L'Shana Tova

It's the Jewish New Year, so it's a time to reflect on the past year and the ambitions you hold for the future....orrrrrr completely over indulge yourself in excessive feasting and use the seemingly endless time off from work to play! 

I spend Shabbat and the Jewish holidays with my host family the Levis: Davide, Gilah, Na-Or, Maya, Hila and their little dog Tail-le.  They are charged with giving me an authentic Israeli experience for the holidays and they more than delivered on it. They took me with them to both their maternal and paternal family's Rosh Hashanah celebrations.

As someone who grew up around mainly Ashkenazi influenced Jews - if I was around any Jews at all - the Sephardic Moroccan exposure has been completely new. Their food and attitude is colorful, vibrant and full-flavored. You can think of Ashkenazi food as a study in shades of grey: gafillta fish, kugel, latkas - relatively delicious, although gafillta fish takes a certain level of sociopath to enjoy - but really all are on the same palate of color. 

Moroccan food is made up of tasty salads; tanzia - a honeyed mixture of dried apricots, currants and raisins over rice; couscous smothered in chickpeas, sweet potatoes and onions; stuffed peppers, onions and cabbage; shakshuka - sautéed onions, garlic and tomatoes with eggs fried into it; fresh homemade bread; variances in eggplant-- and that's only the vegetarian options! It's rounded out by Moroccan shortbread cookies with anise, almond cake, crepe-like mouffleta with chocolate spread, maple syrup, butter or honey and of course, sugared mint tea.

Trust me, it's as delicious as it sounds and I know because I've tried my best to cram as much as physically possible into my body.  This has had mixed results - as a person who is not exactly used to the pursuit of rich, decadent, full-bodied meals and more focused on living a very balanced lifestyle with healthy foods and ample exercise, this turned out to cause some difficulties. Most of the Israeli foods are healthy, but they do not skimp on rich, indulgent ingredients. And likely eating them at the volume and frequency that I did this past weekend was probably not the greatest idea ever. 

So it's been a challenge that I was not expecting. I definitely did not intend to use the Israeli holidays as a study in the extent of my own sloth and gluttony and I'm sure the ancient rabbis did not intend for a time of contemplation to be used to delve deep into my own food driven-hedonistic vices, but that's what I did.  It was an exploration of just how far I could go in attempting to experience new foods inspired by "food FOMO" (Fear Of Missing Out) for everything that was described as "a Moroccan specialty" or "she spent all day cooking this". 

An empty plate and the declaration that "I am full" is not a part of the Moroccan mindset.  I tried to wave the white flag and admit defeat after I realized that trying to eat this way wasn't sustainable and my stomach couldn't expand enough to keep up with it, but my empty plate symbolized that I apparently had not enjoyed my meal, so it was at times filled for me. I had barely digested from the meal the night before that we were eating a full-fledged lunch the following day! It actually began to feel overwhelming and that I just couldn't not gain a foot hold among the constant deluge of tasty foods and kind, smiling grandmothers. When I finally reached that point that my body no longer felt like my own and the heartburn was real, I had to thrown in the towel and request and night off. 

Spending a night in with only water to sip as I waited for my bloating to go down, turned out to be a great choice since there was a lot more of the weekend to come.  

Intermittently with the family meals, the Levi's would pack up their van with a "simple" Moroccan picnic (a lot of times Israelis use one word, while they mean the exact opposite. Like "water slide" when they mean drainage pipe - still my favorite example!) and head out into the the valley of springs to soak up the best of what's around. 

The Sachne in all its glory

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we went to the Sachne, a natural springs that look so perfect that you call its existence into question. As you walk towards the pools, purple-winged butterflies flit by you and a lazy dragonfly dips down to skim the azure waters. It looks like a 1950s movie set of an oasis in which the set coordinator did no research and just idealized what an oasis must look like--but that's the Sachne, for real. 

Enjoying the waterfalls

The whole group

We spent a relaxing day by the aquamarine waters, where we floated and splashed on an air mattress, let little fish nibble our feet, went for a walk to see the waterfalls and picked fresh figs from close growing trees. 

Since my life is now in the suspended reality that is Israeli, the weekend didn't stop there. Once I had recovered from my octogenarian food babies, the Levi's picked me up for a "hike in the fields" and once again, that meant the exact opposite. You just have to expect the unexpected with Israelis and cross your fingers that you're wearing the right shoes. 

This time, it meant that we drove to a moshevez, a sort of gated community-living situation that stops short of going all the way to bring a kibbutz, where I was introduced to Yaqui, his wife Kineret and their son Or and daughter Adom. 

In his little corner of the Sea of Galilee, Yaqui has perfected the art of man-cave. He loves all things with engines, so he created the ultimate garage devoted to his passion, with everything from shelves to house his collection of toy trucks to motorcycle, dirt bikes and amped up trucks. Yaqui also happened to have in his possession almost a whole fleet of 4x4s at his disposal. Apparently, "hike in the fields" meant we're going off-roading!!

Rugged and customized truck

Motorcycle and dirt bike

Yaqui's rows of collectible toys

We loaded up a truck with everything necessary for a Moroccan picnic, then everyone climbed into a dune buggy, or truck if they wanted a gentler ride to start. A neighboring family and their kids joined us. Their young son had his own 4x4, which like a good teenage boy he drove with reckless abandon while blasting Israeli music and wearing ski goggles to keep the dust out of his eyes. 

Taking a turn in the driver's seat

Our convoy headed out to traverse the rocky paths of the Kineret under the sun for the next couple of hours! It was honestly dreamlike to be bumping and bouncing in the backseat of a 4x4 between the Sea of Galilee and the Jordanian border. Just two weeks, I was scared to leave my known world behind and a month ago, I was sitting in a desk chair trying to get signatures on an endless pile of inane paperwork.  So to suddenly find myself involved in a world of action and experiences does not seem real! I did not know that my life could be this interesting! I tried to soak up the moment and simply be as present as possible to enjoy it. 

Evidence of the dust

The ATVs kicked up A TON of dust as they sped over the trails, in almost no time, I was completely covered with streaks of red-brown dirt all over my skin, clothes and hair. I pretty much looked like I had changed colors and Gilah joked that I looked Moroccan! 

Once we had spent a few hours doing some badass maneuvers on the back roads, as well as crossing back and forth through the Jordan River, we started to look for somewhere to picnic. Most places we drove by were swarming with tourists and their kids. They gawked at us, took pictures of the 4x4s and asked where we had gotten them. It felt very cool to be privilege to all this.

We finally found a removed spot for lunch and began to unpack the truck. Moroccans and Yaqui's family and friends naturally do not half-ass a picnic. They brought tables, blankets, frying pans and propane into the forest with us. So before long, we had a table packed with food, omelet station manned by Davide, himself and the makings of shakshuka, which I was helping to sous chef! 

Lunch spread

Omelet station

Another splendid meal followed, coupled with pleasant conversation, before we packed all the materials up into the truck and hit the roads for part deux of off-roading.

                                  

Helping to make some shaksuka the woods

The rest of the afternoon passed with rocky, winding road, some close calls with mud and hydration breaks with cookies before returning to the man-cave and unpacking and relaxing. 

I can now check 4x4-ing off my bucket list! There's a couple more items on there that I think are in contention to finally be achieved, so stay tuned since the Israeli holidays aren't over yet and the Levis seem to be very adept at making the best of living in Beit She'an and taking me along for the ride!

Shot of the whole group

First Days, Part 1

A week has passed since I arrived in Israel and its been quite a whirlwind! 

From the moment I arrived, we have had a packed schedule with very little time to ourselves and I have had even less time to reflect over the fact that I've left my life in the States and popped myself right into life in Beit She'an.

Street crossing sign at the airport that features a rabbi.

First impressions of Beit She'an is that it is a small town of around 16,000 people, so bigger than both Burlington and Shelburne.  It is located along the path of the Great Rift Valley, which is also what the Dead Sea sits upon, so likewise, Beit She'an is below sea level, which makes it unyieldingly hot.  If you thought Florida, California, or even Texas was hot, you'd have nothing on Beit She'an.  "Welcome to the Inferno", said one of my fellow Americans.  It's a hazy, slightly humid hot from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm (19:00); there are typically no clouds in the sky, and the sun beats down and fries you without a care whether you are human or cat.

At night, you can look across to the East and see the lights of villages in Jordan around 3 kilometers away situated on top of the mountains.  During the day, if you hike up to Mount Gilboa in the West, you can see a glimpse of the West Bank.

Looking towards the West and the border with Jordan

These infamous presences don't feel threatening.  They're just entities existing along with us and filled with people like us who are just going about their days, maybe even vaguely noting that we're out there as well. 

If you stood from a vantage point on Mount Gilboa, you would see beneath you a patchwork quilt of fish farms spread out beneath you.  Yes, fish farms!  The Galilee region that Beit She'an pushes up against is a worldwide supplier of fish, so the area is decorated with large rectangular pools full of tuna and salmon, I think.  Somehow, in some Israeli sort of irony/devil-may-care attitude, they intermixed fish farming into the scorched earth of the area and there is rich, fertile production taking place here.  This is only supported by the other agriculture in the area, which includes row upon row of date trees and banana tree farms that stretch out for miles and miles.  

The most striking part of city life in Beit She'an that takes a lot of adjusting is the cat problem.  As my host sister explained, "Cats are like the squirrel of Beit She'an."  They sit menacingly on dumpsters, staring at you menacingly from on top of dumpsters as you walk by.  They are scarred and marked by how life is for cats in Beit She'an; they are marred from fights, encounters with jackals and diseases - missing parts of tails and even eyes.  Because of our proximity to Jordan, the cats have the ability to wander into a third world country where rabies is not controlled; therefore, there's a chance the cats have rabies and they definitely have fleas, so we cannot touch the cats.  In the yard that surrounds my home, we have a mother cat and her four kittens who live there. They're all very, very cute, but each is malnourished and suffering from some form of disease that is infecting their eyes, which they will likely go blind from.  It's hard to see and not do anything about.

Some of the kittens that seem to have made a home of our courtyard.  "One-Eyed Jack" is in the forefront.  

The city of Beit She'an itself is a jumble of crisscrossing streets, filled by one, or two story sand colored buildings.  Half of the city is being developed into new single family houses in modern suburban style and the other half was constructed maybe 15 to 20 years ago and hasn't been updated since, but it serves its purpose.  

The ITF House of Beit She'an is located in the older part of the city, that we joke is on the wrong side of town.  Our street is no masterpiece, it's filled with dry and dead grass and lots of trash; air conditioners from tightly packed-in houses protrude out from our neighbors nondescript houses. We have a bomb shelter on the end of our street.  But we are located in perfect proximity to nearly everything in the city.  Supermarkets, discount stores, liquor stores and favourite falafel spots are all around a 15-25 minute walk from us.