End the trip with a little meaning.

For our last full day in Israel I knew that we needed to add in some chesed activity. We were supposed to pick fruits with Leket earlier, but those plans changed as the fields we were supposed to go to changed and we could no longer make it. There are several other organizations that offer volunteer opportunities. I was looking for one that would be not only meaningful, but also have at least some element of fun. The obvious choice is Pantry Packers however they need at least 6 participants over the age of 6 in order to secure a time slot. We don't even have 6 in our group to begin with, so I had to find something else. There is an organization called Yad Eliezer which I am familiar with back home. Once a year our local neighborhood hosts a mega bake sale to fundraise for this organization. I have baked for them for several years and hope to continue. One of their branches goals is to provide formula for babies to parents who need it. (Don't worry, they aren't anti breast-feeding or anything, but there are babies who need to be fed, and that is who they help.) I contacted them to see if they had any volunteer slots open for us and they were more than happy to accommodate our little group including our toddler.

Yad Eliezer's food packing warehouse is in the heart of Jerusalem in a very religious neighborhood. Once we arrived and figured out how to enter the warehouse, we were escorted upstairs to watch a brief video on all the different types of assistance Yad Eliezer provides for various needy people. Afterwards we went down stairs to the conveyor belt. A man was assigned to help us pack boxes of toiletries and food necessities like pasta, flour, sugar, canned vegetables etc. They had a specific way of filling the boxes in order to maximize the items placed in the box. Once all of the staples were taken care of he showed us large crates of random food and told us to fill any of the empty spaces in the boxes with anything we find in the crates. My sons decided that there are probably more than a few families who are receiving the boxes that probably have children who would appreciate a snack, so they sifted through the crate finding cookies, chips, bamba, bissili, pretzels, chocolate etc. basically anything that they themselves would want to eat. Of course they added in more things like pasta, beans and rice, because children do not live on cake alone (contrary to popular belief!). The final step was the kids favorite part. You slide the boxes down the line into an automatic taping machine. Over and over we sent our full boxes through the machine until our job was done. Yossi, the man in charge video taped us while we worked. He also asked us to do some funny moves while he videoed. He showed us a funny video that he put together of our time there. My kids had a good time. It wasn't hard work, the job we were doing was obviously going to help several families, Yossi was entertaining and made the food packing a lot more fun than it sounds.

After all of that handling of food and running around the warehouse, we had worked up an appetite for lunch. Mendel was intent on getting a Bavarian Cream from Cofix (one of the few "different" pareve desserts around). I knew there were many Cofix stores in Yerushalaim, but I didn't know exactly where one was from where we were. I typed it into WAZE and let the app guide us. At first it took us to Ben Yehuda Street. But after driving around for about 20 minutes looking for a place to park, I gave up and navigated us back to Mamilla Mall parking. We were now experts at walking through the mall, through Jaffa Gate, through the Old City and right to Cofix. Mendel got his bureka fix, his Bavarian cream and an ice blended Lemonade. Meir savored his ice blended coffee knowing that there is NO WAY he would be getting one back home. Atara had fallen asleep as we bumped our way through the old city with the stroller, but I got her the pasta that was such a hit last time.
We then headed down to Misgav Ledach road to the Temple Institute Museum. We signed up for an English tour. We weren't allowed to use our cameras in the museum, so you will just have to take my word for it... This museum is all about recreating the vessels and the articles used in the Holy Temple so that when Mashiach comes everything will be ready and Kohanim can get right to work with the service. The only other people in our group was a man and girl (about 9 years old). The man was probably an older brother, but he must have been an Israeli citizen because he had with him a GIANT weapon, which is quite normal to see in Israel, but surprising for us still. We went through the rooms of the museum while a narrated recording played and highlighted what we were supposed to be looking at. In the last room there was a movie depicting modern architectural renderings of what the temple mount could look like. It was interesting to see it done with the people in the drawings wearing modern clothing and not turbans and tunics. While we were enjoying the film all of a sudden there was a loud BANG! Of course our first thought was the guys gun must have gone off! But no, he just dropped his phone. Afterwards, one of my kids remarked how they really like having this guy with us as they felt very safe knowing some one in our group was fully armed.
I had my kids chose their last Minion Popsicle of the trip (even though it was quite cold out) and then we wandered around the Old City a little more. The kids chose their souvenirs and we made our way back to have one final dinner and hang out with their cousins.
I can't believe our trip has come to an end. Meir is already planning what we should do and repeat for his bar mitzvah, so until next time. Lehitraot.

Taking it easy

 
Our plan for this short Friday was to go to the Herzl Museum in Yerushalaim. We reserved a spot in an English tour at 8:45 am. This would mean leaving RBS at 7:30, and to meet that deadline, getting everyone up at 6:45/7. Many mornings most of us were up at that time anyway. Friday morning at 7 am none of the kids were up. I decided that since our past week was extremely busy to let the kids sleep and to wait it out. They didn't even get up until 8:30am. I finally wore out my crew!
Once everyone was up, dressed, davened and fed it was closer to 10am. The Herzl Museum was obviously not going to happen even at a later tour time slot. I completely forgot about my back up plan of the Police Museum right here in Beit Shemesh (which rumor has it is free). My 13 year old was content to read and relax and watch the 2 year old. My 9 year old was just as happy to go with me into the Mercaz of RBSA to so some pre-Shabbos shopping and to hunt down some chapstick. The wind and dry weather and maybe even some of the poor air quality due to the Arson Terrorist Fires raging through the country made his lips cracked and miserable. So off we went for some odds and ends.
Shabbos as usual was wonderful. We spent it once again with my sister and her family. The cousins played and marched around to each park. I think my 9 year old really enjoyed his freedom to roam. Their 9 year old daughter took my 2 year old to a few of the parks, I really enjoyed their freedom to roam without me!
We didn't really have any plans for Motzei Shabbos, but I wanted the kids to get out just a little, so we went to the new mall in Beit Shemesh. We took my nephew Shlomo with us. He is in High School/ Yeshiva so his opportunity to join us during the week was non existent. Our first stop was the new ice cream shop. Fortunately for Mendel they had a wide variety of pareve flavors. They also had a help-yourself chocolate syrup pump and sprinkles that were pareve. Everyone got their scoops and cones, I waited for Atara to decide that she didn't want hers, she wanted mine. Lucky for me I was able to convince her that adding sprinkles to her half consumed cone was enough of an upgrade.
Even though we all had eaten plenty on Shabbos, the boys were hungry. If you ever have the pleasure of taking teen/tween boys on a trip you will notice they are always hungry and can always stop for a bite. There was a shwarma restaurant that met the kosher seal of approval for my nephew. He helped Mendel order since the menu was only in Hebrew and there were a lot of options. I saw a kids meal on the menu. It seemed a little pricey, but I figured Meir and Atara could split it. It was so cute. They served fries (chips) and schnitzel nuggets in a deep fryer basket. There was enough food there for Meir, Atara and the rest of us to at least pick at.
We popped into market down stairs to load up on travel snacks and to check out if there were any flavors of Doritos or Cheetos that we hadn't sampled yet.

When we finally exhausted the options of the mall, and had visited my sister at her job at Terem (urgent care clinic that we fortunately only visited as a social visit), we headed back home for our final full day in Israel.

Ancient Jerusalem; Modern Jerusalem

Thursday morning started off early once again with our reservation to the Temple Mount Sifting project. My sister and two of her girls joined us for this experience.  This is run by Ir David, but it does NOT take place near Ir David, it is basically next to Bringham Young Univeristy and the Hebrew University. Once you figure out where to go, parking is easy, but figuring out where to go can be a bit tricky. We parked above the sifting site and walked down about 100 steps down a hill. This part is NOT stroller friendly, fortunately for us Atara hates her stroller anyway. Unfortunately for me, half of the time she wanted to be in the carrier. The views of the Old City are outstanding from here.
The point if the Temple Sifting Project is to go through the tons and tons of dirt that the Muslims dug out to build a mosque on the Temple Mount in the stables from the time of Kings David and Shlomo. They took no care in careful excavation and mixed layers and areas with reckless abandon. The volunteers (you pay a small fee) sift through pre-filled, but not sorted buckets of rubble. First you select a bucket and then take it to a sifting tray. Then you wash off the dirt and rocks. Next you search through the pieces you find into different categories such as pottery, metals, glass, special stones, bones etc.  A certified archaeologist comes over to your sifting tray to check through your work and make sure you didn't miss anything or thing something is ancient when it is really modern. Any special findings for the day are placed on a special display table. Meir found a nail from the time of the second Bais Hamkidash (Second Temple). The difference between a modern nail and an ancient one is a modern nail is round at the shaft and head and an ancient one is square shaped (since it had to be hand pounded by an metal smith).
Atara was moderately occupied during this process. The archaeologists let her play in some of the worthless rubble sifting through it as if it was important. They also let her play with some of the empty buckets and wheelbarrows, but after about an hour she was in full complain mode. The other kids could have stayed longer and Meir even says he would consider archaeology as a profession. Even though it was early, we treated the kids to the customary ice cream and Popsicles.
The Bermans headed back to RBS to continue on with their day and upcoming wedding preparations, we headed back into the Old City for some breakfast. We were thinking of going back to
Cofix, but a throng of school kids where in the store and there was no way we could get through that tidal wave of kids. So, off to Cafe Ne'eman. There they sell the burekas that Mendel loves, sufganiyot that were pareve and the most creative sufganiyot that were dairy. Meir, Atara and I sampled some donuts, ate some bagel sandwiches and got Atara some pizza from the store next door. We thought about going down to the Kotel once again, but it was about 45 minutes until we had to be at the shuk for a tour, so we headed out of the Old City to allow ourselves some time to get lost and confused!
We took the light rail from just outside the Old City walls 3 stops to Machne Yehuda. We had to meet our tour guide Debra Nussbaum Stepen in front of the Berman Bakery on 42 Agrippas Street. First we had to find Agrippas Street. We had several blocks to walk in order to get to the right address
, but we made it there by 2 pm.
Debra took us all around the shuk with various stops to sample local and ethnic food like malawach and custom fruit juice blends. We sampled mixed roasted seeds and nuts (which the kids loved!) and dried fruit. We drank tea and had fresh rice cakes. Debra explained the history of the shuk and discussed things like the different kosher hechshers we saw. We ate, learned and walked for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
After our shuk tour we met up with a Solomon cousin on Ben Yehuda. We walked around a little but it was very cold and windy that we decided it would be best to park ourselves at the mehadrin Pizza Hut to get the kids dinner and to chat. Afterwards we went on a hunt to find Mendel something to eat. Finding a good hechsher for meat proved to be a bit more challenging. We finally came up with a shwarama/felafel type place right before we had to cross the street to our one and only parking area, Mamilla Mall. The outdoor scene was much more subdued than usual for a Thursday night due to the chilly weather. Just as well.