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.