Israel Memorial day and Independence day (April 15th and 16th, 2013)

Israel's memorial day (not to be confused with the Holocaust memorial day which was a week or two earlier) kicked off at sundown on the 14th with a siren. Memorial day commemorates Israeli fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. There were tons of ceremonies around town, including a torch ceremony at the Western Wall. We didn't attend any of the ceremonies, but in the morning they sounded a 2 minute siren for a moment of silence to remember the fallen soldiers. They did the same thing on Holocaust Memorial Day. I stopped typing my midterm paper and looked away from my computer screen to participate in the moment of silence. I hate to admit this, because I feel it's a bit disrespectful, but here goes...after about 20 seconds, I bolted to the balcony to look over. We have a very busy street right below us, and I wanted to see what the moment of silence was like out there. Everyone pulled over and got out of their cars! They took their hats off and stood quietly until the siren was finished. Also, I may have taken a picture or two. UGH! I'm a horrible person. But I promise, other than that I was very respectful of the silence. In all honesty, I was very moved by it. Life is CRAZY in Israel. People say Americans speed through life with busyness...yeah right. It only takes one short ride in the traffic here to feel so stressed and overwhelmed that you never want to leave your home ever again. So it was just very powerful to see the Israelis get out of their cars on a busy street to remember those who have died.

Memorial day ended at sundown on the 15th which immediately began Independence day. Israel's declaration of independence began in May 1948. Rothberg, the international school at Hebrew University, emailed a list of events happening around town, there were a ton of options! We decided to get a group of friends together and check out a few of them.

First we went to Safra Square for a free performance of folk singing and dancing. People were wearing, carrying and waving the Israel flag, kids were spraying "silly string" (really it wasn't string, it was this weird foam stuff) on everyone (not sure I like that tradition), and everyone was generally cheerful and excited. The singing was fun, everything was in Hebrew and pretty much all the people knew the songs and sang along. Seriously, why don't we have cute songs like this in America that people just know and sing randomly? Of course we have 4th of July songs, but people aren't just singing them loudly in the streets and in bars. Are they? When we lived in Germany, they had awesome songs too (most of them were for soccer, but still!). Anyways, just thought I'd rant about that a bit.

After that we walked up Ben Yehuda to the top at King George where there was another stage with folk singing. This seemed to be a much younger crowd, but they were just as excited as the crowd at Safra Square. We joined in on some dancing and jumping before making our way to the shuk.

I have told you all about the shuk as far as my grocery runs, but did I ever mention that it is quite lively at night as well? I think I briefly talked about it when I wrote about Purim. All the stands are closed but there are a few bars and restaurants hidden in there, so it's like a whole other place at night. As fun as it is there, it was lacking some of the Independence day crazy. But we decided to stay and have a drink anyways. After an hour or two, Skye and I decided to call it an evening. It was fun to see all the events and the people out and about celebrating their country!

Independence day wasn't over until sundown the next day, and there were many events happening the next day as well. The Israel Museum had a few family events going on, and guess what else? They had free admission all day! So we decided to take that opportunity to see the rest of the museum. My gosh that thing is huge!!! It goes on forever! But it's really well done and we covered most of it. They also had four planes flying over Jerusalem and doing aerial tricks together! We had a good view from the museum for the real deal, but Skye and I had a great view of them from our balcony a week earlier when they were practicing.

We had a fun time celebrating Israel!

Moment of Silence

Part of our crew at Safra Square 

Even the kids had some cool dancing (or something...) going on

This was a crazy long flag and the crowd was doing a train with it. Awesome. 

The boys just wanted to observe....

But Katherine and I decided to join in the dancing!

Ben Yehuda

Katherine, Mirjam and I! 

Katherine was the victim of a foam attack

The stage on King George

The dancing here was a bit more wild...

Our favorite Shuk bar

Once we got home, we noticed the fireworks! 

Fancy planes!

Israel museum, guess what this is made out of...

Soda cans! 

Modern art...always interesting I suppose

This was a really cool room from a palace in France that they brought over

Learning about American Indians in Israel. Something I never expected to happen!

Easter in Jerusalem--where all the action happened! (March 24th, 29th, and 31st)

I mentioned in my Odds and Ends and Seder blog that Christian holidays in Israel are almost non existent. When Easter crept up, I assumed it would be the same, especially with all the passover talk. But then at church one week they announced all these different events and activities, so we decided to join a few.

On Palm Sunday we joined a gigantic procession at the top of the Mount of Olives, where they believe Jesus told his disciples to get the donkey. The procession began with tons of girl and boy scouts of all ages followed by hundreds and hundreds of people from all over the world with many different religions. There were Catholics, Protestants, Americans, Arabs, Asians, Africans, and Europeans all over! People were singing and playing instruments, and many people were carrying palm branches. People sang in English and some sang in their native languages. It was quite amazing. It was exhausting and crowded, but a good experience nonetheless. We ended that day with gelato!

Then on Good Friday we decided to join another procession. It was a procession through the old city on Via Dolorosa stopping at each station of the cross. This one was very crowded as well, and was difficult because the streets of the old city are very narrow and crowded as it is. It also didn't seem very organized, it was hard to know what was actually going on. Palm Sunday was equally disorganized, but it's just a procession, there isn't as much needed information. Regardless, it was a cool thing to be able to do and I'm glad we had the opportunity.

Right after the procession we headed to Christ Church (an evangelical Anglican church in the old city) for a Good Friday service. The service was long, but it was very good. It was well done, well organized and a nice remembrance of what happened that Friday. During one part of the service, there were seven candles burning, each one represented the seven last things that Jesus said. Each one was read, and afterwards a different speaker said a few words about it, then one of the candles was put out. This was to remind us that Jesus, the light of our world, was about to go out. We sang some good songs, but one of my favorites, Oh the Wondrous Cross, was sang to a different tune! That was disappointing, but a minor disappointment, and we enjoyed the service anyways.

Easter Sunday itself had many options for services. We chose to go to the sunrise (or Son-rise as they called it) service at the Garden Tomb with some friends from church. I mentioned the Garden Tomb in my recent 'Gems' blog, and if you remember my blog from months and months ago when we first arrived, the Garden Tomb is where the protestants believe the Crucifixion, Death, Burial and Resurrection happened (it's in Old City Adventures part 4 if you care to take a look at the Garden Tomb blog). The Garden Tomb is beautiful and peaceful, and growing up, it's how I always pictured the area would be like. But as the speaker at the service reminded us, it's not important where it happened, it's important THAT it happened. So it was really the perfect place for a sunrise service. It's set up for services so a lot of people can fit. And a lot of people there were!

We arrived 15 minutes early and still had to stand in line outside. Once we got in there was only standing room left. But it was ok, I nudged my way to an area where I could see the podium perfectly. This was my favorite of all the Easter events by far! We sang some old Easter hymns, those always make make so happy, and some new songs that were also great. The band was very talented and apparently there was a key-tar (we couldn't actually see the band from where we were.)! We read scriptures and heard a sermon, we were even able to take communion! As people came in they passed out little tiny disposable sealed communion cups complete with grape juice and a wafer. They also passed out a tiny goblet made from olive wood as a keepsake, so that was fun. AND we even got a little book about the Easter story on our way out. The weather was beautiful too which is something that is extremely hit or miss in all the places I have lived! In fact, nice weather on Easter was something that rarely happened in all the places I've lived!

After the sunrise service we had everyone over for an Easter potluck brunch. I miraculously found legitimate bacon at the Russian store, so I made a yummy breakfast casserole (you can't have easter without some sort of pig meat!). Dan and Veronica brought some delicious homemade muffins, and Michael and John brought some amazing fresh fruit. We had tons of coffee and juice and ate until we couldn't fit anymore in. It was a very nice time.

After everyone went home, Skye and I watched an awful and creepy Easter claymation movie, during which I took a little nap! haha! Then I convinced him that it was wrong for us not to be eating chocolate on Easter so we took a walk to the store and loaded up on some German chocolate.

I was SO happy with all our Easter celebrations here! We even got to throw in a Passover meal! It was fantastic! I wasn't expecting it to be good at all, none of the other Christian holidays had been! Thankfully Easter was the opposite! It was very powerful to be in Jerusalem over Easter, where everything happened! It may not be the exact location for any of it, but it sure was as close as we could possibly get!

PALM SUNDAY

The New Gate at the Old city, all decorated for Palm Sunday (entrance to the Christian Quarter)

Dan read us the passage about Palm Sunday

People are beginning to gather

We're ready to process! 

Time to start!

The procession leaders

Boy/girl scouts

....and we're processing! 

Almost to the bottom of the mountain (the guy in tie dye is our friend Jon)

GOOD FRIDAY

Procession began with clergy, monks and nuns

Procession crowd

3rd station of the cross, Jesus fell the first time 

5th station, Simon helps Jesus carry the cross

End of the procession

Our Good Friday service crew (Veronica, Dan, Skye, me, David)

Easter Sunday

Line to get in the Garden Tomb sunrise service

Easter Service main speaker

Happy Easter!

LEGITIMATE BACON!

Our Easter service and brunch crew

Seder-Passover in Jerusalem (March 25th, 2013)

Israel may have nearly non existent Christian holidays like Christmas and Valentines day, but they sure know how to celebrate Jewish holidays! Skye and I arrived during Rosh Hashanah and since have experienced Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hanukah, and Purim. We watched those holidays come and go, just observing how the Jews celebrate and never had a chance to be involved, which always made me a little sad.

Passover crept up and Rothberg, the international school at Hebrew University, emailed the students with an opportunity to sign up to be placed with a family for the Passover meals. I ignored it at first, but kept thinking how it would probably be our best chance to meet a Jewish family and celebrate the holiday, so I signed up. I signed up one day late so I was pretty sure it wouldn't work out. But then I got a call from Liron, a student from Hebrew University. Her family, the Nimri's, live in Tel Aviv and welcomed us to their home to spend the night and share their Seder (סדר) meal. The Seder meal begins the Passover week.

We caught the sherut to Tel Aviv where Liron picked us up from the central bus station. We were staying at Liron's family's house, but we would have dinner at her grandma, Pnina's house. She only lives one block away from the Nimri's house.

When we arrived we met the rest of Liron's family at their house and talked a little before walking to Pnina's. Liron's mother is Sharon, originally from Britain and her husband, Liron's dad, is Eyal. They have four children altogether, Liron's twin brother whom we didn't meet because he was in Mexico, Shaked her younger sister, and Alon the youngest brother. Everyone speaks very good English so thankfully language was not a problem.

We walked to Pnina's house and met her and her friend Dan. She was super sweet and had great English as well.

Now it was time to begin Seder! Skye and I were a little nervous because we don't know much about Jewish traditions and we didn't want to mess anything up! The Nimri's aren't particularly religious so they were laid back and our nerves subsided right away.

The dinner begins (and ends) by reading the story from Exodus about how the Jews were freed from slavery in ancient Egypt. The story is read from the Haggadah (הגדה), a special book that includes not only the story from Exodus, but songs, special blessings and rituals. They even had a couple books with an English translation for us, one of which was Sharon's as a child. We went around the table and everyone read. The songs were in Hebrew so we just followed along in English, UNTIL the number song! I know my numbers in Hebrew and Sharon taught us one of the phrases. The song is called "Echad Mi Yodea" (אחד מי יו דע), or "Who Knows One". It starts at number one and goes up to thirteen and then back down to one again. Each number is associated with something religious or worldly like the five books of Moses or the nine months of pregnancy (according to wikipedia). Almost like the twelve days of Christmas!

The table was set with two bottles of wine, a plate of matzah (מצה) (unlevened bread because when the Jews fled they left in such a rush that the bread did not have time to rise) covered with a pretty passover cover, and symbolic foods on a Seder plate. Everyone began with one glass full of wine, including Elijah. Elijah comes to share the meal as well! Some families even put a chair out for him. whenever the tables gets nudged a little, and the wine moves, that's when they tell the kids, "Look! He's there, he's drinking it!"

Here is a rundown of what the foods on the Seder plate represent (with some help from wikipedia....ok more that just help, I copy and pasted it all, my commentary is underlined):

• Maror and Chazeret: Two types of bitter herbs, symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery which the Jews endured in Ancient Egypt. For maror, many people use freshly grated horseradish or whole horseradish root. Chazeret is typically romaine lettuce, whose roots are bitter-tasting. Either the horseradish or romaine lettuce may be eaten in fulfillment of the mitzvah of eating bitter herbs during the Seder. (We had lettuce and a horseradish sauce from Poland, it basically shot fire through my nose!!!!) 
• Charoset: A sweet, brown, pebbly paste of fruits and nuts, representing the mortar used by the Jewish slaves to build the storehouses of Egypt. (We had a fig, apple and nut mix, it was REALLY good!) 
• Karpas: A vegetable other than bitter herbs, usually parsley but sometimes something such as celery or cooked potato, which is dipped into salt water (Ashkenazi custom), vinegar (Sephardi custom), or charoset (older custom, still common amongst Yemenite Jews) at the beginning of the Seder. (We had a sauce made from beets) 
• Zeroa: A roasted lamb or goat bone, symbolizing the korban Pesach (Pesach sacrifice), which was a lamb offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and was then roasted and eaten as part of the meal on Seder night. (I think we used a chicken bone.) 
• Beitzah: A hard-boiled egg, symbolizing the korban chagigah (festival sacrifice) that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and was then eaten as part of the meal on Seder night. (We had a bowl of boiled eggs so everyone could have one and they were sitting in salty water.)

The Haggadah leads you through rituals and blessings throughout the whole dinner, and here is a rundown of the, again thanks to wikipedia:

1. Kadeish קדש – recital of Kiddush blessing and drinking of the first cup of wine 
2. Urchatz ורחץ – the washing of the hands 
3. Karpas כרפס – dipping of the karpas in salt water 
4. Yachatz יחץ – breaking the middle matzo; the larger piece becomes the afikoman 
5. Maggid מגיד – retelling the Passover story, including the recital of "the four questions" and drinking of the second cup of wine 
6. Rachtzah רחצה – second washing of the hands 
7. Motzi מוציא, Matzo מצה – blessing before eating matzo 
8. Maror מרור – eating of the maror 
9. Koreich כורך – eating of a sandwich made of matzo and maror 
10. Shulchan oreich שולחן עורך – lit. "set table"—the serving of the holiday meal 
11. Tzafun צפון – eating of the afikoman 
12. Bareich ברך – blessing after the meal and drinking of the third cup of wine 
13. Hallel הלל – recital of the Hallel, traditionally recited on festivals; drinking of the fourth cup of wine 
14. Nirtzah נירצה – say "See you in Jerusalem again!"

We had a lot of fun getting to know the Nimri family and learning about some Jewish traditions. Everyone was so sweet, they allowed us to take pictures and to stop them whenever we had questions. However, they were very good at stopping to explain what things meant that we barely had to ask anything.

Our accommodations were fantastic! They had converted an unattached garage into a room with a full bathroom and even a mini fridge. It was very nice! We were quite comfortable! The next morning Sharon fed us a huge and delicious breakfast. It was a passover version of french toast made with Matza instead of bread. It was surprisingly good. I didn't think Matza could do something like that!

Afterwards we said our goodbyes and Liron took us back to Jerusalem. We hope to see them again when we visit Tel Aviv.

We were very grateful for their hospitality and for the opportunity to share their Seder meal traditions. It was a fantastic time!

The whole family

The whole family again but with Sharon

This is a TERRIBLE angle for me, but here is the Matza and Shaked
 is holding the delicious Charoset (fruit spread) and Elijah's cup.

Seder Plate (Remember, two bitter herbs, sweet brown paste (fruit spread),
  vegetable other than herbs,  roasted bone, and hard boiled egg)

Elijah's cup (usually it's left out and then later  if you come look
at it some will be gone showing that he drank some)

From top left: Shaked, Alon, Liron, Skye and me. Our sign for Rothberg:
 "My name is Janna and Skye and I did my Passover Seder
in Israel together with the Nimri family"
(we had to fill our names in the blank, I think it's more common for single students )

The Science Museum and Shapiro Beer

In February I began volunteering at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. Pretty random, right? I know approximately nothing about science. I had been complaining to my friend, Eileen, in Madison about how I didn't want to be as bored this year as I was at times last year. She emailed me back with a list of places to volunteer that looked fun or interesting. I was too stressed with Hebrew in the fall, so I waited until I was finished with that to pursue any of them. I contacted the museum and met with them a couple weeks later. They really don't take volunteers regularly, but seemed pleased I was interested. The woman I work with, Tal, basically finds things to do for me as I don't speak Hebrew, or like I said, know anything about science.

My first day I got to wander around the museum a bit to become familiar with it all. Not too shabby!  After that I worked on holes in the English website and fixed a lot of the wording. That actually didn't take me very long, so I wasn't really sure what I would be needed for next.

I was so happy when Tal called one evening and asked me to help them at their Mini Maker Faire. The Maker Faire is alllllll around the world, and Tal was responsible for bringing a small version (hence the 'mini') to Jerusalem. Basically scientists, anywhere from free lance to students, applied to get their project in, and once accepted, brought it to display and demonstrate.

The fair was March 17th, 18th and 19th. The night of the 17th was the grand opening VIP night, so they had a ton of food, wine and beer. And guess who poured that beer? This girl right here! Yep, I was the beer girl.

When I got there Tal introduced me to Itzik, one of the brothers who owns the beer company. Basically these brothers starting brewing beer from their home and kept winning all these prizes, and now they run a brewery just outside Jerusalem. It's called Shapiro Beer. More on that later.

Itzik showed me how to tap new kegs and how to fill the glass without the foam getting everywhere. Once he was done with that, he said, "are you thirsty?" and handed me a beer. And thus began my night of beer drinking (don't worry I didn't have too much). You may all remember from Germany that I'm actually not much of a beer fan. But they brought their Pale Ale (one of their 3 main kinds, they also have wheat ale and stout) and it was actually quite good.

Luckily, the beer stand was right next to the focaccia stand! These two guys were there from this catering service, and I guess their main thing is fire cooked focaccia. They also had hot tea and coffee. The bread had tons of toppings and super fancy olive oil. They kept making different versions. My favorite were the garlic ones! Mmmm. And I got to eat them fresh out of the fire! The guys were very loud, goofy and fun. We kept trading beer and bread, but they had a lot more beer than I had bread! Anyways, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed talking to all the different people and goofing off with the bread guys.

Sadly the next couple nights, there was no food, just free beer! I didn't have the bread boys to entertain me that night. However, Skye, David and Katherine came the second night, and Skye, Dan and Eric came the third night. I also made friends with some of the makers and museum staff, so I wasn't bored!

The second night Avi, Itzik's brother, stopped by to make sure things were ok, and I was greeted again with, "are you thirsty?". And...thus began my second night of beer drinking. But now I had Skye, David and Katherine to join me. The second and third nights of the fair were not supposed to be "free beer" nights. Just the first glass was going to be free and the rest would cost money. Avi was so nice and offered my friends to drink for free. But charging for beer turned into an unorganized mess (how unusual for Israel!) and eventually the lady in charge told us we could offer it for free. Skye, David and Katherine wandered around to the different displays and projects. Eventually they ran into her neighbor, Hanan, who works for the museum and he was able to give them a little tour, so that was nice!

The third and final night I got to my beer station to find that it was a huge mess. The makers and museum staff had a big dinner and decided to serve themselves, and by this point the brothers trusted me to run things so they weren't there. Nothing was harmed at all, they just ran out the keg and there was beer everywhere. I changed the keg and cleaned up and everything was back to normal. Only this time the brothers had dropped off the wheat beer in the kegs! I had to try it, and thus began my third night of beer drinking. I LOVED the wheat beer! It was much sweeter than the pale ale and I think the bitterness is part of why I don't usually like beer. But this one wasn't bitter at all! Skye brought Dan and Eric and they wandered around and checked out the museum. Meanwhile things were much more relaxed and I was hanging out with a bunch of the makers and museum staff. I really enjoy talking to strangers (in a safe environment, of course), especially when I'm in such an odd setting. If you think about it, it's just weird that I was there. Everyone thought I was Jewish and when I told them I wasn't, they had a hard time understanding why in the world I was at the museum, and in Israel in general. But they were all friendly and spoke great English so it was fun.

Itzik and Avi came by at the end of the night to pack up their gear and thanked me for helping them by giving me a ton of bottles of beer. Including the stout which I hadn't gotten to try! It was so nice, I wasn't expecting that at all. It ended up being more like I was volunteering for them rather than the museum. After they gave me beer, they also invited Skye, me, and a few of our friends to a party they were having that Friday. It was so nice! I also told them I'd be happy to volunteer for them in the future if they needed anyone, and they seemed happy about that. Who doesn't like free help?

At first we weren't going to go to their party but then decided it would be fun to hang out with a bunch of beer brewers and go to a party thrown by locals. It was in their neighbors' back yard and there were tons of people. They had hotdogs (kosher) roasting, a DJ, dancing and the famous pale ale. It turns out there are six siblings, if I remember right, two are girls. Some of them were born in NYC and the rest were born in Jerusalem, but they were all very young when they moved here. Their grandmother was from Milwaukee! Two of the brothers brew the beer, Itzik and another (dang it I forgot his name!). I think Avi mainly does delivery stuff. Itzik learned how to make beer in Milwaukee, and the other learned in Colorado. So no wonder it was so good! We had fun getting to know them and their friends. They were all so nice and welcoming! It was great to hang out with some locals for a few hours.

One of the makers

When they wandered off, I had no idea what they were up to....

Beer girl

Ah yes, they were found in the small children's section!

Beer brother's party! (from left: Jon, Johannes, Skye, David)

I felt like joining the picture...