Watery Wednesday

This photo was taken in West Orange before the snow storm! 

RULES: Create your Watery Wednesday post first then come back and click on the Mr. Linky link on this blog to access the participation list. Enter your name and the link to your post in the spaces provided. Next, just have fun visiting the other entrants to see their posts. If you leave a comment they'll know you've visited and will visit you in return. Have fun!

Ruby Tuesday

On our trip to the US we passed though Charles deGaulle airport in Paris. It is very impressive, spacious and and comfortable airport. Take a look at this waste basket which is divided to give the opportunity to recycle paper separately from other trash. Nice idea!

On Tuesdays, just post any photo you like (it must be one of your own) that contains the color RED and then link to this blog.

Baila's Final HH for 2009!

Go on over to I"ll Call Baila for the latest in Haveil Havalim (#249 to be exact).

Chanuka in the USA

As readers who follow this blog know we spent Chanukah in the US. Below is a picutre of our son-in-law lighting candles at David's parents home in Philadelphia. It was a very happy visit and we had a nice chacne to visit with most of our family in New Jersey and New York as well.

December in the US is an interesting time to visit. When I lived there I found it a difficult time of year.

Some of my earlies memories are of  learning the difference between us and them. Most of the time it didn't matter. But those few weeks, after the inclusive all-American holiday of  Thanksgiving came those weeks of Santas, evergreens and in the very Christian neighborhood where I grew up, nativity scenes. It wasn't a hostile atmosphere and of course I never had to associate it with hiding from marauding Cossaks, as my grandparents did. I never heard an anti-Semitic remark from any of our neighbors. We had warm relations with most of our neighbors. Chanukah did come just at the right time for us to get presents and not have to feel jealous. I only wished I could really be mainstream, in sync with the culture around me. That's why I feel so good here in Israel. Now, I can enjoy a trip to Manhattan to delight in the lovely (if commercial) holiday sights.

Snowy Street in New Jersey

The Deck & The Woods

The Aftermath

Fifth Avenue

Rockefeller Center

Across Central Park at 81st Street

The View from Starbucks

And for  balance, here is the Lubavitchly billed "World's Largest Menorah at 59th St. & Fifth Avenue!

Holy Land, Holy Lights

In bloggersphere terms it has been a long time since the last post. These past few weeks have seen more discussions about our government's negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit and plenty of heated debate and action and counter-action regarding the Netanyahu government's hasty, ill-conceived, anti-Zionist and cruel 'settlement freeze'. I have imagined several posts but all of them turn into very negative rants and are neither constructive nor enlightening rather than write, for now, I talk back to the radio and computer screen and spare the rest of you my unabridged rage. 


David and I are taking off in a few hours for two weeks of visiting with our families in the US. Our trip and all the accompanying arrangements were made using the Internet and I am truly amazed by this. We comparison shopped, ordered the tickets, bought health and baggage insurance and have already checked in and printed out the boarding pass for tomorrow's flights - all online. In a way it seems a bit of anti-climax that we actually have to go to the airport now and fly. (Where's the link to Newark airport, can't I just click and arrive?)


Friday afternoon just before we light the Shabbat candles we will be lighting the first candle of Chanukah. David asked his Rabbi a question about lighting the Chanukah candles when travelling and the answer he received was at first very surprising to me. He said that a person who has made his home in Eretz Israel must have his candles lit in his house. Lighting candles anywhere else does not fulfill this mitzvah. If we can't light the candles in our home we must have someone do it for us, in our home. It can be a family member or anyone who we appoint to do this. So tonight we set up our Chanukah menora and David asked our upstairs neighbors to come down and light ours every night while we are gone and they graciously agreed.


We will be celebrating Chanukah abroad this year. But we will be mindful that the miracle of Chanukah is intimately connected with this land and has special meaning here and we can't leave our home dark.


Happy Chanukah everyone!

HH at Me-ander

Balagan  over at Batya's  place. She put a lot of work into this Havel Havelim and the idea of posting the posts without attribution is great. It gives you an opportunity to get to know blogs you might not otherwise stumble upon. Enjoy!