I liked Boston very much. It’s such an intensely college town, with several universities and colleges scattered around the Boston area, so student life is very full and fun. I lived in Brookline, a suburb just outside Boston proper, where I lived on what would in the usual circumstances have been a quiet side street. But Beals Street is the street on which the birthplace of John F. Kennedy stands, at number 83, and so it was a very busy area particularly around the time of his birth, when there are ceremonies and remembrances of him.

I liked living in Brookline, and I particularly liked that I lived just a block or two away from an excellent bagel store called Kupel’s. A Boston institution, Kupel’s is certainly the best bagel place I’ve ever eaten. To be fair though, my frame of reference is a little limited — strangely, Israel is not a great place to get bagels. Here we get a type of bread roll, called bagelim, which are quite pleasant, but they certainly aren’t bagels like any American Jew would recognize.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Boston was riding a bike to and from the business school. The driving in Boston is pretty erratic, but so long as you’re careful it’s quite a nice place to ride a bike. And there are some very pleasant bike trails, particularly by the Charles River, although at least in my time they certainly could have used a little maintenance. But nevertheless it was a good place to ride.

One nice thing about riding by the Charles is watching the rowers working out. It always looked like an intriguing sport, but when I made a few enquiries, I learned just how physically demanding it was at the high level that most of those rowers performed. Rowing really isn’t a sport that has made any inroads in Israel, so I was reluctant to get heavily involved in a sport that I’d be giving up on my return to Israel.

I live close by to Machane Yehuda in a neighbourhood called Nachlaot. The buildings there are old, and many of the apartments are very small, and have very small rooms. In recent years many of the apartments have been renovated and it is now considered something of an up-and-coming area. Lots of young people live in this part of Jerusalem, and there’s something of a religious revival, with a brand of orthodox Judaism known as Breslav chasidism as one of the most noticeable manifestations. It’s not my thing, but on the whole the Breslavers are happy and nice, generally a lot of fun. They’re not the kind of dark brooding, terribly serious crowd that you sometimes associate with orthodox Judaism.

I’m religious myself, but in a fairly quiet, laid-back way. I observe the sabbath, I keep kosher, I pray each day, but I dress pretty much like any other guy other than the small kipah on the back of my head. The kipah used to make me feel a little out of place when I lived in Boston, but here in Israel, they are a very common sight.

Like many Israelis, I’m the child of immigrant parents. My parents moved here in the late 1960s from the United States. Dad is originally from New York, while my mom is from Boston. Although their Hebrew is fairly functional, we spoke English at home — I think they believed it would be more of a gift to their children if they passed on their very good English, rather than their rather weak Hebrew. So, as a result. I’m pretty much bilingual. Because my parents used to read to me in English, that’s the first language I learned to read and even to this day, if I’m reading for pleasure I’m more likely to pick up a book in English than I am one in Hebrew.

I’m one of three kids; I’m the oldest, I have a brother who is just finishing the army, and a sister who is soon to complete high school. Both my brother and sister still live at home with mom and dad, although of course my brother isn’t homes so often. I have a small apartment in Jerusalem, but since Mevasseret is close by, I’m probably at my parents home two or three times a week, often for a meal. It’s hard to let go of that home cooking.

I grew up just outside Jerusalem, in a town called Mevasseret Zion. It is close enough that you could almost most call it a suburb of Jerusalem. After my service in the Israeli army, which is compulsory for young people leaving high school in Israel, I studied at the Hebrew University and took a degree in English literature. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t so easy to find work in that field, and through a combination of personal interest, connections, and desperation, I started working in the field of computers. Eventually I became skilled enough that I was working at a reasonably high level, and I then went to Boston for a couple of years to study for an MBA. More about Boston in my next post.