Happy Holidays

Today I started planning our Thanksgiving dinner, and I couldn't be more excited.  Thanksgiving stands as one of my favorite holidays, American, Israeli, Jewish and otherwise.  In my mind it represents all those family gatherings at my grandmother's Z"L, the amazing smell when you walked in the door, the annual fight over which movie to see, the Macy's Day parade and the time spent bonding with cousins.

Living in Israel, we mostly ignore the American and the non-Jewish holidays, New Year's comes and goes without notice, except that I know that I will have to prepare my annual taxes around that time.  This year, however, Raphaela seems to have taken more notice of the global community.

She asked me why we don't celebrate Halloween, and I told her that we have Purim instead; I didn't mention that Halloween commemorates pogroms against Jews.  I remember, growing up in New York as a child how we spent that night:  we locked all the doors and windows, and closed the shades.  When the door bell rang, we ignored it, and the next morning, we hoped that the area where we lived had not been vandalized in any major way.  It was the one night out of the year that our quietly anti-Semitic neighbors had full reign.

It has apparently changed, evidenced by the huge amount of friends on Facebook - those of the Jewish faith and of all levels of religiosity- who posted pictures of their family fully costumed and celebrating Halloween on some level.

As far as Christmas, Raphaela thinks that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are fast friends of Diego and Dora, as they appear on the (Hebrew translated) cartoon to deliver presents and rescue animals.  Every year I go to a Christmas classic music/carols concert at the International YMCA in Jerusalem, but have not taken Raphaela because she cannot stay up that late into the night.  When she gets older, I may give her the option of coming with me instead of staying home with a baby sitter, though I doubt she will know the words to any of the Christmas carols or Handel's Messiah.

(The Tooth Fairy, however, is real.)

Our Chanukah rituals revolve around candle lighting with friends and family, eating doughnuts and taking day trips, rather than the rampant materialism that characterizes the season.  I am grateful to raise my daughter that way.

Ask any parent of children in Israel and they will say that there is far too much vacation from school for Jewish holidays as it is, we don't need to add in the other religions to the mix.

Deep Thoughts with RR

Today's Topic:  Friendships

RR:  Mommy, are the friends that I have now going to be my friends for the rest of my life?
Mom:  Not necessarily.  People go to different schools or move to a different town or even a different country.  You lose touch with your friends even if you don't want to.
RR:  So you can keep some old friends and make some new ones.
Mom:  Definitely, it is the natural evolution of people and relationships.
RR:  Mommy, who are your friends?
Mom:  Some of my older friends live in America, and some of my friends are here in Israel.  I have only one friend whom I have known since we were babies, and she lives here in Jerusalem.  My best friend when I lived in New York was a girl named Beth, and I don't know what she is doing now or where she lives.
RR:  No, what I mean is, who are your friends besides ME?
Mom:  You're right, I am your Mommy and I love you and I am also your friend.  But first I am your Mommy.
RR:  When did we first become friends?
Mom:  When you were growing in my tummy.  As you know, I chose to have you, and I loved you as soon as you became an idea in my head.
RR:  What did we do together as friends, when I was inside your tummy?
Mom:  Well, I used to play you music, and read you stories, and talk to you, a lot.  You went where ever I went, since you were inside me.
RR:  What stories did I like?
Mom:  I read you Dr. Seuss "Green Eggs and Ham," and the poem Jabberwocky. I had them both memorized by the time you were born.
RR:  And we will be friends forever and ever?
Mom: I will always love you.


Post script:  It must be said that until I graduated from high school, I saw it as some kind of personal failure if a friendship de-evolved;  I am glad to have had this conversation with my daughter at a younger age.

Summer Time...

And the Living is Easy.

In a recent most unpleasant encounter with a particular someone, he accused me of being a "neurotic perfectionist," too rigid to accept others for their true selves.  Like when he meets me three hours after we had arranged and does not call to let me know he is running late, by three hours, and then wonders why I am "in a mood" and consider him less than totally reliable.

Theoretically speaking, of course.

But the discussion got me thinking about the wound-up New Yorker for so many years, planning so hard for the future that I was not enjoying the moment at all.  And I know that I have been judgmental in the past and not given people the benefit of the doubt, and have actively worked on changing for the better.

In the past few days, I have lost track of time and arrived late (I NEVER arrive late), I have shoved laundry to the side instead of folding it right away (the horrors), dishes are sitting in the sink and paperwork is piling up in the office.   Slowly the house is taking on the concept of ordered chaos, just call me Messy Mommy. I find this trend intriguing and disturbing at the same time.

I could attribute it to my upcoming birthday, perhaps the synapses in my mind are deteriorating. Or the vibe of Summer, where everything moves just a little slower and easier. Or the oppressive heat of Jerusalem and the exhaustion that comes with it.

I remain most curious to see where this will take me.

Creating Awareness and Opening Worlds

I grew up within a New York Ultra-Orthodox community, though our house adhered to a slightly less stringent more "Modern Orthodox" lifestyle.  In practical terms, it meant that while we were fully committed to the principles of Judaism and the Torah, we also functioned in and enjoyed the real secular world.  My father and mother worked, television and movies were a given,  my mother did not cover her hair except to go to synagogue or perhaps a religious event, we took family vacations which included playing tennis (in shorts) and mixed swimming, and a college education would never be sacrificed for any reason.

As I grew up, in an attempt to define themselves more clearly, American Jewry moved to the right and I remained in the same place, I felt comfortable in myself, essentially proclaiming myself de facto as less religious, more in the realm of "Conservadox" (or Masorti in Israel), more open minded and tolerant than some in my family.

But I decry boxes of any kind, and try not to apply labels under any circumstance.  Every religion on the planet seems to be veering towards the extremes, and I find that both sad and terrifying.

In deciding upon the education of Raphaela, I wanted her to be exposed to the traditions, ritual and values in which I was raised, and so I have chosen to send her to the Nationalist Zionist Religious stream of kindergartens and schools.  She can always create a course for herself when she matures and does not live in my house.  At the same time, I take great pains to point out the importance of acceptance without judgment, teaching her that there is always more than one opinion and more than one way to interpret the word of law.  God is a being of love and mercy, he/she is not waiting with a box of fresh lightning bolts to punish us at every mere thought or mis-step.

This mis-match between our home and her school came to a head this weekend, when Raphaela was helping me set the table for Shabbat.  She put out three chairs, one for me, one for her and one for "the father," whose stand in was her favorite spotted leopard doll.  When it was time to cook, and make the blessing on the candles, it was clear that this is a woman's job, and when it came time to make the blessing on the wine and the bread, the fire works started.  My daughter, the child of a single mother and feminist, insisted that it was preferable for the imaginary father/leopard to take charge, because it was "the man's job."

I explained that in many families, Orthodox or otherwise, a wider and more fulfilling role has been found for the woman, and that God would not mind at all if Mommy made the blessings, considering that we have a special arrangement IE in that at the moment, there is not father actively living with us.  Raphaela did not buy it, unfortunately, and it will be my responsibility to open her eyes; treading that very fine and dangerous line without saying outright that her teachers are not infallible. 

My girl child must know that the only real limits on her life and her personal growth are the ones she places on herself.

Evolving Friendships

From the age of one to thirteen, I had a BFF named Beth.  We did everything together, and confided everything in each other.  When my parents were going through a divorce I practically lived in her house, and when her parents were having issues with Beth's older brother, issues that completely disrupted their family life, she practically lived in mine. 

We swore that we would never lose touch and that we would be, literally, best friends FOREVER.

Then we moved from New York to Boston, and Beth became Ultra-Orthodox. Our lives and our belief systems diverged, and after attempts to stay in contact via snail mail - remember that this was the pre-internet and social media generation - we drifted and she became a pleasant memory for me.

It took me until post college to understand that if a friendship changes or fades, it does not reflect badly on me as a person.  We as human beings evolve individually and as a peer group over time, and some connections that once made sense lose their focus and their purpose.  And that's OK, perfectly normal for most of the population of Gaea.

It's the reason couples get divorced, they become different people and if they don't work at it, they fall out of love.

I met one of my current closest friends at the pregnancy and birth preparation class at Hadassah Hospital.  Our daughters were conceived on the same day through fertility treatments, and they were born a week apart.  For the first several years of their lives, we four girls hung out together, and I imagined that these friendships would last FOREVER.

In the last year or so, because the girls attend different school program and because we see each other less, that aspect of our connection has fallen apart, and for a while it made me sad.  I resolved however that it should not affect my adult friendship, and last night the two Mommies got sitters and met for dinner; the first time in a long time.

The food was yummy, the restaurant warm and cozy, and the conversations wonderful.  It is the kind of relationship that is quite simply familiar and comfortable, where you immediately slip into patterns of trust; my own little Field of Dreams.

We even joked at one point that we will still be friends at the age of 90...

The Conclusion to the Car Story

The painter, whose lack of expertise caused the initial damage to the car, did not allow me to take the car to my garage for repairs, since he was footing the bill. Instead, he recommended his people IE he wanted a place in Jerusalem that was owned by and only employed religious Jews, rather than our Arab cousins.

Last week I dropped off the car, and two days later they called me to report that they had worked "very hard" and that it was clean and ready to come home.  When I went to pick it up, I inspected their work, and it quickly became obvious that not only had they not done any work at all, but also that areas of the paint that had been previously undamaged were now worse than before.

When I confronted them, I got the run around, "Well, you would have to talk to the owner of the garage, who is my father, but he is not here now and I have no idea when he would be available to speak to you."  "We are very busy now anyway and it would have to wait a few weeks, no harm, no foul." And it went on like that, so I called the painter and made my position clear:  I would be taking the car to my people whom I trust and have used for the last 13 years, and that he would be paying for it.

The painter agreed, and this morning we all met at my garage, where we came to a settlement regarding the damage done and the cost of the repair.  This afternoon I received a call from my guys, saying that they didn't know what products the other garage had used, and beyond the obvious damage of the paint splatter, the acidic material had eaten through the paint job on the entire car, and that if I truly wanted to get the job done well, I would have pay another 5000 NIS for a complete reconstruction.

I considered the hassle and the cost, and asked the most real question, "Is the car terribly ugly?"  They replied that unless you really looked at the paint in bright sunlight, it could pass without serious notice.

As a single mother with far more important life concerns than the aesthetics of my car, I passed on their offer, instructing them to do what they could with the monies already paid.  I have neither the inclination nor the strength to consider a law suit.

As my mother would say, "It's a kaparah!"*

I still intend to call the painter and his "trusty garage," and let them know that just because someone is wearing a skullcap and has a larger than life picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe hanging in their space, does not mean that they do better work than the Arabs, who actually have shown me more professionalism in this field in the last 16 years that I have lived in Israel.

That's enormous coming from me, a woman who was almost killed by a Palestinian sniper during the Second Intifada, as an artist who appreciates beauty, and a Jew who has great respect for the person who was the Lubavitcher Rebbe; I met him in person in New York while studying at Barnard College, and regardless of the misdirection his movement has taken, he was truly a man connected to himself and to the Higher Power.

My Inner Voice and that Higher Power are telling me to move on.

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*  kaparah = a Hebrew term for a situation where you are suffering a little in order to avoid a Divine decree to suffer a hell of a lot more than you could ever imagine; Some superstitious version of the Jewish guilt/martyrdom complex.

Summer Camp Memories

Ah, Eagle Day Camp!  The local Jewish Day Camp in our area in New Jersey, all of the kids from the neighborhood went there, and we spent two quality months swimming and putting on plays and playing dodge ball.  The camp had their own uniform, an Eagle Day Camp t-shirt, and so getting dressed in the morning required no thought or planning.

Years later I worked as a bus counselor and Lifeguard at the Jacob and Rose Grossman Day Camp in Boston, and saw the experience from the other side, and found it just as enjoyable.  The Lifeguards were the coolest staff in camp, if you ignored the snakes and snapping turtles in the lake.  We saw the kids for a half hour at a time and then they returned to their haggard bunk counselors.  We got to walk around in our bathing suits all day. 

One of those summers, on Parents' Day, one very ambitious six year old boy decided to show his parents how well he knew the crawl stroke, and found himself in deeper water than he expected.  I was already dressed in my favorite Yankees pullover, when I saw him struggling in the water.  Without thinking, I jumped into the water and pulled him out, performing this dramatic rescue in front of all the parents and staff present.  For years the story was told and became legend, and my younger brother would boast proudly, "That was my sister!"

This year, in Jerusalem, I must admit that I am spoiled and have no right to complain.  Raphaela's Gan finishes at the beginning of August, and then she will attend a week long camp for bilingual (Hebrew/English) speaking children.  There are only two weeks before school begins again, where I must obtain a baby sitter and make plans to work around Raphaela's lack of schedule.

Most Israeli parents have had vacation since July.  Many of the pre-school programs arrange what they call Camp:  same teachers, same facilities, less hours and less structure, for which they charge extra so that parents may continue to work, albeit part-time.  Then you can send your child to a camp here, a camp there, for one to three weeks at a time and again, pay more money for these brief programs than you did all year for nursery.

A friend of mine and mother of three said to me today, "I work all year so I can send my kids to camp for two months."

Next year, when Raphaela will officially participate in the Municipality school system, I will struggle with the same issues as these parents, more vacation days than she has ever had before.  Paradoxically, the new incompetent Minister of Finance claims that his sole purpose is to encourage families and especially women to enter the workforce.  But how is a mother or father supposed to keep a normal workday if their children have no program or supervision for two months out of the year?  And how am I as a single mother supposed to work a full schedule when I have no one at all to pick up the slack?

Recently I celebrated my 16th anniversary of my move to Israel;  I noted to a friend today that  Israel is my home and for all its flaws I am here to stay.  However, Israel could learn from the American institution of consistent, high quality, cost-effective summer camps.  With youth centers scattered all over the country (paid for by the overwhelming profits of the Israeli Lottery), nursery school staff and eager teenagers, the infrastructure already exists.