Biography and Life Lessons
1960 – Present 2025
Foundations: Inheritance and Identity
I belong to the first generation born in the newly established State of Israel, in Beersheba, a biblical town at the heart of the Negev desert. I grew up in an environment of constant war and the unspoken weight of the Holocaust. My parents were survivors. Their first-born son died unexpectedly before I was born. Trauma seeps through the pores, unnoticed at first, until it becomes part of you. It takes a lifetime of effort to become “awake” and to untether the pain.
Like many young Israelis, I was raised in a deafening silence concerning the past. It was as if we had been snatched from the fire by parents with numbers tattooed on their arms. In our minds, survivors stood as a reminder of helplessness, and we were raised on the certainty that the “new” Jew would never be a victim.
These are the themes that follow me. I return to them, turn them over, search for meaning. Strength, silence, survival. How do we carry the past without being bound to it? How do we honor it without being consumed? The questions echo. The search continues.
On Youth and Bat Yam: Sand, Salt, and Sirens
My youth in Bat Yam was magical. Our neighborhood was filled with kids my age, surrounded by endless sand dunes. My brother and I left the house in the morning and spent the day outside—exploring the thick bushes on the dunes, walking to the sea, swimming—returning home only when the streetlights came on. No one could reach us; mobile phones didn’t exist. We had no video games and no TV. What we had were friends, and we played. We fought, took our blows, watched bruises turn from black to blue, and got over it. We ate bread with yogurt and drank lots of chocolate milk. The freedom and camaraderie of those days remain a precious memory—almost mythical.
My father, a colonel in the Israeli army, commanded large-scale food supply logistics. My mother was a nurse. I shared a small room with my younger brother, Israel. Ours was a typical middle-class neighborhood, a microcosm of Israeli society.
In 1967, the threat to Israel’s existence was clear and present. Gamal Abd al-Nasser, the Egyptian president, declared his intention to “throw the Jews into the sea” and “conquer Tel Aviv.” We felt alone in the face of an all-out Arab offensive. I was only seven, but I remember the sirens, the rush to the bunkers, and the euphoria that followed the Six-Day War’s swift and decisive victory.
Politics was in the air we breathed. From a young age, we all had opinions, arguing fiercely over the best path to peace. I believed in “land for peace”—an amicable divorce, a two-state solution: Israel alongside Palestine. But those debates happened only among Israelis. When the moment of truth arrived, the Palestinians rejected these offers time and again. Over the years, it became clear that the conflict wasn’t just about land; it was part of a broader clash between militant fundamentalist Islam and the Western world. My optimism faded. I became skeptical.
Peaceful coexistence requires leadership and empathy. Leadership is essential, but even more so is the ability of both Palestinians and Israelis to see beyond their ingrained narratives. People will have to build their empathy muscles. Will it happen anytime soon? No. But I still believe in the resilience of the human spirit. That, at least, keeps me hopeful.
My family’s Holocaust stories emerged gradually. My parents tried to shield us, but trauma is insidious—it seeps through silences, through glances, through moments of insanity. Sometimes, the horrors were told without words. Other times, they surfaced in waves of torment, in the unstable flicker between normalcy and despair. My childhood friend, Avital Gad-Cykman, once described a woman from our neighborhood:
“The woman from the house on their right eats a whole herring with a half loaf of bread every morning when her children go to school. She is fat, a survivor of an extermination camp. Her son and daughter refuse to eat because they do not want to look like her.” (from Distant Homes)
That agony was all around me. It made me feel unsafe, unsettled, and, more than anything, angry. I carried a shame I didn’t yet understand. I was ashamed of our diaspora-sounding last name, Ginzberg, and the Yiddish my parents spoke at home. It wasn’t “Israeli” enough. Worst of all was the phrase: “They went like lambs to the slaughter.” That was the root of my shame. Only through time and reflection did I come to recognize and name these emotions. For years, they only felt like rage.
The tensions between Ashkenazim (Jews from Eastern Europe) and Mizrahim (Jews from North Africa and the Middle East) were an everyday reality in Bat Yam. They deepened after the mass immigration wave of 1948–1954, when 700,000 Mizrahi immigrants doubled the Jewish population in the newly established state. The ruling elite remained Ashkenazi, while many Mizrahim were relegated to menial labor or forced into impoverished, hastily built neighborhoods. The resentment simmered, sometimes boiling over into violent outbursts.
I was attacked by Mizrahi kids in a few incidents simply for being Ashkenazi. Survival meant adaptation; I had to become part of their “gang.” I joined their outings and played hours of billiards. Those were the years of disco music; on the dance floor, I was “killing it” like John Travolta.
By high school, I drifted from social groups. I devoted many hours to solitary long-distance running and sexual stirrings. My mind wandered to youthful desires, but neither alcohol nor drugs had any presence. My head was in the clouds, in dreams—but my feet were firmly on the ground.
Another deep rift ran through Israeli society, though it wasn’t visible in my neighborhood—the divide between religious and secular Jews. We shared a country, a language, and traditions, yet lived in separate worlds. I call it the great spiritual schism because it reflects my internal struggle and journey with faith.
From a young age, I studied the Bible. Those stories became part of my associative thinking and imagination. But they also shaped my perception of God—harsh, punishing, authoritarian. I did not like Him. In addition, the religious political parties imposed their strict interpretations on society, invading what I saw as sacred personal space. My father, an atheist after Auschwitz, used to say that he did not believe in God after Auschwitz.
Yet my own spiritual journey took a different path. Over the years, I came to believe in a different kind of God—one who is loving, forgiving, and boundless. A presence that connects us all, that I can trust to be there regardless of my failings.
I cannot name a single teacher who gave me the love of reading. It came from the neighborhood library, where I discovered books at a young age and never stopped devouring them. In the last 35 years, I have listened to hundreds of audiobooks. It is, by far, my favorite pursuit—a worthy companion to my otherwise restless mind. Through books, I met many people, learned to be empathetic, visited different parts of the world, and came to appreciate the beauty of a well-phrased sentence.
On Being a Paratrooper (1978-1981): Falling from the Sky, Landing in Brotherhood
“You don’t know what you get back until you give” – Bill Clapp
In 1978, at 18, I joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—driven, focused, and ready. I volunteered for the elite 890 Airborne Brigade, part of Israel’s renowned Paratroopers. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
👉 Learn more about 35th Paratroopers Brigade.
Paratroopers are trained to survive and to fight. We jumped from planes with heavy gear, move silently through the night, set ambushes in the dark, and pushed our limits daily. I served as a combat medic—steady hands under fire. My platoon was twenty soldiers from all walks of Israeli life. We were different, but united by belief and purpose.
Wearing the red beret and dress uniform filled me with pride. I remember standing tall in it, feeling like I could take on the world. That sense of belonging left a mark that never faded.
The army in Israel is a melting pot. Everyone serves—rich, poor, religious, secular. I trained with farm boys, Tel Aviv kids, and sons of immigrants from Morocco, Romania, Iraq, and Iran. In the field, background disappeared. But still, I stood out.
I was more introverted. A “strange bird,” someone called me. While others packed light, I carried books and a heavy toiletry bag. A city boy with a restless mind in the grit of field life. I didn’t always fit in, but I showed up. And over time, I found my place—not by blending in, but by being fully myself.
That was one of the first big lessons: belonging doesn’t require sameness. It asks for presence, humility, and heart.
The army taught me about more than combat. It taught me about people—about loyalty, friction, and the unspoken bonds formed through struggle. I learned to listen, to lead, and to keep evolving—even when it hurt.
I came in strong in body and left stronger in character. Those years shaped my sense of grit, resilience, and brotherhood. Decades later, many of those men are still in my life. We were just kids when we met—but we became something more. Soldiers. Friends. Brothers.
Serving in that unit remains one of the deepest honors of my life. It’s in my spine, in my sense of duty, and in how I carry myself. I learned that even if you don’t fit the mold, you can still belong—if you show up, give your all, and let yourself be seen.
On Travel: The Road That Found Me
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao-Tzu
After my military service, like many young Israelis, I took off to see the world—vagabond style. Low on money, rich in time. That post-army journey lasted nearly two years. It wasn’t a vacation—it was a calling. A need to step out, breathe, and go inward.
That trip lit a spark that never left me. I’ve since traveled through many corners of the world and shaped a simple philosophy: Wherever you are—be there. Travel light. Make basic plans, but let life find you. You’ll figure out where to sleep, what to eat, and sometimes, you’ll find something far more important.
Walk slowly. Watch people. Observe how they live, how they move, how they treat each other. Greet with respect. Speak softly. Ask questions not to argue, but to understand. The world doesn’t need to make sense to me—it just needs to be met with openness.
On that first big trip, I met Dalit, the woman I’d spend the next 28 years with. We met on a tiny Norwegian island in the Arctic. If that’s not fate, what is? We traveled through India and Nepal, built a home in Israel, and later in Los Angeles. From that journey came our greatest creation—our son, Tomer.
On BA in Economics and Philosophy: Learning to Think, Learning to Feel
“Education is not a preparation for life. Education is life itself.” – John Dewey
After returning from my long journey abroad, I settled back in my hometown, Beersheba, and enrolled at Ben-Gurion University. I was ready for something steady—learning, structure, and reflection.
I chose Economics and Philosophy—two fields that matched how my mind works. One offered logic, structure, and systems; the other asked deeper questions about meaning, ethics, and the human condition.
Those four years were a formative time. I worked night shifts as an assistant nurse at Soroka Hospital, caring for people in their most vulnerable moments. That work grounded me in a way no textbook ever could.
By day, I studied theory and data. Philosophy sharpened how I think; economics helped me make sense of the world’s structures. Together, they taught me how to live with clarity and intention.
Beersheba, a quiet desert town, offered its own rhythm. Theater shows, open-air markets, long walks. It was a place of focus and simplicity.
Looking back, university was less about a degree and more about growing into myself—learning to think, to question, and to keep evolving.
On Immigration and the MBA program (1989 – 1991): Crossing Oceans, Finding Edges
“Make voyages! Attempt them! There’s nothing else.” – Tennessee Williams
In 1989, Dalit and I landed in Los Angeles with two suitcases, $5,000, and big dreams. No Statue of Liberty, but we were immigrants just the same—leaving the familiar for something unknown.
At the time, the move felt like a pursuit of opportunity. I believed there were paths in America that simply didn’t exist in Israel. But looking back, I see that I was also running from something less tangible—a heaviness I couldn’t name, a silent ache that needed distance and time to come into focus. Immigration wasn’t just about geography. It was about healing.
I had planned to pursue a Ph.D. in Marketing and become a professor. But life had other ideas. I enrolled in the MBA program at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Those two years were intense and transformative.
The program was rigorous, demanding, and rewarding. I studied alongside classmates from all over the world, improved my English, and gained insight into global markets and management strategies. I took courses in statistics, marketing, finance, corporate law, entrepreneurship, and negotiation—building on the intellectual foundation I had laid back in Beersheba. I graduated proud, not only of my degree but of the personal growth that came with it.
Still, I often say that the real lessons in business came not from textbooks but from my time as a waiter and bartender. That’s where I learned how to serve, read people, and manage expectations in real time. Before you can lead or negotiate, you need to listen—and those jobs taught me to listen with my eyes, ears, and intuition.
Even now, decades later, I still carry the dual identity of an immigrant—caught between worlds. After close to 40 years in the United States, I feel foreign in Israel and like an outsider in America. Never enough for either, and certainly not enough for both. Perhaps that’s the immigrant condition: always becoming, never arriving.
And yet, in that in-between space, something real has taken root: humility, curiosity, and the quiet strength to start over when needed. Reinvention, I’ve learned, is not a betrayal of the past but a quiet act of courage.
On Business: Deals, Details, and the Invisible Code
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca
My business career unfolded in the hardware segment of the high-tech industry—specifically in electronic components and circuit cards. I entered the field in 1992 as an Account Manager for a major conglomerate and exited in 2003 after dissolving my own company. That decade marked the height of the technology boom—often called the “dot-com era” or “tech bubble.”
I started with Time Electronics (Avnet), then moved to Anthem (Arrow Electronics)—two giants in global distribution. I managed key accounts, advised engineers on component specs, and closed deals. Corporate America taught me plenty, but one lesson stood out: It’s not what you know—it’s who you know. Business runs on relationships.
One of those relationships led me to Hitcom Corporation, a Korean trading company. I was brought on to manage U.S. operations, overseeing nearly $10 million in procurement. Our primary customer was the military division of LG Electronics in South Korea.
I was the only non-Korean in the company, which exposed me to a vastly different cultural environment. I had to quickly learn and adapt to the customs and values of Korean business culture, deeply rooted in Confucian principles. While things on the surface might appear similar to Western business practices, there’s an invisible order guiding everything beneath—a quiet code of hierarchy, respect, and collective discipline that I came to respect deeply. This contrast with the Judeo-Christian values I grew up with offered not only cultural insight but personal growth.
In 1999, with Hitcom’s support, I founded Telesys. The internet was booming, and demand for analog telecommunication cards surged. We carved out a niche and delivered through sourcing partners in China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Poland. My focus was deals—but I learned fast that in the trading game, buying right is what keeps you alive.
I also gained a new appreciation for my father’s brilliance. He ran logistics for the IDF’s food supply. I saw his discipline and attention to detail in a new light. God is in the details—he lived it, and I tried to follow.
We had a strong run—until 2002. The NASDAQ crashed, and digital tech replaced the old systems. Overnight, massive switching hubs gave way to small, efficient boxes. The market moved on.
Looking back, those years taught me more than any classroom ever could. Business is motion—timing, instinct, adaptability. But more than anything, it’s about trust. Who you know. Who believes in you. And how you show up when everything starts shifting.
On Art and Healing: Shadow Work and the Weight of Silence
“The task of art is enormous… Art should cause violence to be set aside. And it is only art that can accomplish this.” – Leo Tolstoy
The violence I struggled with was internal. It wasn’t loud or visible—it was a silent force, like a black crow perched on my shoulder, disguised and heavy, only occasionally revealing its face. In 2003, something shifted. The stars aligned, and for the first time, I could afford to pause the relentless pace of daily life and enter a true healing process. I needed to understand what was eating me from the inside. I withdrew from making business deals and immersed myself in solitude and self-inquiry. My art studio became the bottom of a well—from which there was only one direction to go: up.
There’s an old saying: “Hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Forgiveness is not a gift you give others—it’s something you give yourself so you can move forward. Holding onto hate, shame, or anger is its own kind of internal violence.
When it comes to the Holocaust, it’s easy to misplace the idea of forgiveness—thinking it should be directed toward the Nazis. But that was never the struggle I wrestled with. Their crimes are beyond the reach of human forgiveness. What haunted me wasn’t the perpetrators—it was the image of the persecuted: the weak, helpless, and hopeless Jew in the extermination camps. The image of my father.
Carl Jung called this repressed part of ourselves “the Shadow.” In the language of myth, Luke Skywalker would call it the dark side. It’s the part we hide—flawed, inferior, insecure, even shameful. It’s everything we don’t want to be, but secretly fear we are.
I ran from my shadow. I rejected it. I didn’t want to be seen—or to see myself—as frail, frightened, or broken. So I masked it. I numbed it. I put up a front. But the image of the helpless Jew was part of my inheritance—part of me. It was my shadow, and I fought it with everything I had.
But that internal violence—trying to cut out a part of myself—was tearing me apart. I had to find a different way. I had to stop the fight and learn to accept the gentle, frightened, vulnerable parts of myself. They, too, are mine.
The Holocaust experience, for me, was not taught in books or fully told in stories. It came through osmosis—through silence, glances, mood shifts, and fragments of testimony passed on by my parents. My father’s journey through four concentration camps left physical scars—a number tattooed on his arm: B3037—but it also left invisible ones, passed down through generations.
My art grew out of this silence. The themes came from the cattle car, from the absence of details, from what was not said. I tried to make sense of the unspeakable by working with my hands, eyes, and heart. My creative process became my way of crawling out of the darkness—an act of integration, of shining light on the shattered self, and making peace with the shadow. Through sculpture, painting, and mixed materials, I searched for meaning in the trauma. Not to glorify it, but to transform it.
👉 Learn more about my creative process.
The infamous phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”—”Work Sets You Free”—was written over the entrance gate to Auschwitz, the very place where my father’s identity was reduced to a number. And yet, in a strange and redemptive twist, it is also through my work—twenty years of devoted art-making—that I began to experience a new kind of freedom. Not the kind promised by cruel irony, but one born of healing, expression, and self-reclamation.
Art, for me, became the bridge between suffering and meaning. A place where trauma could be seen, held, and slowly transmuted.
On Fatherhood: Becoming the Man I Needed
“The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time; not to admonish them, but to be never seen doing that of which you would admonish them.” – Plato
They say a man is a prince until he has children—then he becomes a king. I felt that shift the day Tomer was born. He’s not with me everywhere I go, but he’s always in my pocket. Everything I do—how I live, how I take care of myself—leads back to him. I carry that responsibility with both weight and gratitude.
Often, we walk paths I’ve walked a thousand times, but for him, it’s all new. And in that newness, I’m reminded to see the world differently. He teaches me to stay present. To stay young.
In the last decade, I’ve been blessed with two more children—Quinn and Rae—gifts from my beloved Danna. They expanded not only our family but the dimensions of my heart. Being a stepfather is less about taking the lead and more about showing up with a quiet presence. I try to be a steady support for Danna while finding my rhythm with the kids—through small gestures, shared laughter, and the slow building of trust.
Love grows in the spaces between words. It doesn’t demand a title. It just asks that you keep showing up.
Fatherhood—biological or not—has shaped me more than any degree or job. It grounds me, humbles me, and calls me to be better. My children may not know it yet, but they are some of my greatest teachers.
On Art and Success: Truth Without Applause
“Vulnerability is the core of shame, fear, and struggle; it is also the birthplace of joy, creativity, love, and belonging.” – Brene Brown
Calling myself an artist didn’t come easily. For years, I wrestled with Impostor Syndrome—the feeling that “artist” was a title reserved for others. Something grander than I believed myself to be. But after more than twenty years of steady devotion to the creative process—layer after layer, piece after piece—what else could I honestly call myself?
Still, a quieter voice lingered. Enough of the Holocaust, it whispered. Sometimes from within. Sometimes in the silent gaze of others. The fatigue is real—not only among those of us born into the legacy of trauma, but in anyone who’s tried to hold the weight of that history. It’s not denial. It’s grief that has no end.
Yet that story—of inherited trauma, silence, and shadow—remains the throughline of my art. I couldn’t sidestep it. I couldn’t make work that mattered without facing it. That’s where truth lived.
Over the years, I’ve rewritten my artist statement more times than I can count. Each version peeled away another layer of armor, allowing more honesty to come through. I’ve come to understand what Brené Brown means when she says, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.” Making art from that space—where shame and healing meet—has required everything of me. But it’s also given me something I never expected: a voice that feels fully my own.
Success, for me, no longer lives in the external. It isn’t fame or fortune. It’s presence. Mastery. Showing up for the work day after day, allowing it to shape me. The art has changed my inner world—emotionally, spiritually, even physically. That’s the impact I hold onto.
In a world that often rewards visibility over depth, creating without applause is its own quiet act of courage. My success is not in being seen by the masses, but in seeing myself more clearly. Not in being celebrated, but in being transformed.
On Divorce: Letting Go to Become Whole
“My marriage was the boat, and I knew I could not swim back to it.” – Deborah Levy
When I stopped believing in the future of my marriage, a slow and painful truth emerged: leaving—despite the chaos it would bring—was the only way forward.
I tried to stay. For stability, for family, for the life we had built. But staying meant losing parts of myself I could no longer afford to abandon. Walking away wasn’t easy. It felt like jumping ship without knowing if I could swim. But the unknown held more truth than the comfort of pretending.
Leaving wasn’t a rejection of the past. It was a way of honoring it—of saying, this mattered, this shaped me, and now I need to grow beyond it.
Divorce is often spoken of in terms of loss. And yes, there is grief—deep, complex, layered. But there is also a strange kind of rebirth. In the wreckage of endings, there is space for honesty, for becoming. I didn’t walk away from my marriage lightly. I walked away because I needed to walk toward something more aligned, more real. And with time, the pain made room for clarity, and the sorrow gave way to strength.
On Cancer: Dancing with the Shadow
“Sometimes in life, you have to surrender before you win.” – Gregory David Roberts
In 2014, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It wasn’t until late 2017—after several years of consistently stable blood test results—that I was considered cancer-free. Those three years were a profound initiation. I came to understand that healing is not a straight line. It’s a sacred, intensely personal journey—physical, emotional, and spiritual all at once.
A quote by the artist Jenny Holzer struck a deep chord during that time: “FEAR is the most elegant weapon. Your hands are never messy.” The presence of cancer felt like an invisible energy field hovering above me—always there, always reminding me. Only much later did that shadow begin to fade. And with its slow disappearance came something more than physical relief: the quiet emergence of healing.
Against my urologist’s recommendation, I chose an experimental treatment called Focal Laser Ablation (FLA)—a procedure offered by only two doctors in the U.S. at the time. FLA combines two advanced technologies: a 3T Multi-Parametric MRI, which enables pinpoint detection of cancer within the tiny, almond-sized prostate gland; and a focused laser that destroys the tumor without removing the entire organ. I’m deeply grateful for having found this option. It allowed me to maintain the quality of life I wanted and to avoid the long-term side effects of prostatectomy.
Recovery had its share of ups and downs. What sustained me was something that might sound paradoxical: surrender without giving up. It means accepting reality fully, without resistance—while still moving forward with intention, courage, and faith.
Practices like yoga, swimming, biking, and dance anchored me in my body and breath. They weren’t just physical activities; they were ways of listening—of connecting to something greater, of making space for healing from within.
And then there was dance.
I had always loved to dance, but life had pulled me away—until the 5Rhythms movement practice found its way in. What began as curiosity became a lifeline. Dance gave me back to myself—body, breath, instinct. It became my meditation. My medicine.
On the dance floor, I entered a wordless dialogue—not just with others, but with the cancer itself. Sometimes I fought. Sometimes I surrendered. I raged, grieved, soothed, and pleaded. Through it all, dance held me steady—a kind of embodied prayer. A return to joy.
As Rumi wrote: “When you do things from the soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
I couldn’t have moved through this chapter without love. The healing power of intimacy, presence, and support—from my beloved Danna—held me in the moments I couldn’t hold myself.
On Love, Dance, and Spiritual Companionship
“Intimacy is not something we find; it’s something we create, moment by moment.” — Sue Johnson
On the dance floor, something shifted. Danna and I had met briefly before, but this time, when she placed her feet on mine and we moved together, something opened—soft, tender, almost sacred. There was magic in that moment. Not the loud kind, but the kind that enters quietly and never really leaves.
Since then, Danna has brought richness into my life that I could not have anticipated. Her presence alone would have been enough. But with her came so much more—her loving parents, Sandra and Burt, who welcomed me as their own. Her children, Quinn and Rae, who, over time, invited me into their lives and taught me new dimensions of connection and care. Her siblings made space for me at the table, both literally and metaphorically.
Suddenly, I was part of a family that showed up—with food, with laughter, with warmth. I didn’t grow up with that kind of ease around the dinner table. There’s a quiet healing in being included like that—no explanations required.
Through Danna, I also discovered Nashuva, a spiritual Jewish community led by Rabbi Naomi Levy. It was unlike anything I had experienced. The music, the prayer, the open-heartedness of it all—something in me responded. It wasn’t about belief; it was about resonance—with the universe, with the oneness. Singing along with the Nashuva band opened my heart, bypassed the intellect, and landed right in the center of my being.
Danna and I are aligned in many ways—how we live, what we value, what we seek. But at the heart of our connection is something more elusive: a shared spiritual journey. We’ve come to think of it as a kind of couplehood higher power—not instead of our individual practices, but as a third space we create and tend together.
The life lessons of love are never static. They evolve. At the core of our bond is communication. It’s not an accessory; it’s the foundation. We prioritize it like breath—once in the morning, after meditation, when the world is still quiet, and again at night, in the garden, when the stars come out, and everything softens. That time is sacred. We return to it not out of duty but because it keeps us close, real, and honest.
The lessons I’m learning now aren’t the dramatic kind. They’re quieter. Show up. Listen. Don’t rush. Let love be something you practice.
Love, like healing, like faith, is a path. One we walk barefoot, hand in hand—sometimes gracefully, sometimes stumbling—but always together.
This love didn’t come to fix me. It came to meet me. And in that meeting, I’ve found a way to soften. To deepen. To stay.
On Lifelong Learning: Reclaiming My Place in Tech
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Inspired by my son’s deep dive into digital coding—and my own curiosity about what powers the software world—I decided to reenter a space I once knew from the hardware side.
So, I jumped in. Some areas clicked. Others tested my limits. I earned a Data Analytics certification and am now working toward my Cisco Networking certification—drawn to its emphasis on structure and connection, both concepts I value deeply. I also track AI’s rapid evolution—not to become an engineer, but to speak the language, to stay conversant, and to find where I might contribute.
I’m not chasing reinvention. This is reclamation. Picking up a thread, not from nostalgia—but with intent. I may not be the youngest in the room, but I bring something time can’t teach: resilience, perspective, and a hunger to keep learning. I’m not after shortcuts. I’m looking for the right door to knock on—and when I find it, I’ll be ready.
On Stripe Paintings: Stories Told in Color
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” – Thomas Merton
The COVID lockdown became an unexpected chapter of creativity. With fear and anxiety pressing in, I turned to painting to quiet the noise inside. That’s how the Stripe Paintings began—layered bands of color drawn from memories, objects, and emotions that stayed with me. I started to see how one color changes depending on what stands beside it—how contrast shapes perception. Just like in life.
👉 Learn more about the Stripe Paintings.
With Danna’s steady encouragement, I also returned to writing—autobiographical stories, personal reflections, fragments of memory. I built my website from the ground up, learned the basics of SEO, and shaped it all around voice and language. Writing in my second language pushed me to be clearer, more precise, more intentional. Over time, I leaned on tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT—not to replace my voice but to help sharpen it.
It was slow, sometimes frustrating—but enriching. Writing helped loosen the weight I’d been carrying. It brought clarity. It helped me become more of an observer, someone with something of value to share.
The scars will never fully disappear—but their edges have softened. They sting less.
Sometimes, the work doesn’t heal you—but it holds you. And that, too, is enough.
On Bearing Witness: Stepping Into the Fire
“When the soul hears the cry, the body must follow.” – Unknown
On the morning of Saturday, October 7th, 2023, the news began to break—first in fragments, then in waves. Reports of the massacre of Israelis, the horrifying breach by Hamas, and the shocking lack of IDF preparedness filled the air.
I was in the middle of a three-day 5Rhythms dance workshop with Lucia Horan, trying to move the ache rising in my chest. The body often knows what the mind can’t yet name. Sadness. Rage. Grief. Disbelief. I danced with all of it.
On Monday, Danna and I flew to Washington, D.C. By the time we returned, the full magnitude of the atrocity had surfaced. The images, the stories, the devastation—it all landed heavy. I looked at Danna and said quietly but clearly, “What am I doing here? I need to do something.”
A couple of days later, I was on a plane to Israel.
I spent three weeks at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, just half a mile from the Gaza border. The community had been devastated. The dairy farm—once a place of daily rhythms and quiet labor—was in ruins. Of the workers, non-remained.
I joined a small team of volunteers in a rescue effort: 370 milking cows and 300 calves, left without care, without order, without their people. We weren’t soldiers. We weren’t soldiers. We were citizens with work boots and open hearts, trying to bring life back to a broken place.
We cleaned out the animal stalls, cleared debris, and restored the milking systems. Every cow mattered. Every routine rebuilt felt like a small victory against the chaos. There was no heroism in it. Just presence. Just showing up.
In moments like this, it’s easy to feel powerless. But sometimes, the way forward isn’t through speeches or strategy—it’s through sweat. It’s presence. Through your hands in the dirt, your feet planted beside others, doing what you can.
I went to be with my people. To lend my hands to the brokenness. Because when the world fractures, the soul doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It simply whispers: Go.
👉 Learn more about my experience at Nahal Oz.
On Dance and Vision: Moving What Words Can’t Say
“Your body is the ground metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence.” – Gabrielle Roth
I carry a vision for a dance performance—a piece I would like to produce, rooted in the 5Rhythms movement practice. I see it clearly: who might choreograph it, who might dance in it—though none of them know this yet.
The piece would trace a journey: from trauma to hope, from rupture to spiritual growth. It would move through the five rhythms—flow, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness—each stage a layer of transformation.
This idea lives in me as a quiet calling. A next step. A way to express what words cannot. Maybe it becomes a performance. Maybe it becomes a shared healing space. Either way, it feels aligned. We all carry wounds. We all move through shadow. Maybe, through art and movement, we can remember that healing is possible—not all at once, but one rhythm at a time.
April 2025