Category: what a country

  • Horse pills

    Horse pills

    “Together we’ll win” (יחד ננצח) is lovely wartime morale propaganda but we’re so far from together and the fact is getting more true and more painful and I have my own 2-part prescription for the country after we volunteered on a horse farm today for a woman whose been managing on her own since Oct…

  • I’m up here. (The value of eye contact)

    I’m up here. (The value of eye contact)

    Yesterday two men from a neighbouring town and vastly different demographic approached me to ask for directions in my town. One did not look me in the eye as he spoke to me, but looked at the ground, eyes nearly closed. I know why. I felt lower than low. Human contact is core to our…

  • Kids, failure is just another item on a Startup Nation checklist

    Kids, failure is just another item on a Startup Nation checklist

    “This is an important night for the State of Israel, its citizens and young people. We see what we can do when we want and try. We are full of admiration for the wonderful people who got a spacecraft to the moon. True, not as we hoped, but we will get there, in the end.”…

  • Am I supposed to be here?

    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…

  • What if we don’t wanna be the toy? A Eurovision post.

    What if we don’t wanna be the toy? A Eurovision post.

    It can be so hard to be Israeli. It’s can be so hard to get shit all the time, from every direction. To never be able to ‘choose’ a side because the game is always changing and anyway, there is no side to choose; you’re at the center of it by existing where and when…

  • The Prime Minister makes a PowerPoint

    The Prime Minister makes a PowerPoint

    It’s night three of my daughter’s cough and it’s gotten much better. I’m sitting uncomfortably on the Hello Kitty stool next to the crib, with my forefinger making lines in her palm, my phone on ‘play’ in the other hand, and in my left ear, an earbud is loosely holding on. The prime minister is…

  • At 70, you get your own Snapchat filter.

    At 70, you get your own Snapchat filter.

    Independence is affording the time to celebrate your existence. Independence is getting your own Snapchat filter. Independence is being proud of someone you never met named Netta. Independence is the freedom to openly mourn your dead on your terms. Independence is enjoying making choices on a global scale. Independence is watching your kids grow up…

  • Thoughts on another Israeli Memorial Day

    All around, kids pick up bits and ask their parents… “What is בן האבוד בלבנון?” “What is מבצע אנטבה?” “What does רומנטי mean?” “Why is that kind of flower everywhere?” “Did that שיר really happen?” “Why do they put the flag down?” On a walk through Har Herzl (Israel’s national cemetery) this morning, hearing about…

  • Oh, Jerusalem: High impact presentation of a high impact city

    Every day I wake up, get myself and what feels like 3853075 other people ready for our routines, drag my ass to my car and eventually end up on the road into work. The thing about that road is, it’s the road to Jerusalem. And not just the road to Jerusalem, but the road to…

  • New parenting level unlocked: Israeli school children on Yom HaZicaron

    New parenting level unlocked: Israeli school children on Yom HaZicaron

    Here’s the scene. A mother is playing out her son’s childhood through a laundry metaphor. First the onesie. Then the tzitzit. School uniform shirt. Pants. Teenager jeans. Button down shirt. Army tzitzit. When she gets to the army uniform, there’s a ‘knock at the door.’ She sees the soldier. She crumples. He salutes. She cries…

  • Questions I answer for my kids on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

    “Those bad guys… ummm… what are they called again?” “Nazis.”

  • Next year in… your country.

    Something really extraordinary happened at work today. In startup world. In the center of Jerusalem. We had the pre-Passover הרמת כוסית, or company holiday toast. Our CEO spoke a few words, leading to how blown away he is by how the company is growing, both in team… and in the number of pregnant women. Then…