In less than a month, on January 22, there will be general elections in Israel. 34 parties have declared their candidacy for 120 spots in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. The threshold for a party to enter the legislative body is currently 2%, so in reality, most of the parties running will not receive enough [...]
We spent last weekend discussing what should or shouldn’t be considered a miracle. During the recent spate of violence from Gaza and subsequent retaliation by the Israeli Army, there was a lot of damage on both sides, but also many instances that came to be described as “miracles”. Consider the man who left his car [...]
Sometimes in animated movies, there are ghosts who go around scaring people. That’s all they live for, or are dead for, to scare someone. I’m scary, therefore I am. Depending on where in Israel you live, you have between 15 seconds and two minutes to find shelter when the missile-alarm goes off. Or between 15 [...]
Once upon a time I studied history at the Hebrew University in Jeruslem. Studying history in Israel has the enormous advantage of allowing you to goand actually see archeological remenants of what you are studying. Anywhere you throw a stone in this densly populated country you’ll find many more stones, some of great significance and [...]
So this is very difficult. I’m going to share some of my thoughts with you, but because I’m not ready to at this point, not share others. What happened is too big to be ignored in what I write, but also too big to share, beyond the superficial. (The drawing is by Dina) Less than [...]
People who choose to move to the country-side aren’t necessarily anti-city. They are people looking to slow down their pace, possibly to exchange quantity for quality. I feel that way about my religion. It’s a way of living a life that is more thoughtful, rooted, in-tune emotionally. Life in the fast track is noisy and [...]
Blogg/Jerusalem Years ago I came up with an excellent alternative plan (if I may say so myself) for dividing Israel into two states. I know that there is such a plan, but this one is different. My proposal is to have two countries, one for all the nice people, and the other for the A-holes. Regardless [...]
On Monday, primary-school-year starts in Israel. Two of my kids have graduated from the school- system, one is going in to the last year of high-school and the baby is starting sixth grade. (If you can figure out how many children I have, you must have done well in your school). We’ve had kids in my [...]
On Sunday I fasted because it was the Ninth of the Jewish month of Av, and suddenly I remembered that the first Temple inJerusalem was destroyed on that day, some 2500 years ago. And again 1900 years ago. On the same day, in our tradition. I live a thoroughly modern life.I’m an Internet junkie, and [...]
I initially joined Facebook in order to promote my Swedish blog, Idiotsäkert. Having lived in Israel for thirty+ years, I very acutely experience the huge gap between my reality and the Israel that “media” chooses to broadcast. Not all media is the same, not all journalists write the same story in the same way. Nevertheless, [...]
