Monthly Archives: October 2011

Delicious Onion Kugel

miscellaneous

I haven’t posted recipes for quite a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking just as much as usual!

Today I thought I’d share something new I made for Rosh Hashana that we all enjoyed, and plan to make it for Sukkos as well.  I saw this recipe on an online discussion board,  and I only slightly adapted it to include whole food ingredients.  It’s quick, easy, and very tasty!

Delicious Onion Kugel

  • 5 Vidalia (sweet) onions, sliced very thinly
  • 1/2 c. coconut oil
  • 1/2 c. water
  • 1 T. sea salt
  • 1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
  • 2 t. baking powder
  • 5 eggs
  • pepper to taste
It’s important to use sweet onions for this recipe for it to come out right – regular onions will be fine but give it a different flavor.  Also, it tastes better when the onions are very finely sliced or even roughly grated in a food processor.  I chose to saute the onions but the recipe actually doesn’t call for that, which is part of what makes it so easy!
Mix the onions with the remaining ingredients.  Pour the mixture into a greased pan.  Bake at 350 degrees until brown, about 30 – 35 minutes.  Serve warm, and enjoy!  (This also freezes and reheats well.)
(This post is part of the Real Food Digest Sukkot edition.  Go check out more recipes or share your healthy Sukkot recipes there!)
Avivah

So happy to be living here!

aliyah

When I was in tenth grade, I went through a rough period and often wrote poetry to express the intensity of my negative feelings.  It was cathartic and somehow, I was always able to find ways to express how unhappy I was or how bleak my outlook was.   I could even sound more miserable than I felt!

When I later met and became engaged to my husband, I felt so overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude, and I wanted to write some poetry.  But after writing just one mid length poem, I stopped.  Words just couldn’t express all the happiness in me, and everything I wrote seemed inadequate.

That’s how I feel about being in Israel.  I haven’t written about it because I just don’t have the words for how very, very right it feels to be here.  It’s not that it’s new and exciting.  It’s not that at all – life is amazingly normal, so much so that it feels like we’ve been here forever even though we’ve been here less than eight weeks.

When I’m here, at a very deep level I feel like I’m home.  And trying to express what it is that feels so good about being here leaves me totally inadequate – not only don’t I have the right words for it, I can’t put it even into inadequate words because it’s a feeling that eludes definition.

I walk down the streets, go on buses, into stores – and I constantly think how much I love it here.  I love the little things – the snippets of conversations with strangers, the blue skies, the happiness of everyone when it rains, the banks and government offices that close for Jewish holidays, the busy streets totally empty of cars on Yom Kippur, the sukkahs springing up everywhere, the people who have come here from all over the world, the willingness of strangers to be of help…..

I love my apartment, I love my neighborhood, I love all the parks around.  I love being close to shopping and public transportation, I love not needing to have a car.  I just love being here.

Sometimes I feel like pinching myself, that I’m living in the land of Israel, living in a place that our ancestors have dreamed of for thousands of years.  Are there challenges?  Well, life is life, so obviously there are!  But thinking of people who would have given anything to get here puts into perspective what we had to do in order to be here.  It wasn’t easy, but I’m so, so grateful to be here.

And even though words are totally inadequate, it’s a huge omission for me not to say anything.  So now I’ve said it. 😛

Avivah

Finding my place…inside of me

aliyah, miscellaneous

This move to Israel has prompted a lot of thinking about who I am, where I want to belong, and what matters most to me.
Specifically, I’ve been grappling with religiously where we’ll best fit in, and how to guide my children in making educational choices that will resonate with who they are and what their needs are, while helping them fit into the community we have chosen.

My challenge is that religious groups are much more tightly identified here, and the group that would externally be the best match for us feels like somewhat of a mismatch because of some ideological differences.  As I’ve been thinking and rethinking this, I felt we were going to have to consciously choose a specific religious grouping (an anathema for someone like me who intensely dislikes labels!), and by making that choice it would exclude other groupings.   That felt very limiting to me.  Because if I label myself according to the group that we most look like, we would be expected to do things that might not be what I wanted to do, or to give up things that were of value to me.  I was concerned primarily about my oldest children, who will soon be old enough to be getting married, and where they would fit into all of this.

And on the other hand, I had hesitations about actively choosing a different religious group to affiliate with, particularly at a time of so much transition.  That wouldn’t be good for any of us.   And who’s to say once I see what it’s like on ‘the inside’ there, that I won’t feel similar frustrations?

Today I had a sudden burst of clarity when I was thinking about ds12’s school.  I suddenly saw that it’s not that I disagree with them on small things – I simply don’t value what they value overall.  I have different goals than they do, and it’s unreasonable of me to send my child to a school that isn’t in line with my core values, and then be disappointed in the choices that are made.  This clarity was a gift since it reflected the larger issue I was thinking quite a lot about, and here is what I really came firmly back to:

I’m happy with who I am, who my kids are, and what my life is like.  And I’m not willing to squeeze myself into someone else’s box in order to be what they think everyone should be.  If someone doesn’t like that, let them move on; the people who relate to me will like and appreciate me.  When it comes to building a sense of community, it’s not fitting in with everyone but finding people who value who you are that makes the difference.  As far as my children, G-d helps every person find what they need, and He will one day send my children wonderful people to marry who can see how amazing they are, and living true to who we all are won’t keep them from finding them.

It reminds me when I was dating, and it seemed many young men were looking for things I didn’t have: a wealthy family, prestigious lineage, etc – rather than getting discouraged and feeling there was something wrong with me because I came from a divorced home where money was tight, I saw it as a gift, that the people who weren’t suitable to me were quickly selecting themselves out.  This remains true for my kids, too.  For example, if someone won’t consider them suitable marriage material because they were homeschooled, then none of us have lost anything because we wouldn’t want someone that judgmental and closeminded in our family!

The quandary I shared above sounds simplistic, since I’m reducing it to the barest facts.  But those I’ve shared it with in detail who understand the significance of the issues involved have agreed that it’s a huge challenge.   What I’ve reaffirmed for myself today is,  I don’t need to change my religious affiliation, not even in my own head.  I need to continue to be clear about what matters to me, and act accordingly.  The only person I know how to be is me, and the only person I want to be is me.  And when I’m happy inside myself, things always work out well.

Avivah

Local parks in Karmiel

aliyah

I love how Israel is set up for children!  In the US, we had very few parks in walking distance; the one we occasionally went to on Shabbos was almost a half hour walk from our house.  More commonly, though, we’d drive to parks that were fifteen to forty minutes by car.  It’s wonderful to now have so many inviting options close to home; we have a number of places we take the kids when they’re in the mood to get out – all within a ten minute walk of our home!

The closest playground is just a couple of buildings down our street.  We found this the very first morning we got here, when I took the kids who woke up before 6 am for an exploratory walk.  We didn’t get any further than this that morning. 🙂

This is great because it’s so close, quiet, and because my neighborhood is low density and most people have yards, there aren’t usually other kids there.  The only downside is that the play area is filled with sand, which is lots of fun for the kids but I’m not always in the mood to bring everyone home and give them a bath.

The next option has become a favored one – it’s a three minute walk from us, the ground is springy artificial turf, and there’s so much to do that ds9 and dd10 enjoy going here with the littles and me.  They can all play together here for a long time, and the set up lends itself to creative games of make believe (“Quick, before you get sucked up the chute!”).  It’s well lit at night, and though it’s more populated than the one on my street, so far there haven’t been more than a seven or eight kids on the playground equipment when we’ve gotten there.

Here’s the park that ds12, ds4, and ds5 walk through each morning on their way to school.  This is about a four minute walk from our home.  Since it has sand in the play area, I usually choose to stick closer to home if I’m going to deal with the sand.

Today's outing was to this park

Then there’s the park in a slightly different direction that ds9 and dd10 pass through on their way to school.  This one is about seven minutes away, which makes it the furthest of the close parks.

Dh or I pick up ds4 and ds5 from school, and on the way home we pass this lovely mini waterfall.  The kids enjoy stopping here to look at the fish.

Our home is also just a few minutes from the huge and very popular Park Hamishpacha (Family Park) to which visitors to Karmiel come for a day of fun and have to pay 20 shekels entrance fee per person.  For Karmielites, it’s free.  They have a two story ball pit, outdoor bowling alley, miniature golf, maze, exercise machine area, and lots of playground equipment.  I’ve been there a few times but each time it’s been so busy that I didn’t feel especially motivated to go back.  Now that school is back in session, though, it should be much quieter, and I’m planning to go back soon.  I enjoy parks that are quiet and not teeming with kids, particularly lots of older kids that intimidate the littles.

I decided that rather than me taking pictures, you can get a better idea of what this looks like from the online virtual tour that has 360 degree views of the park.  It takes a few minutes to load but it’s worthwhile.  To see the park, click on this, then click on the box on the bottom of the screen that says ‘children’.  My kids enjoyed seeing this before we moved here; it gave them something concrete to look forward to.

Across from Park Hamishpacha is the huge Park Hagalil, about ten minutes walk from our home.  This is where NBN hosted their summer event for Go North Olim, and where we visited our first night in Karmiel after being denied entrance to Park Hamishpacha (free entrance, to be accurate – we could have paid and gotten in) since our ID didn’t yet show us being Karmiel residents.  We haven’t yet explored this park much, and it would take some time to do so since it’s so large.  From what I’ve seen so far, it’s beautiful.  There’s also a virtual tour of this park, available at the same site that I linked above – here it is again – and click the picture at the bottom that says Park Hagalil.

It’s so nice to be here!

Avivah

School advocacy – making some adjustments

aliyah, homeschooling

The first day back to school after the Rosh Hashana holiday break was Sunday. Ds5 stayed home because he had chickenpox, ds4 stayed home because he didn’t want to go to gan if ds5 didn’t go (he said ‘I’ll be lonely’), dd10 had a cold, and ds12 also wasn’t feeling great. It was so, so nice having all five of them home for the day, and then on Monday everyone but ds12 was home. I do like those kids. 🙂

Seeing how relaxed they were made me think, once again, about the stress of being in an environment all day where you have to work hard every minute to figure out what is going on. All of the kids are doing really well in adjusting to school, and ironically, I attribute that to an attitude they’ve developed as homeschoolers, of taking responsibility for their own learning. They haven’t been frustrated by the absence of assistance from their administrations, but after seeing their class schedules and hearing about their days, I felt it was time for me to step in to help make it more workable for them.

I started with the principal for dd10. I explained to her the reality of sitting for hours in a class without understanding more than a few words a day at best, then asked when dd will get the in-school tutoring she’s entitled to by law. After Sukkos, she said. And she said she’ll order a book for dd to help her learn Hebrew, which was very nice.

Then I showed her the school schedule, and explained that by leaving school early two days a week, dd would hardly miss anything (one of the two days is a double period of English, which is for girls who are learning it as a second language). By being home early on those days, I’d be able to help her privately with Hebrew language skills, as well as to do math at a level which would be more appropriate for her. (The math is super easy for her which on one hand is nice for her since it’s a class that is low pressure for her, but if she can actually advance from where she’s already at without the pressure of a Hebrew language classroom, that would be better!)

She asked me how many children I have, exclaiming and wondering how could find time to do this – to which I told her, I didn’t even understand her question. I’m her mother – who else is going to care enough to make sure she gets what she needs, if not me?? She was very agreeable to letting dd10 leave school early, and just like the first time we met when I registered dd for school there, it was a pleasure dealing with her.

While I was in her office, the principal for ds9 came in, and when I told him I planned on meeting with him afterwards, he told me I could speak to him right then. Rather than go through the whole explanation of why academically and emotionally I felt ds9 would be better served by a shorter school day (as I did with dd’s principal), I just showed him ds9’s schedule, and requested that he be allowed to leave at 1:30 every day (ie leaving two hours early three times a week). Dd’s principal right away said to him, “There’s no problem with that, right?” and he immediately agreed – and here I have to say how much I like this principal. Such a caring person!

I don’t know what they do in the boys’ school, but ds9 goes to school every morning with a smile and comes back home with a smile, and I told the principal that, as well as how much I appreciated all they are doing for him. Ds9 is the only one of all the kids getting any Hebrew language assistance through the school – literally, the strategy in every other place as of now seems to be to let them sit there and wait until enough months pass by that they understand the language – and I really feel that he cares about each child and is doing whatever he can to make the transition positive for ds9.

Gratified by how smoothly both meetings went, off I went to speak to the principal of ds12’s school. I wasn’t looking forward to this because we were already having a philosophical disagreement about the mandatory morning minyan for seventh and eighth grade boys, which we didn’t know anything about when we registered ds as it was just instituted last week. Ds12 has gone only twice in the last eight days or so, and told us that he’s getting a lot of slack from the administration because of this, despite dh having spoken to the principal about it.

We feel very strongly that a boy should be praying alongside his father in synagogue when possible, that he has more than enough time with his peers all day and he doesn’t need to ‘bond’ with them more through this. Additionally, ds12 takes ds4 and ds5 to school each morning, since their schools are on the way to his school. (For me to do that adds another forty minutes to my morning, and there’s no possibility of paying for the transportation service since it was full when we enrolled the kids.)

I also feel strongly that a child is part of a family and part of a community, and they need to learn to be of help and contribute, and that taking his siblings is a good growth opportunity for him. I’m not saying that just because it helps me! A couple of weeks ago I was at the meeting for mothers of the four year old gan, and a couple of women there asked me if ds12 was my son. When I was surprised that they could possibly know him when school had only been in session two weeks, and he’s an older boy in a different school, they told me how he had offered to take their sons to the gan along with his brothers to save the mothers from having to deal with all the flights of stairs. (The school is located down three flights of stairs, then up another flight – not the easiest thing when you have a baby in a stroller with you!) You can’t help people like that if you’re kept away from anything but your own school building.

I planned to discuss the minyan with the principal, in addition to my second request for an early dismissal for ds so we could work with him privately. He was busy when I got to the school, and while I waited, I asked the secretary about getting the government mandated tutoring assistance for ds12. She told me they had received authorization for students the year before, but not two years before that, and would have to submit a request after I gave her the necessary documentation. I told her to look in her files and she’d see that I’d already provided the necessary paperwork a month before when I enrolled him, and then asked her to immediately file the request. And then reminded her again before I left the office, and once again after meeting the principal before leaving the school.

My experience here has so far been that if you don’t insist on something and follow through in making sure it happens, it won’t happen. That means you’ve got to be assertive (beyond US standards of assertiveness) when it comes to helping your kids. It’s not that people don’t care, but things fall in the crack, and it’s up to you to keep your kids out of the crack. She told me it will probably take several months to get the approval,if it goes through, and I asked her how that could be acceptable, for a student to have no assistance for the early months when he needs it most?

With my next experience you’ll see what I mean about advocating for your child and needing to push hard. I think it’s because Americans have a hard time with this that our kids often don’t get the help they need. It’s a different culture, and what works in the US just isn’t effective here.

When I met with the principal, I began by asking about the tutoring assistance that ds should be receiving. He checked with the secretary, and explained to me that someone higher up didn’t want to spend time applying for the assistance since it wasn’t granted two years before and maybe it wouldn’t be granted at this point. I didn’t find this acceptable reasoning but put this to the side mentally, and went on to discuss the minyan.

I shared my concerns about the minyan, and he basically told me, he hears what I’m saying but it doesn’t matter. “Parents send their children to our school because they rely on us. Sometimes they don’t like the decisions we make but we’re the ones in charge and we know what is best.” Oh, my. If you wanted to wave a red flag in front of me, all you have to do is tell me that I as a parent have no right to an opinion about what goes on regarding my child and some administrator knows better.

He told me that four other parents complained about the minyan the morning it started, all of them fathers who said this was important time they spent with their sons (for some of them, it was the only one on one time they had during the week with their sons) and didn’t want to relinquish it to the school. He said no to them and he can’t make exceptions for me. I told him that if so many parents aren’t happy about the minyan, maybe they need to rethink it, and he told me they can’t make their decisions based on what parents want. I told him that there’s nothing in school that a child gets that is more important than developing and warm and loving relationship with his parents, and that coming to school from a position of feeling loved and secure would be the best preparation for the day. (He had said they instituted this since in the past students weren’t in the right frame of mind to begin their studies.)

After telling me he couldn’t make an exception for ds12 regarding the minyan, he made the comment that it would be easier for him to grant something like letting a child out of class for two hours a day than this. Yay, this was the perfect segue for my next point! So after begrudgingly telling him I wasn’t happy about it but would send ds to the minyan, I told him I wanted ds to be allowed to leave school early each day in order to work privately with dh and I on his studies. I showed him the schedule, and how the classes he would miss weren’t critical – math (which is about three years behind where ds is at)and geography (they’re doing US geography this year). After that is gemara and mishna (yes, more, even though they do that all morning), and dh already goes to the school each day at this time to teach ds12 the gemara they’re learning in school, and he would continue doing this but at home. I told him that ds would benefit from more private tutoring, and since the school isn’t able to provide it, we will.

I also explained that it takes enormous mental effort to focus so many hours a day for classes in a foreign language, that ds isn’t getting much out of it, but I’m willing to let him sit there for hours a day and absorb the language. But there’s a limit, and to totally waste time and not develop any skill isn’t something I can countenance. He responded that it’s because ds isn’t used to being in school that it’s an issue.

Nope. This is not the direction this conversation was going to go in. I said, “Oh, is ds disturbing the class? Not paying attention? Not participating?” No, he shook his head. Obviously. I know ds is doing fantastically well. “I’m telling you that even though he’s doing well, he would benefit by having less class time and more one on one instruction. If there were visible difficulties, you’d agree. But because he doesn’t cause problems, you’re going to make him suffer?”

He told me that if he lets ds leave school early, others will also want to do that for their own various reasons. (This key concern that was repeatedly expressed brought back memories of my talk with a principal several years ago when ds18 was in ninth grade.) I really do sympathize with administrators. They need to keep things equal and fair for everyone.  And this principal is truly a very fine person and dedicated principal.  So I tried to think about it from his perspective.

I said, “It seems that you’re not concerned about ds missing the classes, but not being in the school building itself, right?” Right. “And that others might ask to do the same thing if ds is allowed to leave early?” Right.  “But ds is a new immigrant, and that’s not something that applies to anyone else in the school. Any person would realize that someone who doesn’t know the language needs additional support, right?” Right. I told him very strongly that this is the life of a child he’s dealing with, and what’s best for ds needs to be primary.

So he told me he needs to think about it and this morning I followed up with him. He said that they were reluctantly willing to partially grant my request, but I have to compromise and meet them halfway. I told him I’ve already compromised hugely on the minyan issue and it’s their turn to show willingness to work with me.

When I got off the phone I felt like I had done battle. Really. I was so emotionally drained, I didn’t even have a feeling of victory that I got what I wanted. As part of his agreement, he told me that if he got any requests from anyone else to leave school early for any reason, he’d pull the approval for ds. I reminded him once again that ds is the only non-Hebrew speaking student in the entire school that needs this help at this time, so it’s not as if he’s setting a precedent.

Coming from my American mentality, I felt like I had to be exceedingly aggressive to get an agreement on this. I asked my dh who overheard my follow-up phone conversation if I sounded nasty, and he said no, but I felt like I was close to obnoxious. Push, push, push. I just refused to accept his compromise and told him it wasn’t acceptable, that it had to be the way I wanted it for the reasons I had already outlined in detail during our face to face meeting. Being this pushy is just not my way of communicating. But I got ds what he needs, and communicating like an American wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere (we tried that already).

For now, I’m grateful for each principal being willing to work with us, in spite of whatever concerns they may have had. I’m glad this will give the kids some much needed breathing space, while helping them meet their academic needs as well. Hopefully this will be a positive move for all of three of our children, and it will be evident to all involved that it was the right thing to do!

Avivah

Chickenpox!

health, home remedies, nutrition

On the first day of Rosh Hashana began, ds5 showed me a blister on his neck that was bothering him. He couldn’t see it, but felt it, and told me he had a wart there. Since recently I’ve been noticing unusual bug bites on ds4 that I don’t know the source of, I chalked this up to another kind of insect bite. I asked if it was itchy, but he said no.

The next morning ds5 told me the ‘wart’ was hurting him. Thinking it must be a bug bite, I asked him again if it was itchy, and he said no. When I was dressing him that evening, I was concerned to see a number of red bumps all over his back. He’s had a heat rash in that area recently, but this was looking like a bit more than heat rash. We wondered if it might be chicken pox, but it’s been fifteen years since I’ve seen it so I didn’t have a recent memory to draw on, and ds wasn’t itching.

Dh went across the street to a retired nurse to ask her opinion, but she wasn’t home. On his way back into the building, he bumped into a neighbor who has three grown children, and asked her opinion. ‘Chicken pox’, she proclaimed. Dh came upstairs and shared the good news with me. 🙂

My oldest three kids had chicken pox, though the third was only a few months old, and though she had a pretty bad case, I don’t know if she has immunity. The next six kids haven’t had it, though I’ve been hoping for years they would catch it. I explained to ds5 that he had chicken pox, which was awesome and amazing, so much so that some people make chicken pox parties to share the germs with children of parents who want their kids to aquire natural immunity.

That’s a problem with homeschooling – your kids stay too darned healthy without all the sick kids in their class to infect them constantly. After all these years of keeping my eyes and ears open for families with chicken pox, it took less than a month in school and no effort on my part for ds5 to catch chicken pox! Who knew how awesome school was and what I was missing all these years?

The worst part about this news was that it was on the second night of Rosh Hashana (Thurs.) when we realized what it was, and there was very little I could do to alleviate his discomfort for another two days. Fortunately, he didn’t really get itchy until Sunday, though by Friday morning I could almost see the spots breaking out on him as I watched him, they were appearing so fast. On Sunday I made him a bath with a blend of oats and herbs, and he spent most of the day in the tub; every time he’d come out, he’d cry that he was itchy, then jump back in the tub and I’d add more hot water. He looked like a prune by the end of the day, but he was a relatively happy prune. 😛 The next day I gave him different shaped containers, cups, and silverware for his bath, and he had a great time. Ds4 kept requesting to join ds5in his bath, but I told him he had to wait until he gets chickenpox.:)

Shown for educational purposes and not to gross you out - full breakout stage

When the chickenpox vaccine came out in 1995, it was well-known that it was developed as a convenience to working parents. Chickenpox basically consists of an itchy rash, mild fever, and general fretfulness, and necessitates keeping your child home from school for about a week. And a week is a long time for parents to stay home from work. So most people thought it was ridiculous and superfluous.

Fast forward about fifteen years, and it’s frightening to me how many people think that chickenpox is something life-threatening. A lot of effort was put into PR to make so many parents who grew up with chickenpox as a normal passage of childhood to believe this. This is a pattern with disease education; when there’s no disease, you’ll read how relatively infrequent it is and how minimal the chances of complications are. Enter a new vaccine, and the slant totally shifts to convincing people they run the risk of severe injury or death if they don’t give their child (or self, when appropriate) the particular vaccine. Well, there’s lot of money to be made if you can convince parents that they need your product, so who can blame the producers for finding an effective way to line their pockets? Fortunately, the mothers I’ve so far spoken to here all expressed the unanimous sentiment that it’s a good thing for a child to get chickenpox at a young age.

Anyway, I really didn’t want my kids to reach adulthood and not have chickenpox, because it’s when people get chickenpox as adults that there’s a problem (when it manifests as shingles). There are exceptions, but for the most part getting chickenpox once offers lifelong immunity. Unfortunately, as chickenpox has become less common during childhood, the incidence of shingles has become correspondingly higher.

So far no one else in the family has shown any signs of pox, but the incubation period averages about two weeks, and it’s during this period when a person is most contagious. When my oldest three had chicken pox, it took six weeks until it passed through all of them.

So I’m hopeful that this will pass around and all the kids will get it.

Avivah