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Home and Family


No Copyright on Geula
by Margalit Cohen

Dear Readers,

I hereby declare that game manufacturers, camp counselors and quiz coordinators are free to use this material as they see fit. There's no copyright on Geula!

Grammar rules may be willingly suspended when playing these games (but not one's credibility, because, anyway, it's all true, true, true). Tell parallel structure to meet you as you cross Kikar HaShabbos diagonally.

I. MILYON (MILON) MI YODAI

How many sentences, phrases or words can you suggest which aptly describe Geula?

Following are some samples. Can you add any ideas? [Ed. I did...]

A - mazing / Always there

B - reathtaking / Bus Number 10 stops there. What a Boon!

C - heery / Chometz-free on Pesach / Cozy / [Cabs, a fought- over Commodity]

D - ear, be careful crossing the street

E - xciting

F - un / Frum

G - reat and Gevaldig and Geshmak

H - eimish / Historical / Humorous

I - nspiring

J - ewish, of course

K - einayne hora (also for B - li ayin hora)

L - eibedik / [Laissez faire]

M - eaningful / Mamma Loshon [whatever yours is: English, Yiddish, Russian]

N - ot for sale

O - y! It's hot! How about some natural fruit juice?

P - erennial [also Pizza]

Q - uintessential / Quixotic

R - uchniyusdik [back to G?]

S - pecial / Super

T - imeless

V - endorful / Ven iz de next minyan at Zichron Moishe?

W - onderful

X - otic

Y - es, I love it. Y - ou too!

Z - ei-er, zei-er gut!

II. MIX AND MATCH

What's Taking Place in Geula at These Times?

5 a.m. / 6 a.m. / 7:30 a.m. / 9 a.m. / 9:30 a.m. / 1 p.m. / Mincha time / 8;30 p.m/ 10 p.m. / 11 p.m.

* Men with gemoras under their arms rushing out of side streets and heading towards their homes.

* Men with taleisim on their heads on the way to vosikin minyonim.

* Girls in school uniforms waiting at crowded bus stops.

* Chairs in felafel shops being placed on tables in anticipation of the `big sponja'

* The streets filling with shoppers

* A small shtibel near the Mifal Hapyis lottery booth filling with men.

* Droves of avreichim heading to their various kollelim.

* Children buying bread and milk at the grocer.

* Neatly dressed girls holding the hands of neatly dressed brothers.

* Men rushing to daf hayomi or other shiurim.

* The streets congested with shoppers.

III. LOST IN GEULA

You're a tourist and want to visit your Aunt Frummi in Geula but can't find Rechov Malachi. What should you do?

* Buttonhole someone in Hebrew/Yiddish/English for help? * Call the police? * Open up a Tanach, turn to Trei Ossor and proceed according to the order of the Nevi'im? (Answer 3 works best)

IV. TRY THIS FOR MAZEL

Come to Geula on a Friday with a bag of coins and begin distributing it to the alms solicitors in the street. Jot down the various blessings they shower on you: Lots of nachas / May you live to 120 / Todah, Geveret / Be'emet todah / Noch a bissel / Compare them.

V. DO YOU REMEMBER? *

* When you could cross the street without maneuvers?

* Mrs. Tobolsky's galanteria, and the wonderful mussar books she sold, written by her son [Ed. Sure do. Tikkun Hamiddos in six volumes, still extremely popular. Also, the first store to sell plastic baby bottles (not glass) and pacifiers, ten for a lira. Also, the cheapest kippot in town. In fact, my active seven-year-old was still addicted to pacifiers, at home, and kept on losing them, so I would send him to buy a new stock himself!] Remember the tall ladder she kept to get to the things on high shelves? And her uncanny memory for where her million items were stored?

* The store on Malchei Yisroel corner Rechov Hayeshiva where a sweet, elderly lady sold delicious pistachio and strawberry ice cream in American style cones [before you could get them anywhere else]?

* The Lifshitz brothers' immaculate fish store, where lebedig [live- ly] fish were whammed on their heads? (How that store remained immaculate, I don't know. But it did!) [Another fish story...]

* When it cost 13 agorot to go by bus from Geula `ha- ira' -- to town and 15 agorot [these are lira-agorot, not shekel-agorot!] to ride to the end of the line?

* When Rechov Yaffo was `ha'ira'. Today, Geula is, according to all opinions, `ha-ira'.

[* Ed. Remember B.P.E. -- Before Pizza Era, when felafel was the national fast-food?]

[If you do, then you're really an old-timer, and could probably remind us of another dozen B.P.E. trivia facts, as well. Nu? Our FAX is open all the time: 02-538-7998. Waiting...]

VI. WHO'S VENDING VAT VEN?

1. How many types of Geula vendors can you list?

2. When do they vend their wares? [Say three times rapidly in succession.]

[VII. SIGHTS, SOUNDS, SMELLS

List five perennials and five annuals of each.]

FINITO? FINIS? THE END? CELA? GAMARNU?

Not by a long shot. How about sending in your own memorabilia.

When standing in a very long line in the Geula book shop to buy your daughter a used dikduk textbook, what refrain passes through your mind?

Geula sheli / Geula shelach / Geula shelachem / Geula shel K- o-o-olam!

[May we merit a Geula Sheleima, a teeming marketplace for real Olim Leregel worldwide to buy their needs, yet not to feel squashed!]

Readers: brackets are your incorrigible editor's notes. I just couldn't help myself. I antedate the pseudonymed writer with rights to Geula by 2-3 years! And after all, who doesn't wax enthusiastic over Geula! Why, the name alone conjures up so much! So please, forgive.

 

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