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| I promise, this blog will not become a cat video blog. But this was such a cutie pie cat that I met in Tel Aviv that I couldn't resist giving it some air time on my blog! And by the way, cats are such great traffic-drivers. |
This morning, I went through surgery. No worries, it was minor
surgery. Performed by myself. With a big glass of rum as the sole anesthetic. I
had to extricate a little piece of glass from my foot and I was too chicken to
see a real doctor. So I decided to do it myself. My father told me many times
how a local doctor removed his appendix during or right after the Second World
War. The kitchen was the operation room and my grandfather gave my dad some
very strong Jenever, a Dutch gin drink, to relax. That’s what they used to knock
out a little boy during those times. But I am not as much of a hero as my dad
and I whimpered through the whole operation, reeling from the Cuban anesthetic
so early in the morning. Now I have a good excuse to spend some recovery time
in our little home office to tell you about my very first Hanukkah party before
it is old news.
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| Mural in Tel Aviv |
During my 36-hour weekend in Israel, my friend Itay invited
me to a Hanukkah party at his aunt’s house in Savyon, a small town east of Tel
Aviv that is home to the well-heeled. I called my little niece in Belgium on
the ride from Jerusalem over there. It was her sixth birthday. Life is exciting
when you’re six years old. Especially when your aunt calls you from a place
that clearly doesn’t exist. She couldn’t believe I had spent the day in the city
where Jesus used to live. To her, it’s like visiting someone in My-Little-Poneyland.
It’s almost as magic and awesome as the treasure hunt her dad had organized for
her and her little friends that afternoon.
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I tried out my Hebrew-for-beginners lines and after shalom and naim meod, I very quickly ran out of lines. I can count till
hundred and ask for directions to the post office in Hebrew but that wasn’t too
useful that very evening. Thank god for English!
Itay’s cousin explained that Hanukkah is the festival of
lights and it is observed for eight nights and eight days. But first, she told
me that, as an obstetrician, all she does all day long is look at pussy. Given
her transparency on such an important matter – Flemish people are generally way
more introverted when they talk about their jobs – I decided to listen
carefully to her brief history lesson. At Hanukkah, people commemorate the rededication
of the Temple in the second century before the Common Era, when the Maccabees defeated
the Hellenists. The victorious troops wanted to purify the Temple by burning
ritual oil for eight days but they had only oil for one day. But… they were in
luck. That oil ended up burning for 8 days and that’s what Jews celebrate every
year at Hanukkah. At Hanukkah, people eat fried foods, to celebrate the miracle
of the oil, and perhaps also to add some protective weight before the cold of winter
sets in. It’s traditional to eat latkes
(fried potato pancakes) and sufganiyot
(jelly-filled doughnuts). I’ll have to try out some gluten-free recipes because
unfortunately, I wasn’t able to taste the goodies that Itay’s aunt had prepared.
During the winter time, we eat something very similar in Northern Europe.
Little sufganiyot that we call oliebollen. Once again, I discovered a
universal truth: life is too short to eat rice cakes.
After a while, the real star of the evening rushed in, a
great-aunt who had moved to Israel from South Africa a couple of years ago and
who seemed to have a great attitude to life. She complained about the freezing
cold. It was a meager 15 degrees outside – Celsius, mind you. As a result, she
was bundled up in a fur coat that she threw on my shoulders to convince me
about how light and warm it was. And that is how I, a vegetarian, was caught on
camera with a little dead raccoon draped over my shoulders.
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