A letter from Israel

Wikipedia Public domain Well, actually she has been around for more than a 100 years now. Sarah was born on the fifth of January 1890 and in 1917 died from the gunshot wounds of an attempted suicide. Our common home town, Zichron Yaakov, recently held the 100-year old anniversary of her death. In the suicide note she wrote: “I no longer have the strength to suffer, and it would be better for me to kill myself than to be tortured under their bloodied hands.”

We enjoy our bagels a lot here in Israel - the diet can wait until after the next holiday! Me and my fellow English-speaking Israelis belong to this secret Facebook group where we share crazy, awesome and weird stuff about life in Israel. Some of the posts are really cool and heart-warming but other posts (especially from the newbie immigrants) just make me go from one face-palm to the next.

Chocolate pie with pomegranates and a chocolate sauce I often make this chocolate pie for my family for something sweet for the weekend. It is quick to prepare and I usually have the ingredients already at home. So usually no quick dash to the supermarket is needed :)

The blue hour - early in the morning on my porch I belong to a photo group called 52Frames . Every week we create an album based on a specific challenge. Lately I have come to realize that my creative journey with this group has slowly become much more than just about improving my photography.

The HaHagana train station in Tel Aviv at night. I recently started to commute to Tel Aviv with the train and has to get off at the last station called the Hahagana station. It means “the defense” in Hebrew and is named after the HaHagana street nearby. Travelling from Benjamina (my home station) is a quiet and fast 30 minute ride to the first stop at the university. Then the journey carries on to the central train station also known as Savidor, the third one that is called the Shalom train station and the last one is the HaHagana train station. You will embark at the Shalom station if you come to the city to shop or see museums. The other two will provide further connections inland or take you to the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. But HaHagana station will be your gateway to the real heart of Tel Aviv. If you disembark there, your destination is down-town baby! The first three stations all seem to have to the more upscale-y clientele. They are also closer to each. It is bas...

Although it is already nearly the end of October, the days are still very hot in here in Israel. The rains of autumn and that cool, clean feeling they bring are still just a wishful longing for the most of us. But one gets tired of sitting in front of the perpetual-turning fan or the headache-inducing hum of the air con. No matter how hot it is going get, I promised myself, I am going on a HIKE already!!

A clerk: Raphael Kohn, and a cop : Joseph Kuperman Not a yet a city  but not a village anymore.. I live in Zichron Yaakov, a small medium-sized town in the northern part of Israel. We have grown from a dusty village on a hill top in the middle of nowhere to a large vibrant nearly city.  Though we still do not have any traffic lights, I am pretty sure that the Romanian founding fathers and mothers would not recognize the place anymore. They bought their land in 1882 but had no luck growing anything in the rocky soil. Also the nearby swamps were totally invested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes causing the death of far too many people, especially children.