Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004
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Let’s have a wordle
I introduced my 12-year-old son to Wordle. At the same time, I introduced him to וורדעל. I love that both prospects are exciting, and we’re chatting with each other throughout the day about it (I still shudder at the fact he has a smartphone even if whatsapping together is a huge comms improvement). You know…
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Twenty Years
Political Violence (part 1) It took place in an off-the-beaten path classroom, not a modern lecture hall. We were maybe 30 students, and the few times we had met before – maybe it was two? Three? – we had already covered some ‘basics’: what peacebuilding is, Rwanda, a bit of Bosnia. When I registered for…
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Fellow working moms – it gets better.
I came home from the office one day last week and had this realization. It’s gotten better. Or… it becomes *different* as the kids get older, and so much becomes more tolerable, doable, and you know what? Also better. Do my pre-teens still mime at me from behind my laptop while I’m on a Zoom, thinking I can…
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In awe of nature, fire, and humans – another day in Tzur Hadassah.
On Friday, while driving back up the hill from an Ikea run, I found out my kids had been picked up from home by a friend because a forest fire went rogue coming too close to our residential area. By the time I saw the giant smoke cloud rising on the horizon, a text had…
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When rockets fly overhead, look down at the grass.
When you’re a news junkie, everything sucks all the time. When you’re an optimist, you’ll never give up reading the news because something good is just around the corner. When you’re both… After 1.5 years of our co-directors building the 50:50 Startups tech accelerator against the backdrop of pandemic and evergreen conflict, it was really…
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This is decades-bad.
It’s bad. It’s bad on so many levels. Personally, we are ok in our area. A given Israeli’s frontline concerns depend on where exactly they are located. For us on this side, the very rare siren in the last 15 years is not much of an issue. That can’t be said for every corner of…
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Hi from a new chapter in an old story.
After a year and a half of emotional exhaustion, it’s shocking and also not shocking to learn that it’s possible to be even more deeply emotionally exhausted. With each passing rocket or gunshot or stabbing or counterstrike, another slice of the next generation loses the chance to grow up not knowing what we know. More…
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Koala update: twelve years
To the boy who is ~5 inches from towering over me, It’s getting real. Twelve years of you, of figuring all this out, it’s always been real, yes, but now it’s puberty real. It’s preteen real. It’s who is this giant boy in my house real. So we’re both navigating it. You have questions, and…
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Zooey update: five years
My youngest turns five today. Zooey, we’re full-on into that tug-o-war over getting bigger and staying baby… It’s not even day on, day off; it’s sometimes in five minute intervals. But I don’t begrudge you that; it’s been a year of fading boundaries, loose definitions, lost assumptions. Out of everyone, this year might have done…
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Bebe update: ten years
I’d say that over the last decade, this feeling I’m about to describe has always been present in amounts, more often taken for granted – the swath of peace that came with you as a newborn, the displays of empathy that radiated from you as a toddler, the abundance of friendliness you have displayed as…
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Nettles update: seven years
If last year’s birthday felt totally eye-glazed and desolate… the year that followed was like being trapped in a box but actually, the box helped you break out while stuck inside. I’m not sure where to begin as far as how you’ve forged ahead, and continued growing, refusing to fall behind or be let down.…
Questions? Comments? Advice?