I was detained for my final adieu to Israel, the Holy Land and my home for two and a half years. The place of my service…I was detained for three hours and all my luggage search through by twenty. I repeat. twenty. Israeli security officials. It was so humiliating and I hadn’t eaten all day… Continue reading the solar-powered raquet and violent parents
Tsunami Paradise The cover of the International Herald Tribune showed an idyllic beach in Thailand with the title “114,000 dead” and I thought “how insensitive to show heavenly beach when somany people have just died.” In fact, looking closely, it’s a shot of people running, completely panicked, away from the 10-meter waves that are crashing… Continue reading Pedro Almodovar Israeli Slideshow
On one side of the House is a cedar-panelled room, and I rose from my knees after prayers, after paying my respects and walked over to the window where the Old City of hundred years ago still stood. Teenagers lethargic, and a rubbish-filled fountain with no water. I looked out onto the view that would… Continue reading Pilgrimage.
I was planning on writing about “different kinds of cinema” since I just walked out of this incredible Zhang Yimou movie called “House of the Flying Daggers” with some of the most high quality cinematography (although a lot of it was –I’m assuming purposely–over-exposed), most beautiful actors and actresses, drop-dead gorgeous costumes, incredible fighting scenes… Continue reading on being a woman, sometimes
From a photoshoot in Haifa and Akka with Anisa Weirdest band name ever: I miss those skies! Building in Haifa before our sherut to Akka: Playing by the sea gate: At the market: Kids jumping off the (very high) sea wall into the Mediterranean:
I don’t question how my brain works. Other people do, but that’s just because they’re not inside. Except, sometimes, at some isolated points, for the people who read this funny business. To me, my brain is a multi-media fun-factory, an amazing, powerful decoder that sifts the world, allows me to experience and feel it through… Continue reading Skylights with no ladders
The edge of understanding is simply dizzying. That moment, at which you start to understand something, when the veil is being lifted from something that previously was either confusing or simply unknown, is the very moment that you step over that edge, that precipice and fall faster. Into understanding, but at the same time, into… Continue reading Gefilte fish and lust
Don’t you ever find yourself wishing you knew all the words to a particularly good song? I bob my head so enthusiastically sometimes that it feels like I wrote the words to this song and simply momentarily forgot them. I do this a lot with Ani DiFranco songs. Someone (when I first got to the… Continue reading prayer
I went on a roadtrip this weekend. We had two car-fulls and went to Tzfat, a Jewish Holy city (“because lots of rabbis lived here”, as a young Orthodox Jewish girl told me when I asked her why it was so holy) and then down to two of the Christian Holy Places near the Sea… Continue reading Dust on the altar, wind in my heels
Photo taken at a different time (but that conveys the mood of the story): I have the ability to render men furious to the point of temporary insanity. Let me clarify. By “men” I mean “Israeli taxi drivers” and by “temporary insanity” I mean so angry that they can’t drive straight and are cussing my… Continue reading Anger in slow motion
Maybe the title of this post is a bit mis-leading. Both trips were actually A LOT OF FUN!!! I went to the Druze Village because they’re such an interesting community and I was extremely curious about all the tall tales I’d heard of the place. And Massada really did totally shatter me. It was amazing.… Continue reading Huge ugly cats and communal drinking cups.
It is kind of cool to feel the earth move, but at the same time, it’s only cool because the ceiling is not falling on top of me. It’s only cool because devoid of the element of panic.
Hundreds of people in the United States are at this moment being admitted to emergency rooms across the nation for eating potato-salad and cole-slaw gone bad for staying out in the sun during tail-gate parties of the Fourth of July. But none of them went on a “traveling circus” road-trip beforehand, the memories of which… Continue reading The “traveling circus” weekend road-trip (WARNING: LONG ENTRY)
Or a performance of the St. Petersburg Ballet. I went to the REAL Ballet last night for the first time. I’ve been trying to have a magical ballet experience for a while now, just because I don’t “feel” anything for western dance and I think something is wrong. So I try to expose myself to… Continue reading Tubes of tootpaste and sausage links
TA-DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am proud to present to you my favorite occupation while walking around Haifa: noticing the different variation on the Pedestrian signs. I have always had a fascination about street signs, ever since I contemplated it as a career, when I was in college, trying to figure out what I could do. This is… Continue reading Israeli Pedestrian Signs–FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you’re in Haifa or have been here, you’ll have been to the Hillel cafe, so it will make it easier to place what I’m talking about. I just want to share with you a slice of Israeli interior decoration, by listing what comprises the decoration of the Hillel Cafe. If you’ve been to Israel… Continue reading Israeli Interior Decoration
This, right now, is the opposite of the Mall. It is a quiet, peaceful evening in my beautiful flat, with large bay windows on three sides of the house, and a gorgeous balcony with a view of the Mediterranean. A beautiful evening and I am being serenaded by the perfect temperature and soft light and… Continue reading The Hell Known as “the Mall”
I had so much fun this weekend…I’ve been doing this for the past two weekends and it’s turned out to be really wonderful: my flatmate and I get up at around 11:30 on Saturday and we eat a leisurely brunch, then talk about the whole week and catch up. Slowly we start shuffling the cards… Continue reading The most restful weekends…
He burst out laughing. But I wasn’t even trying. I get a real kick out of making strangers laugh, somehow it means more to me than makingpeople I know laugh since they have an incentive in a way: they knowme, maybe they want to be nice. But strangers could care less, in fact they can… Continue reading Things I’ve Walked Around Haifa With
I love collecting funny wedding stories. This last one is classic. My friend is from Texas and was an actress in a Theatre company. Two of the actors organized a Halloween party and everything was going just as a regular costume party goes, and a performance started to take place. The guy was dressed as… Continue reading Halloween prank wedding Yuppie Palm Pilot
The Three-Legged Duck 