Bauhaus Tel Aviv

Letter to Temple Israel Portsmouth

I will always treasure my daughter’s first Hannukah at Kochavim preschool. It was a very special moment for me and I will tell you why. Raquel had started school about a month before and the day of the Hannukah celebration I was a little late and the classroom party was already underway. Rabbi Larry was there, singing and playing his guitar, and all the children were seated in a circle around him with rapt expressions on their faces. I went and sat next to my daughter and was soon joined by my husband. As the three of us sang “Light One Candle” I was overcome by such joy that the tears streamed down my face.

Having come from an anti-Semitic country such as Spain where our synagogue was tucked away in a small side street and being Jewish what not something you ever talked about with anyone outside of the community, it was a moment that I had never even dared imagine: to celebrate such a Jewish holiday with my family, including my Catholic-raised husband, in such a perfect and yet almost ordinary setting. That was the amazing part: it was ordinary yet extremely special.

There is nothing that makes any of the holidays as relevant as our children do. Like my father said to me once, you only feel like you have done a good job instilling Jewish values in your children when these in turn pass them on to their children.

It was also a powerful moment for me because I began to feel more a part of the community, in sharing this holiday with the teachers, the parents and the children of Kochavim preschool. I had lived in NH for seven years and had never attempted to get involved with the Temple community. When I had my daughter it was the thought of a Jewish preschool that prompted me to make that first call. If that is not clear enough, let me put it this way: it is thanks to the preschool that my husband, daughter and I became a part of the community.

I looked for a Jewish preschool because I know that the first years are when lifelong values are instilled. And I know that as my child grows older it will become more and more difficult to keep those Jewish principles alive in the midst of a largely Christian society. So what better than to give her a base she can forever return to? What better than to make the Temple her comfort zone, something that surely must be a consequence of her spending three or more happy days a week there?

I am always telling my family in Europe how wonderful it is to live in a country where it is possible for us to even have a Jewish preschool. If we were still living in Spain Raquel would not be so blessed. We should not take this freedom lightly. As Jews we should know that the moments in history when Jews have been able to live openly are tenuous and should not be taken for granted. To be sure, there are not many of us in New Hampshire but by closing the preschool we can rest assured that there will be even less of us in the future. Thanks to the preschool not only our children are learning how to live a Jewish life, but thanks to Rhonda and Elian, we as parents are learning how to incorporate Jewish rituals and values into our every day family life as well. We are learning how to make the holidays more interesting for our children and some of us are finding new meaning in them, as we see them through our children’s eyes.

I cannot stress how important I think it is to provide this preschool for our community; for our young children to be nurtured in a setting as far removed from anti-Semitism as possible. Our children are our future and if we want to avoid assimilation, such a huge threat in this country, we must do everything we possibly can to keep Judaism significant in their lives.

I feel that Rhonda and Elian work so hard to create a peaceful and loving Jewish environment for our children that we as parents and Temple members should do everything we can to support them. It is clear to me that their classroom is so much more to them than just a job and they deserve to know that the Temple stands behind them all the way. I thank G-d every day for the blessing of having them in my child’s life.

Casco Bay, Maine

Time flies when you have an addiction

At least this much can be said for me: when I realize I'm addicted, I quit. When we moved to America eleven years ago I had my last cigarette at Barajas airport in Madrid (actually that's a lie, but more on that later), so entering a new phase of my life filled with plenty of stress and culture-shock without the help of nicotine. For a while now I have been fighting the feeling that I should not be spending so much time playing games on Facebook, but it was a quiet background noise in my head, easy to ignore. Until Oscar said to me last night: "You've got a problem. What happened to your writing?" It wasn't the first time he said it but this time I was ready. I deleted Yoville, Farmville and Cafe World. I mean, what was I thinking? The release and sense of liberation was immediate. I spent all afternoon playing with my beautiful daughter and now here I am, writing my blog for the first time since July 22, after having read all the copies of Writer's Digest that had been accumulating on my "to read" pile. I feel quite chuffed with myself for making a clean break.

Just to explain my earlier comment about smoking, I did quit cold turkey but I smoke like a chimney when I visit Israel or Spain. Maybe a good reason to stay put? We'll see.

Tel Aviv at night

Excerpt from "Bring Me Comfort"- Chapter One

I felt Ze’ev’s eyes following me and the first few steps I danced I felt very self-conscious, until I realized that I had lost sight of him in the crowd. When we made our way back to the bar a half hour later Ze’ev was deep in conversation with Arik, but he looked up and caught my eye and smiled at me again. I smiled back and wanted to light a cigarette but I didn’t think I could do it without burning somebody so instead I took my drink, which Ze’ev held out for me wordlessly. I thanked him and took a sip. Not long after we poured out onto the street again and discovered a surprisingly quiet little café nearby where we all sat down at a table and ordered coffee. I found myself sitting next to Ze’ev and as I got out the cigarette I had wanted to smoke for the last hour he leaned over to give me a light. I offered him one of my Kents but he preferred his own Marlboro.

“I try not to smoke too much,” he told me. “In order to save my voice for singing.”

I smiled at him again, holding his eyes, and took a deep drag on my cigarette. I wanted to say that I tried not to smoke too much either, to save my life, but I wasn’t sure it would sound very funny so I refrained.

“Have you been in ha’aretz long?” he asked.

“About eight years,” I answered. “And you?”

“I was born here, in Holon. What exactly made you decide to come here?”

“Well, my brother already lived here – he went to the University of Tel Aviv - and since the first time I visited him I knew I just had to come back permanently.” I paused, feeling self-conscious for the second time that night. Then I went on: “Israel felt like home the moment I set foot here.”

“I’ve heard that before,” he smiled his warm smile. “What do you do for work?”

“I'm a translator. I work with Spanish, English and Hebrew.”

“Spanish? I love that language. My grandmother spoke Spanish. I’ve always wanted to go to Spain.”

“It’s a beautiful country. I spent part of my childhood there. Was your grandmother Spanish?”

“No, Turkish. But her ancestors were from Sepharad, Spain.”

“Turkey is beautiful too. Have you been there?”

“Yes, I have, several times.”

“I was in Istanbul several years ago. It was breath-taking. I had dinner at this place called the Safran Restaurant, at the top of the Intercontinental Hotel, with a view of the whole city, including the Bosphorus and the Sofia and Blue Mosques. It was quite incredible. I loved the music and the belly dancers, and the people were so hospitable.” I paused. “I’m sorry, I’m talking too much.”

Ze’ev laughed.

“No, you’re not. Don’t stop, I like it,” he said.

Our conversation continued and I found myself very drawn to him. He was soft-spoken, with a slow smile and expressive eyes that were like twin pools of black liquid. He had a quiet air about him that seemed like a complete contrast to my own usually hectic way of moving through life. The more we talked the more we seemed to find to talk about and I almost forgot that there were other people sitting with us at the table, until Nurit leaned in close to my ear and whispered: “You two seem to be hitting it off.”

I smiled and nodded.

Ze’ev was lighting up another Marlboro and I reached for my Kent. He again gave me a light. I enjoyed the attentiveness that it showed. It was a gesture that never grew old, and it was made even more pleasant because it was coming from someone I was very attracted to.

People started to get up and make signs of leaving, but Ze’ev and I remained seated. Nurit made a telephone sign with her hand against her ear and I nodded again. Asher said he would see Ze'ev later and wished us both a good night. Eventually everybody was gone and just the two of us remained. As we finished up our drinks we smiled at each other over the tops of our glasses and Ze’ev asked me if he could walk me home. The bottom of my stomach seemed to fall out and I said I would like that.

We strolled down the empty, somewhat dirty, streets and continued to talk. Ze’ev told me how he and Asher had formed their band, Enfasis.

"A Spanish word. Emphasis," he smiled with a sideways glance at me. They had both been in a band together at school, but when they left school they decided to take another direction with their music and they were very excited with their recent CD release. It had been a long time coming.

When we reached my apartment building Ze'ev asked me if I would like to come to the bar where he worked the following night. I said I would enjoy that and he mentioned a bar that I had never entered but had passed many times while strolling down Ben Yehuda Street.

"Come anytime after eight-thirty; I will be there," he said and we stood looking at each other for a moment. I willed him to kiss me but he just smiled and looked like he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Instead he said good night in his low, deep voice and turned to start walking back in the direction we had just come from.

Saturday evening I walked into Schneider's at a quarter to nine. I saw Ze'ev standing behind the bar as soon as I walked in. He was wearing a black t-shirt and his hair looked a little damp, as if he had just washed it. The small dark pub was not full yet; just a few couples sitting at the tables. I took a seat on a bar stool at the end of the bar and Ze'ev leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. My face burned but luckily it was too dark for him to notice. He asked how I was and how my day had gone and I told him, taking pleasure in his attention and the novelty of the stirrings of emotion he provoked inside me. I felt a repressed excitement within that made it hard for me to concentrate on anything other than his close proximity to me. When he asked me what I wanted to drink I said grapefruit juice. I felt inebriated enough as it was so I didn’t think I needed any outside help in the form of alcohol. Although it might have helped me relax a little, I thought as I sipped the juice he placed before me. I lit up a cigarette and we chatted somewhat haltingly about this and that. Now and then we would be interrupted by customers who needed Ze’ev’s attention and as he opened the bottles and poured the drinks I would follow his deft movements with my eyes until he came back to continue our conversation. After I had been there about half an hour I started to feel myself relax. It was hard not to, with Ze’ev making sure we kept up a steady flow of conversation. I began to feel what we had felt the night before: as if we both wanted to discuss everything we were interested in, as if we had a time limit on how long we had to get to know each other.

Acre Harbor