Escape to the woods

Last Sunday I decided to leave work a little early and we all went to the forest/national park called Neot Kedumim 10 minutes from home. We had a picnic at a tent they called “Abraham’s tent” and walked around the beautiful flowers. We had a very nice time. It is nice and important to break the routine. It is difficult to find time to do such things given that we have no Sunday off. The only day the kids get a day off on a regular week is on Saturday. Work on Sundays is one of the things that has been very difficult to get used to. Enjoy the photos below.


An honorable visit
It is so nice to be able to spend some time with my grandmother as she visited Israel. Below is a picture of us after having a delicious breakfast by the Jerusalem wall.

From Other

Photo opp. with the stars
Below is a photo with two co-workers and TV stars from the children’s show “The Island”. Work doesn’t typically look like this….

From Other

Resetting the countdown
Very few days now for my parents visit. I’m very excited about their visit and look forward to spend some time with them over Passover in the North.


Stay tuned for a couple of pictures of Ilan’s birthday cake and party at his Gan.

Toss the Osnei Haman away… Get the Matzot out

Purim is over and all those candies and Osnei Haman need to be consumed, why? The entire country is switching from candies and costumes to cleaning products, matzah and food for Passover.

We had a great time on Purim which although it lasts only one day for us it lasted about 4 different days because of the different events we attended. We had a great time celebrating on Friday with the entire city and thousands of people on the streets. It’s a great holiday where regardless of people’s religious level everyone is celebrating. We also attended the Anglo Olim party on Thursday organized by the ministry of Absorption in Modiin. Another party was the Megilah reading itself at our synagogue and the day after to close Purim we were invited to our friends in Raanana to celebrate with many other Mexican families. It was a very fun holiday and so special seeing the entire country celebrating it. It was funny to drive in the traffic towards Raanana and watching many people in their cars and on the busses with costumes. Below are more pictures of Purim as well as a visit to Tel-Aviv’s beach.



We had lots of fun with our friends from Pittsburgh, below are some photos and a video of the kids. Now it’s your time to come and visit us!


I apologize to my blog followers for reducing the creativity on the blog, sometimes I just feel dry, but sometimes there’s lots of material to be funny and creative. Ideas are welcome :)

Happy Purim 5769

Dear Family and Friends,

!פורים שמח

We wish you all a wonderful Purim full of Joy and celebration.
It is magnificent to be able to celebrate all the hidden miracles that kept our existence at the same time that we live new hidden miracles that keep us stronger than ever against our enemies.
Enjoy the video card from the kids.


Purim is still tomorrow night, however in total the kids have already been in 3 different celebrations.
It is wonderful to see everyone religious and non-religious celebrating on the streets, at school, at home and at work.
Below are pictures from the different costumes during the different events as well as a video of the kids at a costume parade.




The Family Visit clock
It was great to host our uncle the last couple of weekends, very nice hosting our friends from Pittsburgh last week and this upcoming weekend, I’m resetting the clock for my grandmother’s visit. It’s wonderful to keep on resetting it all the time…Keep it going for us.

Blogging like a Pro - Visitors are Welcome

Blogging like a pro
I’ve been wanting to write about this very interesting meeting I had at work.
You think blogging is interesting or fun? How about profitable? How about making a living out of it? (don’t worry, I will not get to levels that anyone would want to advertise here or pay me to blog).
My meeting was with 2 people representing their interactive internet company and a 19 year old kid. It turns out that this 19 year old has one of the highest blog following among teens in Israel. I felt like a little boy in front of this professional blogger. He did some activities for us and earned some good money to do what he knows how to do best. So here I am, just a modest blogger.
See the video below, I know it’s cheesy…It’s supposed to be cheesy.

Some interesting facts about the video, is that it talks about life before Sipahh: war & no water in the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) and life after Sipahh: Peace and lots of water in the Kineret. The other things are teenage inside jokes about a rock group.
Well, as per war, I guess we are not officially at war anymore (if you don’t count the more than 100 rockets that have been launched from Gaza to Israeli civilians since the “ceasefire”).
As per water, last weekend it rained and it rained and it rained. The Kineret did see a big improvement (22 centimeters) however it’s still more than 5 meters below the mark. It’s definetly good to see all that rain it isn’t that exciting when a lot of that water makes its way into your house as it happened on Sunday when we woke up to wet floors and waterfalls from our walls, but all that has been taken care of now.
It was interesting meeting this 19 year old blog genius. It has been also interesting going through a war as well as living with a big dependance on rain water.

Visitors are welcome
The surprise visitor arrived last Friday. It is great hosting our uncle who made a surprise visit to our cousin that’s here for a year. It’s always great to see family. They both spent last weekend with us.
And now I’m setting the “next family visit” clock to our good friends from Pittsburgh that are visiting this Thursday. We are eager to see you all. Very soon we will also see my grandma and later my parents. You are all welcome to visit at anytime!

I’m very excited about the upcoming holiday of Purim and will probably be sharing a lot of pictures and experiences soon, so keep an eye on the blog and don’t forget to post a comment so that I know that I’m not writing to myself.

Sabra Album - Machane Yehuda Edition

You can also visit Sabra Album Take 1 , Take 2 and Take 3 if you missed them.Continuing to post pictures that talk about how Israel is such a special and interesting place. These pictures are so unique to Israel that I’m calling them “Sabra Album” (Click here for definition of Sabra).
This time I will include pictures of our most recent visit to Jerusalem’s famous marketplace Machane Yehuda on the busiest day of the week (Friday).
It was a great blend of sounds, sights, smells, tastes & conversations.

History Museum
You can’t miss this store. At first it looks like the museum of modern Israeli history because of the pictures of all the prime ministers, politicians and even rabbis. However once inside you’ll see it’s really an underwear store, yeah that’s right, what better place to hang a picture of a former prime minister but on top of a rack of tighty-whities. We chatted for several minutes with the store owner (on picture) who had very strong opinions about every single one of the personalities on the pictures that by the way he said he has met most of them.

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Healthy Food?!
The sign in the front of the Falafel stand reads “Falafel - Calorie Free”. Yeah right…..
I did not try the Falafel given the time of the morning however we did buy some delicious fresh goods from one of the many bakeries. That smell of freshly made pastry is just irresistible.

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Location, Location, Location.
The sign reads “For Sale”. If you are interested in this property please talk to me before, there are some things you need to be aware of regarding the location. :)

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Urban Frescos
Isn’t it beautiful and original? These are all paintings on walls and on the phone company boxes.

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Strolling around the marketplace. (Click to look at all photos)


Lessons on Memulim sourcing.
Lesson #1: Definition: Memulim = Stuffed food
Lesson# 2: Price: Memulim le 40 shekel, as repeated over and over and over again by one of the sellers trying to attract people (just like us) and distributing the plastic plates to fill up

Lesson #2: Grab plate and identify target (if opponents allow you to do so)

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Lesson #3: Very important: If next to the stand and with tongs on hand, DO NOT LEAVE THE STAND regardless of the pressure of the opponents

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Lesson #4: For beginners, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Once the stand is empty you can proceed to collect your food

From Machane Yehuda Jan 2009

Lesson #5: Enjoy….. They were actually very good.

The Elections, Tu b'Shvat, How about visiting Jerusalem?

The Election
It was a great experience to be able to exercise my right and obligation as an Israeli citizen to vote last week.
It was an interesting experience as well being part of the democratic process. There were 33 political parties to choose from, yes 33 and there was a 34th card in case you want to add yours (or vote for no one). Why so many political parties? Israelis all have very strong opinions and they each have their own interests that they want to put forward in a political party.

Let’s take for example the green leaf party (not to be confused with the environmental Green party), it’s not a joke but this party is concerned only with legalizing marihuana (see picture below), what about peace? The economy? Iran? Palestine? Education? If you don’t think it’s ridiculous already add to this that since they are so small they decided to bring in another small party: The holocaust survivors… I have respect for everyone but sometimes can’t understand this system. Don’t worry the green leaf party did not get any seats.

From Sabra Album

The TV commercials for the political parties were very interesting and sometimes even funny. There’s for example one of the Arab parties TV ad from which I could not understand anything (it was all in Arabic) but you could see the party leader and then lots of music and videos of soccer players, I’m not sure what their interests are, but it’s important to note that in this democracy 2 different Arab parties got in total 7 seats in the parliament.
We don’t have a clear elected prime minister yet given the small gap between to two leading parties and the unknown coalitions that need to be formed.
By the way it was great to have the entire day off for the 10 minutes (or less) that took to vote. Se below some pictures of our activities during the voting day. After voting we went for a quick hike (quick because it was cold and muddy).



Tu B'Shvat
The new year for the Trees (Tu B'Shvat) was celebrated last week. Below are some photos of a trip the kids did with Liora to an ecological farm in Modiin where they planted a tree together with other new olim (new immigrants) in the presense of our city mayor. There are also some other pictures from home. Below that is a video of the kids singing (and the mother) a Tu B'Shvat song next to a Shkedia (almond tree).


How about visiting Jerusalem?
Continuing our Friday 3 hours without kids activities we were trying to figure out on Thursday night what to do the next morning. Isn't it great to just wake up and say: How about visiting Jerusalem? So we did. We drove to Jerusalem started with a "walking" breakfast with out of the oven borekas, juice and cofee, we then took a walk through the old city walls and made it to the Kotel (western Wall) we walked back to the car through the Jewish Quarter where we bought fresh Chalot (shabbat bread) and made it still in time to pick up the kids. After that to give Liora some time without the kids at home and prepare for our 10 lunch guests, I took the kids for a hike to a mountain nearby with people from our synagogue. See some pictures below.

מ.ג (XLIII) is in our hands

מ.ג (XLIII) is in our hands
I might not be the most devoted fan, but to follow steelers-ball on a weekly basis at odd midnight hours is certainly something. The challenging part is not staying awake until 5am watching a game, the challenge is the day after. I was lucky enough to have Liora by my side enjoying the 1st half, but then the boss (Bruce Springsteen) put us both to sleep at halftime. I woke up again to watch the rollercoasting 2nd half. What I’m sure about that I’m the strongest Mex-American Israeli from Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
I wish I was downtown at da’burgh when the team will parade victorious as Cessar returning from war. I was there in 2006 welcoming them back home.
Lets enjoy our victory, 1 year of being the champions & hope for a great next season with more 1pm games (for the sake of all of the fans watching the games 7 hours ahead).

Family Visits
As always we are lucky enough to have more family visiting. Welcome to Tia (aunt) Bashe. She was ones my Hebrew teacher…
I guess Israel, although further from family and friends, is more of a destination point than Pittsburgh. I will reset the “family visit countdown clock” as soon as I confirm of a surprise visit that’s in the works, don’t worry, I don’t think the one to be surprised reads the blog.
We are also very excited to host for Purim our Pittsburgh friends and kids, we are looking forward to your visit. You are all welcome to visit, it’s our honor to host you and show you our beautiful country.


The most honorable Aliyah – Part II
I posted last time about The most honorable Aliyah where it was the most meaningful and honorable Aliyah (called to a blessing of the Torah) I’ve ever not gotten. (If you didn’t read it I recommend you do on the link above).
Well in the end it has a happy ending since I was called up for an Aliyah last Shabbat to cover for the Aliyah I did not get. The End.