Tag: israel
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			Supermarket bomb shelter things.So, um, which way to the safe room? 
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			Meat counter convo liz: So I guess I’m that person nowStanding 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… 
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			Not normal (part 2)It’s day 3. When it comes to processing, sometimes it takes a while. I think the closer to home it is, the slower it goes. To put it another way: maybe it’s a bit too twisted that I’m reading the insanity playing out in Iraq in an effort to not read the no-news from back… 
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			Not normal.It’s sadly a familiar feeling. Refreshing the news every hour and every hour thinking, ‘fuck.’ 
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			And you think *America* takes its guns seriously?Oddly, it’s much cheaper to purchase a mineral-water gun. 
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			Workshop in Advanced CitizenshipThere’s nothing to make you feel more a part of a society’s special mosaic than to find yourself arriving at the sealed entrance of the Unemployment Office, joining a small mob of people across all of Israeli demographics, all staring at the printout sloppily taped to the heavy doors… …that the ministry is on strike. 
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			Oh Chanukah, oh Chanukah, come… on, diaspora mama.Well here’s a first. Last week the kids and I were in the kitchen making latkes (that was also a first, and it was kinda obvious). Playing in the background: a Chanukah songs cd my mom had brought from the States. So, you know, some kind of boy’s choir-esque English-Hebrew mix. We were singing along;… 
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			It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Yeah, it’s a plane.Universe, if you know how liable I am to get distracted, why would you send low-flying planes buzzing past my window, across the street from my house… for two hours?! First, I was all, go go go WARPLANE! Then I was all, go go go FIREPLANE! Finally, I concluded, it’s really probably just go go… 
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			Getting your feet (ritually) wet: An American-Israeli’s mikvah storyPerhaps, for a taharat-mishpacha-keeping American-Israeli olah (female American immigrant to Israel who keeps laws of family purity), nothing else can quite epitomize the cultural differences of here and there better than… the mikvah. Because I got married in Israel, my mikva knowledge and experiences have been molded here. The closest I got in the States before… 
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			Organ donation in Israel: the good, the bad, the depressing, the optionsSo… what happens after we die? One thing we know for sure – (ok, two things, for starters, our bodies decompose after some awkward nail and hair growth) – one sure thing is that we leave behind the living. The healthy living. The barely living. The newly living. The next in line. Organ donation is… 
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			On Jews, Jerusalem, Women and WallsNote: Reflections based on my rare February and March 2013 trips to the Kotel. Based on today’s news, I figured today’s as good as any to post. I’ve been to the Kotel, the Western Wall, way too many times in the past year. Previously, I had a comfortable average of maybe once every two or…