Fish Out Of Water | igoogledisrael.com

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 [...]

December 27, 2009 | Scott | Comments 8

The <s>12</s> 8 days of <s>Xmas</s> Hanukkah

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, [...]

December 13, 2009 | Scott | Comments 4

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 [...]

December 02, 2009 | Scott | Comments 6

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 [...]

November 25, 2009 | Scott | Comments 0

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 [...]

November 18, 2009 | Scott | Comments 12

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 [...]

November 10, 2009 | Scott | Comments 8

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 [...]

October 27, 2009 | Scott | Comments 2

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 [...]

October 12, 2009 | Scott | Comments 5

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 [...]

October 05, 2009 | Scott | Comments 1

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 [...]

September 13, 2009 | Scott | Comments 9

Madonna in Israel: Sticky and Kosher

On Tuesday I was lucky to get within 18 inches 45 centimeters of my Number One Icon Madonna. Never mind that I had already seen her Sticky and Sweet tour four times in New York City last year; this time I was seeing her in Israel, and I had (cue the Angelic [...]

September 06, 2009 | Scott | Comments 4

Israel’s Crack Problem

There is entirely too much ass crack on display in this country. Think I’m joking? I’m not. If you’ve been here more than five minutes, you know what I’m talking about.
In America, it’s a cliché: the fat, unattractive plumber type – kneeling down to fix a leak and oblivious that his unappealing [...]

August 30, 2009 | Scott | Comments 8

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