Tag: israel

  • Best 6th birthday party idea ever: Go take a hike!

    We brought you superhero explorers… we brought you dinosaur adventures… this year, it was a birthday party on a hike. And this was by far the easiest and best and most all-around enjoyable birthday party that we’ve done so far. We are fortunate to live within a nature area, and in our town itself, right…

  • Visiting and storytelling at Har Herzl on Israel’s Memorial Day

    A colleague who visits children of friends and neighbors, acquaintances and others at Har Herzl every year invited some of us to join him today on Israeli Memorial Day. I had never been there on Yom HaZicaron itself, so the experience was new. There’s a lot to see and hear. High school students. Scouts. Foreign…

  • No better Israel education than the one from your sabra kids

    Things I love about Independence Day season in Israel: Every year – without fail – I manage to learn something new from my kids. This morning, all dressed up for the gan celebration, on the way to the car, my gan-aged kids broke out into song together. I asked them to teach it to me.…

  • Local Holocaust remembrance in 2015 and beyond

    Local Holocaust remembrance in 2015 and beyond

    Since becoming a mom, everything has gotten harder to swallow. I don’t read the news as much. Especially local evening news from New York. I can’t stomach certain facts of life. And I’ve distanced myself from my cultural ties with Holocaust education and remembrance. Which is getting easier to do – less voices, more distance…

  • A day in the life

    7:50 Find out about the breaking news from a friend on Whatsapp 8:05 Make sure to give huz and kid #3 a solid goodbye 8:10 Have sinking feeling about letting your kids go for the day 9:45 Pick up kid #2 for speech therapy, feel excited because it’s bonus kid time 10:45 Drop kid #2 off at gan…

  • What do Palestinians think this month? A public opinion poll

    A friend of mine at Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Jerusalem sent me these findings of a new Palestinian public opinion poll (conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, September 25-27, 2014). Coming a month after the end of the latest Gaza war, and a couple…

  • Video marketing: so you *can* teach an old man new tricks

    I watched a lot of videos tonight. And they all made me happy. But none so happy as this: Ex-President of Israel (and ex-every other job) Shimon Peres goes job hunting. I’m extra happy there are subtitles so you can enjoy if you’re not from around here.

  • Welcome to the wartime TMI challenge

    It turns out, when you’re reading everything with a grain of salt, you end up absorbing some pretty bad-tasting discomfort.

  • War time in Israel

    It’s different this time. I guess it’s always different. It’s different this time because I don’t have enough fingers to count how many people I know, by first or second degree, who are called up, serving or waiting to serve in Gaza. And whereas in the past I figured the odds were too out there,…

  • Supermarket bomb shelter things.

    So, um, which way to the safe room?  

  • Meat counter convo liz: So I guess I’m that person now

    Standing at the meat counter in the local supermarket. Guy to meat counter girl: “Yeah, everything is crazy, how are you doing?” Meat counter girl: “It’s so scary!” Me: “Hey, at least we know exactly when it’ll hit, it’s been evenings and that’s it.” Guy: “It’ll be quiet till tonight, till they’ve eaten and organized…

  • We’re waiting for you.

    Day 7. I believe you are alive. I believe you’ll be ok. I hope you do, too. We’re waiting for you. We’re doing the age-old Israeli dance – living a disrupted, regular life. Go to work, go to school, put the kids to bed, kiss each other goodnight. While we hope for you. We think…