Khadafi is camping in Paris

Yes, he is here, without camels (he accepted a limo) but with a bedouin tent that he planted in the garden of the five star hotel Marigny...
I think he could have brought slaves and prostituted girls under 18 as long as he signs the contracts.
It's definately better to be a rich terrorsit than a poor terrorist.
Who cares? He is signing contracts for millions and millions of Euros and he did free the Bulgarian nurses... Well Amnesty International seems quite upset and over 80percent of the French population, ungreatful pepople...
Anyway, the tent is heated so Nicolas won't have to freeze if anyone worried about that, he will have to sit for hours drinking tea and listen to b*llsh*t before he'll get his signatures.
Political prostitution is still legal.

Got a horrible mail today,

from my mother-in-law.
Nooo, she wasn't asking me to take better care of her son, she didn't blame me for not calling her, she told me about an article she had read, about English teachers that are dropping holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending muslim pupils.
To be honest I thought it was crap but checked it up and found out that it was true(Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims
By LAURA CLARK in the Daily Mail)
Well, in France they don't teach Holocaust in lots of suburbs for the same reason.
In one generation nobody will probably even react when Iranian politicians are saying that it never happend.

Surrounded by deaf and blind owls...am I crazy?

You know these madmen walking around talking about the end of the world, or those carrying huge crucifix screaming that we are all sinners. I have always been fascinated about how sure they are about their thoughts and convictions and that they never seem to bother that they are quite alone to think the way they do.
Well, in one way I understand them better know. I feel it's so obvious that we all should leave and I just cannot realise that the others haven't noticed.
I really feel that I know and see something they don't. I don't walk around trying to convince them though, even if I could knock on the neghbours doors screaming that the end is near, telling them about our friends teen-age daughter who got slapped friday, by a nine year old boy, and insulted just because she was Jewish... I don't, because if we all leave on the same time it will be a big balagan.
I need my energy to fight with my hebrew verbs, against the army of invisible vowels and unpronouncable words.
I wish I could wake up tomorrow and speak fluent hebrew.
By the way, did anyone see a man on a white donkey saturday?

Another ola hadasha

Mimi Reingardt, 92 years old arrived in Israel yesterday.

This Ola hadasha ( new immigrant) worked as Oscar Shindler's secretary during the war, together they saved thousands of Jews, you have probably all seen the film.

Jewish, and born in Austria, Mrs Shindler joined her son Sacha who has been living in Israel for 30 years.

Yesterday she said to the journalists that she was happy and felt at home.

It's never too late to come home...

Alex Kurzem, the jewish nazi mascot

Yesterday I watched a tv program telling the story of a Jewish Lithuanian child who escaped from the nazis, got caught in the forest and was saved by the same man who killed his family.
As he was blond with blue eyes, one of the SS soldier told the others he was a Russian boy and the child became a kind of a mascot for the Germans. He even appeard in nazi propagande films.
After the war he was taken care of by a Lithuanian family but decided to leave for Australia when he was 15.
Until now he never told anyone about his strange destiny. He spoke about what he had seen, about his mother telling him " we're all going to die tomorrow", how he kissed his mother goodbye during the nigt and escaped , rapes and killing , and the constant fear that one of the German soldiers would see that he was cirumcised.
The man is now in his 80's and one day he decided to tell his son what really happended during the war. He also decided to return to his village. There he was told that his father actually never died during the massacre but was sent to a concentration camp and survived. After the war he returned to the village and died there in 1975...
During the whole report the man was visibly moved, when he said that his father was alive until 75 he started to cry.

What a horrible story and what a destiny!
We must never forget what happened just a few years ago, and also why Israel was given to Jews after the war.

Next Saturday Mashia could be comming...

Try to behave this last week.
The French chief rabbi calls all jews in the world to respect next chabbat, i.e no work, no cooking, no electricity except what has been lighted before chabat and a few hundred other prohibitions.
If we all respect this perhaps Mashia will come on his white donkey and all dead will revive.
We will then be able to meet Napoleon Bonaparte,Columbus and Moses among others.
I would definately look up my husbands grandmother and hug her for hours, I miss her.
It sounds like fiction, only a white donkey is hard to imagine but I think we should all try, I don't want to feel guilty next week if he doesn't come.

Goose pimples with your morning coffee!

Liberty, equality, fraternity and laicity

Am I allowed to say that it upsets me that they burned down schools, shops, a library and seriously wounded 30 policemen of whom 5 seriously? or will my house burn down tomorrow night?

Yongsters in the northern suburbs of Paris, not all, but apparently those who rule the place, are upset because of a car accident that caused the death of two young men.

The car involved was a policecar.

While Nicolas is trying to put France on its feet by signing millon dollar contracts with China, a growing majority of the beaten part of the society are doing their best to destroy the last ounce of hope that the pluralisme in these areas could be positive.

Elastic Israeli pricing

When you're making aliyah you talk a lot about money, even without doing aliyah you talk money...

We need to know how much it would cost to buy new furniture, a fridge, a tv etc. Easy you think, well it would be in many countries, but not in Israel.

A few weeks ago on our trip to Israel we went in to a huge store where they seemed to be specialized in fridges, plasmas etc, Idon't remeber the name of it but it was a chain.

The prices where high and after a while my husband grabbed a vendor telling him it was really expensive, are these prices fixed?

The vendor smiled and said of course not, tell me what you want and we'll talk!

That's funny.

In big stores prices are always fixed, sometimes, after half an hour, you may obtain 10 % reduction but that's it.

Same things seems to be with the real estate agencies. We visited five or six houses, when I asked for the prices it was always the same, I told the woman that it was funny that a small house with a small garden was as expensive as a big house with a big garden.

Noooo,said the woman with a smile,the price I gave you is just an example!!! Tell me which one you like and than we'll negotiate...

Okey, I'm not stupid. Yesterday we had a meeting with some Israeli banks, we spoke about fees and interest charges and I felt really relaxed, I know how it works now, everything is elastic and few things are impossible, just negotiate... I pointed out to the woman in that her charges were high, gave her a smile and said "it's just an example, isn't it, in reality it's much lower" sure she said, we'll talk about it later, it's just an example...

The more we think about it...

... the more Kfar Yona seems to be our place.

It's funny, taking the decision to move to Israel was quite easy, now that we have to decide exactly where to live it suddenly becomes complicated. We loved Ramat Poleg close to the sea with beautiful appartements ( a little too expensive of course) and we adored Kfar Yona, a village about 7 km from Netanya on the road to Tulkarm. It is exactly what we love, do we dare to move to place no-one knows?

I've been googling and found two people living in Kfar Yona with their emailadresses, I wrote them a mail, now I'm checking my mailbox ten times a day, I hope one of them will answer. We want to know about schools and a little more about the area.

When we passed through I asked a lady who was gardening if the proximity to Tulkarm was a problem. She answered;

-Noooo, why would it be a problem? We believe in God and Tsahal...

I'll try to remeber those words when the "going will get tough"

OH NO!!

Yes, they are on strike again, there are no trains because the engineers don't want to work 40 years like everybody else, they want to retire after 37 years,- because they're worth it!

The French love being on strike, they like the feeling of being able to decide themselves, they can't stand having someone who tells them what to do. Sometimes I get the impression that they elect a president every five years, regret their choice 10 months later and spend 4 years and 2 months criticizing.

Poor Nicolas, it's tough being a president in a country full of obstinate children with the right to vote.

Only 56% of the French population disapprove the strike. Now different groups, dissatisfied with the goverment, are gathering to prepair a HUGE strike, the bigger the better.

Deep inside people think it's exciting to see how far they can go, it's a kind of an entertainement.

-I don't- I just want them to stop their strike so I can continue my hebrew lessons in Paris, isn't that selfish!

It's freezing cold...

...and I try to tell myself I should enjoy my last winter. Maybe in a few years I will remeber with nostalgia how nice it was to be late in the morning, run out in the cold and scrape the frost off the windscreen...

My children will never experience electric hair when they put on a polo-neck and I will probably never know that if they lick a lamp-post when it's below zero, their tongue will get stuck, unless we'll move to Jerusalem, and we will not.

I've been told that you can actually ski in Golan, look at the picture I uploaded, it's from Israels Hermon mountain. If we move to the Tel aviv area we will be 4 hours by car from summer (Eilat) and four hours from winter ( Golan heights) in January... Perfect, isn't it?

The real estate agnet is comming to take pictures on our house this afternoon. Therefor I have spent hours cleaning walls and doors from greasy little fingerprints... Why do children always have greasy, sticky fingers?

A house without finger marks is much more expensive than a house with fingermarks, everyone knows that!!

The worst thing isn't that they are comming to take pictures, it's that the house will have to be perfect for months now. Real estate agents always pop up when they shouldn't with potential buyers who want to check cupboards for example, what a nightmare!

I have to admit something you probably don't know yet; I am not perfect, but I'm afraid to let people know that so I will now enter a period of hysteric cleaning until the house is sold. When the agency calls to ask if they can come in five minutes, I will answer (poised); sure, no problem.

Dear G*d, please send us buyer a s a p. Rich and generous please. Thank you!!!

Bar mitzvah gossip

Yesterday we had a Bar mitzvah. The whole community was there and we got the last important information of who was or wasn't invited to the sunday afternoon party at Deborah's, who is buying a house, who is selling, and who is angry with who...Actually it is like a big familly, people get angry with eachother but when someone really has a there are hundreds of helping hands.

All important events in life are shared; brit mila, bar mitzva, engagement, mariage and unfortenately sometimes sorrow.

Our Rabbi is almost always there, he must be tired of all these parties, I guess he would love to spend a Sunday night in his pyjamas in front of the tv...

I know I will miss the feeling of being part of a huge family, and probably the gossip part too...

It's done!!!!!

Even if all my readers are Swedish I have decided to continue in English, I feel more anonymous and mysterious this way...

Friday afternoon, after a deep breath and a glass of water I called my parents. I have perepared this for months, what to say, how to tell them.

My father kept talking about the weather, the wind and the temperature ( so Swedish), I didn't even listen and suddenly I interrupted him and said that we were moving to Israel.

The answer supprised me. He said that he knew, that he could understand but that he felt sad because of the distance. We spoke about almost everything and i actually got the impression that he understood our decision.

Mum's reaction was cold and without feelings, she spoke about how expensive it would be for her to get to Tel Aviv and that we wouldn't be able to meet often, or at all, she would have to check up the price first.

It's so sad to think that five hundred Euros could stop a mother from seeing her child. I try not to think about what she said, there is nothing to understand, this woman has a deep, deep problem.

My life is going to change!

Back from a ten days trip from Israel. We were desperately looking for rude and bad mannered people but found friendly and warm hearted men and women, maybe they just pretend to be nice to get us there...
We visited Haïfa, Ashdod, Tel Aviv, Holon, Natanya, Zichron Jacob, Raanana, Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon etc and decided to concentrate on the Natanya area, it is close to Tel Aviv but less busy... Israel is very dense.
We were really amazed to see how much it had changed since last time, all these new company buildings along the highway to Tel Aviv prove that the country is doing fine. I believe more then ever that it's where we should be.
My mother is back with the children, she brought me a bottle of Yes (washing up liquid, it's called Fairy outside Sweden - she thinks it's a swedish brand ).
I'm sure -that- will change my life...
I still haven't told her, I mean she doesn't understand how I can survive without a safety pin in the house, I imagine she'll get crazy when I tell her about our plans.

On strike again...

we hesitated to by AF tickets. Every French citizen knows that school-holidays means strike. Employees at AF thinks, that if hundreds of families get stuck at the airport, they will have a raise. Well, if it works they must be very well paid, since they're on strike at least four times a year. This time they are striking because of future negociations in January.

They want to put pressure on the company management in advance...Sometimes it's hard to find reasons, it makes me think of my husbands grandmother quoting arab proverbs ; Hit your wife, if you don't know why she does...

Why oh why did I hesitate to buy tickets from that Eastern European State airline...

We're supposed to leave in the evening but I feel it's going to be a long night.

The jewish potato peeler

My mother is here.

She came yesterday.

I'm already exhausted.

Of course everything is wrong in my house. My French oven for example, it H A S to be French, it is far too bad to be a swedish product. In Sweden ovens like mine are waiting to be eliminated because of their lack of efficiency and will, when time comes, be executed on the public square in front of all perfect swedish women and men with perfect swedish ovens.

This morning I heard her talking to my elder son asking if we only had one lamp upstairs, she said

- oh, I see, so you have to walk around with this lamp because there is no other, it must be complicated when you are in different rooms...

I was listening downstairs, amazed. The lamp in her room broke yesteraday afternoon and I just put the childrens lamp in her room because I couldn't find a bulb... we do have lamps in France, french lamps that works.

This afternoon she shouted from the kitchen - Don't you have a swedish potato peeler?

No, I answered - but take the black one, it's Israeli, I'm sure you'll love it... inside I was smiling. I'm carrying a bomb behind my back, I wonder when I should let i go...

I'll tell her when we get back from Israel.

Yesterday I took the train into the capital to for my hebrew lessons. Once at the train I found out that I didn't dare to take up my hebrew book and read.

It is completely taboo to talk about this and it would probably pass for jewish paranoïa but it is a fact that it is dangerous.

I asked my husband later, if he dared to open his hebrew vocabulary in a public place.

He said no, I don't, I am too afraid it would provoke people.

You can read Chinese, Arabic or Greek books, no-one would bother. Hebrew though, is provokative...

Even if they polls are showing that antisemtism is decreasing it is very present in our lives.

A scientific proof that "aynara" does exist!

I crashed the car...

The other morning when I was leaving from the speach therapist with child number 2 I succeded in going straight upon a lump of concrete.

To be honest, I surpassed myself!

The front of the car got up on it and when I realized what I had done and reversed, the whole bumper fell off.

Fortunately my husband didn't ask the question until I had calmed down; how on earth did you do that?

Yesterday evening my Spanish neighbour ( nothing against the Spanish) asked me where my Ford was. I told him I had an accident and he said ( here it comes); "Aah, I looked at you car the other morning and then I looked at mine thinking how come my car is full of scratches and not hers? here he starts grinning, and continues " the same evening I saw you had a little accident, what a coincidence"!!

Yeah.

Aynara.

Today I will buy some "pror" and walk the "kanun" around the house!

Psht, psht, psht.

Chiour mispar 1

Lesson number one...

Yesterday we started our Aliyah Oulpan. We are going to study hebrew five hours a week.

The group of future Olim is funny; Three young boys, a religious couple, a father with his daughter, another retired man and us. It's really surprising when you know that there are hundreds of families leaving in July, I really thought there were going to be a lot more people than that!

I wonder what all these people will be doing in a year or two, where they will live, if they will not regret...

Now I can say "Lo, ani lo Nati ani Sarah" which means, No, I'm not Nati, I'm Sarah, it's a beginning...

The thought of the day...

The Solidarity in the diaspora is very strong and increases of course as the antisemitsm rices, the feeling that you are apart makes it more and more important to know WHO is jewish. For example, if you need to choose between two doctors that you don't know you would maybe chose the one with a jewish name, because you'd feel more safe that way. For some people this sounds very sectarian, almost racist, but it is a common way to react.

Imagine a Norweigan family in Oman, wouldn't they be happy to find a doctor with Norweigan origins?

When European jews are moving to Israel this is a big chock, EVERYONE is jewish!No more glances saying "are you"? no more discrete smiles or nods to tell the person "yes I am".

Lot's of olim feel they lose their footing and they miss the solidarity in the dispora which was provoked by the reason they left; the feeling to be apart and not belong a hundred procent to the nation.

In a certain way the olé goes from being a member of little group a part in a country to a citizen in nation apart in the world. If you feel no one understands you in your European contry today, tomorrow in Israel you will experience the whole world (almost) misunderstands you.

This is quite clear in my head and I think I will be able to handle it, I want to be a part of Israel, I am aware that no one is waiting for us or will say thank you for comming, and even more important, that the sionism probaly stops at the border.

Speaking letters, a beatiful jewish legend among thousands...

When Hachem cretated the world all the 22 letters stood up in front of him.

The "tav" was the firts letter to speak.

Please use me for the creation of the world, I am the first letter in the word "Torah"

In three thousand years, Hachem answered, a "tav" will appear on the front of all well-deserving men. When all humans will meet death these men will be spared.

The tav went away, very sad.

All letters stood up, one after the other and asked Hachem to use them for his creation and finally it was Beth's turn.

Beth said, proudly; All your children start their prayers with "baroukh hachem"...

Hachem looked at Beth and said, all my children do, and therefore the creation will start with a beth, Berechit...

As you are closed on top, behind and beneth and open in front no-one has the right to investigate what was above, behind or beneath except from the creation...

The most common answers

We want to do our Aliyah!
If you think that the person standing in front of you will react with a smile, a friendly hug and some nice words like " that sounds lika a great idea" you are completely wrong.
The first answer is without any doubt "It's very difficult over there" The person explains that you will have to learn hebrew (make sense to me) and also that summer holiday on the beach is not the same as "everydaylife" ( make sense too)
If you show no weakness and that you still want to go, even if you will not lie down on the beach the whole day and that you are actually willing to learn hebrew you will have to get ready for answer number two. You know, G*d forgive me, the Israelis are... (in general the person doesn't dare to finish the sentence immediately) this summer we were really disapointed... they are very bad-mannered and really rough, they cannot queue!
Well, if they can't queue we will reconsider our decision!! It's funny, I always thought they were very natural, maybe they are not... We'll see in november when we're going there, maybe love is blind...
The third argument for not going to Israel is the salary, unfortunately I do believe it's true that you earn less than in Europe. What will that mean, will I only have six skirts instead of ten? Maybe the kids will be able to tell me what they would like for a birthday gift, now when I ask them they never know...
The only thing that really worries me is that I will not be able to see my parents as often as now, but that is a problem I will have in common with all families living on differents continents...
These three arguments are the most important for not doing an aliyah. Ofcourse, if you continue to say you still want to go you will hear about the war, schools finishing at one o'clock in the afternoon, hospitals, how expensive cars are.
Maybe we are insane, because we think we can do it, we still want to do it, and we are still proud that we will (bli neder) become olim hadashim next year.

Simha Torah!

I remeber our first time in Israel for Simha Torah, so amazing to see people dancing in the streets showing and sharing their joy!

Our Synagogue was full, the AC still doesn't work so the heat was almost unbareable.

The children were so excited and so were the parents. The Rabbi didn't have the time to finish begging the parents NOT to throw sweets from the balcony before all women, their hand in plastic bags started throwing. One sweet even hit rabbi's head. Our comunity is sepharadic and I sometiems wonder if it is calmer in ashkenazi synagogues.

The Rabbi got really angry, not because of the sweet that hit his front but because the children were trying to catch the sweets on the floor while the men were dancing and jumping, it is very dangerous, he is right.

Our beautiful succah

He made it!! My husband, aka MR HANDYMAN, together with a friend and his parents built it and to be honest no-one believed it would stand up more than 4 hours...
The most experienced of them all was the father who speaks arabic, his wife was sitting on chair repeating that a succah should be made of wood and not of those plastic tubes the "boys" found at the "handymen shop".
My husband who doesn't understand arabic except from those classical "granny words" like mnaïchal'k, douralli'k etc just nodded and told me not to contradict them.

We had a great time with much laugh and little work, it took the whole afternoon.

Believe it or not, we have been able to eat in it, the days without rain ( which have been very few).

It's getting closer

Maybe this is the last kippour in our synagoge... Maybe it's the last kippour I will suffer from hunger and not from thirst.
Yesterday I had a coffee with my parents-in-law and told them that we should leave ( bli neder) next summer. They seem to be happy about it, my parents have no idea of what we're up to, I feel mum would get crazy if I told her so I don't. Since I am converted to judaïsme my parents have no connection to Israel, for my mother it's just like a sand tub surronded by people throwing bombs, WHO would like to live in a country like that??
Anyway, today is cooking day, why do we prepare so much food for kippour?

And one day...

...we just woke up and asked ourselves why we were staying in a country where we do not feel at home.
We picked up the phone and called the Jewish agency and it all started. What IF this could change, What if we'd try...
A few months later people around us are getting aware that we are actually serious about moving and starting a new life. The 3 most common reactions are:

1, people are so pooor in Israel, lot's of people are comming back.
2,Israelis are so rough and hard.
3, you will never find a job.

Maybe we are crazy, but we need to find this out ourselves.