Author Archives: Judy Labensohn

About Judy Labensohn

I'm a writer and teacher of writing.

An Open Letter to The Mayor of Jerusalem, Mr. Nir Barkat, Concerning the Establishment of Sabbath Peace in the City of Peace

Posted on April 28, 2015

Dear Mr. Mayor, On the lovely spring afternoon of Shabbat Tazriya-Mezora, April 25, 2015, at exactly 5:30 PM, I desecrated the Holy Sabbath by entering my partner’s car in Moshav Beit Zayit, where we live, and drove to the corner … Continue reading →

Posted in Jerusalem, Protest | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

How Blogging 101 Heightened the Boycotting Issue

Posted on March 23, 2015

Yesterday was the final day of Blogging 101, a free course offered by the happiness team at WordPressU. I think it’s fair to say I failed. The course is wonderful if you have four-six hours/day for blogging business. That includes … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogroll, Identity, Israel | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

The Writer Kvetches about Place

Posted on March 5, 2015

I am a city mouse living the life of a country mouse. David and I live in Beit Zayit, a moshav west of Jerusalem. This place was our compromise because David does not like cities and I did not want … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Bring Out the Cocoa

Posted on February 24, 2015

Once I realized that my nose surgery was not going to deform me forever and that I didn’t care if I had an unseemly blackish-brown scab the size of a shekel on the side of my nose, I buckled down … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 25 Comments

A Day in the Slice of a Writer

Posted on January 27, 2015

It’s 12:22 PM and I still haven’t been able to sit down to work on my memoir. I did my morning stretches, drank hot water with lemon, followed by black coffee, ate my morning oatmeal and millet with date, walnuts … Continue reading →

Posted in Not writing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Why I’ve Changed My Attitude towards Engineers

Posted on January 3, 2015

My inner curious George has been hyper-active over the past few months. The engineering feat developing opposite my kitchen window pulls me and my iPhone camera out of the house on Saturday afternoons. I’m documenting the building of the new … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 6 Comments

TCB, Taking Care of Business in Bully Land

Posted on November 26, 2014

Let’s imagine Jerusalem as a total institution, controlled and constrained as a mental hospital. Such institutions, delineated by strict borders, socialize their inmates into specific roles. Because Jerusalem is a city of hills, a metaphor for understanding the social relationships … Continue reading →

Posted in Jerusalem, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Kaddish with Rembrandt

Posted on November 6, 2014

Even I cried when I just read my last blog post about my late mother. It made me want to document the year of mourning, or at least the first three months. Here goes. After the shloshim I vowed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Grief and Mourning, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Crossing the Jordan

Posted on September 6, 2014

My mother died the same day all the international airlines cancelled their flights to and from Israel. To get to the funeral in Cleveland, I imagined swimming across the Jordan River, hailing a cab to Amman, flying to Istanbul with … Continue reading →

Posted in Grief and Mourning, Unresolved Childhood Grief | 32 Comments

A Protected Room of Our Own

Posted on July 11, 2014

Only yesterday during the siren did I realize my room of my own is not protected: no metal shutters on the bathroom window, no metal doors on the  sliding glass doors. The room of my own was so open to … Continue reading →

Posted in Israel, Uncategorized | Tagged | 19 Comments