Month: April 2009

  • Remembering to remember.

    I’m lost in the new parent time warp. Completely forgot that Yom HaZicaron started last night until we heard the siren from my hospital room. Watched many of the nurses and patients stand still in the corridor while the Arabs and Charedis went about their ways.  Yom HaZicaron has the potential to take on a…

  • It's all relative.

    Learning about breastfeeding in a room filled with new moms. There are posters all over the maternity ward about how to hold the baby.  The English ones talk about the “football hold.” The Hebrew ones describe the “darbuka hold.”

  • Birthing in Hebrew.

    I always thought when it came to my childbirth experience here in Israel, I’d end up automatically speaking, pleading and moaning in my native tongue. Despite Israeli hospital staff. I figured they probably get that all the time, and who doesn’t speak English in the medical field? Well… it didn’t happen that way. I birthed…

  • Birth day.

    39 weeks. 36 hours of labor. Unmedicated natural childbirth.  Careful midwives, wise doula, supportive husband.  Beautiful, red, hairy, 2.7 kilo baby boy. Most amazing thing I’ve ever done.

  • Tzur Hadassah transportation.

    I was asked about transportation to and from Tzur Hadassah. Thought I’d share the options – though they are not as many as would be helpful: Bet Shemesh: Superbus 182. Jerusalem: Superbus 184 and Egged 180. Beitar: Illit buses; there are multiple lines that go to Jerusalem, Bet Shemesh and Bnei Brak frequently. Tremping: People…

  • On kids, memorials, and what brings them together.

    So it’s come to this: I go to Holocaust memorial services in Israel and all I can think about is how my kids may turn out in this culture. Well, in the first place, I have yet to be impressed by an Israeli-made Holocaust memorial service. They’ve lacked intensity, empathy and authenticity so far. It…

  • End of days.

    Since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been watching and waiting as pregnant peers around me finish up their terms, give birth and move on to parenthood. It’s been a sort of countdown of names, not numbers – first so-and-so, then so-and-so, next so-and-so. Happens to be there have been quite a few, especially…

  • Don't meet me here.

    Taking a walk through Tzur Hadassah‘s Har Kitron neighborhood, you’ll find the following street off the main road… I think this is particularly funny because Har Kitron comes off as a bit of a posh ‘hood. It’s all full, robust houses and a lot of ‘older’ families with teenage kids. I guess this isn’t the…

  • Where we are.

    So here we are, me and my belly tenant, at the ‘full term’ milestone. This probably means different things for the two of us, but the more I think about it, perhaps the more it is actually the same. It’s probably so comfy in there, with the warmth and the soothing background noise. And not…

  • No business like mohel business.

    Guess where the best place to shop for a mohel is? Yes, a brit mila.  We stopped by the brit of friends’ new boy this morning and as we walked out the mohel was leaving too. My baby daddy recognized him from another brit we went to at the beginning of my pregnancy.  The mohel…

  • Once in 28 years.

    I’m the type to get excited by the rare traditions in Judiasm. The kind I never heard about in my two decades of formal Jewish education. So waking up at 5:45  this morning to join a minyan on a Tzur Hadassah roof top didn’t really bother me, even after a late night of cooking and…

  • American taste since…

    Ah, the good old days. Pesach celebrated with the family back in America. My grandmother’s Sephardi dishes, my brothers’ haggadah-reading entertainment.  And of course, who could hold an American Pesach seder with the family without this gem of an experience:  Kedem grape juice! I know plenty of American olim who claim that it’s better than…