It appears that life in Israel is becoming normal. I say that primarily because I can’t think of what to write about, yet I know that I’ve been incredibly busy the last few days. Thus, one can deduce that such a busy life has become normal. Makes sense to me.

In my various postings to date, I’ve yet to talk about our social life here in the Holy Land. It can easily be described in one word: active. There are some truly amazing folks who are involved with Julia’s program, and it’s been a pleasure to get to know them over the last few weeks. This process of getting to know them means that Julia and I will often go 4 or 5 days without ever spending a night at home, just so we can keep up with all the friends we’ve made here.

Tonight, for example, we hosted a group of 4 other couples, all of whom will be returning to the LA campus next year for Mexican night. Now, to fully appreciate the joy of this occasion, one must understand that we had to go to three different grocery stores to find tortillas, and finally, at the store that specifically caters to “Anglos” (anyone who speaks English natively is considered an Anglo in Israel), we managed to buy a couple packs at the discounted price of $4 for 8 tortillas. While standing in line, I had a 10 minute conversation with two American women who now live here who were trying to remember where they had seen the Mexican restaurant in town. Bottom line: you don’t get Mexican food in Jerusalem unless you make it.

Tonight dinner would have made any ex-Californian proud. We had cheese enchiladas, a full taco bar, Spanish rice, cheese quesadillas, guacamole, tortilla chips, salsa, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Afterwards, we all basically flopped on couches and chairs and discussed how content our bellies were, and how unhappy our partners would be with us and our bellies later. It was a wonderful night, and we’re looking forward to getting together with this group of friends again soon, although this time for Thai food.

In other news, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed this Saturday morning to attend shul (synagogue) at one of the more interesting places in town. The community is called Shira Chadash, and they are known to be the most liberal orthodox community around. In this community, women are allowed to lead a significant portion of the service, and even read from Torah. While for many of us that come from North America where the more liberal streams of Judaism are common, this sounds like no big deal. However, when considered in the context of Jerusalem, which has a city ordinance imposing a 1000 shekel (approx. $250) fine on any women praying aloud at the Western Wall (never mind reading Torah or praying in a group), the revolution of Shira Chadash becomes apparent.

Other than its starting time of 8:30am, the service was very enjoyable, with beautiful singing and a fun, energetic feel. I’m fairly certain we’ll go back, though perhaps on a Friday night when we are already awake.

Part of what inspired our attendance Saturday morning was the opportunity to meet up with Rabbi Donnell, my rabbi from California who made aliyah (moved to Israel permanently) with his wife Wendy about the same time that Julia and I landed here. After services, we went back to their beautiful apartment in a very new neighborhood here in Jerusalem for lunch. Wendy had prepared a wonderful lunch for us to enjoy, and in addition to the great conversation that lasted close to three hours, we also got to meet their dog, Kipper. It was a lovely day that was topped off with yet more socializing at a havdallah service organized by one of Julia’s classmates for everyone in her Hebrew class.

On a vastly different note, for those of you hearty souls who have read this far down, I wanted to share some good news. As of last week, I now have two jobs that will be starting soon. The first is working with an organization called MASA doing content building and design for a website they are working on. The organization’s mission is to increase the number of people doing long-term study here in Israel, and while it’s not the perfect job I was looking for, it will allow me to learn a very advanced piece of web design software, while working for a cause I support.

The other job is, in fact, the perfect job I was looking for. I have been hired to do development (the nice word for fundraising) for Julia’s college here in Jerusalem. I’m working with a team that has proven very successful stateside, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to learn from while, while hopefully also making an impact on the fundraising infrastructure here at the Jerusalem campus.

For those who doubted by September 2nd deadline (myself included), I just want to point out that my first day of work at MASA is Tuesday, August 23rd, a full 10 days early. Not bad, if I do say so myself…