Back from Israel

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

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

The joys of flying kosher

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

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

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

Pesach kasher ve-sameach!

Adult life

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

(Btw. 28 days till going to Israel)

You never know

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

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

Tax declaration

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

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

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

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

A mother-daughter Norway trip

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

Count down

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

Twisted values

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

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

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

Esther in Prague

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

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

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

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

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

Living in a museum and going to Israel

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

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

A short update

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

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

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

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!

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

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)

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

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

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

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.