A Jaffa Day
Once upon a time, there was a blogger named Lisa and a blogger named Rinat, who went for a lovely stroll through Jaffa.
They stopped and ate some delicious food…
And who should sit next them…than Saddam Hussein’s long-lost twin brother (he was much friendlier than his famous sibling)
I’m Dreaming Of….Cheesy Holiday Music
Treppenwitz shares his guilty seasonal thrill:
Every year about this time I make some reference to a guilty little pleasure of mine… something in which I have continued to indulge since moving to Israel: ‘Holiday’ music.
Growing up in New England you can’t really avoid being exposed to the onslaught of holiday music that pours from every radio, television and mall loudspeaker from Thanksgiving (now Halloween) on.
I wasn’t even aware to what extent I had internalized these ‘classics’ until I was cruising around the western Pacific on a ship one December in the Early 80s and realized I didn’t miss the cold… I didn’t miss the snow… I didn’t even really miss eggnog back then. I missed the Xmas music!
Remember, this was before Mariah Carrie and every other ‘name’ started churning out Christmas albums. I’m surprised William Shatner didn’t grace us with one of his own!
Anyway, I’d been listening to the classic seasonal music for so long that it had become like the thrill of the first pick-up baseball game of spring… the taste of sweet corn in late summer… the smell of burning leaves in fall. In short, it wasn’t December without that music!
I’m not a purist by any means. I loved quirky hits like ‘Grandma got run over by a reindeer’ and ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ every bit as much as the more traditional ‘Sleigh Ride’ and ‘Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire’. And this is before I realized that a lot of the Christmas music was actually written by Jews (think ‘White Christmas’ by Irving Berlin’)!
Did You Know SpongeBob Celebrated Hannukah?
Neither did I….till I saw this!
Happy Hannukah
So off I went to my third child’s nursery school first Hannukah party — she’s two years old. I’m sure that no nursery school teacher here is allowed to get her certificate without vowing to throw an annual Hannukah extravaganza shows, where the children, sing dance, wave around lightsticks in a dark room wearing glowing white shirts, and then gorge themselves on sugar and carbs. It’s a thrill for the kids, but the parties — really, it’s a show — are LONG. If you figure that my older two kids were both in daycare/nursery school then kindergarten for four years, I’ve now attended eight and this was my ninth.
Sounds like a lot, right? Well, then I saw this piece written by a mother of NINE. And dedicated religious mother that she is, she’d really started to lose her enthusiasm for the Hannukah parties….until her grandmother, visiting from abroad, attended one with her and changed everything.
Everything was normal; the songs, the tunes, the dances, the costume changes, flashes glared from all around us. And then, between one flash and the next, my grandmother leaned towards me and whispered: “Mali, I’m so excited…”
Another camera flash and again a whisper: “Mali you know, I’m not very young and I’m a survivor of the camps… When I sit here, with my great-granddaughter, before all these little girls singing about the land of Israel – sweet beautiful little girls – I feel as though it is my small victory against the Germans. Small, but crushing!”
Then and there I choked up. All too often I forget that this noble woman with the light blue eyes, who I call grandma, is a Holocaust survivor who lived through the hells of Auschwitz. She, the girl whose mother and sisters were murdered before her eyes, is the brave woman who raised a family so that “the strength of Israel will not lie” (1 Samuel, 15:29).
I would never presume to say that I changed in that moment, but I can tell you that when the party ended I asked to say a few words. I rose from my seat, cleared my throat and began: “Dear teachers and guests, do you see this woman beside me? This is my grandmother, who survived Auschwitz, who endured hunger and loss, abuse and labor and the death marches. She was blessed with what six million others were not, she lived. And all that has been worth it, if only for the party that you, dear teachers, are responsible for. It’s difficult for her to speak now, but I can assure you that she has enjoyed every minute, and she will treasure these moments in her heart forever.”
And without shame I let the tears run down my cheeks, as the tears of other mothers and the teachers flowed with mine.
Suddenly I find myself, yes, me the anti-party mother, waiting expectantly for the next holiday.
At my daughter’s party, the husband of the couple who runs her gan got up and mentioned reading this essay in its original Hebrew in Yediot Aharonot. And he confessed that it wasn’t easy year after year to get the motivation to put on these big productions. But he said that this year, it was particularly important to have happiness and light, and show the world that children in Israel were alive and thriving, surrounded by light and love, no matter who hates them, no matter who wishes them ill. And he was right.
Something to Look Forward To
Drumroll, please…..Harry is slowly raising the curtain on his new project:
Good vibes are in the air and within the next two months we’ll be launching Jerusalemite, The Definitive Culture Guide to Jerusalem. It’s an ambitious project that will be, without a doubt, the most comprehensive guide to Jerusalem on the web. Feel free to sign up for a launch update here. I’m not going to give up too much, you’ll have to be patient. Patience is a virtue after all. But we will be looking for a few beta testers in the coming weeks, so if you are interested, be sure to let me know.
Aw, come on, Harry, give it up. You know you want to.
From what we see of the signpost on the site, it’s going to be called Jerusalemite; The Jerusalem Culture Guide, and will include a blog, events, city guide, and maps.
The rest, he’ll tell us when he’s ready.
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