I have initially published this blog post on Times of Israel. It was a part of my requirement, but I am grateful I was pushed to write. Hopefully, I will keep going at this: We live in a time when it is extremely hard to listen to the opinions of others. The world around us…
Category: World around us
Just a Verse. War.
This is not a poem. This is a cry. Gd!I am praying to You.Will I live, or will I die?I am thankful for what was, what is.Gd, If I have to die, Please do it with as little pain as possible.Gd!I am praying for my family.Please let them have as little pain as possibleIn their…
Back to the “Safety of the Land of the Free”
After I’ve returned from Israel a few days ago, I am still not sure if I can coherently express my feelings. Things that we’ve seen cannot be unseen, words that we heard cannot be unheard. The images of the tiny burned houses of the youth village of Kfar Aza are forever etched into my mind….
Rosh haShana Yearning for PEACE
This erev Rosh haShana as every year I find myself in the kitchen listening to Selichot at the Kotel making my babushka’s Lekach (honey cake) thinking about her life hoping to become one day as good a cook as she was.My grandmother’s life was not easy at all. She had to run from pogroms from…
Random Spring Pre-Purim Thoughts
Spring is, inevitably, coming. And, with it come hopes, dreams of the better future, associations with pink / rosy glasses. Time and again, my mind races back and forth bringing pleasant thoughts and emotions and going back to the darkness that is so ingrained in my whole being. Personal ups and downs are mixed today…
קוּמִי אוֹרִי, כִּי בָא אוֹרֵךְ; וּכְבוֹד יְהוָה, עָלַיִךְ זָרָח. Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
This week’s Haftarah brings me back to Jerusalem, of course. Jerusalem, as a city of prophets and a place for G-d’s vision to come alive, a city with blood, tears, hopes and joy all intertwined with each other in one giant ball of cosmic energy too tight and ready to burst out. It always seems…
Wine! Glorious (kosher) Wine!
Not sure if I said it already, but my younger daughter is studying to become a sommelier. Apparently, there are only 249 masters of this trade in the whole world! In America, there are only 25 women. One can study for years and years and still fail the Master’s exam. So, there is a long…
The Russian Picnic Tradition
Apparently, Soviet cuisine is very fashionable now. Otherwise, why would there be such a great number of articles, books and posts about it. I need to write about Kachka – the book that I enjoy reading and the experience of my daughter, the Portland lover. I have been following the Russian food blogger, Peter, who reinvents the…
Still Thinking about Pardes?!
Just some ranting: This year’s program was a bit different. Firstly, it was bigger than the ones I attended before. It was also much more diverse. People came, of course, from the States and England as they always come, but this year there was a relatively large group of youngsters from France, one lady from…
Bamidbar
“Do not on any account enrol the tribe of Levi or take a census of them with the Israelites.” (Numbers 1:49) Below are the words of Dr. David Ackerman: Parashat Bamidbar opens the fourth book of the Torah, also called Bamidbar, in the wilderness of… In Bamidbar, God orders Moses to prepare the Israelites for their wilderness trek by conducting a conduct a census…
Memphis
So for the last few days, I’ve spent my time at the event my organization holds every two years on the border of three states, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. Apparently, the bridge that I saw every day from the Convention Center window marks the border of two of them going along the mighty Mississippi river. What can I…
Am I still entangled with Mother-Russia?
I wonder if it is coincidental that I have read this book over Shabbat just prior to the 2018 Russian presidential election. I got this book from my favorite book-junkie event of the year – the Jewish Book Council “Raid the Shelves“. Luckily, I work right next door, so I don’t schlep all of them at once,…
Noshing Across the Nation 