Archive for January, 2009

Home again, and I say this with mixed feelings.

Yesterday morning I landed in Newark airport after a one-week vacation with Lior to Israel. And for the third time visiting the Holy Land, I was very sad to return to Ben Gurion Airport as the trip drew to a close. Don’t get me wrong – I love New York, New Jersey and American in general. But I had such a wonderful time, and honestly, as I packed my “inconvenient” suitcase, I wished I could stay longer. Jokingly, Lior even suggested that I stay – you know, for free, in his parents’ house in Ra’anana.

But all kidding aside, it’s clear that I love spending time in Israel. What I wonder is – whether I’m romanticizing the country or whether I would really enjoy living there. Of course, every time I have visited Israel, I’ve been on vacation of some sort and have had no pressure of work or studies while there. Likewise, I’ve always had a comfortable place to stay – never had to cook for myself, navigate the roads or live with the perpetual possibility of war.

I’ve enjoyed most of the trips I’ve taken throughout the world and would certainly like to return to many of the countries and cities I’ve been to if I have the opportunity. For me, however, none have given me quite the same feeling as Israel, and while I had amazing experiences in most of these places, I have typically been ready to go home again when trips have drawn to a close. With Israel, though, it’s different – that sense of belonging, of beauty, of heritage – the only place in the world where the Jewish people are a majority.

Again, I must remind myself that I’ve only visited Israel while on vacation, and I do love the hustle and bustle of New York. And, of course, the familiar smell of Carteret (or is that Secaucus?) as you careen down the New Jersey Turnpike. Let’s face it, America is pretty much indisputably the best country to live in, and I feel very lucky to live here and be an American citizen. But at the same time, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to live in the Jewish State. Well, this is a thought that I definitely cannot contemplate until I’ve learned of the language – because I’ve found that you really need a strong command of Hebrew to communicate properly and learn what life is really like there.

Perhaps it’s just an idealization, and if I actually spent an extensive period of time there, Israel would likely lose most of its charm – the fantasy would fade. I mean, look at all the Israelis who want to come to New York. A grass is always greener on the other side type of thing? Who knows. No one knows. And hey, it’s impossible to predict what will happen tomorrow, let alone for the weeks and months ahead.

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But anyway, this trip was so much fun. Though I’m sorry I did not get to see everyone I planned on seeing. Now for some highlights:

-My stroll in Tel Aviv from HaShalom train station, through the Azrieli Mall and ultimately ending up at the beach. Somehow I was able to navigate my way solo across Tel Aviv on foot – ok, so I may have asked for directions a couple times – and eventually arrive at the tayelet overlooking the ocean. Stopping for a moment to take a photo and update my mobile Facebook status, I bought some excellent gelato and crossed the road to the beach. Until Lior’s arrival, I sat in the sun, and just as he was approaching, a 50-ish Russian woman wandered over to me, unpleasingly sagging out of her bikini and waving her cell phone. I don’t speak Russian, I told her, and apparently she spoke neither Hebrew nor English. But through the hand motions, I devised that she wanted a video of herself. So I held up her cell phone and pressed “play,” as she ran into the water, rolled around, modeled some disturbingly sexual poses and finally finished. Alas, in Tel Aviv, I inadvertently became a porno filmographer.

-Falling off a tank in the Golan. With Lior and several of his friends – Raz, Roni, Zveka and Eyal – I took a really fun trip to the Golan Heights, perhaps the most beautiful – and green – part of the country. While there, we decided to stop at the base where their friend Yuval was serving in the reserves. Someone then decided that it would be a good idea to climb on and into the abandoned tank sitting across the road from the base, an old American tank given to Israel in the 1970s, I was told by Eyal. After exploring its caverns and taking photos, everyone jumped off easily. And then it was my turn. Somehow, while jumping off the tank, I slid on some slippery large rocks and ended up hand first on the ground among them. But I was rewarding with a triumphant looking bandage.

-When Jerby – who used to model – refused literally every girl that was hitting on him at a club in Tel Aviv. We couldn’t stop laughing, or, choking on the cigarette smoke in the “non-smoking” dance-bar.

-Practicing my ivrit with two and three year olds. Self-explanatory – these are the only people with whom I can communicate thus far.

-Seeing Noa and Liron’s family! (and Liron on Skype)

-Eating, eating and more eating (schnitzel, hummus, falafel, lafa, amazing fruits and vegetables)

-Playing matkot (the racquetball-esque game) on the beach in Herzilya ala the Zohan, but without the grenade.

-Strolling down the Tel Aviv tayelet in the twilight. cheesey : )

-And of course, that pleasant flight home…

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In a city where so many cultures seek spiritual reawakening, scientists in Jerusalem are harvesting their own type of rebirth, as they develop more ways to save lives through the use of undifferentiated stem cells.  

The laboratories of Israeli universities boast some of the newest advancements in molecular biology, and two potentially life-changing stem cell projects are unfolding at Hebrew University – Hadassah Medical School.

Fixing what was once thought to be irreversible, one of the teams is now capable of repairing neural birth defects, according to their leader, Joseph Yanai, professor of biology at Hadassah Medical School and adjunct professor at Duke University Medical School. The second team, led by Hadassah professors Howard Cedar and Yehudit Bergman, says they are unraveling the mechanism that locks cells into differentiated tissue types and reverting them back to their stem cell origins, so that the cells are viable for future disease repair in multiple organs.

While neither team can predict when their discoveries will be implemented in human lives, both teams are impressed with the rapid progress.

“It’s developing fast,” Yanai said.   Continue reading…

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In an era when religion and science seem divided by a gaping chasm, one group  of scientists is showing how these two belief systems may be a little closer than we think. A team of scientists led by Eliezer Schnall, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Yeshiva University, recently determined that women who attend religious services regularly may in fact live longer than those who do not.

In  the study’s sample pool, the women who habitually attended services were 20 percent less likely to die during the period studied than those who had not attended.  

“This is one of the largest studies of women that’s been done — it’s a large sample and women were carefully followed up over time,” said Harold Koenig, an associate professor of psychiatry and medicine and director of the Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health at Duke University. “It looked like those who attended religious services more frequently had a longer life.”   Continue reading…

by Sharon Udasin

During Barack Obama’s first few days as president, Jews from all over the world will send him their collective prayers and good wishes, rolled elegantly together in a Torah-size parchment “Scroll of Blessings.” 

The ongoing projects, called “Blessings for Barack” and “A Prayer for Our Country” call upon American Jews to come together to present a community-wide gift to Obama, a ritual performed for nearly every American president, according to the project’s coordinator, Shlomo Perelman of Judaism.com. Logging on to BlessingsforBarack.com, visitors have the option of composing a prayer for the United States or creating a personal blessing for Obama, in 324 characters or less. Continue reading…

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Lifting a frothy cappuccino with one hand and scribbling scraggly Hebrish notes with the other, David Saranga severed himself from his Twitter feed to sit down at a Midtown espresso bar last Monday, armed only with his BlackBerry and pocket-size digital camera.

Saranga, Israel’s consul for media and public affairs in the Israel Consulate, has led the consulate to the frontlines of a cyber battle that aims to spread Israel’s message to as many people as possible and create an instant dialogue with public opinion, he said. As the Israel Defense Forces faces Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israelis and Palestinians are engaging in a simultaneous online media war, fueled by real-time blog updates, talkbacks, YouTube video feeds and social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

By employing these tools, both supporters and opponents of Israel are changing the face of wartime activism — they are able to bypass the mainstream media and speak directly to readers, who in turn can influence their home governments, according to both Saranga and many other new media users who spoke to The Jewish Week.

“In the past, governments, organizations and so forth used to communicate their message through the media, a third party — something that caused Israel a lot of problems,” Saranga said. “All of a sudden I have a method of directly transferring my message and sharing my thoughts with the public.”  Continue reading…

A clip from Israel’s Eretz Nehederet Satire show — the Israeli version of SNL — making fun of the media’s coverage (specifically the BBC’s coverage) of the conflict in Gaza.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUzLyCN-MWw&hl=en&fs=1]

How disturbing – the following SMS/text message is circulating within the New York Jewish community: “A Jewish woman gave a tip to a Muslim taxi driver and out of appreciation he warned her not to go to Manhattan next week Wednesday.”

Hopefully it is just a hoax and will remain untrue. Allegedly the message has been sent as a sort of anti-Semitic psychological war in response to Gaza, or so Yeshiva World News reports. Snopes.com feels that there is little validity to this quote, and a blog called “YidVid” writes that this is definitely untrue – I hope they’re correct.

Courtesy of the New York Israel Consulate’s blog, “Israel Politik:”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFl51__Q9Gc&hl=en&fs=1]

“As this video shows, evidently, Hamas does.  Upon entering Gaza, the IDF has found tunnels and stores… [continue reading]