Israel: Where everybody knows your name (sort of)

There's good news and bad news when it comes to names if you're making aliyah.

The first and very best news of all -- Because Hebrew is a phonetic language, Israelis are utterly awesome at pronouncing obscure last names.  Take mine, for example: MacLeod.

In English, we've gotten every possible pronunciation, from "Mak-Lewd" to "Mick-Clod" and everything in between.  It's actually MA-CLOUD.  That's it.  Very simple, actually.  Some Canadians get it, albeit tentatively, but usually only those of Scottish

What is Yom Yerushalayim, and why do we need it?

What are you up to this week???  Here in Israel, we’re still celebrating.  It’s like one non-stop party at this time of year, which was so bland back when we lived in Canada.  And this time, it’s one of the strangest holidays of all: Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). 

This is it – the Big 5-0, and the city is all geared up with so many different kinds of celebration.  Every school in the country, pretty much, is organizing tiyulim to the Holy City, and the place is mobbed with the usual tourists plus some.

I was there, with my son’s school.  We had a great time, but it was a heartbreaking time as well, and here is why:  Jerusalem is so far from being perfect it’s not funny.  Jerusalem is so far from being perfect that I could cry.

At the seder each year, we sing, לשנה הבאה בירושלים / leshana haba’ah bi’Yerushalayim – “Next Year in Jerusalem.”  We sing this even if we are lucky enough to be in Jerusalem, because the last word is הבנויה / habnuya – Rebuilt. 

The Jerusalem that we have is a miracle.  It is a beautiful, busy, living, crazy balagan of a city and I love it.   I love the fact that the country just turned 69 years old, and its capital is only 50 – this shows that you can’t take even a capital city for granted here, since we had to do without it for 19 years.

Yes, a miracle indeed. 

(photo credit: IDF via Wikimedia)

The Jerusalem we have today is truly many things… but it is not yet rebuilt.

This year, we’re celebrating 50 years since the liberation of Jerusalem from Jordanian hands, putting it in Jewish control for the first time in thousands of years.  But walking the streets of Jerusalem, the city does not yet feel free.

Driving past the Damascus Gate (Shaar Shechem), the Palestinian Bus Station, the police standing guard across from Givat Hatachmoshet, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa, the scars, mostly invisible, that have been inflicted on this city and its people since it was liberated… well, these things are more than heartbreaking.  They are like a slap in the face when everybody’s coming to celebrate.

But this is the reality.

Top 5 non-touristy things to do with your mother in Israel

My mother left last week after a too-short 2-week visit before which she insisted that all she really wanted to do was “take the grandchildren to school.”  Fair enough.  It can’t have been easy coming back to Israel after the vacation of a lifetime she spent here with my father 9 years ago.  Basically, she didn’t want to do anything touristy… so we didn’t.

Instead, here are five of the activities I enjoyed most during her visit:

1. Haifa – why not?

I think this was the first full day my mother was here, and it was basically a “Why not?” inspiration.

My mother had spent about a week in Haifa on her trip with my father, so she was already familiar with the city, unlike 95% of tourists, and actually liked it… unlike me.  Okay, yes, I technically live in Haifa, but I’m kind of ambivalent about the city.  But we were sitting home one morning, it was a sunny day, and the shuk is literally one bus ride away.

So there was practically nothing to lose.

Oh, the other reason was that I’m crocheting a blanket and I needed a ball of yarn to match one I already had because otherwise I would have run out mid-project.  And there’s a yarn store I go to quite close to the shuk. So off we went, hopping on the bus and paying our 10 shekels or so for the pleasure.

The yarn store was actually a minor hit – nothing like the fancy stuff my mother buys, but it was mundanely familiar and she bought a little stitch-counter accessory for another 10 shekels.  Down the street was a store selling socks that actually go over the knee, which I desperately needed, and we each picked up a couple of pairs. 

(Though I confused my mother by asking the shop lady for “tights,” and she said they didn’t have “tights,” and my mother kept insisting they had tights right over there, until eventually I had to explain that “tights” in Hebrew isn’t the same as tights in English.  In Hebrew, it means leggings or bicycle shorts, depending on the length.)

While downtown, I also introduced her to Cofix and the pleasure of 5-shekel coffee, which we took with us to the shuk. 

And the shuk, as it turned out, was more charming than I’d remembered. 

I hadn’t been in over a year because I avoided it during shemittah – most of the vendors are Arab and I wasn’t sure about the produce there.  Also, all the citrus stuff was in season and every single vendor was offering samples.  I think my mother managed to eat the equivalent of about 5 oranges, just from samples.  I bought some small stuff, including local garlic, because more and more stores are just carrying the stuff in nets that comes from China, for no good reason that I can tell.

The best part was that with a short walk out of the shuk, we were back on the same bus, headed home, and inside of 25 minutes, we were here lounging on the sofa.

Or, perhaps the best part for you reading this, is that there are NO pictures.  I brought my phone, but it remained a phone for the entire time.  In Haifa, I guess, I’m not really a tourist at all.

2. Get your mother lost in Akko

This one was another “why not?”

Definitely not for everybody, but it’s super-close to here, so I figured it would be nice for a sunny-day wander through the Old City.  Unlike Jerusalem’s Old City, it’s easy to get to and on a weekday morning, there was plenty of parking (don’t try that on Shabbat, as I understand that Israelis from all over the country travel up there for hummus and more). 

Review: Dialogue in the Dark / דיאלוג בחשיכה, Children’s Museum, Holon–Attractions in Israel

Picture yourself in a world of darkness, groping around, not knowing where - or what - anything is. 

You're lost in a hopeless, unsolvable maze.  Are you near a wall, a door?  Are you about to bump into something?  Your only hope is to trust in the skills of your guide, an all-seeing miracle worker who can somehow navigate her way through total darkness.

Last month, I finally got to visit the blind museum in Holon.  Okay, it's not really called the blind museum.  Part of the Israeli Children's Museum there, it's an exhibit called Dialogue in the Dark.  And it’s been on my “Israel Bucket List” for about ten years, since I first read about it in a magazine.

Your own personal Virgil

When you go in, you enter a world of total darkness.  You leave everything behind in a locker – glasses, keys, phones (except a small amount of pre-counted money for the snack bar). 

Luckily, you're given your own Virgil, a blind guide who knows her way around like the back of her hand.

Sanctity vs Cynicism: Highlights of GZ’s siddur party in Jerusalem

My older kids had siddur parties.  Maybe yours did, too?

It’s very cute. 

Once first graders are reading well enough, they have a big ceremony and make a huge deal about handing over their Very First Siddur.  For my big kids, that took about an hour, with refreshments following.

Here in Kiryat Shmuel, in the boys’ school, at least, things get a little more involved.  Like, “involved” as in a 12-hour shlep to Yerushalayim. 

And while you’re shlepping, you’d better not just hand over the siddur.  At least not without a ceremony.  And pizza.  And a Chief Rabbi.  And a visit to the Kotel (Western Wall).

Yup, 12 hours.  Fun, fun, fun.

We just got home, and I decided to write down the highlights of the day while they’re still fresh in my memory.

The main celebration (see blurry photo above) was in the Kehillat Bnei Torah synagogue in Har Nof, where last November, two Arabs walked in and started stabbing Jews. 

Why was that a good highlight?  Because we shook the floorboards with laughter, singing and pizza.  Because Jews support Jews and Israelis support Israelis.  Kiryat Shmuel is the same as Har Nof as far as the bad guys are concerned.  And yet our vibrant Jewish lives here go on and children grow up and receive siddurs.

Two other stops on the action-packed agenda were the Machon HaMikdash (the Temple Institute), where we learned all about the Bais (Beit!) HaMikdash, including grinding our own incense, and then on to the Kotel (Western Wall).

So… what were some of the outstanding moments from today’s long, long journey?

• Discovery.  Like the kid behind me on the bus shouting out "Abba, abba, hinei!" (look!) whenever he saw anything.  It doesn't matter what.  Police, hills, trees; this kid has clearly lived in a box his whole life.

Things that are cool in Israel #5: School Uniforms

I used to not believe in uniforms.

I mean, come on, a pure-white horse with a horn sticking out of its forehead?  How the heck could that be conducive to a peaceful, productive learning environment?

Over and over, my children explained, very patiently, that I had misheard.  That what they had to wear to school every single day was a uniform.  Not a unicorn.

(I say “patiently,” but they said it in the exasperated way that they always used to explain that the boat to the Toronto Islands really does exist, even though I told them I don’t believe in ferries.)

So for years, we pulled together various uniforms.  A tunic thing in elementary school.  Various colours of collared shirts and blouses, tops, bottoms.  Kilts, kilt pins.  Tights, socks, shoes.

(I have never understood – as a Jew who is just a wee bit Scottish by marriage – why Jewish girls’ schools are so drawn to kilts.)

The last year we bought uniforms in Canada (last year), we paid something like $60 each for 3/4 sleeve blouses.  More or less.  Skirts were probably around the same.  Perhaps a bit more.  My daughter literally never had enough uniforms; who can afford that kind of hit right before Rosh Hashanah, every single year.

And we only had one girl in uniforms at any given time – imagine if you had two, or three, or seven.

(Her school had a used-uniforms gemach, to give them out free, but we only managed to get anything worthwhile from it once.)

Israel has a slightly different take on school uniforms.

The two saddest things and why

Keep in mind that this was a pretty sad visit.  But there were 2 things people said that stayed with me.

The first one:

On our last day, I got to make an airport run to pick up a close family member.  This is somebody I have picked up at the airport maybe a million times... well, at least once a year.  Anyway, we have a regular routine.  I have a regular parking spot.  So I drove to the airport, parked, went in, waved and met and hugged her.

And as we walked out to the car, she said, "I never thought this would happen again:  you picking me up at the airport in Toronto."

I admit, I thought I'd never have that chance again either.

The second one:

Sitting with a close family member (not the same close family member) at her kitchen table.  Chatting, catching up on each other's lives, with perhaps an unspoken undercurrent of "hurry, this moment won't last forever," but trying not to consciously rush, which would ruin the moment. Mainly, it just felt like a regular thing, like the same thing we have done often over the last very-many years.

And just in the course of catching me up on her life, she said, "While you were away..."

While I was away.

Ouch.  It wasn't like I went to camp... we moved here, started working, sent the kids to school.  To me, that's not away, it's just - being me, somewhere else.  But to her, it absolutely was "away."  A continent away; an ocean away.

Ouch.

The new ordinary

I think these moments were so sad because in both cases, they were just ordinary moments - nothing special at all.

And in their ordinariness, they were a surreal echo of the life I lived there for many, many years.

(I also went out for coffee with somebody I didn't normally socialize with one-on-one, and that didn't feel weird or sad at all.  Because it wasn't ordinary, like these two moments were.)

Despite their tantalizing familiarity, moments like these are the farthest thing from ordinary now.

This is the new ordinary.

Moments like these - glimpses of the half-fantastical Narnia that is the life we left behind in Toronto (or is it Israel that's Narnia in this analogy???) - drive home how strange and new our Israeli life still feels; how cozy and reassuring it can be to sink back into our old lives.

In the end, neither Toronto nor Israel is Narnia.  In the Narnia books, the children could be gone a decade and return home with only a second having passed.  In real life, we're all growing and changing, living and dying.  The Toronto we left behind on Monday is not the Toronto we'll return to, God willing, next summer (for a real vacation, this time).

But how strange it is to leave the people we love behind, missing us, in some sense waiting alone, whether at the airport or at their kitchen table, even as their daily lives move on without us.

Fleeting and precious

Did you notice the picture at the top?  That's YM, 19, playing with the 2 younger kids at the Legoland Discovery Centre where we went last Friday.  Another very ordinary moment - one that probably won't happen again for a while.  And I think we all knew that; last year at this time, he wouldn't have deigned to hang out with his mommy and the kiddies for the day.

(He actually got out of bed before noon!)

If there is a plus, that is probably it - that we all acknowledge and appreciate the fleeting preciousness of the time we have together.

Sure, people talk about this a lot, but when you're close together, it's tough to remember that no matter what you do, no matter where you live, your moments together are numbered.  When that number is a big number,  or seems that way, I guess it doesn't matter so much.

So that's the payoff, if you look for it.  Living each conversation, each airport pickup, each play centre, each carefree morning in Starbucks or Value Village, each barbecue, hanging out around the wading pool in the grassy backyard of the parental home base, as if it were your last.

Even as you hope, of course, that there are many more to come.

Going south: thoughts on a bus from Eilat

    

Christians have an easy mnemonic to remember Israel’s four seas:  “the Red, the Med, the Dead and the Bread.”  To some Jews, that last one’s a little obscure… it refers to the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), near where they believe JC performed the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.  Thus, “the Bread.”

Three of them are easy enough to get to, but the first one, the Red, involves a trek to what seems like the ends of the earth… Eilat.

Here’s an interesting point of Jew-trivia a friend passed along a couple of months ago:  Eilat is technically not in Israel.  Though that depends how you define Israel.  If you’re talking Biblical boundaries, it’s out.  (Nonetheless, you’ll be happy to know that people who live there still keep one day of yom tov.)

Certainly, it still feels like Israel – or at least, like some weird, remote outpost of Israel.  The presence of an airport smack-dab in the middle of the city (getting in the way whenever you want to walk anywhere) is an irritating reminder that Haifa is basically just an hour away, for anyone who has the means to fly instead of taking the 6-hour bus trip.

We went by bus.  Thus, four hours of THIS out the windows:

The goal of the trip was Togetherness, with a capital-T, and spending time relaxing with the Big Boy, who is on his way to Thailand to be swallowed up by the rebellion that has apparently just erupted there and have big-boy Adventures.

As you can tell, Togetherness was achieved, in the sense that he posed for Naomi Rivka’s many pictures, like this one.

We spent just a little over 24 hours in Eilat, which isn’t really enough.  Not because it’s such a great city, but because of the tremendous effort it takes to get there if you don’t have the wherewithal (ie money) to fly down.  I’ve heard the same thing about Australia, only more so:  unless you have a month to spend there, at least, it’s just not worth the crushingly long travel time and adjustment to not just a time but a seasonal difference.

Things to do in Eilat if you have only 24 hours:

Coral reef observatory!  Way cool.  Way overpriced.  Admission is good for 3 days, which is awesome, but it’s so far out of town that you have to either pay 40nis for a cab or memorize the bus schedule (after one cab ride, we did the latter), because they only come once an hour.

Dip in the red sea!  We did!  I did!  See picture, above.  This is a huge accomplishment… my first time getting completely all-over wet in one of Israel’s seas.  Yeah, I know: we’ve lived ten minutes away from the Med… and I still haven’t gone in, after nearly 10 months.

Dry off in a lounge chair!  This being Eilat, with 40 degree temperatures and dry, dry air, this only took about 20 minutes.

Eat a nice meal!  Yum… steak house.  Not the most mindblowing steak ever, and it cost a fortune.  Not a great reason to go to Eilat; there are better kosher steakhouses all over the country.  But Naomi Rivka was very, very impressed.

     

Sleep!

Pose!

Leave!  Here’s the bus station, where everybody is hanging around doing just that – waiting to catch buses to almost impossibly far-off cities.  It’s funny to imagine how far apart these places feel, like Eilat and Tel Aviv, when a 5-hour car ride was our standard way of visiting my in-laws up until last summer.  Somehow, here, the distances feel greater.

And now, as I “type” this message on my little tablet, we’re in a bus on our way home… in the middle of nowhere.  Here’s where the tablet’s built-in GPS says we are:

At last, after nearly 10 months in Israel, the landscape feels truly foreign, in a way that northern Israel never has.  Down here, at the ends of the earth, or so it looks through the bus window, it’s desperately dry and hot hot hot.

Definitely the dry heat everybody promises won't kill you like the muggy slap of the steamy Krayot heat last summer.  Even at 40 degrees in Eilat, with a gentle breeze and a dip in the ocean, it didn't feel a bit over 30, and we were very comfortable walking uphill to the bus terminal.

Everybody compares Eilat to beach towns and resorts:  Venice, Coney Island, Miami Beach. To me, it has a real element of Niagara Falls to it. Not quite as tacky, but a few more haunted houses and 3d ride simulators will take care of that.

There’s the same strip of attractions leading away from the beach and away from the desirable hotels - many of which, like the Hilton and Herod's, are truly fabulous (or at least look that way from the outside).  Incidentally, just as in Niagara Falls, that uphill trek leads to the only kind of hotel / hostel we can afford to stay in – the weird kind. 

Don’t worry:  it was weird but GOOD, a creepy little collection of teeny-tiny cabins…

Interspersed with papier-mache figures, so every time you go outside, you feel like dozens of people are watching you.

   

There are lots of the same  vendors of cheap trinkets and fast food... a key difference being that much of the fast food is kosher (while in Niagara Falls, you're lucky if there's one fly-by-night pizza place).

Between the tackiness and the off-the-beaten-path motel, it felt very familiar indeed.

But now, as I write this, I'm somewhere in the desert, a Biblically big desert, on the way from the Red Sea to Beersheva, where Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov had their main stomping grounds. 

So strange to think that this awful, bleak desert, too, is part of my heritage.  Even safely and sure-footedly within the Biblical Land, this terrain is  unconquerably alien and unfamiliar.

And yet!  And yet!  Here in Beersheva, the “capital of the Negev,” I found this outpost of sanity in an otherwise gusty, bleak, hot, dry world:  Mr. Corn!

I was heading somewhere else for dinner, so I didn’t stop to see if it was kosher (I thought I saw a Pesach teudah – indicating that they had sold their chametz – as I walked past).  But what a wonder!  This is a concept that the world is MORE than ready for:  corn, in all its wonderful forms.  Boiled corn, popcorn, together at last!

 

Corn! 

(For anyone who isn’t part of my immediate family… corn is easily my favourite food, and quite possibly, my favourite substance in the entire universe.)

I had to actually go back – to the irritation of my kids – to get a picture of this sign, which says, “Corn or potatoes?  Now you don’t have to choose anymore.”  I think it’s saying you can get both, maybe even mushed into the soup shown in the picture.  Not exactly sure… they were both in a hurry to get going and wouldn’t let me gaze at the sign.

Here’s the mediocre Asian-inspired supper I was rushing to get during our one-hour stopover in Beersheva.

And here’s the train that took us, in comfort and style, all the way home to Kiryat Motzkin, from where we had a comfy 7-minute walk home (it’s usually 5, but we were tired and loaded down).

Forget buses… train is definitely the way to get around this country in comfort and style – not to mention the ability to stretch your legs a little and use the washroom whenever you like.

I don’t think I’ll be heading back south anytime soon.  But dreams of (Mr.) Corn are flitting through my mind, teasing, tantalizing me still, even as the twinkly lights of Haifa’s green mountain welcomed me back to an area that is feeling  more and more normal, more and more like home, with every passing month.

I may be a stranger in a strange land (a very strange land), but with wonders like Mr. Corn lurking out there, who knows what other awesome experiences there are, still waiting to be discovered in this (huge) and holy place.

Haifa’s Sinyon: all it’s cracked up to be?

Israelis love the Far East:  they travel to Asia in huge numbers and it stands to reason that they’d like to bring a little of that Asian exoticism back home with them.

This winter, to great self-conducted fanfare, the “Sinyon” (this seems to be the official English spelling) opened in Haifa, proclaiming itself Israel’s first “Chinese mall experience.”  The word “kenyon” (קַנְיוֹן) means mall, and “Seen” (סִין) means China, so, with their love of portmanteau words, the creators of the Sinyon stuck the two together:  Chinamall = Seen-ee-yon.  Whoopee!

According to the company’s website, “it” (they don’t say what; Chinese people?) has had “huge success in Las Vegas, Johannesburg and Bangkok.”  It boasts a great location near Hof HaKarmel train station and 2000 free parking spaces.

I doubt they’ll need all 2000.  More like 20… but then, to be fair, we went in the middle of a working weekday afternoon.

My short summary of the experience might go as follows:  the best thing about the Sinyon is that it’s just one short bridge-crossing away from the REAL Azrieli Haifa mall, where you can find real stores, as opposed to cheesy little rip-off kiosks.

Some attempt has been made (see the picture at the top) to create a nice Asian ambience.

There is also a restaurant, offering greasy typical-Israeli Chinese food, served by an Asian-looking woman who speaks great English.

 

More Asian “ambience”:

I’ll be honest… we hope eventually to host friends and family members here in the area around Haifa… so I’m always on the lookout for interesting things to do nearby.

This will not be one of them.

Having been to (and eaten in) excellent Chinatowns in Montreal, San Francisco, Toronto; heck, even Washington, D.C., I’d be embarrassed to even suggest to somebody that they might have even a remotely Chinese experience in the Sinyon.

One big plus:  It was certainly easy enough to get there – it’s one ten-minute bus ride through the mountain from the Merkazit HaMifratz central bus station (Haifa has 2 central bus stations, one on either side of the mountain, with an awesome tunnel connecting them).  The bus ride was a real highlight of our trip to the Sinyon.  Sadly, the Sinyon itself was not.

In terms of the merchandise, there is no “theme” and the stuff is all over the place.  Mostly poor quality, cheap and cheesy.  Bracelets, underwear, backpacks, and a low-quality off-brand-name toy store selling “Barbara” dolls with the word “Barbara” written in Barbie script.  I wouldn’t even really call it a mall; more like a triangular strip of stores.  We didn’t find anything there that we couldn’t buy cheaper in any local "shekel-o-Rama."

Welcome to China, the website proclaims!

It also brags that, “The Sinyon mall targets all family members… [with] diversified activities for the whole family, drawing its inspiration from the colorful Chinese culture.” 

It may well be that we didn’t see it at its best, but these only-slightly-flawed posters that greeted us just inside the door (most likely printed in China!  yay, Asia!), seemed to be about it in terms of expressing the “colorful Chinese culture.” (as opposed to the black-and-white Israeli one?)  The posters read, “Family this main and the best in life,” and “Time to drink champagne and dance one the table.”

 

Like I said, the Sinyon’s best feature may be its proximity to the real mall.  But by the time we got there, I was tuckered out from looking for real Chinese culture and annoyed that I was fleishik and over-full from the substandard overpriced sticky-starchy Chinese-food lunch that would have taken second place to most food court Chinese (though I should note the presence of dumplings, hot & sour soup, and chicken-corn soup on the menu; I got a dumpling and Elisheva had the soup.  Both were reasonably good, unlike the sticky glop that is most of their food items).

I’ve heard rumours that more Sinyonim / Chinamalls are coming soon to other Israeli locations… at least, their website hints that this is the start of a trend.  If one opens near you, you might want to visit once out of curiosity… but if your experience is anything like ours was, I’m fairly certain you’ll want to stay away after that.

Is there anywhere in this country to find real Asian culture???  I really would love to know…

Ten favourite selfies in Israel! (#4 blew me away!)

According to Definition #7 at Urban Dictionary, a selfie is “An over used word meaning taking a picture of your self. This is mainly used by people who are too lazy to say "take a picture of myself."”

So that’s what these are – my ten favourite selfies since we arrived here in Israel.  If you’re interested in seeing the egg-shaped top of my head, you, my friend, are in for a treat!

Here they are in order… starting with #10:

#10:  Family bus trip to Nahariya (full story here)

 

Kind of a lousy picture, actually (I look like I’m kind of squashed back into my seat and / or about to leap up and eat the camera) but I had to get the obligatory “Egged bus” shot in this list somewhere.

#9:  Entering the Carmelit with Elisheva (full story here)

The world’s wonkiest subway, captured perfectly in this shot of two homemade crocheted hats.  Hard to think way back now and remember this cold December weather… and it’s only March now.  Sheesh.

#8:  The Bay at Old Yaffo (full story of my sister’s visit here)

I like how I pretended I was taking a picture of her but managed to sneak in my own big, egg-shaped head.  Urban Dictionary says this is called photo bombing, “Intentionally posing in other people's photos, for a later surprise.”  She’s known me for a long time, though, so I don’t think she was really surprised.

#7:  Harem in Old Akko

This was our Nefesh b’Nefesh Chanukah tiyul… Akko was kind of boring, though there were some highlights, like this nice dappled treed area.

#6:  Food Court in the Yerushalayim Merkazit with Abigail & Elisheva

This was nice.  My sister, my daughter.  Fleeting moment captured perfectly over a delicious fast-food lunch.  Well, fast food for me.  Salads for them… they’re both always eating salads.

#5:  Kotel with Abigail (once again, read the full story of her visit here)

Me n’ my sister n’ the holiest place n’ the world.

#4:  Waiting for Yerachmiel in the Airport

 

It was a Friday, very rushed, very crazy.  But since he would only be in Israel for 8 days, we figured it was worth it to drive down and meet his plane.  Crazy how excited you can get about seeing your own kid.

(If you came straight from the headline, sorry.  This picture is not actually likely to blow anyone away, but apparently, when creating a “viral-type” list headline, the Thing to Do Nowadays is choose one to get your readers hooked and scrolling.  Since you’re here anyway, keep on scrolling!  You’re nearly at the bottom… and #1 is worth it, I promise!)

#3:  New Ikea Store with Elisheva (full story here)

Fun, fun, fun, ‘till the cows come home (or in this case, two really cute stuffed toy mice for about 6 shekels each).

#2:  The Knesset (full story here)

Playing at Cub Reporter – having fun, getting paid.  This is the real reason I’m here!

And finally…

#1:  My most-favourite selfie since we came to Israel.

Well, I didn’t say they had to be of ME, right???

Like food photography (the amateur kind), selfies are a quintessentially modern preoccupation.  In the old days, film used to be way too expensive to waste on potentially-lousy pictures of oneself. 

Still – I think it’s a great way of getting a shot of yourself at times and places when nobody else is there to do it for you.  You just remember stuff better when you’re in the picture yourself!

Do you take selfies?   Do you usually share them, or keep them hidden in some metaphorical “drawer” on your hard drive?