Subject: Newsletter #4

Shalom everyone,

September 10, 1999

Happy Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year)!

Recently I attended a 2-day business meeting in the port of Haifa at a 5-star hotel, the Dan Carmel, up on top of Mt. Carmel. Haifa is built partly on Mt. Carmel and partly at sea level, so you get a gorgeous view from the mountaintop. Kevin came up too, and stayed overnight. Somehow by accident we ended up in a penthouse room, near the presidential suite. Actually we had a nicer room than the Colonel or the program office people who came over from the States. The hotel is kosher. Each room has a mezuzah or mini-scroll tacked onto the doorpost. Also, the food is kosher. "Kosher" means clean and comes from the Bible Old Testament food rules. Some of the kosher prohibitions are no pork, no shellfish, no reptiles, and no mixing meat with dairy in the same meal. I.e., if you have a steak you can't have cream in your coffee. And NO CHEESEBURGERS! If you have a meat meal they won't bring real butter for your bread. Instead of margerine you might be served peppers, eggplant, or tomato mixtures to spread on the bread. Appetizers are called "first courses." Salad dressing is "sauce."

One evening there was Jewish folk dancing with lessons for hotel guests out on the terrace overlooking the bay. While I was at the meeting, Kevin visited an illegal immigration museum which featured boats used by would-be terrorists as well as Israelis trying to get in back before independence. I was able to get one afternoon off. We visited a very sacred place to the Jews, Elijah's Cave. There was also one on top of the mountain, over which a Carmelite church had been built with the grotto under the altar. Elijah was supposed to have been living in these caves when God passed by the mountain, and before he encountered the 450 false prophets of Baal hired by Jezebal and Ahab. This is Kevin's favorite Bible story. There is a contest between Elijah and the false prophets to see whose god will send fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice. Of course Baal doesn't do anything, so Elijah taunts the false prophets, asking them "Is Baal asleep? Maybe he's gone to the bathroom!" Then Elijah prays to his God, and fire comes down from heaven. Today the Jews pray aloud in the lower cave. I have come to the conclusion that the men must have memorized their prayers. Surely nobody could headbob that fast and read Hebrew characters at the same time!

Returning to Herzlia we were almost in a car accident. The traffic plowed to a sudden stop and we just barely kissed the back bumper of a van, but it rolled forward and no damage was done.

Recently we had a very weird day. The gas burner on the stove accidently got turned on and flooded our house with gas. Since the smell of gas makes me sick, Kevin trotted me into our gasproof room and slammed the door shut. Then he went off and opened up the house to let the smell out. At this point I found out I'm not strong enough to open the door from the inside once it's sealed tight. The neighbors must have wondered what all the banging and yelling was about. Then, Kevin was on the highway on his way back from the Embassy when the alternator went out on the Saturn. Some guys pushed him onto the side of the road and gave him a ride to my office, where we called a tow truck and took the car home.

Before we moved here, an Israeli co-worker had us to buy a spare alternator and battery because the only other two Saturns in Israel had a problem. So, along with our jumper cables, battery charger, and tools, we shipped spare car parts. Unfortunately, it has taken over ninety days and we still don't have most of our things. It is supposed to take 30-45 days. Most of our stuff has been sitting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. (Thank goodness they did send our rubber inflatable boat, without oars, and pillows, without sheets. Now at least we can blow up the boat and sleep in the living room if we feel like it.) Everything should be here by next week. So, we had to order another alternator from the States. A co-worker brought us tools and a battery charger, so we could at least recharge the battery every night and have the car for work and local errands until the part arrived. Then he told Kevin how to replace the part, because on a Saturn, it's very difficult. (K sez: The alternator isn't in the front like in most cars. It's back behind the engine, underneath the power steering pump! To get to it, he pulled off the right front wheel and two panels, as well as the power steering pump. To get it out, he had to disconnect from the side, top, and underneath the car, pick up the alternator from underneath, and move it up from behind the front wheel!)

Kevin and I also spent several nights at a Marriott Hotel on the highest hill in Nazareth while auditing a contractor just south of the Galilee area. Guess what - got a penthouse room again! I didn't get to sightsee, but Kevin took a bus tour to Zipporah, an abandoned city turned archeological dig. This city was very Hellenistic, meaning the occupants abandoned many of the Jewish traditions in favor of the Greek culture and influence. He took pictures of the beautiful mosaics. He also saw the outside of Jesus' boyhood home in Nazareth, but they wouldn't let him in because he wasn't part of a tour group.

While Kevin was studying ancient culture, my assistant and I were causing problems at the contractor's facility. The water in the restrooms had been turned off for some reason. While trying unsuccessfully to wash our hands, we accidently left the taps in the "on" position, and when the water was turned back on, it ran full force down the hall and made a big mess.

There are strikes all the time here. Even management strikes. You might call up the Contracts Manager at a large contractor and his co-worker will tell you he's on strike. Recently there was strike by lifeguards on Saturdays and several people drowned. Also there have been hospital worker strikes and garbage collector strikes. Jerusalem looks like a dump, and the public restrooms have been closed for the poor tourists. Education workers almost went on strike.

Car insurance is very expensive here. Most people have one car and a lot of people have none at all. Kevin and I are always being called to to give people rides. The motorcyle costs more to insure than the car. You have to pay in cash (shekels) for the whole year at the post office. We're not insured for war damage either. Kevin has to buy and install a European headlight for the bike. We paid a contractor to put European headlights on the Saturn as part of the registration process.

We get a kick out of some of the Hebrew words. "Man" can be either "adam" or "eesh." Money is ma-mon. Du-du is a nickname for David. Some of the Jewish foreign service nationals in my office don't read Hebrew, although they all speak it (in a myriad of accents, since they come from all over the world).

Another word on Israeli customs. Some men wear long slacks with sandals to work. Ties are rare. A lot of Israelis smoke - and wherever they feel like doing it! The more religious Jews (like my boss) wear kipas on their heads, all the time, because they are required to have a head covering. The really religious Jewish men wear lots of black and don't shave. Even in the heat of summer they wear black robes and black hats.

This is the period of lots of Jewish holidays. The New Year was changed from the month of Passover to September a long time ago. We had a special service at work because one of the accountants in the office is a very religious Jew. He explained both the religious background to this holiday as well as the contemporary practices, like eating pomegranates to have babies (because of all the seeds), avoiding certain foods like eggos, and dipping apples in honey for a sweet new year. He explained about the ban on eggos - the numerical equivalent of "eggo" spells the Hebrew word for "sin." Wonder if Kellogg's knows that? One of the engineers who is also religious pronounced several blessings (one for produce of the tree, one for cake (food), and one for wine). Jews try to be real good between the New Year and Yom Kippur, which occurs a few days later, so that if they're on the fence with God, they'll be judged ok on Yom Kippur for another year. It was very interesting as well as entertaining.

There is definitely racial prejudice in Israel. Our English language newspaper, the "Jerusalem Post," mentioned a concern about poor-quality meat getting into the supermarkets, whereas usually it is reserved for the Palestinians. Also, there has been a big legal battle whereby Israel can no longer apply physical pressure (ie torture) to extract information from people thought to be terrorists. There are no Muslim Israelis in our office, and none working for the Government-owned contractors. For the first time, there is a Palestinian on the Defense Committee. This is causing concern amongst the military that he might report everything to the PLO, so the generals are reluctant to share information with the committee.

We have been to Jerusalem a couple more times since our last newsletter. We are the proud owners of three antiques - an early Bronze Age dish, a late Bronze age oil lamp, and a Roman bottle for collecting tears (tear bottle) from mourners at funerals. The more tears collected, the better the reputation of the deceased. We also purchased a shofar or ram's horn, used to this day in synagogues. It is blown like a horn as a call to worship. Some shofars are made of plastic, but you can tell real shofars because the inside smells really bad. (We have a real one. Phew!)

We took our first Embassy-sponsored bus trip, to Christian Jerusalem. We started up at the top of the Mount of Olives, at the spot from which Jesus ascended to heaven. We walked down to the Old City following the supposed steps of Jesus during his last week, along the 14 stations of the cross (which are duplicated in Catholic churches). We couldn't see all the stations because there were shops or homes on them. Anyway, most of this route is symbolic because the real Via Dolorosa was about ten feet below the current Old City. There is one station known to be real which is the Lithostratos in the Antonio fortress, where the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus and put the crown of thorns on His head. There are marks on the pavement where they played these kinds of games with all their prisoners. This route ends up in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We also visited some other Christian religious sites, but again there is no way of knowing that they are actually where the events took place. We saw an occasional donkey or camel.

We visited the Tower of David Museum on another trip to Jerusalem. It gives an excellent overview of the history of this area, starting way back with the Canaanites. Each ruling government from that time through 1948 is discussed and boy howdy, there were a lot of them! Everyone but Kilroy was here in Israel. We thought we would never get to Jerusalem, because they shut down Route 1 and we had to detour. We never found out why. Also, we wanted to eat at a certain restaurant, but it was closed for LABOR DAY! Go figure!

If you ever plan to visit Jerusalem, you'd better be in good shape. You have to walk a lot, and there are no provisions made for the handicapped. Wherever you go, you must walk up and down lots of stairs, walk over bumpy cobblestones, and fight lots of crowds. Even the museum was full of stairs!

K. sez: By the way, you may have heard about the two terrorist bombings that occurred recently. The way things look, the bombs were made by one set of terrorists and driven to the sites by the terrorists who were killed. It was strange because no Israelis were killed. Apparently the bomb makers forgot about daylight savings time and didn't set the bomb clock back, so it blew up an hour early! (We "fall back" in September in Israel.) Those terrorists are bunch of rocket surgeons and brain scientists, they are. According to the police, all their best bomb makers have blown themselves up and now all that are left are "Third rate technicians."

God bless!

K&E