Familiar Faces

So, it’s really true what people say: you do see everybody you know in Jerusalem. Okay, not everybody, but I’ve only been here slightly more than 24 hours, and already I’ve run into three people I know. In chronological order:

1) This first one was really random, and very far reaching to the memories. Adam Cohen and I, I think, went to pre-school together, but we really knew each other from BBYO (high school Jewish youth group). He was peripherally involved, and I was super involved, so we weren’t the best of friends, but we had mutual friends and liked each other enough. Last night, at a NFTY event on HUC’s campus the YII (Year in Israel) students were assisting at, I saw him.

I was, like, “Whoa! Adam Cohen!”
And he was like, “I know you but I don’t remember your name.”
And it was awesome.

He’s an SO (significant other) of a rabbinical student, and is joining her just for the summer, hanging out, reading, coming to events, chilling. We chatted, caught up, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with him more until he goes back to the states in September.

2) David Mendelsson was a professor of mine at Rothberg (of the Hebrew University fame) for a class called “Formation of Zionist and Israeli Identity.” It was a fantastic class; he’s a British oleh (immigrant to Israel) who has this fantastic accent, skittery personality, and incredible wealth of knowledge about Israeli culture. He taught a session this morning at the HUC-Welcome-Study day. The session was basically the class in 90 minutes, but it was great to see him. He remembered my face, not my name, but we chatted and he teaches at HUC so I’ll be seeing him a lot this year.

3) This is by far the coolest, especially since it was so random and is a person I love and love seeing in Jerusalem. I went to the shuk in the early afternoon to get food so I don’t starve on Shabbat, and I’m walking back to my apartment down Ben Yehuda, and who should I see walk out of a cell phone store? Rabbi Lavey Derby, my Rabbi from Kol Shofar. He didn’t see me (or recognize my new do) and I yelled, “Rabbi!” and he turned around and stopped. Shocked. It was brilliant.

I knew he was in Jerusalem, but I didn’t think I would see him, and there he was, right in front of me, on Ben Yehuda street. It was slightly ridiculous. But great. We swapped numbers and are going to try and sit down for coffee next week before he goes back to the states.

Who knows who I'll run into tomorrow?