A Wedding in Tel Aviv

“Ha-na’alayim b’seder?”  I asked the blue-shirted security worker lining up bags on the conveyor belt at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.  “Are shoes OK?”  I knew the answer – I could leave them on – but I asked because I wanted him to talk with me in Hebrew.  Most people take one look at my American passport and assume I won’t understand them if they go beyond “Shalom.”  My ploy worked, and I was in over my head before I knew it.  But I now know the words for pockets and belt.

I was returning from my eighth trip to Tel Aviv in two years.  As usual, I came here for work – but this trip, I stayed an extra day so I could attend my friend Nimrod’s wedding.  I’d received the invitation months earlier, by email.  Instead of writing my response on a calligraphed card and mailing it to the bride’s parents, I clicked Accept.  “Nimrod and Naomi’s Wedding” went from striped to solid on my Outlook calendar.  

Spending even a little time with Nimrod and Naomi as a couple makes you happy that they’ve found each other, and I was honored to witness their union.  I was also excited about the wedding from my vantage as a cultural explorer: I had never been to an Israeli wedding.  As soon as I confirmed my trip, questions started queuing up in my head: what do guests wear?  Will the ceremony be religious?  Do they have a gift registry somewhere?  Who will be at my table?  Will everything be in Hebrew?  

Although this was my maiden voyage as wedding guest, I had actually been to Nanuchka, where the wedding would take place.  It’s a trendy Georgian bar and restaurant on Lilenblum in the heart of Tel Aviv, and I’d gone there with friends after work.  If memory served me right, we were in for a seriously good time. 

 Nanuchka, December 2011

Before I left the US, I grilled an Israeli colleague about what to expect.  No gifts, she said.  Everyone gives a check.  Guests will wear everything from jeans and T-shirts to semiformal dresses.  Don’t expect place cards and assigned seats.

The morning of the wedding, my friend Minna joined me for a pedicure the morning of the wedding.  I grilled her with more questions.  Should I buy a card to put the money in?  Not necessary, she said.  Just put it in the envelopes they’ll provide.  Would I find a place to park near Nanuchka?  Better to take a cab if you don’t have a Tel Aviv parking sticker.  Should I be there right at 11:30, the time on the invitation?  Only if you want to stand around awkwardly with the wedding party.  

I arrived at Nanuchka a little before noon to find the bride and groom greeting guests and taking photos with their family.  Outside on the patio, where the temperature was upwards of 90 degrees, champagne cocktails were lined up on the bar, and a few of my colleagues already had them in hand.  Unlike American weddings, Israeli celebrations usually involve drinks and appetizers flowing before the ceremony begins.  “Mazal tov!” my colleagues greeted me in unison, which surprised me – I knew to say it to the newlyweds, but I suppose a wedding of friends is lucky for all who know and love them.  I looked around at the attire, which fit the range that my friend had described: women were dressed up a bit, while many of the men were in jeans.  A friend wandered in, wearing cargo shorts and a pair of flip flops that looked like they were overdue for renewal.  “I only wear shoes for customers,” he said.

The ceremony began about an hour later, after hors d’oeuvres, more cocktails, and a celebratory round of shots.  As the rabbi, in his traditional black hat and suit, began the ceremony, the chuppah bearers walked out first, followed by Nimrod’s nieces carrying baskets of flower petals, Naomi’s son Dan, and then Nimrod and his mother.  Israeli music accompanied their procession.  When it was Naomi’s turn to emerge, the music changed to “Here Comes the Sun.”  The guests cheered loudly as she walked down the aisle.  Then she joined Nimrod under the chuppah.

In Israel, I have noticed that even "cultural Jews" follow more traditional rites than are customary in the Reform movement.  When I was here during Chanukah, I was not invited to light the candles at the office because it is not a job for women.  This caught me off guard in a company where half the executive team is female.  Yesterday, at the wedding, Nimrod gave Naomi a ring and recited the traditional Hebrew words of commitment.  The rabbi began a rousing round of “Mazal Tov”, and the crowd joined in.  Wasn’t Naomi going to give him a ring, I wondered?  My colleague said that it wasn’t common in Israeli ceremonies.  As it turned out, Naomi did give Nimrod a ring, but later in the ceremony – after the marriage was sealed.  The whole ceremony was about 15 minutes.

Then it was party time.  The restaurant staff began assembling a buffet of Georgian favorites- a dozen different salads, the Russian equivalent of ravioli, potatoes, couscous, meat.  We filled our plates and found a cooler place to sit inside.  After the meal, we wandered into the next room, where the bride, groom, and several small children were standing on the bar.  Others joined them, and soon the bar was more a dance floor than a place to belly up for a drink.  The Georgian DJ played a great mix of American, Israeli and Georgian music.  It was impossible not to shake your tail feathers.  

The bartender congaed by on the bar and held out a hand.  When in Rome, I thought…. up I went, wondering whether any of my colleagues would see my underwear.  Does this fall under the umbrella of “executive presence”?  I was having too much fun to care.  At the end of the bar, my boss was catching all this on film.  First thought: stop him and destroy the evidence.  Second thought: Paula is going to be so proud.  Somehow, I had made it through 44 years without ever dancing on a bar.  Now I could cross that off my bucket list.  It didn’t feel so risqué when there were toddlers up there too.

I left about three hours later with the last of my colleagues, having dropped my wedding gift (festively presented in a bank deposit envelope with “Mazal Tov!” scrawled on a Post-It) in the large metal safe placed there for that purpose.  Naomi and Nimrod were still dancing on the bar when we left – she in her gown, he in the black “Newlywed” T-Shirt that had replaced his suit.  Their family and close friends lingered on, drinking and dancing and celebrating the couple of the hour.  The wedding was a blast-- grounded in ritual, but 90% pure fun, unfettered by some of the pomp and fussiness that surrounds American weddings.  No seating charts, no calligraphy, no gift registry… just a joyous celebration. 

By the time I went back that night  to look for my forgotten sweater, all traces of the wedding had been erased by a wave of Tel Aviv’s hipsters who filled Nanuchka to standing room only.  Waitresses hurried back and forth with trays of red shots, and Georgian specialties poured out of the kitchen.

I finished my stay in Tel Aviv with dinner at Benedict, a 24-hour breakfast spot on Rothschild where they greet you with “Boker Tov” (good morning) even if it’s 9:30 at night.  Tel Aviv doesn’t slow down much for Shabbat, and there were plenty of people out enjoying breakfast for dinner.  For my last meal of the trip, I ordered a fluffy stack of blueberry pancakes –served, because this is Israel and not IHOP, with a green salad.  And the next morning, I was off to the airport – still subconsciously grooving to a medley of Israeli pop and Britney Spears.

{Self-indulgent tangent: It mystifies me that in Israel I can leave my shoes on, but in the US, I have to take them off.  Airport security seems like something where international consensus would be readily achievable- like maybe we could defer to the experts who live and breathe terrorist threats every day.  But, given that we can’t come together as a planet on the notably less-charged topic of when daylight savings begins, I suppose it isn’t all that surprising.}

Craigslist and my Inner Cavewoman

Perhaps it’s a nod to my hunter-gatherer ancestry, but a good find on craigslist is as satisfying to me as I can only imagine it would be to catch my dinner.  Look in any room in our house and you’ll find something brought to you by Craig: a paper shredder, a bookshelf, a set of model horses, a space heater, a racquetball racquet, a gas grill, a pair of rain barrels.  The list goes on.

Given my blunt aversion to shopping, why do I love craigslist so much?  The bargains and the zero-harm nature of finding treasure in other people’s trash are part of it, sure.  It appeals to my frugality and my environmental conscience.  

But there’s more to it.  craigslist takes a mundane provisioning expedition and turns it into an adventure.  A purchase on craigslist often involves travel to an unfamiliar destination, connection with a personal story, possibly entrance into a personal space, and importantly, trust in lieu of a money-back guarantee.  

Now, like all adventures, shopping on craigslist does not always go smoothly.  En route to the gas grill of our dreams ($50, including a full tank of propane – yeah baby) was a stopover at the home of a couple whom Paula could only describe as “chain-smoking hoarders.”  They had listed a grill for sale, but since the only passage through their apartment was a narrow path between skyscrapers of boxes, to actually remove the grill from their apartment would require hoisting it over a 7’ wall – by yourself, since both husband and wife claimed disabilities preventing them from helping with the lifting.  craigslist is not a bird in hand.  You have to love the chase, to have more appetite for a good story about hoarders than for the efficiency of a one-click shopping experience.  You have to like yourself some weirdo.

craigslist is one of those things that makes me think the Interwebs aren’t completely sucking the life out of us.  It connects people with an efficiency that is not possible in the absence of sophisticated algorithms – but the connection is ultimately human.  It takes thousands of strangers living within a 10-mile radius and gives us access to each other’s garages and basements.  We meet people we wouldn’t have met, sometimes living just down the street, because of a serendipitous symbiosis that probably wouldn’t have materialized in a pre-online world. 

I wax poetic a lot about connection, but when I read that suicide has surpassed car crashes as the #1 cause of injury-related death in the US, with social isolation as a suspected contributor, I can’t help but believe that these connections matter.  

The next time you are in the market for a push mower, concert tickets, or a Baby Bjorn Potty Chair, why not spare the air?  Put the Reuse in Reduce/Reuse/Recycle, and meet a neighbor in the process.  You might enjoy the hunt as much as I do.  And you might make someone’s day.

If you've got a great craigslist story, share it!

A Bike to Work Day Tribute to my Two-Wheeled Friend

Dear bicycle,

If you were human, you might wonder whether you should even entertain a letter from me.  In the 16 years we’ve been together, you’ve suffered a lot.  You’ve carried me through pouring rain and sweltering heat.  You’ve been poked with thorns and broken glass and everything else the streets of San Jose have to offer.  You were slammed into the pavement when I crashed and broke my humerus (though believe me, it hurt me more than it hurt you), and United Airlines tried to crush your frame 24 hours before we were scheduled to ride 500 miles through the mountains of Colorado.  (But they couldn’t crush your spirit.  We did it anyway.)  I suspect you wouldn’t recommend me to a friend or colleague if this were a Net Promoter survey.

Fortunately, since you’re an inanimate object, we can’t have this conversation.  Still, I feel compelled to tell the world how much I love you – well, not you, because you should only love things that can love you back, but our life together.  It is Bike to Work day, and here we are on the Caltrain, heading home from work.  

Biking used to be my standard go-to for a hit of euphoria.  In my 20s, I would wake up before dawn, ride halfway up Mt Hamilton, and then descend to downtown San Jose in time to be at work by 9.  My weekends involved long rides out to the beach and through the foothills.  Those were the days when no one needed me to feed them, find them matching socks, or make sure all the toilets got flushed at least once a day.  I didn’t have 6AM meetings with Israel back then.  I didn’t wake up so many mornings already counting the hours until I could get back to bed.

Life is different now, but one thing has remained constant: you are still my favorite way to get around.  I don’t cruise to Santa Cruz very often anymore, but I’m a frequent flyer on the bike/ped overpass at Ralston.  Thanks to the advocacy of groups like SiliconValley Bicycle Coalition, bikes are almost as welcome in the Bay Area as teacup Chihuahuas are in New York City.  Since 1996, I have been a bike commuter – first a few miles from my house, then via Caltrain to Mountain View, then Palo Alto, and now Redwood Shores.  

I’m old and tired enough that I often make up excuses for why I should just slide my lazy butt behind the steering wheel, tune in to NPR, and endure the crawl along 101.  But most of the time, I don’t.  I know from experience that I will often not feel like riding.  And I know from experience that I will always be glad that I did.  Bike commuting isn’t a reasonable option for everyone – because of physical limitations or the commute itself - but I’ll venture to say that it’s a possibility for many, especially in the Bay Area.  And, beloved bicycle, I think you would agree that it is one of the most positive changes you can make in your life.  

Some questions that our readers will probably want answered: Will you have helmet head when you get to work?  I prefer to think of it as helmet style.  Will you get wet if it rains?  Only on the outside.  Your skin is well-designed to handle this.  Will there be close encounters with cars?  Quite likely.  You can’t ever assume that a driver is going to recognize you’re on the road.  But if you ride defensively and plan your route well, you can stay safe.  Can you rock a pair of fluorescent yellow rain pants?  You bet your life you can.  Will you feel better when you arrive at the office after a 20-minute workout and a ride through the Baylands than you do after 75 minutes of crawling along the freeway?  Yes, I am telling you, you will – because your blood is pumping, because you’ve left the air a little cleaner, and because you can spend the rest of the day feeling like a supreme bad-ass.    

So, my beloved bicycle, I want to thank you for your faithful years of companionship.  And I want to make an offer to any would-be bike commuters.  Whatever is holding you back – whether you need help planning a route, you need to buy a headlight, you’re not sure how to keep your pants out of your chain ring, you’re wondering whether you can ride with a skirt, you feel intimidated by the whole Caltrain thing, you got a flat five years ago and haven’t gotten around to fixing it – call on me.  I want to be your personal bike concierge.  And I’m not alone.  There are lots of us, and we all want you in the club.  

In the immortal words of Freddie Mercury: Get on your bikes and ride.

La Mesa Verde

Most organizations think of volunteering with a 5-year-old as a sort of un-volunteering.  Gently citing concerns about things like safety, public health, and the well-being of those they serve, they would rather you leave your young children at home, where they can't sink grubby hands into shared food bins, pull rescued animals' tails, or ask other volunteers questions like "What's wrong with your teeth?"

I can't say I blame these organizations.  But I am grateful whenever I find an opportunity to volunteer with my kids, and Sacred Heart Community Service has afforded several of them.  Last summer, Leah and I joined an assembly line filling backpacks with school supplies for needy families.  And two weeks ago, we joined forces with La Mesa Verde, a program that provides low-income residents of San Jose with the training and supplies to grow organic vegetables in their backyards. 

We arrived at 8 in the morning for a 10-minute training led by wonderful Master Gardeners from Santa Clara County. (Did you know you're supposed to plant tomatoes with just the growing tip above the ground?  I didn't.  We replanted all of ours when we got home.)  After the training, and following an opening ceremony, we were instructed to stand under a number along the wall that matched the one on our packets.  The family we'd be helping would meet us under the number, and we'd go together to collect the flats of seedlings and travel to their home - where Sacred Heart had already built and prepared raised beds for the vegetables.

We met Jorge and Sofia* under our number and introduced ourselves.  They were participating in the program for the first time too.  We all headed over to pick up our plants, making small talk about the heat.  Jorge and Sofia each grabbed a flat and turned to leave.  "Nice to meet you," Jorge said, walking toward their car.

Ted and I looked at each other.  "Uh, we're coming with you!" I said brightly.  "We're going to help you plant."

Now it was their turn to look at each other.  They had a brief exchange in Spanish, then nodded.  "OK.  We'll see you there."  And off we went to our own car, digesting the awkward realization that they hadn't been expecting us at all.

We arrived at their home in south San Jose about 10 minutes later.  We all got out of the car and walked into their yard, where they were waiting with Sofia's mother.

Rebecca took a slow look around, then turned to me.  "I don't think they need our help," she said loudly.

I elbowed her, but she was right.  The front yard was bordered with every manner of growing thing: rose bushes, fruit trees, vines, herbs, even a hanging upside-down tomato planter.  "It's all my husband," Sofia said, giving us the tour.  When they had moved to the house 25 years earlier, there was nothing but a barren lot; Jorge had nurtured all of the horticultural splendor around us.  There were five or six fruit trees: peach, avocado, sapote.  Along the house leading to the backyard were tiered shelves overflowing with hanging plants.  And there was more behind the house. 

The family graciously welcomed our "help", even though we were pretty clearly just taking up space in their yard.  Leah and Rebecca soaked the plants in a bucket, while Jorge sprayed the beds and made rows of holes.  Sofia and Jorge's daughter and 2-year-old granddaughter soon joined - and we all worked on setting up the irrigation and getting the plants into the soil.  I spent most of my time picking up empty containers and talking with Sofia and her daughter - about swim lessons, being pregnant in the summer, working at Stanford, cooking with tomatillos... the usual.

An hour later, the plants were all tucked into their beds, Leah took her last run down their slide, and we started to gather our things.  We left with a peach seedling, a sapote seedling, and a fistful of green onions from Jorge to plant when we got home.  I couldn't get over our good fortune at having been paired with this warm and generous family.  They invited us to come visit whenever we were in their neck of the woods.  It felt as if we'd made new friends.

Volunteering is a funny thing.  In theory, you're there to help.  But sometimes you get more than you give.  Through La Mesa Verde, the kids got to spend a morning with four generations of a family whose life was little more than a stereotype to them before then - "the working poor."  Their life is nothing like ours.  Their life is everything like ours.

Without La Mesa Verde, we probably never would have crossed paths.  I am so grateful to Sacred Heart for organizing this day and connecting us with a family who volunteered to welcome us into their yard - and, for a day, their life.  Our community is a better place for these connections.

* Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the family.

Memorial Day: an IDF officer's perspective

Last weekend, at a Tel Aviv cafe, I met Shani.  At 24, she is an intelligence officer with the IDF.  I was introduced to her through her father, who suggested I speak with her in my quest to understand more about the Israeli observance of Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day).  Over coffee, she told me the story of why she’s chosen a career in the army.

“My grandparents,” she began, “were a big influence on me”.  Holocaust survivors who met after the war, they lived with Shani when she was young.  She and her grandfather were extremely close. He was a brilliant doctor who spoke 8 languages and who had spent the war in a forced labor camp in Transylvania, after an informant turned him in for honoring his Hippocratic oath despite the ban on Jews’ practicing medicine.  “He couldn’t deny someone help,” she says.

Her grandmother had been taken from Hungary in the dead of winter and left to freeze or starve to death in the woods of Sibir.  A farmer offered to save her if she would marry him; she was a very beautiful woman.  She agreed, and her family lived; later, she ran away.  

Her American maternal grandfather was a pilot with the Air Force who spent a year in a German prison during the war.  (When he asked for something to read, the only book they had was Grey’s Anatomy; he read it so thoroughly and so repeatedly that when he enrolled in medical school after the war, he skipped his first year.)

These stories didn’t come to life until Shani was in 7^th grade, when she interviewed her grandparents for a Jewish roots project at school.  Four years later, she and her classmates took a trip to Poland.  She showed me a handmade scrapbook from that trip: it begins with a group of girls striking goofy poses in the airport, and it ends with photos of the gas chambers, the ovens and the bunks at Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek.  

In between are photos from a visit to a beautiful old synagogue in Poland.  The class visited the synagogue, and then they took a short walk down a path into the woods, where there is a memorial.  The Nazis had come to this synagogue, marched everyone out to the woods, and executed them en masse.  At age 16, Shani and her classmates reenacted this march.

Five years later, Shani came back to Poland as a second lieutenant with 50 people in her charge.  Having absorbed the initial shock of seeing the death camps in high school, she was able to move beyond shock when she returned.  Before she left, she recalls, her commander told her that “When you come home, we’ll meet you at the plane with two things: a piece of land, so that you can kiss the ground, and a contract {to sign on for long-term service}.”  She did. 

Shani says she is “very happy and fulfilled” by her position in the army.  The intelligence work she does is interesting (though she can’t talk about it.)  Her boyfriend has it harder; as a combat soldier, he is stationed in Gaza.  Because of her position, she knows what he is doing; she knows when he is in danger.  When I brought up the Palestinian question, Shani answered it simply: “In the army, you can’t talk about your political thoughts… Israel is surrounded by enemies.  We have to survive.”  

She thinks of her grandparents, of the things she saw at Auschwitz – and she carries a responsibility to defend the state of Israel so that these atrocities can never happen again.  But she also worries that she isn’t doing enough.  On both of her trips to Poland, a survivor came with her group.  In 20 years, who will come along?  She feels her grandparents’ experience receding from the collective conscience of young Israelis and resolves to do more to keep it alive.

As an officer, Shani follows a scripted ritual on Yom Hazikaron: she visits the grave of a soldier from her unit and performs a military ceremony.  She’s uneasy with the day; she feels as if it “makes it look very good” to die.  Still, given the alternative, she agrees: “Of course it’s very important to honor.”  It is a somber holiday in Israel; no retail establishments have Memorial Day sales.  The day is dedicated to remembrance.

Yesterday, the cab driver taking me to the airport pointed at the strings of colorful flags and lights going up around Tel Aviv.  “Too bad you’ll miss the fireworks,” he said.  “Independence Day.  Big parties.”

I had noticed the decorations.  “What about Yom HaZikaron?” I asked.  

He nodded.  “Yes, very sad,” he said.  “For all the people who died.  But then, big parties.”  Israel's Independence Day begins the minute Memorial Day ends.  For those reliving the loss of loved ones, it is not an easy transition.

It seems to sum up much of my experience of Israel: the juxtaposition of extremes.