Thanksgiving

In Israel, Fourth of July is gone, and X-mas is almost unnoticeable. But Thanksgiving is one of those things that olim seem to cling to. It may be it's Jewish origins (the Pilgrims read about Sukkot in the bible, or as they called it the "Feast of the Tabernacles,"and were inspired to imitate it.) It may be it's neutrality; since Thanksgiving has no religious or patriotic overtones, it is one of the few American holidays permissible to religious Jews since it doesn't cause a question of dual loyalty. For whatever reason, I'm not giving up Thanksgiving. And it's handy that Moish and I both telecommute, so we had the day off. The get-together was at his place, with some other guests invited as well.

Dina made sushi...

And Moish worked on the turkey.

That night, I gave Moish's friends Eric and Devorah back to their small but growing settlement, Yad Binyamin. I ended up staying the night and leaving Friday.

Yad Binyamin is in a quiet part of the Merkaz (central) area, about half an hour by car to Jerusalem when there's no traffic. But there's usually traffic. Hundreds of housing units are now being built.

There are also the internal refugees from Gush Katif (Israel's former Gaza settlemtents, destroyed in 2005,) or as many prefer to be called, "Expellees," since "Refugee" would imply that they left willingly. They still in temporary housing without a permanent home 2 1/2 years after their expulsion.

I continued on my way Friday morning and made it out to Ashdod at around nine, where Gali was waiting for me.

Here he comes!

Happy to see me?
Ashdod by the sea.

We took some of the computer components I had brought into the country during my trip to America, and bought some more stuff at a computer store where he gets a special discount. Spent the rest of the day building my new system.

I spent Shabbat at Bnei Darom, and Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night) headed back to the city for a shidduch.

Yaffo street at night. They have these funky lights hanging over the street.

Kikar Tzion (Zion Square), at the Ben Yehuda mall. A good place to meet people.

The moon behind speckled clouds.

Well, that was my mini-vacation, so I'm back to blogging now. It sure was nice to get out of J-town for a few days though.