Datelines
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
David’s post and all the newspaper, web and radio pieces about Rabin got me thinking about my own relationship to dates, particularly the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars, which are the two calendars we use regularly around here.
I myself was at a friend’s 30th birthday dinner the night that Rabin was shot. I remember feeling very adult at that gathering, which was at a Jerusalem restaurant, and being somewhat consumed with what was happening around me. When we heard the news, we quickly paid the bill and went our separate ways. Having moved to Israel only a few months earlier, I was still living with my parents and we gathered around the television set, waiting for news.
And so, for me, Rabin’s death is always wrapped up in my first months here, when I was figuring things out and deciding whether I wanted to stay here. The date that I think of is November 4, not the 12th of Heshvan, and the current remembrances and ceremonies seem almost early to me. The length of time, however, 15 years, corresponds with how many years I’m living here. Long, and yet not so much time.
But as I settled into life here, I not only got used to the army clock — i.e., it’s 13:00 right now — but have certain dates in my own life that I think of according to the Hebrew calendar, and not the Gregorian one. While I still don’t really know my Hebrew birthday date, and yes, there are those who only celebrate their birthday according to the Hebrew calendar, the dates that I instinctively think of in Hebrew are my wedding anniversary and the birthday of my twins.
Why? Probably because my anniversary is on Lag B’Omer, which is a big celebration day around here, and we specifically chose that day for our marriage, liking that we’d be one of many celebrations that day, including bonfires and cookouts. So sometimes we celebrate on Lag B’Omer, and sometimes on the ‘loazi’ date of (meaning, roughly, Gregorian), May 27, which basically just gives us more than one option for marking the day.
As for my boys, they were born on Erev Sukkot, the eve of the holiday, about six weeks before their due date. They were not what I was planning to do on that particular holiday, but now that they’re very much here, I like remembering that day during Sukkot, as well as weeks later, on October 13.
Then again, there’s something to be said for commemorating a moment, happy or sad, on two different dates. The perspective changes, but the memory remains the same.
Burning down the house
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
Lag B’Omer, the holiday of bonfires and bows and arrows is just about upon us, as witnessed by the recent afternoon activities of kids aged six through 16, or so. Ever since the counting of the omer began on Passover, kids can be seen pushing supermarket carts — clearly ‘borrowed’ for the occasion — around every neighborhood, gathering large and small pieces of wood that will eventually be burned in scores of bonfires this coming Saturday night.
When I say large pieces of wood, I really mean large, as in doors, tables, planks of wood from God-knows-where, and other sundry slabs of wood that clearly come from various construction sites. I can vouch for that as well, now that I witnessed a bunch of kids scrounging around an unfinished building on a nearby street the other day. They were literally tearing wood off the temporary platform and door jambs, and you kind of wondered whether the building would keep standing. And this just in: A local acquaintance just facebooked that a bunch of kids made off with an old but still useful teak table that was in her backyard, assuming that it was up for grabs…
But no matter, because it’s all for the cause of the bonfire, which must be large and long-lasting, with plenty of fire time for baking potatoes and onions and toasting marshmallows. Good, clean fun, except for the part about ransacking construction sites.
Burned
Just a quick post: I was at Shilav, a local baby store in my local mall, two places where I spend a lot of time these days, and was asking Miki, the store manager with whom I also spend a good amount of time talking, whether they’d gotten in any wooden playpens yet. He told me they hadn’t, and the entire country — the entire country! — is out of wooden playpens because there was something wrong with the last shipment…
“No playpens in the entire country?” I asked. “You mean, no other store has wooden playpens?” (Not that I’d buy the playpen at another store, seeing as I have many gift certificates at Shilav and therefore much money to spend there.)
“Nope,” he said. “We all get them from the same importer and the wood was bad, so they burned them on Lag b’Omer.”
Just thought I had to share.
Nostalgia Sunday – Matchboxes
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
Before the electronic sparker and the electric stove-top, kids, there were matches and matchboxes, some so decorative they became collectible items.
My parents, like many others, had two huge glass vases filled with matchbooks amassed from trips across the US, Europe and Israel. These served as a conversation pieces — and of course, as firepower for social smokers at cocktail parties.
The rise of the cheap lighter, cheaper imports, and the decline in smoking has put many match-makers out of business. Veteran Israeli manufacturer Nur still exists, but mainly as an importer and repackager of safety matches; their website is sadly disappointing — no gallery, no history.
We present, therefore, a few memorable “tobacciana” relics, (many available for sale on Ebay), starting on the left with the classic Nur deer logo, and a mod version done in the go-go Eighties.
Ebay seller Avi has some really good examples of classic matchbook graphics, including the Tribes of Israel…
…and this series of Israel Air Force aircraft.
El Al commissioned artist Jean David to create this series of historic cities in Israel.
I think my parents had one of this series of long boxes made for tourists. I seem to recall a picture of Jaffa…
A nice, inexpensive, if flammable, hobby!
Candles and sandals
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness
NK in the daytime
But on erev Lag b’Omer itself, which, incidentally, is our anniversary (a very popular day to get married in Israel, since it’s a ‘day off’ from the 49-day Omer, during which Jews traditionally don’t get married), we attended the wedding of the daughter of a dear friend, held at Neot Kedumim, a biblical landscape reserve located just slightly north of Modiin.
It was one of those ‘only in Israel’ experiences, as we drove down a rocky lane to the parking lot, and then trekked over to the wedding ‘site,’ where the makeup-free bride was surrounded by her headscarf-wrapped, guitar-playing, weeping girlfriends before the bedeken. The groom, when he approached to veil his bride, was outfitted like the rest of his friends in an untucked white shirt, khakis and Source sandals, the Israeli version of Chacos, and he was brought down in a fit of singing punctuated by the calls of a shofar being sounded by one of his buddies. He played a Bratslaver-like tune to his bride, but broke the tension of the moment with a wide grin directed to her, which she returned in kind.
We walked over to the site of the chuppah, down winding lanes situated between flowering pomegranate trees and silvery green olive trees, stooping to read the ground-level signs that offer biblical quotes about the trees, bushes and flowers planted all around. The chuppah was a tallit, the rabbi was casually serious and the bride, a dancer by training, tended to jump up and down during the lighter moments of the ceremony.
And when the ceremony was over, the new couple was danced over to their yihud space where they spent a good hour, before emerging to dance raucously but separately.
“They’re hippies,” said my husband. “Nah, they’re settlers,” said someone else, referring to the flowing shirts, dresses and sandals that can often be considered a uniform for some of the hilltop settler types. I thought of it as a wedding of Israeli Deadheads, but one thing is for sure: It was a wedding with a joyous vibe.
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