Spring Is Here! Maybe.

It was awfully quiet at my office yesterday so I left at mid-afternoon. (Note to self: issue press release.) The  sun finally came out and the temperature was mild. I drove home, picked up Ellie and Emily and went back downtown. Citygarden had plastic Easter eggs stashed all over for the kids. Ellie was delighted to rearrange them and climb on the sculptures. She and Jim Dine's Pinocchio celebrated the season.

But it is supposed to be chilly and wet today. There is a chance of snow on Easter Sunday. Things will eventually warm up.   

Restoration

I have a bad shoulder. The physical therapy place I'm going to is downtown, a couple of blocks from my office. We are trying to restore more function. The office faces the street and has floor to ceiling windows. While lying on my side on the table early this morning, I watched the workers start their day on restoration of an old office building, the one on the right. 

It has been empty for several years, bringing more downtown decay. I'm told it is being remodeled into a boutique hotel. That's great, but I hope it has enough business. I've read that the downtown hotel occupancy rate isn't that great. And there is a very similar project two blocks away.

Love the geometry of the parking garage in the mid-ground.         

Gray Day On Art Hill

It's been a gray, damp week in The Lou. Even the king himself looks bland. But the flowers are starting to bud so there should be something to shoot this weekend.        

#docs4gunsense

There was a physician at the March For Our Lives, pictured above. His sign and message were very simple. Yes, there is a spelling error but there are lots of good doctors in this country who are not native English speakers.This one may work at the emergency room of one our urban hospitals.  You can imagine what he has seen.   

The Encounter Chapel at Magdala

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The woman in Mark 5:24-34 believed she would be healed of her bleeding if she could only "touch the hem of his garment"  [some think this means the ritual fringe on the bottom of his garment, such as Orthodox Jews wear till today].
She had courage and touched and was immediately healed by Jesus, the New Testament says.
This mural-sized painting of the famous scene is in the lower chapel of Duc in Altum, below the Boat Chapel and the Women's Atrium that we visited in previous posts.

(Remember that my photos here can be greatly enlarged with a click or two.)

The Magdala Center brochure describes The Encounter Chapel:

The basement chapel makes use of original stones found in the excavations of the road and marketplaces near the port.  This interdenominational place of prayer is modeled after the synagogue plan with its 6 columns, colorful walls and placement of stones.
The chapel features a beautiful mural-sized painting of the encounter between Jesus and the hemorrhaging woman (Mark 5:25). 

The stone benches along the walls are also like in the ancient synagogue of Migdal.

The one and only window looks out on the Sea of Galilee.

And the window creates the shadow of the cross.

Mother Teresa, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, adds her prayerful presence to the special place.
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There is more about the chapel at the website:
http://www.magdala.org/visit/duc-in-altum/encounter-chapel/

To all the Christian readers, Holy Week blessings and happy Easter wishes from me, your Jewish friend here at Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo.
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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday, Monday Murals, and Our World Tuesday.)
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Sparkling SodaStream water!

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Happy WORLD WATER DAY!
The 2018 theme is Nature for Water and the idea is to raise awareness about nature-related solutions to the water crisis.
Over the last few years Israel has gotten itself out of our water shortage; now we re-use a whopping 86% of our water.
So I'm going to blog today instead about a more exciting topic--SPARKLING WATER!

On a blustery January day our group's bus pulled up to the gate for a factory tour.
The sign says Welcome to the SodaStream family.

The plant is huge, spread out in many buildings, in the brand-new Idan HaNegev industrial park.
SodaStream moved here and closed its much smaller factory in the West Bank less than four years ago.

Our tour started with a little lecture in the Visitor Center where all the varieties of soda makers are on display.
Here is how to make flavored soda water at home:  https://www.sodastreamusa.com/how-it-works.aspx

We also got to see the funny video with Mayim Bialik and Hodor about the Lost Tribe of the Homoshlepians, the primitive people who used to schlepp water around in plastic bottles.  :)
Watch it here!

Then our guide took us into the factory!

You don't see many workers because so much of the production is automated.

But if something is a bit off, you do need a person to get right in there and fix it!

Our SodaStream guide needed amplification to make her voice heard over the machine noise.

Watching the robots is a bit mesmerizing, even in my little videos!

This man is from Peru!
SodaStream prides itself on fostering a happy work atmosphere filled with mutual respect and equality among its 1,700 employees.
Jews and Arabs, new immigrants and native-born Sabras, all ages, all work together in peace.
Every day a bus from Jerusalem brings 80 of the Palestinians who worked in the previous factory in Mishor Adumim.  (And travel time is paid.)
And 40% of the workforce are Bedouin--Israeli citizens from the close-by Bedouin city of Rahat or from the Negev's many unrecognized villages.
And half of those Bedouin are women!

Just outside SodaStream's gate you can see Rahat (well, you might have to click a few times on the photo to see the houses).

It was early afternoon Friday when our bus left in order to be back home in Meitar before Shabbat.
What warmed my heart that cold day was this picture of two smiling young men bringing platters of food or goodies as a nice little Sabbath Eve extra for the "SodaStream family" that stayed on to work, 24/7.
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At the official website you can click on your country for local information about SodaStream.
SodaStream came to Israel in the 1970s, and today its headquarters are here and the products are exported to 47 countries.  Soon China will join that list too!

Learn all about SodaStream over at Wikipedia and check out the links at the end too.
And happy World Water Day!
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A tale of a tail for sale

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I was surprised to see something new in our local supermarket's meat department.
I was then somehow shocked to read the label; it said (and I translate literally from the Hebrew)  "TAIL OF A CALF."
I was really curious by then because never have I seen a whole long tail for sale!
After sneaking a photo for the blog, I came home and started googling. 

OK, so I did already know there is something called oxtail, but oxen are not used for that anymore; and if you do see it for sale, the tail bone is chopped into smaller pieces.

Apparently there is a new approach to eating meat based on a 2004 foodie classic, The Whole Beast, Nose to Tail Eating by chef Fergus Henderson.
As one kosher butcher explains it,
"Nose to tail eating is a philosophy in which one eats the entire animal thereby honoring the animal's sacrifice and reducing food waste." 

Here is how an Australian organic food blog talks about it.

I am not qualified to explain about the historic complications of kosher tail requirements. 
There is something about having to remove the sciatic nerve and having this nikkur done by specially trained menakrim.
In fact many Jews believe/d -- mistakenly -- that eating beef hindquarters is forbidden.
But if you are interested please see "Cow butts are kosher" in the blog The Kosher Omnivore's Quest.

Your input is welcome, dear readers. 
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P.S. Speaking of beef, here is a favorite photo of mine from Jerusalem's shuk:
http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.co.il/2013/03/a-heavy-yoke.html
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Almost That Time

As mentioned, it's time to go archives diving. Lots to shoot this weekend but it's only Thursday. It is, however, mid-March and baseball season is only a couple of weeks away. The advertising sign above sums up the local attitude well. Our family is going to the second game of the season on a Saturday afternoon. Much safer than a night game at this time of year.       

Madeleine Monday

Our little escape artist at the City Museum before the trouble started. She likes the ball pit and loves all the slides. After this first trip down she of course wanted another. We watched her climb the one flight of stairs. Instead of turning right to the top of the chute, she turned left and headed to the outdoor area, resulting in a twenty minute search. So these are all the usable pictures I got. Pretty much out of material and need to do some hunting.     

Seeing eye dogs, eyes, and balloons

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It's not every day that you see a guide dog; but today I saw TWO.
This beautiful mature one stayed quietly at its master's feet in the Wilhelmina Auditorium from 9:00  to 2:30.

Beer Sheva's Soroka Hospital gave a study day about various eye problems and treatments.
How the dog sat through all those lectures I don't know.
Poor thing was too low to even see the slides on the screen.

One of the talks included videos of eye surgery, including sticking needles into the eye.
Oi, not for the faint of heart!  But amazing what the surgeons can do to save vision.

Comic relief came unintentionally, haha! 
At the end of the day the Eye Department balloon decorations had somehow gravitated to the EXIT stairwell and the old folks were trying to climb through them.

Then at my bus stop a sweet younger dog was waiting for the bus.
Her jacket says she is a guide dog for the blind puppy in training.

The bus stop is right outside Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Many students there volunteer to take such puppies into their homes for a year and go everywhere with them in order to socialize them.

You can see how the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind works in my earlier post.
And this post shows some playful puppies at the President's open house.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Tough Day At The City Museum

Here and there I've had posts about  St. Louis' City Museum. There is nothing like it in the world and it's hard to describe. (The Wikipedia article gives it a good try.) Mrs. C and I took Ellie there yesterday. She gave us a hard time and I got little shooting done.

The child is four and a half. She has complete social confidence and little sense of fear. The building is a maze of tunnels and big climbing things, and on three occasions she ran off from us to explore on her own. Each time we had to get museum staff to help find her. Each time we gave her a stern lecture but to no avail. She needs to learn some limits.

The bottom two pictures are from a new area that has a large net suspended over giant Legos. Ellie spent twenty minutes bouncing around the net (that's her, just up and to the right of center, in the sweater with horizontal, brightly colored stripes). I walked under the edge to get some video but some kid kicked me in the head. Time to go home.                

Why A Duck?

Well, you can find out here.

Some creative person got permission to erect this waterfowl in a pocket park on South Grand Boulevard. It is made of scrap cardboard, tape and varnish. What's it all about? A writer once said that a poem should not mean, but be. Same thing here. The artist intends to let it stand until it falls apart through weather or vandalism. (No sign of the latter, happily.) Another reminder of impermanence.

It's Not All Pretty

Not everything in the art museum during the flower show was cheery and colorful. I turned around from one arrangement and found Auguste Rodin's Despair. No crowd around this piece. Note the curled toes and characteristically large hand covering the head and face. The smooth, muscular body lies on rough rock. But, if you chose to, you could move on the the next group of blossoms and whistle a happy tune.