Nov

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for other people’s vacation pictures/videos. Proceed at your own risk.

Longtime readers know that unlike most Israelis, who tend to visit Eilat during Chanukah vacation, the extended Shiputzim family prefers to head in the opposite direction and spends Shabbat Chanukah up North.

This year, our specific destination was Nov, a religious agricultural moshav, located right next door to Avnei Eitan in the southern Golan Heights, and B”H, we had a wonderful time.

Which was nice for us, of course, but unfortunately, not so nice for you.

Because after all, it wouldn’t be the week after Chanukah here on Our Shiputzim without me forcing you to sit through, er, sharing our vacation pictures.

And so, without further ado, here are the threatened promised photos:

As always, please feel free to click on the pictures for a much better view.

Exterior of our tzimmer

The kitchen/eating area

The bedroom

The sleeping loft

A view of the indoor swimming pool

A flock of sheep

And as if all those pictures weren’t fascinating enough, and on the off chance that I haven’t yet managed to bore you all to tears, here’s a short video from our drive up to Nov on Friday. If you listen carefully, you can even hear the day’s weather report:

Have you ever been to Nov?

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P.S. Speaking of Shabbat Chanukah, don’t miss my tribute to my Zaidy z”l. (It’s especially noteworthy, because it’s the first time I ever posted a picture of myself here on the blog…)

P.S.S. The latest Kosher Cooking Carnival is available here. Special thanks to Batya for including my “ceasefire pie” (aka chocolate mousse pie) post.

Not my type

No three little Hebrew words instill panic and dread in the heart of even the most veteran oleh quite like the seemingly-innocuous phrase: “.תשלח\י לי מייל” (“Send me an email.”)

It begins with typing (i.e. hakladah - for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you).

In many workplaces – especially high-tech firms – English is often the email lingua franca. But if you’re a freelancer like me, you may not have that luxury.

Instead, you’re forced to rely on a combination of the “hunt and peck” method and the delusional belief that your fingers will instinctively figure out the Hebrew equivalent of “ASDFJKL;”.

Yet, to put it mildly, this doesn’t make for the most efficient of typing experiences…

But even once you somehow manage to get the correct letters on screen, your problems are far from over.

After all, now you’re stuck with a document that you’re pretty sure is rife with spelling and grammatical errors.

Because conjugating verbs or sorting out the whole male/female (shulchan echad or shulchan echat?) and singular/plural (shulchanim or shulchanot?) thing? Not exactly your strong point.

Of course, normally, you’d simply ask a native Israeli – read: any of your children who already took the bagrut in lashon - for help. But seeing as how it’s the middle of the day and all, none of the older kids are home.

And thus, you find yourself pondering that age-old question: What sounds less unprofessional – a letter written by an oleh or a letter proofread by a not-yet literate five year old?

Desperate, you go with the latter option and hope for the best the not TOO terrible.

Which, you’re painfully aware, is probably not the wisest course of action….

How are your Hebrew typing skills?

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Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above post and an actual regular feature of life here in TRLEOOB (=the real life equivalent of our blog) may or may not be purely coincidental.

Happy Chanukah!

I’m not really back to blogging yet, but I wanted to quickly touch base in order to thank you for all the wonderful comments and emails about the bar mitzvah and to wish you a happy Chanukah!

B”H, the bar mitzvah weekend was beautiful; we all had a great time; and <maternal boasting> the bar mitzvah boy did an amazing job BA”H. </boasting>

As soon as things calm down a bit, I’ll B”N try and post a few details about the menu etc. and maybe even a recipe or two.

But in the meantime – and in order to combine this post’s two themes (i.e. the bar mitzvah and Chanukah) – here are a few pictures to show you what we used to decorate the tables on Motza”Sh (=Saturday night):

!חג אורים שמח

Heblish: Around the Dinner Table Edition

For many bloggers, conversations held around the dinner table frequently serve as an excellent source of blog fodder.

But when the blogger in question is an Anglo with an inexplicable need to chronicle her family’s Heblishisms, these discussions are like finding the mother lode.

Take, for instance, the Shiputzim family’s recent suppertime debate about school uniforms, which produced this gem:

• Go with it: Hebrew source – ללכת עם זה. English definition – Wear it in public. Sample usage - “If my school has a uniform next year, there’s no way I’m going to go with it.”

Or how about these two family favorites:

• To fall in the hagralah: Hebrew source – ליפול בהגרלה.  English definition – To be chosen in a lottery. Sample usage – “I got to go first, because I fell in the hagralah.”
• Maximum: Hebrew source – מקסימום. English definition – At most; worst case. Sample usage - “Maximum, I’ll take the test again on mo’ed bet.”

And finally, we have the following, which veteran Israelis will no doubt recognize as the inverse of the classic new oleh mistakes “lakachat miklachat” and “lakachat mivchan” [sic]:

• Make a break: Hebrew source – לעשות הפסקה. English definition – Take a break. Sample usage - “I got tired from all this studying, and so I made a break for five minutes.”

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Previous Heblish editions are available here: Heblish I, Heblish II, Heblish III, Heblish IV, Heblish V, Heblish VI, Heblish VII, Heblish VIII, Heblish IX, and Heblish X.