Lizrael Update

Lizrael Update: babbling about the expat life since 2004

  • Thank you for not smoking. Seriously.

    I work in the Israeli equivalent of a big, fancy office building. That basically means it was built to be big and fancy, but it’s half empty and constantly under shiputzim (renovations). My daily exercise consists of taking the stairs as opposed to the elevator to get to my office, so the ‘no smoking’ signs stuck in the stairwells…

  • The Jewish State of education.

    I feel a parental rite of passage has been reached tonight: next year’s daycare decisions. And so I begin the rant that I know others have had and yet here I am, new parent, new experiences, joining the fray. Someone explain this to me: This is a family-friendly country. Walk anywhere and easily spot a…

  • Old school.

    Lately it seems like so much of old school life is stopping by to visit; I blame the gosh-darn social networks on the inter-thing. It hit me yesterday that I’m at the stage in life where at any point, I can bump into a kid I was a camp counselor for, 12 years later when…

  • Koala update: Nine months.

    At this point, the growing happens behind my back or out of the corner of my eye… I have to catch it when I can. Kind of like I’ve had to do since Koala discovered the stairs two weeks ago. From the kitchen, I can suddenly turn around and see that Koala is reaching under…

  • The baby leaves of Israel.

    Today’s Hebrew lesson: עלי בייבי Not a hard term to learn in Hebrew. It means ‘baby leaves’ – you know, those tiny bits of greenery you put in salad that cost more than the other vegetables combined? It’s also a term I made up for a certain type of middle-aged Israeli woman – you know…

  • The Google is Us.

    A friend sent me Gdumb and so inspired me to play around a little bit with the Google suggestions-as-you-type feature. I explored the big three topics an Israeli Jewish blogger such as myself might feel connected to: Image 1: Israel I know I’m American, and I know that makes me a candidate for being dumb…

  • Window FAIL.

    Are the birds in Ashkelon turbo birds? What are the chances? Also, you can loosely translate the Hebrew to say: “…to prevent the entrance of Lords of the Wing.” Sorry.

  • Ashkelon: city of love…

    …or at least, 24 hours of comfortable R&R. Last week the huz and I snuck away for an overnight at a hotel on the beach in Ashkelon… since Bubbe is in town. Well, come on; it’s not all luna parks and kassams:

  • Old school Israeli phonage.

    Spotted in Ashkelon: Anyone remember these? A little younger than the Asimon-eating public pay phones, the Telecard-eating phones were a classic by the time I first started coming to Israel in 2000. No, I didn’t bother to see if it still worked. Remember the one-in-a-million magical Telecard that would never run out?

  • Koala update: Eight months.

    How appropriate: Koala turned eight months old after celebrating the eight nights of Chanukah. Or, not so  much celebrating as staring into bright, vision-stimulating fire, sucking on giant plastic dreidals, reaching for our sufganiyot and being handed wrapped presents from doting elders and staring at them. Seriously, I thought he’d be more into the whole…

  • It's all about the boobjamins.

    Long day. I returned to the office today after a two week (work-themed) hiatus. When I got home at 4:30pm, my husband was on the couch and Koala was on the floor next to him, eating a dreidal (standard fare, really). I gave Koala a big hello to which he smiled, and, like a really…

  • Happy C!

    Chanukah is 7347593x better when there is a little one in your home. I’m sure it’s twice that when the little one is old enough to appreciate it better. But for now, this is pretty awesome too. Happy Chanukah 5770!

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