Tag: israel
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Learn Hebrew online for free, visit your Israeli grandchildren.
If Learn to read in Hebrew for free wasn’t enough for you, here’s something better… Struggling to learn even minimal Hebrew to get by on a visit to Israel? Or even just to get past security at the airport? Saw this posted on Facebook, had to share: Learn Hebrew phrases with Audio It’s a free website…
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Coming to Israel? Things to do.
Recently wrote up some off-the-top-of-my-head Israel tourism ideas for a friend coming in the summer (with a 6-month-old baby). So, while I’m at it, why not share, right? Short-term rentals There are quite often short-term rentals of apartments in Jerusalem and elsewhere, which is probably a better bet than hotel if you’re coming for a…
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Surviving Israeli mortgage hell: a checklist.
Buying your first home in Israel? Welcome to Israeli mortgage hell! (As opposed to anywhere-else-mortgage hell). Here are some points about the process that might be helpful to you if you’re going through it now too. Note that we bought our apartment from our landlady, so there was no issue of real estate agency, moving…
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Free to be… sixty three.
Had a great day, especially since Park Begin wasn’t a disheveled, polluted mess by the time it ended! I love how a bunch of immigrant friends can get together, no local family aside, and have a great time of a national holiday. To the %#@! asshole who let his Doberman Pinscher run loose through groups…
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Still here.
It confuses me that about one half of myself can’t believe we’re still here, and can’t believe things will continue the way they are – growing, productive, surviving… and the other half of myself thinks, look at the progress! Look at how far we’ve come, and how far we’re poised to go! We build buildings…
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Family outing, Memorial Day, contributing, Israel.
Proud that we managed to dress, pack up, and transport the kids to the Yom HaZicaron tekes in Tzur Hadassah tonight. And that my two-year-old stayed silent and un-startled throughout the siren. And that we managed to stay for the first 15 minutes. Watching all those kids socialize up until they suddenly stopped for the…
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Guess I’m old, then.
“Hi, I’d like to order my high school transcript signed and sealed, sent to my address in Israel.” “May I ask, for what purpose?” “Proof of my residence in the United States; I have to register my daughter’s birth with the US consulate in Jerusalem.” “Right. What class were you?” “Class of 2000.” “No problem,…
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Home birth and the PKU test.
Because it doesn’t seem that many people know about this, and it’s unnecessary for more home birthers than just us to have that millisecond of freak-out when receiving the phone call, I’m sharing this information with the Israeli home birthing masses: If you’ve birthed in a hospital, you know that before you are discharged, your baby receives that torturous PKU…
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Do Israeli kids ever learn the fire safety lesson?
The answer, sadly, is no. There is an unhealthy Israeli-Jewish obsession with fire in the springtime. It starts today – with Biyur Chametz, the burning of chametz, which is done on erev Pessach. Soon will be Yom Haatzmaut – the national barbecue bonanza, and after that, Lag B’omer, which pretty much celebrates bonfires the way it’s done here.…
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My home birth story: Israel, Tzur Hadassah, apartment, bedroom.
In the months leading up to labor and childbirth, I think we all spend significant time organizing our expectations, fears and hopes. For this birth, my expectation was it would be at least slightly easier than last time, my fear was that it could become complicated due to complications from last time, and my hope…
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Registering your newborn after home birth.
In Israel, when you give birth in the hospital, the hospital takes care of the bureaucratic paperwork fun-time, otherwise known as getting a teudat zehut number for your newborn. They submit the papers which go to Misrad Hapnim to get processed for a birth certificate and ID number. But when you do a leidat bayit – home…
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Rude awakening.
Ventured outside today for the first time since Bebe was born. I hated having to get in the car with my five-day-old daughter to drive into the center of Jerusalem and visit, of all places, Misrad Hapnim (ahem) (and here’s why). The idea of city-center air up her nostrils alone makes me sad. But really,…