Aliyah 2020

 This is the beginning of our lime harvesting in our garden courtyard.  Shmuel and Charlie ended up picking over 150 limes that are now being incorporated into our cooking.  For Shabbat we made lime/honey grilled chicken, sweet potato salad with lime dressing, limeade, and pareve lime pie made with avocados and lime juice.  When the harvesting was completed and before we used the limes we participated in the ritual of taking terumah and maaser in Israel.  ( Due to the sanctity of Eretz Yisroel there are special obligations that apply to its produce. Namely, before eating the produce we must determine that it is not from shemittah or arlah, 1 and then we separate certain tithes, known as terumah and ma’aser.) Shmuel discovered that if he shook the trees in our courtyard the trees would release their fruits.  Now our son's refrigerator has one fruit/vegetable drawer filled with limes.  It really is special to have this happening right outside of our doo...

 For those who don't know, making aliyah from the United States leaves one having dual citizenship.  It is possible to vote from overseas as a citizen of the USA and as far as I'm concerned it is not only a privilege to do so and a right to do so but also an obligation of each citizen of the country to care and be involved in this manner.  We wake up each day to check on the US news.  We very much want the country to thrive and prosper, to remain a bastion of freedom and democracy for all of its citizens/inhabitants.   Understanding the Israeli political system is not as easy for me.  If Israel ends up having another election before too long, I will have to take a crash course in understanding the many political parties and what their platforms are.

Sukkot in Jerusalem has also been a very different experience for us.  First of all, the weather here is actually warm enough that eating meals in one's sukkah does not require one to wear heavy sweatshirts and all manners of warm clothing!  Our sukkah is tiny but I prefer to think of it as cozy.  It holds 4 nicely around a small table, has an array of functional and decorative lights that allow us to see when darkness descends, and has views of neighboring sukkot on other balconies above and beside us!  We have been davenning in it, eating in it, studying in it and to be honest the pleasure we are deriving from doing these activities in the sukkah is immense.  Although our son, Yehoshua, would love for us to sleep in the sukkah that Charlie and our grandson built, it is not going to happen.  To get up into our sukkah one must climb a winding, metal staircase which would truly be a night-time night-mare for anyone needing to go down the stairs in the middle...

 It has been a while since I have written.  It is now after Rosh HaShanah, our first major holy day spent in Jerusalem.  The country went into a lockdown at 2 p.m. the afternoon prior to the onset of Rosh HaShanah, which basically meant that we were instructed that we could attend synagogue if it were within 1 kilometer of our present abode.  The good news is that we are only .6 of a kilometer from the shul that we had planned to attend. Veani tfilla had reservations submitted in advance for attendance, assigned a maximum of 20 people to a capsule with seating 2 meters apartment and no contact with the other capsules in the large school yard.  We brought our own machzorim, sat separately, and arrived for services very early.  Day 1 we were in our seats by 6 a.m.  On day 2 we slept in a little longer and arrived at 7 a.m.  Being outdoors and starting early was truly advantageous since the temperature climbed up into the 90's while we davenned. Yeho...

  Last night I prepared all the materials we would need with us when starting a new bank account in Israel.  Fortunately, Nefesh B'Nefesh and Rifka Lebowitz's book prepared us well for what we would need.  So I packed up our teudat oleh (new immigrant id's), teudat zehut (id cards), American passports, a notice from the sal klitah (the absorption basket) saying we now have a bank account, and papers with information on them like our phone numbers (no we have not memorized them yet), and our address (yes we do know it!). We walked to the bank branch nearest our new apartment and asked if we could have an appointment for setting up a new account.  Fortunately, we only had to wait 20 minutes outdoors and then we were allowed to go into the bank with a paper stating we had an appointment.  Our banker spoke Hebrew and English and was very patient and helpful.  The process of giving information and signing papers took a full two hours.  Then we went to anoth...

 Today we had our first appointment for establishing ourselves as citizens of the State of Israel.  We went to the misrad hapnim, the Ministry of the Interior, and received our temporary id cards (teudat zehut) and also completed forms for our biometric id cards which will be good for 10 years.  The government workers who assisted us were patient, nicely mannered, pleasant, and very efficient.  Each of us went to a separate "window" for processing and as it turned out, the meetings accomplished what we had hoped for in a very painless manner. Afterwards, we walked up the block (Jaffa) to mercaz ha-ir (center of the city) and met Shmuel and Chananya who took the train to meet us.  They led us to our new apartment.  The good news is that we are going to end up in an apartment that is not only lovely, it is well organized (floor plan) and is located in a building that is kept in pristine condition.  We had trusted Yehoshua and Nava to find us a place and ...

 Today was our first day of being "out" after 14 full days of bidud (quarantine).  We put on our masks which are mandatory when in public spaces in Israel, donned our nefesh b'nefesh hats which point us out as new olim.  Off we went to the shuk where our temperatures were taken prior to entering the outdoor market.  We proceeded to the PEREG store for olive oil, tahina, and spices.  My Hebrew seemed to kick in and I was able to converse with the store owner adequately.  We also went to buy vegetables from a beautiful small stand, eggs & cheese from 2 indoor stalls, and kitchenware from a larger space in the outdoor mall.  On the way home we stopped at the Natural Foods Bakery nearer to our current appartment, purchasing some borekas for lunch, cookies for when the grandkids visit, and some fresh pitah.  I came home feeling like we had accomplished much on our first outing and Charlie fell right asleep!  We will probably save shopping for ...