a balloontwister’s aliya saga

Today I finally made it to Jerusalem. We were all supposed to go to the davening and tehillim at the Kotel to pray for Gush katif.
Only Yoni and I made it down…
The taxi driver was nervous about going because he said the news reported that 100,000 people were going to be there…

He was right.
The entire plaza, staircases, steps, parking lots, streets were packed!
We were lucky becuasewe were able to go to the kotel and be directly underneath the balcony where the tefillos were said. The bostoner, Chaan helfgott and Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef were amongst the rabbi saying tehillim. It was a huge event and I am so happy I was there. All types of jews were there. Chassidim, Sephardic, Secular, people in orange….etc..
The rough part was leaving.. It took over an hour and a half to leave the old city… mobbed with people because not all exits were acessible… Yup, the great israeli red tape… roadblocks… police…
But after getting a taxi driver to get us back at 11pm… we made it back home.
whew…
We’re at our new place and most stuff is still in boxes… but we have some clothes, coffee and the beds.. so we’re all set for the night..
tommorrow, the phone and high speed internet comes… right now Im using my neighbors connection.
Just a final thought on tonight’s event at the Kotel. As we were leaving and while it was crammed with people… someone started singing ani ma’amin… and other songs… Its wild that although Jews are all over the world we STILL have a connection. Israel. The same songs. Davening. Even though the Ink is still wet on my Teudah zehut, I feel like I’ve been here my whole life.
Well, On that note. Have a good night and be well.

U.D. / Jay

Good morning. I got a request for more tachlis.. so I ‘ll try…

One thing about israel…. alot of new constuction… very little completions… Every house is in need of some work… locks, alarms, lights that don’t open, lights that don’t close, air conditioning that leaks in the kitchen… because there are different companies that handle different items in the house… there are alot of cooks running around… tough to get things completed..
I ordered phone service and the broadband…. but I have to call an ISP provider… one company handles the line, the other handles the internet…
tonight we plan on going to jerusalem to daven at the kotel. There is 24 hour tehillim for gush hatif there. The kids have only been outside beit shemesh once in a week. Thank g-d there are many little parks in walking distance.. AND for the Little Rascals DVD.. My brother brought it from the US and the ids have watched it so many times, the DVD is scratched up… Tamar knows almost the entire movie by heart.. She’s watching Nemo while penina unpacks…. and vacuums… Tonight will be our first night in the house.
We should have a Israel telephone number by tommorrow. The pacet 8 number, 1-518-294-4174, which will be 718.761.0071 any day…. will hopefully be working soon as well.

Well, thats it for today.
Speak to you all later!
U.D.