It's a Small Wall, After All

First, we thought it was unusual to run into our Temple Israel member Marc Seidenberg's brother Keith in Jaffa.  Until we ran into him again a week later at the top of Masada.  And then a third time at the Israel Museum today....

The shabbat before we left, Rabbi Stecker presided over the Auf Ruf for Temple Israel members Karen Lewkowitz and Monte Miller.  They honeymooned in Israel.  What are the chances we would run into them?  Pretty good.... I spotted them at the Kotel. 

Temple Israel trustee Madeline Gould told us she would be arriving in Israel toward the end of our trip, but we didn't expect to find her there.  Somehow she found us amidst the wild Friday afternoon balagan at Machaneh Yehudah market.

Many of us stumbled on connections not only from our Temple Israel family, but from our earlier lives as well.  Rochelle wrote earlier about meeting Marty Davis, one of the leaders of our twin synagogue in Ashkelon, whom she remembered as the Director of her camp Tel Yehuda in the 1970's.  At kiddush following shabbat services at the fabulous Shira Chadasha synagogue in Jerusalem, we found Rabbi Stecker's colleague, Rabbi Perry Rank of the conservative Midway Jewish Center in Syosset. The Citrons got a big hug from old friends in the Kfar Blum dining hall in the Upper Galilee. My favorite may have been the delight on Abe Kanfer's face when he realized that the pleasant young man from New Jersey he was chatting with at the Kotel was the son of one of his best friends at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, Alan Fuchs.

It truly is a small wall, after all.

-- Ron Klempner