3 Shabbatot and 2 Yamai Nativ

As promised: two weekends ago Misha really wanted to get out of Yerucham, and since I’m always up for traveling anywhere we decided to go to Tel Aviv for the weekend. At the last minute our friend David decided to come too, so we left around one in the afternoon. We got to Tel Aviv no problem, and our hostel was pretty nice. We walked along the beach and although it was a little chilly the sunset over the water was absolutely gorgeous, and we were all really happy to be there. We then went to dinner, and the weekend took a turn for the worse. I started feeling not so great, and my stomach hurt a lot. I told my friends that I needed to go back to the hostel, and fast forward an hour and I’m throwing up every fifteen minutes, unable to keep down even a few sips of water. After another hour and a half of this, I was really dizzy and had sharp stomach pains, and the three of us were beginning to worry about my possibly getting dehydrated. We played the ‘better safe than sorry’ game and after another round of puking we took a cab to the hospital. By the time I got there I was dry-heaving, and really dizzy, so we were all glad that we had made the decision to go. They admitted me to the ER pretty quickly (thankfully) and soon gave me an IV. I was finally able to stop throwing up and sleep for a while. Long story short, I was in the hospital from 10 pm until 6 am the next morning, when they shakily released me. I spent all day Saturday back at the hostel, sleeping mostly, drinking a lot of seltzer and eating a few crackers, and we made it back pretty easily Saturday night. But my sickness wasn’t really the significant part of this. The significant part was I realized how wonderful the friends that I’ve made on Nativ are. Misha (who, by the way, informed me just the week before that she refuses to ‘wait on people,’ even when they’re sick) and David took unbelievable care of me. The only people who could have taken any better care of me are my actual mother and father. They ran out and bought me crackers and drinks and anything I needed, doted on me constantly, and while they could have easily gone back to sleep at the hostel for the interim of at least six hours, they stayed all night in the hospital waiting room, checking up on me whenever I woke up. They helped me in and out of cabs, carried my stuff around, and called my parents to keep them updated on my situation. I am so unbelievably lucky that they were there with me, or else I don’t know what I would have done.

Two weeks ago the theme for Yom Nativ was Top Chef, and I just happened to be on that planning committee. The morning consisted of a scavenger hunt around Yerucham, and the in the afternoon each apartment was assigned a culture within Israel (Moroccan, Polish, Yemenite, Indian, etc.) and given a budget of 70 shekels to cook some authentic dishes. Each apartment then had to present their food along with some background information on their culture. Although I did miss some of the day because I was still recovering from Friday night’s fiasco, I was able to attend the Top Chef part of the day. My apartment made malawach (a sort of fried dough) and had a really funny Yemenite powerpoint presentation (courtesy of Sarah), and overall the day’s programming was a success.

Last weekend I went with Misha and Kesha to stay at her cousin Raya’s in Jerusalem, since Misha’s dad was coming in that weekend. It was all of our first time back in Jerusalem since we moved to Yerucham. One of my favorite things about living in Israel, and Jerusalem, is the bus ride to and from the city. I wish I could describe it adequately here. Jerusalem is surrounded by three valleys, so when leaving the city the view is incredible. The city sits atop the hill and is flanked by valleys that are covered in white stone buildings. In the day time, the white rock of the cliffs that matches the Jerusalem stone houses makes it hard to tell what is mountain and what is man made, and at night all of the houses are lit up and the valley is glowing. I love that bus ride. It always manages to remind me 1. that I actually do live in Israel and 2. why I came here. Returning to Jerusalem, it really felt like we had never left – except for when we walked past Agron and realized that we no longer lived there, and that strangers were staying in our rooms. Raya lives only about seven minutes down the street from Agron, in an apartment across from Ben Yehuda Street. We got there on Thursday night and went to our favorite restaurant, Japanika, for sushi. It was wonderful to not only be back in a city again, but in a city where we knew our way around and that was so familiar to us. After dinner, we went out for frozen yogurt and then to our favorite bar – two things that don’t exist at all in Yerucham. As much as I love living in Yerucham now, it’s very hard not to miss Jerusalem.

Friday morning, despite some unusually heavy rain, we went to the shuk to get the necessary ingredients for Shabbat dinner. I knew I loved the shuk when I lived in Jerusalem, but it’s being in Yerucham that has made me truly appreciate it. The produce is fresher, and cheaper, and the variety is infinitely greater than anything you can find in Yerucham. After gathering supplies, the three of us spent the day inside cozily napping, reading, and cooking dinner, which included hamentashen made from scratch and challah made from scratch – two things I’d never made before, and both of which came out surprisingly well. We went to Friday night services at a local synagogue, which was also an old comfort. While Yerucham is a religious town, and thus has no shortage of synagogues, they all leave much to be desired. The shul that we usually go to sequesters the women in a small corner and does most of the service silently, which defeats the whole point of going to get a community feeling and to hear everyone singing together. Additionally, most of the shuls in Yerucham (maybe all of them, I’m not really sure) are Sephardic, and thus they do things differently than we’re used to in our Ashkenazi shuls. Then it was dinner time, which was delicious, as was the company: Raya and her boyfriend are very sweet and also hilarious.

Saturday morning we opted to skip services and woke up just in time to leave for lunch at Misha’s uncle’s house. Her uncle lives in Abu Tor, which is about a half hour walk from Raya’s, which normally isn’t too bad, but because it was VERY cold (not compared to at home maybe, but definitely compared to the rest of the year in Jerusalem…it even snowed there later that week) and windy, the walk was a little bit miserable. But lunch was lovely; Kesha and I got to meet Misha’s family, including her father. It’s always nice to be around family here, and so I definitely enjoyed it. Saturday afternoon brought more relaxing and Saturday night brought Kesha and me back to Yerucham while Misha stayed in Jerusalem to hang out with her dad.

Last week’s Yom Nativ was ‘Yom Tiyul,’ so we went on a small hike through the hills around Yerucham. After the spectacular hikes of desert tiyul, most hikes for me are anticlimactic. However, in the afternoon we had a session where we met with the mayor of Yerucham, Mitzne. This was a big deal because not only did he used to be the mayor of Haifa, he also used to head the Labor party, which makes him a very well-recognized political figure in Israel. Unlike many people in Yerucham, he very much chooses to be here (rather than ‘ending up’ here) and he’s done a lot over the past few years to really try to turn Yerucham around. He was appointed after a big scandal with the last mayor that involved a lot of corruption, and he has been a really great change for the town. It was awesome to be able to sit down and talk with him and ask him questions, and it was easy to tell that he really appreciated us being here.

Last Thursday night was the Idan Raichel concert in Jerusalem. Apparently, Idan Raichel is a very famous Israeli singer. I’d never heard of him – I haven’t been exposed to that much Israeli music. But Nativ was heavily subsidizing the concert and providing buses, and tons of people were going, so I decided to go to. He was really great and it was a lot of fun, especially because it was the first time I was seeing a lot of Nativers from Kibbutz and Be’er Sheva since moving to Yerucham. That night I went with Keren back to Kibbutz because I was spending Shabbat with her at her family’s. On Kibbutz they live in caravans, and Keren’s caravan is really nice, as is the whole Kibbutz. But despite their living conditions being a little bit nicer than ours in Yerucham, I know Kibbutz was never for me. I’m not a farm girl, and the whole communal dining thing every day really gets on my nerves. Keren and I then went to Rehovot to spend Shabbat at her cousin’s. We mostly just hung out and relaxed, but it was a great weekend especially since I hadn’t seen Keren in so long and we had a lot of catching up to do.

*Before I finish this blog I’d like to make an amendment to my last blog post. My blog is never meant to offend anyone – least of all our famous cousin Morris, the family historian on my paternal grandmother’s side, the Greenbergs. I must make a correction to Bururyah’s warm introduction: I do indeed have cousins in Israel (who I AM looking up, I promise!), and what she meant to say was that the gan is my family now because I don’t have any family in Yerucham. There. Thanks for keeping me on my toes cousin Morris =).