70 Days for 70 Years

I am learning to remember there once lived a person named Gezela Lorinz nee Noilander. She was born in Oradea Mare, Romania, 1885 and died in Auschwitz, 1944, aged 59. May her memory be for a blessing.

In April it will be 70 years since the end of  The Shoah (The Holocaust). I once wrote a 100 word challenge on what it means to me. I have reprinted it here:

Lest We Forget

History and yet a part of my life. Peers without grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins. Friends' parents sobbing behind closed doors. Children who are replacements for beloved families lost. Roles they can never live up to. I know them.

Born only 17 years after, I've spent my whole life trying to squash those 17 years smaller. Watching every film archive, reading every book, trying to get closer. Why? Because I was bequeathed the collective memory to carry and safeguard lest we forget. I remember something I never experienced. We all do. Like stories of your babyhood you remember only from the repeated telling.


We have always talked about the six million Jews who were killed in Europe between 1938 and 1945 and we always knew people who were there with some of those six million and who, by some miracle, survived. People who put names and lives to the numbers, people who loved them, people who grew up with them, people who were directly bereaved.

Now those survivors are very old and in another generation the number 6,000,000 will be a number without personal connections. In his last letter dated Vilna 1941, David Berger wrote, "I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger."

We are shifting our focus from numbers to real people. For 70 days from the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the extermination camp at Auschwitz I will be taking part in an enormous project spanning nine countries and in four languages. The launch video describes it best:



I shall be learning for Gezela Lorinz nee Noilander, born in Oradea Mare, Romania, 1885 and died in Auschwitz, 1944, aged 59.

I am linking this post to Give Thanks Thursday on Mummy from the Heart because while we remember and mourn, we also give thanks for what we have achieved since those dark days of The Shoah. 
I give thanks that those of us who survived are in a position to take part in such an amazing project to remember and honour our family who did not. (I read recently that all Ashkenazi Jews are at most 5th cousins so the word family is not used lightly.)
I give thanks that we have our own country and our own army to protect us against racial and religious crimes. 
I give thanks that we live in an age of technology whereby it is easier to share knowledge and come together to prevent anything like this happening again. 

70 Days for 70 Years starts on Sunday and I shall be blogging about it regularly. 

Tuesday Tidbits #27: The Lola Edition

Birthday Party in School

1
DD: I'm hungry.
Me: Supper is in 10 minutes.
DD: I can't wait 10 minutes. What can I have to keep me company?

2
DD (doing a maths workbook): 1 less than 9. Hmm what's one more less than nine?
Me: One less than nine, not one more-less.
DD: OK, one more less than nine is...?
Me: There's no more!
DD: There is, I'm just only on the first one.

3
DD: What are you giving me to eat?
Me: Tuna in pitta.
DD: NO, I DON'T WANT TUNA IN PITTA! I HATE THAT! I'M NOT EATING IT!
Me: (putting the plate in front of her and walking away) Here it is.
DD: WHAT'S INSIDE HERE? NOOOOOO! I DIDN'T WANT TUNA! I HATE TUNA!
Me: Have one bite and see what it's like.
Silence
DD: Mmmmm (more silence) Mmmmm.


4

The present we bought for the classroom

DD: Who doesn't know how to tap dance? It's easy! You just bang your feet on the floor so it makes a noise. Who doesn't know how to do that?

Why The Downton Diet Won't Work

I have just watched all five seasons of Downton Abbey in about two weeks - I usually made it to bed before 2 am (just) except for one memorable night morning when having watched a whole season in one sitting, I crawled under the covers at 4.30 am.

Being obsessed with food and diets, I came up with the brilliant idea of a Downton Abbey Diet. I googled Downton Diet to check that it'd not already been done and got 27,700,000 results in 0.45 seconds. Oh well.

The thought is an obvious one of course. Here are a family of stick thin women who never go to the gym, don't do pilates or yoga, do not jog (heaven forfend) and eat without ever considering calories, carbs, fat, or any other nutritional science. They eat three meals a day and afternoon tea with cake.

On the surface you could make a good argument for the Downton Diet (other than the catchy alliteration). I thought about it a lot and made a study of what and how they actually ate. Of course I'm only talking about the family upstairs. Downstairs they can eat whatever they want as they are engaged in physical labour for upwards of 14 hours a day and running between four storeys to do it. Upstairs, one writer has already pointed out that though they do walk a lot, on the other hand they don't even lift their own hairbrushes to do their hair.

It seemed to be done by eating meals of basic ingredients cooked from scratch, no foods with added chemicals or trans-fats, small portions, eating slowly, no seconds and no eating between meals. I noticed that the women drank a cup of tea at teatime but never took a slice of cake. Every meal was an occasion. Marielle Guiliano says to do that in French Women but she doesn't go so far as to recommend dressing for dinner every night.

I was all set to write the book me. So to extend my research I did a bit  more googling around the subject. Turns out things weren't all Downton Abbey in the 1900-1920s. In fact far from it. So here are the reasons The Downton Diet has been scrapped.

1. The Crawley women are all actresses in 2015, not real women from the 1920s. I know this will come as a shock (it did to me) but they are probably all working out for two hours a day and doing the Atkins/Juicing/5:2 diet.

2. I looked at pictures of real women from that era and whilst none of them is obese (no fast food, processed calorie laden snacks, or take-aways) they are all shapes and sizes. They don't look as skinny as the Downton ladies that's for sure. Some are less curvy and some more so but it looks like no one cared or even gave it a second thought. And in fact men preferred the curvier figure that suggested a life of ease rather than one of a starving skivvy.

3. After The London Season Edwardian society departed for the The Season Abroad, attending spas in Germany and Austria, or Switzerland. There they would be put on a strict regime of diet and exercise. After a month they would return home with their stomachs settled and their weight down. Some people repeated the spa experience again after The Christmas Season. They had to do this every year as, in fact, they lived a life of gluttony. All they did was eat and socialize. Pre-breakfast, sit-down breakfast, mid-morning snack, luncheon, afternoon tea, a fuller tea for when dinner would be late, a multi-course dinner, a late night supper, and nibbles placed in bedrooms in case they were peckish during the night.

4. The cook worked full time in the kitchen. She had no other duties. The raw ingredients were delivered so she didn't even have to go shopping. They do say you have to make the time for a diet but this arrangement might be a bit excessive for anyone with a life. Having said this, Sarah Ferguson did take a few months out to do a full-time diet in Switzerland with a private cook and diet coach. Although she came back ready to teach us all how we too can lose weight like her, we all understood that we may be able to lose weight but not 'like her.'

5. Even the raw basic foods we buy now are not as pure and basic as the food was 100 years ago. Our meat and dairy is full of antibiotics and hormones, our eggs might be too, our fruit and veg is genetically modified and sprayed with dangerous pesticides, much of it comes frozen and vacuum packed from half way around the world, and salt and sugar is added to anything you didn't pick/kill yourself. I'm exaggerating but only because the food industry is so large, powerful, convoluted, and secretive that no one really knows the truth.

So there you have it. The rise and fall of The Downton Diet. Anyone fancy some cabbage soup?

Snow Days Without Snow

It all started last week with forecasts of snow for the middle of this week that escalated into full blown panic-mongering about desperate winter blizzards.

It was due to start at 2pm on Wednesday. After last year's once in 50 years, 5-day snow siege in which drivers were stuck in their cars for up to 24 hours whilst trying to make it up the mountains to Jerusalem, the municipality were taking no chances. School was cancelled on Wednesday. This was announced even though most schools finish before 3pm.

Because last year Jerusalem was inundated with snow tourists from Tel Aviv who then got stranded here with nowhere to stay - they had to open up schools to house them over the weekend, the roads in and out of the city were to be closed as well.

I received an email from my college saying all lessons were cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday. At 7pm. I got an sms from one of the local supermarkets that they were staying open until midnight to allow people to shop for the impending siege.

We did manage to make a snowman of sorts

At 1.20pm on Wednesday it started to snow. I would have called it sleet (rain and snow) but friends taught me the word graupel meaning hail and snow. It landed on wet ground and instantly disappeared into slushy puddles.

Forecasts said possibility of snow over night. There were thunder and lightning storms that night but no more snow. They announced that a decision about school on Thursday would be made at 6am. We didn't bother to set the alarm. School was re-scheduled to start at 10am instead of the usual 8am as they were worried about black ice. Reports said that about 5 children per class showed up. Well you can't promise a snow day and them take it back can you? We stayed at home and did lego, workbooks, movies, colouring and food. It did rain a lot.

Thank you Miriam and Charles for the lego caravan

However, the big storm was finally due to arrive this morning. We were warned of heavy snow from 9am till midday. We were urged to shop for the weekend on Thursday night so we didn't have to drive in the snow. Everything was cancelled for today.

It's now almost 1pm and nothing yet. A friend just posted on fb that she cooked the carrot they were saving for the nose of their snowman. The funny thing is that school finishes at midday on Fridays. So that's three days off for snow that didn't happen. Whatever.

Downton And Discipline

You'll recall that my 'word' for 2015 is Discipline. One of the things I specifically mentioned in relation to discipline is that I am going to bed too late.

The talk in Jerusalem since last week has been all about the snow. Last year we had a particularly severe storm and were snowed in for five days! Hahahahaha, not Alaskan blizzards, about 10cm tops but Jerusalem grinds to a halt at the mere mention of snow. We're not set up for it because in the past it only happened once every three years so it's more worth it to shut down for a couple of days than invest in snow ploughs, etc. However, after last year's snowpocolypse they weren't taking any chances.

Snow was forecast for 2 pm this afternoon (it actually started early at 1.20 pm) so they announced no kindergartens, no school, no colleges or university for two days. LOL, I know, I know.

DD went to bed when she felt like it last night (although we did get all her homework done and it was double the amount because of the impending siege). I didn't get any work done as I was too busy discussing the weather, which hadn't even started yet, on fb. Then I decided it was about time I watched the first episode of season 1 of Downton Abbey.

I knew I'd love it as I grew up on Upstairs Downstairs (the tv series not the real thing). But I wasn't prepared for this. I posted on fb:

Rachel Selby

17 hrs ·

So 4 1/4 years late I finally watched the 1st episode of the 1st season of Downton Abbey. I loved it and when he announced they were at war at the end, I burst into tears. I think I can say I am well and truly hooked. No school/work tomorrow luckily, hee hee hee.

So I started to watch episode 2 because it would have been rude not to. On fb:

Rachel Selby It's a bit silly that episode 1 showed the end of the storylines from season 1, unless I accidently watched the last episode first. What's the point of knowing what's going to happen at the end?

14 hrs · Like

No one picked up on that so on I went: 

Rachel Selby I may watch episode 3 now as it's only 1.20 am. 

15 hrs · Like

The rest of the evening went like this: 

Rachel Selby 3 am. I could watch episode 5 and still be in bed by 4. Don't have to get up in the morning, right?

2 mins · Edited · Like

Rachel Selby 6

13 hrs · Like

Rachel Selby 4.30am. I really really really should go to bed. ............ 7

4 hrs · Edited · Like

Rachel Selby 7 is the last one in season 1. I'm such an idiot.

12 hrs · Like

Rachel Selby OH FFS!!!! I watched episode 7 first when I thought I was watching 1! I THOUGHT it was weird that they showed the end of all the story lines in the first episode and then went back four years. Oooof. I'll watch episode 1 tomorrow. I'm such a moron!

12 hrs · Like · 3

I watched the real episode 1 this morning. 

My lovely friend Timna was kind to enough to remind me about my 'word' at around 1 am. At that point I couldn't even remember what discipline meant let alone how to implement it. 

I even dreamt about Downton last night (well early this morning actually). A bit crazy as dreams usually are. I had Sybil and Matthew running off to Manchester in the manner of Hodel and Perchik running off to Siberia. It should have been the chauffeur but come on, be real.

I noted that Chavaleh isn't everybody's favourite in this film but I was still sorry she didn't get her man. 

And that Tseitl is no Tseitl I can tell you, even if she too is determined to choose her own husband. I thought of the meme: Remember dear, Karma's only a bitch if you are. 

I have serious work to do tonight and yet I can hear the dainty clink of crystal wine glasses, the clip-clop of the horses preparing for the hunt, the bustle of life below stairs, ........ *sighs*

Success is 10,000 Hours

A friend from NY just visited and brought me the book Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink and The Tipping Point). It's not a new publication, the first print was in 2008, but it's one of those books I wish I'd read when I was much younger. In fact all teenagers should read this book. A big statement I know, but this will definitely remain on my shelf until DD is old enough to read it.

It's an easy read, annecdotal and fun. There's a wow factor on almost every page. And the whole way through I was relating the stories to me, my family, and our family history.

The hypothesis is that successful people may be hard grafters and very clever - in fact they are, but they were also in the right place at the right time and were given amazing opportunities. Yes they had to grab those opportunities and make them work and yes they had to work extremely hard. However, no one from Bill Gates to the Beatles (both used as examples in the book) did it without some extraordinary cosmic coincidences.

At first you might think it's disappointing that they didn't just go for it and make it happen themselves as we can't all be in the right place at the right time. However, you soon realize that this knowledge is a gift. Here some of the lessons I came away with...

1. It's good to know that there was a great deal of fate involved in the mega successes of the likes of Bill Gates and The Beatles, among others. It means that it's not entirely down to you - the universe might help and for mega success it needs to. Also, some of the fateful events were 'bad' things - prejudice, war, poverty, etc. We see how a negative situation can actually result in a positive kick up the ladder of success. For example, Jewish law graduates were excluded from the big established NY law firms in the mid-1900s so were forced to set up on their own. They were forced to become experts in fields the prestigious firms refused to handle and therein lay their path to success.

2. You can change your fate if you are aware of it. Many factors leading to success are a direct result of our upbringing, childhood influences and cultural background. For example, some cultures have a big PDI (Power Difference Index) which means people live in a hierarchy of elders, betters, bosses, versus youngsters, lessers, and employees. A more equal PDI, like in America, means people aren't afraid to ask for what they want, they know how to sell themselves, how to negotiate for themselves, and how to mix comfortably in any company. There are many other examples in the book and once you recognise your own position you can change it if it doesn't behoove you.

3. You don't have to be a genius. You just have to be clever enough. The most successful people in the world are not the ones with the highest IQs nor are they all graduates of Harvard and Oxbridge. Nobel Prize winners went to local colleges and have above average IQs. (An IQ of 100 is average. Some geniuses are off the scale at around 180-200 but they have no advantage on the success chart over good students with IQs of around 135.) So don't write yourself off if you constantly come/came in the above average but not top of your class.

4. This is my favourite. Along with all the accidents of birth, location, history, and culture; and having grabbed the opportunities proffered, successful people all put in about 10,000 hours of practice before they made the big time. 10,000 is 7 1/2 hours/day, 5 days a week, for 5 years. That means if your area of expertise is your full time job it will take you about 5 years to become an expert in your field. If it's a serious hobby and you can devote 10 hours a week to it, it will take you 20 years to become an expert. (See why I wish I'd read this years ago?). An hour a day at anything will make you an expert in about 28 years (if dementia doesn't get you first).

Of course most of us don't need to be the leading expert in anything, though it would be nice. We don't need to be concert pianists if we just want to enjoy playing the piano, We don't need to be simultaneous translators at the UN when we want to learn a foreign language. We don't need to compete with Google or Microsoft if we want to set up a successful tech business. We don't need to be Olympic athletes when we want to get fit and run a marathon.

See how everything just got much more accessible? That business could be successful enough in 2 1/2 years. That new hobby could be enjoyed on a reasonably high level after 5 years and at a great level after 10 years. An hour a day at something you are passionate about could get you more than proficient within the decade.

And most of us adults have already put in 10,000 hours of something - our careers, parenting, cooking, socializing, reading, driving, to name but a few skills. We are all experts at something already so why not anything else?

I want my daughter to read this book one day and see that success is only 10,000 hours of work away.

Pirate Birthday Party

When you're 6 you sometimes need to have a Pirate Birthday Party....

I bought two swiss rolls. It's all in the presentation dontcha know. We have an extra candle for next year.

Pin the stuff on the pirate. 

First attempts were very good. I think the blindfold may have been faulty.

After that the pirate got a bit drunk - or the kids did, it was hard to tell.

Vegetarian sausages were added to the buffet, and drinks. 

There were pirate props. 

Some of the crew, also known as me hearties. 

There were clues around the house leading to the treasure chest. The first clue was at the centre of the pass-the-parcel. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the treasure - it was sweets in a chest shaped jewelery box. 

We were mighty fierce pirates. Arrrr! (This was manning the lifeboat in a game of Pirate Ship - Shore.