Author Archive for Scott
New York publicist Scott Piro visited Israel for the first time at the end of 2008. He liked it so much he made Aliyah two months later. Today he studies Hebrew in the morning, works for a nonprofit in the afternoon, does his Hebrew homework like a good motek in the evening, and serves up his experiences as an oleh chadash late nights at Gefilte Fish out of Water.
A (First) Year in the Life of an Oleh Chadash
‘Tis the season. For looking back and Top Ten lists, I mean. Especially this year, as we say good riddance bye to the aughts. I’ll spare you my thoughts on the decade, because you’ve probably read a jillion recaps already and plus, it doesn’t make sense for this column. Most of [...]
The 12 8 days of Xmas Hanukkah
“Make this week’s column about Christmas.”
That was the stern edit hammered down upon me by iGoogledIsrael’s editor, Ashley. Actually, Ashley’s British, so this sounded more like Ahem, Scott, if you would be so kind, could you please focus the next column around Christmas in Israel, right? I mean, really, Chap, it’s not a must, but you know, [...]
Making Aliyah: uncovering the Tel Aviv gay scene
There’s a New Girl in town, ladies. For the first six months since making Aliyah last March, I did not go out very much. Intensive ulpan and full-time employment made it virtually impossible. But after completing kita alef a few months ago, I’ve been making more forays into what Tel Aviv’s gay scene has to offer. Here’s a bit [...]
Tweetsgiving
Toda Raba. One of few Hebrew phrases every Hebrew-as-a-second-language person can say – even Anglo ulpan dropouts like ani. (Actually, I like to throw around Toda L’cha and Toda Lach a lot – because I trained myself to remember the different masculine and feminine forms of “Thanks to you” in Hebrew, and I like to delude [...]
Tel Aviv: One Big Parking Lot
“That’s OK, we can walk to the curb from here.”
Annie Hall fans will recognize the famous quote Woody Allen says to Diane Keaton after her awful parking job in 1977’s Best Picture. If that film were remade in Tel Aviv today, the dialogue could make sense rewritten as –
ANNIE HALL: “Wow, a parking spot!”
ALVY [...]
Israel: a dog’s best friend
Two weeks ago I rescued a dog from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Israel, one of several animal shelters in Tel Aviv. My family always had dogs as pets, and I thought adopting my first puppy would add a dimension of fullness to my fledgling life here in Tel Aviv. The special [...]
The diva of Middle East weather: Israeli rain!
Sleigh bells ring, are you listenin’? In the lane, slow is glistenin’. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight. Walkin’ in a winter wonderland.
WTF???
If you enjoyed this post why not buy us a pint? It’s tough work writing the excellent stuff we come up with and beer sure helps 
Very taxing: dealing with the Israeli taxman!
“You don’t even have to file here.”
“You need to file, but you won’t pay anything, because you’re an Oleh Chadash.”
“The system is set up here so that people can work “black” (tax free).”
“You need to register as self-employed.”
“No one cares how you are paid. They expect you to not report the income.”
If you enjoyed this [...]
Life in Israel: Go mop that floor with a squeegee…
I don’t even know if “squeegee” is the right thing to call it. Israelis might call it a magav, but I’m not sure about that. You know how the symbol for Capricorn is the body of a goat…with the torso of a man on top? Well, that’s sort of like what the magav is. It’s [...]
Aliyah 2 dot 0
Last month I visited home for the first time since making Aliyah in March. And now I’m back. Yeah, so now what? Well, I know one thing: whatever happens next, it has to be more than before. More? More what? More varied-rich-fulfilling-new-risky-complex…for starters. I mean that’s the whole point of building a life somewhere; it has to grow.
If you [...]
A man of two lands
I just returned from a two-week trip to the United States. Considering this was my first trip home since making Aliyah last March, it was a big deal for me. Wait a minute – I thought Scott wasn’t calling the U.S. “home” anymore, because Israel is his home now? True, I did make a big [...]
Learning Hebrew - Bye bye Kita Alef!
School ends this week. But it’s so much more than that. For the past five months, I’ve been in Intensive Kita Alef at Ulpan Gordon in Tel Aviv. 8:15 am – 12:50 pm, Sunday through Thursday. Ulpan is intensive language school that teaches adult immigrants like me the basics of reading, writing and [...]
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- Picture of the Week XLIII March 4, 2010
- Picture of the Week XLII February 25, 2010
- Picture of the Week XLI February 18, 2010
- A Toddler’s Guide to Nazareth February 16, 2010
- Picture of the Week XL February 11, 2010
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