YAKIMA!

בס"ד


Taught at the Richland Hebrew school this morning, which was a lot of fun. First I drew out the Sh'ma for the kids (& some adults who joined in) in Ashkenazi Torah kativ & they copied it out on paper with felt pens. I explained that we were writing 2 Yuds & Eloqeinu" instead of G@d's names & why. Then I passed out quills & scraps of parchment for them to write with. It was great - some kids were totally into it & others I heard cursing under their breath :)
"I NEVER want this job!"
Which is important information for them to have, of course, & part of their Jewish experience.

We said goodbye to Janine, who packed us a lunch for the road & sent us off (I was a bit teary).

We drove through Hanford, where Oppenheimer & his Manhattan Project lackeys developed the A-Bomb...later Cold War experiements were secretly executed on the local population by tainting the municipal water supply. Apparently, the number of innocent American civilians you can make sick or kill will give you a good idea of how many Soviet citizens you can cut down in the same manner.

Such a beautiful range of rolling hills & open sky punctuated by concrete nuclear test bunkers...should have brought my geiger-counter.

We arrived in Yakima - The Palm Springs of Washington, as the billboard reads as you swing into town - where I gave my "Netivat Sofrut" talk followed by a short Hebrew calligraphy class. Alex & Amanda & Elaine were very cool, as was Joe Brown's (Joel's ex-roomie) mum. I was really pleased to meet them. When Joe Brown told Joel that he was a Jew from Yakima, who went to a shul on Brown Street headed by a Rabbi Brown...well, he got twitchy.

Alex & Amanda turned me onto this group, so I'm totally jazzed to get involved!

Headed back to Olympia & had STEAK for dinner with Sherri & Neal! The last time I had real, fresh steak was at Shor HaBar in Yerushalayim in '98. It melted in my mouth.

Went for a walk after dinner to grab a beer at the Fishtail Brewery. C'est domage, it was closed already (silly Sunday blue-laws) so we just went to a local tavern. I had Pyramid Hefeweizen, one of my all-time faves. Heading to bed now so I'm fresh for the Torah-checking I'm to do tomorrow...

Leylah tov!