Covid Wedding

Here is what a Covid wedding in Israel is like these days:

First, it's a pleasant surprise to actually get invited, as the Corona rules are quite strict regarding numbers of guests. The chuppah was held in the backyard of a synagogue that abuts a park in our neighborhood. A few hours before the wedding, a message from the bride came in on my phone: "Ellen, can I assume you two would rather be slightly farther away from the ceremony, but in a place with less people?" Why, yes, she could assume that (clever friend)! And then I had this odd revelation that this was the Corona-equivalent of doing a reception seating chart.....

Her future husband had called the police to check that, although the guidelines say 20 people per wedding, could they have 60 people in three different locations just for the ceremony? The answer was "yes, but we will be coming to check". 

When we arrived, the wedding coordinator and her (small) team was actually functioning as a "Covid Safety Team", making sure that everyone was obeying the rules. Masks and hand sanitizer were available at the check-in table (although mask-wearing is a law here, and while you will certainly see people wearing masks incorrectly, it's pretty rare to see people not wearing a mask at all). The coordinators were allowing ten people in at a time to visit with the bride before the ceremony, and then showing us where we would stand for the ceremony. Although we were standing outside of the synagogue area in the park, we actually had a great view, right alongside the chuppah (although my feet still aren't talking to me after standing in fancy shoes for 2 hours, after eight months of not wearing such things). 

Another group was set up in the reception area, which had 5 tables of three, and one table of four (equals 19!). The bride and groom's table was alone in the next section, where the chuppah was being held (although it held the full 20--and probably a few more given the three musicians, photographers and videographer--during the ceremony). All in all, a lovely, beautiful evening and a very good job was done keeping it "within the rules". How do we know? The police did, indeed, come check before the ceremony started and allowed everything to proceed. Whew.

So how was it??? BEAUTIFUL--a lovely reflection of a special couple who took all the Covid lemons put on their big day and turned them into the most wonderful lemonade.  Look at this photo--you can tell:

  

Awesome photo, right? That's because
www.PhotographyByPenina.com was on the scene!

A HUGE "mazal tov" to Shira Chana and Yosef. We were honored to be part of your special day!

Daily/Weekly/Monthly (?!) Update

 Here's the big news around these parts:

We had Cousin Jillian over for Shabbat. Which is really a big deal when you consider that NO ONE has been to our house for a Shabbat meal for the past 8 months. While we would have hosted probably 30 times since March, instead we had one--ONE--guest. Wow. No pressure, Jillian. It was really a great Shabbos together. Thankfully, none of us had forgotten how to have manners when necessary (I was getting a little worried.....). She's a total sweetie and, once we made up our "rules" for the weekend ("can we hug?" "are we supposed to wear masks aside from when eating?") and decided our "covid pod" now numbers 6 and includes Jillian, we dispensed with masks and hugged with reckless abandon (which no longer sounds like a silly thing to say). It was wonderful to have a Shabbos that felt so totally normal in a way that almost nothing has for the past 8 months.

In Covid-related news, Israel's numbers are going down, thankfully, and outdoor malls and stores were allowed to open yesterday. Here's a "before" and "after" shot of swanky Mamila Mall just outside the Old City. It was SO nice to go to work yesterday and have the mall be alive with people instead of feeling like something out of a Scooby Doo episode:

Grades 1-4 in Israel went back to school last week and it was great to see kids walking around with backpacks and having some sort of normal schedule. Predictably, a few days later there was an outcry by some parents asking for their children to go to school without masks on. Somehow they seem not to understand that the choice is likely "go to school with a mask on" or "sit at home NOT in school and don't wear a mask"....Ilana's school is trying out a program of having classes a few hours several times a week in outside yards. Today was the first one. So far, so good :)

And finally, a recent favorite in "puppy cam"

So I guess the update is a little boring, but boring is fine by me. You know that curse, right--"May you live in interesting times"? 

Sukkot with Corona

 Frankly, it's been sad walking around this week. The motzei Shabbos before Sukkot is always a hopping time in the mercaz with tons of vendors selling anything and everything that might be needed for the holiday. This past Saturday night, however, was like walking through a ghost town, with only the supermarkets open....

We made some additions and changes to our sukkah this year, the main one being that we got beams installed on our mirpesset/porch so that we don't need canvas or wooden walls (the houses here, being designed for the religious community, are generally built so that porch walls can be used for the sukkah). And for those of you from the Northeast who are used to being chilly if not downright cold at night in your sukkah, that is, indeed, a fan in the corner; it's going to be in the mid- high 80s this weekend). A big thank you to Carolyn L for the Sukkot cloth napkins that are still going strong close to 20 years after you gave them to me as a gift!

 

My small addition (done in the "Elka and Solomon style" of adding something small and new each year) is this:

In the corner of the sukkah, I put a little rubber "coronavirus" and a tiny sign saying "it will be okay".

A thought I read is that this year, without guests, we will be more in tune with truly inviting the ushpizin, the spiritual guests we "invite" every night as we enter the sukkah

For those beloved family members we usually Zoom with on Sundays, we won't be on this week or next week because of Sukkot. Sending love.

And for anyone who wants a blast from the past, here is the link to my very first Sukkot blog post after we made aliyah. Wow, what a lot has changed in 5 years!

Life in Lockdown

Israel is pushing 7000 Covid cases per day and today the lockdown restrictions get even stricter, with less businesses open and less general movement allowed. Slightly hard to imagine what *less* businesses being open will look like.....This is what fancy Mamila Mall, just outside the Old City in Jerusalem, looked like the other day 

Parking in the garage underneath was ridiculously easy for 9:00 on a weekday, although I laughed out loud to see that some people insisted on playing the Israeli game of "let's-park-in/on-some-unusual-place" despite there being many open spots:

Restaurants are only open for takeout or delivery. Here is the pizza and falafel store in the mercaz 

I have a "red letter", which is a semi-official piece of paper that allows me to travel around. Traveling would be pleasant as the traffic is, of course, much lighter than normal, but police roadblocks make travel VERY challenging. Waze told me my normal 40 minute commute would take twice as long, due to a roadblock that had the main highway down from four lanes to one. To get to work the other day, I went through two police roadblocks (where I just had to say, "I'm a nurse going to work") but theeeen got to the Old City where it is a whole different ballgame: all the entrances have physical barriers preventing entry except through the gates that have groups of officers stationed to check letters, match identification, and on top of that ask each person to explain why they need to enter. I saw this up-close-and-personal when I forgot my letter the first day of lockdown and almost wasn't able to go to work. Thankfully, I got in after 15 minutes by sort of/on purpose/not exactly understanding what Mr Officer said and going through while he was talking with someone else (and praying I wouldn't get arrested. Let's just say that that Red Letter was printed, put in the thickest plastic protector we own and put in my bag before I left the house again).

It is so sad walking around and seeing almost everything shuttered. I have no idea if the economy will be able to rebound from this second hit (current predictions are that it will take 4-5 years for the country to financially recover) 

On the plus side for me personally, however, I ended a very long work day yesterday by being one of the few people allowed to go to the Kotel (because first, you gotta get in to the Old City and there's only so many people who live- or work there). 

The stairway down, which normally has a robust number of people collecting tzedakah  money, looked like it was Shabbos and not Thursday (in the front right of the photo, you can see scaffolding for the construction being done to make an elevator--HOORAY--to the Kotel plaza)

And the plaza itself was shockingly empty

Each section right near the Kotel is divided up into areas for 20 people, with spots on the ground to show each spot

It wonderful to be there and have the time and space I wanted and needed so much during this extremely-challenging time.....

Wishing us all a very sweet, happy and HEALTHY New Year

Fuggedaboudit!

 Forget about the nighttime lockdown that our city was part of; Israel now has the very dubious distinction of being the first nation to go into a second country-wide Covid lockdown. Tomorrow at noon, a few hours before Rosh Hashanah starts, all stores aside from groceries and pharmacies will be closed for at least three weeks. Stores are usually mobbed before the big holidays anyway, but, maaaan, things have been crazy busy because no one is going to be able to buy anything but food until mid-October. EEK. 

I still get to go to work during the lockdown. I will report back as to what it's like to be out and about while the majority of the country is limited to 500 meters from their home.  I was thinking today how odd and sad it will be to walk around the Old City with all the stores and restaurants closed.....

May we all be blessed with a very happy and HEALTHY New Year.

Oof--Nighttime Lockdown

 I didn't even get to post about the first day of school before, BOOM, in-person school is canceled and the girls are back home with a pile of worksheets and some phone-in/video-in stuff....Well, here's the first day of school photo, anyway:

Seems that when boys' yeshivas started on Friday, August 21, there was a predictable surge in cases a week later. Which spread to the sisters and parents and teachers and and and. So our city (where there are about 450 active cases out of about 25,000 people) became one of 40 cities put on nighttime lockdown starting last night and lasting for a week. Public schools and those under any amount of guidance from the Ministry of Education are are also closed, but this means that there are a fair number of fully private religious schools still operating. I fail to see the logic, because I think these decrees need to come from the Ministry of Health and everyone should be required to follow them, but my input was not asked for at a governmental level. I also fail to see any logic in shutting a city's borders from 7 pm - 5 a.m. Is Covid only active at night?! (The thinking behind this is that large [or should I say "large"] events like weddings will be forced to be small since guests can't come from out of the area. I still think it's pretty dumb. But I think the desire to do SOMETHING is huge for governmental officials who are desperate to appear that they are at least trying). 

In other, more positive news, Penina did something highly-unlikely for teenagers here and passed her driving test on the first try! The Israeli driving system requires a minimum of 28 lessons before taking the test AND there's no driving outside of lessons. SO: we gave the driving school a chunk of money and they gave us back a kid who knows how to drive. Pretty good deal in my book (and, having done it the US way twice, I'll say that I vastly prefer the Israeli way. Definitely money well spent)

Sign says, "new driver" 

Another bit of happy news is that cousin Jillian just started medical school here, so we get a real live awesome relative here for the next FOUR YEARS! Wahoooo!!! This is us visiting her while she was in bidud:

It got better, though, as we were able to visit from across the hall

I've been back at work part-time and starting tomorrow things start getting busy in my schedule. For a depressing chuckle, you can take a look at the type of outfit I typically wore at work last year

and how I look at work this year. Thank you, Covid-19, for the wardrobe update (not)

And, finally, since this post has so many photos, here's one more: Percy in his favorite position for being carried around. I love how he hangs his head over our arms:

5 Year Aliyha-Versary!

Well, so much for my plan of "weekly updates".  Here we are, weeks after my last post. Sadly, it's been intentional as I just couldn't bear the thought of describing how bad things were here. Things really heated up in Israel with a second Covid wave and got crazy in our town, which was high on the list of affected places. We knew a number of people who were outright ill and even more who were in bidud. Our street got veeeery quiet as a bunch of families were in quarantine and one family got sent to a corona hotel because the whole family was sick. A rabbi Shalom Shachne is close to (who lives right near us) was in the hospital for a week, but thankfully has recovered. He's the metaphor for our town (and the country as a whole), I'd say. Thankfully, infection rates have gone down here and will, please Gd, continue heading that way.....(Of course, since school starts next week I'll have to turn my optimism into "cautious optimism").

Ilana's elementary school graduation DID (briefly) happen in-person. Mothers (only) were allowed to come in groups of ten to see their daughters (wearing face shields) receive their diplomas, have a 5 minute festive snack and hit the road so the next group could be admitted. The school did a very nice job making things corona-friendly: each girl and her mother got a "table for two" with a pre-packaged salad and muffin on it. After a festive snacking/photo op moment, the principals scurried around changing tablecloths and plastic goods so that the next group would have a fresh setup. It was lovely to at least be able to snap a photo of Ilana getting her diploma and cheer on the girls. Good job with a crazy situation.

We are all missing our annual summer trip to the US, and have tried to make the best of the situation . Penina, while terribly disappointed at not being able to return to her job as a camp photographer in the US, was one of the photographers locally for Camp Simcha Without Borders. Since seriously ill children couldn't, of course, travel to NY to the big Camp Simcha , the camp held small sessions for kids around the world. I'm so proud of her that she used her talents to help this special camp:

We did our best to whoop it up by having a few "day-cations" locally.  Yesterday, to celebrate our 5 year aliyah-versary we went to a boutique winery (only 15 minutes from our house!) for a tour and tasting.

THEN:

AND NOW:

Lastly, Percy the puppy continues to be a delight and a wonderful addition to our family. He's grown "tremendously" and now weighs 1.2 kg (i.e slightly *more* than a bag of flour). I snapped this photo yesterday of him reclining on a pillow and it makes me laugh every time I see it: