Gefilte Fish

2010-03-03T05:22:00.000-08:00

One of the intriguing things about Twitter (there aren't many, it's quite basic)is the ability to 'meet' strangers and have them open a whole world of ideas up for you, even unwittingly. I've mostly been interested in this dude http://www.oyvagoy.com/ and his philosemitic ways. Because sometimes living in Israel is really, freaking hard. Sometimes the weight of knowing how misunderstood we are, how we're portrayed as this vicious, heavy-handed state (surrounded by - what? peace-loving nations?!).. it's really painful to swallow. Sometimes the sandy, dust-filled Tel Aviv breeze brings floats the scent of how much hatred there is in the world towards this home, a home I chose. Then you start reading about someone who, without connection to birth, religion, roots, simply loves us. Simply loves Israel and all things Jewish.

It's brightened my week, absolutely.

2010-03-02T00:17:00.000-08:00

Ah the madness of planning a wedding. There is unlimited scope for how crazy one could potentially become, how caught up in the details, the prettiness, the colours... There's also just SO much to love about it. It's a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime process - the excitement, the planning, the details, the colours, flowers, favours, outfits, the music, the dancing... then you need to stop. You need to step back from the wedding blogs, cake toppers,ice cream machines, hair accessories (how do we feel about these? http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41743742).
You need to breathe, and to look at your lovely man in the eyes and remember that before and beyond all the other craziness, you're actually planning for the day you officially commit yourselves to each other. The commitment happens over time, has been happening since we met for brekky one sunny Friday morning, but the ceremony happens only once. You're planning for the day when you'll stand under your chuppah and be joined under a traditional canopy, amongst blessings and wine and and in front of lots of people who love you - as wife and husband, guy and girl, chatan v'kallah.

Part of the build-up of that excitement does actually come from planning the details. Not obsessing, just planning. When I chose the colours for my flowers, I had to remember that I would be carrying them to my chuppah and that's why it rocked to be ordering pretty flowers. If I'm not focused on the meaning of our wedding day, none of the planning will be worth anything.
Saying that, however, I'm still a girly-girl who loves some crazy colour (the overwhelming pinkness of this new layout may have already given that away) and even though my wedding will be nothing like the super-planned, super-detailed and highly expensivo do's I see on the w-blogs of late, I'm still inspired and excited. This Friday, we'll be having a fun belated-engagement photo shoot with our photographer - preparation for the big day, but also just an excuse for a fun morning out! Mostly, the engagement shoots I've seen on some of my fave w-blogs are disappointingly over-planned, contrived and too prop-centric. Why must EVERYONE have balloons?!
This one gets a mention because her skirt is fantastic:
http://greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com/2010/01/travel-themed-engagement-session.html, and I really like how this is so English (nothing flashy here) and showcases sunny-yet-frosty London at its best! http://www.rocknrollbride.com/2010/02/quintessentially-english/

Inspired more by the fresh, outdoorsy prettiness of these kinds of shoots, http://greenweddingshoes.blogspot.com/2010/02/wet-fall-san-francisco-engagement.html, I think we're going to head somewhere naturey (nature-like? natural. oh, that's a real word) and just let Yonit do her thing. If they're any good, I'll post the results when we get 'em :)

'Til then, happy Tuesday, teapots xx

2010-02-16T00:06:00.000-08:00

Is it possible I haven't blogged since December?!

As it's only a bunch of no-goods and the Katescrusader who read this codswallop, perhaps it's ok that I was living instead of blogging. On the other hand, if I'm not blogging then I'm not journalling and the last few months were ripe for documentation.
The world turns, suddenly you're engaged to be married, pondering the prospect of having your own children, wondering how it all happens so fast. But just as cholent should never be re-heated, we won't re-hash what has been. The big W-day approaches! Plans are a go-go.

I CAN'T WAIT!!

2009-12-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
~Song of Solomon 8:7

... and then just like that, we're ENGAGED! Alright, I'm the laziest blogger ever and it happened in October and now we're mid-way through wedding planning. Wedding planning!! October, I know. 2 months ago. Scribbling about it on the internet wasn't the first thing I had in mind to do!

2009-06-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

"O! What's occuring? I won't lie to you, at the end of the day.... Tidy."

- 'Nessa

Somehow, my sephardi-semi-Kurdish-Israeli boy... person. beau? has fallen head-over-sneakers for 'Gavin & Stacey', the brilliantly funny series based on the whirlwind romance and marriage of an English lad from Essex to a Welsh chick from Barrie Island. Doesn't seem like it'd be that funny but oh, the brilliance (currently awaiting the 3rd season with anticipation). The D loves it. Actual laugh-out-loud enjoyment. If we were counting, or I was interested in points systems of any kind, he'd have gained at least 320 extra points for the loving of G&S.

Funny how only two posts ago (and I hereby own up to it : I am, in truth, a lazy bloggerette. Yes.) ONLY a short time ago, he was anonymous, just this 'brilliantly funny' man I was exchanging dating site messages with. Now he is my D, and the world is different.

There have been times I've thought that possibly this is too difficult, conducting a relationship with someone who sits on the opposite side of the river. You know, The River. That clever man John Gray called the two sides 'Mars' and 'Venus'... wherever they are, they're really far away from each other. In my mind, the D and I have canoes (mine is avocado green with lilac piping) in which we row across The River calmly, meeting in the middle. These are the lovely, smooth days. The days when he comes to pick me up after work and we drive to the beach, standing knee-deep in the sea at sunset, thinking 'This is it. This is him. Here is my husband'. Walking home with sandy feet and happily tired smiles, cooking dinner together, discussing The Future. Nothing seems overwhelming with him, he is good for me. Or as he likes to say when he pretends he doesn't know English "You is doing good to me, you. Yes. And I is doing good to you. Yes". He is even better and beyond and more than I expected, and somehow entirely different and nothing like I thought. Quirky in a different way to my own oddness, quite often silly and ridiculous, he doesn't put up with my awful stubbornness or tendency to wander off into my own head. He knows when to give me my space, and that sometimes I need to go sit in a cafe and disappear inside a book. I know that he appreciates small gestures, is the most zionist Israeli i've ever met, is a really good son, and needs to be appreciated in a way that girls don't quite get.
Sometimes we forget all about our sensible canoes and jump in thoughtlessly, splashing all over the place, getting knowhere. I focus on our differences, he focuses on the fact I can't get past them. The comforting piece of the puzzle is that we've been brought up very similarly - the same values, I think, just in completely different ways - different countries, different frameworks. This past shabbat his family took me in for the entire weekend. Yep, I did it - I met the potentially terrifying, all-judging trio of brothers! Having spent the day on a drip in the ER I was so relieved to no longer be tied to an IV, that my fear of meeting them dissipated. I think I was embraced as far as strangers can embrace a random English chick that Brother no.2 has brought home for the weekend. Shabbat afternoon was spent trawling through his baby photos, army photos, hearing stories and learning friends' names. It's funny to look at a person you're beginning to love and understand that you have known them for the span of... less than a moment in their lifetime. I am a happy jam fiend, in this moment.

2009-04-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

Not to flip out but... am smiling really loudly. It's what blogs were made for. Smiling out loud. So, it turns out that this dude is kind of awesome. Not even kind of, he IS awesome. He is just a bit fantastic. Messages turned into phone calls turned into meeting turned into hot chocolate in the park last night turned into kissing turned into more talking. Interesting and warm and kind, a bit mad and genuine and honest and funny. And a great kisser. And a great complimenter. And open with his feelings and thoughts, to balance my general reticence and Englishyness. I don't know how it's possible that I feel so... open?to somebody that I've known for a week. But I do. I do, really, like him. He sends me a song-a-day on facebook, just to chill to at work. He wrote a song (how come all Israeli men play the guitar? Is it a required class in primary school?) I'm hoping he doesn't disappear while I'm away for the next 10 days. He reassures me the situation is not likely to change in 10 days, but understands that I'm mad and insecure. Also, you can just never tell what will possess people. If he's still in the picture when I return, this will be one very happy jam fiend.

2009-04-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

Firstly, i got punk'd today into thinking The Guardian were actually moving over to Twitter after 188 years of printing newspapers! Imagine if they really DID. Hilarious. I can't believe I fell for it. April Fool, right here.

d) This new dude looks a little like Alistair McGowan, hence the bloggy decorationing. Also, not to jump the gun/speak too soon/all those other 'IT'S TOO SOON' thingles, except I just want to say that he *seems* quite great. He sent me a Song of the Day via facebook today. 'River of Dreams', for the record. He's confident and funny, has elegant English and appreciates, somehow, my bizarro sense of humour. Rare, i hear you whisper. Yes. Indeed. It's only been 24 messages and 2 phone calls, but we're doing the sensible thing and meeting In Person on Friday. eeks. Except not eeks. I'm not freaking out at ALL. Because if it's as good in person as it is in the virtual/telephone call world, I don't need to be worried. If it doesn't work out, that's just the way of the world...

This thing of communicating with someone you haven't met yet, trying to allow them their own time to come to understand you...not pushing too much information on them. It's challenging. You don't want to be too flirty (inserting too many wink-smileys, for instance. I e-dated someone who was a serial wink-smiler. It made me want to puke.) but you don't want them to become dis-interested. There's a desire to know more about him, but I'm trying to keep a lid on it... until we meet.

Just as an aside, why would ANYONE fake their engagement i.e. announce it on Fbook on April Fools Day? I may be a gullible, Guardian-Twitter, believer, but that's just plain silly and sillier.

Yom tov, lachem!

2009-03-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

There seems to be endless scope for bizarre and fantastic human interaction. i wonder if that will always be the way, or if i'll appreciate things in the same way when i'm 57. My week so far goes a lil something like this:
Took a sherut from the Tel Aviv bus station back to my house. Before we pull out of the bus station, a young girl runs over and explains to the sherut driver that she has 10 minutes to find and catch her bus to another city, from central TA. She asks him, wide-eyed and hopeful, if he thinks she'll make it. He says he can't promise anything, but hop on. 12 minutes later we're on Allenby, central TA, pulling up next to bus no.24. "Are you heading her way?" our sherut driver shouts across to the bus. "No, but the one behind me, no.247, is going there! Signal him to wait!" Our driver thanks the bus driver like he's his cousin, reverses back down the road, finds the right bus, and as the rest of us smile at the lengths he is going to help this little girl, opens the door for her - somewhat aanxious but by now very amused - who proceeds to jump off with a "Good week to all of you!", leaving us with a hero of a driver who receives his smattering of applause modestly and continues his journey across another Tel Aviv evening.

On my way home from work yesterday, giant headache and winter coat in tow, i found myself seated next to a paratrooper with a giant bag. Soldiers, navy seals and the paratroopers in beige form part of the everyday scenery here, so i didnt take much notice. Alright, i noticed that he was super cute. Across from me, a fellow Herzlya-TA commuter had whipped out his laptop, now balanced precariously on his knees between me, the tzanchan, a very pretty girl (who i thought resembled MJ in his early years) and the giant bag. When it came time for the paratroopers to get off, they got up early. Too early. i stood in the aisle, waiting for them to make space but they didnt seem to want to move further down the bus. Head pounding, clutching my work bag, i tried my best not to fall over for about 2 minutes when suddenly Laptop boy came alive. "Bro, she's waiting for you to move", he called out, but was ignored. Looking up again, he says "hey, she's standing here, holding on, waiting for you guys to move!" Finally, i get to climb back in my seat, with a thank you to Laptop boy. i got a wink. i didnt really need to be rescued, but who said chivalry was dead?

i joined a new dating website(as a midyear pledge, have decided to increase the effort i put into "networking") and have started exchanging messages with a brilliantly funny man who seems to get my sense of humour/lack of people skills. in case it doesnt work out, i wont mention his name.. but it's a good one. We spoke tonight for the first time, which is usually awkward and strange but was fine, this time. keep your earlobes crossed.

Thinking a lot about yael stemmer (pearlman) these days, who is undergoing intense chemotherapy and stem cell treatment. Take a minute to think about her and pray/hope for her full & speedy recovery: yael chana hadassah, bat rivka.

night all xx

2009-03-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

This '25 Things' malarky had been doing the rounds on Facebook for a while. Over the course of a few long bus rides to and from work, I came up with my list. I enjoyed the process of toying with memories, deciding which were actually about me and which were things that just happened to, or around, me. It seems kind of bloggy, so am posting. Enjoy.

25 Things

1. My initials spell DMB, something my friend MBD finds hilarious

2. I’m number 3 of 4 siblings, and have sandwich syndrome, i.e. - i think i’m Nutella.

3. I love Nutella

4. I used to waste my birthday-cake wishes on cute boyfriends and being skinny, now I wish for financial stability and a 2-state solution.

5. My Dad records my favourite TV shows from England and sends them out to Israel for me, and my Mum sends us each a Valentines Day card every year, without fail. I know parents are meant to love unconditionally, but the little stuff lets me know they mean it.

6. I actually believe in the god-like power of a strong cup of Tetleys

7. The first boy I ever loved was called Josh

8. The last boy I loved ... was quite a while ago, and ate too much falafel.

9. I lived in Japan for three years but didn’t try squid or fried locusts, despite their supermarket availability. I do know how to bow really nicely though.

10. If Sweet Valley was my life, I would be Elizabeth...always secretly hoping to morph into Jessica.

11. The bedroom mirror is my ally, the hallway mirror can suck it

12. In my dream grown-up house, I have a library with floor-to-ceiling books that requires a ladder on wheels to get to the ones at the top

13. I will happily watch The Wizard of Oz over and over, without shame or biscuit breaks

14. I love and adore my nephews and neice equally, they are all fantastic and beautiful.

15. My secret favourite is Jack. I would buy him if I could.

16. Strange, well-written books are my happy place; sometimes I disappear inside them and need a friend to pull me out.

17. Four different driving instructors, no license yet.

18. One Shabbat afternoon, I stuck purple tissue paper up my little brother’s nose and then panicked when it wouldn’t come out, and cried.

19. I am a Lorelai, not a Rory

20. Maths homework used to make me hyperventilate, until I discovered Counting Crows

21. I don’t like when diet coke fizzes up my nose, it makes me think of swimming lessons and learning to put my face in the water.

22. My hands are tiny and plump, like my Bobba... and her hands

23. I want to spend a year in Amsterdam, ringing my bicycle bell, eating cheese and learning to play piano in someone's loft.

24. I saw Dirty Dancing too young. I didn’t know Penny needed an abortion, I thought someone had ruined her dress and Robbie wouldn’t buy her a new one.

25. If life hands you lemons, you should indeed go make lemonade. But my parents taught me to add the metaphorical sugar; otherwise it just tastes disgusting.

2009-03-23T02:59:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I went to stay with my Grandma and her sister. This may not seem monumental news, but even as I went through the rituals of experiencing shabbat with my grandmother, I wanted to write about it. As a little bit of background, my Grandma Renee is 86 years old (may she live until 120), lives in London for most of the year but visits Israel for festivals. Until a couple of weeks ago, Grandma Renee lived with her younger brother Bernard in a corner-house on the Finchley Road - the home owned originally by their own parents. My great-uncle Bernard, and another brother Michael, had never married. So when my grandma divorced my grandfather, in an era when divorce was rare in the orthodox Jewish community, she moved back into her childhood home, now with three children in tow. My mother was the middle of these three children. (Yes, the psychological issues you're now imagining that my mother has, all of them probably exist.) Both great-uncles, Bernard and Michael, were still living at home, which is where they remained, for the next 50-odd years. Odd in all senses of the word. Then three weeks ago, my great-uncle Bernard passed away suddenly. As if death is ever un-sudden. Amongst the youngest and fittest of the remaining siblings - 4, out of 8. My grandma had been worried, that Tuesday morning, that he'd been in the bath an awfully long time. She called my mother to say she thought that maybe he'd fainted. My mum came round. The details are blurry, nobody wants to talk about it. They got the door open, and there he was. They told my younger cousins he'd passed away 'in his sleep'.

'Uncle Ben', wrapped only in a tallit, was buried here in Israel, in the burial grounds of the prestigious Ponevezh Yeshiva, in the tradition of all of my mothers' older relatives. At the funeral, under a hot sun bouncing off white, Jerusalem-stone tombs, my grandmother stood weeping by her younger brother's grave. "I didn't want you to leave me," she wept, "...I didn't think you would go first."

Fast forward three weeks, to this past shabbat. In almost 50 years, my grandmother had never had a shabbat without Uncle Ben. Although I was there on the first shabbat after he passed away, I had my mum, my aunt and my cousins there as back-up. We tried our best to make two devastated, bereaved sisters laugh, to tell stories about Uncle Ben, to explore their feelings - with us there as their safety-net. This shabbat, I would be going it alone.

Of course when I arrived, they wouldn't let me lift a finger to help prepare and so I stood on the balcony, gazing out over the Jerusalem forest, wondering how they had become so strong. The idea, just the briefest of notions I don't even dare to explore when I think about losing a sibling, G-d forbid, made me shudder through to my core - an expression I never understood until it tore through me on my grandmothers' balcony, under the gaze of a setting Jerusalem sun. I turned to watch my grandmother and her sister Sylvia, pottering in the kitchen. My grandma called across to me - "You should wear your hair down, darling, it doesn't suit you up like that." I had forgotten that shabbat alone with them also takes a metaphorical suit of body armour, to bounce off the ego-bashing that comes with their loving commentary. At 5.09pm, I watched my grandmother light 8 candles - for her parents and siblings no longer with us. I watched her 'bentsch licht', reciting their names, asking G-d to make their 'gan eden' - their paradise - an easy one, to keep them all together. I watched her, tears gathering in my eyes, praying for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; beseeching G-d to keep us healthy, to prolong our lives. I wondered how many more opportunities I would have in my lifetime to watch my grandma bentsch licht. I pictured myself telling my future children how Grandma Renee used to recite a passage in yiddish after lighting her candles, how she focused on each person in our family, wishing only good things upon them.

Later on, after a hearty meal, I watched her during Grace After Meals. During the short section where, silently, you bless those at your table and in your family, I saw my grandmother wince as she said ' achi' - years of blessing her brother, sat to her left-hand side, the shock of losing him, all wrapped up in one word. She closed her eyes, as if in pain. She finished bentsching, and then she began to talk. To tell stories about my Uncle Bernard, how she felt without him around, how terrified she is to return to the house in London and realise that he is, really, gone. Without my siblings to hide behind, no cousins, no other grandchildren around, I bore witness to my grandmother's fears, feelings, memories, a moment of pain, and her laughter. Her laugh, that causes her whole wrinkly, pale face to fold inwards, her eyes screwed up tightly, holding in peals of laughter that cause her body to shake in amusement.

I don't know if the person I end up with will come along anytime soon, or if they'll get to meet my Grandma Renee, my last living grandparent. There's no doubt that my children will not be priviliged to know her, as they will not have met my lovely Bobba, or funny old Zeida. I wish I could have bottled the feeling of my shabbat alone with my Grandma Renee this week - to be able to take it out and breathe in deeply... in future years, when I can only miss her.

2009-03-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

Stability

7 months. What a naughty, neglectful blogger I am. 7 months ago, I was different. The world was dfferent. The full and horrible meaning of "credit crunch" and "world financial crisis" had not quite hit wth its full force yet... the Lehman Brothers closure, we thought, was an unfortunate singular incident.
And, 7 months ago, I hadn't yet moved house, to move in with myself - quite the crazy experiment. I am now what the rest of the world considers "Quite-Grown-Up". The Quite-Grown-Up me owns things. There is a fridge, an oven, a bed, a washing machine and a cholent pot among other acquisitions. Somehow, I have found myself in gainful, full-time employment. A Single Quite-Grown-Up, making her way in the world/Tel Aviv, living in the heart of a vibrant city that never sleeps.. By the beach, I would add, just so you'll come visit me... it all sounds objectively good and normal.
Well then of course secretly - oh and, for example, not SO secretly because I will actually tell anyone who will listen - I Want to Break Free("eee").
I want to sell my things,my oven, my cholent pot - pack my bags and run off to a European location, to start all over again. Because beginnings are the best bit. When I first moved here, people kept patting me on the back, crooning "all beginnings are hard." Not for me, no sirree. Am just a bit bored by repetition, by sameness. Can a person actually be bored by stability? is it stability thats boring, or routine? why are they tied together, in my head? After a year, my job has become mind-numbing, I'm antsy and I keep looking for the neon green Exit signs. Then, for the first time in ages, a guy i was on a date with last week actually asked me about israel and "my intentions." Yes, i replied, i plan to make an honest woman out of her. As an israeli on a date with a new immigrant he, quite rightly, wanted to know if i saw myself staying here, raising children, building my life here. Evidently my talk of running away to Amsterdam, riding a bicycle around and learning to play piano for a year had not assured him of my own stability. Which, in turn, is not the impression i want to give off. Where does this leave me? Somewhere between bored, hopeful and frustrated. A complicated place to be, on a Sunday morning.

2008-08-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Wow. When you pray for perspective, it's somewhat startling to then receive it. And yet here I am, experiencing the slow, creaky, opening stage of a Turnaround. This, dear Reader, is a Turnaround of the heartfelt, deep-sitting, emotional kind, that relates to living in the Land of Israel.

I have lived in Israel for a year and a half, and have shamefully avoided visiting any of my cousins based in the Gush. It's hard to explain why, but here are my thoughts. I spent this weekend with family - my lovely, fun cousins from Anglo backgrounds, who, with the full backing and encouragement of the government, settled themselves in a newly founded neighbourhood called Alon Shvut - "Oak of Return", in 1970. Less than an hour outside of Jerusalem, Alon Shvut is an expanse of Jerusalem-stone built houses, perched in Judea - within the southern West Bank. It is situated in what our now-goverment has declared 'Area C'. It acts as the focal town for other still-expanding neighbourhoods, Efrat, Elazar and Neve Daniel. These neighbourhoods are commonly known as part of the shtachim - the settlements.

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself at a relaxed seudah shlishit in a neighbours' garden. The sun was setting, people were transitioning into that period of calm as shabbat ends...savouring the time with family and friends, before yet another hectic week begins. From the porch swing, I looked out at the expanse of these settlements, at the Caravilla homes, at the few brave houses built randomly, one hilltop over.

A lady next to me remarked that while it was risky of them to go and build outside of the designated shetach, "in this country, what would happen if we didn't take risks?" It wasn't her exactly (truthfully, she became kind of annoying a little later on) and it also wasn't a build-up of events. Up until that point, I was experiencing a really normal shabbat.

Yet as she spoke, something inside me just... gave way. Something released, and I gazed in wonder around me, as I indentified the prickly grass under my feet as the Land of Israel. Not just a neighbourhood, not a 'disputed territory', but Eretz Yisrael.
This may not seem like a revelation, but I have spent so long - so, so long - trying to grapple with how I feel about the idea of people settling this land within the boundaries set out in the Torah which I believe in, but not within the boundaries of the modern State of Israel.

Because the government chooses not to recognise a place doesn't make it any less true. Baby, if I cover my eyes I can't see you, but you're still there.

I woke up this morning at 8.30am on a weekend, to go to shul, in order to hear the Aseret HaDibrot - the 10 commandments. As the rabbi's son recited them slowly for us, I fondly remembered my own little brother on his Bar Mitzva shabbat, 7 years ago now, so nervous to recite this important portion for his community. His voice hadn't broken yet, I can clearly recall his lilting, choirboy voice wafting over the mechitza towards me. I was so proud. I watched the rabbi's son today begin his parsha as a little boy, never having leyned in front of his kehilla, and I saw him finish as a man - shaking the mens' hands as he stepped down from the bima, adjusting his new, first, tallit.

The religion I belong to is overwhelming, muddled and often frustrating for me, as a young, modern, woman. And then there are these moments, when tears come to my eyes, when I see through the vast windows of a shul in Alon Shvut, the real Land of Israel spread before me. I didn't think it would happen to me, this breakthrough. I have been bound, constrained by the methods and approaches of my secular education. It's a wonderful blessing that I was taught to reason, to use my mind and its facets to think critically. If every issue or decision were a sandwich, my critical thinking would be the bread. The filling, however, just has to be my heart. How do I feel about this? How does this sit with me? Do I feel right doing this, feeling this, acting this way? And so, for a heartbreakingly long amount of time, I have just refused to address the issue of the shtachim - how I feel about those who live there, how I long to be one of them and am terrified that these are my real, secret feelings. My critical thinking has taken me to a place where I am labelled 'left-wing tendencies'.

I am repulsed by ignorance, by bigotry and hatred. I will not raise my children to hate those that have shared this land with us for decades. But maybe I won't just give up "our land" because they are there. Maybe I need to start having more faith in all areas of my life, but maybe most importantly this one. This has been my mistake. A Turnaround has begun today. I feel as if I have begun to work my way out of a heavy coccoon.

2008-07-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

It may be interesting that I have never felt so lonely, and so 'together' at the same time. Life is on track, things are falling into place, slowly. Thanks are due to the good Lord above, obviously, as none of it happens without His say-so. And as life begins to take on some kind of order, for the first time maybe.. ever, in my adult life, I also sense more than ever how lonely I am. I miss the belly-deep laughter only good friends/loves can bring. I don't remember my last belly-laugh.

I've been tackling a difficult issue recently, something I knew was simmering but has only recetly morphed from an issue into a small problem. I date. I date in order to find the Compatible Random Person for me. The people I date, however, are not falling into the category of Compatible Random People! I am dating men/boys who really don't have the same priorities as me. I meet people who are lovely and odd, but who don't keep Shabbat. I am set up by people who know me, with people who are not even remotely religious, nor really interested in ever being more religious. For a while I pondered over what it is about me that makes people think I am not as religious as I am. When I realised the deal-breaker, I realised I had a bigger problem on my hands than imagined.
While I was raised in the framework of religious zionism - in Israel termed 'dati-leumi' - an ardent Bnei Akiva-nik and modern/orthodox/realist Jew all my life, my framework since I made Aliyah has adjusted somewhat. While able to lounge in armchair criticism pre-Aliyah, I placed myself as right of center, but with occasional loud left-wing outbursts.
I moved here with good intentions, motivated partly by ideology and partly not at all, and it is here that I am asked to choose a 'wing'. I am asked to box my political worries and concerns, priorities and negotioables into a shape that other people can indentify and digest easily.

I'm an orthodox Jew, I observe halachot, I believe in the Torah, that it was divinely inspired and I believe in the tenets and principles of real, original-flavoured Judaism. I would never have moved here if I didn't believe in not just Eretz Yisrael - the land of Israel - but Medinat Yisrael, the state of Israel. An immigrant Jew who practises orthodoxy-with-a-twist in Israel's most metropolitan city, who can't find a place of her own. I can relate to the Torah-based ideals of those living on yishuvim and in the shtachim. I can understand, because I believe in the same Torah and in the same G-d. I have stayed in Chevron, I have momentarily felt the depth of their love for their land and fleetingly understood why are they clinging on with fingernails to an area entwined with Jewish history. I also live in a world of reality, where all our actions have larger complication and connotations. My thoughts are always unfinished on this.

2008-03-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

Drifting thought-clouds.. one day, I want this to be some kind of thesis. Living in Israel, it's impossible for a person to avoid thinking about land. Land and People .. our connection to this physical land and space. Our claim on parts of this land is a spiritual claim, one based on Torah and a belief in Torah to begin with.
But when we get down to it, we're killing and hating because of actual earth and soil.. the rights to possess this space.
Possession. Ownership. Not the first concepts that jump to mind, when thinking of nature, of land or your environment.
How can anyone 'own' land, other than in a financial sense.. Whose rights prevail? Indigenous, or those who have civilised? Whose ownership is more powerful.. and why?

2008-03-14T01:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my heart flew to Paris.

I hope it's having a good time, while I do not know
what to do with myself.
He left, my beautiful boy
and I am lost.
In Hebrew, you might say the word 'chaver'
and people will think
that you mean 'boyfriend'.
Yesterday, i did not correct them. For a day,
it was real
and now my heart is gone.
He says he will be back, but will my heart come back to me also
and will it be in one piece?

I wonder if anybody heard it, beating its steady beat, packed between
his baseball cap
and tefillin.
I am still hugging him goodbye, I am still not wanting to leave the airport
long after the outline of his trolley
and pink tshirt
have disappeared.
My heart is at the Eiffel Tower, not thinking of Israel.
It is in his home, beating its steady beat,
keeping his cat company, learning some French.
Not thinking of Israel.

Yesterday, my heart flew to Paris.

2008-03-03T00:48:00.000-08:00

NOISE. Noise is orange. We know about white noise. Most peoples' lives are full of white noise. My noise is orange. It surrounds me, I can't escape it. Silence eludes me, there is no quiet place. At night, live music doesn't just waft through my window, it charges through. A woman's voice, Hebrew lyrics, sometimes the beat of the reggae drums. I wake sometimes, surprised to see my windows and walls still intact. I expect to find myself beneath her microphone, curled beneath a steel drum. Next door, my neighbour loses himself in opera, night after night. Our connecting wall is thin, it hums me to sleep in Italian.
My street, rechov Bialik, is named for the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik. It was once a beautiful road, a stroll back in time from the dirty reality of Allenby, that used to be rounded off at its very end with a fountain. Work has begun to restore the old feeling of the road. Work that begins at 6.30am every day and will last until October.
He was a great poet, but I would really like the noise to stop.

2008-02-19T05:08:00.000-08:00

To a Stranger
by Walt Whitman

Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking (It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone I am to wait,
I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

2008-02-19T02:51:00.000-08:00

Perspective! Sitting in a cosy cafe, good book, irish coffee, fresh croissant... Things are NOT that awful! Days are hard, but moments are better. Am going to start taking things moment by moment, appreciating the small, good things.
Part of my haiku from Asian lit. class...
Discarded red lollipop on the side of a fresh snow bank

2008-02-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

There are moment when I don't know what kind of G-d I believe in. I'm trying so, so hard to do the "right" thing - the right thing according to my heart, to my belief system and to my
G-d - to live a lifestyle guided by Torah and mitzvot, to understand what the "right" thing even is according to Judaism. I can say, with my whole heart, that I am TRYING. I'm also crying. I'm crying as I write because I just don't know what He wants anymore. This can't ALL be a test. We are tested, we are challenged. One's entire life can't be one long test or one long challenge, even the greatest tzaddik would crumble. And I'm just me. Just me. I've struggled with shabbes, with kashrus, with understanding what's expected from me as a modern woman within a religion where women appear to be sidlined. I reached a place after a long journey where I could embrace all that had been passed down to me, sifting through the uncomfortable parts and understanding how I fit into this rich tradition. I was there. I AM there, still. I don't know now how long I will last, in this place where I am stagnant and yet expectant of more. I didn't imagine I'd be in this place alone, for very long. All I want is to continue on this journey with somebody, to pass the flame of Torah and modernity onto my children. I always suspected it may never happen and as I lose faith continually as the weeks, months pass and I don't meet anybody "special"... I begin to imagine a life alone. At 26, this is a sticky, hard thing to swallow. When I see how happy my friends are to have somebody to share the journey with, I wonder why I would even begin to try to do it alone. I can't imagine that Hashem would be fine with me giving it all up, chucking it all away, shacking up with a nice-but-doesnt-love-me-Israeli who appreciated art and my sense of humour, but won't keep Shabbat. I don't know a person like that and I don't want that life. I don't. But how will I survive a religious life, alone? The secular world embraces people like me, I'm still normal in that world. The religious life rejects me in my singleness. I can never progress, never move onto another stage of life as a religious singleton - there is simply nowhere to move to. As a secular person, I would be free. So what kind of G-d do I pray to, that presents me with this choice? That allows me to even contemplate it? Why hasnt He struck me down for toying with the idea of giving it all up, just so that I don't have to die inside at 10,000 more shabbat tables where I'm the eldest, saddest single person? And where has my faith gone? I used to believe in love, in destiny. Until about 5 hours ago I think I did. I contemplate leaving for good. That's a place I haven't visited since, oh .. 1996? I realise the selfishness latent in this idea. I won't do it. But I need Him to know, I thought about it.

2008-02-14T05:03:00.000-08:00

Language. It's all about semantics. In politics, religion, love.
Recently, peoples' lives have begun revolving around the word 'yet'. I never noticed it before, but it's so prominent in these early-20's, this feeling of expectation. I don't feel like I've missed out on a lot of life. My blessings are numerous and wonderful. From an inside-out perspective, my little life is great and full. baruch Hashem!
There are beautiful things that haven't happened yet.., a butterfly has never come to rest on the palm of my hand for a second, the world caught on its wing. I haven't made a speech in public about how amazing my parents are, something I'm always planning in my head. They may know I love them, but I weirdly feel the need to praise them in a public forum. I've slept in a cornfield but I haven't danced in one at sunset, bare feet, light streaming through my hair a la Kirsten Dunst, Virgin Suicides. I haven't seen Vienna or the Jewish quarter in Prague, danced in a dark bar in Cuba or bought bunches of flowers from a florist in Manhattan, that sells them in metal buckets. I haven't attempted to make chocolate souffles yet, or finished learning Japanese.
There's so much more to come! "..the day is short and the task is great" - pirkei avot

2007-12-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, seriously, I cannot BE BOTHERED. I feel like the person who made this cake. Here, I've done all this crap for you.. even though I also sort of wanted to.. but you don't appreciate it, so I've gone to bed.

2007-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

The night before your 8th birthday, twitching in your sleep from excitement; you wake early out of pure anticipation for the day ahead and spy colourful, beautifully wrapped presents of intriguing shapes and sizes perched by your feet at the end of your bed. Your 8 year old hearts thumps to the beat of expectation, your hands start reaching for the presents when you realise - I can't open them until everybody else wakes up! I want to tear the ribbons off and... I... cant!

A deep well of love simmers inside me, untapped. I just want to tear the ribbon off. I want to go for picnics in the park with someone I love talking to, to lie next to them and laugh my head off and feel safe, comfortable, more complete. I want to make treasure hunts on someones' birthday and go to parties with someone who will take me home when I become that silly irrational. girl who says senseless things about penguins and Weltschmerz after one too many Vodka-cranberries. I want to give to somebody, to look after someone, make someone soup when they're sick or buy surprises for them on a Wednesday, just because... its' Wednesday.

2007-12-27T22:53:00.000-08:00

Why has nobody else seen this film Water Babies? They speak in cockney accents, it's mostly about a chimney sweep called Thomas Aquinas Something or Other who follows these two thieves around the Yorkshire Dales plotting to steal from the rich folks at Harthover Hall. When they get there, he meets elfin-like girl Ellie who helps him escape from the nasty thief people.. but in the process is accused of being the thief and has to jump into a stream to escape. Because you know.. thats the only way out. Then the film turns into a cartoon and all the fish start singing.

It's brilliant! There are Liverpudlian otters and a creepy, hypnotist woman called Mrs.DoAsYouWouldBeDoneBy who keeps appearing at random moments. Thinking about it now, there must be a philosophical message to this bizarre film. The real St. Thomas Aquinas based his teachings on knowing G-d through both reason, and spiritual revelation. He claimed he once heard a voice from a cross speak directly to him. In the film, Tom wanders into Ellie's pristine, glaringly white bedroom and looks into a mirror. He touches his nose to check he's there, then asks Ellie what the cross on the wall is about.

I used to watch ths film with my little brother.. I think we just loved singing along with the camp green seahorse Terrence, the Scottish lobster and the nasty northern shark.

2007-12-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

B'Tzad Yamin

A tree grew in my head there, now I have some whole tooth problem on the right side of my mouth. whats the story here? If I had to have some sort of 'belief' in alternative practices, then I 'believe' in the idea that physical problems are often symptomatic of a deeper spiritual problem.
I recently learned that breathing-related problems such as I have - asthma, being prone to chest infections - is, in a spiritual sense, down to some kind of relucatance to accept or taken in life. What does that even mean? Is it about foreign life - pregnancy? Or my own life? I sought advice from a person who I admire and trust, who wrote to me:

'In general – our ability to take in air is connected to our willingness to say YES to life in the body – with all that it takes. Sometimes deep fears from claiming your power in life creates these symptoms. '

If I 'believe' in these ideas, that minor physical problems can be pinned on something deeper, something uneasy in your soul or in your spiritual life, then I have to take on this advice. I need to address the ways I may not be 'claiming' power in my own life.
The person who gave me this advice, then recommended I go to a Rebirthing session. At first I ignored that part, the slightly scary/ridiculous part, that is. When I gave it some thought, I realised that the idea actually sits well with me. One school of thought behind psychotherapy recognises/adheres to the idea that adult behaviour/phobias/psychoses can be traced back not only to childhood - but even further back to the birth trauma. This may sound a little too spacy, but my birthing experience - obviously I don't remember a thing about it but as far as I know was quite straightforward - was a unique experience and event that occurred between myself and my parents. A special and unique experience - you will only ever be given birth to once!

My mother will always remember the details of each of her childrens' births, the stories before, how they reached the hospital, how easy or difficult our births were, peoples' reactions afterwards.. When my mother gave birth to me, my parents' lives changed, my siblings' lives changed, the pattern of many others peoples' lives changed in sequence.
Perhaps there are things my mum has never told me. Maybe it was a traumatic birth, maybe she had trouble in labour. Will knowing these things make me want to attend a Rebirthing session? I have to say no. When my mum flew back to London especially to have me, because she & my dad had put thought into where and how they wanted their 3rd child to be born, she did it out of love, out of love for children who were already born - she was giving them a sister - out of love for her husband, and out of her own very deep and special love for me, the child she had been carrying for nine months.

Maybe there ARE questions I need to ask, that may answer my guru's questions about breathing, life, my reluctancy to LIVE. I won't be taking my birth back. It would be re-writing a formative and once in a lifetime (literally) experience - and it would be rewriting a part of my parents' lives, without their permission. My love for them and belief in their good intentions in creating me, is a belief in something that ultimately outweighs whatever weight I have lent to the idea of finding a way to the place where guf and neshama kiss.

May Hashem bless both my parents, bless them with good health, long life, love, nachas from all their children and grandchildren, and happiness.. ad mea v'esrim shana.

2007-12-27T06:10:00.000-08:00

It's been far too long since I last blogged. I've moved cities, stumbled into despair and desperation that aliyah just wasnt working, almost ALMOST decided to make a rather big decision concerning the Y word (yeridah, in case there was any uncertainty) but have somehow found my way back to stability and routine. I could never have imagined craving either of those things, when I was 18.

I have a job! Rejoice! Not just any old job, either. A job working alongside lovely, funny people who take their work seriously but who nearly all made aliyah.. we have a connection. Not only this, but my previous job trained me so well for this one that it's almost as if it were pre-ordained. As if it had been decided already, that this is where I was headed.

Oh wait - He IS in charge...

In case I hadn't made it clear previously, eretz Yisrael is by no means an easy or lenient place to live. I'm not throwing in lenient to sound clever (does lenient make anyone sound clever?), but because I mean it. Nobody goes easy on you, nobody gives you a break. If you're religious and keep Shabbat, you spend your one real day off cooking/cleaning/running about like a headless chicken just in preparation for Rest. So much build-up, so much pressure directed towards this one day of the week on which I MUST rest can only result in one thing : a day of unreasonable anxiety. I seem to spend most shabbatot avoiding work-related, "6.15am alarm" thoughts. Oh how I miss Sundays.

I think it's possible that I don't smile as much as I used to, about being here. Things I found endearing when I first arrived, have become irritating. I suspected this may happen over time, I didn't think it would be as quick as a year. Except the other day, when I took a sherut took far in one direction and had no idea where I am. The driver calls his friend driving the sherut on the opposite side, who stopped especially to pick me up. Am unconvinced this would happen in England, theyd open the doors for you and wish you luck.. maybe not even that.

Every day, I walk home through a pedestrian street, closed off to cars. It's a special walk to and fro on Tuesdays, when the street market comes to Nachalat Binyamin.

I walk through as they set up at 7.30 in the morning and later as the weary vendors pack up at 5. I wander past jewellery stalls, glass photo frames, a young guy who sells photos he takes of Israel, an old hippie looking man with a long white beard selling brightly-coloured clocks for children. He sees me every week, I try and smile but he doesn't smile back.

One woman sells pink, fluffy, glittery decorations for girls' bedrooms and there's the guy who sells old movie posters frame by thick, dark paint in vibrant colours. The Nachalat Binyamin cats sit in throngs by open-doored cafes, waiting for scraps. The four elderly Russian ladies squeeze onto one bench, always pausing in converdation to eye not only my outfit, but all the women who walk past them.

It's a scene I love, I feel as if I am actually Hugh Grant at the beginning of Notting Hill, strolling through the market, the noises, the faces, the passing of the seasons. It makes me feel a little bit more alive, walking through that scene once a week.

I emerge from this wonderful windy street, onto the drudgery of Allenby. Open garbage bins, homeless men lie shoeless in the middle of kikar Shenkin, the Chabad chanukiah still taped to the metal pole leading to shuk HaCarmel.

I miss Jerusalem desperately, even when I remind myself how claustrophobic I felt living there. I feel myself being pulled towards frum people I spy on the streets of Tel Aviv. Though I may be wearing jeans, I feel more affinity with their sheitels and skirts, kippot and tzitzit than I do with the rabble and crowds of TA. Now, suddenly, it's the end of December and I have been here 11 months. Sometimes I feel elated and so privileged to be living here, to be independant - compared with so many unfortunate, deprived people living all over the globe. Inevitably, sometimes I cannot help but compare my own life to those of people I know, of my friends and then I WANT. I find things lacking, I find myself wanting, wanting, wanting.

After almost a year of living here, I have started to teach myself patience. Contentment is a long way off but first... patience.

2007-09-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

"..and by the way if you you hate to go to school, you may grow up to be a mule.." - Bing Crosby

I didn't particularly enjoy school, but I loved university. Yet, at 25, I am unemployed. I don't feel much like a mule, but I do feel somewhat like a fool.
Had I been working for the past 8 years, instead of earning myself a degree, I would have considerable savings by now and maybe even enough to not - gasp - worry where my next rent cheque is coming from. I cannot believe I am actually at that point. I cannot believe that people younger than me own property and are looking into "buying a second, purely for investment purposes."

I saw a poem today that read :

"The more I worry about my weight, the more I gain, the more I worry about my financial situation, the more I lose."

I wish I didn't worry about - well, I was going to say 'this' but actually both - issues so much or so frequently. My weight is something I can change, I know it. But I like myself. If I'm only doing it to 'meet people' (why must it sound so old-fashioned to say 'find a husband'? thats what i want to do!) then why should I do it at all?
The answer is clear to the world - because nobody wants a fat girlfriend. Oh my friends can roll their eyes, or tell me off, or proclaim in that dramatic way "SO not true!" but I know it. I know it because I've met some lovely, kind boys who have never looked at me in that way, but have considered other friends of mine as potential girlfriend material. My friends are each bright and talented, but I have enough self-value to realise that we are all equal in intelligence and wit, in personality and warmth. The bottom line is physical appearance. Of that I am certain. Men are created animalistic, it is in their nature to be first and foremost on the prowl, on the hunt, to act with natural desire and instinct. Walk into any club or bar and feel those 'prowling' vibes reverberating off the walls. Today, women claim to be capable of being equally predatory - which may be so, but I could argue it is not in their natural makeup. They have to work harder at it, for it to be believable.

This idea was perpetuated many moons ago by Jane Austen, in nearly all of her novels. Examine the attitudes and ideas on gender being flung about in 'Emma', played in the 1996 movie by Gwyneth. The attitude of Mr.Elton in the novel towards Harriet. most clearly manifests the feeling I often feel from men when I am around taller, skinnier friends - not sincerely of disgust, but of almost patronising amusement that I have even come to acknowledge, stepping out the way for the more beautiful girls. Why on earth would you pick Harriet, when Emma is still available? Emma imagines herself maligned by Frank Churchill when he 'chooses' Miss Martin over here. Yet he had been playing Emma for a fool, conducting an affair for many months with Miss Martin and simply leading Emma down the garden path. Even this may have been Emma's own imagination, longing as she is for romantic love.

I have no desire to be made a fool of, nor to be made to feel small and unworthy. I acknowledge that I am not a beautiful girl, and as I am nearing 26 it seems unlikely that one day I will magically blossom into a skinny, tiny, olive-skinned small-boned beauty. But, as I asked a friend the other day - yes, one of the beautiful ones - if what initially attracts a man to you is yours looks, how do I get them to even sit down with me? I have confidence in my personality, my intellect and my ability to make people laugh (providing they're not entirely boring) - but if I can't even get to the Coffee stage, where does a wedding come in?

2007-07-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

From the window of my apartment I see the Jerusalem skyline... if I lean out of the window on a funny angle, slightly risking falling out, but the sunsets are worth it. I have moved to Baka, a nice little anglo/israel/frenchi neighbourhood nearer east Jerusalem. I didn't give much thought to post-merkaz klita life as I could never imagine what "real" Israeli living would be like. After just 3 weeks, I have a small taste of just how hard it is. Nobody earns real money - by that i mean, money that makes you feel secure. An amount per month/year that doesn't make you worry. People watch their pennies here. It's not the best way to be living, but the majority are in the same boat and so it seems normal. It has become normal to me. I actually told somebody that 25 shekel/hour is a great wage. Well it is, for Jerusalem... They/I take jobs with low wages, with salaries that cannot possibly compare to what friends in the us and uk are earning - it's laughable. But people continue and live their lives and I am just starting out. I sometimes wonder to myself when I will become employable, when I will be doing the kind of job I could be doing in London right now. Until my Hebrew is much improved and I have a second degree, is the realistic answer. For now, I too will scrimp and save and watch my few pennies and try and focus on living and being here.
Luckily, the last 4 months have not been all about money or lack of, rather I was so focused on friends and relationships and my absorption into Israel that I didn't dwell on what was coming - the end of Ulpan! It ended and it was sad. Not as sad as I had imagined, mainly because I was secure that I knew where all my good friends were going, that we weren't abandoning yet another "family" and set of friends. We're all still in this together. It's true that I can't just pop over to Tel Aviv on a whim and visit my bestest pals who have moved there. It's also true that it's only 45 minutes away and I really can. It's just a shame the sherut is so bumpy and you have to sit so CLOSE to random, religious men who I often think enjoy the bumpiness for that very reason...

Relationships have deepened, over these few months. I rely on my good friends, we call each other to say nothing at all, just to check they're still there, still going through the same things. Setting up a flat has been unsettling, but finally I have roots - somewhere to unpack my books and call 'home'. Now back to England for a month, which will be strange and possibly even more unsettling. Will it be hard to come back here, after all that time? Will people have forgotten me? I leave in the middle of a time when one special relationship seems to be changing, but I cannot be sure. Will he forget me also? Out of sight, out of mind? There's no way to foresee, I put my trust in Him and hope for the best.

2007-03-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

I am sick. In Hebrew: "My chest pains me". It's not great fun being sick in Ulpan. You miss your own bed, having your own space, your mother, having access to antibiotics without having to argue your case. Israelis are particularly strange when it comes to taking medication, doctors are irritatingly against handing out drugs. Take all the drugs you can get, say I! I have an infection, it won't cure itself!

I seem to have to argue my case all the time out here. Don't take no for an answer, they told us right at the beginning of our Klita. I've been trying to get my phone fixed for 2 weeks, finally today i get it back and they make me PAY for it, and theres no apology just a typical "ma la'asot?". Frustration. And yet with all the frustrations, you cant stay angry too long. You leave the shop, you fume for a little while and dwell on all the madnesses involved in being here and eventually you look up and see something that makes you smile. I'm constantly finding things to smile about in Israel. In England, it felt as if I was constantly grimacing, or hearing or something awful, another stabbing, another mugging. It happens here too, but somehow the good outweighs the bad, and I never felt that in London.

On Monday I go back, a few days before Pesach. I've never been away from my family for the Pesach chag and I'm so excited to see them all. I'm less excited to actually be in England again. It feels as if I only just escaped! And then onto Italy... *sigh. Cannot wait. Holiday! Head-space. Just my family and random people I dont know. No crazies, no 150 other Olim. Yay!

Chag kasher v'sameach xxx

2007-01-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

French men, eh. What to do! So charming. I think it's the way they kiss each other g'bye, on both cheeks. They are also rather pretty. There are a ton of French men in Israel, which means my French is improving in leaps and bounds while my Hebrew grammar is all awry. If only I'd paid better attention in French GCSE instead of experimenting with how long it takes, on average, to get thrown out of class every Monday morning.

My mum rang me earlier to say shabbat shalom, asked all the usual questions, had a nice family catch up. Then she asked me if I was happy - as if she wasn't sure. It hadn't occurred to me that my parents might actually wonder if I was happy here. Even though every day as an Olah I encounter obstacles, frustrations and really, really weird people, I haven't regretted my decision for a second.

2007-01-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official. I'm an Israeli citizen - I have an ID card, the longed-for Teudat Zehut; I can vote in the next election, I have immigrant rights, can buy a car tax-free, get 6 months of free Ulpan, and come to terms with everything it means to be an Israeli. I'm already becoming skilled in elbowing, shrieking "ani rishona!", tapping my foot impatiently and interfering in other peoples' business. I've negotiated the Post Office, the Ministries of Absorption and Interior, opened a bank account, acquired Health Insurance and eaten my first Kosher McDonalds' as a citizen of medinat Yisrael. And now the really tough stuff begins.
There are 25 years of cultural references to catch up on. There are political parties to read up on, weigh up and discuss, but just one to choose. There are decisions to be made, like whether to serve my National Service or skip it and only semi-integrate like so many other Olim will do this year. I am an Olah Chadashah - a new immigrant. I live in Jerusalem, ir Hakodesh.

I have had conversations with female taxi drivers as to how to bring Moshiach, I have been taught new phrases in Hebrew with cab drivers that are so excited you're an Olah Chadashah they practically drive you to their home and throw you your own personal party. My religious level has been questioned by a driver or two, and another turned up his music for me so loudly that I went temporarily deaf. I have attended a brit milah in Geula, the heart of Charedi-ness, and gone to the Dublin pub for a drink. I have walked through the Shouk on erev Shabbat, taking in the sounds and smells and elbows in the ribs, the brilliant mix of kipot and female head-coverings. I have bought rugelach from Marzipan and sheets for my dorm room from a lady who invited me to call her "if i need anything at all. Israel is for all the Jews. Welcome home."

Last night I made my first visit as an Olah to the Kotel. When I was more religious, I would cling to my siddur, walk slowly across the plaza, sit down and and start to make my way through Tehillim, gradually getting physically closer to the wall, to where He can hear me better. I've become distanced from Him. Last night, I ran to the wall and buried my face in it, amongst the notes written to him in so many languages. I hid my face and said Thank You. How lucky am I, how blessed, to have made it here. To have had a dream that I was able to realise! How often does that happen? I said thank you for my wonderful family, who helped me to get here, and for the friendships that so often overwhelm me. I cried tears of gratitude. This is my HOME. I live here, I live in Israel! I have made Aliyah - I am home, at last.

2006-12-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

I've just come back from a most hilarious, London-stylee party. These things make me not want to leave the country, but luckily I realise it was great fun because I never actually attend these do's, so when I do it's super and novel. One of my favourite flicks, The Wizard of Oz, is being re-released this winter in a new digitally re-mastered version and because of its new technicoloured wonderfulness, it's being shown in cinemas up and down the country. Hurrah for big fans and big gay people everywhere! The evening was hosted by the curzon Soho, and sponsored by some lovely bakery called Kondit&Cook who, it turns out, make utterly scrummy cakes and confectionaries. The Wiz was funnier than the last time I saw it (not all that long ago) - perhaps because it was introduced by a tall man with a beard, dressed in the tallest red glittery shoes i've ever been lucky enough to see, a floaty green dress and suspenders. Exactly what a girl wants to see after a terribly long, boring and frustrating day at your desk. Work worries flew out the window and the campety camp madness began! Man in green dress and scarily high shoes went on to introduce the new girl playing Elphaba in Wicked from January - tres exciting! a celeb in our midst! who we asked to sing, but refused. Then there was the show (I still can't bring myself to look directly at Her Scary Green Witchiness.. I definetely saw that film too young) and then along came the party and treats. I was most excited by the treats, can you tell from the stream of consciousness?! Surprise gift boxes, containing a perfectly square yellow cake with Wiz related icing on - mine was of the Emerald City, although Dan confidently told me it was a Christmas tree before we realised they were all film-related. ha! - a little yellow Lego block (highly confusing until it was explained by manly-tranny in green dress that Lego piece could be swapped for a free drink!) a gingerbread man with 'Jolly' iced on his chest (i think the evening was called 'Jolly' but still cant figure out the relevance) and a little box of biscuits. Going home pressies rock! Oh I do love The Wizard of Oz... it's so magical and fantastical and has a whole bizarre moral message to it.

"Only bad witches are ugly" - Glinda

Meanwhile, it's v.late and I must to bed but I'm all whirlwhinded from seeing my favourite film up on the big screen, it was fantastic. I wish all the Yayas could have been there, it's totally our film, seeing as we 'did' it so well on Purim. Perhaps I can persuade whomever I end up cajoling into marrying me to have a themed wedding.... ?

"...we're outta the woods, we're outta the fields, we're outta the night.." (are these the words?)

"Ding dong the witch is dead! the wicked witch! the witch is dead! ding dong the wicked witch is deeeeaaaad!"

"Put 'em up, put 'em uuuuuuup..." - the Cowardly Lion

2006-12-08T02:32:00.000-08:00

Amy Winehouse makes me want to puke. What is the massive structure piled on top of her head? what IS it? What's living in it?And why does she also have to be jewish? She doesnt know the words to hava nagila, and she looks as if petrol or something equally greasy may spew from her mouth, each time she opens it. A river of petrol... or gasoline, as Americans might say. Or, Mcvomit, as George might say.

But what a voice! That's it, isn't it. Her voice is the river of petrol.. it just pours out of her.

2006-12-06T03:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Santastein,
The GIJoe doll last year was super amusing. Good one. But seriously, this year could my Man please be present in my stocking? Yeah, i know i'm jew-flavour but i like doing the stocking. Be happy, im buying into your red&white version of christmas. So - back to business. I'd like for him to be an amalgamation of Oz in Buffy (perhaps he could also maybe look like, or actually BE seth green?) - he of the black nail polish, monosyllabicness and guitar strumming - George in Grey's Anatomy (messy, bumbling, sensitive, witty, wounded) Jack Johnson (for the lyrics and the woman-loving. Pesach in Hawaii? yes please) and lastly - Ray Lamontagne, he of the raspy voice - "..battered, bitter and beseiged, devastated and uncomprehending.." . C'est possible?

"Its so easy to get caught up in your own experiences," LaMontagne says. "They can seem so important. But there are billions and billions of other experiences going on. I guess the album is just me trying to look at things beyond myself, wondering what it is to be alive and what it's all about. I do get into my own experiences — I put the blinders on, in that sense, just dealing with my own life events. But then I try to open the blinders back up again, at the end."

2006-12-06T03:33:00.000-08:00

The thing with shidduchim is, that I dont actually want to be one. I dont want to be someone else's success story, someones secure place in heaven. I want to meet someone in a Borders. We'll be browsing the same aisle, I think. He'll notice the pile of pseudo-intellectual books I'm carrying around with me and think "Interesting choices.. wow, good hair!"

The alternative, being set up, is often too grim to contemplate. It's disheartening, and increasingly humiliating. Not for me, seeing as I'm opting out of that whole scene, but for friends of mine who are going through it. People (and by 'people' i fully intend to imply frum women wearing sheitels) should be banned entirely from setting singletons up on the basis of "well she's frum, and he's frum, and they both have jobs". I am woman, hear me SHRIEK. Who does that?! London may be stagnant, but surely we can do better than that!

There are so many reasons to move, to get on the plane, to pack up my books, to leave behind the theatre and good shopping and afternoon tea and scones, best friends and seeing my nephews every Friday. But i want to have my own little ones! I want to find someone. And i need to move to even think about it. I'm imagining being able to go to the kotel whenever i want... will i go often enough, knowing it's just a bus ride away?

So much to think about, to worry about, be excited about. Will I survive this move?!

2006-12-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

1 month tomorrow - 4 weeks tomorrow - 1 month tomorrow, I am MOVING TO ISRAEL!

2006-11-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I turn 25. I will have lived, come tomorrow, for a quarter of a century. I was reading an article recently about being born in the 90's. Growing up in a time of relative normalcy, when recording onto video was a novelty. There were no iPods, or HDtv. But I also didnt know about Jazz, or contemporary American literature. I hadnt discovered Ray Lamontagne until last week. Life moves, continously. It just seems like the wave is moving so fast. 5 minutes ago I was 18, running around Israel like it was my playground. Now I've graduated, have been working for a year of my Working Life, and am about to move back to that playground forever. Except on bad days, that playground seems like it's just exploding buses, rude, frustrated people, and a life of no money and continuous, heated political discussion. I know it's not, and I fully understand how much more it is than those things, but today's a bad day.
25, man..
On the eve of every birthday, I tend to look back and think "I'll never be 24 again." But this year I'm going to try and think, "dude, 25 is going to be a fabulous year". And mean it!

I think I'll head to bed, listen to a little Jack Johnson. And no Dido. Definetely no Dido.

Turk: "Yo JD where's my Dido cd?"
JD: " If my heart could sing, this is what it would sound like" - Hands cd back
- Scrubs

2006-10-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Around the age of 14, I had this debate going with myself, usually as I walked to school every day, in blustery London weather : Do we uphold traditions and beliefs that we may not be interested in nor abide by anymore, because of a loyalty to those who came before us - to our parents, or grandparents? I always thought so. The portion of my family that perished in the Holocaust were devout, pious Jews. Practising, religious Jews who came from the heim, who spoke fluent German, Russian and Yiddish, who had upheld our rich tradition so steeped in history and love and fear and joy for decades. Who made shabbos every week, who lit candles every friday night and say the same blessings we say today. Who celebrated the same festivals, but who eventually came to live their lives in fear, who suffered because of who they innately were.
They died, but I live. There are thousands of 'me' who never came to be. By the time I entered my school gates, I had often concluded that this was a valid reason to practise my religious, however much I was resenting it that week - that their deaths were somehow in vain if people like me, of my generation or future generations, just abandoned their faith and tradition.
I know now, at 24, this is of course not reason enough. We are forever indebted to our forebears. To my great-grandparents who kept Judaism alive in the most difficult of conditons, long enough to pass it onto their children, to my paternal grandmother who weathered life's most horrendous of challenges, loss and tragedy, who not only survived in the most miraculous of ways but who went on to to build a strong Jewish home. Which brings me to the present day. To my own reasons for carrying it on, for running with the torch.
The photo above is of my maternal great-grandparents who did not perish, but who were already living comfortably in England, who never saw the horrors of Poland or nazi Germany. They too were amazing people who left astounding legacies behind - renowned for their charitable work, for their open home - they often took in refugees and the downtrodden, they had a remarkable reputation. The steps leading up to the golden Aron Kodesh, the holy ark in the synagogue of the famed Ponevezh Yeshivah, are named for them. When I light my candles every Friday at sunset, I do it because in my heart I believe in what I'm doing, in serving G-d through Torah and mitzvot, I connect to Him in my own, personal way, and hadlikat nerot is one of the more beautiful traditions. But I'm also doing it because of my wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents, those who perished and those who survived, entirely because each of them retained their loyalty to yiddishkit despite and often because of the situation and place in life chosen for them.
I often wonder to myself why the world seems such a difficult place to be, why I have been dealt an unfair hand, even though I am truly blessed beyond measure in so many ways, sometimes things just seem too hard. I think of my Bobba, z"l, who survived so much worse, and I know I carry on for her - because she's watching me, keeping an eye on me. As a child and even today I am told I look like her, that I have her hands, her creativity. It is an immeasureable gift to be told you have inherited traits from people you knew only as a child, but who have impacted upon you in countless, tangible ways.
I light my candles once a week in gratitude to Hashem, because He has given me so much. But I continue to do it - I strike that match, wait for the wick to catch, wave my hands 3 times over my candles, cover my eyes, recite the blessing - every single week, only because I have my grandmother right next to me. Peeping over my shoulder, checking the length of my skirt, keeping me in check, reminding me that life can throw much, much worse at us... but we dont give up. Am yisrael chai.

2006-10-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

This is not to say that I believe anyone is ever 100% happy. Over pizza last night, I realise how true that really is. People will always want more. When we already have so much, our yetzer hara kicks in - whether it's wanting a boyfriend/girlfriend, wanting to be married or wanting children, wanting a bigger house/nicer clothes/that new pair of shoes youve spied, another holiday.
And when we have nothing, we want for basic things that many simply expect from life - fresh water, a roof over your head, food, a life without disease, without fear.
But you can be content. Happiness, according to the theory that underscored my year in sem, is finding your purpose in life. When you discover what it is Hashem intended you to do, you can be happy - you have a goal, your life can be purposeful, you have a reason to exist. Some, like Yonah, try to run from that purpose. But eventually it'll catch up with you. When you realise your potential and your purpose, and you live your life with that purpose as the framework, happiness can be achieved.
So rarely can this be found. But everyone can feel a degree of contentment, in some way, at some pt in their lives.

shabbat shalom!

2006-10-19T15:25:00.000-07:00

So far, faithful readers, you will have learnt of rachoelgate and my tree-head surgery. Not a fantastic insight into what makes me, me. But how to describe, without paraphrasing my cut&paste 'describe yourself' paragraph on Jewish dating websites?

*In the middle of NYC there's a gigantic posterboard for Jdate, which reads: 'Why is this site different from all other sites?'*

Today is October 19th. In 3 months time, on the 19th of January, I will have been in Ulpan for exactly a week. I will have emigrated to the State of Israel. Ulpan. Aliyah. ALIYAH.
Can it be true? Am I really doing it? Somewhere far beyond the reaches of my memory or self-knowledge, it's always been my dream. Since I first went on BA camp and learnt of Herzl, of people like AD Gordon, Achad Ha'am and Rav Kook, I understood it to be my legacy.
I understood it as I understood the suffragettes fight to achieve the vote for women - Israel was something my ancestors had fought for, and I was never to take it for granted.
Unlike the power to vote; entirely dormant these last 6 years, uninspired by British politics as I am, the desire to live in Israel has waxed and waned. Inevitably following my gap year, I did all I could to convince my parents I should stay - I vividly recall crying down the phone to my mum, late one evening, in the light of a lamp-post somewhere off Ben Yehuda. I couldn't bear the thought of returning to the UK, to university, so far from the clarity and lightness of being that being in Israel can bring.
But I did go to university, I completed my 4 years and I'm glad I did. I've worked for 1.5 years in the 'real world'. I've saved up, I've realised where I'm meant to be, and it's time to go.

To take on the psychology of a country - a country where most of my peers have completed 3 years in the army or a year of national service, where most have lost family, old school friends, university pals, chavrutahs or work colleagues, to suicide bombings, to a war, to katyushas. Where the poverty rate is increasing month by month and unemployment is high. But also to a country where bus drivers wish you 'shabbat shalom' on a Thursday afternoon, where every person is extended family, where tempers are short and tensions high, but the women call you 'mami' and the taxi drivers continuously ask you to marry them.

I feel so content at the moment, because I know the grand adventure looms. And I mean grand with all its connotations - huge, looming, slightly terrifying. Israel symbolises, for me, a lot of hope. Things to look forward to - new faces, new challenges : enormous challenges, getting to drips with using a new language, making new friends, the increased size of the dating pool!

Recently one member of team icky said to another friend of mine, that she thought I was being resentful of their new relationship because I'm single. I quote:
"I get how it's hard to be happy for someone, when you're not happy".
I guess all it proves is how little she knows me these days. How could I not be happy for them? And how could she think that I'M not happy?! I'm escaping this horrid country, with its cold people and miserable weather, and I'm going to live out, try out, my zionist dream. How could I not be happy! Hashem has showered me with blessings! Praise be!

2006-10-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

So yeah, ok, a lot of people have been in my position. In olden times, I would have fondly been called Gooseberry. In times of yore, maybe 'the third wheel'. But we're not a wheelbarrow, so that just leaves me out in the cold. This ride, baby, is a bicycle made just for two.
It's not that I'm not happy for them, because I am. Would I lie, on my blog?! I was the one who encouraged them to explore what was obviously simmering just below the surface of their platonic friendship! Not that I regret it, as they are now blissfully happy, on a level I've never seen either of them experience before. Which is amazing. For two of my best friends, the search is over. The cyclical longing and wishing and disappointment that comes with being single - that's over for them, and I am actually genuinely relieved for both of them. Because it's not a great place to find yourself, in life. Simultaneously, my whole world has changed. Two months ago, I had two very good friends who brought out the best in me, who made me laugh in that real way you have with only your bestest. We three complemented each other wonderfully. The carpet's been pulled out from under my feet. They're cuddling under the tree and I'm out in the rain, with no umbrella. I explain it to myself using the analogy of a tiyul. You're walking this long, hot, dusty road, you and your good friends. It's taking ages, the sun is baking your back, at times you remember what a great life-adventure this is; and at other times you're just fed up, your back's hurting and you're really tired of it all. Suddenly, one of your friends spots a sign that says 'Sarah, Leave The Path Here' - and off she goes. The journey is over for her. One by one, people see their signs and hop off the beaten track. But you keep going. And going. Much as they remember how tough it was, they're putting their feet up in a comfy, cool rest place now and you're still trucking along, with no sign of your own in sight.
Beyond feeling excluded or sorry for myself, I'm angry. I'm angry with their togetherness.

2006-09-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I have a hole in my head. A tree grows in Brooklyn. And there's also one growing by my ear, it starts with the little hole in my head and leads all the way up to my right eye, with the risk of leaving me with a palsy. Scary as that sounds, now that they want to take it away, I'm not happy. There's a hole on the other side too, except that one doesnt lead anywhere. An entire tree is growing in the side of my head and it must be removed. I dont want it removed, even though it causes me a bunch of problems. I quite like the idea of it.
When I was little, I was completely taken in when my older sister told me that if I swallowed the pips from apples and satsumas, a tree would start growing inside me. I would sit at the kitchen table picturing it, sprouting from a tiny seed, being watered as I had my cereal and drank my juice, growing slowly every day. Would the branches need to come out of my ears? how tall would they grow? I can vividly recall placing my hands on my stomach, trying to estimate how my tree-pregnancy was going. It was bitterly disappointing to find out I'd been conned. There would be no tree. But it turns out, after all that, she was wrong. I do have a tree. It's uniqe, it's inside me. And now they want to take my party trick away. My uniqueness.

" Chop 'em down, chop 'em down..."

I always cry when I leave the doctors surgery. I have absolutely no idea why. I could go in for a cold and cough or chest pain, but i always get a bit teary when I leave. It's mainly because the only person there is to ask 'how it went' or what the doctor said, are my parents. And I'm grateful and appreciate that they're there for me. Too many people dont have that. And I love both of them, a lot. But there's nobody else to call. I emerged from the Specialists office, a diagram of my tree in tow, thinking of surgery and hospitals, feeling a little sorry for myself. I reached for my phone but realised there was really nobody to call. It's not significant enough to call this friend for, this one's away, this one's with her boyfriend, this one lives abroad, oh so does this one and that one and anyway what would i say? im having an operation, its in no way life threatening just a bit scary? I miss having a 'person' you can tell that stuff to. Who'll listen, just because its you and they love you. I'm 24. Where are they?

2006-09-28T05:20:00.000-07:00

In true Copycat stylee, I've discovered that even the very name of my own blog is copied. Dortster, i do hope you'll forgive me. You are the true Orange Jew. I knew i knew it from somewhere... Plucked from a little cabinet drawer at the back of my mind. The Dorty Drawer.

Today I am mostly nervous that W will call up and I'll answer. This is mostly because he DID just call up and I didnt answer, J did. I'm an idiot. What a mess I made of that whole.. episode. And there's a whole 3 months to go of hoping the next phone call wont be awkward and weird and that i will turn crimson in front of colleague-types. But '3 months' also reminds me that it's 3 months til I'm free.

Freedom. Israel. Escape. Newness. Deep, relaxing intake of breath...

Am also, today, laughing inside that BB is actually going to come to London and actually want to see me and I'll actually have forgotten what he looks like.

oh *sigh* (nod to KC, weird Singaporian roomie of yesteryear) Is it possible to rewind? To start over? I've made a mess of a lot of things. Frienship things. Boy things. I'd go back to age 14 and just start all over again. Make different decisions. Annoying characters in equally annoying movies will say "...and if i could go back, I wouldnt do things any differently." Rubbish. I'd do it ALL differently! But we dont get to rewind. I made my bed. And now this one's married, this one has kids, this one hates me, this one hates women...
And O will tell me this is the way things are meant to be. I would even tell myself ("It's all in Hashem's hands, fool") Because this HAS all happened for a reason. None of them were IT. Not Five Children and It. IT. My zivug. HE. The one O will rush up to yelling "Where have you been?! I've been waiting for ages!"

It's all about forgiving other people, at this time of the year. Maybe I also need to learn to forgive myself. But accept blame. Embrace the blame. But it's also not always my fault. See how it could get confusing, being this way?