Only in Israel

Emigrating Israelis – Point/Counterpoint

December 8, 2011

The discussion of Israelis overseas was a topic that just wouldn’t go away this past week. First I wrote on the Israelity blog about the video campaign “guilting” expats to come home. Then, as my colleague David Brinn added, the videos were pulled by none other than the prime minister himself. Now there is a [...]

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Train Construction Ahead

November 8, 2011

When our kids were young, we had a videotape they used to love called “Road Construction Ahead” which was all about, well, road construction. It featured hard hats, tractors and lots of concrete. The truth is, I loved it too – I’m a nut when it comes to anything in the stages of being built [...]

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Sunk Costs on the Road to Tel Aviv

November 3, 2011

The evening was intended to be a gala celebration of the partnership between Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. 400 Angelenos, in Israel on a Federation mission, along with another several hundred local Anglos of Angeleno-descent, filled the Smolarz Hall on the Tel Aviv University campus. There was a program planned with glamorous entertainment: opera, performance [...]

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A Personal Validation of Zionism

September 28, 2011

When I backpacking around Europe and Asia, some 25 years ago, I felt a mix of disdain and sadness for the many tourists I’d encounter ensconced in their oversized, air conditioned tour buses, being ferried around from site to site, taking in the highlights through tinted windows which they’d abandon only at carefully selected cafes [...]

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The “Mechinistim”

September 13, 2011

School officially started a week ago, and along with it the beginning of the “mechina” year. As our daughter is one of the new mechinistim, I thought this might be a good time to talk about what is a mechina, in large part also because our friends and family overseas have never heard of the [...]

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Darkness at the Edge of Town

September 7, 2011

As the darkness settled over us, I felt an unanticipated sense of panic. I had been expecting to be unsettled, startled, certainly disoriented; I didn’t realize it would bring up so many deep and hidden emotions. To set the stage: my wife Jody and I were dining in the Black Out Restaurant at the Nalaga’at [...]

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Dueling Eicha’s…with Wheels

August 9, 2011

The holiday of Tisha B’av has befallen us (yes, pun intended) and Jews all over the world are spending the day reflecting, fasting or otherwise using the holiday’s restrictions to avoid shaving and bathing for a day. On the evening of Tisha B’av, it is traditional to hear the book of Lamentations (Eicha) being read [...]

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A Celebrity at the School Play

June 22, 2011

It’s been a good week for comedy in Israel. First, the twice-a-year Comedy for Koby show has been traveling around the country to great acclaim – I blogged about it earlier this week on Israelity. And yesterday afternoon, raunchy (and embarrassingly funny) U.S. comedian Sarah Silverman improbably appeared on a panel at Shimon Peres’ “Israeli [...]

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Target Practice

June 7, 2011

When I made aliyah nearly 17 years ago, the army rejected me. I was 34, married with two kids and a job, and too old to be properly trained, I guess. Plus it was at the height of the Russian influx of immigrants – there probably wasn’t even a spare bunk for me to sleep [...]

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“Leisure Sundays” Stress Me Out

March 15, 2011

In recent weeks, Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom’s has renewed a campaign to turn Sunday into an official day off in Israel, as with other parts of the world. The Anglo community has embraced the idea. As for me, I’m dead set against it. How could anyone be against Sundays, you might ask? Isn’t that [...]

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