He took our breath away!

Thank you Sir Elton John for an enchanting, exciting, and emotional night. You took our breath away indeed.

To see excerpts of the evening click on this link to the YNET news website. It is in hebrew, but the pictures say it all.

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3906877,00.html

Photo by Yaron Berner, Ynet.

Welcome to Israel, Sir Elton John

I can't wait. Tonight is the night. Elton John is landing in Israel in a couple of hours and will be performing tonight in the Ramat Gan Stadium. Thousands of fans, among them my family and myself, will be pouring down the streets and making their way on foot, bike, taxis, buses and motorbikes to the stadium. Cellphones and maybe candles in hand, we will illuminate the warm night and show him how much we love him and his songs.

I'm rooting for you, Steve Jobs

A day after the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, launched the new and apparently sexy and upgraded iPhone 4, I would like to bring to your attention an inspiring speech he made in June 2005, at Stanford University. I saw and heard his speech recently online through the website Ted.com. This is the link. You should definitely have a look.  http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

The speech is amazing because Steve Jobs is, obviously, a very special person. But it is also a special speech for me, because Steve Jobs was adopted as a baby. I didn't know that until I heard his speech.

So Mr Jobs. Thank you for your Apple Macs and your iPhones. And thank you for being a person adopted children and their families can look to for inspiration and hope. I hope for you what I hope for my adopted little girl, MG. That you managed to keep your back upright when the adoption bag tried to pull you down. And that along with your success you are also a happy person.

Picture caption: Apple CEO Steve Jobs holding the iPhone 4 at Worldwide Developers Conference 2010.
Picture credit: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg

Tortelloni alla Meneghina

Yesterday night, five years ago exactly, my father passed away. On a Monday night at 8.30 pm.

He passed away in a rehabilitation center. My mother and sister MSH were with him. I had just walked out of his room to say goodbye to one of my Aunts. The doctors had warned us his time was up, but of course one is never ready for death.

Milano, I'm back!

Well, here I am. In Milano, Italy. The city in which I grew up. The city in which every corner has a little memory. We came here, MM, MB, MG and me, together with my older sister and her two children for a long weekend. It was holiday in Tel Aviv so we decided to treat the kids to a little bit of Milanese life. My kids hadn’t been here for over two years, and neither had I.

Happy Mother's Day

On the tail of Mother's day, which some parts of the world celebrated this week, I have to tell you about an article I read in the New York Times (NYT) on May 6. (By the way. Mother's day in Israel has been renamed “family day”, in which the whole family is celebrated and not just the mother).


Written by NYT columnist Anand Giridharadas, the article, titled “New leaders find strength in diversity”, talks about an emergent breed of hybrid leaders – those who belong to “multiple worlds and who carry those worlds with them.”

By the way...

By the way...the gas masks arrived yesterday with a courier without a flaw. I didn't tip him. I put them in the basement, in our bomb shelter room. The children do not know of their arrival. Now I have to order one for my Mum.

By the way...MG decided finally to leave her dancing class. "I'm not that good Mummy," she said. When a dancing school manager called yesterday to ask why she left, MG politely told her on the phone she does not want to dance anymore. I explained to the manager, in a very civil tone, that MG doesn't want to contine dancing because she thinks she is not good enough. "Unfortunately, that's the message she got from you all along. So now she has decided to leave," I told the woman. "And what is a real pity is that she is leaving with the feeling that she is not a good dancer, which is a shame. Because she may not want to try out any other dancing class." The manager asked us to reconsider, saying they will help MG all they can so she can learn the steps. I said we'd think about it. But MG has moved on already. She doesn't look back.

Photo caption: Lot's wife looked back - Mount Sodom.
http://israelinsider.ning.com/photo/lots-wife-mount-sodom?context=popular