Stranded at the Drive-In

Shalom, chaverim! We're still here in balmy, sunny Nahariya, and the June weather has not been unbearably hot, thankfully. However, we have moved into the season where it is necessary to change clothes at least twice a day or more, depending on how many times you go out and get soaked with sweat.

I seem to have been walking in a gooey mess of mental quicksand and treacle lately, being able to only summon up just enough energy to get through the day and no more. I'm spending hours each day, lying down in a cool, dark room, trying to get my thoughts straight and get myself motivated to do whatever is next on this seemingly endless to-do list that is my life right now. Here's another misconception I had about making Aliyah: I thought the problem would be mainly about adjusting to cultural differences such as language, food, the rhythm of the calendar, the complexity of the religious and political landscape, making new friends, and so on.

However, what I didn't account for was the enormous amount of mental energy and time it would take to get my career back up even to the metaphorical starting block. I once heard of a book called "ODTAA," which was an acronym that summarized the basic flow of the plot: "One Damn Thing After Another." That's how I'm feeling these days. We're in the crunch time with THE COURSE, with final projects and assignments flying thick and fast, exactly at the time where we're preparing end of the year grades for our own students. This combination of simultaneously trying to wind things down and rev up to cram the last bits in can lead to some very uncomfortable situations.

On Thursday, for example, a carefully constructed lesson plan for last week's class with my 7th graders went right down the tubes when it was announced that on that day, all the girls had to turn in their course books to the library. Any missing books meant fines had to be paid by the girls, or else they wouldn't get their grades for the year, so the school wisely tries to take care of this a few weeks in advance. But as the FNG* that I am, I didn't know about this policy until it was too late.

Floundering for something to do, I passed out a simple word-find puzzle for the girls, which was intended to be used as an end-of lesson fun activity, which gave me some stalling time while I could do a quick mental re-boot and figure out what to do with no other materials. However, the time for b-s'ing was over and the chickens had come home to roost. One of the brightest girls in the class, who is ironically one of the most disruptive and inattentive, threw a full-blown hissy fit. "Why are you having us do this baby stuff? Why aren't we learning anything from the book? Your tests are too easy, we're not learning anything in this class, you're not teaching us English, this class is a total waste of time!"

Ouch. The truth hurts. Most of the students rushed to my defense, saying it wasn't my fault I couldn't teach them, because the speaker and a few other girls were so routinely disruptive that they knew it was impossible for me to teach them anything. This group attack made the girl even more angry, and she shouted more and more hurtful things to me and about me, until I said:

"Girls, she's right. I have not been able to teach you what I wanted to, and what you needed to learn, because I honestly don't know how to make you be quiet and pay attention. I see that many of you are working hard and want to learn, but many other students just like to play, and laugh, and talk, and run in and out of class and throw things. They're disrupting me and everyone else, and no once can learn this way. I honestly do not know what to do. I tried shouting at you, and all you do is shout louder back at me. So I'm not going to shout at you anymore. But I need your help. The problems in this class are everyone's fault...not just mine, and not just yours. But I really need your help or we will all lose here."

Somehow, by validating the girls' outburst, she felt heard and calmed down a lot. So did the class. We managed to do a few things during the lesson (practicing giving directions, some new vocabulary to talk about summer vacation, some pronunciation exercises), but not much. I came home feeling like complete crud and cried quite a bit, and bent my poor friend's ear on the phone for an hour and a half.

In other news, the most recent shakeup at the Gitlin household is that Elul lost his job two weeks ago. He went through an experience that I now understand is not uncommon for olim chadashim. He got a great job at a good company about three months ago, and all went well for the first six weeks or so. Then, two new people were hired, to do different jobs that had nothing to do with Elul's. Seemingly overnight, Elul the "boy wonder" became Elul "the black sheep." Now, according to the boss, everything Elul did was wrong, bad, terrible, stupid, late, etc. He also got the office shunning treatment from people he used to work quite closely and amicably with, which is basically an easily-read corporate indicator that one's days are numbered. Wonder of wonders, on Elul's 89th day of work (after which the company has to take you on as a permanent employee, start a pension for you, etc.), he put in a day's work and got called into the boss's office. And he got canned. "You suck, you've failed at everything, we paid you more than anyone else working here, blah blah blah."

In Israel, it is the law that if you get fired, your boss has to send a letter, in Hebrew, to you that lists all of your job functions. Elul only had to send it back once to get the year that he worked corrected.

What a surprise (insert sarcastic tone here) when, in the very next breath, the boss offered to "re-hire" him at half his wage, with fewer hours, to do the same work that he did such a terrible job at, which was mainly copywriting and editing. Elul, in the nicest and most professional way he could muster, told the boss he could take both his job and his offer, and place it...elsewhere.


Elul has now decided to try going out on his own in the world of e-commerce and internet marketing, since he's learned so much about the business from his last two(!) jobs. He may have to go job hunting for another day job if he can't make the business fly, but at the moment there is so much going on neither of us has time to think straight. Two days ago, Elul left for America to see his youngest son graduate from high school. A perfect time to be gone when trying to launch a new company, right? But man plans, and God laughs, and that is nowhere truer than here in Israel.

So the apartment is quiet and I'm girding my loins to get through the last two weeks of school. Seriously, both the teachers and the students have not-so-private countdowns going on in notebooks and on refrigerators all over the country. Teachers and students need to be separated, and fast, for the betterment of everyone's mental health!

Shabbat shalom, everyone!

* "F#!king new guy"
 

Huge Sigh of Relief

Shalom, chaverim! Well, I'm happy to tell you that the big change I alluded to in my last post is actually NOT going to take place after all. But since I didn't tell you outright what that change was going to be, I'll tell you now. It's hard keeping a secret!

Background

As you may recall, Elul took a job in Kiryat Tivon, which is roughly 32 miles southeast of Nahariya. He started at the end of February, and has been commuting five days a week, Sunday through Thursday. The problem was, his working hours were 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., which meant he had to travel at peak rush hour time each way. Additionally, there were a number of huge traffic bottlenecks along the way. Some of these had to do with poor planning (ill-timed lights, inadequate lane distribution), and others were due to ongoing construction to expand roads and, in some areas, the construction of new roads altogether. Additionally, there is a high incidence of our fellow Israelis being just plain old dumb-a**es on the road: stopping to talk to motorists going the other way, trying to change lanes at the last minute and forcing everyone behind them to stop, pulling onto the shoulder to make a call but not pulling over enough to allow traffic to pass, etc. In short, it all meant that another two to three hours a day was added to Elul's day, turning a 45 hour work week into a 55-60 hour one. It was making him crazy, stressed, tired, and cranky. This, to put it mildly, was adversely affecting our quality of married life.

Whither the Olim Chadashim?

After a couple of months of this, we began to seriously talk about moving to Tivon. Eventually, we decided to do it, which meant I had to start looking for work in a new town.This was not as easy a process as it sounds. Ultimately, I had interviews at two different schools in the area. I taught a demonstration lesson at one, which was followed up with a second interview and a request to teach another demonstration lesson for another grade. Both schools seemed very nice and good places to work, with a lot of potential for professional advancement and a great place to learn.

This was an awkward and difficult time for me, as I was still working for my schools in Nahariya and Yrka. At this time of year, school administrators are already beginning to plan for the upcoming school year, and need to get their staffing situation finalized so they know what, if any, teacher vacancies they need to fill. Early in this process, I was asked by the English coordinator at one of my schools, point-blank, if I intended to continue to work at the school next year. I was not ready for this question, as I didn't want to give an answer before I had something definitive lined up in Tivon. Rentals are more expensive in Tivon, and frankly, if I didn't have enough teaching hours lined up there, we wouldn't be able to afford to live there.

I was caught off-guard by her question and asked to speak to her outside the staffroom. I took a deep breath and told her what was going on. She understood completely, and even graciously thanked me for my honesty. She agreed to let me stall for a little bit, and in turn I promised to let her keep her posted as to what was going on. I'd been told by one of the schools I interviewed at that I would get an answer "very shortly." However, that has not been the case, and now, more than three weeks after that initial interview, I still have yet to be told one way or the other.

In addition to all the job-hunting gymnastics I was going through, we were also taking several trips to Tivon and various communities in the area to look at neighborhoods, housing prices, locations, and so on. Initially I had insisted that if we were to move, I would only agree to move to another seaside community, as I love the sea so much. However, those areas, collectively known as "The Krayot," (i.e. the plural for towns that start with "Kiryat," such as Kiryat Motzkin, Kiryat Chaim, Kiryat Yam, Kiryat Biyalik, etc.) pretty much suck in the areas that have affordable rents, and the nicer sections were too expensive for us. So then we shifted our search to look inland, such as in Tivon itself, and other places like Kiryat Atta, Afula, Nofit, and so on. This took Elul a lot of time and energy, as he did all of the real estate investigations.

Crunch Time

To make a long story even longer, earlier this week I went down for my second interview at one of the schools. During the interview, the Principal asked me to return on Friday (yesterday) to teach another demonstration for the lower grades. I understood her request entirely, as teaching large classes (35 or more students) of Israeli seventh graders is not for the faint-hearted, and agreed to come back.

The next day, I spoke to the English coordinator at one of my schools in Nahariya. At that time, she essentially offered me more teaching hours for next year than I had this year, on the condition that I be able to teach three days a week. As the commute from Tivon to Nahariya is very long and very expensive by public transport, and there is a limit to the travel allowance that the Ministry of Education will reimburse teachers, I told her I would talk to Elul immediately and get back to her.

To my complete amazement, when I told Elul about the new offer, he simply replied, "oh, well, then take the offer and we won't move. They've opened some new roads and the commute is getting shorter and easier every day. If we stay, we won't have to pay for moving or buying new furniture either, so we'll be able to save more for a down payment on a house."

Zoink! Problem solved. After picking my jaw up off the sidewalk, I hurriedly called my English coordinator and told her the good news. Both she, and I, were thrilled.

Ever Decreasing Concentric Circles

So, chaverim, after months of fiddling around, trying to simultaneously live our current lives while secretly trying to wind it down and prepare for a new one, we are back to where we started originally. I have to say I am overjoyed about this decision. It was a hard one for me to agree to move, because on the one hand I know full well what a crappy commute can do to anyone: it can turn a decent gig into a soul-sucking job and turn a happily married couple into a couple of roommates living separate lives. And I'm not willing to be in a marriage where one partner has to suffer in order to make the other partner happy.

On the other hand, I love the sea and I love Nahariya. It's hard to describe the feeling I get, riding around on my bicycle in this beloved city, glimpsing the glittering sea between the beautiful white buildings, ducking my head to dodge the palm fronds and flowering bushes that adorn the front of every home. It's wonderful to have a great doctor who actually knows me and appears to care about my well-being. My pharmacist and I exchange jokes when we see each other. The Russian lady who helps me mend my clothes knows me by name. I see my friends on the street and we stop to chat or have a spontaneous cup of coffee.  We have been so happy here, and have made such a wonderful and supportive network of friends and professional contacts, that it was both breaking my heart and completely freaking me out to think about starting over in a new town, less than two years after making Aliyah.

We moved from Pahrump, Nevada to Boca Raton, Florida, near the end of 2010. Then we moved from Boca Raton to Israel at the end of 2011. Now we're just into our 16th month in Nahariya and we had to move again? Oy va voy. Seriously, the older I get, the more anxious and fatigued I feel with every move. The idea of inevitably drifting away from our friends here, who make our lives so joyful, was just plain depressing. I knew we would eventually land on our feet and bloom wherever we were planted, but I just didn't feel like being transplanted yet.

And so, all's well that ends well. We are here to stay, job or no jobs. As many Israelis have pointed out to us, quite rightly, in Israel you build your jobs around your life, not the other way around. Jobs here can be very unstable, especially in the private business sector, and it just doesn't make sense to move your whole life around to suit the particular circumstances of one job that may evaporate just a few months later.

Ironically, the item that greeted me in my mailbox, the minute we had reached our decision, was a notice to go to the post office and pick up my brand-spanking-new Israeli passport. My dream has come true!

Yesh! (Got it!)

Shabbat shalom, everyone!




 

Smells Like Israeli Teen Spirit

Shalom, chaverim! With schoolwork and "work" work increasing at an ever-frenzied pace, you may have noticed that my blog posts have become less frequent. This will probably continue until the end of the school year, which in Israel comes at the end of June. These days, my days are filled with running from one lesson to another, and if I'm not teaching, I'm either preparing to teach, or am cleaning up the "residue" of teaching (i.e. grading papers). When I'm not doing that, I'm studying how to be a better teacher and writing papers about it. My stepmother recalls that at a party she once attended, she met a new couple.  Enunciating each syllable with extreme precision, they said, loftily, "We are educators," by way of introduction. I'm not an "educator," I'm a teacher, and am so grateful to be one here.

The kids crack me up every single day, which makes coming to work a joy--albeit an exhaustion-inducing kind of joy at times. One girl in my 9th-grade remedial class deigns to take notes, but prefers instead to take pictures of the whiteboard with her cellphone after I've painstakingly filled it with carefully presented and "scaffolded" information. Given the big international pedagogic wheeze about turning our students into "digital learners in the e-classroom," her approach seems both elegant and logical. Too bad the testing procedures still insist that she actually writes answers by hand, with--gasp--a pencil, rather than text-messaging in her "evidence of competence." Making my best effort to put on an Emily Littella/Church Lady voice, I remind her of this fact frequently. "Osnat," (not her real name), "you need to practice writing English by hand, otherwise you won't be able to write quickly on the exams and you will lose points because of it." With a well-rehearsed shrug, a Gallic frown, and a fully raised eyebrow, Osnat tosses her hair and replies "mah la'asot?" This translates roughly as "whaddya gonna do?" Remembering the same charming teen attitude I used to throw at my poor mother and stepfather, enhanced by a sneer and a cold, unblinking stare, I ask myself, what am I going to do, indeed? Oh, the joy of receiving one's own karmic payback!

Some of the most interesting research I've been paying attention to lately is about teachers are "getting it" about how each and every classroom is full of individual students, each of whom has their own learning style preferences. This isn't cutting-edge research, of course, and some teachers pay more attention to it, and try to incorporate it more into their teaching methods, than others do. In a nutshell, the theory says that some students do better when they hear information explained to them verbally (i.e. auditory learners), but others may retain it better if they can read it or are shown diagrams (visual learners). Some are highly kinesthetic--in other words, they may not do very well with reading or writing, but they can fix anything that comes their way, or play an instrument beautifully, or create art projects of great creativity. Many are combinations of these learning styles, with one style perhaps dominating the other.

Further complicating matters in the classroom is discovering the students' cognitive and social strengths: are they social leaders or are they followers? Are they good at strategy, are they good at tactics, or both? How is their ability to maintain attention and focus, to follow rules and procedures, or to navigate their own physical body space and control their movements? How do they handle conflict? How do they express emotion?

Fortunately, I have a few perfect laboratories to witness these textbook concepts playing out in real life: my seventh grade classes at the Druze and at the religious girls' school where I work. I confess, I have come out of their classrooms on some days and have described them to fellow teachers as "a bunch of chimpanzees who have swallowed Mexican jumping beans and hit the crack pipe," in the past. Readers, if you ever come across a middle school teacher, please give them a big thank you and bless them for doing this holy work. Incidentally, "Bad Teacher" has become one of my all-time favorite movies.

In other news, there have been some changes going on at home that may lead to a rather big announcement in later days. (No, Elul and I are not splitting up, nor is either of us sick, so don't worry!) This is another reason I've been keeping somewhat quiet on this blog. However, I promise that as soon as things are finalized, I'll let you know all the details. I'll give you a hint, though: after every ending there is always a new beginning.

Shabbat shalom, everyone!






 

Blooming Where I'm Planted?

Shalom, chaverim! This has been the longest break I've taken from this blog since I started it, but now that the Pesach (Passover) holidays are well and truly over, it's time to get back to the business of talking about what life is like in Israel...at least, what life is like for middle-aged American immigrants to Israel.

The past month has been a whirl of activities. In the run-up to Pesach, I found myself increasingly scattered and overwhelmed, as there seems to be a massive, national push to "get it all done" before the holiday started. Emails, letters, and telephone calls were flying thick and fast. Everyone and their dog seemed to want a piece of me, and of everyone else. Stores were crowded, women were angsting about not getting their houses cleaned in time, and as the holiday grew nearer, a typical refrain from everyone was "look, I'm incredibly busy right now, and nothing's going to get done until after Pesach, so call me back then, OK?"

And then, finally, Pesach came. Ours was very low-key and lovely, and we attended a beautiful seder at the home of our buddy family in Nahariya. This being a modern Israeli family, however, their children and most of their grandchildren were missing because they had moved to America a few months ago. Still, the tiniest granddaughter helped out by leading one of the traditional songs...via Skype!

I was also put through my paces, a week later, by needing to learn a few Pesach songs in short order for my performance at a local retirement home. As a relatively new "ger," (literally "stranger," but in the context of Judaism "ger" refers to a convert) my canon of Jewish holiday music is pretty meagre. Every holiday that comes up, it seems, I find myself scrambling around and asking other Jews "what songs are traditionally sung for this holiday, and is there a YouTube clip somewhere that I can learn it from?" Like a cutting from a hybrid plant, struggling to thrive in new soil, sometimes I bloom and sometimes I just wilt on the vine.

As the holidays came to a close, I reflected on my good fortune to have met some amazingly kind, funny, intelligent and courageous women here. All of us made Aliyah within the past year or so, and we quickly bonded. Before we all scattered to the winds of work and school again, I wanted to have them over for an afternoon of conversation and deserts...and belly dancing and hats. One of our friends, Ziva, is an accomplished belly dancer who performs and teaches. She brought over a collection of sparkly belts for us to wear, and in true Middle Eastern fashion, we had a blast dancing around together in the living room. Since it had been more than twenty years since most of us had done anything like it, it was funny to hear our pops, cracks, and groans erupt so quickly.

"My right knee is good. My left, not so much."

"Are we really supposed to be sweating like this? Is this normal?"

And my favorite: "Selah, you're not an airplane trying to land...just turn around and use the other foot to lead with!"

The hats element of the afternoon were courtesy of our friend Jody, who is a jewelry, hat and handbag designer extraordinaire. (You can go to her company Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/interestingstufff ) She takes found and donated objects, then repurposes and upcycles them into hats, bags, and jewelry of exceptional beauty. As we were being "ladies who were all fancy like that" for the afternoon, it seemed appropriate to don them and pose for pictures.

Five women and one bottle of wine between us--we get high on life!

So, now it's back to the fray in all its glory. Shabbat shalom, everyone!

 

An Ode to the Israeli Bicycle Pump

Shalom, chaverim! When I was growing up, a standing joke in our family was whenever someone was trying to guess the contents of a wrapped gift, we would be sure to ask, "is it a bicycle pump?" Looking back, exactly why that seemed to be terribly funny to us, I really can't say. Sometimes it's the little things that stick in our minds, though, more than the Major Life Lessons or the "teachable moments (eww!)."

Dedicated followers of this blog (and you know who you are) will know that Elul and I bought bicycles soon after we made Aliyah in December of 2011. While we are now a one-car family (we bought a second-hand Citroen C4 about six months ago), Elul uses the car on a daily basis to commute back and forth to work. This leaves me with the use of my feet and my bicycle with which to do my own errands, to commute to work, and to get to evening lessons in my private students' homes. Since I'm so busy these days, biking is also about the only exercise I get now, so it also performs that function in my life.

I had to address safety and practicality with my bike right away. As is true with all cycling, readers, repeat this mantra after me: "Visibility is my friend!" I got a bright white light for my handlebars (because I want to be seen, rather than go into it), and a flashing red light for the back of the seat. In addition to my protective helmet, I also acquired an abandoned road safety reflector vest that someone wadded up and threw into a bush. (After a few rounds in the washing machine, it came out just fine; not pretty, of course, but very functional.)

A friend had upgraded his bike and had a leftover white wire carrying rack for the bike, which he kindly offered to me; with a handful of zip ties, Elul fastened it to the back of my bike in no time. My bike started out as a sophisticated little Italian number,  perfect for Euro-posing with a fragrant bouquet of wildflowers and a round of Camembert in its elegant wicker basket. But now, between the front basket, the back rack, the lights, the vest, the helmet, and my wonderful "Big Student" Jansport backpack firmly strapped to my ever-broadening middle-aged back, any hope I had of  being mistaken for a willowy extra from the central casting agency of France has been dashed like the dreams of an avante-garde poet who has received his first (and last) royalty check.

Once I started truly relying on my bicycle for efficiency, convenience, and the shared responsibility of getting my behind to the classroom on time, however, I realized I had to start paying a little more attention to those little things that make cycle commuting so much easier. For example, I need to keep my tires properly inflated. With my bike, I quickly learned, even a small drop in tire pressure can make riding about as pleasurable as trying to pull a tank down the road with your knees.

Shamelessly playing "the girl card" with Elul, a la "honey, would you be so sweet and go down to the storage room and put some air in my tires for this week, flutter flutter," led him to use the hand pump to pump up my tires a few times. However, this was tedious and difficult for him since a hand pump (which I had sneakily given to him as a "Hanukkah present," which was all part of my evil plot) wasn't really strong enough to do the job easily. On to me, he used his high skill in marital jiu-jitsu by quickly presenting me with the solution. "You want your tires pumped up? Ride down to the grocery store gas station yourself and use the pump there! I'm not going to be seen riding a girls' bike!" Game, set, and match. Well played, Elul, well played.

So I did, and oh! What a pleasant surprise and wonderful use of technology! On the air machine, which everyone can use for free, you can actually program in the exact air pressure you want for your tires. I needed 90 psi, so that's what I put in, and when I began adding air to my tires, the built-in, real-time digital gauge said I only had 64 psi in them. No wonder I felt so out of shape and cycling was so hard! Not only that, but when the air pressure in your tires hits the desired level, the machine lets out a rousing and satisfyingly long and loud "beep" to let you know it's time to stop.

One does not simply...roll around town with 25 psi in one's bicycle tires.

I bend my knees in respect to the power of the Great and Wonderful Electronic High Speed Bicycle Pump.

Oh, you Israelis, whatever will you think of next? This is the most wonderful machine I've come across in a long time. Whether you invented it or not, I thank you from the bottom of my heart to have the generosity and intelligence to make it available to the public. Now my bicycle floats along the speed bump-filled roads of Nahariya like a beautiful black butterfly...ridden by a dork.

Shabbat shalom, everyone!
 

Chag Purim Sameach!

Shalom, chaverim! It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted, and I have no excuse for my radio silence except for the usual double-whammy of being either too busy or too exhausted to write, and sometimes both simultaneously.

The funny thing about working several bazillion jobs (at last count) is that one's time very quickly becomes spent only in three ways: preparing for work, doing the work itself, and recovering from work. When my life gets like that, my observational blinders go on, and I find myself noticing very little about my surroundings, and lose that sense of wondrous excitement that I had when there was more temporal (and mental) "space" to appreciate my environment. Spring is on its way, but it took a friend to point out that the cherry trees are just about ready to blossom, and the fields are full of poppies and other wildflowers. Likewise, Mr. and Mrs. Bird, a relatively monogamous pair of sparrows who nest in our neighbor's overflow drain, have begun trying to make more Little Birds. With great enthusiasm, I might add.

Still, I've had a little bit of a rest these past days because in Israel, Purim is a two-day school holiday. And this year, unlike last year, I didn't crap out and fail to attend a giant Purim party. Elul and I went to the kibbutz at Rosh Ha'Nikra, where they hold one of the biggest Purim parties of the year. The cost was 90 NIS per person (about USD $22.50), and featured an open bar, food, decorations, and a very good DJ, complete with lights, fog machine, disco ball and even a couple of dancing girls with multiple costume changes. The DJ had a great mix of music, and it was wonderful to see hundreds of people, all in costume, just shaking it out there on the dance floor. Especially when we were dancing to Abba tunes!

Dancing Queens, indeed. Note the smoky atmosphere, NOT coming from my fake cigarette.

My costume was not particularly funny or outrageous, but it still meant something to me. My father, who passed away just three years ago, was a doctor with a great sense of humor. He loved costume parties, and always served as the master of ceremonies at his clinic's annual Halloween party. My stepmother was kind enough to give me one of his old lab coats after he died, so I decided to wear it to take a little "part" of him to the party with me. My costume was as a Russian-Israeli doctor who worked for an Israeli health fund, complete with dark circles under my eyes, long hair falling all over the place, bluejeans, lab coat, sparkly top, and a (fake!) cigarette in my hand. "Subtle" is what I was going for, although others could have just as easily tagged my costume as "lazy" or "weak." Never mind--I was wearing comfortable clothes and I was doing something in honor of my dad, and that was the only way I was going to go.

Other friends of ours were much more imaginative and colorful with their costumes. My friend Angie (above) is a Colombian-American-Israeli, and she went to great lengths to construct an enormous Carmen Miranda-style hat, with a pile of fake fruit glued on top. Handily, she can also use that hat as a centerpiece for next year's Thanksgiving. Her fiance Simon went as a "gorilla fighter" (geddit?), complete with a toy machine gun, a banana, and a card on his t-shirt that had "gorilla fighter" written out phonetically in Hebrew. Lisa and Jonatan also picked up on the Latin theme, and went as citizens from somewhere south of the U.S. border. Carlos went as the famous, masked, "Blue Demon" Mexican wrestler.

Left to right: Yours truly, Elul, Lisa, Jonatan, Simon the "gorilla fighter," and Carlos the "Blue Demon." Behind Lisa's head is a rendition of E.T.

Elul went as Yair Lapid, the leader of the Israeli "Yesh Atid" ("There is a Future") political party, with which Benjamin Netanyahu may be trying to form a coalition. Since Elul resembles Lapid quite a bit, his costume was a simple matter of dressing the way Lapid usually dresses (black t-shirt, black blazer, black jeans) and touching up his eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil to make them a bit bushier. To his credit, a few customers did a double-take in the grocery store, perhaps wondering if he was, indeed, Lapid.

Hottie Israeli politico Yair Lapid--thanks to Tikkun.org for this image. My hubby is hotter, though.

Elul. See? Told ya'!

So, we have lived to tell the tale of our first blow-out Purim party in Israel.  It's hard to believe this is actually our second Purim in Israel...at this time last year, we were so dazed and out of it from being so new here, we really didn't know how big a deal Purim was. This year, we were too busy and tired to do much about it. I've had to turn down four other Purim party invitations because of work, in fact, but next year I'll know better and will clear my dance card in plenty of time. And I'll put some real effort into getting a great costume together!

Shavua tov, everyone!
 

Vanz More, Mit Feelingeh

Shalom, chaverim! While the northeastern states in America get their collective tucchuses clobbered by the Mother of All Blizzards, we've been ambling along in mostly sunny Nahariya with only a few days of rain. I never thought I'd be using the words "balmy" and "February" in the same sentence, but here it is: truth is stranger than fiction.

We had some good news earlier in the week: Elul got a new job! He starts bright and early next Sunday, and this time it's working for a successful and established online business that sells information and support services to the public. In other words, it's not a startup, which is a good thing. The job will make good use of his many talents in marketing, journalism and business management, and will be a great source of free Hebrew "immersion classes" (read: sink or swim in the office). For the lead on the job, we are once again extremely grateful to the amazing and wonderful Tamara Klinger-Levy, the employment coordinator for the Go North program of Nefesh B'Nefesh. Tamara truly works tirelessly to help olim find jobs and navigate their way through the Israeli work climate, and has helped us and a number of our friends find work here, which is vital for making your Aliyah a successful one.

In other news, I've been doing my first paid gigs singing at a retirement home just around the corner from us. While I had the idea to do these types of shows the minute I arrived, it took quite awhile to get my repertoire together, buy a good Shure SM58 microphone, and for our wedding anniversary to come around so Elul could give me the gift of a badly-needed sound system. Fortunately, it all came together and I made my debut a couple of weeks ago at the "Yarden" rest home in Nahariya. I was commissioned to do three one-hour performances, which luckily are scheduled in the tiny block of time I have on Sundays between teaching and choir practice. I've done two already and have one left.

The audience is extremely supportive and forgiving of my bad Hebrew that I use to fill between songs, but they are getting more than a little tired of me mainly doing songs in English and keep clamoring for more Israeli and Yiddish songs. Thanks to the internet and YouTube, this week Elul and I have managed to scrounge up backing tracks for the most popular tunes like "My Yiddishe Mameh," "Tumbalalaika," and "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn." I will be working on extending my repertoire as time goes on, but I realize that as a musician, I sorely lack the canon of knowledge that comprises Israeli, but not necessarily Jewish/liturgical, popular music. I clearly need an "informant" who can help me put together a show-stopping set list that will ensure lots of repeat business.

Speaking of show-stoppers, as we were scouring the web for Yiddish music, Elul came across this gem of a Purim takeoff of "Moves Like Jagger," called "Move Like Graggers." (A "gragger" is a noisemaker used at Purim.) Not only is it an amazingly clever and funny piece of work, but I was proud to see it was created by the rabbis and cantorial soloists of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where I first got involved in performing Jewish sacred music in the (gulp) late 1980's. Rock on, Temple Israel!

Shavua tov, everyone!