Please Vote!

Hey good people,

Please join me in voting every day for Michael Ferraro's sandwich to earn the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research $10K. Let's keep the cause in 1st place!

Here's the long overdue link to Dad's Myspace page: listen to his February hour as DJ on KNTU (his alma mater the University of North Texas' jazz radio station), Dad telling his life story, his funeral service (17:35 Amy and Eric's Eulogies; 33:45 Rabbi David Stern's Eulogy), and Dallas' Ohev Shalom synagogue's Rabbi Rodin speaking about him.

All's good by me--just trying to rock out exams season. Speaking of, here's a hilarious spoof on dating during exams put together by some fellow Ben-Gurion University students. With two exams back-to-back weeks, I spent six days down south in the Negev. After never having prayed at such a synagogue, on Thursday in Beer Sheva and Friday in Kiryat Gat I prayed at two synagogues whose names honor the victims of the Holocaust. When a friend at school told me to go to the late Thursday morning minyan at the Auschwitz Synagogue, I just about fell off his couch. Sure enough, the synagogue is named in memory of the holy Jews who perished in Auschwitz, and my Shabbat experience in Kiryat Gat was at the synagogue in honor of fallen Israelis and Holocaust victims. The communities were very warm and both offered me honors during services, but I'll have to say those names are--for me, at least--an acquired taste in imparting an uplifting spiritual experience.

It was phenomenal to get back to my old stomping grounds--what can I say, I love Kiryat Gat! Dear friend Ruti (who featured prominently in the old blog) warmly welcomed me into her home; we had a warm Shabbat dinner with all the kids and her new granddaughter. Dad smiled down on us as we enjoyed Ruti's phenomenal Morrocan cooking, which Mom, Dad and I enjoyed immensely when Ruti hosted us for dinner back in '05. Saturday afternoon I took a stroll around the old hood, walked by the old house, and said hi to a couple Chicagoans staying in the Federation house. A fittingly simple song, which was all over the radio when I lived in Kiryat Gat, came to mind: הילה הררי עם כלא שש - זה היה ביתי/Ze Haya Beiti (that was my house). I was, however, unpleasantly surprised to see that the Chicago mural, painted on the side of the Shprintzak Elementary School (where I tutored English) by OTZMA volunteers the year before me, had been painted over :/

Ruti helped me to keep in mind the simple pleasures of Israeli life. After adding some lemon to a tuna salad, she exclaimed, "What an awesome lemon! לימון מוסיף המון (a rhyme for lemon adds a ton)," and then said "We have a lot of problems in Israel, security issues...but we have amazing fruit." Appropriately said for a woman who lives on HaRimon (Pomegranate) street, in a neighborhood whose streets include all of Israel's seven species (including my old street HaTe'ena (Fig), plus others like Parsimmon for good measure. It's always good to slow down, enjoy the beauty of the pomegranates (which grow daily) on my walk to my nearby synagogue, and smell the flowers (I think that's honeysuckle in the air these days)...

This is my kind of late life potential--friend Ester Golan (Cafe Europa participant)'s website and blog, and some ridiculous musical late life potential from 74-years-young Buddy Guy.

Not sure what to think of Glenn Beck's Restoring Courage event here in Jerusalem's Old City this August (which I certainly won't be paying to attend), but I for sure at least give him credit for successfully encouraging a ton of people to visit Israel.

Now I'll keep up Dad's legacy of sharing tons of music with loved ones by letting you in to my adopted Israeli soundtrack. As for my emotional state, this fantastic Yehuda Poliker song (lyrics: Yonatan Gefen) sums it up so well פחות אבל עוד כואב/ Pachot aval od co'ev (Less, but it still hurts). Here are some lyrics: "It comes and goes, you know" "We learn to live with it this way" והנה כל המילים.

אביב גפן - המכתב: Here's Aviv Geffen rocking out his classic song Ha'Michtav (the letter), featuring the message "אף פעם אל תפסיק לחלום: Never stop dreaming."

Lest you think all Israeli music is about breakups like those two, בעז בנאי - כל השבוע מרגיש כמו שבת: Boaz Banai's video for Kol Ha'Shavua Margish Cmo Shabbat (the whole week feels like Shabbat) gives a great taste of the amazing energy of Tel Aviv. Here's a super-cool Yoni Bloch choose-your-own-adventure video, and another fun one: Achariut (responsibility) יוני בלוך - אחריות.

Have a great week-שבוע טוב!

אריק/Eric