In May, I had written about the German driver. I would like to get back to the subject please.

I first drove in Germany in the times when I used to come to Berlin for a weekend of partying. It’s was a toxic combination: I was so fucking high, and coming from a system where everything on the road is controlled by signs, I was completely unaware to the fact that I must give the right for the car coming from the right. This experience alone should have made me religious.

Nowadays, I am driving almost everyday. I am still amazed by the entitlement that rules the roads here, I am still amazed by the impossible angles drivers must look at in order to cross a crossing, I am amazed by how narrow the streets are (sometimes, it’s like to fat people trying to pass… weiter lesen

There is a new ad campaign in Israel. It is all over the country, on huge billboards.

The posters feature football players from the national team, under the headline: Blue and white is us. The slogan, reflecting the colors of the Israeli flag, encourages people to buy products that were produced in Israel.

Naturally, the players pictures were taken while they were wearing the official Israeli team national uniforms.

It is hard to miss the Adidas symbol on their T-shirt.

One of the main differences between Israel and Germany is driving. I will make it simple: When driving in Germany, I am expecting the expected. Things will go as they should go. If you deviate, you will have to carry any consequences. The gap for adjustments is quite narrow.

In Israel, you drive with the notion that the unexpected is the norm. It is not just tired drivers or people who make innocent mistakes, it is just people who use the road and the wheel as a stress relief, a discharge for aggression. You learn to adjust to it quite fast: while driving from the north today, I kept passing cars while driving on the right lane as if this was the norm.

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In a way the road is quite a reflection for the country. Before heading north today, we went to the beach in Tel Aviv. It was perfect:… weiter lesen

This is the fifth day of our vacation. Today was a good day. We drove down with my family to the Dead Sea, covered ourselves with mud, drove back to Jerusalem, ate excellent Kurdish food in Jerusalem, walked through the market, and drove back to Tel Aviv.

It was the first day of the vacation where we didn’t mingle with Israeli people. I didn’t get upset at all, or got frustrated. It was, when I think of it, an excellenet day. We just made Shabbat dinner with prayers for the bread and the wine.

I feel that another layer of my identity is starting to fade.

What does it mean to be an Israeli? I don’t really know. There are about ten million options, but none of them is telling the whole story, not even one half of it. An Israeli is someone who knows that when another Israeli says “trust me” or “believe me” he should never believe or trust the guy who said it.

An Israeli eats watermelon, and he can go to the end of the world and still look for his cottage cheese.

An Israeli will ask you to let him in first on the line in the super because he had only two items, but then his wife join him with a cart full of products.

An Israeli knows you, or someone who knows you, or someone that was in bed with you. There are only three degrees of separation in Israel.

An Israeli don’t smoke on a shabbat, but he… weiter lesen

It’s fucking nice in here. The temperature flirt with the high 20′s, and we rent 2 chairs and a shade, throw a blanket and let the sun take care of us. Then we go and fight the waves, or collect shells with Maya.

35 kilometers away people are congratulating each other with bombs.

North Israel is paradise. The trees are falling because they can’t carry the weight of the bananas or mangos, avocados or apples. There are excellent wines coming from the region. And it is so quite, you need to check every ten minutes that you didn’t become deaf. Even Maya slept until eight.

And everyone can see what is going on behind the border and realize that another war is just a matter of time.

People are telling you how, exactly, you are supposed to raise your kid, and that you must hurry with… weiter lesen

Despite the fact that we were sitting on the Airbus’ first row, no one had the patient to let us go out first, then everyone was walking on top of us to get inside the overcrowded bus driving to the terminal (it wasn’t like there was not another bus waiting behind), then the escalator wasn’t working so we used the elevator to go up, but another eight people insisted on getting in, and then everyone was skipping us on the line for the passport check. 

But hey, it was 28 degrees outside and you could taste the humidity. 

When people ask me what do I miss the most about Israel I say Hummus, the beach, and the warmth–the climate and of the people. What I never tell them is that after a couple of days, this warmth is burning me. 

It’s pretty sad to be in Israel these days. I will elaborate… weiter lesen

I Have travelled to Krakow in the last couple of days for an article. I had some shocking moments there, especially when a 72-old Israeli by the name of Yehudit, identified herself in one of the pictures in block six in Auschwitz. Apparently, she and her twin sister, Leah, were Mengele’s favorite toys.

Krakow is a beautiful city, very vibrant and hip, filled with young people. But walking in the Jewish quarter, after having camp cocktail, I couldn’t stop seeing faces, families at the dinner table, praying for the wine, looking out at me and making sure that I will never forget them or stop telling their story.

The general thought is that without “Schindler’s List”, Krakow would be another beautiful European big city. But now you can’t stop notice the signs, byproducts and the thousands of people in Krakow and its satellites cities and villages making money of the… weiter lesen

Last Week I wrote here a brief a brief account of my encounter with Samuel Kunz who, according to prosecution, was involved in the murder of 434,000 Jews in Belzec and killed ten of them on his own initiative. I contacted a local paper and told them that I want to offer them the story. The paper answered me that they can’t print the story, partially because I mention the name and address of Kunz.

So I have decided to run the entire story here. I really don’t care. I think that if someone will come to question me I will have the correct answer: it took Germany 65 years to find someone who helped in the murdering of thousands of people, but it took them two minutes to find someone who exposed his real name and address. So here it is, sue me:

Hermann Heck was certain his search… weiter lesen

Warning: this is a very long post. It includes a little entry followed by a magazine article. Anyone who doesn’t have the patient can read the shorter version here.

A couple of months ago I read a news report about an attack of an Israeli teenager in the city of Laucha. The story grabbed my attention when I read about the family history of the victim: one of his grandfather was the only survivor of his family from the Holocaust, the other died in the attack of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.

So I drove there and filed this unbelievable story for Haaretz. Then I called some local papers and offered the story for free, I just felt that it was my duty as a journalist and citizen to get the story to as many people as possible. Every paper refused my offer giving a… weiter lesen