Tag Archives: Old City

It’s beginning to look a lot like Succos

With Succos coming up quickly (it starts Sunday night), the Rova is a flurry of activity. Palm fronds seem to be the schach of choice. Lulavim and esrogim are for sale around every corner.

People just go ahead and put up their succahs in the public square. Note also the construction activity up on the rooftops.

 

Carrying the schach up to the succah.

 

Schach delivery.

 

Schach for sale by the parking lot, with the Churva in the background.

 

Engineering around hazards in the landscape.

 

I got my esrog from a fellow at the yeshiva who was selling them. Here’s some of what he had to choose from.

 

Lulavim on his table.

 

 

Seasonal flags look a little different over here.

 

In the heat of Succos prep, look who shows up again.

 

Rosh Hashanah

“Please. Send. More. Brisket.”

When it comes to the High Holidays, the common perception is that Rosh Hashanah is fun, while Yom Kippur is the hard one. After all, Yom Kippur is when we fast and repent, spending all day talking about how bad we were last year, begging for forgiveness, and promising that next year will somehow be different. As a kid, I definitely dreaded Yom Kippur. Spending a big chunk of the day in synagogue brought it to another whole level of affliction.

By contrast, Rosh Hashanah is all apples & honey, warm wishes for a sweet new year, the shofar, much shorter services, and even fish heads. If not for the fact that it is an ominous portent of the Day of Atonement to come just 10 days later, Rosh Hashanah would be just about perfect.

But that isn’t quite how it really is. Rosh Hashanah is, in truth, the Yom HaDin – the Day of Judgment. Our fate for the next year is being determined, at least preliminarily. Yes, we’re supposed to be happy and enjoy all of the special observances of the holiday, but we’re also supposed to be in awe of the King and His judgment.

Nonetheless, back home in Chicago, Rosh Hashanah tended to feel more celebratory than trepidatious. Not so here. Much of that is because I’m not just in Jerusalem, but in yeshiva. We’ve been hammering away at teshuvah (repentance – literally, “return”) for all of the Hebrew month of Elul, including careful study of a classic work on the topic (Rabbenu Yonah’s Sha’arei Teshuvah) and formulation of practical exercises to implement the concepts therein. Public speeches by the rabbis of the yeshiva have been teshuvah-focused, and the topic has been hanging heavily in the air since I got here.

Still, Rosh Hashanah itself was at another level of intensity from what I’m used to. Part of it was that the yeshiva davens (prays) vasikin on Rosh Hashanah. Vasikin means that the service is timed to hit the shmoneh esrei exactly at sunrise. To do this, we started a bit after 5:30 a.m. each of the two days. (We’re also going to daven vasikin for Yom Kippur, which is after the time change here in Israel. Looks like a roughly 4:30 a.m. start time.) It seems vasikin is far from unusual on Rosh Hashanah, because there were plenty of people out when I was walking to yeshiva in the morning.

Even aside from vasikin, there was a much stronger flavor of “Yom HaDin.” For example, the speaker before mussaf (the part of the service in which, among other things, the shofar is blown) was Rabbi Krieger, the yeshiva’s Shoel U’Meishiv (a rabbi who is available during the day to answer the students’ questions), who also happens to be a great-nephew of Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen, a.k.a. the Ohr Somayach or the Meshech Chochma. He talked about how hard it was to speak at that moment, in light of the impending shofar blowing, and related that Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer was once asked to speak in the same slot. According to Rabbi Krieger, Rav Meltzer got up, and promptly began crying uncontrollably. He cried for 10 minutes, and sat down… that was his speech.

Another difference from Chicago is that there is far less uniformity in the community-wide schedule. At home, aside from the occasional vasikin minyan, the various synagogues start and and at similar times. The whole neighborhood seems pretty much on the same rhythm, with people coming & going between home, synagogue, and meals at basically the same time. Here, there is much more variety. Starting and finishing times vary wildly. Even for those who daven vasikin, some (like my yeshiva) do a lot of singing, etc., and so don’t finish until after 11:30 a.m. By contrast, our lunch host also davened vasikin, but his private minyan goes pretty straight through, and they were done hours earlier. Our houseguests went to services at Aish Hatorah, and didn’t get back until 2:00 p.m. Some kabbalists have a shul around the corner from here, and I can only imagine when or how long they davened (a friend of a friend reportedly once went there for evening Shabbos services, but left after it took about 15 minutes for them to say the first line of Krias Shema). And I have no idea what it was like down at the Kotel.

G-d should cast our sins into the depths of the… sewer?

On Rosh Hashanah afternoon, there’s a custom to perform tashlich, a ceremony done next to a body of water. In Chicago, we go to the nearby North Shore Channel of the Chicago River. It’s your classic, preferred venue for tashlich – flowing water, fish swimming happily. There no such open water in Jerusalem, much less in the Old City. So, here, they do tashlich in the square near our apartment… next to two big sewer grates. I guess there might be water down there somewhere, but I sure didn’t see any. Jerusalem usually has it all over Chicago in matters of spiritual ambiance, but the Windy City takes this particular contest going away.

I have to say that, overall, I found myself a little homesick over Rosh Hashanah, pretty much for the first time since we got here. On the High Holidays, you’re kind of going to battle spiritually. I missed not only the familiar surroundings of my synagogue, and our star chazzan, but especially the tight bond among the mispallelim (those praying). We’re not a kehilla (congregation) of convenience, but one of choice, with similar goals and strong friendships. There’s a bond among the people in yeshiva, for sure, but I’ve only been here a month. Also, most of the guys here are significantly younger. In all, it feels weird to be going to war without my platoon.

Adding to the weirdness of this Rosh Hashanah was the stomach bug that went through the family. My turn came just after mincha (the afternoon service) on the first day, which put me in bed until I made it to synagogue early the next morning. Both Yitzi and Shalom had it pretty bad, but Mordechai, thank G-d, avoided it entirely. Debbie got it the worst by far, but I’ll let her tell her tale when she’s ready.

Even with the sickness, of the stomach and home- variety, Rosh Hashanah here was an amazing experience. People talk about the kedushah (holiness) of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), of Jerusalem, and of the Old City, but it doesn’t hit you over the head like a sledgehammer – at least it didn’t for me. Instead, it is like a quiet background hum that slowly grows in intensity over time. By the time of Rosh Hashanah, I could feel its momentum, and it was part of what made this an intense experience. We’ll see how it feels as our year progresses…

Wishing everyone a g’mar chasima tova and an easy, meaningful fast.

A couple of funny things seen on the streets of Jerusalem

A few things I noted while out & about in Jerusalem.

Israeli cluelessness when it comes to Christianity/Christmas is something of a running joke in American Jewish communities, and it seems it isn’t all hyperbole. I took this in a housewares/toy store in the middle of the famously “Ultra-Orthodox” Meah Shearim:

Look who came to town

This is an ironic bit of graffiti. It says “Derech Eretz Kadma L’Torah,” which translates roughly to “good character/proper conduct comes before the Torah”:

How do you say “cognitive dissonance” in Hebrew?

And this one is from the square right by our apartment. This is a bench that really doesn’t want to be sat on, and has done something about it:

Unfathomably low, but the trump card of discomfort is the irresistible forward tilt.

Being here

Maybe the weirdest thing about being here is that, oddly enough, I have to keep reminding myself that we’re far, far away. For all the differences, there’s a lot that’s familiar. The streets of the Old City may be stone, but you’re as likely to hear English on them as Hebrew (maybe more likely). Americans abound, including the constant tour groups streaming through the squares. Other than the texts themselves, and the “Yeshivish” jargon, everything at my yeshiva is in English (most of the “foreign” flavor comes from the large number of South African students there). I get my news the same way I did at home – from the Internet – and from generally the same sources. I glance over the online Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Facebook… I look at the Jerusalem Post site more than I used to, but most of its online stories seem to be geared for the international audience anyway. My media mix is largely unchanged, with the exception of being unable to stream WXRT (VPN, I’m looking into you soon!).

Also, when you’re a Torah-observant Jew, there are lots of familiar standbys. A shul is a shul. We’re used to services being all in Hebrew anyway. Shabbos is Shabbos. The familiar rhythm of frantic Friday errand-running, hurried showers, setting up timers, hot water, hot plate, crock pot, etc.; the sudden, forced peace that comes with lit candles and swaying brachos; family Shabbos dinner at a formal, clothed table with songs and parsha sheets; morning davening at shul, followed by lunch at home or as guests, with the usual discussion of the Torah portion, current events, and our journeys in Yiddishkeit; the leisurely afternoon, mincha, the simple-but-satisfying seuda shlishis of challah, hardboiled eggs, etc., the too-soon end with ma’ariv and havdala, bringing that back-to-work feeling… all of it transcends place.

When shul, yeshiva, and Shabbos all feel like home, it can be difficult to remember how far we’ve come. Debbie’s and the boys’ experience is totally different, as they deal much more with Jerusalem as a new, foreign place. But I find myself sometimes jarred when I look up past the stone and catch a view of the Mount of Olives or a similar, undeniably foreign landscape, and remember that I am There.

Our first 1.5 weeks

I was very pleased with myself that I already knew my way around the Rova (Jewish Quarter = “Rova Yehudi” = “Rova” for short) pretty well when we got here. Having had virtually no sleep in a full day prior to our late night arrival, it didn’t take too long to get over jet lag, either. We spent the time before the beginning of the zman (school term) buying housewares, setting up services like cell phones and home broadband, and otherwise getting settled.

If you know how to set the time on these, please contact me ASAP!

Learning to use our appliances has been a humbling experience. E.g., we discovered that we do have a dishwasher, which we plan to use sparingly, but I’m embarrassed to say how long it took us to figure out where to put the detergent. Not to mention how long it took to figure out which product at the makolet (sort of a mini-mart; somewhere between a convenience store & a real grocery store) was dishwasher detergent. We still don’t know how to use the ovens. Other surprises:

  • The lighted switch near the front hall turns on & off our doorbell.
  • The older Shabbos water urn leaks… big time!
  • Our stoves have a weird safety mechanism that made it impossible to light them until our neighbor showed us how.
  • Our shower head needed to be soaked in vinegar to clear out the calcium deposits from the very hard water here.
  • There’s a Shabbos timer for most of the common area lights built into the circuit breaker.

Shhhhh! Don’t tell the Iranians, but Israel has secret, advanced Muppet Chicken Rocket technology.

Going around town shopping for housewares is… how shall I put this? … not the kids’ favorite thing in the world to do. Dragging them from mall to shuk to storefront was not the most fun thing we’ve ever done as a family. We tried bribery, like the cheesy rides at the mall and treats of all kinds. On our trip to the shuk (market) at Machane Yehuda, Debbie had the excellent idea to put on a scavenger hunt. She made a list of things to find there, of which the boys could take digital pics. The plan backfired when it devolved into crying fits over the composition of teams, and who was taking some sort of unfair competitive advantage.

Another thing you don’t see at home: a synagogue inside the mall. With a 400-year-old Italian Ark, to boot.

We eventually accumulated pretty much everything we need. A few observations along the way:

  • The stuff here is typically not as nice as in the U.S. On the other hand, it is generally cheaper.
  • There’s a massive difference in quality when it comes to paper, plastic, and textile items. The disposable plastic plates here you can see through. Paper napkins are actually hard to find in U.S.-style quantities, and they are markedly thinner and more expensive. Plastic cups are small and flimsy – the ubiquitous red Solo cup of American party fame is nowhere to be found here.
  • Many local kitchen towels do not actually absorb liquid. This seems like an odd quality for a towel to lack.

    They’re transparent, but at least they’re kosher for Pesach.

  • We have yet to find any American-style sponges or washcloths.
  • When it comes to customer service, e.g.dealing with the phone company, I’ve found it to be surprisingly personable, but often incompetent — sometimes astonishingly so — and maddeningly inconsistent. For example, I spent a long time at the Orange store setting up our cell phones. The people there couldn’t have been nicer, and worked extensively with me to get my service set up. But when I walked out, I discovered that the data plans on our phones had not been activated. I went back and got that taken care of, only to discover later that international calls on our phones were blocked (despite having purchased all-inclusive plans with free international calls). I later called Orange to have my voicemail system language changed to English (thanks to a tip from a neighbor that this could be done), and the super-friendly English-speaking rep did it for me instantly. When I called back later to get Debbie’s done, I was told by a different rep that she could not do it, and Debbie would have to call a different number from her phone. The Bezeq (phone company) rep called me when she was supposed to in order to set up our home internet; she already had my name, knew I spoke only English, and even gave me her personal cell phone number. But I had to tell her multiple times that the address they had for us was wrong, and only later discovered that there were a number of previously-undisclosed additional steps that had to be done to effectuate service.

    Debbie spices

    Debbie shopping for spices at the Machane Yehuda shuk.

  • Cell phone service is way cheaper here. We’re paying about $35 per phone to get unlimited minutes, texts, international calls (!), and 1G of data per month (and once you hit the limit, it neither stops nor charges you extra – the download speed just slows down).

Another treat of shopping — felafel for lunch.

There’s always more stuff to get, but the major shopping is done, and we hope we can focus on the reasons we’re here. With so much to do, it is easy to get the idea that getting settled is our principal focus, and to forget the real mission. Time to aim a little higher.

The trip, Stage 3: London to Jerusalem

The thing about flying El Al is that, once you board, you feel like you’re in Israel already. The staff has that paradoxical surly-but-kind manner, everything’s in Hebrew with often unintentionally hilarious English translations, and you’re surrounded by an eclectic mix of fellow Jews. Our plane had the typical assortment: chassidim and other “black hat” Orthodox men and families, classically underdressed secular Israelis, American 20-somethings on a group trip, and some Israeli kids who looked way too young to be traveling alone. Not to be found: the notion of any public comportment. When it’s just us, we climb on the seats, argue with the flight attendants (and everyone else), talk loudly across the plane, complain about where we’re seated, share food, and generally act like the plane is our collective living room. Welcome home.

The flight from Heathrow to Ben Gurion kind of tracked the first leg, except we had less space (no bulkhead, no bassinet, and only 4 seats across in the middle section). The boys quickly fell asleep, but then Shalom soon woke up with his same punitive crying routine. A movie on Debbie’s iPad made it bearable, but we arrived at Tel Aviv exhausted and with frayed nerves. On the other hand, we were really excited to be there.

As an aside, I initially forgot my duty-free bag on the plane — I nearly lost my scotch! Fortunately, I remembered and high-tailed it back in time. They let me get back on the plane to retrieve it. The notable thing was that I got to see the cleaning crew in action. I might have guessed how massive it was had I taken the time to think about it, but it was truly impressive how many people come on to clean up and prep the plane for its next flight.

One last leg remained for our voyage in: to get ourselves and our massive baggage load into the Old City and into our apartment. We’d arranged a driver in advance (if you need one, let me know — he’s a really good guy) to pick us up. But we had taken two SUVs to get to the airport in Chicago with all of us and our stuff and — though I’d emailed the driver several times to warn him about the large baggage load — I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be able to fit everything. There was also the fact that you can only get so far into the Old City by car, and that I only sort of knew where our place was.

After getting all of our bags loaded onto two groaning carts, we headed for the exit area where the driver was to meet us. Before we got there, he spotted us and went to go get the car. He pulled up in a minivan-ish thing, and I was sure it would never happen. Sure enough, our bags quickly ate up all of the trunk space with lots more to be packed. But somehow, with stuff at our feet, in our sides, and on our laps, it all went in. I have to tell you this was nothing short of an open miracle. Welcome to the Holy Land.

We got some more much-needed Divine assistance when we got to the Old City. First, the parking lot attendant let us pull in to unload the car. Okay, that didn’t really qualify as miraculous, but convincing a grumpy Israeli security guard of anything in the middle of the night seemed unlikely. The next step was more crucial. I went ahead to scout, and pretty quickly found the address, about where I believed it would be. The problem was that the landlord had told me there was no separate apartment number, making me think our place was the only one at the address. But when I got to Ma’amadot Yisrael 7, there was an entranceway leading to 3 apartments. Worse, all had nameplates, none of which matched my landlord’s name. It was well after midnight, and I had no working cell phone.

Ma’amadot Yisrael 7

I did know that our place was accessed via a “Shabbos lock” (a built-in combination lock), which only one of the apartments had. But I was apprehensive about trying the code on that lock, to say the least. If it was the wrong place, the resident was going to think someone was trying to break in to his home in the middle of the night. It also bears mentioning that many Israelis are well armed.

Anyway, I decided to quickly and quietly try the code. It worked perfectly, and I stepped into the apartment, looking exactly as it had in the video our friend Isser shot for us. Having seen that video so many times (as we showed it to friends and family), it was dizzying to walk into it, actually. I turned on some lights and headed back to help ferry baggage. What I would only realize later was how unlikely it was for the code to have worked perfectly the first time. As it turns out, the lock sticks, and you almost always have to punch the last number a bunch of times, or start over, in order to get it to work. But, had the code not worked perfectly that first time, I would have assumed it was not the right place, and wouldn’t have known what to do.

In fact, when I came back with the first load of bags, I tried to enter the code and it didn’t work. I tried re-entering it a few times, with no avail. Now, I assumed that I’d somehow accidentally locked the bottom lock when I’d closed the door, and believed we were stranded outside — again, late at night and with no cell phone. Just then, the neighbor from the apartment next door came by. He’s handy, thoroughly familiar with our place, and knew the code. Oh, and he’s from the States, so there’s no language issue. I told him our predicament and he said no, the lock just sticks, and promptly opened it. Once again, had this neighbor not happened to have been around, at nearly 1:00 a.m., I don’t know what I would’ve done.

We finally got all of our stuff inside, tipped our driver heavily, and went to bed. But first I thanked G-d for the “small” favors, which made such a huge difference. Again, welcome to the Holy Land.

In other news, we found an apartment

Lost in the hubbub over the newest, tiniest Shmikler, there’s other good news. It looks like we have an apartment in the Old City lined up. In fact, I was emailing with the landlord from the hospital last night (“Push!” “I am pushing, but he won’t budge off of his rent demand…”).

It is a 3BR, near Batei Mahse Square. By American standards, not so big (we really don’t appreciate just how much space we’ve got in this country) but it is well-suited for our needs.

There’s so much else to think about right now that it hasn’t sunk in what it means that we’ll be living in the Old City of Jerusalem. Right after we were married, Debbie & I went on a trip to Israel and stayed with friends of friends for Shabbos in the Old City. It struck us then how crazy it was that people could live there. Debbie described it as like living in the fairy castle in the middle of Disneyland.

Those “friends of friends” are now our friends as well, and soon will be our neighbors. The apartment is right near their place. Crazy.

Where are we going to live?

We thought long and hard, and spoke with a lot of people, while deciding where to live.

Lots of people mentioned Har Nof, which is highly Anglo, has good school options, and has really good learning opportunities for Debbie. We also already have friends living there.

Another popular suggestion was Ramat Eshkol/Maalot Dafna. Many of our friends here went to Ohr Somayach in the neighborhood, and so can tell us a lot about it. Again, there’s a heavy Anglo presence, and plentiful apartments as young families are frequently moving in and out.

Some people even suggested living in Ramat Bet Shemesh, and commuting to Jerusalem, because of the extremely high concentration of Americans there and good school options. We also have friends there (hi, Gerald & Rachel!).

To make our decision, we had to focus on our priorities for this trip. We’re not planning it as a precursor to aliya (moving permanently to Israel), nor are we focused on trying to experience “Israel qua Israel.” Our goal is growth as a family. We want to grow in Torah and in our spiritual foundations, and we want to grow as a family. Living a distance from where I’ll be learning would mean that I would see less of the family and, just as importantly, they would see less of me doing what I’m taking the time to do.

With all of this in mind, we’ve decided that we want to try to live in the Rova (the Jewish Quarter, in the Old City). I can be home for meals, and the boys will see me often in the yeshiva, and even learn with me there on Shabbos. There are plenty of Anglos in the Rova as well, particularly the Bircas HaTorah community itself, and we already have friends who live there. The inevitable struggles the boys will have at first in school will, we hope, be mitigated by the fact that both Debbie and I will be close by. Not to mention that we’ll be living in the spiritual center of the world. Also, when else will we have the chance to live in the Old City?

On the downside, it isn’t easy getting in & out of the Rova; shopping there can be a bit limited; it is something of a “bubble,” disconnected from the “typical” Israel experience; we’ll have to navigate the hordes of tourists; and we’re probably looking at an even smaller place to live.

But, on balance, we feel that the positives far outweigh the negatives, and we’re really excited about the choice. Now we just have to find an apartment! We have a broker looking, but if you know of anything…