Friday, 3 May 2013

I didn't sleep very well last night even though I had taken a Coldex pill. Again, though, I think I got enough sleep overall.

After breakfast this morning, I went down and got us challah for Shabbat. I also stopped by the candy store and replenished our supplies in that department.

I had a little more time before my first class, so I also took out the plastic bottles and the containers to their respective recycle places.

I taught 4 units of Berlitz today: 9:30-11:00 and 11:30-1:00. After that, we went for our now-traditional Friday lunch at Il Pentolino.

Nearly every week, there's a free small-format advertising magazine that is put in our mailbox on Thursday afternoon or early Friday morning. It's called מה נשמע Ma Nishma, which means literally "What is heard?" but is actually a common Hebrew greeting that means, roughly, "What's up?" Some weeks, there are a couple of other similar rags, but they don't seem to be distributed as regularly.

I usually leaf through this little magazine pretty casually. It is mostly advertising, of course, but there are always a few articles, too. I rarely read them at all, but one definitely caught my eye this time because it was about a couple of young gay guys, 18 and 21, who want to establish a branch of a gay youth organization called "Iggi" (or something like that!) that apparently exists in many other cities in Israel. I took the time this afternoon to slog through the article (my Hebrew reading is still pretty slow). There were a few words I didn't know (and which I also didn't take the time to look up), so I didn't get all of it, but it was generally a good article (though a little longer than it needed to be, I think). It seems that this organization works in coordination with the national Education Office, a part of the government. I hope they are successful. I'd help them out if I could, but I'm afraid my limited Hebrew conversational skills might be woefully inadequate. I'd probably also run into scheduling issues due to Berlitz's control over most of my weekly schedule. Anyway, it's good to see such things, and it's particularly gratifying to see the issues discussed so well in something that goes to every apartment in the city!

This evening, David and I finally made it to Kabbalat Shabbat prayers at Tagel Arava, the Masorti (Conservative) congregation here in Eilat. The community is very small, mostly our age or older (it appears), and mostly Spanish speakers (including the rabbi). The prayers dragged on a bit, and the rabbi spoke too long (although it was interesting to hear how supportive he was of the Women of the Wall). At least his Hebrew is quite clear so that I was able to pick up a great deal of it. The only young people there were a cute young couple of new olim (immigrants) from Cuba!