What I want for my birthday and making a difference

So friends - for my 49th birthday, which is coming up next week, I'm looking for 49 people to give $49 to Kehillat Tzur Hadassah.

I was talking tonight with a friend who is a leader in a Modern Orthodox congregation down the street. I told her that when we lived in Jerusalem, it didn't matter which congregation we belonged to. All the synagogues we were part of had plenty of people active in running them. No one particularly noticed if we came to shul or not (except maybe if our kids made too much noise).

Since we've moved to Tzur Hadassah, it's not really like that. Somehow over three and a half years we've gotten very involved in synagogue leadership. I've written elsewhere on this blog about what an eye opener this has been for me. I have so much more appreciation for the lay leaders of the congregation I served back in the states. With a minyan of other families, we find ourselves putting heart and soul and endless hours into keeping the congregation going. It's hard work and many times I feel we are not so successful.

Meanwhile, we're sustaining non-Orthodox Judaism in the Judaean Hills, which is actually no mean feat. We have ultra-Orthodox communities on either side of our town and a growing modern Orthodox community in our town. Of the so-called secular population, there are plenty for whom the synagogue they don't go to has to be orthodox. And many people in town just don't care whether there are synagogues of any kind here.

We keep going - with a preschool, a bar/bat mitzvah program, plans to start a youth group, weekly services, holiday programming, blood drives, food collections, etc. etc. We offer a non-orthodox alternative and lots of families want that, even if it's only a few times a year. The kids in the shul and community are living a different kind of Judaism than they can get elsewhere - it's something that's very important to me to offer my children.

If you've read this far, I know you are wondering how you can make that $49 contribution for my birthday. Just go to http://kbyonline.org. Then go to step 1 on the right and choose "Tzur Hadassah". And follow the rest of the instructions to donate.

Your support of Kehillat Tzur Hadassah will be a wonderful birthday present. And for every dollar donated, yes every dollar, I pledge to spend 15 minutes during the coming year either working for the synagogue (yes, I'm doing it anyway) or parenting Gabi and Sasha (yup, I'm doing that too). And if you ask nicely, I might even agree to spend a free minute or two enjoying my partner (instead of discussing synagogue business). So make that donation today! and THANK YOU!!!!!!

Music Rant

This rant was inspired by my sister in law, Eliza, who published on her facebook status last week, "what is your favorite music to clean by?" This evoked rage in me, because I did not have a snowball's chance in hell of being able to clean by music, since I could not get an hour to myself in the house when the kids weren't there - either controlling the public space - tv or music - or sleeping and when whatever choice I made of music would either wake them up or annoy them or Alen.

So now....finally....I have a couple of hours to myself in the house to clean or do whatever I want and can't find anything I want to listen to. Here's the problem - I have no energy or time to find new music, and I don't like anything we have here. All those cds of music I used to love - Jackson Browne, Elton John, Dire Straits. I put them on and I don't like the way they make me feel. I don't want to be the person I was when I liked this music. None of the old songs are doing it.

So I look for my Garth Brooks double live cd. Some of you may remember Sasha broke one of the discs in half last year (or was it the year before?). But I'm supposed to have one disc still. I clean up all the cds and put them back in their cases. 30 minutes go by. The cds look better and will stay organized for 45 minutes after the kids get home. No Garth Brooks. Nothing I want to listen to.

Now I am sure if you know me or you've read this far, you will understand that I am seriously old. That's right - no Ipod, no Itunes, no ear plugs. No downloaded music, not even a cd burner as far as I know. I have not made the leap. I don't know how and don't have time to figure it out.

So this is a plea - if you have some old cds that you are not using, something good, Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Heather Bishop, Margie Adam, Garth Brooks, David Allen Coe (google him if you want to see real music :-)), please pack them up and send them to me - I'll send you my address. And please, send me some good music karma if you have any and concrete baby steps I could take to return to the world of music.

P.S. Last March, I bought a radio CD for my car. The CD never worked. I went back once, they said they fixed it, it wasn't fixed and I couldn't find time since then to go again. I have 3 more months to get there. I mostly listen to talk radio. How did I become this person?

What Would You Do, Dear?

Anyone remember those books by Maurice Sendak - What would you do, dear? and What would you say dear? They were great!

Ok, here are two challenging scenarios from today. For those who read my earlier post on coming out again, this first scenario can be titled Not Coming Out Again!

Visiting a very ill colleague in hospital - actually I was outside with her family. Her brother in law (looks somewhere between orthodox and ultra-orthodox) says, "Do you have a husband, a family?" I demur, some kind of nod, he asks how many kids I have, their ages, we move on. Here's the kind of situation I don't come out in. The nursing home where I volunteer sometimes is about the only place where I don't speak up. Back when I lived in the states, I had these kind of encounters nearly on a daily basis. Mainly due to Alen's job working with youth, we kept what I would call a very low profile while not being in the closet exactly. Today these situations are so few and far between that they grate. I almost always tell people, I have a partner, which in Hebrew comes out female. I've even had people correct me, you mean "ben zug" and I say no, I mean "bat zug".

Challenging scenario number two was harder. We went to the library and Gabi picked out a book from the "time tunnel" series - they had read one in her class. Then at dinner she tells me she's gotten to a chapter where they get uniforms, and that they are in Poland, in some place that hates kids and all the kids are in some kind of institution. My ears perk up and I run to her room to find the book - one of the chapters is entitled "carts full of clothes arrive in the ghetto". I immediately call the mother of one of her friends who doesn't answer and then my brother for advice.

After several calls the consensus seems to be not to take the book away from her because that will make it mysterious. Her friend's mother suggest she update me on the story as it goes along and Gabi suggests she read the book to me. (O joy.)

The friend's mother also says she would probably not have agreed to the book, but I didn't look closely and might not have realized at first glance that it is about the Holocaust. I would probably be a bit less traumatized if I wasn't currently reading a book about the Shoah myself (A Death in Vienna by Daniel DaSilva). I tell Gabi the book is probably too old for her, might scare her, talks about a difficult time, and she says she wants to continue reading it. My brother tells me they learn about the Shoah very early here - this mom is not ready.

What would you do dear?