An emotional return

December 19: Shabbat nears, and I love watching Jerusalem become a different city as sunset approaches. As people headed to work this morning, Jonah and I went to the zoo (where we spent most of our time at the playground, of course, and also playing in the fantastic Noah’s Ark sculpture garden with Antoni Gaudí-like ceramic animal sculptures). A young religious woman helped me navigate the bus system, which charges babies and toddlers if you want to keep them in their stroller and doesn’t if you take them out and fold it. Never heard of such a system before, but I guess it makes sense in some way because a stroller otherwise takes the space of a would-be passenger. On the other hand, what about being family friendly!!?? The bus driver didn’t speak any English, nor did the passengers around me, so I had to fumble my way through, figuring out how much to pay and what he was saying about Jonah’s status as a passenger. And the driver was a crazy one with his turning and swerving, so it was virtually impossible to get Jonah out of the stroller without falling over. Thankfully, this lovely young woman helped make sure Jonah didn’t fly from his seat as I folded the stroller.

So this morning started as a typical morning, although a good share of people don’t work and are instead preparing for the Sabbath—cleaning, cooking, spending time with family. Many kids have no school today. Fridays and Saturdays are the weekend in Israel; Sunday is a regular work day. It’s amazing to be in a country whose culture reflects my own religious traditions and rituals (though to an extreme extent) rather than Christian-based ones (e.g., no work on Sundays, some states that won’t sell alcohol on Sundays, Christmas decorations galore everywhere). Our local bakery is crawling with people buying their challah (as did I before lunch) and other goodies for Shabbat dinner. And now, as I walked to this café/movie theater (one of only two food places that stays open past 2:00 pm on Friday and stays open through Saturday—everything else is closed around us for Shabbat), the streets are packed with cars and people heading home from work to get ready for Shabbat. Dang, that reminds me that I wanted to buy more bananas before everything closed! Oy, this is the hard part…planning for a day and a half, knowing you’ll have no access to stores. Seems like no big deal, but it turns out that it is when you only buy enough groceries for a couple of days at a time because you’re going to the store on foot. Tonight we’ll head to the local progressive synagogue where the Jews actually do recognize that we too are Jews, unlike the religious ones we see all around us. And tomorrow the streets will be empty. No cars. Some people walking on the streets. A quiet time here.

It’s been an amazing two plus weeks. Being in Israel again feels wonderful. Wonderful because I get to spend time with Su again and get to know Ofra. Wonderful because I’ve reconnected with my nephew Micha, who is amazingly like my brother Sam in appearance and in many ways otherwise. Wonderful because it brings back so many memories of meeting and bonding with my dear friend Cori and the trip that brought us to Israel back in 1992 with about thirty other college students from around the U.S. What a different time in my life that was. I’m pretty sure I could still do a summersault then without getting dizzy and without causing a huge tremor in my equilibrium. Su reminded me that the last time I was here was almost half my life ago. How is that possible? I feel like a kid still. Being here also reminds me of friends lost, in particular my friend Marcy who was also on our Israel trip, with whom I lived in college during my senior year (along with Alyce and Courtney), and who drifted away for reasons that still sadden me to this day.

I have a clearer sense of the importance of this region to people other than my own, and so my perspective has changed on what I think needs to happen here both for real peace to be achieved and for reasons of equity and justice. I think the global Jewish sentiment on certain aspects of the unresolved issues standing in the way of peace belies the reality of the situation on the ground here. For example, only 8% of Jerusalem’s Old City is Jewish, and yet so many (most?) Jews around the world would stand on a sword before allowing Jerusalem to become an international city rather than Israel’s capital. For what? To say that it’s ours? Because of our history as it relates to Jerusalem? What about the history of other peoples? Their history may post-date ours, but our history in the United States post-dates the Native Americans and yet we claim it all as ours. The bottom line is that Israel has been embroiled in a bloody war since its independence over sixty years ago. It’s time for its inhabitants to enjoy a more peaceful existence, and it’s clear that there is going to have to be much more compromise on both sides in order for that to happen.

It’s been a long time since I last sat down to write and much has happened. We settled ourselves for a few days before Nana and Papa (i.e., Rhona and Harvey) arrived, spending time getting to know our neighborhood and the areas around ours. Jonah and I spent time at our local café, Masaryk, where Jonah called out “Safta!” to a grandma-looking woman who responded in Hebrew that she wasn’t his safta but someone else’s. It’ll be the only place where Jonah will get such a response, I’m sure. The owner of Masaryk, Lara, has since become my source for all things local. She gave us more ideas of places to go, including Yemin Moshe, the first Jewish settlement outside of the Old City walls from the 1800s. It’s a beautiful area with lovely pedestrian-only streets and houses made of the Jerusalem limestone, which makes the place glow. We enjoyed lunch with Natan, one of Jeremy’s graduate students who is spending the year in Israel (where he’s from).

And the next day our visit with Nana and Papa began after a fun morning with Jonah who was a little chatterbox. He woke up at 6:30 am (phew!), after I explained the night before that we don’t get up until it’s no longer dark outside. As he drinks his milk in our bed in the morning, he likes to play with Jeremy’s glasses case, which is shiny. That morning, Jonah looked at his reflection, said, “Jonah!” and kissed his image. He also said, “Obama – ye he ca!” completely unprompted.

Nana and Papa called from a kind man’s cell phone on the corner of their street and Emek Refaim to figure out how to find our apartment, just two streets away from the apartment they stayed in while in Jerusalem. Jonah was THRILLED to see them, as evidenced by his going berserk, crashing his car into the wall, and jumping up and down on his car, when they arrived. Jeremy and I immediately took the opportunity to leave Jonah with Nana and Papa to run to the bakery and the coffee shop, which incidentally happens to have a great sign of a cigarette with a cross through it and the words “don’t even think about it”. It’s quite reflective of most restaurants around here, none of which seem to permit smoking. This is amazing and such a change from Barcelona where all of the signs read “smoking permitted” in Spanish and Greece where there are no signs but everyone smokes inside restaurants. You just can’t escape it.

That day we took a short taxi ride into the Old City, which was bustling with religious Jews returning from their grocery run in preparation for Shabbat. We checked out the small Armenian Quarter to the extent we were allowed. Much of it is closed except to the two or three thousand Armenians who live within a fairly small compound. We strolled through the Jewish Quarter and went to the Western Wall of the second temple. What a wonderful rush to descend on the plaza with the wall and sparkling gold Dome of the Rock in front of me. Jeremy and Harvey went to the men’s side, while Rhona, Jonah, and I went to the other. We all put prayers in the wall, as is the tradition. We headed toward the Muslim Quarter, which had a highly agitated buzz about it because the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock had been closed to men under the age of 45 due to the unrest in Hebron, a city some twenty miles from Jerusalem in the West Bank. A local guy told us there was concern the unrest would come to Jerusalem. As Jeremy said, it seems that closing the dome would be more likely to cause unrest than the opposite. It was a bit of a crazy scene that we tried to unsuccessfully navigate. People were gathered by different entrances to the dome, crammed up to where the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) officers were standing guard with their huge M16s. We tried to squeeze through as even the old ladies pushed, but we had to turn back. It turned out that the American Embassy had told their employees not to travel to Jerusalem that day and to stay off the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Surely this was overcautious, but it taught us that we needed to check the news before venturing into the Old City. We headed back to the Jewish Quarter for a delicious falafel lunch before heading back home for Jonah’s nap.

Our post-nap afternoons in Jerusalem are pretty much all the same—a trip to the local playground since it gets dark around 5 pm. If we only ever went to playgrounds, Jonah would be the happiest kid alive.

The next day included a trip to the Israel Museum to see the Dead Sea scrolls and the model city of Jerusalem from the end of the Second Temple era (66 CE). Found in 1947 near the Dead Sea in some caves, the scrolls date back to 132-35 CE and deal with both secular and religious issues. What to say about the scrolls? They’re amazing. A special exhibit at the museum included many documents related to Israel’s 60-year history, including the country’s declaration of independence and a bloody paper with a poem on it that had been in Yitzhak Rabin’s pocket on the day of his assassination. After Jonah’s nap, we walked along the relatively new pedestrian pathway on the outskirts of the central part of Jerusalem (called the Haas Promenade) to see the fabulous views of the Old City. From this vantage point, we saw the wall built to divide Israel from the West Bank. It’s an eyesore, among other things. On our walk to dinner that night we saw a common image—a loving couple sitting together at the bus stop with an M16 snuggled up against them (the guy clearly being in the IDF).

On Sunday we took a fabulous tour of the Old City with a lovely tour guide. We learned a ton about the history of the Old City as well as current statistics and trends. We started in the Armenian Quarter where we were able to see part of a mass in St. James Cathedral—a rare occurrence for visitors. Armenians were the earliest Christians in Jerusalem and apparently have remained neutral in Israel’s politics. We walked through Mount Zion, where we visited the room purported to be the site of the Last Supper where Jesus and his disciples had their final meal together. We strolled through the Jewish Quarter, visiting the four Sephardic synagogues, two of which date back to the sixteenth century CE. According to my guidebook, the synagogues were built deep into the ground in accordance with a law stating that synagogues could not be taller than neighboring buildings. This saved the buildings from destruction during the bombardment of the quarter during Israel’s independence war in 1948. Unfortunately, the synagogues were looted and used as sheep pens by the Jordanians during their rule over Jerusalem.

Remarkably, only 8% of the Old City is Jewish. Because of the cramped living conditions, many people—Jews and others—are trying to move out. I’m not sure if this includes the super duper religious Jews, many of whom don’t work. They’re supported by the government and also U.S.-based organizations (primarily U.S.) that think it worthwhile to pay ultra-Orthodox Jews to pray all day in Israel. As for the government funding, this was a deal struck between these religious Jews and the soon-to-be first Prime Minister of Israel (David Ben-Gurion) during the founding of the country. It started out that only about 500 Jews qualified for such support. Now that number has skyrocketed. Other special treatment the ultra-Orthodox Jews bargained for at the same time keeps them from having to do the otherwise mandatory army service.

We strolled through the Christian Quarter. Only 150,000 people of the 7 million in Israel are Christian. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where it is said that Jesus was nailed to the cross, died, and rose from the dead. The church is a very interesting mix of different branches of Christianity. Eight or so Christian factions share ownership of the church, and it is by no means a peaceful partnership, with a brawl between two factions having broken out in the past month or so (thus apparently warranting the positioning of two police officers outside the church semi-permanently). If one clergy member steps foot in another’s section of the church, all hell breaks loose…literally. Because of the discord, the keys to the church are in the possession of a local Muslim family (and have been since the Ottoman period), and it’s their job to unlock the doors each morning and secure them again at night.

We enjoyed lunch before strolling through the Muslim Quarter, where some sixty properties are owned by Jews, marked with an Israeli flag and usually barbed wire. In contrast to the other quarters, the Muslim Quarter feels very alive with many different types of people going about their daily lives. It might have been because we were in this quarter just two days before Eid al-Adha, a holiday celebrated at the end of the Hajj. People were out en masse, buying gifts and things for their homes. The Damascus Gate was packed, packed, packed. It was tough to get outside the Old City walls through the gate because vendors were stretched out all around it selling their goods, and people were making their way in and out of the city. We eventually made our way out the gate to Zedekiah’s Tunnel, an enormous cave—over 96,000 square feet—created from quarry work believed to be from the time of King Solomon around 10th century BCE. Jeremy, Jonah, and I went with our guide Judy to explore the cave, now open to the public.

December 21: Okay, so it’s two days later, and I realize that the last two weeks feel like they lasted an entire month. So, a different type of entry this will have to be…fewer words describing where we went and more pictures. The words don’t do justice to what we saw, how much we did, and what a fabulous time we had. So it goes.

On Monday the 8th, Su and Ofra came to Jerusalem to give us a tour around Nakhla’ot, 19th century neighborhoods fairly close to the Mahane Yehuda Market, the bustling open market that was the scene of numerous terrorist attacks in the last decade (which we also visited). On Tuesday, Harvey and Rhona went to Yad Vashem in the morning, while Jeremy worked and Jonah and I did our usual café and playground routine. In the afternoon, Jeremy and I went to Yad Vashem, while Harvey and Rhona watched Jonah. Yad Vashem is more than a Holocaust museum. It tells the history of the Nazi rise to power and murder of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others. It’s a center that collects information on those who perished for families to learn about their ancestors, among many other things. It memorializes those who died. It honors those who stood up against the terror of the Nazis and their collaborators. Needless to say, it was painful beyond words.

On Wednesday, Harvey, Rhona, Jeremy, Jonah, and I took a day trip to the Dead Sea and Masada. The drive to the Dead Sea revealed the varied landscape of Israel. Immediately upon leaving Jerusalem, the landscape changes dramatically, appearing much more like the desert it is. We stopped at a little tourist shop/café area on our way to Masada, where some local guys had two camels for people to ride on. As we stood there watching the camel, one of the guys motioned for Jonah and me to come over to the camel. I thought he was just going to have us sit on it, but then he had the camel stand up and off we went. Jonah was on the seat right in front of me and kept leaning over to look at the camel. He loved it!

From here we headed toward Masada, a desert mesa rising high above the Dead Sea. The most relevant history of the site for Jews is from the time of the First Revolt when the Jews rose up against the Romans in 66 CE. A group called the Zealots captured Masada, which became a sanctuary for fleeing Jews. After the Romans squashed the revolt elsewhere, they turned to Masada. As the story goes, 967 Jewish men, women, and children fought off 8,000 Romans who built an earthen ramp up to the fortress walls. As the Romans neared the top, the Jews burned all of their houses and possessions to keep the Romans from benefiting from them. Ten men were chosen to kill everyone else. One of the ten killed the other nine before taking his own life. People say the conquest of Masada marked the end of the Jewish presence in the region at the time. Masada is an amazing archaeological site with extensive ruins, some of which have been rebuilt. And with the views of the Dead Sea below, it’s a spectacular place.

From Masada, we headed to the Ein Gedi spa for lunch and to enjoy a dip in the Dead Sea. More than 1,200 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea’s salinity content is 32% as compared to the ocean, which is about 2%. The Dead Sea has receded so much in recent years that there is no sand at the shoreline in many places. Instead, the shoreline ground is made of crystallized salt in sharp points. It was incredibly painful to walk on, but it was so worth it to get in and float in the sea! Jonah didn’t go in because we didn’t have shoes for him and the water was a bit chilly. As someone who can’t otherwise float, I loved it! We drove back to Jerusalem as the sun set, lighting up the sky in beautiful shades of pink, orange, and yellow. Jonah fell asleep as Jeremy sang to him, and Jonah even managed to stay asleep when we had to transfer him to another bus. It was a fabulous day.

On Thursday, Jeremy, Jonah, and I headed to Kibbutz Gezer, while Harvey and Rhona headed to Tel Aviv for the weekend. Su and Ofra live on Gezer and had reserved a little house for the three of us to stay in. That day, Jonah and I went with Su and Ofra to explore Tel Gezer, while Jeremy worked. A “tel” is a mound of earth created by successive civilizations always building on top of a ruined city. Gezer’s location between Yafo/Tel Aviv (a port city) and Jerusalem made it an ideal place for communities to locate themselves. We hiked around and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Jonah particularly liked moving big rocks and ringing the huge wind chimes oddly located on the tel. That night he discovered his latest love, Raul Mouse Kitty. This is a play mouse for cats, which belonged to Su and Ofra’s cat Raul. Jonah saw it and immediately yelled, “Kitty!” He thought it was a little cat. He rubbed it on his face and hugged it. Raul graciously parted ways with it, since it was clear that Jonah loved it quite a bit more than Raul. The name of this little mouse went from “Kitty” to “Mouse Kitty” to “Raul Mouse Kitty”.

On Friday, we headed to an old, secret ammunitions factory that was located under a working kibbutz around the time of Israel’s independence. It operated from 1946 through the independence war in 1948, secretly only prior to the war. Roughly 45 young men and women were recruited to work in the factory, while the majority of people on the kibbutz had no idea such an operation was located right under the laundry and bakery facilities. In the first two years before independence, they manufactured 2.25 million bullets and 2 million during the war. The site is now an interesting museum that tells the story of the factory and kibbutz life during those years.

From here, we went to Ramla to check out a beautiful Greek Orthodox church, the bustling market, and to enjoy a delicious lunch with the best hummus ever. That night we had a delicious Shabbat dinner, which my nephew Micha joined. It was really amazing to see him. He was only 12 the last time I saw him. He just turned 29. When I last saw him, he was a mischievous, funny little guy. Now he’s a tall (in my family, tall), wonderful guy who’s interested in the world and people around him. And he’s still got his Micha smile.

On Saturday, we enjoyed a very mellow Shabbat relaxing on the kibbutz. We’d been up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours on Thursday night because Jonah didn’t want to sleep for some reason, and we were still exhausted. We spent part of the day playing with Jonah’s latest crush, Mayan, an adorable little girl about 7 months his senior. We checked out the dairy operation on the kibbutz and the many, many cows. Jonah was a bit frightened by the cows at first but quickly came to love them, particularly as he saw Mayan feed them. The two of them put piles of hay in front of the cows to assist them in their pursuit of lunch. It was very cute. Then Mayan and Jonah sat down in the hay, and Mayan started tickling Jonah’s face with the long, fuzzy end of a piece of hay, which made Jonah crack up. It was so cute. While we were there, we saw a cow in labor with its baby part way out. Mayan’s dad, Guy, helped the worker who was there deliver the calf, which sadly was born dead. Broke my heart.

We also spent a considerable amount of time that day at the many playgrounds on the kibbutz. Holy cow (huh, funny) is this the promised land of playgrounds. Jonah was in heaven. There are the general playgrounds that are open all the time, and then there are the playgrounds that are for the different age groups in preschool and kindergarten and open up to everyone else after 4 pm (except on Shabbat when they’re open all day because the kids aren’t in school). These play areas had tons of little cars for Jonah to ride on, and he just moved from one to the next. The happiest little guy you ever saw. It used to be that kids on kibbutzim (the plural for “kibbutz”) lived together in houses by these play areas. Micha spent his first three years living in such a house before the kibbutz voted to have kids live with their parents, a trend that was taking hold across Israel on many kibbutzim at the time. Kids used to live with their parents until about six weeks, at which time they started spending the nights in the children’s houses. Moms would either leave bottles for the babies or go to the house to nurse their babies in the middle of the night. Su says Micha was very sad when he had to move home because he’d been so used to sleeping in the same room as his little buddies.

On Sunday we returned to Jerusalem and met Harvey, Rhona, and some cousins on Rhona’s side of the family for a late coffee. It was wonderful to see Rhona connect with cousins whom she’d never met but with whom there was an instant connection. And nice to have more family in Israel!

On Monday, we took a trip up north with Harvey and Rhona for a few days. Other than the fact that Jonah decided he didn’t want to sleep at night (up for over two hours in the middle of the night each night…), it was great to explore another part of Israel. On our way up north, we stopped in Caesarea (on the west coast of the country), which started as a Phoenician settlement in the 3rd or 4th century BCE. It later became the local Roman capital, and the amphitheater was used to torture and execute thousands of Jews during the First Revolt in 66-70 CE. In 1101, the Crusaders captured Caesarea and found what they believed to be the Holy Grail from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Many other groups inhabited the city over the years, but its ancient past was buried until farmers tilling the land on Kibbutz Sdot Yam discovered bits and pieces of the old city. The current archaeological site is huge with beautiful views of the ocean by which it sits.

From Caesarea, we headed to our lodging destination of Rosh Pina in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. We checked in to our beautiful B&B (complete with Jacuzzis in each room, which Jeremy, Jonah, and I enjoyed together each night at bath time, which Jonah LOVED) in the quaint, little town before strolling around the area.

The next day, after a sleepless night by Jonah, and, therefore, me, we spent the morning in Tsfat (also spelled Safed, Zafed, Tzfat, and Sfat, depending on what I don’t know), a mountain town with a long history of Jewish mysticism and later (and now) nice art galleries. Unlike when I was last in the town, a visitor finds far more religious Jews walking along the cobbled streets. The town boasts several medieval synagogues, a couple of which we visited. Tsfat is the highest town in Israel, some 2,400 feet above sea level. The views from one rooftop we visited were gorgeous. Jonah had a tough morning, given how tired he was. We had a quick lunch and hightailed it back to the B&B, where he, Rhona, and I all took naps.

In the afternoon we visited Capernaum, believed by Christians to be the home base of Jesus during part of his ministry, including the time in which he recruited his first disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew. In the late 19th century, the Franciscans purchased the property with its ruins and restored the ancient synagogue and church situated on the land. The ruins are quite amazing as are the views of the Kinneret (also called the Sea of Galilee). The lake covers an area of roughly 64 square miles, but the water is receding at a most disturbing rate. We were here when the sun set that evening, and the colors in the sky were amazing.

The next day we headed to Akko to explore its old city. While the current residents of the old city are largely Arab, Akko’s history appears to date back to the 19th century BCE (yes, BCE) with references to it in Egyptian sacred texts. The Greek Hercules apparently came to Akko to heal his wounds. It’s a fabulously preserved city, situated on a narrow spit of land with amazing views of the ocean and Haifa in the distance. Although the old city welcomes tourists, the city is not overrun with hotels or galleries. Families still live in the houses, and its souq (marketplace) still caters to local residents. We visited the Al-Jazzar Mosque, which was built in 1781 by the Ottoman Turks. We actually got to look inside the mosque, which was beautiful. We visited the subterranean Crusader city with its vaulted halls, secret passageways, and huge open courtyard. At one time, the halls served as the headquarters of the Knights Hospitallers (remember them from Greece?). I particularly liked the very narrow, underground passageway that wound around under the halls. We found the Ramhal synagogue, which at one time used to be quite large but is now quite tiny. I’m not sure if any Jews currently worship there. We had a lovely lunch on the water, watching the local fishermen and a few boats go by. Then onward back to Jerusalem.

That night we had to say good bye to Rhona and Harvey. We’d had a fabulous time with them and loved being able to enjoy some of our Israel adventure together. We explained to Jonah that Nana and Papa were going back to their home in California, and he seemed quite upset by this. Since he wasn’t going to see them when he woke up (they were catching a 5:30 am flight out), I wanted him to know not to expect them in the morning. Needless to say, he had a hard time going to sleep that night. And the next couple of nights were no walk in the park either. Between taking him to new places to sleep while we’ve been here and Nana and Papa going home, he’s a bit out of sorts right now. Every day he says, “Nana Papa back home,” as if to process this fact and reflect on his sadness about it.

Thursday and Friday were Rachel and Jonah days, while Jeremy worked. On Thursday, Jonah and I took an easy day, spending the morning at our local café and playground. On Friday, we went to the zoo. That night we went to services at a local progressive synagogue called Kehilat Koh Haneshama in the Bak’a neighborhood, about a 15 minute walk from our apartment. It was all in Hebrew, but many of the melodies were similar. It was quite nice to have the opportunity to attend services, since it’s been several months now that we’ve been able to attend our much beloved Beth Am back home.

On Saturday, we spent the day with Su and Ofra in Ein Kerem, a beautiful village of Arab-built stone houses. Almost entirely Jewish now, Ein Kerem is home to several important churches related to John the Baptist and home to Mary’s Spring, where it is said that Mary met Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother. It’s a lovely, quiet area, just outside of the main part of Jerusalem. We visited the spring and a few churches before enjoying a delicious lunch. Our lunches out, by the way, are often the same—pita, hummus, falafel balls or meat wrapped in dough of some sort, and sometimes chicken. Delicious. In the afternoon we met up with Jeremy’s graduate student Natan and had a lovely dinner with his family just down the street from our place.

Today we took the bus to Tel Aviv to spend the day with my nephew Micha. Jonah had gotten a good night sleep, so he did amazingly well today with all of the travel and lack of a real nap. We met Micha at the central bus station in Tel Aviv, which took us about 15 minutes to find our way out of. Really. It was pretty ridiculous. Don’t ever try to meet someone there because it’s a total mystery whether in fact there is a main entrance. Seems to me that there are many entrances, and all of them have security guards checking people’s bags. Same thing at the Jerusalem central bus station with the security.

Once we found each other, we made our way in a taxi to Yafo (Jaffa), a predominantly Arab town in the greater Tel Aviv area. At one time, Yafo served as one of the great ports of the Mediterranean Sea, while Tel Aviv was little more than sand dunes. According to the Torah, Yafo was founded by Noah’s son (as in Noah’s Ark), Japheth, in the aftermath of the famed flood. It became a prominent port during King Solomon’s time before he lost it to the Egyptians in 1468 BCE. Other than a brief time under the Crusaders, the town has been primarily occupied by Muslim Arabs since the 8th century. Now old Yafo boasts lovely galleries, cobbled streets, and nice, grassy areas. We saw fabulous views of the Tel Aviv skyline and waterfront, walked the pathways, and played on the grass with Jonah. Before running off to play, Jonah handed Micha his half eaten bagel, which I took and put in the stroller. Some time later, Jonah returned to Micha with his hand outstretched, expecting his bagel. Good memory. Very cute.

We ventured over to Yafo’s huge flea market where we bought our Hanukkiah (often called a Menorah, which is technically incorrect because the Menorah only has seven branches, not nine like the Hanukkiah—eight plus the shamash used to light the eight candles for Hanukkah) for 15 shekels (less than four dollars) and a little hammer for Jonah for fifty cents.

From Yafo, we took a taxi to Rothschild Boulevard with its tree-lined pedestrian walkway down the middle of the street and checked out some of the Bauhaus architecture before enjoying a long lunch. (The taxi driver wished us a “chag sameach”—happy holiday—for Hanukkah. Quite nice.) From here, we headed in a taxi to the new port of Tel Aviv, which has a long, wood boardwalk by the crashing waves lined with cute cafés, stores, and most importantly, a gelato shop. Jonah snoozed in his stroller for about 30 minutes while we strolled and ate gelato before finding a nice playground on the sand.

It was a fabulous day that ended with a rather lengthy journey home. We left Tel Aviv’s northern bus station around 4 pm and got home at 7 pm, when we should have arrived by 5:30 pm. First the highway home was completely closed because of a burning bus. Still haven’t found out the story about this, but it was obviously not a terrorist attack and no one died since there was nothing about it in the paper or online. Then our bus broke down, so we had to transfer to another bus. Once they opened the freeway, the traffic was insane. It cleared up after they pulled the charred bus remains from the road. Jonah was a total trooper, playful, talking to people on the bus, making the best of our long ride home.

Speaking of Jonah, it’s amazing how quickly things change with him from one entry to the next. There’s so much to say about all of his new development that it’s hard to know where to begin. So I’ll just throw out random stories. Jonah continues to LOVE his little car that he rides around our apartment constantly. He likes putting his stuffed animals on the seat and riding them around. He also likes storing things in his trunk, including his new Raul Mouse Kitty. He put his sippy cup in the trunk one day, turned to us, and said, “Water go?” with his palms facing up, raised above his head. We said, “We don’t know!” So he opened his trunk and said with a big smile, “Here is!” Last week I was rubbing my eyes, and he said, “Tired mommy.” He did that to a stranger the other day too. Starting just the other day, he learned how to take and put back someone’s nose. Jeremy “took” Jonah’s nose (you know the game I’m talking about…), and told Jonah he did so. Jonah said, “Back! Back!” so Jeremy put it back. Jonah now loves “taking” our noses.

Jonah continues to develop an unbelievable vocabulary. He knows the good morning greeting in four languages—English, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew. In the last couple of weeks, he went from two words to about three or four words in a sentence. “Other one, get it.” “Other one, read it.” “Daddy shloofing (sleeping) too.” When we were changing his diaper on the floor of a restaurant by the front door, he said, “People walking” as passersby strolled along. It was very funny. Other short but often used phrases include: get out, come out, read this, get it, move it, come back, that way, get down, hold it, see it, eat it, “X” go? (as in, “Mommy go?”, “Car go?”), on that, parking car, backing up, church bell ring it, there it is, here go, back on, go car, put it down, sit down, sit there. He also uses “please” fairly often for a guy his age. “Back please” if he wants the back rest on his car put back on. “Help please” if he needs help getting on the car. “Mo please” if he wants more muffin. We love when he says, “Help me, mommy” or “Help me, daddy.” Melts the heart. But his most spoken words continue to be “paygown” for playground and “happin?” for what happened? His own version of “Old McDonald Had a Farm” has been further refined to “E-I-E-I sheep, moo moo ear, moo moo dare, E-I-E-I-O.”

He asks for kisses either when he’s fallen and has an “owwy” or just because he wants some love. That is the best. He can recognize taxis, buses, trucks, and tractors and loves to point them all out constantly. Yesterday he counted to three unprompted. Jeremy began to teach him numbers the other day. Jeremy would say “1”, Jonah would say “2”, Jeremy “3”, and Jonah “4”. And out of the blue, he counted to three on his own.

Tomorrow, Jonah and I are spending the morning with Su and exploring new neighborhoods, while Jeremy works. We have several tours this week scheduled, including the tunnels under the Western Wall of the temple in the Old City, the City of David and neighboring Arab village Silwan, and the ramparts of the Old City walls.

Happy Hanukkah!

Picture descriptions: Jonah rides a turtle at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem; street in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City; sunset over Dead Sea under a nearly full moon; Muslim woman in Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City (note the Jewish star and menorah above the door from previous Jewish residents); Yemin Moshe; Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City; view of Old City from Haas Promenade; female soldiers; 9th station of Jesus' cross in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; Damascus Gate, exit to the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City; Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem; off the road in between Jerusalem and Masada; Masada with the Dead Sea in the background; headed for a dip in the Dead Sea; Jonah's favorite walking game, here on Tel Gezer; Jonah enjoys a hop on a tractor at Kibbutzim Hill, site of the former ammunitions factory under the working kibbutz; Jonah and Mayan feeding the cows on Kibbutz Gezer; Jonah and Mayan playing in the hay on the kibbutz; view of the main part of ancient Caesarea; Ha'Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue in Tsfat in front of the 19th century olive-wood ark; view of Kinneret from Capernaum; Akko's harbor; Mary's Spring with Ofra and Su in Ein Kerem; Jonah and Micha walking the streets of Yafo; Yafo flea market; Tel Aviv port beach boardwalk.