Tag: Yom Haatzmaut

  • 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…

  • The freedom to be as stubborn as we want in our own land

    Israelis are nothing if not… persistent. That’s how we ended up here after thousands of years, and it’s how we became Startup Nation. So when we planned to go to the beach weeks ago for Yom Haatzmaut, you can bet the forecast be damned and we were going to the &@!$% beach. Even if there…

  • No better Israel education than the one from your sabra kids

    Things I love about Independence Day season in Israel: Every year – without fail – I manage to learn something new from my kids. This morning, all dressed up for the gan celebration, on the way to the car, my gan-aged kids broke out into song together. I asked them to teach it to me.…

  • Yom Haaztmaut 5774: Three reasons why

    ‘Why did you move to Israel?’ We get asked that a lot, don’t we? Here’s my #1 reason 9 years ago, and my #1 reason now: Children who know no differently… The list of reasons for living in Israel grows each year I live and learn here. This year it grew by way of another…

  • Go gaga for mongal. Or…

    Recently I came across this ‘infographic’. I don’t know the source or whether the stats are correct, but it still resonates because we all know what the sky looks like by the time Yom Haatzmaut is over: The animals. The air. The smell of our hair. Nothing is left untouched when we get excited about…

  • Patriotism through the eyes of a kid.

    A couple days ago, unsure of whether my son’s gan would cover it extensively, I started teaching him about Yom Haatzmaut myself. Which actually just meant teaching him the word דגל. Yesterday, he discovered the Israeli flag in our house… the very one we had been talking about. That made him mildly excited and less…

  • It’s starting to look a lot like…

    The annual hanging of the flags across Israel (or Tzur Hadassah specifically): Yom Haatzmaut 64, here we come!

  • Free to be… sixty three.

    Had a great day, especially since Park Begin wasn’t a disheveled, polluted mess by the time it ended! I love how a bunch of immigrant friends can get together, no local family aside, and have a great time of a national holiday. To the %#@! asshole who let his Doberman Pinscher run loose through groups…

  • Israeli flag protekzia.

    Someone is watching over us. Taking care that we do right by our adopted citizenhood. And that someone… is our mortgage bank representative. She happens to live in Tzur Hadassah, and her home happens to be located at the bottom of the hill our apartment overlooks. And now that she knows exactly where we live…

  • Still here.

    It confuses me that about one half of myself can’t believe we’re still here, and can’t believe things will continue the way they are – growing, productive, surviving… and the other half of myself thinks, look at the progress! Look at how far we’ve come, and how far we’re poised to go! We build buildings…

  • Do Israeli kids ever learn the fire safety lesson?

    The answer, sadly, is no. There is an unhealthy Israeli-Jewish obsession with fire in the springtime. It starts today – with Biyur Chametz, the burning of chametz, which is done on erev Pessach. Soon will be Yom Haatzmaut – the national barbecue bonanza, and after that, Lag B’omer, which pretty much celebrates bonfires the way it’s done here.…