I feel like I had to watch the show in case I run into any of the characters, I mean actors, on the street in Jerusalem. I really love that Jerusalem itself is practically a character on the show, and I love seeing it filmed in places I go all the time. I think my favorite part was when they go to Shilav, a baby store, in the Talpiot area of Jerusalem and they filmed the real sales guy who works there. I remember him from when I was searching for strollers!

If you need to catch up, you can watch Season 1 and Season 2  (the links may only work for people in Israel, not sure)

So, without further ado, click on the links below to see what happens in season three.

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7
• Episode 8
• Episode 9
• Episode 10
• Episode 11
• Episode 12
• Episode 13
• Episode 14
• Episode 15 – Last episode

This used to be my reality every November for as long as I can remember. But for the last 3 years I have been living in Israel and those Thanksgiving days have turned into memories of my past. Oh, stop being so dramatic, the truth is you (as in me and all other American immigrants) can still have Thanksgiving in Israel.

I know it isn’t the same as sitting around the table in America, staring down at your food baby (this is a term Shira taught me which refers to the ridiculous amount of food you just ate that now makes you appear five months pregnant) and going around the table saying what we are thankful for (I am always thankful there is a toilet near by)—but friends, we are not alone and Thanksgiving can still be the best holiday ever! The gravy bowl is half full!

Here are tips on how to prepare your own Thanksgiving meal. And below these tips are places that will be having Thanksgiving meals in Israel if you are too lazy to make your own. Finally at the way, way bottom are tips to be super lazy but still do something for Thanksgiving. And if there are suggestions for any of these categories, please let me know so I can add them to the lists.

1.Prepare your meal:

Turkey: You’ll find a real Turkey and pumpkin at the Shuk/Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem.

Cranberry Sauce: Go to Super Moshava on Emek Refaim in the German Colony or Rami Levy supermarket in Talpiot for cranberry sauce in a can. P.S. It’s ShopRite brand for 13.99 NIS. Yes, ShopRite brand in an Israeli supermarket.

Gravy: Click here for a super fast recipe for gravy (vegetarian too).

Stuffing Here’s Rebecca’s recipe for stuffing. (Disclaimer: First time she’s ever written a recipe, so don’t be mad if it comes out funny)

Ingredients:

2 loaves, hard crusty bread

Boiling water

2 onions

Celery

2 eggs

Tturkey

Preparation

1. Buy hard crusty bred (French/Italian) and rip into pieces and put into a bowl.
2. Pour boiling water over the ripped bread (enough to cover the bread)
3. Saute 2 chopped onions and bunch of celery and add to bowl
4. Add 2 eggs to bowl
5. Mush everything with your hands or spoons
6. Put mixture into a pan
7. Put pieces of turkey on top of the stuffing and bake for 1hr at 350 degrees.

Decorations: To decorate your house with a Thanksgiving motif use printer paper, trace your hand and make a turkey drawing from it (it worked in elementary school). Then place these drawing on your walls, around the table, etc.

Discussions: Talk about football games instead of watching them. Go around the table and say why you are thankful, lie if you have to.

Clothing: Wear loose pants or pants that are easy to unbutton for your food baby.

2. Too lazy? Go to someone else’s Turkey feast

Merkaz Hamagshimim, Jerusalem: Thursday, November 27th 7pm
If you are an American or former American living in Israel, if you are friends with Americans, if you are Israeli or any other nationality and want to have a potluck family meal celebrating the most fun American holiday, join us at The Merkaz for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, November 27th, at 7pm.This meal is potluck and to make sure there is enough food for everyone and that everything is completely kosher, please RSVP to Ashleigh by Tuesday, the 25th of November.The Merkaz will then confirm with you what dish you will bring or what food you will buy. The suggested amount to spend is 30-40 shekels a person. And since not everyone has a kosher home, if you are more comfortable just contributing to the cost of the turkey, that is fine too!!!!

Nefesh B’Nefesh, Tel Aviv: Thanksgiving Dinner with a Middle Eastern Twist Thursday, Nov. 27th, 7:30pm
Celebrate and give thanks at a Western style Thanksgiving dinner.  Sit down with friends, old and new, for a traditional Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, drinks (including wine) and more!

In addition to the meal, everyone is encouraged to bring an article of clothing or canned food that will be given to charity.

When: Thursday, November 27, 2008 at  7:30 pm

Where: Bazel Hotel – Hayarkon 156 (between Gordon & Ben Gurion)

Friends and guests of NBN Olim are welcome to join.

Registration required: Special discounted price of 75 NIS per person if you register before November 20th. If you register after Nov. 20th the price is 100 NIS. Spaces are limited- The event was sold out last year! This event is part of Nefesh B’Nefesh’s ongoing social programming for young couples and singles in their 20′s and 30′s.

3. For the super lazy who still want to celebrate Thanksgiving

• You can order a lot of pizza and hang out with friends, try to find someone who has cable and watch football games.
• Go to a bar and watch the game with friends. Get drunk and ask everyone what they are thankful for (mine would still be that there is a toilet near by).
• Do a Thanksgiving/Shabbat meal—this would be killing two birds with one stone (that’s funny because we are talking about turkey!). Get your friends and family for Shabbat and have a Thanksgiving theme. Instead of chicken have turkey; instead of chocolate cake have pumpkin pie. You get it! Ask friends to make their own dishes too. And you can still go around the table and say what you are thankful for!

Thanksgiving is just as yummy and real and thankful as ever in Israel! I hope you remember to thank The Big Felafel at your meal (don’t be shady)!

I’m sure you’re familiar with Overheard in New York, a blog that lets people post the bits of conversation that they hear in the streets, at the office, wherever, so long as it’s funny. As with most trends, Israel is catching up, slowly but surely. Once again, thanks to Keren, I discovered the Hebrew version of Overheard called Gunav L’oznai, Tzitutim Shel Tzitutim, which Morfix tells us roughly, very roughly, translates to “found out about, quotes from eavesdropping”.

Here are some recent “overheards” that I picked from the Gunav site.

Translation:

Officer 1: Tell me, how do you say pistachios in English?

Officer 2: I don’t think they eat them in English…

Translation:

Can you come over her for a second, like for 10 seconds, for a second?

What funny things have you overheard lately?
Check out Israel’s version of Overheard – Gunav L’oznai

The phrases in the slang section are especially helpful in the following situations:

a. You want to pretend you are/were in the army

b. You want to be an ars (punky, annoying Israeli teenagers)

c. You are easily amused by just how many words and phrases can be shortened into ridiculous combinations that would have an Israeli get his/her whole family together to point and laugh at you if you decided to actually use some of them.

Use these phrases with caution. Some will help you fit in, but others could be disastrous for your post-Ulpan departure (but I would love to hear the outcomes). So, only start using one of the phrases once you’ve looked up the definition in English (you can use Morfix) and actually heard it used in context.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find Zabaj in the listings…

P.S. For those of you still in abbreviation mode, I found a site, Abbreviation that gives definitions of English abbreviations and acronyms. (Thanks, Make Use of)

Here’s my favorite so far – Yatzpan goes to Texas and interviews a KKK member, keeping a straight face as he reports his true feelings in Hebrew to the camera. And here’s his interview with Jerry Seinfeld.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Besides being an awesome experience, sneaking in made me realize why the Press don’t report the truth. Indeed they are much too busy making friends and networking in the hotel lobby. Add to that complimentary food and drink and you’ve got a group of people that are never going to do their job well.

How did I do it- you ask? How could I have made it past security and not get caught once? It was simple- I faked it. My backup plan was saying I needed to go the bathroom but I never even needed to talk to anyone.

I originally intended to go to the hotel with an organized group of other American Israelis.  The group found out the Press was staying at the Dan Panorama and planned to stand outside in the hopes that the Press would interview them for a news story. But it was cold outside and the Press didn’t even bother leaving the heated hotel. So I decided to go in.

Making eye contact with the security guard and using my group’s tag that I wore around my neck (flipped over so you couldn’t read what it actually said); I made my way through the doors and into the toasty lobby. My plan was simple: I would search for reporters and tell them that there are Americans outside if they want to get some great sound bites.

I asked three reporters who sat comfortably with their free drinks in hand and they all said “no”. Hearing the quick no answers I realized that these journalists didn’t care about the actual people behind the political news story. The last reporter I asked was furiously typing on her laptop and didn’t even raise her head to say no to me. So I said, “what are you doing, facebooking?” That got a laugh but not a sound bite.

Then I walked around the hotel and hung out in the Network room where reporters feverishly watched the news and pumped out their stories. Then I made my way into the White House Press Room. Never once did anyone suspect that I was just an average citizen. Worse, no one even realized that I could be a potential threat. Sure I look like your average reporter with my dry-clean-only pants, but how did they know what I could be capable of? So much  for tight security.

In the end I sat at the Chicago Tribune table and faked phone calls to my make-believe camera man and producers. It was fun pretending to be a Press person and getting free food. Once again I understand why the news stories are always filled with wrong information and opinions: they were just too busy at the free bar!

I am crazy about Lisa Oberman because the girl has guts. If you don’t know who I am talking about then keep reading until you too become a fan.

Lisa, 21 years old, made aliyah from Canada after going on birthright when she was 18. So big deal, there are a bunch of us now with a similar story: from birthright to aliyah.

Lisa is just learning Hebrew yet she is a contestant on one of Israel’s most popular television shows, “A Star in Born: Dancer,” a spin off of American Idol with an Israeli twist and the competition is for the best dancer instead of singer.

The girl is brave! She is surrounded by Israelis, everyone speaks Hebrew, there are even more Israelis in the audience and the whole of Israel gets to vote if she continues in the competition and becomes the next big time Israeli dancer.

So while I get nervous about making it in Israel and complain that I have less opportunity here because I don’t speak the language, Lisa doesn’t even think twice before going for the most prestigious honor in the Israeli dancing world.

This girl rocks my world. She is literally breaking down cultural barriers that many Anglo immigrants face in Israel. After living here for three years I still feel on the outside of most conversations, television shows and humor in general- but Lisa is dancing her way through all that.

Like me, you should vote for her on the basis that she is a great dancer and the best Anglo immigrant ever!

Check out her interview which will only make you love her more.

Now that I got that out of my system I can go back to being semi-normal and not having a weird girl-crush!

I am that girl who walks around looking a little lost. I am that girl you come up to and ask if she needs help. I am that girl that sits in a lecture taking copious notes, and taping everything with her brand new digital voice recorder. I am the one who comes home and tells her husband they told us this crazy thing X and it was either 9% or 90%, I couldn’t quite catch it, but isn’t that amazing?

Before I began my MA in social work in Israel I knew it would be different than America, and I knew it would be difficult but I still didn’t know what to expect. So far, it is different and it is difficult, but there is a lot of good too.

I moved to Haifa to go to school and I am surprisingly among the minority of people in my class who live in Haifa . Most of them commute, even some from Jerusalem , my former safe haven of English speaking olim. Haifa is great for olim, if you are from Russia.

We had a week of orientation, visiting different institutions where social workers work, every day of which I got there a half an hour before my classmates, because I didn’t want to be late. The one thing that resonated with me was how every social worker we heard from talked about how there is no budget in Israel, but the thing that impressed me the most was all these people making do, making a difference and smiling about it. I met so many people (one of them male) who love their job and that is heartwarming.

And I guess the thing that is really throwing me for a loop though is all the striking. I remember sitting in ulpan and not being able to avoid two words  shcitoot (corruption) and shvita (strike) because it seems that in Israel , unfortunately both are rampant. So I wasn’t surprised that instead of a fire drill or bomb-scare prep, we got a strike drill at the end of our orientation. Here’s how it works: if some of the university is on strike than you miss those classes, but you still have your field work. But, if the whole university is on strike, then you don’t have anything. So today, some of my professors were on strike, so I had two classes out of four. When I was a kid I prayed for snow days. Maybe I overdid it.

I was on a mission to find no-heeled, moderately comfortable black shoes under 300 shekels to wear to many social networking events this month (Deva, idrink, and wordcamp). Not an easy feat (ha).

I went to many stores and didn’t see anything I liked, because there’s basically 2 options- platform or wide Israeli style or some combination of the two. Things looked up when I entered Gazith and mustered up the courage to try on the sexiest shoes I might possibly ever own. They were perfect for under jeans, a decent price, and most important – no heel. (the boot featured here).

So, when the salesman asked for my size, instead of braving the metric system to figure out my shoe size in Israel, I decided to play by different rules and just ask for the biggest size possible. And, you guesed it, he brought a 41 and it was too small. I struggled into it, even removed my socks, but no luck. So, I gave them my best disappointed face and suggested that they start making shoes in a size (gasp) 42, which I assumed would fit me. I’m sure it’ll happen. I hear the phone ringing now with the announcement.

When I got home, I wanted to double check what size I would be and found an online shoe size converter chart from US sizes to Israeli or European sizes at about.com. From the chart, it seems that the whole world agrees with Gazith and the Malha mall, and women with a size 10 should just stay in the US because they are not welcome in shoe stores across Europe or Israel – the chart stops after size 9!

I came to the conclusion that being tall is beautiful, but having feet that balance your height is unacceptable.

I’ll leave you with a few heartfelt words on the subject from a comedian that I newly discovered, Demetri Martin

I was in a shoe store and the guys call me boss, and I said, “Ya, can i just get those sneakers in a 10?” And uh, he said, “Okay” and then he went down stairs. He came back and he said, “I don’t have a 10, I have a 9.” “Oh great, because while you were downstairs, my toes were severed off. So that works out. Normally it would be stupid for you to tell me a number different than the one I said, ’cause it goes with my body part. But given my very recent accident, you’re right on. I’ll take the 9’s and a pile of band-aids, thank you. You’re re-hired ’cause you’re a genius.

He even used my exact size. What are the chances?!

It’s so awesome when parents come to visit for the holidays, bringing with them hugs, delicious meals, and the inevitable requests from America. Oh America, the land of toiletrees from Target and Costco. I think it was David Kilimnick, a Jerusalem comedian, who said something like,”We may have made aliyah, but we’re the only Israelis that live in this country and use toiletrees from another.” Touche.

Here I am, three years into living in Israel, but my superficiality refuses to let me use anything other than Crest with Scope toothpaste, Fructis hair gel, Ziploc bags, and the list goes on. Then there’s books, which are just so much cheaper coming from online sites like half.com. I’m psyched to start reading Bringing Down the House and Business2.0. And finally- clothes. I’ve tried the Israeli malls, but unfortunately, clothing in Israel falls into two tragic categories: the scandalous or the bag. Half the clothes are too skimpy to even figure out how to wear them, while the other half are so modest that I’ve lost any femininity I may have possessed. So, for the first time, I ordered clothes online and they came out pretty good.

As it happens, today I was in Super Moshava, the so-expensive-it’s-silly supermarket on Emek Refaim, which has a huge American-goods selection but for double the price. They’re stocking some new items which caught my eye: Hefty ziploc bags (a whopping 25 shekels for 18 bags), Axe deodorant (20 shek on sale this week, a decent buy), and whole-berried cranberry sauce for cranberry crunch, (gasp 15 shekels).

I know I should get over it, and use local goods, but there always seems to be another person coming to visit and another suitcase that needs help being filled.