Tel Aviv with Ellen

Welcome to Mordu's mother, Ellen, who is visiting us for a few weeks in Israel! One of our most loyal readers, it's a pleasure to feature her in a post. Some pictures from our tiyyul in Tel Aviv today.

Mordu and his Ima at the old clock tower:

A music store specializing in Sefardi and Mizrahi music. That's Ellen inside discussing various kinds of music with the store owner:

 Best way to travel in TA:

We went out to lunch at a small restaurant that has "the best" hummus in the country. It serves NOTHING but hummus and pita. It's crowded and rushed and casual and dirt cheap and delicious. Here posing with one of the guys who work there.

Mural by the old port:

Some boats:

Since we're on a bit of a graffiti kick (photographing it, that is, not producing it):

Mordu and his Ima in front of the TA skyline:

A mural depicting a bunch of Jews in Last Supper pose. We were able to identify Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Golda Meir, and a few of the others:

And now the same mural with Jesus in his proper place:

View of Jaffa from Tel Aviv:

Bench time:

 The old train station has been made into a yuppy shopping district. A few pictures follow.

Chandaliers in the ice cream shop made from the little plastic spoons they serve with the ice cream:

This was apparently the #1 spot in Tel Aviv to be photographed in a wedding dress. We saw about half a dozen couples being photographed in the hour or so we were there. In this picture, you can see two of them:

And this bride amused me because she was wearing an utterly enormous dress and during the entire time she was there we saw no sign of a groom:

Jerusalem Graffiti

Mordu's favorite Jerusalem graffiti

Meat = Murder

Lag B'Omer

The whole city smells like a campfire!

We won something!

Mordu and I are proud 3rd place finishers in the JVS (Jewish Vegetarian Society) recipe competition, for the quiche recipe posted earlier on this blog. The recipe will be published in modified form (they made it vegan by substituting vegan cream cheese for the cottage cheese and tofu for the feta) in the JVS leaflet and on their website. And we go home with a new cookbook and a one year subscription to the JVS leaflets. Huzzah!

More baby goats

The school down the street from us has a small animal farm attached with a few fowl and goats. There were about six baby goats born a few months ago, and it has been a lot of fun watching them become now "teenage" goats. Well, now there are some more babies!

The grown up goats have learned to beg at the fence. What brought them over in this case was the apple Mordu was eating.

Fortunately, he was pretty obliging

Yom HaAtzmaut

Midnight celebrations on Israel's 65th birthday. Pictures didn't come out great, but here are a few:

Inflatable Israeli flags:

 Crowds on Yafo:

Shaving cream street fights:

Dancing at Kikar Safra:

Fireworks:

Yom HaAtzmaut lingerie:

Beach Day in Tel Aviv

Aviva, Zohar, and Danny came back into town over Passover and we met up with them for an afternoon on the beach in Tel Aviv. How Danny has grown since last summer! Unfortunately, the water is still a little too chilly for swimming, so we mostly played on the sand.

My first game of matkot: Two paddles and a small ball.

Danny's first game of matkot.