Musty Smell, Fine Food

April 14, 2013

I’m not sure if the oddly wafting odor of mold, or was that mildew, emanating from the walls of Racha, a funky restaurant in the center of Jerusalem specializing in Georgian food (the country, not the U.S. state), was intended to be part of the experience. Perhaps the smell was meant to evoke memories of […]

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Falafel Ovadia Patriarch Passes Away

April 10, 2013

Ovadia Ched died recently. Most residents of southern Jerusalem have felt his impact – even if they never met the man himself – in their stomachs. Ched was the owner of the eponymous felafel stand that has stood on Bethlehem Road in Baka for nearly 40 years. Ched was 82 when he died after a […]

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Freeform Seder

March 28, 2013

The run up to this year’s Pesach Seder included a remarkable – and decidedly disturbing – discovery: no one in our family really likes Pesach. No, it was worse. Some of us really hatePesach. The preparation, the cleaning, even the Seder itself doesn’t rank highly on our list of peak Jewish experiences. How could this be? […]

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Supersol Gets Spooky Online

March 25, 2013

I hate grocery shopping in Israel. I might hate it in the Old Country too, but I don’t remember it so well. But here, I have no problem recalling my recoil. The aisles are too narrow, the lines are ridiculously long and slow, the store (in winter) has no heating, and whoever heard of a […]

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Telecommuting No More at Comverse (and Yahoo)

March 21, 2013

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was in the news last month after she announced that the company she heads will no longer support telecommuting. Starting June 1, employees who work from home, all or part of the time, will be asked to report to the office. If they don’t, too bad. The company is even discouraging […]

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Troubles at my Alma Mater

March 13, 2013

My alma mater was all over the Jewish news last week, but not for good reasons. Oberlin College, which I attended as an undergraduate some 30 years ago, has inexplicably seen a number of racist and anti-Semitic incidents in the past month. On February 15, students found a note reading “Whites only” tacked above a […]

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“Nice Jewish boy” Launches Playboy in Israel

March 8, 2013

When I was growing up, my father always kept a stack of Playboy magazines in the living room, next to the stereo. They were there for anyone to read, and despite the public potential for teenage titillation, I’m sure that my father really did intend that we read them. But just in case there were other reasons they were […]

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The Fattest Holiday of Them All? Purim, Pesach, Shavuot or Hanukah?

February 28, 2013

Purim may now be behind us, but some of the sweets still remain. The holiday, which is officially about retelling the story of how the Jews were almost annihilated in ancient Persia, is perhaps best remembered going forward by one’s increased belly size after partaking of one too many hamentaschen – the classic triangular-shaped Purim cookie Ah, […]

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Glass Half Full – Better Place Transforms Station Error into Customer Service Case Study

February 20, 2013

Hey Better Place electric car aficionados: ever wonder what would happen if you pulled into one of the company’s fully automated battery swap stations and it didn’t work? Well, I’m here to tell the tale. It’s a classic glass half empty/half full situation. Half empty: the station broke down and we weren’t able to get […]

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Pink Floyd Comes to Jerusalem

February 12, 2013

It was just like being at a Pink Floyd concert…maybe even better. At least that was how I felt walking out of the “Echoes” show at Jerusalem’s Zappa Club on Thursday night. Echoes is an Israeli Pink Floyd “tribute band.” That means that they don’t just play covers of Pink Floyd songs; they attempt to […]

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