Third Shabbat--Shabbat in Telaviv

Friday morning we took advantage of a free tour of Jaffa in exchange for a sales pitch at a diamond distributor. Obviously I did not  buy anything at the distributor's showroom but many items were beautiful and beautifully set. After the tour I returned to our hotel to rest in preparation of the day of rest. I spent a couple of hours on the beach reading and swimming and sunning and returned to the hotel relaxed and salty.

Around 5 PM I visited some of my family in Telaviv. Zipporah is my mother's first cousin and is about 89 years old. Her husband Reuven just turned 100 but is not well, cannot see, and has dementia. He is being cared for by Felice, a Phillipina woman who has been with them for 6 years. She is a foreign workers that can work for years for the same family but if the family no longer needs them, they have to leave the country. They cannot get a second work visa. For a couple of years her job seems secure. I think there is a window in which she could change employers, like if the situation did not work out but I can't remember the details of the law.

Zippora and I had a nice time talking about family etc. She would break into Hebrew more often than she used to and Felice who is fluent in Hebrew, French, and English as well as several Phillipino languages/dialects helped out a lot. After an hour or so Mya, my second cousin who is in her 50s came and the conversation took on more current content. Mya is recovering from chemo was wearing a wig to cover up her short hair. Actually when she took off the wig she looked really cute. But I think short hair is not stylish here.

Before I realized it it was 8 PM and I had to hurry back to the hotel to meet with Ellyn and go to a Shabbat dinner children of a family she has know since her children, Jill and Jenna were very young. All 3 sons from this family have immigrated to Israel and become observant Jews. Dinner was at 9:30 because they and other friends had to get back from synagogue. The group of young people where very interesting, very beautiful and into finding Judaism through Chabad or equivalent ways. It was nice to see joy of the Shabbat dinner but my prejudices about the Judaism they were embrassing creeped out even once in a while. But I am proud to say that I kept my mouth shut.