OK, I’m done with whining. In other news, I had a great couple of days last week. Some friends of mine recently got engaged (hi Gal, hi Nomi!) and we threw them a big party to celebrate. It was originally planned to just be a few friends getting together for dinner but very quickly it turned out to be a guest list that may end up rivaling the wedding itself. So, having the party at a house was out, as were most of the restaurants we know. A quick planning meeting was convened (four of us got together for coffee and then swapped emails … that’s the big planning meeting) and we decided that if it was going to be big, let’s make it big.

We planned an overnight party at a spot to the south of Jerusalem called Kfar Hanokdim. It’s a lovely place with a Bedouin theme; they have various accommodation ranging from cabins for two people to big tents for 25, and the food there is outstanding. So eventually about 100 of us trekked down towards the Negev desert for a traditional Bedouin experience of camping, grilled meat, starlight, and … The Beatles. OK, that bit wasn’t so traditional. But in a moment of utter brilliance one of my old college friends mentioned this Beatles cover band who he’d heard in a bar in Tel Aviv … he assured us they were fun, and not too pricey for private parties.

Oh, wow! They were absolutely outstanding, just a blast. They’re all Israelis, native born each one of them, but they have got The Beatles down cold. We all danced until 2:00 in the morning, then crashed out on mattresses in several communal tents. The next morning there was a huge breakfast … absolutely delicious, with every food you can imagine … and then a relaxing morning of hanging out, catching up with old friends, and discussing who was dating who. This wedding will be one of the first from my crowd, and we’re all curious to see whose comes next.

It’s still only a drop in the bucket so to speak but it was a pretty big drop … we had over 20 centimeters of rain and snow in the last few days, which goes some small distance towards making this winter not quite so disastrous.

As badly as we need the rain, and as pleased as we all are that we got it, I have to admit that I can’t bear this type of weather. It’s very foggy, cold, and grey, and just generally miserable. I remember that the weather could get this way in Boston too, but it often came with an upside … snow! And that’s something we see very little of here in Israel. The temperature only rarely gets low enough for us to see snow that actually stays on the ground and accumulates, except in our one ski resort, the Hermon.

What, you didn’t know we had a ski resort here? Well, to be honest it’s never going to be a big rival to the fancy resorts in Europe or the United States, but I still find it extraordinary that we have skiing here at all … it is the Middle East after all! But Mount Hermon is an actual real resort, and I’m still hoping that I can find time this season to get up there for a couple of days. I’m not much of a skier, but it is a great deal of fun to be able to go play in the snow.

The only problem is that here in Israel we’re so unused to snow that the Hermon is often closed during an actual  snowstorm … Israeli drivers really can’t be trusted on snowy roads. We have enough lousy driving here on warm dry days. More about Israeli driving in another post perhaps.

In the next few days we’re scheduled to see temperatures around freezing for the first time this year, but the one thing we’ve yet to see this year is rain … or at least, not enough rain. More than anything else in this country, the most important thing in our lives is water.

Our water resources are dependent on rain, and the last few years have seen very low rainfall. The main reservoir for the country is the Kineret, an inland lake that is often known in English as the Sea of Galilee. The level of the Kineret is watched nervously by everyone here, and reported in the newspapers. Currently the level is several meters below where it ought to be; in fact, I read recently that even if we had three normal winters of rain over the next three years, we’d still be facing a water crisis in years to come. A side-effect of the low level in the Kineret is a reduced flow to the Dead Sea, whose shores have been contracting for many years.

One solution to our problem is to build desalination plants, that would allow us to process sea water and turn it into fresh water. Israel is highly skilled in this technology … in fact, we sell desalination plants throughout the world. Unfortunately, we’re less skilled at creating functional governments, and so our own desalination plants are running years behind schedule.

So everyone, please bear us in mind this winter and pray, as we do, that we’ll be blessed with rain.

I liked Boston very much. It’s such an intensely college town, with several universities and colleges scattered around the Boston area, so student life is very full and fun. I lived in Brookline, a suburb just outside Boston proper, where I lived on what would in the usual circumstances have been a quiet side street. But Beals Street is the street on which the birthplace of John F. Kennedy stands, at number 83, and so it was a very busy area particularly around the time of his birth, when there are ceremonies and remembrances of him.

I liked living in Brookline, and I particularly liked that I lived just a block or two away from an excellent bagel store called Kupel’s. A Boston institution, Kupel’s is certainly the best bagel place I’ve ever eaten. To be fair though, my frame of reference is a little limited — strangely, Israel is not a great place to get bagels. Here we get a type of bread roll, called bagelim, which are quite pleasant, but they certainly aren’t bagels like any American Jew would recognize.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Boston was riding a bike to and from the business school. The driving in Boston is pretty erratic, but so long as you’re careful it’s quite a nice place to ride a bike. And there are some very pleasant bike trails, particularly by the Charles River, although at least in my time they certainly could have used a little maintenance. But nevertheless it was a good place to ride.

One nice thing about riding by the Charles is watching the rowers working out. It always looked like an intriguing sport, but when I made a few enquiries, I learned just how physically demanding it was at the high level that most of those rowers performed. Rowing really isn’t a sport that has made any inroads in Israel, so I was reluctant to get heavily involved in a sport that I’d be giving up on my return to Israel.

I live close by to Machane Yehuda in a neighbourhood called Nachlaot. The buildings there are old, and many of the apartments are very small, and have very small rooms. In recent years many of the apartments have been renovated and it is now considered something of an up-and-coming area. Lots of young people live in this part of Jerusalem, and there’s something of a religious revival, with a brand of orthodox Judaism known as Breslav chasidism as one of the most noticeable manifestations. It’s not my thing, but on the whole the Breslavers are happy and nice, generally a lot of fun. They’re not the kind of dark brooding, terribly serious crowd that you sometimes associate with orthodox Judaism.

I’m religious myself, but in a fairly quiet, laid-back way. I observe the sabbath, I keep kosher, I pray each day, but I dress pretty much like any other guy other than the small kipah on the back of my head. The kipah used to make me feel a little out of place when I lived in Boston, but here in Israel, they are a very common sight.

Like many Israelis, I’m the child of immigrant parents. My parents moved here in the late 1960s from the United States. Dad is originally from New York, while my mom is from Boston. Although their Hebrew is fairly functional, we spoke English at home — I think they believed it would be more of a gift to their children if they passed on their very good English, rather than their rather weak Hebrew. So, as a result. I’m pretty much bilingual. Because my parents used to read to me in English, that’s the first language I learned to read and even to this day, if I’m reading for pleasure I’m more likely to pick up a book in English than I am one in Hebrew.

I’m one of three kids; I’m the oldest, I have a brother who is just finishing the army, and a sister who is soon to complete high school. Both my brother and sister still live at home with mom and dad, although of course my brother isn’t homes so often. I have a small apartment in Jerusalem, but since Mevasseret is close by, I’m probably at my parents home two or three times a week, often for a meal. It’s hard to let go of that home cooking.

I grew up just outside Jerusalem, in a town called Mevasseret Zion. It is close enough that you could almost most call it a suburb of Jerusalem. After my service in the Israeli army, which is compulsory for young people leaving high school in Israel, I studied at the Hebrew University and took a degree in English literature. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t so easy to find work in that field, and through a combination of personal interest, connections, and desperation, I started working in the field of computers. Eventually I became skilled enough that I was working at a reasonably high level, and I then went to Boston for a couple of years to study for an MBA. More about Boston in my next post.