On Motsei Shabbat (Saturday night) Josh and I took the opportunity to hear the recent Noble Prize winner, Professor Yisrael Auman. He spoke at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem, 20 minutes from our home. It was awe inspiring to be able to listen to a religious Jew talk about his experience only a few weeks… Read More Washing Your Hands with the King
With the first night of Hanukah tonight, the synagogue had a massive celebration. Our synagogue has been under construction for the better part of five years and is finally complete (well, 95% complete, but what’s five percent among friends). Most of the money was donated by a Brazilian family with relatives in Alon Shvut who… Read More Hanukat HaBeit Knesset Mercazi
A few funny things today. Early last year Matan brought a friend home from school. The friend asked me if I had seen his “petek” and I had no idea what he was talking about. He looked at me as if I were crazy – everyone knows what a petek is. And now I know… Read More Notes from school and Pretty flowers…
A regular week in Israel…every day seems to be packed with so much. Last week we were able, FINALLY to secure our mortgage. It was a major accomplishment, as the mortgage process is much more tedious and interesting, shall we say, than it was in America. So, as a thank you to our friends who… Read More A Week In The Life
Last night at the end of Ma’ariv (the evening prayer service) someone announced quickly that anyone who was interested in going to Hevron the next morning at 5:45am, should let him know. It turns out the Neve Daniel has a long-standing minhag (custom) of going to daven Shacharit on the Friday before Rosh Chodesh (the… Read More Quick Trip to Hevron…
I had a big meeting in Tel Aviv today and afterwards we ran over to a small shopping mall to grab a quick, late lunch before heading back to Jerusalem. Pretty standard Israeli food court fare, a felafel/shwarma place, hamburgers, Chinese and one or two other places. We grabbed a shwarma, washed and found the… Read More The Dichotomies of Israel
We realized that we haven’t written much in the way of a regular ‘update’ in a while. We’ve written about trips, politics, etc but not what’s happening in our regular day to day lives. All in all we are doing quite well: We are thrilled with our choice of schools for Matan. He enjoys school,… Read More Brief Update
‘…Lech lecha mai’artzecha…’ (Beresheit/Genesis 12:1) ‘Go forth from your land…to the land that I will show you’ This week we come again to Parashat Lech Lecha (the weekly Torah portion of Lech Lecha) which is the story of Avraham Avinu (Abraham) heeding the words of Hashem and leaving his homeland, his family and friends to… Read More Lech Lecha….
Over the past week, we have watched from afar as France burns. It has been an interesting topic of conversation around here as many feel an odd sense of satisfaction, not at the destruction or the fate of people who are injured or killed in the violence, but that the country that has most represented… Read More The ‘Eurofada’
As some of you may have heard, Dr. Robert John (Israel) Aumann, was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for Economics. We have decided to share a profile which appeared in today’s Jerusalem Post with you because Dr. Aumann has something for everyone to be proud of. He is a refugee of Nazi German who made… Read More Our Newest Nobel Prize Winner
