Hi I'm back. Long weekend, weather is getting cooler and it's easier to be outside without sweating your kiskas off. Geez, it gets just as hot here in Jacksonville as it does in South Florida, the only relieft you get in Jacksonville is winter. We do get a winter whereas South Florida does not. Maybe their relief comes in the form of a 10 degree difference from Jacksonville. We do have to wear sweaters and some form of a coat. Nothing like the North though. We do not get snow or that cutting cold air across your face with the wind blows, but just chilly enough that you need to put the heat on in your house. Very comfortable cold. Right now we are in the 70s lows 40s at night. Perfect weather for being outdoors. Especially with kids and bikes and dogs.

So back to the Bible Belt tale:

So we are here for 7 years, yada yada yada... and loving it. This Thursday First Baptist Church is having a "Stand with Israel" function and it is receiving mixed reviews from the Orthodox community. As far as I can tell, why not have Christians stand with Israel? I do see one small problem. The way I see it is that Christians feel that as long as the Jews have a jewish state (Israel, the land G-d promised Abraham) then they see that when the Messiah comes (back) he'll have a land to come back to. The Jews that have been "perfected" will be saved and the ones that have not been "perfected" will be damned. I guess when the Moshiach does come back all our questions will be answered. I just hope the ones who are corrected don't make a big deal about it and everyone can live in Gan Eden when the times comes. May he come in speedingly in our days.

That is the problem with accepting these situations. It all sounds wonderful until someone tries to pursuade us to believe in something we have strived all our lives to obtain. Living a kosher life. Believe me - it ain't easy. No going out to dinner! Shopping for kosher food, meaning trying to get meat/fish/cheese at a reasonable price. Going to a party and not being able to eat. Not being able to go to a company function because it's usually on a Friday night. No going to Christmas parties. Walking around town with two small boys wearing kippas and tzitzies. I have no clue as to the spelling of tzitzes, but hopefully you'll know what I mean. It's the strings you see hanging from their shirts. Anyway, it's hard. Especially if you never grew up living Kosher. In fact, most people today are what they refer to as "Baal Tchuva" which means returning. A lot of people have asked me if I converted when I became "observant" and by no means no. I have always been Jewish, thank G-d, but being observant is a whole different ballgame. Let me tell you.

First, we pray 3 times a day. Morning, afternoon and evening. You can pray more, but those are the standard prayers. The afternoon and evening are kind of said together too.

Then there is the kosher thing which kind of takes up our whole lives. Our kitchens are separated into 2 sometimes 3 (if you have the room). Meat, Dairy and Parve. We have separate dishes and utensils for all three. Some people will have a separate stove/oven for their meat and dairy. Not usually the parve. Some people just double wrap whatever they put in the oven and use one burner for the dairy and just keep it a meat oven since we cook more meat than dairy dishes. I bought a separate smaller oven for pizza and dairy dishes so I wouldn't have the bother and a small separate burner to make mac n cheese. We have a double sink with inserts for all three. Or one big sink that they won't use but will have separate plastic tubs for what they have to clean.

Our tables have separate tablecloths for whatever type of meal we are preparing. Glasses are non porous so you really don't have to have two sets of those.

A lot of observant women cover their hair. Most wear sheitals (wigs) and hopefully you can't tell they are wigs. I just started wearing one last year. I was getting use to it, but I miss my hair. I'm not fond of the sheitals and I hate wearing a snood. It's awful. Most women don't wear pants but long skirts to cover up their legs and long sleeve shirts or 3/4 length shirts. After awhile it becomes second nature to wear this type of clothing. I'm not fond of the long skirts either, but it helps in the winter because I hate stockings.

So, you see somewhere like Brooklyn or Miami - you can blend in. There are big communities where you can blend in. But not here in Jacksonville. But again I have to say, most of the people here are very respectful of all cultures. It may be small town mentality - but mostly it's a town filled with people who are very tolerant in their views. I'm proud to live here in Jacksonville Florida.

Living in the Bible Belt... Where exactly is the Bible Belt and how many notches are there?

So, my family and I moved to Jacksonville, Florida. We've been living in South Florida for over 20 years. We had two boys decided that Miami was just to angry (especially the drivers) and wanted to leave, but still stay in Florida. Hence, Jacksonville. What people don't know about Jacksonville is that is really is part of Georgia. The mentality actually not the actual location although it's pretty close.

Leaving Miami where we have kosher markets, book stores, bakeries. Everything a observant family needs, but I couldn't wait to get out of Miami. The housing market was going through the roof. Who could afford to buy a home. Well the middle class was not able to buy a home in South Florida.

So we move to Jacksonville, I was able to get a transfer we find an apartment. There is one orthodox Shul Etz Chaim, one Chabad. This was back in 2001. We had a Albertsons that sold kosher meat and the bakery was parve under O-U. Perfect. No orthodox school for the kids, but there is a Solomon Schecter. Perfect. Small community, but very comfortable.

You learn to adapt. In fact, yiddishkeit meant so much more for me by having to work so hard to maintain it. Not being able to eat out anymore though has big a thorn for everyone. We try to have as many meals at the Shul so people can get out of the house. Our Rabbi Kaiser has brought a kollel here twice a year bring young families and young single yeshiva bochurs down and there is one week of intense learning going on.

We lost Albertsons, back then there were enough families keeping kosher to maintain the cost effective. But then Rabbi Kaiser and Robbie Roth built a orthodox school from the ground up. That was back in 2004, I think, maybe 2003. They started with 6 kids and they now have 30 kids grades nursery through 6th grade. We now have 4 Rabbi's in the community who have brought so much kevahnah - it's amazing.

There have been growing pains all communities go through it. All in all though, it's a fine place to live. We have become creative with our baking, our Shabbats have been inclusive. After lunch you can see families walking back and forth from home to home visiting everyone. Didn't find that in Miami or Cleveland.

So we've found that living in a small jewish community is a lot like having a huge extended family rather than living in a huge community and not really knowing many people at all. Most communities the women and children don't even go to Shul. We do, we have classes for all age groups. They last about 1 hour then it's all mayhem again because the parents are in the santuary davening and their kids are running all over the place wrecking havoc - mine included. They have tried everything to get parents to make sure their children are supervised. Meetings, games, letters nothing was really working. I guess the parents starting getting fed up as well because it seems a little more organzied or maybe I just stopped taking the kids until they learn how to behave. Going to Shul is a privlege and it is earned, one parent told me to tell my kids. My kids rather stay at home and I'm the one dragging them there. Of course once we get there and they see all their friends and the playground I'm usually dragging them out of the place because then they don't want to leave. It's harder for parents with younger kids. Mine are 6 and 7 so it is getting easier.

I guess the hardest part is the shopping for food. Kosher food can be a little tricky when you don't live near any of the major towns like Miami and Atlanta. Here in Jacksonville we got lucky. Publix has started bringing in fresh kosher meat every Thursday, but man oh man those prices can you imagine paying almost $50 for a brisket. Then Winn Dixie also got into the picture and now they are starting to get some stock, but it's slow in coming and still very expensive. But they are trying to hard that we really need to support these stores trying to meet the needs of our small community. We still have some people who have a co-op and they bring the meat in once a month, but you have to pay a delivery fee and order cases at a time. A lot of work and it takes a lot of planning. Which is why this all comes back to working really hard to keep our judisam alive in our homes as well as our hearts.

There is nothing more satisfying than to see my kids wearing the tzitzies, payos and kippahs on their heads traveling all around North Florida, eating kosher food at all times and knowing that they are learning the ways of Judisam. I took them to the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine this past summer, there were people there taking pictures of me and my kids instead of the alligators. That was pretty funny. They kept coming up to me saying what beautiful hats my kids were wearing.

One thing I've found with the Christians here in Jacksonville. They are very respectful of other religions. In fact, most people in this town are just plain nicer than most places I've been too. Except when it comes to driving - no way as bad as Miami or Cleveland, in fact, I think most places of road rage no matter where you go. It's just the nature of rush hour, there are just some folks that aren't in so much of a rush during that time and they always pick the left hand lane to drive in wondering why some nut is riding on the tail. Which I guess would be me pleading for them to switch lanes. Maybe I should use another post to talk about driving. It can be really funny at times.

OK, so as my title said, Where exactly is the Bible Belt? I have no clue. I'm thinking that it's North Florida, Georgia, Alabama, I think even parts of central Florida like Ocala and Eustis and if you have ever heard of Eustis then you are a bible belter. I just made that up. I wonder if a Jewish person can be a bible belter? I'll have to ask Rabbi Kaiser.

So we've been here 6 years this Thanksgiving. I can't wait for Thanksgiving. My most favorite holiday. I get two free vacation days from work and I can turn the tv on watch some parades, cook (ugh) pretty much relax. This year my goal is to have dinner much earlier in the day so we don't fill up with the Thanksgiving feast too late.