Pesach Reflections

This pesach seemed to whizz by. We had a nice mix of going out to friends, venturing out on trips and spending time at home. We had seder by the Rabbi, which was most memorable due to the super strength maror which literally reduced us all to tears. I think steam was almost visible spouting out of our ears, in true cartoon fashion.

The kids had a great pesach break. Israel offers a wide range of chol chamoed family activities. Ours decided on a trip to the desert and learned a lot about the terrain – from identifying trees with hidden reserves of water within their branches to a bumpy camel ride.

I have decided that the magnetic messages we put on our fridge are a great barometer to life in the Benjamin house. They tend to sum up how we feel. We only have one of most letters so we have to be quite inventive in what we say. During pesach, this is what we wrote:

This week the fridge reads:

I will post up our fridge messages in my blogs; they probably say more about us than anything else I could write.

So, back to normal now. The kids are back at school and it is a return to the daily grind for us. When I dropped my daughter off at nursery today the pictures of matza and wine were down and up in their place were blue and white balloons in readiness for Remembrance and Independence Days. With hardly time to draw breath we seem to be moving on to the next holiday already. .

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com

Pesach's A-Coming

Nearly there…. oven scrubbed, fridge dismantled, defrosted and de-chametzed, house starting to take shape. The pesach cleaning seems to be on schedule and, as fatigue starts to kick in, the end, thankfully appears to be in sight.

I’m looking forward sitting in my clean house without noticing a cobweb, some crumbs, some net curtains that need a clean. It will be nice to be able to sit down without subconsciously making a mental checklist of all those things still left to do.

Whilst my head has been full of the bigger picture it was interesting to find out via an email group posting, the answer to one of pesach’s timeless quandaries.

HOW TO CUT A MATZO IN HALF http://fun.mivzakon .co.il/Video. aspx?http: //www.mivzakon. co.il/DayMailFil es/matza. wmv Obvious when you know how!

Wishing you a happy and kosher pesach.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Pre Pesach Mayhem!

When you make aliyah there are many changes in your life – some big, some small, some expected, some not.

One of the pleasant surprises for me was the different array of nature I saw on an everyday basis. Now I am not talking about giant cockroaches or tarantulas here, I mean that I look up in at the trees in my garden and see colourful birds that I have never seen before. It occurs to me that perhaps the creatures I admire for being a little exotic and differing from the norm, are probably the Israeli equivalent of pigeons in the UK. However, I have retained an awe of all the different species around me.

This last week however, there was a less welcomed feathered friend on our patch. A stray chicken (yes you read that right!) seems to have taken up residence at the front of our house. I regularly feed a stray cat and from time to time I now hear an annoying, ‘peck, peck, peck’ as this nuisance of a fowl locates the cat food. Annoyingly, the cat is actually afraid of the chicken and allows her to steal her food.

My husband thinks she would make a nice Shabbat meal but I just want rid of her. I have chased her, thrown sticks at her, put emails out over the local network asking if anyone is missing a chicken and finally, changed the location of the cat food to the garden. The chicken does not seem particularly bright and, so far, has not realized what I have done. I am hoping the removal of the food will encourage her to find another foster home.

So, enough of my feathered fiasco... it is time to get cleaning for pesach. Perhaps, before she departs, I should pluck a feather from the chicken to help me search for chametz!

This post goes out to all those currently surrounded by buckets of hot water, bottles of cleaning products and an array of dusters and cloths. There is something quite therapeutic about pre pesach decluttering and cleaning but it is one of those things that you don't really appreciate until all the hard work is over and done with - whilst in the middle of the task you just have a never ending mental checklist of places still in need of a good scrub. Happy cleaning!

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Let It Rain

Aside from the ‘ceasefire’ and elections, the hot topic in Israel at the moment is water, or rather the lack of it. It seems that our water sources are drying up and our supplies are running out. Mismanagement, consumer wastage and climate change have, between them, given us a shortfall between demand and supply.

On arriving in Israel I found it bemusing that although people spoke of the need for rain, the sprinkler systems in public and private domains continually clicked on at regular internals, as if showing irreverence to the situation. Public actions were, and are, seemingly out of synch with governmental concerns.

Apparently, in the past, Israeli kids grew up singing songs in kindergarten about saving water. Today though, the passage of time appears to have eroded this ingrained respect for nature’s provision of water and seems to have been replaced with the assumption that, if you turn the tap on, water will come out.

For the first time, Israel, advisor to many countries in the world on advanced technology to manage water systems, is ironically facing a drought; not only a literal drought with taps being turned on to no effect but a drought of ideas on how to solve the problem.

There appears to be government level discussion, research and trials but, as yet, no clear decision on the way forward. Anglo discussion boards are full of posts submitting ideas on how we can all preserve water and reduce our individual consumption.

Last night we had a massive thunder storm; lightening bolts shrieking from the sky and violent rainstorms pelting down. We have seen little rain this winter and last night's storm will do little to redress the national water shortage.

Let’s hope we find a way to adopt those ideas which are the cheapest and most effective and, above all, develop a strategy so that the country can worry about all the normal ‘soress’ and get the basics right.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

Israeli houses, like Israelis themselves, have a whole set of idiosyncrasies. Designed to combat the heat that is present for most of the year, they can be a tough experience during the winter months.

Heating houses which a) don’t have a heating system pre-installed, b) don’t have carpet, c) are open plan, d) have stone floors and e) have draughty windows, is both difficult and expensive.

Having been shocked at our electricity bill last year (which, I might add, was despite our efforts to be as economical as possible,) we decided that this year we would try to avoid an excessive bill. We bought a few heaters and these go on early morning and sporadically throughout the day but, alas, are not constantly pumping out the heat.

We have taken to old fashioned remedies. We use hot water bottles, we layer on our clothes, we shut the curtains at night and we eat lots of porridge. I would love to report back that all of these things have made a great difference but in truth, we are all still cold.

We are still cold inside the house that is. Many days, we venture outside and are shocked to find that it is 21°! We look around us at all the Israelis in their T-Shirts and jeans and feel a little foolish in our coats and scarves!

However much I get caught out, I still forget next time around. It just feels so cold that I automatically pile on layer after layer of clothing only to peel many of them off when I leave the house. My kids too are fed up with me making sure they wear their coats before they leave for school (zipped up too!) Israel just seems to be one of those places where you actually wear more clothes inside of the house than outside.

Maybe next year I will finally find a way to deal with winter in an Israeli house. Still, the phrase, 'cold hands, warm heart' springs to mind. In Israel we certainly have cold hands at the moment. The phrase also rings true for Israelis themselves, whose sometimes cold, tough exterior more often than not conceals the warmest of hearts.

Sharona B

www.judaicamosaica.com

The Media Battle in Israel

I haven't blogged for a while. I think I kind of lost my words with all that has been happening around me. It all started after Mumbai. I was laden down with sadness; the loss of the Chabad Rabbi and his wife seemed to engulf me; it was as though I had had some kind of previous connection to them, yet I had none. I guess I have enjoyed so much hospitality from Chabad families, both in the UK and Israel, that I understood that two very special people had been taken from us.

And then the continuing rockets and the well overdue response. It is hard, with all this going on to keep my blog politics free, as was my intention. I guess, out here, politics is not so much a separate topic, an interest to be engaged with as and when one might want, but more, it is entwined within our everyday lives. Where does day to day life start and politics end when it is your own citizens who are living in bomb shelters, whose children are unable to go to school, whose daily lives over the past eight years have become so mundane, so risky, so sad?

I watch the news from Israel, from the US, from the UK. It saddens me that the UK news is so skewed towards our enemies. It shocks me that emotive images are used without a commentary that explains the civilian losses are due to their own cynical leaders using them for their own political gain. When their civilians die, Israelis feel sad and understand the grief of parents, friends and community members. But their own leaders just rub their hands in glee, waiting for the inevitable points scored in the media battle against Israel. And the media, predictably, bites the bait every time.

Theirs is a society which breaks every rule; should not any civilized society put the needs of the vulnerable first and foremost? I guess we are not fighting a civilized society. The frustrating thing is that the world looks at the pictures and very few report the facts in a way that reflects reality.

So I will leave you with the contents of two emails I recently received, which I felt summarised the battle itself and the media coverage of this war.

Two Different Mentalities:







Two ways of looking at something:

New York Times Headline: "Israeli Shells Kill 40 At Gaza U.N. School"

New York Post Headline: "Hamas In Human Shield Atrocity: Uses School As
Mortar Lair Where Children Die"

Sharona B
www.judaicamosaica.com