A happy Chabad Chanuka party

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Tomorrow is the 8th and final day of Chanuka.
But yesterday we got one last Chanuka party in -- the nice one offered by Chabad.
Grandsons Dean and Eyal made pretty sheltered candles.

 Then they moved on to another craft table.
The Meitar community center's gym was filled with tables full of art supplies and the nice Chabad young ladies helped the younger kids create what would later be needed in the shadow theater.

Luckily the grandkids were too busy to notice this  boy helping his mother spin cotton candy,  known in Hebrew as sa'arot savta, grandmother's hair.
I figured the sufganiot / jelly doughnuts distributed at the end of the party would be enough sweetness. 

Eyal and Dean got front row seats on the mats, the better to see Rabbi Shneur Kurtz light the chanukia candles and  to hear as he called the winning numbers in the raffle.

Then the lights dimmed and wondrous stories of light were read out, beginning with the creation of sun and moon.
All the kids who had made stars came behind the screen and waved their stars.
When the narrative turned to spinning dreidls, all the kids who had cut out dreidl silhouettes  came up.
And so on.

I was amazed by how, with only low-tech ways, the Chabadnikim created a warm atmosphere of true Chanuka celebration.
The kids and I loved it.
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Looking out for jaywalking camels

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If you are driving down the highways of the Negev desert  you had better be looking out for camels.
One of them might wander onto the road.
Every year Israel has at least one fatal accident in which a car collides with a camel, and by fatal I mean for the driver and/or his passengers, not just the camel.

Give heed to the frequent roadside signs:

BEWARE OF CAMELS

NEAR THE ROAD 

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UPDATE Dec. 18:  See http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4466950,00.html
Fourteen camels were killed by a train between Beer Sheva and Dimona.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday, Camera Critters, and Signs, signs.)
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Looking out from the grave

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Looking out from the ancient Canaanite shaft tomb they had been excavating, workers come up for some fresh(er) air and a coffee break.
They were two of my forty Arab colleagues at the Holyland Park dig in Jerusalem in 2008.

I miss those good old days of digging at the Canaanite graveyard. See more posts about our finds and our fun here.
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The worldwide group of City Daily Blog bloggers are now posting for Dec. 1 Theme Day: Looking Out.
Take a look!
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Nature adventures

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It was the perfect sky today for SkyWatch Friday.
Grandkids Dean, Eyal, and Libby and I climbed the "mountain" in the middle of Meitar. 
The boys hurried up to the peak  (enlarge the photo 2x to find them) . . .

while Libby brought up the rear.
 The view of the desert and all of Meitar was expansive.

We had fun playing out in nature, the only ones in the eucalyptus grove down in the wadi.
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Live turkey

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This is as close as my family  got to turkey today here in Israel.
The turkeys were alive and well in the Negev Zoo near Beer Sheva.

The grandkids have ten days of Chanuka vacation.
I am so thankful and happy to be near them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating the holiday today.
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First night of Chanuka

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Grandsons Dean and Eyal kindled the first candle of Chanuka tonight together with some of their cousins.
Each used a chanukia [menorah] that he/she had made.

At Eyal's class party each first grader got to make their own sufgania [jelly donut].
Now vacation starts.
The kids don't go back to school until December 8.
Happy Chanuka!
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Head for the hills

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I went back to my old stompin' grounds for the weekend.
Ahh, the Jerusalem Hills, the hill country of Judea--so beautiful and green and peaceful.
I love them still.
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
.http://skyley.blogspot.co.il/

To each his own

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R is for round rubber gardens.
Libby is three and a half and she has planted flowers in a repurposed tire.

Each kid in her class made a scarecrow face with his/her name on it, brought a plant from home, and with the help of a parent planted it in a tire in the kindergarten yard.

This month's curriculum is all about plants.
And reuse and recycling is always a topic. 

Grandsons Dean (10) and Eyal (6) checked out the other individual gardens.

There are more than thirty little gardeners and gardens in the pre-school.

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Green cheese

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Green cheese?!
It is labeled Gouda with pesto, 30% fat, 15.99 shekels per kilogram.

We shopped at the big and beautiful  Eden Teva Market in Beer Sheva  for the first time.
The daughter happily  stocked up on sheep and goat cheeses. 
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World Toilet Day

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See these signs and symbols, as if on shards?
They point the way to sanitized toilet facilities of the archaeology museum at the foot of Masada.

So yes, it's not only S day on ABC Wednesday; it is also the annual World Toilet Day.
Seriously--the U.N. General Assembly has designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. 

The idea behind it is
"We can't wait to improve sanitation.
2.5 billion people do not have access to a clean and safe toilet."

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For opportunities, go south

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Be'er Sheva, population 206,000, is often called The Capital of the Negev, since it is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel.
But this big banner, hung on the side of the theater we saw in yesterday's post, takes it a step further.
The new slogan is BE'ER SHEVA -- ISRAEL'S  CAPITAL OF OPPORTUNITY.

It sounds better in Hebrew:  Be'er Sheva -- Birat hahizdamnuyot shel Yisrael, with "opportunities" being in the plural.
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UPDATE: I realized from a comment that a map would be useful.
My town, Meitar, is northeast of Beersheva.  It is just south of the Green Line ("1949 Armistice Line"), i.e. south of the West Bank. 

Click on the map a few times to enlarge it.

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(Linking to Our World Tuesday and Signs, signs.)
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Theater in Beer Sheva

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Workers were putting up new posters this morning at the back side of the Be'er Sheva Theater.

The front side had much bigger ads for the coming theater performances.
How about "The Sound of Music"?

And here at the entrance--"Born Yesterday"  and  "Beauty and the Beast."
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Young artists

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As you may know, my Aussie family is staying in Israel for seven months and they rent a house walking distance from me in Meitar.
Friday evening all the relatives got together to celebrate Eyal's 6th birthday.

Eyal and his brother and sister and even his mother are good artists, so I gave Eyal this wonderful book.
Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art  is published by Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Amazon says 

In this remarkable and beautiful anthology featuring the likes of Maurice Sendak, Robert Sabuda, Rosemary Wells, and Eric Carle, twenty-three of the most honored and beloved artists in children’s literature talk informally to children—sharing secrets about their art and how they began their adventures into illustration. Fold-out pages featuring photographs of their early work, their studios and materials, as well as sketches and finished art create an exuberant feast for the eye that will attract both children and adults. Self-portraits of each illustrator crown this important anthology that celebrates the artists and the art of the picture book.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,  DEAR EYAL! 

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Two teens

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The military section of Meitar's small cemetery has "only" four graves.
We are just a small community, begun in 1984, with a present population of about 7,500.

But then, perhaps other sons and daughters of Meitar are buried on Mount Herzl, the national military cemetery in Jerusalem.   I don't know.   I hope not.
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Yesterday a young soldier, Private Eden Attias, was buried in Upper Nazareth, his home town.
He was only 18 or 19  and the teenager who stabbed him was even younger.
Eden was asleep in the bus when the bus made a pit  stop at Afula when fellow bus passenger  Hussein Rawarda from Jenin knifed him.

 http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.557753
 and
 http://www.idfblog.com/2013/11/13/terrorist-stabs-idf-soldier-to-death-on-israeli-bus/
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The good earth

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You know you are almost home when the Metropoline bus from Beer Sheva drives past the huge plowed field.
In this photo you can just see the southern part of Meitar, my new home, coming into view on the left. 
Aren't those deep furrows beautiful and promising?!
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R + R in B-S

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R is for resting place on a Beer Sheva sidewalk.

Sit, relax a while, IF you can stand the hot sun,  if you don't mind those grasses tickling the back of your neck. 
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday.)
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A SOLDIER

OF THE GREAT WAR

KNOWN TO GOD

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The Beersheba War Cemetery contains 1,241 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 67 of them unidentified.

 More about the cemetery from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:

Country: Israel and Palestine (including Gaza)
Identified Casualties: 1173

By October 1917, General Allenby's force had been entrenched in front of a strong Turkish position along the Gaza-Beersheba road for some months, but they were now ready to launch an attack with Beersheba as its first objective. On 31 October, the attack was carried out by the XXth Corps . . . on the west, and the Desert Mounted Corps on the east. That evening the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade charged over the Turkish trenches into the town.

The cemetery was made immediately on the fall of the town, remaining in use until July 1918, by which time 139 burials had been made.
It was greatly increased after the Armistice when burials were brought in from a number of scattered sites and small burial grounds.

The cemetery in 1917 or 1918.
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(Glass stereotype dry plate  photo by the American Colony Photo Department.
Library of Congress )
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)

Speeches today at Ben-Gurion's grave

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For several days I've been posting about my visit to Ben-Gurion College at Kibbutz Sde Boker.
Here you can see the kibbutz perched above  deep Nahal Zin, in the wilderness of Zin.

Today the leaders of Israel gathered at the kibbutz, at the tomb of David Ben-Gurion and his wife, to mark 40 years since his passing.

See what Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke about at
www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-pleads-for-a-palestinian-ben-gurion/

including this:

Turning to the need to make the Negev bloom in accordance with Ben-Gurion’s vision, Netanyahu promised that there would soon be a rapid and dramatic increase in the percentage of Israelis living in the Negev — which has long hovered at around 8 percent. A huge “critical mass” would start flowing south, he vowed.

And Shimon Peres' Facebook page quotes our President as saying this:

We have gathered here today in memory of David Ben Gurion, but also to remind ourselves of our duty to continue his legacy of making the desert bloom and securing peace among ourselves and our neighbors. His legacy will continue to light our way.
We must ensure that we control our own destiny and make the two state solution a reality. Ben Gurion was adamant that Israel should give up land if that meant maintaining a Jewish majority, for without it, there will be no Jewish State. Since then, many changes have occurred, but this issue has remained as it was 66 years ago.

See also http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/PM-says-waiting-for-Palestinian-Ben-Gurion-to-end-Mideast-conflict-331163
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Ibex, free and friendly!

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I was delighted to see ibex wandering free  right next to the Midreshet Ben-Gurion building I showed you yesterday!

Right behind them is the main street of  Kibbutz Sde Boker.
There were three young ones and several adult ibex with curved horns.
Actually the kibbutz is home to Ben-Gurion's Tomb National Park. 
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Linking to Camera Critters meme.
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Greening the desert

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See the bust down on the ground floor of this unusual building?

It is David Ben-Gurion,  Israel's first prime minister.

Today I was there  at Ben-Gurion College at  Sde Boker, Ben-Gurion's kibbutz.
One Friday a month they offer great lectures and/or guided tours.

At the entrance to the kibbutz is Ben-Gurion's famous prophecy about how we would make the desert bloom and make the Negev a blessing to the State of Israel.
The green shrubbery overtaking the writing on the wall seems to prove that it  really is happening.
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(Linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors meme.)
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