Gafna´s adult life

Johanka is coming to town

2010-06-09T17:20:00.002+02:00

Our daughter Johana Einav was born at 4:30pm on 25th May in the city of Most.

Wishing you a peaceful pesach.-)

2010-03-18T23:06:00.002+01:00

Gearing towards Jewish education in private practice

2010-01-29T11:25:00.002+01:00

Again, I have not posted for a long time. This time I am blogging to see again how many people still read or write blogs - it seems to me that all of my friends that used to do so are gone. I am slowly aproaching the time when I will (all being well) leve school for maternity leave - around Pesach I should leave not only my job but also Prague to move to our house in Mukov and to start a life at the end of the world taking care of our house, garden, Moshe and the expected little winemaker/teacher (not in this order). I already have several activities that I am looking forward to do during the maternity leave on my list. So I wonder if there will be anyone interested in reading about them here in case I promise I will never write about my baby´s digestion, sleep, crawling and the like:-).

Having a morgage in the times of financial crisis

2009-07-26T12:25:00.008+02:00

Before I met Moshe, I invested most of my savings into my flat thinking that this was a safe bet - if I ever get married, I thought, my future husband would for sure move in with me because what could be better than a new, freshly furnished 4 bedroom loft flat. Having met Moshe, I realized that you cant move a vine-maker with his vineyard to Prague whatever the number of rooms your flat has; you have to start from scratch in his nice but slightly falling apart village house.

I quickly realised that whatever was left from my savings would soon have to be put into our house in Mukov. Being in love not only with my husband but also with the new home and the beautiful countryside around, I gladly started to plan and open the account for minor repairs. The minor repairs soon grew into a more serious problem and it became obvious we would need to change the whole - currently leaking - roof of the house. We have to change it before the winter to prevent further damage of the rafter.

To cut the long story short - it was obvious from the start we wouldn´t be able to handle this repair without extending our morgage. For a couple of days, this gave me a few sleepless nights. Soon, however, I realised how foolish I have been.

Our house is in the area of the town of Most , which is one of the poorest part of the country. During the communist times, there were many coal mines around the city, which gave work to many locals. While many of the mines have been closed now, the unemployment rate here is one of the highest in the Czech Republic. When I went for grocers to the local Tesco´s for the first time and read the board of customer´s adds, I could not miss the several notes saying " A young man willing to accept any job, please call #" Talking to my neigbours, I realized, that many of the locals live on half what Moshe and I make together - and still they raise kids and take care of their houses. In fact, most of the local farm employees work on very little above the minimum vages. Paying a tough extended morgage from a stable well paid job that I - on the top of that - enjoy, does not seem so bad after all.

Facebook versus blogs

2009-07-07T17:53:00.006+02:00

Every now and then I browse back to my old blog mainly because of the bookmarks I have on it to click on my friend´s blogs to see what is new. Most of the time, I find out that...nothing much. Most of my friends stopped writing on their blogs around a year ago, undoubtedly because all of them have moved to Facebook. What a shame! Yes, I now know who woke up late and who left his work early thanks to the status changes, but where are the decently long elaborate articles that I used to enjoy so much?

While I have been a very frequent user of facebook too (let along Moshe´s unhealthy usage of facebook while he was sick at the beginning of July) I wish to say - yes, but enough is enough. I will try to get back to normal blogging and continuous text. Let´s see if there are still any readers left.-)

A few pics

2009-05-18T22:34:00.007+02:00

Moshe and I got married. :-)

Amélie Foltýnová

2008-12-21T17:34:00.005+01:00

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

2008-12-10T10:50:00.011+01:00

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

2008-07-01T14:40:00.011+02:00

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

2008-06-25T22:16:00.002+02:00

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

2008-06-15T09:11:00.014+02:00

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

2008-05-11T22:08:00.008+02:00

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

2008-04-23T14:07:00.009+02:00

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

2008-03-23T23:32:00.006+01:00

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

2008-03-13T15:51:00.016+01:00

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

2008-03-12T18:13:00.014+01:00

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

2008-03-09T23:07:00.013+01:00

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

2008-03-09T21:40:00.001+01:00

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

Twisted values

2008-01-19T23:31:00.000+01:00

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

2008-01-06T02:43:00.001+01:00

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

2008-01-01T19:00:00.000+01:00

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 :-)

A short update

2007-12-25T15:51:00.000+01:00

I guess I have lost all my readers by now, but still - I am now on my winter/Christmas break, which means I have loads of time to answer all my long neglected mail, to finally furnish my study, to take care of my plants, to spend some time with my friends and with my family and - to write my blog.

I hope to start to write short posts regularly again. Today, let me update you on the last couple of weeks before I start to post short, witty and opinionated posts again.

The last weeks have brought only little new, which I consider very good news. I continue to teach at the school. I am so organised now that I can spare even 3-4 hours of free time every day, which is a very pleasant change. So far I have been using it - like all normal people - for meeting friends, going to the movies and spending time in coffee-houses reading. Recently it struck me that I should probably try to do something more organised and I decided to learn French. In fact, I made a public vow in front of several of my friends that by the time I am 30 I shall be able to spend my holidays in France speaking the local language. This was not a very wise public commitment. A-it is very difficult to accomplish, B- many of my friends consider it an unhealthy reaction to the partly interesting but largely frustrating shiduch marathon my dear and caring friend Shmil has prepared for me in the last three months. Be it as it may - I have the book, I have the tapes - we shall see what happens.

As far as the school is conserned - the teaching goes quite well. Apart from the usual stuff - this Chanukah we put up an all-in-Hebrew Chanukah play with the 1st and 2nd-graders. I was very proud of them, because we had been learning Hebrew together with them only for 3 months by the time of the play. It was a tremendous success, the parents were moved and the rabbi said we did a great job and I was enormously happy :-)

I have largely fixed the one but last room in my flat - my study - I have bought a new set of shelves in Ikea, which I all put together by myself (yey!). Now I only have to finish putting all the books and papers in it and I can move onto planning my terrace - wow - how very strangely adult and non-hip of me - an I growing old and boring?

Anyway, now I have ate least 9 more days of the holidays in front of me. The good thing about Christmas when you are Jewish is that you have all this extra free time and you dont have to do the holiday stuff that makes everybody else exhausted and over eaten - wonderfull. I have already done a lot of house and paperwork, I guess I have to save some time for fun too. We shall se how this goes. For the time being, I am off to my French text book. See you soon!

Absentminded for a month

2007-12-03T18:05:00.000+01:00

I am sorry, I sort of was. I got hooked up for Facebook and I am sorry I havent posted anything new for such a long lime. In the meantime, chanukah sameach to all!

September full of good stuff

2007-10-08T23:30:00.000+02:00

Do you also hate it when people keep apologizing on their blog for not having written for a long time? That´s why I am not going to do it:-)

September was a very good month. I started the school. What a difference it is compared to the last year! Everything goes much smoother, I feel much more relaxed and I actually really enjoy getting ready for my classes. I don´t have to stay up till late at night (at least not because of the school) and while I still spend loads of time preparing my lessons and dealing with the school stuff, everything I have to do I do at a much slower pace, in a much more easygoing manner.

I should also mention that I am surprised at how well it goes with teaching Hebrew. So far the kids respond surprisingly well to the Tal Am program, they learn with joy and eagerness and it seems they are developing a cute craving for learning more. What more could a teacher wish for?

In between all the autumn Jewish holidays my brother and Olga got married. Honestly, I got a bit worried when I saw the hectic preparation havoc (which, I admit, I purpousfully stayed completely out of), but I have to say - kol ha kavod to all involved, it was a very nice, dignifying and joyful event. Mazal tov!

After they had left for their honeymoon (not that the two events are connected in any respect)
I built my sukkah and started a marathon of inviting of friends during the 8 days of the holiday of Sukkot. I again realized what a great holiday it is and what a genious religious commandment it is to be obliged to invite guests and have fun. The picture is from a visit of my 8th graders. (Dont get allarmed by their facial expression, they just hate to be photographed :-)

In addition, I went to two other weddings in the past month, one of them was a wedding of my next door neighbors. This year has actually been very fruitful for happy occassions so far. I was invited for as many as 13 weddings (many of which I actually really attended :-), one engagement party and 3 circumcisions (and I missed one more just by 3 hours). Well, should the rest of the year be as marry!

The sukkah is built

2007-09-23T20:47:00.000+02:00

Today in the evening my parents and I finished the sukkah. It is my first sukkah in my new flat and I am childishly happy it is up. I still have to decorate it, but the lifting and fixing job is done. Now I only hope the wind won´t be too strong and the sukkah will stay where it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the new Gafna!

2007-09-02T16:04:00.000+02:00

This is a horrible expression, but I couldn´t help using it. Yesterday, I finished my 14 month long work for Masorti and started a new life of a person who has just one job. Naturally, I started the day by approximately 90 minutes of phonecalls and emails dealing with Masorti issues, but I sincerely hope that this is really the last day when this happens. Tomorrow I have to go to pick the last Masorti bill and settle one more issue with the orthodox community and then "ze hu, gamarnu:-)" The new coordinator is Katka Vyzvaldova, an excellent substitute, a very nice and sophisticated girl, who - I am sure - will do her job with grace and dignity.

Tomorrow a new school year starts. I have spent the last 3 weeks trying to get ready for the classes and by now, having most of the crucial stuff prepared, I am anxiously waiting for the year to start. What a difference it makes this year to know already a lot of the material I will be teaching, to know basically all the students but for grade one and to work in a tandem with my great co-worker Shmil! Before Shabbat I called my 8th graders to let them know I am waiting for them on Monday and to ask how they have been. I realized that it is a great treat to start another year with kids I aready know - moreover kids I really like. I am proud to be the class teacher of these kids and I am glad that this year we have somewhere to start with and that we do not resume from zero like last year.

I do hope that this year I will spend less time getting ready for the classes and will have more time for developping more after-school activities for the school and personal study. Also, I really hope I will have more time for myself. I have already bought a pass for the local swimming pool. Let´s hope it will get used well. :-)

My week of fame

2007-08-19T02:13:00.000+02:00

Last week the Czech TV broadcasted a documentary film called "Jewish neighbors" dealing with a Jewish museum project called "Lost neignours" and the contemporary Czech Jewery. It was partly shot in our school. Also I had my 10 minutes of fame in it talking about my "Jewish life" and my teaching job. The documentary came out surprisingly well and I was glad to find out that the director very skillfully combined what I said and made it sound sensible. The whole week after the documentary was broadcasted, every time I came to the the JCC somebody turned to me and screamed out - "Hey! I saw you on the telly!" It surprised me because the documentary was broadcasted at 11pm, which is not really the prime time and I thought the only people who would watch it would by my parents and my granny :-). When I already slowly started to enjoy "being a star" on the 7th day after the film was shown, I got a very nasty letter as a reaction to the movie - it was a letter that explained to me how what I said is connected to the sexual practices of the author of the mail. It upsets me the more because I know the author of the letter, a father of 5, very well. Well what should I say. It is hard to be a star...

Marrying Jewish in Yamaica (in Yiddish)

2007-08-09T14:07:00.001+02:00

I got back to work which means I am yet again heavily tempted to take "short little internet breaks" from the "important" work I do. On one of these, I found this:

I was tagged

2007-08-06T01:18:00.000+02:00

I have recently been tagged by Adiv. So here we go with a load of worthless information about ... me.

Four jobs that I've had:
1. Medieval stone castle guide (a job that tought me to strongly dislike big crowds of turists)
2. Au-pair (great but strongly contraceptive job)
3. Jewish community coordinator (no comment)
4. Teacher (so far the best)

Four films or shows that I can watch repeatedly:
1. Friends - funny, witty, topical
2. Kristova léta, dámy - shocking and sad truth about today´s women in their early 30s
3. Fenomén Dnes - Czech documentry series - serious, topical, great for my classes
4. Remember Africa - one of the many movies I like

Four places in which I have lived:
1. Prague - eventhough I have always thought I could basically live anywhere, I have recently found out that this is where I really want to be
2. Stockholm - cold, but interesting (great fish, smart ways of overcoming cold and winter dark, the most charming spring I have ever experienced)
3. Oxford - the only thing I really remember well is the library and drung undergraduates - and Roy of course :-)
4. Jerusalem - difficult but great

Four places that I've been on vacation:
1. Amsterdam - free and green (great cheese)
2. Croatia - typical Czech
3. High Tatras in Slovakia - great mountain hiking
4. The Vltava river - canoeing down the river - there is nothing like it

Four sites that I visit daily (other than blogs):
1. doopravdy.com - Czech Jewish news server run by my co-teacher Shmil
2. google.com - doesn´t surprise anybody
3. facebook.com - great to stay in touch with your friends abroad (or far away) - unfortunately, it took away most of my enthusiasm for blogspot.
4. lauder.cz - web of my school, serves for my communication with students and their parents

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. bread and cheese (seriously)
2. bábovka (czech cake)
3. fried (breaded) cheese
4. chicken soup

Four people that I am tagging:
1. Ondra
2. Tovah
3. Shmil
4. Aviad

CS Jack Stack

2007-08-06T00:13:00.001+02:00

As my readers know, my brother works at Ceska Sporitelna bank. The CEO of the bank, Jack Stack, is leaving his possition. After having lived in the country for 10 years, he is returning back to The U.S. During the time he worked in Prague he became very well known for being a very tough bussinesman. However, everybody knows him also for his sense of humor. True to his reputation, he decided to say goodbye to his company by creating this remake of Sting´s "I´ll be watching you." It made the headlines in the country. And it well deserves the attention it received.

Back from Israel

2007-07-31T16:39:00.000+02:00

I am back from Israel - I didn´t post anything during the time I was there mainly due to the poor internet connection. Sorry :-)

Well, I am starting to make a very bad blogger. Israel was colorful - hot, full of friends, in many ways reassuring and naturally also anoying in many others. I spent the first 2 weeks in the Conservative Yeshiva. I decided to take mainly ulpan classes with my old teacher Meira, which was a true delight. I also liked the advanced halachah class tought by Shlomo Zacharow. The yeshiva was a bit of a surprise to me - it was very different from the year program I took part at a year ago, but I still enjoyed it. On the 3rd week I took a course for techers of Hebrew in Ramat Rachel and during the remaining time I visited my friend Ram in Hebron, spend some time with my friends Hana and Ruven and their kids and rested a bit. It all seems a bit distant now as I quickly returned to my Prague life after I had gotten back. So let me just say - I really enjoyed Israel, but I will not write about it as I didnt manage to write about it when I was there and now it seems too silly.

The good news is I bought my sukah today (yey!) and on the top of that I bought also a brand new olive tree. Yes, I admit it is a bit weird in Central Europe. But I saw it in the shop where I bought the sukah and I could not resist buying it. It comes from Germany (believe it or not). We shall see how long it lasts on my windy terrace.

You can tell me by a flower (teacher and proud:)

2007-06-29T16:15:00.000+02:00

Every working day I spent some 90 minutes comuting between my home and work. When I am too tired to read on the subway, I sometimes watch people around me and play a silly little game of trying to guess what their job is. I am actually not very good at that - well dressed people are always "manager kind," sleepy people "baker or worker kind" an weird looking "teacher kind." There is one day, though, when I am sure I can tell teachers without any doubt and that day is today - the last day of school. On this day all teachers on the subway have full arms of flowers that they get as a present from their students for yet another year of their work. In the past I have always watched teachers on this day with envy. Today, I proudly drove back home as one of them with roses, lilies and sunflowers on my lap and smiled at all the other "colleagues" in our vagon. I even started to talk to one of them and wished her holidays full of rest ("Dont we deserve it!" we both agreed) I will give out most of the flowers to my mum, Ales´s mother, Olga and my neighbors this afternoon and leave for Israel tomorrow night. All being well, on Sunday morning, I will be davening Shachrit at my makom kavua in the corner of the Conservative Yeshiva.

Unfaithful with Facebook

2007-06-24T08:08:00.000+02:00

I haven´t posted anything for some time here - partly because of the usual (too much work) but also because of my new account on facebook The last month was a bit less busy than the time between Pesach and Shavuot, mainly thanks to the fact that I consciously cut down on both on my jobs not to drive myself nuts. I started to roller skate again, went to the movies several times, tried to read and meet friends and thus managed to get back to normal with both my sleep and my asthma.

I went to Budapest for a couple of days to observe Hebrew classes in the Budapest Lauder school. Next year, I shall be teaching Hebrew to the 1st and 2nd graders of my school according to a special program called Tal Am and I wanted to see it in practice before I go for a teacher´s training course in Israel this summer. During the trip I stayed in a flat of my Paideia friend Barna. Meeting him and his girlfriend Anna was yet another delight.

At that time my friend and occassional chavruta Ales came back from Israel, much to my delight - it is great to have a bit of intellectual challenge around the Shabbat table again (those of you who know him know what I am talking about.)

The school is almost over, which is hard to believe. This Sunday is the first Sunday in a long time when I woke up without the familiar uncomfortable feeling of knowing that I would have to spend the whole free day getting ready for the long week of teaching. Today in the afternoon, I shall be leaving with my 7th graders and my colleague and friend Vítek for 3 days of a school trip to the mountains. Šimon, one of my kids, prepared am ambitious night game for the whole crowd based on the TV show "Lost," which makes me even more anxious to go.

After I come back (G-d willing), I have 3 more days of school (which means tidying up and getting ready for the holidays) and than on Motzei Shabbat I am leaving for 4 weeks in Israel. I will spend some time studying in The Conservative Yeshiva and some time taking part at the Tal Am seminar. Needless to say I cannot wait to go. This time I am mainly looking forward to taking some time off doing yet another thing that I like - studying and walking.

Slowing down

2007-05-15T18:01:00.000+02:00

In the process of slowing down, I did something unheard of yesterday: I stopped working already at 8pm, went home and instead of marking essays I went to my neigbours to pay a visit. It was great - we sat on their balcony, ate babovka I brought, they smoked, I talked and it all felt marvelous. They told me they were getting married in September (Mazal tov) and also shared with me their worries about our new Chinese neibours. They claim that they already have a second dog within a very short period of time and that there is a strange smell coming from their flat. They say they keep a kind of chau-chau dog one breeds for meat in China and that they surely ate the first dog with which they moved in. Well - what do you think? Is this at all possible?

Just a thought

2007-05-13T23:45:00.000+02:00

This weekend, after it had gotten warmer in the town, I redescovered how great it is to live in a flat with a roof terrace. To do your work siting in the sun watching birds flying around is priceless. To go out to drink a cup of tea at night and watch the starts is calming and beautiful.
Today I finally made friends with my terrace neighbors. Their names are Andela and Stepan. I hope this is a start of a good terrace to terrace friendship.
There are 6 more weeks of school to go. I am counting the days.

Quotes from the past couple of days

2007-05-10T17:59:00.000+02:00

I have a couple of quotes from the past days:

"When the prophets of Baal did not succeed to light the fire on Carmel, does this mean Baal is a weak god or does it mean he does not exist at all?" Lukas (10 years old)
"I guess Baal exists but he just had a very weak signal reception on Carmel." Adam (10 years old)

"Is there somebody who keeps trejf?" Frantisek (16 years old)

"When the Jews came out to the desert and found the pool of bitter water, I am sure it was petrol." (Lukas (7 years old)

"I thought that the white stuff in your hair is lice eggs but now I see it is only dandruff" Rut (8 years old) - ok, I get it, I should do something about it....

"When G-d said "You shall have no other gods" I think he was mean. Did he want to take over the entire world?" Karel (8 years old)

"Have you read the draft of my work? Is it really bad?" Vera (16 years old)
"Well, honestly, the paper is quite bad." Me
"Really? That´s really weird ´cause I had my granny read it and she thought it was quite ok." Vera

Aviad in Prague and leaving my job

2007-05-08T09:07:00.000+02:00

Aviad has just left back home after his 10-day visit in Prague. During his visit, I successfully aspired for the title of "the most terrible host ever." When he came I lost my voice and wasn´t able to speak to him for at least 2 days. For the rest of his stay I worked all the time, had no time to sight see with him, painfully left my Masorti job, during the process of which I kept updating him about all the difficulties and pains connected with it, I hardly cooked, I refused to go to shop to H and M with him (those who know him will see how painful this is) and I forced him, the poor Israeli, to observe Shabbat with me. On the top of it all when he was leaving Prague at the airport, the security people took away from him the Czech Tatar sauce he bought and carried with care and love to the Holy Land. But I hope he enjoyed the stay at least a little bit. I certainly did.

Last week, I decided to leave my Masorti job. I was exhausted and realized I cannot carry on having two jobs any longer. My leaving unfortunately causes many problems in the community because at the moment there is nobody to replace me and this poses some hard questions about the future about the whole kehilah. Well, not nice and very painful.

The striking Prague news apparently is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying for 2 months in the town to shoot a movie called "Wanted." Well - what more could one wish for, right?

Which countries have you visited?

2007-05-06T23:39:00.000+02:00

I have just found this on my friend Nikki´s website. If you click on the link below, you´ll find a website that will generate a map of countries you´ve visited. Harmless fun :-) I guess I really have to go to Spain and Portugal. I have never been - what a shame!

create your personalized map of europe
or check out our Barcelona travel guide

create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Silence continues

2007-04-27T08:38:00.000+02:00

This is my third day of being speechless. It is a very interesting experience. People are actually very nice to you when you have such a handicap. They smile at you, they are evry helpful and they wish you all the best. The bad thing is that when you need somebody to move in a crowded bus you have to touch them and whisper into their ear, which not many people interpret the way you mean it. Well well. I am abck at school today whispering to all my students, who find it absolutely amusing. Great. In the evening I am heading for the Paideia alumni conference. I will be silent again. Well, scilence is golden, isn´t it?

Second day without a sound

2007-04-26T08:36:00.000+02:00

This is my second day of being speechless, literary. I can´t talk, I lost even the last trace of my voice. I know very well that this is a sign of me working too much. Yesterday, after the meeting with the parents during which I whispered only, my boss asked me to stay at home today, which I am happily doing now taking care of all the paper work I have not been able to do during the past couple of days. I am horrified to see that I have become a burn out victim of my own work. I have become the kind of person you read about in life style magazines. Scary. But ayway, today, my long time Israeli friend Aviad is soming to Prague so that´s something to be cheerfull about. We wont be able to talk - we will have to write to each other. But still, I hope it will be fun!

And the final silence

2007-04-24T23:14:00.000+02:00

Ok, here we go - today I lost my voice. Completely. My exhausted body uses every possible way of showing me that I should slow down. Tomorrow, we are having a parent meeting at school - I am going to whisper to the parents :-) isn´t that fun?

Israel, yes!

2007-04-23T16:32:00.000+02:00

I have just learnt I was granted a Legacy Heritage Scholarship for Jewish professionals for this summer, which will make it possible for me to attend the summer program of the Conservative Yeshiva. Yes, indeed, I am a Jewish professional and let me add I am a very depressed and tired one. But I am glad that thanks to my job which I am starting to be very negative about just because I have very little energy to carry on I will be able to go to Jerusalem. Akhlah:-) Happy independence day! (Oh, my - cant I write something more optimistic?)

Stripping for feelings on blog

2007-04-22T18:24:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago I read a very interesting article in the papers about the phenomenon of blogs. The author of the article wandered how come people are willing to share their very intimate feelings with others. Well, I have no idea how this is possible either but I will share a few insights with you again.

I still owe you a post about my (work) trip to London - well - it was wonderful to be in the UK again. The moment I landed I realized how much I have missed it. I went there just for 3 days and I worked all the time. I managed to meet my Oxford friend Daniel Kleinberg for a short breakfast and to my great regret missed both Lena and Natalia, two friends of mine from Sweden who currently live in London. The trip was great but it was one of the last drops of the overfloating cups of my tiredness. For a month now I have been thinking wether to tell you about how knackered I am after the US, London, Poland last week and especially Pesach. I decided not to strip my tiredness and bore you with my breakdowns but - I am really really really - oh G-d how much I wish I had a week of normal sleep.

Anyway - next time I will be more cheerful.

Happy Pesach!

2007-04-01T03:25:00.000+02:00

Exodus 14:21 "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided."

Those that know to play, never grow old:-) Have a peaceful Pesach!

Aren´t the kids charming?

2007-03-28T22:28:00.000+02:00

When I was applying for my current teaching job, it was not clear at the beginning, which ages I would teach. In the end as much as half of my classes are with elementary school (ages 6-11) Teaching such small kids is a challenge but also a lot of fun. The source of the fun is very often the fact that the kids simply say what they really think at the moment when the thought comes to their mind. If they think it is important, they just say it. After Kaja has informed me I had a mustache last Friday and Simon wandered if the white stuff in my hair was dandruff on Monday (see my previous post,) I thought there was very little that can surprise me more. Alas! I was wrong. Today, Sara(6 years old)came to me in the morning and huged me (as she often does before we start the morning prayer class.) Then she suddenly looked at my chest and said - "Gafna, you know what? You have really, really large brests." Well - awesome, that was sincere. Needless to say I took it as a compliment:-) However, guess I will think twice before I wear my today´s T shirt to school next time.

More quotes

2007-03-27T00:20:00.000+02:00

I still owe you a post from my trip to London last week. But before I do it, let me post a couple of quotes from the last weeks:

"Have a safe trip to the US. And please, say hello to Gearge Bush for me." (Lukas, 9 years old)

"What a jerk!" (David´s honest exclaim when he learnt what king David did with Bat Sheva - 9 years old)

"Gafna, have you ever noticed that you have a mustache?" (Karel, 8 years old)

"Is the white stuff in your hair dandruff?" (Simon, 10 years old - it was actually hair gell - never mind.)

"I have read some Erich von Daniken recently and I cannot help it - God is an astronaut, I am possitive." (Kristina, 13 years old)

"I have no idea, who your God is, I think we should not leave Egypt, I am very happy here, I don´t mind being a slave and stop interrupting me when I speak for G-d´s sake!" (Adam during our drama class - 9 years old)

"Gafna, you look exhausted. You should drop your Masorti job. I am sure you earn enough in the school to buy your skirts." (Irena, my friend from school - skirts...?!)

She gmalani kol tov (who has bestowed to me all kindness)

2007-03-11T01:16:00.000+01:00

Today in the shachrit service, I was honoured with the 7th alyiah (I was called to the 7th part of Torah reading.) This was the first time after I had come back from the States that I took part at an egalitarian minyan. Rabbi Hoffberg encouraged me to recite the Gomel, a blessing that we recite after coming back from a dangerous journey or after surviving a dangerous situation. I have always found it rather strange to thank for surviving a dangerous situation when nothing dangerous actually happened (which was the case of my US trip.) But I said the appropriate blessing and continued to follow the service.

Tonight, after the end of Shabbat, my father came with his car to pick me up in my flat to take me to my parents house, where I planned to spend the Sunday. We drove on a highway. At one point we came closer to a truck. My father started to overtake the truck in the left line. All of a sudden, the driver in the car behind him started to speed up, which is the common way of idiot drivers in my country to tell the other people on the road "how dare you drive so slowly in MY very left line?" My father overtook the truck, went back to the right line and as the mad driver overtook us, my father gave him a quick blink with his lights to say "I don´t aprove of how you behave." At this point we all were driving at a 100 km/h speed. The other driver, at this point cca 20 in front of us, went back to our line and suddenly stopped his car in the middle of the road. I have seen such behavior in movies, but I didn´t know there existed idiots that did things like these in real life. My father stepped on the breaks and so did the truck behind him. Luckily, we managed to stop about a meter behind the car. In what seemed to be ages to me I waited for the hit of the truck from behind. All of a sudden the expected noise came from the right as the truck, obviously unable to stop with its weight and at this speed, decided to overtake our car from the other side and hit our wing mirror.

My father and the truck pulled to the side, got off, looked at each others cars, inspected the broken mirror, calmly said to each other "Oh boy, what an idiot," and went back to the cars. At this point my hands started to shake, but I said "Thanks God nothing serious happened, it could have been much worse." My father nodded in a strangely calm way and said "Yes, you are right. I will have to have the mirror changed." We saw that the driver of the other car stopped 200 meters in front of us and looked in our direction to see what happened. He never came closer to us, he just looked. My father started the engine and slowly moved ahead towards him. In what I now realize was fear, we decided not to stop to talk to him and drove on. As we were passing him, I saw how he hesitantly waived at our car.

Human mind works in a very weir way, we came home and only then fully realized what happened. For an hour we sat in the livingroom realizing that we could have been - God forbid - squashed in our car from both sides. We kept repeating how glad we were not to be dead. In the end we drank a shot of vodka and for the first time in my life I have to admit I felt it helped to release the preasure.

I dont understand why anybody would want to stop in the middle of the road like this. I dont get why anybody would want to put the lives of 3 other people and his own under such a danger. I don´t.

When I sat down to the computer now, I read the text of birkat ha-gomel again. It says: "Blessed are You O Lord our God ruler of the Universe, who bestows kindness on those who are committed, and who has bestowed to me all kindness." Perhaps it makes sense to thank God for His kindness when you are in a situation when something dangerous may happen and it actually doesn´t. It makes sense to say it even if you are not even close to it. It makes sense to thank for the fact that nothing happened. In a situation like the one tonight you realize that "nothing happened" is great and it is worth acknowledging.

Back from the States

2007-03-04T03:51:00.000+01:00

I returned from the States and I am back in my Prague routine - including my traditional late night Motzei Shabbat which usually creates a huge sleeping deficit and completely ruins the rest on my week:-) The trip to the States was a very interesting experience - and I really mean it. Meeting my old friends, seeing American conservative communities, visiting JTS, talking for hours to Marcus and spending a lot of time with rabbi Hammerman and his wife Sharon gave me a lot of food for thought. It is always helpful to leave your world and have a little bit of an insight from the outside. Sometimes one has to go over the ocean to see a bit more clearly what is in front of ones nose at home. But anyway, let´s not be so serious especially today, on Purim.

Let me just share a couple of things I learnt during the trip.

1. I can fundraise - I had no idea that I could.
2. "No fat milk" tastes like dairy dish water, "no fat horse-raddish cheese" tastes like plastic with horse-raddish flavor.
3. JTS is not what I thought it was, but that´s ok, because I should not have thought what I thought.
4. After fundraising in Florida I realised that the idea that "everybody should have the same" that I learnt as a child growing up in a communist country is stuck in my head more than I thought.
5. I miss my American friends.
6. I am prejudiced about Americans. I am ashamed of it.
7. Brooklyn bridge is atually quite short.
8. Some buildings in the US are really tall.
9. American Jews are crazy about Chinese food. That´s funny.
10. Drunk American undergraduates behave the same way drunk British undergraduates do.

And a Purim bonus at the end. This is a picture my friend Jana and myself from today´s purim megilah reading and carnival - I did not know what to dress up like this year so I brushed up my university gown - I wish I could wear it more often:-):

A short report from New York

2007-02-22T06:15:00.000+01:00

After a couple of days in New York I thought I would let you know that I am safe and sound. My fundraising trip has been going surprisingly well and I am very thankful for the contributions rabbi Hammerman and I have been able to collect so far. We shall see how it goes for the rest of the trip. As for the more joyful sides to my journey - I spent two delightful days with Marcus Lange, a friend who studies in the rabbinical program at JTS. Among other things he took me for a Judaica shopping trip to Brooklin (hey for the Heimishe Bakery in Borough Park) and helped me to pay my debt from my last New York visit and crossed the Brooklin bridge on foot with me. It was so freezing that the cold killed my camera and I have no pictures from this truly historic event. What a shame.

While I stayed in JTS, I met many of my friends from the Yeshiva, who either study there or date:-) the rabbinical students - Corey, Jenny, Melissa, Jeremy, Ben, Richard, Mike and some of the older students that studied at Machon Schechter last year. Today, I briefly met Seth Pertain, who kindly enough took a picture of the two of us for me to have a proof I am actually in New York. I am not sure this proves anything but I swear there is New York around the car.

Good news and leaving

2007-02-18T01:00:00.000+01:00

On Friday night my brother revealed to me that after passing his BA exams on Thursday, he proposed to his girlfriend Olga and she - naturally :-) - agreed to marry him. That´s great news! The picture below shows them during their last year´s holiday in Croatia.

On another note - I am about to leave for the States today in the morning. I packed in rush so I guess I am leaving half of the things I need at home. In addition, the pre-departure time was so rushed that some of the things I need to take care of before I leave are still not done - for instance I will be marking some of the tests of my students on my way to the airport and sending them back with my brother. Well, I am the ultimate time manager, aint I:-)Well, at least I have something to laugh about. Ok - all being well I will write again from New York. Shavua tov

Another short update

2007-02-08T22:27:00.000+01:00

Time flies. Incredible. I am going to the States in a week´s time. In the past couple of days, my 7th graders started to get all very sensitive and teenagy and puberty like and I am worried. On the other hand, my biggest troublemaker David K. calmed down and became the student I have always told him he can become - witty, challenging and simply good. I swiched to first names terms with the headmistress of the school. My brother passed a Russian language exam (miracle!). Shmil, my boss, has had a son born ( The brit is tomorrow.) My community and school has successfully survived a visit of the Presidents of Major Jewish organizations last week and I had my students over for a Tu bi-shvat seder today. Well, that´s about the most important news.

Short update

2007-01-28T13:38:00.000+01:00

I haven´t been blogging that much recently - sorry. The end of term is always a bit busy. I had to write many evaluations for my students, write several tests...you know how these things are. Today, I just wanted to tell you that I have my US visa (yey!) and I bought a ticket to the States. I am leaving Prague on Feb 18th for NY and will be returning back home on March 1st, which should get me back on March 2nd (be´h). Schedule still to be anounced:-)

Kids´ minds II

2007-01-21T03:23:00.000+01:00

I haven´t posted much in the past two weeks, sorry. The end of term is always a bit hectic in a school. To make it up for you, let me post a couple of quotes of my students from the past couple of days:

"You wrote in the evaluation that I am never satisfied with a simple answer and that I always want to know more. Is this good or bad?" (Karel, 7years old)

"I think it is better to have more gods than just one. For example the Egyptians had many gods. Also, they look great. They are mixtures of people and animals." (Karel, 7years old)

"I know you are not supposed to draw God. But is it allowed to have an image in your mind? (Karel, 7years old)

"Are you trying to tell me that you are not married yet?" (Domink, 9 years old)

"You shall not sex." (7th commandment according to Eva, 16 years old)

Lights and a TV

2007-01-07T23:12:00.000+01:00

For some time now I haven´t been updating you on the progress of my moving in. Today, my father came to put up new lights we bought together 2 months ago in Ikea. Bit by bit my flat starts to look like a home. And - one more thing: my parents bought me a TV set. I was very angry at first but now - frankly - I cannot wait to swich it on for the first time. I managed to live without one for 7 months. Now it is the time to stop being brave and face the music. It should arrive on Tuesday or so. Yey!

Going to the States

2007-01-07T00:34:00.000+01:00

I have just found out that I will be able to go to the States between 22nd February and 4th March for the Koach Kalah conference (the exact days are to be confirmed shortly.) During these couple of days, I will be visiting New York (shortly), Penn university, Florida (not sure where yet) and Baltimore. If you are around in these days, please let me know - perhaps we could meet up (or - if you are Jewish and would be interested, I could talk to your community about Jewish Europe - you know how much I like to do that when it comes to American Jews:-). I am sure that my schedule will be tight ...but still - going to the States isn´t something I do every
day and therefore I would love to use this opportunity to meet my American friends. So please, drop me a line.

A woman of valour who can find?

2006-12-28T09:32:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-25T00:25:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-24T13:56:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-24T03:31:00.000+01:00

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:

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

Great:-)

Two Holiday Videos

2006-12-12T22:02:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-10T13:30:00.000+01:00

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...

2006-12-07T01:03:00.000+01:00

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

My parents celebrate 30th aniversary

2006-11-18T23:08:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-05T23:20:00.000+01:00

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

2006-11-02T23:42:00.000+01:00

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

2006-10-24T15:30:00.000+02:00

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

2006-10-18T12:01:00.000+02:00

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?

2006-10-08T20:01:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-10-05T22:06:00.002+02:00

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

2006-10-01T09:38:00.000+02:00

(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.

2006-09-28T13:52:00.000+02:00

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?

2006-09-20T20:32:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-09-11T16:22:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-09-03T14:14:00.001+02:00

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

2006-08-27T21:40:00.000+02:00

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

2006-08-22T22:27:00.000+02:00

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?

2006-08-07T09:27:00.000+02:00

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

2006-08-01T01:08:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-20T23:23:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-18T16:00:00.000+02:00

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

2006-07-12T00:14:00.001+02:00

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

2006-07-05T23:42:00.000+02:00

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)

2006-07-04T18:24:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-29T01:55:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-28T22:35:00.001+02:00

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

2006-06-25T12:41:00.001+02:00

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

2006-06-25T00:44:00.000+02:00

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

2006-06-22T22:39:00.001+02:00

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

2006-06-17T23:47:00.000+02:00

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.