Israel Part 5: Friday in Modi'in

 I now have permission to use names of most of the people I'll reference on this trip. So...

In Israel: Part 1 I referenced BF whose actual name is Bat-Ami. Not that long after we graduated college she and her husband, Mike, made aliyah, ending up in Modi'in. 

Meanwhile, after spending a few years in Portland, U. and I eventually moved to Vancouver, B.C. for just a year. Another college friend of mine coincidentally was there too. His hame is Joel Rothschild and it was actually his suggestion that I begin this blog. Blogging was very popular in my friend group, including with Alissa Altman. 

How very strange, then, that Alissa and her husband, Morey (and their dog Maimo) would later make aliyah, move to Modi'in and become friends with Bat-Ami and Mike! 

(Stay tuned later for the surprise of much later me discovering Joel was now in Israel too!)

All five of these people are anchors for me of really smart, progressive and intentional Jews (a few of them even linking me back to the Pacific Northwest!) All of them are in Israel now.

But let me stay focused on the retelling of my trip. 

I arrived early Friday morning. Alissa picked me up from the airport and expressed her surprise of how little traffic there was. Only ElAl is flying there now. 

(CORRECTION: Alissa says she was not surprised, but amazed. The distinction is important. Imagine knowing you could drive through Newark or JFK pickup and knowing you wouldn’t have hoards of people honking and yelling at each other vs. actually experiencing it.)

At Ben Gurion airport - an art installation with "Bring Them Home" dog tags

I had slept very very little on the flight and decided I better get out for a walk to help me with jet lag. 

Alissa suggested I check out the relatively new city center or "Ma'ar." She gave me a map and very clear instructions which all pretty much went straight over my sleep-deprived head. I managed to get myself lost after just one wrong turn and resorted to GPS to find my way. I struggled considerably with reading the sign names, but ended up at the Ma'Ar from the opposite side I'd intended. Along the way I accidentally discovered a rather nice path with roses and art work.

Once I finally made it to the Ma'ar I had my pick of Kosher food. I ended up at Pasta Basta which is the place I referenced in Israel: Part 3 of not even trying to speak Hebrew. After that I came up the beautiful pedestrian path, found my way back to the Altmans and collapsed into the bed. 

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. Two hour nap, preparation for Shabbat (including my pre-Shabbat posting here), then dinner and conversation. The conversation was about many things, but as with any "catching up with old friends" conversation, one topic was what they are doing this days.

Alissa is volunteering 3-4 days per week with Grilling for Israel. She spends seven hours on each of these days -- transporting, grilling, serving and cleaning up meals for soldiers and sometimes to their families. A lot of people from the U.S. have come to help but sometimes can't put in a lot of time. One thing Alissa and I talked about is that it's an important consideration when people dip in their volunteer hours that they reflect on how much they really can help. As I've planned my trip that's been an important question. What I've discovered about my time here is actually less on what I do and much more on how deeply I can be here. More on that to come.