Shabbat b'Ofer


I met many of my Israeli cousins at Ofer's house in Bat Shlomo

I originally "met" my Israeli cousins via Ofer, who was once in the airforce. All my cousin Greg could remember about meeting Ofer was his wedding, and that Ofer was in a helicopter accident on a holiday. I found Ofer via the Internet through a Jewish genealogy board.

So, after years of waiting, I finally met Ofer and many other cousins. I had met Hanoch through Ofer, and Hanoch and Ora met my parents in 1998 during a visit to New York.

Ofer and Dina live in a lovely rural area called Bat Shlomo, not far from the Arab city of Furedis (Paradise), which was the subject of a documentary I reviewed for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in 2004. Ofer and Dina had a lot of their first cousins over to meet me. It was a lovely day. Roni, the daughter of Nurit and Yoni, with whom I spent the morning of Purim, celebrated her tenth birthday recently, and the cousins sand Happy Birthday to her (Yom Huledet Sameach) in Hebrew. She then went riding with Dina.

After a fantastic lunch, in which everyone was involved in terms of bringing food, everyone retired to the lounge and debated a variety of topics in Hebrew. Despite the notion of talking in English for my sake, everyone degenerated back to the mother tongue. Not knowing all that much hebrew, I understood every fifth word. Roni apologized to me for her "poor English." I said it was okay. "I speak Hebrew like a five year old."

Click here to see the photos from our lovely shabbat together.

Posted: Sat - March 26, 2005 at 02:16 PM        

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