Category: lizrael update
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Hindsight is, after all, 2020: My end of (the longest) year review
“It’s the year of cliche conference names! The year of too-easy cable news slogans! The year that will produce endless ‘hindsight is…’ memes!” That’s what I was saying this time last year. So here we are, and it really wasn’t. Something as frivolous as a year’s round, meaningful number just… barely came up in 2020. […]
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The things that change and don’t change in fifteen years.
15 years ago, I landed at Ben Gurion airport and a Russian-accented משרד הפנים rep told me I’ve been spelling my last name wrong my entire life as he prepped my paperwork. Last night, I was helping my son with his math homework in averages and after puzzling over the inaccurate wording of this problem, […]
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lizrael update: just things.
This may be my longest stretch of not writing here. For the sake of breaking that streak, just some quickies. Give me a month to collect some thoughts and come back. Town life If I’ve changed over the last ten years, it’s not at the same pace or degree as my ‘village’ from what seems […]
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Am I supposed to be here?
It’s been 15 years since I came out to my family that I’d be moving to Israel after university finished. It was two years before the ‘disengagement’, it was during the second intifada, a couple years after Nefesh b’Nefesh started. I was searching for a lot of things, but I knew this much was true […]
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5 Things I’ve Learned About Career & Family: me in a video; lotta honesty; who needs role models
Hi. Because I have decided to step up this year in ‘challenging my comfort zone’, I said yes without thinking that hard when the BreadWinners* co-founder asked me to interview on camera for their new project. *Whether it’s essays on topics about the complexities of having a career and family at the same time, or […]
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Expat life: Eleven years.
As of today I have spent a third of my life living as an expat, having made the choice to leave what I knew and start over somewhere else, with specific goals and ideology fueling the decision. And 11 years later I really don’t have much to complain about, which I appreciate is incredibly fortunate. […]
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10 things about turning ten (celebrating a decade of lizrael update)
Where’s my cake? lizrael update turns ten-years-old today! That’s six months longer than I’ve lived here. That’s two more years than I’ve been married. That’s five more years than I’ve been a parent. That’s as long as I’ve been out of my first university. It’s the longest-running project I’ve ever undertaken, with no deadline or end in sight. […]
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lizrael update: 4 facts till I reunite with coherent thought
Happy March! Since it’s been quiet around here, I’ve provided a few quick facts: Fifty-Two Frames isn’t the only thing going on in my life, but I have felt uncharacteristically quiet for a long while now. I haven’t been working since beginning of February. More on that another time. Sometime in the next few weeks […]
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lizrael update: the expat-makes-a-visit edition
Living in Israel (and probably many other countries as an American expat) is an exercise in being happy with what you have, and I feel lucky to have even scratched the surface of that sentiment. Occasionally the conversation comes up with fellow expats here and I’m no longer surprised to admit that I’m happier here […]
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Life lately.
Enjoying the summer blooms. Soaring through the superhero phase. Ate through a 2-week baking craze. Acknowledged July 4th in Jerusalem, USA. Devouring a Song of Light and Fire, games of thrones, crows, feasts, cravens. Inspired at the home office. Welcoming new friends. Uncovered a long-lost treasure. Attuned to the start of Ramadan season.
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Fifty-Two Frames: Self-Portrait
First off, I started participating in Fifty-Two Frames exactly 52 weeks ago, January 2012, and this week I completed it, in time for a new round called 2013. Secondly, this week’s theme was a good one. It had the potential to be awkward, narcissistic, lame, or reflective. Sighofrelief it became the latter. This week I was […]
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My NYTimes debut: experience of an expat Staten Islander during Sandy
My New York Times debut: A journalist found my post on my experience of helplessness as a Staten Island expat, far away during the Hurricane Sandy disaster. After some emails and a phone call, my Staten Island-based mama and I became the lede of his article on New York expats taking action during crisis. Here’s […]