Avivah Werner

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  • School-wide gemara testing for ds15

    Chanuka was here, Chanuka is over…  We made loads of doughnuts (150 for a community Chanuka party – dd14 was busy for hours!), lit many menorahs, spent lots of time together –  all the kids were home and you know I love that so no need to say anything more….:)  It was lovely.

    The oldest three kids are back in Jerusalem, ds15 is back at yeshiva.  His yeshiva recently held the yearly mivchan pumbei, the intensive gemara testing throughout the entire yeshiva.  After completing a rigorous written testing, the top three students in each grade went on to compete with verbal questions.  Ds was one of those chosen from his class, which is a big deal.  When I spoke to him before the final competition, I sensed he was feeling some pressure and reminded him that none of us are putting any pressure on him to win.  (He won last year, which was a huge honor and one that only once before had been won by a ninth grader.)

    I told him that what matters to me is that he’s investing in his learning, doing his best and growing as a person, and he doesn’t need to win a contest for me to prove that he’s an amazing person.  He told me he didn’t feel any pressure from our family, but it was coming from the rest of his yeshiva – everyone expected him to win again.  I gave him some suggestions for how to release tension that  might come up for him before or during the final competition.

    When I got a call the night the competition was over, I saw on caller id it was from ds but he didn’t say anything when I answered.  I said his name a few times, and when he finally spoke, he said in a choked voice, “Mommy, I won the mivchan pumbei again.”  I got choked up, too.  He continued, “It’s the first time anyone won it twice.”

    If you want my tips on how to raise kids who are high achievers, I don’t know what to tell you.  This wasn’t something I tried to make happen.  I don’t push my kids; if they do their best and are good people, that’s what matters to me.  All of our older kids have developed a strong sense of internal motivation, which is amazing to see.

    It’s interesting because my homeschooling style is quite relaxed.  But based on my understanding of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, it seems logical that kids will succeed when equipped with basic skills and a strong desire to do something that matters to them.

    Avivah

  • The magic of floor restoration

    See my cute little boy below?  This is a picture I would have never sent to anyone.

    Yirmiyahu, 28 months
    Yirmiyahu, 28 months

    Why?

    Because of the stained flooring.

    When we first bought this apartment, I noticed that around the perimeter of the main area the edges of the flooring was grungy looking.  After scrubbing repeatedly with an assortment of scrubbers and chemicals, it was clear that the problem wasn’t built-in dirt, but that chemicals inappropriate to the floor had been used for cleaning that ate away the top layer and allowed stains to set in.

    You know how they say when you live with something all the time, you get used to it and stop seeing it?  Not me.  I’m a very visual person, and I’ve never gotten used to this.  The entrance (pictured above) is the very worst; fortunately that’s a small area and the other areas were much less damaged but there was still a light gray stain extending about an inch from the wall all around the room that gave an unclean impression.

    I’ve been thinking for quite a while about retiling the floors, but that’s expensive if you hire someone to do it.  All my older kids who can do this kind of work are out of the house and I didn’t have the time to personally take on a project of this scope.

    Finally about six weeks ago, I decided I’d do the retiling myself.  I visited the tile store several times, measured the rooms, and my final step before placing my tile order was to get a quote to shorten my front door to accommodate the change in floor height.  When the guy came to give me a quote, he was surprised to see my flooring – he said the tiles are very nice and it didn’t make sense to retile with ceramic tiles when I have higher quality flooring already in place.  I told him that I don’t want to see the dirty-looking tiles anymore.

    He informed me that there are professionals who deal with these issues.   I was delighted to hear that!  While I didn’t mind doing the tiling, I knew that it would be a massive project to take on while needing to live in the space being retiled.  I called a couple of floor professionals in for quotes, and a few days later – on erev Chanukah – a crew came to restore my floor.

    For just a thousand shekels, my floor now looks like new!  Paying someone to do this job saved me three thousand shekels in tiling materials and countless hours of work.

    Note the edges along the side of the room look the same as the middle of the room!
    Note the edges along the side of the room look the same as the middle of the room!

    It’s amazing to me that for $250 dollars I could so easily take care of this longstanding issue within a few hours.  It’s so nice to look around and now the floor looks clean when it’s clean!

    Avivah

  • Questions about Karmiel – update

    >>Hi Avivah, we plan on making aliyah in the next few months and very much considering Karmiel as a place to settle. I noticed that your initial post describing Karmiel and the area (pros and cons) was over 2 years ago. Any way you can give a short update on how things have changed (improved, worsened, prices, …) in the past few years?<<

    Surprisingly little has changed about Karmiel since I wrote that post!  Here is a brief summary of some main points and some additional details.

    Physical – Karmiel is a beautiful, green, clean city.  (The major caveat to that is that there are many dog owners who don’t consider it important to clean up after their pets and also don’t mind letting their dogs use the sidewalk for their needs.)  There are many beautiful parks that are all well-maintained; the  municipality does a wonderful job of keeping the city clean and all physical aspects in good condition (roads, parks, landscaping, etc).   After visiting just about any other city in the country, I really appreciate coming home to the pleasant and peaceful atmosphere here.

    Housing prices – I’ve been contacted by several people who live in the center of the country who have wanted information about buying here.  They pictured Karmiel as a place that was dirt cheap and were surprised at what the prices actually were.  For a reference point, for not much more than the prices here, you can buy or rent an apartment in the city of Beitar, which is very close to Jerusalem.  Prices are definitely cheaper than Jerusalem or other major cities in the center of the country and you can get great value for your money but you’re still looking at selling prices here of about a million shekels for a three bedroom garden apartment.  (Neighborhoods vary and there are less and more expensive neighborhoods than this but this is fair for the neighborhoods that everyone who has contacted me has been interested in.)  Rent for that size apartment runs about 3000 – 3500 shekels a month.

    Transportation – there are frequent buses locally running to each neighborhood; buses are new, clean and usually not crowded.  There is a very affordable daily pass that allows for unlimited travel as well as a monthly pass.  There are daily buses to most cities in the country.

    Plans are well underway for the train to connect to Karmiel and progress is visible every time I leave the city.  This will make it faster and easier to connect with the center of the country, which is anticipated to raise real estate prices.  Plans are also in the works for the main toll road to connect to Karmiel; again, making it more faster and easier to access the center of the country.  I don’t remember when it’s supposed to be done – I think the train should be here in a couple of years but I might be wrong about that.  Once that happens, housing prices are expected to jump.

    Shopping – Many people living in Israel that I’ve met haven’t hear of Karmiel and assume it’s a little rural village.  I’m often asked about where I shop.  This isn’t really an issue in a city of over 55,000 people  – I don’t have to import food from other cities, which is what people have said they pictured.  There are shopping centers in each neighborhood in addition to an industrial zone and mega mall that people come to from all over.  There is enough of a charedi population that the kosher supervision that is accepted by a more stringent crowd is readily available though not to the degree you would find in a charedi city, obviously.

    Most of my comments from this point on will be regarding the specifics of the charedi community, which is what most people who have contacted me want to know about.  Of course there are other groups and communities and I’m in no way intending to exclude anyone, but can only write about my personal experience.

    Schools – All girls attend the Amichai girls school, which is growing quickly.  They have a good bit of experience with new immigrants and students are provided with tutoring assistance a couple of times a week to help them acclimate.

    For boys, the two choices are Amichai and the cheder.   I’ve written about both of them in detail in the past so will only add a couple of comments to update about something that was a concern in the past.

    There was a period about a year after we got here when the local charedi cheder seemed to suddenly become very selective about who would be admitted.  I believe this was due to a fear that there was going to be an influx of Anglo families who would challenge their standards and they wanted to move preemptively to clarify for whom their school would best be suited.  They relaxed their position on this, presumably when they realized there wasn’t going to be an onslaught of families arriving.

    >>We’re planning on coming from a central Orthodox environment and wanting to move to Karmiel to be in that similar type of central Orthodox of America (I guess called Charedi in Israel or Karmiel). Our children will be entering either the HS or Post HS stage. Any recommendations on what to look for regarding hashgafa of the type of category we fit into?<<

    Without knowing more I can’t make specific recommendations for a particular family so I’ll share basic details about the local schools.  I wouldn’t call central Orthodox the same as charedi but I’m not sure of the personal definition you’re using so perhaps they’re similar.

    Girls’ high school – The local girls high school, Neve Chava, is an open and accepting Bais Yaakov- type school.  Their rules are very reasonable and not as exacting and detailed as the rules of most Bais Yaakovs.  This is probably because it began as a school that wasn’t geared to the charedi community, and though each year the number of incoming charedi ninth graders is higher, there is still a mix of girls from different backgrounds who attend.  They offer a bagrut (matriculation) certificate, which is unusual for charedi girls’ schools.

    When my two oldest girls attended, there were two other English speaking girls in the high school.  Four English speaking girls in the high school at one time was the most saturated this school has ever been.  Currently, there are two English speaking girls but since they made aliyah five years ago, they aren’t new olim and don’t require any special assistance, so the experience the administration has had with olim has been limited to a very small number of girls.  I don’t expect there will be more teen girls to attend this school as new immigrants.  If they do, they will meet an administration who overall has a positive impression of new immigrants but along with that comes expectations that are probably a bit unrealistic.

    Boys’ high schools:  There is a local charedi ashkenazi yeshiva ketana for boys in Karmiel called Keren Ora, and another charedi sephardi yeshiva (don’t remember the name).  Both are typical yeshiva ketanas.  There are no new/recently new immigrants that I know of who attend.  I would be wary of recommending these as an option to someone coming straight from the US.

    A new high school opened this year that is geared toward a more chardal/dati leumi crowd that seems like a nice concept  I was involved in the discussion a year earlier about this school when it was in the planning stage, but then the plans were put on the shelf and when the school was formed a year later, the boys attending are a different crowd than what they were originally talking about.  They may have changed other aspects of what was being planned so I can’t speak about this with any degree of accuracy other than to say that good people were originally involved in planning the school.  (Since we didn’t have any suitable local high school choices for ds15, we sent him to a school near the center of the country where he dorms.  I had hoped that when this school opened it would be a viable option for our other boys but sadly, it’s not.)

    There is also a small high school at the hesder yeshiva located in the Dromit neighborhood.

    Post high school – My oldest three kids all are in the Jerusalem area because there’s not much here post-high school.  Some girls in the area attend seminary in Haifa or Rechasim and commute daily while living at home; others live away from home and study in Jerusalem or Bnei Brak.  These areas are filled with yeshivas, seminaries and degree programs for the charedi student.  There really is very, very, very little available locally for people in this age group.

    >>Hi, I am a mother of 3 small children. Recently divorced and I plan to return to Karmiel with my kids. I am worried i will not cope on my own but I consider planning a trip to Israel alone and settle things before moving, like finding school, nursery school .  Is iris a good area to live with kids? Are schools easy to enroll? Is finding babysitters a common practice on this city?<<

    Honestly I feel hesitant to recommend Karmiel in your situation but since you write that you’re returning to Karmiel, I assume that means you lived here in the past, probably speak Hebrew and have some social contacts in place already.  So my concern might not be relevant for you.

    My hesitation is that I think Karmiel is best for people who are very independent and don’t want or need the support of an active community though the people here are wonderful.

    However, the Anglo community that is connected to the larger charedi community is, to quote someone who lived here for several years and left recently, a pre-community.   English speakers are scattered throughout the different areas and since they aren’t concentrated in one specific area, they don’t all daven at one shul, shop at the same stores, or take their kids to the same parks  – in short, the logistics make it a challenge to build a sense of community.

    In your situation, it might be more helpful for you to be in a place where you can count on the help of others if you need it.  This isn’t a reflection on the people here, who as I said are very warm and caring people, but on the lack of significant numbers and social cohesion.  For Anglos coming to a new country without family support, already knowing you’ll be needing help, the lack of a strong communal social net can be difficult.

    If I were moving to Karmiel right now, I’d consider looking into the Rabin neighborhood, which has a centralized shul with a communal focus.  I was talking to a real estate agent about if this might now be a good option for English speaking families moving here, but her concern was that if someone doesn’t speak Hebrew, it might not be the right fit for them.   It’s more expensive than the Dromit neighborhood where most of the English speaking families live, there’s only one bus line that goes to that area so many people say you need a car (though many people do fine without a car), the schools are mostly located in the Dromit so it’s more of a shlep for the kids – but I would encourage families to check into this as an option because of the more communal feel in that area.  As much as I love where I live, I can still see that Rabin has some advantages that could make it easier to socially acclimate.

    School registration – this is ideally taken care of in advance but I don’t know of anyone who had difficulty registering their kids when they got here, even if it was right before the school year began or even after school had begun.  Something that is very nice here is that for the most part, kids are readily accepted to schools and there isn’t the exclusionary approach that is common in so many other places.

    If a particular neighborhood is good for you depends on where your children are in school.  It’s helpful to live in easy walking distance from classmates unless you don’t mind taking your kids to playdates at the homes of their friends.

    The number of English speaking families in Karmiel are growing slowly.  In the three years that I’ve been here, five of the first nine families to make aliyah directly to Karmiel have left (we’re the sixth family that moved here – two of those who left came before us, three came after us).

    Why are people leaving?  It can be challenging to find work in the north, for Israelis as well as for Anglos though obviously those who don’t have fluency in Hebrew or work experience in this country will have a harder time.  Educationally, some people have needed options that aren’t available locally.

    To sum up, Karmiel is a pleasant place to live with a nice quality of life, and if you find work, friends and suitable schools for your children and don’t need a strong sense of community, you’re likely to be happy here.

    Avivah

  • Dealing with bullying neighbors

    Last night I was walking home from a lovely dinner with my mom (her birthday treat to me) when I encountered one of my neighbors.  He’s usually quite taciturn but he walked directly toward me with his dogs, making it impossible for me to easily sidestep him as his two dogs went to each side of me.  He angrily told me that he heard I had changed a lock in the building a couple of hours before (I’m the building representative – vaad bayit – and take care of repairs and maintenance for the apartment building – it’s a volunteer position, no perks :)) and that it was illegal to lock that room.

    I told him while I had no desire nor plans to lock the door, if the door would be locked at any point it would only be with the legal guidance of the office for building committees.  He responded, “Don’t you dare lock that door; if you do a day won’t go by before I’ll break the lock.”  He accusingly told me he knows why I’m doing this.  I asked him why and he said I’m in cahoots with another neighbor.  I asked him why I would be in cahoots with anyone and what that has to do with getting a new lock put in.  He changed the topic and began yelling at me about other things.  It was so irrational.

    I changed the lock because there was no key for it and the building representative is supposed to have a key.  Why should someone care so much about changing a lock on a door that is going to stay unlocked when it has absolutely no effect on their lives?

    Maybe you care when it’s the door to the water meter room and you use the water meter as a way to harass your neighbors by turning off their water repeatedly.  Maybe they assumed their actions were a factor in the new lock and felt angry that there was any potential for them to be restrained in bothering others.

    Early this morning morning, his wife wrote a nasty note about me and posted it in the building entrance about how I’m using my position to further the interests of my religious friends (yes, because I changed the lock) and I shouldn’t be allowed to continue in this position any longer.  Another neighbor saw it and took it down.  The woman who wrote it saw him remove it, followed him upstairs while yelling and carrying the garbage can from the entryway, threw the garbage on him in front of my door.

    By 8:30 am the police had arrived and I spent an hour talking to them together with the other neighbor.  It was initially frustrating because the officer was unwilling to listen to the full situation due to false presumptions but eventually I think he understood we’re dealing with someone irrational.

    The police said they’ll talk to the screaming neighbor, which I doubt will do anything because you can’t use legal means to mandate good character.  The other family (whose husband had the garbage thrown at him) has filed for a restraining order and put their home up for sale.  They’re really nice people and I hope they sell their home quickly and find a place to live with other nice people; they don’t deserve to be treated like this.

    The unpleasant couple has made being the building representative here extremely difficult – I get yelled at and gossiped about for everything I do and what I don’t do.  They refuse to pay the monthly fees and at the same time, complain about how the building is cleaned, who cleans it, get angry about repairs I’ve made to the building that were agreed on by all the tenants – really anything and everything…it’s a difficult situation.

    When I took my kids to the park in the afternoon there was another note taped up in the building railing against me.  (This time she dropped accusations about helping religious friends and wrote that I’m acting for my own personal interests.)  I took it down, went to the park, then decided to make a copy and put the original back up.  But by the time I returned to my home ten minutes later, there was already another note up, this time a pithy version: “Mrs. Avivah is unworthy of being the building representative.”  I left it there.  It shows more about her than me.

    Actually, I’m happy to pass the job on to someone more ‘worthy’.  But there’s no one else who is willing to take on this job because no one wants to deal with the difficult people here; the building had no maintenance/cleaning/electricity paid for eight months until I took over, and had years of neglected repairs that no one could agree to take care of because of constant arguing about every detail.  It’s been grueling but I’ve been able to take care of some important things.

    It’s nice to think that if you are pleasant and respectful of others, they’ll respond in kind but it’s not always true.  I’ve spent almost 3.5 years being very careful to keep a positive relationship with this woman and her husband despite the many challenges they have presented me with.

    We’ve all spent years making choices based on our paradigm of the world and our coping skills.  When someone is abusive or unbalanced, their years have been spent making unhealthy choices; they’ve literally grooved-in patterns to their brains and are no longer wired for responding differently.  Just like anyone else who has a pattern that they want to break, it would take a huge amount of awareness and conscious effort for them to respond differently than they have been for their entire lives.

    So where does this all leave me?  I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to respond to these provocations because in the heat of the moment when I’m being insulted or attacked I’m not likely to be able to summon up my higher self.  I’ve decided to ignore the notes and anything she says about me.  I felt very threatened when her husband was so hostile last night but I’ve had time to work down those feelings and am trying to keep these people and their actions in perspective.

    I’m actively working on courage, not letting myself feel defensive and scared in response to their bullying.  I have to stay very conscious so I hold my ground and don’t slip into backing down.  I’m not good at shrugging off attacks; I’m sensitive to criticism and take insults personally but this is something I have a chance to practice doing differently now.

    Avivah

  • High school interview for dd14

    At the beginning of last year, I decieded to homeschool dd14 despite her opposition.  I wrote about why I did that then, and despite her original unwillingness, it’s been a very positive experience.

    My goal in homeschooling her was to give her a chance to reclaim herself after two very draining years in the Israeli school system.  Making aliyah can be really rough on a person’s self-identity and self-image and the older a child is when they move here, the harder this is.  I hoped she would recover the love of learning that is inherent to everyone though often supressed, to become motivated and self-directed in her learning, to realize that if there’s something she wants to learn, she has the ability to learn it.  I wanted her to discover and recognize strengths and abilities that were dormant and unexplored when in school.

    It’s been a very gratifying period as she has blossomed in all of these areas and more.  At the beginning of this year, I told her that I was turning all control over her academics to her – whatever she wants to do is fine with me; if she needs help with something she can ask me and I’ll do what I can to support her.  And that’s what she’s done, with plenty of time left to explore her interests.

    My main regret about homeschooling her is that living where I do with the constraints that I have, homeschooling isn’t the expansive experience for her that I’d like it to be.  I’ve always enjoyed feeling connected and having my kids connected in different ways outside of our family to the larger community but that has been very challenged where I am and there’s very little I can do to change this.

    Last year we talked about if she’d be interested in going to high school when the time came and at that point she was adamantly against it. This year, however, she’s expressed an interest in attending.  Knowing that high schools are likely to be uncomfortable with a girl from a homeschool background (it’s a much less common here than in the US)  I’ve been grateful for my relationship with the administration of the local high school where my older two daughters attended.  They were very impressed with our girls (one teacher/principal told me that in all her years of teaching teen girls she rarely saw girls like them and it was clear to her that it was a result of homeschooling) and this gave me reassurance that she would be accepted without reservations.

    An Israeli friend has been encouraging me to look into a high school in a different city where her daughter commutes daily.  I decided against that school but then someone else recommended a different school that she thought would be good for dd14.  After hearing about it, it did sound like it could be a good fit.  My main concern was that the as soon as they heard she was homeschooled, she would be refused an entrance interview.

    I called the principal and had a nice chat with her and then we began scheduling an interview for dd14.  She told me to bring in her report cards for last year when we came for the interview and at this point, I explained that dd is homeschooled.  This is when how you present yourself and what you do makes a very big difference, but I knew that regardless of how I came across, I’m dealing with a conservative school system and school policies can be very rigid.

    I told her a bit about homeschooling and dd.  She told me the school has a high academic level and wanted to know if dd could academically keep up.  I assured her that dd is a bright and motivated learner, and the principal agreed to meet her.  I was relieved to have gotten past this potential obstacle.

    Dd and I went together to the interview and the principal clearly thought well of her so now it’s on to the next part of the acceptance process – the entrance exams.  The exams will be sometime after Chanukah for all the incoming ninth graders, and acceptance will be based on the results of the testing.

    As I told dd, I did my part to get her an interview, now it’s her job to do well on the entrance exam!

    I asked what the areas the tests would be covering and the principal told us it will be English, math, Jewish knowledge (need to recognize brief biblical quotes and be able to say who said it to whom and in what context) and Hebrew grammar.  The principal said she was confident that dd would do well on math and English which are the most heavily weighted portions of the test, and they’ll take into account that she’s not a native Hebrew speaker when grading the other two portions.  Dd14’s Hebrew isn’t fluent yet and I appreciated that the principal accepted this as reasonable for someone her age moving to Israel when she did, rather than being judgmental about it.

    Dd14 asked me to begin learning Hebrew grammar systematically with her today, so I pulled out a text that dd18 used when she started school here and we worked through the first lesson and plan to continue learning this together.  Ds15 (tenth grade) gave her his math text from last year if she wants to use that to prepare for the exam.  Her math skills are strong so this is to be sure she’s familiar with the Hebrew math vocabulary.

    She was a bit nervous about the Jewish knowledge portion- I asked the principal for a sample of the quotes and due to their brevity they were quite difficult – despite being able to translate them all I only recognized two out of ten.  But I told dd not to worry about it, to keep learning chumash on the schedule she’s on.  I want her to feel prepared for the test but at the same time, I have a longer term view on chumash than an entrance test; she’s acquiring solid textual skills in addition to knowledge of content and this is what’s most important.

    High school will be a big change for dd but this is part of what homeschooling is about; raising your kids to know what they want and helping them acquire the skills they need to be successful doing it.

    Avivah

  • When small comments make a big difference

    This week my kids were feeding crumbs to the fish in a pond when someone familiar walked by.

    I met this woman last year at a park and when I noticed her young daughter has cerebral palsy, felt comfortable asking questions that I would have hesitated about asking before Yirmiyahu was born.  There’s something about having a child with a disability diagnosis that makes it possible to have personal conversations without others feeling you’re prying.

    The mother told me her little girl was born dead, with the cord wrapped tightly around her neck.  The doctors succeeded in resuscitating her but not before suffering brain damage that caused cerebral palsy.  She has been under constant pressure from many people in her social circle to institutionalize her daughter or put her in foster care so she can ‘start fresh’.  ‘What do you need to saddled with the burden of raising this child?’ they said.  ‘Have a normal child and let someone else raise this one.’

    Should parents have a commitment to their unborn child to love him as he is when he is born, or is parental love conditional on a child meeting certain criteria from his first moments of life?

    Thanks to her mother’s determination and love, this three year old girl has made advancements that the doctors told her would never be possible.  Her physical disability is still quite apparent, though.  Back in the spring, her mother shared with me that she was grappling with a decision about where to send her daughter to preschool.  The only choice presented to her was in a different city, with facilities that were squashed and dismal. She was concerned about every aspect of this school, including the 45 minute ride there her daughter would have to make unaccompanied by her mother via the school van.

    I suggested to her that she consider looking locally, but she was told there was nothing suitable.  I shared my belief that it was important for her to find a place where she and her daughter both felt comfortable, to pursue the highest level of integration for her daughter that she could find.

    When I met her this week, I asked about what school choice they made.  Her eyes lit up as she told me that her daughter loves her preschool.  She found a school for children with special needs in the same city she lives, in fact very close to her neighborhood.  It services children whose disabilities aren’t very noticeable and her daughter has made huge strides in all areas.  I was delighted to hear how her daughter is thriving as a result of this choice.

    Then she told me, “It’s all thanks to you.”  I couldn’t even guess what she was talking about.  She reminded me that I encouraged her not to settle for what was being presented to them as the only option, that her daughter deserved a place where she would be feel secure and valued.  She told me I was the only one who ever said anything like this to her, who validated her and her daughter and this is what encouraged her to keep looking until she found a school that really met her daughter’s needs.

    Who would think a couple of short conversations could make such a big difference?

    Avivah

  • Sharing the wedding of a dear friend’s daughter

    I had a wonderful time at the wedding of my close friend’s daughter in Jerusalem last night!   She lives in the US and we’ve only seen each other once in the last fifteen years (not including last night), and it was very special to be able to share this event with her in person.  It was a beautiful, beautiful evening, very poignant and emotional for me after knowing the mother for almost thirty years and the bride since she was an infant.

    I was expecting that I’d hardly know anyone outside of the family members of the bride, but I was very pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the case! First, I had the pleasure of meeting a blog reader and her mother-in-law.  Then while I was speaking with them, I saw a friend for whom I made sheva brachos about 21 years ago, accompanied by her three teenage daughters (she still remembers spending Shabbos at our home when she was in early pregnancy with her oldest, now 20).  I saw her briefly at a get together arranged when I visited Israel in Feb. 2011 (before making aliyah was on the agenda), and before that it had been at least nine years since we saw one another.

    Then while talking to her, someone suddenly exclaimed, “Avivah!” and I turned to see someone excitedly approaching me who I couldn’t immediately identify.  You know when you’re not expecting to see someone you haven’t seen for a long time so you need a minute to place them?  A moment later I realized she was a neighbor and friend who I last saw 15 years ago – she then moved to Brazil and I hadn’t had any contact with her since then.  She had no idea I was in Israel, and I had no idea she was in Israel – it was a very wonderful mutual surprise!  We spent quite a bit of time catching up.

    Then when walking to the chuppa, I glanced at someone who simultaneously glanced at me, and we both said, “You look familiar!”  Turns out she was Yirmiyahu’s physical therapist at Shalva for the few times he went, over a year and a half ago.  What a lovely woman.  When the meal began, I happened to sit next to someone who recognized me from the homeschooling talk I gave in Telzstone in June.

    It turned out to be a very social evening that I thoroughly enjoyed, but all of these interactions were really the cherry on top of being able to be there when my dear friend’s oldest daughter got married.  I stayed in Jerusalem overnight and the next day we (me and the mother of the bride) were able to spend several hours chatting, which was amazing.  A good friend is an incredible gift and I am very blessed.

    And I’m also happy to be off of all those buses….I’m becoming an increasingly disgruntled and weary traveler.  🙂  I need at least a month of no long distance bus travel before I can mentally think about making that trip again.  Ugh.  I seriously feel like spending a day in bed.  I won’t belabor how difficult this trip was for me, but truly  every second of the traveling was worth it to share this life event with my friend!

    Avivah

  • No computer = more productivity for me!

    A few weeks ago, one of my children knocked my laptop off the table.  After I picked it up, the screen was making a rattling sound but it seemed to be working fine despite the sound.

    Last night, my screen suddenly stopped working.  I assume that whatever got loose at that time finally disconnected.  And despite the inconvenience of not having a working computer, I wasn’t too sorry about that since I appreciate not having the mental push/pull of thinking of things online that I need to do.

    I had a nice productive day today, from morning to night.  Sunday is always a busier day since there’s extra cleanup from Shabbos; in addition to the kitchen cleanup I took in four loads of dry clothes from the drying rack and put them away, washed and hung two more loads, cleaned the boys’ room together with them, ate breakfast, told the kids the parsha for the week at breakfast, davened with them, spent time with visiting family members from the US, went to the park with the kids and even had time for a long nap and a long session practicing my flute in addition to other things.

    It was nice to feel productive and relaxed because last week I felt incredibly unproductive.  I started my week with a trip to Jerusalem, which was an entire day trip.  Then I spent the next day recuperating from the exhaustion of my trip. Then Tuesday, I spent another entire day in Jerusalem (left at 6 am, back at 9:40 pm), then Weds. recuperating (I get super nauseous and headachy from traveling, that’s why I need a day to get back to myself), then Thursday busy with shopping and Shabbos preparations.  We enjoyed having three visiting family members in addition to three of our older kids home for Shabbos.

    And now I’m preparing to be in the Jerusalem area again, this time for the next two days.  This trip is for the wedding of a close friend’s daughter.  Since there aren’t buses running after the wedding back to Karmiel, I’ll be staying overnight in Jerusalem, then hopefully having time to visit with my friend before heading back home.  I’ll leave midday Monday and will be back Tuesday afternoon.

    I don’t enjoy the traveling or leaving the kids for so long, but I’m glad tomorrow’s trip is for a happy occasion.  And I’m also really glad to have gotten things in order today, spent time with everyone and just generally feel settled – it makes it easier to leave when I feel like I’ve been on top of things.

    Avivah

  • Accompanying dd18 to orthopedist and police station

    I spent a long day in Jerusalem yesterday, beginning with the bus ride there at 6 am.  I really could have taken a bus an hour later and gotten there with plenty of time to spare but dd19 was going on the earliest bus so I took the chance for some extra time with her and the only cost was waking up an hour earlier!

    The purpose of my visit was to accompany dd18 to the orthopedist to check on how her bone is healing.  When I told dd I was planning to come with her to the appointment, she told me it was ridiculous for me to come all the way to Jerusalem for a five minute doctor’s appointment.  (She knows what’s involved time and energy-wise for me to make the trip to Jerusalem – it’s a full day of traveling.)  I told her that I wasn’t asking her opinion about if it was a wise thing to do, just letting her know I’d be there!

    When we got to the orthopedist’s office, he spent less than a minute looking at her arm before telling us the bone was healing straight.  Then he spent the next few minutes of our visit on the phone, during which I joked with dd that she was very generous when she had estimated she’d have a five minute visit!

    We stayed in the clinic for quite a bit longer since I wanted to get dd’s cast replaced since it had been put on quite loosely, they had then sawed it open at the top along the length (maybe they had a concern about her arm swelling?) and it was beginning to break after just a week.  The orthopedist said it wasn’t necessary, it just needed to be repaired and referred us to the nurse to have it taken care of.  When we got there, the nurse took a look and when I told him it was supposed to be repaired, asked which doctor we spoke to and went to go speak to him.  The nurse came back and said the doctor said to replace it.

    Hmm.  Well, it’s what I wanted so no complaints there.  Then he told us we had two choices for a new cast – the traditional cast, or one that would be lighter, thinner (to more easily fit under clothing) and waterproof.  I asked him what the downside of the second cast would be since it seemed like an obvious choice, and he told me we’d have to pay extra for that cast.  Naturally.

    It was worth it to me to spend the money if it meant dd would be a bit more comfortable and so he gave her the new cast, which is made of a material that became available just a year ago.

    Then we headed to the police station to file the paperwork from the hospital.  I anticipated this would be a very quick errand but was totally wrong – we were there for over two hours.  Some of that was waiting for an investigator to be available and most of it was going over the accident in detail, repeatedly being asked the same questions again and again.  (And after all of that, tonight dd18 called to say that the investigator who came to the scene of the accident right after it happened – someone different than she spoke to at the station- said he has a couple more questions and he wants her to go back in to the station to answer them.)   After this she was giving an authorization form to give the hospital so that we aren’t financially responsible for the ambulance and hospital costs incurred as a result of the accident – the insurance of the car that hit her will cover it.

    As a result of the long time we spent at the police station, I ended up taking a bus home three hours later than I originally planned, and got home at 7:45 pm but it was worth it to be there with dd18.  Yes, she could have done everything herself and she would have.  But she went through much too much having to take care of herself after being hit by a car.  I had some peace of mind at the time that she was being taken by ambulance and assumed that meant she would be looked after.  I was wrong about that.

    She was taken to the emergency room and left in the waiting room until they opened at 8 am (there’s the second emergency room that’s open 24/7 where they took the other man in the ambulance who was hit by the same car and injured more seriously), then sent back and forth between different departments to get xrays, then a cast, then back to the original department again. No one accompanied her, pushed her in a wheelchair, nothing.  I was aghast and so upset when she told me about this two days later.  I’m very grateful to the young lady who got to the hospital to be with her as fast as she could, but she got there just a short time before dd was released so dd was on her own almost the entire time.

    Dd18 commented when we were at the clinic where the orthopedist was, “It’s very hard to get anyone’s attention in places like these.”  She’s right, it is.  That’s why you need someone to be there to advocate for you, because when you’re in pain and especially when in a state of emotional trauma and can hardly process what people are saying, you shouldn’t have to do these things for yourself.

    It was a full day and I always find a visit to Jerusalem exhausting, so today was a slower than usual day.  Tomorrow I’ll be going to Jerusalem again for something I had planned before dd had this appointment – actually, my end destination is Ramat Beit Shemesh, so I’ll be taking a bus from Jerusalem to there.  II’m looking forward to joining some homeschoolers at their weekly meetup there!

    Avivah

  • Update on dd18, finding perspective amidst terror

    First, to update you on dd18’s condition.  Thank G-d she is doing well; yesterday for the first time we didn’t hear the sound of shock and trauma in her voice when she spoke.  She has a cast on her right arm which makes doing the things we do in daily life difficult and draining, but she’s in a dorm where she has friends who have been wonderful.  She’s still in pain all over her body but she’s taking painkillers and with time this should pass.  Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.

    I haven’t been writing much in the last couple of weeks because the situation in Israel has been very hard.  It seems inappropriate to write about day to day things when the lives of so many have been turned upside down and destroyed, and I don’t have the words to write about the events that are happening here.  Last week I wanted to write about 26 year old Dalya Lemkos, purposely run over with a car and then stabbed to death by a terrorist; as soon as I saw her photo I knew she was a giving person with a heart of gold.  This week the horrors continued with the synagogue massacre in Jerusalem the day after dd18 was hit by a car.  Jews wrapped in prayer shawls were attacked in the midst of prayer with meat cleavers, an axe and guns.

    There are so many more events than this taking place every single day; only the worst of the attacks are reported.  Even here in Karmiel there was an attempt by an Arab to run down a soldier last week (we have a lot of Arabs in our area and have peaceful relations with them; they are doctors, store owners, security guards; they live in our neighborhoods and shop in our stores).  I have written and rewritten and rewritten again thoughts on what is happening, and posted none of it.

    Rebbetzin Tzipora Heller is a world-renowned Torah educator who lives in Har Nof, the Jerusalem neighborhood where the massacre took place.  Her son-in-law and twelve year old grandson were present when the attack took place; her grandson escaped to safety but his father was critically injured when attacked with an axe.  He miraculously regained consciousness yesterday.  I am grappling with trying to keep a G-d oriented focus on the tragedies the Jewish people are suffering now, and Rebbetzin Heller shared the following today, which was helpful to me and I believe will be helpful to all of you.   (My added clarifications are  in parentheses.)

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    >>Dear friends,

    So many of you have showed concern and written, and even more of you have davened. I have no words to tell you how much this means not only to me, but to every one of us. Thank G-d, Shmuli (her son in law)  is much better. He is aware, able to communicate and reminded a friend that he is only giving him his seat on the morning bus to Mir (his yeshiva) temporarily. That doesn’t mean that the story is over. If we closed the book here it would be a cruel denial of our having lived through a pogrom that left Har Nof with four new widows, and 24 new orphans.

    The four men who were killed were buried, and their death caused many of us to rethink our ideas about what death is really about. Is dying a brutal death at the hands of people you never met and certainly don’t threaten in any way a senseless desecration of life? Is dying for no reason other than the fact that you are a Jew a meaningless tragedy? Death is never sweet for those who are left behind, but there is some comfort in knowing that the death of these four men was a reflection of the way that they chose to live.

    Their deaths had meaning.

    The men who died in Kehillas Benei Torah died as they lived; they were dedicated to living with emunah and beginning their days with dedication. They were killed for not being Muslim.  When Miri (her daughter) received the call from the hospital social worker telling her to get to Hadassah (hospital) as soon as possible and not to come alone was one of the worst moments that anyone could have.  All four people in the car spent the twenty minute ride saying all of the variations of  “I can’t believe that this can be happening. It sounds terrible” than you can possibly imagine.

    When we were allowed into the recovery room to see Shmuli after his initial surgery there were no tears, we were too shell-shocked.  It takes only seconds to assume a new sort of normal.  When I asked the nurse what the trickle of blood that I saw flowing out of Shmuli’s ear, she told me that they were able to control the majority of the flow, and that this isn’t really significant.  When they do the second surgery they’ll take care of it. The answer sounded reasonable and left me feeling relieved. I had accepted that blood coming out of a man’s head was normal, and that a second surgery was something to look forward to.  I don’t know what Miri was thinking, but the one thing that I know never crossed her mind or mine was regret.

    Regret

    Neither of us wished that he would have stayed home from the synagogue Tuesday any more than Sunday or Monday.  Neither of us wished that Mordechai would be the kind of kid who doesn’t like to go to shul with his dad.  We both know that the villain of the story isn’t the co-incidences of time and place that led them to be in Kehillas Bnei Torah Tuesday morning.  The villain is the man with the cleaver and the man with the gun. They are the stars of the tragedy but you can’t let yourself be blind to the fact that they are supported by a cast of thousands.  The countless kids who are taught hatred from their earliest youth for anyone who isn’t them. The kadi in the mosque who spews out Itbach al Yahud (kill the Jews) in his Friday sermon after duly praising Al-lah the Compassionate. There are bit players in the ongoing drama.

    They have made the media the message, and the subtle and not so subtle anti-Semitism disguised pathological hatred for Israel all deserve billing.  Neither Miri nor I thought about them at the moment.  We were both aware of something much bigger, more real than the ongoing soap opera called Them against Us.  It’s called faith in G-d, who can turn things around in a moment, and whose will isn’t known to us, but His chessed (loving kindness) is.  It was the only thing that mattered in the recovery room.

    Emunah (Faith)

    Emunah means knowing that everything has one source, knowing that there is purpose and meaning.  It means that you will one day account for your life to the One who gave it to you.  It means that you are living on one page of an endless book, and the only thing that really matters is what kind of person you choose to become.

    Choose Light

    You can choose light.  You can choose learning.  You can choose acts of kindness.  You can choose closeness to the wounded by continuing to daven for Shmuel Yerucham ben Baila, Chaim Yechiel ben Malka and Eitan ben Sara.  The rabbanim have strongly recommended lighting Shabbos candles earlier.  Maharal (Torah sage who lived hundreds of years ago) tells us that the light of these candles is the same light that Torah sheds.  You can transcend your limitations and your attachment to materialism by giving charity.

    A fund has been started for the widows and orphans left behind.  Donations can be sent to Kupat Ha’Ir, Victims of Har Nof Massacre Fund №: 20159, which is earmarked for the victims of Har Nof’s tragedy.  Various funds have been started, but the Rabbanim of the neighborhood have recommended this one because they are able to provide you with an American tax-deductible receipt to those who wish them. Choose to be part of their lives at this time. After all, you are part of the family.  (Edited to add – here is an online link where you can donate – https://www.kupat.org/contribute/?source=0&fund=66.)

    Post this to your friends who want to look beyond the surface.

    Love always,

    Tziporah<<

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    Please click here to see the message from the four widows from the Har Nof attack of what they request our response be. 

    With that I wish you all a peaceful Shabbos, as well a wish for perspective, hope and growth from all that the Jewish people are suffering not only in Israel but worldwide at this time.

    Avivah