My Israeli Love Story: Part II – At The Airport

I know it’s been a while since I posted. Oops. It’s holiday season in Israel and I’ve been trying to interact with people in person rather than online. Good for me, bad for writing.

Anyways, here is the second part, titled “My Israeli Love Story: Part II – At The Airport,” in what will be a series of blog entries about Uri and I on my Jpost blog. This weekend was our one year anniversary, and it was amazing for me to reflect about the whole thing. A year and a half ago, when I was doing stand up comedy about my horrific dating life, I would have thought you were crazy to tell me that I’d be writing about a budding romance in the paper. Life is nice and surprising sometimes, :).

Hope everyone’s doing well!

Photo by Hoyasmeg on Creative Commons

Why Keeping it Real about Israel is Hard

I took a reprieve from doing the next chapter of My Israeli Love Story to focus on current events. I promise that, “My Israeli Love Story Part 2,” will be written in the near future, :).

However, this week’s post is quite different in style. It is one of my braver, not-so-neat-and-tidy posts. It’s called, “Why Keeping it Real about Israel is Hard,” and is on my Jpost blog.

The post begins with this sentence: “My friend asked if Jon Stewart had done anything on the Daily Show about the Israeli embassy attack in Cairo?” Read on to read intriguing conversations about Egypt, Israel, and the peace process!

Photo by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Creative Commons

The Love Story Behind My Move to Israel

For some time I’ve wanted to write a post describing how I originally met my boyfriend, which inspired my decision to move to Israel. This week, for whatever reason, felt like the right time. I finally had enough perspective and felt comfortable enough in our relationship to do so.

It’s titled, “My Israeli Love Story,” and is on my Jpost blog. This is the first in a series of personal posts. Stay tuned!

Random funny camel photo by Noah Veltman (noahveltman.com)

My blog is today’s top Jerusalem Post blog!

As some of you may know, I started writing a personal column for the Jerusalem Post Lite in June on a trial basis. Well, it received such strong feedback that they decided to make it a permanent blog on Jpost’s website!

My first post is actually today’s top featured blog!

 

The blog is titled, “A new take on native,” and is a way for me to share my perspective on Israel as a new immigrant. Specifically, I described fresh observations that might be new or insightful to Israelis. It will be in their “aliyah” section, which refers to blogs from new immigrants.

Before sharing my first post widely, I realized there were a few cultural things I needed to explain to audiences outside of Israel.

1) I use the term, “making aliyah.” This term refers to the process in which Jews outside of Israel can become citizens of the State of Israel based on Israel’s Law of Return. Some consider the Law of Return controversial in comparison to the Palestinian right of return. To be fair, I use the same source to explain both sides: Wikipedia (on an unrelated note, I am writing about Wikipedia soon because I went to their annual conference in Haifa and got to interview Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder!).

At this point, I am considered a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. On a personal level, I made aliyah mostly for practical reasons: I liked living in Israel and knew that I wanted to live here for a long time. Given the option, I preferred becoming a citizen to remaining on a work visa status because it made my life easier financially as well as legally.

2) Part of becoming an Israeli citizen can mean a mandatory military service. All Israeli women under the age of 22 and men under the age of 26 are obligated to serve in the Israel Defense Force unless they go to a Yeshiva, are married, have children, have a suitable medical reason or are Arab-Israeli. Because I became a dual citizen at the age of 26, I was not obligated to do this.

3) “Sabra” is a reference to native Israelis.

Hope you enjoy this humorous first piece, “My boss punched me. With love.

Feedback about Holocaust humor from Jews 40+

As some of you may know, I am in the midst of writing an article about a webcomic called “Hipster Hitler.” The premise is that Hitler is portrayed as a modern day Hipster. I’m curious if the Jewish community thinks this comic is funny. More generally, I’m also curious what folks think is on/off limits in regards to Holocaust humor.

Since some of the funnier things about Hipter Hitler is their t-shirts, which Hitler wears hipsterly in each comic, I’m going to provide some examples below:

 

So far I’ve received a lot of great comments from people mostly in their 20s. For readers who may know Jews that are 40+ who’d be interested in responding (or who are Jews/40+!), I would love your feedback on this. Similarly, I’d also love feedback from Jews 70+. However, if this comic is too offensive to them, I’d understand not showing it. But if it’s not, I’d love their feedback as well. Generally, I’d love their thoughts on Holocaust humor, with or without having seen this comic.

To spice it up, here are some other examples of Holocaust humor:

Springtime for Hitler. (From theater version.) The premise is that producers want to short sell a musical, so they come up with most offensive musical of all times: Springtime for Hitler. This is a Mel Brooks classic and is often referred to in regards to Holocaust humor. 

This is rated one of the best “kitlers” from a website called, “Cats That Look like Hitler.com”

Thoughts?

New general blog!

Hi everyone,

Now that I’m writing about all sorts of things, including a personal column, cultural articles as well as social justice issues, I decided to create a more general webpage. This will provide links to The Internal Conflict as well as showcase my other writing.

Hope you enjoy!

Street art on Tel Aviv beach; Photo taken by Tom Rosbrow (my Dad)!