Chayyei Sarah

2009-07-09T11:56:00.002+03:00

6 years

Today is the 6th anniversary of my aliyah, my immigration to Israel. I'm really happy that I came. And so today, to celebrate, I'm taking a page from the book of Treppenwitz and presenting ways I've become more Israeli:

- When someone cuts me in line, I speak up and say something

- I cut other people in the "line" at bus stations, even if I know they were there before I was. All's fair in love and bus seats.

- I can tell the difference between an Israeli who is being accusatory or confrontational and an Israeli who is being merely conversational. This took 6 years to master.

- I understand why Israelis all go on vacations abroad during the last 2-3 weeks of August.

- I understand (but do not yet feel) the allure of having red and green peppers at breakfast.

- Deli + Hummus = Yum!

- I have uttered the words "Yashar, Yashar, Yamina"

- The intermission at movies doesn't bother me any more.

- Wherever I am, I shut up when the news comes on the radio, on the hour.

- I'm even more upset that Haredim (often/generally) don't serve in the army or join professions.

- I can instantly tell whether a young man is a Jew or an Arab by his hairstyle and the way he wears his jeans (in Jerusalem and its environs, anyway - don't know about the rest of the country).

- Hafuch gadol dal, daily.

To my readers who are fasting today: have an easy fast.

2009-07-07T09:09:00.003+03:00

Stuff Going On

So, first of all, I want you all to know that I actually have political opinions, but I'm too lazy to write about them. I'd rather you know that I'm lazy than suspect that all I ever think about is the new cat.

Second, said cat is delightful, most of the time. Most of the time, she is either playing with her toys or chasing her tail (highly entertaining to watch), or sleeping peacefully, sometimes in my arms (so sweet). Every so often she sits on my shoulder and then leans over to lick my face (::melt::). However sometimes she tries to play with the laces of my sneakers while I try to put them on, or she tries to jump into my lap and doesn't quite make it, and I end up with claw marks, scratches, even two loooong gashes on my shins and thighs. Ow! So now she gets gently pushed away when she tries that.

In bad news, a few days ago my roommate got all congested and has itchy eyes. We are worried that she might be allergic to the cat, which would be devastating for all involved. It would be odd since she lived with a cat for months a few years ago, and we babysat Shpeetz for a few weeks just this past Pesach. She's going to see an allergist. Meanwhile, we're hoping it's just a badly-timed cold.

I'm still busy doing all the errands that I didn't do when I was teaching. I have A LOT of errands.

Also yesterday I went to the upsherin (first haircut, at the age of three), of the youngest child of my friend Beth, author of the now-defunct blog House of Joy. It was held at the kotel, and little Pinchas Daniel was extremely patient while friends and family members each cut a little snip of hair, and then while his father evened it out. Good time was had by all.

Nothing exciting to report, except my political opinions, which are VERY exciting -- exactly the reason I'm not in the mood to write them out. Blah.

2009-06-28T14:12:00.008+03:00

Artemis Pictures

Photos from Artemis' first weekend with us:

Cat with Agatha Christie book, so you can see her size compared to Siggy's. (Siggy was pretty much exactly the size of the book.)

Artemis hanging out on roommate's arm:

Artemis hiding between my bins of "purim stuff" and "gift wrapping" and "papers to file someday" aka "the contained mess":

Artemis doing what she does best, hunting normally inanimate objects around the apartment, in this case a crumpled piece of paper we made into her toy (full video at my Facebook page):

Resting after a busy morning of chasing toys and humans:

2009-06-26T17:09:00.002+03:00

Introducing Artemis!

Last night I went to the home of a family in Kiryat Moshe whose cat, Vanilla, had had a litter of kittens. The kittens were now 9 weeks old, recently weaned, and looking for homes. They'd been raised mostly indoors but allowed to wander outside when they wanted.

The litter had four kittens in total, but when I got there two were absent: the one female, Spotty -- who had gone AWOL about an hour earlier -- and a male named Blondie who the family were planning to keep, and who was roaming around outside. Since I preferred a male cat (after having been told they are easier to care for and more affectionate), it didn't matter to me about Spotty or Blondie. I focused my attention on the two male kittens who were sleeping on the couch.

I had brought a toy with me, and one of the kittens, named Blackie after his beautiful black and white stripes (you can see this family is quite literal in their pet naming) woke up and had the time of his life with this toy. He scampered all over the apartment, playing with the little stuffed mouse. It was quite entertaining.

Meanwhile his brother, Angel, would not wake up. He simply refused to be bothered. I could totally get that, but it was no way for me to evaluate his personality or energy levels. So I said I'd take Blackie.

In the few minutes after I chose Blackie, a few things happened:

1- Spotty was found in a cabinet and turned out to be nowhere near as pretty as Blackie. A weird mixture of stripes and spots, and something clearly wrong with one of her eyes.
2- Blondie came in from outside.
3- Spotty and Blondie were quite curious about the toy, and tried to get a view.
4- Blackie became extremely possessive of his toy and would hiss at the other cats when they tried to approach him.
5- Spotty licked my fingers so sweetly. Awwwww!
6- The owner was talking about what a nice personality Spotty has.
7- When I went to pick up Blackie to put him in the kitty carrier, he hissed at me and tried to scratch.

I decided that Blackie can stay with this family, and keep the toy, because he's a lost cause! And so Spotty came home with me.

I have renamed her Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the hunt. The name was Liza's idea, and suits this cat nicely.

She is twice as old as Siggy was, and twice as large. When I brought her home, Liza said "she's huge!" Our guest, Liz, who never met Siggy, said "She's tiny!"

She's also so much more energetic that only now do we realize how sick Siggy must have been from the day he arrived. Siggy would just walk around the apartment, begging to be held. The most energetic thing he ever did was climb up the bedskirt in Liza's room to her bed.

Artemis, meanwhile, chases her balls of aluminum foil, she chases the bottle cap she found, she chases her string, she does pushups on the dining-room chairs (because she just can't quite hoist herself up enough to the seat), and she eats without being prodded. She also is fond of naps in air-conditioned rooms, preferably curled up next to a human. And she likes being held for a minute or two and petted, but after a little time she decides she has other things to do. In other words, she's a normal cat - and quite a delightful one at that.

The vet came over today and pronounced that Artemis has worms (normal for a cat who'd been outside a lot) and an infection in her left eye (which explains why her eye looked yucky and she has guck around her nose), but all that can be healed.

What I like to say about Artemis is that she's no beauty queen, but she has a great personality. :-)

Pictures and video to be posted next week.

2009-06-24T16:48:00.002+03:00

New Stuff

1- First of all, I love this video:

2- Still no kitty. Siggy's sibling has been AWOL for days now, so I've given up on adopting him/her. There is a woman in Kiryat Moshe whose cat had kittens 9 weeks ago, so I might adopt one of those. Luckily for me, Liza has decided that we're committed to taking in a cat, whether it's a street rescue or not.

3- I joined Twitter! Um, I guess I can't post my username here because I'm still playing the little game of not putting my whole, real name on this blog, even though I know that most of my readers know who I am anyhow. But if you go to Twitter and type in my name, you can find me. I'm the only one with my name in Jerusalem.

4- On Hillel Street, two doors up from Cafe Hillel (#6 I think), I found an English Tea House (a new one!) which has a full one-page NEW ENGLAND MENU. They serve corn chowder! Fish chowder! With cod! Apple Brown Betty! I could die. I actually had tears in my eyes when I saw it. Definitely plan to go back. Who here from New England wants to come? I want to make it a New England party.

5- I'm so looking for new work. Income would be good.

6- However, since I'm currently light on assignments, I've gotten a helluva lot done recently. My desk is organized, I had two doctor's appointments, I hung up pictures in my apartment that have been waiting over a year to be hung up, I finally checked out the Emek Refaim Street swimming pool (which I had never seen, even though I've lived a 10-minute walk from it for over 6 years) -- oh, God, that was amazing! I love water! -- I'm taking this Mediabistro course I mentioned in a previous post, etc. 'Tis all good.

7- It is so hot here. Melting!

8- Speaking of melting, I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, and I'm up to the chapter on volcanoes. Bryson is hysterical. Quote of the day: "Volcanologists may or may not be the worst scientists in the world at making predictions, but they are without question the worst in the world at realizing how bad their predictions are." This is no ordinary science book.

2009-06-18T22:25:00.002+03:00

Quick Update

1- The beginning of this week was very hard, what with Siggy dying. But as the days passed I (mostly) got over it. At this point, more time has passed since he died than the amount of time he was with us here. I'm 99% better.

2- On Sunday, I'm scheduled to adopt Siggy's sibling, a stripey cat whose sex is not known to us. Right now, Sibling is living on the street, but is being fed by Liza's friend Yuval and his girlfriend, Ira. Yuval and Ira have been terrific, feeding Sibling formula after the kittens were abandoned by their mother, and now solid food. But Sibling hasn't seen a vet and isn't being socialized to be a true indoor/outdoor pet. So we decided to bring him here ASAP, so he can be checked out by Dr. Doni (our new vet) and taught to be our cat. I just really, really hope he is a sturdy creature and won't die on us like his brother did. At least this time I'm prepared for the possibility.

3- Another reason the week got better: I finished a work project which had been hanging over me for a long, long time. Now that it's done, I actually have almost no work to do. Obviously that's not good, but, you know what? It's good. I need some time to do all the things I couldn't do when I was teaching and writing like a maniac. And indeed I've gotten many important things taken care of in the last couple of days.

4- I've started taking an online course with Mediabistro on Health and Medical Writing. A bit of professional tuning-up, getting past the plateau, jump-start, etc. It just started yesterday and will continue for eight weeks. If I like it I plan to take the Travel Writing Boot Camp course.

Cheers.

2009-06-17T14:09:00.002+03:00

To My Readers in Florida

A person who is very dear to me, Eric Draper, is running for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture. He is currently the Deputy Director of the Florida office of the National Audubon Society, and has been active with Preservation 2000, Florida Forever, the Council of Sustainable Florida, the Florida Soil and Water Conservation Council, and the Democratic Party.

Eric is an expert in environmental and agricultural issues, and is a highly intelligent, humble, respected man who sincerely wants to serve the people. He is extremely talented at building consensus and helping others to work together.

If you live in Florida, please go to Eric Draper's website to learn more about him and/or support his campaign for Commissioner of Agriculture.

2009-06-13T20:27:00.003+03:00

RIP Siggy

Last night he seemed to be doing so much better. He took bites of his new food a few times walked around the apartment a little. We thought he'd turned the corner.

This morning at 3 am Liza found Sigmund lying several meters from his little shoe-box bed, drenched (with sweat? Didn't smell like anything else in particular . . . ), and making an eerie noise. She immediately woke me up and told me he's dying. When she put him in my arms he was completely limp.

For two hours I sat in the salon holding Siggy, petting him and rocking him and willing him to die quickly, and crying. It was terrible. Every so often his head would move a little and he'd open his mouth and make a noise that sounded a little like a scream, like he was crying far away. He sounded like a ghost cat.

At around 4:30 his eyes got glassy and his nose started turning blue. I could tell he wasn't aware of anything any more, even though he was breathing a little and his heart was beating pretty quickly. At 5 I tucked him into his bed, took a shower, and went to sleep.

At 7:30 he was still alive. I petted him a little so that maybe he'd know I was there, and I read him the last few paragraphs of Watership Down, through my tears. He licked his lips a little.

By 9:30 he was gone. Maybe now he's in a place where he has the energy to play with his toys, and everything is made of salmon and warm spots.

:'-(

Goodbye, Siggy. I'm glad we could make your last days a little more comfortable.

Liza and I have decided that we might take in Siggy's sibling, but only 3 weeks from now, since then the kitten will be 2 months old already -- and therefore more likely to live long-term, says the vet. We don't want to go through this again right now, watching a sweet little kitten take hours to die.

:'-(

2009-06-12T14:40:00.005+03:00

Sigmund is Sick

Siggy didn't eat for 24 hours so I took him to the vet again this morning. Diagnosis: infection in the GI tract. Prognosis: Not good. Siggy is very little and very sick. Not a promising combination.

His energy level has dwindled over the last day or two, and now he is sleeping almost all the time. The only positive indication we've had lately is that we did manage to get him to eat something at the vet's, and he had a few small bites just now.

The vet gave him an infusion against dehydration, and said that it's not uncommon for young street cats to simply be too fragile to withstand being abandoned by their mother; only when they've lived for 2 months can you be reasonably sure that this is a sturdy cat. He said to keep giving him small amounts to eat (of his special new sick-kitty food, mixed with a teeny bit of water) every few hours, and hope for the best. If he makes it for another few days, it will be a good sign.

:'-(

Reader RivkA M. asked for a photo of Siggy with a reference object. Here he is with my paperback copy of the Hercule Poirot mystery Cat Among the Pigeons.

2009-06-10T22:30:00.007+03:00

1,001st post!

Siggy got sick today. Apparently he hadn't been eating much because he wasn't quite ready for solid food. Tomorrow he goes back to formula. Meanwhile he's drinking lots of water from the bottle, which is so cute.

A few pics from today:

Siggy nodding off next to fridge.

Yes, he is this small.

Liza's friend Naomi giving Siggy some TLC. Siggy loves it. Good thing, because Naomi will be babysitting Siggy when I go to the States at the end of August.

Siggy eating up the attention. You can see that he's got some skin problems and is quite scraggly, a result of being a street cat. When he starts eating regularly he'll get some medicine for that in his food.

2009-06-09T21:32:00.002+03:00

This post may be filled with typos

because I'm trying to write it while a kitten sleeps peacefully in the crook of my left elbow.

I have named him Sigmund. A nice, distinguished, slightly ironic name, which can be shortened to Siggy at appropriate moments of utter cuteness.

Sigmund seems to have two needs in life: sleep, and proximity to a warm human. If he is not sleeping, he's begging to be picked up. much like a human baby, actually. However, unlike a human baby, Sigmund does not seem to need food. In the last 24 hours he's eaten about 5 tiny bites of cat food and a few sips of egg yolk. This concerns me because his medicine is in the tuna and therefore he's not getting the proper dosage. He's also not drinking. My local cat gurus are telling me not to worry about it, that he'll eat when he's hungry.

Meanwhile, am I a Jewish mother or what? Putting food in front of his face and begging "please eat, please eat"?

Sigmund also has a habit of climbing up onto my shoulder, therefrom to better view the world at large while I walk around. Very cute, but I'm working on breaking him of the habit so that I won't have a huge, heavy cat later who thinks my shoulder is a nice perch.

Also, Siggy hates being washed with a damp cloth, but he'll have to deal because he's a rescue kitten and really filthy. With every wash we remove another layer of grime. (also it doesn't help that he gets himself covered with tuna and egg yolk. Not so dexterous yet, that Sigmund)

OK, gotta go. But if you want something fun to surf, click here for the new blog of my friend Miriam. She's hilarious.

2009-06-08T07:14:00.003+03:00

Cat!

On Friday, Liza got an IM from her friend Yuval: "Are you lonely?"

Liza responded "Um, what?"

Yuval: "Because if you are, maybe you want to adopt one of the abandoned kittens I rescued."

Apparently, something about the kittens' story tugged at Liza's heartstrings -- probably Yuval's description of them as fitting in the palm of his hand -- because out of the blue she -- she, who has repeatedly rebuffed my suggestions that we get a pet -- asked if I want to adopt a kitten.

So, now I have a kitten. It is *my* kitten, but Liza's enjoys the benefits of his yummy little ways. Last night, his first with us, he fell asleep in my hand.

I have small hands!

The plan was to name him Yuval, after his savior, but Yuval the Human wasn't keen on that so now I'm not sure. I'm also not sure that he is a "he." We're going to the vet today, so perhaps that will become more clear. :-)

There are more pictures and video at my Facebook page, which I made available to "friends of friends." (If you are not a friend or a a friend of a friend, sorry.)

2009-05-21T17:18:00.002+03:00

I love my students but ...

There are only 3 things worse than grading papers for a living:

1- Forced labor in, say, Siberia

2- Working with toxic waste

3- Not having work at all.

That's all I have to say.

2009-05-15T12:39:00.002+03:00

Friday Update

1- My nephew's surgery went fine. He is hearing and sleeping better already and is pretty much back to his usual self.

2- Grading papers is a b*tch.

3- I'm in one of those situations, familiar to freelancers, wherein I have several clients who each owe me a LOT of money, but none of it has come in yet, so as far as the bank and credit card companies are concerned, I'm destitute. I'm expecting, literally, many many thousands of shekels to come in during the next few weeks, but meanwhile I literally do not have bus money in my wallet. Crud.

4- The weather here in Jerusalem has been GORGEOUS lately. Wish you were here!

5- My roommate made chocolate-almond macaroons, held together by chocolate ganache, from scratch last night. I love my roommate!

Nothing else to report. May all those of you who celebrate Shabbat have a shalom one. :-)

2009-05-07T14:10:00.000+03:00

No

I have not dropped off the face of the earth.

Plenty to say, no time to say it.

Quick update: My teaching responsibilities have run away from me. Teaching five classes, with all the lesson planning and grading involved, is more than I can keep up with while also staying on top of my journalism work. Next year I'll have to give up something; I can't teach in two programs AND write for a living. Live and learn.

Yom Haatzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) was nice, low-key. I went to a traditional barbecue at the home of my friends C and M; R, G, and E were there also. 'Twas fun to be with friends.

This past week has been an emotional low point. :-( No other details forthcoming on a public blog.

Wish a refuah shelaimah (complete recovery) to my little nephew David, 3, who is having his adenoids removed next week! Poor little guy!

2009-04-20T17:21:00.002+03:00

May Their Memories Be Blessed

Tonight begins Holocaust Memorial Day here in Israel. I'd like to take a moment to remember those members of my family who were murdered in the Holocaust. I wish for my sake that I'd had a chance to meet them or their descendents (my distant cousins)... and for the sake of my grandparents that they hadn't died so young, all at the same time... and for the sake of my mother that such a trauma had never entered into her parents' lives.

Details are sketchy because my grandparents rarely spoke about their dead family members.

My great-grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Natan Pomeranzblum - an Ostrovyetzer chassid, my great-grandfather was born in Staszow, Poland and lived in Opatow, Poland before being murdered in 1942 at age 67. He may have been taken with his children to Treblinka, but there is also a family story that he was shot in his home.

His second wife (my grandmother's stepmother), Devorah nee Ivenski, and their twins. It is unclear to me whether the twins were my grandmother's half-siblings or stepsiblings.

My great-aunt Manya Kreinders, her husband and their three children. They died of starvation in the Lodz ghetto.

My great-uncle Salme Pomeranzblum. I don't know if he was married or had children. Killed in Treblinka.

My great-aunt Shprintze Pomeranzblum. I don't know if she was married or had children. Killed in Treblinka.

My great-aunt Vivcha Pomeranzblum. I don't know if she was married or had children. Killed in Treblinka.

My great-uncle Mottel Pomeranzblum. I don't know if he was married or had children. Killed in Treblinka.

The first wife of my great-uncle Simcha and their two children. I don't know their names, but come to think of it I can ask my mother's cousin; maybe he knows.

On another side of the family...

My great-grandmother Esther Spiegel, aka Anna/Netti.

The first wife of my grandfather, Helen Steiner (nee Kittner) and their young son, Heinrich, my half-uncle.

Also various family members who, as far as I know, were killed in the Holocaust but I'm not sure; they may have died some other way before the war. Come to think of it I should check with my mother:

My great-great uncle, Shalom Pomeranzblum.
My great-great aunt, Esther Malka Teuter and her husband, Avraham Michael Teuter.
My grandmother's cousin, Chaim Pomerazblum, and his son.
My great-great uncle Avraham Sosnowicz.

2009-04-07T20:30:00.003+03:00

8:30 pm

This is today's to-do list as it currently stands on our fridge:

We're in for the home stretch. Liza is finishing up a few things, then we are going out for dinner, then we come home and mop floors, take care of a few last-minute (easy) items, and then bedikah!

And then, sleep!

(A few explanations:

1- The magnet at the top is one of a series I have with insults from Shakespearean plays. I got the magnet set in London, at the Globe Theater.

2- "Hermione's Purse" is a corner cabinet under our kitchen counter which is extremely deep. To get to the back, one must crawl into the cabinet so that one's entire torso is inside. It holds a lot of food ... but once food goes in, it's exceptionally difficult to find it again.

3- The stove IS kashered now; I just haven't marked it as "Done" yet.

4- "Final porch organizing" refers to the last-minute process of taking all the chametz and kitniyot we have stored on the porch and making sure they are stored in a way that they can't get wet or bug-ridden. The porch has already been thoroughly cleaned.

5- This whole process of cleaning for Pesach has been SO much nicer with a roommate to share the work! I feel more under control than I have in a long time.)

2009-04-07T13:24:00.003+03:00

Last-Minute PSA

I forgot to post this earlier! I hope it helps at this late hour...

The days before Passover always bring a rise, in Jewish areas, in the number of people who go to the Emergency Room with burns -- especially children. People have their ovens and burners on to "kasher," are spilling boiling water over counters and sinks, boiling dishes, cooking up a storm, burning chametz, etc. -- and then there is also the danger from the candles used for "bedikah" and, when families join together for the holiday, from all the candles lit on tables the first
two nights.

This is a gentle reminder to BE CAREFUL!

- Keep small children out of the kitchen during the kashering process and while you are cooking.

- Doctors also recommend putting tape on the floor around the oven and telling children they may not cross the tape.

- Adults, too, should be very careful when handling pots and pots of boiling water.

- Be careful not to leave toxic cleansers out where kids can get at them, and not to create toxic chemical brews (never mix bleach with ammonia!!!)

- Watch children carefully during the burning of the chametz, and burn chametz in controlled environment so that sparks cannot set fire to nearby bushes, grass, etc.

- If small children are in the house, do not light candles on a tablecloth that can be pulled from the floor.

- Do not light candles near curtains

- Speak with a rabbi about using a flashlight for certain parts of bedikat chametz, such as under beds and in closets.

- If you are hosting guests for the holiday, make sure everyone staying in your home knows where ALL the exits are from the house.

May everyone have a kosher, joyous, and safe holiday!

2009-04-04T22:47:00.006+03:00

Shpeetz Settling In

Cat enjoying the sun

Cat playing with ball of twine

Cat on my bed

Cat on my roommate, with movement

Quote of the day, by Liza:
She looks so cute when she's sleeping. Who would know she's a raving lunatic?

2009-04-01T12:01:00.003+03:00

Shpeetz!

My roommate's friend is away for 3 weeks, and we are foster-parenting her cat, Shpeetz!

A "shpeetz" is a sharp corner, as of a pointy star. When Shpeetz was first adopted, she was very skinny and angular - thus her name. Today she is well-fed, sleek and very pretty (mostly black fur with some white) and she wears a spiffy red collar with a little bell on it. The bell does not work; it's just a fashion statement.

So far Shpeetz has shown a penchant for sitting on the bars outside our windows and looking out at the world; playing/fighting with Liza's sock and with a q-tip she found; pawing at the washing machine while it's spinning; and meowing when she thinks she's alone. Sometimes I take out a ball of twine and we play with it. Oh, she also likes to attack the shower curtain and then sit in the bathtub, stunned, when the curtain wins. (She's not the brightest of cats.)

Yay! Shpeetz!

2009-03-31T23:30:00.002+03:00

Time Warp

I just met a real, live Karaite. He was sitting at the table next to mine at Tal's and we got to talking.

The animosity between Karaite and what they call "Rabbinite" Jews (which would be me) goes back thousands of years. I wouldn't call it a rivalry because basically the Rabbinites won that one a long time ago. Today, there are only 30,000 Karaites in the entire world. I already knew that they exist, but I've never met one in person.

So, part of me was thinking/feeling "oh, my God, I'm talking to a real, live, heretic! Should I be talking to him? Is this OK? This is so weird! It's so . . . Talmudic era . . . what century am I in?"

And the other part of me was thinking "wow! I'm talking to a real, live heretic! That's so cool. I wonder what they do at their Seders?" (Yes, I asked.)

We talked about how he became Karaite (he "converted" from secular Judaism), why he moved to Israel, who he dates, why he thinks that mainstream Jews are the true heretics (especially Reform - apparently the Karaite and Orthodox ideologies agree on something), and what cafes on Emek Refaim Street have the best internet connections.

Nice guy ( ... for a heretic?).

Such a weird feeling!

He said that usually he can't talk about his beliefs because it freaks people out. Seemed to be grateful that I didn't try to burn him at the stake.

First of all, stake-burning isn't so practical in the middle of Emek. :-)

Also, I'm not threatened. I know what I believe, and I know what I don't believe, and I know what I'm confused about, and I already know I'll be confused about many more things during my time on this earth. Thank God (and my parents, and teachers) I'm pretty educated about Talmud (for a woman, anyway), and nothing he said shook my religious foundations any more than the Talmud itself does. The Sages themselves had some pretty hefty ambivalence about their roles vis-a-vis the future of Judaism; that's not a secret. Confusion is cool. Guilt and confusion are part of the Jewish condition.

So, no Karaite can make me question things that I wasn't already questioning myself, or shake my love for things that have meaning for me.

It was just really interesting, and really weird!

2009-03-30T22:24:00.002+03:00

New Book about Passover (in Hebrew)

A relative of mine, Shimon Corsia, has recently published a book (in Hebrew) about Pesach (Passover). He previously published Orot Hachag - Sukkot, and this one is Orot Hachag - Pesach.

It's a nifty little book that essentially brings together a lot of classical Rabbinic literature about the meaning of the holiday: Why were the Jews brought out of Israel? What is the nature of freedom? Why can't we eat hametz on Pesach? Why did the Jews merit having the sea split for them?

It's about 100 pages but has lots of material that would make for great divrei Torah at the Seder and beyond - and the price is extremely reasonable.

If you want to buy a copy, here's information about how to do it.

If you live in Israel: send a check for 25 nis (if you can pick up the book from Bais Yisroel, Jerusalem) or 30 nis (if you want it mailed to you), to:
Shimon Corsia, 5 Zaks Street, Jerusalem 97351. Phone: 972-2-582-8837

If you live in the States: Send a check for $8 (if you can pick it up from Brooklyn) or $11 (if you want it mailed to you) to: Genut Family, 586 E. 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11218. Phone: 1-718-871-3050

Please note: I am not making any money from the sales of this book. I'm just doing a favor for a family member. And it is a nifty little book.

2009-03-26T22:28:00.001+02:00

Reminder

Tonight, Israelis move their clocks ahead one hour. Therefore we will once again be 7 hours ahead of EST, and 10 hours ahead of PST.

Have a Shabbat shalom.

2009-03-26T10:41:00.002+02:00

News Flash

I'm not chronically late anymore.

Turns out that I'm not "on the ADD spectrum" or disorganized or feeling time passing differently.

I just wasn't sleeping.

In fact, according to my sleep lab results, I was waking up an average of 27 times an hour.

No wonder I was scatterbrained.

Now I'm being treated, and guess what? I hand in assignments on time. I can focus during the day. I Get Stuff Done.

I'm not late for appointments anymore. Nothing. I even get places early.

It's a different world when one is well-rested.

2009-03-25T23:15:00.002+02:00

Yet Another Jewish Week Story (and a tangent that got a little involved)

This one is in the just-uploaded "Catered Events" supplement, hitting newsstands tomorrow.

Unrelated thought:

I had a weeeeeiiiiiird dream last night involving He Who Must Not Be Named. (I'm not talking about Voldemort, but rather a Person From My History. He cannot be named because privacy is way more important to him than to me - perhaps one of the many, many reasons we are not dating. But anyway, the least I can do is not toy with his identity on the internet.) In the dream I was in the market either for a new house or a new pet, I'm not sure. But anyway this woman was selling both her house and a litter of puppies/kittens (it kept changing). And while I'm there, He Who Must Not Be Named shows up with his fiancee (I don't think in real life he has a fiancee. Please tell me if he does so that I can outwardly voice my happiness for him while inwardly consider slitting my wrists.) She was, of course, much taller and much more beautiful than I am, because isn't it always so, and very nice and I had to be nice to her because she'd done nothing wrong and she's really nice and I hate this urgh. Anyhow, they are house shopping, isn't that nice? And then He Who Must Not Be Named asks why I haven't been in touch for so many years, and I say that it's because it made me really uncomfortable, and he says (as he might in real life, come to think of it) "that's disappointing. I would have expected you to be more reasonable." Which, now that I'm awake, is a really logical, cold thing to say, but in my dream I was, like, so ashamed, and fell all over myself assuring him that of course we can be friends now. And the next thing I know I'm at a wedding, and He Who Must Not Be Named is sitting at the reception with his fiancee and I'm seated next to them and I have to make small talk with both of them, and I don't know if she knows about The History and the whole thing is really uncomfortable, but I'm thinking "I've got to learn to deal with this, because we are going to be friends now. Must. learn. to. deal." And I woke up thinking damn. damn. damn. damn. damn.

[pant, pant]

OK. Seriously? There is a logical explanation for this dream. I had been at a wedding the night before. And I've been thinking about this post at another blog. And I would really like a pet (my roommate refuses, though soon we will be foster-parenting her friend's cat, Shpitz. I'm excited.) Oh, and also? I miss being friends with He Who Must Not Be Named. And there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing that's good for me, anyway.

:-(