G-ma and Uncle Danny Come to Visit!

This week was the beginning of a long string of visits. Grandma and Uncle Danny were in Jerusalem for the week and I spent a lot of time with them. In the last post I talked about dinner with them on Monday at Hashipudiah. On Tuesday after Hebrew at Heb U I went out to lunch at Hashamen (a schwarma place that I mentioned here) with Grandma and Uncle Danny. I think Uncle Danny really enjoyed the schwarma there which was good because he was the person who first took me to Moshiko's to share one of his favorite places with me. Tuesday night was Erev Nativ which was the Nativ Hanukkah party. It was a pretty fun program planned and run by fellow Nativers (great job Gabe, LeeAnn and Ilana!). We started off with announcements from Yossi and then split up. My group played a "How Well Do You Know Your Fellow Nativers" Jeopardy-style game which was fun and funny. Once that was over, we went back to the auditorium and watched the Rugrats Hanukkah episode. I had forgotten/never realized just how clever it is. After that it was time for the sufganiyiot eating contest. I wasn't feeling well so I didn't even put my name forward to compete. The performance was a little weak, and I felt like I was letting my family down by not taking up Greta's mantle and dominating the eating contest. Oh well. After the program ended we went to the -3 hallway to pick up gifts from our Nativ gift exchange. I got a lovely dreidel from Yad Lakashish that I later found out came from Ariella.

On Wednesday I had my usual long day of classes. I picked up my Freshman Writing paper and was quite pleases with my grade - if anyone wants to see this opus of mine, just let me know and I'll be glad to send it to you. After school, I had the honor of going out to dinner with Grandma, Uncle Danny and Uncle Danny's friend Ralph Goldman. Ralph was instrumental in the founding of the State of Israel, working hand-in-hand with people like David Ben-Gurion and Teddy Kollek. Where the two of them decided to go into Israeli politics, Ralph instead turned to international Jewish non-profit, working for the JDC (the Joint) for decades. Now, at age 95, he is still a working man, Blackberry and all. He has known every Israeli Prime Minister personally and is just such an incredible man, filled with incredible stories. The four of us ate at Beit Ticho, part-museum (part of the Israel Museum; Ralph is on their board) part-restaurant. I had good french onion soup and gnochi.

On Thursday I had lunch with Alexis and her three boys, Shemer, Meitav and Osher. Alexis was my babysitter when I was a baby and now she and her husband Charlie live in Jlem. It was fun playing with the boys, and Alexis made latkes, which are very hard to find in Israel for some reason. Thursday evening we had a social action program. Kibbutz went to an old age home in Me'ah Shearim and Kehillah went to Shalva. We got a tour of the facilities and then spent a little time working with the disabled children. The building is beautiful, but despite that they are moving to a new center so that they can accomodate more children. We sung Hanukkah songs with the kids and they did Kabbalat Shabbat and lit candles (Shalva is closed on Fridays, so in order for the kids to get a chance to celebrate Shabbat they do a little something on Fridays. Shalva also has occasional Shabbatonim). It was really rewarding to talk to some of the kids (not all of them talk) and clap along to the songs with them. I had yet to give the $30ish I had been given to give as tzedakah in Israel and I decided to give it to Shalva. One of the beauties of Shalva is that its services are provided free of charge to all kids in the program. As such they depend on government funding and donations to fund the program. I felt that it was very very deserving place for the money.

One of my Shalva friends and me

On Friday I hung out all morning, working on my Silicon Wadi presentation. Joshy and I lit candles for the last night of Hanukkah and Shabbat and then walked down to the Dan Panorama to pick up Uncle Danny and head over to Shira Hadasha. Services were good, and Uncle Danny enjoyed them and saw three or four people who he knew. Joshy joined Grandma, Uncle Danny and me for dinner at the Dan Panorama. The food was good, as was the company and we all had a good time.

On Saturday, Josh and I picked up Uncle Danny and went to the Sefardi shul in Yemin Moshe. It was great to see Benyamin and Menashe and to see the shul. The building is beautiful and very unusual for a shul in Jlem. Benyamin and Menashe were overjoyed to see me, as was I to see them. I had an aliyah which was pretty cool and Menashe led Musaf. Once davening ended (at 10:14), Joshy and I headed back to the room for a little Shabbat nap, and then I went back down to the Dan Panorama for a big lunch. I spent a little more time with Grandma and Uncle Danny and then Uncle Danny walked me back to my building on his way to visit Ralph.

It was great having them here. Hanuakkah is a family time to me, so it was nice to be with some actual family in addition to my Nativ family.

After Shabbat ended we went out to celebrate Brian's birthday! We had a good (but cold) time hanging out downtown. Today is Brian's actual birthday so it's not too late to say Happy Birthday Brian!

Today we had a make-up Hebrew class so we needed to be at school at 10:30. Hebrew went fine and then the Silicon Seven had lunch and went to Silicon Wadi. Today was presentation day for our projects and I think that it went well for Joey and me - time will tell.

That gets me caught up to the minute, talk to you soon,
Seffi