Cousin Shmulie arrived Friday morning for a (pre-planned) visit with his son Coby, who is here learning in a gap year yeshiva. It was SO GREAT having them both here for a few (much too few) days.
I have requested a "guest blog post" so that Shmulie can share his thoughts on what it's like to come to Israel now, but, hey, the guy just took a bunch of time off of work, so he might be too swamped. Shmulie: you've got the mic if you want it.
Shabbos lunch we hosted a family from Ashdod, home of our favorite beach and now getting a LOT of incoming missiles. Here's a map so you can see why....
Our city continues to host a LOT of displaced families from the South and North, some on a long-term basis, and some, like our lunch guests, just taking a weekend away from the very frequent sirens back at home. The family was staying in the basement apartment of our good friends (set up through a "Housing for Displaced Families" local WhatsApp group; they didn't know each other). The family was terrific--parents who came here from Ukraine as children and their really fun kids, ages 6, 3 and 1. And SO proud of us: we spoke about 80% Hebrew during the meal ;). That's (embarrassingly enough) a first for us--our guests are always friends or neighbors who are native English speakers. (Amusing point about this family is that the dad spent five years learning in yeshiva in Brooklyn, but spoke little English. As his wife [who had lived in the US for a year as a child and had excellent English, although we tried not to use it much] pointed out, "it's like people here in English-speaking yeshivas". And we all nodded. Because it is totally possible to live here for years and not be fluent. I, sadly, am living proof).
Sunday I went back to work in the Old City in person for the first time since the war started (Shalom Shachne was a dear and came with me for moral support on the drive. "Take Your Husband to Work" Day!). The yeshiva where I'm the visiting nurse put our car's license plate on the "approved for entry" list to the Old City and we got to park where the cool kids who live in the Jewish Quarter park (and there was even a legal space! Which was wonderful but also sad). It was terrific to be back in person with my students and good for the soul to walk around the holy streets of the Old City and visit the Kotel. Really heartbreaking to see so many stores closed and just a handful of people walking around (my hat is off to the few tourists I saw).
The whole thing gave me a lot of "Covid whiplash". Except sadder.....I almost cried to see these signs at Judaism's holiest site:
Are you kidding me? This way to the protected space in case a siren goes off announcing an incoming rocket? 😭. (Truth: this way to Bayit Shlishi)
Today: back to the Old City for work and helping out on a big project for soldiers. Hopefully a longer update tomorrow.
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