Baby in Bamba It’s the new Tiger Mom. Now it’s not just Chinese mothers who are superior, raising extra-capable, skilled intelligent children, but French mothers too. Oui, oui. Read More »

As the child of a folksinger , it was more than exciting to read that the archive of American ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax has finally be digitized and 17,000 music tracks made accessible online through the Association for Cultural Equity (ACE). Read More »

Anemones carpet the Negev. (Photo: Viva Sarah Press) After consecutive weeks of rainy weekends, Israelis flocked outdoors this weekend to feel the nature. Several went to the beach. Some headed north to the Galilee and Golan Heights. Read More »

Click here to view the embedded video. One thing Israelis can take pride in is their dark, subversive sense of humor. Iran’s aiming to complete their nuclear program and aim missiles at Tel Aviv? No problem, let’s use it as a comedic backdrop. Read More »

Ben and Jerry’s Israel ad for their ice cream club According to my calendar, today was International Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. Read More »

Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Photo by milan.sk, under a GNU free documentation license It seems like we only hear bad news when it comes to Israel’s educational rankings these days. Where once we were known for our prowess in math and science in particular, annual polls consistently put us near the bottom of the list for developed nations. Read More »

I am not a great fan of rain and so this winter has been a particularly miserable one. Rain, rain, rain and more rain. Read More »

The Amir Center in Jerusalem For years, whenever I have driven down King George Street, near the Great Synagogue and the Leonardo (formerly Sheraton) Plaza Hotel, the building at the corner with Agron Street has pained me – a tremendously ugly, Read More »

The number of Israel rock and pop artists singing in English in recent years has exploded. Between Assaf Avidan, Geva Alon , Tamar Eisenman, and a plethora of others, it seems sometimes like there’s more English than Hebrew out there. Read More »

Kishkashta and Shpitzik – separated at birth? We all know that the nickname for Israelis is sabra. Now, I’m not saying that our natives are really prickly, argumentative and volatile, but it appears that in our country, even cartoon cacti can’t get along. Read More »

Monty: before At first glance, it looks like any other veterinarian’s office. Pictures of dogs and cats on the walls, efficient and busy animal doctors flitting around in blue cotton smocks. Read More »

In all its glory…my local recycling cage. Exciting news on my block, sort of IMBY, or RIMBY, instead of NIMBY: After numerous calls over the years to the iriya , the municipality, we finally have a plastic bottle/disc case/battery recycling cage just down the street, smack next to the newspaper recycling bin. Read More »

Eretz Nehederet actors portraying American-Jewish participants of a Birthright trip in ecstacy over learning they’re going to visit Yad Vashem. The increasingly blurry relationship between Israel and American Jews continues to be a subject for discussion, criticism and parody. Read More »

The best sort of mayor, it is said, is one who can keep real estate developers under control. Look at some of the architectural monstrosities surrounding us and one has to conclude that modern Israel has had very bad luck with city management. Read More »

From Julie Winokur’s documentary, The Sandwich Generation More helpful information about couplehood, parenthood and general adulthood from BGU, otherwise known as Ben-Gurion University of the Negev . Read More »

Imad and his dad (without the snake) Indiana Jones famously didn’t like snakes. Neither, apparently, did a one-year-old baby in Israel: he bit off its head and killed it. The kid is Imad Gadir from Shfaram. At some point in the early hours of the morning, little Imad noticed a “coin snake” in his bedroom. Read More »

From right: director Joseph Cedar, actor Shlomo Bar Aba, and producer Moshe Edry stand together during a press conference after the film ‘Footnote’ was nominated for an Oscar last week. (AP) It’s happened four times now in the past five years. An Israeli film has been nominated for an Oscar. Read More »

Keeping The Memory Alive (Children in the Holocaust) is a poster contest being mounted across the world to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is today (Friday). Read More »

Pit spitting in Spain If its organizers were not so earnest, this would definitely qualify for the world’s wackiest competitive sport: olive pit spitting. Yes, there is an association, the International Federation of Olive Pit Spitting that operates out of Spain and is promoting pit spitting to be included as an official sport at the next Olympics. Read More »

By Avi (Alden) Solovy The scene: the basement laundry room in a new off-campus housing complex for students and guests of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. I’m with Ellen, a remarkably sweet woman from Albany, NY, who’s showing me how to work the machines. Read More »