The Matt and Jen Moving Company

We picked up our key to our new apartment tonight and will move our first load there in the morning. I've never moved by walking my possessions to a new home but that's what we're doing.

We're filling up our luggage and wheeling it over to our new apartment (located on the fourth floor and there's no elevator, of course), dropping off our things and then wheeling our empty luggage hoe for a refill. Several friends have offered to help but we think we'll be done after three trips and since we're both taking the afternoon class off, we'll be totally done by the time our fellow students are finished with their five o'clock classes.

We visited our apartment and our landlord this afternoon and we were pretty surprised to find the place in such disarray. The first time we saw the apartment it was really neat and clean. Not so this time!

But, it must be really challenging for our landlord, who's moving to the U.S. for a year - we know what it's like to try to pack up and move out. Nonetheless, we really hope she's able to get it clean before we move in tomorrow. We don't have a lot of confidence though because we hustled us out of her apartment because she was heading out for a night out on the town.

I guess we'll see how bad things are in the morning when we drop off our first load right before Hebrew class.

A Wild and Crazy Week

Friday night services were great at our local synagogue although since I'm in the synagogue every Friday night at candle-lighting time, I never get to hear the sirens that announce that time throughout Jerusalem.

We had a wonderful Shabbat dinner at Jean's; her world-famous Chicken and Sausage Paella was outstanding. There were six of us there - it was a prefect evening of food, folks, and fun. Six is a great number for a great Shabbat. I just turned on the oven so Jen and I can heat up some leftovers.

Services this morning we pretty cool, too. There was a Canadian family having a Bar Mitzvah and the best part of the morning was that there were no speeches by the young man nor the parents.

On Tuesday we're moving so it's going to be a crazy week because without a car, we're going to have to walk our stuff to our new apartment over the course of several trips. So, we're going to go to Hebrew in the morning on Tuesday and then we'll have to miss class in the afternoon to move, one load at a time. We'll likely take about four trips to move and while the new place isn't too far, it's going to be annoying. We might break down and grab a cab.

Then, we're going to have to get everything ready for Thursday, which is the holiday of Tisha b'Av, which is a fast day so we have to be ready to eat in our new place Wednesday afternoon before the fast and we have to be ready to break the fast on Thursday night.

We expect to host a dinner ourselves on Friday night (hopefully with six of us) so all of Friday is going to be spent getting our new place ready and shop. We're going to try to go to the Shuk (outdoor marketplace) to get what we need for our new apartment right after we move in.

Shabbat Shalom

Below is the amazing view from a friend's Moshav in the Judean Mountains between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that we visited last Friday. A peaceful and wonderful Shabbat to everyone!

Our Part of Town

Here are some photos of our building and our little street, in honor of our upcoming move away from here on Tuesday!

Thursday Night, Already?!

I can't believe a whole week has already gone by! It was the first week of the second summer session so there we lots of people to meet and talk to and we had to go to all our classes to see which ones were the best and which ones were not the best.

In addition to Hebrew class, I'm taking an ongoing class about the development of Halakha (Jewish law), and a class on liturgy, a class about women in the Bible. In a special lunch session, I was able to meet Avielah Barclay, a female Torah scribe; it was a thrill to hear her speak and meet her since I've been a big fan of her blog for a long time.

Wednesday was an important day in the Jewish religious calendar. It was the first day (Rosh Chodesh) of the Jewish month of Av. The period between 1 Av and 9 Av is traditionally a mourning period so since I didn't get a chance to get my hair cut before Wednesday, it's going to have to keep growing until next week.

The 9th of Av (a.k.a. in Hebrew, Tisha b'Av) is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. On 9 Av in the year 586 BCE, the First Temple was destroyed and in 70 CE, the Second Temple was destroyed. Tisha b'Av is a day of mourning and a 25-hour fast day.

We're moving next Tuesday to our "permanent" place of residence - we're very excited about that.

Day Twelve of the War

Today was the first day of the second summer session at the Conservative Yeshiva so we had a short orientation in the Beit Midrash (literally, "house of study" but really a garden-level classroom) before classes began this morning. Along with directions to the bathrooms and a basic security overview, the new students were given extra kudos for choosing to travel to Israel despite the war.

It was wonderful to discover that only a few students who had signed up for the second summer session decided not to come. By talking to a few students that did come, we found that all struggled with their decision and they had many emotional conversations with friends and family before boarding their planes.

And yet, in Jerusalem, it is still safe. Our Hebrew teacher commented on that today, saying it is very unusual for Jerusalem to be the safest place in Israel. I was also surprised to learn in our Hebrew class today that two students who decided to stay for the entire summer promised their parents that they wouldn't leave Jerusalem.

Feeling safe and strangely unaffected by the war, many students have been wondering how they can help support Israel during the war. One student decided to single-handedly save the economy by going on a present-buying shopping spree. Go girl! Another student said she was going to head up north today to see if she could volunteer. That didn't sound like such a good idea to me.

A rabbi at the CY told us that about twelve families from the north have temporarily moved into his area of Jerusalem, so there's a tzedakah box in the Beit Midrash that we can donate money into to buy these families warm meals. I'm also planning on going next Thursday to pack some dry food boxes for poor families. On Friday, I think Jean and Matt are going to a nursing home to spend some time with the residents; I haven't decided if I'm going yet, I'm just not very good at small talk :(

Back to School

We started our second summer session this morning and were thrilled to be continuing with our fantastic Hebrew teacher. There are five of us continuing from the first session and five new students who've joined us. It's exciting to see that so many people traveled to Israel, despite the suggestions of their friends and families not to come.

Unfortunately, three of the new students don't know their Hebrew aleph-bet. I feel bad for them because we're ahead of them by three weeks but I'm also disappointed that they didn't get their own class because they're (through no fault of their own, it's the CY's fault) going to slow us down. The three students are getting special tutoring during lunch from another Hebrew teacher to help bring them up to speed.

Two of the new students are spouses of Rabbinical school students and will also be here for a year, so it's exciting to meet people who we'll be spending large quantities of time with over the next year!

We're home for lunch today, which is a rare occurrence, because Jean is sick and we took her some food to hopefully help her feel better. OK, gotta' get back for afternoon classes! Bye!

Day Nine of the War

The first thing I do each morning is to turn on my computer. Then I quickly put my contacts in and run back to the computer to check my email and to read online news articles. Today, there was some shocking news in my inbox.

My Dad had sent me an email telling me of a new warning from the U.S. State Department. I quickly herded Matt to a sitting location (he usually paces a lot) so that he could hear the full account of the State Department's warning without me having to continually repeat myself.

Their travel warning was issued July 19, 2006 and discusses many things, but of particular importance...

• Israeli authorities are concerned about a possible increase in suicide bombings in Israel.
• The U.S. Government has received information indicating that American interests within Israel could be the focus of terrorist attacks.
• The State Department urges American citizens to remain vigilant while traveling anywhere in Jerusalem, especially within the commercial and downtown areas of West Jerusalem.
  
• American citizens should stay away from demonstrations and generally avoid crowded public places, such as restaurants and cafes, shopping and market areas and malls, pedestrian zones, public transportation of all kinds, including buses and trains and their respective stations/terminals, and the areas around them.

Did I mention that we are now living in West Jerusalem?

I emailed this information to several friends and we discussed it during our morning break. Some people have the opinion that life is really just fate waiting to happen, so they feel free to continue as usual and not change any of their actions. Others believe that humans were given common sense for a reason and that one should take precautionary measures. Needless to say, it was a heated debate.

Matt, Jean, and I have decided that we believe in precautionary measures. We have all agreed to set some specific parameters as to where we feel it would be safe to go and where we feel it would be dangerous to go. We also jointly decided that none of us should be afraid to speak up, even if we are in a larger group, to say that we feel unsafe. We would then not go to that cafe, restaurant, street, general area, etc. - with no questions asked and no explanations needed. I think this is a great plan.

So where can we go if we can't go to shops, cafes, restaurants, the grocery store, or the consulate? Good question. That basically covers everywhere except perhaps just going from home to school and back. I'm not sure we'll be that restrictive; however, we do plan to eat at home tonight.

Last Day of Classes, Until Sunday

Today was the last day of the first three-week summer session here at the yeshiva. Most of the friends we've made during the past three weeks will be leaving, heading for homes around the world. We studied with students from Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, and from across the United States. It was an intense three weeks and we enjoyed many of our classes.

There are four or five of us (out of nine) who will be continuing Hebrew Ulpan (intensive study) next week when classes resume for the second summer session on Sunday. Our Hebrew teacher currently thinks that she will be able to remain our instructor and that the class will only consist of the four or five of us that remain. That will be awesome!

We had a pizza party for lunch today to say goodbye to our new friends. Only a few dozen students are remaining for the second session and more are coming in from around the world and we'll meet them at dinner on Friday night. The second session will be significantly smaller than the first session and that'll be nice because sometimes, our basement classroom was pretty crowded.

Aside from Hebrew, all new classes start on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to the thrice weekly class on Halacha or Jewish law. It'll be taught by one of the leading Halachic authorities in the Conservative Movement. That will be a fantastic class, I'm sure.

The remaining two afternoons each week I might have to miss, in order to get work done but there are some interesting classes offered then as well.

Day Eight of the War

The fact that students spend every break talking about how normal everything is here in Jerusalem is probably a sign at how abnormal it is just to live in a country at war. It is the classic sign that they "doth protest too much, methinks."

Every once in a while something will break through each person's individually created protective shield of obliviousness to fear and threat.

For one friend, it was a power outage that caused him to fret. During our Ulpan class today, the power went out for approximately three minutes. We continued class. Though curious as to what had caused the power outage, most of us spent only a moment thinking about the blackout. For one friend, it was terrifying. He had never ever, in his whole entire life, been in a power outage. It totally freaked him out.

For Matt, it was a dinner decision. We were with a few friends and we had narrowed down our choices for dinner to two restaurants on the same street. One was overflowing with people and the yummy taste of the food was well known. The other restaurant had a guard outside. In any other town, in a country not at war, one would most likely go to the restaurant that was known for its good food. However, Matt and the rest of us realized that there was no choice - we must go only to restaurants with guards. (Lucky for us, the food turned out to be scrumptious!)

For me, my shell of normalcy was broken by a piercing siren. I was attempting to take a short nap today when I was awoken by a noise loud enough to be my alarm clock in my ear. The sound pulsed, like a London ambulance. Briefly, I remembered that my Ulpan teacher had said that air sirens sounded kind of like a British ambulance. Was my first thought to duck under the table? No, because I'm obviously an idiot. I went out onto my balcony to see if anyone else was freaking out about the siren. After a few moments, I discovered that the heinously loud noise was the automatic beeping-sound of a large truck backing up in my street.

I'm still dealing with my untrained and stupid reaction to the noise. If I even slightly considered the noise to be an air raid siren, certainly I should have dived under the table.

There are other, more subtle ways one can tell we are living in a country at war. For one, students' adherence to the yeshiva's dress code has gone considerably downhill. For women, we are supposed to cover our shoulders and not wear short shorts. However, in the beginning of school, many women, including myself, only wore long skirts. Now people come to class in shorts and tank tops - sometimes not even clean ones.

Classes don't start on time anymore also. Our Ulpan class used to start at exactly 9 o'clock. Now, we are lucky if we start at 9:15 or so. Each day it gets more difficult to pull away from the online news, emails from friends, and phone calls to family. War has a tendency to change one's priorities.

Although everything is "normal" here in Jerusalem, it is also very abnormal.

Day Seven of the War

This morning we made plans. We were to attend our Ulpan class, purchase a present for our friend, go to a birthday party for our friend, buy gas masks, unpack, pick up some groceries, buy a first aid kit, and then do our Hebrew homework.

We quickly found that there's just not enough time in the day to do everything. We have already gone to our Hebrew class (which I still really, really enjoy), made a basket of goodies for our friend's birthday, went out to lunch with friends, and have completed our Hebrew homework. But now it is already 6 o'clock and we haven't made any purchases toward our disaster supplies kit and we have to go out the door again.

We were invited to help pack boxes of food for poor families but then we were also invited to dinner with a friend and her family. I so wish we had time to do both! However, since they are at the same time, we will be going over to our friend's house because it's her birthday.

Matt and I have at least been working on a list of supplies to put in our disaster supplies kit, which we will try to put together tomorrow. We also talked about where the "safe rooms" are in our apartment and at the CY.

We've been told that the Beit Midrash (where most of our classes are located) constitutes a bomb shelter. The Beit Midrash is a room on the basement level of one of the CY's buildings. The schools didn't want people to think they were studying in a basement, so one side of the building was opened up and a very pretty garden was planted there. Thus, the Beit Midrash is officially on the "garden level."

In our apartment, we decided that no particular room would be suitable as a safe room and there's no basement to enter. Thus, we decided that if we absolutely had to, we would move the couches to cover the open ends of the table and hide under the table. It's not a perfect solution, but it would work in a pinch.

Orange Alert

The current state of affairs in Jerusalem reminds me a lot of the earliest Orange Alerts issued by the Department of Homeland Security in the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Like an Orange Alert, there is increased police presence everywhere and security checks are more thorough but for the most part, life continues as usual.

Certainly, I want to spend every spare moment checking the news online (oh, how I wish we had a television) but I have to keep doing homework and keep getting things done (OK, we're also having a good time).

Here are my favorite sources for information - the thrice daily English news broadcasts from Reka (the Israeli Broadcasting Authority) and from print/online sources - the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.

We Left Our Heart in Israel

As we sat in the back of a taxi on our ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to leave Israel, we were heartbroken. We had waffled back and forth all day as to whether to stay or to leave. Family members had called throughout the day in large numbers, all begging us to leave the Middle East. Some called tearfully; some called urgently.

Since this is our first trip to Israel, we had never left it before. As we looked out the taxi's windows, what had once seemed foreign now seemed purely beautiful. Soft, mournful songs played on the radio. Tears rolled down our faces.

When we arrived at the airport, we sat in the kosher food court and reconsidered what we were doing. Should we catch the next taxi and go back to Jerusalem? How could we consider staying in a country at war? What was the right thing to do? Since our bags were already on the plane and the tickets already paid for, we reluctantly decided to board the plane to London.

In London, we stayed in an airport hotel so that we could think about what to do next. We watched the news, napped, thought, and talked.

We felt like we had left our hearts back in Israel. Throughout the day, this underlining feeling grew ever stronger.

The closest analogy I can come up with for our feelings was right after 9/11 in the States. It was a shock that everyone in the country felt. It brought people out of doors to talk to their neighbors. Weeks after the event, if not months, emotions ran high. Though fearful of further attacks, people felt unified rather than feeling like fleeing.

Leaving Israel made us feel like we were fleeing. But what were we fleeing? We weren't sure. It was more like we were abandoning our commitment to the country. We had decided before we had even arrived that we were to be in Israel for a year. And here we were, just three weeks later leaving for London.

We felt empty, lost, and regretful.

I apologize to both our entire families and to all our friends, but we felt that we must travel back to Israel. On Sunday night, we got back onto a plane and headed back to Tel Aviv.

We are now back in Jerusalem. We specifically chose an overnight flight, so that we could make it back early enough to go to our Ulpan class this morning. When we arrived at school today, everyone hugged us. They were so glad that we were back and many couldn't believe we had so quickly made a trip to London and back.

I think we needed the experience of leaving to understand our true feelings of the situation here. Don't get me wrong, it is still scary to be in a country at war. However, sometimes you just have to know in your heart where you are meant to be. At this time, we are meant to be here in Israel.

Safe in London

We arrived very late Saturday night in London and we're staying for (at least) two nights at a hotel near the airport. Tomorrow (Sunday) we'll watch the news, talk, and think about our plan for the next few days.

While we'd love to travel and see the country, our hearts just aren't in it for the time being. From the news, it appears that things are slowly escalating in the Middle East and while Jerusalem still appears to be completely safe, I wonder what will happen over the next few days. Overall, I think we were just early in our evacuation; perhaps we were trend setters? :)

It's stressful to see and hear the stories of French, British, and American citizens struggling to leave Lebanon, where the only international airport was damaged. It appears that most who want to leave that country will have to take a boat to Cyprus and from there, a commercial flight.

Going to London

We're headed to London tonight. Our family demands that we leave and we have too much experience with disaster not to be among the first to evacuate. Thoughts of airport closure, cancelled and full flights, and few transportation options out of the country make us very concerned.

We have a return flight set for two weeks and I expect we'll be back to Jerusalem by then, if not before. Meanwhile, we plan to enjoy the United Kingdom.

"Don't Be a Little Girl"

The Jerusalem Post states: "After two days of escalation, there can be no illusions: Israel is at war." Over 700 rockets have landed in Israel in the past couple of days. Tsefat and Haifa have both been hit. Hundreds have been injured; several have been killed.

And what are we doing? We are studying our Hebrew homework, going on an archaeological dig, and preparing for Shabbat. It's very strange, but here in Jerusalem everyone still goes about their everyday business just like it was any other day.

On Thursday, our class asked our Hebrew teacher questions about the situation. "Perhaps we should learn the word for 'bomb shelter' and skip words like 'zoology'?" one student suggested. Our teacher assuaged our fears by saying that the air raid siren hasn't gone off in Jerusalem since 1967, that Jerusalem is a safe place to be because of the important Islamic religious sites here, and that if there were any danger to our safety then the CY would let us know.

Still, there are bombs being dropped on the country just 60 miles from here. Shouldn't people be panicking?

We went on an archaeological dig this morning (see below), so we asked others from the States what they thought about the situation. Were they worried? Would they send their kids home if they were here? Are they thinking about leaving early?

Every single person said not to worry. Many were even surprised we were asking about it. "Are you afraid?" they asked in bewilderment. The truthful answer is no, we are not afraid. But why aren't we and should we be?

My parents would like us to leave. A friend of ours, a guy, told his mom that when he rides the buses (we don't ride the buses at all), there are now armed guards on each bus. His mom answered, "Don't be a little girl." A bit of a strange answer, but she really meant that he should just tough it out. So which should we do? Leave or tough it out? Or, perhaps, leave later?

So far, the fighting is very localized and everyone assures us that Jerusalem is a safe place right now. If that's true, at what point should we be worried? Sometimes we get the feeling that Israelis won't be worried until the fighting reaches their door, at which point they'd just go kick some tush.

However, we, as Americans, have never experienced anything like this. We don't know when we should worry and when not to.

We'll continue talking to friends and others at school about this. We will watch the news very carefully and look for any warnings from the U.S. State Department. We will even get some extra cash to have on hand, look up plane flights, and consider what to pack and what not to pack. We really are fine right now, but we will keep a close eye on the situation.

Amateur Archaeologists

This morning we went with a group of fellow Yeshiva students to East Jerusalem to explore the Temple Mount sifting project. In a nutshell, tons and tons of fill was carted from the Temple Mount to a site in Jerusalem. For the past few years, archaeologists have been sifting through the rubble to find archaeological treasure. They've found pottery, coins, glassware, relics, tile, mosaics, and so much more.

We were able to have a great lecture by Dr. Gabriel Barkay of Bar Ilan University, the project director (photo of Dr. Barkay below, pointing to photographs of key finds). After the lecture, we got to try our luck at sifting. Jen and I found some pottery and tile but others in our group discovered a lamp handle and a relic with writing. It was fascinating and worthwhile trip!

Here's some photos from the trip; from top to bottom - 1) Dr. Barkay lecturing in the field tent, 2) buckets of material to be sifted, 3) Tal (on left) and Jen (on right) washing their material and sorting, and 4) we place our discoveries into buckets labeled for various items (i.e. mosaics, bones, glass, metal, etc.)

A Movie

So, as Matt said, we headed to the big mall to see a movie. We've been a bit homesick so we thought perhaps an American movie might be fun. It's funny, I didn't want to see Poseidon in the States, but it sounded fun to see it the other night.

We went early to buy our tickets. We aren't very good with our Hebrew numbers yet (we only know up to 12), so the ticket saleslady had to type the number on a calculator and then press the calculator up to the window - how embarrassing!

When we received our tickets, it was actually just one ticket. And upon it, were our seat assignments. In Israel, movie theaters have assigned seats. We pondered the ticket for a while because it had the numbers 7 - 7 - 7 and 7 - 7 - 8. Since we couldn't read any of the descriptive words, we were wondering if we'd be able to find the right seats. (It turns out that the first seven is which theater, the second number is which row, and the third tells you your seat number.)

We wondered why they do assigned seating here and not in the States. Can you sell more tickets with assigned seating? What if you get assigned a close-up seat but you would rather sit in the open back row?

Our seats turned out to be perfect, probably because we bought them so early. It looks like they sell the middle-t0-back row (7 out of 10 rows) first and center the people. Then people sat in front of us, behind us, then two rows in front of us. It wasn't stadium seating, but it all worked out.

While Matt had kosher Burger King for dinner at the mall's food court, I had decided to have some snacks at the movie. But upon reaching the counter, I realized that I had no idea the Hebrew word for popcorn or anything else behind the counter. And most things were too far away to point at. After a few minutes of stress, we realized we knew the words for ice cream ("galeda") and water ("mayiim"). Whew!

The movie was fun. It was in English with Hebrew subtitles. We felt like we were practicing our Hebrew because we could recognize a few words at the bottom.

Then, in the middle of a major action screen, the screen went blank only to be replaced by some Hebrew words that we didn't understand. Apparently there was an intermission.

After about 5-10 minutes, a big warning siren went off and then the lights went dark. There was definitely no way to miss the siren! And, we were back to the movie. Matt and I couldn't remember the last time we had an intermission in a movie. Maybe Gandhi back in the 1980s?

Anyway, the movie was fun but we're still a bit homesick. I guess that's not unexpected :(

Motorcade Day

We live between the Prime Minister's house and the governmental offices for the country. Every morning and evening we hear the sirens of the Prime Minister's motorcade as he goes to work and as he heads home. Since all the latest military activity here in Israel, there have been more motorcades of additional officials zooming throughout the city.

Today, however, since the latest activity in Israel's north, it's been nonstop motorcades and sirens throughout the day. While we were at the supermarket earlier today during our Hebrew class break, we were able to identify (thanks to the easy flag) a motorcade of Japanese officials headed somewhere. Hopefully it wasn't to Tel Aviv and to the airport to flee!

We just read in the news that Prime Minister Olmert will be holding an emergency cabinet meeting in just over two hours. We expect additional sirens to ensue between now and then.

Anyway, despite all the news about military action, we don't perceive any risk here in Jerusalem at this time and things seem pretty normal for now. Or, as normal as things can be in a country without a single mop!

UPDATE: I just found out that the Prime Minister of Japan was in town, so they weren't heading out of town... Everything's still quiet, but then again, we don't have a TV! :)

The Day After Thanksgiving

Today we went to the mall! Wow! It was huge, it had so many stores, and it was so crowded! It felt like the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. It was incredibly overwhelming with all the Hebrew conversations, all the shopkeepers shouting to us, all the fancy stores and their wares, the bright lights, etc., etc., etc.

We bought a few things - a bath mat for our temporary quarters because of the aforementioned flooding shower, a wall map of the world with city and country names in Hebrew (I love it!), a pair of shoes for Jen, a plethora of kippot, and, the best buys of all - Monopoly and Boggle in Hebrew! It was so exciting to find these two games at the mall's Toys 'R Us (which was the smallest Toys 'R Us we'd ever seen). Our purpose for going to the mall was to see a movie (more about that later) but it turned into an incredible experience!

More Hebrew?

One of my main goals for my year here is to become as fluent as possible in Hebrew. I am starting to grow concerned about the 75 minutes of Hebrew each day beginning in September (compared to the three hours daily we have now).

In discussions with our Hebrew teacher, she acknowledges that the school-year Hebrew is not enouth time to learn much more. She's helping me to develop solutions but I'm not happy that I will likely have to mix-and-match classes here at the CY along with a Hebrew Ulpan somewhere else. Hopefully I'll be able to find the right classes at the right time and hopefully they won't be too far away. It's all too frustrating! Why can't the CY offer a continuing Ulpan that is a large enough block of time each day to meet the needs of those who want Hebrew, Hebrew, and more Hebrew?!

What I Love About Israel

On this Erev Shabbat, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about what I love about Jerusalem so far...

• Walking down the street in the morning and passing a bunch of guys carrying tallitot and teffilin who are also headed to morning minyan.
  
• Synagogues on every corner.
  
• The plethora of kosher restaurants and an entire huge supermarket filled with kosher food.
  
• People speaking Hebrew all the time.
  
• Walking to synagogue.
  
• Seeing so many taxi drivers, bus drivers, garbage men, and storekeepers wearing kippot.
  
• Being able to say the blessing after the meal out loud in a restaurant, without anyone even noticing.
  
• Studying ancient books within a few miles of where they were written.
  

Shabbt Shalom y'all and be sure to not to miss our lengthy posts from today on Hatikvah II about our visit to the department store and an in-depth description (and photos) of our stinky apartment.

Week One at the Conservative Yeshiva

Whew! It’s been a long week of classes at the Conservative Yeshiva and we are exhausted! In college and graduate school, we were in class for a few hours a day and some days, we weren’t in class at all and while we did spend a significant amount of time reading or writing, the classroom learning wasn’t continuous.

Here at the Conservative Yeshiva, the days are incredibly long and exhausting. Three out of the five days this week I arrived in time for the 7:30 a.m. morning service (this morning was the only morning I didn’t have to run the distance to do so). After that, our intensive three and a half hour Hebrew class starts at 9 a.m. and lasts until 12:30. Twice this week we had lunchtime lectures that kept us indoors through lunch.

Lunch ends at 1:40 when the afternoon service begins but it’s short and classes resume at 2 p.m. On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday we’ve been taking a class from 2-5 p.m. that looks at the rabbinic literature about this week’s Torah portion.

On Monday and Wednesday, we have two classes in the afternoon – the first part of the afternoon is a fantastic class all about the prayer book and that’s followed by a class that looks in-depth at the book of Isaiah.

So, we get out of class at about 5 and then spend the evening studying and doing our Hebrew homework and trying to fit in dinner. The day is intense and there’s not enough wind-down time at night at all.

Those who know me know that I’m always reading something; well, this past week, however, as Jen put it humorously “I wish I also had time to read something written in the last thousand years!”

Thus, I don’t think I’ll be attending all three sessions of the Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday class. I’m going to be a truant because I want to experience Jerusalem and Israel (no, I won’t experience Gaza), I need more time to work at my day job, and I need more time to study Hebrew. I realized I don’t need to feel obligated to attend every single class of anything, except Hebrew, because Hebrew is really why I’m here this summer.

In Hebrew, we’re moving at breakneck speed and we’ve already covered six chapters (over 80 pages) in our textbook so thus there’s a lot of vocabulary to catch up on.

The weekends aren’t necessary a piece of cake because Friday is really the only day to sleep in and one must clean, do errands, and prepare for Shabbat (especially all the food needed for Friday night and all day Saturday).

Tomorrow, we’ll hopefully be able to go to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust memorial museum) in the morning and in the afternoon we’ll be helping Jean to get ready for a large Shabbat dinner at her house. We’ll go to services at 6:30 p.m. and then walk with everyone back to Jean’s for dinner. On Saturday, we get to see our rabbi from Southern California at services and have lunch with him and the group of congregants touring with him. Saturday evening will bring a dinner at another the house of another student.

On Sunday, it all starts again!

Well, it's time for a book containing only English letters, a nap, and then some flashcards!

First Day of Classes at the CY

It's hard to believe that day two of classes are already over! Gone are the days of free roaming around Jerusalem, sleeping in late with naps in the middle of the day, and spending hours at the grocery store trying to figure out what's in all those darn packaged goods. It's now time to get started on what brought us here - learning.

We are signed up for both sessions of CY's summer session, which means we have classes from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., five days a week, for six weeks. There's also Shacharit service in the morning (starting at 7:30 a.m.) and sometimes there are extra programs during lunch or in the evening.

The classes are set up a little like college where you attend the same classes on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday and then another set of classes on Monday and Wednesday. Over all these days, we are signed up for four different classes. We absolutely love three of our classes. (The fourth one still has potential, but it's not on our favorites list yet.)

One of our favorites is Ulpan (intensive Hebrew study three hours a day), which I was really worried about since I haven't been a fan of several other Hebrew classes I've started. So far, this one is just absolutely wonderful (we'll see how day three goes though).

In the other two classes that we adore, the teachers are fantastic, funny, incredibly knowledgeable, entertaining, and great speakers. They impart the information to our large class (about 50 or so) in a way that keeps us stimulated and wanting more when the class ends. These classes seem too short even though we are in class all day long.

Overall, I feel like I've learned more in the last two days than I have in months of other studying. This is going to be fantastic!

Explosions in Jerusalem?

Late Saturday and Sunday night, we heard loud explosions ripping through the night air here in Jerusalem. Saturday night's explosions were short and distinct and lasted for under a minute. On Sunday, they were louder and more pronounced. At first, we thought that someone was celebrating the Fourth of July but then we realized we were in Israel.

We were then concerned enough that we called Jean to see if she'd heard them too. Indeed, she had and eventually the explosions subsided. Jean turned on the television and we checked news sources on the web but couldn't find any evidence of military activity nearby. We talked about how we don't have any sort of plan of what to do if something bad happens or if we hear air-raid sirens. We decided that we'd all put on tennis shoes and run to the U.S. Consulate, which is less than a mile away. Eventually, after our adrenaline wore off, we went to sleep.

This morning, Jen mentioned the explosions to a classmate, who laughed and said that we'd heard nightly fireworks due to a summer festival in a downtown park. Oh. Well, at least we weren't in danger.

Happy Fourth of July, for those of you who are in places where the sound of fireworks are simply fireworks.

A Little Humor Goes a Long Way

On Friday before Shabbat, a worried family member asked me over the phone, "Do you think you and Matt are going to be able to make it a whole year in Israel?" (Does that mean my posts have been too negative? I'll have to think about that.)

So are we going to make it? The answer is definitely "yes." Although we are experiencing some serious culture shock, we are dealing with it as we try to deal with everything in our life - with humor. We try to have fun with everything, because if you aren't having fun, why do it?

So, what's funny here in Jerusalem? Our clothes dryer is one example. Every time you want to start a load of laundry to dry, you have to close the door with the remains of a piece of duct tape. However, since the duct tape doesn't work very well anymore, the door will open two or three times per drying cycle and the towels will fly out of the dryer and land on the floor. Honestly, it's funny every time!

How about the electrical plugs. We were very worried when every time we plugged in an appliance we were (literally) shocked. Jean was convinced for the first few days that her hair dryer was trying to kill her. When we told some other people about our electrical problem, they said, "Don't worry about it, that's normal." It may sound strange, but we still laugh about it.

We also find our lack of Hebrew skills humorous. The most useful phrase we've found so far is "Ani lo medaber ivrit." (I don't speak Hebrew.) Very useful! We've been told that the three of us have been placed in "Hebrew zero." That's more beginner than "Hebrew aleph" (Hebrew 1) So we are thinking of making shirts for ourselves that say "HEBREW ZERO AND PROUD OF IT!" on them so we can at least embrace our super-beginner level here.

Okay, okay, this post also sounds so negative. I really don't mean it that way. We are having a good time and enjoying everything that is different here. Where else can you make jokes that relate back to this week's parshah and have others get it? Where else can you sit and debate some piece of halakah and ask others around you for their thoughts? Where else will you be surrounded by thousands of years of history?