Just For Fun

Jelly Belly Flop

May 24, 2010

I have to confess up front: I have never been a fan of jelly beans. But after a visit last summer to the very center of jelly bean heaven – the Jelly Belly factory in California, where I saw how the pint-sized multicolored candies are concocted – now I’m totally disgusted. Ironically, if we hadn’t […]

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Running the Marathon – Israeli Style

March 24, 2010

My wife Jody and I ran the 10K in the Jerusalem Half Marathon last week. I’ve been running 3-4 times a week for over a decade already, but never in a competitive race. We didn’t come in first, but we were satisfied with a respectable time of an hour and six minutes. We arrived at […]

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Life Without Chocolate

March 16, 2010

Have you ever tried to go off chocolate? I can tell you from first hand experience, it’s no mean feat. My banning of chocolate has to do with a book I’m reading called Insomniac by Gayle Green. The author, like me, suffers from chronic insomnia and, as with anyone who is sleep starved, she has […]

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No Place for Old Folks

March 9, 2010

During last week’s Purim celebrations, I began to feel my age. Not the Megillah reading – you can appreciate that no matter how old you are (especially if you’re hard of hearing…helps drown out the din of the groggers). No, it was the party afterward. Every year, my wife Jody and I go dancing at […]

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Rain: a Love/Hate Story

March 2, 2010

I really hate the rain. And these past few days have been tough ones for the anti-rain parade. Oh, I know it’s good for us and the country desperately needs to refill its reservoirs. I just wish we could get all our rainfall at night, when I’m sleeping. Getting caught in a daytime downpour is […]

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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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Srugim Rocker Erez Lev Ari in Concert

January 10, 2010

The popular TV series “Srugim” is returning to the airwaves tonight after a year and a half hiatus. Season Two of the show, about a group of young religious singles living in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Katamon (known affectionately as “The Swamp”), has been anxiously awaited by its fans (who have established several active Facebook […]

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Prediction Tradition

January 4, 2010

Growing up, our family had an annual tradition on New Year’s Day. My father, my brother and I would gather around the family room table and put down in writing our predictions for the upcoming year. We would then open the envelope that had been sealed “upon pain of death” from the previous year. Our […]

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Fruity Beer in Petach Tikva

December 30, 2009

How did a non-beer drinker wind up in a micro-brewery this past Saturday night? That’s a question I was asking myself as my wife and I joined our friends Debbie and Eliot at Jem’s, a hot new gourmet beer factory in Petach Tikva. Jem’s was established by two immigrants from the U.S. – Daniel Alon, […]

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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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