I get on the packed bus, toward the back. It's rush hour and crowded. Briefly, I wonder if my bus will explode in a ball of white hot heat and shrapnel. That happens here. I brush aside the thought quickly not because it's irrational but because there is a certain...

I found out about the Holocaust by watching, of all things, a TV mini-series. It was Holocaust, with Meryl Streep and James Wood, among others. It was 1978. I was 14. How could I not know about the Holocaust? How is that possible? Well, I was an American kid living...

President Obama is visiting my adopted country and excitement is in the air. The moment he stepped from his plane onto the soil of this Middle Eastern country, a palpable feeling reverberated. Dad is here, I felt. America -- the country of my provenance, the blood in my veins, the...

Recently I began to study in Israel's famed Ulpan Hebrew immersion classes. There are those who say that Hebrew isn't that difficult to learn but they are liars.

Hebrew is an ancient West Semitic Afroasiatic language, which is a fancy way of saying that it reads from right to...

Rage. The white-hot rush that floods your body and shoots out the top of your head like a volcanic eruption, leaving you vibrating with energy so pure you feel you could levitate. For one sweet/hot, burning moment, you are the Goddess of FIRE.

Rage is a powerful, cleansing river...

Rape. One of the ugliest words in the English -- or any language.

Coupled with -ist and added to "distant relative of mine," the word provokes a nauseating free fall.

This is not a story about the victim. This is the story about the family of the accused....

I'll be honest. I am 48 years old and zaftig. Is that the word? Plump? Rubenesque? Actually, I think those poetic words are putting it a bit too kindly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no?

For eight years, I lived in Los Angeles. They weren't exactly...

Nine and a half months ago, more than an alarmingly overdue pregnancy and much to the mystification and consternation of many, I moved from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, Israel.

I have experienced my first air raid sirens, my first war, my first bus bombing. I have lived in...

It didn't take more than 18 hours after the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated when the usual Facebook and Twitter updates of greetings, cute pictures of kitties and cloying pictures of seascapes with treacle drenched expressions of how one should aspire to love, laugh and live ("like"!) were...

I have been on drugs for about six years, give or take. Prozac and Buspiron. Prozac for depression and Buspiron for its evil twin sister, anxiety. There were others, too. Many others until my doctor "found the right balance." My mother is on antidepressants, as is my sister, as was...

I am sitting at a cafe in a mall. Nearby, there is a table full of uniformed soldiers, carrying Uzis. They are enjoying iced coffee and having a laugh. They must have the day off. Syria is teetering on the brink, and chemical weapons are moving rapidly from one set...

Moving abroad. It sounded so E.M. Forster, so glamorous.

Surely, if you moved abroad to say France, you would have much to write home about. Things about the amazing food, the beautiful language, the sights and sounds of your new country. Germany might provide many interesting emails to your...

Avi stares at the ceiling. He is thinking about the question I just asked him: Why do the Arab nations seem to hate Israel so much? What is the fundamental problem?

It's another hot, humid, lazy day in Tel Aviv. The curtains I brought from America move in the breeze...

It's a crazy idea. For many, it is an unthinkable one, this moving from Hollywood to the Middle East. I'm going in the opposite direction, people say.

My friends and acquaintances are alternately excited and terrified for me. Mostly, people scratch their heads -- how does this make sense?...

My ancestors arrived on these shores almost 400 years ago, long before the U.S. was even close to the country we see today. I am a Mayflower descendant, and also a descendant of Irish, Scottish, English and German immigrants who farmed tobacco and sheep and called dirt floor shacks their...

A laptop computer
An iPhone
A Nano
20 books
Knitting needles and yarn
Cosmetics/toiletries
Clothes/shoes
A menorah
Three purses
A bed, one set of linens and pillows
Two scented candles
Some incense
Two lamps
One medium box...

Paper Moon, House of Games, The Grifters, The Sting; these are some of my favorite movies. All about the art of the con.

Con men in the movies are actually a bit likeable and cool. With a sleight of hand and the wink of an eye, they merrily take...

I grew up during the '70s in a small town with huge spiritual significance to the New Age inclined. Mount Shasta is said to be inhabited by aliens, Atlanteans, Sasquatch, panthers that morph into saints and more. My parents were tuned in, dropped out, building their...

Like millions of parents across America this fall, my kid has gone off to college.

I'm happy for her.

So happy.

My heart feels like a lump of clay.

A week before my daughter left, we went to Target together. She perused the aisles quickly, expertly...

I hear it a thousand times a day. I used to say it as often:

I'm so stressed out

or

I'm so busy

or

I'm so tired

It has become a badge of belonging here in Los Angeles, and, I suspect, across much of America as well. How often...