Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004
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Grief is the price for loving
Even if you turned the clock back two years, I’d do it all over again… but I now understand why everyone thought it was a big deal I adopted an older dog. I always, always felt burning desire for that kind of connection; at some point it became clear it wasn’t a child-like fantasy thing,…
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Holocaust tired.
Even Holocaust fatigue has changed. Years past, I’d discuss how much we need to evolve our sharing/imparting/including our next generation in what happened to our grandparents in World War II and what it means today, tomorrow, the next day. Last year, we were all in shock – the tekes was packed, the crying was clear,…
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Invisible grief
By now, who among us doesn’t recognize the devastating countenance of Yarden Bibas or Eli Sharabi? Sometimes their eyes are glazed, faraway; sometimes their faces are fixed, determined. Sometimes all you can do is look upon them and know you’ll, hopefully, never even be close to that level of grief and pain. You feel for…
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Role modeling thrives in the discomfort
Here’s a story about parenting. We’re at the celebration for returned Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen in his hometown (and mine) of Tzur Hadassah, and a junior reporter wielding a red microphone from Israel Hayom locks eyes with me from across the crowd. I know what he wants, I was him once. My daughters are standing…
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Vatika’s vocabulary lesson
Officially twenty years here, and oh how my Hebrew vocabulary and Israeli mindset has expanded and exploded in just one. Words I never thought I’d need, words I figured would take another while to come across. Or words that have completely changed meaning in the course of a day. If I mapped my aliyah in…
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A year that felt like years
One (or, millions) could argue that 2024 started on October 7th 2023 and that that specific year has never ended since. I’m not a sentimentalist for dates, years, counting time. Maybe that’s how I get away with being 40 something and feeling like the world just started (again). A world did just begin, in earnest.…
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Politics is not the point
When you die, you will not leave behind your politics. Neither will I. When we die, what they’ll say at our funerals, if they show up, is the kind of person we were. And then in some people’s mind, subconsciously or unconsciously, it will remain a little speck: were we part of leaving a corner…
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חזק חזק ונתחזק
So after a year, this morning my dog finally let me walk us together around the security road outside our house. Our old route. The last time we did that, just the two of us, was the day before Simchat Torah 5784. Something that happened, since last Simchat Torah, is that I inadvertently and unintentionally…
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A lot and nothing to say
What has changed in a year? I don’t even know how to share this part of myself – I’m drained, I’m exhausted, I’m surrounded by exhausted people, exhausted communities, exhausted institutions – but it’s important to try, so I’ll try. Survival mode is relative to what we’re each surviving; some people are surviving the ultimate…
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Time to face facts: It’s a grey world we live in.
To the non-Israelis who aren’t grasping the context of Bibi Netanyahu in 2024. It’s day 331 since October 7. I still occasionally hear how some Americans revere Bibi as a security hero, the ultimate leader for this time, etc. And to be fair to some more self aware folks, I hear some putting it as:…
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The children weep openly
Look around. The families are different. Your family is different. My family is different. Some sons walk around with ghosts in their eyes now. Some daughters know more than their generous spirits can handle. The children weep openly at this Memorial Day ceremony. (Memorializing what? Yesterday’s names?) My family is different. Yours is too. Look…
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Kaddish everywhere.
“It’s different this year. Every year it’s sad, but this year, it feels different, like, I get it now, you know?” From the mouths of Israeli teens. I’m 41. I’ve been never-forgetting my entire life. I saw these images and watched these videos and heard these testimonies from Holocaust survivors standing in front of me…
Questions? Comments? Advice?