A Week in Pictures

I met up with Matan, one of the Shlichim Tze'irim who was at Ezra with me! We lunched mul ha yam. aka by the beach. I swear he doesn't usually look 12 years old.

Walking home on Dizengoff. All too loud for this little apartment, I think.


My Bloody Valentine, Jerusalem


The lamp store, right near Ben-Gurion Street. Sort of reminds me of that scene with all the jelly fish in Finding Nemo.

Have you ever seen a mannequin in this position??

Just plain weird

THREE Laskins??

Dear Faithful Companions,

While Rachel and I work on our mind-blowingly fantastic Women of the Wall entry, I wanted to do my own little thang. (Remember ain ba'ad mah? ain't no thang? have you guys been paying attention?... is this thing on?)

I would be so insanely remiss if I didn't devote a post to my dear brother Eliad and sister-in-law Katie! They were just here for about a week, and went on a rampage of tourism throughout the country. It was great to hang out with some Laskins, get some presents from home and eat a lot of salads.

Boy where they excited to be here!


We went to Nazareth and the Galilee and saw many churches! Who knew Jesus did so much here? The Church of Multiplication involved no math, but there were candles and mosaics:

Then we were off to the mighty Jordan! Katie and I bottled Holy Water. Eliad's soul is apparently less clean:

I really liked this watch at the gift shop. The time, you ask? Why surely. It's Virgin o'Clock:

See those hills in the distance? Beyond them, in a little village somewhere, Leah Maloney resides. (If you're new to my life via this blog, Leah is my very good friend from home who is currently in Jordan with the Peace Corps. One day, Leah. One day. But only if you come here.)

The next day we dragged it to the Jeru, and saw many sights, including the grand ol' Kotel. The lovely couple in a photo op:

Later we had dinner at Luciana's and agreed that Israel has made great strides in the availability of good Italian food, and met up with Rachel for some ice cream. In case this post felt one-sided and you were missing her, here she is before going to Peace Players, this fun volunteer thing she does that I'm sure she'll describe in more detail eventually:

What's that? You missed me too? Okay. Here I am on the shores of the Galilee. Where Jesus walked. Take that, Kanye.

And here's the breakfast I made yesterday morning. Delicious if you're into that sort of thing.

That's all folks! Now it's back to work. Check out the Omanoot blog (www.omanoot.tumblr.com), follow us on twitter (twitter.com/omanoot), and check out the Martha blog (www.themarthablog.com) for my brother's guest post from the Holy Land!

So much to say

Happy Adar. That's not a suggestion; that's an order. You have to increase your happiness level immediately and continue doing so for the next few weeks.

Let's begin with cholent. On Friday I went with a group of Pardes students to help out at a soup kitchen/food bank called Hazon Yeshaya--it's in Mekor HaBracha, a small, charedi-type neighborhood by the shuk. The man who runs the kitchen yelled out orders to us to skin potatoes, chop vegetables, and arrange Shabbat food baskets for families. He runs a very efficient kitchen. After preparing the food, he assigned us different jobs. Taking one look at me, he pointed to a massive, boiling hot pot of cholent. I served so much burning hot, meaty, meaty, meaty cholent.

Yad LaKashish (Lifeline of the Old), the greatest organization of elderly craftspeople:


Can't let this photo go undisplayed. Dafna, lead singer of a sculpture in Yemin Moshe. Walls of the Old City behind her:


Today Pardes held its annual Yom Iyun Shel Chesed in which students and faculty leave the beit midrash and participate in different service projects. I went with Leket, an anti-hunger organization, to pick oranges in a field near Rehovot. It was so nice and hot and humid today. Super beautiful. I got a ton of scratches too. It looks like I've been hanging out with a pack of cats.

At the end of the day I went to ulpan. At the beginning of the day, I went to the Kotel with Women of the Wall, Nashot HaKotel. I have so many thoughts and feelings on this day. Dafna and I are going to devote a very special blog post to this experience.

And now, for the big news you've been waiting for..

I suppose it's safe to let the cat out of the bag (which, judging by the sheer volume of stray cats in this country, seems to be a popular activity) and inform you all that I have a new internship!

Beit Hatfutsot was nice and all, but I wanted something a little more up my alleycat (they really are everywhere!!) and am now the Social Media Editor at omanoot.com, which is a pretty neat website devoted to Israeli culture through art. I'm still not really sure exactly what I've gotten into, but it's something to the tune of blogging, twittering and Facebooking. If you know my brother, you may find this quite coincidental. Also, check out the Martha Stewart Show tomorrow (Wednesday) to see my brother discuss all the cool tech stuff he saw at CES in Vegas. And eyes peeled for my sister in the audience. And on the subject of siblings, I dedicate this sentence to Betsy for caring about my internship.

(Edit: The Martha episode is taping Wednesday, but not sure when it's airing. Stay tuned.)

Blogging, twittering, Facebooking and meowing about what, you may ask? Music, art, movies, literature, etc. I'm pretty sure this will be a great way to get a little more exposure to arts here and dig my...claws...paws...kitten mittens...into journalistic things. I know. Cats on the brain. Sidenote, Rachel had a recent staredown with a cat climbing on the windowsill of her room. It was both terrifying and comical.

OK. Time to go be a social media editor.