Raining in the Holy Land

Yes, it's raining here in the beautiful Shomron. Yishai and I are in Beit-El - our first day with Israel National News. One of the offices has a metallic-type roof which makes the rain drops sound like hail. I can only imagine what rain will sound like in our caravan (B"H), where all the sides are metal.

We spent shabbat in Maale Adumim, a "settlement" of 32,000 people about 15 minutes from Jerusalem over that menacing veil of oppression, the green line (just in case you couldn't read my sarcasm, if you would ever drive over this "green line" you'd have no idea at what point you did so. If you were to ask me what the green line is, my most accurate, authoritative response would be "I have no idea.") We stayed at the home of our friend Jason Orenstein's parents, who made Aliyah about a year and a half ago. I spent a good deal of time talking with Bobby/Bubby, the family's 87 year old olah chadasha, who sang me a lot of yiddish songs. She said making Aliyah at her age was not so easy, but she was optimistic about a new yiddish organization her daughter, Jason's mom, would be taking her to soon. Good luck, Bobby the occupier, and have fun. I think she'll be alright.

I went to a website today called www.learnhebrew.org.il, where I picked up many, many hebrew slang phrases. Since the ulpan of my preference doesn't start until January 15, I'll try to learn some hip jive, LeTovot HaClal (in the public interest) (see, it's working!).

Anyway, mazal tov on the brachah (blessing) of rain here in the Holy Land. We must be doing some thing right.