The Wine Festival

August 9, 2007

A year ago my wife Jody and I attended a wine festival at the Israel Museum. It was the same night as katyusha rockets started to rain down on Haifa as the Second Lebanon War kicked into high gear. The experience was surreal – here we were hopping from winery to winery, sniffing and sipping […]

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Losing Marla: 5 Years Later

August 2, 2007

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since our cousin Marla was killed in the July 31, 2002 suicide bombing at Hebrew University. Marla Bennett had just sat down to lunch at the university’s Frank Sinatra cafeteria when a terrorist detonated the bomb he had planted in a backpack at an adjoining table. […]

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Shabbat without Harry

July 27, 2007

“This is the longest Shabbat ever,” pouted thirteen-year-old Merav over the weekend. The reason for her distress was having to wait until Shabbat was over in order to claim her copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from our local Steimatzky’s book store. Religious Jews around the world were at a distinct disadvantage in […]

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The Falafel Date

July 20, 2007

One of the benefits of working from home is that you can take time off whenever you want, as long as you get your work done, of course. For me, my one consistent break has been a weekly trip to our local falafel stand with my friend Bob. To my exceedingly good fortune, we have […]

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A Night in Jerusalem

July 12, 2007

This photo and other great ones like it can be found on the Jerusalem Shots website. This image is from the photographer RomKri. Click here for more. I was in Tel Aviv a few weeks ago to attend the first ever Israeli “Blogference,” – a blogging convention held at the Herzeliya Interdisciplinary Center. After the […]

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Running the Bases

July 5, 2007

It’s been over 30 years since I was at a baseball game, but that unintended hiatus ended this week when I joined my family to root, root, root for the home team as the Modi’in Miracle suited up to play the Ra’anana Express as part of the Holy Land’s first professional baseball league. The afternoon […]

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Mamma Mia That’s a Spicy Boycott

June 29, 2007

When does something as innocuous and pleasurable as going to the theater become a political statement? When you’re seeing the British touring company of Mama Mia in Israel, that’s when. The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot ran a story last week headlined “ABBA musical boycotted in Israel?” which reports a claim in the U.K.-based London Times […]

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Graduation Israeli Style

June 22, 2007

Fifteen-year-old Amir’s school held a graduation party last week. Parents were invited. The event epitomized everything I both love – and hate – about living in Israel. First of all, the evening, which wasn’t limited to just the graduating class but included every year from 7th through 12th, was called to start at 7:00 PM. […]

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Nodding Off

June 15, 2007

In the recent Pixar movie Over the Hedge, R.J., a wily raccoon, accidentally awakens Vince a hibernating and very grumpy Grizzly bear while trying to steal from the Grizzly’s store of winter food. Vince immediately springs into classic Grizzly position, ready to impale and impair the unwelcome intruder. Bears, it seems, can go from 0-60 […]

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Ghost Towns

June 7, 2007

We recently learned that a neighbor in our apartment complex is trying to sell his flat, identical in size and layout to ours, for 50 percent more than we paid for our place two years ago. While this is certainly good news for the value of our property, it’s bad for the neighborhood. It means […]

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