A woman of valour who can find?

As my readers might remember, my flat is ...high up in the sky. This has a lot of advantages like a roof terrace, great view and a lot of fresh air. However, it naturally has many downsides. One of them is the difficulty with which one has to clean the windows...especially given that some of them do not open at all and have to be cleaned from the outer side. Sitting on the edge of the window sill and stretching yourself accross the window tens of meters above the ground when there is -5C outside is an achievement. Two days ago, I plucked up the courage and did it and survived. If you forget me saying so, I am very proud of myself:-)

And more very good news

My friend Tom Feeney and his girlfriend Elisabeth are engaged to be married next August. This indeed is very good news Mazal Tov! (The picture is from our trip to Blenheim Palace last summer. Tom is the second from the left.)

Sexual harassment and you

As my readers already know, my brother is a top ranking Czech PC specialist. He goes to work in a suit and a tie, spends days and night creating bank software of the utmost importance for my country and - quite understandably - gets a very good pay for his work. At the end of each day he goes home with his head full of PC troubles to solve and his PDA overloaded with tasks to work at during the night. This is what he came home with on Friday afternoon.

New year´s resolutions

As the year slowly comes to its end, I started to think about new year´s resolutions. Don´t worry, I will not start to give reasons why you should or shouldn´t make them or whether Jews should make them in January or at Rosh ha-Shana :-) – I just recently remembered Robert Fulghum´s book "From Beginning to End, the Rituals of Our Lives" that I liked when I was a teenager. In this book Fulghum describes his personal custom of new year´s resolutions: At the end of each year, he would write down a list of things he managed to do during the previous year. When he is done he heads the piece of paper with a title “My new year´s resolutions for...” and adds the previous year. I think it is an excellent idea. So here is my list:


My New Year´s Resolutions for 2006:

1. Learn to lain (read from the Torah).
2. Learn to be a synagogue gabai.
3. Return from Israel and settle back at home.
4. Buy a bed and furnish my new flat.
5. Find a decent job, which I would find meaningful.
6. Fix my favorite brown sweater, which has been torn for 2 years.
7. Read Virgina Woolf´s "To the Lighthouse."
8. Not to get married to a freak.

Great:-)

Two Holiday Videos

December has come and with December we fight the traditional Jewish fight - Christmas or Chanuka? Recently, I have seen two videos I thought I would share. The first one is
Lex Friedman´s I Wish We Were Done With Christmas, which is funny. The second one is Twas Chanukah Night, which is really scary. Enjoy!

The ups and downs of a life of an employed person

The last couple of weeks since the time I had come back to work after my flu have been rather ...unusual. I would never believe what 10 days of illness and staying in bed at home can do. Despite all the exhaustion and sleepless nights that my teaching causes, I found out I really like and need my job. I realized what a luxury it is to have something meaningful to do every day. Moreover, I found out that as much as the work draws huge amounts of energy from me, it loads a lot of energy into me too. It is a very possitive feeling. Now I have 2 more weeks ahead of me before the start of winter holidays. The two weeks will be full of Chanukah programs - we have prepared all kinds workshops for the kids including a Chanukah school sleepover with my 7th graders, which I hope should be fun and also a bit of more "get-to-know-that-Gafna -is-not-only-a-teacher-but-also-a-human-being" event. I shall let you know how it goes.

On the darker side of things, I have had a bit hard time in my Masorti job. Despite the fact that all the logistics part of my job and "making-sure-things-are happening-the-way-they-should-and-everyone-has-something-to-eat-and-drink" is going well, I have encountered two very painful cases in the community where Halakhah (Jewish religious law) and politics did not give way to a solution of a problem which seemed morally right. These were situations in which I felt painfully hopeless, helpless and lost. I have encountered a situation when I felt I did all I could to achieve something good and it all went down the drain. I wander if this is an inseparable part of an adult life too.

yeah, yeah, I know...

...I should write a post soon. And I will. And I mean it. Soon.

My parents celebrate 30th aniversary

Today, we had a small family get-together on the occasion of the 30th aniversary of my parents´ wedding. My work at school has tought me that not everybody is so lucky to have sensible parents, not every child has a chance to grow up in a peaceful and supportive home. My Mum and Dad have been great partners and friends to each other for all the years I have known them and they have been wonderful parents to my brother and myself for as much time. I am very thankful for that and I wish them many more years together.


(The photo is from their trip to Sweden 2 years ago)

I admit

Ok. I admit it. Being sick and being home alone is not an awful lot of fun. Quite on the contrary. If I was not as well behaved as I am, I might say it sucks. I still have fever, which means I still have a few days to go.

There is a good side to being ill. I read The Little Prince again and I started the World According to Garp again and I finally made a compot out of the Rosh ha-Shana left over apples (dont laugh.) The bad side to it is that I have not seen a living soul for far too long, I started to talk to myself and what is more, I am scared of the loads of time I have to ...think. I found out that if you have time to think and you have nothing to disturb you, you actually really think and what you think about is unfortunately not always what you think you would want to think about. Well - scary.

A school trip and others

Yes, I did it. I took my 7th graders for a day trip. We went out of Prague to see one of the many Czech old Jewish graveyards to a town called Brandýs nad Labem. Honestly, however, the main aim of the trip was to spend some time together with the children in a less formal environment. And it worked out really well. The kids were great the whole time, they worked fine on the assigned tasks at the cemetary and seemed to have great time. (by the way in case you wondered - the lady with a child in the picture is their class theacher from 3 years ago and by ways of coincidence my good friend, Kveta Kruger could join us with her son Ondra for the whole trip) I was also very happy - I had a chance to talk to the kids more about things not related to school like the last episode of The Simpsons or the recent coolest computer games, I hope I have understood the class dynamics a bit better and above all I had a good time. Most importantly, I managed to return home with the same number of kids I had left the school with earlier and each of them was intact, which is an achievement in itself (anybody who has ever worked with children would know I am serious)





Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about myself. It was a very cold and windy day. I went for the trip already with a cold and I came back home half dead with high fever. So I am down with some kind of the flu taking antibiotics experiencing for the first time what it is like to be sick living alone and on the top of that without a TV. The first day wasnt that bad - I rented a couple of DVDs and spent the day partly watching them, partly sleeping and partly cooking teas and "goodies for sick people" for myself. My granny, who promissed to visit me tomorrow to ease my lone being sick, told me she was sure I would give up my decission not to buy a TV after my first illness. So far it seems I can still manage without it even though the DVDs on my comp are kinda´ cheating.

Last but not least, I wanted to tell you that my brother Tomáš, whom many of you know, started to work in his first real full time adult job yesterday. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what the job is as the name of it consists of aprox. 10 words which I havent memorized yet. But I understand he is a part of the expert team that creates software for one of the biggest banks in the country called Česká spořitelna (where I have my monies too so I hope he makes the software really nicely). He has far the best pay of the whole family and as the only one out of all of us has to go to work in a suit and tie. All of a sudden he looks very professional and also painfully handsome and we are all very proud of him:-) In the picture below he came to visit me today and after a long day of work, which he described to me with many words I did not understand, he fixed a bit my computer that has been at least as ill as I am for the past couple of weeks. Highest time to take him to a doc before it is too late - being sick and not having TV nor a computer is something even I could not handle:)

Before the tooth ruins my life

Last shabbat during my granny´s 84th birthday lunch my tooth broke. Today, I went to a dentist to ask him to fix it. He said there was nothing elsto be done - the tooth broke so badly that it had to be pulled out. He first cut it into four pieces and then spend close to an hour taking it - very gently - piece by piece out. He said that the tooth (more specifically the hole that remained) would possibly ruin my life for some time now so I am using the last minutes before the anestesia stops working to write a post (I am exeggerating as always:-)

The three pieces of good news this week are that my yeshiva friend Tovah got engaged, my friends Ruven and Hana from Jerusalem have a new baby boy, who was born on Shmini Atzeret (a Jewish holiday) and who was circumcised two Shabbatot ago and called Usher. Moreover, Lex Friedman and his wife Lauren have a new baby girl called Anya. Mazal tov to all. :-) In fact - there are two other new babies that were born in my home community in the last 14 days too - so that makes five pieces of good news.

In my house, there are also a couple of new members of the household, even though they are not nearly as exciting as the newborn babies :-( - anticipating the visit of my friend Seth later this year in December, I started to buy my meaty dishes (dishes for meat dishes:-) on Sunday.

Believe it or not, yesterday I spent a pleasant evening chatting with Michael Pomeranz, the famous Jerusalem bookseller, who stopped in Prague on his way from Los Angeles back to Israel. We have agreed to meet in Prague last spring during one of my shopping visits in his shop. Last night we went for dinner together and I enjoyed being with an Israeli friend again a lot.

Other than that, I continue to teach with all its excitements and downsides :-) I keep collecting interesting quotes of the kids. The best one I have heard recently is today´s Xenie´s comment on my decent dress code in the school on which I demonstrated the way orthodox women dress in her class. We discussed the question of tzniut (modesty) when Xenie with all possible honesty and sincerity said - "well, you should dress a bit less decent. In case you dont I doubt you will ever get married."

Christmas update

Yesterday, I went to buy a couple of things to a drugstore close to my work. As I entered, my ears were hit by Christmas carols. For a little while, I wasn´t sure I wasn´t dreaming. But alas! (:-) yes here they were, right in front of me, floating above shampoos and sanitary towels. Obviously, according to the management of the shop, we have to be reminded 2 and a half month in advance that Christmas is coming. When I paid for my shopping, I looked into the tired face of the cashier, expressed my deepest condolences for the music and told her I was sorry she had to listen to it already now. She sighed and said: "Thanks. I am so gald you are saying that. Can you imagine that I will have to be listening to it till the middle of January? Three months!"

As if everybody agreed to mess up the calendar on this particular day, I came back home later in the evening and discovered a brand new Christmas catalogue of a hardware store close to my home in my letter box. Has everybody gone nuts?

Even though I do not celebrate Christmas, I do like the holiday atmosphere in the air a lot. I enjoy it even more when I realize I do not have to rush to shops to buy presents and loads of food as the others do and can enjoy just the nice part of the holidays: the lights in the streets, candles and holiday concerts. Carols are one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Holiday special offers are not bad either. However, as we say: "kol davar be-ito" - everything has its time. The same way I would not enjoy fried cheese (that I love) for breakfast, I do not want to listen to carols in fall. The book of Ecclesiastes says: "A season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven." Jews and Christians share this part of the Scripture. Every now and than we should remind ourselves of it.

Terror in Prague?

14 days ago, the Czech secret service said they had received concrete information that leads them to susspicion that Prague should be the next target of an islamist terrorist attack.
It was the weekend of Rosh ha-Shana (Jewish new year) and they said that Jewish buildings are the most probable target. Consequently, we spent the holidays being guarded not only by the usual Jewish community guards, but also by the (armed) Czech police. In addition, Prague was full of policemen and soldiers that guarded mainly the city center and its most important buildings. I took the thread seriously, but I have to admit I was not really alarmed. When I lived in Israel, I was very often informed about security alerts by the Jewish agency through the yeshiva. In the Jewish world, we are used to constant possibility of an attack. In Jerusalem, you are checked by the security even when you go to the pharmacy to buy vitamin C tablets. I teach in a school, in which even the first graders are used to an armed guard that watches over them during the day.

On Friday, prominent Czech newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes revealed that the target of the Rosh ha-Shana attack should have been the Jerusalem synagogue in Prague. In the article they also described the details of the planned attack. The information was also published in some other world´s newspapers and within minutes made the world´s headlines. My Masorti community joins the Jerusalemska synagogue minyan (the community that prays there) every Shabbat for the Saturday morning service. I know the synagogue and its people very well. On Lejl Sukot (the beginning of the holidays of Tabernacles) i.e. in the evening after the news had been released, my community held a joined meal in the Sukah (a shed we eat and sometimes sleep in during the festival) in the yard of the Jerusalem synagogue for our minyan and the Jerusalem synagogue community as we had been planning since the beginning of the week. The news naturally made people weary, however on Friday evening both of the minyanim (communities) came to the synagogue as usual. All the people that signed up for the dinner during the week were there together with several other guests and visitors. The sad truth is terror became a part of our lives. But I firmly believe we have to face it by not giving in to it. One of the main aims of the terrorists is to make us fear them. Once we give up our lives we will start to make them feel they are winning.

Be happy! You have to...

Well I am still incredibly tired but how much longer can I repeat that, right? Let´s change the topic :-) Sukot is approaching and we Jews have to be in a good mood. It is a mitzvah (commandment) - so I thought I would tell you what made me laugh recently: Check Biff´s question song, which is really funny and Just in time for Rosh ha-Shana, which is a actually off the time of the year now but I still think it is great.

Kids´ minds

(In memory of my uncle Tomáš Mittelsteiner z´l, a man of great sense of humor, a man that loved life. My uncle Tomáš passed away after a long illness yesterday in the afternoon)

One of the things I enjoy the most when I teach is to see how children think and what questions they ask. Here are just a few from the past days:

- How come God sees everybody and is with every single person all the time when there are so many people in the world?

- Children come to the world when people love each other. Where there any children in Niniveh when the town was so horrible?

- Do animals also have to do tshuva during High holidays?

- Does God judge also the baby that is in my Mumy´s belly?

- How come Pninah was so harsh on Chanah? Wasn´t she Jewish? Jews are not supposed to behave this way!

- How come Elkana had two wives? Isn´t it forbidden?

- Does God wear white?

- Can our cat eat pork? - Yes, she is not Jewish, she can eat whatever she wants. -How come she is not Jewish? - Because only people can be Jewish. - And what if she was born in Israel? - Even if she was born in Israel, she is still not Jewish. If an American Indian was born in Israel, he would not be Jewish either. - This is horrible. I really don´t understand why you should limit being Jewish only to people. That´t cruel.

- I think men go to mikveh less than women because men don´t have a uterus.

At the end of 4th week.

In the 7th grade we have been talking about bar and bat mitzva recently. We have discussed the question of adulthood from different perspectives. What makes one an adult to start with? Šimon, one of my students, suggested that the more difficult situations you have been through the more of an adult you are. In that sence, he claimed, some children are adult already at the age of 12 - those that have been through deathts of their parents, hardships of child labor or pains of torture. Some, on the other hand, he claimed, live an easy care free life and never really grow up. Most other students did not agree with Šimon and suggested other deffinitions for being adult. I tend not to agree with him either, but I think it is an interesting thought when we look at it from its other end - what do hard moments of our life do with us? How do they change us? Recently, I have started to do two jobs in which I have to communicate with many people; all of these people have certain ideas about how I should do my job and I am there to try to merge my ideas with theirs, to answer their demands. It is never easy to work in an environment when you have to answer a demands of so many different individauls. It is even less easy if you are new to the field or job. Recently, looking back at my first month of teaching and the 3 months of community work, I realized how many mistakes I have made. I must admit it is not easy to make mistakes even if you know they are unavoidable and a neccessary part of the proccess. Naturally, I wouldn´t compare the problems I encounter in my jobs to any of the hardships Šimon mentioned in our discussion. I concider myself a very lucky and fortunate human being, but my mistakes do make my feel low. Especially when I am tired and go to bed exhausted at 1am at the end of a long day I realize how much all the recent successes and failures change my life and the way I see myself. I wander if they make me more adult. They certainly make me feel very different and I can only hope this all will eventually be for the better.

Gmar chatima tovah to all (may you be sealed for good life next year.)

Day 13. Work in progress. How many apples can you eat?

Hi. Just a short note again. We are almost at the end of the third week. I have already encountered first little troubles (thankfully only in the administration stuff, not with the kids), but I still remain very happy in my job. There are many moments that are hard, there are many more that are very satisfying. Today, we had a Rosh ha-shana workshop with the first graders and their parents. It came out really well. We sang to the parents what we have learnt and showed them all kinds of skills and knowledge we have aquired within the first couple of days. It was lovely to see the parents interact with the kids during the workshop when they completed different tasks together. In the picture, we are making round chalot in the "science center." I introduced the children to our family custom of adding "legs" to the chala - as many legs as there are people around the table. It was a lot of fun!

As the week is coming to end, I am happy we will celebrate Rosh ha-shana soon. I am teaching 8 classes - there is a limit to the number of apples you can eat.
Shana tova u-metuka to all:-)

After the first week. Day six.

Today is Monday, the first day of my second week. I am very tired, obviously:-) I sleep very little, hardly tidy up, cook only very simple food as I spend most of my time getting ready for my classes. Everything else is great, much much better than Ï expecetd it to be. The kids are great, I like teaching, I find sharing Judaism with the kids very meaningful, I enjoy working wïth children despite all the obvious hardships that come with it.

To my great regret, there are many things that I shall not be able to share with you on the web as they often deal with private life of my students. Let me just say that it is truly fascinating to see the kids talk, think and react in the lessons. At the same time it is frustrating to see how much home baggage (home violence, parents with adictions and the like) some of them carry from home even at this very early age.

Anyway. I know this is not a very cheerful post. To cut the long story short - I am very happy and...very tired. And - actually, I am a teacher. For real.

The time has come. Day Zero.

Yes, the time has come. After a month of getting ready in an empty school, tomorrow I shall come to a building swarming with children. Tomorrow is the first school day. I am ready - I removed my mustache, filled in the class register for the 7th grade where I am the class teacher, put up several notice boards, learnt to chant "Mode ani lefanecha" according to the Chabad nusach (way of chanting) the 1st graders are used to so that I can start to lead the morning prayers for the smallest children, I wrote the initial class teacher letter to the parents of "my" kids, made plans for having them over in my Succah, baked welcome ginger chamsas for the first graders, talked to their parents and assured them we would do our best to make the kids smart educated Jews, ordered my English games portfolio and last but not least, calmed down, stopped feeling nautious in the morning and started to await what is ahead with hopes and enthusiasm.

These are exciting times. Aleš left back for Jerusalem on Thursday (to my great grief), Clary is starting her studies at the Yeshiva tomorrow, Michelle is getting married today, my brother is back at school sitting for his exams. September is always a hectic time full of changes. 21 years ago, I went to the 1st grade as a small girl with a huge school bag ready to learn all there was to learn. I have studied ever since, three qarters of my life so far. Now it seems the time has come for me to stand on the other end of the classroom. We shall see how it goes.

On air

My friend Katka works for the "youth section" of Czech Radio Prague. She prepares programs for teenagers and young adults. Every Sunday night she has a program called "P.S." in which she interviews people she hopes might be interesting for her listeners. Tonight, she asked me to be her guest and to talk about my year in the yeshiva. So we talked about Judaism, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the conflict in Lebanon, Kosher food and about yeshiva routine. I took several phone questions from the listeners (one whom was Lukas, a good friend of mine I have not seen in a long time, who just happened to be listening to the radio - that was awesome) and tried to explain the ins and outs of the talmud study, moral issues one has to face when living in the middle of the conflict, mixed feelings one has when their nation is in danger and defends itself but when another nation loses so many civilians... It was a great experience and I was very happy to see how many listeners phoned in and were interested in my story and in Israel in general.

Apart from the strong experience of meeting people on air and talking about Israel in the radio, this night will forever be known as the night of my big radio eye-opening. Czech radio Prague is a channel I listen to very often. Every hour they read the main news of the day. One of the people preparing and reading the news is called Zdeněk Novák. Without really having thought about it before, I really like him - he has a deep and sort of seducive voice, which I like to listen to; every time he is on air it catches my ear. Today, when we were getting ready for the show in the studio, I heard his voice from the speakers, from which you hear the actual broadcasting. I was immediately on the top of my toes and asked Katka where he was broadcasting from. "Behind you," she said. And then - I saw him... behind the glass wall, in the other studio. Well, yes ...tall, glasses, calm expression in a handsome face and still this beautiful, soft voice. But far, far, painfully far away from the image I realized at that very second I had always had. That is the beauty of radio - you just hear the people, you never see them and you can imagine whatever you like. Today, I realized I have always imagined Clark Kent - dark suit, broad shoulders, self confident gestures, always ready to fight the world of bad news he communicates to his audience. But Zdeněk is a gibbous man in old jeans, loosly tuck in shirt and worn out khaki vest. Only the beautiful voice, that so sharply contrasts with his body, remains...charming.

Ola´s wedding. The shiny and gloomy faces of Warsaw

My friend Ola Geller got married this past Shabbat in Warsaw. (Photo, courtesy of Maja S.)

I know Ola from my studies in Britain, where we became close friends and each other’s support in the wild Oxford jungle. Ola is a truly unique woman – bright, hard working, strong, decisive, caring and great friend. It was immensely pleasant to come and see her marry her fiancé Rafal. The wedding was joyful, decent and in style, everybody seemed to enjoy it greatly. Moreover, Ola, who is always admirably organized and has great sence of planning, brought to Warsaw also other students from our Oxford year – Esther from London/Melbourne, Maja from Oxford/Zagreb and Christoph from Munich. To see everybody again felt very familiar, as if no time had passed – it was a great reunion (btw. Christoph still dances samba with irresistible charm :o)

I cannot but admire the grace and dignity with which not only Rafal and Ola but also both their parents prepared the event. The whole time everybody was calm and relaxed. The couple and their parents never mentioned any stress or difficulty they would have with the wedding, on the contrary, they smiled all the time and seemingly with no effort made sure that all the guests were comfortable and had all they needed. I felt like it was me not them who was the important person at the wedding and I am sure most other guests, especially the oversees ones felt the same. Ola and Rafal came to pick up every single guest from the train station or airport (the last guest came at 9am on the wedding day(!), lodged half of them in her own house and made sure that also the others had a convenient place to stay. With me, Ola made sure I was close to the synagogue. When she brought me to the apartment, the kitchen had a fridge full of kosher food including a kosher le-mehadrin chicken pate and the times of the Warsaw synagogue services lay on the table. Unbelievable.

I enjoyed being at the wedding greatly and I was leaving on Sunday morning with pleasant aftertaste of a joyful event. However my stay in Warsaw was slightly discomforting. Altogether, I had 2 days in Warsaw, Friday and Saturday. I spent the first half of the Saturday in the synagogue and the other half at the wedding; I had only Friday for sightseeing. As this was my first time in Warsaw and I had so little time I had to set priorities about what to see. I chose to see the Jewish sights at which I spent most of my time leaving only very little for the rest of Warsaw. I visited the old Jewish cemetery, the Jewish Historical Institute/Museum of Warsaw Ghetto and the Memorial of the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto. I myself come from a country in several aspects similar to Poland. Also in the Czech Republic the Jewish community was decimated during the Shoa and the current small Jewish community has to face numerous challenges. I am used to the framework, words, pictures, sentiments of a such a European community. Despite that the two Warsaw days were mind boggling. Before the war, there were some 350,000 Jews living in Warsaw, which made it the biggest Jewish city in the world of that time. Seeing the pre-war Jewish cemetery and through that realizing how varied and rich the Jewish life used to be here and then to see the museum of the ghetto, walk the area of the city where the war ghetto used to be and where so many people found death under such horrible circumstances is something hard to grasp. I know several young Polish Jews and I know about their current activities; I know that the Polish Jewish reality of today is not what I saw during my day and a half. But I still found it hard to fight the feeling of gloomy heaviness, especially after seeing a huge anti-Semitic graffiti on one of the apartment buildings at the end of the day, on my way to the Friday night pre-wedding dinner.

This 32-hour experience, however, helped me understand the last year’s arguments of my Yeshiva friends – arguments in our discussions about whether Europe is a reasonable place for Jews to live. Many of them have been to Europe only once in their life, for a similar 24-hour Poland death and destruction memorial tour on their kids-pilgrimage way to Israel. How unfortunate that organizers of such pilgrimages rarely make the effort to make these kids see some European Jewish life after showing them the horrors of the history. Kol ha-kavod to Joseph and Yael that they did it differently for their kids this year!

How enthusiastic should you be?

The other day my father told me: "Listen, you are really excited about the jobs you got, aren´t you?" "Sure," I said. My dad replied: "That´s wonderful, but I think you are far too enthusiastic. You should calm down and be more realistic. Otherwise the first failure will knock you down."
I understand what he is talking about and I know he is right. It did happen to me before. In the past I used to come back home from both teaching and community board meetings exhausted, angry and hopeless. One of the lessons I learned from this experience was to (try to) set reasonable goals for myself to prevent the feelings of frustration. But what is reasonable in this case? On Friday night I talked to my friend Viliam, who is a university teacher at a med school. I told him I wanted to be realistic and hoped that at least a third of my future students would get something from my classes. He smiled and told me: "In my teaching, I follow what I call Steam Engine Theory. Steam engine has only a 11% efficiency. 89% of the energy it produces gets lost. But the 11% changed the world. The one third you are talking about is a very good gas engine. Start with steam engine and see."

Midnight notes

It is midnight and as on most days recently, I am still sitting in front of my comp working. I am too tired to write a continuous article. Let me put down just a few notes.

- 1st of August is the first official day of my work for Lauder school. In practice, it doesn’t mean much as my obligation to physically be in the school starts on 28th August and the real school year starts only on 4th September. Nevertheless, I do have heaps of work already now. Since I had come back from France, I have spent most of my days in the school library browsing through the local resources, putting down ideas for the next year of teaching and discussing them with Shmil, my boss. The more I dive into the preparations the more mixed feelings I have – it is reassuring to see I have at least part of the plan (sort of) done, but it is scary to keep discovering how much more I still have to do. The part that makes me the most uncomfortable is the fact that I keep developing a study program for kids I have hardly seen. It is not easy to guess what will work and what won’t. Well, I guess I will find out soon.
- I continue to „move in“ my flat. Recently, the moving in got on a new dimension. I finally bought several bookshelves and thus started to unpack boxes with my books, papers, letters and notebooks. Some of these were packed by my brother during the last year when I was gone. Therefore, opening each box is a surprise – it was moving to notice that the boxes had scents of my teenage age (actually except for one particular box that contained a doll perfume I was given as a child - the flacon was broken - I still can´t get the smell off my hands, the smell is obnoxious, I cannot believe such a thing is legal ….and a toy for kids.) Other than that, I found several treasures - a library card I had been looking for for three years now, a log of lime wood I was given by my work colleague as a 20 year old when I hoped to learn to sculpt, a letter in which my friend Reuven told me he was engaged, an unopened letter from a girl from New Zealand who wanted to be my pen friend from 15 years ago, a great poem called "I know Exactly the Sort of Woman I´d Fall in Love If I were a Man" on a ruffled copy.
- Recently, I grew closer to my neighbors Jana and Lukas, who live in the flat below me. They are my age, they like wine and keep inviting me for a little chat in the evenings. They have a huge wolfhound (a kind of dog as big as an 8-year old child – no kidding) called Hamlet. I like them. Their dog likes me. I like the dog too.
- Being in the process of moving, I discovered I had all different kinds of skils I never knew I had. Also, I discovered I don’t have many I thought I did have (see the photo).
- According to a recent Czech child-birth research, an average Czech woman gives birth to her first child at the age of 26. An average Czech woman living in Prague gives birth to her first child at the age of 29. An average university educated Czech woman living in Prague gives birth to her first child in her early thirties. Great, a couple of more years to go:-)

Quotes from the past couple of days

As some of you know, one of my hobbies is collecting quotes of my friends. On my last year´s blog I had a permanent quote chapter which I kept updating. On this blog, I will have to past the quotes as they come. These are some of the ones of the past couple of days:

-This is why I prefer to work with dead artists over the living ones. The dead simply make much less trouble. (Jana)
-He is such a horrible person! Unfortunately, he is a great chazzan (synagogue prayer leader) too. This is just not fair. If somebody is so horrible, he should be horrible completely. (Yael)
-It always horrifies me to hear that somebody calls themselves a Christian activist. This goes against the logic of the religion. If you ask me, I am a Christian passivist. (Tomáš V.)
- I went to Germany for the Football World Cup. The first match I saw was Ghana v Czech Republic! It was a great match. Actually, I was intending to
cheer for your countrymen, but one of them stole my
sunglasses! (Daniel K.)
- You insist on marrying a Jew so hard that I am sure that in the end you will end up with a half-black Chinese Muslim.(Tomas, my brother)
- Please note that any unattended object or luggage will be systematically destroyed. (announcement at Paris Orly airport - the French speak adorable English)
-Well, I am not impressed by the book. But you are talking to somebody, who rarely reads anything written after the 5th century. (Rabbi Spectre)

About the book

Sorry to bother you with the book again, but I thought that once I made such a PR for it when I was on page 56, I should also tell you what I think after reaching the end of the novel. I finished the book on Saturday afternoon and I am afraid my final judgment won’t be very flattering. Naively, I thought I would read a novel based on historic and responsa research that would offer me a peak into the world of 11th century French Jewish women. In my humble opininon, Maggie Anton hoped to create a character of a 12-16 year-old daughter of a famous sage, who shares her time between wine making, being married to an 18-year-old scholar and studying Talmud. In reality, however, the Jocheved (Rashi’s eldest daughter) Anton created far too much resembles a 50-year-old emancipated American Jewish female of the beginning of the 21st century – in what she argues, what texts she studies and how she experiences her female role in the men dominated world. In addition, the author painfully erred in making Rashi the inventor of Champain (a beverage that appeared only 700 years after his death), she presents Christianity of that time in an unnecessarily simplistic way and in my opinion, she puts unnecessary emphasis on the ups and downs of Jocheved and Meir’s marital sexual life. In addition, the author fails to present the sources on which she bases her assumptions about Jocheved’s life, which undermines the author’s efforts greatly. But not to be only critical, the book presents very well researched picture of the customs (both religious, family and folk) of that time and place as well as a vivid portrayal of the demonology and folk beliefs in evil and good spirits of the time. Also, I must admit that after a year in a yeshiva, I quite enjoyed reading such a vivid love story. So my final judgment is – the book is an enjoyable holiday read, but by no means a serious historical study of the life of Rashi´s daughters. In any event, it was pleasant to read it in Troyes and I surely see the town differently thanks to the novel. I should be going back home in two days. I will write more about my Troyes venture when I, b´´eh get to Prague. (The picture shows one of the Troyes streets.)

From Troyes

Very quick hello from Troyes, France. I came here two days ago to take part at a ten-day-long Paideia Summer Rashi Seminar. This will be a very quick message - my access to Internet is not really impressive and I am not sure I will have a chance to write more to you before I come back home to Prague next week. The seminar is just starting and it is too early to say anything about it for the moment. So for the meantime, let me just say a couple of words about Troyes as such. It is a small town in the Champagne county (hence the name of the beverage which is called after this reagon), 90 minutes of train ride east of Paris. Even though the town does not really make a big fuss about it (to my great surprise,) this is the birth town of Rashi, a place where he had his vinery and produced wine and a place where he worked and taught and established a yeshiva after years of study of Worms. I wish I could say it is exciting to be in the place where all the famous Rashi´s commentaries were written and that it is fascinating to breath the same air Rashi did, but I am afraid I cannot say any of this. It is a beautiful renaissance town, it looks very old, but it is deffinitely a far cry from the 11th century town of Rashi´s time. However, I tryed to make up for this by bringing a Maggie Anton novel „Rashi´s daughters,“ which talks about the fate of Rashi´s three daughters, whom their father, not having any sons, started to teach Talmud. I was rather skeptical before I started to read it, but the book is based on a serious historic research and so far, I have been enjoying it greatly (I am on page 56.)

New mezuzoth in my flat

Today, I affixed mezuzoth on the doorposts of my flat together with my parents, brother and Alesh. It feels wonderful.

Ve-kiemanu la-zman ha-zeh (And we've reached the time)

Today in the morning, I signed my contract with the Lauder school in Prague. On 1st August, I shall start to work there as a full-time teacher of Jewish Education and English. In the past two weeks, I spent a lot of time in the school working on the new conception of Jewish education with my new boss Shmil, who is the deputy vice principal responsible for the Jewish element in the curriculum of the school. (The school is undergoing a big transformation and Judaism will be taught in a completely new way from September on.) Last week, I even taught a short 2-hour class to the teachers of grades 1 to 5. I am honestly excited about getting the job. It is a great opportunity to combine both of my degrees (education and Jewish studies) and it is a good way to make sure I shall not degenarate and I will continue to study Judaism seriously. Also I appreciate the chance to have a chance to shape the next generation of Jews in this town, which makes me feel I can help to create a community I would want my children (בע''ה) to grow up in (what a chutzpah of me to say that). I have always enjoyed teaching and I am excited about having found a job where I can teach creatively in an environment, which is supportive of modern ways of teaching, a place where I can teach Judaism and also, naturally, a place where I can help to build the conception of how and what will be taught brom the scratch. Last but not least I am looking forward to working together with Shmil – he is admirably committed and passionate about his job and obviously sees it as a mission rather than vocation and it is naturally very important to have a boss like that. Fortunately, we seem to share the same ideas and vision on what and how should be taught in the school, which makes me believe that we will be able to cooperate effectively and with ease. Moreover, I appreciate he takes me seriously and treats me as an equal partner despite the fact he has a much richer experience in Jewish education than I do. In the heat and excitement of today´s day, I am very hopeful looking into the future, I put down ideas for next year´s teaching, I am gathering materials and plan how to get ready for the new school year in time and as effectively as possible. Hopefully, I will keep my enthusiasm at least also on 5^th September (the school year starts on the 4^th :o)

All being well, I will have 1 and a half job next year. This Shabbat, I officially started my part-time job for Masorti/ Marom in the Czech Republic. Already while in Israel, I agreed to work for the community as a coordinator. In real life, it means that I try to make the life of our rabbi a bit easier by taking care of some of the administrative part to running of the community, I communicate with other organizations, coordinate some of the services, take care of foreign visits, shlep sidurim from one place to another etc. I see this job also as very important. So far, the Masorti community in this country has not had any paid employee except for the rabbi, who had to take care of everything from leading High holiday services through hiring venues for the community activities to buying wine and cakes for kiddush. The community has always heavily depended on the work of volunteers (all of whom have done an incredibly devoted job, kol ha-kavod), which was not really ideal - the community, despite being as small as it is, simply needs somebody, who would help it administratively and who would be paid to be able to devote time to the job. After spending a year in the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, I started to feel strong commitment to egalitarian and modern Judaism. I think Prague deserves to have a community that cherishes these values and I feel that if I can help to maintain and develop it, I have an obligation to do it. In the past 3 weeks I have had several meetings in connection to my new work, have worked closely with our rabbi, Ron Hoffberg, I have lead one Kabbalat Shabbat service and have given one Dvar Torah, helped to host Av Beit Din of the European Masorti Beit Din, r. Chaim Weiner during his visit in Prague, have had few fights and …simply the usual stuff.

So…to cut the long story short – I have been very busy in the last couple of days, which is great. After spending so much time studying and taking in, it feels great to haveso much to do, to have a diary full of meetings, to have obligations, to organize and create. The fact that after today I even have a full time job, which will give all my efforts some stable framework, gives me an intensive reassuring feeling. I feel great, excited, grateful, it seems to me these days are pregnant with future possibilities.

In addition, my flat starts to look like a real place for living – I have a bed, a fridge, after today I have even a washing machine, iron and ironing board, a table in my study and a garden table on my terrace, wireless internet and 3 brand new plants.

And! And I got a brand new, smashing haircut – my longest hair is about 1,5 cm (half an inch) now.

Sorry for having written such an uncritically optimistic post, I am sure I will have a chance to make up for it once either of the jobs starts to bug me :o)

The wonder of Site Meter

Go to the very bottom of this page. Can you see the little colored cube? That´s the site meter of this blog. If you click on it, it will tell you who and where checked the blog in the past couple of days. It is a great way of finding out who reads the posts even if the readers don´l leave any messages. This way, I can guess that yesterday, the site was read by Aviad in Tel Aviv, Josh in Dalas, Tom in Notre Dame, two of the many people I know in New York and New Jersey and probably Ondra and Anna and perhaps Shmil here in Prague (just click on "by location" in the left hand column.) I love technology!

Just a brief note

Thanks to Ondra for helping me to change the timezone on this web! Now the time at the end of each post shows the time in Prague and not in California. Great! Thanks a lot.

The pros and cons of living in Prague

Last week I met my friend Pnina in the Beit Midrash of the JCC to start what we plan to be a regular once-a-week chavruta for the study of Mishna (we started with Kiddushin, which will be a much needed chazarah (revising) of my last year´s class of Mishna with Josh Kulp. ) Pnina spent the past year in Israel studying history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She came back to Prague a couple of days ago only to finish her studies at Charles University in Prague before going back to Israel to make alyiah (to immigrate to Israel.) When we met, Pnina shared with me her discomfort of being back in Prague. She misses Israel a lot and finds it hard to slip back into her Czech life. Naturally, I understood her mixed feelings very well, especially knowing how much she wants to move to Israel and how much this is important for her. As I have mentioned earlier, as much as I miss Israel and my friends I left there, I am very grateful I am back home again. Thinking about what Pnina told me and also about all the things I don´t like about being back home, I thought I would put down a few pros and cons about living back home in Prague:

Pros:
-Being with my family and friends - does not need further explanation.

-Sunday - Sunday is a great invention that Israel lacks. Nobody can persuade me that the free Friday in Israel is the same. It is not. In Israel, I always spent most of Friday cooking and cleaning for Shabbat. The more time you have before Shabbat the more time you spend preparing for it. Here, I manage to do everything within 3 hours on Friday afternoon and can enjoy the whole free Sunday.

-Recycling - In Israel, I have always been frustrated by the fact that it is impossible to recycle anything except for plastic PET bottles, newspapers and card board. I went back into recycling everything including yoghurt plastic cups, plastic bags, TetraPak cartons , different kinds of glass and all kinds of paper. I bought the most enviroment friendly fridge I found on the market and I feel much less guitly again.

-Being able to go anywhere by bus - In Israel, I did use the bus system occassionally, but due to reasons that need not be explained, I used my bike most of the time (great for my orange skin, by the way.) Entering buses without checking out my co-travelers suspicciously is a great relief.

-Speking Czech - awesome! People actually laugh when I tell a joke.

-Summer rain - which cools down the air, but does not turn the whole country into a freezer.

-Green lawns and forests - while in Israel people are able to keep their gardens and parks green by means of very clever irrigation systems, walking in a forest that has a moist scent of needles is priceless.

-Secular people - It is great to walk back from the synagogue on Friday and see people having fun, watching the World cup on a huge screen on the Old Town Square, going hiking or roller-skating. As my chavruta Ales says "secularity is a very important part of religious experience."

-Living among Czechs - while I hate many features in Czech national character, I still love living among Czechs immensly.

Cons:

-Being the fat one again In Israel, there were many women who had wide hips and size 42 or 44 like I do. Buying skirts and pants was a piece of cake. I am back in a country of anorectic looking women with sizes 38 and lower. I feel fat and big-nosed.

-Lack of parve cookies - many Americans and Israelis are horrified to see how kosher-eating people shop for food here. Food with hechsher (certificate of an authorised rabbi confirming the food is kosher) is hard to find; we shop according to a kosher list, which lists food with no non-kosher ingrediences, i.e. most people eat "kosher style." Kosher yellow cheese and kosher meat can be bought only in the JCC etc.) This is not such a big deal for me - once you get used to it it becomes quite natural for you. What I miss is parve cookies. After having meat I am forced to eat healthy food like oranges and bananas.

-Not being with my friends from Israel - does not need an explanation.

-Not being able to pray with an egalitarian minyan - except for Friday night - but this makes me daven at home on the terrace on my own overlooking pretty green hills of the Prague suburbs, which is beautiful.

-Not living among Israelis - while I hate many features in Israeli national character, I still love living among Israelis immensly.

Joseph goes to Poland

An hour ago, I said final good bye to Joseph, my Mishna chavruta and a very dear friend from last year. Tomorrow, he is leaving the country and continues with his group to Poland.
During the past three years of living abroad, I found meeting new people and making friends from different countries and cultures one of the most enriching part of the experience. The fact I always had to leave them when returning back home is, on the other hand, undoubtedly the biggest downside. Joseph is one of the people I met in Israel I will miss the most - we became very close friends and I value his friendship immensly. All the new rabbinical students in UJ - you are very lucky to have him :-)

America goes to Prague

As I mentioned to you earlier, Tovah (my friend from the Conservative Yeshiva) and her friend Jess wisited Prague at the beginning of the week. It was a very quick visit, they spent just one day and two nights in town, but it seemed they enjoyed it nevertheless. A day after Tovah had left, Joseph Robinson and Yael Buchler (also my friends from the Yeshiva) came to Prague with their American pilgrims. I came to meet them in their hotel today in the morning, davened shachrit with them (the first time after I came back from Israel I had a chance to participate at an egalitarian shachrit) and joined them for their walking tour around the Prague Castle area. To see Joseph and Yael again was a pure pleasure, I am sure I do not have to explain why. To be among Americans felt very familiar – and I think I dont have to explain why either:o)...during the breakfast, everybody talked about milk products, proteins and about what kind of tuna they eat or don’t eat – it will never stop surprising me, how much time Americans can spend talking about food... I enjoyed spending time with the kids a lot - they kept asking me all kinds of questions about the town and the country, I told them all kinds of stories from my life, taught them how to say "Hi", "Good morning," and "Thank you" in Czech and - most importantly - I taught them how to open a TetraPak box of milk. For me, the most moving moment of my time with the group was when we walk down the Castle hill. After we passed a park with huge lime trees that obstructed our view, we came to a terrace of the Strahov monastery, which overlooks the whole Old and New City of Prague (you can see a part of it behind me and Joseph on the picture. Unfortunately the photo does not do justice to the real view.) The view is truly stunning, even for me who has seen it dozens of times. Today we were also very lucky with the weather and the town spread before us in all its splendor. All the kids with their mouth open started to run to the railings at the edge of the terrace in excitement to take pictures. Joseph, obviously taken aback by the sight as well, stopped walking and stared at the town for a couple of seconds in awe. Then he looked at me calmly and said: “Gafna, you do live in a beautiful city.”

The first week of being back home

I am back at home. I suppose many of the readers of this blog will be my friends from the past three years, who have all had (or will soon have) the experience of coming back home after a long time. Therefore, most of you will know what it is like – waking up in the morning and needing a few moments to realize where you are and what language to speak, initial diarrhea caused by the minerals in food you are not used to anymore, excitement about going to your favorite cafés with people, who are „still not done with school, but - seriously – will finish in fall“ and the immense pleasure you take in reading your beloved weekend newspaper supplement in real tangible hard copy.

Being back home feels like waking up after a long time and slowly rediscovering all the things you know so well, but still having in mind the live dream you dreamt during your sleep. I think of Israel and my Yeshiva time very often, especially when I talk to my Prague chavruta Aleš, who came back from Pardes a few days before I returned from the Yeshiva (and who will soon go back to Israel for his second year) I honestly loved being there, but I am glad I am back at home. Being back home is a special kind of smooth, touching pleasure. Most things are the way I left them: the guy from across the street that works all night and who is usually my only companion at late night hours has not given up his habit of walking around half naked in a fully lit room, Café Louvre still serves Earl Gray on tables with small note pads saying „The place of all your appointments,“ my neighbors still grow weed on their balcony, only the bush is a little bigger now.

Most of my time, however, I don’t even have time to think about what it is like to be back home and whether I miss Israel or any of the previous countries for that matter – most of the time I try to deal with my current life, settle and handle my flat and job.

I am sure I mentioned to many of you both of these issues perhaps more than you would have wished – but still: 14 days before I left for Israel last September, I had moved out from my original flat to an attic apartment, which was built on the roof of the building of my original flat. The flat is an investment of my parents, who feared that their savings would lose their value once the Czech Republic enters the EU/ join the Euro monetary union. For reasons connected to this issue, the flat is 3 times bigger then the original flat I used to live in, i.e. I live on my own in a space that is 3 times the size of what I used to share with three other adult people. This is a very weird experience, especially at night during the current summer thunderstorms, but I love the flat and take immense pleasure in furnishing it bit by bit – putting on hangers for towels, going to Ikea trying out different beds and mattresses, buying all kinds of kitchen utensils – there is nothing like creating your own living space.

My job has recently started to slowly lose a character of a nightmare and began to get a clearer shape. All being well, I should start working very soon for both of the institutions I planned to work for while still in Israel. I will surely let you know if as soon as I know anything more tangible. The downside of having to wait for a couple of weeks before I get employed is that being 26 and not being an official student of any EU university any more, I had to register at the employment office as an unemployed in order to get my health insurance paid by the state before I start to work. After filling in a couple of forms at the registry, I was given an official blue ID card of a registered unemployed and was given an appointment with a job specialist, whom I have to see regularly as long as I want the state to pay for my insurance, despite that fact I have found a job already (this is the way the sate makes sure that while they pay for you, you are actively looking for a job.) Again, all this is a very new experience for me, hopefully it will also be very short and I will start to work as planned. My first meeting with the job specialist was scheduled for the coming Wednesday – I will let you know what it was like.

Last but not least, my yeshiva friend Tovah Honor came to visit me in Prague for two days last night – a bit of my old yeshiva life in my new flat :-). Joseph Robinson, my Mishna chavruta and dear friend from Jerusalem, should come to Prague on Wednesday with 44 Jewish teenagers on a USY pilgrimage. I cannot wait to see him again.