Home for the weekend
Filed under: A New Reality, Food, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
While I’m away galavanting in the sub-Arctic temperatures of New England with my sons, my wife has been holding down the fort back at home.
With Hannuka being such a family oriented time, it’s not easy to be on your own, but she’s been keeping busy, with invites to friends around town for the traditional latkes and condiments.
However, today, both of our daughters are coming home for Shabbat – one from Ramat Gan and the other fresh from her first two weeks in the army. Sarit’s had an eventful time, learning the ins and outs of army life, receiving her weapon and spending three days out in the “shetach” (field) learning how to use it.
For a soldier, coming home for Shabbat is the be all and end all – what they think about all week and what keeps them going. My wife is making all of Sarit’s favorites – roast chicken, chicken soup with matza balls and sweet challah.
More so, than most Shabbatot, this one will be a time for the ladies in the family to bond, laugh and spend time together, taking a respite from the tumult of their daily lives. And that’s what it’s all about, right?
Shabbat shalom to you in absentia.
Foto Friday – Hanukkah in Jerusalem
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, starts tonight with the lighting of the first candle on the hannukiya – the seven-branched menorah. Jerusalemites have a tradition of lighting oil based hannukiyot encased in glass boxes against the wind. It is a beautiful sight.
© pmos_nmos
Of course, it is more dramatic when lit up at night!
© RomKri
© RomKri
Hanukkah this year fell on a chilly Friday but despite the foreboding clouds it felt like the city was settling into a holiday mood, with young couples taking their babies out for a stroll at the new Mamilla Mall and overwhelming demand for sufganiyot at the Roladin bakery-cafe.
Both Nicky and David have blogged about the caloric and nutritional disaster that is our local holiday fare, so I will only add that Roladin has, for several years now, taken up the mantle of master sufganiya baker. They’ve created a whole series of so-called gourmet doughnut delights – the “Hanukkah Collection 2009″ – ranging from pistachio and banana to dulce de leche as well as the traditional red mystery jam. They’ve also devised a gaily decorated long square box for easy transport.
This week’s photos of Hanukkah in Jerusalem are courtesy of the wonderful Jerusalem Shots site. I should note that, as I do each time before sitting down to write the holiday column, I tried to figure out the current spelling of the Festival of Lights’ name, this time putting Google on the case with the following results: Hanukkah – 1,920,000 hits; Chanuka – 222,000; Hanuka – 219,000; Hannukah – 141,000 ; Channukah – 129,000; Chanukka – 71,800; Hannuka – 66,100. So, (although it’s not spelled as it was when I was a girl) — Hanukkah wins.
Nostalgia Sunday – Hannuka like it used to be
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, War
Back in the old days, children, Hannuka was a simple holiday without all the hoopla surrounding it today. The Hannuka menorah had eight branches and space for a ninth shamash candle in the center.
We lit the menorah with candles from Israel that came in a box decorated with some young fellows who became part of the family, meaning that, as the years wore on, one barely noticed that they were weird-looking and awkward – just happy to see them again.
We ate latkes, deep fried and slathered in sour cream and applesauce. We were given hannuka gelt, in both chocolate and coin form, and gambled it away playing dreidel. Yes, here and there an elderly relative would try to get us to play for walnuts, as they did in the olden days, but we were hard-nosed little capitalists and stuck with the legal tender.
There were none of these new-fangled conceptual art menorahs, like this one here, called Hanukit. 
Just plain old cast metal hannukiyot.
As the leitmotif of the day, it seems appropriate to explain that the name “Operation Cast Lead” comes from a children’s song by our national poet Haim Nahman Bialik. Translated, it goes: “My teacher gave me a dreidel / A dreidel made of cast lead / Do you know what it’s for? / Do you know what it’s for? / It’s for the hannuka holiday.” And so, they who name military campaigns, in their attempt to be clever, have ruined something lovely; will we ever again be able to sing that song without irony?
Happy Hanukka, Merry Christmas
Christmas in Bethlehem - A little hot-buttered rum, perhaps?
Back when I lived in the US, I remember having a very low tolerance for the commercialized Christmas season – the radio and TV ads and circulars, the glitter and tinsel in store windows, the two months of Christmas songs on the radio (unless if was Bruce’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”), and all the other encoutrements of the American culture which I didn’t belong to.
But on the couple of times I’ve been back there to visit during the holiday season, it wasn’t so bad. I actually appreciated the elaborate home decorations, the perceived feeling that people were in a better mood, and even the shmaltzy music.
Here in Israel, unless you’re in a Christian Arab community, you won’t find many outward signs of Christmas. And this year, we have Hannuka coinciding, so the lights and colorful candles are out in full force and dominating the landscape.
Still, despite the inclement weather, thousands of Christians in Israel will be freely celebrating Christmas tonight and tomorrow (is this the only Christian holiday that runs on Jewish time, beginning in the evening and continuing til sundown the next day?).
According to Bloomberg News, Bethlehem is experiencing a fourfold increase in visitors after seven bleak Christmas seasons, with 250,000 visitors here this week.
“All 3000 rooms in Bethlehem have been booked for Christmas,” said Samir Hazboun, chairman of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “Unemployment in the city has fallen to 23 percent from 45 percent last year.”
Michael Kreitem’s Bethlehem Star Hotel, along the ancient footpaths where Mary and Joseph once strolled before they returned with a son, was bustling with hordes of Russian-speaking Christian pilgrims, arriving from a one-day tour of Nazareth.
And if you can’t get there in person, IPrayTV is streaming the scene from Nativity Square and from the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve through Christmas evening.
Me, I’ll be spending the fourth and fifth days of Hannukka eating another in a countless batch of sufganiyot and latkes, and grumbling about gaining weight. But I may find the time to put “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” on the CD player.
Hannuka and the taco-flavored donuts
Filed under: Blogging, Food, Holidays, Life, Pop Culture, Religion
It’s Hannuka in Israel, and comedian Benji Lovitt and videographer Molly Livingstone went out onto the streets of Jerusalem to see how people celebrate.
As Benji admits in his blog, What War Zone, “we laughed….we cried…..we made people uncomfortable (hellooooo, cutting room floor!) But we definitely had fun and we think you will too.”
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