Misc10

December 2012 - The Reijzers visit.

Doreen: Hans and Lottie Reijzer, our friends from ulpan days nearly 50 years ago, are on a visit to Israel. They joined Vered and family and Louise at our house for Friday night dinner. I had prepared onion soup, roast turkey breast with pears and lemon meringue pie.

Hans stumbled into our lounge and went to sleep. It seems the night before he had been in hospital after having lost consciousness at a restaurant where he had eaten something to which he is allergic (red paprika it turns out). Hans did get up when our guests arrived and sat through the dinner barely eating anything – luckily I learnt about the red paprika and left it out.

When it came to desserts, he chose to have a slice of Lemon Meringue Pie. He perked up a little and asked for a second helping. His eyes opened, he sat up straight and he was fine. I don’t know what the healing properties of Lemon Meringue Pie are, but try it. The recipe appears under family recipes. The others enjoyed the pie but also the turkey breast!

The recipe for turkey breast also appears under family recipes.

December 2012 - Dan Kansky's barmitzvah

Mazal tov to Dan Kansky on his barmitzvah today. We attended the lovely party in his honour and had an enjoyable time. It's most pleasurable when the family meet to celebrate something, and today was no exception. Mazl tov to mom Wendy and and grandparents Shirley and Nathan and to all the Kansky clan.

(see Hirshovitz/Levy and Matz family trees.). Here are some pictures of the family at the barmitzvah party.

Adam, Maytal and Cheryl Kansky; Nathan and Shirley Kansky; Braham Kansky and Ziva

Guy and Efrat Shabtay
Dan Kansky barmitzvah

Tamar Shabtay was too busy sending SMS's to pay much attention to the party

Newly-weds Lee and Nadav Levy; Jonathan Levy; Malia Levy

December 2012 - Our visit to Madrid

Madrid

At the hotel in Madrid with tour participants Ruth Ben Zvi and Yehudit Pearl and tour guide Shuki Brandwein

At the ancient Egyptian Temple of Debod. The temple was dismantled in Egypt to prevent destruction by flooding due to the Aswan Dam, and reconsructed in Madid as a gift from Egypt to Spain.

Doreen was fascinated by this "sign" (genuine loaves of bread) at the bread shop.

Eating and enjoying the local food is important on all our trips: Doreen contemplates her paella before tucking in; a little snack at the market.

At the market in Madrid I was pickpocketed. I felt something immediately and noted a man in front of me putting something in his back pocket. I pushed my way through the crowd and pulled him by the arm. He shouted something to me in Spanish and continued walking fast. I caught up with him on these steps, put my hand in his back pocket and "stole" my wallet back from him. For good measure I gave him a parting kick in the butt to help him down the stairs.

December2012 - Some pictures of the Tamir Klaffs

Frankie Klaff and Dave Rothschild with Tamir, Alex, Tali and Cale. (see Goldberg family tree.)

December 12 2012 - Wedding of Nadav Levy and Lee Eshel

Mazaltov to Nadav Levy, son of cousin Jonathan Levy and of Naomi; and Lee Eshel on their marriage on 12/12/12, in the South Bohemian town of Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. Click here for a short and delightful video taken in Chesky Krumlov on their wedding day. Mazaltov also to Jonathan, Naomi, Dina, Efrat, Yarden and all the familes; and an extra special mazaltov to grandma Malia. (see Hirshovitz/Levy and Matz family trees.)

December 2012 - Chanuka at the Levys, the Segolis and the Habermans.

Chanuka is a real Festival of Lights at the Habermans. As we were overseas we could not attend the chanukah lighting of the 7th candle at the house of Shuly and Eitan Haberman. (see Goldberg family tree ). The Rons - Vered, Aviv, Dani and Lior - were there and reported a lovely evening.

The Segolis celebrated Chanuka at their house in Townsville, Australia. About 30 people came and they had a wonderful time. Even the Habad Rabbi came from Melbourne and brought Sofganiot (jam filled doughnuts). The kids built chanukiot and lit candles and took part in other chanuka activities.

Lighting the first night candle and singing Chanuka songs, in Netanya..
There are more pictures on the This Week's picture archives, and on the pages of Lior Ron and Dani Ron (with relative Jenna Cotton.)

December 2012 - Eitan and Jenna Cotton pick pecans.

We were very happy to host Jenna Cotton during the first weekend in December. Jenna is the delightful daughter of my cousin Cecile and Raymond Cotton (see Hirshovitz/Levy and Matz family trees) and is in Israel for a few months studying at a Jerusalem midrasha.
We took her to Ruthie and Dani Erez's moshav to pick some of their delicious pecans to take back to her fellow students in Jerusalem.

For other pictures of Jenna see the picture above, and This Week's picture archives, and the page of Dani Ron

November 2012 - Award of EBL Silver Medal

From the home page of the internet site of the European Bridge League (EBL) :-

[Link to the EBL page here.]

EBL Siver Medal

Levy Decorated

On the occasion of the 2012 European Champions' Cup,
Eitan Levy, President of the Israel Bridge Federation,
was honored with the EBL silver medal for his services
to bridge over many decades.

November 2012 - Eilat's ephemeral lake

Doreen writes: Eilat, being in the desert, does not experience rain every year. This year is exceptional:; they have already had three flash floods with unexpected results. An old quarry that appears to have a clay floor became filled with water and an ephermeral lake was formed, to the delight of the Eilat inhabitants.. When we walked around the lake this morning there were people windsurfing, others swimming and a few having mud baths! A large group from a nearby kibbutz came to have a picnic lunch by the lake while many people came for an outing with their dogs That tower with an accacia tree in the background is one of couple of such 'towers'. The Nature Preservation Society insisted that even though the sand could be quarried they were not to remove the trees. There is no way they could get water but it is an arresting site, even though the trees are now dead.

November 2012 - Reunion in Kibbutz Yizreel of ex-Durbanites

It was wonderful seeing some of our friends from our Durban days at the ex-Durbanite reunion organized at Kibbutz Yizreel. Some we see fairly regularly and some we haven't seen for too many tears. Read more, and see another picture here.

Jackie Metzger, Sharon Ernst and Theo Stone

me, Naomi Hertz Winokur, Maureen Konigsfest Fine, Jackie Landau Issy Levitan, me, Hylton Lotkin

October 2012 - At the Sydney Opera with the Hakims

Doreen and I spent a few days in Sydney with Ros and Claude Hakim (see This Week's Picture archives). We went to the justly famous and beautiful Sydney Opera House, had a delicious meal at the restaurant there, and saw a fantastic and fascinating production of Aida.

September 2012 - Andy and Yaffa Loew enjoy their grandchildren

Andy with grandchildren

Andy and Yaffa Loew with their grandchildren Dotan and Eyal Shavit. (see Schank and Glezer family trees)

September 2012
Fish don't fast on Yom Kippur. Aviv Levy in his duties as Aquarium director acts both as guard and fish feeder on this day. We usually join him for company and a nice quiet and reflective day, but this year it appears that he was like the Pied Piper of Hamelin attracting children who were eager to help feed lettuce to the turtles.
Doreen with 10 kids

September 2012
Heini and Tiina Drui (see Schank family tree) take a break from work in Estonia on vacation in Palma

August 2012 - 17th Family Reunion - Eilat
Our last family reunion was in South Africa two years ago, and as the Segolis were passing through Israel on the way from Davis, California to their new "home" in Townsville, Australia it was a great opportunity to organize a family reunion and introduce the family to the latest member, Zoe.
Doreen was appointed Head Organizer and on Thursday we all met at the Riviera Hotel in Eilat, and had a wonderful three days together. The hit of course was four month year old Zoe, but all the cousins got on fabulously and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

The nicest part of our family reunion was the joy that everyone took in the company of everyone else. Here Dani and Lior enjoy a short respite from the excellent babysitting they did for all their cousins. Itamar and Mayan as usual are intensely involved in a fascinating electronic game, with Lotem looking on.

Ilai, in the Levy tradition, is happy when eating. Moran, Mikhal and Aviv Ron enjoy some piece of family news.

The highlight of our reunion was a family barbecue by the beach. Everyone pitched in, but Aviv was the chief barbecuer of Doreen's famous tandoori chicken.

Many of our best pictures were taken by the ardent photographer, Aviv Ron, here showing a more relaxed side of his photography as we all enjoy dinner.

Amit enjoying the slides. Yael and Nevo Nickel enjoying a joke with the rest of the Levy clan

Here Vered, Doreen and Mikhal enjoy a quiet moment in the crisp Red Sea at sunset. There goes that ball again! Itamar and Lotem race to catch it.

Everyone fussed around Zoe who was quiet happy to be passed from hand to hand - and she smiled throughout. Here Limor holds Zoe as the kids cluster around to get a chance to hold her.

Oh Mikhal! Beware, Moran has quite a burden on his shoulders these days

This 17th Family Reunion had a lot of poignancy to it. With the Segolis off to Australia we don't know where or when, or even if there will be another complete one. (Even if they all gather at one of our funerals, one of us will be in a box, and not quite there :)
On the back of the T-shirts is printed our family tree. The tree has leaves and labels where the names of all 16 of us appear. The children had great fun finding their name among the leaves. Bye bye, till the next Levy Family Reunion!

for more pictures see the pages of : Daniel, Lior, Itamar, Amit, Ilai, Maayan, Lotem, Zoe, Picture of Week archives

August 2012 - Vered's birthday paragliding celebration (See This Week's Picture for another picture).

Doreen and I gave daughter Vered a present on her birthday last June - to go paragliding with a partner. Vered invited Doreen to be her partner, but for various reasons the event was put of until the beginning of August. By this time other excitement seekers had joined the party and decided to paraglide too..
(left to right)
Gidon Collins, Doreen, Caroline Livne, Sharon Collins, Vered Levy-Ron, Louise Braverman.

paragliding

We were blesssed with a beautiful day with just the right amount of wind, and a wonderful time was had by all, including yours truly, the photographer.

Claude Hakim's 70th birthday
Claude Hakim 70

The Hakim family, l-r: Ros, Daniel, Claude, Jean-Marc, on the occasion of Claude's 70th birthday.

Four years ago (see picture and story) we reported on how this site helped Ros and Doreen renew contact, albeit only by email and skype. A few months back we posted a picture of Ros's grandfather (see picture and story) and expressed the hope that we would soon meet in Australia.
In October when we fly to Australia with Moran, Mikhal and their children, Doreen and I will to fly to Sydney to be with Ros and Claude for a few days and we are looking forward to getting to know each other again.

More babysitting the Levy children

At the Eretz Yisrael museum, after two shows at the planetarium we saw an ancient wine press (left) and then went on to the Nechustan pavillion (right). This is where finds from Timna, one of the most ancient copper mines in the world, are on display. Since the Levy grandchildren live in Eilat, not far from Timna, this seemed an ideal choice and from the picture you can see they enjoyed it.

Click here for more pictures from the previous week's activities.

July 2012: Babysitting the Levy children

Aviv and Limor are spending a week in Greece and we are looking after our grandchildren Itamar, Amit and Ilai. Doreen has prepared an activity schedule which the kids have found most enjoyable. As Itamar said after day 2: "What interesting thing are we doing tomorrow?"

At Ramat Hanadiv - the park where Baron Edmund de Rothschild and his wife are buried - the kids enjoyed a jazz concert (Itamar was fascinated with the saxophone) and listened to a story and took part in a search for signs of a unicorn (part of the Rothschild's coat of arms). At the dairy giant Tnuva at Alon Tavor the children pose in front of a picture of the plant. There we learnt about the processes involved in turning cow's milk into dairy products on the supermarket shelf. At At Maayan Zvi we fished unsuccessfully for supper but enjoyed the water slide. The fish fillets we had for supper were from the supermarket.

On Friday night the Rons came for dinner, after which the kids went to spend the weekend with Vered, Aviv, Dani and Lior (and of course Tuli the dog)

Click here for pictures from the next week.

July 2012 At the European Junior Bridge Championships in Vejle Denmark

Yves Aubry President of the European Bridge League awarding the cups to the Israel pair, Itamar Ginosar and Adam Reiter, who won first prize for the top under 21 pair in the consolation event.
Ginosar_reiter

The tournament directors at the Championships, responsible for judging, applying the laws, and smooth running of the games.
Slawek Latala (Poland)
Jens Ulrik Fought (Denmark)
Marc van Beijsterveld (Netherlands)
Eitan Levy (Israel)

July 2012 - With Patisa, Jens and Sofia in Denmark
Patissa

Doreen took the opportunity while in Denmark to visit the Rasmussens, Patisa, Jens and Sofia. Patisa is one of our daughter Vered's closest friends. They went to school together when we were in St Thomas in the Virgin Islands and we consider her one of our family. Vered and Patisa remain in close and constant contact. Patisa now lives in Odense in Denmark.

Patissa visits the bridge

Unfortunately I had no time off when I was at the European Junior Bridge Championships in Vejle, but Patisa came to say hello and then take Doreen off to spend an evening with her in Odense an hour away.

Doreen in Copenhagen, at the statue of Hans Christian Andersen.

June 2012 - Meeting with Eleanor Pines in London

By chance Doreen's classmate and close friend Eleanor (Gamsy) Pines was in London at the same time as we were, and we met a couple of times to chat about the "good old days" and today's problems.

May 2012 - While in Davis, Doreen was happy to meet with Yehoram (Yori) Leshem, a second cousin (see Gordon/Glasser family tree), who is also a post-doc student at Davis, and a friend of our son Moran and Mikhal.Segoli. Click here for summary of Yori's research.
Yuri Leshem

Doreen and Yori with baby Zoe Segoli.

Moran and Mikhal were colleagues, friends and neighbours of Yori well before the family connection was discovered.
On a visit to Davis a few years ago the Segolis and I (Eitan) were invited to Yori's apartment to celebrate Sukkot in the sukka (booth) he had built on the verandah.
During the conversation Yori mentioned that his father was originally from South Africa, and I, who did not know Yori's surname, asked him what his father's name was.
Yori replied that the family name had been changed and that it was now Leshem.
I exclaimed "The original name was Glasser!", and when Yori was surprised I replied: "You and Moran are cousins!"

May 2012 - Celebrating Shavuoth with the Olkienitski family
We celebrated Shavuoth with the Olkienitski family (see Goldberg family tree) at the home of Avi and Racheli Gilad. The food was delicious, the company as always excellent, and Vered, Dani and I thoroughly enjoyed the event. Chag Sameach to everyone! Here are some of the family.

Sarah Olkienitski and Dani Ron, Avi Gilad, Idit Mizrahi, Racheli Gilad
Shuli Haberman, Noam Haiman, Eitan Haberfeld, Maayan Golomb

A visit with Jeff Geffen
In May I had a great visit with my 2nd cousin Jeff Geffen in Ashdod and we caught up with tle latest family news. There is a picture of some of his family in "Picture of the Week" , and here are some more pictures.

Doreen Geffen ז"ל, Cheli Gur with daughter Talya, Jeff Geffen

Dana, Amir and Erez Levin Cheli Gur with Dana, Doreen Geffen ז"ל, Keren Levin , Yehudit Geffen with Talya Gur

Denise Braverman in training with the Israel Transalpine Run 2012 group

Denise Braverman (Glezer/Gordon, Nickel/Nochimovicz &etc family trees) continues to amaze and impress us. Two years ago she ran in the Transalpine Marathon in Davos, Switzerland (see This Week's Picture archives), and this year she completed the Jerusalem marathon (click here) and ran with a handicapped person in the Tel Aviv marathon. (see This Week's Picture archives). Last week she was back in training with the Israel Transalpine run for 2012 (link to site), running 56 kilometers in non-consecutive sectors spread over 24 hours with no sleep! Here is her account of her experience:

Denise on transalpine training run

"I'm training with the Israel Transalpine Run 2012 group.We were a total of 3 groups, 4 runners in each group. The race course included 24 sections which means that each one of us did 6 non-consecutive sections.
I was runner number 2 and had the great fortune of running with 2 other amazing counterparts from the other Transalpine groups. We started in Tel Haiי on Thursday at 10am and finished in Timraton Friday morning – yes, the running continued throughout the night…

Each section had its magic: running from kibbutz Dafna to kibbuz Shamri with the Golan Heights in view, a very difficult run from the Sapir plant (by the Kinneret) up, up to Zalmon jail, a 3am run from Alexander Zeid statue to Kfar Yehushua and the last part, at 6am with morning mist all over emek Yizrael, from Yogev to Kfat Baruch.

The difficulty was not in the 56Ks (been there – done that), but rather in the physical and mental challenge of doing it over a 24 hour stretch, with no sleep, poor food, cramped into a car smelling like a boys locker room…!

All in all it was great fun and special experience! "

Eitan's 72nd birthday
Eitan's 27 birthday in Eilat

Celebrating Saba Eitan's 72nd birthday in Eilat - Amit, Eli and Itamar on the iphone.