Life without chocolate
Have you ever tried to go off chocolate? I can tell you from first hand experience, it’s no mean feat.
My banning of chocolate has to do with a book I’m reading called Insomniac by Gayle Green. The author, like me, suffers from chronic insomnia and, as with anyone who is sleep starved, she has researched every angle and suggestion for ways to relieve her nightly distress.
One of those potential remedies is eliminating caffeine entirely from your body. Some people, Green writes, are so sensitive to caffeine that even a small hit in the morning can keep you up at bedtime. That’s in part because it takes up to 12 hours for caffeine to get out of the body. So if you have something with caffeine at 10:00 AM, it’s still with you before retiring.
Now, I’m not a coffee drinker but I do love my chocolate and the latter contains caffeine (although not in the same dosage as a cup of java). Throughout the day, you can catch me sneaking a piece at, both as a pick me up and as a way to satisfy my sweet tooth.
Could chocolate be contributing to my insomnia, I wondered?
Avoiding chocolate in our sugarcoated society is tough. The kids prefer chocolate in their cookies, ice cream and even pancakes (a monstrous defamation of the pure butter and syrup goodness I grew up with). Visit the local bakery and it’s chocolate this and chocolate that. And don’t even get me started about the predilection for chocolate filling in hamantaschen at Purim (whatever happened to old fashioned poppy seed?)
The irony of going cold turkey on chocolate is not lost on me: as an insomniac, a frothy ice coffee at Aroma or Café Hillel serves as a great pick me up on a particularly groggy day. And what’s Shabbat without rugelach from Marzipan?
Still, I’m doing pretty well, all things considered. I managed to get through this past Shabbat dessert by buying my own baklava, which is intensely sweet, drenched in syrup and stuffed with nuts…but no chocolate. For snacks during the week, I’ve taken to popping granola bars and dried fruit. Guests this weekend even brought almond cookies (delicious and gluten free to boot).
The bottom line, though, is: is it helping? For the first couple of weeks, I saw no noticeable difference in my sleep. By the third week, my sleep seemed slightly improved. I got through several nights without a second sleeping pill – that doesn’t make me meds-free, but perhaps it’s a start.
I’m going to keep at it. I look at it as a kind of challenge – like keeping kosher in California (where we lived before moving to Israel 15 years ago). And if it helps me sleep even an hour more, that would be an achievement worth sacrificing for. Chocoholics – I am no longer a member of your tribe.
No place for old folks
This Purim, I began to feel my age. Not the Megillah reading – you can appreciate that no matter how old you are (especially if you’re hard of hearing…helps drown out the din of the groggers). No, it was the party afterward.
Every year, my wife and I go dancing at the massive Boogie Purim Party at Jerusalem’s Binyamei Hauma. Boogie is a twice-monthly free form, world music dance extravaganza held at the ICCC in the capital’s German Colony. It’s notable for its eclectic mix of music from around the world. In any given set, the DJ is likely to verve from Motown to Egyptian pop to psychedelic Israeli trance.
The crowd is equally non-conformist, with all ages grooving to the alternative beat, whirling around without any whiff of the performance anxiety one might have at a trendy Tel Aviv disco.
On Purim, Boogie attracts several thousand revelers from all over the country and books well-known world music bands. This year, the evening’s highlight was the Madboojah Project, a ethnic electronic ensemble formed by Shlomi Avratz and Udi Ben Knaan, the latter of whom is a member of the popular “Sheva” group. The band’s trademark tune, with bagpipe and didgeridoo, sounds a little like a Scottish brogue hopped up on Ecstasy and laced with Hebrew rap.
Unfortunately, Madboojah wasn’t scheduled to perform until 2:00 AM, a time when I’m usually well into a much demanded round of REM sleep. But still, it was Boogie. And it was Purim.
Maybe if we could convince some friends to join us, we could justify the late hour, I thought. Renee was game, but her husband’s back had gone out. Other friends were concerned about waking up in time for the next morning’s second Megillah reading. Party poopers.
The thing is, I still feel like a teenager inside. My body may be pushing 50, but I see no reason to act any older than 16 (although my teenager daughter will emphatically insist that I was never 16 like her).
In the end, we nixed going out dancing this year and instead nestled in front of the TV and watched a double-header of the Israeli series Srugim (no spoilers, but Nati is still a pig). As for Madboojah – I’m sure they’ll be back in town, playing a local club sometime soon. Maybe even at a reasonable hour for us old fogies who still like to boogie.
HMO bait and switch?
Maccabi Health Fund
When I received a call from our Maccabi Tivi, the complementary medicine branch of our local HMO, offering a massage and reflexology treatment for only NIS 100 (just over $25), I jumped at the chance. After all, my favorite luxury vacation has always been a trip to a spa (of which there are now plenty in Israel) with a massage included. Those rub downs, however, are usually upwards of NIS 300 ($80).
The Maccabi deal, unfortunately, was a bit of a bait and switch. In order to get the massage, you have to first see the doctor whose job is to sell you additional treatments. The appointment then became a kind of game of cat and mouse where I needed to tell the doctor what ailed me, but not too much, lest he send me for acupuncture instead of shiatsu.
I didn’t have much to worry about. Dr. Rosenbaum was pleasant enough, waddling in late for our meeting. He asked me some questions and typed them slowly, one finger at a time, into his computer. He felt my pulse and asked me to stick out my tongue. Then he sent me on my way without a single alternative recommendation.
My massage was immediately afterward. It was also part of the bait and switch. Not that my masseuse Nadav was in on the game. But the shiatsu was brief – under 30 minutes – and much of it consisted of his placing two fingers on strategic parts of my back and holding them there for several minutes. Not exactly a strenuous workout.
Nadav seemed, in fact, more interested in getting back to his granola bar, which he greedily stuffed into his mouth before I had even left the treatment room.
My reflexology appointment is next week. I have to decide if it’s worth the time – an hour and a half back and forth with Jerusalem’s horrendous center city traffic – not to mention the cost of the parking.
I’m expecting a sales call on the phone shortly. “How did I like it?” “Am I ready to sign up for more?” I’ll act politely interested, then insist on a full hour, no doctor, no granola bars and validated parking.
OK, maybe not the parking.
Israelis do their part in Haiti
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Social Justice, health
Members of the Israeli rescue team free a man trapped in rubble in Haiti.
An El Al Boeing 777 and an IDF plane landed on Friday with 250 Israeli medical officers and nurses for a 90-bed field hospital, which includes a full surgical unit and is able to treat 100 patients at a time. The team includes 40 doctors, including a psychiatrist, 20 nurses, 20 paramedics and medics, 20 lab and X-ray technicians and administrators.
The large field hospital established by the IDF Medical Corps on Saturday was already treating dozens of patients four hours later, according to its commander, Lt.-Col. Dr. Itzik Reiss.
He told Israeli media in a conference call on Saturday night that
children with severe fractures set only with cardboard arrived at the hospital for treatment. Some young patients had been freed from rubble but had to have limbs amputated due to severe gangrene, he said. Within a few hours, operations were performed.
The hospital has an emergency room, pediatric, orthopedic, internal medicine, obstetrics and surgery departments, clinics and other facilities. The Israeli facility has enough equipment to function for about two weeks.
The IDF’s Medical and Rescue Team were also part of the delegation, with two teams from the Oketz canine unit pressed into action, including at the UN headquarters in the capital where there was hope of locating and extricating survivors.
In addition, four members of the ZAKA rescue unit arrived in Haiti at the end of the week with two Mexican rescue specialists aboard a Mexican Air Force Hercules cargo plane, immediately after completing their work in recovery and identification last week in the Mexico City helicopter crash that killed philanthropist Moshe Saba and four others.
More known in Israel for being first on the scene at terror attacks for the thankless task of identifying and retrieving body parts, the team, deployed at a collapsed multi-story university building, managed to extricate eight students from the rubble over the weekend.
“You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension,” said Mati Goldstein, the head of the delegation wrote in an email to ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem.
Goldstein called the weekend a “Shabbat from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust – thousands of bodies everywhere.”
AP reported that when 19-year-old Josyanne Petidelle was pulled out of the rubble after being buried for three days, among the first to check her was an Israeli.
Doctors and nurses flocked to the woman to drip water into her mouth and intubate her. Dov Maisel, a doctor who had just arrived from Israel, said she appeared to have internal injuries. Her condition would be assessed at Port-au-Prince’s main hospital, he said, “But I think she’ll live.”
Readers who would like to contribue to Haiti relief efforts can go here.
The marathon man
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Profiles, Sports, Travel, health
Among the hundreds of runners in last week’s Tiberias Marathon, was a 32-year-old visitor from Australia – Tristan Miller.
Miller was on the second week of his year-long quest to run 52 marathons in 52 weeks. Yes, crazy idea, but if anyone can do it, it might be Miller.
Catching up with him a couple days before the marathon at the Jaffa Youth Hostel where he was staying, Miller was getting used to the summer temperatures close to 27 centigrade, after flying in from Zurich where he ran his first marathon in nearly 0 degree temperature.
“So, far I love Israel. It’s so lively here in Tel Aviv, and the people have been so friendly and interested in what I’m doing,” he said.
Miller, who sold his home to finance his journey, which he’s making with his longtime friend Darren, hopes to raise money for UNICEF from people who contribute funds to his Web site - and he’s hoping for a few adventures on the way.
Talking to him a couple days after the marathon – which he finished in a respectable 3:52, Miller said that he suffered in the heat, but that the views on the route, which focused on the Kinneret were breathtaking – not a great thing when you’re running a marathon.
“It was much more beatiful than I expected,” he said. “I was running for a while next to a guy called Avraham, and he was giving me the history of the area and what happened with the Golan Heights and Syria – what it was like in the area in the past and how it changed. It was really interesting. That’s why I’m here, to hear stories, and learn from everyone whatever they have to offer.”
Miller was headed to Jerusalem for some sightseeing after enjoying a beer-drinking night out on his last night in Tel Aviv, and before heading to his next marathon stop in Mumbai.
Israeli billionaire in psychiatric hospital
Sometimes you look at other peoples’ lives and you think that they must have no problems – like Guma Aguiar, the billionaire Brazilian-American businessman and philanthropist who in the past couple years has moved to Israel.
Aguiar has made his mark on the country by generously supporting a number of causes including Nefesh B’Nefesh and the March of the Living. And last year, the 32-year-old wunderkind took control of the most popular soccer team in the country by investing $4 million in the nearly bankrupt Betar Jerusalem.
He’s handsome, has a beautiful family, and is seemingly well regarded in all spheres of Israeli society. Which makes what happened this week all the more strange.
Aguiar was admitted to the Abarbanel Psychiatric Hospital near Tel Avivfollowing a court order overnight Wednesday after exhibiting some extremely bizzare public behavior.
Israel Radio reported that, among other things, Aguiar arrived for the last 20 minutes of Saturday’s soccer match at Teddy Stadium between Betar and Bnei Sakhnin, saying his late arrival was due to him having visited the captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.
In an interview published in local Jerusalem newspaper Kol Ha’ir, Aguiar claimed that he entered Gaza and freed Shalit.
“He is at one of my properties. I wanted to prove that I could enter Gaza and come out alive and that Shalit could come out alive as well,” Aguiar said.
He also said that he spoke with Shalit. “He said that he wants me to tell his family how much he loves them and Israel, and that he hopes this ends soon.”
In a statement to the media, Aguiar’s family said that he would be at the hospital for two weeks, and that he had been subject to ‘emotional terrorism’ recently. The statement referred to an incident with police in the US in October 2009, in which Aguiar claims that police had assaulted him after stopping him in his car and finding marijuana. He hired famed attorney Alan Dershowitz to defend him in the case.
Here’s hoping that Guma returns from his treatment with sound mind and that he continues generously contributing to the building of Israeli society and institutions.
The ties that bind
One of the more unfortunately common – and striking – images that Israelis live with is the shot on TV or in the paper of a soldier’s funeral.
Mourners gather around the gravesite, many of them uniformed comrades of the fallen, deep in anguish and holding each other for comfort. It never fails to break my heart to see these 18 and 19-year-old kids thrust into these situations that even a seasoned adult doesn’t know how to handle.
On the same day that my daughter’s unit returned home for a well-deserved three-day break from their basic training on Thursday, the mother of one of the young men in her unit died after a long illness. On Friday morning, instead of sleeping in to replenish her depleted energy, she arose early and traveled on 6 buses for five and a half hours to attend the funeral in Ariel and return home before Shabbat began.
Her commander had ‘encouraged’ the soldiers to attend the funeral, but of course had not commanded them to do so. My daughter said that everyone in the unit showed up. She would have loved to have stayed in bed, but there was never a question in her mind that she’d be spending her free day Friday supporting her comrade. And on Sunday, the entire unit made their way back to Ariel to pay a shiva call on the family.
A month ago, none of them knew each other. Today, they are closer than family, and rely on each other for every part of their existence. Some day in the next three years – whether at a border fence, an open field, an army base, or God forbid, at a funeral, the soldier that was held and comforted on Friday will be returning the favor.
Foto Friday – AgroMashov’s Fruits & Veggies
Filed under: Business, Foto Friday, General, Technology, health
For 20 years now, the AgroMashov exhibition at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds has been the place for Israel’s farmers to unveil the new and different breeds of fruits and vegetables that are Israel’s agricultural calling card. Since the 1970s, Israel’s agricultural export policy has been increasingly geared towards the out-of-season, the colorful, the exotic and the just plain weird lookin’… but tasty.
According to an essay on Israel’s agricultural sector, “Growing vegetables has become an art in Israel – based on choosing the right hybrid varieties, fertilizers and irrigation methods, selecting greenhouse covers designed for specific crops and employing innovative growing tools, harvest equipment and post-harvest treatments. In recent years farmers have also been seeking profitable market niches. Examples are a big increase in production of organic produce, as well as specialties like herbs and selected mushrooms.”
At this year’s AgroMashov — which runs from January 13-14 — you can get a first peek at Gac (above center and below*), a Southeast Asian fruit that looks like a spiky orange and is known for its medicinal and nutritional properties.
And then there are the ones that come in different colors but taste about the same, like these multicolored carrots and cauliflowers!
More information about AgroMashov is available on their website , more about Israel’s agricultural innovations can be found on ISRAEL21c, and you may enjoy this video, too.
*Gac interior image courtesy of Jennifer J. Maiser and http://www.lifebeginsat30.com/.
Foto Friday – Oren Izre’el’s fresh look at rehab
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Life, Medical Breakthroughs, Technology, health
The Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center — or as it’s familiarly known here, Beit Levenstein — is marking its jubilee anniversary this year with an exhibition of photo and video art on the hospital grounds. Loewenstein Hospital is a national referral center for the rehabilitation of brain-injured patients, where it focuses on the evaluation and rehabilitation of locomotor, cognitive and communication disorders.
The show, entitled “A Place of Hope” gives viewers the chance to learn about Beit Lowenstein’s rehab programs that range from traditional occupational therapy and hydrotherapy to novel treatments such as horticultural therapy, Snoezelen – where it is the first hospital to use this controlled multisensory stimulation technique in unconscious patients — as well as laughter therapy.
Photographer Oren Izre’el spent the past year observing Loewenstein Hospital; the result is a fresh point of view of the hospital’s staff as they care for patients and, by extension, their families, too.
The center coordinates vocational training and psycho-social assistance to help patients integrate back into their homes, communities and workplaces.
The center also takes charge of the rehabilitation of a high percentage of Israel’s wounded soldiers, and has researched and developed new techniques and improved prosthetic devices. Many of these have come into much wider use and patients from hospitals in other countries of the world are referred to Loewenstein Hospital for care.
Loewenstein Hospital, part of Israeli health maintenance organization (HMO) Clalit Health Services, is located in Ra’anana; it has 240 beds for short and long-term hospital care, a large number of specialized outpatient clinics, a general day care hospital, a pediatric day care unit and a traumatic brain injury day care unit.
More information is available at the Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center website.
Picture of the Week: The shots that won’t make it to the catalog
Okay, I know it’s supposed to be just one picture in the Picture of the Week, but if you can’t break the rules in a blog, where can you break them? And this seems like an ideal pairing – the photos that WON’T make it into the advertising campaign.
First off we’ve got some poor soul from Holon getting a swine flu shot. A man shrieking in pain as a nurse gives him the flu jab is clearly not the message that the government wants to give. One look at this picture, and my kids wouldn’t have an inoculation again in their lives.
The Israeli health authorities have started vaccinating the population against swine flu. The Health Ministry purchased 7.3 million doses of the swine flu vaccine – enough for every Israeli –but is increasingly perturbed by the reluctance of Israelis to actually take the darn thing.
Only 30 percent of health care officials and personnel took the shot, and the general public seems to be following suit – so far just 160,000 have rolled up their sleeves. No doubt news that three people – all dialysis patients mind you – died shortly after receiving the vaccination, has made the injection a little less appealing.
If this keeps up, millions of expensive doses of swine flu vaccine will simply just go to waste. In response the Health Ministry is now thinking about offering the inoculation in shopping malls and workplaces.
Next up, we’ve got Bar Refaeli posing for Fox’s new summer catalog with Noam Tor. Refaeli and Tor are the current ‘faces’ of Fox, a popular Israeli clothing chain for men, women, kids and babes that offers relatively cheap, fashionable items.
This year’s shoot, for next year’s fashions, was at Mevo Horon, and supposedly in the spirit of Woodstock. Wasn’t the Woodstock revival last year?
While you’d be hard put to find a bad picture of Refaeli, you can be pretty sure that this shot won’t be making it into next year’s catalog. And sorry Fox, but what is that thing she’s wearing?
Pic of the man suffering Trypanophobia (that’s fear of medical procedures involving needles) by Yossi Zeliger/Flash90. Pic of Refaeli and Tor by Yossi Zamir/Flash90.
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