Archive for the 'tzur hadassah' Category
August 17th, 2008 by elie
Checked the mail today. Being in a new district, outside of Jerusalem, makes for interesting mail. Tzur Hadassah is technically a part of Matte Yehuda (מטה יהודה) but it borders Beitar, which is technically in Gush Etzion, however… yeah.
So in the mail, I usually get telephone books for different districts, catalogs for different shopping centers. Today I got a booklet that is proud to claim it is the מדריך עסקים למהדרין - the guide for Mehadrin business. That’s super-kosher business, folks.
I had a thought and when I flipped through its glossy pages advertisements, my suspicions were proven right: not a single photo or image of a female throughout. Truly Mehadrin.
They say Beitar is expanding into Wadi Fukin, taking over the small Arab town one housing development at a time. You can see Beitarians striding through Tzur Hadassah on power walks. And now we get to partake in their advertising literature…
Well, I suppose it serves us right; Tzur Hadassians are known to use Beitar facilities, too… like Mehadrin Rami Levi, Mehadrin kupot cholim, Mehadrin hardware stores…
July 23rd, 2008 by elie
We’re now officially Tzur Hadassah residents, no matter what amounts of arnona tax we’ve been paying for the last six months.
We got our first shmira (security) service notice in the mail. Of course, it’s not really we, it’s more he. I’m too woman to be standing alone at gate of the yishuv, I suppose.
Basically, you can either do volunteer shmira service and get called up for a shift every half a year or so, or you can pay 80 shekel a month and get out of it. Which means that everyone is drinking coffee at 10 pm and enduring a six-hour middle-of-the-night shift every once in a while.
It feels so wild, wild west.
July 3rd, 2008 by elie
So there we are, my roommate and I, out on the mirpeset for a romantic start-of-the-weekend dinner of shippudim when I look up and see… a fire.
“Hey, that wasn’t there before, was it?”
Indeed, it was not. And it was growing by the second.
It was a fire started in some trees, right outside the school in the center of Tzur Hadassah.
So my husband calls the fire department… and gets a busy signal.
“Maybe everyone else is calling at the same time?”
He keeps trying till he gets an answer.
“B’derech, b’derech.”
We sit back down and watch the fire grow through the trees. Five minutes go by, ten minutes.
“The fire department is right here, in Bar Giyyora… What the hell?”
After fifteen minutes, he calls again.
“I reported a fire by the school in Tzur Hadassah about fifteen minutes ago… where are you?”
“Ahh… They said the fire was outside the school.”
Hmm. I didn’t go to fire school or anything. But I’m pretty sure fire doesn’t just chill where it starts…
“Duh, I think I’ll just plop down right here, conveniently outside the school so I don’t bother anyone.”
Ten minutes later, the firetruck shows up.
July 2nd, 2008 by elie
Call me a geek, but I found this cool. I just signed up for a Plurk account (I’m still not sure what it all means) but when I was changing my settings and filling in my location, I clicked my country as ‘Israel’, than my region as ‘Yerushalayim’ and, ready to settle on that, I noticed… there was Zur Hadassah, on the list! Impressive, eh?
June 30th, 2008 by elie
Driving home to Tzur Hadassah through the minharot (tunnels) is not always peaches. On our way home today, passing Husan, Beitar and Wadi Fukin, we found soldiers everywhere, cracking down, probably on the hunt for someone specific from a tip-off.
We were greeted by this right as we were getting to the machsom (checkpoint), literally 3 minutes from home:
We recently discovered that going through Ein Kerem and Hadassah Hospital up to Tzur Hadassah can be just as quick, depending where we’re coming from. Shame we didn’t think of it before we sat in this for an hour. And the Ein Kerem way is so much prettier.
May 31st, 2008 by elie
Continuing from the last post, here is an email I wrote after a couple weeks of living here. It’s kind of funny how much more I know now… Which makes me wonder if I had thought I did enough research before moving here… But then again, we moved here on pure recommendation from friends. Here you go:
So, we just moved here 2.5 weeks ago… We knew a few couples before we moved, and have met people at the Ashkenaz shul the last two shabbats… It’s a very small start up shul (we like it like that) but the people are friendly and very enthusiastic to have new members. Know that the community at large is actually secular middle class. There is a community of traditional/observant Mizrachis, too, with Sephardi shuls.
Property is still fairly cheap for a suburban yishuv outside of Jerusalem… But it is getting hotter by the year it seems.
There are two gans and a school for up till high schoolers, I think. Lots of small parks sprinkled around. There is a small horse farm including zoo-type atmosphere with different animals, nice for a Shabbat walk. It’s a gorgeous area. There are national parks and trails all around this general area. It’s very very peaceful and quiet, and I’ve seen older kids playing ball outside my building (without many cars passing to disturb them).
Most people here seem to be married with young kids… Our neighbors are nice. Most people here are Hebrew speakers.
There is talk of bringing a supermarket here, in another year. For now there is a large makolet. People pretty much work in Bet Shemesh or Jerusalem and shop there for most things. There is also Beitar 5 minutes away.
Apparently a mikva is built, but there was a problem in the last stages of building and the rabbi is working it out.
There are buses to Jerusalem, but they are sparse… It seems everyone has a car.
There is also a great medical center (this is what people have told me, I haven’t needed to go yet) that takes all kupot and they do blood tests and more, which is handy to have in your neighborhood.
May 31st, 2008 by elie
I suppose there isn’t much info out there on the webs about Tzur Hadassah, because every once in a while I’ll get an email from someone asking about moving there. I’m more than happy to share my responses so that everyone can benefit. If you have any other questions, leave a comment.
Here’s my latest Tzur Hadassah information guide:
Hey,
Tzur Hadassah is the Green Line… It’s within the 1967 borders, so it is technically Israel, but one side of it faces the West Bank directly. Wadi Fukeen is in that direction, in the valley between Tzur and Beitar (Beitar and the Wadi are outside the Green Line).
Past Tzur Hadassah (within Israeli borders) are Nes Harim, Bar Giyora, Mavo Beitar and past the forest, Beit Shemesh. Going the other way - through the machsom - you pass Beitar, Hussan, and then turn left towards the tunnels with Gush Etzion on your right.
The bus situation in Tzur is poor; there are a handful of buses in and out but it’s not even on the hour or anything. Most, if not all, people here have cars. It’s a 15-20 minute drive to Jerusalem by car through the tunnels. People do hitch hike from within.
Tzur Hadassah is mainly secular, with a Masorti - Mizrachi presence, a Progressive-Reform population, two or three Sephardi shuls and one very small - but intimate! - Ashkenaz minyan (which is where we go). If you are looking for diversity and respectful peace between religious and secular people, as well as a sense of pluralism, this is a great place to be.
There are Anglo families here, religious, traditional and secular… In our shul, for instance, there are a handful of Anglo-mixed couples and French-mixed couples and mainly Israeli of course. This is not really an English-speaking place; I mean, the Anglos speak to each other in English but in groups it is accepted and encouraged to speak in Hebrew. The kids range from baby to teenager, although most kids are probably between toddler and elementary school.
Rent - I don’t know ranges of prices so well, but I’d say you could pay around 2500 - 3000 NIS a month for a 3 bedroom apartment. There are also nice houses for rent. Currently they are building a new complex of duplexes, and they are pretty much all bought, and when they are done, there will be a mass exodus from apartments and houses for rent in the rest of the community. They speculate that will be sometime in the summer; I’d think it would be later rather than sooner.
Other information:
- Currently there are about 1,000 families or so, and there is talk of whether to expand or stay at this size. The debate is: stay small and cozy, with less public services, or grow bigger and get more services.
- There is a mini market that is actually impressive, although I’d suggest shopping in Beit Shemesh (15 minutes away) Beitar (5 minutes away) or Jerusalem for the bulk of your needs.
- There are three gans: a secular, a Reform and a dati.
- There is a school up to high school level, and it is also secular. There is talk of building a religious school… But who knows when that will be. Most people seem to get their kids to school in Jerusalem.
- There is an excellent mirpa’a (clinic) that is privately operated but accepts all kupot.
- There is a basket ball court, soccer pitch, a lot of parks and space to play. In the area outside the yishuv, there are tons of trails and national parks.
Don’t know what your other questions are, but feel free to ask. All in all, Tzur Hadassah is a cozy place, great for your mental health, quiet and peaceful with a city nearby for jobs and shopping and cultural activity, parks and nature all around us, really sweet, non-jaded people. It almost makes me not want to talk about it too highly, lest it ends up growing too big…
May 7th, 2008 by elie
Spent the evening strolling around the Yom Haatzmaut celebration going on in the Tzur Hadassah elementary schoolyard. Clowns, kids, silly string, shaving cream, noise makers, cotton candy, lights, balloons… This no singles’ event.
I started reading old entries from a few years ago, describing my purpose for moving to Israel, my role in the aliyah movement, my reasons for coming here. It’s only now that I’m starting to realize the actuality of all my fancy words and dreamy descriptions. I can have kids in this small town and they can run around with all kinds of different friends and come to a “county fair” on Yom Haatzmaut and not worry about having to explain what that means.
I can actually see this in all the other kids running around here. They never give a thought to what it might be like to be surrounded by people who don’t understand. This is life: small Israeli town, big Jewish holidays. Everyday life and Jewish meaning colliding. As much as we allow it. And, man, would I be willing to allow it.
April 30th, 2008 by elie
We attended the Yom Hashoah tekes (טקס or ceremony) tonight, organized by the neighborhood Scouts and Bnei Akiva kids.
It was very much a small-town tekes. A few things came to mind while I stood and watched:
- It never occurred to me before how it must have been for the Mizrachi population to get to Israel in the 1950s, meet all these Ashkenazi European Jews for the first time and hear the horrors. What did they think?
- It is inevitable that there will be loud, disruptive, annoying kids at a Holocaust remembrance event. But isn’t that what our grandparents survived for? To continue the Jewish people? Kids will be kids, but thank god they are here, right?
- This was the first public Tzur Hadassah event that I saw the community come together for a moment. I took notice of the different languages spoken, skin tones, ages, etc.
- If my kids end up growing to be tight jeans-wearing, spiky haired, Nike swoosh-donning arsim, I am going to - oh, man. Somewhere my parents are laughing at me.
April 9th, 2008 by elie
We’ve been living here for two and a half months and I still can’t get over how freakin’ nice everyone is around Tzur Hadassah. My landlady is a complete doll (read: Polish) and gets everything fixed for us right away. She’s professional, polite and considerate.
This is the exact opposite of the experience we had in Katamonim. City folks, of course, are always a bit coarser than country folk. Our landlady was Moroccan and quite… senior. They helped us out and got stuff done, but not with the same flare as this young, career-oriented, property-owning woman.
So the plumber just came, a day after she hunted down his number, a couple days after we told her there was a problem with our dud shemesh. I don’t know if he lives in Tzur Hadassah, or in the country side, or if he just loves life, but man, that guy had a enormous energy at 7pm.
So I’m sitting here and I hear him and my husband getting into a really exciting conversation. And he high-fives my husband. They have inside dud shemesh jokes now. “After all,” I hear him say, “a dud shemesh is just like a really big kum kum!”
Ah, Israeli country-side plumber jokes.
