Bessie Liss Z"L

Oh bloggie, bloggie, bloggie blog ive only had you for 3 days and your already sending into whilrwinds of confusion. How should i carry on? Should i just witter on from here, or should i recap since last november (the last time i sent an update email)?

The trouble with recapping is thats its not exactly very thrilling and its not really in the style i imagine keeping my blog. Bloody-hell i see ive been at the protentious pills again. Who cares what your style is this isnt for literary awards and besides its not as if you have any readers so stop whining and get on with it! - fair enough.

Starting at the end of November also means writing about the death of my grandma, which i have no problem doing, its just not the easiest of starts to this new epoch of bloginess is it. Well thats no excuse i guess.

That being the case I am going to dedicate the rest of this blog entry to Bessie Liss – Basya Bas Chaim Dovid, may her memory be for a blessing.

In keeping with the tradition of preserving a persons memory by talking about them, let me start with the story of that fateful weekend, which is actually a pretty good one…

I had been toying with visiting England for the weekend of my (other, i.e. paternal) grandma on the occasion of her 96th Birthday party for a little while, when visiting Dan, Nina, Jeff and Sanda as they holidayed in Eilat, I mentioned what at that stage was a passing thought. Jeff was particularly vociferous in his support for what I intended to be a surprise visit.

Soon we had decided that I would stay with Daniel and Nina in secret, arriving at my parents house only for the party (this being the first they would know about me being in England to, so a double surprise was in store)

Due to confusion over the buying of my ticket which I did over the internet, my parents got wind of the plan and we decided to surprise my dinner when she came (with my parents ofcourse) to Daniel and Ninas’ for Friday Night Dinner where I would be waiting to surprise her. This is how things turned out and the surprise went off well.

As a result of the change of plan, with my parents finding out, I ended up staying with them on the Thursday evening of my return to England, and as a result took the opportunity to visit Boobie (Aka Bessie) in hospital where she had been for several weeks suffering with a urinary infection.

I had not seen Boobie since before I left for Israel about 16 months previously. I had been back to England in the intervening period but a mixture of circumstance and my mum’s understandable reluctance for me to go had meant that I had lost track of her mental decline and was not sure what to expect when I went to the hospital. I can remember being prepared for the possibility that she would not recognise or remember me, but I wasn’t ready for what I saw.

Having been in the hospital a number of weeks Boobie had contracted a chest infection. She could not speak, only groan, didn’t seam to acknowledge the presence of myself or my mother, was clearly very uncomfortable and was fitted with an oxygen mask. She seamed dazed, confused and undoubtedly undignified. This was not a fitting end for a woman who had been so sharp-witted only a handful of years before.

And of course it was the end. The phone call came early on Sunday morning to say that she had died earlier that morning. I was immediately struck by a sense of fate. Somewhere, somehow it seemed certain that Boobie had known that I had been by her bed-side just hours before hand. And of course I would not have been able to make the visit if my parents had not discovered my plan.

The rest of that Sunday was testament to the inner strength of the Soloway family as a whole and especially that of my mother. She was left with the unenviable task of making arrangements for a funeral/shivah whilst being scheduled to host the birthday party for my other grandma which was set for that afternoon and too late to be altered or cancelled.

When you live to be 96 its also undoubtedly true that you deserve a birthday party whatever the circumstances.

And so it was, after consultation with our Rabbi, the party went ahead. Our family and friends gathered to celebrate. The same people who would be returning for a leviah and shivah later in the week gave my grandma the birthday party she deserved. A testament to the strength of all of them!

The Story So Far

In a galaxy far, far away... oops there i go again with just days to go untill the opening of the new Star Wars film everything ive been doing recently has been littered with Star Wars reference or set to the theme tune of the imperial death march, which has been stuck in my head for ages already.

And yes, in time honoured fashion not only do i digress, but it seems my very first entry into cyber-space has began with a tangent. Oh dear the precedents are not good but theres always something to be said for setting the tone early!

So blogging y'say....what am i doing that for? A far question I suppose. Well theres the short answer and the long answer. Since you chose to read this (assuming, ill-advisely at this stage, that anybody is reading this) you can also skip any parts if i start boring you. This being the case im gonna mention both.

1. Ive been in israel now, studying at Pardes - "THE halachic non-coercisive Torah learning institiution" (Poster-child? me? i dont see it myself) for almost 2 years. As with all these things i left England with the best of intentions to stay in contact with all of my nearest and dearest, and indeed my first year was punctuated with semi-regular email updates from life here in Jerusalem. However, since the beginning of this acadamic year, my workload has increased beyond all recognition due to the onset of the Educators Program at Pardes. My emails have subsequently dwindled to just 2 since last summer. So my little blog experiment is an attempt to remedy that situation, in a more flexible way that means i dont have to burden already bursting inboxs with verbose and irrelevant waffle. So now, my inemitable style is to be transfered to this, my very own blog which i can update regularly with brief comments about all manner of things, add pics etc and you can comment too. Whilst you, dear reader, can pop in at leisure.

2. Ive been reading the blog of another pardes students, it can be found at gleichinisrael.blogspot.com. Its full of entertaining comments on the challenges of living in israel, being modern, female and Jewish etc and a whole lot of generally witty and provocative material. So inspired by that site and its candedness i thought id give this blogging lark a go. The author of that blog also uses her blog to vent her many frustrations. I have to admit that i do plan to use this to mention anything which i consider at least vaguely interesting to voice my opinions and thoughts etc, so now that i ve shared - Dear Lord ive been at Pardes too long,, usiong languagge like that- lets see how my plan works out in reality.

I also owe the author of the above blog a debt of gratitude, let me explain... Ilana is a fascinating and outspoken character. Her willingness to voice her frustrations, challenge herself in her struggle to define her relationship to judaism and above all her cynicial sense of humour (a rare quality indeed at Pardes) made me think that we might well become very friendly in the course of the year. I made an effort for several months. Now i frankly cant be arsed, and things have deteriated to the point where we barely speak as she has no interest in reciprocated and is very selective about the friends she makes. This seems like such a wasted opportunity. I go through cycles of allowing this to irritate me and alternately just ignoring it. This week its been really pissing me off again. So after a few weeks of internal debating this made up my mind for me- its time to start my blog!

Ill be back again soon to share some of the highs and lows of recent months and to tell you a little something of my Yom ha'atmzaut experiences which will be concluded by tonight