My New Diggs

After searching for weeks and weeks, I woke up a few days ago with a splitting sleep-deprivation headache and was ready to throw in the towel on living in Jerusalem at all. I've been surviving like a Hamas operative for the last two months; always sleeping in a different bed and never staying in the same room for more than a few hours at a time. The gnawing uncertainty of knowing when I would finally have a roof over my head and constant worry about where I would be able to go to get my work done had finally gotten to me. Even the apartments in Pisgat Ze'ev are being snatched up within hours of coming on the market. I made some phonecalls and was trying to get the phone number of a Giva (hilltop settlement/trailer park) I had visited a few months ago that accepts singles. I had talked to some friends about moving out to Ramat Beit Shemesh, which, like Pisgat Ze'ev, is full of married couples, but unlike Pisgat Ze'ev, is far, far away from Jerusalem, (40 minutes by car assuming no traffic.) I called Moshe just to let off steam.

A few hours later, Moshe called me back, "Great news, I just got an apartment on Yochanan Ben Zakai. Do you want my apartment in Baka?"
Baka? A two-minute walk from Emek Refaim? Of course!
After my initial elation, I took a moment to consider the pros and cons.

Pros:
1. Thriving anglophonic singles community.
2. The price: $500/month, roughly equivalent to what I would be paying were I to stay in Pisgat Ze'ev, and well below market value.

Cons:
1. Leaving all my friends and family behind.
2. Less natural setting, more citified.
3. I could get more square footage for my money in Pisgat Ze'ev than in Baka.

Oh, and one more pro: The Baka place is available right now.

I grabbed the place. Moshe, the landlady, and I made a deal: I could rent the place if I were to pay for the rent the day Moshe's lease ended, and in exchange she wouldn't post it on the Internet. That way, she doesn't lose a single day's rent, and I have no competition. I gladly grabbed the deal. After all, if this place was anything like all the other places I've seen over the last few months, it could easily be bid up to $600.

Of course, Cousin Rafi looked over the lease with his little red pen. With an occasional outraged, "Mah Zeh!?" (What's this!?) he went to work on it. The main problem was that the landlord wanted a security check for 5,000 shekels, a security payment of 6,000 shekels to be returned after I move out, and a signature from a guarantor. Usually they only want one of those.

I met with the landlady, who Moshe described as a very nice, understanding, person, and we went through the contract. We agreed that I would only need to provide the 6,000 shekel cash security payment, and we could do without the additional security check and guarantor. "You look Yashar" (Yashar = straight, upright.)

Last night I met her at her house, and she had rewritten the contract with my changes included. We signed, I paid, and I got a key, so tonight I sleep under my own roof for the first time in, well, let's see.

I've been living out of suitcases for the last 47 days.

Of course, the place isn't huge, and it's already furnished, but I figured out I can fit most of my stuff anyway.

Here are some pictures (most of the stuff is Moshe's.)

A view from the entrance doorway. That's the door to the bathroom at left, living room in front.
The bedroom. Room for one bed and a slide-out bed for a guest, plus a large closet (not shown.)

The living room. Table, chairs, and bookshelf included.

Window to the back area. There seems to be a preschool out back during the day.

Moshe walkin' round.

The kitchen (part of th emain room.) This one's got an oven, unlike the old place.

The bathroom. With tub! (Not that I'd ever use it.) There's some storage over the tub.Storage over the tub.

The new tenant.

Moshe made us some egg sandwiches with goat cheese. Man, they were great!

This definitely deserves a shehecheyanu (prayer of thanksgiving.)

News

I was going to post some pictures from my layover in Amsterdam, but it looks like I'll be following up an apartment lead tonight, so, no time. Sorry!

But stay tuned, hopefully my homelessness situation will be resolved shortly.



11 PM Update: Just signed the lease, paid my first month and a half's rent, and moved some stuff in. I'm no longer homeless!

Next steps: Install internet connection and get my stuff out of storage, transfer all bills over to my name.

I ain't settled yet, but things are moving!

Leaving Walnut Creek

Continuing my Walnut Creek adventure, it was time to leave my old home and head back to my real home.

The stampede to the food after Yom Kippur:

Yes, that's A. in the bottom right. He happened to come back to visit Walnut Creek at the same time as I did.

Art had us back over to his place for some post-fast gorging.

Art, Lyn, A., and Ezra

Yours truly with Art's son Shimshon, stroking his imaginary beard.

The Deli Boys came over as well, so called because the three brothers run the Kosher Deli in San Francisco. There used to be four but one of them got married. They were surprised to have a dairy meal. "You don't know how often we have to eat meat."

The Deli Boys

The next day it was up at dawn (well, more like 8:30 AM) to pack my things and get to the airport. I had been living out of one of the rooms in the back of the shul, and Hebrew school started up while I was getting ready.

What is it that this kid is reading?

It's the Chabad Hebrew School Siddur, which I put together back when I was a teacher a couple of years ago, still in use! Nice to see I've had some effect on the community.
And back across the Bay Bridge to the airport.
Farewell, San Francisco.

To Kill A Cluckingbird

Well, as long as I'm still homeless, I'll post some pics from my trip to Walnut Creek.

The night before Yom Kippur, I had the opportunity to partake in one of the less-publicized little Chabad customs known as Kapparot (attonement.)

Nissin girds his soul for attonement.

The idea is pretty simple. First you get some chickens.

The chickens are here.

"Hey Ned, whaddya think we're doing here?"

Next, you pick up the chicken. Nissin is always nearby for guidance.

Eitan with chicken.

"Hi, my name's Mike!"

Then, you read from the siddur (prayer book) about putting your sins on the chicken.

"No, no, read this part."

Then, you swing the chicken around your head.

Since we only had one shochet (kosher slaughterer) around, we had to stand in line.

And now the shochet efficiently dispatches the chicken to chicken heaven.

As part of the process of kosher slaughter, the blood is allowed to spill on the dirt, and we sprinkle some dirt over the blood, reciting a blessing.

The chickens are then donated to the poor. Or their carcasses are purchased back, the money donated to the poor, and the chickens fried up to make some midnight schnitzel.

Kapparot is the sort of thing that's easily misunderstood. There have been frequent objections to it within Judaism because it resembled the practices of Pagan neighbors. Also, there have been objections that it might be interpreted as an actual sacrifice. Private sacrifices were forbidden after the construction of the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple.) Since the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash a couple of mellinea ago, Jews have not been able to conduct actual sacrifices, but have continued praying for the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash, to allow us to return to the practice. Meanwhile, many Jews have substituted swinging an equivelant amount of money over the heat while reciting the blessings, then donating that money to the poor. Being more blood-and-guts, I prefer the real Kapparot.

Of course, in Jerusalem, you can see people doing Kapparot on the side of the street. Back in California, in today's day and age, the main concern is from the department of health or from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,) so it has to be done quietly. Also, who knows where to buy a live chicken nowadays anyway?

For these reasons, it's usually organized quietly, and all the Jews come out of the woodwork.

Rabbi Friedman from Santa Cruz, with whom I used to spend Shabbat when I was unemployed and living in Pebble Beach with my grandmother.


Cylus and Seneera, immigrants from the original Jewish Community of India, and more recently of Walnut Creek until they moved away a few years ago.

Through the Roof

I read an article today in the Jerusalem Post entitled, "Through the Roof," which covers the rising cost and statistical impossibility of securing a lease in Jerusalem. The central reason given is the tendency for Jews from overseas with large bank accounts to buy apartments at overseas prices. Israelis, making lower salaries, can't afford the rents the landlords want to charge, so the owners prefer to allow the apartments to sit empty, visiting from time to time during the holidays. Ironically, the article finds that most people are moving all the way out to... my very own Pisgat Ze'ev. Meanwhile, I'm continuing to try to move out of Pisgat Ze'ev, and may have a development on that front. More on that one later.

Two factors were not covered by the article, probably because of their political implications:
1. The increasing population.
2. The halt in construction.

Jerusalem becomes more religious, less secular, every day. With the increase in religious population comes an increasing birth rate. Meanwhile, Jerusalem, which was once a small town surrounded by a collection of villages, has now been built out, well beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines, expanding into Judea and Samaria, a.k.a. the "West Bank." Today, with Zionist ideology more of a pleasant memory than a guide for policy, the government's overall goal is to keep Israel's American allies appeased and it's Arab adversaries quiet. To this end, construction of new neighborhoods in the vast, open desert to the East of Jerusalem has been put on hold. No supply plus high demand equals high prices.

Most young Jewish families choose to leave the holy city for something more affordable, while the Arabs continue to build and build without bothering to purchase the land or attain permits, and so the demography of Jerusalem shifts ever closer to an Islamic majority. There is talk of re-drawing the city lines to exclude the hostile Arab villages and include the suburbs and exurbs which have sprung up further outside of the city, but so far, no action. The fact is, I might end up leaving Jerusalem too some day if I ever want to live a reasonably comfortable life.

On the brighter side of the news, "Report Ranks Jobs by Rates of Depression," a recent survey indicates that one of my first jobs, serving food and beverages to people (I worked at the concession stand in a movie theater) is among the most depressing, with a 10.4% depression rate, while engineering, which I do now, has the lowest depression rate of 4.3%. Building things is just too much fun.

Stabalizing

My blogging has been a bit sporadic lately, no? A post here, a post there. I guess it's because I've been having trouble getting internet access. I've got a splitting headache, and I'm pretty exhausted. Still, life is slowly but surely improving.

I pulled my Vonage phone setup out of its suitcase and started fiddling with it. For some reason, I had a premonition things might not go as planned after my return from America, so I had set aside my computer, phone, cable modem, and voice-over-IP router in a suitcase and left it with Rafi and Galila. Well, that turned out to be a stroke of serendipitous genius. Took the Vonage setup to Moish and Dena's place and plugged it into their wall connection to the HOT Internet service (the same service I use) It worked! It actually worked! So now I have my business phone back. They were kind enough to lend me the use of their Cheder Milkat (the security room/bomb shelter every apartment built after the gulf war in 1991 is required to have by law.) It now serves as Moish's painting studio and the laundry room, which they aren't using as much since Moish is working the graveyard shift at IDT. I bought an extension cable and was able to set up on an old table in there, and suddenly, I now have an office!

My new (temporary) office.

I immediately called my work and told them I'm back up and running. This really takes a load off my chest. My main concern with all this moving around has been my fear that I would lose projects which would be farmed out to other people because I was unreachable without my phone. I can now breathe easier and relax a bit. I even get to look at one of the paintings I did with Moish a while back in one of his classes.

"Sunrise over Frozen Lake," by yours truly.

A Landlord's Market

A couple of days ago, I went to see a place. It was three bedrooms, $700 in Kiryat Moshe, in a nice building, but the apartment itself was falling to pieces. Still, it had a roof. I had called the owner for a week solid before someone picked up the phone. That someone, who later turned out to be a lawyer managing the property for an absentee owner, then forwarded me to a real estate agent, who arranged the appointment. When I got to the apartment, after sitting for an hour and a half after the agent had said he would be there, four other people also came to see the apartment. The agent demanded a $700 finder's fee even though we had done the legwork and researched the apartment.

I went home and thought about it, and decided to call the realtor with an offer. Turns out that both the lawyer who is managing the property and the real estaqte agent who'se trying to rent it out wanted $700. I.e., they wanted $1400 in fees before I would even start to pay $700 in rent. I was going to make a counteroffer of $650 per month, plus $650 for the agent and $300 for the lawyer. The lawyer told me to call him back the next morning with my offer. He then called me yesterday morning before I could call him and he told me that they had rented the apartment to someone else, and that he had promised it to her before he even asked me for an offer.

I went to another place today in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, 3 room (2-br), $700, like the last one. The ad went up at 9 PM last night. The guy showed up at around 2:30 PM looking haggard. He told me that he had received seventy separate phonecalls for this same apartment since he woke up that morning. He was as shocked as anyone, and didn't realize that the Jerusalem real estate market was so desparate. Five other people were there to look at the apartment, and more were on the way when I left. One guy offered a full year's rent in advance. I didn't have that kind of cash handy, so I offered $750/month. He asked me if I would have roommates, and I answered honestly, that I probably would have to. His expression seemed to hint that I wouldn't be getting the place.

It seems that these landlords prefer to rent to families rather than singles, so I can say with confidence, given the tightness of the market, that I will probably not be able to get anything more than a two-room apartment, if I can even get that. I'm beginning to realize that not picking up the lease on my old apartment, $100 price hike and all, was probably my biggest mistake since making aliyah. Of course, the decision made perfect sense at the time since I had the place in San Simon all lined up.

Anyway, I'm in Modiin now, crashing at Moish and Deena's place. We're basically sleeping in shifts. Moish works from 11PM till 6AM. Then he comes home and sleeps. Deena and Rivka (daughter, 6) sleep in their room from about 10 PM - 6AM, and I sleep in Rivka's bedroom from 12AM-8AM.

Meanwhile, Yigal found a place in Ashdod and rented it last night. He can't afford the housing market in Jerusalem and so decided to commute from Ashdod to Jerusalem, over an hour each way, every day rather than rent a place here. He's been trying to get me to move out there as well. He got a huge place, 1-BR, everythign included (gas, electricity, arnona, water) for $550. It's tempting, but the fact is, my whole life is in Jerusalem. My yeshivah, my friends, my shidduchim, and my family. Still, it may simply turn out to be impossible to rent anything here.

Just Visiting

One thing I always need to remember; whiskey, even just a teaspoon, always gives me a hangover. I can dring Vodka with the Chabadniks, and Arak with the Sephardim, but give me a teaspoon of whiskey and I'm clutching my skull the next day. The quarter-shot of whiskey I had last night was no exception. I figured it had probably been five years or so since I last had whiskey, and I had probably gotten over it. Think again, man!

Anwyway, while recovering from my wild whiskey and crembo party, I've thought about the apartment thing, and I decided to look for a place in Kiryat Mosheh. That would put me walking distance to the yeshivah (Machon Meir) and still downtown. So my goal will be to spend the next week looking for a place there. If I can't find anything after a week, then I'm going to take the first thing I can find in some other neighborhood like Rasco, San Simon, Baka, or somewhere like that. I'm under time pressure to get settled, but at the same time, I want to get somewhere that I actually want to live. After all, this is a year out of my life we're talking about here.



Meanwhile, here are some more pictures I took while in Walnut Creek. Whenever I wasn't working, I was constantly invited over to people's homes for visits, or to go out and do stuff.


My grandfather drove out to Walnut Creek after our Sunday morning minyan to take me out for the day. Had a great time catching up, watching a show, and of course shopping. It was a fast day (Tzum Gedaliah) so no hot tamales during the movie



At my grandfather's house I saw a photo of the fam from years gone bye.

Later that night, I was invited over to Rabbi's to break the fast. It also happened to be my 29th birthday on the Hebrew calendar, so Rebbetzin Shternie prepared my fave, brownie cake!

From left to right: Eitan (local baal tshuvah,) yours truly, Dovber, Rabbi, and Nissin. Dovber and Nissin come out from time to time from the east coast to help out running the high holidays.

Shternie with my brownie cake: No, no, don't take my picture!

A couple of days later, I headed out to Sacramento to visit my company's office there and meet face-to-face with all the people I've been working with over the phone for the last year.

On the drive back from Sacramento, the first rains of the year began falling, and hard. Soon, they will come to Jerusalem too, God willing.

When I got back to Walnut Creek, I was invited over for dinner by cousins Jancie, Joe, and Lee.

Left to right: Janice, Lee, Joe.

They keep a kosher barbecue out back for kosher visitors. We had chicken, hamburgers, and corn. Man, it was fantastic!

Joe throws another corn on the barbie.

Making aliyah used to mean you get on a boat and leave your little shtetl forever. If you weren't killed by the Arabs or die of malaria, then maybe you could sent a note home from time to time. Thanks to technology and the Boeing 747, moving across the world doesn't mean disappearing over the horizon forever. I may have left the old country, and relationships require more work, but aliyah doesn't mean you have to lose your friends and family.

Twenty Nine Crembos

Today, Shabbat, was my secular birthday. Wow, 29, a whole new year. Still "in my twenties" for another year. Well, for another 364 days 12 hours, at least. Not that I feel I've wasted my time. Of course, there are plenty of things I would have done differently over the last year, but I feel I've also come a huge way, and life is good!

My cousins, on whose hide-a-bed I'm living and out of whose fridge I'm eating, threw a little mini-party for me complete with shots of whiskey chased with crembos (little chocolate-covered goopey-marshmallowey things the kids love.) Everyone gave me a bracha.
Rafi: Keep going with the same determination that got you to Israel and you can do anything.
Galila: We should celebrate big simchas with you this year! [Hint hint.]
Amichai (12): Your parents should buy you a really big bike. And you should get married.
Orit (14): Um... I'll answer later.
Tehillah (6): You should be the Moshiach
Elitzur (9): You should be as sweet as chocolate. (He had just finished a chocolate sandwich and chocolate crembo.)

My hachlatah (resolution for the year): Not to put off Minchah (afternoon prayers) until it gets dark out. It's easy to get so busy you forget the time, and pretty soon you've missed Minchah, which should be done before sunset. It happened to me twice last week. NO MORE!

Chabad of Walnut Creek

The apartment saga continues, but I'm sick of worrying about it, which means you're probably sick of hearing about it.

Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah starts tonight, the final festival of the high holidays where we finish reading the Torah, rewind and begin again, and all get liquored up and dance around with the Torah. It's one of the best chagim. The dancing goes on for like 2 or 3 hours tomorrow morning, which is a little bit much for me, so what I usually do is cut out of my Ashkenazi shul and go to all the other shuls, visiting the Yemenites, Moroccans, Chabadniks, Turks, and everyone in between. I'll dance around for twenty minutes or so in a shul and make sure to bump into all my friends and oodles of cousins, then continue on to the next shul. I end up back at my own shul and finish up here. Tomorrow night Rafi gives his annual concert for the entire town in the main square in Pisgat Ze'ev.

As for me, I'm finally almost recovered from jetlag. I've slept a full seven hours for the last two nights in a row, and during normal hours. Still a bit exhausted, but whaddya gonna do. The trick to jetlag is: don't nap. Drink lots of caffiene and stay up all day. Only allow yourself to sleep when it's dark out. That seemed to do the trick.

Meanwhile, here are some photos I took during my trip to Walnut Creek, from the morning minoyan at Chabad:

Dovber leads the davening. Everyone is still a little bleary eyed. After all, it's only like 9AM.

Rabbi with Pinchas (left) and Ruvein (right.)

Aryeh, fresh as a daisy.

A pensive and distracted Nissin

Ruvein the Cohen takes his aliyah. "NO NO! I'm NOT RUSSIAN, I'm AZERBAIJANI!"

Chag Sameach! A Gut Yontiff!

Getting Things Under Control

Funny how it works out. I was up north on my American shopping spree buying all the things you can't buy in Israel, or at least all the things that cost double or triple the American price in Israel, when my Dad spotted a laptop. Dual core, a gig of ram, WIFI... you know, all the trimmings. And it was only $400! (after rebates, discounts, etc.) I haven't owned a laptop since I lived in Israel back in 2000, and I had such a horrible experience that I vowed never to get one again. I mean, really, how often do I need to work outside of my apartment? But this was just too good a deal to turn up. I would be moving into my apartment a mere five days after I got back to Israel, so it would be hard to justify the purchase on those grounds. I vacillated for ten minutes or so and decided to buy it anyway. After all, if I don't end up using it much, I could still sell it for double the American price in Israel.

Once I suddenly found myself homeless, I immediately thanked God I had decided to buy the thing. At this point, who knows how long it's going to take me to find a place? So I sat down to open some of my design files. Now, the store versions of the laptop show shortcuts to Microsoft Office, hinting that the computer comes with Office already installed. Of course, once I tried to open Microsoft Excel, edit some of my design files and save them, a window popped up demanding a registration number. Turns out they show the software on your computer, but it's just a trial version, and you've gotta pay a huge sum to get the registration number. Poor old Uncle Billy Gates was back at my door with his upturned palm again.

Unfortunately, all of the disks with the software I typically use are in the storage locker out in Mishor Adumim, deep in the “West Bank,” accessible by appointment only, and they aren't answering the phones. So, I moved my base of operations to Moish and Deena's house, sleeping on the patio in their sukkah, and working from their daughter Rivka's room, where I set up my old desktop system which has all of the software already installed on it, and I've been able to get a good bit of work done. While I'm homeless I'm trying to move from place to place to distribute my load, but now if I want to move about and still be able to work, I have to disconnect absolutely everything and schlep it all back down to my car one piece at a time, and then reassemble it at my destination.

But then I figured it out. As I mentioned, I need MS Office, which costs like $400. Then I remembered hearing about this suite called “Open Office.” It's basically the same as the Microsoft version, and even opens and saves Microsoft Office documents. The only difference is that it's totally free. I downloaded it, got it running on my laptop, and am now writing this email on “OpenOffice Writer.”

Then, I went to the Bluebeam website and downloaded a 30-day trial version of bluebeam PDF Revu, which I use to review and mark up engineering drawings. It works great, way faster than it does on the old desktop.

Lastly, I got CHVAC up and running, a piece of software which I use to size air conditioning and ventilation equipment from buildings, and I was on the road again! I also have my entire library of basically all building codes, regulations, and engineering textbooks scanned and digitized, so I carry the equivalent of an entire engineering library with me on my little system.

Next step: communications. I purchased a “Home” card from Bezek International (phone company) which lets me make long-distance phone calls for a pretty reasonable rate (comes out to about 8 cents per minute.) The only thing I can't do is receive incoming phone calls since Vonage, my phone-over-Internet line, is disconnected until I get my own apartment. But Vonage has a service where people leave voicemails, and then Vonage uses speech-to-text technology to transform the voice recording into text and email it to me. Then, I can read the message and immediately call the person back on my calling card using my cel phone or a land line. It's as if I were just sitting in my office but busy on the other line. No need for them to know I'm living like a bum.

All this gives me a bit of breathing room. I can continue working in this state indefinitely, although I would, of course, like to find a place as soon as possible. But some of the stress of falling behind on my work and missing deadlines, is alleviated.

So what it all ads up to is I'm in this weird limbo state. I'm sleeping on people's couches and eating out of their refrigerators. This is uncomfortable, but it's not unfamiliar. After all, I was once a starving student, and I've been unemployed before. But the weird thing is that while I'm depending on my friends and family, I'm also busy with a backload of work, I'm financially solvent, and I'm cruising around the country in the Magic Carpet (my new car.) What a strange mix this is.