Tag: parents

  • Gotaway.

    We did the impossible. Or at least, the impossible when you’re immigrants here alone, without close family, and then your mother-in-law comes to stay and offers to watch the kids while you go away overnight. And that’s what we did. We kept it simple: a night in a hotel in Jerusalem, a trip to town,…

  • We’re doing something right.

    Koala spots the new set of Dora’s family members on the shelf. He asks me, “who dat?” “It’s Dora’s ima and abba.” He takes the two plastic parents and puts them up against each other. “Ima… Abba… chibuki!”

  • Two mothers.

    My mother is a split personality. As long as I’ve known her, this has been the case. She can speak two languages fluently: her mother tongue, English, a language that rolls off her tongue like rain dripping down a car window in the summer; and Hebrew, a language she has been tripping over since they…

  • 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…