What's Cooking Here

I'd say the main things that are cooking are some yummy dinners because, hey, I've got all the time in the world now (having all the ingredients is, however, another story.....Israel has still not recovered from Passover's "Eggmaggedon", when, during the most egg-use-intensive holiday of the year, there was a national shortage.  Importing 12 million eggs from Europe was supposed to solve the problem, except that this meant that each citizen got 2 eggs.....On the plus side, the country's been holding up just fine in the toilet paper department).  Anyway, we even made potato latkes by hand (like, with a hand grater!) because, well, did I mention we have some extra time on our hands?

The girls started back to virtual school on Sunday.  Ilana's going a half day and Penina is going about 3/4 of a day.  They attend classes on Zoom, which I think is great, as it encourages getting out of pajamas.

Here are some random thoughts I'm having:
--Growth hormone is released only during deep sleep, so I wonder if children are growing more now that they're getting additional sleep since they don't need to wake up so early for school?

--I wonder what the rates of traffic injuries and other "accidents" are these days?  How much have they decreased?  (I took a great course in nursing school, the premise of which was that "accidents are injuries, and injuries are preventable".  *I* thought it was great.  Shalom Shachne says it changed our lives, and not for the better 😂)

--I'm telling everyone who will listen--ie my family and now all of you--that I suggest taking Vit D supplements, unless you're someone spending lockdown suntanning in the backyard.  I imagine relatively few of us are getting enough natural Vit D at this time

Yesterday, Ilana's school announced a two hour window for parents (only) to come pick up everything their children had left at school.  The school had one pickup time right after lockdown started over a month ago, when students (only) were allowed to go in and get specific books the teachers asked them to have at home.  It's too bad they didn't initially ask them to take everything, which was what Penina's school had done (then again, the very first night of lockdown, there was a severe wind- and rain storm and part of the roof of Penina's school blew off (!), so, from the beginning of all this, her school wasn't sure if they would be up and running again before the end of the year). It was surreal to be in Ilana's classroom with other parents, all of us wearing masks and gloves and throwing books and pencil cases in bags so we could get out of there as soon as possible.....Definitely not like PTA night a few months ago, that's for sure!

Nefesh b'Nefesh just started online Hebrew conversational groups, which I started taking to supplement my twice weekly ulpan which is now "listen only".  Today was our second class, and I found out that 3 out of 10 people in my class had made aliyah in the last few months, and one arrived in March and had 1 1/2 weeks of being out and about before lockdown began.  That's some unusual aliyah.....(Interesting that there are people continuing to make aliyah now.  Then again, if you're coming from Europe [like the three people in my class], between the antisemitism and the rates of coronavirus, you're probably only improving your life by making aliyah). 

As someone who loves to stay home, my days feel pretty reasonable, as long as I look at it one day at a time and just think that I'm having a Sunday day (not that those exist here.....).  And then I go out and see people wearing masks, and, wow, it all hits home what a time we're in the midst of.....

These are the things that count as newsworthy in my life these crazy days:

Woohoo--Chana is finally free to leave the house!  Her first big adventure was taking out the trash to the bins at the end of the street (a coveted expedition these days, now that Israelis are only allowed to go 100 m from our houses unless we're going for food or medical care).  We celebrated by putting a "Welcome Home" sign on the door and singing "Siman Tov u'Mazal Tov" when she returned:

The city is also trying to make staying indoors easier by sending out a Simcha mobile to liven things up--a flatbed truck with a DJ with lights and a fog machine and a couple of motivators (some wearing masks) encouraging us to all come out and dance on our balconies.  Love it!

I've been trying to get the hashtag #tinyruns to popularize, although since I'm only posting in the 10-person running group I belong to, I'm not aspiring to Frindle-like popularity.  Here, for example, are two of my recent runs:

last 10k for a while--March 19

#tinyrun of 3 km: 100 m back and forth and back and forth and back.....How that guy ran a marathon in his living room I cannot imagine!

Penina was supposed to have gone to Poland and returned by now.  We are hoping that she will get another chance to go next year, before she graduates high school.  What the heck--I made her a welcome home sign as well (although I needed to open the door to show her, since she hadn't left the house that day):

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she said that Poland felt quite similar to here....

Lastly, although life in general feels stressful due to the "Zombie Apocalypse" (as we call it), my personal and familial life has taken a large step down on the stress scale since I got laid off from work 1.5 weeks ago (and, even better, my last direct patient contact was two weeks ago, so, in spite of all my beloved students who coughed on me while being examined, baruch Hashem, I'm still here).  The downside of being employed by a company that works almost exclusively with gap year students and tourists is, well, I'm sure abundantly apparent to everyone reading this....

Hang in there, wash those hands and stay safe, everyone!

Shabbos in Bidud

Here's your new Hebrew word for the day: "bidud".  It's from the same root as levad, "alone". Chana was, thankfully, able to leave NY (now the US epicenter for coronavirus) Tuesday night, and, following Ministry of Health protocols, is in bidud for 14 days.

I drove her home from the airport and we tried very hard not to rob some stagecoaches on the way (thanks, Penina, for helping add some humor in there).  (MOH guidelines for driving: mask [cloth acceptable if you don't have a "real" mask] and glove, windows open and passenger in the back seat.  I'll say it wasn't conducive to pleasant conversation....)

Once home, it was upstairs to the third floor.  Thankfully, her bedroom is there along with our guest room, a full bathroom, a balcony and even a treadmill (sadly, it doesn't work well for the running Chana likes to do, but at least a person can get a few steps in).  It's DEFINITELY not a palace up there (those of you who have stayed in our "B&B" are nodding now, I'm sure), but it's a lot better than those in bidud who have their bedroom and that's it; when needing to use the bathroom, those folks need to mask and glove and then wipe down all the surfaces they touched before leaving.

We worked hard to get the third floor to be as pleasant as we could.  Shalom Shachne took up the small refrigerator in his office (no workers coming now who need to put their lunch in, anyway) and Penina and Ilana stocked it full of tasty things to eat.  We put signs and photos up all over:

Shabbat was, as expected, pretty darn different from a regular week.  Shuls are closed, but people were encouraged to go outside on their balconies/gardens and sing Kabbalat Shabbat "alonetogether".  What happened was the most beautiful cacophony of singing--some started a little earlier, some started a little later, some were singing on the same street as us, some from one street to our left, some from eight flights of stairs above us.  It was SO BEAUTIFUL.

We brought a folding table and chairs up to our second floor hallway where they *just* fit--one chair is at the entrance to the bathroom, one chair at the entrance to our bedroom, one at the bottom of the stairs to Chana's floor and one a few inches away from the stairs going down (it's not terribly dangerous, don't worry, Mom).  Shlepping all the food upstairs felt a lot like an indoor version of Sukkos, except without the Sukkah  :)

I couldn't think of any games we could play together, as Chana is really supposed to be behind a closed door (she peeked out a few times, but, hey, it was REALLY important that she check out Penina's new skirt to she if she wanted to borrow it), but there was a lot of singing.  While I'm sure many families sang extra Shabbos zemiros, we gotta be us and sang every song we could think of that could be switched to have a coronavirus/bidud theme in it.  For example:

(With apologies to Frozen)
"knock knock knockknock knock
Chana?  Do you wanna build a snowman?
No thanks, I'm in bidud
I never see you any more
Come out the door
It's like you've gone awaaaay (even though you're home)"

(And with apologies to the Beatles)
"Biiiiidud
Don't be afraid
Take two weeks and
You'll feel beeeetter
Remember
To always mask and glove
When you bring homemade muffins
To show your looove, loooove, looooove"

Thankfully, she's still pretty jet-lagged and exhausted from a super busy last week in NY, so there was also a lot of sleeping.

4 days down, 10 to go.....Wish us luck!

Coronavirus in Israel

I've been mulling over what I want to write and it seems like each day the situation changes enough that what I had planned to write the day before isn't appropriate.  But now I've decided to just share a few things that have shocked/stunned I have found interesting.

Tonight, PM Netanyahu went on live television announcing the latest additions to the fight against coronavirus here.  The big news was that this includes canceling school until (at least) after Pesach vacation.  That gives kids about 6 weeks at home (I guess "never say never" is true because I was pretty darn sure I was never going to homeschool again).  (He also missed the opportunity to use hand sanitizer after wiping his nose with a tissue, but I'm not going to quibble).  I'm hoping the honeymoon phase with being home will last until.....right before the kids go back to school. 

My work is a bit up-in-the-air as well.  Today, my company sent me home in the middle of the day and told me to finish up seeing students virtually.  As of now, it is unclear if that will be the "new normal" for my patient visits.

We have high hopes for this extra time off, including having a house beautifully ready for Pesach.  Sadly, it is unclear if anyone will get to see aside from the four of us, though, as Auntie Paula, Uncle Steven, Jen, Shmulie and Coby are not coming in and Chana is really up in the air as to what she's doing (Netanyahu's last announcement, that anyone coming in from overseas needs to be in home quarantine for 14 days, somehow didn't sound particularly appealing to her [quarantine here is much tougher than in the US.  Here it would mean not leaving her bedroom for 2 weeks. At least there's a bathroom in there!])


My favorite coronavirus prevention tip is that people should not kiss the mezuzahs on building doorposts!

Stay safe and healthy, everyone!

Holocaust Conference

Pretty amazing that almost 50 world leaders are here now, noting the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  Here's the "view from the street":  First off, things here have been getting busy for the past week, when the first leader (Australia's PM) arrived, but things really heated up on Tuesday and Wednesday in preparation for Thursday's big ceremony.

I usually work in 4 schools in various parts of Jerusalem on Thursday, including one in the Old City.  It looked like today was going to be a REALLY bad day to shlep around Jerusalem, with the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway closed for large parts of the morning while Mike Pence and Vladimir Putin arrived, and Pence scheduled to visit the Old City not long after I'm usually at my school (but well within the time for the whole place to be shut down by security).  The chief of traffic police sent out a message saying something like, "unless you absolutely MUST be in Jerusalem on Thursday, we ask that you not come".  Ilana's friend had a high school entrance interview scheduled at a Jerusalem school and not only was the interview cancelled, the school didn't even open for the day!

In the end, I went into work Wednesday (when I tried to find out if my usual parking garage near the Old City was even open, I was warned by the online denizens that I was likely making a huge mistake).  Thankfully, I found that, WHEW, all was pretty quiet in the city.  A HUGE (huge huge) security force was out--according to a news article I read, 11,0000 security officers are in Jerusalem today; I believe it!  There were security officers at most intersections as I entered the city and the presence grew and grew until, around the major hotels that the bigwigs were staying at there were hordes of officers around, and the street that the David Citadel and King David hotels are on was totally closed off to traffic [I have a feeling Putin and Pence got through]).  For those familiar with the city, from Gan Sacher up through Rechavia and all the way to the Old City there were barriers along the sidewalks (no crowds out watching yet, though!) with security officers on every block.  It was very impressive to see. 

My vote for best speech (although I haven't read through them all yet) was by German President Steinmeier who said, “I wish I could say that we Germans have learned from history once and for all, but I cannot say that when hatred is spreading. I cannot say that when Jewish children are spat on in the schoolyard. I cannot say that when crude anti-Semitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli policy.”  He finished his speech by saying,  "here at Yad Vashem, I renew this promise before the eyes of the world. And I know that I am not alone. Today we join together to say: No to anti-Semitism! No to hatred!”   AMEN

Black Friday

Or, as they say here, "Blek Frrrriday".  It was here.  Or maybe it still is.  All last week I heard ads on the radio saying, "Black Friday sale: all this week".  And there's even a mall that's been advertising its sales "all this month".  What are they even basing Black Friday on?! Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here, there being no need to commemorate friendship among Native Americans and Pilgrims.  (Of course there are the American ex-pats who still indulge, although everyone I know who made turkey and pumpkin pie had it for Shabbos dinner, Thursday the 28th being a regular work/school day here)!  Shalom Shachne says that Israel hasn't figured out how to have so many retail holidays like the US has, so they have to latch on to whatever they can.....Today, even though it's Monday (Israel evidently hasn't yet been tipped off to Cyber Monday), I repeatedly heard ads exhorting people to come in for "the last day of the Black Friday sale". 

But this sign really took the cake (er, pumpkin pie?!):



My friend sent this photo of an ad in Yiddish for Black Friday.  So come on down to the Shvartze Freytag sale!  And don't forget the cranberry sauce!

Jen is here!

So what's an amazing side benefit of having Cousin Sela here in Israel for a seminary year?!  Her mom, my deardeardeardear cousin Jen, coming to visit!!!!  And they even came to us for Shabbos, which was all the more incredible because Jen has hosted us for Shabbos 248 times (exactly) over the years, and, due to our formerly living near her parents (Hi AP!), we have hosted Jen and co. exactly zero times over the years.

I also got to meet up with Jen, Temima and Sela (in L to R order) and walk around the Machane Yehuda shuk after work the other day

We just HAD to try the famous chocolate rugelach at Marzipan Bakery.  I would say they are justifiably-famous, as I don't even LIKE rugelach much and I thought these (warm from the oven and literally dripping with chocolate) were delicious

I am cracking up because Temima and I, at opposite ends of the store, whipped out our phones to snap a picture at the exact same time.  Temima won.  (Look how GOOD all that stuff looks!!!!)

I think the nicest thing was just knowing it was *possible* to run into Jen and Temima any day/any time.  Like Penina, in Jerusalem to celebrate her birthday today (woohoo!  Happy 17th, Penina!!!!) who, boom, "accidentally"' met up with them.  "Coincidences" are just so much more common here--land of Hashem and all :)