My Kosher Israeli Mediterranean recipes- Guacamole

In Israel I use to work on a kibbutz for a few months where I took a Hebrew Ulpan class. It was one of the best experiences I had living there. One of the produce my kibbutz - Ein Dor- had was growing avocados. Now the secret and fun to picking avocados is getting inside the tree to find the well camouflaged fruits hidden by the same colored leaves as the fruits.

Here I am below Mt. Tabor at Kibbutz Ein Dor.

Yes, Israel is a major exporter of avacados. So if you think Guacamole is Mexican - think again, It's Israeli.

My own secret avocado guacamole . If you like it you will like the book.

Recipe' for two-In food processor.

One Avocado. Put slices in. Boil one egg. Put in. Make a chicken soup with boiled onion, celery leaves, and tomato. Garlic is optional. Take out a celery leaf, the cooked tomato, the cooked onion and about a spoon of chicken broth. Add to food processor. You may also add a scallion or parsley leaves instead of the onion and celery leaf. Add  a pinch of coriander, curry, sea salt, and red paprika. Blend.  Put on a toasted pita bread that was toasted with some olive oil and paprika. This is probably the best guacamole version you will ever have.

Relaxing Zen from Israel: a scenic video for relaxation and meditation.

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A story about finding roots

This story of seeking my roots by searching for a location painted  by my artist artist grandfather and bringing him back to life through critiqueing his art. The ruined castle my grandfather Josef Alster painted was somewhere in Poland or Germany. I was going to be in Germany for my third time and was seeking out the castle if I could. I could not find it on the trips and the search was on. In the end I did discover the castle. This Blog was eventually incorporated in my book "Leaving Home Going Home Returning Home" . Since I " solved" this art mystery I have solved two other art mysteries. On about a painting of Billie Dove and another about the painting the Daughters of de Boit by John Singer Sargent. Will publish those soon.

http://happy-holocaust-story.blogspot.com/

The Classification of a Sleep Disorder - Non REM parasomnia associated with Tinnitus

How I classified a sleep disorder - in Israel. I was working with Dr Josef Attias in the Israeli medical corps at Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel-Aviv as a brain research of the auditory system and how to defend the auditory system from the stress of being in the military. A major problem for soldiers is that they can acquire tinnitus. A problem where a person afflicted will have a ringing in the ears sensation. At the time, Dr. Attias and his co-worker Dr. Zecharia Shemesh were trying to help tinnitus patients with self hypnosis as well as find a way to increase the immune system with vitamins that might help the auditory system to withstand high noise levels of stress. I was helping them as part of my reserve duties to do brain stem auditory testing or brain stem auditory evoked responses on different patients who came to the Noise Hazards research and Evoked Potentials Laboratory of the I.D.F. As I was also a registered polysomnographic technologist, R.Psg.T. and performed sleep research at the Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa , I knew something about sleep disorders. However, after I finished my master degree in neurosciences at the Technion I joined the staff at the sleep laboratory at Tel-Hashomer medical center which was across the street from the Noise Hazards Institute. Well while testing the patients brainstem auditory evoked responses BAER, I wondered if the tinnitus patients' ringing in their ears kept them awake. It was funny, I performed many sleep tests by now and never noticed a patient who came to the sleep center because of their ringing in their ears. So I began to ask the patients if they had any sleep disturbances. well to my surprise about half the patients said yes. This was unusual. I began to check the literature and although tinnitus patients would say on a general tinnitus questionnaire that they did have sleep disturbances they did not show up for a sleep test- nor were referred by a doctor either. So I decided to offer a specific dedicated mini sleep questionaire and after about 25 patients the picture showed that about half complained of moderate sleep disturbances. If this was the case, and since I worked in a sleep lab, I decided to check the polysomnographs at Tel Hashomer for any patient who came to the sleep center with a complaint or history of tinnitus and have a look at their results. Well the results were astonishing. out of 1000 records I checked only 10 patients had a main complaint of tinnitus, however, there were quite a few with another complaint as Sleep Apnea and tinnitus too. After going over their records I discovered that the patients who had tinnitus with another sleep problem had worse sleep results than people with tinnitus alone or sleep apnea alone. Thus, what was happenening now made sense. if you could not sleep well, then the ringing in the ears would keep you up longer. however, if you only had tinnitus, then it was in most patients not passing the threshold of severity to make it a reason to seek a sleep exam. Thus it became obvious that any patient with tinnitus was at risk of having a severe sleep disorder if it was combined with another sleep problem. After I published the results in Biological Psychiatry I notified the nosology committee at the sleep society and they acknolowedged my work (below). Years later I opened up a new book on sleep disorders classifications with noticed a new sleep disorder - tinnitus as a non-REM parasomnia and my paper referred to first as it was the very first objective physiological study of sleep records in tinnitus patients.

Leaving Home

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Relaxing Zen From Israel

While I lived in Israel , as you know, I was a biofeedback therapist. Now I was also an artist. It has been reported that Biofeedback can make you more creative, and I researched the notion of creativity. I was interested in creative techniques I could pass along to my young clients as well as the person behind the creative process. I wanted to know, "what made a person creative". I also loved nature and had mainly painted pastel landscape paintings as well as give art workshops in the national parks, especially at the Baron de Rothchild Park ( Park Ha'nadiv) in Zichron Ya'akov . It was great because there was always good weather you could count upon. There were also many beautiful flowers and very scenic vistas. Now with the invention of the digital camera, I began to make scenic studies on film to add to my relaxed concentration video " Being In Control: Natural Solutions for ADHD, Dyslexia, and Test Anxiety". I had filmed so many scenes that I also compiled the shots into two video "Exotic Sights and Sounds of Israel" and "Meditative Sights and Sounds of Israel". and had these movies uploaded to Amazon.com streaming video downloads. Yet, these two movies had poetic scripts added. Once back in the USA , I saw a movie on Zen concepts and a Japaneese garden. All it was was long shots of a Japaneese garden and scenery. So I wanted to make something similar about the Zen (simplistic) beauty of Israel that gets ignored in news items about Israel. Yet, I needed to combine footage from both videos to do that. I did, and the product became "Relaxing Zen From Israel"

ZenIsrael

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Creative Painting

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It's been two years now.

It's been two years now since I published my ground breaking memoir about the culture of Israel and the Aliya process in the book  " Leaving Home, Going Home, Returning Home: A Hebrew American's Sojourn in the Land of Israel". So what has happened since to me and to Israel. well , for me , things are really great, actually better than expected. you could even say that " I am living my dream".  I have totally integrated back into American society- as a Hebrew American who is known to have spent 23 years in Israel. Today, in the USA, having lived in Israel has become a badge of honor.
So what has happened? As I was a happy member in Israel, I joined the BNI ( Business Networking International) networking group in West Hartford, Ct. and they made me the mentor co-ordinator.  I was invited by CAPA, the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association  to give a talk on Video Book Trailer Editing - a new business of mine that combines video editing , creativity, authoring coaching, and network marketing. All subjects I have experience in. I have my own television show in my town of Wethersfield, CT on public access television WCTV14  named "Meet The Author". On the program, I interview authors I know from CAPA. By the way, historic Wethersfield situated on the Connecticut river is the countries very first township.  So , as someone who loves history, I enjoy being surrounded by it, along with the old town fairs, outdoor artists, and farmers markets. I will be offering introductory Hebrew at the Wethersfield Adult Education department as well as bamboo painting classes. I am now giving an art critique class at the West Hartford senior Center and plan along with my sister Audrey to offer Israeli and Jewish cooking there soon.
I am still tutoring students with ADHD as well as students who want to achieve higher grades from time to time and am having the same great results here as I did with the students in Israel ( I tutored over 300 there).
I also finished a second version of my video's " Being In Control: natural Solutions for ADHD, Dyslexia, and Test Anxiety",  as well as the video " Anyone can Improve Their Own Handwriting" which produced in Israel has over 55,000 hits now on YouTube ( the older version I put up). I now offer both videos as a internet streaming version on Amazon.com so that someone anywhere in the world can get the videos without having to pay for mailing of hardcopy. So too with "Leaving Home, Going Home, Returning Home" it is on Kindle as to be able to read it on the plane to Israel : )) or on the plane from Israel to the USA. I still work at Hartford Hospital in the neurodiagnostics department per diem and enjoy my hospital contribution, but have not had the opportunity to continue with medical research in my role as diagnostics technologist there.
As for my two daughters Shanee and Limor. They seem to both be following in some way in my foot steps and of that I am proud. Shanee has entered the field of biological research and Limor will be working with challenged students.
I also just finished a video on relaxation "Zen From Israel" using footage of exotic scenes I filmed while I lived in Israel wanting to show that Israel itself is a beautiful country and a land of milk and honey. But now, I am living in the USA, 10 miles from where I was born ( back to roots) and am filming my next relaxation movie " Zen of Winter". The joke is- there was only a few days of winter this year and a few of those in early October . Well, I just came back from a fishing convention and am gearing up for the early spring.

Leaving Home

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