Twice a week I am making deliveries of my products to local supermarkets. Tonight I delivered to two supermarkets and at the latter, there was a women standing near the counter, scribbling something on a piece of note. I stood next to her and started unloading hummus boxes on the counter.

She stopped her writing and asked me angrily why I am using the counter she was using for her writing. I apologized in German, I guess with some heavy accent.

“You are not German!!” she yelled at me. “What language are you speaking?”

I told her that we can speak in English, but mentioned that my Hebrew is better.

She paused for a second, and moved into quick German.

“You are not a Jew!”, she said angrily. “You are delivering food. You must be Turkish!!”. Then she started observing me, looking at my shoes, the clothes I was wearing.… weiter lesen

Gilad Shalit is on the way home.

You can argue about the price, some will. Or the consequences. Or the preceding effect.

You can say what you want about PM Netanyau, but took the extra step in the holy promise given to every parent giving his kids to the army: that the state of Israel will do whatever it can to bring him or her back home safely. I can argue that Netanyau policy almost guarantee the opposite, but I have to give him credit where it is due.

You can argue and argue, but it breaks down to this: soon, Gilad Shalit will be back to where he belongs. Home, to his loving parents.

And then, after Israel will share a rare moment of unity, he will start to live with himself. free.

On friday, around four PM we started to close the bistro (I don’t like bistro, but this is what the Bau amt wants), in preparation for Yom Kippur. One of the diners, a woman in her 30′s saw me hanging the sign, saying that we will be closed for the next two days, started to inquire me about Yom Kippur.

I did my best job trying to explain the concept of atonement, first philosophically, and then on the practical aspect. It went like this:

Her: “So it just like the Ramadan”.

Me: “no, we don’t eat at night. We don’t eat for 26 hours”.

Her: “but you are allowed to drink”.

Me: “no, we are not allowed to do nothing for 26 hours, just pray, and atone to ourselves, and ask for forgiveness from those we hurt in the past year”.

Her: “what do you mean you are not allowed… weiter lesen

While making the last preparations for lunch today, I delved into this thought: what if I am entirely wrong?

I mean, what if all this block of believes, moral stands and political views that I have built for myself and conducted my life upon will not stand the wave of reality?

What if all my mechanics that call for two state for two people, for discussion about Jerusalem, 48′ lines, the right of some of the refugees and the abandonment of the settlement hallucination, what if all of these, once fulfilled with accordance to my wishes, will tackle the reality presented by very insightful people from the hawkish part of Israel? What if is it really not a territorial discussion, but an essential discussion about acknowledging the other side right to live in Israel?

There was something horrifying and relieving about that thought. It was horrifying to face, even for a moment… weiter lesen

I realize that the headline sounds like a bad joke, only it is not a joke: it is Klezmer meets Hummus, Sunday May 29th at 20:30 at Oranienburgerstrasse 29.

I don’t know Klezmer, but I am cooking a decent Hummus.

I went to a bar, around the corner from my house, with a friend. It was Friday night and quite crowded, so we joined a table with two more couples.

At some point, we went out for a smoke. One of the females near us asked if she can come with us and keep us warm. She asked my friend where he is from, then told us where she was from, and then asked me where I was from.

I gave her my usual and charming answer: “I am coming from the peaceful land of Israel.”

There was a mili-second of silence, she took a drag from the rolled cigarette, and start to say: “sind Sie Ju..”, and stopped.

We kept talking for a few more minutes, and then went inside. After ten minutes my friend excused him for the toilet. She took the opportunity and… weiter lesen

I don’t know how many of you are following the insane letter signed by a few city rabbis in Israel, telling their followers that it is forbidden to rent or sell apartments to Arabs in their respective cities.

Since I have never learned how to handle people with mental disturbances, I am not going to elaborate about these rabbis, but I do want to write about a group of rabbis who decided to oppose the letter.

One of them is Rabbi Haim Druckman who came up with this brilliant solution. The owner of the apartments should distinguish between “good Arabs” and “bad Arabs” when they want to rent or sell apartments to Arabs.

First, I would like to command Druckman, an active member of the right wing in Israel, for his acknowledgement of such thing as “good Arabs”.

But I must say that I am little bit confused. How do… weiter lesen

Let’s play a game. This game should come with a warning: don’t look in the mirror a few hours after playing it.

Here’s the game: let’s keep Thilo Sarrazin’s thoughts and words just like they are. The only tweak we are going to make is change one word: every time Sarrazin is saying Muslims we will delete the word and write instead Jews. Try it.

What would be the response? Will it be any different from the original response?

And if yes, does it make the respondents racist?

I happened to read this unreal opinion by the editor of “The Local”, an English website detailing life in Germany. The article is named “The New anti-Semitism” and it deals with some parallels of what is happening now to the Muslim immigrants in Germany to what happened to the Jews in Europe in the 30′s and 40′s. Of course, the distinguished writer put a disclaimer that he doesn’t equate the two cases, but that’s exactly what he does.

Since I have been hearing this claim a few times already I would like to make it perfectly clear what I think about it. The political remarks toward Muslim in Germany are horrible, but anyone who draw a line between the history of the Jews to the situation of the Muslim these days, is not only not-well informed historically, but even worse: by using this guilt-filled flag… weiter lesen

Today Taz published my opinion in its long series “Debatte unser Israel”. You can see it in this link.