Epilogue: Back on the mountain

As the title suggests, here I am, back atop Mt. Gilboa, nearly three years after having left in March 2006. I am currently engrossed in a semester abroad from New York, and I decided to take a break from my studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to visit my old stomping grounds, for שבת זכור.

Things are the same, yet different. The Beit Midrash still has that same funky smell, only now they've added an indoor and an outdoor patio, as well as a tower with a subterranean library. The top of the tower is locked, preventing accessibility to the magnificent view of the surrounding areas. The basketball court looks like it has been deserted for several weeks, with a large murky puddle in the middle of the tiled floors, and a lone crow keeping watch from the rafters.

The main difference I feel, though, is the people. I've met around ten people whom I recognize from my year, who came up for the special shabbat, but most everyone else is new. I suppose it's good to meet new people, but a large part of what made this place special was the people.

I have to go in midthought, but shabbat shalom.

Welcome to Yoni in Israel!

Hello loyal, and perhaps nostalgic, reader. Welcome to Yoni in Israel, the award-winning blog that captured the interest of random people for about seven months. This post is to tie everything together, as the blog is no longer active, and facillitate your use of these archives in researching and rereading my past adventures.

First, a brief summary: I started Yoni in Israel in August 2005, before I departed for what I expected to be a full academic year abroad, in Israel, at Ma'aleh Gilboa. The blog took a while to get rolling as we waited for wireless internet in the dorms, but once it was set up in November, I did not have to rely on the computer in the Beit Midrash and became able to post more often and at my leisure.

Still, it was a relatively quiet phenomenon, if you can call it that. The only people who seemed to know about it were my immediate family. Yoni in Israel started out as a sort of diary, and not many people, I assumed, would be interested in reading my daily reports. As it turned out, I was dead wrong about that one. Apparently, people wanted a sharp, clever, and insightful view into the yeshiva world. And I was the blogger to give them what they wanted.

Slowly but surely, I started getting more readers, from all over. New York. Texas. Israel. St. Louis. Toronto. And it wasn't just my family. They were old schoolteachers and Israeli families, they were roommates' friends and friends' roommates. They were a Texan mom and a gay Chicagoan (don't ask). I never knew who was reading, or how many people were reading, but they were.

I mentioned that my blog started out as a personal piece, a collection of recollections from Israel. Once word got out and I got more readers, however, it became a hodgepodge of things: the people I met, the places I saw, the cucumbers I ate, jokes, riddles, humorous writing, a photo gallery, and opinions on just about everything.

In January, I learned to my surprise that this blog had been nominated for "Best Student Life Blog" in the Jerusalem Post's annual blog award competition. With nothing to lose, I implored my readers, asking them for votes. The public (or my readers, anyway) responded in grand fashion. People left me messages, saying they had voted. Readers sent chain letters to friends, friends who did not even know me, campaigning for votes. At yeshiva, I was constantly approached in the Beit Midrash with an update on my standings. In the end, I pulled away for an exciting victory. The badge still remains on the website, in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.

Just when I felt things were getting on a roll, Yoni in Israel crashed to a stop. I came home for Pesach break in April, and while I continued to write, the posts were not the same. I looked forward to returning to Israel, both to continue writing and, more importantly, to finish my experience abroad.

I never returned. Toward the end of Pesach, I started feeling bad, and I postponed, and eventually cancelled, my flight back due to sickness. As many of you may know, I spent about three months sick with an undiagnosed disease, suffering high fevers of unknown origins (FUOs). Thankfully, I recovered after my infected tonsils were removed, but as I did not write during my illness, the blog ended as well.

I am writing a new blog now, which is following my life in New York City and in NYU, but my writings of last year remain forever preserved, here.

Now, a word or two on how to use this blog:
First, the archives on your left. They are arranged by month, and if you click the month, you will be able to see all the posts of that month. The more recent posts are at the top, so as you scroll down you will be going backwards through time.
Also available on your left are the recent posts, though since the more recent posts are from my time in California, I suspect those won't be as interesting.
Feel free to check out the comments, which are located through a link at the bottom of each post (if there are any for that post). You may comment if you wish, but be advised that I probably won't read it, and neither, I expect, will anyone else.
The Scoreboard link was for a quasi-game I held throughout the year, awarding points that don't exist. But people still wanted them.
You can also click the Jerusalem Post badge. I think that leads to the scoreboard of all the blogs from the contest, but I'm not sure.
At the bottom of the page is my contact info. The phone number is not mine anymore, and I don't use that email frequently. You can send me an email at jsb399@nyu.edu.

Finally, here are some features I hope to be adding soon to make your exploration easier and more enjoyable:
Month in Reviews for all months
Top Ten Posts
Post Directory
Links to different pages
A button that links to my current page

Enjoy!

Never did cardboard pizza taste so good!

Right now, for some reason, I'm listening to Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song," which mentions "we've got eight craaaaazy nights." And though I'm sure Sandler is Jewish, he clearly did not remember Pesach, or spend the holiday with my family.

My birthday usually falls out around Pesach time, and one big plus is that I get to see my relatives from New Jersey. The downside to this, of course, is that they are all staying in our house, and coupled with my grandparents and two housekeepers, we had a total of seventeen people staying with us. Count the five New York Mintzes who are staying next door who are here for the meals and the most of the time as well, and that's 22 people, without other guests that we'll have. Not that I'm counting or anything. Nor complaining. Well, not really.

First of all, we have two seders, which may not seem like such a big deal to my American readers, but will cause a good deal of head-scratching to my Israeli friends, and perhaps to my American friends in Israel as well. I thought that I had some practice, as I kept two days of Purim (see March 15), but the experience was... well, who am I kidding, it was the same as my first eighteen Passovers.

We had the same seder, Take One and Take Two. The guest list was about the same both nights. For two nights in a row, I wondered if the Jews would make it out of Egypt, or if we'd have a different ending for the second part of the doubleheader. Unsurprisingly, I was not surprised. Neither was I surprised by the taste of the matzah, as crunchy and bland as it's ever been. The best part of the seder, apart from watching watching some people drink too much, was singing our favorite songs. We maintained our tradition of the "Zuzei!" from last year, and established one for next year with our "Tafsarav." (Don't ask)

Other than the seders, we played some basketball, we swam in the jacuzzi despite the mercurial weather, and I continued teaching others the finer points of the highly-addicting "The Settlers of Catan." We ate almost all of the good snackfood, and consumed much matzah-pizza, which is basically tomato sauce and cheese on carboard. And, I finally finished my book, "The World is Flat." All 400-plus pages of it. Now I can continue to read other literature in peace.

Tomorrow we leave for Palm Springs for seven days.

Chag Sameach.

Guess what today is?

Before I get to the excitement of today, let me first mention that I attended last night's Maverick-Clipper game at Staples Center. It was a low-scoring affair, with Dallas winning on a jumper by Dirk Nowitzki with 0.7 seconds left to win 75-73.

Anyway today was my birthday. Huzzah! I am now nineteen, or, as I prefer to think of it, my one-year anniversary of my being legal. We celebrated by cleaning the house for Pesach, finishing the last of the chametz and scraping the remains of a moldy rug off the tiled floor. Our seders should be between 25-30 people each (oh yeah, we're keeping two days in the US), so we rearranged the whole den, moving the couch and other accoutrements to achieve a whole new feng shui. And yes, I pronounce it "fang shuey."

Tonight we celebrated my birthday, as well as the arrival of my relatives from New Jersey (via Utah), as well as the last official leavened meal, at our favorite sushi place. Though the food was excellent as usual, the sixteen of us placing our own individual finnicky orders caused a fair amount of confusion and delay. Still, it was all worth it. Goodbye rice. Goodbye soy. Hello macaroons!

Tonight I threw a small party for my birthday, and though it was a lot of fun, its circumstances merit a brief explanation: a few years ago, I threw a last-second, half-effort party on Friday night, and the only person who showed was my friend Josh Cohen. In order to at least double my guest list, I put a party hat on Shel Silverstein (or rather, the picture of Shel Silverstein on the dustjacket of his book), leading to what is now known as "The Shel Silverstein Incident with the Party Hat and the Failed Birthday Party, with only Josh Cohen Attending." Not wanting another SSIPHFBPJCA, I took the initiative to make my own party. This also partly backfired on me, because my parents were trying to throw a surprise party for me. Oh well.

A few of my friends-- Tzvi, Tabak, Alyssa, Saraleah, Rochelle, Landau-- came at exactly 8:03, and we schmoozed for a while before cutting up the birthday cake, my favorite cake of all-- a chocolate-and-lemon checkerboard cake; you need to see and taste it to believe it. Then we went bowling, where I won with a grand score of 117 (out of a possible 300). My bowling goal, as always, was to crack 100, which I did. I'm thinking about setting my sights on a minimum of 120, and seeing where I go from there. Whatever.

Last word: Today is also the birthday of David Mayer-Deutsch. All together now:
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to David,
Happy birthday to you!

"Workin' at the Car Wash..."

Last year my senior class went on the March of the Living, a program that takes people to Poland and Israel for Holocaust Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day, respectively, but since our school went with the Bureau of Jewish Education of Los Angeles, a large chunk of each person's expenses was subsidized. This year, Shalhevet is going on its own program to Poland-Israel, and so without subsidy moneys, the seniors had to raise their own funds to help cover the costs of those who need financial aid. Last week there was a Chinese Auction, and I've been told that there are or were other fundraisers as well. Yesterday I participated in the last fundraiser before Pesach, a car wash.

Why was I participating? I'm not so sure. All I know is that my brother, a senior who was supposed to be in charge of organizing the event, planned on just "winging it." That meant advertising, supplies, volunteer schedules, and other essentials would sort of materialize on their own. When my father took charge Saturday night, my whole family got to volunteer as well! Or to be more exact, it was more of a Ma'aleh Gilboa sort of "volunteering." Since I was babysitting for my cousin for the morning, I did not go to the morning shift, but I was there from 12:30 to 3:15, washing cars. Towards the end, all the seniors with the exception of Tabak, fled the scene of their own fundraiser, turning the Seniors '06 Car Wash into The Bain Family and Josh Tabak Car Wash for the last two or three cars. I think the most disappointing aspect of the event was that we did not have that 70's disco tune "Car Wash" playing at full volume, for at least one of the cars.

After the car wash, we did some more volunteering by delivering Pesach supplies to families who need them. We worked for Tomchei Shabbat, a volunteer organization that gives these families food for shabbat on Thursdays, but made a special round yesterday to get food to people before Pesach starts Wednesday night.

That night, I went to see Shalhevet's fourth annual night of student one-acts, this year titled "Mayhem Shmayem." The five plays, written and directed by Shalhevet students, featured the same wacky energy that defined the one-acts in my three years writing (and producing and directing). The plays hit a range of themes-- from a detective discovering who literally is "killing time" to an identity struggle on a movie set. My brother wrote a fun play about cheating on tests, but the ending was altered severely by the powers that be, and the play finished on a... well, it didn't really finish at all, it just kinda stopped.

Two plays stood out to me, for different reasons. One was "Prophecy," an allegorical piece written by freshman Sofi Porter-Zasada. The play told of a family who interprets the nonsensical aphorisms of their grandma, and dispenses advice to the neighborhood based on what they think they are hearing. I think the play, on a deeper level, was about religion and understanding truth. Either that, or I construed that all on my own, and the play was just about a crazy old grandmother. Very pointed.

The second play, "Laundromat," was written by senior Eytan Zana, who also starred as the lead role. This play was a fast-paced, wacky comedy. From the tic-tac-toe battle death-match to the girl with the invisible puppies to the clothes-hanger hostage, the tempo kept building and the stakes kept escalating while remaining fresh and funny. Eytan, who also does improv, was uproariously funny, and senior Michael Klein also managed to steal some thunder with his opera-singing viking and pompous self-narrating businessman. Very funny and well done.

That night we ate at this Japanese restaurant, known in some circles as "the noodle place." I did not have any noodles, but I had what could be my last sushi before Pesach. Damn the kitniyot!

A word on kitniyot: while all Jews are forbidden from eating leavened products made from the five grains (wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt), Ashkenazi Jews took upon themselves the tradition of also not eating kitniyot. I've heard kitniyot translated as legumes, but more importantly, forbidden foods includes corn, rice, soy, and peanut, among others. I've never fully understood the reason behind this tradition, or more importantly, why we insist on keeping it other than Tevye's "Tradition!"

Birthday wishes: it seems like April is getting full of birthdays! Today is Yoni Kirby! Yeah.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Kirby,
Happy birthday to you.

The Big Sabbath

Today was the Big Sabbath, known in some circles as Shabbat HaGadol. The Big Sabbath is the sabbath preceeding Passover, and, according to tradition, it is called such because a great miracle happened to the Jews in Egypt on that day. I have never learned why it is called "HaGadol," which is a masculine adjective, and not "HaGedollah," which is feminine and seemingly appropriate for the feminine noun "Shabbat." Anyway, the only thing memorable about today is that the rabbi delivered his usual sermon between mincha and ma'ariv instead of during the morning service, thus shortening the service by a good hour.

Other than that, the Shabbat passed without a hitch. I went to synagogue, sated myself with delicious home cooking, played basketball, and won a tight game of Settlers of Catan. I think my brother Benjy is getting drawn into the game. I also continued reading my book, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman (who also writes for the New York Times). I am a bit ashamed to admit that I started the book before I left America for Israel is August, but I console myself, knowing that I've been busy, had other books, and that the book is very long and very dense. I'll finish someday.

One of the major disappointments in my two shabbats here is that I have been unable to have my traditional shabbat breakfast of bagel and tuna salad. Last shabbat we had tuna, but no bagels, and this week we had bagels but no tuna! And next week, I cannot have a bagel due to the Pesach holiday, which forbids the consumption of all leavened food products.

Speaking of leavened food products, I picked up a list of items in shul today that thankfully were declared to be not chametz (leavened). I'm certainly glad, because I did not throw these things away at yeshiva, on the grounds that, well, they're not food. And though I thought it was common sense, that you are not supposed to have any edible chametz products, apparently it was necessary to make the following list:

Baby ointments, plastic bags, body wash, tub cleaner, candles, cardboard, carpet cleaner, charcoal, conditioner, metal cleaners, cork, creams and gels, styrofoam cups, detergents, fabric protectors, furniture polish, glass cleaner, hair products, insecticides, isopropyl alcohol, jewelry polish, laundry detergents, paper napkins, oven cleaner, paper towels, disposable plates, shampoos, silver polish, skin cream, soap, suntan lotion, talcum powder, toilet bowl cleaner.

Thank goodness. I mean, I might have accidentally dipped my karpas in insecticide, made a Hillel sandwich of cardboard and jewelry polish, and drank my four cups of isopropyl alcohol. Glad that's out of the way.

Salad at the Deli. Who knew?

I went back to my old stomping grounds, Shalhevet High School, this morning to witness what the school advertises as the world-famous Town Hall meetings. The Town Hall meetings occur every Thursday, when the whole school meets and discusses relevant issues. I use the word "discuss" because even though the school touts the students' so-called democratic power, the reality it that Town Hall is just the students voicing their opinions, and the opinions counting only if they agreed with what the administration had already decided.

Today's Town Hall was not a normal Town Hall, although it started that way with the fifteen minutes of student announcements. Instead, it was a Q&A forum with head of school Dr. Jerry Friedman regarding financial cutbacks that included the firing of about four or five teachers. The issue was presented as strictly financial, and the students attacked the cold business-only policy and defended their favorite teachers. I probably should have seen this Town Hall coming; after all, it is April, tax season, and this is when the financial decisions get made, and the decision to fire teachers handed down.

After Town Hall I went to lunch with seniors Seth Samuels and Josh Tabak to Pico Kosher Deli. Oddly enough, I did not order a sandwich at the Deli, but rather got the Cobb Salad, which is topped with turkey and pastrami and a zesty (pareve) ranch dressing, something they lack in Israel. I mean, I was going to order a burger, but Seth ordered a salad, and well... it sounded so... so good. So I ate it. And it was good.

Tonight I completed the LA Sporting Trifecta by going to the Staples Center to watch the LA Kings take on the San Jose Sharks in a battle of teams fighting for their playoff lives. However, the teams are heading in opposite directions; the Sharks pasted the lackluster Kings 5-0 to close in on a playoff spot, while the Kings are now all but eliminated from the postseason.

Instead of watching the game (hockey is pretty boring in itself, and the Kings' efforts, or lack thereof, didn't help any), I took to some people watching. With seats in the lower level, I got to watch the button pusher, the guy sits behind the glass and illuminates a red light when a goal is scored. He looked bored and frustrated in the second period, when no goals were scored on his end, but much happier in the third, when Los Angeles surrendered three goals, including an own goal (one accidently scored by their own player). I also saw a man wearing an eyepatch, and a loud heckler who failed miserably at rattling the San Jose goaltender, who made some spectacular saves and did not allow a goal. Throughout the game, I listened to the four loud wiseacres behind me give a running commentary on everything from Kings' history to South Park to their summer plans.

So the Trifecta started with a thrilling come-from-behind win, then had a back-and-forth late-inning defeat, and ended with a blowout loss. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.