Jtown shabbat

I spent shabbat in Jerusalem.

Friday night I went to the Aussie boys apartment in Katamon. We went to the Rambam shule nearby which has been renamed Mizrachi after its Balaclava rd equivalent. Pretty much every single Bnei Oleh was there, making it a strange reunion with all my old madrichim.

There were almost no Israelis at shule and even fewer married people. It was just a shule teeming with chutznik singletons in their (very) late 20s. So strange.

At dinner there were 18 people. Mainly Australians with a few South Africans for good measure. The tafnit boys were there from marava and they decorated the place with flowers and lovely table settings. Strange but true.

Highlights of the meal were as follows: my sushi salad (no seriously, u better propose quick b/c this salad is that good), gazpacho and chocolate & peanut butter ice cream mousse cake thing.

But mostly, it was just nice to feel at home in Jerusalem, even if it means creating a mini-Caulfield here.

Back at my apartment my American housemates had a few guests over for shabbat so we all had lunch together. They were surprisingly interesting and intelligent. They were also vegetarian and left-wing so they get points there too. But sadly nothing can be done about that accent.

One of the guests announced that there was a speaker at the King Salomon hotel talking about abortion, surrogate mothers and organ donation. So off we went to go hear it. To our surprise it was actually about how men are smarter/wiser/more logical/just generally infinitely superior to women. Therefore "a woman's role in the marriage is to pick out the sofas" (no seriously that's a direct quote folks) and the man's role is to guide the family spiritually and logically.

We walked out mid-way.

And then we saw a baby that look like a cone-headed alien which made it all better.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sleeping and listening to the Americans read out passages from a book called "the year of living biblically" (http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp) its pretty amusing.

All in all it was nice to feel like I live in Jerusalem now. Like it's my home.