Aliyaversary #2

Two years ago we embarked in this crazy adventure. We left friends and family in search of a more meaningful life. We left the comforts of a big house in order to find our home. We exchanged hamburgers for falafel. In two years we've learned a language, we've made new friends, we've been through war, we've traveled the country in every direction. We've seen the red and arid desert and in the same day we've dipped our toes in the ocean, that's how magical this land is. In two short years we've accomplished so much, yet we are just getting started. One thing i can say though, without the shadow of a doubt, and that is: we are home. 

Thanks churri (Ivan) for getting this crazy idea of moving into your head (and mine). What an incredible adventure it has been.

Jewish Mother Paranoia

I’ve always felt like I can’t be like the ostrich and hide my head in the sand. Things happen and you are better off knowing about them so you can be aware. Whether you decide to let it bother you and sacrifice your sanity, that’s up to you, but not wanting to know about it is like wanting to hide the sun with your hands.

A few weeks ago I posted an article about secondary drowning on a mother’s Facebook group. I had recently been reading a lot about it and with summer here, I thought it best to help other mothers be aware of the existence of secondary drowning and of its symptoms. The first comment on my post was a mother saying we should not read this kind of article, that all they do is scare us. Other mothers immediately started weighing in saying we need to be aware of this and it is serious stuff. I was confident in my belief that you are better off being informed and that I would not let knowledge drive me paranoid and so I went about my business. Until yesterday that is.

I took both my kids to the pool, like I typically do a few times a week. We all love it and by the time we get home, they have swam like fish, eaten like tigers and so they sleep like bears. What’s not to love? My son is 7 years old and has been swimming since he is 4 months old and although I do watch him, he really does not need much of my attention, unlike my 2 year old, whose daredevil personality will have her jump into the depths of the unknown at the first chance she gets. So there we are, in the shallow part of the pool, my daughter sitting on the steps and my son doing rolls in the water. He asked me for help doing a handstand, so taking my daughter off the steps and farther away from the edge of the pool, I proceeded to help my son hold his feet up as he dove into the bottom of the pool to stand on his hands. I grabbed both his ankles and he wiggled away, so I let go only to watch him come out of the pool coughing. I DROWNED MY OWN CHILD! I thought in horror. Having had read one too many articles about secondary drowning, I freaked out. Despite having swallowed water myself as a kid on more than one occasion, despite having played “let’s drown each other” with the cousins while growing up, images of my imminent trip to TEREM (emergency room) invaded my head. For the proceeding half hour or so, as my son continued to roll and dive to collect objects from the bottom of the pool, i kept alert to signs of vomiting, coughing, excessive tiredness. Every time my son coughed my heart skipped a beat.  I asked him to tell me if he felt tired and after swimming to the other end of the pool and back, he came to me and said “mom, I’m tired, but I think it’s because I just swam a lot”. I meant tired as in sleepy god damn it! stop scaring me so much. As I looked at his purple lips, wondering if it was just the cold water or perhaps a symptom of secondary drowning not mentioned by the article I had read, I realized that “Jewish mother worry” had possessed me, and for that, unfortunately, there is no cure.

Now that you are here, drop some reishes

Things that will get your Teudat Zehut revoked

We made it here, all the way from the other side of the pond and as hard as we try to blend into Israeli society, there are certain things that will just give us away. We concentrate in clusters in either Jerusalem, Modiin, Beit Shemesh or Zichron, our first question when we walk into a place is “ata medaber anglit?” and mastering the “reish” has proven to be a lost cause.

I’m not saying you should become a kibbutznik and get high with the smell of cow manure and smoke hookah or a Tel Avivnik who holds weekly debates supporting the underprivileged Somali youth at his tiny studio apartment, but when in Rome…

Here is a list of a few things that now that you live in Israel, you should immediately adopt to avoid the risk not only of being spotted from a thousand miles away, but of getting your Teudat Zehut revoked.

1. You must barbecue on Yom Haatzmaut. Let it be a public park, forest or your friend’s backyard, turn that mangal (grill) on and get your Al ha Esh going.
2. Go big or go home on Lag Ba’Omer. Bringing anything smaller than a door to a Lag Ba’Omer bonfire is simply embarrassing.
3. Hit the road on Chol Hamoed. Those very rare, very precious few days in which work and school are off and the Jewish law allows you to drive, you need to spend stuck in traffic for hours on your way to, anywhere really, doesn't matter the destination, it’s the slow-moving journey that counts.
4. Sandwiches at a picnic? no way! If you don’t want your TZ revoked you must at the very least bring corn on the cob, boiled eggs, julienned red peppers and any left over food you may find in the fridge before you head out.
5. Picnicking, Israelis’ favorite pastime, involves seating on the floor. You don’t want to seem like an amateur at this, so you’ll find money well spent is money spent on an oversized wicker-looking mat. We used to have this trendy soft mat we brought from Miami where me and the baby could sit comfortably on the grass for tummy time or a snack. Forget that! that is an embarrassment. You need to get a colorful Israeli mat. A grass-flattener if you will. One of those where you can sit three families and you don’t need to wash, ever.

And then there are things that perhaps won’t get you your TZ revoked, but that you can start doing if you want to earn some extra brownie points and let your Israeliut speak louder than that American accent of yours:

1. Bring a WHOLE watermelon to the beach. None of that cut up pieces in a Tupperware nonsense. Bring a kick-ass size abatiach, a knife and get cutting.
2. Get into the matkot madness. There is no beach in Israel where you won’t find a few paddle ball matches going.
3. Be loud, sound angry when you really aren't, speak with your hands
4. Throw a bucket full of water and squeegee it out to the balcony or the yard when you are cleaning the floor
5. Although a complete fashion faux pas and I would certainly frown upon it, if you are feeling really daring, wear sandals with socks!

You know what they say, when in Rome, do like the Romans did and so now that you are an Israeli, step out of your comfort zone and let your reish-induced, hummus-breath, sandal-wearing, mangal-lighting, easy-going personality flourish.

#CampYael no more

Is my gift for planning cool weekend getaways gone?

It has been just a little over a year and a half since we made aliyah and following on the footsteps of my good friend Lisa and her #camplisa initiative, we made it a mission during our first year in Israel to visit different places each weekend. We did some great stuff. We went north, south, we hiked, we went to different beaches, museums, parks, small towns, smaller towns... We did so much stuff that I even started a “cool things to do in Israel” list, which I began to proudly share with others. Mostly I was in charge of coming up with plans and everyone was happy with the results. Up until a few weeks ago that is.

After reading so much about the Darom Adom festival and how the fields are covered with beautiful red kalaniyot (flower-anemone coronaria) and seeing picture after picture of red fields, I planned our weekend outing to Shokeda. THE place to go see kalaniyot according to the many facebook groups of which I am a member. If it’s on the internet it must be accurate I thought, and so armed with my DSLR camera, pretty dressed children in almost matching but non-cheesy outfits, a cooperative husband and a bag full of snacks, we took on the road southward bound.

As we got off kvish 6 we realized we were getting closer. Lines and lines of cars were parked on the side of the road next to a forest and hundreds of Israelis with their wicker mats under their arms were walking towards the entrance to the forest (did I ever mention how every Israeli has a wicker mat for picnicking? Apparently its the kind of thing they can revoke your Teudat Zehut if you don’t have one… Anyways, that might be material for another article). We parked our car and joined the wave of Israelis as they entered the forest in search for the beautiful red fields. We walked, and walked, and walked, and walked some more and suddenly we started hearing others say what we had only been so brave as to admit inside our own heads: “where are all the kalaniyot?”. After having driven an hour from home I wasn’t about to get my plans ruined, so I told my husband, “let’s find another field”. So we got back in our car and drove a bit more until we saw another wave of Israelis making their way into the forest and we parked on the side of the road. The kalaniyot were beautiful! All 5 of them! I strategically positioned my kids for a picture that anyone who saw would think “wow” of, clicked on the shutter button and snapped a few photos before making our way back into the car and driving all 120km back home. Upon our return, we discovered there were more kalaniyot in the field behind our son’s school than there were in Shokeda. After a year of planning great activities, it isn’t a big deal to have one disappointment, is it?

A couple of weeks later, after having heard from my friend and coworker about an incredible place called Maskeret Batya, we made a plan to visit. Maskeret Batya is one of the oldest towns in Israel and according to my friend and her pictures, a town full of charm and plenty to do for everyone in the family. We woke up on Saturday morning and headed out to this enchanting town, only to find out that it’s a ‘religiousy’ town and EVERYTHING is closed on shabbat. My husband and my son wanted to kill me, no, I’m not exaggerating, they really wanted to take my life away. They were hungry and there wasn’t even a convenience store open. My daughter is the only one who had my back, but only because she is two and she had no idea what was happening. She wasn’t exactly vocal in her support, but I sensed it was there.That day, I was banned from making further plans without the prior consent of, and further investigation by my husband.

My busted plans must have frustrated my husband so much that the last two weekends, his usual lazy-let’s-stay-in-bed-all-day personality has been completely reversed to a 9 o’clock get up and let’s go attitude for which he has been making the plans. We went to Caesarea one weekend, walked along the beach, saw ruins, spent time with friends, ate a great italian place and came back home happy. Last weekend, we went to Utopia, a tropical rain forest with orchids, animals, musical fountains and plant mazes near Netanya. We then went to Rishon Lezion for lunch and got home in perfect timing for kid’s bath and bed.

I must say, I’m liking this no-pressure-to-come-up-with-activities thing. While I might relinquish my baton to hubby for a while, it’s not easy with my OCD personality. It has been a total struggle to relinquish, so I have committed to this change of hands just until after we go to Banyas, a gorgeous hike in the north and this fantastic beach festival in Dor beach that will require complete and utter dedicated planning over the next two weekends.

Credit to my editor in chief, Adinah Brown

To hashtag or not to hashtag... that's not even a question!

I know my blog is supposed to be about aliyah and how incredibly funny and frustrating at times life in Israel can be, but in all fairness, I did say when I created it that I would use it in part to vent about things that annoyed me, and so here it goes, in fair warning to all of you readers, I’m about to let it out...

What is it with people and hashtags? maybe I should capitalize it so you can sense how much this bugs me. WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE AND HASHTAGS????  There, that’s better.

I’m certainly no expert on technology and when faced with a blue screen or an official-looking message from “the Windows” people on my computer I’m fast to call on my hubby’s help, but I am a writer, a marketing writer nonetheless, and so to me, the cross-hatch figure has stopped being merely the thing on touch-tone phones that noone ever used, and become the very necessary, totally infamous #hashtag, so you could say that I posses some sort of entitlement when I laugh make mental corrections of the use of hashtags on my friend's (as defined by Facebook) posts.  

In case some of you don’t know what a hashtag is, which if you don’t use it in ridiculous-excess-Jimmy-Fallon-style is totally respectable, here is a little preamble: a Hashtag is a marker used to group together 140-character tweets by subject. Say you want to group all tweets relating to things that should exist but don’t, then you would accompany all of your tweets about the great ideas you have, such as a “nobody cares” button on Facebook or push-up Pringles cans with a “#WhyDontTheyMakeThat” hashtag. Hashtags are also supported by other social media platforms like Instagram and most recently Facebook.

Well, I am all for the use of hashtags. I think they are a great marketing tool for companies and an efficient way to catalog and later find sometimes useful, sometimes not so useful things. Some hashtags are funnier than others and I do get a kick of seeing what people come up with, but what really makes my day is when #hashtagsgetoutofcontrol and I see people who evidently have no idea of what a hashtag is or what it does, make widespread use of the poor little pound sign making their phrases an incoherent mess of strung-together words. So without further ado, if you feel the compulsory need to use hashtags, keep in mind the do’s and don’ts of hashtagging so people don’t go all  “#whatwereyouthinking” on you :  

1. #Don’t #hashtag #every #single #word
2. #donthashtagridiculouslylongstringsofwords
3. Don’t use hashtags in platforms that do not support them
4. Don’t try to be funny or sarcastic with your hashtags
5. Mind your spelling. misspelled hashtags will left your post out of the group and make you look dumb, like the guy who #dieofbeaties from eating too many Oreos dipped in Nutella
6. If it can be misread, it will be. Susan wanted to throw an album party and she is now kicking herself because her advertising backfired when she used the hashtag #SUSANALBUMPARTY. Proofread your hashtags with the mentality of a 12 year old boy.  
7. Don’t use space or punctuation on your hashtags
8. #FOMO, #LOLOLOLOL   Need I say more?
9. Don’t use irrelevant hashtags that do not relate to a category. #larrydidnotwanttobeinthepicture is not only a ridiculous long hashtag (see #2 above), but how many pictures did Larry not want to be in that you must group them all together?
10. Don’t even get me started on spoken hashtags. Leave the finger gesturing for other uses will ya? and if you see someone yelling “hashtag (accompanied by the hand gesture) oh em gee”, you have my permission to punch them in the face and then kick them while they are down.

Now that you have an idea of the basics, go out and hashtag the hell out of everything!

This is MY land

They say one of the hardest things about moving to a new country is adjusting to its food. The truth is I love Israeli food and since we moved here we have eaten in some of the best restaurants I've ever eaten before. Food is kind of like a passion to me (eating it of course, not so much cooking it), so I like trying new flavors. 

Grocery shopping however, well that is a whole different story. I must admit I have never been one to enjoy my trips to the grocery store and since moving to Israel, my hate-hate relationship with the grocery store has gone to new levels. It isn't just not finding the products you are used to, the fact that 1% milk is as fat-free as you can get, that a year supply of Haagen Dasz costs as much as tuition did in America, that figuring out the names of the cuts of meat requires a PhD, or the fact that the employees of grocery stores here do not seem to have gotten the "customer service" memo and will run you over with their dollies as they take up 3/4 of the aisle while replenishing the shelves. My biggest pet peeve, one that I cannot seem to get over, is the fact that in order to get a grocery cart, I am required to deposit a ₪5 coin in a little slot that causes the chained cart to become lose. I get the idea behind it. Depositing ₪5 ensures that I will return the cart to its designated place once I am done using it instead of leaving it behind in the middle of the parking lot, but c'mon, I am about to spend close to a thousand Shekels inside, can't the supermarket afford someone to retrieve the carts from the parking lot? Is it not enough that I just bagged my own groceries? 

Yesterday morning was like any other Friday morning at the grocery store: a complete zoo. Lately I have been doing my grocery shopping online, which I must say, is a complete wonder, however, my last purchase was short a few things, so a visit to the brick and mortar was necessary. I arrived a little after 10am with my two year old daughter and shuffled through my purse to find ₪5. The best I could come up with was a ₪2 and two ₪1 coins, which meant I had to get change because the grocery cart retrieval requires an exact ₪5 coin. I scanned for the possibility of a lose cart to no avail, so went inside to get change from the "customer service" desk (note the quotation marks are to denote sarcasm). There were three people in line for the same reason I was and the woman at the desk was on the phone. After a few minutes of waiting, armed with my ₪5 coin, I retrieved a cart and started my battle for grocery shopping on a Friday morning. 

I finished rather quickly, except for the line at the register which held me back about 35 minutes, and all the while I was waiting, ideas of using my blog to vent about the ₪5 situation flowed through my head. As I was bagging my groceries, talking to the lady behind me and the woman at the register, they noticed I have an accent and asked where I came from. People can't believe I left Miami (paradise to them) to come here. The woman behind me asked how I liked Israel. Grocery shopping aside, I love living here, so with a bright smile I said "I love it, we are really happy". She was surprised and said "wow, that's wonderful to hear. Even with all the problems we have, you are happy here". Without hesitation, I said "there are problems everywhere, but here these are OUR problems". Even I couldn't believe my own answer, I really meant it. I feel that even after only a year, this is MY land. And so I left, having said shabbat shalom to both women, proudly pushing my sideways-running grocery cart (what's up with that by the way?).