The Top Ten Music Festivals in Israel

February 17, 2011

Israel is too often perceived through an exclusively political, religious or historical lens. An equally compelling current for locals is music. The country is chock-a-block full of music festivals. Whether your preference runs to jazz, rock, classical, choral, rap or klezmer; whether you enjoy the desert, the mountains or the heart of the city, you’ll […]

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Secular Rabbis to the Rescue?

February 10, 2011

Rabbi Sivan Maas The Jerusalem Post reported this weekend about a rabbinic ordination ceremony of a very different kind. I was there at the event too, which took place in December. What made it all so unique was that the new rabbis were all entirely secular. And they don’t believe in God, at least not […]

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Land Grab

February 1, 2011

IDF Chief of Staff candidate Yoav Galant UPDATE: The Attorney General has decided not to defend Galant. Crime, it seems, will not be rewarded in this case! One of the most frustrating parts of living in Israel is when people think they’re above the law. You see it on the highways (speeding, not yielding the […]

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Religious Mustard and Other Hebrew Acronyms

January 26, 2011

Hodaya, the most famous “datlashit” from the TV show “Srugim” In the U.S. and most western countries, Jews tend to identify their religious affiliation through one of the major Jewish movements, be it Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Jewish Renewal, and even Secular Humanistic Judaism. Not so in Israel, where one’s religious standing is far more […]

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Lunch with Jack: From Sudan to Jerusalem

January 20, 2011

Refugees travel from Sudan north through Egypt to Israel One of the hot topics in the news these past months has been the steady influx of refugees from Africa who have crossed the border between Egypt and Israel, and Israel’s subsequent response of building a fence to keep the Africans out. With 1,000 refugees arriving […]

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You Say Basya, I Say Batya, It’s all Great Music

January 12, 2011

Basya Schechter in Jerusalem (photo: Warren Burstein) Basya Schechter has long been one of my favorite Jewish musicians. Whether with her seven piece band, Pharaoh’s Daughter, or stripped down (metaphorically, please) in an acoustic show, Schechter offers an intriguing mashup of ethnically tinged Shabbat zemirot, Ladino love songs, and wistful Yiddish poetry. Her playlist ranges […]

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Hairdresser Offers Unkind Cut

January 6, 2011

My daughter’s no dummy I’ve written before about how our family has become addicted to GroopBuy, the Jerusalem-based knock-off of the uber-popular Groupon in the U.S. (which just raised a ton of money this week). The GroopBuy service offers a single “deal a day” with a big discount – say, a coupon for a NIS […]

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Goats on a Hill

December 30, 2010

Aviv and Nesiya A couple of months back, on our trip to Nagal Og near the Dead Sea, we picked up a friend of our youngest son. Aviv’s classmate Nesya lives in what is known as an illegal outpost deep in the West Bank. It is so tiny we couldn’t find it on any map […]

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A Walk on the Wild Side

December 22, 2010

Change has come to downtown Jerusalem It has been years since I’ve been to downtown Jerusalem at night, but it’s the “in” spot for the teenagers in our house. After our sushi dinner last week, my wife and I decided to take a walk around. Frankly, we were blown away. I expected to find a […]

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War Over the Airwaves in Eilat

December 16, 2010

Resting at the top of the mountain In 1947, the U.N. partition plan designated the sleepy port of Eilat as the southernmost tip of the new Jewish state. It wasn’t until the final days of the War of Independence, however, when Israel took control of the town in an operation that surprised the small platoon […]

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