I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!  Shana tova! Read More »

When you live in Israel, you get used to a paper full of bad news. But this story made my hair stand on end: there was a mass escape of about 50 crocodiles from a wild-life park in the Jordan Valley. They think they were all recaptured. Read More »

Lawns in Hometown, America were delicate things. People, usually men, would spend their weekends caring for and obsessing over them, sitting up nights to admire them. They had to be fertilized, mowed and raked, all the while maintaining constant vigilance for the dreaded crabgrass. Read More »

What do you suppose would happen if you boiled some eggs on the stove and left them there boiling for a couple of hours until all the water evaporated and the temperature continued to rise…? I found out recently when I put a pan of them to boil, all neatly arranged, and then… forgot all about them.I don’t actually know much about cooking. Read More »

This is what Israelis eat for breakfast: you take a cucumber and a tomato and chop them into itsy bitsy pieces, such that they can be swallowed without any meaningful intervention of teeth, and douse them with olive oil and lemon juice. Read More »

Like every other little girl in the western world, I grew up on the Cinderella story. Back then, Walt Disney was king. After seeing the movie of course I had to have all the paraphernalia that went with it. Read More »

We’ve survived another Pesach. Getting through a whole week with no bread, no breaded schnitzel and no Pepperidge Farm is a struggle. The only thing that can get a carb-lover through is matza, also known as the bread of affliction. Read More »

I said I’d expound on my experience of private medicine and, true to my word, here it is. The Herzliya Medical Center is very nicely appointed. The beds are actually comfortable with electric controls of the kind that have been standard in the US for the past 60 years. Read More »

I picked up my new gas mask on Sunday. I panicked when I first saw the notice of the distribution, not because of the mask and what it represents, but because it said to bring the receipt I got when I turned in my old one. That was an eternity ago. Well, four years. Read More »

My sister asks why I have not blogged about my recent 30-hour sojourn in the belly of socialized medicine. It’s a good question. The thing is, I’m not sure I can accurately describe the experience of a Middle Eastern hospital to her or anyone else who hasn’t experienced it firsthand.To start with, there is no such thing as a semi-private room. Read More »

I’ve taken a break from this space for some time now. Mostly this has been due to writer’s block. For the life of me I couldn’t think of anything trivial enough to write about. Things have been pretty serious around here: peace talks are in the toilet – raise your hand if you’re sorry about this. Read More »

In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a park with a great, big hill that had a reservoir on top. Most of the hill was wooded and the back of it was quite steep. My friends and I used to love to climb up the back way on the “trails” as we called them. It was a challenge and as close to an adventure as any of us had ever experienced. Read More »

We have arrived once again to the week-long holiday of Succot when we celebrate 40 years of wandering in the desert. As I’ve mentioned before in this space, I find it the most perplexing of Jewish holidays. Read More »

I’m so naive. After the splendidly long holiday weekend I genuinely expected to be able to shop as usual on Sunday afternoon. Wrong. I stepped into the kibbutz store only to be greeted by mostly empty shelves. I thought I had been transported back in time to the Soviet Union. There were no tomatoes, no bananas and no bread. Read More »

I’m a couch potato by nature. There’s nothing I like better than curling up with a mug of whatever and letting the Hollywood entertainment machine work its magic in my head. I’d be overjoyed to never have to move from that state of bliss. Read More »