Politics

A Capitalist’s Take on the Tent Protests

August 4, 2011

I’m not quite sure what to think of the tent protests that have taken over the country in recent weeks. On the one hand, the rising costs that have plagued Israel in recent years have hit our family quite personally. On the other, I remember the days before Israel’s so-called capitalist revolution, and I wouldn’t [...]

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The Latest Holyland Monstrosity in Jerusalem?

June 28, 2011

When the city of Jerusalem canceled the “Safdie Plan” in 2006, urban planners said there would be no choice but to build inside the city itself. The Safdie Plan, a project conceived by world-famous architect Moshe Safdie, would have put upwards of 20,000 housing units in the hills to the west of Jerusalem. Environmentalists fought [...]

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Political Puppy

June 1, 2011

We got a puppy last week. He’s probably the cutest little thing ever, but then I’m biased. Monty, as we’ve named him, kind of fell into our laps (not hard when you’re talking about a Maltese, tiny even when it’s fully grown). We received an SMS from a friend on Wednesday morning telling us he [...]

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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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Dreaming of Bahrain

March 2, 2011

We have just over a month to go until we leave for our long-planned trek to Nepal to celebrate my 50th birthday and Aviv’s bar mitzvah. There’s only one problem standing in our way: Bahrain. The cheapest way to get to Asia for Israelis is via the Gulf – the price can be as low [...]

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Land Grab

February 1, 2011

UPDATE: The Attorney General has decided not to defend Galant. Crime, it seems, will not be rewarded in this case! One of the most frustrating parts of living in Israel is when people think they’re above the law. You see it on the highways (speeding, not yielding the right of way in a traffic circle) [...]

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Lunch with Jack: From Sudan to Jerusalem

January 20, 2011

One of the hot topics in the news these past months has been the steady influx of refugees from Africa who have crossed the border between Egypt and Israel, and Israel’s subsequent response of building a fence to keep the Africans out. With 1,000 refugees arriving every month now, the issue is not trivial. It’s [...]

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Goats on a Hill

December 30, 2010

A couple of months back, on our trip to Nagal Og near the Dead Sea, we picked up a friend of our youngest son. Aviv’s classmate Nesya lives in what is known as an illegal outpost deep in the West Bank. It is so tiny we couldn’t find it on any map until I set [...]

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Return to “The Settler from Jerusalem”

March 23, 2010

With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration before yesterday’s AIPAC conference that “Jerusalem is not a settlement” – a response to U.S. claims to the contrary regarding at least part of the city -  I thought it would be instructive to look at a personal incident that occurred nearly five years ago. In July 2005, I [...]

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Cliff’s Air Conditioner, Climate Change, and the Jewish People

January 19, 2010

My friend Cliff called this week to say he was getting rid of an old air conditioning unit and would I want to take it off his hands…at no charge? Cliff knew that I had spent much of the summer sweltering in my top floor home office. I have an air conditioner already but, at [...]

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