Hello from Jerusalem!

We're well into our first month in Israel!  It's been 3 1/2 weeks since the kids and I arrived at Ben Gurion airport.

Of course, Jay was here to pick us up, feeling very well rested after a couple weeks of settling in himself.  Here he is watching the sunset on the Tel Aviv beach!

 I am sitting in our wonderful apartment on an overcast Thursday morning listening to a beautiful CD (Yonatan Raz'el) that Andy Vogel gave to our family.

Liana and Jonah are at their school, Tali Geulim, a 10-minute walk from here. Jay is with Andy on a Palestinian Encounter program, where they will be meeting with Palestinians and learning about the Palestinian narrative firsthand.

Here are some highlights from the past few weeks:

Jay and Liana visited the Old City for her first time. They walked through the Arab shuk, saw the Kotel (Western Wall) from afar, and bought some delicious fresh, warm pita!  Then they stopped off at the Tayelet for a fabulous view of the Old City and the mountains around her.

 Temple Beth Shalom very generously and thoughtfully gave us a membership to the Israel Museum.  On our first visit, we found a sculpture of a HUGE apple core! 

We all had Shabbat dinner with the Arbel Family, our "Tuchas k'rovim" (cousins of cousins we call family!) Naama Arbel is married to Micha Zeffren, who is my first cousins' first cousin. Naama's family welcomed us warmly, and we enjoyed them all, including the newest family member, Naama and Micha's 2-month-old daughter, Matar.


We visited Soreq Cave Nature Reserve in Bet Shemesh about a half-hour drive from here. It's an amazing Stalactite and Stalagmite cave, which we all loved. Jonah enjoyed "the witch" (you can see her to the left of the small light in the 3rd picture below)and Liana's favorite was "disappointed love." (A stalagtite and stalagmite that will never meet because the sedimentation in that area has stopped.See picture #4.)  Also, Jonah wore his special night vision goggles to see better in the cave.  Thank you, Ryan Idelson!


On our first full day in Israel, Jonah lost his first tooth!  What an exciting story!


Liana and Jonah have each had playdates with kids they've met through school or friends. We visited "Mini Israel" with some of these friends the other day. It's an outdoor miniature model of the country that you walk through, to get a sense of Israel as a whole.  The 3rd picture is a model of the Temple Mount and Kotel.

Liana and I went to a special memorial concert for Jewish singer/songwriter/teacher/inspiration Debbie Friedman at Beit Shmuel in Jerusalem. We enjoyed the music (Kenny Chasen was there playing Debbie's guitar),saw Allie Klein perform with her fellow Rabbinical students, and ran into Ethan Bennett, son of Rabbi Jim Bennett!

Jay has enjoyed a 2 week intensive Hebrew Ulpan, explored classes at several wonderful learning institutions, attended lectures, and now he's off at this 2 day Palestinian Encounter.  But most importantly, he is relaxing, reading, having dinner with his family every night(!) and breathing deeply.

We are all in good spirits.  We're watching the events in Egypt unfold just as you are, I'm sure; right now we don't "feel" anything different in our daily life, except the increased hope that the peace between Israel and Egypt will continue, and that the transfer of power in Egypt will be a peaceful and positive one.

I'm off to research great places for Israeli Folk Dancing.
Saturday we head to Ashqelon for a Zeffren/Perlman family Shabbat lunch.
More soon...XOXO...Emily