Category: Living in Community

Community, Living in Community, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Parenting

Other people’s garbage

Jen

What I am about to say doesn’t apply to everyone.

It doesn’t apply to the immigrant family just arrived from Darfur.

It doesn’t apply to the disabled veteran living in a box on the corner.

But it DOES apply to anyone with enough money and sustenance to afford a computer, an IPhone, a tablet.

What I am about to say applies to those of us lucky enough to be in the middle or upper class.

What I am about to say applies to the family who pays 150 NIS to send their kid to basketball class, and another 500 NIS on the uniform.

What I am about to say applies to the family who owns a car, a three-bedroom home.

What I am about to say applies to the family who takes their kids on vacation to Eilat.

What I am about to say applies to some of my friends and neighbors.

What I am about to say is going to piss you off.

Your kid disgusts me.

Yes, your kid.

The 13-year-old who just threw a plastic cup under the bushes next to the preschool without thinking twice.

He disgusts me.

Sure, it’s only for a moment. A passing moment.

He’s only a kid after all.

Until it happens again.

Until the 6-year-old, the one who is in the same class as my son, rips the wrapper off his popsicle and drops it onto the street without worrying for a second about getting in trouble.

Disgust.

Again.

Today was not the first time I’ve seen a young person throw trash on the ground here in my community; here in Israel.

Today was not the first time I saw your kid throw trash on the ground as if the ground was going to take care of it.

As if the ground serves as his garbage can,

The same ground that braced your child’s fall when he was just learning to walk.

The same ground that nourishes the wildflowers you use as a beautiful background for family photos.

The same ground that you pay taxes to tend to.

Your kid just trashed that ground.

Now, you might think me harsh or judgmental.

You might think me smug.

You might spend the next two weeks watching my children like a hawk to see if they ever once throw trash on the ground.

They might.

And if they do, I hope that you will call to them, gently but not so gently scold them, insist they pick their garbage off the ground and place it in the proper receptacle.

Do what I didn’t just do.

Teach them.

I missed an opportunity. I let your kid walk away.

I let my ego get in the way — too afraid that I wouldn’t use the right words in Hebrew, I waited til he walked away and I picked up the cup myself.

And then I shook my head. At him. At you. At me.

It’s easy to make excuses.

My excuse is language.

My excuse is fear.

What is yours?

The truth is: There are no excuses for our children throwing garbage on the ground.

Not children who go to basketball, and play Wii, and own their own phones.

Not children who eat organic tomatoes or gluten-free pita.

Not children who are raised on hikes along the Jordan River; on a deep love for this land.

There are no excuses.

plastic on the ground

Is this the land we're fighting over?

Plastic bag dots the green

Community, Family, Living in Community, Love

A woman on the brink of death

Jen

(This was originally posted on the Times of Israel)

Sometimes I imagine I am a woman on her death bed.

How else to explain the sense of wonder I have the minute I pull out of my driveway each morning to head to work?

Before I even leave the boundaries of my small community in Northern Israel, my head turns from side to side looking out the car window for a sign of nature’s wonder.

Morning light breaking through a stunning cloud formation overhead.

cloud formation

The sun rising over the Eshkol Reservoir.

sun over eshkol

The first kalanit popping up in the fields lining the road into our neighborhood.

kalanit

Who else does this but a woman about to die?

Sometimes I catch myself imagining I am her — a woman on her death bed.

I am paralyzed. Frightened.

Could it be true?

What if it was?

And then I laugh with the realization that it is true.

We all are.

We are born to die.

And as much as we fear it, we spend our lives rushing towards it…towards death.

Rushing through breakfast; pushing the kids out the door; grabbing three different bags – a laptop bag, a lunch bag, a pocketbook – and throwing them into the back seat. We drink a to-go cup of coffee on the way. We turn on the radio and scan the words for news. News that will help us make decisions; make us feel right; make us feel wrong.

Get us there quicker.

We breeze by our coworkers; we tweet through our days. Our fingers sore from scrolling, from typing, from pointing.

Who else but a woman about to die notices the teeny tiny wren perched on the tallest branch of a pine tree across the street from the entrance to Rafael?

Who else catches through her passenger side window the hearty laugh of a teenage girl in a bronze glittery head scarf waiting for the bus to Karmiel?

Who else but a woman on the brink of demise notices the blend of hope and fear on the faces of the black men – the ones standing on the side of the kikar at the entrance to Kfar Manda — as she passes them during rush hour?

Who else but a woman about to die?

We characterize our behavior as “living,” but really we are rushing towards death. Getting there quicker, richer, righter.

Until we stop.

And in the moment we stop – in the slow minutes spent behind a tractor trailer chugging up a hill, for instance – we slow down death.

We drink in life.

Drink it in.

annabel bowling

Letting Go, Living in Community, Love

The magical power of you (yes, you)

Jen

Twice a month, on average, I travel to Tel Aviv for work.

And twice a month, on average, after I park my car on Menachem Begin street in Ramat Gan I walk over to Cafe Cafe to order an espresso k’tzar to go.

Today, I walked into Cafe Cafe and before I could order, the waitress hanging out by the bar looked at me and said “Espresso k’tzar?”

Incredulous, I asked her in Hebrew, “You remember? Really?”

She said, “Of course.”

Now, a skeptic might say, she has a statistically high chance of guessing what I will order at an espresso bar in Israel and nailing it. After all Cafe Cafe is no Starbucks, and there’s no peppermint or pumpkin or other array of holiday coffee drink specials.

However, anyone who knows Israel would know that the waitress’ chances would have been 5x as high if she had said instead of espresso k’tzar:

“Hafooch?”

Since 9.75 times out of 10, Israelis in Tel Aviv order hafooch (a latte).

But she didn’t. She said a short espresso, which is what I always order the two times a month I am in Cafe Cafe in Ramat Gan.

And this little gesture — this “remembering” of little old me — made me stop. Completely stop. I stopped inside a moment I would normally speed through.

Suddenly, I looked at this stranger differently.  I interacted with my coffee differently.

All it took was one, seemingly simple interaction to change the way I walked the three blocks from the cafe to my destination.

Instead of noticing the sewage smell emanating from open garbage container like I normally do on this walk, I noticed the shimmer of a single bee stopping to buzz in the sunlight above a sidewalk block.

Do you see it?

bee2

I couldn’t capture its majesty in the moment. But I got closer to a bee than I ever have before. Because, for once, its beauty resonated with me more than its potential danger.

And, for me, this is huge.

Beauty overtook fear.

My interaction with a nameless barista was a moment of magic in my day. And considering I had just gotten out of my car after having spent two hours in bad traffic on the highway alone, magic was much-needed.

The magic of you is the minor yet major factor in whether or not my day starts off with wonder and hope or with cynicism and despair.

Of course, I play a part in the magic trick, too. I am the magician’s assistant. I need to be willing to see and believe in the magic in order for it to work.

It helped that I was listening to a series of TED talks on my commute to work this morning. It helped that one of those talks was Shawn Achor’s “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” I was in the right frame of mind to be happy. It helped that one of those talks was Louie Schwartzberg’s “Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.” I was in the right frame of mind to appreciate and be thankful for all that my eyes could see during that three block walk.

Shawn and Louie — strangers on a stage — helped.

Sometimes you are a magician. And I am your assistant.

And sometimes, we switch.

Switch on. Each other.

And the extraordinary magic in minor moments.

Culture, Family, Kibbutz, Letting Go, Living in Community, Making Friends

Seeing double

Jen

When I first moved to Israel, before I got my full-time job here, I started networking in search of freelance writing work. I had already started writing this blog about my Aliyah experience and had gotten positive feedback from both friends and colleagues. One of my colleagues suggested I reach out to Kveller.com, a new blog for Jewish parents, thinking they would be interested in syndicating this blog or hiring me to write another.

I wrote to the editors at Kveller and pitched my blog idea, confident they would write back to me with a big, fat YES.

Pitch: Fun, snarky Jewish mom leaves the comfort of her chic New Jersey suburb with her husband and three kids to try to make it as a kibbutznik in Northern Israel.

The editors wrote back that they liked my writing style, but that they already had a cool Jewish mom makes Aliyah to kibbutz column.

What?!?

There’s two of us?

Well, apparently there are. At least two of us.

The editors forwarded me Sarah’s blog post about moving to Israel, and I thought to myself, “Hmm. I guess I’m not so unique after all.” Sarah’s writing reminded me of my own, a blend I like to consider “tell-it-like-it-is honesty infused with snarky vulnerability.”

Figuring out that someone else had already pitched my idea and got the gig before me was a tiny blow to the ego, I’ll admit. Nonetheless, I secretly smiled knowing there was another Jen-like new olah mom out there.

So it was little surprise to me to see it was Sarah who wrote the article that popped up today on my Facebook news feed from The Times of Israel called, My Israel: A Land of Spoiled Milk and Honey.

The first half of the article was like reading the California Girl version of my life, or at least an alterno-verse version of the summer I first visited Israel in 1992.

I laughed at Sarah’s recollections of her first visit to the Kotel which were “spiritual” and “meaningful” and “fucking awesome.”  And I smiled knowingly at what she recalled as her passionate statement to the Israeli passport control worker promising that “one day she would return.”

I remember being that passionate girl. I remember being madly in love with an Israeli soldier. Um, I mean, Israel.

I could also relate to her experience of missing that connection to Judaism once she returned to the States. It happened to me, too. And I spent years trying unsuccessfully to recreate it while living in America.

But what I couldn’t fully relate to in Sarah’s post were her expectations that moving to Israel would somehow be a seemless transition into Israeli life and culture.  I didn’t share the expectation that being a Jew in a Jewish land would naturally translate into being understood or loved or accepted by your friends and neighbors. In fact, I was really worried that no one here would get me. That our family would not fit in. That I would never feel like this was my home.

In fact, the one thing that drives me nuts about the “Aliyah Movement” is the idea that American Jews moving to Israel are, in fact, “coming home.”

That sentiment, when I am at my ugliest, makes me want to vomit. When I am feeling kind, it simply bewilders me.

This “Coming Home” slogan is plastered all over the Nefesh B’Nefesh marketing materials. It’s the titles of videos on YouTube. It’s written in permanent marker on poster board and embroidered onto hats.  And all the time I think to myself, “Is it true? Are you? Do you?”

For a little while, the fact that I didn’t feel that way made me feel like a fraud, like an imitation oleh. Like the fake tofu version of a new oleh.

Where was the meat?

Did I really deserve this Aliyah if I wasn’t 100% sure Israel was my home? That this decision was the right one? That I would be happy here? That I would stay?

In the 16 months since I made Aliyah, I have come a long way.  In the 16 months since my Aliyah, I have worked hard to make this country my home. I have worked hard to learn the language; to make friends; to take on challenges that scare me; and to be tolerant and even accepting of cultural difference that are so offensive to me that I want to jump on the next plane back to Newark Liberty International.

For instance, I have learned that I can both hate the Israeli woman up my ass in the line at the pharmacy and at the same time admire her for being ambitious and bold. I can both cringe at the reckless abandon of Israeli parents when it comes to their child’s safety; and at the same time, smile with pride at the independence my children have acquired since figuring out that falling 5 feet from the top of the jungle gym onto concrete really, really hurts. I can scream at the dogs who run off their leashes; and quietly be happy they’re around to bark at the would-be robbers.

I have learned to love and accept this country, and my community. And I still reserve the right to complain about her.

If that’s not home, what is?

The real problem lies not with Israel. Nor does it lie with immigrants who are constantly comparing their new home to their old one. And certainly, the  solution is not, as some of the commenters on Sarah’s post would have one believe, “If you don’t like it, then leave.”

If anything, what we new immigrants need is compassion. Compassion from our neighbors, both the Israelis and the olim who have figured it out already.

And compassion for ourselves, as it takes a lot more than a slogan or a birthright to feel at home.

Living in Community, Middle East Conflict

The Hope, 2012

Jen

It’s been a busy month in Israel. And a busy month or two for me, as I completed a huge work-related milestone in March — organizing and executing a 5-city U.S. Investor Road Show for 13 Israeli hi-tech start-ups.

For me, the last few months of winter were intense as I balanced the demands of work with the demands of my family. I was in in the states for the last 10 days of March and back in Israel in time for Passover, with it’s two week school break.

Now we’re deep into Israel’s nationalistic stretch: The days encompassing Yom HaShoah, YomHaZikaron, and Yom HaAtzmaut (Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel’s Fallen Soldiers Remembrance Day, and Independence Day).  There is certainly much for a new oleh to observe and reflect upon during this time. But the truth is, I still feel very much an outsider when it comes to honoring Israel’s fallen and celebrating the miracle of her existence.

Of course, I will do as anyone living in Israel would do during this week: Perhaps I will watch a documentary or two on the life of a fallen soldier and the impact of his death on his family. I will show up to the events organized by my community. I will dress my kids in blue and white. I will snap photos of my children and my husband singing nationalistic songs. I will feel awkward that I don’t know the words or the melodies. But nonetheless I will feel pride: for them, my family, the loves of my life.

I might shed a tear or two.

But the truth is, I don’t feel these holidays in my heart of hearts.

Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t judge me. I am sure it’s normal, and not a sign of some pathology.

The fact that I don’t feel in my heart of hearts the hurt of losing a brother or a father in the Yom Kippur War is, in fact, a blessing to me. It’s a gift. It’s a hurt I don’t miss.

The fact that I don’t yet feel connected to the relief that comes with knowing your homeland is safe, after war, is also a blessing.

The fact that I live in Israel and don’t feel connected to the pain or to the relief means that it’s possible to live in Israel and feel safe. It means that it is possible to live in Israel and experience a tragedy-free life.

There are not many who would acknowledge this to be true or even understand how such words can come from my lips as headlines shout the threat of war with Iran, or as sirens continue to wail in Southern Israel.

There are some who will call me stupid for thinking it, and insensitive for writing it.

And there are some — The ones who dream. The ones who create the worlds we live into. The ones who imagine the future as they would have it be — Those people would smile. And nod knowingly.

Those people would see that we already live in the future we all hope for.

The future in which Israel is safe. Free of violence. Free of war. Free of fear.

Because for me, that future is today. This moment. Right now.

And if for one day, I may live in Israel and not feel the pain or fear or suffering, doesn’t it mean a safe, war-free Israel already exists?

Sit with it for a moment: Israel is safe. Israel is a place without suffering.

If it is true, may this be a comfort to those who have lost loved ones in Israel’s wars?

It should be. Because it’s what their loved ones were fighting for.

May it be a comfort to those who still bear scars from terrorist attacks or from rockets?

I hope so. Because it means there is hope that there will be no more scars.

If one person can live in Israel and for just one moment feel safe and secure and free to live her life –work, play laugh, love — then it must be true.

It is in this moment, in this one moment, when hope is born; and futures, as we dream them, are real.

Family, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Parenting, Religion

A year in reflection

Jen

In retrospect, I’m glad we made Aliyah at the end of a calendar year. At the time, moving during the first of New Jersey’s many blizzards and dealing with holiday travel didn’t seem like such a good idea. But now, as I reflect on the year that we’ve been living in Israel, I find comfort in the awareness that I will never have to struggle to remember when we moved here. It was at the end of December, in the winter of the end of a decade. 

And, as if leaving our friends and family to move to a new country wasn’t turbulent or memorable enough, there was plenty else to mark this year in my memory. I lost a cousin. I lost my grandmother. And through these and other extraordinarily difficult times for my family this year, I was here and they were there.

In the chapters that mark my life, 2011 will be one I remember without a bookmark, without a folded over corner.

My kind friends and loving husband might argue with this, but the marks of this year also show on my face, which seems to be finally showing signs of age. This year, as exciting as its been, has also been the year that I started feeling aches in my joints and noticing that my body is not as resilient as it used to be.

This was the year I closed my business and started a new job. It was the year I gave up my Blackberry and then found it again, at least the Israeli Nokia version. It was the year I moved to the house down the street of one of my oldest childhood friends and the year I found that sometimes, moving away from your closest friends, actually draws you nearer to them.

This was the year I stopped obsessively focusing on healing others; and truly starting looking inward in an effort to heal myself.  It was the year I rediscovered the healing power of song and prayer; love and community.

This was the year I decided that a heaping helping of humble pie was good for me. That learning something new every day can be painful, but active listening often works better than talking, even when you want so badly to communicate who you are and what you want.

This was the year my husband really learned to appreciated me as a mother. And I him as a hard-working professional. It was the year I resigned myself to the growing up of my children, and the year I decided that they would be okay — in spite of my fears and worries.

It was the year I let go.

This morning, after I dropped off my five-year-old at gan, I shook my head in amazement. He had woken up this morning with a bellyache and asked not to go to school. After hesitating only a minute, we decided it was okay if he stayed behind and rested in his room this morning. After all, it’s a long week, and Fridays are half-day, looser schedules for kids in preschool here.

At around 9 am, he decided he felt better and asked if he could go to gan. I asked him, “Are you sure? You can stay home if you want. It’s fine.” He insisted he felt well and asked that I take him up.

When we got to the door of his classroom, he gave me a quick kiss, and with one last look back, left my side to play with his friends.

This was the same kid who one year ago, walked off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport, pale as a ghost, after vomiting for 12 hours straight. This was the kid who cried every morning for months when we dropped him off at gan; who wouldn’t let us leave; who begged us to stay home.  This same kid was now opting for gan over a day off at home. This same kid, didn’t know a word of Hebrew when we arrived a year ago, but now speaks completely in Hebrew with his friends…and with confidence.

This morning, my five-year-old’s brother is off playing with his own friends; and his sister, I’m sure, is chatting away in Hebrew with hers at her own school. My husband is preparing food for our Shabbat meal tonight with friends, and I’m here, taking a break from cleaning the house.

This was the year we turned our life upside down.

And our life righted itself.

Culture, Living in Community

A big girl in a little bubble

Jen
(This was originally posted on my Jerusalem Post blog, Israeli in Progress)
 
My husband and I often laugh that we really enjoy the little bubble we’ve created for ourselves here in Israel.

We live on a small kibbutz in the North. We have a 20 minute drive to the nearest supermarket, and a 45 minute drive to the nearest shopping mall. That might be off-putting to most; and admittedly it’s sometimes off-putting to us. But placing ourselves at a great distance from crowds and commercialism forces us to live a more simple life. We have less decisions to make, less traffic to navigate, less people to growl at.

We’ve noticed that “The Bubble,” as we call it, keeps us relatively safe from the stresses of modern family life. The stressors I’m referring to include mainly getting in and out of cars, weaving in and out of traffic, suffering the impacts of noise pollution, air pollution, and people pollution.

Instead of packing ourselves in and out of our cars multiple times a day, or boarding busses or trains; we walk our two little kids to preschool in the morning and our oldest son walks himself to a bus stop on our street.

When we get together with friends for playdates or social outings, it’s typically at our house or theirs. And we walk there. We hardly ever eat out. We hardly ever go out, to be honest. I work 20 minutes from the house and my husband works mostly from home. Our most spontaneous and adventurous day is typically Saturday, when we might hop in the car for a drive up to the Golan to hike, explore ancient ruins in the Galilee, or spend Shabbat with my in-laws who live 20 minutes away.

Some would call our simple life boring. But we call it easy. And easy translates for us as good.

This is not to say that everything about our life here is easy, but we’ve successfully managed to eliminate a lot of the every-day life stressors that we felt while living in New Jersey, without adding too many new ones to the mix.

(If you read my blog, you know the short list of Israel-related stressors includes:

1. Too many nuts here; 2. Rockets sometimes fall nearby; and 3. Hebrew is hard.)

Yes, our little Israeli bubble is nice. Our Bubble is quiet. Our Bubble is fairly uncomplicated.

But, it’s still a bubble, of course, which makes it a world contained within itself. There is a world, however, that still exists outside of it.  And in this world lives my extended family, my friends, and my colleagues.

So unless I plan on completely walking away from modern life, which my husband tells me I can’t, it’s important to exit the Bubble every now and again, as scary as that can be.

After ten years of American suburban life, I learned that if you don’t, you undoubtedly lose movement in your “brave muscle,” the one that keeps your inner scaredy cat in check.

In the States, this fear to leave your safe little bubble is sometimes a side effect of Suburban Malaise – when you move out from the City to the suburbs and your life becomes a bit too predictable; a bit too mundane; a bit too regimented and conformed. I imagine there are some people who also experience Kibbutz Malaise, a depression stemming from being away from all that city excitement when you move up North.

But not me. Here in my little Israeli Bubble, with its cozyness and simplicity, I risk suffering from Kibbutz Contentment.  The condition stems not from being stuck, but rather, not wanting to ever leave.

When you suffer Kibbutz Contentment and you have a pressing need to venture out from your bubble, you find yourself fretting for days beforehand. You scour Google maps, plot your routes in advance, and, if you have rusty Hebrew, write down all the words you will need in your own handmade little pocket dictionary.

When you suffer Kibbutz Contentment you avoid not only planes, trains and automobiles, but platforms, lines, and crowds. Sometimes you are brave enough for parking garages or malls, but never big sales and only during the week and mid-day hours.

When you suffer Kibbutz Contentment, you’re often worried equally at the idea of being alone in the city and being around too many people. Taxi drivers are your enemies, as are cashiers, waitresses, and homeless people. Why? Because they all want to talk to you.

I was in Tel Aviv at least five times in the past month for work, and all five times I experienced anxiety as I prepared to head out of The Bubble. But I have to say, I worked my Brave Muscle and it came out the other side achy, yet stronger.

I rode the train. I’ve even switched trains… three times! I bought multiple tickets. I spoke (in Hebrew) to all my “enemies” — the taxi drivers, the waitresses, and the clerks — and even the sophisticated Tel Avivians I had to conduct meetings with.

I was courted at fancy schmancy agencies and conference centers; sipped espresso in cafes; and pushed my way in and out of ticket lines. Twice this week, I drove Cvish HaHof, the beach highway to Tel Aviv from the North, as well as the super-highway, Cvish 6. I drove alone and pumped my own gas; which isn’t as easy as you would think considering all the instructions are in Hebrew.

After a long week of working my Brave Muscle, I returned home from work last night as exhausted as I would have coming home from an extreme workout at the gym. But I smiled as I drove through the yellow gate that separates my Bubble from the rest of the world.“Aizeh Bogeret,” I said to myself.What a big girl you are.

And the hugs and kisses and big glass of red wine that awaited me as I walked into the door of my bubble within a  bubble were all sweeter for having missed them.

Culture, Family, Kibbutz, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Parenting, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Unwound

Jen

A friend of mine moved from NJ to Guam with her husband and two boys a few months before we decided to make Aliyah. On Facebook, I followed her move and her family’s transition with interest, particularly once we decided we were moving to Israel.

Despite what I assume must be vast differences in culture and landscape between Guam and Israel, I often find myself nodding in agreement and understanding when I read Shelley’s posts. (This could also have much to do with our common interests in holistic parenting and healthy eating, as well.)

There is, I’ve realized, companionship in leaving the busy American suburbs, the busy American life, for the “outskirts.”

Today Shelley wrote, “There are times when I miss living in the States with all of its modern conveniences, but then there are days like yesterday when I never want to leave our little bubble in Guam.”

I know exactly what she means.

Except our bubble is not Israel, per say, as Israel is no island paradise: She possesses as much hassle, aggravation, and overstimulation as any developed country.

My bubble is Kibbutz Hannaton, the small 120-or-so family Lower Galilee community in which we live. And a sub-bubble of Hannaton is my little red house with green shutters.  And yet another sub-bubble is my little work enclave of former Americans whom allow me eight hours a day to pretend I still live and work in the U.S.

But the true sub-bubble is the one I created for myself with intention last December when I  chose not just to live somewhere different, but to live differently.

I often tell people (in fact, I did so just yesterday during lunch) that our successful “absorption” here is due in large part to the community in which we chose to live: one made up of young, growing families like our own. One where friendships are only now being formed…because the community is still new and finding itself. So, despite being different, we still somehow fit in.

But I also credit our successful transition to the conscious lifestyle changes we, as a family unit, decided to make in conjunction with our move.

In addition to many of the comforts we gave up — the modern conveniences Shelley mentions in her post — we also gave up our attachments to what we knew up until then as the “right way to live” in the hopes that we might find happiness living another way.

One modern convenience I gave up was information overload.

I was (and still am in many ways) an information addict. My understanding up until recently was that with more information comes more control…over my own life…over what happens to me and to my kids. My understanding was that information made me safer; made my life easier. This is why I easily fell in love with the Internet, email, blogs, Facebook. And, to some extent all those modern conveniences have improved my life. But what I’ve discovered, retroactively, was how much they also controlled my life.

I had a really good excuse for feeding my addiction; addicts always do. I was a business owner. A writer. A blogger. My success depended on my communication with the outside world. I needed to check check check…all the time. Who knew when the next big opportunity, client or connection would land in my inbox? At the height of my addiction, I had six different email addresses, four blogs, two Facebook profiles, three Fan Pages, a LinkedIn and two Twitter accounts to manage. Not to mention those I managed for my clients. 

I also had kids with asthma and allergies. I had unexplained chronic illness of my own. I had an acute awareness that with more information about the world around me, the greater chance I had of healing myself and healing them. Information provided answers. Tools. Connections to the right people. How could I give up information? 

I also consciously understood that my information interface, so to speak, was possibly unhealthy.  Which made for a bit of a contradiction.

Despite my awareness that my commitment to my online personas (and to my business and clients) was likely impacting my real-life relationships with my husband and my kids, I persisted.  Despite the fact that my comments on your “feed” may have been keeping me from experiencing real, waking, daily pleasures, I couldn’t shut down. I couldn’t give it up. I couldn’t walk away from it.

Until I started walking away from it. Taking baby steps. That started once my feet touched ground in Israel.

As I said, my information withdrawal began first with an intention. But I followed through with an action: I purposefully did not register my Blackberry here in Israel. I got myself a regular old cellphone with a regular old phone call plan. No emails, no SMS packages. My husband did not register his IPhone either which was a HUGE shocker for me because my husband loves his IPhone more than I love information. Or, at least, equally as much.

Just this simple choice, along with the decision not to purchase Cable TV made a great impact on the quality of our lives in the first few months we lived here.  We quickly adjusted to checking emails only on our computer (remember when you used to do that?) and our kids spent more time outside and not in front of the TV than they had ever in their lives.

And that was nice for a while. I’d like to say that we remained unplugged, but we didn’t. A few months in, we used Hebrew immersion as an excuse to sign up for basic cable. The kids still only watch a portion of what they used to. (I haven’t watched an episode of the evening news or any sitcom, save for Israel’s Ramzor.)

A few months after that, my husband bought a new IPhone, much to my dismay, and I often find him face down fingering the thing with pleasure. That said, it only takes one semi- dirty look from me for him to put the thing down when the kids are asking him a question (repeatedly) and his finger keeps methodically sliding across the little touchpad as if it’s in a trance. He also gave up TV and for the first time in many years I can now find him in bed in the evenings reading e-books on the Nook. 

Once I got a full-time job, they handed me a Smartphone with my work email configured, but amazingly, without the unspoken expectation that I be attached to it 24-7. And I like that. I like that a lot.

Despite the reintroduction of information overload devices, my information withdrawal continues. I didn’t configure my personal email into to my new phone. I never check my work email after I leave the office or on the weekend. And I have found as the months pass, I check my personal email less and less often: Sometimes going as much as 2-3 days without checking. People who were used to hearing from me immediately would write back after only hours asking me, “Where are you? Did you get my email?”

Sure, I am still on Facebook. It’s my lifeline to friends and family who didn’t follow me to Israel. But I’m hardly on Twitter; have no interest in this new thing called Google Plus. Sometimes, I even find it difficult to motivate myself to blog. I find that at the end of the day, after working and spending time with my family, I prefer to walk and then to read. And then to sleep.

Yesterday, I discovered my main personal email account was down. I had forgotten to pay the web host for a month or two and they shut my account down temporarily. People reached out to me via Facebook or SMS asking me what happened to my email. Why were mails being bounced back?

At first I panicked that my email was down, “What if someone is trying to reach me??” But my panic lasted only a minute. Soon after, the feeling transformed into freedom.

I realized I had passed over the hurdle of my information addiction. I was now able to say no. To be without. To let go. In particular, I wasn’t worried about what I had missed or would miss over the day or so the email account would be down. I wasn’t worried about what people might think when they received their emails returned, unread.  In fact, I decided right then and there to pare down all my email accounts, returning only to one. One that I may or may not check during the day.

This is not to say I’m unplugging completely. Or that I will ever really be able to fully walk away from easy access information. There is no guarantee that this represents a permanent recovery from information addiction. But it certainly indicates a big step in the right direction.

I think I’ve developed a taste for something new.

Being here. Being present. Absorbing today. Still with an eye on tomorrow, but with a good solid foot planted in today.

Family, Kibbutz, Living in Community, Parenting

Our long, hot Israeli summer

Jen

Somewhere in the middle of the very long list of “Things they don’t tell you BEFORE you make Aliyah” – a list that would include tips like “Don’t sell all your stuff before coming; you’ll need more of that Target brand crap than you think;” or “Israeli Tupperware really stinks” or “Living on a kibbutz means feeding kids that aren’t your own at least two days a week” – is this doozy: There is nothing for your kids to do in August.

Now, as you know, I live on a small kibbutz in the North. So it could be that my kids have less to do in August than their city counterparts.  And we did have Gan for the little one until mid-August and some options for the bigger ones in early August. But compared to what abounds in New Jersey in terms of camps and summer programs, our options were extremely limited and extraordinarily pricey.

Not that day camp is cheap in New Jersey; but when you decide to suck it up and pay for camp you know you’re getting a full day of activities – so much so that when your kid finally gets off the bus in front of your house at 4:45 pm, he’s happy to sit in front of the television for two hours, and you don’t feel guilty about it one bit because you know he’s been learning to swim and dive and make campfires and knots, especially fancy ones that get turned into friendship bracelets. If your kid goes to Jewish camp, you know he’s even hearing a little bit of Hebrew or singing Zionist pioneering songs. You feel like he’s had a good solid day of stimulation and exercise.

Here in Israel, we had two options for August, one of which was a regional camp which was reasonably priced but got less than stellar recommendations from people we know whose kids went last year; and the second was a morning Nature Camp that sounded a little bit unbearable to me in the 100 + degree heat of summer, and I knew would be a disaster for my oldest who craves high energy activity, not quiet, contemplative exploration of nature in the boiling heat of Israel.

This August, our first since making Aliyah, has been the longest month of my entire life. And it’s been twice as long for my husband who has had the bulk of the childcare responsibility this summer.

I’ve been lucky on the one hand in that I have an excuse for an escape. My full time job right now is a large chunk of our family income; and since I don’t have any vacation days left after using my four days in June, I’m pretty much required to show up at work. But my poor husband, who is a consultant and a part-time work-at-home dad, has been at the center of a rude awakening this summer. A mistake he will never make again, which is children need something to do in the summer. As much as the 1950s era Leave it to Beaver idea of summer (wandering around the neighborhood looking for pet rocks or selling lemonade in front of the five & dime) might appeal to you, it’s just not the reality for our post-modern kids who have grown up over-stimulated and under-inspired. Sorry if that’s harsh, but it’s true; even for my kids who I try very hard to under-stimulate and over-inspire.

The fact is if you are not prepared to be the resident camp counselor for your kids, you better pay someone else to.

In May, I gently suggested to my husband that we try to round up the funds to send my oldest to the States for the summer. He could stay with my husband’s cousin who has a house in upstate New York and who we trust to parent our kid (who has nut allergies). My husband squashed that idea in an instant and assured me the summer would be filled with “Avi Camp” activities (Avi being my husband), such as drawing, hiking, and English and Hebrew lessons. Avi even suggested he and my oldest would work on making a movie with our Flip camera, part of a “turning off Phinneas and Ferb and learning Hebrew” project.

The film project lasted approximately three hours.

Instead, my 8-year-old has been in between our house and his grandparents’ house near Tiberias, similar to, as I’ve come to learn, most Israeli kids between the ages of 4 and 10.

It’s truly amazing, I have to say, how involved Israeli grandparents are in their grandchildren’s lives. It’s not true across the board, of course, but it’s noticeably truer here in Israeli society than it was for the families I knew on the East Coast of the U.S. This particular cultural difference between the two countries fits into the “family is a priority” category which could be broken down even smaller into the “we really take care of our children” category, which could be loosely interpreted as “we love to spoil our children because that’s what parents do.” Depends on who you ask.

The way this looks in day-to-day Israeli life is parents of little children nodding yes, yes, yes as their little ones scream for junk food (Why? Because it tastes good!); parents of teenagers stuffing their kids’ pockets with cash (Why? Because they’re only kids once!); or Israeli parents of adult children paying their kids’ rent or buying them groceries on a regular basis or putting a down payment on a new house (Why? Because they need a little help getting on their feet is all.)

I’m not criticizing this parenting style, mind you; that would be like biting off my nose to spite my face.  I’m just noticing it. And wondering if perhaps, the reason we don’t have more August summer programs for our kids is because working parents expect their parents to watch their children. And the grandparents are used to saying yes.

Or is the fact that there is no programming for our kids in August related to the long list of grievances coming from the folks protesting across the country in tents? The root of which would be, “We don’t get paid enough to afford rent and groceries; how could we possibly afford summer camp?”

No money to demand camp. No supply.

I’m not sure which is the reason for the lack of summer programming for kids. All I know is that if I were writing a book on “Things they don’t tell you before making Aliyah” (and I’m getting very close to that point), item #24 would be “Save money for a U.S. vacation in August.”

Trust me. If you follow tip #5 – “Save your garage sale for Israel; you’ll get a lot more money for your stuff” – you might be able to afford it.

Culture, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Parenting

Ties that bind

Jen

Last night, underneath a full moon, within the sacred space of our kibbutz mikveh, ten women gathered to acknowledge our friend who will be bringing a new life into our community in a few short weeks.

Debbie’s due at the end of August and it’s become somewhat of a tradition on Hannaton to create a “birth circle” for pregnant women. We sculpt the pregnant mother-to-be’s belly into a keepsake “mask;” we drink tea, and last night, we shared our birth stories.

It’s taken me some time to feel comfortable in a circle like the one I participated in last night. I blame it on the fact that I grew up without sisters.

Others, like me, who grew up with only brothers, or those with no siblings at all can back me up: What might be seamless and normal for women who grew up alongside sisters often takes a lot longer for us.  When you grow up with sisters, you have years to learn the ins and outs of interacting with other women, of being comfortable in the girl group dynamic. Even if you aren’t close with your sister, you’ve likely figured out the subtleties and intricacies of female conversation.  You know how to fight fair and eventually make up. You’ve shared beds and clothes; you’ve taken your bras off in front of each other.

The rest of us arrive at summer camp or at college completely clueless – and it takes us most of our adult lives to figure it out.

Fortunately, as I’ve discovered, giving birth speeds up the sense of sisterhood. There’s nothing like the aches of pregnancy and pains of childbirth to bond you with other women. And, in all seriousness, there’s nothing that creates kinship like sharing birth stories…even when, like me, you consider your birth experiences to have been less than ideal.

Last night, I smiled when we were invited to share our birth stories with each other.  Having already experienced the intimacy that comes with sharing birth stories in a circle of women, I was really excited to be part of this exercise with this group of women…my friends in the making.  I saw this as the perfect opportunity to learn more about each other, to open up, to move past the everyday niceties, to connect.  

Until it hit me…again.

It would all be in Hebrew. I felt my smile fade and my stomach turn.

You would think that by now it would take less time to compute – the Hebrew element. But it doesn’t. There is still a time lapse during which it occurs to me that my understanding of how an experience might be is not how it will be in actuality. Meaning: Hebrew makes it harder.  Tiresome. And eventually, mind-numbing. When it’s in Hebrew, I find it hard to engage; frustrating to participate; challenging to connect.

So I disengage. And the moments that might have moved me instead become tests…not just of language comprehension, but of pure will.

I did my best to keep up. But then, as it often does in these situations, my mind started to wander. First to that insecure place that masquerades as boredom…checking my watch and checking out; wishing I could leave and go home to watch reruns of The Office (in English).

And then the transition to the outsider’s feeling of sadness and longing…The inner thoughts of “I bet I would have laughed too if I had understood the joke” or the inner shame of “I wonder if they know I’m just nodding along.”

And then to the place where fear and desperation lives: Fear that I will never learn Hebrew well enough to blend in; to feel a “part” of anything meaningful here. That my relationships will always be surface-based; that my interactions in Hebrew will always be met with challenges and confusions; that I will never be able to fully participate. That no one will really know me and I won’t really know them.

Which might not be a big deal for you, but is for me. Because meaningful connections are what moves me. And without them, my life suffers.

Despite my discomfort, I didn’t leave the birth circle. Instead, I stayed and shifted my focus. I ate watermelon. I observed instead of listened. And at some point, I realized I could follow the stories without understanding the words. I could hear the subtle differences in the stories coming from the veteran moms of three versus the new mothers. I could catch the different expressions on my friends’ faces…of wonder…of embarrassment…of confidence…and of pride.  And each was moving and telling.

At some point, I realized too that just being a part of this circle, no matter how little I comprehended or contributed to the conversation, indeed connected me to the women sitting there. I realized that these women weren’t strangers to me anymore. That at least half in the room were women I had already confided in on some level and the other half were women I would want to.

While not quickly enough for my taste, I am moving from outsider to insider. And it’s simply because I’ve chosen to show up, and be as “me” as I can be in spite of the language barrier, in spite of my insecurities, and in spite of my fears.

Much like giving birth. Much like becoming a mother. There’s only so much you can know and absorb from sharing information…the rest comes with time and experience…and the courage to simply show up.

(This post originally appeared as “Israeli in Progress” on The Jerusalem Post blog.)

Education, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Making Friends

The Blooper Reel

Jen

In the movie that is my life, this period in time will be filled with perfect material for the end of film outtakes. The bloopers and practical jokes that roll after the credits; that end up on disc 2 of the DVD set.

Hopefully, by the time such a movie is made I, too, will be able to laugh at the time when I was a  consistent perpatrator of the Hebrew version of “Who’s on First?”

Let me explain by example.

Here is a loose transcript of the cellphone conversation I just had with an Israeli parent of a friend of my son’s:

Me (“my” Hebrew translated into English for your convenience): Hello [parent’s name]. Speaking is Jen. The mom of Oliver.

Other Mom ( in 100 mph garbled cellphone Hebrew): Yes?

Me: You call me?

Other Mom: Yes.

Me: Yes?

Other Mom: No, I was talking to Tal blah blah blah my laundry.

Me: Um. Ok. Did you call me?

Other Mom: blah blah sent a message blah blah blah

Me: You sent me what?

Other Mom: No. I didn’t send.

Me: What you no send?

Other Mom: No, you sent me a message.

Me: Yes, yes, I send SMS with new cellphone number.

Other Mom: Oh, ok. I wanted to talk to you.

Me: Ok. About what?

Other Mom: No, no. I don’t want to speak to you. I was speaking to my son.

Me: Oh, excuse me. I am so sorry.

Other Mom: (laughs and says in English). No, we will speak soon. Goodbye.

[END OF CALL. BEGIN SELF-DEPRECATION.]

Every single day of my life in Israel is an exercise in embarassment and humility.

It sounds a lot worse than it is. Daily humiliation by no means leads to unhappiness.  I think, in fact, my willingness to speak Hebrew at all to these people is indicative of the fact that I am starting to let down my guard. However, as I continue to become more confident in speaking Hebrew to my friends, colleagues, and neighbors, I also continue to make lots and lots of mistakes. Something, generally speaking, I work hard at not doing.

Veteran immigrants to Israel, the folks who learned Hebrew 20 years ago in an ulpan, as opposed to “Jen Style” (ie. figuratively flat on her face with a dictionary in her hand) all recommend “making mistakes.”

“Don’t be afraid to speak Hebrew,” they tell me. “This is the way you will learn.”

The only problem with this advice is that most Israelis don’t have the patience for my learning curve.

When they speak to me in Hebrew (usually very fast), and I respond by saying, “What did you say?” they usually will do one of two things:

1. Tell me again, but this time in English

2. Repeat what they said the first time, just as quickly, if not more quickly, but louder

What I really need them to do is repeat it in Hebrew, but at the pace of a person who has just regained her use of speech after being in a coma for nine months.

Very…

Very…

Slowly.

On the other hand, when I try to speak Hebrew (and I deserve an A for effort these days), I find myself five words into my attempt and either:

a. I don’t know the word for…let’s say…”repulsive” in Hebrew and then I have to go about trying to describe what “repulsive” means using the limited Hebrew I do have. By the time I am finished with that task, I forget what was so repulsive to begin with. Or,

b. The person I am talking to looks absolutely and completely bewildered, though still hanging on to my every word hoping that by the end of my discombobulated, grammatically incorrect sentence she will be able to piece together something comprehensible from what just exited my mouth.

At the very least, thanks to a good job at a company in the hi-tech industry, I think I’ve managed to establish myself as a reasonably intelligent person…despite the fact that I walk around in fool’s clothing most days.

And considering that it must require a lot of patience for non-English speakers to interact with me, I suppose I should take it as a good sign, then, that some people continue to do so.

Hopefully, within time, we’ll understand each other, too.

Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Parenting

Yin yang

Jen

It’s almost 6 months since we moved to Israel…and I’ll soon compose a contemplative look back at our transition to life here. But in the meantime, I’m doing eight loads of laundry in a crappy stackable washer/dryer set that’s shoved in too tight into our bathroom and it got me wondering…how is my life easier and harder compared to my life in the NJ suburbs?

I recently discovered this blog post at BrainPickings.org in which they feature a film of people discussing their “perfect city.” I loved watching what people had to say about their ideal community, and then thinking about my own answer, particularly since I have been so immersed in and focused on intentional community since we moved here.

The answer for me, if I’m offering the simple one, is “my ideal community would make my life feel easy.” Why? Because I find that the “easier” my life feels, the easier it is for me to give and receive. To love and be loved. To enjoy life. To live in the present. To smile. To breathe.

Why “feel” easy? Because, as you must know, there is no easy and hard. There’s only what you feel is easy and what you interpret as hard.

Now, of course, living in (or participating in)  intentional community isn’t always easy. Like life, living in a small, intentional community is give and take; sweet and sour; hot and cold; easy and hard. It’s our job to be mindful of the balance, no? 

Much of what makes my life feel easier here has to do with living in intentional community. I’m very present to that fact, and thankful for it, because it really counterbalances most of what makes my life seem harder here:

  • Bugs
  • Parasitic bugs that like to live in your hair
  • Critters
  • Poisonous critters
  • Critters that hang out on your ceiling while you’re sleeping
  • Critters that hang out on your porch waiting to bite you
  • Dirt
  • Dirt that somehow ends up in your dryer, despite going through a wash cycle
  • Dirt that won’t come out of your laundry…ever
  • Dust
  • Dust on your window screen, on your floors, car windows
  • Cleaning dust on a tri-weekly basis
  • Being far away from family and friends
  • Being far away from family and friends, and trying to find a good time to Skype with a 7-hour time difference
  • Food
  • Food-centric society
  • Food-centric society that loves the foods my kids are allergic to
  • Food-centric society that isn’t necessarily mindful about how said food leads to rotten teeth, poor behavior, and childhood obesity
  • Crappy appliances
  • Foreign germs
  • Language barriers
  • Bureacracy
  • Crazy drivers
  • And, in a nutshell, a society that cares little for clear order, rules, organization, structure, or advance notice

When I get aggravated about, annoyed with, or frustrated by the things that seem to make my life harder here, I try to remind myself of what makes my life feel easier:

  • Intentional community: Neighbors that want to get to know me, and do
  • Family-friendly community (and by community, I mean both specifically the “yishuv” of Hannaton, and Israeli society)
  • The sharing, caring, and intimacy that comes with living in small community
  • Open space
  • Open space filled with children my children’s ages
  • Mild weather
  • The beach
  • Less time in the car (walking the kids to preschool, the bus stop, etc.)
  • Family nearby
  • Shabbat
  • Shabbat dinners at my house (where your kids to entertain mine)
  • Shabbat dinners at your house (where my kids eat your food and you clean up after them)
  • English-speaking co-workers
  • English-speaking neighbors
  • Hebrew-speaking neighbors that are tolerant of my “Heeblish”
  • Minimalistic lifestyle

  • Yoga on my neighbbor’s rooftop

  • Letting go…

The list is much longer than this, I am sure. And could get a lot more detailed and specific. And perhaps it will…

I’d love to hear your thoughts on your “ideal community.” What about where you live makes your life easy or hard? If you could live anywhere, would you live where you do? And if not, where would you live?