Dear Members of The Center Family: It is difficult to exercise normal objectivity and restraint in describing the experience of Sukkot in Israel, and especially in Jerusalem. It is a time when differences in opinion and background seem to vanish, or at least mellow, and the whole country is swept up in its joyous celebration. Instead of a systematic and logical description, I shall simply offer a few disconnected vignettes in the hope that, together, they will somehow suggest the exhilaration felt by an American visitor.*Meah Shearim, the dags before Sukkot. The narrow streets are crowded with vendors and purchasers, haggling happily over price and quality of the arba minim. Pedigrees of estrogim are carefully described. Small and delicate Ashkenazi-type etrogim more green than yellow, growing naturally without the pitem — a sign of the purity of the species. Large, melon-sized Yemenite etrogim which most Americans have never seen. Jews of all types, with little children everywhere. This is what erev Sukkot must have looked like not only in the shtetl, but in ancient Babylon and ancient Israel as well.*Jerusalem, Sukkot. All traffic lights turn into blinkers as streets are crowded with old and young carrying their lularim and etrogim to shul. People seem to be planning for the great events at night — the beginning of Simhat Bet Ha’shoevah. This water-drawing festival begins on the eve of the second day of the holiday and continues to Shemini Atzeret. We attended the opening session at the Yeshurun synagogue, addressed by the Chief Rabbi and Ministers of Religions, and ending with the dignitaries and crowds joining in the dancing. How strange for an Amercan Jew to hear a band playing in the synagogue on the eve of the “second day of Yom Tov!” Every night, a different synagogue in a different area of the city sponsors such a celebration. Truly zeman simhateuu, “a time of our joy!”*Hol Humoed in the Vpper (ialilee. Turning a bend on the Northern Road, right at the Leb…