Today when they went to the makolet, Adina gave Moshe and Chananya a half shekel each to spend on a treat. Moshe (4.5 years old) is starting to understand the concept of money. Chananya (2.5 years old) doesn’t really get it at all yet, other than knowing of its existence. So upon being handed a [...]

Water is precious, yet much is wasted. The World Bank estimates that 88 billion litres of treated water is lost from leaking urban pipelines every day, a quantity split evenly between rich and poor countries. Now an Israeli company called Curapipe has developed a system that aims to seal leaks cheaply with only a small [...]

I was walking back from dropping Moshe (now 3.5 years old) at gan this morning. A young man in his twenties approached from the other direction (after dropping off his child at a different  gan). Short beard, pe’ot, wearing his tzitzit out and his tefillin on his head. Huge smile. As he came close to [...]

In my professional life, I work on website development as a software engineer. I work on the side sometimes doing freelance work making personal websites for different people. I recently finished a website that might be of interest: the new homepage for Rabbi Michael Green. It includes a blog and podcast and is built using [...]

This morning, sometime around 5:45am
Moshe: Abba, I am hungry.
Me: Moshe, what do you want to eat? Do you want some corn flakes?
Moshe: No, I don’t want flow-clakes (yes, that is how he says it, it is very cute)
Me: Maybe some cheerios?
Moshe: No, I don’t want cheerios
Me: How about some fruit?
Moshe: No, I don’t want fruit.
Me: [...]

I was driving into Yerushalayim yesterday and passed something that I have seen not seen before on an Israeli road (and as it is not uncommon to see Trailer trucks carrying Merkava IV tanks around the country, that is saying something). Here is what I saw:

I haven’t seen one of these before, but I am [...]

This morning we went to the US Consulate in “East” Jerusalem. We needed to register Chananya’s birth, get a passport for him, and apply for his Social Security number (the most important part, since this will enable me to include him on my US tax returns for the next 17 years, thus adding another $1,000 [...]

Israel is known as the best democracy in the Middle East. This is a true statement. Compared to all of its neighbors, the personal freedoms afforded to citizens in Israel far surpass those given to citizens in neighboring countries. However, this does not mean that Israel is perfect in this respect. Far from it. Coming [...]

A week ago on Shabbat, we were at a friend’s house for lunch. Chananya (14 months old) was playing with some little toy, not bothering anyone. Until a slightly older toddler (somewhere in the 2-3 year old range) saw that Chananya’s toy looked interesting, and as toddlers are wont to do, walked over and ripped [...]

A month after we made aliyah and living on a yishuv with a baby (and thus dependent on the bus service) we felt that we really needed to get a car (spoiled Americans that we are). So we asked around among our neighbors and were given the recommendation to call M. M owns a car [...]