Happy 1st birthday, Ziv and Lev

October 14, 2009 - 9:57 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life 

Lev, Ziv and the rest of us

Lev, Ziv and the rest of us

Hard to believe, but yesterday was my twin sons’ first birthday. I’m realizing that I probably didn’t write this yesterday because I was, in a sense, too overwhelmed to even think about contemplating the passage of this year. But now that they’re one year and one day, I can get sentimental. So, here goes:

Ziv and Lev are a year old, and 365 days have passed since they were born, at 2 and 1.2 kilos each, respectively. We’ve gone through learning about the Hadassah NICU, how to nurse (me and them), bath and feed. We’ve figured out the tag-teaming that is twin-care, from lifting two at at time and feeding with one spoon (it’s a lot simpler) to figuring out who really needs you when both are crying and not worrying so much about favoritism issues.

We’ve become friends with our Tipat Chalav nurse, Nira; have become accustomed to the grins, smiles, stares and well-meaning strangers who constantly stop to ask if the two similar-looking boys sitting side by side in the stroller are twins; and now know that in Israel, red is considered a color for baby girls, not boys. We’re into the park and playground circuit, and despite our ‘advanced’ age as parents (and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins), it’s kinda fun to hang out with all sorts of people at the playground. Turns out that when you have kids, you have a lot in common with anyone else who is or has ever been a parent.

Which means that if you can hack it, there’s a lot of good advice out there, which I’ve been wise enough about taking so far, and hopefully will continue to do so. If it wasn’t for my sisters and a good friend, I never would have sleep trained my boys, and consequently, wouldn’t be getting good nights of sleep for the last four months. And almost everyone, when you’re the parent of twins, has something to tell you. It can be the guy at Aroma the other day, who showed me the video on his cellphone of his 15-month-old twin girls, and he also has an older daughter, similar to our blended family situation. Or the friend who’s also a mother of 19-year-old triplets, who gave us a photo album for each boy, with a designated page for each month of their first year. Better get working on that. (Thank god for Mac and iPhoto, which separates your pics into months.) Or the neighbor who has six-year-old twins and told me — when I’d had a particularly harrowing day around five months — that things get much easier after they’re six months old. She was right.

But all in all, it’s been a fantastic year. And we’re looking forward to many, many more. Happy birthday, Ziv and Lev.

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The Israel iphone saga continues…Steve Jobs responds

June 26, 2008 - 12:39 PM by · 12 Comments
Filed under: General 

Will the iPhone make aliyah to Israel?Well, judging by the amount of comments my last post, bringing the iphone to Israel is something of interest to more people than just me. A comment was left by a Yuval Vizel, founder of the Facebook group “Bring the iPhone to Israel”

Dear Mr. Jobs,

On behalf of “The Group for the Promotion of the iPhone’s Release in Israel”, I’d like to to bring your attention to the fact that the absence of Israel from Apple’s list of 70 countries, which are slated to release the new iPhone 3G within the next few months, has caused a great disappointment among the Israeli mobile phone users, and particularly among Apple’s loyal Israeli fans. We believe that Apple is missing a great business opportunity by ignoring the Israeli cellular market.

As written in an article by John H. Christy III, editor of Forbes International Investment Report :

“Israel’s mobile telecom market is fairly well developed, with a penetration rate almost 125%. In other words, there are more than nine million mobile phone accounts for a population of 7.2 million people. Furthermore, spending on telecom services in Israel accounts for 4.4% of gross domestic product. That’s a higher proportion than even the US and Europe.” (From “A Clear Connection to Israel”, published in MoneyShow.com, June 2nd, 2008)

In addition, we’d like to bring your attention to the great demand for iPhones in Israel and to the active community which has evolved to support the Israeli iPhone users. There are well over 10,000 “unlocked” iPhone units in Israel and many Israeli fans have already created web sites and online groups in order to share information about the device, help fellow users and localize it. As written in a recently published CNN article: “Unlocked and pricey, iPhone is coveted in Israel”.

Therefore, we would highly appreciate your effort to release the iPhone in Israel as soon as possible. We are enthusiastically looking forward for the official release of this great device in our country!

The response from Apple headquarters? Actually, from Steve Jobs himself?

“The iPhone currently does not support right to left text. Don’t you think this will severely limit its success in Israel?”

Click here for a screenshot of the email.

Too bad Jobs doesn’t have his facts straight. Several of the countries where the new iPhone will be available are Arabic speaking nations. Including Qatar as well as our neighbors Jordan and Egypt. Last I checked their language is read right from left too.

Israelis are obsessed with their cellphones and gadgets, it would be a natural place to market the iPhone (allegedly there are already over 10,000 iPhone users in Israel) and frankly quite odd that we are being overlooked here…perhaps the other cellphone companies are flexing their collective muscles? I can’t think of any other reason. What are your thoughts? Why was Israel overlooked? Has Israel’s Apple distributor idigital made any statement about this?

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