The Old Country

Buses Here and There

December 7, 2012

I grew up in a small suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area with no public transportation. This was tough because I have always been fascinated (my family would say obsessed) by buses, trams, trains and the like. San Francisco had pretty much everything a transit head like me could desire, including electric trolleys, streetcars […]

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Retiring to Protea Hills

July 11, 2012

It’s too bad I haven’t hit retirement age yet. Because when I do (and it won’t be for a good many more years), I know where I want to live: Protea Hills, a brand new retirement “village” in the final stages of construction high up on a mountain at Moshav Shoresh, about 20 minutes from […]

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Audited

April 18, 2012

For the 17 years that we have lived in Israel, we have been boy scouts when it comes to paying our U.S. taxes. We file our 1040s dutifully, even though there is rarely any tax to pay (we pay our 45% pound of flesh to the Israeli authorities and then the double taxation treaty with […]

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Canadian Cop

March 6, 2012

The woman at the rental car agency desk at Toronto’s Pearson Airport eyed my Israeli driver’s license suspiciously. She looked at the laminated card, then up at me, then back and forth several times. “You’re going to have a problem if a policeman pulls you over,” she finally said, explaining her hesitation. “There’s no English […]

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Snow-tubing!

March 1, 2012

We were all ready for snow in Jerusalem a couple of weeks back, but there was none in the end. Now snow is back in the weather for Friday, and I’ve already seen a few flurries today. But, after a week in Toronto, where we just were for a family wedding, I’ve seen more snow […]

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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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My Evening with Ted

August 19, 2010

One of my closest childhood friends flew into town recently for a whirlwind Jewish Federation-sponsored tour of Israel. Ted had a couple of hours free in Jerusalem, so along with my friends David and Shelley Brinn (who had also known Ted back in the day) and Ted’s old girlfriend Evelyn, we met up at a […]

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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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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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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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