Living in a war zone

December 30: We find ourselves in the middle of a country that is again on the verge of war. I suppose you could say Israel has been in a constant state of war since its birth sixty years ago. Sometimes it’s quite active. Sometimes it’s less so. The truce with Hamas ended on the 19th of this month, and Hamas started launching Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel shortly thereafter, about 180 rockets since this recent violence began. Three civilians and a soldier have been killed from the Hamas rockets. The situation escalated considerably when Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign that so far has resulted in more than 375 Palestinian deaths (60 of whom the U.N. indicates were civilians) and hundreds wounded. We hear that a ground assault by the Israelis is imminent with tanks situated on the Gaza border. (We saw several such tanks making their way down south during our drive through the Negev yesterday.) Now I understand how it is that Israelis continue going about their business during times of unrest. Aside from the heavy hearts many Israelis walk around with because of the recent violence, the only real noticeable difference we’ve seen since this all began a few days ago has been heightened security. On our way to the kibbutz on Sunday, the taxi driver told us that the bus station was closed because of a bomb scare. I’m sure someone left their backpack or other bag accidentally, but such things lead to a complete evacuation/lock down/you name it.

And today we saw what most American Jews—or any tourists for that matter—rarely, if ever, see on a trip to Israel. We took an informal tour of the separation wall between Jerusalem and the West Bank. That’s not quite the right description of the wall, since the situation is far more complicated than this. The separation wall doesn’t seem to follow any rational line (i.e., the Green Line that separated Israel from its neighbors after the partition and the 1948 war or Jerusalem’s existing municipal boundaries established after the 1967 war). In some places it follows the Jerusalem municipal border; in other places Israel has pushed farther into the West Bank. The wall cut many Palestinian neighborhoods in half. It separated people from the land they used to farm. These folks still have the legal right to their agricultural land, but they have no way to reach it in some cases (if they have no papers allowing them to move to the other side of the wall, for example) and in other cases would have to spend hours to get there and then have no one to help them work the land. The wall separated families from their neighbors, from the rest of their family, from the institutions they’ve spent decades using, worshipping in, and relying upon. A five minute walk to one’s brother’s house has turned into an hour and a half plus journey, provided they have the right papers that allow them to even take the journey.

I’m not saying the wall isn’t necessary. I can’t say I’m informed enough to know what the best solution is to the Hamas attacks or what the best approach is to establishing a Palestinian state. For security purposes, it could be a separation wall. But, if so, it should account for neighborhoods, families, and social movement so as not to destroy people’s lives, livelihoods, and relational connections. If it doesn’t, people are left dejected, angry, isolated, and vengeful, leading to the kind of terror we see today. How could we expect anything different? It’s similar to prisons. Either you think a prison should include a rehabilitative component to help people find a better and lawful way to live once they’re released back into society. Or you think it should be purely punitive, which in my opinion leaves people worse off and better prepared to commit more crimes, often more egregious crimes. Perhaps the Israeli government thinks that by destroying Palestinian neighborhoods the residents will move elsewhere. But how can they? They don’t have the means to do so. Instead, they stay and become embittered.

The tour we took was put together by Maya, a friend of Jeremy’s brother, Josh. Maya works for an organization called B’Tselem, which promotes human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We had dinner with Maya, her husband Daniel, and their son Tomo the other night, and Maya offered to put together a short tour for us of the separation wall. So Jeremy, Jonah, and I met Maya and two of her colleagues this morning to first learn about the building of the wall. Then we went with Maya, another colleague of hers, and a driver to tour around the separation wall. We went first to the wall near the Bethlehem checkpoint. Here you can see a common situation—houses that abut the wall on the Israel side (for lack of a better description, I’ll call it the “Israel side” and the “West Bank”) and are completely cut off from their Palestinian neighbors. We tried to get past the checkpoint to see the conditions on the other side of the wall, but the guard indicated that, because of the recent unrest, vehicle access is severely restricted. Our strike against us was that we were in a vehicle that carried more than six passengers.

Leaving this checkpoint, we saw the separation wall in another part of Jerusalem that’s a fence rather than a wall. The Jewish settlement—Har Homa—that’s been established here is beautiful. It was the site of much violence during the Second Intifada in the earlier part of the decade, so the housing isn’t all occupied (presumably due to fears about living there). Here, we saw the home of a Palestinian family that used to live a five minute walk to the Arab village of Beit Zahor. Now it takes the family one and a half hours and 150 shekels (roughly $40) to get to Beit Zahor. The kids of the family stay with another family in Beit Zahor so they can attend school, since they presumably don’t have easy access to a school on their side of the wall. The family has no social life because they’re the only Palestinian house left on the Israel side of the wall.

More common, however, is the situation we saw in Abu Dis, an Arab village that was virtually dissected in half by the separation wall. In this village, the wall zigzags down streets, cutting residents from their local mosque, the community center for old people, and, again, family and friends. Seeing the wall is more eye opening than I even assumed it would be. To see how the separation wall’s path has destroyed people’s lives makes the reality on the ground here a bit easier to get my head around.

On our ride to Abu Dis, we drove through the Mount of Olives, where Jews have been buried for thousands of years. It’s considered the world’s oldest continually used cemetery. Given my fascination with cemeteries, this was near the top of my list of places to visit in Jerusalem. In the streets we saw rocks and other debris from the daily rioting that has taken place since the escalated violence in and around Gaza. This basically put the kibosh on my plan to do a walking tour of the Mount of Olives during Jonah’s nap today. Along with visiting the Temple Mount, it was the last thing on my list that I really wanted to do before we left. Maya and her colleagues said it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to do it right now because of the situation. Exploring on my own, winding my way through the rows of graves up on the Mount of Olives probably wouldn’t be the safest thing for me to do. Su confirmed this. Dang. Dang. Dang. People are losing their lives, have little if any freedom of movement, live in absolute squalor, and are deprived of basic needs, so I can’t say that I feel too sorry for myself in the context of the conflict here.

We leave in two days. I can’t believe it!! I’m really quite sad about it. This is the first place we’ve been that I really didn’t want to leave. Jeremy feels the same way. We’ve felt ready to leave each place before for one reason or another. Weather was always a big factor certainly. But we also felt ready for a new adventure. Despite the recent rain here, it feels like there’s still so much more to explore. We’ve also really loved being able to spend so much time with Su, Ofra, and Micha. It’s been wonderful to have this time with them. And we’ve managed to have a fairly busy social life here. It’s felt much more like we settled somewhere permanently than our previous stays have felt.

Well, returning to my account of our daily life here… On Monday of last week, Jonah and I met Su at our apartment before hopping a bus to the city center. It was a day for neighborhood touring, which is something I’m always interested in doing. Su is quite the tour guide and comes well equipped with descriptions of the neighborhoods and specific buildings to admire. We started with Mea She’arim, which is a throw back to an Eastern European shtetl of the 1880s. This is where the ultra of the ultra-Orthodox Jews live in Jerusalem, with men donning tall black hats, robe-like jackets, and beards and the women in long, black skirts and head coverings or wigs (many with shaved heads underneath). As you enter a part of the neighborhood, a big sign reads in English and Hebrew: “Groups passing through our neighborhoods seriously offend the residents. Please stop this.” There are posters plastered all over the walls, mostly memorial notices for people who have passed away with information on when the first thirty days of mourning run until, the location of the Shiva, etc. Su and I were the only women in the entire neighborhood in pants and the only non-neighborhood (or similarly religious) folks to be in the area (aside from the two Arab guys who quickly came and left with a few trays of pastries from the bakery). We had no such excuse, but no one seemed to notice us or at least let us know we were being noticed.

In addition to Mea She’arim, we wandered through a couple of other neighborhoods along the edges of Morasha and Migrash Harusim. Highlights included beautiful homes, the very interesting, circular-shaped Ethiopian Church (built between 1896 and 1904), Ben Yehuda’s house (where he did much work to revive the Hebrew language), a house where the Israeli poet Rachel once lived while penning love poems, the original Hadassah Hospital, the late-19th-century Ticho House (former home of an Austrian-born ophthalmologist who treated poor Palestinian Arabs and his artist wife—now a museum and café where we had an amazing lunch), and a neighborhood playground where Jonah went through his first enclosed slide (and loved it!).

That night we celebrated the second night of Hanukkah. Because we’d gotten home so late from Tel Aviv the night before and we didn’t yet have candles, we lit matches as stand-ins for candles and called it a night. Well, Jonah LOVED seeing us light the hanukkiah on the second night. (Every morning during Hanukkah he asked for the candles and for us to “light it, light it”.) He also liked opening his gift. We’re doing one small gift each night. The first night we did gifts, Jonah opened one of the ones that Su and Ofra gave him. As we were helping him unwrap it, he did his happy dance where he moves from one foot to the next in a small march. It was a fabulous dreidel that lights up when you spin the bottom off of it. Along with Raul Kitty Mouse (I got it wrong in the last posting…it’s not Raul Mouse Kitty), the new dreidel is his prized possession. These two things he carries with him in the trunk of his car unless we’re taking it to the playground. Jonah is also getting into the paper wrapping ripping spirit. At first he didn’t know what to do with the paper. Maybe the ball of paper was the gift. But then Jeremy showed him how to rip the paper, and he started to get the hang of it.

The next day, Jeremy, Jonah, and I took a tour of the Western Wall excavations and tunnel in the Old City of Jerusalem. This tour is quite controversial, several people we know unwilling to go there (including Su and Jeremy’s graduate student Natan) because of the political statement that was made when the tours opened under one of the holiest Muslim sites in the world. The tunnel is a 1,600 foot passage that follows the northern extension of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount on which the First and Second Temples were once located and on which the Dome of the Rock is now located. From an archaeological perspective, it was a fascinating tour. The extensiveness of the remains and sheer size of some of the rocks in the wall were mind boggling. According to our tour guide, one stone in the wall weighs over 6,000 tons (I think that’s the number she gave) and cannot be moved by any modern-day technology. We also saw an aqueduct from the immediately-post-Maccabee time (just before the beginning of the Common Era). We saw the spot that is considered to be the closest Western Wall location to the holy of holies, where the high priest from the First and Second Temple days used to meet with god in the temple once a year to ask for forgiveness for the sins of the Jews. Several religious women were praying at this particular spot and other places along the excavated wall as well.

In addition to the tidbit of information about modern technology’s inability to move one of the rocks of the size found in the wall, several of our guide’s comments were questionable. Let’s just say the propaganda was quite thick. Our tour guide indicated that it was god who destroyed the First and Second Temples (rather than the Romans) because “he” was mad at the Jews. This can be explained by the fact that our tour guide was religious. She also indicated that the Mamluks built houses along the Western Wall about 800 years ago, leaving only the plaza we see today with open access to the wall. If I’m not mistaken, Israeli soldiers actually flattened many Arab-owned homes after the 1967 war in order to create the plaza. This was not a plaza left behind by the Mamluks.

While Jonah napped, I went shopping along the main drag of our neighborhood, Emek Refaim. I bought three necklaces and a chamseh charm for my bracelet—all for under $100—as Jeremy’s Hanukkah gift to me. ;) In the afternoon, Jonah and I took his little car to the playground, where we were among the only brave souls to endure the elements of nature. It was frigid and windy, but Jonah was happy as could be riding his little car around outside. The next morning he picked up his car and said, “Carry car paygown.”

On Wednesday, I had planned for us to go to the science museum because it was supposed to be a cold, rainy day. Two things threw a wrench into this plan. First, Jonah had a very hard time going to sleep the night before, taking well over an hour of me going in and out of his room and finally having him fall asleep on me before I put him in his crib. Then he decided to wake up at 4:30 am and only sleep when I held him. Mommy was not a happy camper… Second, it wasn’t raining when we got up but was instead just super windy. Only a light drizzle came that morning and only for a very brief period. So a quick change of plans sent us to Mt. Scopus, home to Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital, and the old British war cemetery from World War I. During the time of Israel’s independence in 1948 and the end of the Six Day War in 1967, Mt. Scopus was located in Jordan. It came under Israel’s control following the war (as did all of East Jerusalem and the West Bank) after the country decimated the armies of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. It was during this war that Israel also captured the Golan Heights from Syria and the entire Sinai desert and Gaza Strip from Egypt.

Jonah and I took a 30-minute bus ride to Mt. Scopus, during which we passed through Mea She’arim and learned what it is that the black-hat Jews do when it rains—put a plastic bag on their hats. They looked like a bunch of men wearing shower caps. Our main task for the morning was getting to the hospital, where we had to drop off a gift for the head doctor of the rehabilitation unit who had treated the paraplegic son of a family back in Lindos. We’d brought the bottle of liquor for the family to give the doctor but had gotten in touch with them the night before they were leaving the country to return to Greece, so I’d said that we would take it to the doctor ourselves. Jonah and I made a little trip out of it by taking a quick look into the British war cemetery and, after the gift drop, a stroll around Hebrew University. It was not so easy to get permission to walk around the campus. Two different people inquired as to my purpose as I went through the process of getting a visitor’s pass and seemed quite surprised that I just wanted to walk around and see the campus. Thankfully, my cute Jonah makes me seem not so scary I guess, so they let us in. The part of the campus we saw was quite lovely with the same Jerusalem stone pathways and buildings you find all over the city. We strolled along the interior pathway, following various cats we found around and playing by a water memorial. Then back on the bus home for lunch.

On Thursday, Jonah and I headed to the science museum because it was raining, cold, and unpleasant outside. It was apparent the weather was not going to clear up at all. Although the museum is geared toward kids older than Jonah, our little guy dove right in with the big kids. He pushed his way past them, eager to get to the various wheels to turn, balls to throw, and buttons to push. He seems to have few fears, so he led the way through the museum with me in tow. One exhibit at the museum is a small pit that turns, and kids get inside and throw a few balls around. When Jonah saw this, he practically dove head first into the pit. And within about five minutes, he had all three balls in his hands despite the fact that there were several other kids in the pit as well, all of them older than Jonah. Jonah also loved riding the glass elevator up and down. From the museum, it was home for lunch with Jeremy. I went to Ben Yehuda Street to do a little shopping during Jonah’s nap. That night we had a great dinner out and visit at our house with our friends Anne and Billy who were visiting from D.C.

On Friday, we had a tour scheduled of the City of David, which is right outside the southern wall of the Old City in Jerusalem. It’s the oldest part of Jerusalem, claimed to be the location of the Canaanite settlement captured by King David 3,000 years ago. Su gave us information on an organization that provides an alternative tour of the City of David and neighboring Palestinian Arab village of Silwan. The three of us started the tour with the group, but Jeremy ended up having to take Jonah home because it was too much talking and not enough walking around. Our tour guide was an archaeologist who talked a lot about the political situation surrounding the City of David excavations and the impact on Silwan. Recently, eighty-eight Palestinian Arab homes were condemned so that the Jewish settlement organization that runs the City of David (Elad), with the help of the Israel antiquities department, can rebuild the garden formerly located next to a palace in the City of David. To me, this is insane. Destroying tons of homes to recreate a garden?

We learned from our guide that there is no legal building taking place in Silwan—either by the local Palestinian Arabs or the Jewish settlers. This means people are living under constant fear that their homes will be demolished. This, of course, will never happen to the settlers homes. But it does happen to the Palestinian Arab homes on a regular basis. We saw some of the most recently created piles of debris. It turns out that people have to pay the government to have their homes demolished or risk being sent to prison. At the end of the tour, we heard from residents of Silwan who are trying to develop a more formal infrastructure for their community, including the equivalent of a town council and such to help assist the residents and deal with government abuses. The residents we spoke to are committed to nonviolence and have gone to the court on several occasions, where they’ve won multiple cases only to have no way to enforce the court orders.

That night, we returned to the progressive synagogue for services. Jonah really liked the singing. Every time there was silence he used his not-so-silent voice to ask for “mo! mo!” Thankfully, Jonah’s cuteness kept people from being irritated at the constant disruptions, even when his little cars went “down hill” on his seat.

On Saturday, we met up with Micha in Jerusalem’s Old City, and we walked on the walls from the Jaffa Gate to the Lion’s Gate above the Christian and Muslim Quarters. It’s definitely one of the most interesting things we’ve done. I felt like we were intruding on people’s private space in some cases, walking right by elderly women hanging their clothes on the drying line. But they smiled and didn’t seem bothered. We saw into the private courtyards of monasteries, the backyards of people’s homes, the playgrounds of schools (which Jonah pointed out left and right, asking to go to the “paygown!”), and the streets below. From just past the Damascus gate in the Muslim Quarter, we witnessed a heated argument between a street cleaner and two IDF officers. Micha translated for us. One IDF officer told the guy they were interrogating that he’d break his face if he didn’t settle down. Yikes. We saw different beautiful views of the Old City. We got great views of the Muslim cemetery just outside the eastern wall of the Old City and the Mount of Olives beyond.

The walk along the walls stops at the Lion’s Gate because of restricted access to the Temple Mount. Non-Muslims are only allowed to enter the Temple Mount during restricted hours and from a single entrance by the Kotel (Western Wall of the Second Temple). Jews believe that the Messiah will enter the Temple Mount through the Golden Gate of the Old city. This gate was sealed by the Muslims in the 7th century to deny access to the Temple Mount to non-Muslims, although an alternative theory is that it was sealed to prevent the Jewish Messiah from entering the Temple Mount. Plus, having the Muslim cemetery there would be a problem because the Messiah (who presumably would be a high priest…I think) can’t be around dead people.

We entered the Old City from the Lion’s Gate and walked through a couple of churches on the Via Delarosa, where Jesus is said to have carried his cross to his crucifixion at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We made our last trip to the Kotel, where Micha and I got yelled at multiple times. First, we were reprimanded for taking pictures (on Shabbat). Then I was scolded for trying to use my cell phone (to call Jeremy who I could not find in the Western Wall plaza). Then Micha tried to light a cigarette and was scolded by the same religious Jew who scolded me about my phone. They have religious observance police strolling the plaza just to catch scofflaws like us it seems. We headed back to our neighborhood from the Old City, where we had lunch before putting Jonah down for his nap.

While Jonah napped, Micha and I took a nice, long walk through German Colony, Bak’a, and over to the Haas Promenade for its gorgeous views of the Old City, neighboring villages, and the separation wall. Before we got out of German Colony, we picked up a coffee at one of the two places open in our neighborhood on Shabbat, where we ran into a woman whom I met the previous day on the City of David tour who teaches at Santa Clara University’s law school and whose husband runs the clinic programs at Stanford’s law school. This is one of those things that makes a person feel some ownership over a neighborhood—running into someone you know at a neighborhood shop. Fabulous to feel this here and to have a connection to the places and people. That night we went to dinner with Maya, Daniel, and Tomo—the friends of Jeremy’s brother, Josh. Tomo is just about Jonah’s age, and the two of them hit it off remarkably well. It was so cute to see them running around together.

On Sunday, we headed back to the kibbutz to stay with Su and Ofra and for Jonah to rekindle his relationship with sweet Mayan and, more importantly, his love affair with the kibbutz playgrounds. After being told the bus station in Jerusalem was closed, we took a taxi all the way to the kibbutz. (Turns out one of the Hamas bombs landed just twenty minutes from the kibbutz.) Micha joined us from Tel Aviv, which was fabulous. We spent the morning at a cool playground we hadn’t visited before with its Noah’s Ark animals for Jonah to climb on, a recorder we found near the slide (which Jonah LOVED blowing into and having Ofra play), and lots of sand in which to dig. We had a fabulous latke lunch. Jonah loved dipping his latkes in the apple sauce. Surprisingly, Jonah took a nap at Su and Ofra’s house, which is highly unusual. He obviously felt very comfortable at their house and with his surroundings because it typically takes him getting used to a place for an entire day and having to sleep a night somewhere before he can take a nap there. We hung out and talked during nap time, while Jeremy had a massage (my gift to him for Hanukkah).

Then more playground in the afternoon. Mayan and her mom, Hila, joined us for that. We drove cars around the play area. Micha and I even drove the little tricycles. Our little creature of habit, Jonah, liked to play with the car that didn’t move due to its broken front tires. He did this last time we visited the kibbutz as well. So as Micha and I raced around the playground, Jonah was stuck in his stationary car, calling out, “Go! Go!” and hoping his car would miraculously take off. No convincing would get him into another vehicle. We walked over to Mayan’s house (a stone’s throw from Su and Ofra’s), where Jonah was in heaven playing with all sorts of new toys. He also liked shutting him and Mayan in her room and cracking up because we were on the outside. Then he’d yell, “Come in! Come in!” and hurry to get someone else in before quickly shutting the door again. We enjoyed a delicious last night of Hanukkah dinner before crashing. Jonah slept through the night peacefully, waking up very briefly around 1 am to chat to himself. Oh, it felt good to not get up in the middle of the night!! (He didn’t wake up last night either. Two nights in a row these days is a dream come true for sleep.)

Yesterday morning we mobilized perhaps a bit earlier than Su and Ofra would have liked (Jonah woke up at 6:15 am, which meant that we were all up at that hour), but it helped get us out the door early for our trip to the northern part of the Negev. The Negev makes up over 60% of Israel’s landmass but is home to only around 10% of the country’s residents. The Negev Desert has fabulous auburn-colored sand. It’s just a beautiful region of the country.

We first headed to Bet Guvrin-Maresha National Park, which contains ruins that date from the 3rd and 4th century BCE. We visited the Columbarium Cave (a.k.a Pigeon Coop Cave), built in the shape of a double cross. With more than 2,000 niches in it, pigeons were raised for cultic purposes and food prior to the 3rd century BCE. This cave was unreal. From here we visited the Bell Caves, which date to the Byzantine and early Muslim period. Originally, there were 80 bell-shaped pits connected by passageways. Most were quarries measuring up to 40 to 50 feet deep. The caves are now above the ground because of how they’ve been excavated, but at one time they were underground. The quarrying was done through the narrow opening with stone blocks raised and removed from the cave by ropes. Most of the quarrying was done from the 7th to 10th centuries CE. Some of the caves we walked through were absolutely enormous. This park is one of those off the beaten path places but well, well worth the trip.

From the national park, we continued into the Negev and stopped at the Negev Palmach Brigade Memorial. Situated northeast of Be’er Sheva (which until recently was the fourth largest city in Israel), the memorial honors the Jewish soldiers killed while taking Be’er Sheva from the Egyptians in 1948. The views of Be’er Sheva and the Negev from this spot are absolutely beautiful. Jonah was on meltdown by this point though, so our time at the memorial was limited. (Incidentally, Hamas-launched rockets struck as far as the southern part of Be’er Sheva today—the first time the rockets have gotten this far.)

On our way to the memorial, we passed many Bedouin settlements, most unrecognized by the Israeli government. Prior to 1948, roughly 140,000 Bedouin Arabs lived a nomadic, pastoral life in the Negev. The Israeli government has worked to move the Bedouin off the land and into settlements of their own. It doesn’t recognize the Bedouin’s right to use the land, even though they’ve been farming on it for many generations. In the 1980s, recognized villages were established by the government in the Negev. Now, more than 80,000 Bedouin have moved into these developments, which remain incredibly poor, with a terrible lack of facilities, such as proper sewage and roads, and little hope for employment. Our guidebook indicates that there are more than 45 illegal/unrecognized settlements, mostly in the Be’er Sheva region, that have existed for more than 40 years. These have no electricity or water, and the residents must travel long distances for school or health care.

We went next to the kibbutz on which Ofra grew up, Kibbutz Dvir, and where her father and his wife still live. This kibbutz still has the option of eating in the communal dining hall for lunch and two dinners per week, so we enjoyed a yummy meal with the kibbutz residents. We had a lovely visit with Ofra’s dad (Gadalia—a Jewish Cuban who immigrated to Israel in the mid-1950s) and his wife. Su took Jonah to the kibbutz’s playground for a while before joining us back at Gadalia’s house for coffee Cuban style. Then it was onward back to our house in Jerusalem. Jonah and I both took a little snooze on the ride home.

Tonight we had a nice dinner with Jeremy’s graduate students who came back to our place for tea and dessert. And tomorrow we have our last day in Israel before heading to Turkey on Thursday. Sad, sad! We’ll try to make it to the Temple Mount tomorrow morning before packing during naptime and dinner with Su, Ofra, and Micha.

Of course, I can’t sign off without a Jonah update. He’s been missing his Nana and Papa. Last week, he was playing with his giraffe and donkey and getting frustrated. I asked him if he wanted his giraffe, and he told me he didn’t. Then I asked him if he wanted his donkey, and he told me he didn’t. So I asked him what he wanted, and he said, “Nana, Papa.”

I think with so few people around Jonah that he knows and sees regularly, he gets very attached to people with whom we interact even if just briefly or sporadically. Tonight he was very interested in having Jeremy’s graduate students come into the bathroom with him while he took his bath. He put his hand on Avital’s arm and said, “Come in, come in.” We also mentioned at dinner that we had eaten at Masaryk the week before with Anne and Billy, and Jonah said very sadly and longingly, “Billy?!” At dinner, Jonah also was pulling on the apron of one of the servers who he has met only a few times but adores, Michal. Sadly, Jonah had to say bye to her after dinner, along with Noam who has been serving us our morning lattes for much of the month.

Jonah continues to be a very loving little guy. He loves getting a “Jonah sanwish” (Jonah sandwich) with Jeremy on one side of his cheek and me on another giving him kisses. He loves kisses and asks for them, especially when he’s bumped his head or gotten an “owy”. Last week he closed his little finger in Jeremy’s eyeglasses case, and Jonah said, “Ouch, hurt.” He hit his head against the cabinet in the living room the other day and said, “Bonk, bump your head” and came over for a kiss. He was also trying to put the contact lens case back in Jeremy’s glasses case, and when he realized he was putting it in the wrong way said, “Other way” and tried to turn it around. In addition to playing with the eyeglasses case in the morning, a new fun thing he likes to do is put the headphone ear pieces into his ears. He saw the iPod headphones, asked to see them, and knew exactly what he was supposed to do with them. It was so strange. We don’t remember having them on in front of him, so we’re not sure how Jonah knew what to do with them. He still loves looking at one book in the morning that’s for parents to learn about their kids (“Your One Year Old” it’s called). He searches for the few pictures in the book. One has a kid riding a little truck. The other day he said, “Truck, find it.” He is quite regularly putting together this type of sentence or something like “Mommy, eat it” when trying to get me to eat my food.

Two other things that shocked us when we heard them: Jonah was drinking milk the other day, and I asked him, “How’s your milk?” to which he replied, “Good.” And the funniest of all was when we were on the kibbutz walking back to Su and Ofra’s house for lunch. He was so happy to be walking on his own, strolling back to the house. He was in his adorable, giddy, babbling mode, and I had no idea what he was saying. I asked him, “What language are you speaking?” And Jonah replied, “English.” It was totally insane. I just cracked up.

Finally, I think we realized that some of Jonah’s sleep disturbance has been a result of his molars coming in. Last week I decided to stick my finger in his mouth just to see if there were any new teeth pushing against his gums, and much to my great surprise, I found one molar almost completely grown in, two others half way in, and the fourth about ready to pop out of his gum any minute (which it did the other day). What!!?? I thought the teeth were supposed to fill in from the middle out, but apparently not. He only has two teeth on the bottom in the front and now his two molars down there. Very strange.

Okay, well, I guess the next time I write I’ll be sitting in our apartment in Istanbul. My hope for our new place is that it has a good heating system, nice shower, washer (a dryer would be a major plus, but I am definitely not holding my breath on that one), and easy way to Jonah-proof the house with nothing in the drawers. Fingers crossed…

Picture descriptions: Checkpoint into West Bank near Bethlehem; Abu Dis split in two by the separation wall; main intersection in Mea She'arim; Ethiopian Church at monastery; Jonah enjoys yet another playground; aqueduct in the Western Wall excavations; Kotel during Hanukkah (you can see the Hanukkiah near the wall); our neighborhood playground; Jonah roams around Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus; science museum; City of David with city walls dating as far back as 18th century BCE and Silwan in the background; Arab village of Silwan just outside the Old City walls; religious Jews heading into the Old City (view from the wall ramparts near the Jaffa Gate); view into the Old City from near the top of the Damascus Gate; Jeremy and Micha on the Old City walls near the Lions Gate; couldn't resist another gorgeous view of Jerusalem with the Old City in the top left; Jonah enjoys the Noah's Ark animals on Kibbutz Gezer; he also enjoys playing with his little buddy Mayan on the kibbutz; Columbarium Cave at Bet Guvrin-Maresha National Park; Bell Caves in the same national park; Negev Palmach Brigade Memorial near Be'er Sheva; Jonah loving the plants at Bet Guvrin-Maresha National Park.