Victor Halvani Park HaPsalim

After returning from our trip to the Hills of Gilboa, David took a nap and I went for a walk. One of the places I visited on my walk was the Victor Halvani Sculpture Park (named for the sculptor), which is located right by the main entrance to our neighborhood, נווה אורנים Neve Oranim ("Pine Oasis"). Here are a couple of pictures I took there. In the first one, you can see the large antenna tower in our neighborhood on the right side of the picture:

In this picture, you can see the name of the park in large letters made of concrete. The name can be translated as "Victor Halvani Sculpture Park" or, more irreverently, as "Victor Halvani Park of the Idols". :-)

The Hills of Gilboa and Har Barkan

Since today is the last day of פסח Pesakh ("Passover") here in Israel, it is a holiday. We decided to drive to the Hills of Gilboa. We went to הר ברקן Har Barkan ("Mt. Barkan") where some beautiful deep purple irises bloom every year. But, this year, we were too late, and they were already gone. However, there were still many other lovely flowers, and the view was great since it was quite a clear day. Here are some pictures I took there.

Here's a nice shot of some interesting purple flowers:

These flowers are quite small, but the light makes them sparkle like gold in the photo. Notice the tiny bug on one of them:

These pink flowers are quite small, and there are also a lot of them in the pasture near our house:

Here's an interesting insect just sitting on the rock in the trail:

I saw a few thistles like this one. Can you spot the 2 bugs in this picture?

These pink hollyhocks are in bloom all over the place right now!

This is the look-out tower at the top of Har Barkan:

I shot the next four photos from the top of the tower pictured above.

This is the view looking east toward the Jordan River Valley. The city on the left is Beit She'an, one of the 10 towns of the Decapolis in Roman times. The hills in the background are on the other side of the Jordan River in the Kingdom of Jordan.

This is the view looking south. Har Barkan is just north of שומרון Shomron ("Samaria"), the more accurate name for the northern part of the so-called "West Bank", the part of the Palestine Mandate that was illegally occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan from 1948 until 1967. In the foreground of this shot and on the left, you can see part of the separation barrier. If you look carefully, on the right side you can see an Arab village in Shomron, complete with 2 minarets.

This is the view looking west. In the distance in this photo, you can barely see הר כרמל Har Karmel ("Mt. Carmel"). At its right end is the upper part of the city of חיפה Haifa, right by the Mediterranean Sea.

Here's the view looking north. In the foreground is the parking lot. You can barely see the roof of our little red car at the near end. Further up in the shot, you can see the fertile Jezreel Valley. Still further back, on the left, is Har Tavor ("Mt. Tabor"). On a REALLY clear day, you might be able to see Tsfat. I think it would be a little to the right of the center. It WAS clear enough to see Har Tavor from Tsfat today.

And, finally, I just couldn't resist. Here's a nice shot of our wonderful new car, sitting right there in the parking lot!

I want to end by commenting on what these views show about Israel. The first thing that should strike you is how small it is. From this one point, you can see Jordan, much of Shomron, nearly to the Mediterranean, and nearly up to Lebanon and Syria. Or, to put it another way, you can see almost all of northern Israel and parts of several neighboring countries.

Why the sea parted?

Here's an interesting sign we saw when shopping at BIG in Karmiel this week. The Hebrew words at the bottom translate to "shopping and gifts for Passover are done only at Big". And here you thought that the reason the sea parted was so that we could escape from Pharaoh and his army!

What is Freedom?

Pesach is the holiday of freedom, and it lasts a whole week. So during this week, my mind has kept returning to this topic. I think now, perhaps, it's time to try to organize some of these thoughts and try to write a coherent essay on the matter.

Let's start by considering the word "freedom"; its Latin-derived synonym, "liberty"; and their related words: "free", "liberate", "liberated", "liberation", "liberal", and "libertarian". Notice the variety of connotations, feelings, and ideologies that these represent. This brings us to the first point that I'd like us to note: "freedom" and "liberty" have many complex layers of meaning and many different contexts of application.

The first, most intimate level of freedom is the personal one. Roughly, this means that an individual person is free to do what he or she likes and is not controlled by anyone or anything else.

If we think for a moment about this and its implications, it immediately bring us to what I believe is the most important thing we must consider. Freedom is NEVER absolute. Even if you were the only person in the universe, you would not be completely free. You can't travel to the moon just because you fancy doing so. If you jump off the cliff, gravity will take its course, and the collision at the bottom is likely to end all of your freedoms forever! Furthermore, you are NOT the only person, and the very existence of others means that your freedom is limited by their presence and by your need and, perhaps, desire to interact with them. Every person's freedom is limited by the freedoms of others in the environment.

Now let's start at the other end: slavery. At first thought, we think we know what this means -- one person "owns" another. This kind of slavery is quite easy to define, and it can be outlawed, as it has been essentially throughout the world (of course, outlawed things do not completely disappear just because they are illegal!). But there are other, more subtle kinds of slavery, as well. A desperately poor man may not be owned by his rich neighbor, but he may still have to do many things that he would not choose for himself, just to survive. A woman from a disadvantaged background may spend her whole life serving others in a way that is hard to distinguish from actual slavery.

Economic wealth and other kinds of social and political power certainly bring MUCH more freedom to some people than others have. A rich woman can quit a job she doesn't like a lot more readily than a poorer one. A wealthy man has many more options regarding where he lives, what he does, where and when he travels, and, in general, what his life can be like. The Hebrew word for slavery is עבדות avdut, which comes from the root that means "work". The emphasis, then, was NOT on ownership but on who had to do the work. In this sense, perhaps we could say that MOST of us are slaves in the modern world! Very few of us can actually live without having to work at all. And it's absolutely certain that the world simple could not function if NO ONE had to work!

Let's consider another type of freedom that is very important, especially in the modern Western world: political freedom. For Americans especially this usually means the freedoms and rights that are delineated in the U.S. constitution: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of peaceable assembly, and so on. We tend to think of these as absolutes, but, in reality, NONE of them actually are.

Let's start with freedom of speech and its close relative, freedom of the press. The first limitation here is the proverbial one: you are NOT free to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater! More seriously, though, you are not free to bully and intimidate others, and you are not free to incite others to murderous actions. You are also not free to say or publish deliberate falsehoods for the purpose of ruining others' reputations. If you do, you may be sued for libel, and rightly so.

Freedom of religion can be particularly difficult in actual implementation. Let's start with an extreme example -- you are NOT free to kill your neighbor no matter how much your religion may say that you must! But there are also many more realistic and subtle limits. To what extent are you allowed to proselytize (i.e. to try to convince others to join your religion)? What are the limits on the public practice of your religion? Can you blast calls to prayer out on loudspeakers at whatever hour your religion requires? What about ringing church bells? Most of these questions have been dealt with in different ways by different countries at various times. Almost all of the answers reflect more the political and social situations than any kind of absolute notion of freedom of religion.

Even freedom of assembly can be problematic. If large numbers of people plan to gather in a given area, the issues of crowd control can become a matter of life and death. For this reason, prior coordination with some kind of authority is surely important and, of necessity, puts some limits on this basic freedom.

Finally, I'd like to talk about another kind of freedom, one that's not as familiar to Americans perhaps: group or ethnic or national freedom. The Israeli national anthem, התקווה HaTikvah ("The Hope"), speaks of our desire להיות עם חופשי בארצנו lihyot am khofshi b'artzenu ("to be a free people in our Land"). What does this mean? It's surely about more than individual and political freedoms, things which we can have, at least subject to the general limitations discussed above, in many countries in the modern world. It's something more communal, more cultural. It includes our desire to determine our own collective destiny, to avoid having to depend on others for the continuation, development, and free expression of our national identity.

Of course, this type of freedom also has its limits. Even the United States, certainly the most militarily powerful country in the world today, feels the need to cultivate allies and get some kind of international consensus, however limited, for most of its operations. How much more so is this true of tiny Israel, even though we have of necessity managed to develop a formidable military.

And so my conclusions are that freedom is never absolute but is always a continuum. It has many aspects and operates and many different levels. Perhaps this is why we have a holiday every year that focuses on this topic. May we ALL be freer next year than we are now!

20 years later, the Cold War is really over

Last night was a unique experience at Emet V'Shalom, our Reform congregation in Nahariya. As you may recall, our rabbi, Israel Horovitz, is on a 6-month sabbatical. So, very lay congregants and visiting rabbis have been leading the prayers. Last night, Mark Sirontinski had volunteered to lead. As he explained at the beginning, he had led services many times in Russian, but this was his first time in Hebrew, and he was doing it in memory of his father, who was a captain in the Red Army but was killed in battle (along with many thousands of other Russians) in 1942.

Mark is a retiree from Russia and one of the very few Russians who regularly attends our synagogue regularly. His Hebrew is perhaps not even quite at the level of mine, and his English is only a little better. But we do manage to communicate.

Normally at EVS, just one person leads, but Mark wanted a khazzan (cantor) to assist him, so Norm, the chair of the ritual committee, ask me if I would help him. Of course I agreed. Mark and I communicated a bit by e-mail, and then we met 45 minutes before the start time to do our final coordination.

Mark made a few brief remarks at various times before and between the prayers, he led a few of the songs, and he did some of the readings. I led most of the songs, and we recruited the Shchorry kids, Odelia and Eyal (native Hebrew speakers), to do other readings that neither Mark nor I were prepared to attempt in public. I noticed that Mark used transliterated Hebrew (i.e. Hebrew written with Cyrillic letters -- the alphabet used for Russian and a few other languages). It was a little strange watching him read letters which I don't completely know but hearing Hebrew come out that I do know and understand!

Who of us would have thought, at the height of the Cold War, that someday an American and a Russian would stand together side by side to lead Friday night prayers in Nahariya, Israel? But, in fact, the story is even more interesting. Mark used to work for the U.S.S.R. missile program, and I used to work for the U.S. ballistic missile program!

A walk with 2 cats

The weather yesterday and today here has been absolutely perfect! This afternoon, I decided to take a walk up the trail (well, really a rough dirt road) from our house. The flowers are in full bloom now, and so it's REALLY beautiful. This year, the dominant flower in this area seems to be the white daisy, but there are plenty of other kinds of flowers, as well. Every year it's a little different.

A ways up the road there is a cattle guard where the pasture begins. It's actually new within the last year or so. Before that, there was a make-shift gate which, too often, was left open, allowing the cows to wander in our neighborhood and sometimes even get lost.

Before I had gotten far at all, two of our outdoor cats, Mr. B and Priscilla, were right there with me. Mr. B often follows me if I go for a walk, but Priscilla usually doesn't. Sometimes their mother, Beatrix, follows us, too. But they ALL have their limits on how far they will go. On this walk, Mr. B stopped about half to two-thirds of the way to the cattle guard. But Priscilla continued even a little PAST the cattle guard!

Here are some pictures of the 2 cats that I snapped with my iPhone. In this first picture, you can see both of them looking at the flowers. Okay, so that's probably not REALLY what they were looking at!

Here's a good shot of Mr. B:

And here's a great one of Priscilla:

Finally, here's Priscilla navigating the cattle guard (she had already gone down between the bars to check out what was below!):

Cherry blossoms

Japan and Washington, D.C., are not the ONLY places that have cherry blossoms! Here's a picture of the cherry tree in our yard blooming:

New car!

We finally got it! Last Thursday, we took delivery of our brand new Fiat Panda 1.2 from the Fiat dealer in Haifa. It's actually been quite a saga.

About 4 weeks ago, we decided that it was time to trade in our old car, the 2003 Hyundai Getz GLF that we bought used in 2006, less than a year after we arrived here in Israel. The Getz was a great car for us and gave us excellent service, but it was beginning to have problems. Last Fall, the A/C quit working, and various other things were also beginning to cost us money nearly every month.

So, I did some research on the internet about the smallest and cheapest new cars sold here in Israel. We picked 6 of them and located dealers for each of these in Haifa, the nearest really large city. The 6 on our list were: the Nissan Micra, the Chevrolet Spark, the Peugeot 107, the Suzuki Alto, the Hyundai i10, and the Fiat Panda.

The first one we checked out was the Spark. Although they had one in the showroom, it's not actually going to be available until May (and, in Israel, who knows what the REALLY means!?). Besides that, they informed us that they would NOT be taking trade-ins for it. So, it was the first on our list to be ruled out.

Next, we visited the Suzuki dealer located right across the highway from Cinemall (formerly called Lev HaMifratz -- the name was changed when they added a huge, 23-plex cinema) in the Checkpost area. They didn't have an Alto in the showroom, but they managed to book us an appointment to drive one -- the following Sunday! Well, actually, we might have been able to try it only a few days later, but I'm almost always too busy with Berlitz classes to have time to get to Haifa and back Monday through Friday.

Then we went across the highway to the Hyundai dealer, which is right in front of Cinemall. They had an i10 in the showroom. We sat in it and then talked to a salesman who was very helpful, including giving us detailed pricing information and an estimate on what our old car might be worth as a trade-in. However, they were unable to schedule an appointment for us to test drive one until more than a week later! We left with his estimates and a brochure.

After that, we drove a little ways east of that area to the Peugeot/Citroen dealer. They had a Peugeot 107 in the showroom, but the saleswoman there told us that it also would not actually be available until May. Furthermore, there were several things about it that left us rather unimpressed. We immediately ruled it out, as well.

The next stop was the Fiat dealer just a short distance north on the other side of the highway. The salesman there, Avi, was also very helpful, and they, too, had a model in the showroom for us to check out. After quite lengthy discussions, he managed to find a red one (the only color they come in that we really liked) for us that was not already reserved and arrange a test drive for us the following Sunday (right after our Suzuki Alto test drive, although we didn't actually tell him about that).

The final stop of the day was the Nissan dealer, located a mile or 2 north on Highway 4, across from the oil refinery. They had a Micra (a new model only recently released) on the showroom floor, and they were the ONLY dealer that actually had one right there that we could test-drive immediately, which we did. There was one really BIG problem, though, with the Micra: it only comes with an automatic transmission, which I have always disliked. But I thought to myself, "Well, maybe automatics have improved since my last experience in one, 5 or 6 years ago. I'll check it out." Theory disproved -- it was fully as awful as ever! No chance AT ALL that we would get THAT vehicle!

During the intervening week, I did some more research on the internet about these small cars. None of them are available in the U.S., of course, but they ARE available in the U.K., so I was able to find quite a few reviews in English. However, the engines and other details are not always the same, so I also made sure to check out articles in Hebrew since they definitely refer to the vehicles actually available here in Israel. Reading in Hebrew is a bit slow for me, but I managed to slog through a few articles, and in some cases I cheated and used Google Translate to speed things up. The translations are quite rough (and even a little humorous sometimes), but I was able to get the meaning quite well. I became quite convinced that the only really viable competitors for us would be the Hyundai i10 and the Fiat Panda. But the delay in when we might be able to test-drive the Hyundai was fast eliminating it, as well.

So, the next Sunday, March 20, we headed out bright and early for Haifa to make sure we beat the rush-hour traffic. What we didn't remember, though, was that it was the actual day of Purim, when schools are not in session and many places are closed. So, the traffic was actually quite light, and we arrived long before our appointment at the Suzuki dealer. Of course, we had to wait a while, but they did manage to get the car there for us to drive some 15-20 minutes before our scheduled time. The guy who took us on the test drive was very nice. He lives in Haifa, and he and I chatted quite nicely in Hebrew. The Alto was quite an impressive car, considering that it is the very cheapest new car sold here, I think. However, the impression inside was also a little cheap, and the engine was slightly buzzy. But if it had been our only option, I probably could have lived with it without too much difficulty. It did NOT feel underpowered.

Immediately after that test-drive, we headed right up the street to the Fiat dealer to try out the Panda. Even before driving it, I was pretty sure that this would be the car we would choose. The guy who took us on that test-drive was from Tel Aviv and had brought the car up from there. When I struggled just a little with talking with him in Hebrew, he asked if I'd prefer English, and so we switched to English from there on. Like most Israelis, he was a little apologetic about his English but it actually was, as usual, FAR better than my Hebrew! Anyway, at that point we definitely decided to go for the Panda. We took our old car to a test place up the highway (actually, near the Nissan dealer) for an independent evaluation so that Fiat would be able to quote us a trade-price (but not that day!).

The Panda's list price is around 13,000 shekels HIGHER than the other cars in this competition, but Fiat and המשביר לצרכן HaMashbir LTzarkhan ("The Consumer Supplier" -- the largest and probably oldest department store chain in Israel) had a deal going where members of Club365, the store's membership club, would receive a discount of, you guessed it, 13,000 shekels off the price of the Panda. We were already members of the club, but it would have cost only 100 shekels to join, so it's really more of a marketing gimick than anything. The important thing is that it makes the Panda truly competitive with the other vehicles, all of which are newer on the market.

In the States, that would have been just about the end of the story, and we probably would have driven home with the nice red Panda that we had just taken the test-drive in. The financing would have been done on the spot at the dealer, and they would have done all the registration right there, too. But this is NOT the States -- this is Israel!

Our loan had already been approved, but the following Sunday, March 27, we had to go to Karmiel, to Bank Mizrahi/Tefachot, to sign the loan papers. The bank sent the money the following day, and we paid our down payment (over the phone, by credit card). Avi then assured me that we would have the car -- in less than 2 weeks! TWO WEEKS!!! Ouch! Anyway, we realized that this is just how things work here. That's how long it takes the bureaucrats to issue the new registration! When I was obviously not too pleased with this time-line, Avi promised to do everything he could to shorten it. In fact, the process only took nine days, although we weren't able to find time in my schedule to turn in our old car and pick up the new one until one day later.

So, here's how the exchange went. We drove our old car to Auto-Deal, a used-car dealer on the other side of Haifa. They did some paperwork there and took possession of it. Then they hired a taxi to take us to the Fiat dealer (on THIS side of Haifa) to get our new car. To my delight, the taxi took us through the new tunnels, our first time in the southern one! When we arrived at the Fiat dealer, Avi was waiting for us, and we were off in our shiny new red Fiat Panda 1.2 in an amazingly short amount of time! It had only 2 kilometers on the odometer when we got it!

Although Fiat is, of course, an Italian car manufacturer, the Panda is actually built in Poland! Of the other cars on our list, three are made in India (the Alto, the i10, and the Spark), and the Peugeot 107 is built it the Czech Republic. I'm actually not sure where the Micra is made.

The new car is really wonderful! I had some concern going into this about several things. But my biggest worry was that the cars would be underpowered and might not handle very well. Of course, they're NOT sports cars, but I can assure you that the power and handling of the Panda is VERY nice. It's quite well-equipped, too, with a trip computer, ABS, airbags, power front windows, A/C (of course -- this is hot Israel!), and a CD player. Having driven it now for a couple of days, David and I are both very pleased with it.

Yesterday morning, I took some pictures of the new car sitting in our driveway. Here are a couple of them. Enjoy!