Lizrael Update

Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004

  • Arabs and Jews, mothers and babies, Amalek and us.

    I don’t like getting political because I’ve been there and it’s an energy-sucking lifestyle. But a few events are coming together that make me have to say this. The Itamar murders were the utmost in terror and hate crime. Killing defenseless people – children – in their sleep is the utmost in cowardly and not…

  • Bunny overload.

    My head is not in Purim this year. I suppose I have a decent excuse, right? So today was the Purim party at Koala’s gan. For a week I’ve been reminded to send him in dressed up. He’s a bit of a particular kid, so I wanted to keep it simple. And who are we…

  • Itamar family murder photos: A valid weapon? To what degree?

    This is a response to an ongoing conversation I’ve been having/seeing on Facebook, reacting to the sharing of images of the bodies of the Itamar terror-murder victims, including the three children who were stabbed to death (note: neither of those links contain the images). The issue has been that folks are posting the images of…

  • Home and away.

    There’s a lot to take in this motzei Shabbat… Catching up on the reality in Japan after Friday’s earthquake and tsunami disaster, and then reading about the horrific murders of two sleeping parents, two sleeping children and a sleeping newborn here, a few dozen kilometers from home, on Friday night. Natural disasters make me feel…

  • Finally, what Tzur Hadassah truly needs…

    Some said the supermarket would be their financial downfall. Others said the candy shop would be their caloric downfall. Well, my downfall is coming and it’s a mix of both. I mean, what suburban, family, bedroom community would not have a pizza shop? UPDATE: It’s open (post-Pesach)! Haven’t tried it yet. But if you want…

  • Happy International Women’s Day from Hadassah Ein Kerem.

    On an unplanned visit to Hadassah Ein Kerem’s labor ward, I was reminded of the significance of today, International Women’s Day for laborin’ women everywhere. They were very adamant I got one of these. And so I share: Note: I did no laboring myself. Thank god.

  • The consequence of being ‘that asshole.’

    After six years of aliyah and three years with a car, I got my very first parking ticket in Israel… Not too bad.

  • Hints of spring.

    Life is moving forward and this spring is meant to bring with it some new developments… apartment ownership and new baby to name, really, the big ones. Hints of what’s to come…

  • Koala update: Twenty two months.

    I can’t believe my newborn/almost one-year-old/one-year-old/one-and-a-half-year-old/nearly two-year-old is nearly two years old. I can’t believe we can have conversations that rate somewhere between caveman grunts and sentences. And it’s been fun to hear him react to others, whether it’s a toy he converses with or one random day a couple weeks ago, on the way…

  • My street is bad-ass.

    Walking down my street, coming home after a supermarket run, and you know, whatever, a donkey is eating grass outside my shul. Just taking a stroll down my block. Whatevs.

  • Mediation memories.

    So today, at the real estate contract-signing (and last-minute negotiation) in a law office in Tel Aviv, my memories of my Masters degree education were revived. Two years after finishing my course in Conflict Management and Negotiation at Bar Ilan University, I found myself on one side of a glossy wood table, glass pitcher of water…

  • Contracted to real estate limbo (or, Tzur Hadassah homeowner!)

    As of a two-hour meeting in the Bursa district of Tel Aviv today, we are now contracted to become the owners of our Tzur Hadassah apartment! That’s a convoluted way of saying something even more convoluted: We’ve signed and are waiting for the banks to finish their end of the deal before I can comfortably…

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