International Convention 2008

Day 2 – 25 April 2008

Another restful night, and after breakfast a visit to Liviu’s mother, Tea, who has been in Israel for many years. Fori has known her for many years and was amazed at how little she has changed. Her welcome and kindness were overwhelming, and made me appreciate the combination of Romania and Judaism in this delightful woman I felt I had known all my life. We then visited Doina and Liviu’s first grandchild, 7-month-old Ben, son of their daughter Orly and her husband, a delightful child, happy and smiling. A true Sabra child, full of life, another thing that I miss very much since I left Israel.

The next stop was a real treat: Abu Hasan’s on Shivtey Israel Street, a real Arab restaurant, serving the freshest hummus, falafels, French fries, hot pepper and garlic sauce, and pita. Bob and David Gregory and Rob Weinberg, eat your hearts out! Abu Hasan’s is a family-run business, and the tables are cleaned and wiped off to make way for the next round of guests, with foods appearing almost instantly after the waiters scream the order at the top of their lungs to the staff preparing the fare. If you walked into this place without someone who knew why they were screaming, you might think they were about to kill each other, and while I could have done without the constant shrieks, the food made up for any other inconvenience.

Apart from missing the Holy Shrines in Haifa and Bahjí, I realize how much I have missed the Holy Land, a land truly blessed by God, a land whose peoples live, fight and die for, a land of contradictions, filled with life, history, religion, the Holy Land for four of the world’s major Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá’í Faith.

International Convention 2008

Day 1 – 24 April 2008

We arrived at Bucharest’s Henri Coandă Airport on Wednesday evening at 6:15 p.m. although our Tarom flight was only due to leave for Tel Aviv at 8:40 p.m. Normally one can get to the airport closer to the departure time, but the terrible traffic in Romania’s capital makes it advisable to give yourself plenty of time to get anywhere these days, especially to catch a flight.

For instance, one friend who visited a few days ago, made her trip home, normally taking about 15 minutes, in three hours.

Our flight was delayed because one of the stewardesses was stuck in traffic, and we had to wait for her to join the rest of the crew. The 2.20 hour trip was uneventful, and we arrived at Ben Gurion Airport just before midnight. I was really surprised that we were no longer taken from the plane to the arrival terminal by bus, as was the case for so many years. A huge, sprawling, new airport serves Israel’s second-most important city, and is of course equipped with the most modern gangways. It took quite a while to walk from the plane to the exit, but everything is welcoming and very tastefully designed. Fori’s friend Liviu met us at the exit and drove us to his and his wife Doina’s home in Southern Tel Aviv. They are originally from Bucharest, salt of the earth, and made Aliyah to Israel in 1975.

We stayed up a few hours talking, and then got some much-needed rest. Israel was in the midst of one of its 50 yearly Hamsin (the Arabic word Hamsin means 50) storms from the desert, and it was very hot, about 37°C. On Thursday, after a lovely breakfast, we drove around the city, which I never got to know very well during my parents’ 21-year-stay in the Holy Land, during which I had the bounty of visiting many times, or my own 10 years living in Haifa. Tel Aviv has developed a lot, with many modern towers and large apartment houses spread throughout the city. It is not unusual in this city to see modern buildings next to an old mosque or traditional Arab house, and it is the melding of the cultures and traditions that makes this country so fascinating to me.

Everywhere are bushes filled with flowers: yellow, red, fuchsia, coral, purple, pale blue, some intertwined for two or three-toned explosions of colour. I realized how much I miss the greenery and flowers, and felt happy to be back by the sea after so many years of being land-locked.

People often ask me where I would go if I could choose any place to live. For a very long time I did not know what to answer, but now I know that if given a choice I would want to be near the water and somewhere where there are many colours. I love colours! I also find the Mediterranean colours of the houses very soothing, rich earth tones, enhanced by the bushes and flowers.

We stopped to see Doina and Liviu’s newest grandchild, a 3-week-old boy, named Amir, son of their son David and his wife. Last night we went to the waterfront, to an ancient and now unused port, transformed into a promenade, where families were gathered for the warm Passover evening. We had excellent frozen yoghurt, something I tasted for the first time years ago in Israel.