A funny coincidence

Last Friday night at Services, I went over to say hi to a friend when suddenly I heard my name called out. I turned to see who was calling me and this man rose from his seat and said my name again. He looked vaguely familiar, but I still didn't recognize him. He said "it's Danny, Danny Cohen. From UMass." Holy Shit! This was one of my college roommates who I haven't seen in 14 years.

He was here on a trip organized by the New Israel Fund (NIF), and was leaving on Sunday night. We did some quick planning and arranged to meet on Shabbat. He came over in the afternoon and we sat on a bench in the park behind our house catching up. For those of you who knew him, he is still living in NYC and is working for ING doing Real Estate investment. He is very involved with NIF in NYC, as well as with some other organizations, and, to top it off, he just ran the NYC marathon for the third time. He looked and sounded good.

People say that Jerusalem is a small town, and I know this to be true because we constantly run into people we've met here, and we've only been here nine months. But I guess the Jewish world is a small town too as I'm running into old friends here as well.