… but all I’m going to write about is how much I enjoy being home. After all, I have been home for three days, with strict orders not to go anywhere and not risk my health with being silly and going out to action. I am being a good patient and following doctors’ orders. I am not even painting the nursery, though I’d like to get started on it!

Tomorrow we are 23 weeks pregnant! And we are going to peek in to Baby Cohen tomorrow! Hopefully he won’t be too upset with us always invading his privacy.

And while life goes on, please pray for the soldiers now in Gaza.

My eldest nephew Arik is now 19, almost 20. We pretty much grew up together. Arik comes from a good Breslev family, which he left behind at 16, virtually moving in with me as a room-mate, sharing an apartment with me during his last year of high school and my second year of college.

Arik has cystic fibrosis, and he is now hospitalized with complications from his CF. He has been in the bottom 1/5 of a lung transplant waiting list, which might change now as he now can’t breathe on his own because of a collapsed lung and a widespread infection. He has been in hospital for a few days now and it can really go either way at this point. We, who love Arik, do hope it will be another unexpected recovery, but, knowing how Arik doesn’t believe in any divine beings, and how he doesn’t want prayers for him, I’d like to ask for your positive thoughts!

I had a brief chat with Arik’s elder sister Elisaveta this evening and she said that his color is getting better and his spirits are high, his major complaint is that he can’t eat any latkes. His girlfriend has just traveled back from Jerusalem, where she attends university, so she can spend more time with him.

Arikcollects funny photos. Link your favorite ones in the comments, so I can get them printed out for him for Chanukah!

Before I begin: yes, those are my lower legs/feet.

As you know, I still live at home, with my Dad, step mom, baby brother and temporarily with my older brother. I have a month left of this arrangement, as after the wedding I’ll move to my new apartment a few blocks away. I originally intended to move to Ramat Gan, but it’s better this way.

So this morning I decided to cook breakfast for my step-mom and myself, when my friend Ari stopped by. Of course he decided he wanted some of my home made pastry, which we proceeded to eat on the benches in front of the house. We were chatting about all the things since we last saw each other, when one of my neighbors walked by us and said hi.

You see, on the 4th floor lives an Arab Muslim family. They have two sons, one and IDF veteran, the other currently serving, and a daughter, Leia. Well, yeah, their dad is a Star Wars geek, what can I say. Now Leia and I are the same age, we went to school together–no idea why she went to a Hebrew school, but she is fluent in both Hebrew and arabic–she is attending university, works part time, plays soccer, and is generally one of the awesomest people I’ve ever met. Many a Thursday evening did we spend together at various coffee shops with friends from school.

Leia also wears a hijab.

As we were sitting there, after chatting with Leia for a mew minutes, Ari shook his head and said, “Poor opressed girl!”

I have to admit my jaw dropped.

“Ari, uhm, how many times have YOU seen your wife go out without her head covered since you got married?” I asked.

“Erm… Zero?” he answered.

“So?” I asked.

“Erm… You have a point. But her future husband…”

I have to admit I lost it then. What would make a Muslim man a worse husband than a Jew? Why would her options any more restricted than Ari’s were? I can’t believe it. I ponted these out, and then we got into a major disagreement on how we view goyim. Oh well. I always liked Leia’s company better than Ari’s.

Yom Hazikaron–Memorial Day–was spent mostly in the theater, where we met up at 9 a.m., but we heard the siren at 11 so we stopped doing whatever we were doing for two minutes, me standing right next to Kai–the guy who dropped me on the first rehearsal oportunity he got and who has become my best friend in the the group since then. I could hear his heart pounding over the sirens, and I couldn’t help but think of all those people I served with.

We did a photo shoot, then went back to last minute things and then had a full rehearsal without audience so the lighting could be adjusted. It was very important, as throughout the show my face had to be hidden as much as possible in the shadows.

You see, I played the Sabra. Sabra is the nickname of Jews born in eretz (the land of Israel). It was absolutely fitting, as I am the only sabra in the whole cast. This is the only role that doesn’t have a personified name.

You see, this country was built by two kinds of people: the olim, the new arrivals from the diaspora, and the next generation, those who no longer remember the “bread of captivity”. Even today you’ll see sabra and oleh work side by side. And that is what this piece is about.

The timing was that the show began when it was still Yom Hazikaron, and a video presentation from Mount Herzl (named after Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism–he was from Hungary, like my family) of the flag of Israel being raised to full mast again as Yom Hazikaron ended and Yom Haatzmaut, Independence day, began.

The story was simple: It began with the land’s struggle to give birth to the Sabra, simbolized bythe Sabra1s rising from under the flag. The various other characters come and are each introduced with a brief solo, while the narrator recounts the beginnings of Zionism. Various aspects of Israeli history are then represented in dance, recounted in the narration. It is important to note that most of the other characters have a scene which is basically classical ballet, very refined, very classy. The Sabra, meanwhile is a lot cruder, as seen while switching between the classical part and the dysphonic music within the same scene. My favorite part was when the Sabra starts doing push-ups as the others dance around him, and gradually the others join him. It meant about 45 push-ups for me!

At the end the Sabra falls–other characters die during the show–and the others put stones on his grave as he gets covered by the Israeli flag once again. Then each of the other characters stand back and fade into darkness. Then the sabra rises again, making the flag fly as he runs across the stage, ddancing a few times. Eventually the Chava character catches the other end of the flag, and they stand in the middle of the stage, holding the flag, and one by one the other characters stand around them and the lights come on,making the Sabra’s face visible for the first time. At this point we started to sing HaTikvah, the national anthem of Israel. This wasn’t planned, but just happened. The lights gradually went on to focus on the flag only. It just gave me the chills.

Make sure you watch the video on the right!

Miss Wonder suggested that we should get some gentic testing done. Why, you ask, if she is the Yemenite Wonder and you are the archetypical Ashkenazi kohan?

Well, Miss Wonder is also known as Maya Sharabi. Sharabi is a Yemenite sounding name all right. But to be honest, Miss Yemenite Wonder is only 1/8 Yemenite: the other 7/8 of her ancestors are Ashkenazim from Kosice, Krakow, Vienna and Sátoraljaújhely. Yes. We come from the same gene pool. With my family known to carry the BRCAII gene mutation and another one, and we’ve had Williams Syndrome in the family and a very distant cousing had a Tay-Sachs baby, I think it’s all cool. No surprize that i have two brothers, who have become geneticists, right? (Not to mention the high ratio of Jews and Israelis in the firld of genetics…)

So the romantic Hungarian Beer Party Weekend will began at the genetic labs with some blood tests. Needles. Why do I think that love hurts?

Also, Erez sent over a pic he took with his phone the other night. No, I wasn’t very drunk.