Amélie Foltýnová

Olga, my sister-in-law, gave birth to her first daughter Amálka on Friday this week. Both are fine and healthy. Bellow are a couple of pics fromour today´s visit to the hospital.

Tomáš (my brother,) Olga (my sister-in-law) and Amálka


Amálka and I

The bride you always wanted not to be

I haven´t posted anything for almost half a year. I am at home with flu now, which means I need a time killer, so why not droppong a couple of lines again?

There is a lot of new. First of - I have a new job; or better to say I have a new possition in the same place. I now coordinate the Jewish program in our school. This is a very challenging experience - I have to learn a lot of new especially in communication with others. Most of the time I enjoy having to come up with new things and being creative. Sometimes I find it hard to get over mistakes I make. In general, however, I very much feel this is a change for the better.

I have a new baby-cat. Her name is Mushka and I brought her to my home a day after Yom Kipur. She is very sociable though incredibly wild. However, she is a great company for most of the time and I enjoy having such a fine flatmate.

Last but not least - I got engaged two weeks ago. G-d willing, Moshe and I should be getting married on Lag ba-omer on his family vineyard. During my „always a bridesmate never a bride" years I learnt that brides can be incredibly annoying in informing everybody about the progress of their wedding preparations and I wish to make a public vow and promise I will not become one of them. In fact, when we decided to get married, we sat down and within 3 days agreed on all the wedding arrangements. What do people make such a fuss about?

And the angels were laughing

Recently, the structure of my spendings have slightly changed - I have more or less finished the major investments into my flat and and it is the time to change the way I think about my money now. Today, I put on my make up and the most self-confident smile I could find and I set off to my bank to meet my financial consultant. I sat down at the counter, leaned rightwards on the chair and started to discuss my plans and prospects for the next couple of years. Lenka S., my financial advisor, who has known me for the last 8 years, very carefully listened to what I had to say. She asked me a couple of additional questions about my life and investment plans and expectations for the nearest future, made some further suggestions and then we closed the deal. As we were signing the contracts that sent my monies in different directions it downed on me what a chutzpah of me it was to plan what is going to happen to you in the future. When you make financial decisions of this kind, you decide to give up your money for some time and let it work, because you think you will not need it. You put the money into different places for different periods of time guessing: When will I have kids? Will I keep my job and vages? Will I get a promotion? What are the chances I will need some extra money to spend on unexpected expenses? These are things you surely try to plan but you can naturally never know what life will bring in the end. My today´s bank appointment reminded me of the old Jewish joke: How can you make G-d laugh? When you tell Him what your plans for the future are.

Well, well. I made my guess, let´s see what happens.

The end of school blue

The other day I overheard an interesting conversation between two ladies in the grocer´s: "You know what?" one of them said: "I am simply tired. I don´t want to deal with the kid anymore. I just wish the year was over already." It wasn´t hard to guess that the two of them were teachers. Most of my teacher friends are extremely tired these days. Most of them walk around like ghosts and speak softly. After the examination period, test and essay marking, final records and all the paperwork connected with it we all need a break. (And so do the kids.) Despite all the love I have for my job, I need the break too. There are two more days to go.

Ducks and halacha

On Friday, I saw an interesting reportage on the Czech news TV chanel ČT 24- it talked about a duck farmer in the village of Záluží. His ducks would in very rare cases leave their cot and walk on the village roads. He was affraid that cars that pass by would run them over. Therefore he put the following sign on a fence standing on the border of his farm and the road to warn the drivers about the danger of his wandering ducks. A couple of days later he was informed that he has to remove the sign under the thread of a fine of 300,000 CZK (18,750 US Dollars.) He was told that he abused the shape of red triangle with white inside, which is a registered traffic sign. The only animals that can appear in this sign in my country are a cow and a deerIf you want to warn drivers against any other kind of animal, you have to add a special warning to the already existing symbol - i.e. you post a sign of deer next to a forest and you add a sign "beware of wild pigs" next to it.

Putting any other animal into the red triangle sign is considered illegal. Therefore, the sign with dugs has to be dismantled by the end of the week. The office for trafic signs claims that a) such a new sign is confusing and as such it b) potentially undermines the whole system. Today we put a duck in the sign, what will we put tomorrow? "I ment no harm," said the bewildered farmer: "I just tried to protect my ducks."

I couldn´t help thinking how similar this case was to the problems we face in the development of halacha, the Jewish law. We face great anxiety ever time we think about allowing something new. The novelty might make sense and it very often greatly improves a particular segment of a Jewish life (more intensive involvment of women in public religious life, breaking the barriers between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, more sensitive approach to conversions etc). Very often, however, we ban the new improvement, because we are affraid that the novelty will be confusing in the context of the whole system. We fear that "it will look like something that is forbidden," that it will look like we are giving up on stringency in keeping the law or that it will eventually lead to other changes that will be deadly for the system.

Obviously, it isn´t easy to make changes. Changes mustn´t be made without careful consideration. I believe that sometimes, however, it makes more sense to make the change, which is so obviously good for the practical life than to furiously try to enforce the old version of the rule. After all, isn´t one of the main roles of the office for trafic signs (the rabbis respectively) to flexibly react to the changing needs of the people involved?

If we have the courage (and the common sense as well), we will hopefully dignify the life of numerous Jews and save the life of a couple of ducks. As a special bonus we will also prevent absurd situations like the one featured on the following picture (the sign says "beware of horses.")

Back from Israel

I am back from Israel (actually I came back already 2 weeks ago). This time I took the visit reeaally easy. I travelled a bit around but I spent most of my time in Jerusalem talking to Jan, Aleš and Ivanka and drinking nana tea.

Still - with the little I managed to travel, I visited Bnei BrakBeit ElTel Aviv
and also the south of Jerusalem West Bank
It never ceases to surprise me how many differences, paradoxes and problems there are on such a small space. I came back home to Prague in the time of the year when we, enlightened Jewish education teachers:-), teach about Israel before Yom ha-atzmaut. We should teach our kids to develop a possitive attidude to the country which undoubtedly has such a big impact on the way we percieve ourselves as Jews and how others view us through our Jewishness. At the same time, we should teach them a realistic picture of what the land of milk and honey really is. What a treat :-)

The joys of flying kosher

If you fly around Europe (and close around) and you choose to eat kosher, you usually win a much better meal than the other travellers around you. Most of the companies crossing the short distnces from one Old continent country to another choose to feed you a small snack and a cookie, while if you order a kosher meal, you are usually granted a full meal with hot piece of meat and nice desert. The most striking difference between the meals I have experienced so far was when I flew British Airways from Stockholm to London. While all the other passangers were offered a tiny stripe of tired looking pizza, I was served a delicious French duck with potato pire and a meat pate with almonds.

Yesterday, however, when I flew to Tel Aviv, the Czech Airlines made their revenge for all these months they have fed me nice kosher meals. I flew on the 3rd day of Pesach - therefore, while all the other passangers got a nice chicken and potatoes, vegetable salat, chocolate brownie and a small roll, I was served this:

Fair enough. I didn´t mind that much after all. Ultimatelly, the plane brought me to a country, where even on the foodwise crasy holiday of Pesach, you can keep kosher and still eat a thing like this:
(Which is what Honza Fingerland treated me for the moment I arrived in Caffehouse on Emek Refaim:-)

Pesach kasher ve-sameach!

Adult life

It has struck me recently how many hits on my blog are people who google "adult life in Prague." (I know it thanks to sitemeter.) It never occured to me what a vulnerable name I chose for my blog. Luckily (at least I hope that´s luck) none of these googlers stay on my blog for more than 2 seconds. Still - it´s kinda sad.

(Btw. 28 days till going to Israel)

You never know

Last summer I bought an olive tree (a bit childlishly - to remind me of my Israeli holiday) and put it on my terrace. It was all leafy and green the whole summer and fall, but during the winter, when I put it indoors, it regretfully shook down all its leaves and it seemed it dried up completely.

I had slowly started to give up on the plant when the other day I came home to find out that it has a few fresh green leaves. In a couple of the following days it began to bud also on a few other places and started to shoot fresh sprouts in all directions. I know it will sound silly, but not only was I happy the plant didn´t die, but I couldn´t help thinking what a telling sign it was. I had actually almost thrown away the plant a month before. Sometimes things look gloomy and hopeless. However, you never know when they´ll take an unexpected better move.

Tax declaration

The beginning of spring is usually marked by the early birds that start to sing with the rising sun, the more agreeable outdoor temperatures, sudden rainshowers, the first humble blooms of spring flowers and - the many friends who complain to you about the fact that they have to declare their taxes.

I have just finished counting mine. My accounting is usually rather simple because most of my taxes are done by my employer anyway. Therefore I have never used a professional and I have always done my taxes by myself. For me - counting the taxes follows the same sequence of emotions every year:

1) Filling in the personal information - name, ID number, phone-number ... and thinking - yey! It´s easy after all!
2) Counting all the money I earned that year and thinking - a) "Gosh! I must be the worker of the year when I made that much money" b) "Wait a minute - where is it all gone?"
3) Opening the "numbers part" of the form and realising a) there are loads of changes in the law compared to last year and therefore b) a number of new lines.
4) At first patiently and later on a little bit impatiently trying to find out my way through the form.
4) The "aha-moment" (usually after 3 or so hours and after having consulted several guidelines.) I finally got it and I fill in all the numbers.
5) Realising that I have to pay the amount I have just counted. Realising that it is actually really not that bad.
6) Realising that the fact that I have to pay taxes and I am not in red numbers actually means I am an independent, working young woman who can support herself. Not bad :-)

Great - I hope I counted it right. I will send the money tonight. Until next year then (all being well:-)

A mother-daughter Norway trip

During Christmas, I started to plan my summer holidays and among others I decided to go to Norway this July. For some time I tried to find someone that would be willing to share the hardship of climbing cold and slippery mountains, paying huge amounts of money for transport and lodging for the gain of the most spectacular views of Scandinavian fjords. I slowly started to come to terms with the fact that I will have to go on my own when one day I got a call from my mother, who said - "Why dont I come with you?" My mother has always wanted to see Scandinavia and she even got the first taste of it when she visited me during my studies in Paideia, but she has always wanted to see the hills and the wild nature as well. So we decided to take a 10-day backpacker trip to Norway together. This will be her first backpacking ever and it will also be the first time we will go for vacation on our own. I cannot wait.

Count down

Some time ago I added two ticker factory count down to the bottom of my blog. Just to let you know.

Twisted values

I spent today´s Shabbat afternoon in my parents´house leasurely reading newspapers. In the weekend suplement of one of them I read about the following event:
Karel Gott, an infamous Czech singer and the most eligible bachelor in the country got married last week to his girl-friend and the mother of his little daughter. The news has been making the headlines for the last couple of days, during which many newspapers have been searching for minute details of the event. Ths particular paper went to interview the principal of the high-school, where Mrs. Gott studied to become a nurse several years before."She finished the school and started to work in one of the local hospitals," the principal said: "but she quit soon, went to Prague and started to work in the showbizz. It had always been obvious to me she would do that. She had always aspired for higher goals."

Hmm. I am probably not the only one who personally knows a number of nurses that spend their days and lives helping people, who feel misserable, taking care of the sick, injured, disabled and terminally ill. They meet pain, despair, tragedies and death on a daily bases and many of them do it with a lot of devotion. On the top of that, most of those that work as nurses in this country do it for an embarassingly small montly pay.

Seeing that a principal of a school that trains nurses considers a career of a green-widow of an aging pop-star as a higher life goal than helping those in pain is slightly... disturbing.

Esther in Prague

In the preface of his book The Penitent, I.B. Singer relates a story that supposedly happened to him at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. "I know we would eventually meet here," a stranger told him when he was about to pray. "How could you know?" the writer asked. "All Jews come here and because I am here every day, it was obvious we would run into each other."

Actually, there is a lot to it. My experience is that you cannot walk Emek Refaim in Jerusalem (at any time of the day) without meeting at least 2 friends :-) However, I want to argue that the same is true about my birthtown. Everybody comes to Prague. My guest room has already seen dozens of friends that pass through the town and I´ve spend hours drinking tea in my favorite Cafe Louvre with visitors that decided to stay elswhere during their stay or had only a couple of minutes to see me. The last of my friends that came to visit so far was Esther Jilovsky, my friend from the time I studied in Britain.

We had to postpone our meeting 3 times as she went down with flu the moment she crossed the border of this country, but we managed to meet in the end.

It was a very pleasant meeting and I am anxious to find out what is the next country we shall meet in in the future. (She is a passionate traveller - last year we missed each other by a couple of days in Jerusalem, but we managed to meet 2 month later in Warshaw.)

As for other news - my self-study of French has been rather lame. I am very cross with myself.

Living in a museum and going to Israel

During the break, I fell a bit ill, which ruined my plans to go to Berlin for a 2-day trip and to spend the New Year´s eve in the mountains with my friends. Trying to use the time at home as well as I could I thoroughly cleaned my flat. I cleaned it so well that today, when I returned back home from a short visit at my parents´, I wasn´t sure I was actually at home. I guess I cleaned far too much. My flat looks more like an Ikea museum than a place where people actually live. But I will cook a bit and I hope I will mess it a bit to feel like a human being again.

During the break, I decided to accept the invitations of a couple of my friends and bought a ticket to Israel for Pesach. I am planning to be there betweem 22nd April and 2nd May. So if you are around, let me know :-)