Goodness, Gracious! Great Gluttony in Gerusalem!

Ahh, October 10th. Erev Yom Rafi (The eve before Rafi’s birthday.) Allison and I woke early to take a trip to the Israel Museum…and we took the right bus, but in the wrong direction. The driver yelled at us to get off at the Malcha Mall, so we got off at the mall. We ended up running a bevy of errands and seeing a movie, “License to Wed,” of which my favorite part was the appearances from many of the cast of “The Office.”

After our day at the mall, we came home for a brief rest before the gluttony. Rafi had been planning to have a birthday dinner at Vaquiero, since, um, he got into Rabbinical school. Sadly, he had a full-day trip on the 11th, his actual birthday, so we decided to have the big meal-party the night before.

Vaquiero is a meat restaurant. And when I say meat, I mean MEAT. Vegetarians (Mel, sorry), avert your eyes...Vaquiero serves 10 courses of meat. TEN! ESER! DIEZ! [Insert fist with thumb pointing up, shaking left and right -- the ASL word for ten -- here.] I wasn’t so excited, because when I went in December, three of the courses were turkey, and I hate turkey. But, after inviting rabbinical students east and west, rounding up two only-Davidsons, and completing the 11-person meaty minyan + 1 with an Israeli, we sat down for a lovely meal together. This meal was better than the one we had for my birthday. Here is a list of the ten courses:

1. Chicken wings – I dedicate these wings to Rafi’s early childhood.
2. Empanadas – I dedicate these meat pies to Rafi’s extensive travel in Latin America. (JK, he’s never traveled to SA.)
3. Chorizo – I dedicate this sausage to Rafi’s awkward teenage years.
4. Veal Finger (I called it Kufta kabob!) – I dedicate this veal finger to something something (he made me stop the dedications.)
5. Corned beef.
6. Goose drumstick.
7. Entrecote.
8. Veal wrapped around cinnamon-spiced apricots.
9. Beef stew.
10. Something else that I can’t remember, as I seem to be in a meat-induced stupor, one day after.

There was also lots of salad, bread, and some really sexy potatoes, but we all psyched ourselves up to consume all of the meat with gusto. We did swimmingly, with everybody enjoying seconds of this meat and that meat. Some of us even enjoyed a warm chocolate cake after all of the food! I want to wish Rafi a happy 26th birthday, with many returns of the day. Thanks to everybody who joined us for dinner, and put out for the hefty price tag of a gluttonous meat meal.

Rafi and I smile because of all of the food. Note the shirt I am wearing. I always wear it the day Rafi wears his green polo. Because dressing alike, is, well, not my thing.

Robbie and Rachel didn’t do all-you-can-eat, but they still are totally fabulous!

Eliav and Jeremy are both smiling because Jeremy has REALLY fallen off of the vegetarian derech. Welcome to the club, Jeremy! This dinner is like going from being a teetotaler to doing kegstands before class.

Dan and I love Rafi and stuffing our faces!





Gideon is the champ of the meal, putting away the last little chunk of chorizo.

Allison, Ita and Gideon all smile wide for the terrific dinner.

Alon and Sarah sincerely enjoy their hot (and spicy) meals!

Rafi totally blows (out the sparkler). Happy birthday, Raf!

Adventures in Literacy

I went to Hebrew U today, once again to bang my head against the walls and see what falls out of either the walls or my head. Today's adventure was a visit to the Library. After I got my "old-school driver's license-looking ID card" (that's a direct quote from my days of running orientation for Penguin) up and running in the library system, I battled with the computers to search the database for articles, books, or anything remotely related to my thesis topic, Israel Education in the Diaspora. The library wouldn't let me search in English all the time, I don't really know how to type anything useful in Hebrew, and the searching system isn't friendly when you switch to English format from Hebrew. Listings of, oh, the LOCATION of the book are LITERALLY covered up by translations. It took a whole lot of surfing to get some leads, but I wrote down about 9 books or journals to snag, and then I went looking.

I was thwarted on all accounts, only to be told, after a half hour of frustrated browsing, that the books I had written in my little notebook were in the Education library. Apparently, when the books are listed as "Education: 4th Floor" that means they're on the 4th floor of the Education library, which is in a different building, and is its own library, and of course, is a rather far walk from the main library.

I was frustrated, so I went and checked in on the status of my course signup stuff, and then went to the Academon (The School Bookstore). Ever-aware of my illiteracy, I purchased a few books to help me with my Hebrew:

The Cat In The Hat by Dr. Seuss (Shout out to Things 1, 2 and 4 -- My brothers!)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Hi to his Editor!)

AAAAAAAAAAand Where The Wild Things Are (Jerusalem, CLEARLY!)

I also got a dictionary called Rav Milon (the one recommended by every Hebrew/Ulpan teacher ever).

Photo credit: Amazon.com.

I even got a Yoman (day planner, pronounced Yom-man) that matches my backpack...Here's an upclose of the Yoman's cover. It's so cute!

See how it matches!?!

After forking over the (magnetic) cash for the new books and a Kif-Kef (it's an Israeli KitKat) bar, I ice skated my way (my shoes have no traction left, and everything in this city is made of smooth stone) to the Education library and found some of what I sought.

After Hebrew U, I finally got my Ulpan refund and an ice cream cone (Ice cream? Kif-Kef? Nice lunch, Sara Beth!) before going to a barbeque for Rafi, Rachel, and all the other rabbinical students in my life.

Time to practice my Hebrew reading...bye!

When This Thing Hits 88 [Kilometers]PH...

...We're Going To See Some Serious [Stuff].

-Doc Brown, Back to the Future. Please pardon my Israeli/Youth-oriented editorial and censoring.

Somehow, Allison convinced me today to go on the Jerusalem Time Elevator. So, for just a little over $10, I took a journey through time. Complete with moving rows of seats, fiery photography and misty special effects, it was a rocking, rolling, jolting-at-points good time.

I'm not going to lie. I enjoyed the ride. But it is unclear as to whether I enjoyed the ride because of the history lesson, because it was kind of funny, or because it simply reminded me of a very old friend, who spent a fair amount of time as one of Doc Brown's Time Travel Technicians.

Functional Literacy

As the majority of my friends head back to school tomorrow, I find myself still in a state of limbo. The Rabbinical Students begin their third year with a field trip to the Davidson Kotel (where, if you're in my program, the money from "Uncle Bill" pays "Uncle Bill"'s Israel bureau, so that you can daven at "Uncle Bill's Kotel" and take pictures that say "William Davidson."). I will probably sleep through their morning services, because, hey, Hebrew U doesn't start for like another week!

Currently, I'm feeling a functionally illiterate in Israel. As my friends are off to their place of higher learning (which, btw, is ALL in Hebrew), I sit at home, waiting patiently for my turn at being a student at Rothberg. I consistently score better than most at Scrabble, and I read so much as a child my friends from elementary school remind me of how I used to always read THROUGH lunch, only picking my face up from reading when there was an opportunity to talk about camp (true story). But all of this is/was in English. Hebrew eludes me...for now.

Until I start my classes, I continue to conduct myself through telegraphic conversations. I sincerely miss talking here the way I do in New York. Consider this vignette:

SBB in the States: Hello, cabbie. 63rd between Central Park West and Broadway. I would prefer it if you drove down Columbus from here, then merge into Broadway at 66th. At 64th, make a left, and then a right on CPW. My driveway is on 63rd, halfway down the block. You make a left and drive all the way through. That is my lobby. Thanks....Can I please get $7 back?

SBB in Israel: Shalom. Efshar l'Rechov HaTzfira. B'vakasha l'Rachel Immeinu, v'yemina l'rechov Ruth. S'mola l'HaTzfira. OK. Po. Lo, Sham. Sham. OK, Po. Todah.

Please to go to HaTzfira Street [At this point, I don't yet sound so stupid.] Please to Rachel Immeinu Street and right to Ruth Street. Left to HaTzfira. OK, here. No, there. There. OK, here. [At this point I give up and walk the rest of the way home.]

To be fair, most cabbies in NY understand my English even less than the taxi drivers in Israel understand my English. But as I embark on my (somewhat embarrasing) experiment of living in Israel, I'm annoyed that when I talk to cabbies, I cannot even give directions to the house where I live. And my accent? ForGET it. I have a knack for imitating patterns of speech to such a degree that I SOUND like I know what I'm saying, but the second the cabbie says, in Hebrew "So, do you want me to take this street or that street?" or "What is this lovely new bag that you are carrying? Did you buy it today?" I sit there like a slack-jawed yokel. Damn you, stupid accent-imitating talent.

I am really looking forward to the start of school. I need me some pretty basic Hebrew schools. Until then, I will haunt the hallowed halls of the Rothberg school and the Hebrew U library, reading what I can in English and signing up for classes.

Oh, and FYI -- Shabbat was nice. Really great meals and great hosts.

Hooooe-Sheeee-Aaaaaaah-Naaaaah!

Hoe-Shee-Aah-Nah is part of the Simchat Torah prayer/celebration singing.

While you Diaspora fools are nursing your Simchat Torah-related hangovers, here in Israel I have (part) of a day off between the end of Sukkot and Shabbat. What do I mean? Let me explain...

In the Diaspora, Jewish holidays are 2 days long. That means the chag/holiday parts at the beginning and end of long holidays like Sukkot are two days long, each. In Israel, chag is only one day long at either end. Annnd, when it's Sukkot, the closing Chag days of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are hybridized into one fun day.

Things for Simchat Torah in Israel are a little different than in the States. The getting-drunk-for-the-Torah parties aren't in huge abundance, but the getting-sweaty-while-dancing-and-singing services are in full force. My friend Shiran came to visit, and we all went to Shira Chadasha for the evening Hakafot (that means something like dancing in circles with the Torah). Shirah Chadash was NUTS! I saw everyone I've known, ever. Really. There was my Nivo '04 waterskiing camper, my Wheels Bus D '02 camper, my supervisor from Skills for Teaching and her daughter, a colleague from the Foundation for Jewish Camping. There was also the crowd of JTS and A-Jew (they go by "Ziegler" or "AJU") kids, of course. To round things out, I spent some time talking with my friend Jordana, with whom I went on USY on Wheels '97, and Baylene, from Pilgrimage 99, and pretty much everything from high school.

There were other people there I was excited to see, too. It felt like Simchat Torah on the Upper West Side, more than I'd expected. Next time, I'm getting my eyebrows waxed BEFORE the social scene, not after. I thought it was going to be (relatively) low-key.

After Hakafot, we had dinner at my apartment, which ended up including 12 people! Food was good, and we all had a good time. After dinner, a bunch of the guests stayed up until the wee hours, but I went to sleep. I figured I needed my strength for services the following morning, at Kedem. They were pretty fun and great.

Shiran, Allison and I hung out all afternoon, eating the (amazing) baked stuff from Shiran's sister's bakery job, and enjoying Nurit's visit, late in the afternoon. When the holiday ended at dark, Rafi and I went to a really cute restaurant, where I learned to stop ordering Israeli ravioli (Disappoint me once, shame on you. Disappoint me twice, Israeli ravioli, shame on me.). After dinner, we celebrated our friends housewarming (quite literally across the street), and went to be relatively early, considering the hard-partying nature of my friends.

Today, I prepared for Shabbat...partially by buying challot at the neighborhood amazing bakery, and partially by getting my eyebrows pruned. It was all-in-all an exciting start to Shabbat. And to think, I could have spent today in shul for Simchat Torah...instead of yesterday.

Mixed Bag

Today was pretty uneventful, so I have a bunch of little things to write about that didn't fit into a day trip summation...

1. SuperSol Deal: Today we went to another supermarket in Jerusalem. Our friend Adam attempted to guide us through the supermarket, wising us up to the "secret" stash of nuts by the last register, and showing us which stuff we wanted to buy. Today was my first experience EVER buying chicken from a butcher counter at a grocery store. It was pretty intense...and I felt like a real, normal citizen. Also, I noticed that there were about 5 (yes, five) aisles, featuring Elite Chocolate (you remember this if I've ever given you poprox chocolate).

Things we purchased at SuperSol Deal include a sh'moniyah (that's an 8-pack of Diet Coke. We're moving on up.), schnitzel-grade chicken (proof that there is a God, if you can't find God at the Kotel), diet yogurt (in weird flavors like passionfruit), a wide variety of pretzel/cookie/snacky things, and tomatoes. Tomato-shopping, by the way, is INTENSE here. There was like 4 times the normal supermarket display of tomatoes, and people were sifting through them to find the PERFECT complement to their cucumbers for Israeli Salad.

2. My Dramatic Flair: Allison pointed out that I interrupted her reading of Frommer's to show her (and Rafi) the sign about the Dead Sea being the lowest point on Earth. She's not nearly as stupid as I made her look. But much like the work of James Frey, let's remember that it still made for a good read. (I'm a big fan of James Frey, so if my beelog isn't as accurate as you would like, well, you're just going to have to suck it up and deal.)

3. Lifeguards: The Dead Sea has lifeguards, even though it's virtually impossible to submerge your head in that buoyant, fabulous water. As an on-again, off-again Lifeguard (recertified this past summer), I know that you can drown in only 2 inches of water. I also know that I've never seen a lifeguard smoking on the job. That's right. The ultimate Israeli experience includes a dip in the Dead Sea, and being yelled at by a lifeguard who sports sunglasses, a megaphone, and a half-smoked cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
4. Lines: Are you all queued up? Ready to take your place in front of the register at Aroma? Well, don't let the 80-year-old grandma with the cart of vegetables stomp on your foot to get her Ice Aroma first. Israelis are p-u-s-h-y. Allison and I enjoy our fought-for coffees. (She had to stand up for her place in line because of a pushy Israeli. Really.)

5. Nokia: Cellcom, Shalom, indeed. Israel is a world leader in technology. They INVENTED everything electronic (sorry, Al Gore). OK, not everything, but a lot of stuff. So why is it that 98% of cellphones here are the Nokias so coveted by me, pre-cellphone, in the year 2000? (Conan shout-out) I MISS MY SAMSUNG. These non-flip-phones are soooo Sophomore year.

6. My Own Illiteracy: I was talking recently about how if I were in the states, I would NEVER eat this much bread. If only I knew how to order a salad with the toppings that I want, I wouldn't have to get a sandwich. I also would be interested in buying cream cheese, or arguing with a bus driver or a talking to a person on the street, but I just don't know enough Hebrew to do that. My conversational inclination lies fallow, except for when I'm with the crowd from NY.

7. Israeli Soldiers: When I was on USY Poland/Israel Pilgrimage, in 1999, Israeli soldiers were THE hotties. Everyone wanted to hook up with a soldier, and why not, if they were maybe a year or two older than us? Now that I'm 25, I see these soldiers and think, "Oh, s/he's just a child!" These tiny little kids are defending this tiny little country. It's really quite unbelievable. This child-soldier was napping, cradling his machine gun like a baby sleeps with a teddy bear, while waiting for his bus in the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, just before we went off to the Dead Sea.


That's all for now. I'm sure I'll do something exciting soon. For now, just my little ramblings.

The Lowest Point on Earth

At some point during my loooong, windy bus ride to the Sukkah in the Suburbs, I mentioned to Allison that I wanted to go to the Dead Sea. Like many of my last-minute plans, it went something like this:

SBB: Let's go to the Dead Sea.
Allison: Oooh, sure. When do you want to go?
SBB: Tomorrow.
Allison: Do you have a plan?
SBB: Um. Bus?

It worked like a charm...and we convinced Rafi to come with us! Earlyish in the morning we set off for the Central Bus Station, stopped at Aroma (it's like Starbucks here), grabbed some coffees, like this:

SBB: Can I have an Ice Cafe and an Ice Aroma? (I said this in Hebrew.)
[in my head, I thought I was ordering a coffee with ice in it and a frappachino-thing]
Aroma Girl: You want what and what?
[in her mind, ice cafe and ice Aroma are the same thing -- a frappachino-thing.]
SBB: Ice Aroma. Ice Cafe. Thanks.
Aroma Girl: OK, it's [insert Starbuck-like price] sheqels.
SBB: What the hell? Did I stutter? (That was to myself, and in English.)
Aroma Girl (brings back two identical cups of frappachino-thing): Here you go!
SBB: Which is ice cafe and which is ice Aroma? (I thought maybe one had fun flavoring in it.)
Aroma Girl: This is cafe, and this aroma. (She said this with a straight face. Somehow. Later on, during her lunch break, she regaled her friends about the stupid American who ordered the same thing with two separate names.)

Moral of the story? Next time, order cafe im kerach (coffee with ice). After this fun time at Aroma, we got on the bus to Ein Gedi / the Dead Sea. Funny exchange from the bus ride:

Allison, peeking out from behind her Frommer's Israel Guide: Did you know that the Dead Sea is the lowest place on Earth?
Rafi: Of course.
SBB: My life often feels like that.

We decided at some point on the way down to go to the Spa at Ein Gedi, which is also on the Dead Sea, and has nicer locker rooms than the public beach we had set out to patronize. Below you can see pictures from the fun we had during our day at the (blue-collar) spa. This is Rafi's name for the spa, because it's pretty cheap and most of the people there were wearing jellies. Remember jellies?

First thing we did was decorate ourselves in thick, black mud. We found our friend Anya as we were walking to the mud, and she graciously took pictures of us painting on the Bootz (mud). See Allison, Rafi and me playing in the following pictures:


Girls Gone Muddy.


Rafi gets in on the fun.

After we did the mud thing, and rinsed off the mud thing, we took the tram (don't forget, this is a SPA) down to the Dead Sea shore. It was hot, and there were plenty of people in the water. You can see as you walk down to the edge that this is not a normal body of water. Each person in the Dead Sea floats on top of the water like an ice cube in soda. The shore was different, too. It was like walking on top of a big, slick salty skating rink. Wading into the water, you're surprised at the warmth of the water, and the teeny, tiny stings on the cuts in your skin that you didn't even know you had. After going out a few feet, you can sit your tush down in the water, and watch as your feet pop up. Like the world's best synchronized swimmer on steroids, you can float on top of the water and look great doing it. I crossed my legs, then I did a split. I floated on my stomach and stretched my legs above my tush without ever getting my face wet. I had a great time and had little interest in getting out of the water, except I decided it was time for lunch.


Floating effortlessly. What a lady!


Sara Beth is a Ham.


Rafi tries desparately to not be a tourist as I mug for one of my many publicity shots.

The rest of the day was nice. We went in the (chlorinated) pool to rinse of the oily, mineral-rich Dead Sea water and changed into some dry clothes. After a late lunch we caught the bus back to Jerusalem, feeling all relaxed and vitalized from the beautiful spa.