAMBA behind the bookcase! Doron moved the bookcase and the mouse then took refuge behind the CD tower. With almost nowhere left for the bugger to go, we were pretty confident that we were going to catch him. Suddenly he darted out from behind the CD tower and tried to make a run for it.

"There he is!" I yelled. "Get him!"
After the initial shock, Doron got his bearings and ran towards the mouse, stomping on him in one clear and very forceful motion. He didn't even have time to feel it I am sure. Gone instantaneously. I hope that makes the animal lovers feel a bit better.

And that was it. No more terrorist mouse in our home. We now had one very dead, very squashed mouse on our living room floor that needed to be scraped up and the floor cleaned and disinfected. Sorry, is this too much detail?

We sat there, Doron and I, staring at Dead Mr Mousey, suddenly looking so tiny and innocuous and we couldn't believe how something so small had caused us so much trouble and how frought with stress we had been. Following our recent trip to Massada, Doron looked at me and said that somehow this scene reminded him of the story of Massada.

"How? I asked. "So is the mouse a Maccabee or a Roman?"
The jury is still out on that one.

Doron took the mouse outside and threw him in the dumpster and I was left to clean up (the least I could do considering Doron performed the actual dreaded deed) and then I had the joyous task of putting ALL my books back (about 8 packing boxes worth) and because I am totally anal, I had to put them back in order didn't I?

So here's a photo of our fortress of books and if you look carefully, you'll spot Mr Mousey (deceased) but don't worry - it's not gory or anything.

RIP Mr Mousey

So, needless to say we slept very soundly last night knowing we and our children were safe from any unwelcome nocturnal visits.

Doron is now considering a career change, so please drop us a line or give us a call if you want him to take care of any unwelcome visitors. We'll get the job done. I guarantee you.

good bye Holy City, hello Modi'in

2010-10-29T21:24:00.006+02:00

Looks like these bi-annual reports are becoming the norm. It still makes me sad that I don't have more time to write, but I guess with two kids under one and a half at home with me ALL THE TIME, I have a decent enough excuse.

So where to begin? Well shortly after Amalia was born in June, we started looking for a new place to live. My husband got a really good new job that based him out of Tel Aviv - and provided him (us!) with a company car - but the commuting was a killer and he was soon pulling 14-15 hour days, coming home absolutely wiped and hardly ever got to see the kids (he left before they were up and came home after they were in bed). Obviously, we hardly got to spend any decent time together either and so we knew that we really had to move.

It was not a hard decision because the fact is we loathed and detested our apartment and couldn't wait to leave. Jerusalem we loved, the apartment we hated. To add fuel to the fire, our landlord became the landlord from hell once we told him we wanted to leave and soon the situation there became untenable. I couldn't wait to find a new place so we could pack up and get the hell out of there.

Problem was - where to move to? We had a list of basic criteria: decent commuting distance for Doron, good public transportation for me (until we are in a better situation financially and can afford to buy a car), a reasonably sized English-speaking community would also be nice (yes I know I am supposed to be all acclimatised and native Israeli by now, but the fact is I will ALWAYS think/dream/swear and speak in my native tongue no matter how good my Hebrew gets (although truth be told since I have been at "at-home mum" it's deteriorated no end. Although I can sing loads of kids songs in Hebrew thanks to the children's cable channel on TV!)

In terms of the apartment itself, well the most important thing was that it had to be either on the ground floor or have an elevator. Being on the third floor without an elevator and two babies (and nappy bag, groceries etc etc was a KILLER!) Some outdoor space would be great too, having gone without even the tiniest balcony in our last apartment we realised how important it was for us to have some outdoor breathing space.

We looked at a few cities and although we did see some nice places (most out of our budget unfortunately) nothing felt absolutely right and we were determined not to cave in and take a place out of desperation, only to end up in another nightmare accommodation situation.

Then a friend suggested Modi'in.

Modi'in is a very new city - Israel's first truly planned city in fact - that grew out of the coastal plain roughly halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv some seventeen years ago. There was literally nothing here before 1993, bar a few rural communities. Now Modi'in is home to almost 80,000 people. That's some pretty crazy population growth!

I actually visited an Australian family who were living in Modi'in back in 2003 when I was first in Israel and studying in Arad. I was only meant to spend Friday afternoon with them, but missed the last bus before Shabbat and so I found myself stuck there for the whole weekend. I don't remember much about that weekend (except cursing the fact that I was stuck there all weekend without so much as a change of underwear) but I do clearly recall what a gorgeous house this family lived in. It was two storey, with a basement and a large garden. I'd never seen anything like it in Israel. It was so.... western! However, outside the house all I can remember were dusty unsealed roads and lots and lots of empty space. "Who in their right mind would want to live here?" I thought to myself at the time. "It's in the middle of fucking nowhere!"

Well seven years later I am living here! With my Israeli husband and my two Israeli-born children. Me and 80,000 other people. There's still a lot of unpaved dusty roads and tons of construction (the other side of our street for example!) but what a testament to this insane country I have called home for almost four years now. Take a bit of arid land, put some decent town planning to good use and voila! a city custom-built for families. Loads of greenery, parks and playgrounds practically at the end of every street, schools, shops, malls - you name it, it's all here.

When I was still living in Hong Kong, the last place my family lived was a place called Discovery Bay, located on Lantau Island (on the opposite side of the island to where the airport is now). Disco Bay or "DB" as it was more commonly referred to by locals, was also an anomaly in HK. People lived in HOUSES (WHAT??) or condos or spacious apartments with lovely views of either the mountains or the sea. It was very nice, but also a little creepy. It was all a little bit too... sanitised... too clean... too organised... too artificial. So not Hong Kong. Where's the dirt? The pollution, the crud, the stench?

And that's how I thought Modi'in would be. Kind of the Disco Bay of Israel. Maybe even a little "Stepford Wives-ish". And it's because of this, my pre-conceptions of a place I hadn't seen in seven years and had only spent 24 hours in anyway, that initially I didn't even want to check it out as a possibility.

Well, when we were running out of options and every day in our Jerusalem apartment was killing me that little bit more that we decided what the hell, what can it hurt to check out the place?

Well, damn lucky we did. We drove into the city on a Friday morning with half a dozen or so apartments to see and Doron and I just looked at each other as we drove around. "Yup" we said, "this is the place." We just need to find the right apartment.

That, we discovered, was easier said than done. Modi'in is overwhelmingly populated by owner-occupiers. I read somewhere that only about 17% of all property here is rented. So lots of gorgeous places and not a whole lot of them up for rent. We were also approaching the big holiday season in Israel (Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, Sukkot) and NO ONE moves at this time. We were getting desperate. After months of searching for a place to live (practically every weekend was taken up with flat hunting - never fun, but totally not fun with little kids!) we were exhausted and more than a little bit despondent.

Then - finally - a new listing. It was advertised in the week between Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur. We called the owner and went to see it a couple of hours later. We came. We saw. We loved. We took it!

We really found a gem of an apartment. It might only be two bedroom, but while the children are so small, it's really not a big deal. It's full of sunshine during the day, and we have so much more living space, it's wonderful, such a luxury! And best of all, we have two HUGE terraces (combined probably the size of our old apartment!) that I can't wait to decorate with loads of plants, an outdoor table and chairs, the hammock we got from a friend for our wedding which is STILL in its wrapping paper and of course being the Aussie that I am - a BBQ!!

We moved three weeks ago and although we still have to put pictures up on the walls, it definitely feels like home - something our last place never felt like. We've got friendly neighbours, an amazing online community of residents who send helpful replies to my numerous questions and queries about life in Modi'in and tonight we discovered our local shul (synagogue). It's in the street behind ours, which is actually still being built. In fact, the only completed building is the synagogue. As we walked home with the kids in their Sherman tank (our affectionate name for our double stroller) we laughed as we realised that we were walking in the dark (no street lights here yet) down an unpaved street, my sandals filling with sand and building rubble. "This street is a building site and yet the one completed building is a synagogue". That really touched me. I hope it gives you a sense of our new home and the warm community we have found.

Here's a photo I took the other day of Liev and Amalia (Amalia had just rolled over onto her tummy for the first time and big brother Liev was pretty thrilled!) in our new home.

Shabbat Shalom from Modi'in!

Welcome to the world Amalia Devorah

2010-07-03T22:19:00.006+03:00

Hey, I've just ended almost 83 weeks of pregnancy (with a measly 12 week break in between having my son and getting pregnant with my daughter!) I don't think I need to apologise for my lack of blogging these last few months!

Obviously my most important news is the safe arrival of our daughter, Amalia Devorah. She was born on June 7th at 8.34am and weighing in a healthy 3.4kgs. Amalia is an old Hebrew name which means "God's Creation" and Devorah was Amalia's (paternal) great-grandmother. She didn't have a name at all until she was a couple of days old, but we're very happy with our final choice. We hope she is too when she is old enough to yell at us, "what the hell kind of name is Amalia??!!" Sorry darling.

Amalia Devorah and me

As you might also expect, it's been a pretty hectic last few months. Liev, our son, is doing brilliantly, thank God and he's now walking - ok, like a little drunk man, but he's loving his new found freedom and we're forever running after him trying to prevent imminent danger.

He's now going to daycare which he seems to really enjoy (well, most days) and especially seems to enjoy the Moroccan cuisine he eats each day freshly made by Zahava, the lovely lady who looks after him. Having him out of the apartment each day certainly makes life easier for me and frees up my time to look after Amalia, who for the most part (and I hope I'm not jinxing this!) is a very chilled little girl who sleeps and eats very well. She does possess a fine set of lungs though which she tends to exercise on a daily basis at least once.

I am not 100% sure what Liev makes of her. Initially, I think it was rather a shock to his system to see another little person at home. The first couple of days were rather teary and he was very clingy (totally to be expected). But now, almost four weeks on, I think he is rather enamoured by her and he loves to rest his head on her and cuddle her. Oh that melts our hearts...

Liev and his baby sister

My mother was here for a whole month and I seriously don't know how we could have managed without her. When she left last week I really was quite devastated. How were we going to cope on our own? Over the years, I've lost count of the tearful farewells I've had to make to my family, but somehow it seems to just get harder each time. I've been in Israel for three and a half years now and this was my mum's third visit in that period of time. The first time I was still single, the second time (only a year later!) was for my wedding and this visit (two years after the wedding) she arrived to meet her grandson for the first time and was here for the arrival of her granddaughter. What a blessing is that? Liev and my mum truly bonded, it was a beautiful thing to observe and utterly heartbreaking when my mum left. I am just grateful that Liev is still so young (he just turned 1) that he didn't understand she was leaving and doesn't yet have the memory to preserve her or note her absence.

Liev and his Safta Zelda

It never ceases to amaze me how life just has this weird way of working out. The last year or so have been tough for us. We had to move apartments and we settled on a place which was really unsuitable for us and we've grown to really hate it. My husband changed jobs and was full of hope that it would provide him with a long awaited career boost only to discover it was a dead-end. Money has been getting tighter and tighter and with baby # 2 just around the corner, we were really stressing about our crappy situation.

I really believe my mother's visit was a good omen. Almost as soon as she arrived, good things started to happen. My husband got invited for an interview for a great job. Then he got called back for a second, and then third interview and before my mum left we found out he got the job. On top of being a great job, it has several excellent perks - including a car! Yeah!

The job is in Tel Aviv and commuting would be hell, so we're moving to the Big Smoke in a couple of months, once Doron is settled in the new job and we've managed to find a good apartment. Initially, I resisted the idea of living in Tel Aviv, but I've actually come to be quite excited about the change. We've got a lot of good friends there, so that's a bonus to begin with, plus I have really missed living close to the sea and I can't wait to go for walks along the beach with my family. Culturally, Tel Aviv has a lot more to offer than Jerusalem (sorry dear city of mine, but it's true). I think it will be a good change for us, I really do.

So all in all, things are looking good. I miss my family desperately and we can't wait to go and visit them in Australia (probably in March next year) and thank God so far my dad is responding well to his cancer treatment. You'd think it would be easier for me to live so far away from them now that I am married and have my own family, but it's the opposite. I find it incredibly hard to live so far away. Now that I have children, I feel so sad that they don't get to enjoy having their grandparents around them. I didn't have mine around me when I was growing up in Hong Kong, so I know what it feels like. I don't think I want that for my kids, but I don't know how I solve that problem. That's something to deal with in the future I guess.

Well, it is WAY past my ridiculously early bedtime of 9pm (the only way I can guarantee several hours of sleep each night!) so I had better sign off for now. I can't promise a regular slew of blogs, but I can promise that I'll always check in to let you know about the milestones.

growing - metaphorically and literally

2010-02-12T09:36:00.005+02:00

Wow. Ok. Six months to the day since my last blog. I have given up apologising (even to myself) because as much as I would love to write more often, life at the moment just doesn't seem to allow that luxury! It's kind of insane to actually list all the things that have happened in my life in the last half year. Oh God. I hope this posting doesn't become a shopping list or one of those "End of Year Wrap Up" letters that people write when they can't be bothered to keep up to date with their friends on a regular basis. If it does, I apologise profusely now.

I'll also try and be as chronologically accurate as possible. If for no other reason, it will help clarify everything for myself and prevent me from writing an incomprehensible rambling of disconnected thoughts.

Ok, so not long after my last posting back in August 2009, my husband and I found ourselves in every parent's worst nightmare - rushing your baby to hospital. Liev was almost six months old, totally gorgeous and (we thought) totally healthy. One evening, we were up to our necks in packing boxes, frantically trying to finish packing up our apartment for the movers who were due to arrive at 7am the following morning. We thought we'd get Liev bathed and ready for bed nice and early so we'd have more time to get organised.

One moment I am holding my cherubic bundle of joy who was his regular smiley happy self and the next moment he is staring lifelessly at me, his body limp and the corners of his lips and nose turning blue. He was conscious, but it was if "the lights were on, but nobody was home."

I yelled for my husband to come and we both agreed something was horribly wrong with Liev, although we had NO idea what it possibly could be. Within 15 minutes we were at the emergency room of our nearest hospital. By the time we were on our way there, his colour was back to normal and he was able to acknowledge us, but he was incredibly tired and barely able to keep his eyes open. Slightly hysterical me didn't know if he was trying to sleep or falling into a coma.
I snapped my fingers at him and prodded him to keep him awake.

He was looked at immediately and the doctors started to run a series of tests - blood tests, heart tests, neurological tests. While all this was going on, Liev seemed to have returned to normal, so we were totally stumped as to what had happened to him at home. Had we imagined it? Or over-reacted?

The attending doctor told us that it was hospital policy to admit babies brought to the ER for 72 hours of observation. At that point, we could keep him there, or transfer him. Firstly, I was gutted we couldn't take him home, but then again, we were terrified it would happen again. We figured, we were already in a hospital (ok, not the BEST hospital in Jerusalem) but how bad could it be? It was just for observation, right? We decided to admit him.

For the next two days, my husband and I did shifts so one of us was always with Liev (I slept there). We also had to somehow move apartment. I have no idea how we did it, but we did. I think I was semi-conscious for most of it. I was running off a store of adrenaline I didn't even know I had. As soon as the boxes were in the new apartment and the food was shoved back in the refrigerator, I locked up and got back to the hospital to take over from Doron and settle in for our third (and we assumed) final night.

In the early hours of the morning, my son woke me with a strangled cry I had never heard before. I leaped out of bed and went to his cot. He was as rigid as a board and staring into space, unable to make eye contact with me. I picked him up and yelled for the nurses, whose apathy in coming to help me still makes my blood boil.

Once they realised the situation was serious, they took him from me and rushed him to the treatment room and called for the pediatrician. Liev was revived shortly after with some oxygen and then he fell into a deep sleep. The doctor arrived, looking none too pleased for having been woken up at 5am, and after a perfunctory look at Liev (although no medical history taken, or questions for me) decided to 'diagnose' Liev with dysentery. This - despite the fact he had never had a fever since being admitted, and didn't have diarrhoea or showed signs of dehydration - all classic symptoms of dysentery.

He prescribed antibiotics, which the nurse handed to me and told me to give him and well, that was it. I am obviously not a doctor, but I knew he was 100% wrong. Every cell in my body told me that. Meanwhile, Doron had arrived and we started to discuss what to do now. Not long after, Liev had another 'attack' - although this one was longer, and seemed more severe. More oxygen, and he was back with us - until he slumped into another coma-like sleep.

The doctor finally agreed to call an external pediatric neurologist and then it became deafeningly clear to us that Liev was in the wrong hospital. They had NO idea what was wrong with him, they didn't have the necessary specialists on staff and we were not about to let our baby become an 'experiment' for them to work with until they worked out what the hell was wrong with him. The most disturbing aspect of all of this is that some of the doctors, the nurses and even the doctor who performed the CT scan on him all told us in no uncertain terms to "get our baby the hell out of here and take him to one of the other hospitals where they could properly treat him". That's it, we thought. He's out of here. We told the doctors we wanted to transfer him.

We then found ourselves in a bureaucratic nightmare. The hospital refused to admit that they were unable to provide him with proper treatment and therefore would not pay to have him transferred by ambulance to another hospital, although they had no issue at all with discharging him. After speaking with a number of people, we determined the best hospital to take him to and decided to pay for the transfer ourselves, which also meant paying for a doctor privately to accompany him because the ambulance wouldn't take responsibility for a baby suffering regular seizures without a doctor on board.

It took about 7 hours, but finally we had him moved and despite the fact that Liev was still extremely sick (and we still didn't know what was wrong with him!) we were able to breathe considerably easier knowing we were in a good place that would take care of our baby properly.

Liev was in hospital another 3 days, during which time he was examined by several pediatric neurologists (including the head of the department), underwent a battery of tests and scans and finally diagnosed with infant seizures/childhood epilepsy. He was given an anti-seizure medication and the seizures completely stopped, almost immediately.

As devastating as it was to hear that Liev had epilepsy, we were given some encouraging news. His seizures (even the worst ones) were very mild on the epilepsy spectrum (he didn't fit, for example) and he only suffered a handful of them in a very short space of time, none of which had any lasting effect on his brain. The fact that a small amount of the drug they administered stopped the seizures almost instantly was also very encouraging as it told them his condition was mild and controllable. Although it's impossible to truly predict how his condition will develop and how long it will last, the doctors are reasonably confident that he is one of the majority of children who develop unexplained seizures in infancy who will just as suddenly and inexplicably grow out of them in early childhood. Well all I can say is, please God and Amen.

We were finally able to take Liev home almost a week after that traumatic first night he was rushed to hospital. He's been taking a daily dose of the anti-seizure medication ever since and so far, so good. He hasn't had another seizure. Tfu-tfu-tfu as us Yids say.

Yesterday, he finally underwent an MRI scan, the results of which we should have in a week or so when we go to see his neurologist. Hopefully, we'll also get a better idea of our path with him in the next 6 months or so.

So, if that experience wasn't stressful enough to deal with, I was also coping with being pregnant again - something we hadn't told anyone yet except our families. I was in my first trimester and I spent the week in hospital with Liev terrified the stress was going to cause me to miscarry. I didn't, thank God, and now I am developing a nice round belly and carrying a little sister for Liev who is due at the beginning of June.

Thinking our dramas were behind us as we settled into a routine in our new apartment and with Liev who was growing from strength to strength (he crawls, stands, babbles incessantly and waves hello to us which melts our hearts!) we were rocked with a new family drama. This time my father in Australia.

It started with a major heart attack that he suffered in December which resulted in an angioplasty procedure to place a stent in his artery which they discovered had a 90% blockage. Incredibly, my dad recovered well from his operation and was able to return home a week or so later. We thought that was the end of it until I received a text message from my brother a couple of weeks ago to say my dad was in hospital again, this time for an emergency operation to repair a ruptured bowel. A few days after his surgery (during which he suffered another heart attack) we received the devastating news that my father has cancer. At this stage, it's hard to know what the future holds. He's in a difficult situation because his severely weakened heart means that they can't operate for a few months to remove the tumour and even starting a course of chemotherapy has huge implications as the treatment will all but destroy his immune system - essential for his recovery from his heart attacks.

It's a delicate balancing act that his oncologist and cardiologist will have to navigate in the coming months. In the meantime, my dad has a remarkably positive outlook and attitude and I am so incredibly proud of him. It is unbearably hard to be on the other side of the world right now. I haven't seen my dad in 3 1/2 years - not since I left Australia to come to Israel at the end of 2006. Of course we talk regularly and skype each other with webcams, but it's not the same.

Going to Australia now to visit is not really an option as I am approaching my third trimester of pregnancy and that's hardly the time to start hopping on planes. Hopefully, we'll all be able to visit later in the year, with two babies in tow.

Reading back, I am kind of shocked at how dramatic this post is. It's a wonder I haven't become a total basketcase the last few months! Well, I am not a rock and there have certainly been more than a few occasions when it's all got too much for me and I've crumbled under the pressure. But I've also got through everything so far thanks to my amazing life partner, my husband Doron who has propped me up each and every single time I have felt like it's just all too much and my beautiful son who is the true light of my life and the precious cargo I am carrying in my belly at the moment whose persistent kicks remind me that she's around and part of the family already.

Once again, I have been made acutely aware of the fragility of life and how much we must truly bless what - and who - we have in our lives. When you finish reading this, please give your nearest and dearest a big hug and a kiss and tell them how much you love them.

Yours hormonally,
Me xx

life through a mother's eyes

2009-08-12T12:06:00.004+03:00

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

2009-06-20T19:59:00.004+03:00

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

2008-12-27T12:47:00.001+02:00

"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

2008-08-12T09:54:00.003+03:00

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

2008-07-04T21:54:00.002+03:00

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

2008-06-15T10:20:00.004+03:00

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

2008-05-07T09:25:00.011+03:00

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...

2008-03-24T09:58:00.008+02:00

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

2008-02-06T09:31:00.000+02:00

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

2008-01-13T14:53:00.000+02:00

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

2008-01-10T12:37:00.000+02:00

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...

2007-12-03T16:02:00.001+02:00

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!

a little news...

2007-11-04T15:36:00.000+02:00

So one thing I have discovered about living in Israel; life most certainly does not pass you by without you knowing it. Quite the opposite in fact. I seem to be highly tuned into the myriad changes in my life.

As I hinted in an earlier blog, I met someone a few months ago. In a rather short space of time, the relationship has grown and developed into something quite wonderful and last week we got engaged. It seems extraordinary that less than 12 months ago, I was preparing to leave Sydney, full of fear for the great unknown that lay ahead for me in Israel.

Next week my fiancé and I will be celebrating our engagement at the home of a good friend who has kindly offered to host a lechaim for us.

We haven't done much planning yet, so all we've decided upon is that we will be getting married here in Jerusalem sometime in June.

Updates to follow and I am sure the next six months or so will make for some very entertaining reading!!

new driver... watch out

2007-10-25T15:41:00.001+02:00

I feel like I have ventured bravely into new Israeli territory. No, I am not referring to anything vaguely political. I am talking about taking to Israel's roads as a new driver. This, trust me, is more terrifying than treading on any controversial ground in this country.

Technically speaking, I am not a "New Driver" or "נהג חדש" as they are referred to here (see tell-tale yellow sign above!) I do have an Australian driving license. I passed my test in 2000. The only problem is this - I haven't driven SINCE I passed my test - yes, the maths is easy. That was seven years ago.

At the time, I was convinced I was going to buy a car, but my chronic case of wanderlust flared up time and time again and each time I thought about buying a car, the money seemed to be so much better spent on an airfare to some exotic locale.

The deal for transferring an international license here in Israel is reasonably simple (in theory). Note to all prospective olim chadishim: when dealing with Israeli government departments, NOTHING is simple...

The basic rule is that in order to transfer your license with the minimum of fuss and stress, you must do so within 3 years of making aliyah. My problem is that my 3rd anniversary of making aliyah was spent in Sydney. I made aliyah in 2003, left in 2004 and returned properly at the end of 2006. I could prove that most of the time was spent outside Israel, but really, if the Licensing Authority wanted to be nasty about it, they could make me start the whole process from scratch (a minimum of 28 lessons, followed by a written (in Hebrew) test and practical test.
The simple transfer of a license simply involves taking a basic practical test only.

So here's the (simple) little process I had to go through:

Step 1: First of all, my mother had to get Vic Roads to issue me with a letter stating when my license was originally issued (Aussie driving licenses only state the date of expiry) and with that came my exemplary record. Not a single traffic offense in seven years, not a single speeding ticket. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch! "Wow", they must have thought at the Vic Roads offices, "what a remarkable driver! We should put her in a road safety campaign ad on TV! She could be our poster girl!"

Sorry. Fantasizing again.

Step 2: The next step in the process is to go to one of two Licensing Authority-approved optometrists in Jerusalem for an eye exam.

(I passed).

Step 3: Take the form you got at the optometrists (signed and stamped) and now go to your GP for a "medical exam". This in reality means you spend 60 seconds in your doctor's office while he/she ticks that you are in perfect health. Another signature and another stamp.

Step 4: Now you can go to the Licensing Authority itself together with every bit of paperwork you have ever received as an Oleh Chadash (new migrant). Take a number and wait until your number appears (approximately 3 hours later).

Step 5: Get shoved from one clerk to another and then another only to be told at the end of my more than a three hour wait that I am missing some paperwork and they can't help me. I need to find the missing paperwork and then come back again.

Step 6: Hold back tears.

Step 7: Hold back the urge to punch something or somebody very hard.

Step 8: Go home. Dig out extra paperwork (a couple of ancient "Teudat Ma'avar" - travel documents your get before you are given a full Israeli passport) and check again that I have absolutely EVERYTHING with me this time.

Step 9: Brave another visit to the Licensing Authority, take another number, make myself comfortable on the cold metal bench and was shocked that my number came up in less than an hour.

Step 10: Experience the obligatory "shove" from one clerk to another. (Clearly my case is not a simple one. Only Norit at counter 2 can deal with me).

Step 11: Norit tries to fob me off and tells me I need to get more paperwork from the Ministry of Absorption. I politely tell her where she can go and that I am not going anywhere until she deals with my problem. (See, I am becoming a REAL Israeli!) My aggression and persistence pays off and Norit signs my forms allowing me to simply take the practical test in order to be issued with an Israeli license.

Step 12: Punch the air and leap with joy upon exiting Licensing Authority.

Now the real problems begin...

As I mentioned earlier, I have not driven a car in seven years.
In addition to this, I have never driven in a car with the steering wheel on the left side of the car and I have never driven on the other side of the road (as they do in America, most of Europe etc). Finally - I have never driven in Israel and frankly, all the other reasons combined don't begin to compare to the fear I have of getting behind the wheel of a car in this country and putting myself as the mercy of every meshuggenah out there!

A good friend of mine recommended her driving instructor, a lovely lady called Emanuela.
Emanuela teaches women almost exclusively and her firm, confident manner is actually very comforting and reassuring. I couldn't believe that on my first lesson (earlier this week) I was whizzing around the outer suburbs of Jerusalem and reasonably confidently too!

I will definitely need to take a few lessons before I feel confident enough to take the test. But at 110 shekels (about $35 Australian dollars) a pop, I can't afford to take TOO many lessons! I know $35 doesn't sound like a lot of money, but hey! I am earning shekels now friends!

Hopefully I will soon be the proud owner of an Israeli driving license and maybe even a CAR!
I promise, my wanderlust condition is well under control these days!

New Year... new beginnings

2007-09-19T12:25:00.000+02:00

I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I just checked and to be honest, I didn't think it had been quite this long!

It's not that I haven't had a lot to say or that my experiences haven't been worthy of recording, but I guess what has begun to happen - and this is not a bad thing - my life is finally settling down. It seems that the months and months (maybe years!!) of frenetic soul-searching, tension and stress about making the big move to Israel are finally behind me.

As I enter my tenth month here in Israel, I can already look back and feel proud of what I have achieved. There is something beautiful about tracking the year and your personal progress against the ancient Hebrew calendar. I arrived at the beginning of Hanukkah. I wrote about the winter wonderland that was Jerusalem. The aroma of fresh, hot jam doughnuts that permeated the streets, the beautiful Hanukkiot that lit up the city streets and crunching snow beneath my feet...

In March came Purim - a festival for the child within all of us. I wrote about the joy of seeing children in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv dressed up in their fancy-dress best. A month later it was Pesach (Passover) and I made it home just in time from a business trip in New York. To be surrounded by my wonderful relatives here in Israel and my dear friend Elisabeth from my WUJS days made it an extremely special time for me. I remember thinking as I boarded the flight from New York to Israel that this was the first time I was flying "home" to Israel from another place. The place I was flying to contained my apartment, and all my (modest) worldly possessions - including my slightly psychotic, but very lovable cat, Sydney.

Hot on the heels of Pesach was the ternary period of Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'Atzmaut - a time of great inner reflection, public mourning that turns into public celebration as the sun sets. A uniquely Israeli phenomenon if there ever was one.

Last week we celebrated the beginning of a new year. Rosh Hashanah 5768 (that's 2007-08 to the rest of the world!) It seems like only yesterday that I was in shul at this time back in Sydney, contemplating the year that was and fretting about the year that would be. I remember thinking how the year ahead was a total black hole. I had no idea where I would be in twelve months, what I would be doing, where my life would take me...

Well, הנני here I am. When I walk to work in the morning, I can spy the walls of the ancient walled city of Jerusalem and every morning they never cease to fill me with wonder and awe.
I love to come at night to my little apartment and my cat who rolls around the floor in sheer delight that I am home.

This new year has also brought with it the promise of love. A wonderful man has come into my life and we both think it could only have been divine intervention that brought us together.

So the year ahead looks good. In fact, it looks wonderful.

To all my friends, I want to wish you shana tova u'mtuka (a sweet New Year) and may we all be inscribed for a good year full of health, joy and blessings.

tree hugging in the arava

2007-08-06T19:43:00.000+03:00

This past weekend marked a very important milestone -- I hugged my first tree.

Before you all panic and think I have become a tree hugging feral hippy, I should perhaps elucidate my story somewhat.

Last weekend, my friend Eloise, who is visiting Israel for the first time from Australia and I went to stay with my dear friend Yonatan who lives on kibbutz Ketura in the Arava desert, about 50 kilometres north of Eilat.

We left Jerusalem, along with half the city making their weekend-away trek to destinations all over the country, on a hot and humid Thursday afternoon. The journey, by bus, takes about four hours with a brief stop along the way for that all-important toilet pit-stop and coffee refill. As we got off the bus to stretch our legs, we were hit by a blast of hot, dry desert air, easily 35 degrees even though it was after 8pm at night.

We arrived at the kibbutz sometime after 9pm and after a short walk to Yonatan's house, we were exhilarated to walk into an air conditioned paradise.

Yonatan lives in a small, but well-proportioned open-plan house. While not what people would call "flash", his warm and hamishe (as my mother would say) home has all the comforts one could ask for. The three of us yakked away until the wee hours before eventually falling asleep like three kids at a slumber party.

Just a few hours later, although in kibbutz-language this was equivalent to a serious and indulgent sleep-in, one of the local kibbutz children knocked on Yonatan's door, but when no one opened up, the ingenious little tike decided to try the back door instead. Clever kid. I vaguely recall opening one eyelid and seeing a gorgeous little boy in a bright red t-shirt asking Yoni, as he called him, to help him with something. Exactly what, my brain wasn't quite up to par to comprehend.

Somehow we all managed to drift off into la la land once more and only woke up sometime around 11am. Bliss...

When we eventually left the house for lunch in the communal dining hall (chadar ochel), it was by far the hottest part of the day. With my combination of Polish and Scottish/English genes (interesting combination, I know) I quickly realised that I was not really designed for such a harsh environment. I found myself almost able to gulp heavy chunks of hot air that even managed to drain my eyeballs of fluid.

Meals on the kibbutz were a loud, somewhat frenetic affair, crowded with people who both lived and volunteered on the kibbutz. There were also a large group of teenagers visiting from Canada. The atmosphere was full of joyous energy, warmth of spirit and enthusiastic eating.

After lunch, the three of us decided to head back to the house for a bit of a siesta. After all, it had been a hard day so far! Later in the afternoon when the sun was slightly less harsh, although the temperature, in my mind at least, had not really dropped, we walked over to the pool for a refreshing dip. As I floated in the cool water, I looked around me at the breathtaking scenery. Talk about a literal oasis in the desert.

We headed back to Yonatan's in order to get ready for Shabbat. The community at Ketura is truly pluralistic, with warm and inclusive lay led services in the local synagogue, followed by a lovely Shabbat meal in the chadar ochel.

The three of us went for a walk around the kibbutz to walk off dinner and eventually came across a beautiful baobab tree. Baobabs are known for their extremely wide trunks, which store literally thousands of litres of water in order to survive the harsh drought conditions of the region.

People might remember in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's story The Little Prince, the Little Prince was worried that baobabs (described as "trees as big as churches") would grow on his small asteroid, take up all the space and even cause it to explode. There's something ancient, regal and even a little sad about this disproportionate-looking tree, and when Eloise declared that we should all join hands in a group tree hug, I soon found myself tightly grasping my friends' hands as we created a unbroken chain around the big grandfatherly tree.

If there was one place on earth that people wouldn't blink twice at a stumbling across a trio hugging a tree in the dark, I think it would be kibbutz Ketura.
As much as I could go on and on about the stark beauty of the place, it does not begin to compare to the beauty of the people who live within it.
I cannot recall a time when so many strangers offered such warm smiles, such genuine hospitality and opened their homes to me.

People are often cynical about the kibbutz movement, which is sadly slowly dying a death in many parts of Israel, so it was utterly refreshing to see that in Ketura, the original socialistic kibbutz dream is alive and well. It was beautiful to see children actually being children, running around carefree, blissfully unaware of the congested and polluted concrete jungles most children grow up in (myself included). I can't think of a better place to bring up kids.

Kibbutz Ketura has also recently taken in two refugee families from Darfur. I saw one of the families in the dining hall for Friday night dinner and part of me wanted to cry. It may only be two small families, but those families would have most certainly been facing an otherwise unpredictable, if not incredibly precarious future had the people of Ketura not opened up their hearts to these people who have experienced the kind of horror we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

We spent Shabbat morning enjoying a lazy brunch at Yonatan's who cooked up a mean omelette. His neighbour Randy also dropped by to join us, bringing with her a bowl of freshly sliced mango chilled over ice cubes and a jar of delicious homemade jam which had been made by another local kibbutznik.

If you are really, really blessed, you might be lucky enough to meet a Randy in your lifetime. Randy is one of those rare human beings who make you really love life. Not so long ago, she was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of cancer that should have killed her in a pretty short space of time. It didn't.

This incredibly brave woman who proudly shows off her bald head and refuses to feel sorry for herself - or allow others to feel pity for her for that matter - inspired me with her lust for life and unquenching desire to live each day with meaning and purpose.

As the sun set on the desert, and the Sabbath bride left us for another week, I prepared to make the inevitable journey back home to Jerusalem. As much as I love living in the Holy City, there is something about the desert landscape that makes my heart both sing with joy and ache with such a pain I cannot fathom where it comes from. It is even hard to articulate exactly what it is that I mean.

It’s as if what I see around me is as familiar as my own body. The land speaks to my soul like some ancient language that doesn’t need translating. I breathe in deeply and fill my lungs with the clean, crisp hot air. Sometimes I feel like I can inhale indefinitely here.

I hugged Yonatan goodbye and boarded the bus back to Jerusalem. Despite the cool comfort of the air conditioning, I smiled to myself as I could still feel the heat emanating from my slightly sunburnt shoulders. It was worth the discomfort, I thought to myself. At least for a couple of days, until the redness faded, I could carry the joyous weekend spent at kibbutz Ketura around with me. It was even worth the 3,000 new freckles I developed.

when sexuality becomes a battleground

2007-06-23T18:45:00.000+03:00

Two years ago, on June 30, 2005, a religious Jewish man stabbed three people during clashes between the ultra Orthodox Jewish community and the gay and lesbian community in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.

In 2006, due to a wave of extreme protest from Orthodox groups, Jerusalem’s Gay Pride street parade was cancelled, and instead people celebrated inside a sports stadium where at least their safety could be somewhat guaranteed.

This year, with good reason, the security was tighter than ever in order to protect the marchers in what is arguably Jerusalem’s most controversial annual demonstration.

As a former Sydney-sider, who has enjoyed many a Sydney Mardi Gras, this was a whole new experience for me. As I left my Jerusalem office on Thursday last week, I discovered to my dismay that all the main roads leading to the city centre had been closed off to traffic and in place of the normal end of day traffic jams, there were literally thousands of police, soldiers and medics.

Hundreds of street barricades had been set up from the night before, and forced the swelling crowd of regular (and somewhat frustrated) commuters just trying to get home, parade supporters, Orthodox Yeshiva students practicing their best heckling efforts and a healthy sprinkling of curious onlookers to squeeze into a small space along the side of the road.

At a cost to the Israeli tax payer of some 13,000,000 New Israeli Shekels (approximately 3.6 million Australian dollars) some 8,000 police safe-guarded the march this year, which only attracted about 2,000 people, despite the hopeful parade organizers anticipation of 5,000 marchers.

Included in the impenetrable security were 200 medics, 45 ambulances, 11 mobile intensive care units and a field command center with additional medics on standby.

From my viewpoint on the street, I could see wall-to-wall police and army units standing guard with guns, batons and bullet proof vests. Looking above, I could even see police on the roof of the nearby King Solomon hotel and a helicopter above surveying the crowd below.

I stood and waited patiently in the sweltering Israeli summer heat, hoping for a glimpse of this infamous parade. To see, with my own eyes, exactly what all the fuss was about.

The parade itself runs a mere 500 metres down King David Street, and hardly has the opportunity to move because of the sheer number of people squashed into such a small stretch of road.

Instead, the parade marchers, and a very sedate, polite group at that, patiently stood in place, waving the odd banner such as “Democracy In, Violence Out” and “Love without Boundaries” and held up high a multi-coloured archway of balloons, signifying the rainbow flag, the international symbol of gay and lesbian community pride.

Safely behind barriers and a wall of policemen, stood the protesters. In stark contrast to the colourfully-clad crowd of marchers, these dour men in their signature Orthodox black and white clothes held up placards like “Get Well Soon”.

Still, to go back my comparison of Sydney’s world-famous event, there was not a float or drag queen in sight – and the thought of a group of gay and lesbian police or military personnel marching down Jerusalem’s streets is sadly, an unimaginable vision.

The man next to me on his mobile phone was obviously reporting the events to a friend. “No, no music. It’s not Tel Aviv.”

Nearby a group of religious young American men discussed the parade amongst themselves; “It’s a sickness”, said one.

“Yes, but I think they can be cured” contemplated his friend.

“You make me sick!” yelled an angry dreadlocked American girl. “Do you realise you are shitting on God’s words?”

The incensed girl and some of her friends entered into a war of words with the religious boys which soon erupted into a brief, but volatile scuffle, causing the police to intervene and scores of photographers eagerly waiting to snap up a controversial photo that would grace the pages of tomorrow’s papers.

In the middle of all this chaos, a tour group of young American students got stuck in a bottleneck on the pavement. Their group leader at the front turned around and yelled to his bewildered charges “Just push! Push your way through.”

Meanwhile, a nearby Italian bistro with a birds-eye view of the action was doing a roaring trade, although I am sure the majority of the customers weren’t so hungry for the food as they were the hope of catching a piece of the action.

As I finally made my way through this nightmarish crowd, I turned back and looked behind me.

I realised all of a sudden how utterly different an environment I was now living in. I am not suggesting that Australia doesn’t have its fair share of homophobes and angry protesters, but who could imagine Sydney’s world famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras reduced to Fort Knox-like military protection because a bunch of crazy people who despite proclaiming their intense religious convictions believe it is perfectly acceptable to physically hurt – even kill – another human being because they disagree with their personal lifestyle choice.

Funny, last time I checked, “Thou Shalt Not Kill” was one of the Top 10 No-no’s.

When most of the world thinks of Israel; their minds turn to the Middle East conflict and no doubt conjures up images of war-torn cities with bombs going off every five minutes. Well, I can assure you that my life is not remotely like you would imagine it, and in fact, is gratifyingly normal most of the time.

Some of the greatest battles being fought in this country are not between Jew and Arab, but between Jew and Jew. If only we could conjure up some compassion for one another, we might be able to start fixing some of our myriad other problems.

chai anxiety

2007-06-11T21:01:00.000+03:00

Firstly, for my non-Jewish friends and readers, a little Judaism 101:

In Judaism, the Chai symbol consists of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet Het (חַ) and Yod (י). In the Hebrew language, the word chai (חַי) spelled by these two letters means "living", and is related to the word for "life". It's pronounced with a strong guttural "ch"and not as in the Indian tea, "chai".

Over the years, I have acquired a few Chai pendants. The first Chai I was given was a gift from my Northern Irish lapsed-Protestant boyfriend when I was about 19 years old and living in Belfast. He actually managed to find what was probably the only Chai in the country.

Ironically enough, my ex-boyfriend's mother used to work for a Jewish family who owned a jewelry business. Years later, he remembered the family and went to visit their store to see if he could purchase some kind of Judaica for me. The family, who hadn't seen him since he was a small boy, were in typical gushing Jewish fashion, thrilled and overwhelmed that the little Proddie Belfast lad they had known had grown up only to fall in love with a nice Jewish girl.

Such naches!

Of course the lapsed Protestant's parents had segued from wishy-washy Protestantism to full blown born-again Christianity. Yup. We're talking serious God Squad people. Christians with a capital "C".

I can't say they were thrilled with the fact that their only son was dating a Jewish girl, but it was a heck of a lot better than being a Catholic. They might be born-agains, but by jove, they never forgot their roots!

For over a year my boyfriend’s mother worked steadily on trying to get us to come to their church. Their “church” was more like a convention centre; it was a monster of a building; that literally held thousands of people. The Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle was reportedly one of the largest churches in Britain and people as far away as Dublin would drive up in the wee hours of Sunday morning just to attend and hear its charismatic preacher.

When his mother realised that she was getting nowhere with me, she went back to targeting her son. It’s not just Jewish mothers that are blessed with the art of laying guilt. Soon enough I had my boyfriend approach me and basically beg that I go with him. “Just the once”, he promised. “It would make them so happy. Please.”

The next thing I know I am in the car with boyfriend and potential future outlaws hurtling our way to The Church of God. What was I thinking? How did I get roped into this? I was consumed by paranoia; if Jews go to hell, I am surely on my way. This is just not right!

It was actually worse that I had imagined, if that were possible. Nothing could have possibly prepared me for the experience I was about to have. I walked into this mammoth structure and discovered that it had been designed to almost stadium proportions. And deep in the dead centre was a 360° pulpit. There was not a corner of the church this man could not see and preach to.

As we took our seats, I looked around me. There was not a spare seat in the house. I was introduced ad nauseam to friends of his parents. You could see the pride in their eyes that their son and son’s girlfriend were at church with them. I knew it was a significant moment in their eyes, but to me it was playing a sick and twisted game of Happy Families.

The Preacher took his place on the pulpit and for what seemed a lifetime, he circled the hall with his eyes and then he closed them. He asked that everyone close their eyes and pray. Pray to the Lord Jesus. Pray for forgiveness and pray that one more soul be saved that day. He boasted that not one single Sunday service had gone by in the history of their church when a soul had not been saved. “Close your eyes!” he yelled. “Praise the Lord!”

Having not closed my eyes, I looked around me. Like I had seen on television, people had their arms in the air and their eyeballs visibly rolled to the back of their heads. It’s like they were literally trying to invoke Christ himself. A shiver ran down my spine. A cold sweat began to bead on my forehead. I had to get out of there. I thought I was going to be sick. I turned to my boyfriend. I thought if I looked at him, he would see the desperation in my eyes and know what I was feeling. But he had his eyes closed too. I squeezed his hand to get his attention. He looked at me and his eyes said, “Just close your eyes. Just do it. This will all be over soon.” But I just couldn’t do it. Every cell in my body was saying “Get out! Run while you still can!”

My boyfriend’s parents were deep in the moment. With closed eyes and an expression of serene devotion on their faces I felt utterly helpless. I was stuck in this giant cell and standing at each end of the row was a man that looked more like a bouncer in a nightclub than an innocent church warden. In their dark, severe suits, they looked like they would be ready to zap me with a ray gun should I try to escape.

Clearly this single day in my life some fifteen years ago had a significant effect on me.

In my whole life, I don’t think I have ever felt less Jewish than when I lived in Belfast. Only two things mattered in Belfast; whether you were Catholic or Protestant. It’s like there was nothing in between.

I experienced this first hand when I was offered a job on a radio show. Before I could start, I had to fill out an Employment Declaration Form, which was a bit of a misnomer, what it really should have been called was a Religion Declaration Form. Except that wouldn’t have been politically correct, not that there was anything politically correct about living in Northern Ireland. When you got down to it, the only piece of relevant information on that form was what religion you were. It was designed to prevent discrimination and to ensure that there was a balanced number of Catholics and Protestants in the workplace, especially in ghetto areas, where one group reigned supreme.

When it got to the bit on the form where I had to write down my religion (surely this is not ethical I told myself) I discovered that there were only two options; a box to tick if I was Protestant and a box to tick if I was Catholic.

“Umm. Excuse me.” I asked my future employer. “I am not quite sure what to put here.”
He looked at me, and didn’t quite see what the problem was.
“It’s quite simple dear. Just tick the appropriate box.”
“But I am neither.”
I think it took a while for the information to click. “But what do you mean? Then what are you?”
“I’m Jewish.”
“Jewish? You don’t look Jewish.”
(By the way, what does a Jew look like actually? I have yet to work this one out)
“Well, I am. Should I write that down?”
“Yes, definitely dear. In fact, why don't you draw another little box, write 'Jewish' underneath and tick that."
He mulls this information over in his head for a few moments. “Actually this is wonderful.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, we were one Protestant over and now you balance the books perfectly.”

I wore my Chai with pride in Belfast, and Hong Kong, and Singapore and Australia and yes, I think that covers all the countries I have lived in to date.

Wearing a Chai in the Diaspora is not a particularly overt symbol, and definitely less recognisable to non-Jews than say, a Star of David. In fact, most of my friends had no idea what it was.

"Is it a camel? With its head off to one side?'
"Is it a what?"

This morning I decided, for whatever reason, to dig out my little gold Chai from Belfast, which I haven't worn for years. As I fastened the tiny clasp around my neck I thought to myself, how utterly unremarkable a symbol it is here in Israel. I don't mean to diminish its significance, but quite frankly, they are a dime a dozen here. Nobody would bat an eyelid here if you wore one.

Or so I thought.

I learned something very interesting today at work. Wearing one in Israel (as was pointed out to me not once, but twice today) has quite a lot of meaning after all. It means you are "arsim" – or in my case, being female, a "frecha".

What this roughly translates to (at least in Australian terms) is a Mega Wog. If I were a guy, I would be wearing half a pot of gel in my hair, my tight shirt would be unbuttoned to the navel, my hairy chest would be adorned with gold chains and I would smell like the men's aftershave department of David Jones. I would also be driving some souped up Italian convertible that I would hoon up and down Chapel St (if i lived in Melbourne, that is) on a 'Sat-day nite'.

Get the picture?

In the space of a second, my long and closely held beliefs about this little symbol had been turned upside down all because of a little thing called "context".

Worn outside it's natural environment, I felt I was making a subtle statement about my identity. Look at me world! I am a Jew, and I am proud.

Conversely, worn here in Israel, on 'home turf'' it means nothing more than a rather unsophisticated, and tasteless display of garish fashion.

If anything, today's revelation only reinforced something that has been swimming in my brain for months now. To quote Descartes, "Cogito, ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am".

That's the difference about being a Jew and being a Jew living in Israel.

You. Just. Are.

In some ways, it's a no-brainer. Perhaps this is partly the reason behind why so many of us who decide to make aliyah and live in Israel spend a significant part of our initial adjustment to life here struggling with our identities and trying to make sense of something so abstract that it makes our heads hurt attempting to attach logic and reasoning to our otherwise utterly illogical actions.

My colleagues seemingly innocent comments today were, I have decided, a bit of an inverted compliment. What they were really saying to me was, "Come on. You are one of us now. You're an Israeli. It's time to look the part."

Who would have ever suspected that fishing out an old, sentimental piece of jewelry from a long ago ex-boyfriend would have resulted in such a flood of memories and such deep contemplation?

Let's go back to our little Judaism 101 class.

Some say Chai refers to the Living G-d; others say it simply reflects Judaism's focus on the importance of life. Whatever the reason, the concept of Chai is important in Jewish culture. Gematrically, the Chai is equivalent to the number 18, which represents the life-force and is why Jews traditionally give charity in multiples of 18.

And finally let's not forget L'Chaim (to life), the quintessential Jewish toast.

Every day in this new country of mine challenges me, stretches me and forces me to question everything I ever thought and knew.

And to that I say -

L'chaim!

Domestic bliss - at last

2007-05-20T22:06:00.000+03:00

Looking back, the last few weeks have been a complete blur. It started with the nail-biting last minute arrival of my container - a whole 24 hours before my mother arrived. I had a whole one day to unpack and vaguely organise my delivery of 57 boxes.

As the two sturdy young men wheeled in box after box, I wondered to myself, "did I really pack up this much stuff in Australia?"

Crossing off each box against the inventory, I instructed the men to either dump them in the living room, bedroom, kitchen or in the end, any piece of spare floor they could find.

I could have cried with joy when my beloved bed was carried in. They put it together for me while I made them a cup of coffee and brought them some homemade brownies (after they left I realised they hated my coffee and devoured my brownies).

Within an hour, the life I had so bewilderingly packed up six months ago in Australia (see my earlier blog) was now strewn across my Jerusalem apartment and I barely knew where to begin.

To really put the icing on the cake, it was a swelteringly hot day and I had neither air-conditioner, nor fan. I was in for a long, hot day.

By about midnight I had basically unpacked most of the boxes and amazingly found homes for almost everything. After washing some bedding, I was able to make my bed - although Syd, my cat, had discovered the comfort of my queen size mattress almost as soon as the men had assembled it. Smart cat.

I really don't think I can describe to you the sheer unadulterated pleasure of sleeping in my own bed again that night. I would have stayed there quite happily for the next week if I had been able to. Unfortunately I had to get up for work the next morning, but it was still the best sleep I had had in months.

My mum arrived in Israel the next morning (told you it was a nail biter!) but thankfully I had managed to get my apartment in reasonable order in time for her arrival.

My mother's trip was primarily for work, but naturally it was also to see me. In the end, it worked out very well with both of us essentially working on the same days and then being able to take a few days out just for us. We had a lovely couple of days visiting the Southern Golan Heights and Jordan Valley. One night we stayed in a beautiful cabin on Kibbutz Charuv which had a spectacular view overlooking the Kinneret (Sea of Galillee). In the morning, our breakfast was delivered in a wicker basket and filled with all sorts of goodies; freshly baked bread and croissants, homemade jams, cheese, olives, yoghurt, juice - even the morning paper.

Through an Israeli friend, based in Melbourne, we were incredibly fortunate to be driven and personally guided by a lovely woman called Sari for two days while we visited the Golan Heights.

Sari took us to visit a number of talented artists all working in the region. We met with a jewelry designer, a ceramic artist and tile maker, a mosaic artist and we even had the opportunity to visit the workshop of one of only three people in Israel who make shofarim (the horns that are used as a musical instruments and blown primarily on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur).

The less than two weeks with my mother seemed to disappear in an instant and before I knew it, she was heading back home again. Now, saying goodbye to my family is nothing new. I moved overseas on my own for the first time when I was only 19 years old and I have basically been on the move ever since. However, there was something about this time that felt different. Never before have I gone to such lengths (not to mention expense!) to move, and seeing all my things here in Israel certainly created a sense of permanency for both of us as we realised that in all likelihood, this was not a "brief jaunt" overseas.

This was something far greater than that. Me, my life and all that I own is now in Israel. As much as it was a relief for me to finally have everything here, I can also see how my mother would see it as a very obvious and visible sign that I won't be coming back to Australia any time soon.

As I approach my six month anniversary in Israel, I can already start to look back and appreciate all that I have achieved and how far I have already come. Right now it is only natural that I should miss my family even more than usual and I am dealing with the unique heartache that comes with making aliyah and leaving your loved ones behind.

Intertwined with my sadness is the joy I receive whenever I look at my things and realise that contained in everything around me is a little piece of my family and friends and finally I feel that my fractured heart is slowly and invisibly mending itself.

dance like nobody is watching

2007-04-24T14:06:00.000+03:00

Last night I went to a Yom Ha'atzmaut BBQ in Jerusalem's German Colony. I actually saw a few people I knew, which always surprises me. I still assume being a relative newcomer to Jerusalem, I am unlikely to bump into anyone I know.

I started chatting with a nice Israeli guy who told me about this dance event that was happening around the corner. He was going along later and asked if I wanted to come. To be honest, I had nothing better to do and well to be really honest... I love a boogie (but that won't come as a surprise to those of you who really know me!).

I went along to this "thing" with a totally open mind. I had no idea what I was going to, or whether I would love it or hate it. I'll admit that when I had to pay 45 shekels to get in, I was really hoping I would love it!

Things were only just getting going when we arrived at around 11.30pm. In a large hall, there were about 50 or 60 people all dancing in their own little worlds. No one was dancing with each other; there was no 'couple dancing' in sight (yeah!) and everyone seemed totally unaware that anyone else was dancing around them.

I think I am gonna like this, I thought to myself. I scanned the room and marvelled at the diverse group around me. Young and old, religious and secular, hippies and super trendies... it was a come one, come all. I loved it!

Soon the hall was filled with literally hundreds of people. The DJ played a weird and wonderful mixture of contemporary (Israeli and Western) music, techno, hip hop, African and Indian beats, as well as good old fashioned "rikudei am" - traditional Israeli dancing songs. Whenever an old kibbutz favourite was played, large groups of men and women would instantaneously form and a frenzied circle of Israeli dancing would commence. It was dizzying and exciting and even when I was barely left with a breath in my body I couldn't help but think how unique this gathering of people was.

It was so unmistakably Israeli in its feel and flavour. Unlike the revolting nightclubs I remember being dragged to aeon's ago, this was something all together different. There were elderly men getting down and boogying hard to some seriously funky hip hop beats... and there were young teenagers screaming every word to classic Israeli folk songs.

People danced with passion and joy and utterly free of self consciousness. By 2.30am, I had danced my little bare feet off and I was most definitely ready to hobble home.

I found out from my new Israeli friend that this was not an unique occurrence. The organisation that put this event together (appropriately enough called "Boogie nights"!) run these dancing nights every two weeks. I think I have just found my new hobby!

Here are some photos I took last night. I only wish they could really capture the essence of such a magical night.
(You can click on the photos to see them at their full size)

The bitter sweet side of Israeli life

2007-04-23T19:22:00.000+03:00

Today is Yom HaZikaron (Israel's Memorial Day) which honours all those who have died not only in military conflict, but also all the innocent civilians killed in terror attacks. Over 22,000 people have died since Israel declared independence in 1948 - and of course, most of them since the 1967 war onwards. At 8pm last night and 11am this morning a siren rang out throughout Israel and everyone stopped what they were doing, stood up and was silent for two minutes.

The day has a heavy and oppressive air about it. The radio plays non-stop sad songs and people speak more quietly than usual.

The strangest thing about Yom HaZikaron is that at about 7pm tonight when it ends, Israeli Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) begins and people strip themselves of their sadness and mourning and go out and celebrate. There are huge parties, BBQ's, people in the streets, fireworks - the lot. The first time I witnessed this transformation I thought it was the weirdest - bordering on sick and bizarre - thing I had ever experienced. How can a country go from mourning to celebrating in a matter of minutes???

I came to realise slowly that the two holidays are deliberately sandwiched together. It's a fact, and a sad fact, that Israel's history is scarred by tragedy and continues to exist in a state of alert and fear because of our lovely, peace-loving neighbours.

Israel's hard-fought freedom in 1948 came at a heavy price, and it's a price we are still paying for. It's a bittersweet joy, a mixed blessing, but despite all the pain and suffering, there is still a lot to celebrate and be joyful for (believe it or not!). That Israel even exists is, in itself, a miracle.

People often refer to native-born Israelis as “Sabras.” The Sabra is a desert cactus – prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside. Israel is a cactus too. It needs to have a strong defensive exterior to protect itself. It needs to protect itself so that the inside – its people – can survive. And they do. Yom Ha’atzmaut is more than a celebration of independence. It is a celebration of survival. And that is every reason to celebrate.

A few weeks ago, I was asked by the Australian Jewish News to write an article for their Yom Ha'atzmaut supplement. For all of you that didn't see it (probably because you don't live in Australia!) this is the story I wrote:

For a long time, I was the only Jewish kid in my school. A thousand-something non-Jews, and me. That is, until Tali Zuilkowsky came along. Suddenly the Jewish population of Hong Kong’s decidedly colonial King George V School had doubled. To make matters even worse, Tali not only had a Jewish sounding name (unlike my very non-Jewish sounding name), she came from Israel. She was a REAL Jew. As Jewish as they come, I thought.

She spoke with this sing-songy accent that all the girls thought was cool and all the boys swooned at. With her long red curls and glowing olive skin, she looked like she had come right off the kibbutz. She was exotic, she was kind, she was popular and I hated her.

Of course, deep down I wanted to BE Tali Zuilkowsky. As much as it makes me cringe today, I distinctly remember having a conversation with her one day at school. You see, I had immediately introduced myself as the “other Jew” in school, some kind of territory-marking ritual probably. In order to bond with Tali as much as possible, I made up some story about all the relatives I had in Israel. With an excited edge in her voice she said “oh really? Where do they live?”

And that’s where I stumbled. “Uhh. Well I have so many relatives and well, they are all over the country really. Some live near Haifa, some near Netanya, oh and Tel Aviv of course.” (By now, I had practically run out of all the places in Israel I’d heard of). I was, of course, lying through my teeth. The great irony was that I did have a slew of relatives living in Israel, but it would take another fifteen years or so before I would discover them.

I look back now, all those years ago growing up in Hong Kong, and wonder how on earth someone like me would end up making aliyah and living in Israel. I came from a mixed marriage (Jewish mother, non-Jewish father), absolutely zero Jewish education – formal or otherwise, and long before my mother and I instituted our bagel brunch Sundays, bacon and eggs were more the order of the day.

For as long as I can recall, all I ever wanted was to “be Jewish”, to “do Jewish” – whatever that means. I yearned to cling to a culture, an identity and be able to point and say, “That’s my country, those are my people, this is my identity.” Even when I moved to Australia in my early twenties, I never managed to achieve a feeling of connection, of belonging. Even living in the heart of Melbourne’s Jewish community wasn’t enough for me.

I recall an emotional conversation with my mother a few years ago; “I go to a Reform shul and I don’t fit in. I go to an Orthodox shul and I don’t fit in. I feel like a gentile in my own community and I feel like a Jew outside it. I want to be in a country where everyone is Jewish, where no one will question my authenticity because I don’t look the part or because I don’t have a Jewish-sounding surname.”

And then it hit me.

Israel.

All this painful soul-searching had a very simple answer.

I made my first trip to Israel at the end of 2003, when I was accepted to be an artist-in-residence at the WUJS (World Union of Jewish Students) Institute in Arad. Crazy girl that I am, I also made aliyah without ever having been to Israel. Most people thought I was insane, a few thought I was brave and adventurous, but most people just thought I was plain insane.

I spent almost a year living and writing in the breathtaking expanse of the Negev desert. At the end of my program, I realised with painful admission that I had not prepared myself at all well for aliyah. I put almost no effort into job seeking, networking and although I studied hard in ulpan, my Hebrew after only a few months was not going to get me any further than buying fruit and veg in the local market. With a heavy heart and even heavier debt, I returned to Australia.

I may have been down, but I was not out. “Israel’s not going anywhere. It will be here when you get back” my well-meaning Israeli friend Galit told me in an attempt to cheer me up. I spent the next two and a half years working on my personal “Project Israel”. I was going to find a way back and I was going to succeed this time, I told myself.

Well, two and a half years on, here I am. I live in a surprisingly spacious apartment in a classic Jerusalem stone building in the historic neighbourhood of Talbieh. I am a stone’s throw from the infamous King David Hotel and on Saturday afternoons I can wander to Independence Park with a book and a rug and watch the world go by. In the space of a few hours I see Haredi families taking their Shabbos stroll, I hear a muezzin calling his fellow Muslims to prayer and the bells of a nearby monastery ring out.

For five days of the week, I get up and go to work. I have been incredibly fortunate in that I landed an exciting and challenging job with a leading Israeli research and educational institute. It’s not just a job. It’s a place where I feel that one day I will really be able to make a difference. Still, it’s amazing how normal my life is in such an extraordinary country.

It’s not always easy though and I would be a liar if I said it was. Israel is not an easy country to live in and it’s not for everyone. I have moments where I feel utterly overwhelmed, painfully lonely and when I question the massive move I have made.

I am often reminded of a line in Philip Roth’s seminal novel, Portnoy’s Complaint, and each time I read it, it makes me smile.

“What was incredible and strange to me… what gave my entire sojourn the air of the preposterous was one simple but wholly implausible fact: I am in a Jewish country. In this country, everybody is Jewish.”

In a nutshell, this is what Israel means to me; it means home.

Only in israel #2

2007-04-07T16:37:00.000+03:00

Ok, so I decided to brave it and go back to IKEA again. My shipment is due in the next week or two (hallelujah!) and I really wanted to pick up a couple of pieces of furniture that I don't have coming (namely a kitchen table and chairs and a TV/DVD table unit).

My biggest mistake was going during chol ha'moed, which are the in-between days of Pesach.
The traffic on the roads was horrendous and it took half the day just to get there in the end.
When I finally did make it to IKEA, I realised that so had half of Israel. This, I thought, was not going to be fun.

Thankfully, I had pretty much worked out exactly what I was going to buy, so it was more a matter of just checking out the furniture in real life (catalogues can be so deceptive!) and then heading to the warehouse section of the store (no easy task in itself mind you) to haul the massive great hulks of flat-packed DIY bundles of joy onto my trolley.

I'd arranged for it to be delivered, so I only needed to carry a couple of light plastic bags containing the seat cushions for the kitchen chairs I had purchased.

I took the opportunity while I was near Netanya to visit my dear cousin Tammy who is currently in Israel on holiday with her Israeli husband and their two gorgeous children. Tammy's husband is from a moshav in Bet Yehoshua, which as it turns out, is a stone's throw from IKEA. How convenient!

I took a sherut (Israeli maxi-cab service) from IKEA to the Bet Yehoshua train station. The sherut drops you on one side of the station, and the moshav is on the other side. I told the security guard that I just wanted to get to the other side of the platform so I could get to the moshav. He told me that I would have to buy a train ticket first.

"No, no. You don't understand" I said. "I am not taking the train, I just need to get to the other side of the platform. I am going to the moshav."

"I understand. But you cannot go through without a ticket."

"But there must be a pedestrian crossing!" I implored. "A walkway, a bridge, a tunnel - something, surely!"

"I know. The train station must build one, but right now there is nothing. You have to buy a ticket. Sorry."

"This is crazy! Totally nuts!"

The security guard smiled, almost sympathetically. He leaned over and whispered to me that initially he told me (in Hebrew) to say that I had got off the train and come out at the wrong exit. That way he could have let me through (for nothing). Clearly, that bit of our exchange was lost on me and now, because his supervisor was looking on, he couldn't help me cheat my way across, like some desperate refugee trying to smuggle across the border into safe territory.

The guard escorted me to the ticket machine and showed me the cheapest ticket to buy (4 shekels).

Now I could react in several ways:

I could lose it and demand to speak to the station manager
I could continue my fruitless conversation with the security guard, and wax lyrical about the infuriating inefficiencies of our beloved little country
I could just suck it up, buy the bloody ticket and cross over the station

In case you were wondering, I chose option 3. Given I had zero choice in the matter - unless I wanted to walk several kilometres to the next crossing, if one actually exists, that is - I coughed up and bought a ticket TO CROSS A TRAIN LINE.

Ok, so maybe that means I am not a real Israeli yet, but I figured that for 4 measly shekels (about $1.50 Australian), I had better things to do with my time - like spend it with my cousin and her kids!

It's very easy to lose it over small, but utterly infuriating things like this in Israel, but as they say, "don't sweat the small things". I think I'll save my outbursts for much bigger things!

Tales from the Big Apple

2007-04-04T22:35:00.000+03:00

It's been a while between blogs, I know - but it's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks.
I got back to Israel on Monday morning, which was Erev Pesach (note to self: don't do that again).

I wanted to write regularly while I was in New York, but well, yeah, that kinda didn't happen. I also thought I would also keep a journal, so I could remember everything when I got back, but well, yeah, that kinda didn't happen either. So, looks like we are left with my memory, which at times leaves a lot to be desired.

This was my second trip to New York, so I at least had a vague idea of where I was going and what I wanted to do. I had a few days before my conference started, so I made the most of it by hitting the streets and shopping (I confess! I am a latent shopaholic, but my addiction only seems to rear its ugly head in NY. Thank God I don't live there!).

I also managed to see a couple of wonderful Broadway shows; Talk Radio starring the very scrummy yummy Liev Schrieber and Moon for the Misbegotten starring one of my all time favourite actors, Kevin Spacey. Moon was one of those rare theatrical moments, the joy of which will stay with you even when you are old and senile and can only remember the name of your third grade teacher and your first telephone number. I somehow managed to get a ticket in the third row - it was off to the side a little (ok, a lot), but much of the action was down my side of the stage and I was close enough to be able to see the tiny rivulets of sweat pouring down Mr Spacey's face. Ok, now I am sounding like a lunatic stalker.

I also had the opportunity while I was in New York to catch up with a few dear friends, including my friend Lisa who I went to primary school with in Hong Kong like a gazillion years ago. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we have managed to stay in touch over the years, although it has been nine years since we last saw each other. Lisa was living in London and late last year, her company offered her a transfer to the United States. She is now living in Atlanta, Georgia and when I told her I was coming to NY, she booked a flight and a hotel for the weekend so we could catch up. It was wonderful to see her, and amazing how nearly a decade apart melted away and it seemed like it was only yesterday that we last saw each other.

In two days we managed to pack in some speed shopping, a lovely dinner and a trip to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

Here's a pic of two old friends (we've known each other for about 25 years...eeeekk!!!)

I also managed to catch up with my friend Hallie Leighton who was a fellow Writer-in-Residence in Arad, Israel a few years ago. Hallie was living in Jerusalem until late last year and left just a few months before I finally moved in December. It was great to see her and we did a bunch of great things together including seeing the show Talk Radio, going to a preview screening of a new film called The Lookout and on my last night, Hallie hosted the most divine dinner party at her to-die-for apartment on the Upper West Side.

The dinner party consisted of one of the most eclectic bunch of people ever assembled at one table. Hallie (who is a marvellous character all by herself) invited her father Jan - who is a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas by the way, and three of her friends, Daniel, Michael and Jonathan (who actually lives in Jerusalem and was just in NY visiting his family over Pesach).

Hallie whipped up a delicious and hearty minestrone soup with loads of fresh crusty bread, salad, plenty of vino and to top it all off, homemade brownies (courtesy of a family friend).

People are not just being clichéd when they talk about New York as "the city that never sleeps". They're right, it never does. It's a city on speed 24/7/365. You can walk through Times Square at any hour of the day or night and it will be filled with people and the trademark neon lights and now state-of-the-art LED displays blaring down on you so intensely you can actually feel the heat coming off them. With all the light, and all the people, it's like Times Square has it's very own internal clock.

They also say "anything goes" in New York and this is also a statement I would wholeheartedly have to agree with. New York is full of crazy characters, sometimes so stereotyped, they have to be seen to be believed. Take for example the two Amazonian African-American transvestites in the vintage clothing store I stumbled across, or (and this is my favourite NY story) the two perky sales girls in Henri Bendel (one of NY's most exclusive and expensive department stores) who were promoting a new range of beauty products called "Sexy Beast". I was with my friend Lisa at the time, and we went over to have a look.

The way-too-perky, super-friendly sales girls squirted the fragrance onto a little piece of card and Lisa and I whiffed appreciatively. "Hmmm. Very nice" we said.

"Isn't it?" they replied. "It's a wonderful new range for dogs."

WHOA.

Back up girls.

"For dogs?" I repeated with more than a dose of incredulity in my tone.
"Yes. For dogs." "Forgive me, I really don't want to sound rude, but you DO realise that outside of America, there is not a place on earth that you could sell that stuff."
(Ok, on reflection, that DID come across as rather agressive).

The girls giggled nervously, trying very hard on the one hand to maintain their sales integrity and at the same time convince me that they were normal human beings in full knowledge that what they were selling was insane.

"Well, you are probably right. Apart from here and L.A. it would probably be hard to sell this range."

Yeah. No shit Sherlock!

Cheeky little me asked the girls if they minded if I took a photo of them and they kindly agreed. One of them looked a little worried and said to me, "you're not like a writer or anything are you?"

Who, moi?

Say cheers girls, or should that be WOOF?

Ten days in New York was actually probably enough for me. As much as I love the city and all the crazy people in it, it seemed stragely devoid of soul. Bursting at the seams with personality for sure, but not a whole lot of soul going on. I found myself really missing Israel, and Jerusalem in particular. I realised all of a sudden, that my flight back to Israel would be the first time I was actually flying "home" to Israel and that was a truly wonderful feeling.

I landed in Israel on the morning of Erev Pesach and first made a mad dash to pick up my cat Syd (who I had tried to convince was going to go to an exclusive Club Med for kitty cats in Beit HaKerem - ok, actually my friend Tal's apartment, but hey, they say a change is as good as a holiday right!?).

I dropped Syd off at home, filled up her food and water bowls, pulled some clean clothes out of my suitcase and stuffed them into a small backback before heading back to Tel Aviv to my friend Elisabeth's house. Elisabeth was going to join me and my relatives for the seder that night in Kiron, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Somehow - surviving on approximately 4 hours sleep in 72 hours, I managed to stay conscious for the entire seder, although there were more than a few moments where my head dangled dangerously close to my matzah ball soup.

At last, I had made it. I was home, in Israel, for Pesach.

Chag Pesach sameach v'kosher everyone!

a mild (but manageable) case of Samsonitis

2007-03-21T19:42:00.000+02:00

Just when I thought it was safe to banish Samson the Suitcase to a cupboard far, far away, he laughed in my face and said "Girl! I'm not done with you yet!"

So, tonight I find myself packing again, this time bound for New York City. (Ok, I can't really complain!!) Tomorrow night I am going to NY to attend the conference on student journalism I mentioned in an earlier post.

Today, it was looking extremely dicey as to whether I was going to be able to go at all given the Histadrut (union) called a nationwide general strike, which was supposed to include the shut down of Ben Gurion International Airport. Yikes!!

Thankfully the union and the government reached an agreement late today and the strike was called off. The union claimed over 3,700 municipal workers hadn't received their salaries and naturally the government disputed the number of people affected and claimed that those who were genuinely affected had already been paid.

It was days like today that reminded me that Israel's backbone is still staunchly socialist - be that for good or bad (ok, the verdict is in - BAD!!). When I arrived in Israel for the first time in 2003, as an olah chadasha (new migrant), a national general strike had just begun. I wasn't so lucky back then, as the strike dragged on for close to three weeks.

I was unable to perform even the most basic task like getting an Israeli ID card, opening a bank account, getting my health insurance sorted out - everyone was on strike.

Thankfully today's action was short lived and everyone seems to be happy (for the moment - this is Israel we are talking about, don't forget).

So. New York, New York!

I have been watching obscene amounts of Sex and the City lately, to get into the NYC spirit. I have only to New York once before; a very fortuitously timed trip in June 2001 - a mere three months before 9/11. I was there for just over three weeks and loved every second of it.

I arrive the weekend before the conference, so I have a couple of days to be a total tourist and catch up with a couple of very good friends. One of them is a girl I went to primary and some high school with in Hong Kong. Lisa finished her schooling and university in the UK (where she is from originally) but we managed to stay in touch over the years and I would always visit her whenever I was in the UK. The last time I was there was 1998 - it's hard to believe that is almost 10 years ago!

Around the same time I moved back to Israel permanently last December, Lisa was offered a transfer with her company to Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we've been able to speak on skype and really catch up on a lot of lost years.

When I told her I was coming to the States, she said she could meet me in NY for the weekend. So as hard as it is to believe as I sit in my apartment in Jerusalem and my old childhood buddy sits in her apartment in Atlanta - two old school friends from the other side of the world will reunite in one of the world's greatest cities this weekend.

Olam katan. It truly is a small world.

a real "what the" moment

2007-03-11T20:52:00.000+02:00

Well, my stuff has finally left Aussie shores!!! With a bit of luck, and a healthy dose of finger and toe-crossing, it should arrive in mid-April.

Now, my insurance company (who shall remain nameless) apparently did me a very special favour by agreeing to insure the contents of my container.

Apparently they don't normally insure things going to Israel - it's too high a risk, they told me.
Still, the nice man I have been bugging for about four months is bending the rules for me slightly. However, he told me, they can't list Israel as the final destination, or his company won't insure me. Instead, the invoice lists KUWAIT as the destination for my beloved possessions.

Truly - I kid you not.

The paperwork lists my name, my full address in Israel (and even says, "Jerusalem, Israel") but the very last line says, KUWAIT.

Now, given the reason they wouldn't insure me because I live in Israel, if one follows this so-called "logic", can someone please tell me how Kuwait is supposed to be safer??!!

Only in Israel #1

2007-03-08T12:44:00.000+02:00

I have decided to start a little sub-series in my blog called "Only-in-Israel".
I come across so many oddball things in this country and it's a crying shame to just let them go without writing them down, taking a photo etc.

So, here's the first one:

Remember how when you were a kid and you used to play that game, "Simon says"?
Well, here in Israel, kids play the same game, except they say, "Herzl says"!
I love that! Such patriotism.

Somehow I can't imagine Aussie kids saying, "Howard says" - oh, except perhaps for those big kids in Canberra at Parliament House...

New York! New York!

2007-03-05T22:00:00.000+02:00

Hot off the press guys! SGD is going to New York!

My work trip was confirmed today and I am going to be in New York from March 23 - April 1. I will be attending a national conference on student journalism and meeting with all the student journal editors I am working with at the moment and who will also be attending the conference.

I am so excited about going, I am doing little internal backflips! I have only been to New York once before - in June 2001 (yes, a mere three months before 9/11) and I absolutely fell in love with the city.

Ahhhh... New York, New York...

More news to follow!

Pink moons, popcorn princesses and knitting groups

2007-03-04T22:21:00.000+02:00

Last night I stood outside my apartment building in my pyjamas and dressing gown and stared up at the sky. On a cold Jerusalem winter's night I found myself transfixed by a rare and beautiful sight - a pink moon.

I wish I had been out in the desert somewhere, away from city lights to have been able to view the lunar eclipse properly, but it was still a magical experience. For just a few minutes, my mind emptied and I focused on nothing but the celestial wonder above me. For a moment, my life was not the frenetic ball of chaos that I have known it to be for the last few weeks.

There have been so many little snapshot images and experiences here I have wanted to capture but I wonder how, if at all, they will translate and be understood if I write them down. It's a bit like taking a photograph of something amazing that you see, only when you get the photos back, none of the magic has been captured.

Anyway, here's a small selection of my recent Israel 'images'. I hope my words can capture the essence of them:

Picture if you will, four elderly ladies on the bus. They are on their way to the market. None of them seem to know each other, but because they are of a similar vintage and they have established that they are all going shopping, that's all they require to bond instantaneously. It reminded me of when you see little children playing together. They might be absolute strangers, but when a single sentence like "you wanna play?" is uttered, suddenly they become inseparable.

The ladies joke and giggle like teenagers, but find time to kvetch about the weather; "Oi, it's so hot today, and it's not even summer yet!" I watch them get off at the next stop and bid each other farewell and shabbat shalom before they take off in different directions.

***

I spent shabbat in Tel Aviv, catching up with my friend Elisabeth. She works on Friday, so I entertained myself during the day by wandering up and down Dizengoff St - Tel Aviv's equivalent of Melbourne's Chapel St or Sydney's Oxford St - but not really. This is still Israel after all. It's the day before Purim and it seems everyone, young and old alike, are getting in the spirit of things. It's a glorious spring afternoon and it feels like the whole city is celebrating.

Families walk by in matching Purim costumes, the young barista in the coffee shop is sporting a cowboy hat, the hairdresser is wearing an afro wig. Suddenly, I hear the unmistakable clip clop of a horse and buggy. I turn to see three little girls in matching outfits riding in the buggy in the middle of the city. They are a vision of yellow and white. Sewn into their ballerina tutus are delicate tulle pillows, each filled with popcorn. On their heads, they are wearing little top hats, alternately decorated with both popped and unpopped corn kernels. It's all at once surreal and magical.

***

Last week I went along to a knitting group. Yes, you read right - a knitting group. Known as "SnB" (A.K.A ."Stitch 'n Bitch") this interesting group of women meet every two weeks in a delightful European-style tea room in the centre of the city. From the frenzied energy of downtown Jerusalem, you enter a parallel universe: one of calm, quiet and freshly baked scones.

I found myself sitting with a very diverse group of (mostly) American women, of all ages (and knitting ability, I discovered) and for two of the most relaxed hours I can remember in a long time, we sat, chatted, sipped English Breakfast tea from fine China cups, nibbled on scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam and of course, knitted.

A couple of hours later as I walked home, I decided to take a different route and as I reached the crest of a hill, I looked across and saw the Old City of Jerusalem, it's majestic walls lit up and glowing like iridescent honeycomb. The contrast seemed almost too great and I felt like pinching myself.

***

With Purim this weekend, I have enjoyed a long weekend. All the shops were open today though, because Purim is celebrated a day later in Jerusalem (known as Shushan Purim).

Shushan Purim (the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Adar) is the day on which Jews in Jerusalem and Shushan (in Iran) celebrate Purim. The Book of Esther explains that while the Jews in unwalled cities fought their enemies on the 13th of Adar and rested on the 14th, the Jews in the walled capital city of Shushan spent the 13th and 14th defeating their enemies, and rested on the 15th.

The Jewish Sages noted that Jerusalem, the focus of Jewish life, lay in ruins during the events of the Book of Esther. To make sure that a Persian city was not honored more than Jerusalem, they made the determination of which cities were walled by referring to ancient cities walled during the time of Joshua and based on that criteria, this allowed Jerusalem to be included.

The city center was ablaze with colour as children dressed up in their costumes wandered the mall and the shops were doing a brisk trade selling everything from fairy wings and clown costumes to the more traditional outfits of Queen Esther and Mordechai. I saw one costume in a shop that was quite disturbing actually. It was a boy's costume for a "Kohen Gadol" or High Priest from Temple times, except the photo on the front of the bag had a little Chinese boy modelling the costume. Closer inspection determined that the costume had indeed been "Made in China" and clearly some poor unsuspecting child model had been roped in to sport a most peculiar costume. I wonder what he would say if he knew that his picture was being seen by half of downtown Jerusalem.

Today marks three months to the day since I arrived in Israel. A quarter of a year already, where has the time gone? In some ways it feels like I only just got here, but then again, I think about everything I have done already and I don't know how I squeezed it into three short months. It's no wonder I am exhausted half the time.

But when I find myself getting caught up in the daily grind, when stress seizes and takes me over, I will stop for just a moment and remember the magic of last night's pink moon...

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon's gonna get you all
It's a pink moon It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.

- Nick Drake

domesticity - my new favourite word

2007-02-17T13:15:00.000+02:00

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. The most significant event was that I finally moved into my apartment last weekend. Once again, I need to re-iterate that here in Israel, things work a little differently to the rest of the world (well, the parts I know anyway).

The previous tenant, Charlie (yes, I know, NOT a very Israeli-sounding name!) had not managed to find a new apartment by the time I moved in. He ended up storing most of his things in the apartment (which was fine by me given I have like... nothing at the moment!) He was also kind enough to leave me his TV - complete with cable connection - and his washing machine while he was still hunting for a new place. All in all, it was a beautifully symbiotic relationship. Charlie didn't need to stress out about finding a place to store all his stuff and I got to use a whole bunch of things I didn't have.

Alas, all good things come to an end and this weekend Charlie is moving into his new apartment. However, it is not all bad. As sheer good timing would have it, in the last week, I managed to purchase a good quality second-hand washing machine and dryer and get the internet connected at home. Cable TV will come later - when my TV arrives! Try explaining to the cable company that I have a TV, but it's on a ship coming from Australia. I am usually met with a confused grunt-like "uh?"

Anyway, with internet, I am connected to the world, and I can watch the news, even movies online, so really, I am not exactly suffering. Plus, I really should use this "TV-less" period to finish reading the four books I started.

I spent most of last weekend cleaning the apartment. The bathroom, kitchen, lounge room, floors - everything was pretty filthy. By Saturday night I was absolutely wiped out, but filled with joyous self-satisfaction for a job well done. The kitchen cupboards had food in them. I was finally able to unwrap all the kitchenware I had bought from Ikea a few weeks earlier and put everything away. I looked at my new sofa and thought to myself, "I hope to hell you are comfortable, because I am screwed for the next month or two if you aren't." (Luckily for me, New Sofa passed the test with flying colours - but ask me again in a few weeks ok?)

I did manage some time-out though last weekend when I went to the Old City for Shabbat dinner with a friend. Sometimes I feel like I am walking around a film set when I am in the Old City, especially on Shabbat. It's utterly surreal, but very beautiful at the same time. It's times like this when I feel like I have to pinch myself - do I really live in Jerusalem?

The other big thing that has happened in the last week is that I am now the proud owner of a little seven month old cat whom I have called "Syd" in honour of her mother's (that's me, not her actual mother!) Australian roots. If I get a second cat, I promise to call her "Melba" so as to even the score a little.

I got Syd from an American guy who adored her, but just wasn't home very often and felt really guilty about leaving her alone for long periods. So, SGD comes to the rescue. I rang first to make a time to go and visit her, you know - to see if we 'clicked'. My friend Becky said, "oh you know that if you go see her, you will definitely end up taking her!" Ummm. You were right Becky.

I brought her home on Thursday night and after an initial half an hour or cowering under the sofa, she poked her head out and started to explore. By night's end, Syd had cased the joint thoroughly, worked out where her litter box was, had consumed a tasty meal of kitty crunchies and warm milk (yes, I am a total sucker) and finished the night off by stretching out on the sofa for a good night's sleep.

Folks - meet Syd.

Today I achieved something I am particularly proud of; I built an Ikea bookcase ALL BY MYSELF! It's been sitting in a flat packed cardboard box for some time now, and for a number of reasons:

It conveniently blocked the sunlight from streaming through the window in the morning
I haven't got my books yet, so I don't really need it
Building Ikea furniture fills me with dread and fear

Truth be told, the main reason for it staying in its box until now is because of Reason #3. However, I woke up this morning and thought to myself; hang on SGD. You can do this! You don't need a man to build a piece of furniture for you! Girl Power yeah!

My spatial skills were severely tested today, but at the end of it all, it was worth it and here are the results! Ta da!

My dozen or so books look a little pitiful and lonely I know, but eventually it will be overflowing given I have several hundred books coming. Speaking of things coming, I received an email from the shipping company in Sydney to tell me that my container is finally leaving Aussie shores this week! I am so excited! In another four to six weeks, my stuff should arrive. Honestly, I fantasize about sleeping in my own bed again!

Ok, time to stick the kettle on again for a cuppa. I have a CD tower from Ikea that needs building and I think I will give it a go while I still have the will and motivation!

Pass the panadol please, my brain hurts

2007-02-04T21:01:00.000+02:00

What started as a love affair with my new Samsonite suitcase, purchased just before I left Australia, has now moved to an emotion far beyond hate. If I have to wake up and look at that damn thing for very much longer, I think I will go insane.

I have been living out of it since the middle of November last year, which is getting on for three months now. Now I know what I have said before about how I am the eternal wandering Jew, the intrepid traveller with a permanent case of wanderlust... yada yada yada...

Ok, I admit it. Enough! I have had enough!!!

The end is in sight ladies and gentlemen, it truly is. I finally get to move into my apartment this weekend. Hallelujah! I don't care that the contents of my apartment will consist of a sofa, a heater, an oven, a table and chairs, a fridge (the last two items come with the apartment) and ME.

Samson the Suitcase will be banished to the highest cupboard I can find (and reach - after all, I am only 5'3"). I will place all my clothes in the wardrobe, hanging each and every item with tender loving care. I will neatly arrange all my shoes in rows, for easy access and I will have a drawer EACH for all my underwear, socks and other little itty bitty items that are too small for their own hanger.

Yes, I am fully aware of the fact that I am beginning to sound like a raving lunatic, but that's what happens when you live out of a bloody suitcase for an extended period of time.

I have come to realise that despite my passion for travel and adventure, deep down I am a classic old-fashioned, nester. My mother has always told me how I never cease to amaze her everytime I move into a new apartment. I might only have moved in 48 hours previously, but when she comes over to visit for the first time she tells me that it looks like I have lived there for years.

"It already looks so homely, so haymishe, so YOU!" she squeals with Jewish motherly delight. "I don't know how you do it darling. You just have the knack."

I lost track long ago of the number of apartments and houses I have lived in over the years. My mother gave up writing my details down in her address book in pen, as she was forever crossing old addresses and phone numbers and writing in new ones. These days, she updates strictly in pencil only. Thank heavens for email is all I can say! How ironic that the most stable contact information I have is a web-based email address, the entire contents of which sit somewhere in cyberspace.

So, please G-d, this time next week, I will be able to report that I am living in Chez SGD, fixed abode for at least the next 12 months...

In other breaking news, well, I survived my first week at work!

Like any new job, there is always a ton of information to take in, absorb and somehow retain. There are new people to remember, new and strange systems to figure out and somehow in all this, you try to hold on to the essence that is you, while at the same time trying to fit in with everyone else.

Although my job is essentially in English, there is still a reasonable amount of Hebrew to deal with. Whether it is ordering my lunch online (a very nifty little system indeed!), or reading an email, or just navigating my way through the internal staff phone list - it all adds up. I know that ultimately, this is only a GOOD thing. My Hebrew must improve and using it everyday at work is definitely one of the best ways to do it. However, right at the beginning, when everything is strange, bewildering and sometimes downright overwhelming, the added problem of "what the hell does this say???" all contributes to a very sore brain at the end of the day.

I know it's just a matter of time, and one of the great things about keeping a blog is that I will be able to read this in a few month's time and see just how far I have come.

Still, for the moment, I fantasize about coming home at the end of a long day at work, and curling up in MY bed, watching MY television, or reading one of MY books, while sipping a cup of freshly brewed tea in one of MY mugs. Ahhhhh.... what a joyous day it will be when I am once again surrounded by cardboard boxes. Only this time, I will be unpacking them.

Now - that's my idea of heaven.

buying furniture in israel: Ikea for dummies

2007-01-23T13:13:00.000+02:00

The other day I went to Netanya with my friends Elisabeth and Alessia to buy some furniture at Ikea. Now Ikea is a bit like McDonalds. You can go anywhere in the world and it will look exactly the same wherever you go. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but maybe instead of the "Svenska" bedside table or the "Kumpfnot" cutlery range, I thought there might be a little localisation going on here in Israel. Perhaps I was expecting to see the "Yehonatan" sofa or the "Galil" cheese grater. Nope. Unpronounceable Swedish furniture reigns supreme here in Israel. For the life of me though, I have no idea how the Israelis cope with the pronunciation! They have enough trouble with my Anglo-Saxon sounding surname!

And one thing I have always wanted to know was where heck do all those Swedish books that they use to fill the display bookcases come from? Am I the only one who has ever stopped to browse through those weird books?

Now I realise that the whole ethos behind Ikea is that it's the self-service of furniture buying. You walk through the pretty little mock rooms, taking mental notes for your own interior decorating, you sit in every armchair, and check out the mattress on every bed because... well just because. That's part of the whole Ikea shopping experience.

You can even have Swedish meatballs for lunch (we did).

Ok. So I was a woman with a mission. I had to find a good sofa that a) I could afford b) looked nice and c) was comfortable enough to sleep on for possibly up to two months while I wait for my container to arrive from Australia.

Amazingly, I found a sofa that met all three criteria and although I know that Pink Sofa would be heartbroken if she found out, New Sofa is actually way, way more comfy. New Sofa is pristine and white and super fluffy (again, pick the single, childless woman. What woman with kids in her right mind would buy a white sofa?) The good thing is that New Sofa comes with a fully removable cover, so I see it as a good investment for the future should my marital or child status alter, I can always re-cover New Sofa with a more sensible, stain-resistant cover (plastic?)

Ok. So with my main mission accomplished, I was free to roam through Ikea to oooh and aaahhh at all the pretty little householdy things that I covet, but cannot have right now. I did, however purchase a bookshelf and matching CD tower which were pretty cheap and bought a bunch of very reasonably priced kitchenware that will tide me over quite comfortably until my lift arrives. I only bought stuff I have not got coming in the container, so it's not like I am doubling up on things. Ok, now I am sounding like one of those women who feels the need to justify all their purchases. "But honey, it was half price!" Oi vey already.

Right. So with my shopping list all ticked off, it was time to go to the checkout counter. Now, I will sidetrack for one second: in Australia, when you purchase a large item of furniture like a THREE SEATER SOFA, you simply write all the item information down and take that to the cashier and they process the order from that. You don't actually physically see your furniture until it gets delivered.

Ohhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Not in Israel's Ikea. No sirrrreee! So, here's the deal.

1. The kitchen stuff I bought that fit into a trolley was put through the counter and paid for normally.

2. The bookcase and CD tower (flat packed in a cardboard box but really, really heavy!) I bought had to be physically picked up from the adjoining warehouse (ok, we got a cute Israeli boy to help us lift it onto the trolley) and then scanned with the barcode scannery thing. Not so hard.

3. The sofa, it turned out, had to be ordered upstairs in the sofa department itself. They would give me a piece of paper which printed out my order, but I couldn't pay there. I had to then take the piece of paper to another woman somewhere else on the floor who takes your payment and gives you a second piece of paper. Then this lady tells me that I will have to wait up to 60 minutes for the order to somehow make its way downstairs to the warehouse.

"What?" I asked. "60 minutes? But you process everything on a central database. How can it take 6o minutes to make its way downstairs? Does the little order form sprout legs, and walk downstairs while making a detour through Stockholm?"

The clerk looked at me with a vacant expression. This, clearly, was not her concern. "Next" she yelled.

So the three of us traipse downstairs once again and take the new piece of paper to another clerk at the entrance to the warehouse. We're told that they will call me when it is ready. "When what's ready?" I ask. "The sofa" comes the reply.

"But why are you bringing out the sofa? I need to have it delivered."
"Yes. I know. But you must take the sofa first to the delivery desk."
"You mean literally take the sofa all of 5 metres to another clerk?"
"Yes."
"Are you mad?"

Smile.

Fast forward 20 minutes.

"Tanya? Ha sapa shelach" (translation: "Tanya. Your sofa.")

So. Picture this: 3 girls. 3 massive trolleys. We maneuver ourselves to the delivery desk and I tell them I want them to deliver the lot.
"We can't deliver anything in bags. Only boxes and furniture." "But I don't have a car! I live in Jerusalem!" This kitchen stuff weighs a ton!" "Slicha (sorry) but you must to take it with you. We cannot deliver it."

(5 more minutes of please, buts and minor begging got me nowhere).

Finally, the order was complete. I was paid up. Delivery was sorted out and Elisabeth, Alessia and I each took a massive great Ikea carry bag and managed somehow to get back to the bus station in Tel Aviv (via taxi to the train station and then the train from Netanya to Tel Aviv). The girls helped me as far as the Jerusalem bus where I put everything in the hold below.

I spent most of the one hour ride back to Jerusalem stressing about how I was going to navigate my way through the hoards of crowds trying to make their way through security at the Central Bus Station. I knew they would ALL hate me - the girl with all the bloody bags holding up the line. Oh joy.

I am the last one off the bus. I grab all my bags from underneath the bus and the bus driver took one look at me and laughed. "What are you moving house or something? How are you going to manage all that?" "I need to get a cab" I reply.
"Don't move sweetie. Stay there. I will order a cab for you."

Five minutes later, a cab pulls into the station, which normally never happens for security reasons, and the driver got out and put all my bags in the boot for me. I got dropped right outside my front door and all I ended up having to do is get them up one flight of stairs to my room.

So. After all that, what did I learn?

Well, as usual in Israel - if you think you need 3 hours to do something, set aside about 7.
Israel loves its bureaucracy, but even more than that, Israelis love to bitch about it (it gives them something to do).
Keep a cool head. Try not to get stressed (it gets you nowhere here!) and just know that in the end it will probably all work out (exactly how, I am not so sure!)

My lovely new sofa and bookcase/CD tower got delivered today to my lovely new apartment (that I can't move into for two more weeks!) because the current tenant still has to move out. It's fine though because I have a good friend I can stay with for a couple of weeks. When it is time to move in, I am going to have to enlist the help of a rocket scientist to help me assemble the damn things.

So. My lease is signed, the city municipality already have me on their system so I can start paying taxes (oh yippee!) and slowly slowly, I am becoming a real, bona fide Israeli.

I think it's almost time to pop the bubbly.

6 weeks on... a small hump on the road to happiness

2007-01-21T03:08:00.000+02:00

Ok, I have to explain the posting below. I have transcribed it from the notes I made this afternoon while I was in Tel Aviv without a notebook and a desperate compulsion to put my thoughts down on paper. I ended up resorting to the back pages of the book I am currently reading; The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and pulling it all together in your 30's. Edited by Andrea N. Richesin. Highly recommended gals.

I know that it’s near sacrilege to write in a book. It’s some form of minor desecration for sure. But I’m a desperate woman and these are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures.

As a writer, sometimes I worry what I would do without a pen and paper or my fingers and keyboard. As I left home this afternoon (well, actually my serviced apartment), I realised that I’d left my notebook behind. A sense of panic filled me and I spent over half an hour combing the streets of Tel Aviv looking for a shop that sold a cheap little notebook. Not much was open. It’s Shabbat. It proved to be a fruitless search. Hence after much deliberation and hesitation, I decided to write on the only surface available to me; (other than my body, but that would be weird in a café) this book. In some respects, this book is an interesting choice. It’s full of insightful, entertaining, often meaningful and very relatable stories by women in their 30’s. Women just like me.

I’ve been living in Israel for six weeks now. I’m sitting right on the border of my old life and my new life. The old life will be no more in a week or so. My Australian job will officially end. My work-provided (free) accommodation will also come to an end and I will be flung into a total state of newness. New job, new (empty) apartment…

For six weeks I have craved space, peace and quiet. Now that I have it I feel the total lack of noise in my head will drive me to distraction. Shabbat in Jerusalem for a largely non-observant, single girl is a bloody lonely place to be. Despite my earlier convictions that a whole day spent in bed in my pyjamas would be a fun and liberating thing to do, I soon felt like a slob and had to get up, have a shower, get dressed and clean my room (even though I am in a serviced apartment and there are people whose job it is to do that). It’s all about trying to feel normal. It’s all about my desperate need for some semblance of routine in my otherwise rudderless life.

I know that in a relatively short space of time life will be more structured than I would ever wish it to be. I’ll wake up, get ready for work, spend all day at work, come home, make dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat ad nauseam.

But right now, right this second as I sit in a café in the middle of Tel Aviv on this very cold and wet winter’s day, I feel lonely and so very far away from everything and everyone I know.

There’s an easy escape route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. A maxi-cab service that runs round the clock, 7 days a week. For a mere 20 shekels (or 25 on Shabbat) you can be in the City that Never Sleeps in less than an hour.

Shabbat attracts an unusual crowd of people on the sherut (the shared maxi-cab). Today’s journey was shared with three Filipino foreign workers, three Arab Israelis, two monks in full habit complete with rope belt (although who the hell knows why they were going to Tel Aviv!) and me.

So anyway, back to me feeling sorry for myself. Ok, so it probably didn’t help matters that I rang my ex-boyfriend in Sydney and spoke to him for over an hour this morning. The truth is, we only broke up because I chose to board a plane to Israel. Had I not… well, let’s not play the game, “What if…?”

The thought of moving into an empty apartment in a week or two completely devoid of furniture (bar the sofa I hope to purchase tomorrow) also fills me with fear. I wrote some time ago about possessions and our natural human instinct to want to be surrounded by them, protected by all that is familiar to us. I know that feeling. Oh, how I miss that feeling.

We all make choices in life. I have made mine. I made the choice to leave my home, my family, my friends and a man I had huge feelings for to live in a foreign country with not much more than an unusually (some might even say unhealthy, but whatever…) large dose of optimism.

I might be a bit lonely, a bit rudderless today, but I am not unhappy. In my heart I know I did the right thing. You can’t expect to make such a huge life change and not experience some kind of emotional fallout. I am, after all, only human. A human girl of infinitesimally heartbreaking proportions.

I am glad it is cold and wet (and now dark). It suits my slightly melancholic mood today. I know I am not the only lonely soul in the world. I am sure that there is at least one other desperate person out there vandalizing a perfectly good book all in the name of literary therapy.

Fond farewells and new mountains to climb

2007-01-17T02:03:00.000+02:00

Where have the last six weeks gone? Have I already been here that long? Although, when I think about it, it also feels like I got off the plane yesterday. Tomorrow the AUJS Israel Programs for 2006-07 officially come to an end. Tonight, as I stood in the nightclub we hired out for this evening's farewell party, I looked at all the participants having an amazing time. You know what I felt? I felt really old!!

There have been the usual ups and downs with the programs - but definitely more ups than downs. There have been some wonderful stories too;

There was the young man who came up to me a couple of weeks into his program to tell me how much Israel already meant to him. He told me that before this trip he had never stepped foot in a synagogue. His first experience of a shul was in Safed and as he stood with his mates, one of them came over to him and discreetly turned his siddur round the right way. Yes, it's funny, but it is also touching and so real.

There's the girl who back home has never felt anything but an outsider. She never ran with the "cool group" and at times on her program she felt isolated and lonely. We sat and had a good chat one night and she messaged me one day to thank me for taking the time to listen to her and to tell me that things had turned around for her and she was having a great time. Tonight I saw her dancing with new friends and having a wonderful time.

And there's the guy who was not brought up with any Judaism at home whatsoever. With a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, he struggled to connect to anything growing up and revealed to his madrichim one day that he had never had a Bar Mitzvah. A few days later, his madrichim arranged for him to have one at a reform synagogue in Jerusalem. His madrich told me he cried and said it was the most amazing and meaningful thing that had ever happened to him.

Tomorrow afternoon it will all be over. The frantic pace will slow to a snail's pace. My phone will stop ringing off the hook and I won't get those horrible phone calls at 3am to inform me of one crisis or another. What on earth will I do with myself?!

Well in just over a week I start my new job at The Shalem Center and with it comes a whole new set of challenges. New people, new environment, new game with new rules.

I have also found a great apartment that I will be moving into in a week or two. It's in a great neighbourhood of Jerusalem called Talbieh. It's a 15 minute walk in either direction to either the city centre or my new work which is located in the very funky and rather bohemian German Colony. I couldn't have found a better place if I tried.

I am almost getting worried about the amount of good luck which has come my way so far. I am so superstitious (ptoi, ptoi, ptoi!!! she spits) I feel so unbelievably blessed and I wonder what I have done to deserve such wonderful things.

I can't wait to move into my new place, except it will be a challenge for the first couple of months as my container from Australia probably won't arrive until March sometime. In the meantime I will be living the minimalist lifestyle - a sofa (that I have to buy, mind you) that will double as my bed for some time... my laptop will double as my DVD player... and I can foresee that I will be getting artistic and creative with milk crates and sarongs.

I will be calling in some favours from friends and family to lend me odds and ends to tide me over until I have my things. Oh, how I miss my THINGS.

I know it is going to be a bit tough, a bit basic and at times downright bloody inconvenient, but at the back of my mind always, I realise that it is just a temporary state. Eventually I will be able to come home from work, walk through my front door, greet my (future) kitty cat, turn on my telly and chill out after a hard day's work.

Despite this temporary state of flux, of slight chaos, I thank my lucky stars every day that I am here. I am blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family around me, and I know I haven't felt this happy and fulfilled in a long, long time.

It's the best feeling in the world. That feeling that you know you have come home.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

2007-01-08T17:50:00.000+02:00

Last night marked the highlight for many of our AUJS Israel Program participants. It was the much-anticipated Taglit birthright-israel Mega Event.

Held in the enormous Binyanei Ha'uma convention centre in Jerusalem, the auditorium was filled with more than 3,000 young Jews from all over the world who are currently touring the country on their own birthright tour.

I glowed with pride as I saw our 250 strong contingent of Aussies (including a small, but very vocal bunch of Kiwis!) all dressed up proudly displaying their patriotic best. There were inflatable kangaroos, clip on koalas, Aussie flags sewn into dresses and many an Aussie Rules or rugby jersey. For a comparatively small group (compared to the approximately 2000 strong contingent from the United States) we definitely made our presence felt. Whenever one of the comperes mentioned Australia, our group yelled out till their throats were hoarse. At one point, our New Zealand friends took their shirts off (just the boys, mind you!) and performed the Haka, much to the excitement of many a preppy American girl who probably had no idea what she was watching whatsoever.

The concert itself was absolutely fantastic. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke, as did the founders of birthright, Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman. The two hour extravaganza was a display of Israel's very brightest stars. The musical highlight of the evening was definitely Israeli super band, Shotei Hanevua who performed for close to 40 minutes. I am not sure how many of the audience realised how lucky they were.

I looked around at our group. I could not hide my joy and pride to see so many young people - most of whom have never been to Israel before - having the time of their life. They sang and danced with their new friends, even new loves (oh, how we love Jewish continuity ha ha!), and each face emanated the kind of genuine emotion that you cannot manufacture.

At the end of the concert the entire audience rose to sing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva and it dawned on me at that very moment that I was singing MY national anthem. I was singing it in Jerusalem, which is now the city I live in.

At the beginning of the evening, we heard the impressive list of (predominantly) American philanthropists who give enormous amounts of money to Taglit birthright-israel. Each person in that room was the recipient of a FREE 10 day trip to Israel. There were 3,000 people there last night. There was another Mega Event earlier in the week, so double that figure. 6,000 people this winter alone. That's millions of dollars right there. Last (northern hemisphere) summer, birthright sent its 100,000th participant. I don't think I can even calculate how much money that comes to. The way birthright works is this: The Taglit birthright-israel philanthropic fund contributes a third of the cost, the Israeli government contributes a third and the final third is paid for by each local Jewish community. In Australia's case, this comes through the generous support of the United Israel Appeal (UIA).

What I did think of as I sat there last night was this: where are the Australian philanthropists? There are no shortage of very wealthy (and generous) Jewish families in Australia. Why didn't we hear Besen, Gandel, Gonski, Pratt, Sherman or Lowy being yelled out?

Birthright is so much more than a 10 day program in Israel. This program give our young people an identity. It empowers them, strengthens them, fills them with pride to be Jews, and teaches them to be powerful advocates for Israel. In this day and age, we need all the help we can get. Australia has had a long and strong connection to Israel, and I am sure it always will.
But I fear that this is not enough.

We need to put our money where our mouths are. It's not enough to depend on the generosity of others to send our kids to Israel. Come on Besen, Gandel, Gonski, Pratt, Sherman and Lowy. You can make a difference. You can personally affect the lives of thousands of young Australian Jews. Next year at the 2008 Taglit birthright israel Mega Event, just imagine how amazing it would be for our kids to hear the names of their own home grown Aussie Jewish heroes? If they were yelling loudly this year, I can guarantee you they won't be able to speak for a week next time!

In the meantime, for all those that missed out, you can watch the whole concert on the internet. Just click HERE!

Am Yisrael Chai!

ADDENDUM

Sometimes when us bloggers write something that goes online, we wonder if there is anyone the heck out there reading our material. Well, I have most definitely proved that point this week as I have had a number of responses to my article on the Taglit birthright-israel Mega Event held last week in Jerusalem.

I apologise profusely for any offence I may have causd by my mention of certain prominent families. In no way was it intended to be any kind of "public shaming". Quite the contrary. Having worked on the AUJS Israel Programs for the last two years, I am all too aware of the unbelievable generosity of so many individuals and families.

We all know that as a community we can always do more and all I hoped to achieve was to put such a major initiaive into the forefront of people's minds and hope that even one person out there who read the article, felt spurred on to become involved in the future. At the end of the day, it's about preserving our culture and our heritage - and that is a battle I will always fight.

New year... new beginnings

2007-01-02T14:50:00.000+02:00

The start of a new year never looked so good.

At 9.30am on January 1st, 2007 I got the call I have been waiting for with bated breath (not to mention my knotted stomach!) for the last couple of weeks. I have been offered a job. Not just any job, but an absolutely fantastic job, here in Jerusalem!

I have been offered the position of Campus Affairs Coordinator at The Shalem Center, which is a highly respected academic institution which was founded in 1994 by scholars and public figures from Israel and the Diaspora. The Center advances original research, publication, and teaching in the areas most crucial to the public life of the Jewish people, including Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, Biblical archaeology, democratic theory, and economic and social policy.

My position entails a number of things, but primarily I will be working to recruit top notch undergraduate Diaspora students in North America and the UK for an intensive summer program here in Jerusalem. I will also be promoting the work of Shalem on campuses across North America including securing speaking engagements for the many excellent speakers Shalem has at its disposal. Another area I will also be intrinsically involved with is the student journal project. Shalem financially assists, mentors and supports undergraduate students to establish student journals that focus on Jewish and Zionist themes. There are currently six journals being published, but Shalem aims to increase this number in the coming year.

This is a huge position, with enormous challenges, but I can't begin to express how excited I am about it. The Shalem Center has such a wonderful reputation and the handful of times I have been there to attend interviews have always been wonderful experiences. The people who work there are warm and genuine and clearly very passionate about their work. I have no doubt that it will be an incredibly exciting and intellectually stimulating working enviroment.

As I walked out this afternoon, signed contract in my bag, I sighed an enormous sigh of relief. I think that sigh had been building up for a long time. Finally, I exhaled months' worth of stress, panic and uncertainty about my future. Today, those feelings transformed into joy, excitement and relief. I officially commence my new job on January 21st, immediately following the end of the AUJS Israel Programs, so the timing is fantastic. I now have about three weeks to find an apartment (which hopefully won't be TOO hard!) and best of all, I can now organise to send my lift from Australia, which has been sitting in storage since mid-November. It might take a while until it actually gets here, so I will be living with fairly minimal furniture in the meantime, but in the big picture scheme of things, it's a small price to pay.

It's kind of ironic that I have ended up living here in Jerusalem, because before I left Sydney, friends and family asked where I thought I would end up and I always assumed it would be Tel Aviv. However, I have really developed a soft spot for this city. Jerusalem is full of hidden nooks and crannies and is inhabited by every type of person you could possibly imagine. It's colourful, frenetic, spiritual, historic, modern, utterly chaotic and now, it's my home.

So, here's to 2007! May it be a year of abundant blessings for us all.

A Winter Wonderland

2006-12-27T15:42:00.000+02:00

I have been in Israel for three weeks now, although it actually feels a lot longer. I have managed to pack a lot in these last few weeks. I have had some great networking meetings and met some wonderful people. I've also managed to catch up with some dear friends and relatives.

I am in with a good chance for a particular job, and should hopefully know by early next week if I have been successful in getting the position. I won't elaborate now because I am trés superstitious and don't want to jinx it! In the meantime, keep your fingers and toes crossed for me and a few good prayers wouldn't go astray either!

It was also Chanukah here last week (the Jewish Festival of Lights). It was just beautiful to walk through the streets and see fairy lights lighting up the city, and every night there were myriad candle lighting ceremonies in every major city square. People would gather around and watch the giant Chanukiot being lit and jointly the crowd would say the blessings and then sing all the traditional Chanukah songs.

All the bakeries were selling sinful doughnuts (they are called sufganiot here) - the traditional fare of Chanukah. I can't tell you what a major struggle it was to walk past shop after shop with the smell of freshly made doughnuts floating past my nostrils!

One night of Chanukah I was in a bar with a friend having a drink and the owner put his kippah on and lit the Chanukiah in the window, so that the candles could glow for all to see outside. My friend and I looked at each other and laughed. Almost simultaneously we said to each other, "only in Israel!"

In the last week we have also had four more Israel Programs groups arrive from Australia. We now have all six birthright groups here and also our Leadership Development Program group. So far, so great. The groups and their program leaders are amazing.

I've got stuck into all the not-so-fun aspects of making aliyah and sorting through all the bureaucracy. I actually made aliyah three years ago, and so what I have to do now is essentially "re-activate" my status as an Olah Chadasha (new migrant). I've opened a bank account and I am sorting out my national health insurance and all that other fun stuff. I tell you what - having the ability to do all this with half decent Hebrew is making life quite a lot easier. Still, it is a slow (at times, painfully slow) process. Oh well, this is also Israel. No point fighting it, or getting frustrated. Savlanut... savlanut (patience!!)

Right now there is a magical winter wonderland outside my window. It's been snowing the last couple of hours here in Jerusalem. It is just beautiful. If it wasn't so darned cold, I would run outside and stick my tongue out to catch the snowflakes - but it is just too nice and snuggly warm in here! The view outside is beautiful though.

Here, take a look (sorry about the crappy quality - I took it with my digital camera!)

Posted By:Solid Gold Dancer

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

With wintery blessings from Israel!

P.S. I did end up venturing outdoors this evening, and it was so worth it!
This is a picture of Ben Yehuda St in downtown Jerusalem. Beautiful!

Tonight I went to my favourite little hangout; a bookshop/cafe/restaurant called Tmol Shilshom. There was a book reading by a visiting American writer, Maggie Anton, who has written an award-winning novel called "Rashi's Daughters".

There was also a young Toronto-based singer songwriter who performed some of her beautiful music on the guitar. It was a lovely way to spend a freezing cold winter's night. Warm and toasty inside the cafe, listening to beautiful music and watching the snow fall outside the window...

Thoughts scribbled on a piece of paper

2006-12-15T16:26:00.000+02:00

No idea where life is taking me right now, but today I feel happy. I feel content and I feel like I am putting out all the good vibes I can to the universe. I feel confident that the universe will give some of its love back to me.

It's supposedly the middle of winter, but it must be about 25 degrees. I am sitting at a cafe outside sipping tea and mint leaves in the middle of Tel Aviv. Earlier this morning I walked through the beautiful streets of Neve Tzedek which is filled with quaint cafes and beautiful shops filled with beautiful objects. It has the air of a small French village; organic grocery shops, patisseries, and the scent of freshly roasted coffee on every corner.

Part of me is still scared, actually quite terrified, that I won't find a job, because I know this is the life I want to live, this is the place I want to be. What I find interesting is that I am not suffering the same crippling lack of confidence that I did while I was still in Australia. It's so much easier once you finally make the leap to the other side! Sure, I will be a heck of a lot happier once I have a secure job and I have found a place to live so that I can finally send my things over from Sydney, but in the meantime I am really feeling ok. There is a sense of inner calm I have not felt for a long time. I think it's that unmistakable feeling of being home.

One week anniversary

2006-12-11T17:15:00.000+02:00

Don't worry folks. I won't be posting a "weekly anniversary" update for the next ten years but thought you might like to hear how my first week in Israel has been.
Actually, it kind of feels like I have been back longer - and I think that is a good thing. A lot here feels very familiar and it's nice to know that I sort of know my way round and that my Hebrew is not totally awful!

It's been a very busy week too. Our Academy groups are currently in the north of Israel, and hopefully I will be able to spend a bit more time with them soon. At the moment, I really need to be in or close to Jerusalem so I can go into the office to look after admin type stuff, especially as we still have three more groups arriving at the end of December and another long-term program that starts at the beginning of January.

I have managed to catch up with a few friends though and tomorrow I will be heading to Tel Aviv for a couple of days. It's my birthday tomorrow (Yeah! Happy Birthday to me!) and I am going to catch up with some friends there. I've also lined up a few meetings with some arts people, so hopefully that will be good for my networking too.

More on the work front, well, I have had one job interview so far and it went well (I think!) Turns out it's really more for freelance/contract type work, which could be good for the future, but right now it is really important to try and find a full time job. I have another interview lined up for something else and just waiting to hear when my interview will be exactly.

Some highlights from this last week:

Taking the groups to The Kotel (The Western Wall) on their first shabbat in Israel. I took a peek at all the boys in the men's section and it was absolutely amazing to see them all singing and dancing together.
Cats are everywhere in Israel - and I mean everywhere! I saw this little kitty taking a drink from the handwashing fountain at The Kotel and thought to myself... only in Israel!

There is a lovely lady, Ariella, who cleans my little serviced apartment every day and I came back from being in Tel Aviv overnight yesterday to discover that she had taken my laundry bag and done all my laundry for me.

And one (small) low-light:

Ariella gave me a small toaster oven for my room and on the first day, I managed to set my smoke alarm off and scare the crap out of everybody. Note to self: clean out old remnants of toast before using...

Sorry this is not the most exciting, inspiring or literary of postings, but give me time! I am sure the creative juices will be flowing soon in this the land of chalav v'dvash (milk and honey!)

I'm not in Newtown anymore Toto

2006-12-06T21:57:00.000+02:00

Well this posting is long overdue! I really wanted to write something in the days leading up to my departure to Israel, but it all got very hectic and well, before I knew it, I was on a plane hurtling towards the Holy Land. I guess I can finally live up to the name of my blog.

It's a very strange sensation being back and I seem to suffer a sense of déjà vû several times a day. It really isn't that long ago that I was last here (I only left in mid-February) and it was winter then too - so it all seems very familiar.

Our groups all arrived safe and sound (thank G-d) apart from a minor hiccup. El Al managed to lose 21 suitcases (including two of mine) but it was a short lived drama and we all had our missing luggage delivered today.

I am staying right in the middle of Jerusalem, in a very nice serviced apartment. It's nothing glam, but it is clean, very comfortable and has all the amenities I could possibly need.

When we landed yesterday, my dear friend Elisabeth came to airport to greet me - helium balloon and all! It was wonderful and so comforting to see a warm, friendly face as soon as I arrived. I spent the rest of my first day with our various Academy groups, who will be travelling in Israel for the next six weeks. We took them first to Harmon Hanatziv, where from the Hass Promenade they had the most spectacular panoramic view of Jerusalem. For many of them it was their first view of this amazing country and it was really something to see their expressions and uncontained excitement.

The photo I have posted was taken here and in the photo with me is my friend and Israeli colleague, Tali.

I am also slowly organising to catch up with friends and family, but what's nice is that this time I don't have to stress about making sure I see everyone within a short space of time.

I guess it is much too early to be able to comment much on anything in Israel. Either how I am feeling or what's happening in the country in general - but there's plenty of time for that I suppose. It's a lot easier for me to reflect on my last few weeks in Australia.

I won't lie to you.
They were tough.

It seemed to be the most endless farewell ever. It was long, drawn out and utterly heartbreaking at times and towards the end, I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to be on that plane and I didn't want to have to say goodbye to another person.

I think knowing how many people I had to say goodbye to - not least of all my family - meant that I subconsciously had to contain my emotions, if for no other reason than to preserve my sanity. If I had allowed myself to openly express what I was feeling inside every time I said goodbye to someone I loved, I would never have been able to get on that plane.

There were a couple of moments though that even my masterfully constructed wall of protection was not strong enough and for those break through moments of utter despair and sadness I thank you Rob for your shoulder, your heart and your hankie. I am not surprised you said I could keep it. A snotty hankie is not the most attractive thing.

Part of me feels a little stupid that it took such a dramatic farewell for me to realise how many amazing and wonderful friends I really have and I was so touched by all the beautiful gifts people gave me.

I really want to say thank you to some of the people who really mean a lot to me and to whom I am so grateful for their love and support; my work colleagues at Shalom College who really were my extended family for the last year and a half. I've never worked in such an incredibly warm, caring and supportive environment and I am so privileged to have worked with such an inspired and dedicated team of people.

My Rabbi, his wife and my "family" from Newtown shul. Again - you all became my extended family, given my own family lives in Melbourne and I will really miss the wonderful 'ruach' (spirit) of the Newtown community.

To all my friends who came along to say goodbye, or called to wish me luck on my new "adventure" (you all know me too well, it's scary!)

My family, who by now are kind of used to my nomadic existence, but who never stop believing in me and support every crazy thing I do in my life. I can't express how much I miss you already, but you are in my heart and my thoughts every day, and that means that really, you aren't so far away at all.

And finally, to Rob. You were my rock these last few months. You helped me get through so much and you stuck by me for the whole crazy roller coaster ride. For that you deserve a medal! Thank you for everything, but most of all, thank you for showing me that "love is everywhere".

And so now, the adventure begins. I celebrate my 34th birthday next week and this Sunday I have my first job interview in Israel (fingers crossed everybody!)

I love you and miss you already.

Me xx

Two weeks and counting...

2006-11-20T10:31:00.000+02:00

I thought it was pretty funny finding this image on the net. It says in Hebrew "Ha'chaim al mizvadot" which translated basically means living out of a suitcase.
Well folks, that's MOI!

I am now officially on the home stretch. Today I moved into Shalom College, where I work and this will be "home" until I take off on December 4th.
I will be making one final trip to Melbourne this weekend for work, but obviously I will be taking the opportunity to spend as much time with my family and close friends as possible.

I am definitely feeling a lot calmer about things now. I am more philisophical and resigned to the fact that I am going. I know that doesn't sound like I am leaping out of my skin to go, but I think I am being realistic and to be honest, I would be worrying about me if I was all "yeah! When can I hop on that plane already?"
Of course I am excited (and nervous and stressed and all that other stuff) but in my heart I know that this weekend will be the last weekend I spend with my folks and my brother for quite some time and I think it is ok to feel sad about that.

Anyway, I wish I had some fabulous deep words of wisdom or some really bad poetry, but I don't. I am going to head up to my room, stick on some Joni Mitchell and do some sorting out.

Will write a more exciting update soon.

Love,
ME

Three Weeks and Counting... thoughts, feelings and a bit of poetry

2006-11-13T03:50:00.000+02:00

Yes, well now that I have got my maths sorted out, I have now worked out exactly when it is I am going. I have to admit, discovering I had one week LESS than I thought I had threw me somewhat!

I moved out of my apartment this weekend. It started on Friday morning when three big burly Aussie blokes walked in armed with cardboard boxes, tape and Stanley knives. Before I knew it, my things were being packed away at the rate of knots and I didn’t know whether to stand there, help out or simply get out of the way.

With a big black texta, each box was scrawled with “Cawthorne Israel” and the relevant box number. Sometimes the boys got it a bit wrong, and the boxes were labeled “Cawthorn Isreal” but I am just being pedantic now.

By about lunchtime, the boxes had migrated to what twenty-four hours previously had been my living room and once again I thought, this is what my life boils down to; a collection of cardboard boxes and miscellaneous items.

It was not long before everything was put in the truck and they drove away. I waved goodbye which I know was a pretty stupid thing to do, but no one was looking and, well, it made me feel better.

I should also point out that by Friday afternoon I had just about completely lost my voice. I have not been well the last week or so, but I wasn’t feeling too bad. Thursday night I was entertaining the boy by doing my very best Marlene Dietrich impression, but by the next day I was pretty much unintelligible.

I have had bad throat infections in the past, but I have never completely lost the ability to speak. It’s Monday afternoon now and I still can’t speak properly! I have had several people offer their opinion as to what the problem might be. Most feel that stress is a key factor (I won’t argue that), but others have had deeper psychological insights into my condition. One friend felt that this was my body’s way of showing me that I haven’t truly expressed my fears and given we (apparently) hold our emotions in the throat area, this is a very obvious and physical manifestation of my fear.

Since Friday night I have been staying with some wonderful friends who have welcomed me into their home. It’s only round the corner from my old apartment, so everything still feels quite familiar. In just over a week, I will move into a student room (albeit a very nice one!) at the residential college where I work at the University of New South Wales – so I will be living AND working in the same building – won’t that be fun!

Throughout the weekend, I had to go back to my apartment several times as various people have bought things and needed to collect them. Bye bye fridge… bye bye washing machine… it’s hard to get emotional about white goods and receiving a nice wad of cash in exchange for them made it quite a pleasant experience really.

There were a couple of things though that were quite hard to part with and left me feeling quite upset. I am not saying there is logic behind this, but I am fully aware of the fact that logical thought is not my strong point at the moment. My friend Rani bought my sofa and my dining table and I felt such a pang of sadness as my pink sofa drove away in the Thrifty hire truck. So much so, I ended up writing a poem about it over breakfast that morning. (If you think I am insane, that’s quite ok, I am fully aware of this fact).

So here it is – read it and weep.

Ode To My Pink Sofa

It was love at first sight.
She was soft feminine and pleasantly plump.

“Get it” said Lena, “While you are still single.
A man would never let you buy a pink sofa.”

We were a perfect fit,
Pink Sofa and I.
I could snuggle from head to toe or if I had company,
Pink Sofa would envelop us in a warm embrace
But three was always a crowd.

I think we always knew our relationship would end one day.
“I wish I could take you my darling, I wish I could.”
“I don’t take up much room, I swear, and I promise I’ll be good.”
“Oh my darling Pink Sofa. I promise she’ll love you just as much as I do.
Perhaps even more.”

“Don’t leave me” cried Pink Sofa, “I love you!”
With one final embrace I waved farewell as the truck doors closed
And she drove away from me forever.

At least I loved and lost Pink Sofa.
It was better than never having her at all.

So folks, this is where I am at now; me (minus a voice), two suitcases and my beloved laptop.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment and hopefully by then I’ll have my voice back.

Oops - I am living in denial clearly!

2006-11-06T05:30:00.000+02:00

I just realised that I am leaving in FOUR weeks today - not FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let the countdown begin...

2006-11-05T05:13:00.000+02:00

“Hashem said to Abram, “Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
(Bereishit, 12:1)

Ok folks, I think it’s time I cheered up a bit and started getting excited. I am leaving in exactly 5 weeks. I’d be lying if I said that the last few weeks have been an easy time for me. They’ve been pretty hard actually. As much as I don’t like to be the subject of my own experiment, a part of me finds it fascinating to delve deeply into the events of the last month or so and interpret them – or try to.

To be honest, I would be more concerned if this whole aliyah thing had been plain sailing all the way. I think it is normal, even healthy to be struck down by self-doubt and panic. Let’s face it, no one of completely sound mind and body would choose to make aliyah these days – it does work in your favour to be a tad off centre to begin with (big tick for me!).

A few weeks ago I inadvertently got involved with someone. To say I have been avoiding romance’s evil eye all year is the understatement of the century. When I made up my mind earlier this year to return to Israel permanently, I said to myself (sub-consciously of course – I haven’t quite got to the stage where I am talking to myself) “time to put on the love blinkers SGD”.
Of course I can hear you know-it-alls out there in cyberspace going, “Ahhhh, but you can’t control that kind of thing! Love comes when you are least expecting it.” Well – love might be too strong an emotion to use, but very strong feelings/powerful emotional connection/extreme attraction could all be appropriate substitutes.

The question I have been plaguing myself with is this: why has this person come into my life NOW? Whose idea of a cruel and twisted joke was this? I can see the headlines now: “GIRL SET TO HOP ON PLANE TO OTHER SIDE OF WORLD MEETS GREAT GUY. HEARTBREAK IMMINENT.”

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have spent the last few weeks in a totally discombobulated state (I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence!). I have been grinding my teeth at night again (something I have not done since I was about six) and my appetite has gone out the window (ok, every cloud has a silver lining).

So what happened that I was able to turn the corner and get back on the road to aliyah? Well, a few things. I was speaking to my brother the other night and despite the fact that we are really close, it is not often that we talk about our respective love lives. Still – my bro is one insightful cookie. He said; “you’re just like me – you wear your heart on your sleeve and you give too much of yourself, too quick.” Well thanks, Dr Phil umm, I mean Dr Rich.

He also reminded me of how long I have had this dream to live in Israel and that I owed it to myself to give it a go. “No one is saying you have to stay – but you do have to go”. I realised that once again I was falling into my old ways; my own self-created safety net if you like. It’s easier to back out of a plan than go ahead with it and fail. It’s easier to blame a third party on the eventual failure of my own actions than face my fears head on and deal with them.

I got off the phone and I sat and thought for a long time afterwards. I don’t think I came to any ground-breaking conclusions, but there was definite seismic activity going on in my brain. I went to bed and had one of those “dead sleeps” as I call them. Those nights where you remember nothing, not even nodding off to sleep the night before. When I woke up, I felt like a ten ton weight had been lifted from my chest. I sat up and said to myself (ok I admit it, I actually said this out loud – but I’m not crazy, I swear!) “I deserve to live my life on my terms finally.” I don’t even know where that came from to be honest; it seemed to float out of nowhere. But I understood it completely and utterly. For far too long I feel like my life has taken a path according to other people’s hopes and dreams. I have so many of my own!

Something else very profound happened this week as well. I went to shul this Shabbat and realised that the Torah portion was Lech Lecha – the parashas in Bereishit (Genesis) where G-d commands Abram to leave his home and seek out the land that G-d will show him (i.e Israel).

As I read through the parashas, I was struck again and again by the incredible parallels in my own life at this time. Leaving your home, your friends, your extended family – and of course – your own parents is scary stuff. Even Abraham – our great patriarch - was scared that he wouldn’t have friends once he got there! (I am very blessed in that I do have amazing friends and family in Israel whom I adore). Abraham’s journey to the Land of Israel is not an easy one. He is tested again and again.

I think what did it for me though was the realization that even if things had worked out with said guy, the fact remains that there is something fundamentally missing for me in this country – in all countries, except Israel.
It’s not something I can easily define. I am really not all that religious, although I may be a card-carrying Zionist now, I certainly was not brought up with that as an influence and no amount of logic could explain why I would want to give up my home, great job and leave my family and friends behind. At least in Israel I will be around lots of people just like me (i.e. other meshugenahs!)

Above all, I realised this: the first thing I must do is “get my house in order”. I need to lay down my hat and call it home. Only then will I be at peace and only then will my true destiny be able to knock on my door and say, “welcome home.”

Fractured Soul

2006-10-28T15:34:00.000+02:00

A fractured soul
Exists on earth
As lost souls do in purgatory

Not quite in this life
And not quite in the next

I have learnt
The hard way

That the physical body
Has nothing to do with the essence
Of ourselves

Bodies are vessels
Cocoons
Intent on taking us where our souls demand

I feel ripped in two
Or maybe even more pieces
Maybe so many pieces I have
Lost track now

A body here
A heart there
As my fractured soul floats above
Waiting for me to find myself

Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land gets a facelift!

2006-10-20T02:25:00.000+02:00

Welcome to the new and improved Solid Gold Dancing in the Holy Land.
Yes, it is official: I am a complete web geek who is far, far beyond help and recovery.
I hope you enjoy the fruits of my addiction.

T x

The Utter Fatality of Objects

2006-10-15T14:34:00.000+02:00

Like a still lake
Ennui
I hear its melody
In this vast cold room
The nuance of the light seems eternal
Everything is simple
And I admire the
Utter fatality of objects
The servant brings
His master a bowl
In the silence of the house

Dora Maar

I had scribbled this beautiful little poem on a scrap of paper that I found the other day when I was clearing out my wallet. I recently went to the Picasso exhibition that was on in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria and although I loved the whole exhibition, it was this little poem that obviously left the deepest impression on me.

Dora Maar was just one in a long line of women in Picasso’s life, but she was with him during possibly the most turbulent part of his life – personally and politically. They were together for more than a ten year period that spanned the Spanish Civil War and World War II. It was also during this time that Picasso painted one of his most famous and enduring works Guernica.

I must stop myself now. This is not a blog about art history. It’s easy for me to get side-tracked: partly because I am a bit of an art fanatic and partly because I feel that my brain is currently in a constant state of chaos. Side-tracking is becoming my new best friend.

Dora’s poem has taken on new meaning for me lately. On a daily basis now I am weighing up my objects and contemplating their fate: ship, sell, dump.

I am thinking a lot about what makes us feel complete as human beings. Do we define ourselves by our stuff and are we in turn defined by our stuff? While I would hope I am not what you would consider a “materialistic” person, how can we, in the West, be anything else?

We are forever in a state of constant upgrading and acquiring. Where does it all end? When will we finally sit back, breathe out deeply and say to ourselves; Enough. I have enough.

Mind you, saying all this does not make it any easier to divide my belongings into one of three piles. At this point in time, mainly due to miniscule finances, for an item to be on the “ship” list it must satisfy a number of criteria, but the most important one is: do I love it so much that I would never forgive myself for letting it go? Unfortunately, I seem to have quite a few of those “things”!

It’s amazing how some objects in our lives come with so much emotional baggage. I have come to realise that it’s not just us human beings that are laden with it. The things I have set aside to sell are going like hotcakes. This is great on the one hand (less to stress about), but utterly tragic on the other.

There goes my beloved sofa that took the best part of a year to pay off. There goes the dining table that I spent days sanding back and varnishing until it was restored to its original glory. Have to stop. This is going to make me cry.

I suppose that whether we like it or not, to a large extent we are our stuff. They are a reflection of who we are. It’s an extension of our personality. And to then suddenly get rid of some of that stuff, is in effect, getting rid of a part of ourselves. It is all at once, cathartic, freeing and terrifying.

I am a bit of a compulsive scribbler. A writer friend once told me, “Never leave home without a notebook and a pen. You never know when inspiration might hit”. It was the best advice about writing that anyone ever gave me. I am forever scribbling down little things in my tiny notebook. A few weeks ago I wrote this: “As I fill my notebooks, I realise that they track a journey, a moment in time and it reminds me that my life is on a continuum – that life is not about a bunch of unrelated, separate moments in time haphazardly strung together by a thing called co-incidence.”

The journey ahead is a little bit murky. It’s a little bit scary, but it’s exciting too. I hope that in the not too distant future I will be able to stand barefoot in the grass and let it joyfully grow tall around me. I will be happy and I will say to myself...

Enough.

Yom Kippur

2006-10-05T23:14:00.000+02:00

This time of year always makes me feel pretty vulnerable.
Sitting (although I seem to remember the standing bits more) in shul on Yom Kippur I struggle with myself internally every year and say to myself, I will get into the whole davening (praying) side of things. I will read the words in the machzor and read the Haftorah and finally THIS year I will gain some G-dly insight into things that I never saw before. Finally this year I will be swept away by some spiritual passion and deep meditative spirituality that by the end of it all will make me feel satisfied that my personal sealing of the year ahead is air-tight.

Except that’s not generally how things seem to work for me. Instead this is the reality. Here is a glimpse into the frightening thing that is my brain:

1. I woke up in the night with a coughing fit and had to have a sip of water from the sink in my bathroom. Have I just ruined my fast?

2. I am in shul and suddenly I find myself creating a to-do list for work the next week (bad, bad bad!).

3. I peer over the balcony and spy the cute guy I met recently. He smiles at me and my heart skips a beat and… crap… back to the praying woman!

4. How many pages until I can sit down again?

5. How many hours until I can eat and drink again?

Maybe to some readers I am sounding too flippant and maybe to other readers I sound like I am being too harsh on myself. After all Yom Kippur is a time of self-reflection and I can’t deny that I spend many, many hours contemplating on my year that has been and the big black hole that seems to be the year ahead.

I don’t remember a year that has flown by at such a frightening pace. I seem to have spent most of the year wishing it was the end of the year. When I decided I wanted to move back to Israel, I just wanted the year to end and for me to “be there already!” Now it is almost the end of the year and it seems reality has finally caught up with me. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago that I worked out when I would need to give notice on my apartment. It seemed like a million years ago when I made my mental list of what I would ship to Israel and what I would sell.

Well. That million years ago is now today. I have to give notice on my apartment in a week and I have to start seriously sorting my stuff (and myself!) out. I think this realization hit me at work the other day and it’s a wonderful thing that I have such caring and supportive colleagues and friends there. I needed to vent big time, and have a teeny bit of a cry, but hey, that’s ok. I am only human.

Sometimes I feel like my life is on constant repeat – playing out the same scenarios again and again. I am reminded of something I wrote exactly three years ago – almost to the day.

“All this moving about is making me tired. Making me feel old. I wish I could be like other people. Happy in one job. Happy with one person. Happy to live in one place. Happy just… well... being.

Why do I need to make my life so complicated? It’s like I have this genetic pre-disposition to upset my internal applecart. Just when things were getting settled, bam! There go them apples…”

And here I am again, three years on, about to do it all over again. I am sure that every time I uproot myself, I tell myself it will be the last time. The move to end all moves, so to speak. But so far I don’t have the best track record. The joke about being the “typical wandering Jew” is wearing pretty thin to be honest. I wear the number of cities, countries that I have lived in like some badge of honour.

I’ll tell you what I prayed for in shul at Yom Kippur this year. (I don’t think it is like sharing the wish you made over your birthday candles – I am pretty sure this doesn’t negate my prayer!) I prayed for peace. My inner peace. I prayed that the year ahead will finally allow my feet to stop moving faster than my head and my heart.

I am still not a hundred percent sure exactly what it is I am going halfway round the world to find, but I sure as hell hope I recognise it when I get there.

Shana tova everyone.

How to be a Fair Dinkum Aussie (according to John Howard)

2006-09-16T11:43:00.000+03:00

So now Our Johnny wants migrants to wait four years instead of three to earn the right to possess an Australian passport. He also wants them to pass an English test and potentially an Australian “Culture” test.

This got me thinking. What exactly would we test people on? What the hell is “Australian Culture” (other than a bit of an oxymoron)? What a fun job that would be, putting together that test! I thought I would give writing one myself a go:

The Fair Dinkum, Ridgy Didge, Dinky die, True Blue, Dyed-in-the-wool, Let's be an Aussie Cultural Test

Your name:

1. Bluey, Gazza, Bazza and Bruce are sitting in the pub on a Sunday afternoon, and the Aussie Rules is on the big screen.
How much is a beer?
a) Who cares, stick it on the tab mate.
b) $1.50?
c) Nothing. It’s Bazza’s shout.

2. The term, "the back O’Bourke," means:
a) The street behind Bourke St.
b) An expression of relief i.e. “I’ve never been so glad to see the back O’Bourke!”
c) The only place you’ll be able to afford to buy a house.

3. What is a “banana bender?”
a) The person who bends the bananas in the banana factory.
b) A person of dubious sexuality.
c) A native Queenslander.

4. According to Australian fashion "stubbies" and "thongs" are:
a) A modern interpretation of the 80's favourite accessory, the boob tube and a highly uncomfortable piece of underwear more closely akin to dental floss than underpants.
b) Overly short shorts and the Australian official footwear, also known as "flip flops"
c) I'm confused. How do you wear a glass of beer?

5. The term "Chuck a sickie" refers to:
a) Throwing a lesser known but equally lethal cousin of the boomerang weapon.
b) Throwing up after a hard night on the piss.
c) Taking a well deserved day off work.

6. To be “very stupid” or “very mad”, one is said to be:
a) Mad as a meat axe
b) Mad as a cut snake
c) A stunned mullet

7. A one-armed bandit is:
a) A criminal who has lost an arm
b) A poker machine
c) A rare native marsupial

8. When driving, to “chuck a U-ee” means you:
a) Are completing a U-turn in your car.
b) Are vomiting in your car.
c) Overturn your car.

9. The term "budgie smugglers" refers to:
a) The illegal smuggling of Australian budgerigars to Asia where their ground up feathers are used as a common aphrodisiac.
b) The name of a famous Australian pub.
c) A pair of tight, and very unaesthetically-pleasing pair of Speedo swimpants for men.

10. What is Vegemite?
a) A small, but deadly native insect
b) A small vegetarian
c) A sickly yeast concoction that Real Aussies smear on their toast every day.

The Answers:

1A, 2C, 3C, 4B, 5C, 6B, 7B, 8A, 9C, 10C

How did you do?

0-3: Bad luck mate. You’re back on the next slow boat to China.
4-7: Getting there Sunshine, but we’re gonna make you wait a bit longer for a passport.
8-10: G’day cobber! Welcome to the Lucky Country!

Anyway, to be serious again (for just a moment). Let’s look back in history shall we? Let’s examine the great former British Empire. Think back to how well the British assimilated into their newly conquered environments. India, Singapore, Hong Kong and of course… Australia.

Now, I am not just talking out of my hat here. I was born and raised in Hong Kong and lived there for the first 23 years of my life. Now; do I speak Cantonese or Mandarin? Do I heck! Does this fact fill me with shame and embarrassment? You bet it does! When I was at high school (the very posh and terribly-Chinese sounding King George V School) there was an actual school rule that forbade students from speaking any language other than English on school grounds. I am not joking. We did Maths in pounds and pence (as opposed to HK dollars and cents); in Geography we studied the construction of the M1 motorway in England and in History we studied Medieval Britain.

So what’s behind Howard’s new policy? Let’s be really honest here. This is about fear. This is about Howard’s thinly disguised attempt to somehow flush out the “undesirables”, the potential enemies of the country. Surely, if we turn them into dinky-die Aussies from the outset then they couldn’t possibly want to blow up their fellow countrymen?

Nice theory. But it’s just that, a theory. Think back to the London Bombings. Three out of the four suicide-bombers were born and bred in the UK. And they all spoke English right proper too.

If Australia genuinely wants its new migrants to assimilate and become real Aussies, it could take a leaf out of Israel’s book. What other country pays its new migrants a living allowance while they study the official language intensively for the first few months? What other country gives its new migrants significant tax breaks and free health insurance for the first six months? What other country pays for the migrant’s airfare?

Now, I am not suggesting the Australian Government starts handing out free airfares to every new migrant, nor am I suggesting that Israel has got it 100% right – but Israel has an entire Government Ministry whose raison d’être is to look after new migrants – the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption (Misrad HaKlita). What is Australia really doing to help integrate its new migrants?

If John Howard thinks that a crash course in English and a few facts and figures about Australia is going to prevent someone from turning into a would-be terrorist, then our government is so, SO off the mark. Sometimes I am overwhelmed with how naïve this country really is.

So Johnny. If that’s the best you can come up with, good luck mate – coz you’re gonna need it.

Some shameless self-promotion!

2006-09-05T15:57:00.000+03:00

I got an interesting email last week from the Editor of the Australian Jewish News, Dan Goldberg who asked if I would like my blog to be featured on the paper's website.
Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity and so folks, I am very proud to announce that I am officially the AJN's newest blogger. You can check out my blogspot by going to the AJN's website and clicking on the "blog" page.

Nefesh… Ruach… Neshama or how to tell when your inner light bulb has been switched on

2006-08-30T17:17:00.000+03:00

It’s been a while since I wrote. I’ve had a crazy busy last few weeks and most nights I have come home and just crashed.

However, writing is my addiction and like any addict, I can’t stay away from my “drug” for too long. The withdrawal symptoms are just way too unpleasant.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kobi came over for a cup of tea. Now Kobi is an Israeli who wants to be in Australia and I am an Australian who wants to be in Israel. Actually I don’t think Kobi really wants to be in Australia – he just wants to be in Israel less. Despite his crusty exterior, Kobi is quite the teddy bear. Ok, maybe not the kind of teddy bear you’d like to cuddle up to – he’d be more likely to growl at you than cuddle you, but he’s a teddy bear none the less. However, underneath the battle armour is a very deep and spiritual man and his insights into human nature never cease to amaze me.

We were talking about my (now imminent) return to Israel. He worries about me going. He worries that I will get there and then find out that it was not what I thought it was going to be. He’s worried that my pure optimism will be shattered, along with my idealism, hopes and dreams. I know that part of him wants to protect me from all that. But despite his fears, he does understand on the most fundamentally basic level why I am going. And not just why I am going – why I have to go.

Kobi started to tell me about the Jewish soul and how it consists of three parts, nefesh, ruach and neshama. Now I knew all these words separately, but didn’t know that together, they formed the building blocks of our souls.

As you might expect, Kabbalists have a very interesting take on this:

The Nefesh voice is concerned with the physical self, the physical world, and the natural drive for survival. It urges us to take all of our physical drives and to elevate them, to refine them, and not to let our animal instincts control us.

The Ruach voice is concerned with the meditations of our heart, our emotional world. It urges us to uplift our emotions and character traits. It is the voice that impels us to have deeper relationships of love and compassion.

The Neshama voice is concerned with what goes on in our mind. It urges us to elevate what occupies our thoughts, the content and direction of our thinking.

Combined, this is our mind, our heart, and our body. Ideally, these three elements interact in harmony with each other. No part of the individual is either ignored or denied.

Of course we know all too well, that it is a rare thing indeed to have these three elements working together in perfect harmony. Most of the time, at least one of these things is so out of joint that we swear we are limping or walking at an odd angle.

Kobi also likened the Neshama to a beacon, or a homing device. Once it has been switched on, nothing can stop it from reaching its target. It knows where it has to go and it will beep louder and louder, faster and faster until you scream, “Ok!!! I get it! Enough already! I hear you!”

I don’t know when my Neshama was “switched on”. I don’t remember if it was a particular day, or a specific event in my life that made me go, “hang on a sec. What am I doing here? This is not where I am meant to be. I need to turn my life upside down and move to Israel.” Yeah, like that makes sense.

But that’s my point. It is not supposed to make sense. Since when were our souls subject to a reality check? Isn’t our soul, our deepest inner voice supposed to be the one thing we listen to and trust no matter what?

People call it all kinds of things; our gut instinct, our sixth sense… but what are we really talking about here? We are talking about the primordial instinct placed deep into our DNA that given the right set of circumstances will one day go “BEEP!” and then – that’s it. You’re a goner.

I say ‘goner’ in the nicest possible sense of the word. It’s actually the most liberating feeling in the whole world. My whole life I have felt like my body and soul were out of whack with each other. One bit didn’t fit into the other all that comfortably. Real round hole, square pin type stuff.

Like I said, I can’t pinpoint the day that this all seemed to change for me, but I realized one day that my metaphorical limp disappeared. I felt aligned, in synch and for the first time, I felt a beautiful inner peace I don’t think I have ever known.

The rhythmic inner beeping, my internal metronome no longer drives me round the twist. Instead it is a comforting and constant reminder that I am on my way home.

Stop the world... I want to get off.

2006-08-06T17:03:00.000+03:00

I've been thinking all day about how to write this latest post and I still have no idea. I think I am just going to start writing and see where this takes me.

It's been one hell of a weekend here in Sydney. It started when I went to go shopping up the road from my house. In the 100m or so between my front door and the local supermarket I was bombarded by not one, but two sets of protesters trying to shove flyers into my hands with the following messages scrawled across them: "stop the genocide in Palestine" and "Stop the Israeli terrorists! End the occupation of Lebanon".

Every instinct in my body wanted to go up to them, and tell them where they could shove their bulls&%t pieces of paper. I wanted to scream at them, make them understand how ignorant they really are.

But I didn't. Why? I am not really sure. I confronted the very same people, who two weeks ago were camped outside my local train station, handing out more propagandist hateful lies. Within seconds I had the lot of them yelling at me, and screaming after me as I walked away, "Israel is the most racist country on earth!"

No. This time, I walked past them. I shook with rage. I could feel the blood boil through my veins and all I wanted to do was cry.

Tonight I turned on the television and caught the local news.

Last night, a 36 year old Israeli citizen was brutally murdered in Bondi - one of Sydney's most well-known beach-side suburbs. It is also a well-known Jewish area, with many Israeli travellers living there. As yet, the police don't know who did it, or why. There was this disturbing story in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

And there was another story - same day, same city. My so-called "home town" of Sydney.

This was a story about a peace rally in the city today. The rally was actually meant to mark the anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. Instead, it was hi-jacked by anti-Israel protesters who marched through the city chanting, "Down, down Israel!".

A 16-year old Lebanese Australian boy draped in a Lebanese flag, defended Hezbollah.

"We're here to protest, to get Israel out of our country," he said.

"The world, USA, George Bush, John Howard, they're calling our Hezbollah terrorists. They're not terrorists; they're freedom fighters; they're just defending our country."

I am sorry - but has the world lost its mind? Is this Australia, or am I living in some kind of twisted alternate reality?

Since when did terrorists become the new super heroes for our children?

Next thing you know we'll be hearing that Al Qaeda's job on the Twin Towers was a justified act by "freedom fighters" who were just letting off a bit of steam. And hell, it was just America, and everyone knows that it's America (or better yet, the American Jews) who are behind it all anyway.

Oh, and while we are at it, how about the Bali bombings? I suppose Jemaah Islamiyah are just a bunch of misunderstood "freedom fighters" who thought Aussies were over-running Kuta?

Read the whole damn article if you dare.

When I was at high school and studying the events that lead up to the Holocaust, I remembered struggling to understand how an entire country like Germany could be completely brain-washed into believing that the Jews were single-handedly responsible for all their woes and misery.

We can't find work. BLAME THE JEWS.
We've got no money. BLAME THE JEWS.
We can't feed our kids. BLAME THE JEWS.

We all know what happened. No need for a spoiler here.

There will be those out there reading this and thinking, "hang on a second! Who said anything about antisemitism? This is a legitimate criticism of the actions of a country i.e. Israel."

Anti-Zionist, Israel-bashing, Antisemitism... call it what you like. Just don't be a hypocrite and tell me that they are not all one and the same thing. "Anti-Israel" is just the 2006 version of what Jews have been subjected to for centuries.

If my grandparents (G-d bless their souls) were alive today, I think they would be very frightened. What we are seeing now would have been all too familiar to them.

I never would have believed that in a country like Australia - a country built on migrants - that I would live to see what I am seeing today. And it frightens the shit out of me.

Where is the voice of reason in all this madness?

Where is the voice of truth?

Israel Needs You!

2006-07-30T18:35:00.000+03:00

It seems that once again, Israel is fighting for its very survival. You’d think that after 58 years of Statehood and virtually uninterrupted troubles we’d be somewhat used to the never-ending cycle of crises and that the current problems wouldn’t surprise us.

But they do.

Why is that?

Is it because we Jews are the eternal optimists? Is it because triumph over adversity is in our genes? Possibly. For the last couple of weeks I, like millions of Jews all over the world (not least of all in Israel) have been glued to their television screens and voraciously consuming stories in the paper and online.

My nightly ritual has been to read no less than four online newspapers AND watch the English and Hebrew television news streamed from Israel. There is no point trying to get a hold on what is happening in Israel by relying on the local (Australian) media. It is at best uninformed and out of date and at worst, grossly biased against Israel and downright anti-Zionist. I watch five minutes on a local TV station and I get so angry I can literally feel the blood in my veins bubbling away to record temperatures. It’s just not worth the pain I have decided. From now on I will stick to reliable sources coming out of Israel directly.

I chat to my friends in Israel on a daily basis. My close friends are mostly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – and so far they have been relatively safe, thank G-d.
I have a cousin who lives in Nahariya with her little boy, but I know she has temporarily moved to stay with her sister in Tel Aviv. I have two other friends living in Safed – but I have not heard from them, but please G-d, I am sure they are okay.

You know the situation is bad in Israel when the Israelis say it is bad. That’s the true barometer. But despite all the craziness that is going on, despite the daily barrage of rockets being fired into Israel from Lebanon and Gaza and falling on innocent civilians, not one person is even thinking of leaving. This includes the thousands of young Jews from around the world currently in Israel on programs.

The company I work with in Israel, Chavaya Israeli, currently has over 3,000 young people in Israel on programs – and everyone is staying put. Sure the itineraries have changed. There are no day trips to Rosh Hanikra, no Golan tiyulim, no relaxing by the Kinneret in Tiberius, but that’s not getting in the way of all these people having the time of their lives in their Homeland. For all the mass panic there has been in Beirut with Lebanese Australians desperate for the Aussie government to “get them the hell out” there are no such calls from the parents of our kids in Israel.

Welcome to our world. Welcome to the reality of life in Israel since 1948 guys.
I am not saying for a second that Beirut would be my location of choice right at this point in time. I am not for a second belittling the very real fear of young people caught up in a conflict they have nothing to do with. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am happy for the relieved families whose children they have now been re-united with.

Have we seen one story of families and children in Israel whose lives have been torn apart by this crisis? Do we see pictures of the grieving families, the terrified civilians running to their shelters with a mere 60 seconds warning? These are rhetorical questions by the way, in case you hadn’t guessed.

Before all this balagan erupted, we were experiencing huge interest and excitement in our Israel programs which depart in December-January. The fact is; there is NO talk of cancelling our programs. Of course we are monitoring the situation extremely carefully and we don’t take a step without the full backing and support of a number of key stakeholders – the Zionist Federation of Australia and Taglit-birthright israel to name just two.

The safety and security of our participants has always been our number one priority and we do everything we possibly can to ensure that every single participant is safe from the minute they arrive in Israel to the moment they land back home again.

It’s interesting to note that in all the years that Machon (the year long program run by the youth movements) has been running, it has never ever been cancelled due to the problems in Israel. That speaks volumes about the Australian Jewish community’s commitment to Israel.

When our AUJS Academy groups leave Australia on December 5th, I will be on the plane with them. And remember – mine is a one way ticket.

Am Yisrael Chai!

A Family of Bloggers

2006-07-26T17:41:00.000+03:00

Seems blogging is contagious. Not only did I get my flatmate and neighbour upstairs to start a blog of their own; my father, bless him has also started one.

Here's my pop's musings on the world.

On top of that, my brother, clever boy that he is, has just created his own website. He's an actor (and a very talented one at that, I might add. Ok, I might be a wee bit biased!) He's using the website as an extended portfolio and showreel. If you are a Hollywood casting agent and you happen to be blog surfing right now, check him out - he's fab!

Finally - and I find this to be really amazing - a new blog from a good friend of my brother's.

Jonathan is a theatre director and a budding film maker. He was round at my mum's house the other night and the conversation inevitably turned to the current crisis in Israel. Jonathan is not Jewish, nor has he got any particular connection to Judaism, or Israel - other than my family I guess. It was Jonathan's place we went to for the 'mock' second night seder (see my earlier post - "Passover... with a difference")

Jonathan is so incensed and upset about how Israel is being vilified in the media that he has decided to fly to Israel on Monday and make a documentary. He is going to spend 28 days there - a country he has never been to, and really, knows very little about. I find this to be an absolutely extraordinary act of passion and bravery. Not brave because he is heading into a "war zone" but brave because he is one man who cares enough about the world to make a difference. Please track his incredible journey.

David Margolis z"l

2006-07-10T17:34:00.000+03:00

July 7th (Yud Alef Tammuz) 2006 marked the first anniversary of the death of David Margolis. David was an amazing man. He was my mentor, my friend and he gave me the courage to write.

I met David in 2003 when I was at the Arad Arts Project. David, and his wife Judith had also been participants on the program many years before when they arrived in Israel having made aliyah with their daughter.
David was a respected novelist, poet and journalist; Judith an extremely talented artist and poet. Together they were a powerhouse of creativity. They were also amongst the most devoted couple I have ever met.
They lived on the tranquil yeshuv of Beit Yatir, in the southern Hevron Hills. It was there that I visited them on many occasions - for shabbat dinner, for an informal seminar with my fellow artists or just for a chat.
David was always there for a chat.

In March 2004, the participants of the Arad Arts Project went to visit David and Judith who had agreed to run a day seminar at their home. I wrote about the experience at the time:

In March, the Arts Students had a seminar in Beit Yatir, a yeshuv (settlement) located in the very southern tip of the West Bank. Technically occupied territory, it has largely escaped the violence and terror usually associated with the troubled region. We went to visit former AAP participants David and Judith Margolis. David is a writer and journalist, his wife Judith is a visual artist and writer. It was hard to believe that this pastoral landscape was the same scarred and bloody landscape that we are conditioned to imagine when we watch the television or pick up a newspaper. All I could see around me were lush green fields, cattle, the occasional grazing horse, and budding peach blossoms heralding the beginning of spring.

As I sat at their dining table with a cup of tea and a piece of cake, I struggled to actually believe that I was in the “Occupied Territories”. It was such a loaded word. In this country blood is literally spilled at the very mention of those two words. And yet their home was like any other home. Comfortable worn couches, bookshelves spilling over with well-loved books, a warm and lived in kitchen. The view from their windows was of rolling hills and fields. I could have been on a farm in Australia.

We all sat down at the table and began a writing exercise with David. “What are your identities?” he asked. “Write a list. Just write down anything that comes to mind.” I began to write something that resembled a shopping list, albeit a rather bizarre shopping list:

Woman
Daughter
Sister
Girlfriend
Student
Olah Chadasha
Australian
Israeli
Friend
Jew
Writer

We were then asked to select one word from the list and use it to form the starting point of a free writing exercise, whereby you basically don’t think and just write – even if that means writing, “I don’t know what to write” a hundred times. This is what I wrote:

I am a Jew, but I don’t quite know what that means. It was the second last thing on my list of identities (Writer was last). I’d actually finished writing my list when I looked up and looked around me. Oh yeah. I remembered. I’m a Jew. I’m at a table full of Jews. In a Jewish house that’s in a religious Jewish settlement on the dangerous side of Israel – or at least that’s what the media tells us. It seems pretty bloody peaceful here is you ask me. So why was it so far down the list? Why did I almost forget to write it down at all? Is it because it is so second nature to me that it seems obvious and therefore easy to overlook, or is it (and more likely) because I struggle with my identity as a Jew, because it is not automatic, because I have to work at connecting it to my life?

It’s easier here in Israel. People just assume I am Jewish (actually they assume I am Russian, but that is another story) I like that people automatically assume I am Jewish. That makes me feel more Jewish. How do you “be” Jewish? How do you “do” Jewish? How do you “feel” Jewish?

If I left Israel would I feel more Jewish or less Jewish? Is being Jewish part of me, part of my identity or is being me just the same as being Jewish? Is the sum of the parts greater than the whole?

Am I lots of little pieces – some Jewish, and others not, or am I one big, complete, singular Jewish identity? And is Jewish Identity the same as Jewish Soul? Can you have a Jewish Soul and not have a Jewish Identity? I remember my grandfather once saying that he thought that even some non-Jews had Jewish souls, but that’s only because they were Jews in another life. So I guess they really were Jewish, even if they didn’t know it.

We wrote a new list. This time we were to list of all the emotions we were feeling at that very point in time:

Unstable
Happy
Sad
Anxious
Uncertain
Worried
Optimistic
Fatalistic
Yo-yo
Drifting
Longing
Looking for answers
Stressed
Dread
Afraid of making mistakes

The worrying thing is, I really thought I was pretty happy,

Once again, I picked one word out from the list and focussed on it. I chose the word “unstable”.

I’m unstable. Unlike the last list, this word is at the top. Number 1 no hesitation whatsoever this time. You know that feeling when you have to do something really important and you forget and then you remember all of a sudden? Your heart kind of skips a couple of beats and you feel sick and nauseous? Well that’s kind of how I feel these days. All the time really. In between I feel fine. Outwardly – and even to myself – I think I am pretty happy. Stable, consistent. But then I remember what that important thing was and I feel sick again. It’s a vicious cycle and one which I am not quite sure how to break. The really important thing I keep forgetting is, “What the hell am I doing with my life?”

Never before have I felt such a crossroads. I’ve travelled along a really long and often bumpy road and I’ve finally got here, and just when I thought it was straight on down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz, I come across a giant fork in the road. The left side has a beautiful rainbow and dammit, so does the right side. Or is it a mirage? I’m in the Middle East – they have mirages here don’t they? I’m in the desert too; even more appropriate.

I don’t want to take the wrong path. I’m frightened I won’t be able to find my way back if I take the wrong path. I hate making mistakes. I’m a perfectionist.

By June it seemed as if my life was headed down a path I could no longer turn back on:

I am not sure when the exact moment was or if there was a precise event that occurred, but I know that virtually overnight I went from being utterly convinced that I was going to stay in Israel forever to all of a sudden handing my credit card details over the phone and booking a one way flight back to Melbourne.

A couple of weeks before I flew back to Australia, I was at David and Judith Margolis’ house for dinner. Two WUJS friends, Robin and Melanie had also come along. After the lovely home cooked meal of roast chicken, we all sat and relaxed in their comfortable lounge room. David turned to me and said “So, it’s exactly two weeks that you will be leaving Israel?”
“Two weeks?” I replied. “Um, I guess so. You know I didn’t realize it was just two weeks, but you are right. I can’t believe it.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t. I can’t. Feel. Anything. I don’t know what I think. I think I am still in shock about the whole thing really.”
“That’s understandable. I am sure this is pretty tough for you.”
“I’ll be back though. Of that, I am sure.”
“Really?” said Judith. “You think so?”
“No question.” I replied, a little too quickly.

About midnight, David and Judith drove us all home to Arad. The three of us crammed into the back seat – and to make some extra room, I threw the heavy bullet-proof vest into the boot of the car. I do realize how absurd that sounds, but hey, it’s their reality. They live in the West Bank.
I sat squashed in the middle, or “sittin’ bitch” as my American friends referred to it. About halfway into the thirty minute journey home, I began to feel a shortness of breath. My eyes started to sting and all of a sudden, I fought to hold back the tears. At first I thought I was having a bit of a claustrophobia attack. It was very crammed and uncomfortable in the car and the windows were so dirty and caked with dust and sand that I couldn’t even look out. I realized though that it was not claustrophobia I was suffering, but a good old-fashioned anxiety attack.
I think I did a pretty good job of concealing it though and managed to get home without anyone saying anything. I realized that this was to be the first of many goodbyes to come. David and Judith had become good friends and I was going to miss them.

As the three of us walked back towards the Merkaz Klita, I asked Melanie if she wanted to come to my room for a cup of tea. Really it was just an excuse to talk to someone. All of a sudden I had a desperate need to talk to someone.
“I’d love to, but I have got so much reading to do for a class tomorrow.” Melanie said.
“Please, Melanie.” I replied; my voice audibly cracking. “Please come by. I need to talk to someone.”
She must have sensed my desperation, because she said she would be round as soon as she could.
A little while later there was a soft knock at my door. It was Melanie.
“So what’s up? Is everything ok?”
I burst into tears. It was so sudden and so explosive, I even surprised myself. I let her in and she came and sat with me on my bed.

“I can’t do it Mel. I can’t go back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t leave Israel in two weeks. I just can’t leave here.”
“But I thought you were all decided."
“I know! I know! I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like a total fucking basket case. I keep swinging from one extreme to the other. I really thought I had made up my mind and for a while I was really confident that I had made the right decision. And then tonight when David pointed out that I literally have two weeks left in Israel, I freaked out. I literally freaked out. It’s like I hadn’t actually allowed my brain to start thinking about the realities of leaving. It was still so theoretical. I’ve barely told a soul I am leaving, I feel ashamed. I feel like a failure. I hate that I have no options left. I have no money. There are no jobs and in just a couple of weeks, I’ll have no place to live. It didn’t make me feel any better when Judith, who is truly one of life’s optimists, told me that believed that if I had really wanted to stay, the opportunities would have come.”

“Mel. As incredible as WUJS has been for me, and it really has changed my life – it has also totally fucked up my life. Coming here was both the best and worst thing I have ever done. It’s turned my life upside down and inside out. I don’t know what the hell to do. I don’t know what the right thing to do is and I am terrified I am making a huge mistake in going back.”

Melanie looked at me with such sympathy and suddenly I was aware of how desperate I had become. My tear-stained face was begging for solutions. I wanted someone to wave their magic wand and make it all better. “I have to admit” she said. “I was so surprised when you said you were going back. I really thought you were one of the ones who really would stick it out here. I was depending on you! You were my inspiration and knowing you would be in Israel made me feel like I could stay here too. And now you are going. I don’t think you should go. I think you should stick it out at least for a few months.”

Part of me thought she was right. The other side of me (actually by this point there were probably about 56 “parts” of me – my psyche was so fractured) felt so hopeless and that I had made a decision, maybe not the right decision, but it was a decision, and that was better than NO decision and at least I felt like I was moving forward in some direction. Until then, I had felt utterly hopeless, drowning in indecision and endless confusion. It had been so long since I had been able to sleep though a full night. Lying awake until the early hours of the morning was now a sad reality and I would spend my days wandering around in a semi-zombie state.

Melanie stayed with me for about three hours and we talked and talked. I did feel better afterwards. No less confused, but talking to someone there and really being honest about how torn I was about the whole thing made me feel a little better. After she left I called my mother. I told about what I was going through – I must have sounded like a broken record – I don’t know how she kept up with me! She was incredibly sympathetic and told me that she would support me no matter what decision I made.

Well, it's pretty obvious what happened isn't it? I went home to Australia and cried half the way across the world.

Almost exactly a year ago to the day I received a most distressing email from someone I didn’t actually know. I can’t remember the actual title of the email except that it was something along the lines of “Prayers for David Margolis” I opened it and read an email that seemed to say that David was deathly ill and that his family were calling for all his friends, and anyone that knew and loved David to say Tehillim (Psalms) reciting specific prayers traditionally said for someone who is close to death. Not being one to normally reach out for my prayer book, I felt an urgent compulsion to do just that. I copied down all the numbers of the prayers and read each one aloud in bed that night. I read and I prayed. I prayed with such conviction and struggled to continue to read as tears rolled down my face and stained the pages of my book. The prayers talked of nearing the grave and the afterlife and I realised how seriously ill David must have been. I thought of his dear wife Judith, and I wished I had been able to be at The Kotel where people who loved David were gathered.

I received a second email the next day, on July 17th, from the same person, except that this time the email was entitled, “David Margolis – of Blessed Memory”. He was gone. I was stunned and shocked and silenced in my immediate grief. In many ways, I hardly knew David. I had only known him for a year of both our lives, and yet I don’t know if David will ever know the deep impact he had on my life. He was my mentor. I admired and respected him so much. As a writer, as a Jew and as a human being. He was an example to us all. He lived his life with such truth and conviction. If I get to live my life with an ounce of the integrity that he lived his life, I will be truly satisfied. To know that one is living such “truth”, such honesty, must be a wonderful feeling.

I try to live my life with a “no regrets” rule. I know that I cannot avoid the regret that the book I am (still!) writing was not finished before David passed away. I started it when I was in Israel at WUJS and I doubt it would have got anywhere had it not been for his support, guidance and critical advice. I wish he was still alive so he could know how much he meant to me. Part of me thinks that even though he is no longer with us, he is still here and he knows how much he meant to me – and to countless other people whose lives he touched in his lifetime.

His wife Judith sent out an email this week to let people know about the unveiling of his gravestone at the Har Hevron Cemetery in Sussiya. She ended her short email with a beautiful poem;

i thank you God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

- e e cummings

David, I am keeping my promise and I am coming back. And I will come to visit you and pay my respects. David - my mentor, my inspiration, my friend. I miss you.

Visit David's website