Happy New Year - but nobody notices

"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - Happy New Year!!" Imagine the New Year starts and nobody notices it.
Bars in the hip neighbourhood Florentin were full last night, but in our bar, only the 7 of us at one table were counting the last seconds of the old year and clinking glasses at midnight. Guests at the surrounding tables did not even pause in their conversations, they just went out on a normal Thursday evening (weekend is Fri+Sat). A few bars had some "2016" decorations in their windows, so apparently some people did celebrate New Year's Eve even in Tel Aviv, but is definitely not the standard. Well, this should not be too surprising, because the new year (rosh hashana) of the Jewish calendar starts in autumn. But somehow I had assumed that the lively metropolis of Tel Aviv would not want to omit such an opportunity to celebrate. The question if "New Year's Eve is someone else's party" is discussed in the following newspaper article: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.566236.

However, we enjoyed a very nice evening in Tel Aviv in a group of 2 Israelis and 5 foreigners. Before the drinks in Florentin, we had a delicious dinner in Jaffa in an authentic Arabic restaurant (Abu El Abed - I can highly recommend it) which was neither touristic nor crowded nor expensive. Even before we ordered food, they brought us lots of amazing appetizers like tabouleh, vegetables, spicy sauces, hummus... Later we had fried cauliflower in lemon-garlic sauce, stuffed vegetables and wine leaves, labane (yogurt-cheese with spices), mokka with cardamom or black tea with nana and baklava - I am sure I will come back.

Finally: Happy New Year to all readers of my blog!

Chanukka sameach!

Happy Chanukka! Today is already the last of the 8 days of Chanukka. It was also celebrated in the physics faculty. Every afternoon at 5pm, people from the whole faculty met in the entrance hall and somebody lit candles on the chanukkia (nine-branched candelabrum) according to the day. At first I was surprised to see nine branches instead of the famous seven of the so called menora. It becomes clear with the (hi)story.
After fights against the Hellenistic occupation and an altar for Zeus in the temple, only a small jug of consecrated olive oil was left that was expected to be just enough to light the candles in the temple for one day. In the end, the miracle was reported that it lasted for eight days. For this reason, on Chanukka, one more candle per day is lit. So on the first day, the central candle is lit that is in turn used to light the first candle (in total 2). On the second day, the central candle plus two regular candles, and so on until on the eighth day, all 9 candles shine. There are even 9 candles below the traffic lights of the main street of Rehovot.
Since oil plays such an important role, the traditional Chanukka food is fried in a lot of oil: sufganiot (doughnuts/Berliner) and levivot (potato/vegetable pancake, jiddish latkes). In fact, these two specialities and other sweets were served every day in the physics department! (This compensates for all the Spekulatius, Lebkuchen, Plätzchen that I do not eat during the advent season...) Today I was at a conference that ended with amazing sufganiot, not only filled with jam, but with other sweat creams and decorated with chocolate on top.
While somebody lights the candles, one of the traditional Chanukka songs is sung. In the physics department, every day somebody also gave a little speach, for example once a Jewish physicist told about his childhood in North America, where Chanukka has to "compete" with Christmas. He also highlighted that Chanukka is less commercialised. Children often receive dmei chanukka, small presents like chocolate coins and a sevivon (spinning top) with 4 sides that show the letters נגהפ/ש (nun, gimel, he, pe/shin) for "nes gadol haya po/sham" (a big miracle was here/there, depending on whether the player is in Israel or in the diaspora). Today at the Hebrew course we also received a spinning top and sufganiot made by our teacher!

Only once the tradition appeared weird to me when 2 orthodox men walked into a pizzeria, installed candles in the chanukkia and asked a guest to light the candles. But for this, they put a kippa on his head although he does not wear a kippa otherwise.

Apart from that, chanukka as the festival of lights creates a cosy atmosphere on the dark "winter" days. Religious and historical traditions seem to mix with the ambition to create the most delicious and fancy sufganiot...

Shabbat in Tel Aviv

On Friday, in the train from Rehovot to Tel Aviv, we were asked by a passenger, who was dressed in the orthodox way, whether we were Jewish. When we answered no, he turned to the next passenger - in fact he only asked men. One accepted his service, then an arm and his head were wrapped with a black band to both of which belonged a small, black box.
We were a bit surprised to see this ceremony. Only later on, I read that these "tefilin" (the black bands and boxes) belong to prayers on weekdays, so Friday morning (before the Shabbat started) was within the designated time. We observed this happening also in the streets and at the beach of Tel Aviv.

At the entrance of the central train station, we saw a piece of wood or metal with letters at the door, and people touched it, but we could not guess why. Later we heard that these "mesusot" are attached to every door as a religious protection.

Before sunset, we noticed that many men were walking towards and into the synagogues. Many shops, restaurants, cafés, juice stands closed, but there was still life going on in Tel Aviv.
Of course, there was no train on Shabbat, but we went back to Rehovot by sherut. Long-distance sheruts depart from the central bus station. A driver was announcing his destination Be'er Sheva (100km away) and was looking for more passengers. We asked which sherut would go to Rehovot and immediately a driver opened his sherut for us. There was no direction written on the car. Maybe he flexibly decided to offer a service to Rehovot because there was demand. We were the only ones in the beginning, but on the route trough Rishon, 4 more passengers entered. He even asked us where to stop in Rehovot, so we had a shorter walk home than from the train station. It took 35min from Tel Aviv (only few minutes more than by train) and the price of 20 NIS (shekels) per person (4.70€, not comparable to a normal taxi!) was only 4 NIS more than by train.
Thus, our experience with the sherut system has so far been really good! Despite the shabbat break of the trains, we could get everywhere we wanted, and even back :-) 

Shabbat in Rehovot

Weekdays in Israel are from Sunday till Thursday. Friday and Saturday are the weekend. On Fridays, shops are open until the afternoon. Shabbat begins before sunset on Friday and ends on Saturday evening. During that period, there is no public transportation. Busses and trains stop their service, but sherut (large taxis/minibusses) drive along the official bus routes and offer their service even on shabbat.

At our arrival on Thursday evening, there was quite a lot of traffic on our street. This became significantly more quiet during shabbat! We also noticed a big contrast on the main street of Rehovot with all the restaurants, bars and shops. On Thursday evening we had a falafel there and many people were out on the street. When we just went for a small evening walk on Saturday evening (after the temperature had finally cooled down a bit...), Rehovot seemed to be rather empty. Only few bars were open. Tonight, we saw how shops were re-opening after shabbat. Many people were walking around, eating in restaurants and buying lots of fresh bread in a bakery. A European Sunday evening would look more empty...

While we hardly saw any people wearing a kippa on shabbat, they were again outside tonight, as well as orthodox Jews with traditional clothing, such as a black hat, and sidelocks.