My 2010 Tisha B'Av Experience

Tisha B”Av 2010, An Experience to Remember


Dear Family and Friends,


There are many things in life that really touch a person and since our aliyah 10 years ago, we have had the privilege and honor to participate in and observe many many amazing things here in Israel. Tonight, Monday July 19, 2010, Tisha B’Av , I decided to join the Women in Green’s 16th year of walking around the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

American Consulate in Jerusalem

I took the bus from Modi’in and ate my dinner on the bus. Now that was a new experience. I took a cab from the central bus station in Jerusalem to hear Eicha read in the park across from the American Consulate in Jerusalem (the embassy is in Tel Aviv because the USA doesn’t believe that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel).



After the reading, where thousands of people sat on the grass and listened quietly with opened Eicha books and flashlights, davening Ma’ariv, a guest speaker Yoram Ettinger formerly Minister for Congressional Affaris to Israeli Embassy in Washington spoke (our Gideon works with him as he studies political science and international relations at Bar Ilan University).

Yoram Ettinger

He spoke about an undivided Jerusalem and how Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, stood up to Washington and said Jerusalem is our capital and we would not divide or sell it. Today our political leaders must be strong and stand up to the world that Jerusalem will not be divided or sold out. It is our eternal, undivided, unquestionable city.


We began our march with hundreds of flags held high and lead by shofar blowing, bull horn carrying speakers. We were guarded every inch of the way by policemen on horseback, helicopter security, soldiers at every corner and intersection of the blocked off roads and motorcycle guards as well as undercover men with radio connections hanging out of their ears or standing on the walls of the old city.

this crowd was over 4 blocks long when we started & grew!

My friends from Modi’in started the walk with me and we thought that the group looked small. But as we turned the corner at the new Mamilla Hotel away from the Jaffa gate we were able to get a better picture of the size of the crowd. Behind us and now we were able to see in front of us, we saw throngs of people, thousands and thousands walking together, respectfully and with great courage to make the walk while fasting. There was no age group left out. Infants in strollers, young children, teenagers, adults of all ages and octogenarians all walked with the streams of people in the middle of the streets of Jerusalem towards every gate in the walls of the Old City. There were people with canes, walkers and people with walking sticks indicating they were blind being lead and guided by sighted friends or family. I overheard French, Russian, German, Spanish and English in a variety of dialects from countries that were clearly Britain, South Africa, Canada and America, as well as Hebrew. There was every color skin representing the true colors of the Kibbutz Galiot and I was so proud to be a part of this march. I had taken my camera and though it was night time I tried at least to take pictures of each gate or sign to each gate that I could. Buses were held at abeyance while the marchers filled the guarded streets and veered into the Arab section of Jerusalem. I was walking in streets that I had never been on before.

Arabic sign over building in E. Jerusalem, Northern Wall side of Old City          

Arab Hotel in East Jerusalem, Northern side of Old City

As I stopped to take pictures or look at the Arab street vendors or the streets that were so new and unfamiliar to me I lost the group I was in and I ran into other people I knew. Several times I just walked alone taking in what I was doing and trying to reconcile my emotions with the most somber and sad day on the Jewish calendar. Somehow I didn’t feel so sad. I felt hopeful. I felt encouraged and I felt proud. I was actually witnessing the entire old city like never before. I was in a crowd of mostly Jews (there were Christians who joined the group to show support) who all felt the same way I did about Jerusalem. I was thinking that if Hashem punished us because of calamities we brought upon ourselves He could certainly reverse His decision and we could turn this day of sorrow into a day of joy and gladness. So my thoughts were of how could I help to reverse Hashem’s decision. For me it wasn’t going to be by sitting on a floor and crying, for me it was going to be through action and this march was the first step. I have to figure out the rest….it will take some time as I don’t work as well on an empty stomach!

Directional Signs I'd never seen, E. Jerusalem, Northern Wall

The crowd was stopped at the Lion’s gate and there my favorite Rabbi spoke, Rabbi Shalom Gold. He was passionate and powerful and he spoke of what Tisha B”Av means and what we can take away from its meaning and how we can make a difference and change things. My favorite line was that we should do what is good for the Jewish people and the state of Israel because “nobody in this world likes us anyway so no matter what we do we will be judged unfavorably so we might as well do what’s good for us.” Hooray Rabbi Gold keep saying it until our leaders both political and spiritual heed those words!

Rabbi Sholom Gold speaking at Lion's Gate Jerusalem

Nadia Matar

The next speaker was a member of Knesset who also spoke passionately about Jerusalem. The last speaker was the daughter of the founder of Women in Green, Nadia Matar. She is now the head of Women in Green and is one of the most inspirational women I know. She is smart, pretty and passionate all rolled into one. She speaks several languages and devotes her life to Israel. Her speech in Hebrew was the most passionate. May she be blessed with long life and good health to continue to make events like this happen and change the tide of events for Israel through her passion.

My favorite sight while listening to her speak was to watch her mother, Ruth Matar, shep nachat and kvell while taking pictures, listening and watching her daughter speak. It was something to warm everyone’s heart that a mother was so proud of a daughter and clearly they were both passionate about the same thing.

Ruth Matar

Entrance to Ir David

As we ended our walk we passed the entrance to Ir David and a great amount of new excavations below the southern wall. It stirred great emotions within me to see that below the wall was what looked like a city and that part of the city was clearly connected to Ir David, the City of David. I smiled as I walked by the new street paintings at the entrance of Ir David knowing that my good friend was one of the Directors there. She leaves her family here in Modiin monthly and travels around the world raising money to support the fabulous work Ir David accomplishes as it validates history and our Jewish experience. She is a mover and shaker and lives her passion of Israel. I am so proud to know her.

Southern Wall of Old City before Shar Ha'ashpah(Dung Gate)

We ended our walk around the old city at the Shar Ashpah, Dung Gate which leads into the Kotel Plaza. Our thousands of walkers now joined the thousands of people going to the Kotel and I had never thought that this lively sight would take place on Tisha B’av. I must admit it was a bit confusing for me. Instead of people from every stripe of Judaism sitting somberly in silence they were gathered as if it was a holiday of joy. It was THE ”happening” place and it was certainly jumping. I will have to think about how I felt about the liveliness of the Kotel but what started to enter my mind is that maybe these people represent the possibility of

Kotel Wall Plaza taken fromYeshiva Ha Kotel

change. Maybe within that sea of people a leader will stand up and bring all of B’nai Yisrael together. Maybe in that throng of people a new visionary will work to reverse the tide of Israel bashing, or Jewish history denial. Maybe there was a political leader in the making who will reunite all of Klal Yisrael and maybe our sorrow is now being turned to joy with all the potential that was in that Kotel Plaza. We walked through the old city to the Jaffa gate as more and more people walked pass us with pillows, books and friends towards the Kotel. We walked to our friend’s car and on the way home I could only think, ”For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still.(Isaiah 62:1). I’ll have to see where that takes me………… and the Jewish people.

Banner carried in front of marchers

Ronda(with flag) & friends after walk around old city walls

Have an easy fast.

Ronda Israel

Marchers walking around the Old City-Tisha B'Av, Jerusalem 2010

Mural at Entrance to Ir David

Shar Shchem Gate-Northern Wall

Church in Valley outside Eastern side of Old City Walls on Derech Yericho

Are You Ready for Pesach 2010---We are!!

26 March 2010

We’re Ready for Pesach 2010 ….are you????

Dear Family and Friends,

I love Israel‼ I love Pesach in Israel‼. I am sitting down to write to you on Friday, 4 days before seder night, and basically except for Pesach cooking I am ready to leave Egypt…or make a seder!
This year I have gotten myself ready in an orderly, timely, calm fashion. All the kids are, basically, out of the house during the week so I have no little ones/big ones running around with cheerios or cookies to clean up after. The house was a breeze to clean, the windows are washed, the balconies cleaned, the car is washed and sparkly new and we had a new kitchen installed in December with a new chocolate workshop room for me with cabinets for Pesach. As they say, I am good to go‼
So why do I love Pesach in Israel? Let me explain my week. In America the grocery stores put out their white paper lined shelves Passover foods a month before Pesach. When we left in 2000 even cheeses, frozen turkeys, chickens and ducks, all kosher for Pesach, were in abundance in all the large grocery stores. Entire store sections were packed with the newest “must haves” for pesach which were just a reconfiguration of matzah, potato starch and sugar. If you didn’t buy your pesach groceries at least 3 weeks before pesach, you would find the store shelves bare, not to be restocked again for Passover (until the next year!) and you were out of luck.
Alas, not in Israel and this is what I love about this country (or one of the things)! This morning I awoke at 6 am…which because of the new daylight savings time was really 7 am. I jumped out of bed, dropped Aaron off at shul and hurried over to the grocery store I love called Rami Levi, that I have lived in for all this week. Well, counting today 3 days of this week. Pesach items started appearing in the grocery stores only a week ago. Because I had a plan of how to get our house ready for Pesach with my almost gone American mentally, I went to the grocery store on Monday to buy all non perishable items for Pesach. Thinking everyone is out to lunch and I would be the sole shopper at Rami Levi I arrived at 12 noon. Wrong‼ Every parking space and every shopping cart (agallah) was taken and we are not talking small store here. It looked as if they were giving away food……and in fact they were. With every purchase you received a free box of matzah. Produce like huge red, green and yellow peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, ripe and succulent, and eggplant, huge and purple, were going for 25 cents (one skekel) a kilo (2.2pounds). Each person could buy one kilo (2.2 pounds) of a certain meat for 25 cents (one shekel). I suppose that a person could truly make Pesach for very little money here but think of the extras you would miss out on‼!
Before filling my cart with my Pesach groceries on that fateful Monday I ran to the meat department to take my paper number from the ticket machine so that by the time I finished my basic shopping my number would be up….well in a manner of speaking. I looked at the number the machine issued me and saw that I was 532. They were currently serving 458. I had plenty of time to shop. Going up and down the aisles in the brand new location of this favorite discount store, I smiled at the abundance of stuff to choose from in the land where the entire country is shopping for Pesach….even if you don’t want to. Ahhhhh the country where the Arab inmates in prison are petitioning the Israeli high courts to be served bread on Pesach….they’re no dopes, they ain’t eating cardboard for a week….no bread of affliction for the criminal Arabs.
I digressed. Upon filling my cart to the brim with olive oil, potato chips, chocolate bars (my chocolate business is closed for Pesach) and foil pans, yogurt and matzah meal I hurried back to the meat department to see if my number was close to being called. Whoa‼! There we a ton of people just like me with filled carts waiting for their number to be called. It was like the lottery. And after all that time they were only on number 477. I really had other things to do so I decided to check out with my order and come back to buy meat the next day after my freezer was cleaned. But this time I would come really early.
Wednesday I was physically and mentally prepared to meet the meat department head on. I called a friend to ask if she wanted to join me and she said yes. That would make any waiting more pleasant and fun. On the way to Rami Levi she told me she needed to do all her shopping for Pesach. She hoped there would be food left for her as she had been delayed in buying her Pesach stuff weeks in advance. She was new to Israel and this was her first Pesach‼! Was she in for a surprise! When we arrived at 10 am the parking lot was spilling out into the other streets and parking lots. While I waited for a parking space I told her to get a cart, go straight to the meat department to get a number and I would meet her inside at some point. In situations like this I was tempted to offer exiting customers a ride to their car in exchange for their parking space and cart. But I didn’t. I had to maintain some dignity! Once my van was squished into my parking space I negotiated my way into the store to find my friend and help her navigate the Pesach items and see what number we had at the meat counter. We had number 427 and they were now serving 349. OMG‼ As we went up and down the aisles my friend marveled at the abundance of Pesach stuff. I asked her if she shops Ashkenazi or Sephardi. Her questioned expression indicated that checking the labels with or without kitniyot was going to make her nuts …as it does me. In fact this kitniot thing here is enough to put you over the edge. The Sephardim eat corn oil, rice crispies, rice cakes and delicious cookies, cakes and candies all with things we Ashkenazim are told not to eat. BUT, being the wife of a staunch Ashkenzi boy I showed my friend all the unexciting foodstuffs we Ashkenazim buy. Believe me the choices are paltry in comparison. So my question is, if by accident of birth my relatives were born in the dreary, cold, stringent and poor vodka swigging Russian and Polish countries where corn oil, string beans and rice cakes were a no no, do I have to give up the great sunny, abundance of yummy offerings that those born in Spain, Iran and Greece get to eat??? After all I am from the south….Virginia‼!
According to my husband….yes.
I am still waiting for my number to come up at the meat counter. Now mind you people are not just buying a chicken and hamburger. We are talking major meat consumption. Number 379 was now being served. My friend decided I should stay at the meat counter and she would stroll up and down the aisles looking for goodies novel to her in her first year in Israel. By then I was hungry, so I left the cart and went over to the bakery department which was cranking out chometz rolls, bourekas and cinnamon buns. I got an assortment and returned to my cart to eat lunch. Now serving 391. My friend returned with arms filled. She joined me in a boureka and we laughed at the craziness of this scene eating chometz while waiting for Pesach meat‼! We watched happy customers and angered customers who left the meat counter. I was just hoping there would be enough chickens once it was my turn. I told my friend we should make a meat list together so when our turned came we would be ready to order. This was definitely not a browsing crowd. No more shnitzel, no more chicken thighs with legs, the crowd was going crazy. More is coming hollered the 6 butchers behind the counter. Crowd control was needed. I went and got a soda. I needed a drink but diet coke would have to do. Now serving 418. My heart started racing. Only 9 more customers before me but no schnitzel in sight and no thighs. I did not want to come back again. I rethought my list, chatted with my friend and “Now Serving 427”. Bingo! I yelled. The crowd laughed. We inched our way up to the butcher –Haim- we got real chummy for the 20 minutes we worked together here. And at that exact moment the schnitzel, chicken thighs and legs arrived‼! Yippppeeeee! Thank you Hashem. You have spared me another trip to Rami Levi - or so I thought. As I was about to make my request Mister Number 421 nudged his way to the counter and said (in Hebrew) that when he was here a few minutes ago there was no schnitzel etc., could he just get 4 kilos of chicken without waiting again, please? Being Mrs. Nice guy I said sure. He then started reading off his list. “Excuse me, I thought you only needed 4 kilos of Shnitzel” No he said I need 4 kilos of all the chickens that they were out of. OY‼! I am a patient woman. Now, said the butcher, what would you like? I want schnitzel, and he had to pound those chicken breasts with a huge mallot to flatten them into schnitzel. As he did so I clutched my chest. As another butcher cut up turkey necks with a cleaver my hand gravitated to my throat. I then asked for whole chickens, and asked to have the tushy removed. I didn’t grab anything at that point!
Well, finally we were ready to check out. That hadn’t been sooooo bad. The 15 checkout aisles were 7-10 carts deep. I spotted a shorter line and told my friend to run over and get in line and I would meet her there with the cart. She did. It was hot in the store and just as I mentioned that it would be a good idea to have a hot dog stand with waiters serving those of us in line the manager started handing out ice pops. I guess they felt the natives might be getting a little restless.
Did I mention to you that between Pesach and Lag B’omer this country consumes two thirds of all the meat that it eats in a year? So that is why all the aluminum bar-b-que grills in everyone’s carts. They are all making their very own Korban Pesach bar-b-que! Yep we are ready for the third Beit Hamikdash‼
Once home, I asked my vegetarian daughter Batsheva to help put the meat in the freezer. As she rarely touches meat she opted to do other things rather than put a whole farm and aquarium (I bought fish too) into the freezer for safe keeping.
Now it is Friday morning. I decided that by Saturday night I would start cooking for Pesach so I borrowed my friend’s Pesach food processor to make carrot kugel, potato kugels etc. but alas, I had no veggies or fruits because I had wanted to get the freshest produce at the last possible minute. So, at 7:30 am guess where I was? Yep, you guessed it. Rami Levi. …..and so were a thousand others. I thought I’d be the first one there……so did they. Well it was ok, all I needed was all the produce for Pesach and eggs, ok maybe some kosher l’Pesach Ben and Jerry’s. mmmmmm.
As I stood in 8 deep line of carts at the checkout at 10am hoping my ice cream wouldn’t melt I marveled at the way Israelis shopped. They have their husbands or kids stand at the checkout line with the empty cart and they and the other members of the family go to different aisles and load up with foodstuff returning with loaded arms to the cart. By the time it is their turn to check out they have completed their ingathering of stuff and it takes them much less time. I wonder what they do about meat? Anyway, chomping on my freshly baked cinnamon bun, I finally checked out, was handed a free newspaper (in Hebrew….which would take me 40 years in the desert to finish reading) and was on my way. I calculated that I spent a total of 12 hours in Rami Lev this week. No wonder I am a card carrying member of the Rami Levi discount club. We’re buddies! I am a veteran card carrying member of Pesach shopping once again in this amazing country. And once again I am happy that after 40 years in the dessert my original Sephardi, kitniyot eating relatives finally arrived to this crazy country we call home. I am once again looking forward to my one seder and once again looking forward to the family trips on Chol Hamoed visiting new places in our beautiful country.
I pray that all the Pharoahs, Hamans, Hitlers and Obamas and Clintons fall by wayside as evil tyrants do in our long history and that years from now we will be living in our united capitol of Jerusalem filled with Jewish homes singing Dayenu. So from our Pesach table of Rami Levi laden foods to your table the Israels in Israel wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, peace filled Pesach. Shalom b’vracha.

Ronda Israel
The Israels in Israel