Sunday, August 23, 2015

A photo journal of a special vacation


On the plane, before take-off to New York, via Istanbul...
Since I've had a bit of writer's block recently, I decided to do some photo-journalism about our trip to New York over the past two weeks. It was a wonderful trip, and we are gratefully back home now in Israel. It may not be as lush and majestic as the beauty of the part of Long Island where I grew up (North Shore, Nassau county), but, as it is written in the song "Eishet Chayil" (words in Hebrew, English transliteration, and English here), "Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that has a reverential awe of the Lord shall be praised." What does that mean to me? It means that beauty and grace are misleading... that spirituality is what we are striving for. That is the difference in the types of beauty I am describing. I really feel that Hashem gave an extra dose of splendor to the land of Israel, beyond the breathtaking beauty of many other countries of the world.

My own Eishet Chayil, my mom.
me & my mom, circa 1977
My Dad and Shifra with the "Ben's Kosher Deli" guy...

Shifra with grandma and grandpa. (but who's??)











The nuclear family, My father, my mother, me and my two brothers.
Me, my brother peter in the middle, my other brother Tom on the right.
(I'm the youngest.)



Me, circa 1978



My cousins may kill me for posting these upcoming pictures, but too bad. I think it's cool to compare! I'm only going to label the people who appear in both photos of "then and now"...

August 2015
upper row: my first cousin Lois, my oldest brother Peter, me, my first cousin Ellen
2nd row: Shifra, my father, my aunt Reva (my dad's sister), my 2nd cousin Jessie.
1975
From left: my brother Tom, upper row: my mother, my father, aunt Reva, uncle Aaron, my first cousin Lois,
my first cousin Ellen. Bottom row: My grandmother Zena, me, my grandfather Hayim, my oldest brother Peter.
Nice, right? We haven't changed much........ ;)










Next few pictures are taken after we spent our first Shabbat with my high school girl friend Devorah and her lovely family in New Jersey.


Me and Devorah, still together after 35 years.
close-up
Shifra with her new friend, Devorah's youngest child Leah
The next set of pictures are from the night out on the town, seeing a Broadway show in New York city. It was so much fun, thanks to my big bro (and famous uncle) Peter. We saw the show "Matilda"- it was awesome! That, with dinner out before the show, made for a perfect evening!


Peter and Shifra at "Mr. Broadway", before the show
The Shubert theater in Times square!!
After the show
Also after the show....
We also had a beautiful, memorable beach day. The beach is a short jaunt from my house... many-a-time spent there in my youth. It is a beautiful beach, on Long Island Sound.

Swingin' Shiffy!
Travel buddies
There was lots of time with my parents, other visits with other members of the extended family, and yes, some shopping, too. Not as much as Shifra would have liked, but she did get some new school duds. Everything in New York is Big and Plentiful. Like, too much. For every item you look for in the grocery store, there are 50 of those items, each a slightly different price, and some Kosher and some not. It took me HOURS to shop in the grocery store. Funny, that is often the complaint of new immigrants to Israel- that it takes hours to do the grocery shopping because everything is in Hebrew and unknown. I now have achieved the opposite- frustration in shopping in American super grocery stores!! And there are way too many cars on the road- traffic everywhere you turn. And the cars are *all big*, and mostly new. The parking spots are double the size of Israeli parking spots. My feeling in general is that there is too much stuff, too many people, and too much money being thrown around in that country! Strange, I know.

The last series is Shifra striking poses in her new hat....


















The End.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

8 comments :

  1. Glad you enjoyed yourself. Glad you are home safe.
    May it be a very pleasant Rosh Hashanah for you.

    Jeannette

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  2. No matter how much I think Israel has changed and how commercial it has become I am never prepared for the overwhelming amount of nonessentials being sold in North America...and how much people complain about not having enough money. I prefer our saner way of life with emphasis on family more than on shopping. Great pics. Glad you had a good time. I am off in a month to my family.

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  3. great photo journal! so happy you had a great time! may the new year bring you and your family only simchas, good health, and fun times together.

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  4. HOW LOVELY!
    I feel you took me with you
    beautiful family!
    thanks for sharing!

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  5. Sare, it was SOOOO wonderful to see you and Shifra! Can't wait to see you again soon!
    xxxooo

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