Category: new york

  • 6 quickies from visiting for 3+ weeks in the States

    Just because. There are some things I must remember. So the ’90s are back. This I swear, I was thisclose to buying Doc Martins with my adult money. I don’t feel old. I feel great. I guess I’m so over it, I forgot to get a doughnut? Obviously my T-Mobile customer rep, who was digging to find out why I’m…

  • Warless, crimeless, murderless… trip highlights!

    Since a shit-ton of wrong went down this summer – in Israel and across the world – I’m going to dedicate this post to the happy, quirky, tiny moments of the trip I took with the kids to visit family in New York this month. On my first day in Ameeeerica, I have now seen…

  • Fifty-Two Frames: Silhouette

    Week 34: Silhouette Coney Island.

  • Of life in the shtetl; Tevye had a point

    A fiddler on the roof… it sounds crazy. But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us… is a fiddler on the roof. Before I lived here in Israel, I lived in a tight-knit Jewish shtetl called New York. Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking…

  • American snapshots: new, old, cliches of cliches

    Ok, that said, I cherish the quick snapshots I get hanging old school. Or new school, since we visited Florida this time. Flying with kids… enjoying their curiosity… The fruit lets you know… The natives are still new to me… The cliches who become even bigger cliches… New places… Old bedroom, old school… And, really…

  • My NYTimes debut: experience of an expat Staten Islander during Sandy

    My New York Times debut: A journalist found my post on my experience of helplessness as a Staten Island expat, far away during the Hurricane Sandy disaster. After some emails and a phone call, my Staten Island-based mama and I became the lede of his article on New York expats taking action during crisis. Here’s…

  • Heels in Israel, heart in Staten Island

    Not over how odd it is to live in the Middle East and watch your North American hometown get knocked around by the Universe. [Hylan Boulevard is a river… I used to cruise along Hylan for Staten Island Advance assignments…]  For the past week, my heels have been in Israel, but my heart is in…

  • Hurricane Sandy. Gaza rockets. It’s raining, and it’s tragic.

    Being a New Yorker outside of New York when disaster strikes is hard. I think we have some sort of mutated DNA that makes us deal with crap in a different way. A New York way. Like Hurricane Irene last year, only yeah, this time New York skepticism didn’t win out. Obviously, this is a…

  • Candle.

    “Ima, what’s this?” “That? That’s… a candle.” “But why is it here?” “Why is it here… …Remember how I’m from New York? I was a kid in New York. Like you’re a kid in Tzur Hadassah. I grew up there… with Grandma and Grandpa… It’s where I went to school. You know?” “Ya.” “So… many…

  • New York, New York…

    New York, I love you. New York, I hate you. New York, you’re absolutely brilliantly fucking gorgeous. Your soul is as pure as antibacterial hand soap. You lure me in to my self-doubting ambivalence, time and time again. New York, New York. Fuggedaboutit.

  • My firehouse.

    For months, Koala and I have been discussing our plans for New York. For months, he’s been obsessed with firetrucks, firemen, סמי הכבאי and hoses. And for months, the top of the list was visiting a firehouse. And I’ll freely admit, I was as, if not more, excited about this. Firemen were always curious characters to…

  • Home.

    I looked up when, among the mumbling, I heard the word ‘מעליב.’ Standing in a long, slow-moving line at a Staten Island department store, I suddenly felt at home. And yet, it wasn’t because I was in Staten Island, or a department store. She turned around to complain about the long line in English, and…