First of all, to those of you living in the States, Happy Thanksgiving. Despite our distance from the “land of the free,” we too have begun our Thanksgiving preparations. Yesterday, Julia cranked out a delicious looking pecan and chocolate pie, while in a different corner of the kitchen (not easy to find in a kitchen our size), I sliced and diced my way towards a stuffing that will be completed this afternoon. Then, tonight at 7:00pm, we’ll join with 14 of our friends for a traditional, festive meal, served with the Old City of Jerusalem as a backdrop.

There was one minor glitch in the Thanksgiving planning that thankfully (no pun intended) we stumbled across early on: ovens in Israel are not big enough to house a 20 pound turkey, roughly the size needed for 16 people. So we are actually sacrificing two 12 pound birds to the Turkey Day gods, one that will be cooked here in our house and one that will be cooked at the home of our friends Bekah and Sean, the actual hosts of this evening’s festivities.

As in the States, Thanksgiving is marking the psychological transition to winter here in Israel. I vividly remember during my time in Boston that the Thanksgiving break provided just enough of a change in routine to enable us to finally realize that we were freezing our rear-ends off. Yesterday, as Julia and I walked to dinner, I suddenly realized that my heavy fleece, gloves and a hat just weren’t cutting it anymore. Thus, the winter jacket, which was grudgingly removed from its suitcase only a few weeks ago and has be residing on a high shelf since then, will be making its first appearance in the next few days. Now if it would only snow…

Much has been happening in our lives besides staying warm and cooking turkeys. Julia has been very busy with her various end of the semester projects, including writing her first sermon that she’ll deliver in about two weeks. As she’s been working on that, I’ve managed to find more than enough to keep myself busy. Most significantly, I have decided to submit applications to MBA programs for next year. At this point, most of my essays are written, and I’m working towards the GMAT (business school’s version of the SAT) which I will take on December 5th in Tel Aviv. I’ve been studying for the past few weeks and have come to the conclusion that I don’t remember a darn thing about geometry. While the timing of the test puts it right before my mom and Peter come (a good thing) and right before Julia gives her sermon (also a good thing), it also puts it right after we will be spending 5 days traveling through the North of Israel with HUC (a bad thing). This basically means I have about one more week to study, and then I’ll just have to hope that some of my 10th grade math comes back to me.

In addition to working on MBA applications, I’m still working at HUC as often as possible. The last couple of weeks have been less productive for me as various people I work with were out of the office, etc., but I’m looking forward to next week when, if all goes well, I will finally be assigned a desk in the newly-renovated administrative building at HUC. This will enable me to set hours that I will be on campus and do all my work there, rather than trying to fit time in from home in and around all my other responsibilities.

Of course, because you can never have enough to do, I have also begun volunteering two days a week at an educational institute called Pardes. Pardes has a worldwide reputation for being a truly pluralistic, open, Jewish learning environment, and it mainly draws students in their 20’s and 30’s. I have been working with the Development Director there on a couple of projects which has enabled me to see the grassroots side of trying to build an incredible fundraising machine like HUC has. So far, I’m really enjoying my work there, and I’m hoping that by the end of the year we will have made significant strides in achieving the goals we have set forth.

Oh, and did I mention that we’re also trying to plan a wedding? Okay, not really, because we did agree we weren’t going to stress ourselves out about it from Israel, but we are working hard to set some appointments with venues, bands, and photographers when we are in Dallas in January. On one hand, it’s hard to believe that our wedding is still 18 months away, but on the other hand, it’s hard to believe that our wedding in only 18 months away.

So that’s the monthly update from our part of the world. To those of you who actually follow our site regularly, I apologize for the long delays between these postings. I constantly think of writing entries, but unfortunately, they rarely appear on the screen.

I hope you all enjoy the holiday. May your turkeys be juicy, your potatoes fluffy, and your pumpkin pie sweet, and as we say here in Israel, chag yom hodu sameach! (Happy Turkey Day!)