This journal has been mainly about the actual steps we’ve taken to get to Israel. And there were a lot of steps. Starting way back close to three years before we ever got here. Now that we’ve been here for over a year and we’re a little more settled (we’re actually nowhere close to being…
Read moreOut of the fire…
…and into the frying pan. The COVID numbers are rising in Israel now. I just left for a two week work trip to Arizona – one of the few places where COVID is worse than in Israel! Arriving at Ben-Gurion airport they have all the entrances sealed off except one. And you can’t even get…
Read moreOn Language And Seeing In 3D
Part of what I do in my cardiology practice is read echocardiograms. An echocardiogram is an ultrasound picture of the heart. The ultrasound beam comes out from the ultrasound probe in a flat beam, sort of shaped like a backwards pie or pizza slice. You can move the beam around the heart to get a…
Read moreFirst Day at Work
Today was my first day at work in the Land of Israel. It was at a biotech startup that wants me to work one day a week helping them on a new product they’re developing. They’re very nice people. I try my best to speak in Hebrew but when I really need to understand important…
Read moreOne Year
OK, so today is the same date that we left Arizona to come here to Israel, one year ago. Tomorrow, June 27, is the day we arrived. So I thought it would be worth going over a few points, a few overall things I’ve noticed in our first year here. That whole thing about how…
Read moreRav Kav
I had a meeting in Jerusalem yesterday. But the time overlapped with when we would have to pick up the boys from school. Since we only have one car, we had to figure out the logistics. We could have asked a friend to help out, either bringing them home from school or they could have…
Read moreTiyul in the Golan
The woman who taught our girls to read Torah for their Bat Mitzvahs recently passed her tour guide exams and received her official license as an Israeli tour guide. Here in Israel that is considered a very big deal. The exams are tough and all tour guides are regulated by the Ministry of Tourism. Unfortunately…
Read moreBat Mitzvah Planning with COVID-19
Initially we were going to have the girls Bat Mitzvahs in February in Phoenix. Then we decided to move to Israel so we had to cancel the Feb date. We decided to delay it from then until the end of the year (which is now) to give ourselves more time to settle in and we…
Read moreFast Food
The way you say “fast food” in Hebrew is: ״מזון מהיר״ which literally means, “rapid meal.” Cute, right? Since the malls and restaurants are now open I thought I’d just show you some cute pictures of a couple of the local pizza delivery joints we frequent, and the food court at the local mall. Remember,…
Read moreFirst Jerusalem Trip Post-COVID
We took a family trip to Jerusalem yesterday. I was thinking it would be weird because it seems like normally half the city is tourists and now there aren’t any. I wondered what the city would be like with “just the locals.” Turned out a lot of stuff was open – from just walking around…
Read moreShavuot Shopping
Shavuot starts tomorrow night and this year its on thursday night and friday, so it goes right into shabbat on friday night and saturday. Because most stores will be closed for both, you’ve got to get all your shopping done for both shavuot and shabbat ahead of time. So yesterday we decided to stop at…
Read moreThe Land-Ball
Hebrew is cute. Despite the obvious condescension, to my American ears Hebrew is biblical and holy and deep and meaningful, and sometimes in its modern formulation, just plain cute. I heard a story on the news today about how Jessica Meir, the American Jewish astronaut who returned from the space station a month or so ago….
Read moreShuls Reopen
They just yesterday announced that synagogues could reopen with up to 50 people at a time, social distancing, masks, etc, (and that each synagogue has to appoint an official person in charge of “virus defence.” Jogging this morning, I ran by a minyan at a shul which was open but had people overflowing onto the…
Read moreBack to School
Today was the kids second day back at school in the COVID era. The rules are as follows: They have a backup mask in their backpacks for when they break their first one. (this week has been a heat wave with temps above 100F; so far they have waived the mask requirement for the kids…
Read more“Mineness”
I was reviewing my ulpan Hebrew language book last week and came across an interesting usage for the possessive word in hebrew, “yesh – יש” Hebrew doesn’t have an exact translation for the words ”I have.” Instead of saying, “I have a book,” in Hebrew you’d say, “there is to me a book” – יש…
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