Exhaling

Eight glorious hours of sleep later...
My friend and old roommate Noah very quickly extended the offer of refuge from bombarded Beer Sheva. His wife Livia's in the States for a bit, so I'm glad to keep him company here in Jerusalem.

After the previous night of an alarm every hour from midnight to 3am in the form of an air raid siren, after a morning when Hamas wouldn't even let me use the bathroom in peace, I'm immensely enjoying the little things here...also enjoying some hearty laughs while watching absurd YouTube videos with Noah, reading about the insane mind of the Lakers' Metta World Peace, and playing some Wii baseball and tennis.

Cardio workouts and New Balance shoes vis-a-vis survival
Let's go back to Wednesday night. It's a good thing I've been making about three visits a week to the Ben-Gurion University pool, where you can find me "pool running" in the "slow lane." I kept the running shoes ready to go (thanks so much Mom for buying me those back in September in Dallas!). My new roommate Amatzia didn't bother taking his off and just slept with them on. He pulled a muscle on one run down to the shelter. I've been telling him since we moved in he needs to hit the gym with me!

The squeaky wheel gets the shelter unlocked
As for the shelter, I'm very grateful for my downstairs neighbors who called the Municipality ad nauseam until they came to unlock it for our use. Thankfully it's very spacious and clean. That same assertive neighbor must be in her fifties, and struggles with a sore knee to get downstairs to shelter and back up.

Three fellow Israelis were killed yesterday when a terrorist rocket hit their house in Kiryat Malachi. May their memories be a blessing.
They were reported to be by the window. Please know that I am uber-serious about following the orders of the Home Front Command, and will always put my running shoes to use to get to shelter. And for now I used the trusty 470 Egged bus to get out of range. About 45 minutes after we left, we were out of the range of rockets that Hamas had used.
But then last night, sirens were sounded in Tel Aviv.

I'll let my Prime Minister Netanyahu speak for me about the background and the untenable situation of a decade of terrorist rocket fire, with the insidious aim of killing as many of my brothers and sisters as possible:

As for last night's post, I failed to explain what Sheva Brachot is. After the wedding ceremony and for the next six nights, a series of festive meals for the bride and groom are followed by the traditional seven blessings (שבע ברכות/sheva brachot = seven blessings). So the party continued, but I was able to give a taste of the Southern experience to the room of Jerusalemites amidst blessings for the amazing Mark and Racheli.

Mark is one of the best friends a guy could ask for, always there to help, support, offer what he can; and just a happy, fun, deep, bright, musically-talented guy who digs sharing a tasty bottle of wine.

A successful aliyah
I mentioned last night the countless offers from friends here. Ironically, a ton of friends in Tel Aviv offered shelter by them, then had to run to shelter themselves yesterday evening.

I believe very firmly that a successful aliyah means meeting and encountering good people. With that in mind, my move to Israel has been an overwhelming success, with an unbelievable, diverse mix of great people who've entered my life here. Praise the Lord Halleluya for these awesome folks!

As Ben-Gurion--obviously--closed the pool, I am overdue for a workout. So while my heart and mind are with my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and grandparents in the South, and the brave soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, you can find me on the basketball court for a direly needed ventilation session. Hoping to hit a basket in this Jerusalem pick-up league for the first time. I'm thinking something like this:

Peace and love and shelter from bad things. כן יהי רצון/cen y'hi ratzon/may it be G-d's will. And I'm out,
אריק/Eric

Living on the front page of Jewish history

Moving to Israel means living on the front page of Jewish history. That's usually exhilarating, something that offers wonderful growth and deep meaning to my life.

Other times, that means living on the front page of anti-Semitism and Islamic fundamentalism. That's quite a bit less pleasant.

After our targeted killing of a Hamas leader who was responsible for killing and terrorizing innocent Israeli civilians, not to mention kidnapping and holding onto Gilad Shalit; Israel's South knew the forecast for rockets wasn't any 40% chance--we were gonna feel the pain.

And pain we felt. I lost count very quickly. But my friend and fellow Beer Sheva resident Ravit painstakingly kept track of those last night 7:57, 8, 8:10, 9ish, 12:15, 1:15, 2:35, 3, 6:30, 7:45, 7:48, 8:06, 8:40, 9, 9:15...there were another couple on my way out of town to Jerusalem.

So that was more in about 16 and a half hours than all the sirens I had heard combined in the two years prior.

Skype-ing with Mom and off to Sheva Brachot for my amazing friend Mark (below, his wedding was two nights ago).

And this is the spectacular Negev sunset from my train ride to Beer Sheva yesterday. I got the news from my boss right before I took this, knowing that the sunset to the west would certainly beat anything else coming from that direction in the near future.

Lots of love and huge thanks to so many amazing friends here who offered me a place to crash to get out of rocket range.

Now I'll catch up on some old interesting links. A Wall Street Journal piece about rocking out the morning at work. An interesting guide to which types of produce it's important to buy organic, and which less so. And jazz guitar maestro Pat Metheny, on YouTube, talking about how YouTube's access to so much music has proved to be a game-changer for musicians.

שבת שלום מירושלים/Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem,
אריק/Eric

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,
I'm sitting in LaGuardia waiting for Amy and the sweet boys. I can only imagine how excited you are to see Jake at 6 and Ben, who turns 3 tomorrow! You always were the first to call in the morning to wish Happy Birthday.

I just wrapped up two amazing weeks with Mom at her new place. While it was sad not to stay at the house that we called home for about 30 years, it was absolutely the right move at the right time for Mom to downsize. Last Friday night after Shabbat dinner, I paid a visit to the old house. I pictured you bringing Amy and me into our new home as toddlers. I smiled and pictured you walking our sweet dog Snoopy up and down the street. I saw my home runs raining down on the next-door neighbors' yard (thanks for throwing your pitches right down the middle of the strike zone!). I saw massive trees, which shower the yard and house with shade. We planted tiny trees (one merely became second base for my home run trots, only occasionally tall enough to swat down my long-balls), and they sprouted majestically in a wonderful setting for growth. Just like the home you and Mom made in which Amy and I could develop and grow into who we are today.

Our friends the Browns are Mom's new neighbors. Elinore commented on Amy's and my eulogies that they confirmed your obsession with us. I was pondering during this visit...how many fathers merit to be in attendance to see their son play Carnegie Hall (with the J.J. Pearce High School Symphonic Band) and their daughter as a contestant on the Wheel of Fortune; to attend Amy's graduation from Indiana and mine from Michigan; to cross the world to visit us, seeing Amy at home in France on her semester abroad and allowing me to play Israel tour guide when I was on OTZMA. Not bad!

Tuesday Mom and I took a ton of your music and music educational materials to your alma mater, the University of North Texas. You'll be pleased that those tools will be there for countless UNT students to come; they landed in the great hands of a group of true music aficionados in the library.

Then Wednesday we visited your grave. I hadn't been since the headstone Mom, Amy and I decided upon was put in place. In fact, when I last visited you in May 2011, the grass hadn't even come in yet. There's a young tree nearby that will also take shape and provide shade for your visitors from the Texas sun. You hear a constant hum of cars driving by on the Near North Dallas streets and the adjacent Central Expressway. It's surprisingly peaceful, a bit like the waves of the sea. I bet you enjoy the silence at night. I'd visit you then, but (thankfully), they lock the cemetery up at night.

About 40 years ago you and Mom left the friendly confines of Cincinnati and set up roots in the great Lone Star State, where you will rest eternally.

It's funny that you were the only thing that drew us downtown during my visit! Everything else was out west--my alma mater Michigan laid an egg against an unbelievable Alabama team. How they assembled that much talent in one state is pretty remarkable...I'm actually talking about the endless stream of Bama women that got on the massive jumbotron at Cowboys Stadium. It was good to catch up with some Wolverine friends nonetheless.

We saw Buddy Guy at the Bedford Blues Fest three years ago; this year I saw another favorite, Keb' Mo'. Then I enjoyed the most Texan of places--Fort Worth's Billy Bob's Texas, the world's largest honky tonk. The amazing Texas country singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen officially wrapped up my summer of infinite concerts.

Then Mom and I brought home two winners as the Rangers nearly swept Cleveland (including middle infielder prodigy Jurickson Profar's first action at home in Texas), but old friend Andrew and I watched Joe Nathan's 31-save streak come to an end on a beautifully cool evening. The silver lining was being part of the crowd that pushed attendance at Rangers Ballpark over 3 million (!) for the first time. I don't think I'd been to three games in a row since our early-90's road trips to Houston to see your Cincinnati Reds in Texas. Your fatherly dedication was most conspicuous when you camped out overnight (!) to get us Rangers playoff tickets, but I'm blown away now to think how many hours you invested to take me early to so many games to watch batting practice and collect autographs.

Amy's about to get here. I miss you so much Dad, but I'll always remember all the concerts and games we attended, I'll remember your smile when a Dallas team won or at a family celebration, and of course I'll keep listening to your album the Sounds of Samuels and recall how you were on top of the world during that creative process. The picture at top, taken between sessions, is my new favorite. I love you so much and will keep doing my best to keep your positive spirit alive...

--
Wisdom gleaned among the piles of stuff I recycled at Mom's new place:

"I made stupid mistakes. I'm not ashamed of them. I made them and I admit that. To me, if you admit your mistakes, you don't have a problem dealing with yourself."
-Sparky Anderson, re. managing decisions in the 1972 and 1975 World Series.

About Marian McPartland, from a 1997 JazzTimes when she was 77:
"She'd call me up and say, 'Billy, have you heard so and so, and so and so..." Just kind of pointing the finger at someone else whose talent she admired."
-Billy Taylor
(sounds like you, Dad!)

"Marian is really quite a young lady; her chronological age has nothing to do with her curiosity and her sense for taking chances... She'll hear something and ask, 'What's that?' She's not afraid to ask questions, and the questions she asks are good ones... And that's how she keeps growing."
-Jack DeJohnette
(also sounds exactly like you!)

--
Neil Armstrong has also joined you upstairs. I smile thinking of you bouncing around together up on the Moon. You're surely also grinning from ear to ear.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the world lost an amazing jazz saxophonist and an unbelievably unique human being in Von Freeman a couple weeks back. His memorial was last month in Chicago--what I would have done to be able to be in Beer Sheva and Chicago at once...

As that couldn't be done, I'll reflect here about my experience with "Vonski."

After Vonski called you onto the stage with his quartet, giving you your nickname "Pops," very late into that Tuesday night, Vonski implored me to "cherish your Daddy." That was one of my proudest moments to be your son, watching you trade eights with a legend and my all-time favorite saxophonist!

Unlike so many who don't have the chance to express their feelings until it's too late, I am fully confident that I cherished you completely, and it was 100% reciprocated! What a gift.

My efforts to proselytize and bring everyone I knew in Chicago to see Vonski's priceless concerts were the closest I came to sharing your passion for spreading the music of Clare Fischer, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Red Garland, Duke Ellington, Cannonball Adderley among so many others to so many students, friends and family, and fans from California to Japan who bought your CDs.

Vonski also shared your jazz spirit in embracing diversity--his crowds were the most remarkable mix of local South Siders, University of Chicago students, and students from colleges across Chicagoland who came and stayed late for the late-night jam session. And like you, he was so generous in opening the Tuesday gig to everyone who wanted to check it out by not charging cover.

This Chicago Tribune piece is so rich, with some priceless, hilarious tidbits on Von (and the saddening knowledge that such a generous man really struggled financially). Here's one of my old favorite TV shows, Chicago Tonight, featuring Von. Here's a nice reflection from the producer of one of Von's albums, featuring audio of a spectacular solo performance. This post gives a wonderful picture of the Tuesday night experience at the New Apartment Lounge.

Gotta run, my nephews are waiting for me!

Peace, love, and a wonderful new year to all.
Shabbat Shalom/שבת שלום
אריק/Eric

A bittersweet (but mostly sweet) summer, Part I

As with everything in life, this summer has served up heaping doses of amazing (for the most part), along with some great sadness. It's been quite awhile since the last post, so brace yourselves :)

I'll start with the good stuff...since my last post, I received that sweet sheet of paper that says, "You officially have a Master's in Gerontology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev" (the diploma comes next June). I toiled for two years, went to many a lecture early on that I barely understood, got my Hebrew up to speed, studied many a late night, wrote about as many papers as I could possibly stomach (anyone who got an email pleading for help editing can attest to that), and rocked out a GPA to be very proud of and a new suffix! Eric Samuels, MA baby!

I went to a ton of weddings over the year of mourning for my amazing dad. Some observant Jews don't attend weddings at all over the year. I decided to accept and acknowledge both my immense family sadness and my overwhelming joy for the eight couples by asking them for a "job" on their big day--anything from translating one ceremony for the American guests and emceeing another to guarding the liquor. Doing those jobs well to enhance the happiness of the couples allowed me to feel that I was bringing my dad's giving nature and constant joy to the event. But I didn't dance at the weddings over the year (or anywhere else for that matter). The intense joy that exudes from the dance floor (all the more so to celebrate young couples building a home here in Israel) was just too much for me...

While passing the first anniversary of course does not leave me the same Eric that I was before we lost Dad, and while the pain will always be with me, I was thrilled to make my bouncing, sweaty return to the dance floor at three weddings of friends this summer (I've now been to 47 weddings to celebrate with 94 amazing friends and relatives! And yes, I count).

I returned to the Bloodmobile to donate blood for the 11th time since making aliyah, meaning I had to break in a new card recording my donation dates. If each one can save three lives, so I may have matched my age in lives saved during just over four years, and plan to keep the blood flowing!

A big goal of my October move to Beer Sheva was to slow down and take advantage of what the campus life offers. I've done that by spending many a dusk kicking back on the campus grass to read a book (the consistently delightful evenings are compensation for the hellacious desert days), and I've returned to my fall routine of roughly three weekly visits to the pool, and have now gotten back regularly to the volleyball court. Monday night was my first beach volleyball game since Dad's birthday in June 2011, and man it felt good to roll off some wicked serves, plus a great spike or two and authoritative block.

As for those desert days, our ride back from Eilat finished what summer in Beer Sheva had started--my bar of face soap has melted and turned into goo form. I haven't tried to match what the Texas sun once did to a CD case I left on the dashboard of my car--that case also melted and warped into a new form.

In a nice blast from the past, I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater (on campus) for the first time in about 15 years. How cool to see it with Hebrew subtitles, meaning the original text for Samuel L. Jackson's recurring Ezekiel quote.

On Tisha B'Av, commemorating the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem, I for the first time attended what will surely become a regular tradition:  Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem's center runs annual day-long programs on this and other dates on the Hebrew calendar, including the Shavuot holiday. Tradition holds that the Jewish people was punished for its blind hatred of each other with the destruction of the Second Temple and exile from Israel, so this day focused on hatred in Israeli society. Most interesting were a cinematic look at unhealthy father-son relationships depicted in Israeli film (which left me thanking G-d for my amazing relationship with my dad!) and the screening of a film (then discussion with the director) about his stormy transition from ultra-Orthodox music star to secular Israeli. Soaking up the fascinating programming helped distract me from the fact that I hadn't been eating or drinking for 25 hours on that long, hot summer fast day. My university deserves a thank you--attending lectures in grad school prepared me to fully enjoy all that programming in Hebrew.

I'll wrap up reflecting on lots of amazing-ness by touching on an...amazing trip back to the Red Sea Jazz Festival in Eilat a couple weeks back to see my favorite jazz bassist, Christian McBride.

His pianist's name is also Christian (Sands). Just awesome to host these unbelievable talents back in Israel! McBride called his 23ish-year-old bandmate "illustrious;" I couldn't find a better word to describe him. All you have to know is that he was the late, great Billy Taylor's protege. I told him after the show that his amazing chops and incredible soul to match made him the perfect pianist for the equally versatile McBride. The great drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. rounded out the trio impeccably (and I'm not just saying that because he's now my facebook friend).

Christian started the show by letting us know how the previous night's crowd had made him feel like Paul McCartney. I immediately thought of Dad's trip to the Dominican Republic with Brookhaven College, when the locals screamed their lungs out for the band and asked for autographs and pictures "like we were the Beatles!"

Playlist:

SKJ, Milt Jackson composition, for his wife Sandra K.

The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

East of the Sun, West of the Moon (which my brother from another mother Josh and I experienced on the way southbound from Beer Sheva, as the sun set to our right and the nearly full moon rose to our left while slowing down and enjoying the view, as Josh does best).

Halleluyah Time, by Oscar Peterson

I Have Dreamed

Footprints

Getting to It, title track from McBride's first album

Encore--Dad, where were you when I needed you for the "Name that Song" game :)

The band stayed backstage for quite awhile, relishing in the second consecutive night of electric crowds. I heard McBride shout, "Did you feel the energy?!?" I thanked all the guys profusely for coming to Israel (now McBride has made seven trips to perform in Israel). I told McBride that Dad was smiling down from heaven on the heavenly festival, and he told me that his grandpa was up there chilling with Dad.


Morning services, Red Sea style, with the sun rising over the desert mountains in Jordan.


The whole South is rocking in the summer--this was Balkan Beat Box at Beer Sheva's לילה לבן/Lila Levan "All Nighter." Danny Sanderson and the Parvarim (with the Beer Sheva Sinfonietta) were outstanding warm-up acts as I caught three shows across the Old City.

I have a ton more to say, but this post is already pretty long and it's late here.
The main source of sadness this week was the loss of the one and only Von "Vonski" Freeman, Chicago saxophone legend. I'll have to reflect on the great gift he gave to me and so many others on many a Tuesday night at a better hour, but for now here's a great one from winter 2011...

Take care and stay cool for now! With thoughts of snowy Chicago nights to keep me cool in the hot Negev,
אריק/Eric

4 years!

A presidential term. An Olympiad.
Four years ago today (I started this post before midnight), I landed on a Nefesh B'Nefesh Aliyah flight and began my journey to Israeli-ness.

Today I sit in Beer Sheva fluent in Hebrew (I work, studied for my Master's in Gerontology and even date in Hebrew). That Master's strengthened my Hebrew drastically. I look back two years to when I enrolled at Ben-Gurion University and realize how much of my vocabulary I acquired during my studies. I also reflect on entire (long) days of work, all in Hebrew, and realize that grad school prepared my "Hebrew endurance" so that I can hang during a full day of meetings, in a language that left me completely and utterly clueless just 8 years ago.

It's right back to work in the morning, but I was delighted to celebrate 4 years tonight with a beer brewed in my backyard at the neighborhood bar.

Now I hope to wake up to an AL victory in what has become the most important game of the year, the Midsummer Classic. GO RANGERS and have a great rest of the week. Lots of love,
אריק/Eric

MA - Officially official

In rather anticlimactic fashion, now it's officially official that I am a Master in Gerontology from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. An administrative oversight led me to believe I was done almost four months ago, but it turned out I had to write one more paper for a required seminar, leaving me with two extra credits for a total of 44 (that fantastic Entrepreneurship and Leadership MBA course was a very worthwhile mistake in pushing me two credits above the required total).

The first thing to do now is send a huge Thank You - תודה/Todah - to everyone who helped me along these last two years and a few months. Especially dear friends and classmates who helped me in that last push for the degree, but everyone who studied with me, hosted me for Shabbat meals, gave me rides between Jerusalem and Beer Sheva, believed in and supported me, edited my papers at all sorts of odd hours across the globe, and made this just an amazingly fun ride that I'll never forget.

My sweet dad called me the day before my first exam almost two years ago to let me know the cancer had come back. Needless to say, it was all uphill grade-wise from that first wave of exams. I pounded out the 2010 fall semester despite many a late night of postseason baseball during the first month of class (let's just say I had a ton of catching up to do in Statistics), made a quick visit to Dallas before the spring term, and then got the dreadful news that I needed to go right back to Texas for a final visit to dear Dad.

Since my return, I've done my best to dedicate my studies to Dad's blessed memory. And I'm darn proud of myself that I pulled it off! I learned a ton (so much Hebrew!), met incredible people, failed three times at the Hebrew exemption exam before knocking it out with the Ben-Gurion home court advantage, and am so glad I listened to everyone who said Ben-Gurion is the place to be as a student. Man were they right! So tomorrow night's Shabbat dinner and afterparty will feature a steady flow of champagne to celebrate in style, כמו שצריך/cmo sh'tzarich ("as you need to" is the literal translation).


But if all that wasn't anticlimactic enough, now I have to wait until...June 2013 to get the diploma! That's just how they roll here in a country where you can often turn in a paper months late, but only until December 31. So Monday night I'll celebrate with my friends who finished everything by New Year's Eve 2011 at their ceremony...who's coming to party with me in Beer Sheva next summer?!?


So now that I can fondly reminisce on the journey, here are the two big student videos from 2011-2012: 

"Shit that students say" (we don't have mascots here, so you can't throw a "Wolverine" into the title). The very relevant line for this guy who didn't always manage to get his papers in on time is at 1:43- "טוב, די, הפסקה tov, dye, hafsaka - enough, break time." As you can see, Yael's paper includes only a title!


And that one refers to the previous satirical music video:  Empire State of Ben Gurion, a take on Jay-Z's song about some city on the east coast. 

The chorus starts: "הבטיחו לי הווי סטודנטיאלי - hivtichu li havai studentiali - they promised me the good student life," as my friends most certainly did to me. The appearance of Dudu Zar, which I had to figure out, was huge for this generation of students, who grew up watching him on a children's TV show.

So now that I at long last don't have a paper to write (!), I can get back to basics, blog more, go back and get some great pics up here, and of course continue to work for Project La'ad, helping South Israel's Holocaust survivors to maximize their rights and benefits. I'm ready to take on new challenges, and as I learned from my best friend from the program, Amiram, "לאכול אותם בלי מלח - le'echol otam bli melach - ~to tear it up (literally to eat them without salt)." Or as I used for my anthem for the last exam in March, "אלף כבאים לא יצליחו לכבות אותי - elef cabaim lo yatzlichu l'chabot oti - a thousand firefighters couldn't put me out." I discovered that 1980 Doda classic by Gidi Gov and Danny Sanderson on the radio on a long winter drive from Beer Sheva to Zichron Yaacov. I'm feeling empowered, a feeling typefied by this Avraham Tal song, מחוזקים לעולם - m'chuzakim le'olam - forever strengthened:

I'll leave it at that for now, already missing being a student at Ben-Gurion, but believe you me...the best is yet to come!

As I go to bed, I'll throw in one last video, one that will never, EVER grow old; one that I'll be able to watch over and over and from which I'll be able to draw inspiration until the day I die:

For tonight at least, those magical Dallas Mavericks are still the defending NBA champs. Getting back the last grade to officially finish my MA felt like the so-special moment at 4:50, with Shawn Marion's mom saying through tears, "We did it baby!" I'll wait for that hug from my mom back in Dallas at the end of August during a brief US visit...

שבת שלום לכולם/Shabbat Shalom!
אריק/Eric

Now it's officially the Rangers' time

And just like that, the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks' title defense ended with a resounding thud. Let's just say I knew what I was doing celebrating in style last year--I didn't imagine I'd be able to celebrate like that every year. Last year Coach Carlisle said of OKC, "They'll have their time. But not yet. It's our time." And now it's their young, loaded team's time. I hope I'll get to celebrate another NBA title without having to wait another 31 years, but for now, GO RANGERS...

As seen in the NYT, From Israel, a United Nations of Jazz. If you're in NY, check out the Jazzrael Festival for me until May 16!

The Wall Street Journal says (as the New York Times did recently) that my brain is running at another level since I'm bilingual! Check it out.

Bibi wrote quite a eulogy for his dad Ben-Zion, who passed away on Monday. I stayed at my friend's apartment next door to him during his last Shabbat alive- Bibi's security had the street blocked off the whole weekend, as it does now while Bibi sits shiva.

And I returned to the world of concerts last week at Ben-Gurion University's שלישי בשש (Tuesdays at 6) concert series in the student union. The man and the legend Arkadi Duchin put on a beautiful, intimate show with keys and vocals to welcome me back to live music after taking the year of mourning off. I especially liked his thought that timeless compositions stick around like a good book... Here's the playlist:

1. יש בי אהבה

2. איש בלי נצח

3. מולדת

4. חדר משלי

5. קפה של דינוזאור

6. טמבל

7. מיליוני אנשים לבד

8. סימה (לאשתו)

9. מי אוהב אותך 

Off to bed, but have a great week! Love,

אריק/Eric