Watching, Waiting, and Worrying

January 5, 2006 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General 

Like a lot of my friends, I was watching the new Israeli television series “Emele” (Mommy) on Channel 2 television last night. It’s a high quality drama series about Effie, a 38-year-old Tel Aviv woman who accidentally gets pregnant and decides to become a single mother. The show was building up to the much-awaited scene where she bumps into the guy who is probably the father of the child, and he realizes she is pregnant.

Effie is crossing the street, and suddenly….the news breaks in. A special report.

Darn, I groan, why now?

But then I forget about the show and everything else. Prime Minister Sharon is getting helicoptered to the hospital. From there, it seems like a television rerun of his previous trip to the hospital, where he suffered what was described (spun?) as a small harmless stroke. There was comfort in the rerun…after all, the first showing had a happy ending where everything went back to calm familiarity.

And then it all changed. You could hear it in the tone of the newscasters, see it on their faces, read it in the Hebrew newspapers updating on the Internet. Something was very wrong. It is very wrong. And you can still see it, even in the faces of strangers as you walked down the street this morning.

Whether he lives or dies, we are all already in mourning. All of us — those who always like Sharon, those who never liked him, and the vast number of Israelis who once vilified him, but over the past several years have looked in wonderment as he embodied the definition of the word “leader.”

Yes, he had flaws, yes, there was scandal, he was far from perfect. But he was a leader. We had a leader. And we no longer do.

There are echoes of the feelings we had ten years ago, when we lost Yitzhak Rabin. Of course, we are not dealing with an assassination this time, with internal violence, with the same level of utter astonishment, with the same depth of national tragedy.

But something very similar is happening on an emotional level, and that is the sense of being in a pit of insecurity stemming from the fact that the country is not really being led at the moment. And we don’t know who our next real leader will be. If you want to get Freudian about it, we’re losing our father figure.

Left-wing or right-wing, even if you felt like men like Yitzhak Rabin or Ariel Sharon were wonderful — or if you felt that they were completely wrong, completely misled, overly violent or completely corrupt, you never doubted for a minute that their absolute top priority was the security and well-being of the State of Israel and its citizens. Every success and every mistake they made flowed from his deep determination to see this country survive, thrive, and succeed. With figures like these as Prime Minister, we felt that there was someone watching over us. And when they vanish suddenly, whether by the hand of an assassin or the fickle hand of fate, it leaves us devastated, deeply insecure and very worried about the future.

And so we worry, watch and wait, unable to let an hour pass without checking the television, radio and Internet. He’s still alive, and that’s great. But it doesn’t really change the fact that on the level that we need Ariel Sharon, we’ve already lost him. Those of us who believe in miracles are praying for one. And those of us who don’t believe in miracles wish that we did.

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Cookies!!!

January 2, 2006 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Food, General 


As part of the quest to fill up Hannuka vacation time, we busied ourselves with fun and interesting adventures and outings this week. A trip to the mall to check out the traveling Press Photos of the Year, treks to the playground, a train ride to Aunt Babe and Uncle Irving’s for spaghetti lunch and TELEVISION !!! (we don’t have one) and a playdate with not one but two of Raphael’s female classmates.

On the playdate, a note: When they say “three’s a crowd”, believe it.

For exactly 22.3 minutes the three yukked it up, enjoying each other’s company immensely. Then, everything went potty.

Raphael’s Mom? She insulted me
Raphael’s Mom? He yelled at me
Stop looking at me
Don’t touch me
Go away!
Ouch!

There were tears, declarations of never playing with each other again and a breakdown into physical assault just as the mothers showed up to take their darlings home.

A very right decision on the excursion front, on the other hand, was yesterday’s trip to the Roladin Cookie Factory in Kadima, organized by Amit Women. Joined by friends Steve & Natasha, their twin, 8-year-old boys and about 30 fellow tour participants, we eyeballed the baking floor through a 2nd story, glass window, viewed a mouth-watering film about the delights Roladin produces and then did a hands-on with the kids rolling chocolate mousse balls in sprinkles and coconut, cutting hearts, stars and rounds from butter cookie dough, dousing chocolate crinkles in powdered sugar and then inhaling the magnificent aroma as the goodies baked.

In business since 1987, Roladin is a mid to upper tier bakery supplying cakes, cookies, bread, quiche, mini-mousse desserts, and during Hannuka donuts, to 19 shops in Israel. Their “gimmick” is that each and every one of the thousands of delicacies shipped out each day is made by hand. There are literally, no machines.

The factory offers year-round tours and my advice is to GO GO GO! It’s more than worth the NIS40 for the fun and as an added bonus, parents get complimentary coffee – the good stuff: espresso/latte, etc. – after the tour and kids get a bag of their own, personal-baked loot to enjoy later. Watch out when the sugar high kicks in!

Roladin: 09-899-1001

Stop by the Drive Thru…Always open, coffee’s always hot…

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At the zoo

January 2, 2006 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Holidays, Life 

With the kids on Hannuka break from school, we took one day last week and went to the Safari – the sprawling Ramat Gan zoo. Sprawling for Israel anyway.

The main attraction is driving through the ‘safari’ section – a trail of a couple miles where hippos, lions, giraffes, ostriches, and other assorted animals wander around and, except for the the lions, can mingle with the humans and their vehicles.

The secondary attraction, but a very close second, is the zoo, which is a friendly, more down home version of the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem. The kids had a great time, and so did the adults, especially at the gorilla station.

However, despite signs everywhere ordering the patrons not to feed any animals anything, some Neanderthals still felt compelled to send bananas and assorted junk food over the fences. The big male gorilla nonchalantly grabbed whatever came his way like Johnny Damon in centerfield with his new team, which shall remain nameless.

The Neanderthal was quickly shouted down by the rest of us, and the rest of the visit was as pleasant as could be – we saw a just-born giraffe, watched the penguins being fed lunch, and our youngest enjoyed a pony ride.

And, despite taking 20 minutes or so to pass through the entrance gate, it wasn’t even that crowded. Just proves that you can go out during Hannuka, and not be crushed by the crowds.

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