My Home in Israel

On Friday afternoon (shortly before Yom Kippur) I saw our neighbor’s son outside with a brand new bicycle. Previously he had been riding his older sister’s pink bike. I said to him ooh….a new bicycle, did you get it for your birthday? His response “no, for Yom Kippur.”

To get a better understand of that phenomena, take a look at this article. (Read down to the bottom)

I’ve attempted several times to put up a Google Map of our home, but it hasn’t worked so well. Supposedly these new tools they have will allow it to work.

So here we are from a satellite view. You can’t zoom in because they are building the new Jerusalem Consulate across the street, so they haven’t updated the map in a long time (over 3 years) and zooming in is out.

View Larger Map

I guess it works…if you move to the right you can see an amazing amphitheater which was started and never completed. In the spring you can see a tremendous amount of wildflowers there, and often there are Arabs that ride through there on their horses. If you look down to the right you will see a big building which is the Diplomat Hotel. Once a real hotel, it is now a hostel for elderly Russians (mostly) and an event hall…weddings all through the summer.

Making Taiglach

Originally uploaded by safranit.

This is probably the earliest I’ve actually made physical progress preparing for any holiday other than Passover!

Big girl is helping me make Taiglach. We stopped counting how many balls after we hit 100. This recipe we used calls for 2.5 POUNDS of honey. Making the balls takes forever but the results are well worth it.

Wishing everyone a sweet New Year!

Note: ours contain walnuts and ginger…no raisins or coconut as mentioned by Wikipedia.

Update: I just spoke to my Great-Aunt and she informed me that this is my Great-Grandmother’s recipe. That makes my big girl the fifth generation to use this recipe!

A long long time ago, I was asked to do the 8 things meme. Since I still haven’t thought of 8 things about myself…maybe I should ask someone else to write it? I think I’ll post 8 things I learned while traveling to the US.

1. Never, ever take the 4 PM flight out of the US with children. They won’t go to sleep, and neither will you.

2. Jet Blue is an awesome little airline, and most of their snacks (did you hear that—you actually have a choice!) are kosher.

3. It is very hard to explain to Israeli children why they can’t talk to anybody they meet. (As big girl tells a nun (missionary to Taiwan) that we are from Israel…)

4. I am very comfortable where I am religiously…this means I was not made uncomfortable by snide comments by non-religious family members, nor did I feel like I should leave wearing short sleeves and having hair showing in the Chareidi shops in the Catskills. (Yes, my parents really live year round in the Catskills)

5. Pregnant + Lifejacket + Hill = Sprained Ankle
And yes, we did really go boating after I sprained my ankle (you don’t need a working ankle to row a boat) (What is the correct response when you tell your doctor that you sprained your ankle while on vacation and she says “Well that was stupid”?)

6. Children who are spoiled rotten by family members for 3 weeks straight are less likely to behave for parents after the fact.

7. Although I was/am mesmerized by Target, Walmart and other big stores with everything I could possibly want/need/think of, I still find consumerism to be nauseating.

8. I don’t want to live anywhere else in the world except Israel