Our last month on the adventure...

 Its been a month since I've last written, and now we are gearing up to go home in just 3 days. We will arrive home on August 19th- jacob's 45th birthday, just two weeks before the kids start school.

Our last month we moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and then to ramat hasharon.  While we were in Jerusalem our routine was pretty much bring the kids to camp, I would work at a nearby coffee shop, jacob would go and study hebrew and some judaic classes and then we would spend the afternoons eating and hanging out and then go out to one of the glorious playgrounds.  In the two weeks we were there we ran into so many people that knew someone I knew.  At a playground one evening I started speaking with someone who then realized that I was the yonit that our mutual friend Irit had told her was doing a sabbatical- becuase she was also a pediatrician on a sabbatical! We didn't do too much sightseeing as it was hot and I also have seen most things things, and the kids are still young to appreciate the history of the place- but we did do the underground water tunnels that were excavated in the last decade and had a really fascinating history dating back thousands of years and still essentially carrying water through them. And on our last day there we visited the acquarium which housed fish from all of the seas around israel

We had a bit of a car curfufal when jacob came to meet me at the tunnels and left the keys to the car we had rented for the weekend in the cab! It was the one time we had keys with no airtag on them- and the one time we had lost them! After renting 6 other cars these last 8 months i am still thinking it is impressive that we made it that far!

When we moved from Jerusalem to TLV we did not have a place to stay- we were supposed to rent an apartment for a month and that fell through after the Iran war and we hadn't been able to find an affordable place.  So the night before moving we picked an apartment that had a bomb shelter in it- because that was now the criteria as there were sirens weekly and we didnt want to have to wake the kids up each time and traumatize them.  It was more money than we wanted to spend but we were sort of desperate.  When we arrived to TLV and i walked into the apartment i felt like we were living in a bar- there were neon lights, the apartment was pretty small and had very steep stairs separating the two bedrooms.  I pictured my energetic children running up and down in the middle of the night and causing a traumatic brain injury- like the 8 year old girl who was essentially brain dead that i had taken care of a few years back who had done the same thing.  And I was out of there. We moved to my parents place for the night, the kids were amazing and went with it- they were starting camp the next day and took it all in stride.  And jacob and i spent the next day touring apartments to find soemthing.  We were able to negotiate for a last minute deal at this amazing place over looking the beach just a few blocks from my parents place.  And with all of my attempts to sway airbnb they were not going to give us even a cent back in refunds.  So we knew that after the 11 days of staying in this amazing apartment we would need to find a place for free because our budget was spent and then some.  During our time there my first cousin had a wedding party- we got to see our whole extended family, and we met lots of my parents friends.

That week we went to the beach most days, jacob dropped the kids at camp and then would run back along the beach.  I went food shopping in the shuk just a few blocks away and we were enjoying the time.  My sisters were in town for my cousins wedding, and it was fun to see all of my extended family and spend some time with my sisters in Israel as well.  The camp however was not great for adira, and after a few days we pulled her out.  In israel, most kids stay in preschool until 1st grade, and the preschool provides camp as well.  So there were few options for kids her age.  We spent a day visiting my cousin Doron's art studio- you can see her stuff here: https://www.doronadorian.com/ where there also happend to be a camp for older kids that adira jumped in and out of while doron and i had coffee together. And the rest of the week adira was with my mom for a few hours while i worked.  We met a family who is sending their daughter to school with Adira this coming year at Hannah Senesh Day School- and the kids played for hours in the park while we ate and drank and got to know the parents. 

 Over the weekend, we went to visit Nachal Oz- a kibbutz that was attacked and many were killed or taken hostage from on October 7th.  We visited a family who had stayed at my sister's house last summer on a program to get a vacation of sorts away from it all.  They have 4 children, and their parents when the attack occured grabbed their son's gun who was home from the army- put all of the kids in the safe room and started shooting from the roof.  They managed to protect the house, and when the israeli army came after the terrorists had left they saw the dad on the roof with a gun and thought he was a terrorist and killed him.  They had left the kibbutz like all the members, and just 3 weeks ago returned.  We had a tour and could see gunshots and blood still on some buildings, they told stories of the hostages from each home we past. It was an emotional day and yet you could see what a beautiful place the kibbutz was at some time- how it held the environment i was seeking- kids roaming around free and barefoot.

The first day we moved out of the apartment into my parents place for 4 days was Adira's birthday.  We threw her a sweet birthday party at a nearby park with families we had met along our time in Israel.  There was a family from Kibbutz Gezer where I grew up, a family we had met in Italy who lived about 45 minutes away, a family in tel aviv who my parents introduced us to, and a family who lived in ramat hasharon who was generously giving us their home while they traveled abroad for two weeks.  The kids had met them each just once or twice but had gotten along so well each time.  Everyone always commented when they met our kids " They are so friendly its really amazing" and I think it is a combination of who they are and of this trip, which has taught them how to make friends fast with people from anywhere who speak any language.  We had a water balloon toss and a pinata and Adira was on cloud 9!

When we stayed at my parents jacob and i accompanied my mom to one of the protests in hostage square- this was the week that Hamas released the video of the hostages who were starving and looked like holocaust survivors.  The square is filled with people holding booths for family members, communities, who were or are hostages.  There was a beautiful havdala service put on by the reform movement, and i cried so hard the whole time.  Then there are people coming to speak on a large stage telling stories and begging the government- israeli and american- to stop the war and bring home their loved ones.  There is another protest just a few blocks away that my mom usually attends after this one which is protesting the current israeli government, but just a few days prior she had been at a protest and was tear gased and got pretty shaken up. There were about 60,000 israelis at hostage square though, so we couldnt make it to the anti government protest.  

One of the things I worried about when we were coming here was how it would feel to be here during this time- politically and emotionally.  Mostly it has felt sad.  People are broken.  People are grieving. People are tired, and also just trying to live.

We left tel aviv and moved to ramat hasharon just 30 minutes north in a suburb.  Shiloh did surf camp, and was very proud of his ability to stand on a surf board and catch a wave each time he tried! Adira went to camp with Liv her friend that we had met in Italy, in this adorable backyard where she was barefoot with dogs and bunnies and they made things out of reusable materials and cooked every day.  Adira had her first sleepover! It was at Liv's house, and although she went to bed late- they told me she was just very thankful to them for letting her sleep over! We went to meet my friend Tamar and her family one night at a pool near their grandparents house, and then watched the sunset at the beach together.  And shiloh had a sleepover at our Italy friend's house one night as well.  Our connection with this family was so special for us as they met us on this journey, shared many values, and we were able to meet them again in a different place on the trip! We ended the week at my cousin's house- and Jacob said we are just as busy here socially as we are in Brooklyn!

We are starting to plan our arrival home and thinking through the emotions it might be bringing up.  I have so much gratitude for this trip, but I also have some things we didnt get to experience that I had hoped we would, and it feels like a missed opportunity in some ways. I dont know when or if we will get to do this again, and there is something about middle age that feels like i have to hold these moments so near because time moves quickly.  We left with many questions that I hoped to answer, and most of them I wasn't able to- like where do we think is the best place for our family to thrive in living, and what is my next career move...but we also answered questions i didnt realize i wanted answers to. I didnt seem to rid myself of those awful parenting responses i sometimes have when i'm quick to react and anger, but i did learn to recognize them quicker and catch myself some of the times.  I learned how good it feels when i do meditatte and exercise everyday, and also how hard it is to do that all of the time.  We were challenged in so many ways, and we grew as a family and as individuals in ways i dont think we would have at home.  Just today we spent the day at this home doing much of nothing all day, which is something we very rarely did in Brooklyn- and I felt like we gained those skills- we learned how to hang out with each other without going stir crazy too quickly.  I set out a bunch of pots and pans and water and the kids made a mudd kitchen in the backyard without instruction. 

A friend of mine asked what will you bring with you that you gained from this trip- mostly i am hoping we slow down a bit.  Spend more time just being together.  I also recognized yet again how important nature is for me.  So i will try to find ways to incorporate that into my life even if just running in the park- more regularly. I have also learned a bit more about what we all need, and how i might be able to respond when we aren't able to all get that.

We learned spanish and hebrew, some italian. We learned :

Shiloh learned to surf, had his first sleepover, learned to SUP, to Ninja, to multiply, and to eat fish and beans!

Adira learned to swim, had her first sleepver, learned to write the word BOB, and to smile when she is nervous and how that helps her make friends!

Yonit learned some past tense in spanish, became a certified lactation consultant, is in the midst of her first qualitative research study, published some papers, and restarted meditation and HITT workouts!

Jacob got into hyrox, read lots of books, learned some judaic studies, and made headway on his to do lists.

THings we brought on the trip that were helpful:

Laundry Detergent Sheets

Stitches without stiches (that i thankfully didnt have to use)

Shiloh's kindle ( which he read more books than we can count on)

Snack Tins (always helpful to pack snacks ready to go, and also for camps and schools)

Mineral Based Sunscreen (which is surprisingly so difficult to get abroad)

My favorite cleanser made from manuka honey

This swimsuit from Amazon that doubled as an outfit and also kept me from burning in the sun

Games: cards, uno, travel chess set, stuffed animals and clothing/blankets for play, travel art supplies, books and more books that we got everywhere we went because my kids devour them

 JHK Entry: Top Ten Surprises, Both Good and Bad

10) Flesh. More specifically, the men at the Tel Aviv beaches, half of whom seemed to have six packs (including a man I saw who looked to be sixty-five), and the women at the Tenerife beaches, a quarter of whom went around topless. In Tenerife I barely noticed the (lack) of attire, given my happy marriage, but it did make me wonder why Tenerife women seemed so much more comfortable in their skin than women elsewhere.

9) Hiking trails in Tenerife, which were abundant, varied, and routinely spectacular. I particularly loved this one hike we did on a narrow path, with a steep drop-offs on either side, surrounded by green mountains. Down below we could easily see a beautiful beach, and a rock formation coming out of the water that looked like a bear taking a nap.

8) Safety in Israel. We went to Israel three weeks after the direct Iran-Israel conflict ended Before we arrived, I was fearful that hostilities would break out again, we’d have to repeatedly race to bomb shelters, and our kids would be traumatized. Once I arrived in Israel I realized that these fears were completely overblown, as (1) generally we stayed in apartments that had a kids’ bedroom that doubled as a safe room, and (2) Israel’s enemies generally send their missiles at night. So we didn’t even have to wake our kids when the alert apps on our phones went off, and they remained blissfully unaware of the conflict.

So strange to think about how Israel is so used to getting bombed that since 1993, it has required every new residence to have close access to a protected space, and how this rule creates a new kind of inequality, since half of Israel homes were built before the rule was enacted. For background, see https://israelnationalnews.org/2025/274 .

7) Time, and how VHS tapes can deteriorate over forty-five years. One of my self-assigned sabbatical projects was to review and create a chart of 50+ old family videos my mom recently digitized. But to my deep disappointment, when I watched the videos (when I was in Tenerife, while my kids were in school) I learned that the sound on many of the videos is terrible. I so hope that I can get the sound restored, and can get to hear the voice of my dad, who’s been dead now for 28 years. Reminds me of a paragraph from a good novel I’m currently reading: “Books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.” Anthoney Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land, pg 52.

6) Public infrastructure, and specifically, the contrast between that of

a. Costa Rica, where there are no cute towns (historic or otherwise), practically no sidewalks, and terrible roads – even those in front of fabulously expensive vacation homes. Indeed, the roads are often so bumpy that driving on them can feel more like horseback riding, and the roads routinely fill with puddles so large that they become nearly impassible. I suppose this is partly because Costa Rica is still poor, and has a rainy season so intense that roads don’t last.

b. Israel, which had bike paths, free public adult workout areas, and playgrounds vastly superior to those in New York, both in terms of quantity and quality. For example, we went to numerous playgrounds that included bouncy houses, fifty-foot slides, and grounds as soft as mattresses. Perhaps this social infrastructure is so good because Israel used to be a socialist country, is relatively warm most of the year, and lacks American-style suburban houses with huge backyards, so good shared public space is critical.

5) Guns, and how ubiquitous they are in Israel. At a playground in Jerusalem we met up with a friend of Yonit’s (an immunologist and former colleague of Yonit’s) and her husband, who’s orthodox and a dentist. Of course he brought his Glock with him to the playground. And often on a public bus, I find myself riding next to a young person wearing regular clothing and carrying an assault rifle. 

4) Beaches, and how different they can be. In Costa Rica, the water is cloudy and warm like a bathtub; in the Canary Islands, even in late June the water is freezing; and in Sardinia and the British Virgin Islands, the water is clear light blue, filled with fish, and the perfect temperature. Oh my how particular I’ve become!

3) My kids and how kick ass they are. For example, Shiloh turned out to be more like a dandelion than an orchid, i.e. resilient and adaptive, routinely and quickly making friends and playing games with kids who spoke zero English. Below is a photo of Shiloh playing ball on a moshav with some Hebrew-only speaking kids he met five minutes beforehand. 

And Adira was amazing too, making a best friend with this Spaniard named Jade (pronounced "Ja-deh") who doesn't speak English.

As another example amazingness, at the start of our trip, if you put Adira into the water, she’d sink like an anchor. And we wondered if that’d ever change. But then, as if by magic, a couple weeks into our trip she learned to tread water, and swimming followed soon after. Perhaps this is simply normal childhood growth, but it still blows me away, and makes me so proud.

2) Smart phone usage. I am a big believer in Jonathan Haidt’s view that kids should not have cell phones until they are older, and was quite surprised that every first grader in Shiloh’s surfing camp had a smart phone. One theory we had is that given the security situation, parents want every possible way to be able to get in touch with their kids. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating for us, or for Shiloh. For more on Haidt’s ideas, see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/opinion/parents-smartphones-tiktok-facebook.html

1) Wildlife. In Costa Rica a bat came into our house twice, and we saw wild monkeys every week or two. I will always remember.