A February trip to Israel

Catching my breath after 5 hectic days with 5 hectic days about to begin.  The travel here was awful.  Light snow in Philadelphia delayed our departure from Washington.   While we built in a 3 hour layover in Philadelphia, US Airways managed to delay us enough to miss our flight to Israel, unwilling to hold the Tel Aviv flight for the 6 people on our flight for less than 15 minutes.  They’ll be the subject of  a fierce campaign when I get home.

We had a long 24 hours in Philadelphia, made slightly better by a friendly diner near our hotel (where we had breakfast for dinner and breakfast Wed night/Thur morning) and a superior wine bar/restaurant right next to our gate at the airport.  The flight went well without problem, our luggage came off right away, and we were out of the airport in less than a half hour.

Our conference ground package provider, Adam Saville from Israel Experience (mad props so far from us) sent a van for us so we were whisked out of the airport direct to our hotel where he got us upgraded rooms.  Unfortunately, the food at the Dan Panorama is not so spectacular and dinner was so so. – We called it a night soon afterward.

Shabbat morning we went to the nearest egalitarian minyan, at Moreshet Yisrael, the shul at Agron.  For those of you with only lukewarm memories of davening there, it is substantially improved.  Their shlichah Tzibur,  Ahuva Batz is soulful, filled with ruach and had a sweet, mellow voice.  If was a spirited davening and we enjoyed it very much.  The ba’al kriah, Rabbi Yisraeli was also exceptionally good.  I would gladly go again when in the neighborhood.

Lunch at the hotel was again ok.  After lunch my friends Shlomi and Hila Zadok and Noam, Ori and Ofek cam and we spent a great afternoon together, including a bottle of Shlomi’s Ben Hanna winery Shalom 2007 (no label on my bottle so I can only guess what’s in it).  They left after Shabbat, and Scott and Felicia Littky and I went to Buffalo for terrific steaks and a bottle of Kadesh Barnea Merlot that was superior.  After dinner Scott and Felicia went into down town to go to Ben Yehuda Street and I joined my friends Yossi and Dina David at a Jerusalem Folk Club concert at Bait Yehudit (the former ICCC) for 3 hours of pleasant music.  It was midnight when I walked back to the hotel.

Sunday, after a better hotel meal (breakfast is the best meal of the day here it seems), I met up with Yossi.  We visited our friend Avi Yehuda at Moshav Shoresh at his winery and spend a great morning with him, learning more about Avi’s future plans and tasting a bit of wine.  We then dropped in on our favorite gingy winemaker, Shuki Yashuv at Agur and caught up with him of their recent trip to Argentina.

After Shuki we visited a friend of Yossi and a new friend of mine, Aram Dekel, a craft brew master at Moshav Tzafririm, just down the road from Agur.  Aram is a great guy, look like a Hells Angel but sweet like a teddy bear; he makes a variety of beers, including spiced beers (I tasted one with allspice and a porter) and it was a lot of fun to meet him.  His wife makes organic goat’s cheese, and they have a small café/pub next to their house.

We took the scenic route past Mata and through Ein Karem to Jerusalem, met Dina for dinner at the Yemenite Marvad HaKsamim, and then I headed back to the hotel to check e-mail (nearly 90) for the first time in almost 4 days.  I also made contact with some of the people a brought things for.  I then retired to write this post, which will go up when I next get internet access (maybe tomorrow before the conference officially starts).  I love being in Israel, I love connecting with my friends here, and I haven’t even gotten to do the fulfilling mitzvah work yet!  More when I get the opportunity.  I’m expecting some very full days coming up.