Israeli Mom

In my previous post, I mentioned our new “weekly hike” schedule. Unfortunately, no trip last week because at least two of us weren’t feeling well. So, this weekend, despite the fact that it’s been raining for a couple of days now, we decided we simply must go out and “just do it”. To minimize the risk of rain, we decided to head south this time, and chose Nahal Sorek (or Soreq) as our destination.

Nahal means Stream or Brook in Hebrew, and most of our waterways are indeed streams rather than rivers. Nahal Sorek begins somewhere in the Hills of Judea, flowing along some 40 miles until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea. For decades it’s been polluted, mainly by sewage, but in recent years the pollution was cleaned and the area near the sea was declared a National Park. It combines a sweet water environment with two kinds of semi-aquatic turtles, and a few dunes that stretch out into the sea. Remember, this is Israel, so think small-scale here. We pretty much walked the park from one end to the other and back and it took us about a couple of hours (with many stops on the way).

Hope you enjoy the pictures -

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This year has been officially declared as (yet another) drought year. We are having much less rain than in previous years and the weather is much warmer.

On the bright side, this winter is wonderful for hiking. Perfect hiking weather pretty much everyday – coolishly warm (or warmishly cool, if you like), clear blue sky, rarely any mud on the trails… and since we did have a couple of rainy episodes so far, everything is perfectly green and lush right now. Not too many flowers though, possibly because it’s too early in the year, or maybe because some flowers decided to “skip a year” and wait for more rain.

Keeping in mind our up and coming US road trip, we decided we need to practice hiking as a family once again. We have set up a schedule of planned hikes, to be carried out during weekends from now until April. So, this Saturday we went out on our first hike in what we hope to make a long weekly series.

So, a few days ago, on Saturday, we packed the kids and some sandwiches and headed out on our way to Nahal Tavor or Tavor Stream. Tavor is the Hebrew version of the word Tabor and indeed the famous mountain, Mt Tabor, along with the Church of the Transfiguration on its very top, are indeed nearby.

We started out near Kibbutz Gazit, where local park “rangers” handed us leaflets and sent us down the path towards the “river bed”. I knew I was headed for trouble, seeing it was quite a long path going downwards… After all, what goes down must go up, right? So, yes, we had a very steep climb on the way back (we returned via the other side of the mountain on top of which we left the car). Still, I made it! And in between we enjoyed the greenery, the semi-flowing stream, the basalt canyon walls and most importantly, just spending time together as a family.

So, here are a few pictures from our hike, if you click on an image, you should be getting to a separate page where you can comment, or just comment here to this post.

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Floods all over the world, in Australia, Brazil and Europe. Here, the weather is fine, sunny and dry, mostly, but we face our own murky waves, those of racism and hatred.

Racist statements by Rabbis and political figures, demonstrations against African refugees, and now Avigdor Lieberman and members of his party who question left-wing organizations’ very loyalty and legitimacy.

Things are going downhill, faster than I had thought possible. For over sixty years, we’ve been proud to call this country a democracy, despite the constant struggle to maintain core democratic values during the ongoing conflict with neighboring nations. Israel is still a democracy, don’t get me wrong, but some very basic core values are being threatened these days. And it scares me.

I’m not the only one scared. We went out marching yesterday, with one very basic message: democracy. Keep this country democratic – put a stop to racism and fascism. The demonstration was organized by a long list of organizations, some more mainstream, others less so, so no, we didn’t chant along to every slogan. We chanted for democracy though, for the right of those marching with us to express their views and demonstrate for them, without fear.

For a couple of years now I’ve been toying with an idea for a post titled “Who moved my Zionism?” You can read some of my thoughts about it here. I think the title of that (never-to-be written?) post has changed into “Who’s stealing my Israel?” It really feels like the country we have spent generations building from scratch is being kidnapped by Lieberman and Shas, right from under our noses.

The demonstration yesterday was from the heart, a patriotic act, born our of our deep love for this country. I love Israel – I want it back.

Will it help in anyway? only time will tell.

This post was probably the most difficult one for me to ever write.

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Finally, 2011 is here! (ok, for three days now, sue me for being too busy to post lately).

We didn’t celebrate New Year’s here – unless you call deep sleep a celebration, which some would. However, it did give me great pleasure to note that we’re finally in 2011, which means we’re off to our great American Road Trip in four and a half months!

For those of you who don’t know, we are planning a long road trip – 101 days long to be exact – to the American West Coast this summer. We’re heading out in mid-May, hoping to travel across California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Canada, Washington and Oregon, returning back home by the end of August.

I believe we’re pretty much set up: our itinerary is planned out, flights booked and accommodation reserved for most of the nights. Still have to sort out the car rental and medical insurance, but plenty of time for both. I intend to keep in touch online, as much as I can. We’ll probably get a net stick, maybe even one which gives us a Wifi coverage of our own, as we’ll be traveling with a laptop, two smartphones and an iPod touch.

I was considering getting a designated GPS or maybe buying the right application for my iPhone, but along came Nokia and saved the day! I got this uber-cool Nokia N8 and was asked to try out their new application which is just perfect for our needs. It’s called Own Voice or OV for short and it allows you to record your own unique sound files for the GPS.

I guess you could maybe do that with other GPS software, but with the Nokia one, it really is easy. It guides you through the various voice segments, one by one, allowing you to record directly from the phone (great sound quality btw, on the N8!), listen to the results and change as needed. You end up with your own voice pack which you can later incorporate into the GPS application. Now, this is where it comes in handy for us – we can record in Hebrew, replacing the English version of road instructions with our own!

Our 7 year old Dan and me had a great time preparing our own pack, but we already have lots of ideas for other packs too – we’re thinking of preparing a family voice pack, where we would have the grandparents voices to guide us, and maybe a classmates package, where we would get the kids’ friends recorded. I think this could be a nice addition to our long road trip – having the voices of those we left behind on the road with us. So, thank you Nokia, and I’m looking forward to really trying out the voices on the road. Did I mention that we only have four and a half months to go?

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I confess, when the Bibi-Libermann government was set up, I took a break. The current political climate in Israel is too harsh for me. Instead of facing it, I turn the other way. Escapism is my therapy of choice – I just focus on my family life, our up and coming trip, or silly reality shows on TV. Trying hard not to watch the news.

A few weeks ago, our school’s involvement with the demonstrations against racism broke the spell, for a while at least. It felt good, to be doing something.

But see, our demonstration was the only one across the country against the racist letter. The only one. And it was small, because we’re a small town and a small school. Last night, there was actually a demonstration supporting the racist letter, in Jerusalem of course. Thousands of people rallied to support racism. I still can’t believe I just typed this sentence – people have actually gone out to demonstrate in favor of racism.

There’s a murky wave washing over this country. Of hatred and racism. Things are very different from the way they were when I was growing up. They’re very different than what they were a decade ago, five years ago and even two years ago.

The only way to stop that would have been by fast and decisive action by the government. There are laws against racism in Israel. That demonstration yesterday could and should have been stopped. Then again, what can you expect from this government.

That’s it. Got this off my chest and now I can go back to watching the Israeli version of Beauty and the Geek. Go Or and Nella!

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Yesterday, I posted about the Men of Big Brother Israel and now it’s time to continue with part 2:

The Women

Liam Raz – the last one to enter the villa, Liam opens my list. She’s 27, from Haifa, and is both beautiful and apparently very intelligent (any Technion student can’t be too stupid). She appears to think quite highly of herself – and that can certainly backlash in this game! She seems a bit distant, yet once she starts talking to someone, she can go on endlessly (not always wise either, viewers are already complaining).

Sivan Avrahami – another bright student, this one was nicknamed “The Brain” by the show hosts. At the age of 26, she is a third-year student (and lab worker) of neuroscience in Bar-Ilan university. She served in several roles in the IDF, the last one being a computers officer. While she’s definitely brainy, she claims her main asset is her good looks (I won’t translate the word she actually used – keeping this blog family-friendly). To me, she seems way too thin, and I know I’m not the only one to suspect an eating disorder there. She has set a new Israeli record, having kissed both a woman and a man on the show, all in the first 48 hours in the show. And, no, these were not “friendly” kisses.

Sivan Dror – the other Sivan on the show has an interesting life story. She started life in a religious family and was married to a religious man right after her military service. A  month later she was pregnant. She then decided she wants to experience more of life, got divorced before having the baby, and set out on her own. She raises her girl as a single Mom and in the past few years has finished her degree in English Literature, with some Gender Studies thrown in. She now works as a copywriter in Haifa, where she lives with her kid. Quite a lot for a 28 years old woman. She’s also beautiful with amazing green eyes, and I suspect her romantic scope in the villa (and out of it) isn’t limited to the men of the house.

Dana Ron – A 38 years old mother of two boys (both around 20 years of age themselves) from Tel Aviv. She is confident, somewhat aggressive and works as a wedding producer. She looks great, with a figure younger women can only envy, and from what I’m reading, that is silicone there (I’m not younger than her, but envious, obviously!) To me she looks just like Judy-Nir Moses with black hair (possibly the same nosejob?) While she has her fans, I have a feeling she’s too “cold” to win a lot of public support in Israel.

Lihi Griner – I think this is what you call a JAP? She’s from Los Angeles, born to Israeli parents, so she does speak Hebrew (necessary on Israeli Big Brother), but often throws in words in English. She seems a bit obsessed about getting married, and she kept talking about her engagement as her life achievement. I was more impressed with her being a business owner, dealing with bail bonds of all things.

Noffar Mor – One of the younger participants, at 22 years old, she’s a fairly assertive and opinionated. Proud of her Iranian heritage, she’s from Tel Aviv and works as a doorwoman/selector/hostess in various Tel Aviv clubs. Her military service was away from home, in the Air Force base in Mitzpe Ramon. She’s proving to be quite popular on the show, making friends among the tenants, and winning hearts outside the house.

Frieda Hecht – my favorite tenant so far, Frieda is one of the older ones in the villa and comes with a fascinating life story. At this phase of her life, she’s a restaurant owner and a cook, living with her wife (yes, her wife) and their dog. She’s also the mother of an older kid. In her past, she’s worked as a truck driver, a builder, a building contractor and a variety of other “manly” jobs across the globe. Twelve years ago, she became a heroine addict, and to finance her addiction, she became a drug dealer as well. She recovered and has been clean for almost a decade. Quite the character, no doubt. So far, she appears to be one of the kindest, most compassionate and easy-going tenants.

Rinat and Shiran Guitar – they entered the villa together, and they are virtually indistinguishable, so these identical twins get one entry in my blog post. They’re young, pretty, energetic and, well… young? One of them served in the military in the homefront command, while the other one was told the IDF has enough women soldiers for the year, so she’s discharged. At the age of 21, it seems like what they like most is music, clothes, giggles and each other.

That’s it. Seventeen people in the villa – until tomorrow evening, I think, or maybe Saturday. If you’re watching, drop me a line here in a comment and let me know who your favorite tenants are.

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The third season of Big Brother Israel started last week.

Seventeen men and women are locked away in the villa, performing strange tasks given to them by Big Brother, hoping not to be voted out by the viewers, who can monitor their every move and word 24/7.

My past posts about Big Brother Israel proved to be quite popular. I still get traffic from searches related to past seasons. So, I figured these posts may be helping some viewers, who need to get over the initial language barrier maybe? Either way, here’s my Big Brother Israel Season 3 post! This one is all about the Males in the house – the feminine version soon to follow.

The Men

Yig’al Alnakary -A well-to-do business owner from Ramat Gan (right by Tel Aviv). Fifty years old, he’s actually done part of his military service in Sinai, before Sinai became Egypt again. Very confident and quite the extrovert, he’s not your typical older male Israeli Neanderthal. This metro-sexual takes pride in having his body hair waxed and his eyebrows properly shaped and plucked. I guess he’s in the house as “the rich businessman”, who fancies good wine, expensive cigars and women in thongs (his words, not mine).

Yoram Kohen – Now, there’s a character to chew on. A strange kind of settler there (is there a normal kind? ok, ok… moving on), from Ofra in the West Bank. This 49 years old man is a wine maker and a father of eight children. He covers his head, but rarely with a regular yarmulke – still, he is a yeshiva graduate and quite religious, in his own way.

Jackie Menahem – Cute and funny, he’s a 22 years old waiter from Ramat Gan. No education, no military service (due to what appears to be a legitimate medical issue), no money and no girl. He’s your classic underdog but has tons of charm, and I’m sure he gets good tips at the restaurant. Judging by comments on various web pages, looks like his honesty and unpretentious attitude could be an asset on the show.

El’ad Tzfani – In the second season of Big Brother Israel, we had a Tourette Syndrome guy, a transexual and a deaf person. While some people criticized this aspect of the show and called it a freak show, I really think it’s a good way to incorporate people with special needs and issues and show the person behind the “syndrome”. Within a week or two, viewers were soon judging these people by their personality – for good or bad. This time, we have Elad Tzfani who is a dwarf. He refuses any PC talk and freely makes jokes that would have been offensive coming from a tall person. The person behind the dwarf is already shining through. He’s a charismatic 22 years old Tel Aviv clubber and it’s already clear that his popularity will only be growing now.

Yo’av Ma’or -Another young one on the cast. Yo’av is a 21 years old uber geek from Kfar Saba. He’s a blogger and a hi-tech enterpeanur and another one who skipped a full military service due to an obscure medical condition. I can’t decide whether he’s full of himself, insecure of both. Something seems quite immature there, but I guess that’s ok when you’re 21?

Lee-Oz Cohen -He’s a fan of Red Hot Chili Peppers and has rock star good looks. Another IDF dropout, who says he volunteers a lot elsewhere. He’s a 25 year old “dude” struggling to make a living while sticking to his anti-materialistic lookout on life. For now, he’s a waiter and looking for some big opportunity out there.

Atai Sholberg – A worthy contestant for the “show hunk” spot. Finally, someone who’s actually served in the military and in combat position too (sorry if it sounds like I’m obsessed with the military service thing – probably a topic for a separate post). He also breaks the ranks by not being from Jerusalem rather than the Greater Tel Aviv area. He combines the spiritual (studies Chinese philosophy) with the physical (studies Chinese martial arts) and his fan base is growing daily.

Amir Goldberg -Last of the men, but certainly not least. Originally from the far north of Israel, this good looking guy owns a club in Tel Aviv and is actively involved in the nightlife of the city that never sleeps. He’s a former Navy diver and has a degree in Business, so has got more than just good looks going for him. Still, he’s surprisingly not as popular as you might expect with people talking about him being too bossy. I guess being an Alpha Male in the villa isn’t easy.

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I’m working on a Big Brother post today, but stopped to post a quick one about our lesson yesterday. The kids go to school, but since they don’t get any homework to speak of, we add a daily lesson at home. Usually it’s either Hebrew, Math or English, but yesterday, we did a lesson in democracy.

If you follow the news in/about Israel, you probably know about the infamous “Rabbis Letter”. Started by the Rabbis of Tzfat, they actually had the nerve to issue a rabbinical letter stating that Jews should not rent or sell houses to Arabs. Turns out, the local Rabbi in our town, Pardes Hana, signed the letter.

So, on Wednesday we got this email from one of the parents in our school suggesting we go demonstrate against that, demanding that Mr Rabbi takes his signature off the letter. He suggested a place, next to where the Rabbi lives and preaches, and for everyone to make their own signs and just show up. I really liked the idea of a grassroots demonstration, and so yesterday, I told the kids we’re changing our lesson into a lesson in democracy.

We had a great time talking about what was wrong with the letter, why we need to demonstrate and what is a demonstration anyway. Then we talked about how to get the message across, and what kind of signs we need to make. I had to gently talk them out of making exploding signs, or anything else that includes rockets, and we finally came up with simple, short slogans. Nothing too fancy or innovative, I’m afraid, just stating their message. Ron came up with “Kids Against Racism” and Dan with “Pardes Hana against Racism”. We then spent some time making the signs, with Ron making his on his own, and me lending Dan a hand.

Ron Working on His Sign

The Result: Kids Against Racism

Dan Holding His Sign - Pardes Hana Against Racism

The demonstration itself was even more fun for the kids. They were so excited! About an hour before that, it had started raining, and we weren’t even sure if anyone would show up. Braving the elements, we did go out and fortunately, the rain stopped just in time (divine intervention?)

Still, only a handful of people turned up at first, one of them being the school’s principal, who was quite impressed with the signs they had made. More people turned up as we were walking towards the Rabbi’s synagogue, chanting and singing. As it turned out, this was pretty much a school demonstration! With some of the signs carrying our school logo. Since this is the Democratic School of Pardes Hana, this was actually very appropriate. One of the more exciting participants was actually our Head of the local Council in Pardes Hana (the Mayor, if you like) who came to show his support and march with us.

Picketing ad Waiting for the Rabbi

The kids were all waiting for the Rabbi to come out to us, as were the adults, actually. We all wanted to see his face and talk to him. Eventually, two people went inside to look for him, and returned about ten minutes later. The Rabbi refused to face the crowds. As for removing his signature, he said he would issue a public statement after Shabbat and basically that he would do whatever Rabbi Elyashiv, his superior I guess, would tell him to do. So much for free thought. Everyone knows that Rabbi Elyashiv objects to the stupid letter, so I guess that means the Pardes Hana will remove his signature. We’ll have to wait for Sunday to find out for sure.

Still, there was plenty of other things to see and do. Journalists arrived, with a local television news crew and a couple of photographers from newspapers. We then marched on to the main road, chanting and waving the signs and stood by the roundabout waiting for drivers to honk in approval. I think this was the highlight, really, as with every honk, all the kids in the crowd jumped with joy.

By the roundabout

I am deliberately staying out of the more “hardcore” political elements of the topic, by the way. There is a lot to be said about this, I know. This post is more of a “Mom” post, if you like. Just talking about the educational experience we had yesterday – demonstrating with fellow friends and town residents for a basic cause. I don’t really have the emotional and spiritual energy required at this point to talk about the very painful change in Israel under Bibi and Libermann. We’ll leave that bit to a different, and much darker, post.

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Broadcasting the latest news in Jewish Laws today. Don’t laugh – I’m on the first page of Yahoo search results for the term “Hannuka”, along with the Chabad site, Torah.org and Wikipedia, so I think that makes me an authority site on Jewish religion, don’t you?

Beware of the Broccoli, my son!

My latest discovery is that Broccoli is as bad as pork.

For over a decade now, we’ve been shopping online for our groceries, through the website of one of the largest chains in Israel: Shufersal. It’s been a while since I last bought any broccoli there – the nice lady who puts your order together usually said they’re out of stock. This was a bit strange, but I got used to the constant shortage and moved on to spinach.

Last week, I tried ordering broccoli-made frozen vegan snacks for a party we were having. A different lady was handling my order and she revealed the shocking truth – nothing made of broccoli is allowed inside their store. The “Kashrut Supervisor” doesn’t allow broccoli.

Kashrut is the Hebrew noun for “Kosher”, and the Kashrut Supervisor is the person in charge of making sure everything we buy in the store is kosher – that is made and prepared and packaged and what-not – all strictly by the Jewish dietary laws. Living in Israel, this is just part of life, even for a totally secular, in fact atheistic Jewish family. While some restaurants and shops are not kosher, almost by default major grocery stores are.

Why broccoli though? Beats me. I have written to their website to ask for a response. I do know some ultra-religious Charedi Jews stay away from leafy vegetables, unless extra measures were taken to make sure no insect can be found on them, but as far as I know, broccoli isn’t any “leafier” than say, cauliflower?

I wonder if this is yet another sign in Israel becoming more religious? Or maybe this guys just really really hates his greens?

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Seems like there’s a lot of trip reports on this blog lately… Maybe because my main focus is on preparing our big trip to the US. I enjoy reading trip reports so much, I want to give back to the universe web.

We were fortunate enough to have Hospitality Club guests yesterday: a lovely young couple from Germany and their uber-cute baby. A well needed excuse for us to finally pack up the kids and leave the house and do some sightseeing. With us was Aviva, the blogger behind MakingAliyah and several other worthy publications.

Our default “sightseeing with guests” site is Ceasaria – which I need to write about someday too. It’s a class-A tourist attraction, but we go there so often, we just enjoy it for the beach and atmosphere. Since our guests have already been to Ceasaria the previous day, we decided to head out north and visit Megido, or Megiddo, aka Mt Megido. Mt in Hebrew is Har, so you may be more familiar with the Biblical version of the name “Har Megido”: Armageddon.

Megido

I am no biblical scholar, but even I know that according to Christian tradition, this is the spot where Christ returns to find the anti-Christ in the “Mother of all Wars”. Gonna be a blast, with those Four Riders of the Apocalypse and all that. Megido is well worth a visit for more than that, though. It’s also a fascinating archeological site, with over 8,000 years of human history partly excavated in this huge mound. I believe this makes it one of the world’s most ancient human settlements too.

We arrived at Megiddo at around 11AM. Our family has a national parks membership, so we didn’t pay anything. Otherwise, you pay 25 shekels per ticket (about six dollars). With three speakers of German in our party, we were shown the introductory film in German. IsraeliDad and myself translated the narration to the kids (and no, neither of us knows any German).

We were told there’s a guided tour at noon, so we passed the time strolling through the small visitors center. They have this large interactive model of the site, with lots of buttons for kids to push. They either turn on lights in various spots or actually lift up parts of the model (woohoo!). I was surprised and pleased to see the kids actually read the captions, and tried to figure out where’s what on the model.

The kids operating the model

We also got the kids some cold juice – not cheap at 10 shekels ($2.5) a bottle, but it was very cold and helped them pass the time. The cafeteria also has ice creams, coffee, snacks and sandwiches, and the lady there was very nice and helpful (she backed me up when I said ice cream is only for kids who complete the tour).

Our guide showed up at noon. He was a docent from a nearby Kibbutz, a Megido enthusiast who volunteers as a guide on weekends. We got a very detailed tour too that lasted an hour and a half! First twenty minutes were in the visitors center itself, so showing up late wouldn’t have been a problem. He then walked us out into the archeological site, stopping at various points to show us the excavated buildings and explain about them.

The kids were anxious to get to the best part of the visit – the underground water system – so at some point I just took them looking for the tunnels. The place isn’t too huge, so you can’t get lost anywhere, but we had fun examining the signs along the way for ourselves, while the rest of our group stayed with the guide.

When we finally located the entrance to the tunnels, their tour was almost over too, so they joined us and we went underground together. Going down 183 stairs (my poor knees protesting today), walking along the short cool stone tunnel and coming out the other side, outside the ancient city. From there we went back along the road to the visitors center to pick up the cars. Overall, it takes you under a mile, with some uphill walking (nothing too drastic).

Check out these pictures from our day trip to Megido -

Full details about Megido National Park, hours, fees etc can be found here.

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