Pictures of Snow in Tsfat

Just a few. The morning after the snow fell. 2 out of 3 kids were meant to go to school, but one wasn't feeling well and the other has a very cold classroom. The third had school cancelled.

I still had to go to work.

Which was an excuse to shoot pics!

Road Trip from Safed to Tel Aviv

It always amazes me how I feel like I'm in a different country when I'm in the Tel Aviv area and south of there.

I did enjoy the big Azrieli mall. For a small town girl, it's a lot of fun. Most importantly, there were stores with Clinique products ;).

This week I have to go to Sheba Medical Center for an afternoon workshop.

Canaan Spa, Mount Meron, Palatine Hall views in video

Tsfat, another vantage. I was on the way home from the shopping center outside of town, Shaarei Ha'Ir (the Gates of the Town), and took these shots over a year ago. Strung them together with some free stock music loop.

Winter movie

I got inspired by my son playing with the Windows Movie Maker with still photos. There is a bit of video in this one, with the moving clouds bit.

Another one on the way of spring views north and west from a northern point in town.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood... for a shuk!

On a lovely sunny winter day, the colors, sounds, and sights of the Safed shuk (0utdoor market) awaken the senses.

Tsfat/Safed/Tzfat video

Look what I did:



Things to do on the way to work.

Yeah, I filmed it with no tripod, I was on the way to work.

December 6 update: I have closed my YouTube account and replaced the embed link above with the Google Video version. Basically, within one week I got two spam emails via my YouTube account for icky videos. So who needs them, when there's Google Video?

It's winter? Sunny winter days

If you haven't seen the way the electrical cabinets are decorated in Tsfat, do come visit.

Each is painted with a unique artistic flair that adds to the street elegance of the town.





On a cloudy day, you can't see forever, but sometimes you can see above the clouds.

I have the privelage of seeing this view every time I walk to work.

A very beautiful place.

Rebuilding the North, including Safed

Finally rememberingto post a few of the pics of the reconstruction at the corner that was destroyed the first day of missiles.

Most of the signs of the missiles have slowly disappeared. The most obvious ones are still the many blackened areas of the surrounding forest areas on the hills. Trees aren't so easy to rebuild.

Fall rainy days in Tsfat

One cool thing about working in a lab is that there are other women who appreciate cool bugs. Yes, that's right, one of my XX coworkers pointed out cool bugs and suggested a photo shoot the other day right outside the lab. I couldn't get exactly the focus and macro I wanted, but it was fun.












Same day it looked like this when I was leaving work. Not like that today. Today it rained and rained (I saw it from my window, really), and when I left, it was almost dark. Winter time is coming in.











Another cool bug, actually I hate moths. I was able to disassociate enough from my moth phobia to enjoy photographing this lovely specimen. However, when it flapped around I did have an uncontrollable shuddering fit. There is a reason that Godzilla's prime evil enemy was Mothra.













This is another common site this time of year. The flocks of cranes flying south for the winter. They are really quite lovely and graceful.

Last year they were the harbinger of Avian Flu, however. The outbreaks were considered well contained last year, and none of the strain that is contagious to humans was detected.

Still, it affects how I relate to the flocks of birds flying overhead twice a year.

Workshop at Herzliya Pituach

So I got to go to a workshop yesterday for my job at the Sharon Hotel in Herzliya . It was run by Medicguide, and although not exactly what I had expected (the main presenter was full of himself), it was informative, helpful, and a nice way to get to the sea for a day.

One of the things that was most interesting was meeting people. So many interesting medical devices being developed in Israel, so many bright people. Guy named Asher Zilberstein from SLP brought up particularly interesting problems he's having with a German CE audit, but the guy running the workshop felt most of his questions were "too practical". Hrmph, the title of the workshop was "CE Registration of Medical Devices -- A Hands-on Workshop ". What better hands-on than problem solving?

The hotel site makes it look really luxurious, which isn't totally a lie. The funny thing is, the hotel is really old. The public bathrooms in the wing where we were situated were all tiled in old blue ceramic tiling, with plain old white toilets and Kimberly Clark paper dispensers. Hah, not the lap of luxury, but very clean.

Back in Tsfat today.

Simchas Torah already

You'd think I'd be posting more, but all I do is w*rk, w*rk, w*rk. Finally a really cool perk is in from all that w*rk. I'm typing this from my new laptop (okay, it's not really mine, it belongs to the startup that I work for under the auspices of the hospital, but I'm #1 personnel in that project).

Don't have a lot of data yet, so it's a good thing I'm getting toys! I also don't have any vacation days. This was a major drag during Sukkos vacation for the kids. So I made sure that on the second day of Chol Hamoed I had to travel to Jerusalem on business. Of course, I took the whole family with me. The Old City was packed, and it felt very festive. After davening at the Wall, we had pizza and ice cream, then tried to go to CheaperKol, but it was closed. Then the ride home. Hey, it was my only day off.

Next week I have a whole day workshop at the Sharon Hotel in Herzlia Pituach. I went to see if they have kosher certification, and am wondering if I can sneak away to the sea water pool during a break. Check it out www.sharon.co.il/
Here's a pic of some of the rebuilding that's going on at the building that took a direct hit in the war this summer.

Some Damage Pictures of Safed

The first two are building 10 of Tsahal street on the left, and building 9 on the right. I know the gal who lives in the first of three apartments that the building 10 katyusha hit. The damage on building 9 looks more like the "Grad" missiles, which are a lot bigger and carry a larger payload than the Katyusha.







Here's a closer shot of the building 10 entry hole.














Then in that "path" of destruction is the Ulpanit, a high school whose windows were blown out when a katyusha landed on the kindergarten right next to it. All of this is a direct line to the local hospital, a cachement hospital serving the whole Northern Galilee region.

A lot of pictures were taken of the damage that first day when rockets fell right in the middle of the commerce area of town. This sign over the "Beit Maimon" furniture store which was right next to a direct hit and lost windows, says "In spite of the rocket, we're continuing as regular".

A shop owner of one of my favorite household goods was hit at home directly by the third rocket of this same volley. Thankfully, she and her family, including a grandson in the home, were not harmed. However her house was left open to the four winds by the hit. She and her husband remained in town during the summer rain of katyushas for another two weeks before she was so sick from stress that they left for a week to family. Worried about their home, they returned, then left again, and are now finally getting the house repaired enough that it's not just open to the world.

This impact killed a man. There was a bizarre tropical storm hours before I passed by the spot, cleaning up the dust, dirt, and debri. Looks like nasty little gouge now. Deadly thangs.

Tsfat, home again.

Ooof, can't upload pictures from work. I'll post from home. My computer in my home! Do you realize how wonderful that is?

It was even good clocking in yesterday for the first time in over a month. I generally hate clocking in. Makes me feel like an untrustworthy individual usually. Now it was a happy gesture of returning to routine... for now.

Nobody, but nobody thinks this quiet will last.

We had a very unusual tropical storm blow through yesterday, cleaning up a lot of the dust and dirt. There went my photo shoot. Anyway I had a lot of work to get caught up on.

Geula - hopefully going home soon

Geula is a neighborhood in Jerusalem. It also means "redemption". However, Geula Jerusalem is a place that raises my short hairs.

The pic doesn't really capture how dirty, smelly, noisy, and croweded this area is.

Makes me want to go home to Tsfat.

So we're giving the cease-fire a couple of days to measure how well it sticks. Basically a typical cease-fire with our Arab cousins has amounted to "We cease, they fire."

We aren't pleased that katyushas were still raining on the whole Galilee region yesterday, and that WITH our troops up to and over the Litani river. Can you say "Kiryat Shmona will become a life style"? Hope not.

So we will wait until the end of the week. The kids have camp until then, and I have been invited to a good friend's celebration of her first grandchildren (twins) and a wedding this week. I can really look forward to going home.

Jerusalem Still - Teddy Stadium on Tu B'av

So we went to Teddy Stadium last night to hear Rav Amnon Yitzhak. I learned several important things about going to "hear" something at a stadium.

First, if you got there early enough to find seating anyway, so sit as directly across from an ampliphier as possible. The first pic is from where we were originally sitting and it was a study in wave disturbance. Namely sound waves from one amp disturbing the other so we couldn't understand a thing, even though the sound was loud.

Second, when you leave your home for a couple of weeks in case of war, bring a sweater. It might get cold.

Third, do not in any case allow your fourteen year old daughter to insist on staying til the end when the end is later than the last bus home. It took us two hours to get home, since there were very few buses, none to our area of town, and for some bizarre reason hardly any taxis and the ones who were around were not picking up fares unless you called. I refuse to own a cellphone. So we finally took a bus to the central bus station area, got out early to walk to Angels to get a very needed late late night snack, and finally got a cab from there to finish off the last bit back to "home".

Notice I still have not tripod. I am working on truly forgiving the girl, since really I never should have loaned it to her in the first place. One of my golden rules over the last few years has been to never loan out anything I can't afford to lose or have come back in bad condition. Sadly, many people around me do not seem to be careful with others' property.


Last night was the beginning of Tu B'av, the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av. Notice the full moon rising over the stadium... cooool. Eventually the whole stadium filled up (22,000 people singing "We love you Hakodesh Baruch Hu!").

And I bought a 1 Gig thumbstick yesterday to clear my camera cards and get some more web work done. A few Photoshop graphics eat up a lot of space on wittle owd XP memory cards. Not that my graphics is much good:

Wandering Jews

Have you ever had one of those plants, the Wandering Jew? They put down roots wherever they hit soil, always seem to spring back from boughts of drought, and will root overnight in water? Yeah, well, it all sounds nice, but I can't say it's a delight to be a wandering Jew.

We have it pretty easy. We're staying with relatives, their apartment is large, a minor miracle happened and the guy in charge of the salary department actually got me into the computer system so my salary was direct deposited at the end of last week, and I only have three kids to shlep around.

But it's the nature of the wandering Jew to just want to go home. Okay, Master of the Universe, you gave me a paid vacation, my kids have gotten to go to an expensive American style day camp that they never would have in times of peace, my home is still intact, everyone from my job is still alive and unharmed, and I just can't shake the strong feeling that if I had the ruby slippers, clicking my heels would have worked to get home.

My brain on war is very scrambled. Last Shabbat we were in Kochav Hashachar. I didn't take picture. The Shabbat before that we were in Ramat Beit Shemesh A. I didn't take pictures. Hey, what's a photo blog with no photos????

So I will try, bli neder (no promises), to start taking pics again so that I can make my blog posts the way I like to: a picture with only a little blurb of text.

Oh, and did I say that I want to go home?

Jerusalem Pictures

Hrmmph. All my friends are blogging on time! Laurie over at http://safed.blogspot.com is also in exile, but she's blogging. Aunt Laya over at http://auntlaya.blogspot.com is still blogging from exile. And my pal who lives here in Jerusalem at http://sector-9.blogspot.com is blogging. Waaaaaaa! I'm the only one who doesn't have regular computer access for blogging. Or the time and/or energy.

Mostly just keeping the kids amused or busy this week. I did manage to get out to a meeting about the http://torahscience.org starting a university with the Gal Einei Institute ( http://www.inner.org). Other than that, I went to Geula to try to get some funds to help pay for the food that my SIL's family is so graciously providing us for now going on 2 1/2 weeks. The give-away was already finished, and the sign said, "Na lo lhafriah", or "Please don't disturb", so I didn't bother asking if that meant that no more applications at all were being accepted, or if only that day was finished. I don't like rude signs.

Over a week ago my friend Elana Rozenman invited me and other Tsfat ladies to a dinner at the Clayman's that was originally dedicated to the Sderot women who have been putting up with Kassam rockets for 5.5 years already! The setting was stunning:

This was the view from the balcony where we were treated to a gala barbeque dinner.

That's Mrs. Clayman in the sky blue turban and dress. What an amazing gift for charity they have!

These pics haven't been edited at all, since I'm not home. I don't have my programs, my computer, among other things. I can't get much done on my business, since I insist on all my programs being legal (it is for business, after all), and they all have a limited number of activations. I tried getting a laptop.. but the Ctrl button stuck. The rentals are all rented. Most people don't have the IIS installed on their systems even with XP Pro, and since most people aren't actually legal with their Windows, they can't just install it. Without IIS, I could install Apache server, but I really fobbed getting Cold Fusion set up properly with it. In other words, this lady really, really needs her vewy own waptop!

That was a long way of saying these photos are larger than usual and probably not balanced regarding light, etc.

Also, still have no tripod, thanks to one of the girls in Tsfat who borrowed it to video the 8th grade graduation show. I do hope she'll take it to heart as soon as we're all back home and replace my tripod which she broke.

That's about it right now. I'm not the greatest blogger. I really like posting the photos and short blurb. I do have my card reader, which makes it easier to post photos, but when it's not your own puter.... ah exile. Doesn't make great press, though. No real hardships.

No pics, I'm a war refugee

Of course, I took my camera with me. Heck, I took all my backups, our passports, the deed to our apartment, even our kids vaccination records!

We left because otherwise I would have committed familicide after more than three days of all of us locked in the house with the trisim down. This way the kids can have a life, and I can try to figure out whether I can work on the road. Remind me that for a computer addict, it's really, really stooopid not to be mobile capable.

Not sure what will be. Looks like the Almighty has quite a ride in store for us. Fasten your spiritual seatbelts.

Alleys in Tsfat

Nope, not gonna show you pictures of Katyusha's falling. It was very noisy last night as war rumbled in the air. Ah, nothing like the sound of Apache's all night long. Oh, was that our artillery bombing them, or their Katyusha's dropping on us? It was noisy all night long.

These pictures are of quieter times in the Old City of Tsfat. We just finished Klezmer festival. I would have taken more pics, but I loaned out my tripod (STOOOOPID), and the girl returned it missing the piece which actually attaches to the camera. No tripod, no night shots. I actually need it for some video ideas, too.

Anyway, this alley is one of the "famous" alleys, with me being fascinated by the lamp rewired sideways.

Grapes of Joy -- Safed grapevines

Friends of mine have this wonderful grapevine in their front courtyard. The house is multiple rooms looking onto the gated courtyard.

Right now the grape vine is in full greenery, with grape clusters ripening in the early summer air. Truly lovely.







This one makes you want to say , "Is it live or is it Photoshop?". The grapes look almost like plastic grapes right now.












Looking up at the clusters from below, with the sun on the leaves.
You have to admit, I live in a very picturesque little town.

Windows of Opportunity

I was purchasing some stock photography today, and realized that maybe I could sell some of my images as stock photos.

Many of the photos that look good on screen don't print as beautifully. I like to send my pics to print to make sure they'll look good printed.

The local digital photo store has a website to upload images. Then I just drop by to pick up my prints and pay for them. It's a little store in Tsfat, but I really like sending in my prints via the net. http://picdigital.co.il/

So I'm thinking that pics that don't print quite as stunningly as I like (who me, picky?), I could sell as stock photos. Have to check into the specs. My camera is only 4.5 Mb memory, so there's a limit to the size that prints well at all.

For instance, this picture is very pretty, but the really nice shot of this window can be seen at http://www.jewishbyte.com/store.php?i=105799517/roshhashanah.29667456

Plants around Tsfat

You can tell that this picture was taken earlier in the season. By now the grasses are brown among the herbs and shrubs, the thistles also brown and full of fluffy white seeds.





The calendula in my garden is a wonderful self seeder. It withstands the hot dry summers, and with a little water always offers up some blossoms.


In my herb garden I grow a number of medicinal and ornamental herbs. This one is sage. It was in bloom recently, among my mint, jasmine, and other plants.

The Dead Tour Tsfat II

Just south of the old Tsfat Hadassah hospital, which is now the Wing B housing the psychiatric department, lies the resting place of Nahum Ish Gamzu. Nahum Ish Gamzu was the teacher of Rabbi Akiva. His motto in life was alway, "It's all for the best". Whatever happens is ultimately for the good.

The gravesite has been recently improved with a lovely wooden roof, bookshelves, and seating. The neighborhood is quiet and peaceful, a perfect place to read Psalms in the shade.

Lag BaOmer, Meron, and Bonfires

This is a low res image of Mount Meron from our perch in Tsfat by day. The right hand second "camel hump" is Mount Meron. At the base of the mountain is where you find the ritual resting place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

By now Meron is on it's way to becoming the fourth largest city in Israel, a status it enjoys once a year on Lag BaOmer. Tents are pitched for kilometers, and the roads are already blockaded. Security is tight. Not enough for me to let my kids go alone..


This shot is from the Old City of Tsfat at sunset last summer at around Klezmer festival time. You have to admit, we've got a highly photographic little corner of the planet.



Last year we stayed in Tsfat for Lag BaOmer, not being fond of big crowds. This a cool night shot without a tripod of the kids gathering wood for the bonfire.










The bonfire a bit closer.

Remember, always follow safe fire practices, and stay upwind!