School holidays - Freedom... Jewish holidays and the Dead Sea

Hi guys sorry for not writing blogs for a long time. Now on my blog I will tell you why.

The reason I didn’t write a blog for a long time is because I had two weeks off school. Yay I didn’t have school for two weeks  !!!!!!!

For the first week off school I was at home, I was so bored it felt like I was in the desert on my own.  

After the Jewish New Year, which I have already told you about, there is another holiday called Yom Kippur.

Having fun during the school holidays

So Yom Kippur is quite a serious day for Jewish people. It is the day we say sorry for all the bad things we have done and the day that G’d writes you in the book of life. Sounds really scary, but hey, as a kid it’s a great fun day. You ride your bikes on the road because cars aren’t allowed to drive on the road and people don’t work.

Jadon and Uncle Yosi 
with the Brachot 

Mummy and Zack in the Sukka

OK that’s enough about Yom Kippur let’s get to the next holiday. Sukkot. Sukkot is a holiday when you build a sukkah. You need to sleep in a sukkah on sukkot.

On the second week, this was towards the end of Sukkot, I went to my aunt and uncle’s house to visit them for a few days. The holiday at the end of Sukkot is called Simchat Torah.

Simchat Torah is when all the people that prayed for one whole year are happy because they’ve finished reading the Torah. I was at Simchat Torah with Jadon and my aunt and uncle. 

The sad bit about finishing the Torah is that they have to start to reading the torah again from the start.

After 2 nights my mum and dad came to pick me and Jadon up to go on a surprise trip. We went to the Dead Sea for the day.

The Dead Sea is the most salty sea in the world and it's called the Dead Sea because it hasn’t got any fish in it. It is too salty for anything to live in.

In the Dead Sea you float because the water is so thick with salt. It is really cool. Your legs literally just float up and you just lay there. It’s really good for your skin too, but hurts a lot if you have a cut.

And then sadly, as with all good things, we had to come home to get ready to go back to school - Booooo

Trying out the camel with Jadon.

Such a beautiful place.

The desert is amazing.

Jadon and I floating.

This is how the men get changed - that's me, my brothers and dad in there.

But why do the old women go behind the changing area - gave me a big shock!

Happy New Year…Shana Tova to Everyone

Zack enjoying his chocolate honey cake

The Jewish New Year is the first day of the Jewish year. It is in September on a different day every year because the Jewish months work by the moon.  It is also a few days after the first day of school after the summer holiday. It is great, we only just start school and we get another holiday.You send to everyone a note with something nice written inside wishing them a good new year.

In Netanya

On Rosh Hashana we eat apples with honey and blow in a shofar. We also eat pomegranates because it is a new year and the pomegranate are a new fruit.  The pomegranate season is on the Jewish new year. The pomegranates have 613 seeds and this is the number of Mitzvot (good deeds) that G'd has done.

On the first night of the Jewish New Year I was at home with my family and we had an amazing dinner. It was really yummy then we had dessert, we had chocolate cake with honey in it.   After dinner my brother Jadon and I watched a really good movie called Vacation.

On the second day of the Jewish New Year I was with friends at their house. We played football after dinner and the dinner was really yummy like my mums cake. I enjoyed the dinner so much that I wanted more.

With Aidan my friend

We all make wishes for the new year. I wish for the Jewish New Year that I will have a really successful year and be happy at school and that my teacher won’t scream at us any more - amen. 

Lifta - A day out that will simply blow your mind. A step back in history

Lifta

I had the best day ever a few weeks ago. My cousin took me out to a place in Jerusalem that I had been to in the past and wanted to go back to. This place is called Lifta.

Lifta was once an Arab Palestinian village outside of Jerusalem. In Lifta there is a little pool next to a cave. In the cave there is really cold water that gets to 1 degree only. The pool outside the cave is a natural spa and it gets really deep. It is filled up with rain water

It is so much fun at this place. When I arrived there I was so excited. I said to my cousin that Im going to jump from the roof of the cave into the pool and he didn’t believe me so I told him to watch me and then I jumped.

… All I can say that it was so nice to go there, it felt like I went back into the past-

Hi guys. It's my turn to take over my mum's blog

Hi Im Josh, I’m Kim’s son.

What I know about this blog is that my mum started to write it when I was 4. Now I’m 11. It’s amazing to see the blogs she wrote 7 years ago but my mum had enough so I’m taking over and continuing to write this blog.

Let me tell you about myself. You already know that my name is Josh and I’m 11 years old. I was born in London in 2004 and life was great. Then in 2008 my brother Jadon was born, he is now 7. What can I tell you, since Jadon was born everything in our lives changed.  

First my mum decided to not go back to work and she started this cool business called KiddyCat. I remember that I enjoyed getting free samples from the toys at the local fairs that she would go to.

Not long after my mum started KiddyCat, my parents told me that we were going to move to live in Israel. When I was told this I felt really happy because I really liked to visit Israel when we went there on holiday.

We finally moved to Israel in the summer of 2011.

When I first arrived in Israel I was nervous. I didn’t have any friends and I really missed my old friends from my old school. 4 years have now passed and I still miss them, but I still keep in contact and meet them when I visit London in the summer. My birthday is in August so it is a great excuse to have a party and meet up with my friends.

Since we moved, I got a new brother call Zack….life is full of plenty of fun and I hope that I will be able to show you all the fun things we do in Israel in my blog posts.

Speak soon,

Josh