On Sunday, February 5th, JDC Germany brought Bereshit to Berlin and I was lucky enough to participate! Bereshit is a program created to serve the European Jewish Community by bringing Israeli professors or innovative thinkers to come give seminars to various Jewish communities. Read More »

Last Sunday, Bambinim celebrated Tu Bishvat — twice! Our first event that day was led in Hebrew and in conjunction with an Israeli family center in Berlin, Kumsitz. Read More »

Time to catch up on the last few Shabbat Playgroups! Recently, we’ve been welcoming a new guest to our playgroup each week – the Shabbat Bride! Each week, we dress her so that the Shabbat Queen is ready to enter as a bride when we open the door and sing Lecha Dodi. It’s been a really fun addition to our weekly routine. Read More »

Painfully cold day in Berlin + Rafa and Vanessa visiting me = French Toast and Oatmeal Raisin Scones for Brunch and tomato and cheese tartlets for afternoon snack. Read More »

Last year, I worked in an office where we would order in for lunch a lot, especially when the weather was bad. We would often order from a Greek restaurant not so far away, and while all of their food was delicious, one dish in particular stands out in my memory – their Avgolemono soup. Read More »

Snow in Berlin (also demonstrating the benefits of living in a building with a courtyard)! Read More »

This semester at Bambinim, we have a music course for babies in Hebrew which serves a lot of families in which the babies have older siblings. Ever eager to find solutions to potential scheduling problems such as this, Flora has suggested that we hold a parallel course which the older siblings can attend. Read More »

What do you do with too many sesame seeds? ”Make cookies” is the only logical answer, and it is also what I did when faced with the aforementioned situation. A few cups of semolina flour and a fair amount of honey later, I had enough cookies to share with my German class and then some. Read More »

Two weeks ago at Shabbat Playgroup, we reopened the course after the holiday break and paid tribute to Winter through one of the season’s most delicious fruits – oranges! Our activity for the week was based on the Israeli children’s song “Kilafti Tapuz,” sung by Arik Einstein. Read More »

On my last day in Yafo, my father and I took a walk through the flea market and happened upon a table of old Siddurim (prayer books), Tanachim (bibles), and other religious prayer and study books for sale. Read More »

The view from his window. Yes, those are orange trees. A Syrian Jewish synagogue in Nachlaot. Notice the wares in the background. Vegetarian Kibbeh! While I was in Israel, I got to visit my father and see where he has been living for the past three months – a beautiful neighborhood in Jerusalem called Nachlaot . Read More »

Pictures from walks in Tel Aviv – Yafo. Read More »

A couple of days ago I arrived back to Berlin after a few days with my family in Israel. I hadn’t seen my grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins, and friends in two years and it was so wonderful to finally spend time with them. Read More »

It’s aliiiive! There is a vampire musical in German running in Berlin! Can this possibly be real? (I mean, it looks more like Dracula the Parody Musical than like Twilight the Very Serious Rock Opera despite the poster, but still. Read More »

When I was a child, I attended a Jewish Day School in New York, where once a year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, part of the lobby of our school turned into a large memorial hall. Read More »

A couple of weeks ago, I rushed straight from one of our Hanukkah events back to Bambinim, where I was helping to staff a 3 year old’s birthday party – not just any birthday party, really, but his Upsherin, or the celebration of his first haircut. Read More »

Pictures from a post-New Year’s Day walk with my father – it was rainy and grey and the streets were full of damp, trodden-on streamers and the left-overs of fireworks that people had set off in the streets the night before, but we still enjoyed the Read More »

On Thursday night, my father, who has been on sabbatical in Jerusalem since the beginning of November, arrived in Berlin! I haven’t seen him since September, so I was so happy to finally be able to spend time together! He brought me spices from the Read More »

Our third Hanukkah event was in the north part of the city and it was during Hanukkah – on Christmas day, actually! There were many new faces, a festive atmosphere, and we got to light candles together! It was a great way to spend Christmas/Hanukkah. Read More »

Our second Hanukkah event took place only about 10 minutes from Bambinim, at a youth center nearby. This one was full of familiar faces and Bambinim regulars and it was about a week before the holiday. Read More »