Where did the salmon's head go??

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Last night was the Eve of Rosh Hashanah (literally, the head of the year). 
On the festive New Year's dinner table, usually on the platter with the traditional gefilte fish, traditionally there should be at least one cooked fish head. 
Or even a ram's head. 

This is to remind us of one of the many blessings that God promises in return for obedience to his commandments. Deuteronomy 28:13a says 
"And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail . . . " 

In The Living Torah translation it becomes "God will make you a leader and never a follower."

The Hebrew blessing said over the fish head is 
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ ה' אֱלֹהינוּ וֵאלֵֹהי אֲבוֹתֵינוּ, שֶׁנִּהְיֶה לְרֹאשׁ וְלֹא לְזָנָב
May it be Your will, Lord our God and the God of our fathers, that we be a head and not a tail.

I pray that every leader and every citizen in our world will use their head to make peace and not war in the new year. 
Shana tova, a good and happy year to all!
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Hard and dry labaneh

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In Israel we love to eat the soft yogurt cheese called labaneh, scooping it off the plate with pita.
But Nissim, our excellent guide through the Bedouin part of the Beer Sheva market, explained that labaneh can also be made into these dried lumps.

  
Strained labaneh is pressed in its cheese cloth between two heavy stones and later sun dried.
The balls can be easily stored and for a long time. 
Arabs have been doing this for hundreds of years.
I guess when Bedouin were still largely nomadic, it was easy to transport the labaneh in such form; add water and it is easily reconstituted to soft yogurt cheese.

The labaneh made by Arabs in the southern Hebron Hills is slightly different in shape from that made by the Bedouin here in the Negev.
One version is round and the other is oval.

To see how women in the nearby village of Dirijat produce labaneh, please see my pictures from 2008, when I spent five days living there, learning Arabic.
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Traces of the old Brutalism in our market

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Beer Sheva's municipal market has been "modernized" in recent decades.
But at one edge, in the oldest part of the shuk, you can still find traces of the old standard, Brutalism.
The arches in the photo have the dark, fortress-like feeling of Brutalist architecture.

As we saw in an earlier post explaining this style,  the term Brutalism comes from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete," a phrase used by Le Corbusier to describe the poured board-marked concrete with which he constructed many of his post-World War II buildings.

The newer parts of the shuk are covered with a different material,  which give more light and a lighter feeling.
Just as Tel Aviv's "White City" has become world-famous for its old Bauhaus houses, so Beer Sheva in the desert now wants to be famous for its many (too many!) old and new examples of Brutalism.
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See more about Brutalist buildings in Beer Sheva and also in Zichron Yaacov in my earlier posts.
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Beer Sheva market folks in video

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Tonight everyone in Israel who cares about soccer will be watching the crucial game of HaPoel Beer Sheva vs. Bnei Sakhnin (the team from Arab town Sakhnin).
If Beer Sheva wins, it will be the first time in forty years that the team becomes national champion. 
A One VOD camera crew was in Beer Sheva's huge open-air market, interviewing shuk regulars about their favorite team.

This shot is more interesting because it catches a Bedouin woman's nice dress.
Enlarge the photo to see the intricate embroidery.
Sorry, but spectator sports are not my forte; I can't get into watching games. 

Here in my little snippet a dyed-in-the-wool HaPoel Beer Sheva fan sings for the team.

But I recommend you go to the professional 5-minute ONE VOD video and enjoy seeing the diverse and colorful characters of our shuk (market) as they praise HaPoel.
It's fun even if you don't know Hebrew.  : )

UPDATE Saturday 11 pm:  Wow, we won, Beer Sheva won the game!!  National soccer champions for the first time since 1976.
Big joy in the stadium and in the city and in homes!
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S is for scales and sheep-shearing shears

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For ABC Wednesday, let's say S is for scale.
When is the last time you saw an old balance scale like this?
When I made aliyah to Israel in 1968 the sellers in markets were still using them to weigh and price your fruits and vegetables.
Soon digital scales took over. 

This old seller wouldn't have it any other way, though.
He sits in the Beer Sheva shuk, in the almost-all Bedouin part of the market, and wastes for customers.
He offers a mishmash of sewing thread, hand shears for shearing sheep, matches, and used containers.
Bedouin who live in unrecognized villages, those not on the national electric grid, need jerrycans to transport kerosene for their generators.
Oh, and next to some spices or some kind of seeds are packets of Pertixine, a powder for the control of mites and lice on poultry and animals.

Our guide (you see his hand) on this fascinating Jane's Walk tour through both parts of the market told us not to be fooled by the old man's humble appearance.
Turns out that in the 1960s he was a top gashash in the army.
In the IDF only Bedouin are gashashim--trackers, reconnaissance scouts--because they know the land and the desert like the proverbial back of their hand.
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Little sparrows on big sacks

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Two sparrows feasting on rice.
(Enlarge the picture if you can't find them.)

More pictures of Beer Sheva's big open-air shuk/market in yesterday's post.

Remember when rice-throwing at weddings was banned in some places in the USA?
Apparently the notion that eating rice would kill birds was a myth. 
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Busy pre-Sabbath buying at the market

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Get your fresh cherries, "only" 40 shekels (!) (about $10) per kilo. 
All the other fruits and vegetables are a lot cheaper. 

Friday is a busy day in Beer Sheva's open-air shuk.

The market and all stores close mid-afternoon on Friday and open again on Sunday.

Did you notice, there are almost no women in the photos?
I think they are all at home, frantically cooking and cleaning to be ready for the Sabbath that starts before sundown.
Then the real day of rest begins.
Shabbat shalom, Sabbath peace to you. 
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Colorful decorations for the sukkah

Tonight the happy Jewish holiday of Sukkot begins (or as Christians call it, the Feast of Tabernacles).

At the shuk (open market) in Beersheba people were busy buying colorful decorations to hang in their sukkah ("booth").
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See more about the festival in my earlier posts.
Especially interesting are the photos (here and here)  of Jerusalem's huge annual Shuk Arba'at Haminim, the market where very religious Jews carefully select the four species, etrog, lulav (palm fronds), and myrtle and willow branches.
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For some serious and surprising thoughts about Sukkot and about life, read this by my favorite rabbi in Jerusalem, Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo:
 http://www.cardozoacademy.info/thoughts-to-ponder/sukkot-joy-in-insecurity/ 
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Chag sameach -- happy Sukkot!
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Proposals to protect our fish population

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Lots of fish on ice are always available at Beer Sheva's open-air market.

For ABC Wednesday, P is for protecting our population of Mediterranean fish.

According to this article in Haaretz --

Restrictions will soon be imposed on commercial fishing in the Mediterranean Sea in order to stem the decline in fish populations, the state promised the High Court of Justice this month. . . .

Among other limitations, the state will restrict fishing by divers during the May-June spawning season along the Mediterranean coast. The use of trawlers – boats that drag large nets along the sea bed, sweeping up everything in their path – will be prohibited from June to August near the shore and at depths of less than 30 meters. . . .
According to environmental advocacy organizations, the two dozen or so trawlers operating along the Mediterranean coast are responsible for the decline in fish populations, both because they account for around 70% of the catch by Israeli fishermen in the sea and because of the nets’ deleterious effect on marine habitats.. . .

But according to Uri Sharon, a spokesman for the fishermen who owns a trawler, the real culprits are pollution and the Aswan Dam, which reduced the amounts of food sources and marine life reaching the Mediterranean from the Nile River.
Menakhem Ben-Yami, an expert on Israel’s fishing industry,  argued that tens of thousands of amateur fishermen use nets and poles, without facing any catch restrictions. 

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Fresh produce of many colors

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For ABC Wednesday, now in its 8th year, N is for Nature's bounty.
This is what I brought home from the big open-air market/shuk in Beer Sheva.
The prices were higher than usual today but still, all this cost just 60 shekels, which is 14 Euros or $15.
They say it is very beneficial to our health to eat a variety of different colors.
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New fruits and a loofah

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I know, you are probably thinking, "We saw this photo before."
But actually what I bought at the shuk two weeks ago were different kinds of fruit and some of them are already out of season.
And today I splurged (because of a family party coming up) and bought a few spiky pink-and-green  pitaya (dragon fruit), guava, and carambola (star fruit).

Also of interest on my table here are a pomelit (a small pomela), kiwi, figs, pomegranates, and "a personal watermelon."
Oh, and a loofah! 
It's a fibrous plant seed pod.
After amusing the grandkids with it (e.g. bopping them on the head), I'm going to cut it into smaller pieces and try to use one like a sponge in the shower.

Here is the entrance to Beersheva's Municipal Market where all these fun fruits came from today.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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A lot for less

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My family will be arriving from Australia on Saturday night!
I wanted to welcome them back with what we call kol tuv ha-aretz,  all the best our land has to offer.
So I took the 45-minute bus ride into Beersheva and wandered around the big shuk (what the English map calls the Town Market, not to be confused with the Bedouin Market).
I found the best of the produce and bought a little of each kind.

Unpacked on my kitchen table, it doesn't LOOK like a lot.

The fruits and vegetables and nuts  looked more voluminous when still in bags.

I can assure you they weighed a ton when I shlepped them in two tote bags and in my backpack from the shuk to the bus  and then from the corner bus stop to my house.
It was almost my limit.
But I was happy to be a good provider for my grandkids, at least for their first day or two in Israel.
And the price was right (at least when compared to the inflated supermarket prices in Meitar).
At the shuk you always get A LOT FOR LESS (which is good because today is L Day at ABC Wednesday)!
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Eeuw

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My first visit to the open-air market in Beersheba was an eye opener.
The fruits and vegetables were colorful, plentiful, and not expensive.
But seeing the heads and insides of cows or sheep displayed  was not something I was used to in Jerusalem's Shuk Machane Yehuda.

This picture of the butcher with a long knife about to cut something I knew only from anatomy course  made an "offal" impression on me.
Enlarge the photo if you have the stomach for it.
The term offal is used in the United Kingdom while  in the United States organ meats or the euphemistic term variety meats is used instead.

If you really really want to learn the strange vocabulary, see this food blog. 
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A lot different from Shuk Machane Yehuda

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I moved to Meitar exactly two weeks ago, but today was the first time I ventured out to the big city, Beersheba.
It's a 45-minute bus ride.
My first exploration point was the shuk, the huge open-air market.

Now that I live in the Negev I will have to get used to seeing veiled Bedouin women with only their eyes and hands showing.
I shot this photo from the hip, in stealth mode, just because I couldn't resist capturing her black lace trim.
It was not the normal black dress with colorful  embroidery the women often wear.
Enlarge the picture 2x to see the detail. 

Did I mention that Meitar is neighbor to many Bedouin towns and villages and even a Bedouin city?
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)
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P.S.  I will have to find out if they still have a weekly live livestock market next to the shuk.
Meanwhile, you can watch this British video about it -- from 1955! 
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