This and That

It’s been a whole week since I last posted, so rather than summarize everything I’ve done, I’ll leave you with another batch of thoughts, in really no order at all…

Visitors are great! My friend Melissa Renny from college was coming to Jerusalem for work, and she spent Shabbat with me. We haven’t been in touch much (at all) in the last couple years, but we had a great time together, going to services, eating, shopping, and hanging out. Old (ish) friends are great fun, especially when in a foreign country.

I understood (some of) the radio today! We talked in class for a while about what stories were in the news today, and went over some of the vocabulary, but I was nonetheless incredibly excited to recognize and understand several of the headlines that wooshed past us on the news. We’ve also moved on to television; after going over radio headlines for a while, we watched a tape of a little piece of the early morning news. Our teacher thinks it’s much harder than radio, but I think there are more pauses, which make processing the words easier, I can see the speakers, which makes it easier, I can see pictures, so I know what story is being discussed, which also of course makes it easier. The stories are more in-depth, so I don’t get every single word, but I have a decent idea of what’s going on after watching TV-news, so I find that encouraging.

The Redskins are doing a great job this year…of making me sad. There isn’t any more to say on that topic. There’s always next season.

I do miss home. Jerusalem is a nice place to be, for a year, but I do sometimes feel very far away. I miss the day to day conversations with friends and being around for important events and fun events. I also miss having separate groups of friends. I kind of liked at home having my college friends, high school friends, work/youth group friends, and extra miscellaneous friends. Here, I have sort of different groups of friends, but they’re still all HUC people. They’re wonderful, and I’m definitely marveling at how I have become so close with some people after only a few months, but I don’t have the same escape as I did at home.

Fall produce is not as good as summer produce. The shuk is a somewhat depressing place to be these days. There are apples, but they’re not that good. There are some late plums and grapes, but they don’t look that great either, and they’re really expensive. The tomatoes aren’t looking so good anymore. Pomegranates were a novelty, but I’m not going to put one in my backpack as a mid-morning snack like I did with peaches. I miss watermelon. I’m ready for the winter fruits, especially various types of citrus, to make their way to the shuk.

Bet you never thought you’d read about me longing for fruits and veggies, did you?!

My Shabbat dinner this past Friday night was part of an HUC program to have us get to know people in the community. They did a home hospitality program with a local Reform congregation, Kol HaNeshamah. Along with several other HUC students and some other people, I went to a local couple’s house for dinner. The discussion and people there were fascinating, the home was beautiful, and the food was amazing. I miss having a real, live Jewish mother to feed me! There was a constantly-refilled platter of brisket (really yummy, but mom’s is better!), salmon, sweet potatoes, and several other types of deliciousness. I was a happy camper! It’s funny that we all cook for ourselves, and we often have big group dinners, but I seldom have a really, really good meal with endless amounts of food. I should do that more often.

This afternoon the rabbinic students met in our “reflection groups.” These are groups of 5-6 students and 2 staff members or professors that meet every month or six weeks, just to talk about whatever is on our minds or issues we are having and things like that. The actual content of the discussions is confidential. Today we talked about levels of practice, inspirational rabbis we’ve met, differences between movements, and comfort with different parts of Judaism. I really enjoy these meetings. I have a great group of people who have widely varying opinions, but really respect one another and get along well. Both times the group has met, we have had great discussions, and the designated time really flies. I think it’s a great forum for discussion and reflection, and I only wish we met more often!

Tomorrow I go back to my Ethiopian family again, and I realize I never wrote about my experience there last week. To summarize: we all have to be involved in a community service project this year. My project is working with Ethiopian immigrants every week. A group of about a dozen of us goes to an absorption center about 20 minutes away after classes on Tuesdays. We work in pairs. My roommate Karen and I are working together. We were assigned a family to work with. Our family is parents and five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11. They immigrated to Israel about 8 months ago, in February. The kids have been going to school since they have been there, so their Hebrew is really good. The parents hardly speak any, so I can’t really talk to them. The oldest daughter is the one I talked to the most last week. We brought a bag of games and activities to break the ice. The biggest hit: balloons. We ended up with somewhere over a dozen kids in our house all wanting balloons and stickers. It didn’t take too long before all the balloons were broken, of course, but it was fun while it lasted! I played endless games of cards with the 11-year-old. Karen played basketball with a beach ball with a group outside. With her hands in front of her in a circle, Karen was the basket. I had a really good time, but I hope we can do more than just play in the future, and talk to them some more. It will be an interesting challenge; I don’t even know the names of the family members. We got a list of names and ages, but everything is in Hebrew and without vowels, and the names are Ethiopian, so I don’t recognize them at all. It will be an uphill battle!

And now it’s the nightly battle between my to-do list and my pillow. My pillow usually wins eventually. Goodnight!