Consumer culture

The price of memory

November 9, 2017

“We found Mom. She’s safe.” That was the text message I received from my brother in California. It came out of the blue.

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Are we on the brink of a smartphone-induced mental-health crisis?

August 27, 2017

Pet peeve: the light shining from people’s smart phones at a concert or movie. I can’t concentrate. It’s rude. Is a mental health crisis coming?

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The Case for Boredom

February 23, 2015

When was the last time you were bored? Think about it…what do you do if you have nothing of great importance to do – say, you’re standing in a line at the pharmacy and there are three people ahead of you, or you’re waiting for a bus that Moovit says is still 7 minutes away, […]

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Eddie and the White Smoke

February 18, 2014

We love our 1995 Toyota Corolla. It’s in fantastic shape and is our only car for driving out of Jerusalem. (Our other car is a Better Place electric vehicle which is now essentially a very expensive “city car” – but that’s another story.) So, when a car repairperson rolled down the window in his vehicle and […]

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Top zingers from this year’s Comedy for Koby

December 13, 2013

Comedy for Koby rolled into Jerusalem this week and my wife and I were there, along with our three kids, who we treated to their first live comedy show as a Hanukah gift. (Think of it as guffaws instead of gelt.) After what I’d done last year, though, I wasn’t sure if the comedians would 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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“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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Israeli Spotting at the Super Bowl

February 4, 2013

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday and, as always, the commercials were often as unforgettable as some of the bolder plays on the field. For Israelis, the spot to watch was GoDaddy’s promotion of its web hosting service featuring Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli. The video is all over the Internet and has racked up a stunning […]

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“Houses from Within” Returns to Jerusalem With More Trains

October 30, 2012

The annual “Houses from Within” weekend is one of my favorite Jerusalem adventures. The event opens tens of normally private homes and institutions to the public. Dwellings owned by artists like successful sculptor Giora Segal, who renovated a small house in Motza (not technically in Jerusalem) built on top of a Second Temple period cave, […]

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Fuze Tea Blitzes Israel

September 19, 2012

You would have to have been living in a cave, under a rock or in general paying no attention whatsoever to TV, radio, the Internet or billboards all over Israel during the past few weeks to have missed the hottest new beverage to hit supermarket shelves. Or more to the point, the hottest old beverage. Fuze Tea […]

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