Avivah Werner

Category: aliyah

  • And now a staph infection…

    (In case this appears in your inbox, don’t be worried – I just corrected the title of this old post and sometimes this causes it to post as something new.)

    We’ve had a doozy of a time trying to get our health insurance established here in Israel.  To recap, as returning citizens, every family member over the age of 18 has to pay almost 10,000 shekels each (approximately $2700) in order to start our membership in the local health care clinics.  Half of this is refunded within a few weeks, the other half is refunded after a year.

    Dh and I figured this expense into our plans, but we didn’t anticipate all of the difficulties in taking care of what we thought would be pretty straightforward.  The weeks stretched on, we repeatedly went to the National Insurance office, and dh and I finally decided to stop trying to fight a battle that can’t be won.  We were at the point that we needed to have the refunded money in hand already to cover our living expenses for the coming month, and had very little faith that if we did pay the money, that we’d get it back. We’ve just seen too much inaccuracy and incompetency, and we didn’t want to risk money we need for our living expenses on office clerks doing what they’re supposed to do, after seeing that they don’t know what they’re doing.  And we were warned that they like to get as much money as they can, and refund as little as possible.  We can’t afford to not get our money back as promised.

    So dh went to the local health clinic to find out about getting private insurance for the next four months (after six months of being a resident, the national insurance will automatically kick in without having to pay the large fees).  When he got there, the clerk looked at the computer and told him that I and the kids are already covered!  This was such a nice surprise, and it came just in time.

    Ds12 has had a really bad case of chickenpox.  He was burning up for a few days, the inside of his mouth is covered with pox and it makes it very difficult for him to eat or drink anything, and to top it off, he has an infected ingrown toenail that I’ve been working on treating for the last couple of weeks but still looks pretty bad.  I was relieved that we were able to bring down his 105 degree fever, though it went back up to 102 yesterday afternoon.  (I shared about natural chickenpox remedies here , and in the comments, shared some of what I was doing about the fever.)

    You know the phrase, ‘no rest for the weary’?  Well, that’s what came to mind when the morning his fever broke, just a couple of hours later he showed me his noticeably swollen ankle.  This worried me, and I asked dh to make an appointment with a doctor – I didn’t yet have any of the info about the health clinic or I would have taken care of it myself.  He went to make the appointment, and an hour and a half later, ds18 told me that ds12’s foot was turning black and he was losing feeling in his toes.  Yes, this freaked me out.

    I was so anxious that by the time dh got home a very short time later, I was really uptight.  He said there was a line at the clinic, and because of the Sukkos holiday, the clinic closed mid day instead of at 7 pm,  so he made an appointment for the next morning since he didn’t think it was urgent.  “Tomorrow??  No, no, now, he needs to be seen immediately, it can’t wait until tomorrow!” – yep, I was really stressed.  I rarely take my kids to the doctor, and the very fact I had asked for the appointment was a sign that it was important.

    Ds18 told me that ds 12 overheard me talking to dh and it was making him stressed out and to calm down.  But at times when I’m afraid I’m dealing with something serious I don’t have the tools for, the unknown combines with my desire to take the very best care of my children possible and feels like a huge emotional weight.

    Ds called the clinic to find out what kind of medical help was available.  Oh, nothing, until tomorrow morning.  How can we live in a city with 52,000 people and there’s no medical help for that amount of time?!?  Well, it seems there’s some kind of emergency station a few minutes away from us, but it’s not clear to me what kind of help is available there, and when the nurse on the phone heard ds’s symptoms, she said there are sometimes complications of chickenpox in older kids that affect their joints and it sounded like that might be what’s happening, and to get him to an emergency room right away.

    Easier said than done.  Since our move, we don’t have a car, and we don’t even know where the closest hospital is.  This is such a huge difference from having a car and a major hospital five minutes away, which was our situation until two months ago.  Since moving to Israel,  I use public transportation (and enjoy it!), but taking ds to the hospital by bus wasn’t an option.

    We called a couple of friends with cars to ask if they could drive us to the emergency room in a neighboring city, but they weren’t available.  We then called the person we hired a number of times to pick up the furniture we bought from private sellers on a number of occasions to ask him to take us, and as soon as he heard we needed to go to the emergency room, said, “I’ll be there right away”.  And he was.   He’s not a close personal friend, and we called him assuming we’d pay him a few hundred shekels for the drive.  He insisted on waiting two or three hours at the hospital, and when he brought dh and ds home, refused payment.  Can you imagine that?  He said the main thing is that my son is healthy.  We are so blessed with good people in our lives.  (Dd16 made a couple of big gorgeous loaves of challah that we’re planning to take to him today as a tiny token of appreciation.)

    At the hospital, they took an xray, and when the podiatrist who was supposed to look at it finally arrived, the xray wasn’t loading for him on his computer.  He was impatient, took a quick look at ds’s leg, and told dh that there was no need to take the xray, it’s not a joint problem and not directly connected to the chicken pox, but is a skin infection that gets into cuts or wounds (in this case it was next to a pox).  (This is what ds12 told me earlier in the day, that the pox right next to it was hurting and he thought it was connected.)  That was a relief.

    Dh asked him about the ingrown toenail (which looks bad and though I’ve been treating it, would like to know it’s healing properly), and the doctor says, “It’s an ingrown toenail.”   Umm, yes, we know that.  The question is, is it healing normally or do we need to do something else?  “Come back another time for that, right now we’re dealing with the foot.”  Is he joking??  He’s a foot specialist looking at swelling a few inches from that toe, and after they were waiting two hours for him, he can’t take one minute to tell us anything without making a separate visit?  Sheesh.

    He prescribed antibiotics and an antibiotic ointment for the foot, as well as a painkiller.  This is the first time ds12 has ever taken antibiotics or used an antibiotic cream (none of our kids except ds18 have taken antibiotics until now – ds18 had them twice).  I don’t know if it’s any better than the salve that I made that we use, but we’re giving him antibiotics and continuing to keep doing what we’ve been doing (mega doses of vitamic c, chicken broth, olive leaf tea) along with adding in probiotics to offset the negative effects of antibiotics.

    So thank G-d though it looks bad and it’s very painful, this morning he was limping but able to walk on the foot (last night he had to walk like a crab, sideways, and pull his leg after him), and hopefully it will be better soon.  It’s a relief just to know what you’re dealing with, you know?

    And ds didn’t mind the trip to the hospital – dh bought him some ice cream (ds told me the cafeteria was basically a small room filled with snacks – you’d hope in a place dedicated to healing this wouldn’t be the case!), and during the drive there, he enjoyed seeing an Arab “from a thousand years ago” in traditional garb with a shepherd’s crook herd twenty goats down a sidewalk in the city of Nahariya, which is where the hospital he went to was.  Social studies.  🙂

    You want to hear something funny but not funny?  Last night, ds12 told me he got worried when he heard that I was worried.  (I tend to be pretty laid back about heath issues and handle things that come up with out getting too worked up.)  I told him that I got worried when I heard ds18 describe his leg to me (as above), and ds12 said, “What? I didn’t say I lost feeling in my toe!  He touched my toe and I said it didn’t hurt!”  And it wasn’t turning black, either, though the healing skin is a darkish pink color, it was just ds18’s way of describing it – so though I’m glad we took ds to see a doctor and had already asked dh to make the appointment before ds18’s description, my extreme worry was based on the equivalent of ‘broken telephone’!

    And PS – this morning dh went to the health clinic and the computer now says that I don’t have health insurance.  🙁  Apparently it was delayed in processing all the relevant information.  But the kids still do, and we had it in place when we really needed it!

    (This post is linked to Real Food Wednesdays.)

    Avivah

  • Our wonderful new home

    Back in March, I began looking for an apartment for our family to buy in Israel.  After a bit of looking, we found the apartment we are currently living in, but there were seven weeks of delays after we and the seller agreed on the price and details of the sale.  There were so many delays and issues that kept coming up that it seemed hard to believe it could or would work out, so much so that at one point I finally told our real estate agent that we needed to move on to look at other apartments rather than spend so much time on a deal that wasn’t moving forward.

    Finally, in the first week of June, we signed a sales contract.  Prior to commiting to the final sales date, I asked our mortgage broker how long it would take for the paperwork to be processed.  He told us 6 – 8 weeks, and being the cautious sort of person that I am, we decided not to enter the apartment until ten weeks later, to be absolutely positive the loan would close before we moved in.  Well, man plans and G-d laughs, because our apartment wasn’t ready when we needed to be here.  Some of you remember that we had to delay our flight an hour before leaving to the airport because of yet another issue that arose, and the final loan paperwork didn’t close until a week and a half after our delayed arrival to Israel, twelve full weeks after we signed the purchase contract.

    When we went into Jerusalem to sign the final paperwork, I was taken aback to see our file was literally about 400 pages thick.  The broker told me that if even one detail on one paper is wrong, it delays everything.  No wonder there’s always some kind of hold up somewhere or the other.  We had some major complications with our purchase, and our lawyer, real estate agent, and mortgage broker each individually told us it was an unusually difficult process.  (That’s saying a lot since home buying is known to be a drawn out and complicated process.  So different from buying a home in the US.)

    A few days after we signed the final mortgage paperwork, we went to the lawyer and signed some more papers for him.  Just when I thought we must finally be finished – how many papers could we possibly sign?? – he told me to wait for a call from someone in his office within the next couple of days, and then we’d need to sign more papers and give them more checks.  (When you buy an apartment here, you just have to loosen your purse strings as much as you can, because the unexpected expenses can be quite extensive.)

    Five weeks later, I got a call from his office to come in and finish up the process, and this week I went in and paid them another 1000 shekels for two different offices to write our name on the papers as owners.  And it looks like this is actually the official end of the paper trail  – it’s so nice after all this time to finally be at the end of the purchase!  Throughout the entire process, I really worked to stay focused on a positive outcome, as unlikely as it seemed.  And now, our personal miracle is a reality, and we’re living in the home we bought in Israel!

    Someone who rented our apartment several years ago met me and asked me, “How are you managing there?”, with the implication that it was tiny and we must be squished.  This just goes to show that if what you have is adequate or not is so much determined by how you look at things!  I love, love, love my apartment, and feel like Hashem (G-d) helped us get the perfect place for us, and I didn’t know how perfect until we got here.

    First of all, our location is amazing.  I had never come here, and though I looked at Google Maps to get an idea of where it was located, I had no idea what this neighborhood is like.  It’s extremely central, just a two minute walk to the local and long distance buses, and also just a few minutes to shopping.  This is hugely convenient for anyone, particularly a family without a car!

    Two of the littles on the steps of our building

    Usually the most central neighborhoods tend to be less desirable, and the nicer homes are further out in the suburbs. This is true here in Karmiel as well, with the highest concentration of private homes being in the more distant neighborhoods.  But my neighborhood is an exception to this – it’s comprised of almost exclusively private homes, with the exception of my street, and it’s an especially nice neighborhood.  It was designed to be an oasis in the middle of the city, and to create a visual/sound hedge betwen the private homes and the busier central area it’s part of, the builders designed it so that all on four sides they are buffeted in some way.  My street is part of that barrier, though it doesn’t feel like it.   One side of the street is semi-detached homes that back up to the private homes, and then across from that are our apartment buildings, with just ten apartments in each building.  There are four apartments on the entry floor and first floor (two apartments are  one flight down), and of these four, two face the quiet inner street, and two face the busy main street.  The apartment buildings are just a flight high, so we’re the top floor.  🙂  (The two bottom apartments have gardens, then the first two apartments on the main floor also have gardens.  All the others have porches.)  My apartment faces the quiet inner street, and though I’m incredibly close to a busy shopping area, it doesn’t feel like it at all – when I look out my windows (and my apartment is a flight up), I see greenery on almost all sides.

    Something else very nice about my neighborhood is that it was built to discourage casual vehicle traffic.  Almost every street is a dead end, including mine, and the few cars that go by belong to residents and visiting friends.   We don’t have people zooming through at high speeds, or people looking for a shortcut to where they want to go.  Even as far as foot traffic, the people walking through are the people who live here.

    As far as the apartment itself, we have a very nice sized kitchen that allows us to have two fridges and a very large oven.  I get a wonderful breeze through the window on the side porch which abuts the kitchen, where our washing machine and drying lines are.  It’s so convenient to have the washing machine close by rather than down in the basement, and it makes it easier to keep on top of the laundry.  There are gorgeous orange blossoms right outside this window that I love seeing every time I hang laundry or even glance outside.  I also have a small closet here that I’ve turned into my pantry; I store boxes of the veggies I buy on the shelves.

    To the left you can see how close we are to shopping, but it doesn't feel city-like

    Then, there’s our salon (living room/dining room).  It’s a nice size, and open to the kitchen, which will allow us to have a nice amount of guests without running out of space.  We have a small porch off of the salon, with a beautiful view.  It’s not large but it gets plenty of use; the day starts with the littles running outside to watch the garbage trucks or call goodbye to a departing family member, and ends late in the evening when dh and I sometimes sit outside together to chat.

    You can see the hills surrounding Karmiel in the distance – they're not far at all

    Then we have three bedrooms on the main floor. The bedrooms are compact but allow for two people to comfortably share a room, with room for guests to sleep over as needed.  Two girls chose the bedroom at the end of the hall, which feels very private since the large trees growing in the garden below create a visual screen for their window.   The other bedroom overlooks the street, which as I said, is a pretty street.

    The master bedroom is the same size as the other bedrooms, but it has its own bathroom and walk-in closet.  We converted the walk-in closet to an office – it’s small – only 1 meter x 2.10 meters – but I realized that by putting in a large desk with a built in bookcase that was left behind, we could have a compact but very workable home office.  My husband really, really appreciates this, and I love the luxury of having an office – our computer and desk were always in the main living area before this.   Deciding to use the closet space in this way meant that we had to put a freestanding closet in the bedroom itself.

    Just  yesterday we finally got bedroom furniture for our room, and it’s so nice to have it – there’s something especially nice about sleeping on a comfortable bed and being able to organize our belongings!   Though I initially wanted to get dark wood furniture, I realized that the room would look too small and cramped if I were to do that.  So I decided on something very different than what I was initially intending – our new furniture is a pale color, and two of the four closet doors are mirrored, creating a feeling of increased space.   We have windows on two sides of the room, so there’s lots of air and light.

    Upstairs are the boys’ rooms.  The older boys have a private bathroom with a shower in their room, which the littles can use as needed.  It’s very light and spacious – just yesterday ds12 told me how much they like it. The littles have a room next to that; when we have male guests who are sleeping over, we plan to move ds9 and ds12 from their room to sleep in the littles room, where there is  space for them.  If we have female guests, they’ll either share ds16’s room or she’ll move into her sisters’ room temporarily.  (This is what we agreed on with her when we let her have this room for her own.)  It feels so luxurious to me to be able to host guests with so little difficulty.

    Initially I wanted an apartment that was all on one floor, but having two bedrooms upstairs has been an unexpected boon.  The upstairs isn’t connected to any other part of our building on any sides, so they can go upstairs and make as much noise as they want, and the only ones to hear it are us.  This is great, since instead of telling them not to play noisy games inside, I can tell them to go upstairs and play there!  In an apartment building you need to be more aware of noise than you would otherwise be, and having a ‘safe zone’ is something I really appreciate.  I also think the boys like the additional privacy of having bedrooms in a different part of our home from everyone else.

    The windows (except the bathrooms) all have screens , something that you can’t expect when buying or renting a home here, and I was so grateful that we didn’t have to begin our time here battling mosquitoes in the nightime!  I wasn’t expecting it, and it feels especially nice when you don’t expect something and then you get it!  Since our apartment is a flight up, the air flow is wonderful and we haven’t used any fans or air conditioning since we were here.  Our ceilings are eight feet high, but feel like they’re ten feet high, and combined with the open layout of the main area, it lends to a feeling of spaciousness.

    We also have an additional storage room on the bottom floor of our apartment building – I haven’t yet been in there, but the bikes are stored there, and it’s nice to have the extra storage space.

    Oh, and I already have two friends on the street who live just a couple of doors away, and in general, my neighbors are all pleasant.  (Update: before Rosh Hashana, we sent apple cakes to all the neighbors in our building, in addition to a few others.  When we went downstairs to the neighbor who called the police to complain about the noise, the wife apologized for making problems for us.  That was unexpected, and very nice!)

    I feel incredibly abundant with all that we have here, with plenty of room for all of us!  Interestingly, all of the kids said they like our apartment better than our old house, and even though they know it technically has fewer square feet, it feels bigger.  To the person who asked how we’re managing, I told her with a big smile, “Wonderfully, thank you!”

    Avivah

  • So happy to be living here!

    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

    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

    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

    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

  • Rosh Hashana is in the air!

    This past Thursday, I went to the supermarket and got a lot of the chicken on sale, intending to come back the next morning for more since I bought the last two whole chickens. But life being as it is, I didn’t make it there on Friday morning, and instead did the last of the Rosh Hashana shopping Tuesday afternoon instead.

    I was unpleasantly surprised to see that just four days later, the chicken was double the price of what I’ve been paying until now, but there are so many nice things about being in Israel for Rosh Hashana that I’d rather focus on them! (Unfortunately, food prices shooting up like this right before Jewish holidays was common in the US as well.)

    Firstly, the focus of all the advertising in the entire city is on the holiday of Rosh Hashana. In the US, Halloween advertising is in full swing, but here it simply doesn’t exist. Although Karmiel is a predominantly secular city, it’s still a Jewish city, and signs everywhere proclaim, ‘Shana tova!. People everywhere – cashiers, bus drivers, people speaking casually in passing – are wishing one another a happy new year. I enjoyed hearing the woman behind me on the bus blessing whoever she was talking to on her cell phone with beautiful wishes for the coming year.

    In the produce section of the supermarkets, the symbolic vegetables and fruits eaten on Rosh Hashana are prominently displayed. Honey cakes, grape juice,and other Rosh Hashana foods are on the aisle end caps. As I was choosing some guavas to use for our new fruit this year, I asked the woman across the aisle if they can be cooked or are only eaten fresh. She told me she eats them fresh, and then added that she’s buying them to have for her shechiyanu blessing (blessing on a new fruit) for Rosh Hashana. This, from someone not visibly religious at all!

    Dd15 and dd16 were on the bus on their way to do some clothing shopping for the holiday when some spikey haired teenagers with piercings got on the bus. Imagine their delight when these teenagers went around the bus giving out Rosh Hashana notes and samples of apples and honey to the passengers!

    The younger kids were walking down the sidewalk when they suddenly saw a balloon blowing in their direction. They ran to catch it, and a man passing by ran to catch another one for them, thinking it was theirs. There was writing on it, and they brought it to me to ask what it said. Apparently, a class of schoolchildren had done a pre Rosh Hashana activity, and had been asked to write their wishes for the coming year on a balloon. On the balloons we have are wishes for peace in the coming year, and a hope that G-d will send rain. A beautiful thing to see blowing around.

    In the US, I lived in a very large Jewish community, a wonderful community filled with everything we needed for our Jewish life. Just a five minute drive from my home was the largest kosher supermarket in the US, where all the foods for Rosh Hashana would have been prominently displayed, the advertising would have focused on Rosh Hashana….but here it feels different. Here in Israel, we’re part of our people, living in our country.

    Shana tova u’metuka – a good and sweet New Year – to you all, and may we all see revealed abundance and blessings in all areas of our personal and communal lives!

    Avivah

  • Helping kids adjust to a house that isn’t yet furnished

    >>How have your kids responded to the time it has taken to set up a “homey home”?>>

    When you’re just a couple, you can enjoy the adventure of living with nothing, being in a new country, and soak up all the new experiences.  But for a family with children, it’s very disconcerting and unsettling to be living out of boxes, not have ready meals, etc, and that affects their ability to positively perceive all the new encounters they have in the course of a day.  The more children you have, the more difficult this aspect of things can be, and their unhappiness can quickly dominate the home environment.  Kids need to have the security of home being home before being able to more fully embrace other aspects of their new lives.

    Our priority was to get the most important things into place quickly so the kids would feel like we were living here, not like we were having a bad camping trip.  Part of why we elected to buy things at a second hand store that were overpriced and not exactly the quality we wanted was because we could get it quickly and we wanted the kids to have a sense of being settled.  It’s not a coincidence that the only furniture I haven’t yet purchased is what dh and I need; we don’t love not having beds or a place to store things, but we can manage without losing our bearings.

    Having said that, I’ll share what we did in advance to make this aspect of things a bit easier.  Before coming, we spoke to the kids about the reality of different things we’d be facing as soon as we got here.  I know that most people focus on the excitement and privilege of making aliyah, and that’s wonderful.  But there can be a huge disconnect and letdown when those people arrive and see that there are very real challenges in living here.

    I knew that an empty apartment would not be a welcoming place to live, and wanted our children to be aware of this in advance so they wouldn’t be disappointed by the difference between their expectations and reality.  I really tried to make sure they would have an accurate sense of the challenges we’d immediately have, and at the time I wondered if I might have been playing down the excitement of the move too much.  One time, ds12 said, “If everything is going to be so bad when we get there, why are we going???”  But I now see their amazingly smooth transition, and feel it was in large part because they were emotionally prepared for all of this, even though the time frame from the decision to move and the move itself were relatively short.

    One of the issues I knew we’d face immediately was that we would have no furniture or appliances, and explained what that would mean.  I told them that meals would be very, very simple – that we’d be buying bread, yogurts, and vegetables daily for very basic meals until we got a fridge and stove.  I stressed this meant no hot or cooked food, and told them that there are no takeout places in Karmiel (with what we consider a reliable kosher supervision) so we wouldn’t be able to go out for a change of pace.

    We used a large part of our precious luggage allotment (:)) to bring sleeping bags, to have a place for us to sleep until we got beds.  This wasn’t comfortable at all, but it was still a place to lay down, and we were able to tell the kids in advance that this is what would be happening so when they got here they were ready for that.

    Another thing that I did that was to anticipate how we would keep things organized in the absence of closets.  It’s very hard to live out of suitcases for an extended period of time, and not being able to organize your things and find what you need makes a move to a new place much harder.  In order to offset this, I chose to bring 18 gallon Rubbermaid storage containers.

    In the past, I had used these to organize clothing storage in the attic, and as I emptied the storage and gave things away, I stacked the emptied containers in a pile for use in our packing.  We filled each storage container with clothing or whatever else we were packing, then put each container inside a large box, and then packed things like sleeping bags or larger clothing in the space between the box and the container.  Almost every standard sized box that I packed was done in this way.

    When we got here, I unpacked everything the first night, sorting everything into personal containers for each person. Everyone was then given his box, and these were lined up along the wall in the room their sleeping bags were in.  It was definitely squished, with sleeping bags almost totally lining the floors, but instead of the general chaos you might expect, each of them then had a way to keep their stuff relatively contained until we bought freestanding clothing closets.

    This was a huge help in the house staying neat, and for all of us to find what we needed each morning.  As we’ve purchased closets for the kids, the emptied containers have been transferred to other uses around the house, so bringing them was helpful in the short and long term.

    When we did get furniture, the kids were so appreciative for each item.  They knew what it was like not having it, and saw how much effort I put into getting it.

    So emotional preparation was an important step for us.  The second aspect wasn’t about what we did in advance, but what we did when we got here.   Kids take their cues from us to a large degree, and we tried to focus on the positives of being here and not complain about the difficulties.  When things would happen that could have been very frustrating, I would think about how we were weaving a quilt of our aliyah memories that one day we’d enjoy reminiscing about!

    Avivah

  • English speakers using Israeli classifieds

    >>you mentioned that yad2 is in Hebrew; do you think that you could’ve managed all these purchases without the language skills, maybe just some broken phrases?<<

    I think without Hebrew it would have been really intimidating to have gone through Yad2 or any other Israeli classifieds site.  My Hebrew is okay, but I have an American accent and find it harder to communicate by phone – I was procrastinating about making calls at first because I felt self-conscious about speaking to a stranger on the phone in Hebrew.  Then I told myself that people all over the world immigrate to different countries and have accents when speaking the language of their new country, so I shouldn’t be embarrassed.

    But I did have one uncomfortable thing happen once!  I called about a set of twin beds, and when the woman answered, said, “I’m calling about the beds you advertised on Yad2.”  Sometimes people aren’t expecting a call about this and they for a minute aren’t sure what you’re referring to, so I wasn’t shocked when she said, “What???”  I repeated myself, and the elderly woman said to me, “I can’t understand you, what language are you speaking??”  I laughed and said, “Hebrew, I think!”  At the end of the conversation she told me my accent is so heavy that she couldn’t understand what I was saying (while it’s clearly an American accent, relatively it’s not overwhelmingly strong), and while she surely didn’t mean it this way, I felt embarrassed.  Generally Israelis compliment me on my Hebrew and ask me where in the US I’m from, but after hearing this for the next day felt very self-conscious when speaking to anyone in Hebrew.   Then I called back the next day for someone and realized she has a hearing problem, so that helped me to put her comments into perspective!

    I think if you don’t speak much Hebrew, you’d probably be able to browse the classifieds and try to decipher the descriptions, but when it comes to calling people about it, you’ll be best off with someone willing to speak to people to you.  You’ll not only be asking specifics about the description of the item you’re interested in, but about making arrangements to see it, transport it, take it apart, addresses…you’ll want to be clear about what you’re saying, and know what they’re saying in response!

    What I did in the US with Craigs List was to conduct most of this question/planning process by email, which was very efficient.  But my computer isn’t yet set up to send Hebrew (anyone with tips on how to switch over, please let me know!), and though many Israelis speak and read English, I don’t feel comfortable emailing in English; I feel like it’s presumptuous.

    I met someone from Poland who made aliyah a few days before us – the only family in all of Poland in the last year to make aliyah, actually!  I asked her something at a bus stop, then we got into a conversation, and I told her when she was ready to buy furniture, that I would be happy to help her navigate the yad2  classifieds and could recommend someone affordable to help her get them home.  She doesn’t speak or read Hebrew at all, but when she came over a couple of weeks ago (we had just gotten our internet hooked up a couple of days before that), I went through the ads of basic items she was interested in so that she could get an idea of what the prices were on those things, for the quality that interested her.  She’ll be moving at the end of September from the absorption center and I told her to come back whenever she’s ready to do more focused looking.

    People are willing to help but so far my experience is that you have to be very clear about what you need, because otherwise you don’t get any help, just lots of “Welcome, if there’s anything you need, let me know, have a good and easy adjustment.”  It sounds nice, but it’s of no practical use at all, even if someone is well-intended and really means it.  So let someone with the language skills know that when they have time, you’d appreciate a bit of help with this!

    Avivah

  • Cooking chicken gizzards

    Living here in Israel, my food buying habits have somewhat changed (I haven’t yet been able to find a bulk supplier and the stores here are obviously different), but overall my approach to shopping frugally has stayed the same.

    One strategy that I consistently apply is to buy and use primarily what is on sale or cheap. This past week, I saw that chicken gizzards were on sale. In the US, gizzards were about $3.29 a pound, so they were always too expensive to buy.  But here, I was able to buy a kilo (2.2 pounds) for 7 shekels, which at about a dollar a pound, is the least expensive meat option I’ve seen so far.  So true to my pattern, I bought ten kilos (22 pounds); a few days before I had bought all they had left, just five kilos.

    I brought them home and immediately put them all in a large pot to cook.  Gizzards take a long time to cook – if they are undercooked, they are chewy and have a not quite pleasant consistency – but if they are well cooked, they are as soft as butter and really tasty.  The key to cooking gizzards is to cook them long enough, until they are very soft.  My kids love these, and told me it’s their favorite kind of meat now!

    The other thing about gizzards is they tend to be salty.  They become less salty with cooking, but still are saltier than your average cut of chicken.  The way I deal with this is that I use less salt in the recipe when I’m using gizzards, and it balances out well.

    It takes the same amount of gas to cook a small amount as a large amount, so it made sense to cook all that I had at one time.  That helps keep fuel costs down.  Also, cooked chicken takes up less space in the freezer than raw chicken, so it’s more space efficient as well.

    Once they were all cooked well, I drained them out, saving the gravy to cook with. I chopped them up since I plan to use them in various dishes and that’s the size that will work best.  Then I bagged them into one kilogram packages, and froze them.

    Thirteen bags of cooked, chopped, and frozen chicken gizzards, ready to use!

    What can you do with chicken gizzards?  Well, once prepared like this, you can use them in the same way you would use chopped chicken.  There are so many possibilities, and utilizing these inexpensive chicken parts has been a very frugal and delicious addition to our meals.   And preparing them in this way means that I have a nice supply in the freezer for a number of meals, ready to go!

    Avivah