This soup got its name when we served it to an unexpected dinner guest on a Friday evening who thought that he was eating chicken soup (it tastes very similar to a traditional chicken soup, although it is completely vegetarian). We joked that it was a soup that makes even the chicken happy!
“Happy Chicken” Soup – ready for its close-up!
Ingredients
2 T vegetable oil (use extra virgin olive oil for more flavor, if desired)
1 6″ piece of pumpkin, seeds removed
1 medium onion, chopped
3 medium carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced (including leaves)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 Cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 Cup dried chickpeas (optional)
1 bay leaf
6 – 8 Cups of vegetable stock or water (see Vegetarian Soup Stock, p. 13)
1 tsp. salt, pepper to taste
1. Heat the vegetable oil over low heat in a pot large enough to hold all the Ingredients. Add chopped onion and sauté for five minutes with the cover on over low heat, until the onions are translucent and begin to brown. Add the garlic, sauté for a few minutes, and then stir in pumpkin, celery and carrots. Let cook ten minutes (add a few tablespoons of water if the pot starts to get dry), and add parsley and bay leaf, as well as chick peas (optional).
2. Stir, and add stock or water. Raise heat, and bring the soup to a boil. Then, lower heat and simmer at least one hour, with the top on the pot, but open a crack. Taste and cook longer if the flavor is not strong enough yet. Add salt and pepper just before serving.
Classic Matzah Balls (Knaidloch)
For a really traditional tasting “Chicken” soup, serve with matzoh balls (knaidloch).
Ingredients
1 C matzah meal
1/2 Cup water
4 eggs
1/3 Cup olive oil
1/4 Cup parsley, chopped fine
1 tsp. salt, dash pepper
1. Add water, olive oil, salt and pepper to beaten eggs. Mix well, add matzah meal and stir thoroughly.
2. Refrigerate one hour.
3. Form into balls and drop into salted boiling water (1 1/2 quarts, 1 T salt). Cook approximately 20 minutes.
Variations:
Any or all of the following Ingredients can be added to the matzah balls along with the matzah-meal for a very special effect:
– One finely chopped shallot and/or finely chopped clove of garlic sautéed in 1 table spoon extra virgin olive until translucent and just starting to brown (One to two tablespoons of finely chopped onion could be substituted for the shallot);
– One tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley and/or one tablespoon finely chopped basil. This can be added as is, or sautéed very briefly with the shallot/onion mixture.
Here is the recipe for one of our very favorite Passover Soups; one interesting thing about it is that you can use so many different kinds of greens – basically whatever looks good in the market. The flavor of the broth is always amazing.
Roman Soup with Parmesan ready to eat!
Roman Soup with Passover Dumplings
Ingredients
3 – 4 Tbs of Extra Virgin Olive Oil or other vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, small dice
1 celery stalk, chopped
6 cups chopped mixed greens: Swiss chard, spinach, kale, butter lettuce, savoy cabbage or other seasonally available greens
6 cups vegetable broth or water
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
Saute chopped onion in oil until translucent over medium-low heat
Add carrot and celery and cook until vegetables are softened, stirring occasionally
Stir in 6 cups of mixed chopped greens (described above)
When vegetables are wilted, add soup stock
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes
Add salt and pepper to taste
Add 1 – 2Tbs passover dumplings per serving
Serve with fresh grated parmesan cheese
This is what it looks like after all of the greens are added.
Passover soup dumplings
Ingredients
2 Cups mashed potatoes
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 C Passover Cake Meal
Optional: 1 Tablespoon finely chopped parsley or basil
Reserve: 1 – 2 tsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions
Mix all ingredients, adding additional cake meal to form a dough that is pliable and not too sticky
Bring water to a boil in a 2 – 3 quart pot
Form small balls out of he dough and carefully slide them into the water to bring them to a boil
Use a slotted spoon to remove the dumplings from the pot as they rise to the top and transfer to a container, adding 1 – 2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil
I sit here writing this post on Thursday evening here in Israel, with less than a day left to complete the whirlwind of activity that precedes Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom.
Every year at Passover, we remind ourselves that we were once slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and that we left suddenly in the night without time even to allow the bread to rise.
Traditional Jews spend the week of the Passover festival removing the leavening from our foods – and our souls – focusing on our journey from slavery to freedom, and through redemption to a commitment of faith and service. On a year when Passover starts Saturday night – immediately after Shabbat – there is an incredible amount of work to complete before the onset of the Jewish Sabbath. I won’t bore you with a checklist of everything that we have done so far, much less the work ahead.
To be blunt: Passover is a holiday that requires a lot of time and attention in the kitchen to prepare meals, and where the best thing is to stay in your own lane. I try not to worry about what someone else is cleaning, cooking, eating – the rules are so varied and the edicts on what is acceptable and what is not can be abstruse. There will be always be those who are doing a lot more, others doing less, and no agreement on what is required. That is the Jewish tradition.
For the uninitiated, one of the key precepts for Passover is the elimination of fermented foods from the diet, including all prepared products that contain wheat, barley, spelt, oats and rye EXCEPT for products specifically manufactured in a manner to prevent fermentation, ie total preparation in less than 18 minutes under rabbinical supervision.
There are additional traditions relating to consumption of pulses, corn, seeds, etc., that vary between different Jewish communities, and/or based on the views of individual rabbis. There is also a longstanding tradition in many communities to divest ourselves of leavened foods in our houses, and to enter into a formal bill of sale for any remaining non-Passover/leavened foods that remain, to eliminate personal ownership for the duration of the holiday.
Fermented foods that are so important to the Microbiome Diet are totally excluded during the Passover holiday. So earlier this week I used the last of my sourdough starter on some Spelt-Rye Bread, and we are also finishing up the latest batch of Dosa batter (fermented rice/dal/millet vegan crepe/pancake).
So what happens when tradition bars consumption of fermented foods – also known as Probiotics? If you are familiar with the Microbiome Diet, you may already be anticipating the answer: Prebiotics to the rescue!
As you may already be aware, Prebiotics are nutritionally dense, high-fiber fruits and vegetables:
Your body relies on the essential nutrients found in Prebiotics for effective care and feeding of our microbial fellow travelers. Prebiotics are vegetables, fruits and whole grains that provide important dietary fiber to support your digestive health and promote the continuing diversity of the Microbiome. Due to their concentration of dietary fiber, Prebiotic foods also play an important role in metabolism and overall health including regulation of blood sugar, serum cholesterol levels in the bloodstream, supporting weight management and promoting regularity.
Egyptian Leek Potato Soup starts off as a lot of chopped vegetables, aka Prebiotics!
Prebiotics are the unsung heroes of the Microbiome Diet – at least and by increasing consumption of healthy soups throughout the Passover holiday, and continued focus on avoidance of processed foods (the B and C in the Microbiome Diet ABCs), we can maintain a healthful diet even in the absence of fermented probiotic foods.
For my family, focusing on soup during Passover has been an effective way to increase consumption of Prebiotics. This “Soup Theory of Passover” means that I generally have two soups on the stove at any given time – even for a small family – and I make a new soup when one of the first is exhausted.
Every meal begins with a hearty soup and a salad, followed by a small main course and (of course) dessert. In practical terms having fresh, healthy and delicious vegetable-based soups adds to the joy of the holiday in the best possible way. While it may sound time-consuming to make so many soups over the course of a single week, the reality is that Passover means cooking from scratch.
To be fair, I started the Soup Theory of Passover both for reasons of taste as much as health. Initially the most important impact of all of the soups – some of which I only make during the week of Passover – was to add more flavor and healthy diversity to our holiday meals when so many of the our regular foods are off the menu.
The realization that soup could be the answer for my family actually predated my commitment to the Microbiome Diet by several years and it was only in retrospect that I realized why it was a good idea that is worth sharing. The first clue that I was onto something good was my husband’s reaction on the last day of the holiday that Passover could not be almost over because he wasn’t sick of the food yet.
Another welcome dividend of the Soup Theory of Passover is that it helps to prevent weight gain during what is traditionally not only a festival of freedom but also a festival of eating (somehow despite everything that is off the table during the week-long holiday results in everyone eating more)!
So now we are on the eve of another Passover holiday, and I am preparing my arsenal of soups to get through the week. We will start tomorrow evening with Happy Chicken Soup (my vegetarian, traditional matzah-ball soup) and Egyptian Leek-Potato Soup.
Happy Chicken (vegetarian) and Egyptian Leek Potato Soup, recipes to follow.
Coming attractions may include Roman Soup with Passover dumplings, French Onion Soup with a Garlic-Parmesan (matzah) crouton, Cream of Tomato or Cream of Mushroom Soup, and/or Gazpacho – depending on how far we go down the soup rabbit-hole. (The idea is to always have two soups on tap.)
Over the next week I will try to post – and link – the recipes for our favorite Passover soups. And of course I would love to hear from anyone else who has a good soup recipe out there for Passover.
Wishing everyone the best for a very happy holiday – Chag Sameach – for Passover, Easter, Holi or whatever you may be observing during this festive season.
I still remember my first, a special-issue centennial Gold Medal Flour cookbook available only by mail-order. This is the book that taught me how to bake bread and includes recipes for all of the great American classic cookies and cakes – essentially anything with flour.
For those too young to remember the days before Amazon Prime 2-day delivery, in the olden days we used to send off an order by mail and then wait 4 – 6 weeks for delivery. My first cookbook arrived in this fashion, delivered to my Mosher-Jordan dormitory mail cubby hole my freshman year at the University of Michigan in December 1979. I remember everything about its arrival, how it had to be rolled into a cylinder to fit into the cubby hole, and so had to be unrolled and held flat to regain its shape, how excited I was, and how I read it cover-to-cover like a novel – the way I still read every cookbook.
I still have a soft-spot for my first: the Gold Medal Century of Success Cookbook.
But this is not about one cookbook – if all I had was this one book the story would end here. I kept going.
Over the decades I amassed well over 100 cookbooks. During my early years of cooking in Ann Arbor Michigan, my growing cookbook collection was heavy on crunchy, granola-vegetarian books like the Moosewood Cookbook, Vegetarian Epicure, and Tasajara Cooking, reflecting the life of an U-M grad student living in group houses and shopping at Co-ops and the Farmers Market. My collection expanded to include Chinese, Indian, Italian, Thai, Vietnamese and other international cookbooks, and over the years I also received wonderful cookbooks as gifts from friends and family. Eventually I published my own vegetarian cookbook to reflect my family’s overseas experiences: Dining in the Garden of Eden (available for download on a set-your-own-price basis).
My cookbooks accompanied me on all my foreign service assignments – London, Tel Aviv, Manila and back again. I love my cookbooks and have an awe and respect for the authors of these amazing creations. Cookbooks can be aspirational as well as inspiration for creation of nourishing, delicious food. They shed light on foreign cultures and traditions. The best cookbooks also tell the story of the author, and I have a number of books from the same author, reflecting different perspectives at various stages of life. Over time my collection outgrew the kitchen and had to be relocated to a vintage wrought iron bakers rack, where they remain to date.
My cookbooks at home on their bakers rack.
Moving overseas in October 2018 – selling our house and most of its contents – led me to reevaluate my collection. Cookbooks, like anything else, reflect fashions and fads. Like designer kitchens that appear untouched by human hands, I had cookbooks that I really wanted at the time but rarely opened. And the way that I cook now is so different than in those days – chalk that up to the requirements of Second Middle Age and the Microbiome Diet.
At the same time we now have the convenience of online cooking blogs and recipes, an amazing asset for any cook. Although I have an excellent memory for what recipe is in which book, for random queries it is so often easier to just look online. I have started to upload my own favorite recipes to this blog for that reason, and also am working to expand and update my own Microbiome Diet recipes.
So now that we have moved to our 5th (!) apartment in the last 2.5 years – having moved my cookbook collection from DC to Jerusalem and now carried it again to Zichron Yaakov – I am appreciating all of my cookbooks, reflecting on which ones are still important to me today, and parting with those I don’t need. I treasure my remaining collection and still like nothing more than to sit with a cup of coffee or tea and a cookbook for company.
In case anyone wants them, I have a few soft-cover classic vegetarian cookbooks that are not in quite good enough condition to donate. Any takers?
Second Middle Age is a time of clarity, a time to take off blinders and to see the world as it is and not as we wish it to be. From the vantage point of having lived 60 years on this planet, having lived in London as a young diplomat, and having studied the history of England and Great Britain, I did not need to watch Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan to understand that systemic racism is alive and well in the UK and supported – implicitly or explicitly – by the Royal Family.
History matters; we can only understand our present day problems with full recognition and accountability for the past. My personal experience and knowledge relates to anti-semitism, and that is what I am focusing on here. This is not intended to ignore or minimize other forms of systemic racism, it is just my own area of knowledge.
So I am writing to share information relating to the history of anti-semitism in England and the United Kingdom. This is not a fun read; still it is important to know what has come before to understand where we find ourselves now.
Possibly the first, and certainly one of Europe’s worst massacres of Jews took place at Clifford’s Tower, in York, England in 1190, where the entire Jewish community of York perished. As a junior Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Embassy in London, England, I was privileged to join the 1990 commemoration of the 800th anniversary the Clifford’s Tower Massacre in York.
“Every March, around the anniversary of the massacre, daffodils first planted in 1990 bloom around the base of Clifford’s Tower. The flowers’ six petals represent the six points of the Star of David, a peaceful tribute to the victims of one of the most vicious episodes in York’s history.” https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-clifford-s-tower-massacre/
In the late 13th century, King Edward I began by perspecuting the Jews as a financial scapegoat and ended in ejecting them altogether. England became the first country in Europe to ban Jews and confiscate their property, and they were not allowed back until the 17th century.
Fast forward to the early 20th century: as the governing colonial power in much of the Middle East, the British Empire stretched from the Suez Canal to the Persian Gulf. Mandatory Palestine consisted of a single political unit corresponding to the modern state of Israel, the West Bank (aka Judea and Samaria) and TransJordan. At that time, painstaking diplomatic efforts to reestablish a sovereign Jewish state dated back to the 19th century had recently culminated in the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917), supporting: “the establishment in Palestine of a national home of the Jewish people.”
The Balfour Declaration (1917)
Although the British faced law and order challenges East of the Jordan river, it is clear that the Balfour Declaration intended for Transjordan to be included as an integral part of Palestine for purposes of establishing a Jewish homeland:
The first draft of the Palestinian mandate was submitted to the Council of the League of Nations [precursor to the United Nations] by Arthur James Balfour, on behalf of the British Government, on December 5, 1920. It continued no provision exempting Transjordan from the Scope of the Jewish National Home. As late as February 1921, when the experts of the [British] Colonial Office prepared recommendations for the Cairo conference, Transjordan was included in Palestine and was to be an indistinguishable part of Palestine and open to Jewish immigration. The British Palestine Royal Commission of 1937 concluded that the ‘field in which the Jewish National Home was to be established was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the whole of historic Palestine.’
Long-standing British policy and the eternal aspirations for a Jewish homeland held no weight when the UK faced an unsettled situation in Transjordan. After decades of painfully slow progress towards development of a plan for a Jewish Homeland – a homeland that literally might have saved millions of Jews during the Holocaust – in 1922 the British expediently hived off the eastern half of Mandatory Palestine to the Hashemites, a clan without local ties or historical claims that had been ejected from their ancestral territory in Hejaz (present day Saudi Arabia) and demanded British support.
Britain’s imperial ambition was paramount; keeping promises to the Jews counted for nil. Britain’s support for the Hashemites in TransJordan has had far-reaching and negative implications for the sustainable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
With this context, in recent weeks I have been reading biographies of the Mitfords, among the most famous (and infamous) British aristocratic family. The rank anti-semitism of (at least) the Mitford daughters Unity, Diane and Pam is well documented yet seemingly excused by their beauty, charm, and so-called breeding.
Unity Valkerie Mitford famously traveled to Munich with the intention of meeting Hitler, who she stalked at his favorite lunch restaurant. She did manage to enter Hitlers inner circle; apparently he was thrilled by the support of a young, blond-blue-eyed British aristocrat from an important and prominent family, and even gave her an apartment so that she could remain near to him in Munich – after getting rid of its Jewish residents and redecorating it: “During his preparation for world war in the summer of 1939, he found time to arrange for a Jewish couple to be dispossessed from their apartment in Munich in order for Unity to have it.” Unity died of meningitis several years after she shot herself in the head upon learning that the UK was entering the war against Germany. She treasured her Nazi memorabilia to the end of her life.
Diane Mitford is remembered as beautiful and charming, rather than as a hate-filled anti-semitic fascist. She married the anti-semitic avowed Fascist Sir Oswald Mosely, founder of the Blackshirts and the British Union of Fascists, and was imprisoned as a supporter of the Nazis during World War II, however she was never cancelled. Following her internment, she was able essentially to pick up her high society life where she left off after the war, including reentry into (fascistic) politics. She never expressed any regret or sorrow, either for her personal regard and relationship with Hitler- who she never renounced, or her virulent anti-semitism. And she thrived.
Who names their daughter “Valkerie”? Someone whose grandfather, the previous Lord Redesdale, was great friends and supporters of both Wagner and Houston Steward Chamberlain, the anti-Semite and “official philosopher of Nazism,” and whose other grandfather was also an anti-semite who “jeered at the Jews at the Wailing Wall.”
As her father, David Bertram Ogivley Freeman-Mitford and the 2nd Baron Redesdale made a series of bad investments he moved further to the right politically, joining among other anti-semitic organizations the Right Club, whose mission was “to oppose and expose the activities of Organized Jewry.” Both he and his wife Sydney (“Muv”) were favorably impressed by Hitler; while David later rejected the Nazis, Sydney remained sympathetic, and particularly well-impressed by her experience of meeting Hitler, who she said had good manners.
Remember that even as recently as early 2005 Prince Harry felt comfortable wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party event – possibly with no ill intentions but demonstrating either remarkable tone-deafness or having grown up in an environment where anti-semitism was unremarkable. And actions have consequences: published photos of Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform led to a rise in anti-semitic violence in 2005.
The roots of British racism – including anti-semitism – run deep, and the UK continues to reap what it has sown.
It is salutary that Prince Harry has now seen the corrosive impact of racism in his own life and is speaking out against it. Let’s hope that this is only the start of a life of activism against racism in all of its forms.
We all have an obligation to try to repair the injustices in the world, to mend the world and heal the divisions of the past to mitigate their effect on us in the present and for future generations.
The last time we moved – during the first Corona lockdown in May 2020 – I consoled myself with the (false) hope that at least we could stay here until we found our permanent home.
It was easy to feel at home in Apartment 4
However that proved unrealistic — it’s hard enough for new American-Israelis to get a handle on house-hunting locally, and we are not planning on buying in Jerusalem.
The really great news is that we are relocating north to be closer to where Aaron is living at Kibbutz Heftziba and returning to the community where we started our Aliyah. With ‘boots in the ground’ we hope to be able to find a permanent home.
I also have more thoughts on the whole concept of accepting the temporary and hope to share them … right after I unpack a few boxes.
Peas are another wonderful prebiotic, and a great sources of fiber and vegetable protein. This is a wonderful winter soup, and its great as a simple dinner with crusty bread and salad, or as a first course of a larger meal. My son Aaron likes his soup with a little feta or other cheese. It was originally published in my first cookbook: Dining in the Garden of Eden, available for download on a ‘set your own price’ basis.
Ingredients
1 Cup dried split peas (rinsed and soaked for at least 1/2 hour)
1 medium onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. each: dried thyme and marjoram
1 bay leaf
2 medium carrots, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped (with leaves)
6 – 8 cups water (If you have cooking liquid left from pasta, vegetables, etc., use it.)
1 tsp. salt, pepper to taste.
Instructions
1. Up to an hour or so before you begin to cook, rinse the split peas, and leave them in a bowl covered with water to soak. This will speed up the cooking process.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a pot large enough for the rest of the ingredients. Sauté the onion over low heat, keeping the pot covered. Stir in the garlic after five minutes or so when the onion is translucent. If the onions and garlic seem a little dry, add 1 – 2 tablespoons of water. Cook for five minutes, add the dried thyme, marjoram and bay leaf and stir. After a minute or two, add the chopped carrots and celery. If you are running late, remember that the carrots will cook more quickly if they are cut into smaller pieces.
3. Drain the split peas and stir into the sautéed vegetables. After a few minutes add the vegetable stock or water, and raise heat to bring the soup to a boil. After the soup begins to boil, lower heat and simmer the soup for at least 45 minutes. Once the peas are soft, you may take the soup off the heat and use a blender to puree the soup, or if you prefer, serve the soup partially pureed, or as is. Add the salt and pepper just before serving.
Pinto Beans and other legumes are an excellent source of Prebiotics needed by your body to support a healthy Microbiome. This means that they are an excellent source of fiber and plant protein, and may have a number of other health benefits. If Pinto Beans are not available, you can substitute cranberry or other similar beans. The following was originally published in my first cookbook: Dining in the Garden of Eden, available for download on a ‘set your own price’ basis.
Pinto Beans
Ingredients
2 Cups dried pinto beans
2 to 4 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion, diced
2 – 3 carrots, diced
2 inch cinnamon stick
1/4 C cilantro, coarsely chopped (with or without stems)
1 fresh green chile, diced
1-2 tsp. salt (add only at end of cooking)
1. Soak the beans (for a minimum of an hour to overnight) and cook with the rest of the Ingredients in 4 cups of water over medium low heat until the beans are soft enough to mash and the liquid is reduced. This will take a while, but does not take much supervision.
A pressure cooker speeds things up dramatically – if you are serious about cooking with legumes, buy a pressure cooker.
Pressure Cooker Instructions: For a four-quart pressure cooker, you can cook two cups of beans, plus other Ingredients, covering it all with water about an inch higher than the Ingredients. Do not fill the pressure cooker up more than half full. Cook over medium heat until the little hat starts its hat dance, and the beans are under pressure. Once the beans are under pressure, cook for 30 minutes. If the beans are soft at that point, but too much liquid remains, remove the lid and cook down the liquid over low heat.
2. Mash the beans to form a paste with a smooth consistency; if you prefer a coarser end product, stop mashing when you reach the desired consistency. You may want to divide the recipe in half, storing a container full in the freezer, and putting the other half in the refrigerator for immediate use.
*****
Burritos/Tostadas/Chimichangas
Ingredients
Refried beans (recipe above)
Flour (whole wheat or plain) or Corn tortillas (warmed in microwave or conventional oven)
Grated cheddar and mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese, or Mexican cheese mixed
Vegetable for inside/on top: shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes and onions
1. Burritos: Lay out a tortilla, and spread the center with approximately 1 – 2 tablespoons of refried beans (in a straight line down the center), depending on the size of the tortilla. Sprinkle with shredded cheeses, and cover the cheese with lettuce, tomato and onion, quantities as desired. Fold both sides over around the mixture and fasten with a toothpick or simply turn the burrito over to seal it. Bake the burrito in an oven at medium to medium high heat until heated through and the cheese is nicely melted.
2. Tostadas: take a corn or flour tortilla, and spread the refried beans over the entire surface (about 2 tablespoons of beans for a small tortilla). Sprinkle with shredded cheese, and bake at 350 degrees or broil at medium to medium high heat until the cheese is bubbling.
3. Chimichangas: For Chimichangas, it is particularly important to use flour tortillas that have been warmed in a microwave oven for 20 – 30 seconds in a plastic bag, so that they will be soft and will fold easily. Lay out a warm tortilla, place one tablespoon of beans in the top quadrant, sprinkle with chopped onion and cheese, and roll two thirds of the way. Fold in the two sides and roll the rest of the way shut. Fry in 1/2 to 1 inch of oil, starting seam side down, until brown. Turn over to brown the second side.
To Serve: Top with plain yogurt or sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. For tostados: top at the table with the other vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, onion) as desired.
For just a few moments I would like to set aside all of the COVID worry, the rule of law crisis swirling around Washington DC and everything else, to share a few positive thoughts about my son Aaron(27, ASD). This is a story of persistence and redemption, of nascent success that has even more resonance for having happened during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In October 2018, we threw the cards in the air and relocated from Washington DC to Israel. At that time our goal was to find a program where Aaron could live and work independent of his parents (us), and where he could find personal fulfillment and growth. This seemed a tall order, and I am sure that many of our friends and relatives thought that we were crazy.
Fast forward 2 years and we have found a better way forward for Aaron here in Israel, where he is living at Kibbutz Heftziba, in the foothills of the Gilboa Mountain (images from his new home at a Beit Eckstein site above).
Aaron has benefited from a comprehensive network of supported living and meaningful employment/educational opportunities for individuals with special needs including ASD. We have found advanced therapies and approaches that have helped Aaron immeasurably in addressing his anxiety and improving his emotional bandwidth, focus, and development.
Aaron has regained his physical health, lost 50+ pounds, somehow gained over an inch in height, and even fell in love.
Of course nothing happens overnight, and development is never a straight line – there are zigs and zags and everything takes time, particularly when we had to learn a whole new system, in a different language, set up housekeeping (more than once), and also over the last year deal with a pandemic, lockdowns, etc. And no one has worked harder than Aaron to make progress.
Everything seems impossible until it is obvious.
me
Before we made out big move, my son Aaron and I traveled for a 3-week pilot trip to learn more about resources for young adults on the Autism Spectrum. I will never forget our conversation immediately after arrival, in the car en route to close friends where we would spend our first few nights. I said to Aaron that we were looking to find opportunities to make him the ‘best possible Aaron’ that he could be. His response was that in the US, the programs were making him ‘the worst.’
Unfortunately Aaron was right. At this stage the U.S. does not offer a national roadmap for our young adults with special needs, with only limited funding and programming available on a state-by-state basis. For hundreds of thousands of families (probably an understatement), the end of high school is like falling off a cliff.
Despite the active engagement of wonderful social workers in Washington DC who really cared about Aaron, we ended up pulling Aaron out of the system for his own physical and emotional safety. As Aaron’s stellar psychiatrist put it, Aaron needed ever-higher levels of behavioral meds just to keep his equilibrium in an environment that made no sense. This situation was unsustainable.
The lie that we tell ourselves is that our children with special needs don’t know what they are missing. The reality is that too much of the time they know what they are missing and live in silent despair. (They already knew the misery of social and economic isolation before COVID.) I experienced my son’s heartbreak after high school graduation on the honor roll when he was able to articulate his feelings of ‘being left behind’ while his friends left for college and beyond. He was a cheerleader for his sister’s college success but longed for a dorm room of his own.
Now he has his own small apartment (exterior shown above), at a wonderful Beit Eckstein program in the North of Israel near the Gilboa Mountains. He has started his dream job working at a therapeutic farm in Megiddo (aka Armageddon), together with his “Heftziba Capsule” of new friends. (Due to COVID-19, Israel’s programs operate on the Capsule model.)
Clearly what we came to Israel to find should be replicable in the U.S. I am sharing my ‘good news’ story in the hope that the incoming Biden Administration may initiate a meaningful national conversation on the needs of individuals with special needs on employment, broader inclusion and social engagement.
As I learned years ago from Professor Reuven Feuerstein (z”l), the only limitation on learning is lifespan – not just for those with special needs but for all of us.
The U.S. Foreign Service taught me at two essential life skills: how to pack a suitcase and move house. As both a former Former Service Officer (FSO) and then a FSO Spouse (fun fact: we started the other way round and switched midway), we have moved locally, cross-country and internationally – sometimes all three in the same year.
After overseas tours together in London, Tel Aviv, and Manila, Phils, assignments to Main State in Washington DC and my husband’s solo Tour of Duty in Kabul, our latest moves have been in Israel. In October 2018 I left Washington DC to set up a beachhead in the north of Israel.
After the turmoil of the previous few years Zichron Yaakov felt like a warm bath – the best summer camp ever, only with amazing, fresh food and in wine country. We arrived with our trunks only to find our initial transit flat underwhelming due to misleading / incomplete disclosures. Enough said. So that was apartment number one.
After another month, I had found (and furnished) a better temporary apartment – we would move to Jerusalem for family reasons before too long – where we settled in happily and waited for my husband Matt to sell off our Washington DC home and furnishings, retire, and join us here. That was apartment number two.
Living in Jerusalem since June 2019, we have have again moved from our initial apartment – extra points for moving house in the midst of COVID-19? We did stay for the duration of our one year lease, and that was the end of apartment number three.
Gardening in Old Katamon, Jerusalem, circa 2020
Last May we relocated within Jerusalem to a cozy Ottoman-era house in a highly walkable neighborhood called Old Katamon, renovated ten years back and now part of a small apartment building. This garden apartment met our COVID-considerations including a large courtyard with space for our old deck furniture (the only big furniture that we shipped and have kept), gardening, and private parking. We have appreciated the high ceilings, many windows and French Doors for ventilation and most of all the outdoor space as COVID restrictions ebb and flow – we are now well into Israel’s third Coronavirus surge and impending restrictions. So now we are comfortably ensconced in apartment number four.
Throughout our moves we have been blessed with old and new friends and opportunities for spiritual and social support. Of course the Coronavirus has made it much more difficult to get to know our new neighbors here in Old Katamon. Even at the height of COVID-19, however, we found a new spiritual home literally around the corner in one of a myriad outdoor prayer groups that fill the gap left from closure of ‘bricks and mortar’ religious institutions. The heartbeat of Judaism is home observance; I have been impressed anew by how much can be done with the support of a WhatsApp Group and knowledgable neighbors.
Gan visitors making like Monet painting tulips in our garden circa 2014, Washington DC
Now as we contemplate the future, I am reminded of the past. More than twenty years ago we found a home where we could raise our children, cultivate our garden, and open our doors to our community, friends and family to share in our simchas (celebrations) and support us in our sadnesses – the stuff of life. To find it we drew a circle on the map of northwest Washignton DC – marking a quarter-mile circle around our Synagogue and Gan (nursery school). The house was not large by US standards and we never had more than one car. We realize how fortunate we were to be truly a part of the fabric of our community.
We are not yet at the point of finding our permanent home – I hope this will be sooner than later. When that time comes we will not be looking for an isolated fortress on an island to separate us from friends and neighbors. I can’t imagine more of an impoverished existence than a gated mansion on Indian Creek Island.
