Homemade videos from Haifa.

A Haifan friend of a friend posted some videos he made of his mother and brother waiting out the sirens and some videos of Haifa filled with press:

For more, click here.

Speaking of restraint.

Sometimes I’m amazed at myself, how I threw my fate into the pile with everyone else in Israel. I sit on the bus, and realize I’m one of those ‘everbody else’ sitting on the bus. I stand on-line at the supermarket, and there I am, ‘another somebody’ standing on-line at the supermarket.

And with that, I suppose come the elements that are not as obvious as taking city buses, shopping in supermarkets, paying taxes and living life… These invisible elements that involve either accepting people at face value or looking deeper, trying to understand who everybody really is or making rushed judgments about the people we call ‘our brothers’.

For a long time, I’ve tried to be fair about judging religious and secular. I’ve either reserved judgment or tried to understand where anyone has come from. I found my own self caught in the middle, and to me, that balance was ok.

And now that I’m part of the game, a direct player, not by choice but by association - I no longer find that as easy or simple or comforting.

And it’s taking a lot of restraint to not jump off towards the deep end of no return.

Verbal t-shirt-arrhea.

So. What if me and a friend start a wedding shtick t-shirt business?

For the unmarried friend: “I know, I know, soon by me…”

For the groom: Quagmire saying, “Harei at mikudeshet li? Giggity giggity!”

For the bride: “Touch me, I’m one big segulah.”

We could be rich…

‘Very religious’ people & me.

Me and ‘very religious’ people are not friends. Not today at least.

I’m sick of ‘very religious’ people telling me how to be, what to do, what I do wrong.

Especially when they pay double the price for their ‘most kosher’ food when really they are paying rabbis who force food producers to pay them off.

Especially when they make you go through all kinds of bureaucratic shit, like proving your Judaism or that your single, and then charge you 600 shekels to do that. When you’re forced to get married through their system in the first place.

Especially when no matter what kind of person you are - even as an observant Jew on some level - there is always something that you’re not doing. And so you’ll never be good enough.

I appreciate my religion on my own terms compromised with the traditions it holds sacred. Sure, I have dreams of a better religious observance. But at least I’m not a ‘very religious’ person comprised of beliefs in bullshit.

And you know what the worst is?
That a lot of ‘very religious’ people think that all this is kiruv.

Mazal tov! (Duck!)

Israeli couple Maya and Shlomie ’settled’ for a high school bomb shelter instead of a 900-person convention center for their wedding in Kiryat Shmona Thursday afternoon.

Ok, they weren’t allowed a public gathering in a convention center by military rule; not exactly recommended either way, Kiryat Shmona is a kilometer from the border.

Mazal tov!
(Ynet)

Reason #419.

Scene: Nine very big charedi people… and little me sitting between two of them.

Big charedi woman sitting on my right from Flatbush, Brooklyn: “So why did you make aliyah?”
Me: “…I didn’t really feel like I fit in.”

It would be better as a cartoon.

Theory & practice

Since my charedi mother-in-law has come to stay with us, I have had more contact and insight into the diaspora charedi world than I did even living in NYC for 22 years.

I guess you could say I spent years, after my initial becoming religious, turned off from wanting to know about the ‘ultra orthodox’ (as we in the States call them) or how they worked. And for me, it was how that former sentence sounds: Us vs. them. Prior to mother-in-law stay, it’s gotten to the point where I actually feel chiloni.

But now that I’m entering the charedi world via marriage, even if it’s long distance, I’ve had to take a deep breath and re-evaluate, and, though it’s been obvious to me all along, start to take the ‘theory’ I study in school and make it ‘practice.’ I guess this is as good a trigger as any.

And maybe today was a sort of formal graduation in theory -> practice as my first year in the conflict management & negotiation program comes to an end (sort of): I took my social psych final - testing me on terms like ‘prejudice’ and ‘indoctrination’ and ‘aggression’ and ‘conformity’ and ’social influence.’

Then, after I left the final, headed towards the sherut and stepped inside to find it filled - not unlike many times before - with charedis - I didn’t let out a sigh or groan or keep my eyes low.

The one seat available was in between three large charedi women, and when they moved apart to let me sit, I said thanks. Then I turned to one who had been resting her baby on my seat before I showed up and asked her if it was ok that I sat there. She said yeah.

And my tank topped body sat still and peacefully until we got to Jerusalem.

Sign out of Jerusalem:

“Soldier! Thanks for watching over us. Come home in peace!”

Overheard in Jerusalem.

American son: “What are we gonna do about this bag of leftovers?”

American dad: “Well, it’s leaking, we can’t take it in the cab. Do you know what they would do to us if we got their car seat all stained?”

American son: “Sue us?”

Etgar Keret #3.

A third Etgar Keret piece that can be found in the NYTimes.

Who loves Etgar Keret?
We love Etgar Keret!

The Way We War