Hi Everyone,
The "hamsin" (also called "shirav", a desert wind from Saudi Arabia) has rolled in with its load of heat and dust.
Later in the spring this will finish the growing season, but for now it just makes us cough and our eyes water. I woke up with a sore throat from it, but I have to admit the rest of me is doing really well in this weather. It's the eternally repeating pattern of the Middle East: the cold and rainy winter gives way to a vigorous flush of spring growth accelerated by these warm spells, but burnt off in April by the desert wind. Then another long, rainless summer with clear blue skies until the clouds gather again in autumn (October or November) for the next winter rains. So it has always been.
Of course this is lots of fun just before Passover, when we have to clear all the dust from the house as part of getting rid of the "hametz" (leaven). Sometimes I think Judaism invented spring cleaning; I've never seen anyone else do it so fanatically. We do have people who get on their knees with toothpicks and clean out the dirt between the floor tiles. There will be furious activity during the next two weeks, dusting, washing, throwing out anything with yeast or flour in it (bread, pasta, etc.) I usually collect a large haul of cereal products to hand on to the Arab villagers I know. The only wheat products permitted in kosher homes during the Passover week are matzoh and products made from matzoh (which is baked in a special way to prevent any accidental introduction of leaven). No beer either, although wine is permitted during Passover week. I never really figured that out except that beer is made from fermented grain and wine from fermented fruit. Cheese is fermented also, and is permitted, so I guess it is just fermented grains.....There are differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi practice also. Sephardic Jews permit rice and beans during Passover, Ashkenazim don't.
Jerusalem has filled up. During this season and during the High Holy Days in September, lots of foreign Jews flock to spend a month in their "vacation" apartments in Jerusalem. Often they have daughters of marriageable age in tow and a big part of the visit is arranging marriages. So everyone is on parade in their finest, the restaurants are full, the young ladies are on display, and deals are being negotiated in every corner of the city. That's fine with me except until they all leave, I can never find a place to park. Also, these bonzo big American cars are cruising around taking up two lanes in roads never designed for them, by drivers who don't really know where they are going. I'm cursing every big black sedan I encounter these days. This too shall pass, the migrants will go home and leave us natives here for the summer months, until they come again in September.
Joe Biden (American vice president) is in town these days also, just to add to the chaos. Everywhere he goes they close the roads. I had planned to go to the Old City to get a confirmation gift for my niece, but after the radio reports, I'm not going near there today. Altogether it is a time to sit under my own vine and fig tree.
Did have some fun during the week, however. This is also the conference season, and I went to Ramat HaNadiv (next to Mt. Carmel) for a conservation meeting; saw all my colleagues from around the country, went to an excellent lunch, pottered around in a warehouse shop for Moroccan goods. It's funny; Moroccans themselves drive me crazy but I love their food and their over-the-top artwork.
  
You can get dizzy just looking at their stuff; it makes rococo look restrained.
Yesterday I also had some fun. I'm apparently now on the Quaker hit list of people to see in the Middle East, and I'm getting a parade of visitors. Got a phone call from an English guy who was principle of the Friends School in Ramallah in the early part of the decade, now retired, passing through. So I met up with him before my Bible study with pastor Joe Shulam, and then just turned the two of them loose and listened. It was fun. Later the Quaker confessed to me he had been really nervous about coming over to the Jewish side of town and meeting with Israelis (from what they say in Ramallah you would think we are all bloodthirsty killers) and it was good to find out otherwise. Building bridges. First I have to build the bridges to the Quakers!
That's about it for now, I have to get chores done.
shabbat shalom,
Linda |
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