Savta Chocolate

On Shabbat last week (first night of Hannukah), I was in Eilat. It made sense to go for shabbat seeing as we were due to meat our guide at the Egyptian border at 5 am Sunday morning. There were 10 of us, "and the infant" staying at the Youth Hostel in Eilat where we ate, slept and prayed over shabbat.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Masorti shul. It was about a 40 minute walk from the Hostel and uphill the whole way. There was no minyan even with the 5 of us (only 4 of them) but the Rabbi was happy to see us andtold us that had we come the night before, we would have met more of the members and gotten sufganiyot. We were thinking about going the night before however services started at 6pm and dinner at the hostel was served at 7. Instead, the 10 of us (plus infant) prayed together on the beach across from the hostel. I led Maariv.

There were a few notable points from the services.
1) They are one of the few Masorti shuls using the Masorti siddur (Vaani Tefilati).
2) They are still on the system where they read 1/3 of the parsha in the order that every 3 weeks they finish another parsha and every 3 years they celebrate Simchat Torah. That shabbat they were looking at the Ma'aser (helpful for what studying in Talmud).
3) They did the whole amida aloud even though there was no minyan- explination was that there are members who are still learning so easier that way. (I like that idea)
4) Savta Chocolate! One of the members of the shul is an older woman who introduced herself by saying: "Hello guests, I am Savta Chocolate and you can be my vanilla grandchildren. I have syrian and Ethiopian blood in me but I married a German/Russian man and my grandchildren call me savta chocolate, you can do the same. Let me give you a kiss." Savta Chocolate grew up in New York City (Harlem) where she attended Music school and Juliard and in the 40's and 50's was a concert pianist. Her latest claim to fame was that she taught herself how to play HipHop on the piano from watching TV. What a hoot!