Only in Israel

TNL Classic: Save My Spot

May 22, 2009

This week, Jody got stuck in a half-hour long p’kak – Hebrew for “a traffic jam” – waiting to get to the front of the meat counter at the supermarket. That reminded me of a supermarket-themed piece I wrote way back in 2004 about a similar experience. So in that spirit, here’s another “TNL Classic.” […]

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TNL Classic: Overly Sensitive New Age Guy

May 15, 2009

Last night, my friend Eliezer and my son Amir dragged me to the movies to see the new Star Trek film. I have not been to a movie theater in more than three years, since we bought our big screen plasma TV. For me, 42 inches is an entirely acceptable alternative to the costs and […]

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A Peek Inside

May 1, 2009

Ever since I saw the 1965 classic sci fi flick Fantastic Voyage, I have been fascinated with seeing the inside of the human body. In Fantastic Voyage, a team of scientists in a submarine are shrunk and injected into the body of a man to repair a blood clot in his brain. The team, most […]

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Drive-in

March 20, 2009

My son is now a driver. Those six words are probably as significant, if not more – at least to him – than becoming a bar mitzvah. When you’re 13, you get counted in a minyan but other than that it’s just another day in 7th grade. But 17…that’s the year you transcend being a […]

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When it Comes to QA, Trust the Crowd

February 27, 2009

As head of a technology startup a few years ago, one of the most important components of our software development was quality assurance – the process of looking for bugs and reporting them to the programmers to fix. Like most startups, we were on a pretty tight budget. Hiring a team of two to three […]

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Why I’m Voting Green This Year

February 6, 2009

You would think that after voting for a Barkat and a Barack respectively in the local Jerusalem and U.S. elections, the logical next choice would be to support a Barak (Ehud that is) in the upcoming Israeli national elections. Would that it were that easy. The major parties fielded for the 2009 elections have got […]

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Parkour and the Metaphysics of Strangers

January 23, 2009

Ten-year-old Aviv has been trying to learn parkour, that incredibly dangerous street sport where you take running jumps off of walls like you’re urban surfing…but without the board. Well, at least he was until yesterday. Aviv and my wife Jody were in the park when apparently, while trying to fling himself off a picnic table, […]

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Free Phone Calls Courtesy of Israel’s PokeTalk

January 15, 2009

Residents of the southern part of Israel in range of missiles from Gaza can now make phone calls up to 30 minutes to their friends and relatives entirely for free, thanks to a new Israeli startup called PokeTalk. The service, which is already operational in 60 countries around the world, is good for any calls […]

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A Visit to Israel’s First Apple Store

January 8, 2009

I shouldn’t be so crazy over a store. After all, it’s just a large rectangular space whose sole purpose is to sell me expensive stuff I may or may not need. But this store, full of shiny toys, mesmerizing images and deliriously happy shoppers, is something else entirely. And it’s a welcome break from all […]

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War in Gaza: Which Way Will the Dreidel Fall?

January 4, 2009

Our friend Joan called last night just as the news broke that the IDF had begun its ground operation in Gaza. Joan was panicked. She knew a number of families in our neighborhood who had boys in combat units. “Why are we doing this?” she said. “Can’t we pull them all out now?” My first […]

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