Just For Fun

Jews on a cruise

March 18, 2019

When Chetan met Tania, it was not exactly love at first sight. More like love at first rub.  Chetan (from Mumbai) and Tania (from Bangkok) were both working as massage therapists on the Regent Seven Seas Voyager cruise ship. They quickly fell for each other and will be getting married in July. It’s exactly the […]

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“You look good”

October 28, 2018

What do you do when the way you look on the outside doesn’t match how you feel on the inside? It comes up all the time with chronic cancer.

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The TV club

March 20, 2018

A TV club is like a book club only less solitary. Our club is a mini-family for our group of immigrants. What should we watch next?

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Searching for cannabis in California

January 8, 2018

On my recent trip to California, I go in search of medical cannabis. Here’s what I discovered – from online “doctors” to medical dispensaries.

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When God offers you a raft, take it

November 16, 2016

My wife Jody and I recently spent a relaxing weekend at a small vacation bungalow in Poriah, a moshav overlooking the Sea of Galilee, with our friends David and Shelley. On Friday afternoon we had a few hours to kill before we needed to get ready for Shabbat and we wanted to go on a […]

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Meditation intervention

April 28, 2016

“You’ll be staying in Building 3,” explained Danny, as we arrived at Kibbutz Ein Dor, where we were about to spend just under a week at the annual silent Jewish meditation retreat my wife and I have attended for the past several years. We had gotten to the retreat late this year – our son’s […]

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Why I’m voting for Donald Trump

April 1, 2016

Yes, you read that right. It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally come around. Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has won me over. And come November, if he’s still in the race (and if this election year has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is mandated from heaven), he’ll have my vote. He says he’s […]

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The Little Bakery that Could

February 25, 2016

When the German Colony branch of Jerusalem’s Pe’er Bakery closed down last year after 43 years of operation, fans of its signature sweet whole wheat challah let out a collective kvetch: where would we go for challah now on Fridays? But Pe’er’s challah is back in the neighborhood, albeit at another establishment – the Coney […]

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Lost in the woods: cognitive defusion on vacation

September 1, 2015

Google Maps said it would take just under two hours to hike from Oslo’s Frogsternen café, with its world famous homemade apple pie, to Sognsvann lake via the rolling hills and blueberry patches near Ulyovata. Weather.com said the temperature would get up to lovely 25 degrees and there was a zero percent chance of precipitation. […]

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Hitchhiking now and then

August 20, 2015

Exactly 30 years ago today, I was in a car with a group of German strangers on my way to a standing room only soccer match just outside what was then West Berlin. As part of a two-month trek across Europe, I was feeling young and adventurous when I decided to try hitchhiking. Getting to […]

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