Oh, hello! You’re still here?

As you can see, I’m posting more frequently again following an extended absence off enjoying family events and travelling and the planning of both. Being away for mostly that entire period, I rediscovered how much I prefer off-line pursuits. Yes, the Internet is a wonderful, sometimes magical place, but learning how to balance online and offline activities has always been a challenge for me. I tend to dive into things and it takes me a while to come back to center; sometimes this process can take a long time and this latest and much-needed away time has been a terrific “reset” button. This isn’t to say that I ditched the Internet, just that outside of my working life  I have greatly reduced my online activity.

In preparation for my vacation I turned down all the digital background noise to a minimum as much as possible. I unsubscribed or dropped to weekly digests a number of online newsletters I regularly follow (only two have made it back so far), stopped forwarding nonessential emails from my other email accounts to my phone and uninstalled phone apps that were diverting my attention. And that’s still pretty much the situation today. Less distraction and more focus.

But seriously, Facebook, you are teh devil.

(If you need a “reset” button, feel free to grab mine.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

Grindel, Hamburg, Germany

Names of the Deported

An Apartment Building In Hamburg

During our visit to Hamburg over Passover last year we walked many times from our hotel in Rotherbaum to various parts of nearby Grindel, the old Jewish area of the city. Along our route we saw brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk noting the names of Jews who lived in these houses and whom the Nazis deported to Riga and elsewhere. Deported, it states on these plaques, nothing more. These plaques also raise questions. Who were the other people who lived in these houses? Were they non-Jews who heard their neighbors being taken away, never to return? Did they help their Jewish neighbors in some way? Did they turn them over for transportation? Questions, questions.

In certain parts of the city, other reminders of World War II literally loom overhead and stand witness to the horrific suffering inflicted on the German population. Looking back through the comfortable distance of nearly 70 years in time, it’s easy to forget that had these terrible acts of war not taken place, our world today would be a very different place.

There’s no denying that throughout our pleasant stay in the city, for me there was also an undercurrent of unease. Even watching the countryside pass by during our 5-hour train ride to Frankfurt raised uncomfortable feelings. As a second-generation American Jew and one generation removed from the Holocaust, I believed I would be less affected by this trip. I was wrong.

Honey? Have You Seen My Sunglasses?

Now with Google Map!

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Better shared!

We Stand Strong Together-Reflections on September 11

The WTC from the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building-2000

Memorial NYC-2002

The top photo was taken late in the summer of 2000, not long before our eldest was drafted into the IDF, when we visited the US for the first time together as a family since returning home to Israel in 1990. The kids weren’t exactly thrilled to be in New York. They were ready to go home after 2 intense and enjoyable weeks of DisneyWorld and visiting with family in Minnesota. None-the-less, we took the ferry and toured the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, walked through Central Park and along Broadway to Times Square, checked out the viewing decks of the Empire State Building and the WTC, visited Pier 54, saw the UN, the Guggenheim, ate dinner in Chinatown; in other words, we did all the usual touristy things. And then we went home and the memories of our trip to the US quickly faded into the background of our daily routines.

Almost exactly one year after our return flight home from JFK, at about four in the afternoon, my husband called to tell me to turn on the TV, that there’d been some sort of aviation accident in New York City. The first images I saw on TV were of smoke billowing out the side of one of the World Trade Center towers, accompanied by hesitating and uncertain commentary how such an accident could have happened. This went on for a while and then another plane flew into the 2nd tower. My disbelief slowly turned into anger and then disgust at what I was seeing.

Stories of loss and survival, heroism and sorrow were told in the days after the hijackings on 9/11. Many of us realized for the first time how vulnerable an open society like the US was and how easy it was for someone to intentionally turn that openness against us. The anger and frustration many felt were expressed in bigoted, ugly acts against newly stamped Americans who had themselves escaped from extremist or oppressive regimes. As the granddaughter of Russian immigrants, those acts, while few, made me feel ashamed to be an American.

Now, nine years later, recalling that day brings up emotions just as strong and an additional one, regret. Regret that it took such horrific acts to shake the US out of its stupor; regret that not everything that followed was carried out with the same pureness of purpose that the deaths of more than 3,000 people mandated; regret for the continued bigotry and hatred.

Five or ten years from now one can only wonder where the aftereffects of 9/11 will have taken the US and the world in their wake. If we forget the ideals that made the US a beacon for so many of our forebears, then I fear it will be a dark path. I would hope instead, like the sentiment expressed in the flag above, that we would choose to stand strong together.

Let Me Explain

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.*

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Just a few, in fact a very few, of the near-900 photos I took while we were on a short holiday in Switzerland and Germany over the Passover break.  I’m slowly editing and posting more to my flickr photostream, if you want to see a slightly less abridged, but higher quality version.

Too many thoughts about this trip to get down in one post. To sum up for now, a much-needed and welcome break visiting with people I love and people I admire.

Maybe more later…

*Inigo Montoya, “The Princess Bride“