A friend of mine previously from the US Midwest moved to Israel a year and a half ago with her family. She is one of those really nice, always smiling, always positive types that you expect to come from the heartland of the USA. Basically, she's their poster child. And that's why her observations (made originally to her husband and later to me) about our neighbourhood and our synagogue are all the funnier.
About six months into their move to Ra'anana she said to her husband: "Isn't it nice to come to a place where there are no shul (Yiddish for synagogue) politics?" As an aside, let me add that her husband, a native New Yorker, had a less delusional perspective.
I can never hear that story or tell that story enough times. It cracks me up as much now as it did when I first heard it. And after last week, it cracks me up even more.
I promised my AdHoc Overseerers Committee that I would not discuss the issue that brought our synagogue to its philosophical crossroads last week, but suffice it to say that the members of our community spent the last month in the midst of a discussion about how we view ourselves within the framework of Modern Orthodox Judaism. Left, Right, Center, Indifferent, Left with Right Leanings, Right with Left Leanings ..... you get the idea.
In the days leading up to the great vote, emotions were running so high in some quarters that there were many synagogue members who really thought that this issue would irrevocably destroy our community.
Then came Saturday night and the moment of reckoning. After weeks of over-thought angst the members of the synagogue voted last Saturday night and the matter was put to bed. But more important, the synagogue did not implode as a result of the final vote. Admittedly, there were winners and there were losers (and I suspect there were many people who were just glad the whole matter was behind them).
Which brings me to last night and the engagement party of one of our friends' daughter. (Try to follow along with my convoluted thinking here.)
The party was packed with people from our synagogue (and many other people as well). It no longer mattered what side people voted for the other night.
The question any naive outsider could reasonably ask was: "How could you go from the brink of destruction to non-partisan party mode in 48 hours?" And that, my friends, is an interesting question.
When people move to Israel from North America they leave behind a lot -- family, friends, emotional comfort, to name a few. In my mind, they gain a lot more than they lose, but that does not minimize the fact that they have paid a big price to recreate their lives.
And the people who play the biggest role in their new lives (at least in my neighbourhood) are the other members of the shul. People who may have nothing else in common but this one gigantic life experience. They may not share the same political views (trust me, they don't) and they obviously don't share the same views on the observance of Judaism, but at the end of the day, they are the people who will do your carpool if your car breaks down 10 minutes before pick-up. They will feed your children when you are home in bed with the flu. They will drive you to the airport when your parent dies in North America -- and they will be waiting there to bring you home when you return from the shiva.
The grandfather of the groom-to-be spoke last night at the engagement party. He was a very polished, knowledgeable speaker who recounted how, 70 years ago, he managed to survive a pogrom in Romania that left many in his shtetl dead. He also talked about surviving the Shoah (Holocaust). And now, he said, here he was, in Ra'anana, celebrating his grandson's engagement on behalf of all those who never knew there could even be a Jewish state where Jews could live any type of Jewish life they wanted, freely.
And when all is said and done, that is really the ONLY point that matters.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
They're kidding, right?
Yesterday I received a message on Facebook from someone working at my undergrad university whose job it is to find alumni that have fallen off the university's potential donors list. Egads (for those young folk out there, it sort of means "yikes" although it is actually a slang form of OMG)!!!!!!!! Can you imagine a university going to such lengths to find its alumni?
Of course you can.
Debbie, my new friend from McMaster University's Data Entry Department, sent a lovely inquiry letter asking if I was me and apologizing if I was, in fact, someone else. She wasn't sure I was me because one of my Facebook pages only lists me by my married name and not the maiden name that she probably has on her list.
That's one of the big problems with having an unusual first name. Even if someone doesn't have all your data, partial data will probably do the trick. And together with a quick Facebook search of graduates from McMaster .... voila, there you go. Yipee doodle, I was found.
Frankly, I have been happily lost for years. I wasn't hiding but I also made no effort to be found. They did catch wind of me about 12 years ago when I realized that I had lost my undergraduate diploma and I called them and asked for a new copy. Once they had an address to which they could send the diploma, they felt free to start sending me all sorts of crazy junk mail. However, the joke was on them -- the address I gave them was my parents'. The point being that if I really wanted to be found, then I would have given them my correct address at that time.
I never thought about them again after I moved to Israel. As wonderful as those university years were -- and they were all that and more -- it was part of my past.
Of course, that was before Facebook.
Thanks to Facebook and my need to put down just enough information to make me reasonably "findable" (I know that's not a word, but remember, my blog, my vocabulary) to old friends, some unwanted people found me as well.
I just realized that I have digressed so far from my point that I will have to take a bus to get back to it.
Okay, so I wrote back to Data Entry Debbie and she sent me a link so that I could become a member of the McMaster Alumni website. I should have just ignored her message, but my need to click a link wherever I find one was too strong to ignore. Next thing I knew I was at the "register to login" page and since it also had a link .... I started clicking again. I figured that I would just register. No one was actually going to come after me for money ... I live to far away. I'm inaccessible.
And then came the ironic moment. In fact, the MUA website was inaccessible because one of the first pieces of information they wanted was my student card number.
First I checked to see if that was an optional question but as it turned out, it was one of the questions with the little red asterik next to it, which means that it was compulsory. I just looked at it, and looked at it, and looked again.
As I see it, it was the hand of G-d slapping me back to reality. I think what He was saying was that He also doesn't want me to give money to McMaster; He would prefer that I do all my charitable giving in Israel.
My biggest problem is that I can't help but look a gift horse in the mouth. After a message straight from G-d you would think I had the sense to just move on to another web page, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I have to have the last word (G-d also gave man free choice, and in my case, I don't always use it wisely). I wrote back to Data Entry Debbie and asked her who the heck remembered their student card number 28 years after graduation?
Now, I am just waiting for her response. If she responds that people actually do remember theirs, I will eat my hat. And then I will sit around and wait for my graduate school university to find me as well.
Of course you can.
Debbie, my new friend from McMaster University's Data Entry Department, sent a lovely inquiry letter asking if I was me and apologizing if I was, in fact, someone else. She wasn't sure I was me because one of my Facebook pages only lists me by my married name and not the maiden name that she probably has on her list.
That's one of the big problems with having an unusual first name. Even if someone doesn't have all your data, partial data will probably do the trick. And together with a quick Facebook search of graduates from McMaster .... voila, there you go. Yipee doodle, I was found.
Frankly, I have been happily lost for years. I wasn't hiding but I also made no effort to be found. They did catch wind of me about 12 years ago when I realized that I had lost my undergraduate diploma and I called them and asked for a new copy. Once they had an address to which they could send the diploma, they felt free to start sending me all sorts of crazy junk mail. However, the joke was on them -- the address I gave them was my parents'. The point being that if I really wanted to be found, then I would have given them my correct address at that time.
I never thought about them again after I moved to Israel. As wonderful as those university years were -- and they were all that and more -- it was part of my past.
Of course, that was before Facebook.
Thanks to Facebook and my need to put down just enough information to make me reasonably "findable" (I know that's not a word, but remember, my blog, my vocabulary) to old friends, some unwanted people found me as well.
I just realized that I have digressed so far from my point that I will have to take a bus to get back to it.
Okay, so I wrote back to Data Entry Debbie and she sent me a link so that I could become a member of the McMaster Alumni website. I should have just ignored her message, but my need to click a link wherever I find one was too strong to ignore. Next thing I knew I was at the "register to login" page and since it also had a link .... I started clicking again. I figured that I would just register. No one was actually going to come after me for money ... I live to far away. I'm inaccessible.
And then came the ironic moment. In fact, the MUA website was inaccessible because one of the first pieces of information they wanted was my student card number.
First I checked to see if that was an optional question but as it turned out, it was one of the questions with the little red asterik next to it, which means that it was compulsory. I just looked at it, and looked at it, and looked again.
As I see it, it was the hand of G-d slapping me back to reality. I think what He was saying was that He also doesn't want me to give money to McMaster; He would prefer that I do all my charitable giving in Israel.
My biggest problem is that I can't help but look a gift horse in the mouth. After a message straight from G-d you would think I had the sense to just move on to another web page, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I have to have the last word (G-d also gave man free choice, and in my case, I don't always use it wisely). I wrote back to Data Entry Debbie and asked her who the heck remembered their student card number 28 years after graduation?
Now, I am just waiting for her response. If she responds that people actually do remember theirs, I will eat my hat. And then I will sit around and wait for my graduate school university to find me as well.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Six months to the big 5-0
I haven't written much lately because ever since the Georgian clocked ticked its way into the new year, I have been preoccupied with the fact that this is the year that I turn 50. No matter how many times I say it -- and trust me I say it a lot -- I can't get over the fact that come July I will be 50 years old.
My husband doesn't understand why I keep telling people that I am turning the big 5-0. I bring it up in pretty much every everyday situation in which I find myself. He's more from the school of thought that believes in turning 39 for the next 45 years. I do not subscribe to this school of thought at all.
Most of the people I am friends with in Israel are in their early 40s (and a few are still in their mid 30s) and day-to-day that is neither here nor there. They are my friends and age doesn't factor into it. But I noticed, that beginning about eight months ago, I became very conscious of who my contemporaries in the neighbourhood were. And since then I have decided that I prefer the company of people my own age. That doesn't mean that I like my old friends any less -- I don't. What it means is that I like my contemporaries even more than I did before.
Why?
It's simple. We have a common bond. We come from the same place.
For those of us who grew up in the 60s, there were embarassing bell bottom pants and the ridiculously thick and funky belts that held them up. We had Lite Brites, Creepy Crawlers, Easy Bake Ovens and Etch-a-Sketches. Our home telephones had rotary dials and they weighed enough to really injure someone. We listened to The Jackson Five and The Osmonds. And when we got a little older and cooler we listened to Led Zepplin, Cat Stevens, Seals and Crofts, James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkle. We drove in cars without seatbelts and rode our bikes without helmets. We ate white bread and sugary cereal. We played outside all day and no one knew where we were or could call us on our non-existent cell phones -- and no one was worried about us.
It was the tail end of a simpler time. Not like my friends who were born in the mid 70s and came of age in the 1980s when the world was already changing beyond recognition.
I love that I am a child of the 60s. Much cooler than those nerdy kids born in the 50s and more innocent than the kids born in the 70s. I was an impressionable eight year old when women were burning their bras and a nine year old, when newly rebellious teens were hitchhiking to Woodstock. Many of my later ideas were initially formed by Gloria Steinem. I was old enough to absorb all the amazing changes that were going on without having to be the experimental guinea pig.
1961, the year I arrived on the scene, was the year that the US cut its ties with Cuba. It was the year that JFK actually went to work as the president of the United States. The Beatles performed for the first time at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. The trial of nazi Adolf Eichman took place in Jerusalem. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space. The US civil rights movement was gaining momentum. The New Democratic Party was formed in Canada (albeit, not world changing, but I had to get Canada in there). Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requested asylum in France. The first MLB All-Star game to end in a tie occured. Construction of the Berlin Wall began. West Side Story was released. Catch-22 was published. And Barbie got a boyfriend, Ken.
So to all my friends born at other times (mostly much later), read this and weep! You may be younger but I wouldn't change a thing. I remember when the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show. I got to stay up late to watch it. You only saw the replay on You Tube!
There's an email that circulates around the internet and surfaces on my computer every other year. Basically it says that the objective of life is not to show up at home plate looking perfect and all in tact. The whole point is to slide into home looking dirty, gnarled and like you have really lived. Kids born in the 60s aren't afraid to get dirty. They never were. Happy birthday to everyone born in 1961. May we all slide into home, looking like hell, at 120.
My husband doesn't understand why I keep telling people that I am turning the big 5-0. I bring it up in pretty much every everyday situation in which I find myself. He's more from the school of thought that believes in turning 39 for the next 45 years. I do not subscribe to this school of thought at all.
Most of the people I am friends with in Israel are in their early 40s (and a few are still in their mid 30s) and day-to-day that is neither here nor there. They are my friends and age doesn't factor into it. But I noticed, that beginning about eight months ago, I became very conscious of who my contemporaries in the neighbourhood were. And since then I have decided that I prefer the company of people my own age. That doesn't mean that I like my old friends any less -- I don't. What it means is that I like my contemporaries even more than I did before.
Why?
It's simple. We have a common bond. We come from the same place.
For those of us who grew up in the 60s, there were embarassing bell bottom pants and the ridiculously thick and funky belts that held them up. We had Lite Brites, Creepy Crawlers, Easy Bake Ovens and Etch-a-Sketches. Our home telephones had rotary dials and they weighed enough to really injure someone. We listened to The Jackson Five and The Osmonds. And when we got a little older and cooler we listened to Led Zepplin, Cat Stevens, Seals and Crofts, James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkle. We drove in cars without seatbelts and rode our bikes without helmets. We ate white bread and sugary cereal. We played outside all day and no one knew where we were or could call us on our non-existent cell phones -- and no one was worried about us.
It was the tail end of a simpler time. Not like my friends who were born in the mid 70s and came of age in the 1980s when the world was already changing beyond recognition.
I love that I am a child of the 60s. Much cooler than those nerdy kids born in the 50s and more innocent than the kids born in the 70s. I was an impressionable eight year old when women were burning their bras and a nine year old, when newly rebellious teens were hitchhiking to Woodstock. Many of my later ideas were initially formed by Gloria Steinem. I was old enough to absorb all the amazing changes that were going on without having to be the experimental guinea pig.
1961, the year I arrived on the scene, was the year that the US cut its ties with Cuba. It was the year that JFK actually went to work as the president of the United States. The Beatles performed for the first time at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. The trial of nazi Adolf Eichman took place in Jerusalem. Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space. The US civil rights movement was gaining momentum. The New Democratic Party was formed in Canada (albeit, not world changing, but I had to get Canada in there). Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev requested asylum in France. The first MLB All-Star game to end in a tie occured. Construction of the Berlin Wall began. West Side Story was released. Catch-22 was published. And Barbie got a boyfriend, Ken.
So to all my friends born at other times (mostly much later), read this and weep! You may be younger but I wouldn't change a thing. I remember when the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan show. I got to stay up late to watch it. You only saw the replay on You Tube!
There's an email that circulates around the internet and surfaces on my computer every other year. Basically it says that the objective of life is not to show up at home plate looking perfect and all in tact. The whole point is to slide into home looking dirty, gnarled and like you have really lived. Kids born in the 60s aren't afraid to get dirty. They never were. Happy birthday to everyone born in 1961. May we all slide into home, looking like hell, at 120.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Welcome to 2011: It's Still A Man's World
(Spoiler alert: for anyone who doesn't like when I am serious, turn back now. Today I am angry and in a serious mood.)
Yesterday a very old friend of mine who I haven't seen in about 28 years sent me an old photo of us at another friend's wedding. The picture is 30 years old and I can't believe that I have a picture of myself as a young adult that is THAT old. I was so young then and I really believed that the world was open to women. I honestly thought that everything was possible. However, when I read the lead headline in the online edition of the Jerusalem Post this morning, I was quickly reminded that no matter what women achieve, it is still a man's (pathetic) world.
The lead story on January 3, 2011 (27 Tevet 5771 in Jewish time) is about the tapes that the ex-prime minister and now convicted rapist Moshe Katsav gave to the police to initiate an investigation on complaints of blackmail by an ex-employee. In the tapes the woman tells Katsav that since he ruined her life he should give her money so she could get the psychological help she needs. In the tapes she said that she could no longer work or function as a normal human being because of him. She went on to say that if he gives her the money she will keep her mouth shut.
Ironically the tapes were ultimately used against Katsav because the attorney general suspected that there was more to the story than the then prime minister provided so he began a little investigation of his own.
Please keep in mind that Katsav was recently found guilty by an Israeli court of a series of rape/sexual assault crimes and therefore it would be reasonable to think that the women he abused had received justice -- too late of course, but some degree of acknowledgement nonetheless. Not so.
As if often the case, the most interesting parts of the story were still to come.
The most telling part of the article isn't in the body copy but rather in the comments following the article. They are so sickening that the only conclusion one can come to is that in 5771 years nothing has changed. Women are second-class citizens. Men's thinking has never changed: if a woman is raped it is her fault because she must have been provoking the man. And you know men, they just can't control the urge to ram their penises into anything that they perceive to be deserving.
Let me read you a few of my favorites:
"The whole thing is starting to sound fishy.... The more I now here from "Aleph" (the complaintant), the less credible it all sounds."
"The case against Katsav is a total crock cooked up by leftist lawyers and radical feminists. If Bill Clinton is walking free so should Katsav!"
"I was pretty sure this whole case was a political-judicial lynch and this latest news seems to confirm it. Wonder who was behind it..."
"Rape? No. They had an affair and she got dumped. That's what it sounded like to me. What rape victim talks like that? If you're a woman whose been raped you don't call your rapist and say "My life is over - you have a life I don't how about $250,00?" "
"Is the whole case against Katsav bogus?..."
Journalists are trained to report the facts and in theory, keep their personal opinions out of their reporting. Granted, it doesn't always work. However, the Comments section is for people to voice their feelings about the issue and the story. That often makes them more telling.
It is not unusual to read opposing views in the Comments section following a story but in Israel's case they are usually placed there by her adversaries who hold a different world view. You might not agree with them and they may even sound crazy but you know where they are coming from.
But this is a universal issue that knows no borders. What the comments on this story tells me is that nothing has changed from when I was a young adult smiling naively at the camera at a friend's wedding -- and honestly believing that the world was open for women.
Yesterday a very old friend of mine who I haven't seen in about 28 years sent me an old photo of us at another friend's wedding. The picture is 30 years old and I can't believe that I have a picture of myself as a young adult that is THAT old. I was so young then and I really believed that the world was open to women. I honestly thought that everything was possible. However, when I read the lead headline in the online edition of the Jerusalem Post this morning, I was quickly reminded that no matter what women achieve, it is still a man's (pathetic) world.
The lead story on January 3, 2011 (27 Tevet 5771 in Jewish time) is about the tapes that the ex-prime minister and now convicted rapist Moshe Katsav gave to the police to initiate an investigation on complaints of blackmail by an ex-employee. In the tapes the woman tells Katsav that since he ruined her life he should give her money so she could get the psychological help she needs. In the tapes she said that she could no longer work or function as a normal human being because of him. She went on to say that if he gives her the money she will keep her mouth shut.
Ironically the tapes were ultimately used against Katsav because the attorney general suspected that there was more to the story than the then prime minister provided so he began a little investigation of his own.
Please keep in mind that Katsav was recently found guilty by an Israeli court of a series of rape/sexual assault crimes and therefore it would be reasonable to think that the women he abused had received justice -- too late of course, but some degree of acknowledgement nonetheless. Not so.
As if often the case, the most interesting parts of the story were still to come.
The most telling part of the article isn't in the body copy but rather in the comments following the article. They are so sickening that the only conclusion one can come to is that in 5771 years nothing has changed. Women are second-class citizens. Men's thinking has never changed: if a woman is raped it is her fault because she must have been provoking the man. And you know men, they just can't control the urge to ram their penises into anything that they perceive to be deserving.
Let me read you a few of my favorites:
"The whole thing is starting to sound fishy.... The more I now here from "Aleph" (the complaintant), the less credible it all sounds."
"The case against Katsav is a total crock cooked up by leftist lawyers and radical feminists. If Bill Clinton is walking free so should Katsav!"
"I was pretty sure this whole case was a political-judicial lynch and this latest news seems to confirm it. Wonder who was behind it..."
"Rape? No. They had an affair and she got dumped. That's what it sounded like to me. What rape victim talks like that? If you're a woman whose been raped you don't call your rapist and say "My life is over - you have a life I don't how about $250,00?" "
"Is the whole case against Katsav bogus?..."
Journalists are trained to report the facts and in theory, keep their personal opinions out of their reporting. Granted, it doesn't always work. However, the Comments section is for people to voice their feelings about the issue and the story. That often makes them more telling.
It is not unusual to read opposing views in the Comments section following a story but in Israel's case they are usually placed there by her adversaries who hold a different world view. You might not agree with them and they may even sound crazy but you know where they are coming from.
But this is a universal issue that knows no borders. What the comments on this story tells me is that nothing has changed from when I was a young adult smiling naively at the camera at a friend's wedding -- and honestly believing that the world was open for women.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Christmas in my Israel
Last Thursday I sent a business letter to someone I work with in Canada. Hours passed and I didn't hear back from him despite his normally prompt responses. I commented to someone in a second email that I was surprised by the first guy's silence but that person didn't write back either! Okay, I was now perplexed.
A few hours later, I received an email from the first guy telling me that he was in British Columbia (and not Toronto) with his family and he gave me another contact for my URGENT request.
First of all, it wasn't an urgent request but after I read between the lines (and yes, it took a minute or two) I realized what he was really saying: It's two days before Christmas, don't you have anything better to do with your time than bug me for work information?
In retrospect I couldn't agree more but at that moment I got my annual Christmas shock. Had Christmas snuck up on me again? Who the hell knew it was Christmas anyway?
The answer to the last question is approximately two or three billion people in the world. However, the truth was that I wasn't one of them.
Yes, I was embarassed. I wrote a profuse apology letter acknowledging that while I live within an hour's drive of both Bethlehem and Nazareth, I just had not realized that it was almost Christmas -- and yes, I would talk to him in January. For the records, he didn't write back. However, I started to think about Christmas ... for about five seconds. Maybe 10. And then I went back to my day.
Friday I went to the club to exercise. Not something I like to do at the best of times, but every now and then I run out of good excuses so off I go. Christmas didn't surface again until I was standing in the shower, tangentially listening to the music being pumped into the shower area over the loudspeakers. And then, there it was again. A Christmas tune. Not a Christmas hymn, but a well-known Christmas song.
By this point I was starting to feel overwhelmed with Christmas. I was up to two Christmas incidents in two days! In fact, I was so inundated with Christmas that when I finished getting dressed and left the change room at the club, I went to the office and said: "What's with the Christmas music? This is a Jewish country!"
The receptionist in the office just looked at me like I had come in ranting about the Messiah being at the front door of the Country Club. It was one of those 'what-exactly-is-your-crazed-religious-problem' looks? She told me that whatever it was about the music that was bothering me, I should take up with the radio station that was playing it. And the truth was, she was totally oblivious to my Christmas music concern. Living one's entire life in a Jewish country makes one totally desensitized to such things. All she heard was "music".
I soon realized that this was only a problem for me -- the ex-Canadian who was highly sensitive to Christmas in Israel. For the receptionist, it was simply Friday, December 24th.
Saturday I sat in synagogue as I do every Sabbath. No Christmas moment there. But when the Sabbath ended and I turned on my computer, there it was, in the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz. Fortunately, it was all good. After years of war and the resulting destruction of the Bethlehem economy, the tourists are flocking back for Christmas and the city is happy. So happy, in fact, that the people quoted in the Jerusalem Post article, wished hopefully for on-going peace.
Now THAT would be a Christmas miracle in Israel worth experiencing.
A few hours later, I received an email from the first guy telling me that he was in British Columbia (and not Toronto) with his family and he gave me another contact for my URGENT request.
First of all, it wasn't an urgent request but after I read between the lines (and yes, it took a minute or two) I realized what he was really saying: It's two days before Christmas, don't you have anything better to do with your time than bug me for work information?
In retrospect I couldn't agree more but at that moment I got my annual Christmas shock. Had Christmas snuck up on me again? Who the hell knew it was Christmas anyway?
The answer to the last question is approximately two or three billion people in the world. However, the truth was that I wasn't one of them.
Yes, I was embarassed. I wrote a profuse apology letter acknowledging that while I live within an hour's drive of both Bethlehem and Nazareth, I just had not realized that it was almost Christmas -- and yes, I would talk to him in January. For the records, he didn't write back. However, I started to think about Christmas ... for about five seconds. Maybe 10. And then I went back to my day.
Friday I went to the club to exercise. Not something I like to do at the best of times, but every now and then I run out of good excuses so off I go. Christmas didn't surface again until I was standing in the shower, tangentially listening to the music being pumped into the shower area over the loudspeakers. And then, there it was again. A Christmas tune. Not a Christmas hymn, but a well-known Christmas song.
By this point I was starting to feel overwhelmed with Christmas. I was up to two Christmas incidents in two days! In fact, I was so inundated with Christmas that when I finished getting dressed and left the change room at the club, I went to the office and said: "What's with the Christmas music? This is a Jewish country!"
The receptionist in the office just looked at me like I had come in ranting about the Messiah being at the front door of the Country Club. It was one of those 'what-exactly-is-your-crazed-religious-problem' looks? She told me that whatever it was about the music that was bothering me, I should take up with the radio station that was playing it. And the truth was, she was totally oblivious to my Christmas music concern. Living one's entire life in a Jewish country makes one totally desensitized to such things. All she heard was "music".
I soon realized that this was only a problem for me -- the ex-Canadian who was highly sensitive to Christmas in Israel. For the receptionist, it was simply Friday, December 24th.
Saturday I sat in synagogue as I do every Sabbath. No Christmas moment there. But when the Sabbath ended and I turned on my computer, there it was, in the Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz. Fortunately, it was all good. After years of war and the resulting destruction of the Bethlehem economy, the tourists are flocking back for Christmas and the city is happy. So happy, in fact, that the people quoted in the Jerusalem Post article, wished hopefully for on-going peace.
Now THAT would be a Christmas miracle in Israel worth experiencing.
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