Life’s Good (2 of 2) – What I've been up to

I left off my last blog post at Saturday April 10^th. Since then a bunch of stuff has been going on, so I am going to pick it up from where I left off.

Hadag Nachash:

On Saturday night, I went with my roommate Shimon and a few friends to a Hadag Nachash (“HN”)concert. It was at a small venue called the Yellow Submarine. Prior to the concert, I had heard their music a bit in carpool, but was not overly familiar with them. The concert was awesome. HN is a 9 man hip-hop band that has an awesome eclectic sound. Their group includes a drummer, guitarist, bassist, pianist, trumpeter, tromboner, lead singer/rapper, record scratcher/mix-master guy.

While their music has a general rap sound to it, they mix in an eclectic range of sounds (thus the huge band), which makes the music almost genre in and of itself. In between their 21 song setlist, they jammed to Bob Marley and later performed a Snoop Dogg – Dr. Dre duo .Just an example of the reach of their sound. A lot of their music is performed in Hebrew, but a few are in English. I took a few videos on my cell phone from the show, but the sound is so unclear it is not worth uploading. Here are a few links to some of my favorite songs that I think demonstrate their unique sound. Many of the songs are political and real – lyrics that have strong meanings.

Shir Nechama - Song of Comfort

The Sticker SongT

Yom Iyun

Sunday morning, rather than reporting to the office, I went to the Carleton Hotel in Tel Aviv, which is on the beach next to the Hilton for my firm’s Yom Iyun, or Day of Study. The Company holds these days on a quarterly basis. The experience was really amazing and eye opening. The “day” ran from 9 am to 12 pm. Here’s how it went down:

·         The Chairman and CEO gave short opening remarks about the company, performance, progress, strategy and outlook…

·         Apparently, after each quarter, the CEO and partners identify strategic initiatives that the company should consider. He assigns groups of employees from all levels of the organization – analysts to mangers and partners to meet in groups and explore and research the opportunities. A member of each group from the Associate level (about my level) was appointed to present their group’s findings to the whole company. I found this whole thing fascinating. Here's why:       

o   Coming from a larger more formal work environment, employees at the analyst/associate level and to a large degree vice president level were not included in strategic development and were not involved in discussions on furthering the business. Having an associate present an analysis on the market participants, potential competition, risks and opportunities of expanding into a new market that GSE currently does not serve was incredible. People from every level – analyst to CEO – were working together to improve and develop the Firm.

o   The fact that lower level personnel (all of whom happened to be women) were asked to present demonstrated the firm’s commitment to developing its employees. The management does not just want people sitting in their offices crunching numbers, they want everyone to have opportunities to present in the board room setting. Practices like this will ensure that GSE employees are more than number crunchers; they are value-adding, captivating and insightful advisors.

o   This practice not only harnesses the ideas and points-of-view from all along the company’s hierarchy, but also deeply enfranchises everyone involved. A person asked by the CEO to sit with teammates and brainstorm on the strategic opportunities of his firm will undoubtedly feel a strong connection to the firm. People are no longer just GSE employees – they are captains steering their company into new markets and developing innovative approaches to marketing, professional development and achieving success.

·         After the presentations, which were all very well done, the CEO opened it up to questions. Israelis are not shy and again, people from all levels fired questions to the CEO, which he answered as other employees intermittently piped in with jokes.

·         As a final note before we adjourned the formal meeting, the CEO made a special shout out to my office mate Ori Grossman for his excellent work and dedication to the Firm. Ori works really hard and has a tough job. It was really nice to see the company recognize his efforts. There is to be an award given to him, although I am not sure if he found out what it was yet. I told him I get an office-mate 25% cut.

·         After the presentations, we gathered in another room for a toast, after all, it was noon. We all sipped wine and toasted to the company, to Grossman and to our continued hard work and success. Each employee was given a bottle of wine as a happy holiday gift.

Here Comes the Holiday and the Family

Passover in Israel is similar to the week of Christmas-New Years in New York. Things are closed. In the days leading up to the holiday, there is a jovial spirit in the air… a week of vacation is at hand. My parents and brother came to Israel for the holiday, and we took a trip to Eilat (southernmost city in Israel on the Red Sea) before the holiday (link from last trip to Eilat's blogpost). We stayed in a very nice hotel on my parents hotel points, and really took it in. The weather was high 80s/low 90s, the company wonderful and the work not too overbearing… While the office was closed over Passover – everyone is required to take a few half days of vacation (or I guess work from home), the work in New York was still coming in – quarter ends are always busy. Thankfully, I managed to enjoy break while working a few hours a day for New York.

Highlights from Eilat included scuba diving, a boat ride – during which we snorkeled, fished, swam and soaked in the sun, skipping rocks with my little brother (he taught me how well and I am pretty good now) and a dip in the Dead Sea on the way back to Jerusalem.

We spent the first day of Passover with our cousins in Efrat, and had the opportunity to learn and share family traditions during the seder (traditional Passover dinner). The Seder is usually a big family event for all Jews and like most family events, there is no place like home – family tradition for everyone is always the best. Whenever we spend Passover with other families, we inevitably have different tunes to which we like to sing the Passover songs, different styles in which we recount the exodus from Egypt (the point of the Seder) and various traditions and customs. While we learned some new tunes and taught some new tunes, I heavily suspect that next year, when we may not be with out cousins for Passover, we will do everything our way and they theirs – it is hard to make an impact on another family that they would want to change their customs.

In the following days of Passover, family activities included a trip with my dad to the Old City of Jerusalem, ATV-ing, a day at the beach (skipped more stones and found shards of ancient pottery) followed by a barbeque at my brother-in-law’s parent’s home, shopping for gifts, walking on the Jerusalem promenade and making an awesome bon-fire barbeque with my brother to name a few. The holiday was both family and fun filled. When my family comes to visit, I make sure to spend lots of time with them, which ends up making me somewhat of a ghost to the rest of the world. My parents and baby-bro left last night and now I am getting back into the swing of things here. Here are a few pics:

Collecting stones to skip.

Me and my bro in front of our Eilat hotel

As close as Rachel got to diving

In I go

Brothers after the diving

I'm on a boat

Collecting stones to skip and pottery

All geared up

ATV'ing

In the coming weeks I will be celebrating Israel Memorial and Independence Days (a week from Monday and Tuesday), going camping, hosting a miracle fruit flavor tripping party, hopefully getting some beach in, taking care of aliyah absorption things and preparing for my trip to the States in mid-May for Jeff Rosenfelt’s wedding and the Birhtright Israel trip, which I will be traveling on right afterwards. I am sure I’ll have more to share soon. Till then, I hope everyone had a nice Passover.

Life Is Good (1 of 2)

So it’s been a while longer than I’d have liked and I have a lot to write about. Generally, my posts are long and detail oriented. I am here going to make one post be a combined post of truncated longer posts.

Thursday Fun Day

Two Thursdays ago, my friend Aviva joined me on my journey to Nefesh B’Nefesh to make Aliyah (see here). We had such a fun time two weeks ago that we planned another (less life influencing) Thursday Fun Day.

We set out in the morning to Holon (near Tel Aviv) to the Children’s Museum. At the museum, we visited the Dialogue in the Dark experience is I think the best way to call it. Dialogue in the Dark is a tour through the world of the blind. When you enter the experience/exhibit, you are given a walking stick in preparation for entering the darkness. The entire exhibit is in the dark – dark like you seldom experience. The exhibit gives visitors the experience of ‘being blind’ in a series of different environments including a park, market, boat ride, home and cafe. Since Aviva and I were the only ones in our tour group, we were advised to come in without walking sticks. The experience was really powerful and quite amazing.

As we felt our way through the different environments, we spoke with our guide Avi, who like all the other guides at the museum is legally blind. I continually felt that I was going to hit my head on something as I walked through the different environments. I did walk into some branches in the “park” room. The experience left us both with a lot to digest, think about and be thankful for. In the last room ,the cafe, Avi served us drinks and we sat at a table discussing how life is different blind. The conversation was really frank and open. Avi used to be a musician and has been working at the museum for a few years. He said that the exhibit (of which there are several in the world) helps tear down the stigmatism of bling people and also interestingly connects blind people. Avi said that there is not a strong network for the blind and he and the other staff enjoy the camaraderie of working to educate the community at large.

After the meuseum, we headed to Tel Aviv, walked on the beach and enjoyed the mid 70s weather. We jaunted through the market for some snacks (we hadn’t eaten all day) and ended up only sharing a blood orange (orange that is purple inside). From there we walked to the Azrielli Center, a landmark building complex in Tel Aviv – three buildings in the shape of a circle, square and triangle that emerge from one base. We bought a late lunch (6 pm) and snacked on the roof of the base of the buildings. We then headed up to 2C, the observatory restaurant on the top of the circle tower, to grab a drink.

2C is amazing. The views, the menu, the service were all incredible. We sat at a table overlooking the Tel Aviv skyline and watched the sun set as we sipped white wine and Drambuie. We also shared an awesome, and frankly quite fun, desert called a Banana Creation.

Thursday Fun Day was a really nice time. Thanks Aviva

Perfect Day Friday

Thursday Fun Day transitioned when Aviva left 2C to head to Jerusalem and Chaim XXXX (from my previous post here) met me at Azrielli and we headed to his place to drop our stuff and head out to meet friends. We went out to a cool bar in Tel Aviv but called it a relatively early night since I was waking up early the next day (6 am) for the Tel Aviv Half Marathon. The night ended up eating thin crust pizza at 12 am before heading home… a really good day indeed.

The next day started off with a startle by Chaim’s sister who had stayed at his apartment since she was running the 10k. I slept through my alarm and jumped up to prepare for the run. We headed to the start line and shortly after our arrival, I was off. This race was a unique experience for me. I was a sponsored runner. My company sponsored all employees that wanted to run the race, so I was paid for and ran in my company’s t-shirt.

Interesting side note (I may have noted this in the past):

Background: Runners that do a lot of races (at least in the US) know that you never ever run a race in the shirt from that days race (most races give runners a shirt from the run). There are two reasons for this – one is that tourists, as I call them, or non-real runners wear race day shirts. To show that you are not a tourist, you either wear a non-descript sports shirt or a shirt from another race (preferably a race of a longer distance or of higher repute). The other reason is that it’s risky to run in something you don’t know. Just as you don’t run a race in new shoes, you don’t run in a new shirt. This more applies to longer runs, but nonetheless.

Side note: Israelis all run in the race shirt – everyone. I don’t know why… we know you ran it, we see you on the course.

Anyhow, the half marathon was a nice course with a few issues. When we started the race, in classic Israeli form, there was techno… techno so loud I felt it inside. Not what I wanted to feel at 7 am. The bigger issue I had with the course was the water or lack thereof. There were 4 runs – a marathon, half marathon, 10k and 4.2k (10% of a marathon – really a run for kids). The first three courses all overlapped for the 10k course, but the half and full marathons kept going. In the start, where the 10k ran, there was ample water in bottles. In the half/full marathon course, there were sporadic tables with cups of water – the people managing the tables couldn't keep up with demand and the cups were half full (note the optimism even though during the race I was pissed). At one point I had to stop to get water – really annoying. The course was cool though – we ran through a great park in North Tel Aviv (actually where the 10.10.10 10K was held (see here), but since that was at night I could not admire the park’s beauty. A highlight of the park was as I was running past the mini-zoo in the park, I saw these two mountain goats headbutting or rather horn-butting each other for the right to stand on a table. It was really amusing, but alas, I had to push on in search of more water.

At the end, I ran a 2:02, a 12 minute improvement from my Jerusalem half marathon time of 2:14. This was also my 10^th half marathon, which is a nice accomplishment.

After the race, I ran into my friend Gideo who ran a shorter race. We then met up with a bunch of other friends. After stretching ,recounting our race experiences and relaxing for a bit, we set out to satisfy the hearty appetite we all had. This led Ely, Michael, Gideon and myself to a neighborhood renown shawarma restaurant for a meaty gyro breakfast. On the way, we passed a liquor store that was offering samples of Cutty Sark, in which we partook. The meal was delicious – nothing like a schawarma laffa and a beer at 10:30 in the morning. The restaurant had laffas (flat wrap bread) with meat baked into the laffa… it was great!

We then headed to the market and met up with Chaim, bought some beers and a watermelon. We walked to the beach and spent the next several hours enjoying the sun, surf, watermelon, cold beer and utter relaxation. In the early afternoon, Chaim, Mikey and I headed back to Jerusalem (Mikey and Atoosa met us on the beach as well).

The day was simply perfect.

Rocket Attacks from Gaza

Shabbat for me was nice and pretty uneventful. I ate out both Friday night and Shabbat day. As you can imagine, I was pretty tired on Friday night and I fell asleep at the table. Felt pretty bad about that. Sorry Avraham (gracious and awesome host). Last week, Hamas terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at a bus of civilians severely injuring a teenage boy. This was the first attack in a long time that so brazenly targeted citizens with targeted accuracy. I mean that to say that while the rockets fired from Gaza are targeting citizens, they are unnamed and the terrorists firing them simply hope to succeed in harming people. This was a very aimed and calculated attack, which took planning and preparation.

In response to the missile attack as well as a large uptick in the missile firings from Gaza into communities in the south of Israel, the army responded with air strikes at rocket launching cells, Hamas terrorist leaders and smuggling tunnels. In these attacks, Gaza citizens are occasionally injured due to the fact that Hamas terrorists operate within residential areas and around civilians as shields. Video Here. Israel recently deployed its first two Iron Dome missile defense batteries. These systems track and destroy mid-range rockets in mid-air. Thankfully, so far, the system has worked with perfect accuracy and has neutralized 8 (I think) rockets in mid-air. Here is a video of the Iron Dome in action. After Shabbat I heard that several rockets had been fired at Ashkelon, the city where my brother-in-law Itay is from and where he and my sister were for Shabbat. I called Rachel to see that she was okay. Thank G-d she was – all the rockets that were headed for Ashkelon were stopped by the Iron Dome. None the less, every time a rocket was fired, the air raid sirens went off and My sister, brother-in-law and his entire family needed to run to the bomb shelter room in their home (every house has one) in case the missile was headed for their neighborhood. It is a sad state that entire cities need to live in fear of being hit by missiles fired over 50 kilometers away. Thankfully now, there is a bit of calm as Hamas stopped firing rockets and cut back its attacks. Unfortunately, experts are saying that the calm is temporary and a larger scale confrontation with Hamas is eminent. Let’s hope things calm down and remain safe for a long time to come.

I am going to cut it off here and write more soon. I still have updates for y’all.

I am how you say Ehh Ehh Isrrrraeli (Doesn't Sound Right Without the Accent)

Thursday was the big day. I became Israeli. The day was slated to be a busy one. As I mentioned, my who cousin was coming in from America was bringing with him some important documents including my birth certificate to present at my meeting. He was arriving at 11:30 am. My plan was to borrow my sister’s car, drive to the airport, meet him and take him to Tel Aviv and then head back to Jerusalem for my 1:30 meeting. It was an ambitious schedule.

I set out of my apartment later than I had planned and decided 'today I am becoming Israeli I am not going to take a cab to my sister’s office – I am not even going to take a bus. No I am going to take a tremp (hitchhike).'

I set out to find my tremp. On the way to the main street I saw a woman getting into her car. She did not know me but we happen to be neighbors – she lives half way down my block. I asked her if she was heading to the exit of the city. Unfortunately she was not. I told myself that otherwise she’d definitely have taken me. Once I got to the main street right by the bus stop, I started looking for a ride, but realized soon after that I was behind schedule. I called an audible, gave in and decided to take a cab. In neighborly spirit, I turned to the people at the bus stop and in Hebrew asked if anyone needed to go towards the exit of the city as I was taking a cab in that direction and would love to give people rides. I was surprised that I got a bunch of blank stares since the bus they were waiting for goes in the direction my cab was headed. There was one American student who took me up on my offer and asked if I was passing the market. I brought him with. On the way we were chatting about how he is planning on moving to Israel and serving in the army. His brothers and sister also lived here. As he was getting out of the car, I asked him his name. when he told me I asked “as in Chaim XXXX” to which he responded “he is my brother.” Small world. I am staying at Chaim XXXX’s place this Thursday in Tel Aviv before the Tel Aviv Half Marathon.

I took the cab to Har Hamnuchot, which is a cemetery that covers literally an entire mountain. My grandparents are buried there. Although they never lived in Israel, my grandparents saw an importance to being laid to rest in Israel. After paying them a visit , I walked across the street and up the hill to my sister’s office (not on the cemetery mountain but really close). I took the keys and headed for the airport. When I met up with my cousin he told me that a car had been sent to take him to Tel Aviv so he did not need a ride. This was a huge help for me – I could now make it back to Yerushalayim with time to spare. I figured I’d go pick up Aviva.

Aviva is a good friend of mine here in Israel. We met through her sister who emailed me a few weeks after I had arrived telling me to look out for her sister who was moving to Israel for 6 months. Aviva was able to set up a similar arrangement to my own in that she is working part time for her consulting company in the States. We quickly became good friends and are now very close. When I told Aviva the day before that I was making Aliyah on Wednesday she immediately told me she was coming with to document the momentous event. Despite my assertion that the whole thing would be a bore, she was insistent. I’m glad she was.

I swung by and picked her up and we headed to the Nefesh B’Nefesh offices. All of the meetings for people making Aliyah on that day had been scheduled between 9 and 1:30 pm. I was given the last slot since I needed to get my papers. I arrived at NBN about 15-20 minutes late and everyone was gone except the Misrad Hapenim people and the NBN employees – i.e. no other new immigrants were there. I was rushed into the board room where the Misrad Hapenim people were set up. The process was very simple and anti-climactic. They asked to see my birth certificate, letter from my rabbi and letter from a lawyer attesting that I am of good legal standing (that cost 10 shekel and was completely pointless). They also took my passport (I’m told I get it back in a week with my new Israeli ID… I hope so. In the meantime, I am also hoping I am not accused of assassinating a terrorist in Dubai).

Lastly, I was handed a form that had been filled out for me (really nice) and told to sign in two places. I signed the form, handed it back and that was it... I had made Aliyah.

I looked at Aviva and said “well that was anti-climactic.” Suddenly, Aviva reaches into her bag and boom – she pulls out these great sings that she had made in honor of my Aliyah. She started singing “Aliyah songs,” which was ironic because she had not seen my blog post from the night before (although several people at NBN had).





Aviva and I with Akiva, the MAN at NBN...
made my fast Aliyah possilble .



We went around the office taking Aliyah pictures with people that we knew and didn’t know.



My Cousin Erica and I



Dave of Sara and Dave



New Oleh that we didn't know.



Yonit - a friend from Baltimore

The best pictures we took were with a “group flight” poster. A group flight is a scheduled NBN flight from outside of Israel in which a large group of Olim (new immigrants) come to Israel at one time. As a group if you will (see last post video “Come Back” by the Moshav Band). There was a picture on the wall of this flight and since I am making Aliyah from within Israel, I missed out on the opportunity to be on a group flight (something I had always wanted to do). To make up for it, we took the following pictures:

Me on the "Group Flight"

The 2nd picture was so convincing that later that night a guy who saw the picture looked at me confused and said “I don’t get it. I know you live here and made Aliyah today – when were you on a group flight.” Aviva took a Photoshop quality picture. Here are some other pictures from my Aliyah extravaganza. The Misrad Hapenim women saw how into the event I was and she gave me an NBN hat… so cool. With the had I had the perfect I just made Aliyah accessory.

With the Misrad Hapenin Ladies



NBN "Poster Child" Just Exuding Aliyah Enthusiasm

We left the NBN office and I dropped Aviva off at the supermarket and went to run errands. The previous week, before I knew I would have my Aliyah appointment, Groopbuy – a daily deal site similar to Groupon – had a coupon on sale to River Noodle Bar, an Asian noodle (duh) and sushi restaurant. This was the second time they had such a deal.

Last time they offered the coupon, I went there with three friends for dinner. We had a great time – the food was delicious and the sake bombs were loads of fun… that’s right we sake bombed. Until recently, I thought we were the first people in Israel to ever sake bomb – I later discovered we were not – but we were the first at Rive Noodle Bar (as far as I know).

At any rate, when I saw the deal online, I decided it was a great excuse to plan a group outing. I sent an email to a few friends with the plan that we would buy coupons in groups of 2 (coupons were 100 shekel for 50 shekel good for 2 diners). We ended up with a group of about 12 coming and I reserved “the big table in the corner” which was by far the coolest and nicest spot in the place.

The Group with our Groopbuy coupons

 One the way to the restaurant I made a stop at a t-shirt store and I purchased what I thought/think is a brilliant t-shirt:

The shirt says “תהיה נחמד אלי עשיתי עליה עכשיו” which translates to “Be nice to me I just made Aliyah”. And for my Aliyah buddy, I got a shirt that said “אני איתו” – “I am with him.” Decked out in out new Aliyah gear, the stage was set for a great night, and that is exactly what it was.



Our dinner for twelve blew up to somewhere near 20. The other restaurant patrons were not amused by our sake shenanigans, but we had a hella good time.

After sake bombing, the plan was to go sing Karaoke at Capricorn, a bar in town. When we got there though, the place was way to full and we couldn’t get in. We defaulted to Lagos, an African restaurant during the day and very spacious – well decorated bar at night. We hung out and danced at Lagos (although many of our group complained that the music was not good).

Also on a fun and anecdotal note, I shaved my beard last night. It was motivated partially by a comment that I made in carpool that I look like an 11 year old boy without a beard, combined with the fact that I like to take it off once a year to make sure I still like it (I do), to run the half marathon in Tel Aviv clean faced (it feels nice) and to prepare for sfira – the time after Passover when we are supposed to not shave for just over a month.All in all, Thursday was a joyous, memorable and all around unbelievable day. I am really happy with my decision to make Aliyah and want to thank everyone here for their support and good wishes.