On average the people are amazingly special. I love every inch of it — the sunrises, the wind blowing at night, the different trees and flowers on every block… It is amazingly beautiful, with many pitfalls for someone new who does not understand that it is not like anywhere else.”
“Parnassa is an uphill battle and time is not a friend to it, let alone the growing bills… A regular job pays a lot less here than back in the States and basically means living in poverty… the change is stressful. When they said the first year would be difficult, they should have said it would be a crazy nightmare.
I must confess I am losing the only thing that I had to keep the fight going: my sense of humor…”
“Everything is in Hebrew everywhere you go and everyone you must deal with… shops, cabs, utility companies, etc., though many of our neighbors do speak English (they are from the U.S., Canada, France, etc.)”
“The taxi driver who says Shabbat Shalom, or the storeowner who wears no yarmulke, sports a tattoo, yet has a mezuzah which he kisses each time he goes through the doorway… are just two of a million and one reasons why this is where it’s at.”
“I pray that those we left behind will be able to get out as soon as possible and come home… where it is not about ‘tough’ Israelis but about a hundred chayalim singing in unison as they are waiting for the bus at the corner… where palm trees sway in the breeze and everyone we meet has a huge smile and thanks Hashem for being here.”
“I saw a man trimming a 5-story tree next door. He was dressed appropriately for the job: special suit, helmet, goggles, lots of heavy-duty rope to help him climb up and avoid getting hurt. Watching him cut away at giant branches so high above the ground was amazing, and seeing him climb down with professional agility was beautiful to watch. Then he took his helmet off, and the long payos and beard sort of threw me off; I expected a black or white Anglo-Saxon muscled man (from what I’d grown up seeing), yet here was this slim guy with long, long payos and a big smile on his face.”
“The garbage collectors who come by three times a week are always smiling their big hellos, one with a yarmulke, one without, and the third with beard and payos behind his ears. All three hanging off the back of the truck shout boker tov at me when I run out with some last minute garbage (it’s Shabbat Shalom on Fridays).”
“You should see the thousands of people at the Kotel on Friday night, with hundreds of chayalim singing and dancing — just another amazing Friday night… dancing in a circle ten feet from the wall, smiling and singing to Hashem, to Shabbos, to each other…”
“Life is so on the edge here it’s like living on another planet… living so much closer to G-d. It’s unexplainable. The people, the streets, the plants, even the food, everything has a different set of rules here. It is as warlike, as romantic, as historical, as on the edge as you could imagine… You also keep bumping into people you know or have met as a kid… as if this is the living room of the world.”