Mordu and Rachel in Providence

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Kibbutz Sasa w/ Aviva, Zohar, and Danny

In the far north of Israel, one mile from the Lebanon border, is Kibbutz Sasa. I traveled up there to spend a few days with friends Aviva and Zohar and their adorable 13-month-old, Danny. Zohar grew up on the kibbutz, and his parents still live there. Most of these pics were taken on a fig-gathering mission in one of the kibbutz orchards. They don't grow figs commercially so anyone is welcome to come pick some whenever they want.

Heading out to pick figs

Taste-testing the figs:

Purple figs...

View from the orchard:

Thistles all dried out:

Wild blackberry bush:

So cute!

Yellow figs...

More thistles:

Sunset from the orchard:

Another plant:

Aviva demonstrating some of the armaments leftover from one of Israel's wars. Maybe '67?

An early pomegranate:

The haul; about 6 kilos of figs plus one pomegranate:

So cute!

Here's what the figs look like split open:

Aharon and Ziva (Zohar's parents), Aviva and Zohar

Fig, carmelized onion, and camembert cheese tart. Basic approach: Make pizza dough, brush with olive oil, pile on the figs, carmelized onions and cheese with fresh thyme and rosemary and a sprinkling of salt, then bake. Aviva and I "invented" the recipe. Yum!

Aharon and Ziva's porch is covered in big, juicy grapes right now. These will soon be picked, and placed in an empty kiddie pool. Then various grandchildren will be called upon to stomp all over them and Aharon will turn them into wine. I didn't taste any of his grape wine while I was there, but he did serve me his lemon cordial and also a cherry wine that was quite delicious--all made at home from local produce. I also got to take home a jar of fig jam (made from our figs - half that load made about six jars of jam) and homemade skhug.

One of Danny's favorite gestures. You're supposed to reach your finger out to touch his.

View from Aharon and Ziva's home. Part of this picture is Israel and part is Lebanon, but I forget exactly where the border is.

While the kibbutz's major industry is a factory that manufactures armored siding for vehicles, they also have some agricultural products under the brand "Breishit" and one of the big ones for them is apples. Here, the apple trees are covered with netting so that the apples don't get a sunburn. Or something like that.

City of David

For the first two weeks in Jerusalem, I participated in an intensive workshop in Academic Hebrew. Participants from all over the world (U.S., Germany, Italy, Armenia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and even China) who were either graduate students in Judaic Studies or teachers of Hebrew (most were not Jewish, however) and came to read articles selected by the participants themselves and improve their Hebrew reading fluency. We took one afternoon fieldtrip to the City of David and walked through Hezekiah's tunnel. The tunnel was dug nearly 3000 years ago in preparation for a siege on the city of Jerusalem, then a small, walled city on a single hill - a mere fraction of what it is today. The tunnel carries water from outside the city 1/2 km into the city and is tall enough that you can stand up in it. Water still flows through the tunnel to this day.

I wasn't comfortable taking pictures in the tunnel (I worried I might drop my camera in the water - at its deepest 70 cm -- and didn't think a tight, dark tunnel would take very good pictures anyway), so here are just a few from before and after the experience.

Lined up outside the Rabin building on the Hebrew University campus, about to head out to the City of David:

A kitten trying to scale one of the walls in the City of David. Cats, by the way, run wild in Jerusalem and most of Israel much like squirrels in North America.

Noam, our teacher and also intrepid tour guide explaining the geography of the area.

The Kidron valley, which we crossed under when we walked through the tunnel. The archaeological site where the City of David is being uncovered is in the right foreground of this picture. To the left is an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

A local boy has found his way into the ruins and is playing around.

Exiting from the tunnel; a few kids are still splashing around in the water.

Monday, 30 July 2012

Jerusalem Day One

I spent my first two days in Jerusalem with Gnomie, mostly running errands and meeting some of her friends. I took a red-eye and was completely sleep deprived, also dealing with culture shock (Gnomie says I came out of England unreasonably polite) and weather shock (heat! sun! akkk!). In all that time, we really only took one picture and it's of me standing in front of the mural near Mahane Yehuda. Sorry there are no pictures of the Gnomster.

Most ridiculous Israel moment so far? Right after Gnomie left, I ended up in a conversation with an Israeli about where I could purchase a SIM chip for my cell phone. He was helpful and I thanked him. Then he asked for my phone number. Was he paying any attention to our conversation?

Westminster Abbey

For those who don't know, I am now in Jerusalem! I have changed the blog's title to reflect our current whereabouts and I will change it again when Mordu comes to join me in Israel (mid-September).

These are some shots from the morning before my flight to Israel on the evening of July 23. We spent the morning at Westminster Abbey, taking a guided tour with Ben who has worked as a verger at the abbey for 17 years. A verger is someone who carries around a stick and beats back the people who are crowding the clergy. No joke. Ben was a fabulous tour guide. Not only was he patient and extremely knowledgeable, he also let us break a few rules and go places other tourists weren't allowed to go and even take some pictures when no one else was looking (rather against the rules). The abbey, as many may know, is the final resting place to about 3000 people, a number of them phenomenally famous: Newton, Darwin, Chaucer, Queen Victoria - and many other British monarchs, Oliver Cromwell for about 3 years before he was disinterred and his body completely desecrated, Hardy, Handel, Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Tennyson, Kipling, Rutherford, Sir Laurence Olivier, and so on). Here are some licit and other deliciously illicit shots.