Dear Mr. Sarrazin,

Yesterday I spent a day in Naumburg, writing a follow up about the trial of the 20-year-old from Laucha who attacked an Israeli kid after calling him “Jewish Pig”. Since most of the witnesses were underage we had a lot of breaks in the session. In one of those breaks I sat for an interview with Andreas Karl (Karl, like Karl Marx, he introduced himself), the head of the NPD party in Laucha.

Mr. Sarrazin I would like to let you know that in the NPD branch in Laucha you are a role model. They quote you and looking up to you, saying that you were always a progressive thinker. If you are looking for a group to lead, or just give a speech to a welcoming crowd (not this jelly liberals from Berlin), I have the contacts for you.

Mr. Sarrazin, I am really pissed with… weiter lesen

It was one of these days. You are willing to let your wife climb on your nervous system, and let your daughter give her a supporting hand.You let some maintenance workers inside your house at 8 am, completely executing what was left of your sleep, and then indulge yourself in the pleasures of life: heating milk, cooking, cleaning dishes, cleaning the kitchen, prepare the baby etc… All you ask in return is just five minutes with yourself and the park and the rays of sun.

After the heat cooled down we took Maya to the water fountains at Weinberg Park. I am not really fond of this place. It is too full, kids can easily slip, and there are many broken glasses from all the people that drunk there the previous night, and there are many lonely adults there who like to stare at the kids. But it has water, and… weiter lesen

I like to cook. I like Falafel. I like to cook (actually to prepare and fry) Falafel at home. This fascination grew mostly out of frustration: most of the people that sell Falafel in Berlin should stand trial in front of the Hague international court in the tribunal dealing with crimes against culinarity.

I am very particular when it comes to cooking. When I was into my Asian phase, I talked to my daughter only in Mandarin and I was  reading only “The Art of War”, and when  I was into my Russian cooking phase we were dividing the Borsch equally between us, and then everyone of us would storm the other’s plate and grab whatever they could.

So when I started with Falafel I made sure to have the freshest herbs and made sure that someone will send me the special Tahini from Nablus. I bought the special iron net that… weiter lesen

One of Maya’s favorite things to do–that is other than insisting on walking when we exit Kita (therefore making our trip back home ten times longer then it supposed to be) and insisting that I will carry her on my hands three flights of stairs when we finally reach our flat-is reading. She reads everything, reading makes her very calm, and, I must admit, reading babies are great gifts for their parents. As a young parent you learn how to evaluate buying things for your babies by how much time it gives you piece of mind. Books get top rating in that category.

One of Maya’s favorite books is one she got from my family in Israel. It tells the story of a young elephant who is depressed over the fact that he is grey, boring grey. A little bird watches the little elephant, ask him why he is so sad and even though the… weiter lesen

I remember my first time shopping in a German supermarket. It was at Kaiser’s in the west part of the city, it was a Saturday afternoon and I was buying all sorts of stuff in order to cook on the weekend. Naturally, coming to Berlin after 10 years in New York, I didn’t carry cash with me, so by the time the cashier finished bar coding me I just handed to her my credit card. She looked at me strangely and said: nur EC.

As I said, it was in the west so the people behind me were really patient when I apologized and left everything on the counter to go to the ATM to get some cash. I took out 50 Euros which were enough to make the purchase and even to get 6 cents back. Then I grabbed two bags from beneath the counter and was planning to throw the groceries in when the cashier looked… weiter lesen