Lizrael Update

Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004

  • Birkat Kohanim at the kotel.

    I had never seen it, and my dad is of the priestly persuasion, so the three of us went down to the kotel in the Old City yesterday to hear/see/be present at the ginormous Birkat Kohanim for chol hamoed Sukkot. Birkat Kohanim – known as ‘duchaning’ in Ashkenaz circles – is like a representation of…

  • Making an ass out of Israeli marketing.

    Anise: it’s the stuff behind arak, licorice, a new flavor of Wrigley’s Airwaves gum… …and it’s the butt of waaay too many inappropriate jokes, courtesy of the company’s Israeli distribution sector:

  • And a happy 'queer rite of Jews' to you.

    Because I already have posted my past homemade sukkot, New York and ghetto Israeli style, I figured I’d post my first own semi-respectable Tzur Hadassah sukka: Spacious because we have a decent-sized mirpeset. Sturdy, because we have paychecks that can buy metal poles. And fun, because I did a search for ‘sukkot’ on Google Images…

  • Ella Valley winery.

    My father’s in town, and as I got my habit of fermented grape-consumption from somewhere, we took him over to Ella Valley winery. The Ella Valley is just about my backyard, nestled in Matte Yehuda. It’s lush, it’s green, and according to the winery’s 6-minute propaganda video, it’s the perfect place to grow the right…

  • Return our sons to our borders…

    A reminder message from the airport parking pay station: How many more chagim will pass before Gilad Shalit comes home? (How many airport parking tickets will we buy before there’s a new message?)

  • Not my kind of hot dog.

    As we know, there are always going to be some things that get lost in translation. And one of those things will always – always – be the weiner hot dog. Big Willie? Really? That’s the kind of hot dog I want to eat at a gas station rest stop on erev Shabbat?

  • Avoiding headaches over Yom Kippur, Jerusalem-style.

    Ok, coolest thing ever. It’s not the fact that there might be a way to prevent headaches over fast days; I’m not much of a headache-sufferer myself. It’s the fact that Shaare Tzedek – the Jerusalem hospital that is conducting the study – totally started it and framed it in a way trying to ease…

  • Progress.

    Here’s how you know you’ve developed as a student over years of Israeli grad school: First semester of Israeli grad school, three long years ago, you were told to write an end-of-term paper using the proper guidelines of the university’s thesis policy. You scrambled to find it after being told it was ‘somewhere on the…

  • Weather or not.

    Last week the weather in Israel freaked out and it gave us (what seems like premature) rain, wind, chills, head colds… Well, premature in my opinion because it hasn’t been Succot yet and that’s when it’s supposed to happen in my head. Now we’re a little obsessed with knowing what the next day will bring,…

  • Tzur Hadassah is gymtastic!

    Walking down the main avenue of cute little Tzur Hadassah, you will notice some park equipment on the side of the road. First time we noticed it my thinking was, “that’s a dangerous place to have kids play.” When we got to the ‘park’ we realized it was actually an ‘adult park’ – get your…

  • City feature: Dead Sea

    Last weekend, we took some R&R out in the dry heat and salt water of the Dead Sea. A vacation in the Dead Sea is really a vacation by an enormous hotel pool, with occasional dips in the oily, salty, burning sensation that is the Dead Sea. This, however, is less about the Dead Sea…

  • Sex and the Holy City…

    …and I’m not referring to Israeli TV show Srugim, although from what I’ve heard, maybe I should be. Riding on the bus through town today, I spotted this piece of culture sunbathing with all the rubble of the Yaffo – light rail construction site: The Kama Sutra in Hebrew. Even Jerusalemites need a few new…

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