Highlights

Highlights from the last few days:

-I finally found Carmei Ha’ir (the soup kitchen-restaurant) at 72 Agrippas, which is, incidentally, no where near 71 or 73 Agrippas.

-Mara (Dorot staff) and Josh (her fiancé) hosted all the Dorot Fellows and D.S.O. (Dorot Significant Others) for a surprisingly gourmet dinner in their sukkah. Quiche, steamed green beans with sesame seeds, fresh fig and Roquefort cheese salad, roasted squash with cinnamon, couscous with chick peas and goat yogurt … delicious!

-I went to the Old City to see my friend Alex perform in a show called Voices from Our Side of the Curtain: Exploring the Lives of Orthodox Women. The show was modeled after the Vagina Monologues, and featured 10 monologues performed by fairly amateur actresses (all of whom are actually Orthodox Jewish women – except Alex.) The monologues were so poignant, so real. Cancer, infertility, abusive husbands, the confines of the religious community, feminism. It was so empowering, in many of the ways the V-Monologues are, but it touched so much closer to home.

-I had lunch with my friend Navah in a sukkah – at a restaurant.

-Max and I went to a big Sukkot Party at Mara and Josh’s (clearly the center of our social life for the week.) A few Dorot Fellows and D.S.O.’s showed up, but mostly it was Mara and Josh’s friends. I chatted with past Dorot Fellows, met a few Wexner Fellows (a Fellowship similar to Dorot but for Jewish professionals, that our former NC Hillel Director Or Mars now directs) and sang and made s’mores around a campfire (with lots of wonderful people who are not some kind of Fellow.)

-Max and I had a wonderful vegetarian Shabbat dinner with our friend Alex and her roommate. I’m sure not everyone’s mouths would water over tofu and pumpkin rice pilaf but I could not have been happier.