Travel

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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A Prickly Suprise

December 1, 2010

Hiking along the Israel Trail from Mitzpe Missua They looked so ripe and delicious. How were we to know that eating sabra fruit in the wild is an adventure intended only for the foolish – animal, human or otherwise? We were in the middle of another wonderful family tiyul in Israel. This one started at […]

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The Most Terrifying Tiyul

October 28, 2010

Plunging into the abyss I am not generally considered a timid man. I have jumped out of an airplane (without it being part of a mandatory army exercise) and fondly recall my youth hurtling down the tallest of roller coasters. But I don’t plan to go back to Nahal Og any time soon. It was […]

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Overeating in the Land of the Buffet

September 22, 2010

Alon Tavor Field School What is it about Jews and buffets? We see one and we go hog-wild, pardon the expression. And buffets are big business in Israel. Our most recent encounter with the ubiquitous Israeli buffet was during a Shabbaton earlier this year with our synagogue at the Alon Tavor Field School. Some explanations […]

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Vacation Tips for the Passover Holiday

March 31, 2010

It’s vacation time in Israel – the week of hol ha mod Pesach (the days in-between the Seder and the the seventh day of the chag) is a time when schools and many businesses close down and half the country seemingly takes to the parks and general great outdoors. Our family traditionally heads north to […]

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Room 124

January 7, 2010

Israeli bureaucratic institutions have been slowly but surely modernizing over recent years. You can get in and out of the infamous Interior Ministry in less than a day…and you don’t have to line up at 8:00 AM just to shove your way in through the heavily guarded front door. The health funds now have computerized […]

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Back to Summer Camp

December 8, 2009

Our kids have been attending a Bnei Akiva-style summer camp for the last several years. Kayitz b’Kibbutz is based at Kibbutz Shluchot in the Jordan Valley, a few kilometers south of Beit Shean. The camp doesn’t have visiting days during its sessions, so we’ve been forced to use our imaginations to picture what our kids […]

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If You’re Going to Egypt…

February 1, 2007

Well, we made it back from Egypt and we had a fantastic, fascinating, amazingly awesome experience. We felt perfectly safe the entire time and never felt any antagonism, though that might have been in part that no one actually knew we were either Jewish or Israeli. See this post on how we traveled “Jewcognito,” entering […]

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The Paradox of Choice: Consumer Lessons for the Holiday Season

December 22, 2006

In his fascinating and compelling book “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz describes the process of buying a pair of jeans. At his local Gap, he tells a saleswoman that his size is 32 waist, 28 length. “Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy or extra baggy,” the saleswoman replies, then […]

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A Prince in Egypt

December 15, 2006

“Don’t go,” “You’re crazy,” “Its just not safe.” These were a few of the choice admonitions we received when we told friends and family we had planned a vacation in Egypt. Our friends weren’t crazy. They were clearly acting out of love and from what they’ve read in the media: Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is indeed […]

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