A wine glass half full or half empty?
The launching of peace talks between Israel in the Palestinians last week in Washington are just the beginning of a long haul, which if proved successful, will undoubtedly mean that many Israelis living in certain settlements in the West Bank will have to be uprooted. The AFP news agency has found one settler, Yoram Cohen, [...]
Stop the clocks
The big topic at the playground this afternoon was the changing of the clocks next Saturday night, an annual occurrence that is a subject of outrage for many in Israel, particularly those with small children. It’s timed to happen before Rosh Hashanah, so that the Yom Kippur fast will end at 6 rather than 7, [...]
Foto Friday – Drora Spitz
Photographer Drora Spitz is one of Israel’s leading lights in the field of artistic and architectural photography. Since 1972, her art works have been presented at museums and galleries in Israel, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK. Between 1978-2004, Spitz was director of the Department of Photography at the Faculty of Architecture, Urban Planning [...]
Riding the night train
I had the enlightening experience last night of riding the ‘kavei laila’ (night lines) of the Egged bus system. In most Israeli cities, bus service stops at around 12:30 am every night. But in recent years, Egged, the national bus company, has initiated late night service on Thursday and Saturday nights (not on Friday, of [...]
Poland and getting away from technology
I wrote in an earlier post about how human beings aren’t built to truly multitask – an action we increasingly rely on to parse all the data coming at us from the web or our mobile devices. New research is trying to figure out not only what happens psychologically when we try to do two [...]
Peace talks or target practice?
A morbid comment by a friend after the last two consecutive days of drive-by shootings of Israelis by Palestinians, which have left four Israelis dead – ‘you can always tell when peace talks are starting because Israelis start dying.’ It’s horrible, but unfortunately true. I think everyone is starting to remember how previous waves of [...]
Gazoz
Following a summer partially spent in the States, including a month-long stint in Georgia, the land of free drink refills — we’re talking iced tea, lemonade, soda, and not just the endless cup of coffee — imagine my surprise to see on a local Jerusalem menu the word “refills” next to a very specific The [...]
Eilat – not just a third-rate Las Vegas
Eilat – can there be anyplace more kitschy? A little tacky Las Vegas sans the gambling right within our friendly country confines. But after spending a couple end of summer 100 degree days there, for maybe the 10th time, I can loudly proclaim that Eilat is a whole lot more than one gaudy hotel after [...]
Buffalo Birthdays
Buffalo Steak House is the kind of restaurant you go to for a special occasion or when relatives have flown into town (and are treating). With a menu almost entirely given over, as its name implies, to various cuts of beef (with the occasional chicken dish thrown in for those trying to keep their red [...]
Socialized sandwiches
I have a lot that I could say and write about socialized medicine, but I’ll just tell this one story. I was waiting to see my doctor the other morning, a very popular doctor, I should add, given that we all waited about two hours each to see her. That’s because like all clinic doctors, [...]