First Shabbat in Jerusalem

Early wakeup, quick breakfast (where we met people on a tour from the shul in Glastonbury, CT), and then a long walk to Kol Haneshama, the Reform center.  Yes, a Reform shul – we wanted to try it!  We were there at 8:55 AM because we thought it started at 9.  It starts at 9:15.  While we waited, someone came up to me and started to ask me questions about the shul – again, I guess I have that look!  Shul was interesting.  Adam and I used one of their creative/alternative siddurim and also our own Rinat Yisrael.  The shul does great things.  While I didn’t love seeing people in jeans, men without kippot and tallitot on the bima, and we both thought the group aliyot were strange (all grandparents, then all aunts/uncles, then all cousins, then all friends, all new students, all guests, then the parents of the bat mitzvah), it was truly a mitzvah for these secular Israelis to have the opportunity to mark the special occasion.  So we experienced it, sang “Kol Haneshama” with all our hearts, and I noted as the Torah came around in the procession that I hadn’t been on that side of the procession in a while!  And it was a Reform service – but all in Hebrew!  We walked with Luciana and Sima and Beni to their apartment in the beautiful new buildings in Talpiyot.  Very cool.  Beni and I became friends – so did Beni and Adam.  Beni is adorable – it was so much fun.  Lunch was great – this time the languages were English, Hebrew, and Portuguese!  We had a lot of fun, then went home to take a quick nap before going up to our pool.  That was about 3:30 PM.  By 8 PM we woke up!  Ooops!  I guess the jet lag and exhaustion from the flight caught up with us.  Saturday night we ate a delicious dinner at Café Rimon in the center of the city (onion soup there is the best) and walked around a lot, shopping, looking.  Of course, we stopped in to visit the Kippah Man, who immediately remembered me (with our code, “Abba Gabba”). We ran into Rami and Lu and Alon. We enjoyed frozen yogurt with fruit and chocolate mushed in (more than mushed – crushed into oblivion).  A wonderful day.