A Parent in Israel

Memorial for Walter Blum – Pachamama

May 20, 2010

This is the fourth in a series of posts from the memorial for my father, Walter Blum, who passed away last year. The event mixed music and humanistic interpretations of Jewish texts to try to share what my father was like and what he was passionate about. Unlike the previous videos, this one is in […]

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Memorial for Walter Blum – V’Haya Achrei Chen

May 11, 2010

(יואל ×”, א, ד) This is the third in a series of posts from the memorial for my father, Walter Blum, who passed away last year. The event mixed music and humanistic interpretations of Jewish texts to try to share what my father was like and what he was passionate about. ——————————— When Yoel suggested […]

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Memorial for Walter Blum – Pitchu Li

May 5, 2010

(תהילים קי”×—, ×™”ט) This is the second in a series of posts from the memorial for my father, Walter Blum, who passed away last year. The event mixed music and humanistic interpretations of Jewish texts to try to share what my father was like and what he was passionate about. ——————————— The words for the […]

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Memorial for Walter Blum

April 27, 2010

Walter Blum, 2008 My father, Walter Blum, died a year ago on March 22 of lymphoma. At the time, I wrote on this blog about my difficulties saying the traditional Kaddish prayer and how I planned to formulate a series of alternative “events” to honor my father in a manner that I hope he would […]

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Life as a Board Game

April 8, 2010

Our life has become like a board game. Specifically, one that I created 38 years ago. When I was in sixth grade in 1972, my friend David Saunders and I decided to create a Monopoly-like game with a dice, play money, and various cards which players would pick from a pile and then act on. […]

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Return to “The Settler from Jerusalem”

March 23, 2010

Photo from AP 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 […]

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Meditations on Being Alone

February 16, 2010

My wife left me this week. Don’t worry – it’s nothing serious. Jody is participating in a week long meditation retreat at Kibbutz Hanaton in the Galilee. That means I’m home alone with the kids (not a problem) but also alone in the kitchen (bigger problem). I have never been much of a whiz as […]

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The Last Roller Coaster Ride

December 23, 2009

As I staggered off the Goliath roller coaster at the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Los Angeles this past summer, wobbly and nauseous, I felt a wilting sense of sorrow. I knew at that moment, as my equilibrium began doing jumping jacks in my belly, that this was probably the last time I’d […]

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Going Solo

December 16, 2009

It’s been a month of firsts for our family. We sent our oldest son off to the army in November. Then last night, our 16-year-old daughter Merav headed out to the U.S. on her first airplane trip alone to visit her grandparents over Hanukah. Living in Israel means that flying nearly anywhere out of the […]

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Back to Summer Camp

December 8, 2009

Our kids have been attending a Bnei Akiva-style summer camp for the last several years. Kayitz b’Kibbutz is based at Kibbutz Shluchot in the Jordan Valley, a few kilometers south of Beit Shean. The camp doesn’t have visiting days during its sessions, so we’ve been forced to use our imaginations to picture what our kids […]

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