This week

"Where've you been, Susie? Your brother was worried."

There's an 8 hour time difference between Jerusalem and East Texas, home to my brother, Andrew, and his family. They are early to bed and early to rise, leaving a narrow window for FaceTiming: 2-3pm Jerusalem time.

Not once was I home at that hour.

One day, I had study group. Twice I was at the pool.

Another afternoon I spent waiting for a routine test at Hadassah Hospital.





(Waiting - the universal language).








Another afternoon, I went bed shopping.  Friday afternoon, I visited a sick friend, then rushed to prepare for shabbat, which had been delayed by the Jerusalem Marathon.

So, not home.  Not in danger. Not ill. Just busy, which is good.

The most important thing I can share this week is by Farhana Rahman, an American Muslim, who describes the miracle that is Israel. Farhana, take it away. 

The lay of the land

Shalom chaverim - Hello friends

Three and a half weeks since I arrived and I am still busy, busy, busy.

The daily challenges of being an immigrant -- I can't say that it's a steep hill to climb. It's more like a rocky path that winds through craggy hills. You're up, you're down, there's an unexpected ravine, a steep slope, a U-turn, then suddenly a meadow.

Monday night, I smelled something burning.  Not the hotpot. Not the stove.
Last summer, the same burning smell meant that Arabs were burning the forest. This time, they were burning part of East Jerusalem

My musing about the smell and the unreported destruction was interrupted by a phone call from Macabi, my kupat cholim (HMO). They had scheduled a next-day appointment for me with the rheumatologist, making me as giddy as kid with a new toy. As some of you know, I have a chronic illness -- a well-managed chronic illness. I need to keep it well-managed and I was only able to move to Israel because the specialized care I need is available.  Last week I'd been informed there was nothing available until mid-May and here was manna from heaven

One hill climbed. Another lay ahead; my late-in-life claustrophobia which rears its head on crowded buses (the preferred method of travel to Tel Aviv).
Next day with Bach's Rescue Remedy under my tongue, I made it to Tel Aviv safe and sound, and found my way by city bus to the clinic.

There I took a number and waited, anxiously. Given the language barrier and my anxiety, the appointment went well, and I came back to Jerusalem with written (in Hebrew) orders for a slew of tests.

With help, got those booked, and got back to the business of full-time ulpan.

I-N-T-E-N-S-E. Working so hard to recognize every letter and every word. To read fluently. To write accurately. To speak correctly. To keep up with the class. To find your place, in class, on the street, in Israel.

This morning, at the post office, I saw a hand-lettered sign on one of the windows and slowly sounded it out: "Sagur". Closed.

The meadow. I'd reached the meadow.

Company

A key part of my vision for my life in Jerusalem was company - family and friends coming to visit. That's why it was so important for me to find an apartment with a real second bedroom, not a tiny afterthought.

And this week, I had my first company.  My brother, Marc, and sister-in-law, Debbie, were in town for a convention, and I was delighted to see them here.


They didn't stay with me as they had already booked a hotel and I've not yet bought a bed for the guest bedroom. Nevertheless, it felt so haimisch to have them here.

Debbie came back the next day while Marc was in meetings. We sat and talked, looked at family pictures, and simply enjoyed the day, even as the sounds of drilling and repairs by handymen in the apartment swirled around us. 
We never had the leisure of these one-on-one visits, away from children and work, in Minneapolis or Milwaukee. But over 60 in Jerusalem - apparently this is the good life.

Erev Shabbat

I raged. I wept. I prayed. I asked God, "Why?"
Then I mopped.

Yesterday, 21 year-old Tuvia Weissman was stabbed to death buying dessert at his neighborhood grocery. Shopping with his wife and baby, he and another shopper were attacked because they were Jews by teenage Palestinian terrorists.

How am I supposed to react? What am I to do with my rage and sorrow?
So after praying, I mopped. Shabbat is coming, and regardless of what happened yesterday, must be observed.

When I went out on my Shabbat errands, I saw a city full of people doing the same: picking up challah and flowers, greeting friends at the shuk, enjoying a half day of blissful sunshine. The coffee shops were and markets were full, the playgrounds filled with children and families. The joyous hustle and bustle that proceeds Shabbat in the city of David stops for no one.

Until 2:00pm when the shops close and families go home to prepare.  Now it's quiet and I, too, have come home - הביתה;-to write, to muse, to prepare for the Shabbat Shalom we wish for Israel and the world.

I'm in

The new place. The permanent place, the at least-two-years-with-an-option-to-renew place. It's two-level renovated place in the old building with the blue windows and door. Mine, for now.



You approach through a blue gate and amble down a walkway of Jerusalem stone to my blue door. Inside is peace and quiet and a mess, as I unpack my clothing and belongings. Rubber bands and plastic bags, the detritus of packing, are strewn everywhere.



Yet the miracle is that 22 hours after moving in I am sitting here writing. WiFi is connected, devices online. I've paid my realtor, enrolled in my  kupat cholim (HMO) - I've even done a load of laundry in the mysterious European washer and dryer.

Without ice trays, there's no ice for iced coffee, and due to some mechanical glitch, there is no hot water. There are ice cube trays at the hardware store just 3 blocks away* and the handyman has been summoned.



Tomorrow, I'm told, the new sofa arrives, so ulpan is delayed another day.
לאט לאט   Slowly, slowly, as we say in Hebrew.



*I've already been to the hardware store twice today, once to buy my granny cart (how we transport groceries in a walking city), and once for lightbulbs.


And, naturally, a postscript: Just met a neighbor on her way to a new apartment around the corner who explained why I heard Pharrell Williams "Happy" loud and clear both today and the day I first saw the apartment.  It is used as the bell for the school around the corner. (To think, I was worried I had a bad neighbor.)

Monday Monday

So good to me.

Started the day dashing to Ulpan Morasha to have my Hebrew evaluated.
A day early, as it turned out.
But no problem. Places to go, forms to fill out; so, hand-in-hand with my best friend, google maps, I headed back to the Ministry of Absorption for formal intake with my Absorption counselor, Avigail, who told me about additional rights and benefits as well as additional forms and ministries that will require time and visits.  Ah well. Onward and upward.

From there I fumbled my way to the nearest Macabbi Clinic, my kupat (HMO) of choice. So proud to have found the right place with the right paper in my hand, I accepted with a sigh the news that I needed to come back tomorrow to get myself in the system.

From there to the Central Bus Station to get a Senior Citizen mark on my Rav Kav card, entitling me to half price public transportation and all kinds of discounts. (In the U.S. 60 may be the new 50, but in Israel 60 makes you a senior citizen. Take the discount and run.)

A quick lunch followed by a return trip to the bank where I walked right in and told the banker I was there for checks and a credit card.  "OK," she said.  Ha!

Then, with a wee bit of anxiety, off to my new apartment for final lease signing, walk through, and what turned out to be a lovely exchange. With my realtor translating, my new landlord told me about the beautiful new sofa - with fold-out bed - he'd ordered, as well as his plans to make the apartment as beautiful and comfortable as possible.

After bussing back to my temporary digs,  I got a phone call from the bank telling me MY MONEY HAD ARRIVED!  YAY! HOORAY! YEE HAW!

I stepped outside on the balcony where my neighbor, folding laundry, told me about the dangerous drive to her in-laws and added, "It's dangerous here, too. Aren't you scared?"

And just like that, I was. I caught it like virus. My mood plunged and I stepped back inside to collect myself.  I decided I had to go outside, so I walked purposefully to the Shuk to buy bananas. I did not want the fear to defeat me.

It didn't. I'm ok. I called a new friend who reminded me there is danger  -- of different kinds -- everywhere. I was comforted and calmed.

And to return to my theme of Monday being so good to me, I finally got connected with the Internet company who will come to install it Wednesday morning.

Here is the hamsa above the door of my new home where I will be safe and protected.

So today - a glorious day of 70 degree sunshine - I'm riding home on the bus from my day of new immigrant tasks (visits to multiple ministries, hour long waits, bureaucracy up the wazoo, setting up accounts, signing documents, additional banking snafus) when a series of emergency vehicles race by. First one, then another, a third, a fourth, a fifth. I gasp. A terror attack. It must be, because there's not a fire truck among them, just police and Mogen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross).

Nothing on twitter. Nothing on The Muqata (the Facebook page that tracks terror here). I return to the unending business of paperwork, phone inquiries, language barriers, impenetrable websites.

Just now I checked The Muqata and there was, in fact, an attempted stabbing in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot. Thank God the victim was unharmed.  But I was right. The sirens meant there had been an attack. That's life and sometimes death here.

You don't know about it because you don't hear about it. The media doesn't report it.  All you hear is unceasing vilification of Big Bad Israel, most evil nation on earth, apartheid home of oppressors who must be boycotted, sanctioned, stabbed and, yes, driven into the sea.

That is the recurring message of the Palestinians; in their schools, in their media, in their homes.

You don't see that. It isn't reported, because you've been BDS'ed (Bamboozled and Distracted, Shamelessly) by the most successful propaganda campaign in modern history.

Ah well.  Life goes on here. Except when it doesn't. But I have Hebrew to review, internet to install, and paperwork to do.



Ministry of Immigration

Shabbat

And peace begins to descend over Jerusalem.
A week of hustling in a new city, a new language, a new culture. Seeking housing, banking (don't get me started on trying to transfer money here), buses, connections: all those small battles have left me weary and in need of the peace promised by Shabbat.

When you live here, you begin to take the Shabbat cycle for granted. "You mean every city doesn't revolve around the day of rest? Chicagoans, Latvians, Chinese don't gleefully race about Friday morning doing Shabbat prep?



The 'Shabbat shalom!' greetings that begin  Thursday? The bakery tables loaded with challah and shabbat delicacies? The Saudis, the Vietnamese, the Irish do not have this? The Scots, the Dutch, the Minnesotans don't ease peaceably into the start of Shabbat as buses and noises and hub-bub stops?"

No. It only happens here. It is lovely to sit at a sunny window overlooking this beautiful, eternal city; to be a part of my people in the one and only Jewish country in the world; and, to ease peaceably and blissfully into the peace of Shabbat.