Wow; a whirlwind couple of days - taking it easier today. Sunday I moved to the home of friends in Emek HaEla to house sit and take care of their cat, Cloud (who seems to appreciate me as her meal ticket and then promply heads outside to resume her life, which is just fine with me - I'm a dog person). Living here on a Moshav is a really different view of Israel, very different from city life and even from village life last week in Binyamina (where not so very much happens, but there is the train station). There is a very short wikipedia entry for Aviezer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviezer.
Remember, especially when we travelled to Israel in the 90's and early 2000's during the Intifada's and we had to check in by phone after a pigua (incident) to tell everyone in the US that we were ok? Everyone was worried about what was happening in Israel; now the tables have turned. I remember one of the first urban terror attacks in Jerusalem, July 4 1975 near Kikar Tzion. I was rising 10th grader, my first time in Israel, and because I was exempted from the group Hebrew class I was running errands in town with our trip leader, Avi Brown, and we had to call my dad, who was the Federation director in Denver, to tell him everyone in the group was ok (I was actually the only participant anywhere near the danger zone - everyone else was safely at the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew U). We woke him at about 2 am in Denver.
Yesterday, I was again in Jerusalem, completing about a week's worth of meetings and errands in one day (it was a 16 hour day, which is how I got so much done), and now I'm wondering how all of you are staying safe in the US? Too many idiots with guns. I have friends who safely and responsibly use firearms to hunt and for sport and I support their right to do so. But there must be some way to limit and restrict access to firearms to keep people safe at festivals, malls and schools. Here there are single entrance points for malls and festivals, you got through metal detectors at the train stations and some malls, locked gates at schools. America, you need to get serious about keeping people safe.
I forgot to take pictures, but the day's meetings included breakfast with Arnie Draiman, spending a couple of hours at Hacker Camp with my friend and role model, Shaiel Yitzchak, lunch with Rabbi Paul Freedman, meetings at the Jewish Agency with the incomparable Pnina Agenyahu and even a quick conversation with Deputy Director General David Breakstone. Then it was a short bus ride to the office of Ramah Israel to catch up with Betsalel Steinhardt, Adin Rodman and Meir Holzman. It's amazing to have a great group of colleagues in Jerusalem. We talked a lot about the conservative movement (everyone seems to want to talk to me about it). After a few errands for the family I finished with dinner at Tmol Shilshom with my Temple Sinai colleagues Max Antman and Kelly Whitehead. I strongly recommend the Cacio e pepe.
After minyan this morning at 5:30 am (photos above are of the synagogue), it's still relatively cool out, so I set out to harvest a few figs and table grapes growing in the yard. After coffee I started to do some writing, my printed High Holiday message for Congregation Emanuel in Statesville and the beginnings of my first High Holiday sermon. Soon I'll be leaving the house for a bit to do my first visit to an unfamiliar winery of this trip - it took until the second day of the third week to reach this milestone, but I have an appointment at Tzafririm, a Moshav about 15 minutes away, soon. Hopefully that will earn a wine related post - Wednesday I'm planning on more wine research.. More about that later.
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