Category: general

Why an Australian would make aliyah – if s/he is not religious – is beyond me. It is true what they say – Australia is so very laid-back (or if you’re Israeli, you’d say “ze ma ze layd beck”). So content, so calm. No worries. None. People pick up after their picnics. The kids say…

To answer my last question: Not only are we Israelis who can work more than our share, but we’re also family which means we’ve been working at the deli since 2 pm on Sunday (here I am, 14 hours later, smelling like gefilte fish and exhaustion).

With Pessach right around the corner, it seems every Jew in Melbourne is taking on at least one or two Israelis. “How are you getting the cleaning done with the kids running around?”“Oh, no worries, I’ve got myself an Israeli.” “Who is taking care of the car?”“My Israeli.” What a different outlook, eh? An ‘Israeli’…

Hey, I’m all the way down here. We left Israel on Tuesday night, stopped in Hong Kong and landed in Melbourne on Thursday morning. I don’t know if Wednesday even existed at all. I certainly don’t know how many sleepless hours I spent on two long flights. Here is my experience up until I landed,…

So the Nesher just called telling us that we have a few more minutes until they arrive to take us to the airport; that’s impressive since Nesher is the only Israeli establishment that does anything early (especially when you’re running late). We’re off to Australia for the next month. It’s a badly needed life-vacation/ nationality-break/…

I realized today, somewhere in Tel Aviv, between riding the Dan bus line – walking on Dizengoff – and getting served in a bakery-cafe – that I must be categorized as Yerushalmi. There is such an enormous difference between Tel Avivians and Yerushalmis. It’s like the difference between Brooklynites and Manhattanites: the view, the pace,…

FYI: Security forces, rescue services to participate Tuesday in massive drill simulating conventional and unconventional terror attacks across country, in order to implement lessons learned from war in Lebanon. Siren to be sounded in south, center of Israel at 2 p.m. –YNet; click for more info…

I haven’t gotten a proper haircut in over a year and with sfira approaching, it was definitely time. There’s a small, modest hair salon run by two guys down the block from my apartment. I got off the bus from work, after a long, painful day, and walked straight in, told the waiting hairdresser what…

It’s March, a couple weeks before Pessach, and it’s snowing on and off here in Jerusalem. Ok, I guess that doesn’t qualify as madness, but I really wanted the title pun. Check it out, my boss sent this photo this morning from Efrat, where he lives: He’s also using it as an excuse to work…

Sometimes, when a man loves a woman, and a woman loves that man, and that man happens to be Australian, you get to go to Melbourne for a month on holiday. So we’re going Down Under where Men At Work can sing freely along with the kookaburra as they dance the Waltzing Matilda until the…