Rosh Chodesh at the Kotel

This morning we went to the Kotel to pray with Women of the Wall for Rosh Chodesh Sivan (festival celebrating the new month). While we had a large group present, there were thousands of Ultra-Orthodox men and women who had been bused in to protest a recent ruling by the Jerusalem Court allowing women to pray as they wish at the Kotel. It was a moving, tense, and at times frightening scene. Below are a few of our reflections from the day after we both took some time to process. But, before that: we want to be sure to wish you all a Shabbat Shalom and a Chodesh Tov (good month).

Traveling Through Israel (and Beyond!)

Stealing a kiss at the Hagai Sophia!

Chag pesach sameach l'kulam!
Happy Passover to everyone!

An amazing thing happens in Israel during Passover. Everyone takes off for the holiday and travels throughout the country. The roads, hotels, trails, national parks, and camp grounds are all packed with families spending quality time enjoying the country and each other. We had the great opportunity of getting to participate in the fun and went up North to the Kinneret with Gavi's Israeli family. We stayed at a youth hostel, ate delicious kosher for Passover buffet style meals, and went on hikes through some absolutely beautiful parts of the country.

And then we got home and realized that it was the first time since January that we had a significant amount of free time! And after receiving a number of requests, petitions, and inquiries about our next blog post, we figured this would be a good time to give the people what they want.

The last few months have brought an incredible amount of important, powerful, and fun Israeli experiences. We will do our best to catch you up on our travels and learning since we last updated.

Our Last Two Months: From Desert to Snow Storm

Hello from a snowy, wet, and cold Jerusalem, Fenster Followers!

Sorry it has been so long since we've written but life has been going full speed the past few months. Days and weeks took a turn from being non-stop adventures, to non-stop life! Filled with classes and trips across the country, and time with friends and even a little netflix.

Hiking in the Arava

We've been happily enjoying what seems to be what is semi-normal married life. Since we last posted:
-The war ended (funny thing about Israel, no one called it a "war" until after it was over).
-We visited the Arava - TWICE and it is my new favorite place in the world.

In the Arava

Life in Jerusalem: I Love Mondays

****UPDATE: less than an hour after originally posting this a siren went off in Jerusalem. Jason and I were both at our schools and took shelter until the clear was given. We're safe back to learning and studying.****

Hi Everyone!

Gavi here, typing away from home while on a lunch break between classes.

I wanted to tell you all about my yesterday.

Mondays have proved to be some of my favorite days ever since I dropped my Monday afternoon classes at the Yeshiva. Don't get me wrong. I love my classes there and the community but an afternoon once a week to be in the city has been a true blessing. 

Last week, after ulpan (my hebrew immersion class which goes from 8:30am-12:30pm) I walked in the rain to pay our electricity bill at the post office and then to the Shuk to do some veggie shopping. It was really nice to be out and about and in the Jerusalem rain (which is seen as a blessing in this dry region). And thanks to my warm raincoat (thanks Remy!) being out during the day was actually pretty fun.

This Monday turned out to be one of my favorite days in Jerusalem so far.

After ulpan I made my way to the shuk. One of the zippers on my boots and broken and I was off to find a cobbler. 

I found a nice Russian cobbler on Agripas Street who agreed to fix the zipper while I waited in his tiny below street level shop. We spoke (all in Hebrew!) about the shoe, my studies, and how I like  living in Jerusalem. By the end of the conversation I had my boot all fixed and many good wishes from my cobbler friend - who told me to come back when the other boot gave out (it did, later that night! how did he know? I hadn't even taken it off in the store!)

After leaving the cobbler I headed up to the shuk to buy some fruits. I made a few laps around - knowing I wasn't in a rush to get to class and with lots of time before I had to be down in the German colony for an errand. I was looking at the clementines and trying to find the best price/sweetness ratio. Just as I was about to put a clementine from one stand in a bag for 5NIS per kilo the guy in a stand across the street announced his clementines were now only 3.5NIS per kilo! Patience for the win! It is the little things that bring me the most joy.

So, with clementines and bananas in hand I headed the long way home past my favorite 15NIS shwarma spot. On my way in I ran into my friend Lisa M. who is also studying at my ulpan and the Conservative Yeshiva who was having lunch with her husband. We chatted for a bit about the wonders of cheap kosher meat wrapped in yummy starch and said goodbye as I went inside to order. I was going to sit outside and eat my lunch but in the last moment I asked the guy behind the counter to wrap up the meal to go (in Hebrew AGAIN!)

As I walked through a busy intersection I saw a familiar face. I had run into Revital Nutkis! My cousin's wife and beautiful member of the Nutkis family in Elazar. She had come into the city to do a little shopping. And thanks to my lack of afternoon classes and being in the right place at the right time we were able to walk around a bit and stop for some coffee and cake. We talked for an hour (mostly all in Hebrew!) about the family and her adorable son and my life in Jerusalem and plans for when we return to the states. After coffee she headed back to Elazar and I ran home to drop off my things before walking down the German Colony to run a few errands. By 5:00pm I had walked back up to the city center with my wonderful husband who had spent the day studying hard at school to buy him a new pair of sandals before our trip down to the Negev/Eilat starting tomorrow with HUC (yes, as of now, the trip is still on).

Over the course of the day I walked about 5.5 miles, and felt like I had accomplished a lot. I got to talk to my parents, see family, friends, speak lots of semi coherent Hebrew, and got to spend some quality time with my husband. The whole day I felt energized. I feel like I really live here. I have a life here. 

This is my home.

I hope this post finds you all well and happy and safe. Jason and I won't have much internet access in the coming days due to our upcoming 4 day trip with HUC. So don't worry if you don't see any posts from us. We're just living our lives here and having fun. 

If you want to stay up-to-date with the situation in Israel (which we pray will be resolved with each new hour) try checking out this live blog which covers all the developments, www.timesofisrael.com. It is one of the sites that Jason and I have been using to stay informed as possible, although there are many others.

Sending warm wishes, hopes for many happy Mondays to come, and prayers for everyone in this world to be able to live their lives in peace and without fear,

Gavi

Update from Jerusalem: Safe

Hi everyone,

This isn't a normal blog post but we wanted to write a quick note to let you know that we are fine.

Yesterday, after shabbat had started an alarm was sounded in Jerusalem. Soon after, two rockets fell not in Jerusalem itself, but near Gush Etzion (where Gavi's family lives), about 8.5 miles from the city. No one was hurt.

We're fine. We happened to be away for shabbat near the Kineret on a trip with the Conservative Yeshiva. We returned back to Jerusalem tonight, spooked, but happy to be home.

We've spoken to our parents, they know we are safe. And after shabbat we got a call from Gavi's cousin who lives in Jerusalem to check in. We're having dinner with him tomorrow and he said he'll walk us through what Israeli's do in times like these. Where to go if another siren goes off... etcetera.

The truth is, we don't know what happens next. We pray the situation calms down, we pray for peace, but we also pray for calm in the face of scary situations and circumstances and reactions we can not foresee.

For me (Gavi), this changes things a bit. Last week I was reading about sirens in towns closer to Gaza in my ulpan (hebrew intensive) class. We talked about the towns where they only had 15-30 seconds to find shelter after a siren went off before a rocket was expected to land in the area. They were told to at all times be at most 15 seconds away from shelter; school was canceled and daily life disturbed to the core. Someone asked if the rockets could reach Jerusalem. We looked at the map together and discussed in broken hebrew that it was highly unlikely. We continued to discussed that this problem was a serious one for our neighbors and our country, for our friends and family in the army, for am yisrael, but not one for our day-to-day lives in Jerusalem. We were wrong.

I spoke to my Israeli aunt before shabbat. She asked how Jason and I were handeling the news from the south. I told her that I was realizing that despite threats of danger in this country, life goes on. She responded "You noticed?"

So life goes on. We wish we could tell you more. But that seems to be all there is for now.

We want to sincerely thank all of you how have sent emails, facebook messages, and tweets to inquire how we are. It was very nice to feel your love and support during a strange and difficult time. Both of our programs are staying current with all of the security information and are in regular contact with us about what is going on and how it will affect our daily lives here in Jerusalem. We have been very appreciative of HUC's outreach as many professors and administrators have sent kind notes of support, context, and comfort. At the bottom is a note that our Year-in-Israel Director wrote to a student to share with family. He then passed it along to the rest of the class us to share with family and friends who were concerned.

"I can appreciate that from afar and with the news as seen from overseas, the situation might cause some worry. The current situation in this part of the country, whilst of concern does not in our opinion call for any dramatic decisions. The college continues to monitor the situation and is in contact with the Situation Room of the Jewish Agency which receives regular updates from the military and other security services. We are in consultation with them about our upcoming field trip and we will continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds. We have no ability to predict what will happen in the coming days; for example although reservists have been called up and many of them are making their way down to the Gaza region this does not mean that there will be a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip. This may just be a tactic applying pressure on Hamas. 

So, in the meantime, there are no changes in our programming plans but of course will keep abreast of developments and take all the security service recommendations into consideration. 

Your welfare and those of all students remains our key concern at this time. I am confident that you are letting her know that we are doing everything we can to keep you safe and secure."

We hope you will stay up to date with the news (be sure to read stories from multiple outlets) and we will do our best to keep you posted on life here.

We hope this is the only post of this nature that we have to write. In the meantime, we will continue our prayers for peace:

עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן

Chag-tober Fest Part II

Keep reading! There are dragons in this post!

Aaaaand we're back!

In case you missed the first post, it's been a near-eternity since our last post, so there's lots and lots to catch you up on. In the first post, I recapped our experience for the holidays and a little shpiel on school and expressed my feelings about life here while Gavi is in America (in short, it sucks).

So, while Gavi is on the plane flying back to Israel, I have free license to rant and ramble about what's been going on here and share all of the lame puns that I can come up with! (In theory, this would good be a good place for one such pun, but I've got punner's block...hopefully I'll redeem myself later). In this post my plan is to talk about some of the interesting things from Jerusalem over the last few weeks and, as per the custom of the Fenster blog, tell you about some of the key delicious things from the past month.

Chag-tober Fest!

Our wedding pictures are up on FlickR!

Holy moly! It's been a near eternity since our last blog post. Since you last read, the rest of the chagim have come and gone, we did a little traveling around the country, took care of lots of post-wedding tasks (thank you notes are written and pictures are up!), visited some new minyanim, and, of course, ate lots of delicious things (some made by us and some by others). A day-by-day breakdown may be a little much at this point, and since I (Jason) am writing this on my own, I'm going to go wild and change the format and instead am going break things into a few themes: Holidays are Awesome, School is busy, Jerusalem is...Jerusalem, and Food is Delicious. So let's get to it! Oh, but before we do that, you should be warned. This is a Jason post, so there isn't anyone to edit out my lame jokes. Readers beware.