We Lived In Israel For Almost Two Years

It’s Chanukah again, this time under COVID.  Things here are still opening up little by little, but they are watching the numbers (which have been rising again slowly) and are considering another lockdown if they continue to rise.  Like in the US, people are hopeful that the new vaccines will return life to normal sometime…

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First a brief tour.  This is the lobby of the Heart Center.  You’ll notice how the elevators are designed to resemble the inferior vena cava and the aorta, one being blue and the other being red.  And you can even sort of see the heart itself up above through the glass roof.   Next, this…

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This past week was my first week at work in an actual hospital, as an actual doctor!   I’ve been working a day a week at a biotech startup, which is fun, interesting, and different, but it’s not practicing cardiology.  Just to remind everyone, all of my medical diplomas and board exams transferred to the…

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This past weekend we went camping with some friends in the Negev.  We stayed at the Khan Be’erot campsite, which is at the bottom of the Mitzpe Ramon crater, about halfway between Be’er Sheva and Eilat, pretty much right in the middle of the Negev desert.  The weather is perfect there this time of year,…

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I’m finally starting my three month work observation period at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, just outside Tel Aviv.  Once I complete that, I’ll have my official recognition by the Israeli Medical Association as a Cardiologist.  (They recognized all my US board exams, etc, they only want to have me “signed off” by one…

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I usually take the car to work (for my one day a week of work 😑.)  Except if Val needs the car or if it’s in the shop.  And last week it was in the shop (again 🙄🙄) so I took the bus to work.  And this time I decided to step it up a…

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Yesterday we went on a tour up north to see the Hula Valley.  It’s north of the Kinerret, the Sea of Galilee, surrounded by mountains on all sides.  It’s just a bit south of Kfar Blum, where we had gone tubing down the Jordan River last year.  The valley is bounded by the Golan heights…

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Well the lockdown here in Israel is easing up very slowly.  The mall is still closed but they have opened restaurants only for take-out; no eating in or even eating on the premises outside yet.   They’re also worried about flu season because they’re worried that if the hospitals are already full of COVID that…

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The City of Ra’anana has kept in pretty good contact with us through the COVID-19 pandemic.  We get regular text message updates on WhatsApp and also emails.  As an example, this was an email I received a couple of weeks ago with 25 questions and answers about school starting back up after the lockdown we…

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The parsha (weekly reading from the Torah) this past weekend was Noah and tells the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood. As I’ve been learning more Hebrew I’ve been trying to read the weekly parsha as much as I can in Hebrew, using the English translation only when necessary. So this week during my…

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We are finally out of quarantine after returning from our US trip two weeks ago.  First we went grocery shopping. And I have to say I’m continually just amazed by the produce here. I get that back in the US I didn’t go grocery shopping so much whereas here I have, so maybe that’s just…

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“Hi all! Happy Wednesday!First, on the positive front, I was very pleased to see XXXX working hard to get the message out that despite XXXX dropping their masking requirement, it is still one of the best things we can do to keep our families, neighbors, and city safe…This is one of the reasons I write…

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Two things happened to me during trips back to the US, both having to do with taking, or not taking, photographs. The first was when I went for a walk outside on a shabbat afternoon.  It was really beautiful outside in the desert and as I walked by the stunning views I regretted not having…

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We are looking at US high schools for our kids in the event that we come back to the US (Phoenix, AZ) for their high school years.  There is a great STEM public charter school in Phoenix and there is also a private college prep school, PCDS (Phoenix Country Day School).  PCDS has small class…

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We are back in Israel after our trip to the US.  We returned right in the middle of lockdown number two.  Interestingly, the Hebrew word they use here for lockdown is seger – סגר which technically means closure; not quite as dramatic a statement as “lockdown.”  And not only that, but our whole family (since…

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