The honeymoon is over

I guess Hoffman was right, whatever that means.

We arrived in Israel a year ago. Today. A year ago today. I remember thinking to myself in the days leading up to our departure, I wonder how long we have til there is another "incursion" in Israel. Another operation. Or assault. Or war. I wasn't worried. If I was worried I would not have gotten on the plane. I had always felt safe in Israel. Though the years I spent here were always just before or just after a major something or other.

Anyway, I have the answer. A year. It took a year for something to escalate to the point where my people in America are emailing me to be sure I'm safe. I guess the honeymoon is officially over, thank you very much Hamas.

It's really been far less than a year, since missiles have been falling on southern Israel every few months, even weeks, since we arrived. My in-laws live in the south as do many of our friends. I used to live there too. But I have kept the radio and the television off. And it is only today, now that Israel has finally retaliated, that we have made the mainstream news. Because the 2,000 rockets that were fired from Gaza this year alone were not so newsworthy. Maybe if they had better aim. Or if we didn't have the badass Iron Dome anti-missile technology. Booyah!

But as bad as it is (and it's bad for our residents of the south), I went to the mall yesterday to mail some packages at the post office and buy my daughter some leggings for winter. The mall was bustling. And I heard as much Arabic as I did Hebrew. Let me just say this, for my left leaning Californians, if a Jihad attack of this magnitude had happened in the US you can bet that no one with a hijab would leave the house for a month in fear of random retaliation. Not true at the Mall of Jerusalem. It's business as usual.You can be full on burkified and still buy your daughter leggings for winter. I'm starting to ramble.

I have refrained from posting much on Facebook even though I know the news that most people will hear is not the whole story. I don't have the whole story either. I don't know what it's like to live in Gaza. I feel compassion for those in Gaza who just want to live their lives and hate the violence as much as I do. I have to believe those people exist. I wish we heard more from them and less from the militants and cyber bullies you hear from on twitter. Boys on both sides, come on. Spare me your my dad can beat up your dad bullshit. It's embarrassing. I do have some idea about what it's like living in southern Israel with reports from my people there. Cloudy with a Chance of Missiles, by my friend Faye Bittker, sums it up pretty well.

But back to my life. Today Mr. Rosen and I decided to celebrate our anniversary anyway by having breakfast together in Mahane Yehuda, the open air market in downtown Jerusalem. Which was also bustling. I had a cheese bourekas with sliced egg and tehina and Mr. Rosen had the spinach one with spicy sauce. And we had sahlab, a warm orchid milk drink topped with peanuts, coconut and cinnamon. Then we bought fixings for a delicious shabbat dinner tonight with Mr. Rosen's parents, (who are hoping for a siren-free night's sleep) including some goods from the Persian spice cutie pie who can always get me to try something (an then buy it) just by cocking his head to the side and winking at me. Mr. Rosen fell for it too. We even went ahead and bought a "shuk bag". One of those rolling bags you absolutely need if you're schlepping 20 kilos of food home from the market. So I guess that means we'll stick it out for at least another year, since now we have a shuk bag and everything. Stay tuned.

 Beautiful Nachlaot neighborhood, Jerusalem

She needs a better shuk bag.

My spice guy.

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