Winter Blues

Have you ever tried to type with gloves on? It's hard - a pretty slow process. Punching it out letter by letter.

It is cold today. I have to admit that it has been colder; today was not cold enough to numb the face. Still, weather.com says that in Vladivostok today, it is 16°F and feels like 2°F with winds gusting to 25 mph. In Celcius, which somehow sound better, that is-9°C and feels like -17°C.

The problem is not outside though. The problem is that we have cut heating in the synagogue, do to the financial crisis. The temperature here is at a steady 2°C, or just above the freezing mark, which means like I can either type like a normal person as my fingers slowly start to freeze, or type with gloves on.

Mendel and I went on a walk today. He was really dressed for the weather. I think I did well today. Only one old lady told me that it was too cold for him. Usually, I get that comment from 5 to 6 people. When we first moved here, I had one old woman tell me that I was not his mother - couldn't be, because I did not cover his ears. And have you ever heard of a mother who doesn't cover her baby's ears? Ludicrous!

I do not like winter. Only 3 more months until it starts to thaw.

Board Stiff

Way back in October we had a community meeting, mostly attended by the over 75 crowd, in which it was decided to elect a new and active board for the community.

So we met again in a very official meeting one freezing Sunday. The synagogue is not really heated, but with the aid of a few electric heaters, if one kept her coat on, she could manage, even if her coat was a thin little Esprit one that could barely handle new York winters, let alone a Vladivostok one.

At this meeting there was an honest and democratic vote. It was so honest that even though I was nominated as a candidate for the board, I was not elected. I didn’t mind though. A really good board was elected, composed of young, active people with lots of energy, some money, and good ideas.

May this board help take things to the next level, until we reach every Jew in Vladivostok!

A Video Interview of Me

Also on www.thejewishwoman.org

Best Ever Potato Kugel

In honor of Chanukah, I am posting my recipe for Potato kugel. I used the same exact recipe for latkes, skipping all the baking steps, and frying in lots of oil instead. Mendel is my biggest kugel fan. I make a 9x13 pan every Friday, and by the time Shabbos comes in, it is over half gone. Yum.

Ingredients:

Proportions are for a 9x13 pan. For a square 8x8, divide by 2.

10- 12 medium potatoes

3 large onions

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

5 eggs

¼ C oil

Oil for pan

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Pour oil in pan, enough to cover pan, and place in over.

Peel potatoes. Grate together with onions. The best is to use a food processor or a blender, grating extra fine. It should not look like separate potato pieces, but rather like a batter with some little potato pieces sticking out. Add eggs, oil, salt, pepper. Mix. Take pan out of oven, and pour batter into the pan. The oil should be hot, and the batter should sizzle. This sort of mimics frying. Dot top of kugel with oil. Place in oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, lower heat to 375. Cook for another 35-50 minutes, depending on the thickness of your kugel (and how big your potatoes were.) Kugel should be a dark golden brown.

Enjoy!

Warning: The kugel straight from the oven, although delicious, will be really hot. You should, in Mendels word ‘wait ‘til it cools down’.

Pacific Port Marks Chanukah

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia – In the Russian Far East, in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, Jewish residents widely celebrated Chanukah. The main event was a concert featuring the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, which performed a whole array of music of Jewish composers, with a repertoire spanning the past three centuries.

On the first day of Chanukah, music lovers of all nationalities filled the large concert hall and joined together in marking this age-old Jewish holiday. More than six hundred spectators were only too pleased to participate in and learn about the tradition of lighting the candles of the Chanukah Menorah, in addition to enjoying an eloquent performance of Jewish composers’ greatest works.

In addition to members of the Jewish community of Vladivostok – a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia – and their guests, the concert also involved a good number of high-profile individuals who lead in their respective sphere, whether it be politics, business, education, cultural, social and humanitarian affairs.

Representatives of the Administration of Primorskiy Krai took this opportunity to congratulate Jews on the Holiday of Light, as did officials from the Vladivostok City Council and Municipal Government. Such warm wishes and salutations were also echoed by diplomats representing the Consulates of the USA, Japan, India and South Korea.

The celebration culminated in a joyous concert featured the greatest compositions of Felix Mendelsohn, Gustav Mahler, Jacques Offenbach and contemporary composer Dmitry Krymov (from Russia), a remarkable show by the Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Arkadyev, as well as a virtuoso performance by soloists Olga Benush and Mark Maryasov. The audience was thrilled with this Chanukah celebration, which also received media coverage.

From fjc.ru

Passport woes

I was in Israel for 3 weeks, and one of the main goals of the trip was obtaining new visas for us. This isn’t as easy one might think, because first we needed official invitations, which take a month to process.

It turned out that the visa wasn’t the big problem. The passport was.

Mendel has now been issued his 5^th passport. He is not yet three. I lost passport #1 in Moscow airport, and passport #2, issued in Moscow, as only valid for a year. So we reapplied for a new one in Connecticut, only passport #3 came back with the birth date written wrong. The jury is still out on if it was my mistake or the passport agency’s, out we only discovered the mistake 2 days before our scheduled return to Russia. So we flew with the passport, and all would have been fine if we weren’t applying for permanent residency. The immigration office has a whole bunch of women whose job is to find mistakes in applications. So they of course discovered that there was a discrepancy between Mendel’s birth certificate and his passport. The consulate in Vladivostok was super nice, and the helped us get passport #4 – with the corrected birthday. But then it was, unfortunately, stolen. So while in Israel, before getting a new visa for Mendel needed to correct his passport. I really wasn’t sure how to do that so I contacted the US Embassy.

Now, there are two offices for US services while in Israel. The embassy is located in Tel Aviv, and there is a consulate in East Jerusalem. Notice it is in EAST Jerusalem. The website asks that all US citizens residing in Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West bank use the East Jerusalem consulate. That should give you a good idea about the people that go, and, more importantly, work, there.

I sent both the consulate and the embassy an email asking what to do. After exchanging a few emails, the consulate in Jerusalem sent me this email:

Thank you for the additional information you sent. We have gone into the passport system to investigate further. Here is what we have discovered:

Your son, born in 2006, has already had three passports. He was issued one shortly after the birth. This one was stolen in July of this year in Moscow and a temporary replacement was issued there. When you finished your travel, you applied for a full validity replacement, which was issued in August. So far, so clear. But then the story gets murky. (they make me sound like a criminal out of a spy novel) First of all, the birthdate mistake was yours, not the State Department’s. . . BUT…the record also shows that a correction of data was filed in October. So as far as we can see, this matter has already been resolved, and we don’t understand this email request for an emergency passport.

Can you please clarify what is going on? (a long explanation followed, in which they explained why I was at fault and why most likely they would not be able to help me)

We look forward to hearing from you again with your clarification.

Sincerely,

Jerusalem American Consulate Services

At that point I lost patience. I got it touch with Tel Aviv, and just 2 trips to Tel Aviv later, plus an afternoon spent on the beach, I had Mendel’s new, revised passport in my hand.

Thank G-d.

Valid for 1 full year. That sounds like a lot to me at this point.