1 down 9 to go! Photos

Erin and I overlooking the beautiful Negev desert


Wall of fallen Armored soldiers at Latrun


The Larchmont teens hanging out on a tank at Latrun


The tomb of David Ben Gurion overlooking the Negev


6 am in the worlds largest crater (Machtesh Ramon)


Rabbi Jeff Sirkman of Larchmont Temple (NY) and I leading the Bat-Mitzvah service in Machtesh Ramon


Pausing in front of another natural waterfall in the middle of the desert (while hiking in Ein Avdah)


The honor of passing the Torah to the Bat-Mitzvah, Molly Elson, on top of Masada, accompanied by Jane Joseph and Bob Elson, Grannie Frannie and Papa Joe, and Rabbi Klein-Katz.


Cantorial student David Fromer and I taking in the sun on Masada before the B'nai Mitzvah service.


David and I with the honor of co-leading the B'nai Mitzvah service on Masada with Rabbi Rachel Shabath Beit-Halachmi


Missing something Cleveland? The first snow in Jerusalem.


Our deck! Look at the amount of snow on the table!!!



Mitzi doesn't mind making herself perfectly comfortable - and Matt
didn't mind sneaking this photo op while we were sleeping!

Wrapping up the Semester with a great Tiyul

Shalom family and friends. This year is really flying by. We are already a week away from final exams (which means I have to get moving on the papers I have procrastinated doing) and the start of our long and much needed winter break (We can't wait to see you Mom, Dad, Uncle Mark and Aunt Teresa!!!). In light of the amount of work we all have ahead of us, we were able to get away from the books and library for a few days last week on a class trip to the Northern cities of Caesaria, Tzippori, Tsfat and Haifa.

Our journey followed the footsteps of the Sanhedrin and major Jewish thinkers and innovators (who were expelled from Jerusalem) of the period of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). Our historical Jewish texts (Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, etc) served as our map which guided us in our explorations.

The first stop was in the beautiful coastal city of Caesaria. The city was heavily influenced by Roman culture (as you can see in the pictures below) which until the Bar Kochba revolt in 132 CE, was 50% Jewish. With the revolt, many of the leading Jewish thinkers and Sages were executed and the Jews were expelled from Israel, which took us to our next destination, Tzippori. The Sages who were able to escape from the hands of the Romans (Especially Rabbi Judah HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishna) fled to the city of Tzippori in the Gallilee Valley. The old city of Tzippori has been beautifully preserved and is still an active archaeological site. Amongst the many features of Tzippori, the most fascinating sights were the mosaics found on the floors of homes, public spaces, and the ancient synagogue. A highlight, and of course an honor, for me was leading my classmates and professors in a mincha (afternoon) service in the ancient synagogue over looking the beautiful Galliee Valley. We stayed the night in Tiberias (the burial city of many of the Talmudic Sages), had a great "meat-filled" dinner (compliments of HUC), and rested up for our spiritual ascent to the city of Tsfat.

The beauty and uniqueness of this mystical city is captured in the photos below. We began our spiritual journey in an art gallery of an American artist (who made Aliya 13 years ago) discussing the deep meaning of his Kabbalistic art and his personal journey to the spiritual life he leads today in Tsfat. We added one of his pieces to our art collection. We then weaved our way through the ancient city visiting the many historical synagogues and art galleries. The day concluded with our final destination city, Haifa. It has been 11 years since I have seen the city I frequented often while living on a Kibbutz just 30 minutes south of Haifa. I could not believe the development and growth of the city, I barely recognized it. After settling into the hotel we made our way down to the beach with some of our closest HUC friends. Following a pleasant evening walk along shore and a delicious dinner, Erin and I cabbed it to my Aunt and Uncles home, whom I haven't seen in over 11 years. It was such a pleasure spending time with them again, sharing stories of the past, catching up on our lives, seeing old pictures (especially of my grandparents, of blessed memory, who I know are so proud of me and the path I have chosen), and seeing new pictures of my many cousins who have all grown up beautifully and are living wonderful lives here in Israel. We hope to make it up to Haifa for a Shabbat with the entire family!

Our time in Haifa was short and sweet. On the way back to Jerusalem we stopped at the Leo Baeck High School which is a stronghold for Reform Judaism in Israel and visited a beautiful Reform synagogue, Or Chadash. With only a taste of Haifa, Erin and I certainly plan of making our way back soon.

We hope that you have enjoyed sharing in our excitement with us and especially all of the great pictures we have posted below. As always, we miss you all very much and look forward to your comments, emails, and seeing you all again soon.

Love to everyone,
Erin & Matt

Photos from November Tiyul

On the Caesaria port


Caesaria - King Herrod's theater, built between 22-10 BCE


Ancient Roman ruins of Caesaria


Gingy (Rabbi David Wilfond) sharing one of many Midrashim with us in the old city of Tzippori - Just feet away from the gathering place of our Sages and the redaction of the Mishna


Tile mosaic on the floor of the gathering place seen above


Another beautiful tile Mosaic found in Tzippori


Well, the picture tells it all here!


Tsfat - Yosef Karo Synagogue

Tsfat - Abuhav Synagogue


Tsfat - Ark of the Ashkenazi Ari Synagogue


Overlooking the ancient city of Tsfat


On the Haifa beach


Erin with Mara and Rebecca


Matt and the boys. Josh, me, Phil, and Ari

A very busy November!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hard to believe its holiday season already!

I have been very busy with my new job at the WUPJ and we are also starting to prepare for our Passover trip to the FSU. For those who don't know, we will be traveling with 35 other HUC students to the Former Soviet Union for 7 days in April. More on that in a moment...

Matt is extremely busy with his school work - less than a month until the semester is over! We are looking forward to his two weeks off in December and although we are not going away, we hope to do quite a lot of sightseeing around Jerusalem.

The HUC Runnin Rabbis are 2-2! They have had quite a season so far. Best in HUC history!
We are very excited for mom and dad and aunt teresa and uncle mark to visit in January because they will have the honor and priveledge to see the first playoff game!

It was hard to be away from the family on Thanksgiving, but we had a wonderful dinner with 4o fellow classmates. It was a great evening - full of American culture and delicious food! Aunt Sandie and Aunt Gail will be proud to know, Matt and I made pretzel jello!

We are going on another tiyul (trip) this week. Wednesday-Friday we will be going north to Haifa. We are really looking forward to the break of our routine and we will be visiting some very interesting places. We will take lots of pictures to post when we return.

So about the FSU - I am co-chairing the fundraising committee for this amazing trip. We have been holding local fundraisers, as well as preparing letters to send out to our hometowns to raise the money needed for the project. Please check out the website to learn more about the trip.

This April, 35 rabbinical, cantorial and education students will travel to the Former Soviet Union (FSU) to provide a meaningful Passover celebration for thousands of underserved Jews.

We need the support of our family and friends back home to help make this trip a success. Click on the link below to learn more about his year's trip and please visit the donation page to make a tax-deductible donation to the FSU HUC Project.

Thank you in advance for your support!
Click here to visit Pesach Project Homepage

Love to all,
Erin & Matt

Erin & Matt

Community Service Project and Flag Football

Hello everyone,
We hope you are all staying nice and warm back home. We are still experiencing beautiful days here, but the evenings are very chilly. We still have the windows open during the day, but close up the apartment at night. We are waiting for the buckets of rain everyone has prepared us for as we approach a Jerusalem "winter." (note: I started this entry on Saturday and I am finishing it on Sunday and it is cold, windy, nasty and rainy! Serves me right for speaking too soon!)

Every HUC student (and their spouse if they so chose) must participate in a community service project this year. The school gave them many choices at the beginning of the year and Matt selected wonderful project. We are traveling every Tuesday evening to the town of Mivasseret to spend time with Ethiopian familes in the absorbtion center. These families have left behind their lives in Ethiopia and made Aliyah, for better opportunites in Israel. They don't know the language or culture and are given approximately two years to stay in the absorbtion center, learn all they can and then they must move out, find a place to live, get a job and make a life for their families. Moreover, the topic of conversion is particularly controversial. Some of the Ethiopian families are Christian and some are Jewish. However, the Israeli government does not acknowledge their Judaism, therefore forcing them to go through a conversion as well.

Our project mostly deals with spending time with the children. They are so adorable! Although we were assigned a family who has 4 children, there hasn't been a week so far where we haven't had at least 6-10 kids to entertain! As soon as we get to the home, all the neighborhood kids come over too! We bring toys and games for them to play with and try our best to communicate. The children are learning Hebrew in school, but no English. Matt can communicate with them very well and he translates everything for me. It is much more difficult to have dialogue with the parents. They speak in broken Hebrew (which they have been learning in an ulpan), but often times revert back to Ethiopian and we don't understand what they are saying. We are enjoying this opportunity so much and it is quite a learning experience. Seeing the smiles on the faces of these children is all we need to know we are making a difference.

On another note - look out OSU, the HUC Runnin' Rabbis are in the house! Matt has joined the flag football team! He plays every Tuesday evening (after Mivasseret) at a field very close to our house. They had their first game last week - followed by their first practice today! hmm... seems a little out-of-order, right? Matt scored the team's only touchdown, but hey, they have a great time and can only get better!

Finally, some very cute pictures of Mitzi. She still brings a smile to our faces every day. She is such a character and always surprises us with such funny antics.

Love,
Erin, Matt & Mitzi

Life outside HUC

Matt with "our kids" from Mivasseret.


All the kids piled on Erin's lap for a photo op.


HUC Runnin' Rabbis Flag Football Team - look out Conservative Yeshiva - here they come!


We have to be quick - Mitzi knows how to take over all the comfy spots in the apartment!


Can you spot the pink nose? One of Mitzi's many sleeping positions.

New updates!

Hi everyone! Just a few updates for you from the Holy Land.
First, thank you for all the birthday wishes. Matt and I had a nice, relaxing evening and went to a great seafood restaurant, followed up by ice cream. He also came home from class with roses which was very sweet.

Also, some good news - I think I have managed to obtain a part-time job! I will be working for the World Union of Progressive Judiasm (WUPJ) helping them plan a huge convention that is coming here in March. Rabbis, lay-leaders and other BIPs (big important people) from all over the world will attend. I will mostly be dealing with their office in NY, hence why it is not an issue that I don't speak Hebrew. Its perfect for me because I love event planning and I think it will be a great experience. The pay is minimal, of course, but I think it will be a great project for me to work on. More on that once I start, which I think will be next week.

Matt continues to work very hard in school. His classes are going well. The work load is very heavy and there are no more breaks until the last two weeks of December. But he is learning a lot and soaking in as much as possible.

Tomorrow evening we are going to get the chance to spend Shabbat with fellow Akronites! The Akron Federation trip is here this week and they arrive in Jerusalem today. Mike Wise invited us to join them for Shabbat dinner at their hotel. I am looking forward to seeing everyone!

Our big 3-year anniversary is today! After Matt is done with class for the day and I am back from my afternoon outing at Mount of Olives, (as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, once a month a rabbi at HUC takes the SO's on an outing to various historical sites. This afternoon is our second trip. I'm sure I will have more to say after I get back!) we will have dinner and gear up for our yearly tradition - watching our wedding video! Once a year, we pull out the dvd and watch all three hours worth of our fabulous day.

That's all for now. Keep in touch, we love getting your comments and emails!
Love,
Erin &Matt

Succot Vacation

Shalom family and friends,

We just got back from an incredible vacation and this is our attempt at putting our countless experiences into words. Along with our words are many pictures attached below. Enjoy.

Our vacation began with a quick visit to my sister Rachelle and her husband Tamir, in Hertzyliya (about a 30 minute bus-ride from Jerusalem). It was Erin's first time seeing where they lived and meeting the entire family over Shabbat dinner at Tamir's parents home. It was a beautiful Shabbat filled with lots of laughter, joy, and food. His parents speak very little English and I was put to the test to be the interpreter for Erin. I felt pretty good about my progress from the first time I met them in the summer (pre-Hebrew Ulpan). It is so comforting to know that half-way around the world away from home, we have family within a short bus ride from us. Being with family again really made us miss all of you back home. We spent the night at Rachelle and Tamir's (not to mention Zoey, their beautiful and loving dog) apartment and then came home to pack for the Dead Sea.

We arrived at the Ein Gedi Kibbutz, also known as the "Desert Oasis," and as we were about to find out, it truly was just that. As you can see from the photos, the grounds of the kibbutz were absolutely beautiful. Green, green and more green - something we don't see in Jerusalem, especially now that the weather is changing.

We wasted no time upon our arrival and headed straight to the Ein Gedi Spa, where we soaked in the sulfur pools and floated in the calming Dead Sea. For those who are not familiar, the mud from the Dead Sea is supposed to be one of the finest skin treatments in the world! As you can see, we covered ourselves in the magic mud, and when we rinsed it off, our skin was left feeling soft and smooth.

Following a delicious "all-you-can-eat" dinner at the Kibbutz we decided to take advantage of the Kibbutz's 18 hole mini-golf course. After finding our way out to the course, with our Ping putters in hand, we found ourselves in the middle of the dark. The excitement and anticipation to soon enjoy a round of a familiar "home-like" game grew and once we found the light switch we were amid a course with all sorts of fun and challenging obstacles. The most challenging obstacle to the course was that the greens were really fast, as fast as if one were putting on concrete. Yep, after some very funny moments on the concrete course, many failed attempts at hitting the ball in the hole, and lost balls due to hitting the ball a bit too hard we decided that this wasn't quite what we were used to (nothing comes easy in Israel as we have found out). We then made our way to the pub (our typical evening ritual there) and enjoyed a few beers over Euchre and backgammon.

The next day, we decided to go hiking in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve. There were several paths to choose from, ranging in difficulty and length and we chose a fairly challenging hike that lasted about 4 hours, including stops at the caves and all natural waterfalls and springs. The views were simply breathtaking and the springs were incredibly refreshing (as you can see in the photos). We felt quite accomplished after the hike and rewarded ourselves by a refreshing dip in the Kibbutz swimming pool.

That evening we found a nice spot overlooking the Dead Sea and made a small camp-fire (thanks to Josh for literally shlepping all the wood, newspaper, starter coals, and matches from Jerusalem. We're not sure he packed many clothes in his duffel bag). We enjoyed each others company with songs, s'mores, and stories.

The third day included a "girly" trip to the Ahava factory where there is always a deal or a special sale going on for the infamous Ahava Dead Sea skin care products. The boys sat this one out, but Emily and Erin came back with enough for everyone! Then, we treated ourselves to massages which was a fabulous way to end they day...

...However, the day never really ended because we were keeping ourselves up for the most anticipated part of the vacation. The David Broza sunrise concert on Masada. The experience was indescribable, and as you can see below, the pictures really say it all. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The concert was a perfect end to a perfect vacation. Chag Sa-mey-ach (happy holidays) everyone.
Its back to school on Sunday!

Pictures from Succot Vacation

Shabbat in Ra'a nana with Matt's sister, Rachelle, and her family.

From Left to Right: Shmuel & Neomi (Tamir's Parents), Erin, Tamir (Rachelle's husband), Rachelle, Matt.


The Cohen family: Rachelle, Tamir, and Zoey


Matt and Tamir's sister Efrat


Happy Birthday! Tamir's sister Meirav with her husband Yosi, son Gal, and daughter (birthday-girl) Sapir.

Day 1: At the Ein Gedi Spa



Dave, Erin, Matt, Josh, & Emily playing in the mud


Sandra floating in the Dead Sea.

Pictures of Ein Gedi Kibbutz (where we stayed)








Day 2: Hiking in the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve













Thanks for clearing the boulder from the path Josh!




Dave demonstrating the ancient changing-room technique.



After a long day of hiking we ate smores, sang songs, and told stories around the camp-fire.






Look below for day 3 pictures!!!