Category: b’herayon
-
Remembering to remember.
I’m lost in the new parent time warp. Completely forgot that Yom HaZicaron started last night until we heard the siren from my hospital room. Watched many of the nurses and patients stand still in the corridor while the Arabs and Charedis went about their ways. Yom HaZicaron has the potential to take on a…
-
It's all relative.
Learning about breastfeeding in a room filled with new moms. There are posters all over the maternity ward about how to hold the baby. The English ones talk about the “football hold.” The Hebrew ones describe the “darbuka hold.”
-
Birthing in Hebrew.
I always thought when it came to my childbirth experience here in Israel, I’d end up automatically speaking, pleading and moaning in my native tongue. Despite Israeli hospital staff. I figured they probably get that all the time, and who doesn’t speak English in the medical field? Well… it didn’t happen that way. I birthed…
-
Birth day.
39 weeks. 36 hours of labor. Unmedicated natural childbirth. Careful midwives, wise doula, supportive husband. Beautiful, red, hairy, 2.7 kilo baby boy. Most amazing thing I’ve ever done.
-
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…
-
End of days.
Since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been watching and waiting as pregnant peers around me finish up their terms, give birth and move on to parenthood. It’s been a sort of countdown of names, not numbers – first so-and-so, then so-and-so, next so-and-so. Happens to be there have been quite a few, especially…
-
Where we are.
So here we are, me and my belly tenant, at the ‘full term’ milestone. This probably means different things for the two of us, but the more I think about it, perhaps the more it is actually the same. It’s probably so comfy in there, with the warmth and the soothing background noise. And not…
-
No business like mohel business.
Guess where the best place to shop for a mohel is? Yes, a brit mila. We stopped by the brit of friends’ new boy this morning and as we walked out the mohel was leaving too. My baby daddy recognized him from another brit we went to at the beginning of my pregnancy. The mohel…
-
Everybody loves a pregnant lady.
Something I’ve discovered – maybe now that I’m so obviously pregnant or that I’ve actually realized I’m so obviously pregnant (it took a while) – is that in Israel, or maybe just Jerusalem, everybody loves a pregnant lady. The old guy scooping me ice cream? Big smiles and bigger scoops. “Have some more, it’s good…
-
I need to be schooled.
Today we volunteered at a ‘shuk kach-ten’ – kind of a giant yard sale where you bring junk and take other people’s junk. It was at the elementary school in Tzur Hadassah. It was also the first time I have entered an Israeli school while it was in session. Kids running everywhere. Not unlike my…
-
The little vagina that could (or, My own monologue).
Six years ago I first started to understand the Vagina Monologues sensation while studying abroad at an English university. It was thanks to two lovely ladies who I befriended and who invited me to their rehearsals for the campus V-Day performance that year. I was intrigued and going through a period of introspection so I…
-
An unlikely metaphor.
Sometimes it’s hard to imagine something you’ve never done before. I imagine this impending adventure… to be similar to a bad trip I had many years ago. A friend and I were spending a few days in Amsterdam. These were college years, so you can imagine what we were doing. The evening before we were…