haifa.9

Haifa Fornightly(Editor--Huzefa Mehta) 9th edition 1/3/93 Life goes on,nothing much this fortnight....We had gone to Eliat a couple of weekends back(a week before we went to Egypt). We took the night bus and landed at 5:00 am in the morning. Found a hostel and stayed for the weekend. We went to the coral observatory, which had a submarine ride(costly 150 shekels a person) but was very entertaining and beautiful. We then visited Egypt Taba across the border. Reena dived the next day at the coral park. On our leisure weekends we plan to go all the way inside Sinai and visit Mt. Sinai, St. Catherina. and Ras Mohammed which is a diving site at the southernmost tip of Sinai. Mt. Sinai is the highest mountain in Sinai and is the point where Moses had rescued the Jews from slavery in pharoanic Egypt. Work at Intel Israel is certainly closeknit compared to the atmosphere at Intel US. Most of the work members are familiar with each other family members and kids. We attended the Purim party last weekend(aka Haloween) and the party went on till about 1:00 Saturday night. The theme was "Sixties" and since there was a costume competition there were people dressed like John Travolta to Junkies. Also since driving is prohibited I take the taxi which takes me to work at 7:30 and brings me back at 6:00 except on my Hebrew class days. The taxi is Intel paid. I havent yet been given any real responsibility. Of course responsibility of organising cakes and cookies for every meeting and the latest most exciting task is that I am going to be "buddy" for Doug who is going to be here on relocation in April. Our Hebrew class has 5 jewish Americans and one new jewish immigrant from Russia. The jews in America send their kids to the schools here for a year or two to attain their culture and also some to the kibbutz. They know how to read Hebrew prayers but cannot understand or communicate in Hebrew which is similar to my knowledge of Arabic since I can read but cannot understand. Intel has a fixed amount which it pays for language training and if I do not exhaust all the amount (ie manage to learn Hebrew in that amount) I might take Arabic classes finally. We finally did manage to suscribe to the cable which offers us lots of channels from Europe and also Star TV. There are two Hindi movies per week on one of the channels and lots of "chayageet" type programs and review of hindi films. Cricket is also shown live on the Star TV sport channel and hence managed to see the last test match and the final three one days. Plans are to go to Turkey once visa and tickets are made available. Sometime during the "Pesakh" holidays which is in early April. Pesakh is a religious festival which spans 12-15 days. During this time due to famine in Israel the Jews were forced to return back to Egypt and hence back to slavery. This is called "Passover" or "Pesakh". This occured sometime during 1700BC-1250BC range ie between the time they were rescued the first time by Abraham and the second time by Moses(the Exodus).