Hello, I've got something to tell you.
Shlomo (the man who is hosting my stay in Jerusalem in case you forgot) set up a nice presentation/Q&A session for Israeli Knesset member Robert Ilatov. Shlomo & Mr. Ilatov have been friends for a long time & was most welcome among most of those who attended the event.
Fyi the Israeli Knesset is a group of 120 members who form the house of representatives or parliament for the State of Israel. Mr. Ilatov is one of them.
Unfortunately, I still am not fluent in Hebrew therefore I couldn't catch much of the discussion. I could tell by the volume & tones of voices, it got heated towards the end. Luckily at the end of the meeting I met a man who spoke Spanish & he was able to explain a bit to me. Unluckily, he spoke an Argentinian Spanish at about 74mph. Most of the discussion was about the recent bad rap that the Yisrael Beytenu party has been getting because of a few unwise members. I assume that Mr. Ilatov had to do a lot of explaining & defending.
Mr. Ilatov was not the only reason that these people came together though.
Everyone knew Shlomo one way or another.There was an attentive group of Ethiopian Jews in the audience but most the those who attended were Bukharian Jews.
Shlomo (who is one himself) had warned me that Bukharan Jews are very big on family, God, music, food and Vodka. The matrons are big on traditional dancing & matchmaking. I wish that you could have seen their disappointed faces when I told them I was Mexican/Guatemalan & only spoke English. They were sure that I was Bukharan. It took them a few minutes to regroup & approach me again. They asked many questions in Hebrew & Russian pointing to my ring finger. I think one of them snapped a photo of me to show some brother, son or nephew. Who knows. It was very amusing & embarrassing.
Ahem, anyways, it was an interesting night. It was an honor to be among these people. The air was like that of a family reunion. Feel free to peruse my photos below, I've added captions this time.
