Jerusalem Sunset

I snapped these pics on the way to Kabbalat Shabbat services last night at HUC. Josh sang a duet with Mary (the student cantor who co-led services last night) and it was really beautiful. Two gorgeous voices!!


Pink sunset over Moshe Hess street


View up Moshe Hess curving to the left to Washington St! Our building is further past the bend...


Front view of Hebrew Union College with pretty sunset behind.

Shabbat Shalom

It is always a relief when Friday rolls around here in Jerusalem, when the usual roar of construction and traffic diminishes, and one can hear birds singing in the morning. It's the one morning each week that Josh can sleep in, and I know how much he appreciates his morning off. Tonight we will attend Kabbalat Shabbat services at HUC; afterwards we will join friends for dinner.

Yesterday I went on a trip to the Mount of Olives with several of the other SO's (Significant Others of HUC students). Our tour leader Gingy (a.k.a. David Wilfond) is an extremely knowledgeable Renaissance man (Rabbi, teacher, Outreach Director) with an extensive library of stories to share about the history of Jerusalem. Below are a few of the photos I took -- you can see all the photos from the trip at my Flickr Photo Website!


View from the summit of the Mount of Olives


Church of Dominus Flevit


Knarled olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane

Words from an interloper!

It's Donna here. I've taken over Josh's blog temporarily to add my own impressions of our life in Israel. (What actually transpired was that Josh finally got sick of my constant nagging -- "Why haven't you updated your blog?!" -- and made me an official member of Mr. Breitzer Goes to Jerusalem, with posting rights and everything!)

Right now Josh and I are both getting over a cold that Josh seemed to pick up in Rehovot when we were visiting my family last weekend. His eye-infection-turned-head-cold is spreading through the ranks at HUC, and of course I got it as well. Needless to say it's been tougher for Josh, as he actually has to get up early each day and go to school, and do work, etc etc.... Whereas my day consists of being the World's Biggest Lazybutt. I hope this designation will soon change; I hope to start teaching voice lessons soon, and there might be a possibility of some Gilbert and Sullivan in my future...

In other news, my father was here last week on business and we spent some time with him in Rehovot (cf paragraph 2, Josh's eye infection.) My parents set me the task of finding a nice silver kiddush cup that would be engraved as a present for my aunt and uncle's 30th wedding anniversary. I went to the Ben Yehuda area to look through the many touristy Judaica shops, comparing prices and inquiring about the turnaround time for engraving; everyone told me it took one day. I asked Josh to come with me to make a final decision and we picked out a lovely cup in a bright, welcoming new shop. I purchased the cup on Wednesday and was told it would be ready on Friday morning -- perfect, since Dad was coming to Jerusalem on Friday morning to say goodbye, and he could take it with him. The shopkeeper told me that the store "opens at 10:00 am. Be sure to come before noon!"

Blissfully naive (read: used to American consumer standards), we went to the store on Friday morning with my father, and of course the cup wasn't there. What ensued was an outright Israeli-style verbal brawl between Dad and the indignant, rude shopkeeper who seemed to be well trained in "customer disservice." After 2 hours of leaving, coming back, arguing, etc etc, we had no choice but to go home and wait for them to call us when the cup was ready. (This call never came. I had to call them and the shopkeeper who had been conversing with me freely during the morning tried to convince me that he didn't speak English. When I started in with my less-than-perfect Hebrew, he was trapped. Ha.) We went back and got the cup right before the shop closed at 2pm, and Dad had to drive back to Jerusalem in the evening to pick it up...

Well. Lessons learned. This blogging seems addictive so perhaps this interloper's presence won't exactly be "temporary..."

Turn, turn, turn...

Having never really celebrated Sukkot before, I didn't realize that the special reading for the holiday is the book of Ecclesiastes, from which comes everyone's favorite Pete Seeger song. It really is fitting, though, to read about the changing of seasons while observing the seasons change here in Jerusalem - quite literally overnight.

At the end of the seven days of Sukkot -that is, the fall harvest - comes Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah, in which the yearly cycle of Torah readings begins again, and after which Israelis start praying for the rains to come and sate the parched land. Simchat Torah was Saturday; it rained here on Sunday. Not a drizzling or sprinkling, mind you, but a full-blown cloudburst during my first class of the day. Upon hearing the drops begin to fall, everyone turned to the windows, exclaiming in unison, "Geshem!" Clouds are now a permanent fixture in the Zion skies and the average temperature has fallen a good 10-15 degrees. Sometimes you really do get what you ask for...

So for my 25th birthday last Thursday, along with the shift in weather patterns, my fiancee's return, and plenty of well wishes from friends and family, I received a nasty little cold that began in my eye and has migrated south into my ears, nose and throat. Needless to say, I did not ask for this, yet getting a cold in the fall is a remarkably pleasant reminder of home. :)

Happiness

Donna's back, and I have a week off. It's all good. :-)