Israel Diary, Day 2 - Part 2

Our main tasks on this trip are:

(a) to enjoy two weeks away from the daily, minute-to-minute pressures of the synagogue and the City as well as the brutal commute my wife enjoys for most the week to sunny New Haven,

(b) revisit all the nostalgic wonder of my years in Israel [note, most of that wonder is in the Sniper Zones and we may not get to that right now],

(c) eat shwarma, and other delicacies of the Holy Land,

(d) buy books, a whole mess of books,

and (e) shop for thangs that only Israel provides (like tzanua women's clothing and affordable hats).

We also need to (f) visit and see all of our friends in the country. This turns out to be a very heavy agenda.

Every day we set out to a new neighborhood to explore, eat, and shop. On Day 2, we explored Emek Refaiim. I'd never really spent time in the neighborhood and I see why - no book stores. Plenty of restaurants... we had lunch in Kapit with a good friend and dinner at Norman's with about a dozen yeshiva boys who should have been at night seder.

That night we heard the comedic-monologue of Israel Campbell at the Hartman Institute sitting in a room with the student bodies of Pardes and HUC. This guy was very good and I'm going to try to bring him to my shul.

As for the book buying, we started a three-day excavation of Stein's Book Store. Both the Emek Refaiim restaurants and Stein's Books are distinguished by being the closest to our hotel (not "Close" as nothing is close to our hotel except other hotels and the stupid Windmill thing). More on the Stein's adventure later.