Memories of Israel Folk Dance Festival, New York, 1970

I'm someplace in this video. I've watched it many times even in slow motion and can't really find myself. My sister also danced in the NCSY group which I had led. I can't find her either, though she should be easy to find. She's relatively short. Ours is the Wedding Dance with the bride. 

The NCSY National Conference of Synagogue Youth was the youth organization that changed my life. By attending its events in the middle 1960s I became familiar with Torah Judaism. I don't like the term "orthodox."

I'm sure you can guess
which is me.

In 1967 I danced in the NCSY group when it was led by the legendary Leah Weiner, Z"L, May Her Memory Be a Blessing. In 1968 we didn't have a group, (Leah didn't head the group then) though we danced in the Salute to Israel Parade. Look at the picture on the right. The parade organizers used the picture of me and my friend for the advertisement for the following year's parade. 

After the disappointment in 1968 that we hadn't danced in the Israeli Folk Dance Festival headed by Fred Berk, I made it clear to NCSY that I'd be taking over the dance group. There was no way that we'd miss another festival.

In 1969 we danced a "Shabbat Candle-lighting Dance." My choreography was considered "horrendous," so the head choreographer put something together for us, and I had the "whip" the girls/dancers into performance shape. I guess I'm a better leader than choreographer, since we surprised them with a well-danced performance. We had been warned that if we weren't up to par, we wouldn't participate in the festival. We were also given tips for costumes and props. I may have sewn all the skirts, which we used again the following year. Possibly others helped with the sewing.

Now for Israeli Dance Festival 1970--

After my experience the previous year, I had decided not to dance with the group. It's very hard to make sure lines are straight and everyone's movements are coordinated when dancing with everyone. And again the head choreographer redid the dance. 

I didn't mind not dancing the "dance," because I'd still be dancing the in the finale. For the very first time, Fred Berk had the type of stage he had always been dreaming of. There wouldn't be a theatrical stage with curtains. Fred had always said that folk dance includes and entrance and exit. He envisioned a large area where the dancers would wait together, each group rising and entering when it was their turn. This was able to happen in Felt Forum- Madison Square Garden a huge indoor sports stadium in midtown Manhattan. And since there was enough room, we were to end with all the groups dancing together. You'll see that in the film.

Back to the NCSY group. Somehow we ended up with one too many dancers, but thankfully, two didn't mind only dancing in one performance, rather than both afternoon and evening. And I found it much easier to lead the group to "perfection" when not dancing with them. Being that this was my third festival and second time leading, I was confident that we'd do a great job. 

But... the morning of the performance when we arrived for the one and only dress rehearsal... I discovered that two of my dancers weren't there. They were both out sick. One had a bad flu and the other being checked for possible appendicitis. Okay... yes... and how did we solve that problem?

Even though I had never danced the dance, only supervised, I found myself having to dance. And even scarier, I had to lead a line, so it was hard to cheat and follow the others. But somehow I pulled it off. One of the sick ones felt better by evening performance and participated then. So I don't know if I'm in the dance part of the movie; though I was in the finale for sure.

That's the behind the scene story of the NCSY Dance Group 1970.

Baile Rochel Tries A "New" Art Medium

 Since, as my sister says: 

"We're from a family of artists."

I'm always on the prowl, the intrepid searcher, for a new art medium which will make me feel like one of the clan. Luckily my cheerful, optimistic disposition hasn't given up the fight against PTS post traumatic stress from all the times my horrendously unsuccessful attempts to draw and paint got me nothing but clear unmistakable mockery and criticism.

Thank Gd, a few decades ago I discovered photography and more recently mosaics which are art forms, art media, requiring no drawing at all. Jackson Pollock got away with splashing paint all over the place, but early in his career he showed that he could produce stunning realistic images. The same goes for Picasso. They didn't go abstract because they couldn't draw.

A few weeks ago I found myself signing up for a two session Pottery Workshop. There were two things going for it. One is that the price is subsidized, though I'm still not sure what it will cost, and secondly I envisioned myself producing a beautifully designed and molded mug for my morning coffee to be photographed for my daily #morningcoffeehaiku and #cinquains. 

The Art Center is a short walk from my house, but of course I got there ridiculously early and helped the young woman in charge set the room up. As the other participants showed up, I realized that they were young enough to be my granddaughters. I had even been at the weddings of the parents of two and am friends with their grandparents. But I'm used to being the oldest... Of course I was also the only one masked, since I don't know...

We finally got started an hour or more after I had arrived*, and my eyes were shooting poison arrows at the teacher. While we had been waiting everyone was chatting, and some were noshing. The leader kept asking me to participate, but I was embarrassed to say that I'm waiting for my hearing aids to be ready. They weren't even at the age of reading glasses. I could barely hear them, so I kept tuning out.

I understood the instructions, but deja vu nothing I tried to form looked like it was supposed be. The clay I rolled into strings looked like a snake that had feasted on a few mice, rather than the perfectly identical diameter strings I was supposed to produce. After trying to make some sort of bowl, similar to others, I gave up. My attempts looked like the awful "worst in the group" blobs of my childhood memories.

I squished it all together and decided to go in a totally different direction, a "plate" for the Passover Seder. 

"A Seder Plate?" my classmates asked.

"No, just something to place the matzah on." I answered.

"Maybe you should make it more perfectly round" they gently suggested when I was almost finished.

"No, hand matzah isn't usually perfectly round," I replied with the confidence of a true artist.

The teacher has taken all of our "pottery" to dry and then bake in her special oven/kiln. Next week, Gd willing we'll get to paint our art before being baked again. 

*Gd willing, I'll expand on this in the future, since this story is long enough.

Still More Stories To Tell About Our Early Days In Israel 50 Years Since Aliyah

I've written a bit about our early days in Israel on Shiloh Musings, since it's already fifty 50 years since our aliyah. There's lots more to tell. That first year in Israel was quite a year. We arrived by boat as newlyweds and finished the year as parents of an adorable baby girl.

Davka, our neighbors, even our closest friends in Shiloh, know almost nothing about that first year. It was a full decade before we moved to Shiloh. The one person we knew then in the Old City of Jerusalem, yes that's where we lived most of the first year, passed away a few years ago. That's one of the reasons I offered to tell our story to the senior citizen club, Adarta. Even though it's for our age, we generally don't go to the meetings. When we celebrated our fiftieth 50th wedding anniversary I realized that only two other couples have been married longer than we have. And as olim immigrants who had made aliyah as a married couple, we hold that record as having done it longer ago than any other.

I gave the talk in both Hebrew and English, translating for myself. The most frightening part was being without my mask, but all the audience wore masks and kept distant. 

Many in the audience want to hear more of my stories, so maybe I'll speak again to them.

Photos by Linda Fairman

Mango Memories & No Work Mango "Sorbet"

I think I ate my first mango in London.

We were there for two years in the mid-1970's. All sorts of imported "exotic" fruits and vegetables were available in Golders Green. Many were even from Israel. My Cousin Fran from Brooklyn visited us one winter day and brought a big bag of delicious fruit as a house gift:

"I figured that this was the best of kosher food for you, especially since I don't know what's kosher here."

Back to the mango:
Mango, avocado, artichoke and other Israeli staples weren't seen in New York when I was growing up. Certainly they weren't in our neighborhood stores, and my parents were pretty adventurous when it came to trying new foods.

It's not that mango wasn't for sale in Israel. During our early years in Israel, I was happy with the better than in New York standard high quality summer fruit like melon, watermelon, bananas and peaches. Davka, those weren't all that great in London. Imported lost some of the quality I had gotten used to.

I had read about the high healthy vitamin content in a mango so I bought some. They were a hit with me and our daughters, especially with the fussy eater. Mangoes are expensive, so I never used to buy them very often.

Now, when I buy mangoes for myself, I use them to "make sorbet."

• freeze ripe mango
• remove frozen mango from freezer
• thaw enough to cut slices
• eat
• One of my sons takes the chunks of frozen mangoes, mashes them by hand or in food processor and refreezes to serve more impressively as "sorbet."

Can anything be easier or more delicious?

Bonus:Totally healthy and no added sugar!

Table for Two, Passover, 2020, Pesach 5780 מה נשתנה הלילה הזה?

?מה נשתנה הלילה הזה

Here are two views of our Passover Seder Table, which for the very first time in history was set and ready before I lit the holiday candles. I'm not sure exactly how many of the forty-nine, yes 49 s'darim we've had as a married couple we hosted. It's most probably just over half or two-thirds.



But one thing for sure; I never had the table fully set before lighting candles before. So we have no old photos of the table all set up.

In addition, from the time our daughters were old enough, they took charge of setting the table, so I probably haven't done it alone for well over forty years.

I had too many matzah covers to choose from. I gave my husband his traditional one, which had been given to us by my parents. And I used mine, which I had embroidered from a kit over forty years ago. Others we must have inherited from my parents' stock of Judaica.

On the table there are lots of memories plus the mosaic hotplate I made in our local senior citizen group. The Seder Plate and other hotplate were gifts from friends. The two-handled washing cup was from (one of) our children. I'm pretty sure that the glass wine goblets date back to a rather large seder we hosted in our small Jerusalem apartment over forty years ago.

Another first time in well over forty years, my husband did the entire seder on his own. All I contributed was the ?מה נשתנה הלילה הזה Mah nishtanah...? Why is this night...? aka the Four Questions. And of course I planned and cooked, while he followed his tradition of preparing the charoset (chopped apples and nuts) and chrain, horseradish paste.

Now I must prepare for Shabbat. No time to rest/goof off.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Pesach Kasher V'Sameach

Winter Blues...

I love sunrises. They cheer me up. Way back when... I remember sitting by a view of the sunrise nursing my first children. Our Jerusalem apartment's bedroom faced east looking over most of Jerusalem. It was spellbinding.

A few years later when we moved to Shiloh, I picked a building plot on the eastern side of the neighborhood. We have enormous windows in the living room and dining room facing east. Stunning sunrises greet me spring and summer when I get up.

But now we're mid-winter. It's so hard to get up to darkness. Gd willing soon the days will be longer, and morning will start earlier. In the meantime...

"Pin The Tail on The Donkey" Genre of Homemade Games

Way back in the middle of the previous century, when I was a kid, "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" was a standard party game. My mother bought us some for my kids and their friends to play, too. It was a regular feature in the birthday parties I organized along with unattractive and unfashionably "healthy" birthday cakes.

As a savta, grandma, I reprised the genre as our traditional Family Chanuka Party Game by taking a large piece of oak-tag and drawing a chanukiya Chanuka Menorah sans candles or flames. Then I'd cut out candles/flames, and get the whole family to join in playing a version of "Pin The Tail on The Donkey."

Recently my daughter created a new version of the famous classic "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" for a birthday by drawing a birthday cake with candles sans flames. I cut out flames, and the children, blindfolded of course, had to try to stick the flame on the candles.

For some strange reason, most likely the result of the "Children Shouldn't Feel Like Failures" culture, instead of laughing at badly placed flames, they coached each other:

"A bit higher"
"To the right"
"To the left"
"Lower"
"That's perfect"

The kids had fun, but they didn't learn to plan and calculate in the dark to develop survival skills, which is the real purpose of the game.

You can take the basic idea and make up a game for children, teens or adults. It could be a lot of fun and very low tech, too.

Astounding Growth, Shiloh's Elementary Schools

September 1, 2019, first day of school

Thirty-eight years ago, September 1, 1981, the Shiloh Elementary School, Ohel Shiloh, opened its doors, yes doors since each class was in a separate small building, for the first time. There were eighteen students in three classes, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades.

In 1981, Shiloh was a small, rather isolated community which was trying to grow and expand. It had been decided that in order to attract more families, make life easier, more attractive and provide employment opportunities, they would open a school.

A local school was one of the factors that helped us decide to move to Shiloh, even though our eldest daughter would have to travel to Ofra. There weren't enough "older children" to have more than three classes. For the first school year, the classes were in new prefabricated homes that Arik Sharon, as Minister of Housing, had brought to Shiloh. Even though the summer of 1981 brought a record-breaking number of new families to Shiloh, most of the houses were empty. It was good to have the school using three of them.

The following year, the school moved down to the neighborhood near the Tel Shiloh, and more prefabricated buildings were brought in for the growing school. A few years later a proper school building was built in the "Middle" of Shiloh, between Tel Shiloh and our neighborhood over a mile up the hill. Preschools and the Infant Day Care Center were also built in the area. More buildings had to be added to the elementary school, as it reached eight grades plus separate classes for boys and girls. As the school continued to grow, especially since students came from nearby Eli, Maale Levona, Shevut Rachel, Shiloh Valley hilltop communities, Southern Shomron and  Jordan Valley, two separate schools were set up, one for the boys and one for the girls.

My youngest child graduated 8th grade over twenty years ago when the school was still relatively small and hadn't yet been divided. I've had little reason to enter it, more accurately the schools, besides Election Day, for many years. And the voting booths/stations are set up in the building cloest to the entrance to the schools' campus. Since there's now a maze of buildings, I can't even point out the original one, where I had been the girls gym teacher for many years. Davka, this week my I accompanied a friend in one of the buildings in the middle of the campus. She had to bring something to one of her children. If I hadn't been with her, I'd still be trying to find my way out.

Here are a few pictures of Ohel Shiloh Elementary Schools circa 2019, 5779-80 on the Jewish Calendar.

Hiking Shoes? Only in Israel

One of those very "Only in Israel" things is the Israeli understanding of Hiking Shoes, especially for people my age and older. When I was at last week's Kenes Shiloh, I took one of the offered walking tours.

Before all the lectures start, one can register in advance for one of two tours. One is for "first-time" visitors, or those who hadn't been to Shiloh Hakeduma in the past few years. It gives a general background of Tel Shiloh and takes the participants to the movie, among other sites. And I go on the tour for recent visitors which tries to give us the latest discoveries and the newest high tech sites.

Even though these tours are walking tours, more like hikes, many participants are older than me and need the aid of walking sticks etc. Besides that, look at their "hiking shoes."  Yes, Israelis wear sandals for hiking.

I wore comfortable sneakers, which are my summer hiking shoes.

My guess is that most older Israelis don't find anything strange or unusual in hiking in sandals. That's how they had been raised. Even in the 1970s when my older children were young, your typical Israeli only had one pair of shoes at a time. They had heavy 100% leather shoes in the winter and sandals, also of leather, in the summer. These shoes and sandals were also produced here in Israel.

One summer in the late 1970s the girls and I spent the summer in New York with the family. (My husband joined us for August, since he needed to work.) My mother registered my older daughters in a free local day camp. We sent them with their lunch, so kashrut wasn't a problem. One of the first days of camp they came back reporting that they had been forbidden to play sports.

"Why?"
"Only children wearing sports shoes were allowed. Sandals aren't considered safe here."

So we quickly went off to buy them sneakers.

In Israel kids played soccer in sandals. They kicked balls and hiked in their summer sandals. There were no such rules about shoes being required at that time. A few years later, when we were already living in Shiloh, I became the girls gym teacher. The girls were required to wear suitable shoes for sports classes. I also made them wear pants under their skirts for modesty. I even calculated their grades according to their cooperation with the dress cold. My rationale was that sports talents were gifts from Gd, while they were responsible for dressing themselves. I didn't like the idea of giving a girl a low grade, because she hadn't been blessed with athletic ability.

What do you think?

Beatles, Memories of My Youth

I'm not shy about admitting my age, recently 70, so you shouldn't be surprised that I loved the Beatles' music. I sang it and danced to it. And I still do.

My first "introduction" was a letter from a British "penpal," who sent an article about them. And then their music began to be heard in New York. I think that one of the reasons the Beatles was so much fun to dance to, in contrast to today's music is because of the live drumming of Ringo Starr. For me the mechanical drumming you hear today is a total turnoff. It's so artificial.

I'm happy that there was a mini-reunion performance with Ringo and Paul McCartney. They're older than me, so I find it inspiring and encouraging that they can still perform.

Israel Museum, Peter Pan

The big exhibit now in the Israel Museum is about Peter Pan. I found it very interesting, though the "Peter Pan" I grew up with, singing along all the songs, wasn't included. I'm of the generation of Mary Martin's Peter Pan.  I would watch it every year on television. My mother bought the album, and I'd play it, sing along. Even today I know almost every song, and certainly can sing along, picturing it in "color," even though tv was black and white.

Visit the Israel Museum, and tell me what memories Peter Pan awake in you.

Mother's Day? No Breakfast in Bed for Me

I have no memories of celebrating "Mother's Day" for my mother when I was a kid. She got gypped, because her birthday was May 14, and there were no "double celebrations" by us. We weren't much of a party family.

My mother and I, a gazillion years ago, in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY

Actually, I have a vague memory of a disastrous attempt to serve my mother "breakfast in bed," never again attempted.

Maybe that's why the idea of breakfast in bed sort of turns my stomach. I don't understand the attraction. All I can think of is the dirt, the food getting all over the sheet and blanket, which could bring bugs. And then all the extra laundry to clean it up.

Besides the mess that breakfast in bed can easily make, today, as a religious Jew, who makes a point to pray the Shacharit, Morning Prayer, properly dressed each day before eating breakfast, I can't quite figure out the logistics. Am I supposed to change back into pyjamas, and then climb into bed before eating? Trust me. I'm more comfortable sitting at the table.

I have no objection to eating breakfast "out," whether a hotel breakfast, a restaurant or special breakfast with friends. But first I try to at least drink my water plus some coffee, and pray of course.
After that you can serve me.

There wasn't an American style "Mother's Day" here in Israel when my kids lived at home. Now that they're all grown and out of the house, I try to get a bit of quality time with each whenever possible, a lot more frequently than one day a year.

It's strange to think that I'm the matriarch with grown children and grandchildren. My cousins and I are the "older generation." Most of us are older than our grandparents were as we remember them. Actually, I've already lived longer than three of my grandparents. That thought/fact makes me treasure every day Gd gives me, even though my parents lived much longer.

I enjoy the blessing of health and being able to get out of bed each morning and starting the day admiring the sunrise, drinking lemon water, then coffee.



Breakfast is for later and never in bed.

Remembering My Father

I just posted about my father, three years after his death, on Shiloh Musings.
My Father, Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 3 Years
You can read about him there.

BTW, in one of those strange quirks of Halacha, Jewish Law, I got up from shiva before he was actually buried.

Signs of Spring: Fresh Garlic!

The other day when I went down to our local Shiloh macolet, grocer-supermarket, I was greeted with a sure sign of spring, fresh garlic.

When we were newcovers to Israel, I couldn't understand what the garlicky smell was on buses every year between Purim and Passover. It was like suddenly being in an Italian deli.

It took a couple of years to discover what fresh garlic is, and that this is the fresh garlic season. When we were growing up, garlic was just of the powdered variety, bought in small jars. Very rarely did my mother ever buy a fresh garlic bulb/clove. And that was around the time I wasn't living fulltime with my parents and siblings.

The first time my husband and I bought fresh garlic, it lasted a year. I only cooked with it on very rare occasions. We still were using powdered garlic, and at that time I didn't buy the dried cloves/bulbs. Now, we always have a supply of "real garlic." And I don't buy powdered garlic, just the coarser ground in jars, which is rarely used.

Next week I'll have my husband buy fresh garlic in Machane Yehuda, and we'll hang it to dry before using. He's a shuq addict. I try to patronize the local store, but that's another post...

Today's The Game- How did I End Up in The Bleachers?

You probably don't believe me, but not only am I not from an athletic family. None of us were sportsmen. We weren't in any of the school teams. We didn't watched sports, not on television and not in the stands. Only once did my father take my brother to baseball game, and that was because his cousin's husband somehow convinced him that they should do a father-son outing together. For a short time in high school, I went to junior varsity basketball home games and did have fun cheering Great Neck North, which probably won every game. None of my friends went to them or the varsity games, even though our school was generally first or second in all categories. Once I became active in the Great Neck Synagogue Teen Club, NCSY* chapter, that was the end of my life as a spectator.

So, it's rather funny to think that today I'm one of the loyal fans, too hyper even at my age, to cheer the Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions from a seat. I guess that I'm considered one of the "local characters" by the team and other fans. "Why?" You're probably wondering.

When my youngest child came back from his post-army sojourn in New York, he was hooked on American tackle football. He tried out for Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions and became part of the defense. And we started going to the games to cheer for him and the team. At that time the Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions was a middling team and didn't win any championships. But I enjoyed watching, being with most of my children, getting to know other fans and the energy surge I felt even as a spectator. After a number of years, my son was appointed head coach, and in his second season, which would make a great movie, the Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions won the IsraelBowl X Championship! That was two years ago, and last year we also won.

Today at 11am in the Kraft Family Sports Campus, we'all watch IsraelBowl XII and cheer on the Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions and pray for a third record-breaking championship in a row, Gd willing. Yaala Big Blue!

*Davka, one of the players in Jerusalem "Big Blue" Lions is the grandson of NCSYers from the 1960s.

Our TU B'Shvat Seder and Memories

Most Jews, and even many non-Jews, know about the Pesach/Passover Seder, where we are commanded to eat matzah, that dry tasteless cracker like bread and drink four cups of wine. But there's another seder, which has been gaining in popularity, the TU B'Shvat Seder. For a Jewish religious ceremony, it's rather new, only a few hundred years or so.

Growing up in American in the 1950s, we got bags of dried fruit and nuts to commemorate TU B'Shvat at the Oakland Jewish Center Hebrew School. Friends and neighbors from all over the world, a bit younger and older than myself, have similar memories. We were told that the raisins, figs, almonds and bokser, dried carob pods were from Israel, and on TU B'Shvat we opened our brown paper gift bags to eat them together.

In Israel, when we lived in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem, the preschools would walk to the large almond tree near our building and serenade it singing השקדיה פורחת Hashkaydia Porachat, The Almond Tree is Blooming. We'd have to send various fruit with our young daughters which would be made into a large large fruit salad. That was all the TU B'Shvat celebration I knew of.

After we moved to Shiloh, we began hearing about and being invited to various TU B'Shvat s'derim, which seemed to vary from year to year and host to host. The most memorable one, which was attended by lots of olim chadashim, new immigrants from the USSR and "adopting families." This TU B'Shvat seder included drinking four cups of wine, beginning with white wine and ending with a dark red wine.

I highly doubt that we've ever been to two TU B'Shvat s'darim that used the same text/instructions. Last night we went to our daughter's family in Ofra, and it was totally different from any other. There was barely a mention of wine. If I understood correctly, this one emphasized the seven species of grain and fruit grown naturally here in the Land of Israel. It was accompanied by a delicious meat meal.

The Seder TU B'Shvat we used was very "child friendly," and the younger grandchildren there really participated it. Our grandson kept quizzing us with tree related riddles he had heard. Some were solved with general knowledge, while others were more like puns.

Since the celebration of TU B'Shvat is very flexible, there's a way to commemorate the day that suits all. Following are a few links to help you:

The Tu B’Shvat Revolution
Kabbalistic Tu B'shvat Seder
Tu B’Shevat: Basics
ABCs of Tu B’Shvat