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 [...]

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 [...]

Last Thursday, Adina did some errands in Yerushalayim after work, drove home, and parked in front of the maon (day care) to pick up Moshe. Five minutes later she went back to the car. And it wouldn’t start. It wouldn’t even try to start. As in: turn the ignition and nothing happens. I tried to [...]

When we made aliyah nearly two years ago, we moved to an apartment in Kochav Yaakov. We had looked at a number of different communities, and eventually settled on Kochav Yaakov because of its location, friendliness, diversity, religious orientation and demographics. It was a wonderful place to come to right off of the plane. We [...]

From YNet: Those Israelis whose income places them in Israel’s top 20th percentile pay 80% of the taxes that are levied in Israel, according to the yearly report published by the Finance Ministry’s State Income Authority Sunday. In addition, the salary of almost half (47%) of salaried workers in Israel is not high enough to [...]

Aside from the fact that they do not mention Otzar Beit Din at all, the NY Times does a pretty decent job of reporting on what is going on in Israel with disputes over heter mechirah and yivul nachri (non-Jewish owned and grown produce). They even manage to quote a few pesukim from Shemot, do [...]

Over the past few years, whenever I have heard someone be chazzan who should not have been allowed near the amud, I have mentally compiled my own list of rules for Chazzanut. I am releasing it for public consumption below, in the hopes of achieving better communal harmony throughout the Jewish world (pun intended). If [...]

When he wants you to stop doing something, he says די די! (“enough enough” – though it sounds disturbing as it is pronounced the same thing as “die die!”) לא and No are used interchangeably As you are teaching him how to count from 1 to 10 in English, he is able to say some [...]

We went to the Jerusalem Zoo on Friday (also known as the Biblical Zoo, though the section with Tanach-related animals is small in relation to the rest of the place). A number of people that we know have taken out yearly memberships for their families and go a few times a month. As Moshe (just [...]

Moshe (almost 2 years old) is starting to speak more and more. No complete sentences, but lots of words. He has even gotten to the point where he knows the translation of a certain word/expression in both Hebrew and English: English: “No, No, No, No!!” (or its close derivative “No way, No way!!”) Hebrew: “לא, [...]