Baruch dayan ha'emet. With tremendous sadness along with deep gratitude for our many years together, I share with you that my beloved father died on Friday.
May the memory of Nasson Velvel ben Beryl be for a blessing
In honor of "Aliyah Day" that was earlier this week (to coincide with this week's Torah portion of Lech Lecha, where Avraham is commanded by Gd to go from his land, his birthplace and his family to the land that Hashem will show him), I wanted to give a big shout out to one of the country's newest citizens: Cousin Jillian!!!
Okay, so she's not likely to be here 'until 120', as we say. She's more likely to be here until she finishes medical school, and being a citizen will help her breeze in- and out of the country with (more) ease during Covid. It will also mean that *her* first-degree relatives can apply for permission to enter the country for a visit (Israel being closed to tourists since March 2020.....). SOOO, cousins Mike, Marlene and Lindsey: hope to see you soon!
I can only imagine my Grandpa Jack, a''h, and Jillian's great-grandpa Louis, who were brothers, are smiling in shamayim at their descendants living in Israel. I would like to thank Jillian for finally giving me a relative in this country who doesn't live under the same roof as me. And for being the kind of person who get choked up when the Philharmonic plays "Hatikva" before the concert begins. Love you and SO proud of you, Jillian! 
We recently celebrated our six year aliyah-versary! Wow. We're really doing this!!! As the kids were all still in the US on the actual day, we didn't do anything as a family (okay, I sent a Whatsapp to our family group, but I'm not sure that counts as celebrating).
Work is sloooowly gearing up. Almost all my students are still in quarantine, but I did have one clinic so far. Good to be back in the saddle again!
I'm spending some of my time making meals for families of new olim, because they are all in bidud like my students. Eek--I can't quite imagine what it would be like to make aliyah and then find yourself unable to leave your house for a minimum of a week (predicated on a negative Covid test at the airport right after you land and one on Day 7). Especially since most of these people are doing it with kids. A lot of kids for some of them (I'm making dinner tonight for a family with 5 kids). Many of the new olim are getting Meal Trains set up for them to get them through that first week since oftentimes they don't even have a stove yet, never mind know how to set up an online grocery order (or even know from where to order a pizza)! Our street has THREE families of new olim who have moved in, which is crazy rare (we were the last new olim to show up on our street). The (slightly-envious) talk of the neighborhood is a set of families who made aliyah: the young-grandparent/parents along with three of their adult children with *their* families. WOW. How cool would that be to make aliyah with your own built-in support system of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins?!
Penina and Ilana came back from the US and, like the new olim, entered bidud for a week, which for Ilana meant missing the first few days of school which, as she notes, are the only fun ones in the beginning of the year. While I've heard of the police calling or checking in-person if people are sticking to their home quarantine, thankfully all was quiet for them. Their big outing was getting their second Covid tests (thus saith Penina, "Why don't we go to Jerusalem to get them? There's no requirement that you go to a place near you and it's the first we've been out of the house for a week". In the end, though, they did go locally). We somewhat gamed the system by paying privately for them to get rapid tests on Day 6 so Ilana could go back to school on Day 7 and not wait for the results of the longer PCR test (Ilana was just vaccinated in July *and* has antibodies, although she was never symptomatic. Penina, meanwhile, was vaccinated twice in January and then got Covid while in the US this summer, poor thing. She's better now. Anyway, for both of them, the chances of testing positive or being a danger to another person were/are quite low).
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| first day of 10th grade! |
Penina left for seminary last night! She's spending the year in the seaside town of Netanya. Her seminary spends half the day learning and half the day volunteering in a group foster care home.
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| Saying so long to Percy |
We're waiting for Chana to come home at the end of this week and trying to figure out if, given Israel's new guidelines for who needs quarantine after flying in, we can figure out a way she's free by Rosh Hashanah next week. Stay tuned ;)
And, lastly, speaking of Rosh Hashanah, I LOVE that I live in a place where even the milk cartons wish you a "Shana Tova", a good new year! Shana Tova, everyone!
Sigh....That was quick. My last post, on June 17, was about the mask mandate being lifted. Two weeks after that, the indoor mask law was reinstated (but I couldn't bear to blog about at the time).
I had a whirlwind trip to the US (4 states, 4 plane trips, a rental car and an overnight train ride) earlier this month. It was interesting to note the differences in the US vs Israel: as expected MUCH less mask-wearing in the US, BUT when people did wear masks (and I was in Los Angeles right after their indoor mask law went into effect, so mask-wearers weren't just those that self-selected to do so), people wore them properly. Lovely to see proper mask-wearing and NOT see a person's nose. Or (argh) their nose and chin (not sure what the point is of wearing your mask's earloops and that's all). In every city I was in, there was a noticeable amount of empty storefronts, definitely an increase from past years (even in JFK airport).
Sadly, the Covid rates are high and getting higher here: yesterday there were 8700 positive cases, the most since early February. HOWEVER, it is quite clear that the vaccines are protecting people from getting seriously ill. From the Covid 19 Updates whatsapp group (PM me if you'd like the link to join): per 100,000 unvaccinated people in Israel there were 97.3 severely ill and only 17 severely ill who were fully vaccinated. In Washington, DC those same rates were 606 and 12 hospitalizations per 100,000 people respectively.
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Bit of Blog housekeeping here: due to a change in Google, I needed to switch the system that sends out emails from this blog. If you get an email asking you to confirm your subscription, please do :)
As of this point, it seems that Israel is DONE with Covid (and please Gd may it stay that way). For about the last week, there have been less than twenty cases a day of Covid (the max was in September with over 11,000 cases in one day).
The indoor mask mandate--the last remaining Covid law aside from those relating to travel--was repealed and WOOHOO it is just great to not need to wear masks any more. Super popular local video shows a teacher telling her young class that the Prime Minister had just repealed the law requiring them to wear masks in class and then the kids going crazy throwing their masks in the air, tearing them up and just generally having a bedlam-ous good time! I'm sure all my teacher friends can relate :)
Beyond proud of all of Penina's hard work to graduate high school IN HEBREW. She's worked incredibly (unbelievably, hugely) hard over the past six years. It's no easy feat to change countries and languages when you are entering 7th grade....
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| with thanks to cousin Jillian for the photo. And for sitting through a three-hour graduation in Hebrew.... |
Next up: summer job as a camp photographer at a (really "the") camp that has a mix of children with developmental disabilities along with those who are typically developing, and then on to seminary in a new part of Israel, where she will be learning half a day and spending the other half of the day volunteering with at-risk children. Way to go!!
Like many others, I'm still wrapping my head around the challenging times of the last two weeks. Driving to pick up Ilana at her weekly volunteer shift for the first time since the siren went off (because last week was Shavuot) a script repeatedly ran through my head of "this is where I was when the siren went off.....I looked to the side as I ran into the community center.....I saw sparks in the sky that were rockets. Or the Iron Dome being activated. Or both...."
Penina's school sent out a very interesting guide for helping those traumatized (ironically, I'm not sure if they sent it after Meron or the next week, after the "security situation" started. How sad that we have had so many traumatic times lately.....). It talked about how it's better to have a person access the "thinking portions" of their brain, not the emotional centers; so rather than asking them to tell you how they felt/feel, you should help them focus on exactly what happened during the situation and then give them specific activities to do ("call the friends you were with and make sure each got home okay"). As someone who is a "let me get you a glass of water and you'll tell me how you're feeling about it" person (all of which was explicitly on the "DON'T DO" list), it was an interesting insight into the Israeli psyche, to say the least.
It's VERY hard to think of the violence that erupted in many mixed cities, and worse to think of in cities that have a long history of being Jewish/Arab mixed. Chana is taking graduate classes in English literature and the one class that had been meeting in person (a whopping two times since Covid restrictions eased) went back to being on Zoom after her professor's boutique hotel was "destroyed by a violent mob" (that is just so sad to type). I encourage you to read what he wrote.
At shul on Friday night, my neighbor introduced me to her sister, who had moved in temporarily after her home city of Netivot got totally pounded by rocket fire. Here, take 30 seconds to watch the beginning of this and have the tiniest taste of what it's like to live with that. No wonder my neighbor, who has a very full house as is, of course welcomed in her sister with her own big family.
My friend's son and daughter-in-law live in Ramle (note: not the same place as Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered). Ramle got a number of sirens/rockets and then had some really horrific mob violence (the photo in that link looks like it's a still from the Batman movie where Gotham City goes up in flames. Except this is a normal, working-class mixed Israeli city less than half an hour from where we live). The young marrieds, who don't have a mamad shelter room in their apartment or even in their building, were huddling in the stairwell (which is the advice for such places), and at the same time trying to decide which was the right decision: to be in their apartment away from the mob but less protected from the rockets or vice versa. What a choice to have to make....
I'm saddened and frustrated that Israel is not doing great on the public relations front. If you (like me) are feeling fed up, read Blake Ezra's Times of Israel blog post, especially if all you know about the current situation is what you've seen on Instagram (no, you cannot find out "the truth about Sheikh Jarrah" in 50 words or less. If you'd like to actually read more about the Shiekh Jarrah situation, here is a pretty good piece).
To end on a hopeful note (and I kind of can't believe what passes for hopeful these days), I give you one final news article: Kidney of Lod Lynching Victim Donated to Arab Recipient.
Hashem, please help us.
What are the sounds we hear? We frequently hear "booms" from either rockets being fired or interceptions from the Iron Dome, including some that shake the windows of our house. Hard to think that every "boom" we hear means our fellow citizens in the South are running to their shelters, and Israeli soldiers are working even harder.....
First off, let me give you a chuckle: if you don't know (or remember from one of my previous posts ;)). The Iron Dome in Hebrew is called "kipat barzel". Yep, we're being protected by an "Iron Yarmulke" (which is great, since it includes a nod to Gd, the ultimate protector).
I'm trying not to pay too much attention to the news, especially since so much of the US news is concerning, frustrating or downright maddening. But I have heard enough carping about the Iron Dome being "unfair" that I want to briefly address the topic. Let's all get this straight: the Iron Dome is a DEFENSE system. If anyone has a problem with Israel having the Iron Dome, then take your thinking back a step: the Iron Dome is ONLY used when rockets are being fired at Israel. If you think it's not right for Israel to have the "advantage" of being able to protect its citizens from a terrorist group that's very covenant calls for the "obliteration" of Israel, then you can do your best to convince Hamas to stop firing rockets. Then Israel stops using the Iron Dome. Simple, really. Although too bad the "partner" you're trying to convince to stop sending over rockets feels that "so-called peaceful solutions" and are in contradiction to the principles they hold dear and that "there is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad...."
Click here to read a great editorial by David Harris, CEO of the AJC (American Jewish Congress) responding to Trevor Noah's recent monologue (definitely read if you're looking for some good talking points).
And, finally, a few words from Golda Meir to finish this post:
Thankfully, things are still calm where we are. Hearing about a lot of people whose sons are in the Army reserves and have either been called up or they are expecting them to be called up at any time.....Penina told me about her friend whose brother got called up and his wife is expecting their first baby any time (she moved in with her husband's family). Jillian in Tel Aviv is sleeping with a "go bag" next to her bed, as she's had to run to the shelter a number of times at night.....Hard times.....
We're going into the holiday of Shavuot, to celebrate receiving the Torah. b''eH we will have a holiday that ushers in a new era.
With thanks to everyone for your messages of love and support,
Chag Sameach
The love and concern from family and friends is very heartwarming--thank you all. We are feeling the love as we all pray for this to be over very soon and a new era of peace ushered in.
B''H, we have had no more sirens here since Monday (please Gd it should stay that way). Cousin Jillian in Tel Aviv has not been so fortunate, including spending several parts of her birthday night in her dorm's bomb shelter ;( (Most liked post in quite a while on the "Secret Tel Aviv" Facebook group translates as "In light the current situation, which shelter has the most handsome people in it?").
After working remotely Monday-Wednesday (and after much thought and consultation with others about the advisability of going, including people who also work in the Old City and have also been working remotely for the past few days), I went back to in-person work yesterda. I took a chance and drove to Zion Gate's (pretty small) public parking and prayed for a spot which, hooray, I easily got. As soon as I got out of the car, I heard a bar mitzvah happening right nearby. Aside from being incredibly uplifting to see, it felt like a little hello from my father-in-law Ed, a''h, who absolutely LOVED seeing the Old City bar mitzvahs, with the bar mitzvah boy being escorted under a chuppah, with drumming and dancing.
The Old City was pretty quiet (a number of stores and restaurants weren't open, I assume because so few people were around), but it was great to be back in-person with my students. One told me how thankful his mother was that I was there so he didn't need to leave the building for medical care (we had a laugh as I told him that I was glad of that, but that MY mother wasn't so happy about it. And props to all mothers-, grandmothers and others on this list who are being strong about the situation).
Penina is in LA, visiting all the family there on an (almost) high school graduation trip. She gets her wish to stay another week, although it has little/nothing to do with the security situation (she started a full-court press to be allowed to stay extra pretty much the moment she landed, which was days before things heated up here)
We're about to go into Shabbos. Wishing everyone only peace!
Think of what you can accomplish in 1.5 minutes. You can make your bed. Or check your email. Wash a few dishes. Respond to that text you've been meaning to. And, if you live where we live, you can use that time to get into your nearest safe room or bomb shelter when an "incoming-rocket" siren goes off. I have to say that I find 1.5 minutes a pretty comforting thing; in Sderot (which we visited on a tour on Independence Day just a few weeks ago), you have 10 seconds, which is why their town is peppered with bomb shelters and I'm hard-pressed to say where (if?!) there are any in our city. Then again, our city is pretty new (around 20 years old) and since the 1990's it's been a law that all newly-constructed homes and apartments have a mamad safe room in them.
Ilana's room is in our mamad. And half of our family was in there on Monday a few seconds after a siren went off. I was driving to pick up Ilana, who volunteers weekly at a thrift store. I was driving up a main street in our town when I heard the first "gearing up" tone of the siren and I could see people on the sidewalk just stopping and I could almost see them thinking exactly what I was thinking: "A siren?! In little sleepy suburb? No way!". I'm pretty sure I went through all of Kubler-Ross's stages of grieving in about 2 seconds, because after the "denial" of the my first thought, I pretty quickly went through anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance; it was a whirlwind, I tell you. I gunned the car to get to the community center where she was (having spent three years in ulpan there, I also knew where the safe rooms are AND knew I could get there in less than a minute and a half. And a big thank you to my ulpan teachers who taught me two things I used on Monday: 1) a siren (azaka) that goes up-and-down in tone is the one that tells you to get inside quickly (tzefira, a sound that stays steady, is used for the country-halting, stand-at-attention minutes on Memorial Day) and 2) that we, indeed, have 1.5 minutes to get to a safe place, a fact that popped into my head effortlessly when the siren went off.
I've been working remotely since Monday, although it wasn't a fear of rockets or violence that kept me from seeing patients in-person on Monday, it was the fear of sitting in multi-hour traffic with the tons of people going into Jerusalem to celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (noting the day of the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967). Sadly, that day ended with sirens around the country and there have been over 1000 rockets fired at Israel since then.
Everyone has a story: Cousin Jillian spent the middle of her birthday night in the bomb shelter in her dorm.....Shira and her friend were sitting outside in downtown Jerusalem when the first siren went off. Shira told of an older Israeli woman waving her arms and yelling to them about "hommus" (so they thought). They couldn't understand WHY the lady was getting so worked up about hommus until another brief moment passed and they realized she was yelling "HAMAS" and urging them to get inside.
The Iron Dome (fun fact: in Hebrew, it's called kipat barzel--the "Iron Kippah", which hopefully gives you a chuckle, as it did for me) works pretty darn well, with a high interception rate but it comes at quite the price: about $80,000 a pop. Given the beating the economy has taken from Covid (and let's not mention the four elections we've had in the past two years that blew through $4 billion [and that's dollars, not shekels]), the frequent boom-boom we've been hearing is disturbing on many fronts.
Schools were on remote-learning nationwide today (sort of the Israeli version of a snow day, I guess), but tomorrow those in safe areas (like us, b''eH) will be back to normal.
I've been very touched by the number of friends and family contacting us to ask if we're safe (best "blast from the past" was when my babysitter reached out. Not like the babysitter I paid to watch my kids, seriously the one who watched me a gazillion years ago! [We ran in many of the same circles in Boston and catch up every few years, so it's not like we hadn't spoken since I was a kid! PS: Big shout-out to Janet Z!).
As of now, all is well and please Gd will stay that way. Please daven for peace.
I've been meaning to write this for the past two weeks, since Israel repealed the mandate making outdoor mask-wearing a law exactly a year after it was enacted. "Dropping Masks Outdoors, Jubilant Israelis Adjust to New COVID Normalcy" blared one headline (not incorrectly, I might add: one article I read found that credit card usage soared the first "mask-less" day, as people went back to restaurants. We waited a bit, but last Sunday finally went out for the first time since September. It was great to be back out. And even better that someone else did the dishes).
But I procrastinated and then Lag B'Omer happened on Thursday and, given the number of you kind folks reaching out to make sure we're okay, I figured it was good to finally sit down and write this up. First off, we're all fine. None of us were in Meron when the disaster happened (definitely not my scene: giant crowd, poor air quality due to bonfires, big traffic jams on small roads and the pandemic still around [although numbers here super low. But let's see what happens in two weeks, now that we've had not only Lag B'Omer but also additional mass support gatherings/funerals....]). We know a number of people who were there (sadly, five people from our city were among the people killed, and Saturday night brought a funeral at 10:30 pm and one at 11:30 pm). A large percentage of my students were there, and b''H they all made it home safely, albeit some with more psychological impact than others. I think a lot of the gap year students are really struggling with the fact that one of "their own" died: its not just that someone their age died, they're trying to get their heads around, "he was a kid from New Jersey and came here for a gap year (just like me). He went to Meron to have an "only-in-Israel" experience (just like me). His school took him (just like mine did). And only one of us came back alive...." May the memory of Nachman Daniel ben Aryeh Tzvi be for a blessing, along with those of the 44 others who died.
It is a beautiful thing to see how Israel comes together during tragedy, although definitely sad that this is a place with a whole lot of expertise in that department. The news on Friday showed long lines of (generally secular) Tel Avivians waiting in the midday 96 degree sun to donate blood for their (generally religious) brothers and sisters who were in Meron. A blood drive in our neighborhood today (that had been scheduled long ago) sent out an update almost as soon as they opened telling people not to come, that they quickly filled all available slots for today. The company I work for is offering free EMDR emergency sessions, and in-person sessions are being given by an organization my family volunteers for a lot (private message me if you need either link). Sigh.
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On a positive note, I would like to share that my nephew Josh and his wife Christine welcomed baby Leah Tian two days ago!
And Erik (Eliyahu Refael ben Tzirel Tova) is being discharged from the rehab hospital any day! Truly a miracle.
Yes, indeed, things feel gloriously, wonderfully free and open here. After last year, when we were all at home (and only at home) during Pesach (and every other holiday, actually, since last Purim), this year felt like a whole new world: while there are still restrictions on the number of people that can be indoors together/at shul, there was no lockdown (as the fear-mongers were spreading panic about online) and few-if-any restrictions otherwise. 90% of people age 50+ are vaccinated or immune (87% and 3% respectively) and of those hospitalized with Covid, almost 75% are unvaccinated (from the Covid-19 Whatsapp group. PM me if you want the link). Here's an interesting article from the NYT about what Easter was like here, in case you'd like the view of a different Quarter of the Old City.
Our delightful street minyan that met right outside our house (instant women's section: open the office window! It was amazing) met for the last time on Shabbos and although it's great that people can go back to daven at their regular shuls now, I'm still sad that I can't just open the window and join in. Now I'll have to find real shoes and walk up 8 flights of stairs, etc etc
I hope that everyone reading in the US who has not been able to get vaccinated will have the opportunity soon. Here, it's been so long that everyone has had the opportunity to get vaccinated that they have closed the trailer parked outside our health fund office designed solely to give Covid vaccines in, and hung a little sign on the door telling people to make an appointment at the regular nurse's clinic. A friend told me about a friend of hers who went for a vaccine yesterday and the secretary chided her with, "FINALLY! What took you so long?!"
Our Pesach fun included watching Percy's brother overnight and then, just to increase the lunacy, watching another neighborhood Maltese puppy. As first one and then the other left, our small living room suddenly felt much larger (like in the old story: I guess all we had to do was take away the cow, the goat, the sheep and two other dogs and it feels almost-spacious in here!):
The stores are sloooowly being restocked after Passover
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| horseradish, anyone? Because that's about all that's here: a top shelf full of chrein! |
Penina and Ilana went back to school two days ago after Pesach break ended and so far so good. Given the numbers of infections, I kind of can't imagine that schools will be closed again, but I'm an optimist and Ilana and her classmates are still too young to get vaccinated, so I guess we'll see.....
In other family news, Percy the Puppy turned 1, Ilana is turning 15 tomorrow and my nephew Benjamin and his wife Natalie welcomed a baby boy yesterday!
It's my own spin on the classic "Holiday" song (although, maaaan, I can't get that song out of my head). And things here feel, thankfully, so much more normal than last year, when I wore mask and gloves to go to the grocery store and waited in line to get in since they were limiting the numbers of people admitted. AND, this year we have eggs.
Things here feel almost like back to normal. The main difference from, say, two years ago, is that mask-wearing is still a law (rumor has it that after Passover, the law will be relaxed, or perhaps even removed. Too bad--I actually like wearing a mask both from a public health perspective (guess how many cases of seasonal flu Israel had this year? ZERO) and from a personal perspective (I had some skin cancer surgery and no one even knew!).
Shabbos this past week was amazing/crazy. We had a friend in seminary stay with us along with a friend of Chana's from college who made aliyah this summer. For dinner we had Penina's friend's family over. They made aliyah this summer from Mexico and this was the FIRST time they had been invited out for a meal (eek. I just can't imagine moving halfway around the world and then sitting in your apartment not knowing anyone. For NINE MONTHS). Ended up being 13 seats for dinner which led to sort of endless issues of the "where did the we put the leaves to the table?!" variety and its sidekick of "I know it *seemed* like a good idea months ago to put the folding chairs waaaaaay back there, but....".
For lunch our neighbors came over with their dog, who is Percy's bestie. They have lived on our street since the summer and this was the first time we had them over (heck, it's only the second time in an entire year that we've had any other family over). In the afternoon, Shira S (who stayed with us last week) and her seminary roommate popped over from their teacher's house in a different part of town. It was so nice to be with other people! It was also crazy and totally exhausting because who is used to being so social for hours on end?! And, oh my, the amount of dishes. We've definitely become used to having post-Shabbos cleanup take less than an hour. Let's just say that this one took a weeeeee bit longer.
This all came against the backdrop of reading Friday morning that France was going back into lockdown (oy). And made me all-the-more thankful that Israel has done such a good job vaccinating its citizens (a number of our guests also were post-covid. It definitely hasn't been a picnic here). As the Wall St Journal said in an opinion piece: "hospitalizations and deaths are rising again in Italy, Germany and France....To date the U.S. has administered 34 doses per 100 residents, the U.K. has jabbed 40, and Israel has 111. Most vaccines require two doses. Compare that to about 12 in France, Germany and Italy."
Tomorrow is, yet again, election day. Hopefully this time a coalition can be formed that will prevent election number 5.....
Woohoo! Way to go, Israel (and may it please Gd continue). Look at this data: more than half of the total population has received their first vaccine (the 5 millionth dose was given out yesterday, in fact), with close to 100,000 people most days receiving vaccines (Shabbat has a much lower number of places open/vaccines given). And what's been happening to all those people who have been vaccinated? b''H a WHOLE LOT less Covid: only .07% of people who were vaccinated later tested positive for Covid.
And this has led to the very delightful situation of the country slooooowly coming out of lockdown. Starting last Sunday malls and stores started to open. It's sad to see the stores full of winter merchandise; merchants lost the entire season and are now deeply discounting all their merchandise ("All Winter Merchandise: 70% Off". Except it was 72F today so not really sweater weather, even at 70% off). Every day on my way to/from work I drive by the new, gorgeous Ikea nearby. And every day for months it was a total bummer to see the giant parking lot empty. It was so exciting on Sunday to see the parking lot bursting with cars (and how convenient that a vaccination station was opened in Ikea to sweeten the deal ever further)! The new "Green Passport" is being rolled out that will allow us fortunate folks who have been vaccinated to go to restaurants, hotels, and sporting- and cultural events. I'm eagerly anticipating going to a sit-down restaurant again: the last time they were open was mid-September....
It's a little odd to me that there is even a need to incentivise getting a Covid vaccine here, when people are driving hours and waiting in endless lines in the US (or maybe that was last month?! All I know is that my parents and in-laws have all now, thankfully, been vaccinated and none of them had to go through particularly annoying scenarios).
When I worked in the Old City today, it almost felt like old times there. There were even a bunch of tour groups going around (the giveaway is that all but one was in Hebrew [no tourists let in Israel since last March. The lone English group I heard was almost certainly from a gap year program]). There was even a little line going into security at the Kotel for the first time in a looong time
(okay, I'm not sure waiting for three people in front of me counts as "line". Maybe "line-like"?!) and there were so many people at the Kotel for "Bar Mitzvah Day" (every Monday and Thursday) that I even took a picture as proof:
This Shabbos is almost going to feel like old times! Shira S from Philly will be coming here for her FIRST out-Shabbos since she arrived in Seminary and we are going out for lunch to friends whose family is all post-Covid.
Lastly, we will hopefully be seeing some changes at schools that will bring down the high rates of Covid among our young people (remember, only over 16's can get vaccinated. In a country with 30% of the population under 18, that leaves a whole lotta people unvaccinated). At Penina's school, they are planning to implement a program that will require every student and staff member who is not vaccinated to have weekly Covid tests. Since Penina TWICE had to go into quarantine after she had in-person classes with teachers who later found out they were Covid +, we are really in favor of this (led to some "funny" conversations: "Do we have to give a Purim tip to the teacher who has taught you for several years, but was completely unapologetic about potentially-infecting your whole class?" Frankly, I'm tired of these kinds of conversations and REALLY ready to be done with them).
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Please keep praying for Erik, Eliyahu Refael ben Tzirel Tova. He is making some slow but steady progress and needs every good wish sent his way: https://new.tehilimyahad.com/mr.jsp?r=RF73AslI9IE
Friday morning we were supposed to come out of lockdown at 7 a.m. Now, frankly, this was a really dumb idea because people who are not religious would therefore be able to go party on Friday night and people who are religious would be able to meet up for Shabbos meals. We've been in lockdown 5 solid weeks. At this point, who cares if we're in until Sunday morning rather than Friday morning?
In the middle of the night, it was announced that, nope, we were staying in lockdown until Sunday. Then they reversed it. Then changed THAT again. I think the point was so that people would just throw up their hands and give up.
In the end, lockdown slooooowly started getting lifted on Sunday. So far, that means that roadblocks between cities have been lifted (the one on the main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem [that I drive to work] was so entrenched that there were permanent signs put up guiding buses and trucks to the right lane, passenger cars to the left and making sure everyone knew the middle lane was closed so the police could be set up there). Business that are one-on-one are now allowed to be open, so hooray for the hairstylist and eyebrow lady being open again. And restaurants can now have takeout as well as delivery. Man, that "delivery only" thing was a total drag: I finally live in a place with zillions of kosher restaurants, but with "delivery only" the lack of instant gratification was a real downer.
Schools will start a slow roll-out next week, but Penina's grade (12th) is not scheduled to return until the end of February and Ilana (9th) not until the second week of March. Where's that eye-roll emoji?? 🙄 This assumes that our city, currently "red" due to high numbers of Covid cases, turns at least orange, if not green. If it stays red, schools will stay closed. I might need that emoji again....
I went to the Kotel on Thursday after work in a huge rainstorm (thunder, lightning and hail! [fun fact: here a slushy/slurpee is called a barad (hail). You may never think of the 10 Plaques at Passover the same way again!]. Aside from that I had some very important people to daven for (please keep Erik--Eliyahu Refael ben Tzirel Tova--in your thoughts), I also knew that it was the end of my private time there. And, indeed, when I went Monday after work it was mobbed. Glad I had 5 weeks of being with tiny numbers of people there. If you'd like to see what it was like, here's a little video I took:
Meanwhile, the huge immunization campaign that Israel has rolled out is doing well, This week is the first with everyone over age 18 invited to get vaccinated (no health issues, etc required) and those aged 16-18 can be vaccinated with parental permission. This week also brought a new clinic in Tel Aviv to vaccinate those who aren't citizens, including those in the country illegally and foreign students [including pretty much every patient of mine]--hooray!
Currently over a third of the population has received their first vaccine and 1/4 of the population (over 2.2 million people!) has received both. Those who have had the vaccines are doing well fighting against the new variants going around: 85% of those over age 60 have been vaccinated, and this age group has seen a very sharp decrease in those who are becoming critically ill from Covid. 75% of all new Covid cases are in the less-than 40 age group, with over 40% in the less-than 19 years old age group ((from the Israel Covid-19 update Whatsapp group. PM me if you want the link to join). This is the pickle that Israel, especially, is in: the new variants target the younger age groups who have not been approved to get the vaccine, and Israel has a HUGE number of young people: almost 1/3 of the population here is 17 or younger. I guess we'll see how this plays out...
We're coming up on Rosh Chodesh Adar and it will be interesting to see what Adar and the holiday of Purim is like this year. Boy, last year feels like a really (REALLY) long time ago.
Once upon a time, many years ago, my father-in-law Irwin died and then-named-Sam started to go to the local Conservative synagogue in the afternoons to say Kaddish with me along as his sidekick. We were the youngest people there (by many decades). A few months later, another young couple came in one afternoon. We hadn't met them before, but Erik's father had just died and he was coming to say Kaddish and Rhona was there as *his* sidekick. And thus began a beautiful friendship.
There are some questions that people have asked me lately, so maybe you are wondering some of the same things:
--Are your kids in school?
Nope. Schools, even preschools, are required to be closed across the country. Ilana hasn't set foot in school in three weeks and there isn't even a proposed date for schools to reopen. Penina has some Zoom classes and is working on her ever-important bagrut matriculation exams so she has a bit more of a schedule (Ilana's school sends worksheets and some videos out but has nothing at any particular time), but, basically, I fear those kids (and every other kid) will have forgotten how to get up and out of the house in the morning by the time schools finally reopen. Shalom Shachne describes them as being on semi-permanent summer vacation. And not in a good way....
--Where's Chana?
Woohoo--delightfully, she's still here. She works US hours (4-midnight) as the Fellow in the Online Education Department of the college she graduated from, and is taking some classes in English literature at an Israeli college during the day. Since these classes are on Zoom, her goal of meeting other age-mates locally who share her love of English literature has largely gone unfulfilled, but at least it's giving her something to do.
--Did you get your second vaccine?
Yes! 3/4 of our family has received their second dose! I have tremendous respect and thanks to the Israeli government for running this program beautifully-well and smoothly. For example, the moment I made my appointment for the first vaccine, a second appointment exactly three weeks later was made automatically. And 48 hours after receiving each vaccine, we got a text asking us to fill out a survey about side effects.
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| his comment: "5G enabled" |
--Which vaccine did you get?
Israel has only given out the Pfizer vaccine so far. And good job, Israel--almost 40% of the population has received at least one dose, including over 80% of people over 60! Currently, anyone age 35 and over (no "reason" or pre-existing health issues necessary) can get the vaccine, as well as 16 and 17 year-olds with parents permission (this country is *obsessed* with those bagrut matriculation exams).
Want more? Here's a Good article in the Wall St Journal
--Do you work virtually or in-person?
I feel like most of you reading this do know this answer, but I'll say it anyway since someone did ask. I work in-person running health clinics for English-speaking students here on gap year programs. I wear full PPE and have a limit on how long I can spend with each student, all to ensure that I don't end up in quarantine or ill (hopefully not so likely since I tested positive for antibodies several months ago and have received two vaccine doses, although still waiting for full effectiveness from the second dose).
--Seen Cousin Jillian lately?
No. And it stinks. The country has been in strict lockdown for weeks. There are roadblocks on major roads and passing through them requires an official letter or proof of a reason such as a medical appointment. Sadly, visiting cousins does not count as an official reason. Although it doesn't really matter since it's illegal to visit others in their house.....I don't think those of you in the US (who can still go to Target [although you might have to wait in line b/c they're only accepting 25% capacity], and can go to normal-size weddings and funerals and, and, and) can quite fathom the lockdown-ness of what it's like here.....But I'll keep trying to give a little glimpse of what it's like here
--Puppy?
A definite bright spot!!!! Percy is adorable and a very good snuggler. As a true pandemic puppy he's less-than-thrilled with most (erm, "all") people outside of our family, but he's been great for us.
--Any final thoughts for this blog post? (okay, no one has asked that. I just made it up)
Other "fun" things going on here:
The airport is now closed to both incoming and outgoing commercial flights, including for returning Israeli citizens and new olim.
And, finally, according to the Jerusalem Post today, Israel has the extremely-dubious distinction of leading the world in number of days spent in lockdown: 139 so far.
Hopefully in my next post I will have better news to report, although given how swiftly the Covid variants are going around the country, I'm not sure I will ;(
Hang in there, everyone!
Let's get the bad things out of the way first: DRAT. Israel's cases are now topping 8,000/day. We've been in "sorta" lockdown for about a week now, but there has been veeeery little enforcement. While many stores are closed, more than just essential stores are open (I was in Tel Aviv yesterday, and I find it hard to believe that Laline [which is like the Israeli upscale version of Bath and Body Works], and Toys'RUs are essential businesses....). Schools have been open for every grade, which means that Ilana actually got to go to school for almost three weeks--hurray!!!! Too bad this week has been midterms (did they even learn enough to make a test on?) and they go in for one test a day and then come home. Too bad because, BOOM, Thursday night we go into full-on, country-wide, they-really-mean-it-this-time lockdown, which means every grade above preschool that's not special ed will be closed. And roads closed. And stores closed. And WAAAH....
The Old City is the only place that has been seriously locked down, again with the doors closed to entrances (I seriously didn't even know those giant doorways even HAD doors there until the last lockdown), police checking that people live or work there, and empty streets.
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the prayer book section, which is usually a mess of siddurim put haphazardly away, with the staff seemingly never able to keep up. Monday I found an Artscroll Ashkenaz easily on the beautifully-organized shelves, but almost couldn't get it out of the over-stuffed bookcase Penina just got out of a week of bidud due to first one and then a second teacher of hers being Covid positive. Thankfully, she got two negative tests which gets you of of quarantine ten days after your exposure. But definitely not fun.... On the good news front (speaking of which, I get a very nice weekly email from Good News Israel), Israel is leading the world in vaccinating its citizens against Covid, with over 1.5 million people receiving their first doses, including 3/4 of the eligible members of our family (Ilana is too young), 4/5 if we include Cousin Jillian who smartly played the "I'm a medical student and really need one" card despite not being an Israeli citizen (it's still being worked out if/how vaccinations will be given to non-residents [at least, non-residents who aren't medical students!], which is a big question in a country with so many students in it)  I was feeling SO full of gratitude at this moment. Like, "the beginning of the end of this horrible time is RIGHT NOW". Mixed with a fair bit of, "See you soon(ish), Mom and Dad!" Israel is making up guidelines for those who have been vaccinated, giving them (us?) "Green Passports" that will get us out of testing and quarantine when we come into contact w a Covid + person, or when we enter the country.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I looove the superhero nurse characterI'm just hoping all goes well with people here getting their second dose on time and without incident.....And, if so, my prediction is that the Likud Party and Netanyahu will win when we go to elections, sigh, yet again, in March. Lastly, a fun fact: applications to Nefesh b'Nefesh are up over 200% since Covid started, with the highest number of applications by people over 55 (perhaps aided by the fact that people over 60 here are automatically able to get the vaccine??). Not-so-fun-fact for those of us renting but hoping to buy: this has meant that real estate prices have gone through the roof. Oh well, you're all welcome anyway. Gotta end with a Percy pic! "Sleeping Cutie"  |
