A week has passed since the Pardes tiyyul (trip) and Shabbaton in Ein Gedi. The weather feels different (cooler, thank G-d!), and we are now all orienting ourselves towards Rosh HaShanah, which begins tomorrow night. But here I will share some pictures and a few reflections on our trip to Ein Gedi and Ein Bokek …
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Brief Update
When I first arrived here, I was diligent about posting to my blog every day. Then my life filled up, more and more things started happening, and I found myself needing my evenings to do homework, catch up on email, and tuck myself into bed early. A lot has happened since I last posted, and …
Election Day
Tuesday was election day in Israel — the second time in six months, since the election in the spring resulted in a failure to build a coalition. Essentially there are two things making the biggest difficulty in putting together a government: people’s growing distaste for the corrupt grand-stander Bibi Netanyahu, and Avigdor Lieberman’s decision that …
Why climb the mountain?
Today (not as promised) instead of sharing the pictures of my tiyyul to the southern excavations, let me share with you the words of one of my Talmud teachers, Leah. We had just completed a very difficult sugiyah, and as I mentioned yesterday, had gone around Robin Hood’s barn and returned to where we started …
Excavations
It had to happen eventually. I’ve been here a little more than two weeks, managing everything more or less, walking to school even with a cold, improvising and bumbling along, feeling like an idiot, often being treated like an idiot (on the street and sometimes in class), socializing with lots of new people and sometimes …
What am I studying, and why?
I’ve written a lot about what it’s like to be here in Jerusalem, but relatively little about what its like to be studying at Pardes. I’m afraid there won’t be any pictures with this post — sorry! I wish I could show you the wonderful faces of my fellow students, but it’s a bit soon …
A few random thoughts
I’ve been thinking of a lot of things about which I would like to write. As I walk to and from school (approximately 20-25 minutes each way, depending on how long I have to wait at the crosswalks), I often have lots of ideas. For instance, did you know that they ticket jaywalkers here? A …
Cats
A visitor to Israel from another country is likely to be astounded at the number of cats he or she will encounter in the course of a day, or even an hour. A recent sub-headline in Arutz Sheva reads “With city’s stray cat population hitting 240,000, Jerusalem officials mull solutions to burgeoning problem.” The article …
Getting ready for Shabbat
It’s really nice to be living in Jewish time. Today there was no school at Pardes, as everyone is getting ready for Shabbat. Like all my neighbors I went to the market (as you see, I bought a lot of fruit!). The streets were full of people like me toting grocery baskets on wheels, women …
More reflections on my neighborhood
I had promised that I would tell you the story of my neighborhood, Katamon (officially called Gonen –but no one uses that name). However, as I read over the Wikipedia entry, I decided I would let you refer to that yourselves, if you are so inclined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Suffice it say that like much of this …
Nine months in Israel 