November 20, 1972
My oldest son Ben is the star of the show, as it was his birthday a few days ago. He and my husband Abe went down to Tel Aviv, where Ben had a field day in a toy store.
At school there’s always a big celebration for birthdays, usually celebrated jointly, with the birthday children wearing crowns and being lifted in chairs, while being serenaded. All the parents come, husbands and wives, so different from the States, where usually there is no special celebration except at home. I like that Israel is so child-centric.
Of course, Saturday after Shabbat ended, we had to have Abe’s relatives over to celebrate the birthday boy, all twenty of them. I made them sandwiches, deviled eggs, brownies and pancakes. Okay, perhaps not the greatest of menus, but they absolutely loved the pancakes. I don’t think they had them before.
After the meal, there was the usual family fight. Abe showed them the menorah we bought for Hanukkah, and they objected because the candles weren’t all on the same level and that was a sacrilege. But an opposing view came into play. It was noted that once a candle holder broke in the temple, and the rabbi said it could still be used. Esoteric? Important? You be the judge.
A storm looms on the horizon. Abe’s brother Heskel is coming to visit. I abhor this man. There’s something pathologically wrong about him, he’s cruel to his wife, he has fantasies about his importance in the world, but no one in the family can see what a dreadful human being he is because he’s a doctor. This makes him a god in their eyes. Abe and I have booked ourselves solid so we don’t have to deal with him, but will that be possible?
Once again at work, I have been asked to do something demeaning, typing from a book onto a stencil master. I refused. One of the girls in the office said she had to type twenty pages onto a stencil master. I asked her if she enjoyed it, and her answer was no. I explained how text could be Xeroxed onto a ditto master. A revolution occurred, as now all the typists insisted that was how it was going to be from now on. Abe says I won’t be fired for the work I do but for being a troublemaker.
Last Wednesday night we went to an engineering reception at the university. Guess who was there? Yigal Allon! The university went all out and even served liquor. Along with dried out cakes and sandwiches.
But we’ve found a cooking school and now go to their practice dinners, this week French, next week Chinese. Now that will be interesting.
Our latest tourist destination with the kids was Ashkelon, a city that existed well before King David’s time, but most of the ruins are Roman, Byzantine and from the Crusader era.
Some of the ruins were roped off as a closed military zone but we wanted to see the Crusader excavations, so we decided to make the effort, clomping through the sand dunes. All for naught, as we were stopped by two soldiers with rifles, friendly, but said we had to turn back. So we took the sea route back and saw the ships and frogmen practicing.
Back in town for a meal, I met a very nice Baptist woman who gave me a paper toilet seat cover, due to the primitive conditions in the WC. At the restaurant who should be there but a lieutenant colonel Abe knew from the army. It truly is a country where everyone seems to have connections with everyone else in one way or another.