Gut Reaction

March 31, 2006

It’s hard to believe we’re back again. Back in the hospital, that is, a year after our twelve-year-old daughter Merav was hospitalized for severe stomach cramps, joint pain, jaundice and suspected hepatitis. Last time, she was admitted for a week, and wound up missing nearly two months of school. The doctors chose to wait it […]

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Ka-Ching

March 24, 2006

It’s common wisdom that you always spend 20-30 percent more on a home renovation than you originally planned. Jody and I were going to be different. After all, Jody’s whole business is about helping people make and stay on a budget. With the right project planning in advance, we figured, there’s no reason we should […]

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Munich in Florida

March 17, 2006

I almost didn’t go to see Steven Spielberg’s latest film “Munich.” I wouldn’t have been alone in that decision; many of my friends had already refused to attend. The film was biased against Israel, bordering on anti-Semitic at worst; difficult and violent at best, they’d heard. In the end, journalistic and Zionist curiosity won out. […]

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Dental Dichotomy

March 10, 2006

I hadn’t been to the dentist for almost a year. It wasn’t because I was afraid. Rather it was the opposite. The last time I went, there wasn’t enough pain. Now before you accuse me of emulating the masochistic patient who begs for more from dentist in disguise Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, let […]

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Personal Space

February 23, 2006

It’s a familiar scene in our house. Too familiar. One of the kids will be sitting on the couch reading or playing in the living room. Another kid will come up, sit down right in his or her space and either start something in a demonstratively bothersome way, or try to enter uninvited into the […]

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A Nerd and Proud of It

February 16, 2006

“You’re a ch’noon,” my twelve-year-old daughter Merav impishly pronounced me one day after I refused to let her take an “emotional health” day from school. “What’s a…what did you call me?” I replied. “A ch’noon,” Merav said, repeating the Israeli slang that, to the best of my fading Hebrew uplan memory, was not on the […]

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Wild Kingdom of Ikea

February 10, 2006

We recently took a trip abroad. But we didn’t get on an airplane, and we didn’t cross any borders. We visited Ikea. Ikea, to the uninitiated (as we were before our recent pilgrimage to its Netanya branch, Ikea’s only store in Israel) is a home furnishings extravaganza of theme park proportions. You don’t just visit […]

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The Return of Paranoia

February 2, 2006

When Hamas swept the Palestinian Authority elections at the end of last week, my first thought was, well, it’s not such a big deal. It just makes overt what was always the thinly veiled policy of the now outgoing government. Maybe this could even be a good thing, I consoled myself. By removing ambiguity, the […]

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Drilling for Identity

January 20, 2006

There was nothing I could do about it. I knew that. Still, no one enjoys living next door to a construction site. Especially when the two dwellings in question share a common wall and the noise is so loud you literally have to go into the stairwell to make a phone call. When the drilling […]

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Red Lines

January 12, 2006

It was only a matter of time before one of our kids demanded access to what may be the most rebellious, dangerous and terrifying activities known to parents in Israel. In this case, the culprit in question was twelve-year-old Merav, and her act of teenage defiance? She wanted to ride the bus. In normal circumstances, […]

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