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Summer’s officially over in Haifa.
It cooled down (ok, to 17 Celsius at night / low 60s Fahrenheit).
This morning, it started with thunder, lightning and deluge.
Strangely enough, outside my office windows, a strange fellow with a large blonde Jewfro, is running circles in the rain, looking exactly like Forrest Gump at the end of his two years running.
Shorts and t-shirt and sneakers, glasses and pure consistency.
Impressive guy. My office mate says he’s a mathematician.
Times are strange here.
Not the weather, of course.
We have our rainy season and this is just the official start.
The atmosphere on campus is quiet, but tense.
The school year has been pushed to late December, and it’s not clear if we’re even going to do this semester at all.
Alumni and some students in the reserves are complaining about the seeming tolerance for terror supporters on campus, without getting expelled or disciplined.
Mein Kampf (yes, Mein Kampf!) was found in a student’s room on campus last week.
Posters of kidnapped kids were torn down here a couple weeks back.
Crazy shit.
I don’t make the decisions here, but you can bet I’ve been vocal as hell about this subject.
Stay tuned…
Things in Gaza feel strangely stuck, at least to me.
The vast majority of Hamas terrorists (some say 10-20K) fled south to Khan Younis, along with the hostages.
Because of our humanitarian stance, even in war, our army seems to be moving very slowly and letting the terrorists escape to the south, for now.
So maybe we’ve only scratched the surface, so far.
Sure, this minimizes our soldiers’ casualties and their civilians’.
But there’s an eerie sense that we haven’t seen the worst yet.
We take whatever good news we can, in the meantime.
My wife’s new poppy seed babka recipe that easily gains me a kilo over Shabbat.
Chatting about travels in Italy with my Italian and Persian-American friends.
A couple L’chaims with my father-in-law at dinner.
But one story is especially endearing.
My Mom started her ulpan last week.
The teacher is a good friend who’s a brilliant polyglot, a translator for our local Rabbi Zinni, who runs a big yeshiva (half-Ashki/half-Sephardic) where my family goes.
Binyomin is kind of a legend around here.
He’s half-Egyptian, half-French, from Brazil, spent time in Coney Island’s yeshiva and does all these super interesting projects in addition to his day job of translator.
We have some incredibly interesting conversations.
So anyways, Mom shows up after class in the evening, one day.
She asks for help with her homework from…
Our 10 year-old and 7 year-old.
Together, they sit and explain in English to their grandma what is being asked, etc.
Of course it’s f-ing hard to learn a new language at 74.
Never mind, a language written in the opposite direction, one that has so little to do with English and Russian and romance languages.
Of course she feels like she’s the worst student in the class.
Just like I did almost two years ago, when I was going through it, as the oldest student, twice everyone else’s age.
And of course, we all laughed about the scenario.
The kids were quite patient and happy to help.
Mom smiled a lot.
It hit me as I was observing the three of them.
Not only am I incredibly proud of my Mom for going to class every day for 5 hours a day.
She also has the sense of humor to laugh at herself.
Not only that, she’s truly hungry to learn, no matter how hard it is.
That’s pretty special.
Most people fold and don’t bother at this age.
But she pushes right ahead.
She and I have faced some insane difficulties in setting her up here, in getting her stuff, in dealing with the bureaucracy.
I’ve written about this ad nauseum here.
It’s been a really hard and frustrating year for her, even before the war.
But somehow, with all this, she shows up and does the work.
Hats off, Mom. You rock!
And as for me, it’s hard not to feel frustrated at not being able to serve and being limited in how much I can help outside of the Hasbara (Israel advocacy) project I’ve been involved with.
The feedback there is great, people love reading the news right from the source in Israel, that’s fact-checked and well-curated.'
Outside of that, I’m back to writing a bit, which usually helps.
Both here and a poem I’m working on.
Not sure if it’s the being-40 thing or something else, but the poetic faculties seem either rusty or well-packaged in the back of some self-storage to which I lost the key.
It feels hard to read anything more exciting than an Agatha Christie mystery.
It feels hard to believe that I got an invitation to speak at some labor conference in Saudi.
And even if it’s legit, would I even dream of going, in wartime?
War is a downer, LOL.
Stiff upper lip, we’ll grin and bear it.
It feels like time has stopped.
The watch battery I got replaced two months ago is dead again.
Whatever comes next, I don’t really know.
But for what it’s worth, it seems really big and significant.
All this rain will definitely grow big mushrooms and raise the Sea of Galilee by a few centimeters.
So, what is it that’s coming?
A Hizballah attack, G-d forbid? Something else from Yemen or Iran directly?
I don’t know. There’s no vacationing out of it, in any case.
It is a season of wait-and-see.
One thing I can tell you, the coaching I’m doing is still probably my favorite way to move people to be their best selves.
Sorry to brag, but…
“Those guys used to take advantage of me, to yell at me. I’ve fixed the dynamic. From our work together, I fixed my body language, fixed how I deal with people. People are much more polite. People are coming to me now and wanting to get involved with my work. Before, people just wanted to use my work and take credit. Now, I’ve caught them off guard. Now, they see I mean business. Now, people are not just scared, but respectful.”
This is a mid-level exec at an oil-and-gas firm in Houston who’s gone from being afraid of her own shadow and a people-pleaser to demanding her own terms. Pretty awesome transformation :)
Thanksgiving is coming.
This American transplant is definitely excited.
Not about any Black Fridays or any of that crap (we had enough with the Black Sabbath, thanks).
Just some solid family time and a day off to watch a movie or maybe finish this epic poem (LOL).
Stay warm and dry, amigos.
Keep praying for Israel. We’re far from done over here.
We will win.
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Blessings for safety and peace and health to all our brave soldiers and civilians on the home front. We pray for their safe and quick return, along with the hostages, alive and well.
Y’all are doing an amazing job refilling my cup of joe. Keep it coming!
Oh, and tell all your friends, too 🙂