MOVING INTO JERUSALEM

 

With Jerusalem Reunification  Day this week, my mind went back to our arrival here in 1983, with five children under the age of eight, no job prospects but a strong knowledge that this is where we wanted to be.

We initially lived in a rented apartment but building was going on all around us and we knew that we were going to have to think seriously about buying a home, if we wanted to make use of our immigrants’ privileges and mortgage.

We checked out the names of builders and went to their offices downtown.

The clerk in the office looked us up and down. “ I’ve got just the place for you” he said.He went on to describe a wonderful two storey house with a small garden in a religious section of our neighborhood.

The price was possible , the size and garden sounded a dream .We told the agent we’d go and look over the house and let him know.

“ Don’t wait too long” he warned. “ I can sell it any time. It’s a real bargain”.

We foolishly assumed that was just a sales ploy.

At the building site we looked around the house. It was a dream. Far bigger than we’d ever imagined we could afford . It was too good a chance to miss.

Next morning we were back at the builder’s office.

“We’ll take it.”

“Too late” he said. “ I warned you I could sell it just like that” and he snapped his fingers.

We turned to go, very disappointed , especially as I’d spent the night dreaming about bringing up our family with some real space and a garden.

“Would you like  to live in a mixed area?” he called as we were about to leave.”I’ve got exactly the same house, a few minutes along the road where  there are religious and non-religious people living .”

We shot back to the chairs in front of his desk .

“ Yes sure. Let’s go and look at it “ my husband said.

I turned around and looked at the ever growing number of people waiting behind us in the office.

“No” I said. “We daren’t risk it . Any one of these people here will buy it if we leave now. You saw what happened yesterday”.

“We can’t buy a house we haven’t seen” my husband insisted.

“But he said it’s just like the other one. We saw that one and loved it, so what’s the problem?” I asked.

“Well. Do you want it or don’t you” The clerk asked.

“Yes” I said, as my husband gave me a look that said ‘ this is your idea remember’.

“Oh , there is one other thing” the clerk continued.

We waited for the bombshell that would make us change our mind.

“It has a basement downstairs. It’s on three floors not two. But don’t worry it’s got a window and a proper floor and the central heating is connected down there as well”

I was still waiting for the ‘bad’ news.

Oh and another thing. You’re really lucky, with the current inflation rate  you’ll actually be paying a lot less now than the apartment cost at the beginning of the month.”

We were, as they say, gobsmacked!

We wanted to sign immediately, before we lost it . But there was still the small issue of money. We knew we could get a mortgage from the Ministry of Absorption but we needed some money now for a deposit.

Twenty five years ago there were no cell-phones and we were too scared of losing the apartment if we left the office and went to the bank ourselves. So we asked the agent to let us call the bank from his desk-phone. We told them that we needed to remove most of our foreign currency from its investment account. We knew that we would be losing all the interest by breaking into the account but there was nothing we could do about it – we needed it right then.

But I wasn’t prepared for the bank’s reply.

“ As you are using the money to buy a house,” the bank-clerk said, “You’ll be pleased to know that the mitzvah ( commandment) of Yishuv Eretz Yisrael ( settling the Land of Israel) overrides all other banking regulations. You won’t lose any interest.”

This was too much for me and I could feel the tears pricking my eyes. In the space of one short hour we had the privilege of buying a bigger apartment than we had ever dared to think of, in the city of our prayers and dreams. We were paying a bargain price and the bank was even telling me that the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel overrides banking regulations.

Buying a home in Jerusalem sure was different from buying a house in London.

And, thank G’d,  living in Jerusalem is very different from living anywhere else in the world……. but that’s for another post.

LIVING LIFE THROUGH THE LENS

 

I never really ‘saw’ any of my young children’s concerts , plays or musical performances. It wasn’t that I didn’t attend. I was there at every one of them ( or almost every one) but always behind a camera.

I’m not sure who wanted the photos more, me or the kids. I wanted to send them off to members of the family living too far away to ever attend and show them their nieces / nephews / grandchildren in action. My children wanted to see what they looked like in their performances.

But the truth is that the photos were mostly of appalling quality. The lights in the hall were dimmed and I was somewhere in the audience, usually behind a big hat or crawling up to the stage desperately trying not to annoy the other parents whose view I was obstructing.

And we’re talking about the pre-digital camera days when every photo cost money and most were too dark to be any use at all – but I persevered year after year, concert after concert, child after child.

But my obsession with photography didn’t go anywhere near one of my daughter’s. Several years ago she was in hospital giving birth to her first child when I received a surprise phone call at home.

“Mum can you come over here  quickly”                                

“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

Nothing much really, I mean don’t worry or anything. It’s just that ….well…..we’ve forgotten our camera and I really wanted to get a picture of our new baby as soon as it’s born.”

I couldn’t believe me ears. My daughter was 8 cms dilated and she was worried about having photos of her newborn.

Mind you it shouldn’t have surprised me. After all she and her husband have captured just about every moment of their lives on film even before they ever knew each other. Their romance was enhanced by their common obsession - photography. She was the only one of our seven children who, whenever we went on a family trip spent all her time looking for places to pose. Beautiful flower-beds, scenic look outs as back-drops, a pose struck on the deck of the ship with the still sea in the background – these are the things that made a good trip to her. The success of any outing was measured by the numbers of photos she returned with , with her in the center of all of them.

And now here they were at a crucial turning point in their lives and there was no way they could envisage experiencing this without capturing it on film.

So being the dutiful mother I grabbed my camera and zoomed off to the hospital. Luck was definitely on their side as I surprisingly even managed to sneak into their delivery room.

“Yes dear I think you’re about ready to push this little one into the world now” I heard the midwife say as I slid into the room.

My daughter smiled through a contraction as she saw me walk in – “Great Mum now you’re here we’re ready. Take a picture of us now, before I actually give birth.”

The midwife’s mouth dropped open, she couldn’t believe the conversation she was hearing.

I adjusted the lens, fitted my daughter and son in law into the focus and clicked.

The midwife recovered her composure “Now dear, are you prepared to give your attention to giving birth?”.

“Yes, sure”

I handed the camera over to my son-in-law and was about to walk out when my daughter called me back.

Mum, wouldn’t you like to stay and see it all from the other side for once?.

The offer was too wonderful to refuse – so thanks to my daughter’s fixation with photography I was there with her at the birth of her first child. I stood there on duty with the camera, almost too overcome and emotional to actually take a photo.

As her firstborn son entered the world and the midwife placed him tenderly on my daughter’s stomach , the tears poured down my cheeks as I stared in awe. The camera almost slipped from my grasp.

But I quickly remembered my job. I gave my daughter and my new grandson a tearful kiss and rearranged the sheet around them so I could center them clearly in the viewfinder in the well lit delivery room. I composed myself and the picture and clicked.

I guess by now she’s forgiven me for those dark, fuzzy disasters that immortalized her school plays.

Israel’s 62nd Independence Day

                                      A replica of the golden menorah used in the Temple

Last week we commemorated the slaughter of six million Jews on the blood soaked lands of Europe, whose bodies went up in smoke through the chimneys of concentration camps.

This week the skies over Europe are paralyzed by a cloud of smoke descending from above, over their lands.                          Coincidence?

Last week the British Advertisng Authority declared that Israel wasn’t allowed to have photos of the Kotel, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple, its holiest site for over 3000 years, in its tourism advertisements, as it is hasn’t been decided that it’s really part of Israel. It is in ‘disputed territory’.

This week that hovering cloud of ash and smoke ensured that no British tourists left the U.K.                                            Coincidence?

The Kotel – The Western Wall of the Temple

Today is Israel’s  62nd Independence Day.

62 years of sovereignty and still fighting for the right to exist.

62 years of providing a home for any Jew from anywhere in the world persecuted and driven from their homes and wanted by no other country on the planet.

62 years of wars which never really end but just evolve into cold wars and unsure peace.

62 years of miracle after miracle that has kept this tiny country alive surrounded by millions of its enemies, winning unwinnable wars with the odds drastically against them, flourishing economically through global recession and thriving agriculturally despite being mostly desert and lacking in rain.

‘Coincidence’ or ‘chance’ don’t even come to mind when explaining our past.

Divine intervention comes closer .

A HOLOCAUST STORY – The Hidden Synagogue of Theresienstadt

Many stories about the Holocaust are still coming to light and one I heard today, from Mrs Helen Gross, one of the participants in the story, was too amazing for me not to repeat. Only in recent years have most of the facts of the story become known – although there are inevitably still unanswered questions, which may remain forever unanswered.

Helen Gross’ uncle, Asher Berlinger, an extremely  religious man was also a talented artist, craftsman and musician. He was a Chazan in Schweinfurt, Germany, before the Holocaust.

After Kristallnacht Asher and his wife , fearing for their children’s lives,  sent their two daughters on the kinder transport to England . He and his wife were deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942. Asher continued to teach Torah whilst in the ghetto and he wrote a series of ‘luchot’, calendars, to make sure that everyone knew when the Chagim( Jewish festivals) were, when Shabbat started each week, the week’s parsha and the dates and times of Rosh Chodesh.

Eventually he and his wife suffered the same fate as 88,000 of their brethren and  were transported to Auschwitz and murdered.     Several of his luchot were discovered and donated to Yad Vashem . On the back of some was a self-portrait that he had drawn, showing him davening in a shul (synagogue) which was assumed to be his old shul from before the war.

After the war, the homes in Theresienstadt were returned to their former Czech owners. A Catholic undertaker went back to his home with his family and  many years later in 1997, whilst starting renovations in the kitchen he began to break down a wall . He suddenly realized that what he was revealing was a highly decorated area behind the wall. Being religious he also recognized the Hebrew writing. His priest advised him to leave the room alone to avoid the curse of the Jewish people.

He kept the discovery a secret from the authorities. Occasionally he showed to room to Jewish visitors who came to see the site of the ghetto.

The two Berlinger daughters, meanwhile, grew up as orphans and married, one in England and one in America. A few years ago, Senta, who lived in England, passed away and her sister Rosie came from the USA to bury her sister and sit shiva for her in her house. One of the visitors to the shiva brought with her photos from her recent visit to the Holocaust sites of Europe and Rosie politely glanced at them ……… and there amongst them were photos of the hidden shul in Theresienstadt , which Rosie immediately recognized as the background to her father’s self-portrait on his ‘luchot”.

Straight after the shiva she flew to Europe to see for herself and knew that she was standing in a shul that her father had designed and decorated. But how could she prove it. The portrait at Yad Vashem connected him to the shul but not necessarily as its designer.

But Asher Berlinger wrote in a unique form of calligraphy which he taught to his brother-in-law  who in turn taught it to his daughter, Helen Gross. She was able to reproduce the entire alphabet in the style the pesukim in the shul are written..

Asher Berlinger’s handiwork and undying faith, as portrayed in the beauty of the shul and the pesukim he chose, were officially acknowledged by the authorities and in 2006 the family were invited to a rededication of the shul in the presence of top officials and dignitaries from the Czech Republic, the USA, and Israel.

As Helen Gross explained when telling the story, it is still not known who used this shul and when, as so far no survivors have been found who actually knew of its existence , but who knows….

With so much ‘hashgacha pratis’ Divine providence, involved in the discovery of the shul and its origins, it’s not too much to expect  that someone  be found ,  who actually used the shul, as  place of payer and comfort,  during those terrible years.

USING ‘EXTRA’ TIME

Today is the day I start wondering how to take advantage of all my ‘free-time’ now that Pesach (Passover) is over.

If, before Pesach, I managed to do all my usual ‘stuff’ ( teach / write / cook /housework) and add several extra hours of pre- Pesach cleaning and clearing work into my day – how can I continue to take advantage of all those ‘extra hours’ I squeezed out of the day.

I certainly won’t do more housework – I’m afraid that’s not my favorite way of spending extra time.

I won’t cook more – I don’t think it’s possible to cook more than I did over the last few weeks and I need a clear break from that.

I have spent many hours  over the last week enjoying the pleasure of my children and grandchildren

I can’t teach more hours than I have lessons and pupils.

So – this is my opportunity to spend more time writing – whether it’s blogging / articles / essays or stories. And of course every writer has to read – so that’s another  task I shall allot more time to…….aaah it’s good to get back into a normal  working routine again.

If you discover you have some extra time how do you like to spend it -apart from sleeping?

PESACH TRIPS

If you are visiting Israel for Pesach or just looking for somewhere to go, take the children, grandchildren or your family visitors, try  some of the places below .

Zippori , situated in the northern section of Emek Yizrael, ( The Jezreel Valley) was the seat of the Sanhedrin in Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi’s time, and where he finished writing the Mishana. Much has been unearthed of the living areas of the Jewish population as well as the Romans who also lived close by .  Amongst the archeological findings is the famous mosaic dubbed the Mona Lisa of the Galilee.

 

 

If you have young children they will love nothing more than a day at Beit Halomotei near Givat Brenner. A complete wonderland of games, activities, train rides, bumper cars, water slides etc.

Hatzerim Air Force Museum near Beer Sheva – is a mostly  outdoor museum with  dozens of airplanes from Israel’s aerial history from the first Messerschmitt that was the sum total of the country’s air force  in 1948,  to the wily cobra helicopter that can chase terrorists through tiny alleyways.

 

Mini Israel, near Latrun  is a great place to get a miniature view of hundreds of Israel’s historical, religious, nature, archaeological   and tourist sites.

 

For more ideas see here 

Have a great time.

Teaneck Update

Thanks to so many of you who  sent  me emails with prayers and good wishes to my sister and her family and asked for an  update on their situation.

On Monday experts, with an enormous crane,  came to start removing the two trees. It was done section by section, all the time securing the remaining trunk to stop it moving and destroying the rest of the house.

It took seven hours of Monday  and several more hours on Tuesday before it was all removed.

 

My niece’s bedroom after the tree was removed

Once it was done they could  enter the house safely and remove some of their belongings. The children are staying with friends and my sister and her husband are meanwhile in a nearby hotel.

Many friends have  offered  to have them stay with them and local hotels have offered free showers to people who are still without power. One of the kosher delis has offered free dinners to them also.

Their immediate neighborhood was the worst hit, it seems, as they are still without any electricity although most other areas have had power restored.

The local  paper sent reporters to the area and they were interviewed .

An insurance assessor  has only  just been assigned to their case as there weren’t enough  for all claims. Hopefully work  on mending and rebuilding will start soon but it will still probably  be several weeks until the house can be lived in once again.