This morning I went shopping with Anna and Alanna. There is a mall pretty close to us that has some pretty good clothing stores so we looked around there for a while. I found a few skirts that will work for my religious school which is a good start. After we went grocery shopping for the weekend. The stores all start to close around 2:30 or 3 o’clock here for Shabbat so everyone is out in a rush to get their errands done. People are hurrying through the stores trying to grab everything before the city pretty much shuts down. It’s a frenzy but its nice knowing that Shabbat is coming. It was funny to compare this experience to life in the states, this basically only happens to us on Christmas and New Years where we think the world is going to end if we don’t go to the grocery store for every last thing we need. Its crazy to think that they experience this at least once a week.
I decided I wanted to go to services this week which start at 5:30 ish so I had little time to relax. I am not sure how they get everything done here, its like their weekends are either crazy rushing to prepare for Shabbat or it is Shabbat when everything is closed. We got home and it was already late afternoon so I started to get ready. My host family told me about a temple on my street so I headed over. If you didn’t know where the temple was you’d never find it. It was a modern building but had a beautiful inside. It was a Sephardic temple (Jews from Spain and the far East) so they have the set up a bit differently, the service is conducted from the middle of the room rather than the front. Most temples here are orthodox so the women sit upstairs, not particularly my favorite but its still interesting. I was a bit lost in the beginning but when they started the Shabbat service I was able to follow along. A young woman came in a few minutes after I did and sat right next to me, I as a bit surprised because there were so many other seats but I guess it may be part of the culture or something. She helped me a long a few times when I was lost. The service was not like at home with the familiar tunes but I did recognize a lot of the words. It is always interesting to realize that everyone around the world is saying the same prayers everyday. My favorite part about the service was that everyone knew the prayers so everyone sung them together. The room was filled with spirit and energy. Its incredible to think that they even know what they are saying unlike most of the Jews who live outside of Israel. I thought the young woman would stick around to talk to me but she left before I could even say thank you. Maybe I will see her if I go back.
After services I went to my host family's house for dinner. I was much more comfortable this time knowing their routine. We said the prayers and began eating her delicious food. They are both Moroccan so they have some unique dishes. Its customary to have fish on Shabbat so for the first mini course she makes this fish dish with hot peppers, its amazing. I told her that I was going to come over to watch and help her cook on time. Maybe I will be able to figure out how she does it. Then we had the usual salad they serve, eggplant, cole slaw, a tomato salsa and tomato spread, you name it. Then she made this delicious couscous with vegetables, chicken and potatoes. She put so much food on my plate, I don’t know how she possibly thought I was going to eat it all. She doesn’t seem big on the desserts but it might be that she keeps kosher and it is harder to create delicious non-milk desserts. She served shredded carrots with raisins and nuts. Still pretty good. Then we hug out with their neighbors a bit and they just constantly kept feeding us food, sunflower seeds, snack mixes, oranges, nuts, pastries and cheesecake. They also made me this tea-like drink, its hot water with nana leaves (similar to mint). Usually you drink it with your tea. The food never ends.
I got to know my host parents better this week. The father Ahmram explained about his background and how he made it to Israel from Morocco. From what I could understand with his Hebrew he said that in the 1950’s many of the people coming to Israel were old or sick and the country needed people to serve in the army. Ben Gurion (the first Prime Minister) convince governments in Northern Africa and Europe to let them take some of the Jewish children to Israel. He said that one day when he was 11 or so there was a knock on the door and the Israelis brought him to Israel, gave him housing and an education and then he served in the army. Years later his parents would join him. I’ll have to do a bit more research to see if this all makes sense. He currently works at the airport in Israel but I am not exactly sure what he does there. My host mom is also Moroccan, I asked when they met and they just made it seem like it was a really long time ago. She works in what sounds like a boarding school outside of Ashdod for children who do not have parents. She told me that she is a beauty teacher and the proceeded to bring me into a room in their apartment where she has manikin heads and a hairdresser sink. She said if I needed she could give me a hair cut while I am here.
I am really enjoying getting to know them. They are so welcoming and friendly. She invited me to have Passover with them, she gave me tons of leftovers from dinner and we decided that I would come by during the week to help her with her English and she would help me with my Hebrew.
Saturday February 6, 2010
This morning I slept in and hung around until my roommates started to get up. Anna and I went for a run around the city,
it was amazing to see how many families are out on Shabbat here. We ran down streets where during the week we are the only ones in sight and today they were filled with kids on bikes, dogs and strollers. Afterwards I decided to do my laundry because it was such a nice day. We do not have a dryer so you really have to time the laundry well so it has time to dry before the rain or cold sets in.
This afternoon I took a walk down the beach with my roommates Zak, Aron and Slobo. Everything seems dead on Shabbat with a lot of the stores close but if you go about half way down the beach from where we live there is this plaza that seems to be the cool place to be. Every Saturday there is music with dancing. Mainly an older crowd but definitely a mixed group of people. There are also many restaurants open with seating practically on the beach.
There is also an arts market that is open along the boardwalk area. We watched the dancers for a while then headed down the beach to a restaurant for some appetizers. It was so relaxing to sit outside on a cool sunny day drinking tea on the beach. It is also nice that they do not rush you out of the restaurant immediately after you have finished eating dinner.Its really nice to spend a day relaxing and not worrying about the everyday craziness that life brings.
Shabbat Shalom and Shavuah Tov.
(Have a good week)
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