the pesach edition: scoring question: does it make more sense to add up each item and leave that as the total, or should i add up and then divide? we end up with a score of either 1.3 or 13.
let’s start with the important stuff: matzoh and butter. it is one of the most addictive foods. ever. butter on crackers does not compare. matzoh with anything else doesn’t compare. i think i have probably eaten close to my weight in matzoh and butter this week. ok, maybe not. but the sheer yumminess gives this a +3
the seder: i joined my friends the gershmans at the home of howard and judy. i’m sure they have a last name, but i don’t know it. she is the head of the Educators’ Program at Pardes (www.pardes.org.il if you’re interested) and he teaches biblical grammar. but don’t let that deter you, he was warm, funny and a great seder leader. throughout the seder, we had a game in which judy and two of the sons would give answers to a question about various seder traditions and everyone had to guess which person was correct. as the boys were taking their four cups of wine very seriously, their answers became very theatrical. plus all of the kids (three sons-pre, post and current soldiers and a post-soldier niece) were incredibly knowledgeable and shared all sorts of stories, theories and tidbits. +5
oh yeah! at shul, pre-seder, a beautiful conservative shul very close to where i lived when i first came to israel, a little girl came up to me and asked “do we know each other?” all i could do was laugh after the LAST time someone asked me that the week before. she was very cute and told me that it was her birthday and she was excited to get a bike. +3
while in jerusalem, i did see something that made me very angry. i was walking along jaffo street, which is all torn up due to the neverending, disastrous “light rail project” and there was a man who was probably about 125 years old, teetering along with his walker. along came a father and a son with big streimels (those gigantic furry hats) and their satin coats, an ultra-orthodox uniform. rather than sidestepping the man to continue at their pace, they elbowed him out of the way. i was feeling frustrated for a couple reasons: first, i find it offensive that people who are so quick to protest against stores being open on shabbat or the selling of chametz during pesach have no problem ignoring other mitzvot such as honoring the elderly. second, the streimels, black hats, peyot (the curls at a man’s ears), and such make such recognizable jewish markers that these sorts of things really stick out. when a black friend living in brooklyn was flatly ignored by his jewish neighbors, he thought it was because he was black and took it very personally. when i tried to explain that it was really just because he wasn’t jewish, let alone as jewish as them, it sounded ridiculous. i will save my rants about the lightrail and ultra-orthodox uniforms for another day. -5
pesach is interesting in israel. all schools and government offices are on holiday, lots of people take off work and approximately every american jew comes to israel. so most restaurants are open. and many are “כשר לפסח” meaning kosher for pesach. kosher for pesach is an expensive process for these restaurants: in order to have a fancy stamp of approval certificate to post, they must go through a rigorous process of cleaning and kashering and then pay the moshgiach (the guy who checks your kosher-ness). and this is above and beyond the amount that they must pay each year to maintain the non-pesach kosher certificate. this generally means closing the night before pesach begins which is also the busiest night for restaurants in israel, so they have to shell out money and lose money all at the same time. alot of restaurants go through the cleaning process but don’t bother with the moshgiach and simply write hand-written signs. also, since matzoh sandwiches and pizza isn’t the most popular choice, restaurants have come up with alternatives….i had my first potato-dough bun for a late night hotdog the other night. it’s not bad, though i don’t think i’d want to eat it all the time. with so many restaurants open and so many bread substitutes, pesach here doesn’t quite feel as much about sacrifice here. i say that as neither a positive nor a negative, just an observation.
another interesting pesach thing is kitniyot, a category of foods in addition to leavened grains that ashkenazi jews don’t eat at passover. kitniyot includes corn, rice, beans, peanuts, etc. as jews seem incapable to ever get along as a big group, of course this is a time for some ashkenazi/sephardi separation. in israel, the sephardi jews are often viewed with major prejudice, such as “oh i’d never marry sephardi but they sure are good cooks.” -2
apparently the ashkenazi rabbinate (the group that decides what is and isn’t okay for ashkenazi jews) has been making the list of kitniyot longer and longer, including all sorts of things so that there is no mix up that someone might actually be confused with sephardim by accident. one such item is canola oil, technically fine for eating on pesach but banned because it might be mistaken for something else. but a group has petitioned the rabbinate and won. beginning next year, canola oil will no longer be considered kitniya. +1
i’ve spent a lot of time travelling this week: to jerusalem for the seder, back home the next night. to tel aviv for a walking tour on wednesday, back that night. to jerusalem on thursday and then back to tel aviv that night. home on friday morning and then right around to tel aviv that afternoon. finally came home last night and plan on not seeing another bus for a couple days! +1
the walking tour was a bit of a mixed bag….it was organized by some new “singles meet and greet” type organization…yipes. but i thought it might be good to meet some people in the tel aviv area as it’s closer than jerusalem. so i went with the old roomie. it was unclear where we were supposed to meet, there was no contact information for the organizers, a staffer didn’t show up until more than half an hour after the tour was supposed to start and when we asked if we would get a discount for the tour, we were told we needed to be more flexible because of holiday traffic. even though we (the new immigrants) had all planned ahead and gotten there early. the tourguide eventually showed up an hour late with no apology. i didn’t really learn anything interesting on the tour, but it was a beautiful day to walk from tel aviv to jaffo and the weather was perfect. the people on the trip were sort of your stereotypical “singles meet and greet” desperate crowd-the girls wearing outfits that had clearly taken hours to put together to give off the appropriate “i’m not trying” look, the men practicing their intense eye contact and strong handshakes. what a joke. however, i did meet a woman who was really great. we ended up going for dinner afterward and laughing at all the “so tell me about yourself” lines we got. she has started her own business teaching english, she goes to a cooking class that i was interested in taking and she asked me to join a book club. i am very excited! all in all, i’ll say the weather and the new friend make the event a +4
i also reached out to a friend of a friend, which is a bit out of character for me. we had a great time. she makes jewelry out of old israeli coins, which are really beautiful. she invited me to a concert. it was a band i’d never heard of and the cost seemed a bit high. but i haven’t been to a proper show since before i came to israel and there are few things i like better than being in a dirty, smelly, dark and crowded warehouse-type place listening to loud music. i know, when phrased like that, who could resist? i was so excited to discover that Art Brut far exceeded my expectations. i LOVED them. and it was so exhilarating to be in that environment. i imagine this is what a B-12 shot or whatever it is that madonna insists on giving to all her friends feels like. the next day we met up with another friend and spent the day walking along the beach, avoiding the hundreds of smashball games, and made our way to jaffo to walk around. here i discovered the neighborhood i would like to live in eventually-artsy, winding streets, cafes galore, great views of the sea. this probably topped my whole week. +5
i read an article earlier this week that was upsetting. the IDF was denying that it had shot and killed a palestinian teenager who was trying to cross from gaza into israel. i found it odd because the IDF is so frequently honest to its own detriment. media reported that paramedics had found the body of the 15 year old. however, a few days later, the next news story broke: the boy returned home… completely unharmed. he had actually been detained by the egyptians after illegally crossing their border through tunnels. i wonder if either part of the story, “IDF kills teenager” or “teenager not really dead at all” ever made it into the news in the US. -2
here’s tel aviv’s beach at pesach:
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