Security Check: "It's A Fork, Not A Knife!"

One of my ways of saving time, money and calories is to bring my own food when I go places such as to work or to classes.  There's no more "picking up a sandwich or something."  When I first started doing it, I'd bring plastic utensils, knife, fork, spoon, but the money adds up and they break, so I figured that if I'm already washing out the container, I can also wash my regular fork plus.

Nu, it does make sense, but...

Then one time I was checked at the security to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station aka  CBS.

"Lady, is that a knife in your bag?"
"No, it's a fork and a spoon."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"We'll have to run it through the x-ray again."

So I passed the very heavy bag, full of books, back through the machine again.  The inspector peered at the screen.

"Lady, unpack your bag so I can see what you have."

So, I unpacked and showed her the fork and spoon.

"OK, you can go now."

And to show her that I wasn't angry, I thanked her, really, for doing her job the right way.  Thank G-d I had time.  Sometimes I don't have a spare second before catching my bus.

ps  the following week I took the train in the other direction from the shuk (Machane Yehuda) and caught my bus at a regular bus stop, since I hadn't taken along plastic utensils.

Northern Lights' Havel Havelim Debut

Reflecting on the debut Havel Havelim up on Northern Lights & Reflections....

The blogger who "owns" Northern Lights is also the "owner" of Frugal and Kosher where the next Kosher Cooking Carnival will be Rosh Chodesh Tammuz June 20, G-d willing.  That gives her a double header in the jblog world.  Not too many of us have done that. Two Jewish Blog Carnivals in one month!  Submit your posts by clicking  here or email: kosherfrugal@gmail.com, and if you want to host one, please contact me, thanks.  We also have a facebook group you can join if you're interested.
Back to HH...
NL did a great job on Havel Havelim, so be sure to check it and all of the included posts out and share of course.  To get more involved in HH you can join our facebook group.

Skateboarding in Safra Square (Jerusalem Municipality)

There are still holes, bullet holes, on some of the outer buildings in the area of Safra Square.  That's because the area was once one of the most dangerous in all of Jerusalem.  It had been the border between Israeli Jerusalem and Jordanian Jerusalem, and it's just near the Old City Walls, not all that far from the Jaffa Gate.   The border went down in June, 1967, when Israel defeated Jordan and the city was united.

The large impressive Jerusalem Municipality complex incorporates some of the old buildings, which as I just wrote still show the scars of those dangerous times when Israel was being attacked in Jerusalem.

Teddy Kollek was Jerusalem's Mayor then and for quite a few years afterwards.  That big complex was his project.  It rings a large square used for all sorts of events. But it's mostly empty.  I utilize the public toilets there, as I wrote in Pishers' Guide to Jerusalem part 1.

The other day when I was there I saw some kids skateboarding.  It's a great place for that, since there are large spaces and peculiarly located steps.

I'm glad I didn't see any injuries/accidents.  It's a pretty dangerous sport.

Who Said It's Hard to Eat Healthy?

Too many people use the "it's too hard," or "too much work" excuse to make healthy food.  I got 15 kilo (30 lbs) off over three years ago by switching to eating lots of cooked vegetables and almost no carbohydrates.  The weight has stayed off. And a year and a half ago my husband was told to lose weight, too.  He lost even more than I did and has kept it off.  I don't call it a diet; I call what we did a "change in how we eat."

I cook and we eat lots of vegetables.  I even take them the work.  And I found that most restaurants will gladly substitute salads and vegetables for the rice or potatoes on their set menus.  They want our business ($) and if they must make some accommodations, they're happy to do it.

The following pictures will give you an idea of what you can do with all sorts of vegetables when baking them.  These baked vegetables are very impressive when entertaining or bringing as "house gifts" when you're invited out.  My friends expect vegetables from me.  When I bring trays of baked vegetables I know that I'll have something to eat.

The trick is to experiment to see what cooks the easiest and what you like.  I always dribble a bit of oil on top.  You can add whatever seasonings you like.  I don't add salt.  Baked vegetables don't lose their flavor.  They aren't waterlogged.

I bake them in a conventional oven, although they can also be cooked more quickly in a microwave.

You don't even have to slice them.

Have fun and let me know about your recipes.

Writing With Pretzels

Last week when I went to the grandkids to babysit, I brought along pretzels I had left over from the Shavuot shiur/class we had hosted.  Pretzels are one of my food weaknesses.  I just can't stop eating them, so I figured the kids could help me finish the bag.

Not only did they eat them, but my preschool (nu, can't I brag?) grandson suddenly called out:

"Here's a C, and two pieces together make a 3..."

I had never thought of  using pretzels for writing, but as long as I wasn't eating more, I was happy!

It All Works Out, Thank G-d

Last night I was at a beautiful and special wedding near the Dead Sea.  The groom had studied there and  is very attached to the place.  It's very popular in Israel for kids to pick out of the way places for their weddings.  Setting up a wedding like that can be a logistical nightmare, but Israelis love those sorts of challenges.

For some of us attendees, arranging transportation was the challenge.  I reserved my ride there soon after I got my invitation, but it didn't include the ride home, since the driver had other plans.  When I asked around for a ride back I kept hearing:

"There are always lots of rides back from people who come from work."

Four of us got our ride with the same neighbor, and some others, including my husband arrived on a bus from Jerusalem for Jerusalemites.  We all needed rides home.

We asked everyone we could and couldn't find a ride.  We were getting worried. Then slowly the "no's" became "maybes" and finally the magic "yes."  My husband and I each found separate rides, but that didn't matter.  We'd both get home.  Then his ride said:

"In the end the other passengers are going in a later ride, so there's room for both of you."

I guess that's because we were among the first to leave.   So I informed my ride that I wouldn't need it, and we made it home safe and sound.

Avoiding Those Dangers on the Road

There are those who claim their refusal to visit my neck of the woods, Shiloh is what they claim is rational... Arab terrorists. 

But the truth is, statistics show that the biggest danger on the roads is from car accidents.  Nobody and no vehicle are immune.

Some accidents are caused by dangerous driving, car malfunction and more. 

One of the most common causes nowadays is lack of attention to the road.  We all multi-task.  There are advantages to it at times, but at other times it can be deadly.  I'm always a passenger, which is how I can take these photos from a moving car.

Recently a very good short movie was produced showing the dangers of using your cell/smart phone while driving.  How can one concentrate on the road and other vehicles when he or she is searching for a number or letter on the phone?  Mistakes, lack of concentration that lasts less than a second can be fatal or cause serious injury.



The phone call or message can wait until after driving, or it may be too late  G-d forbid.

PS One of the stars is my good friend Sharon Katz of Voices Magazine.

Behind the Scenes, Movie-Making Time

Shiloh Hakeduma, Ancient Shiloh, aka Tel Shiloh is having a new movie made to show students and tourists what life probably was like thousands of years ago when Jewish pilgrims came to Shiloh to pray in the Mishkan Tabernacle.

Last week when my friends and I met at Tel Shiloh for our monthly Rosh Chodesh (beginning of the Jewish Month) Women's Prayers we saw the sets.

I applied to be an extra when the call went out a couple of weeks before then, but I wasn't accepted.  It wasn't anything "personal." The production company had decided to bring their own professional extras.  And then I ended up too busy those days to go down and watch the shooting.

So, I'll have to be patient and wait until the film is actually shown.

Next Rosh Chodesh, Tammuz, we'll meet again:

The Rosh Chodesh Tammuz Women's Prayers at

Shiloh HaKeduma, Ancient Shiloh,

Tel Shiloh

Thursday, June 21, 2012 8:30am

Shiur Torah, Short Tour & Torah Lesson

Please come and invite family, friends and neighbors

תפילת נשים ראש חודש תמוז שילה הקדומה, בתל שילה

יום ה' 21-6 8:30

יהיו סיור ודבר תורה קצרים

נא לבוא, לפרסם ולהזמין חברות, משפחה ושכנות

HH #361 @ 10 Agaroth

The latest Havel Havelim, a floating internet magazine of Jewish and Israeli based blog posts, is hosted by Ya'aqov this week on his Esser Agaroth.  There is a nice variety of articles for your reading pleasure.  Please visit, read, comment and share.

Next week it will be hosted by Northern Lights who also blogs  Frugal and Kosher.  To send in a link email kosherfrugal@gmail.com  or try the HH submission form.  For information about hsoting an edition of Havel Havelim join our facebook group/page.

There are two other jblog carnivals, Kosher Cooking Carnival and JPIX.  Get involved with the community.

Mother Talk, Israeli Style

During a recent visit to New York I tried to have a "mother of soldier" chat with a mother of an American solider, but we discovered that being a mother of an Israeli soldier is nothing like that of having a child in the American armed forces.

When Israeli mothers of soldiers get together one of the big topics is how to get all the laundry done before the soldier-kids have to rush back to base. For some of us, more than one child serves at the same time. Washing machines are frequently small and slow and my sons' uniforms couldn't be washed together, because one was filled with dirt and the other with machine oil. 

My trick was to make sure we had a large supply, enough to fill two backpacks, of uniforms, socks, underwear etc.  Instead of rushing to the laundry room as soon as the soldiers came home, they would just put their dirty stuff in the hamper and then fill their bags with clean clothes.  I then had all week to do their army laundry.

I was looked at  with total incomprehension. American soldiers don't take their uniforms home for mommy to launder.  And the distances between home and the base or frontline could mean that a home visit may only be once a year, not a couple of times a month or more.

Israel, A Wonderful Country, Wonderful People, The Sabra

I admit that there are many times I complain about Israel and even about Israelis.  Doesn't everybody?  That doesn't mean that I don't think I live in the greatest place in the world.  I have the most wonderful neighbors.  Really!  When you add up the pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, the help and the annoying things, it's clear that there is no place better to live than Israel.  And I must say that Shiloh, at least for us, is the best of the best.

Ruthie Blum's latest Israel Hayom article touches on some of these points.  She wrote about the terrible tragedy that recently happened to the Attias family:

Rafi and Yehudit Attias, a couple in their early forties, were driving home late at night from a Torah dedication ceremony in honor of Rafi’s father. With them in their minivan were their seven children: Avia, 17; Neria and Elyashiv, 16-year-old twins; Shira, 11; Ta'ir, 9; Rachel, 7; and Noa, 5. At some point, Rafi realized his brakes weren’t working, and he called the police, then handed his wife the telephone while he tried to maneuver the car. Yehudit gave the dispatcher their location. The next thing the dispatcher heard was screaming.
By the time the police arrived on the scene, it was too late. The minivan had gone over a highway divider, crossed over four lanes of oncoming traffic, crashed through an iron fence, flipped over, rolled down a hill, and burst into flames.
Miraculously, 7-year-old Rachel managed to crawl out of the car before it caught on fire. She was the only member of the entire family to survive the crash — and with minor physical injuries, to boot. Her emotional scarring is another story entirely.
The child was rushed to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, where she was attended to lovingly by the medical and social work staff, as well as surrounded by members of her extended family — themselves barely having had a chance to absorb what had befallen them.

I hadn't written about it, probably because it hit too close to home. Over twenty years ago, neighbors of ours were traveling home from shopping in Jerusalem. A family of eight, both parents and six children squeezed into a sedan, five-seater. In those days the law didn't require everyone to be belted into a seat. A bus hit the car and the father and three out of six children were killed. We came across them after the survivors had gotten first aid before the ambulances had arrived. We (and the other people in the car we were in) stayed with them until they were taken to the hospital. And over a decade before that in New York my father's cousin and his wife were taking their daughter to start university. The car flipped over, and the eighteen year old flew out and broke her arm. Her parents were killed on impact and left their two teenagers orphaned.

Car accidents are big dangers, more than terrorism and war and plane crashes etc.  You don't have to be in the car to be a victim.  One of my children was seriously injured when a car knocked him off of his bicycle.  The reason we have been  hosting a shiur Torah Class every Shavuot for over twenty years has been to thank G-d for his recovery.

During the weeks my son was in the hospital getting medical care, my neighbors were fantastic.  And during an earlier time when a different child was hospitalized for a number of weeks, we also got the most amazing help from neighbors.

Not long ago a young man in the community was diagnosed with cancer.  He is now, Baruch Hashem, in remission; G-d willing, he is cured.  He  got married a couple of months ago, post-treatment, and he thanked all the neighbors who visited and always asked how he was doing.  The hospital staff was amazed at his "large family" and couldn't believe that they were mostly neighbors.

Ruthie Blum usually writes just hard-hitting political op-eds, but this article she stressed how the Israeli public rallied around the young orphan, the sole survivor of that devastating accident.  It's the news the world likes to ignore.

Israels are called sabras, the fruit of the prickly cactus.  The sabra is a sweet fruit protected by sharp thorns.  Yes, that's your typical classic Israeli.

Dairy on Shavuot?

When I was first becoming religious and then for next thirty years or so, I understood the Shavuot holiday to be the "dairy" one, no compromising on it.  The main course was cheesecake and whatever fish and cheeses served in the earlier part of the meal would only be playing second fiddle to the cheesecake.  Then our daughter married a Tunisian Jew, and we discovered that dairy wasn't on the menu for Shavuot.

In recent years, I've read more and more articles and had more and more discussions with people about meat being required for Shavuot to make it festive.  That seemed strange to me, because I had spent twenty-five years as a vegetarian and had no problems celebrating at non-meat meals.  I really celebrated on Shavuot, because it was the only Jewish Holiday during which I enjoyed the meals and ended up feeling satisfied.  Another thing is that more and more people I know serve fish/dairy on Shabbat.  Fish is more expensive than chicken in Israel, so shouldn't that make it a festive menu?

This year Shavuot starts Saturday night, immediately after Shabbat and all its food.  I'll be serving a geffilte fish meal.  And then Shavuot morning we'll add cheeses to the gefilte fish menu.  No cheesecake, since my husband and I are on a maintenance diet after losing weight in recent years.

And what do you eat for the Holiday?

Where Have I Been?

I've been pretty busy, and I wasn't home for over a day. I slept in Jerusalem Tuesday night.  It was a good opportunity to see my Jerusalem daughter and saved me from getting up at 4am on Wednesday morning.

G-d willing, when I have time I'll post about the Moskowitz Zionism Prize ceremony I attended Tuesday night.  It's a great dose of inspiration for all.

Now I'm totally off schedule and have much too much to do this morning.  I spent an awfully long time writing my post about Naomi, Ruth and Chana on Shiloh Musings.  You may want to read it:

• out of curiosity
• and to be used as a Dvar Torah or idea for Shavuot

I must get things done in the house.  I don't have "a wife" to do all the stuff that must be done here.  Last night I managed to make my really easy, simple Gefilte Fish.  To make it special for Shavuot, slightly different from my Passover version, I grated in (ok I really cheated by using the shredder knife of the food processor) a carrot.  The fish is now "speckled" with orange and should taste even better.

Have a great day!

Spring Into The Kosher Cooking Carnival at Ilana-Davita's

 Ilana-Davita has served up delicious Kosher Cooking Carnival with a great variety of posts from all over the world.  It's worth a visit, and please share around the blog carnival and the individual posts. 

You're invited to participate in future editions of this monthly Jewish Blog Carnival which comes out every Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the Jewish Month.  For more information, please join our facebook page.  You can send in posts about all aspects of kosher cooking, from Jewish Law to recipes and also reviews of kosher restaurants and cookbooks.  Each month a different blogger hosts the carnival, a floating internet magazine.  If you're interested in hosting one, please contact me.

Next month's hostess is Cooking Outside the Box.  Email your links to her at nonrecipe@gmail.com.

Rejected by Google Search

In recent weeks I've noticed my blogs' (Shiloh Musings and me-ander) statistics re: visits plummeting and couldn't understand why.  Are my blog posts so boring and badly written?

I mentioned it on facebook, in between invited fb friends to drink coffee with me and other minor news.  I discovered that I'm not the only blogger to suddenly have a fraction of the visits (on the blogs) I used to see.  Of course, an advantage is that there are fewer spam comments, but there are fewer people who are discovering my best and easiest recipes, "caption this" pictures, my opinion about peace in the middle east  or Barack Hussein Obama.

A more professional blogger than yours truly commented about pandas and "penguin penalties."  No comprendo.  I don't understand any of this. 

Then I took a better look at my statistics and saw that google was no longer my chief "referrer,"  especially on Shiloh Musings.  Actually, google took me out their "phonebook," or whatever you want to call it for both blogs.  You can't find me via google at all, and the other search engines were also unseen on the lists.  The blogging expert also said that one of the criteria to be considered kosher  by google is posts longer than 300 words.  That sure throws my "caption this" and many other posts on this blog into the garbage. 

I'm not a wordy blogger or even wordy writer.  I like to be concise and simple.  Google doesn't like that any more. 

Clever titles don't help either from what I now understand.  Actually, all I understand is that I've been doing everything wrong. 

What could be so awful about my blogs?  My articles are originals, not stolen or copied from other sources.  I write about a very broad range of topics, politics, history, health, recipes, religion and more.  They are illustrated with both my original photos and suitable pictures from the internet.

How does one get back into google's good graces aka its search list?

Learn and Lunch

Last week I suddenly found myself with spare time which I wanted to fill, so I contacted my chevruta, Bible-study buddy about meeting to catch up on some difficult chapters in Yeshayahu, Isaiah, which we're studying in the Matan course, Al HaPerek.

Al HaPerek is an innovative. guided Bible study course offered by Matan.

Matan’s Al Haperek: The Worldwide Online Weekly Tanach Learning Program
Learn two chapters a week and in five years finish one entire cycle of Nach! Join us this year and learn Melachim and Yeshayahu.
Once a week, Al Haperek participants receive an emailed sheet containing the weekly material which guides in depth, creative and enlightening learning of two chapters a week of Nach.
At the completion of each book, a yom iyun is held in Matan with lectures given by some of the finest educators in Israel.
Additionally, a short weekly shiur is sent with the sheets to enrich the learning and create a more personal connection between those who work on the program and those who participate in it.
Al Haperek's framework is appropriate for individual learners, for joint-learning with children or a spouse, by all ages and on all levels.

For various reasons, my study partner and I had gotten a few weeks behind, and the material is very difficult.  We meet once a week at Matan, and we needed at least another session.  We're also having more trouble following the prophetic warnings and comforts of Yeshayahu than we had when we studied the earlier books, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, which are narratives, stories about mostly familiar Biblical characters.  I started to have trouble keeping up in the second part of Kings, because my Bible study background is very weak.  And the kings mentioned were all strangers  to me.  Their names got all mixed up in my head.  It became even harder to remember who was who than to fit names to my students faces.  (That was one of the reasons I felt the time had come to leave teaching.  When I had taught small remedial groups, it was much easier for me, and I'm a better remedial teacher than regular classroom teacher.)

My friend and I met at the Pisgat Ze'ev Mall branch of the popular dairy restaurant chain Cafe` Cafe`.  We sat inside, as far from the action of the mall as we could, and it was nice and quiet, especially being that it was early afternoon, before the heavy afternoon-evening crowds. 

We ordered their halumi salad and shared it, including the delicious rolls.  It was a perfect meal and we had no problems studying a few chapters there. 

Israeli restaurants generally give very large portions, and I've shared meals with friends before.  With the bread, I find half a meal comfortably filling, but when I don't eat the bread, I need the entire salad to feel satisfied. 

Recently I've been terribly disappointed with the service in branches of Cafe` Cafe`, most probably because they've cut down on staff to save money.  I even refused to tip after my latest visit to the branch in the mall next to Center 1.  The service was totally abominable.  They even abandoned our charge cards, and I had to rescue them off of the main counter.



Bat Aliyah's Debut Heval Havelim

There's a first time for lots of things, and when I think back to my first attempt at hosting a Havel Havelim, I remember confusion and terror.  In those days I didn't know much, and blogger didn't have all these simple icons and options to easily jazz up the page.  I didn't know how to embed links and just copied links complete in the post. Yes, it was awful.  I made lots of mistakes.  Soccer Dad and other bloggers tried to help me long distance via emails, but I barely understood the terminology they used.  Wow!  Thank G-d I have learned a lot since then.

I must say that Bat Aliyah's debut Heval Havelim is very impressive!  She really did a great job. Take a look share and visit the posts, and comment, too.

Next week's HH will be on Esser Agaroth. You're welcome to join our facebook page.

Scheduling Impossiblities

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to schedule a meeting between me and two other people.  Every time we set a date, somebody cancels it. The first time was my fault, and since then it has only gotten worse.

My week has very few set "events."  Work is very flexible in that I never promised any set shifts and they never promised me anything either.  Sometimes I get more and sometimes less or none.  I wanted a part-time job that wouldn't prevent me from attending weddings and other joyous occasions.  And they like the fact that I can usually work when others can't.

I also study once a week, and that isn't flexible.  I try to see the grandkids once a week, too.  There is some flexibility there.

And I have other "projects" and "commitments."  Some are flexible and others aren't. 

What's annoying is that the people I'm supposed to meet up with  -and I really want it to be f2f- also have flexibility in their schedules.  They don't know each other, and I think they should and I want to be there to facilitate the meeting so we can combine forces.

G-d willing it will work out somehow, sometime....

Birthday Week

I function following two calendars, the Jewish one and the goyish international one.  They only coincide about once every nineteen years, and even then sometimes not perfectly. 

Actually the Sate of Israel also uses both calendars.  Our holidays here are the Jewish ones, except that some restaurants and hotels make a big deal out of January first and the night before for parties and all.  Any excuse to make an "event."  Remember that the Jewish New Year is Rosh Hashannah, a very serious time, frequently spent in synagogue being shaken to the soul by the sound of the shofar. It's a time of reflection, repentance (teshuva) that lasts a week and a half, until Yom Kippur.  The goyish international New Year is obviously much more fun for Israelis who have only recently, the past couple of decades, discovered the fun sic of drinking.  There's non of that on Yom Kippur and the kiddush on Rosh Hashannah doesn't compare.

How did I get onto this?  Back to the topic...

In Israel, using both calendars can be rather problematic. The school year begins on September 1, but when Rosh Hashannah will be "too early" school starts early, so the kids can learn something before all those Jewish Holiday and school vacations begin.

When you celebrate birthdays on both calendars, they float around.  There are years when my international  birthday coincides with one of my daughter's Jewish birthday, even though my birthday is about a week later on both calendars.  This year, there's about a week's difference between the Jewish and international  date.  I was surprised by my fellow workers when they made me (and another worker) a party on Thursday the day before my Jewish birthday. 

It was a nice way to start "birthday week."

One is never too old to celebrate birthdays!

I Must Have Done The Right Thing, Thank G-d

The other day at work I suddenly noticed that one of my earrings was missing.  I wear three.  Fourteen years ago my daughters decided to give me a "third hole" for my birthday present.  I like that asymmetrical look and sometime even wear three different earrings.

Back to the earring.  It wasn't just any earring.  It had been my maternal grandmother's; an aunt gave it to me after I had my ears pierced, midway through high school.  To this day I don't know she chose me as recipient.  I have lots of female cousins, and I'm not the oldest even.  I was given two pairs of earrings and they are very precious to me.  I barely remember my grandmother, since she died before my third birthday.

I had a strong feeling that it had fallen off at work and told the other staff members, even pasting a note to the cash register.

Actually, I wasn't upset.  I kept saying "kappora," and told people that I have no doubt that my grandmother is taking care of me and my family, which is more important than her earring.  It was a strange feeling, because I was sad at the thought of not having it.  I have been wearing that earring for almost half a century.  Yes, I'm old.

The following day when I got on the bus to go home from Jerusalem, I saw a cellphone on the seat.  I decided to give it to the driver.  He would bring it to the Egged "Lost and Found," which in Hebrew is called "Returning Lost Items."  There's a mitzvah, Torah law to make every effort to return a lost item.  The concept of "finders keepers, losers weepers" is not Jewish and even forbidden.

Yesterday when  I entered the store, I was greeted with:

"We have your earring."

Apparently a customer saw it on the floor and brought it to the desk.  It was all wrapped up and waiting for me.  I had kept that "third hole" empty for work, even though I have lots of earrings to wear.  It was waiting, apparently, for that one, my grandmother's. 

Baruch Hashem, Thank G-d

Shabbat Shalom uMevorach

May You Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat