Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004
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Hear o’ Israel, it’s never too late for an old school prayer.
I hadn’t said the Shema in earnest or even in unearnest in over a decade. Like riding a bicycle or worshipping a childhood god, the words are not forgotten once you start to move your mouth. The מ’s are plentiful; an exercise for the lips. The ך’s, too, are plentiful; an age-old exercise in patience…
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We cast our lot.
When people ask me why I came here, my answer is that no matter what I believe religiously I’ll always accept the fact that by being born into what I was born I have no choice but to cast my lot with the rest of my people. So even now, as there is this man…
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איך העולם הפך להיות מקום הרבה יותר נחמד
הספר שהילדים הביאו אליי לקרא הערב; אף פעם לא ראיתי אותו בבית שלנו… אין לי מושג מאיפה זה הגיע לכאן… אבל הערב, קראתי אותו. היה דבר נחמד איך העולם הפך להיות מקום הרבה יותר נחמד ג’וסלין מויזס פעם אחת, לפני הרבה זמן, היה עולם מלא בדברים לא נחמדים ואז פתאום משום מקום הגיע דבר מאוד…
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Am I supposed to be here?
It’s been 15 years since I came out to my family that I’d be moving to Israel after university finished. It was two years before the ‘disengagement’, it was during the second intifada, a couple years after Nefesh b’Nefesh started. I was searching for a lot of things, but I knew this much was true…
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Still life with stilts.
It wasn’t just fun because you were a wobbly Bambi child while trying to walk on stilts, grasping me for dear life… clinging to me while we both laughed so hard from our bellies… cracking up as you’re falling forward right into my arms, hugging me tight, maybe longer and tighter than you needed to……
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What if we don’t wanna be the toy? A Eurovision post.
It can be so hard to be Israeli. It’s can be so hard to get shit all the time, from every direction. To never be able to ‘choose’ a side because the game is always changing and anyway, there is no side to choose; you’re at the center of it by existing where and when…
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The Prime Minister makes a PowerPoint
It’s night three of my daughter’s cough and it’s gotten much better. I’m sitting uncomfortably on the Hello Kitty stool next to the crib, with my forefinger making lines in her palm, my phone on ‘play’ in the other hand, and in my left ear, an earbud is loosely holding on. The prime minister is…
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Koala update: Nine years
What a year, man. This time last year I was terrified to break your heart, making the decision to change schools. You are a deep thinker and a deeper feeler… but somehow your intense curiosity got the better of any fear… open minded to trying new things, when they feel right… and here we are.…
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Zooey update: Two years
You’ve been watching us for two years, and now you’re coming out… lessons in dolls, headbands, jewelry… lessons in ‘enough!’ and hitting back… lessons in climbing to the top bunk… lessons in dogs and cats and preemptive barking… lessons in wanting to do it all, by yourself… and teaching us to never underestimate you, and…
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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…
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Thoughts on another Israeli Memorial Day
All around, kids pick up bits and ask their parents… “What is בן האבוד בלבנון?” “What is מבצע אנטבה?” “What does רומנטי mean?” “Why is that kind of flower everywhere?” “Did that שיר really happen?” “Why do they put the flag down?” On a walk through Har Herzl (Israel’s national cemetery) this morning, hearing about…
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5 Things I’ve Learned About Career & Family: me in a video; lotta honesty; who needs role models
Hi. Because I have decided to step up this year in ‘challenging my comfort zone’, I said yes without thinking that hard when the BreadWinners* co-founder asked me to interview on camera for their new project. *Whether it’s essays on topics about the complexities of having a career and family at the same time, or…
Questions? Comments? Advice?