Your blog, especially posts like this one, go a long way towards bridging that gap. Keep it up.

Oh, and keep posting links to Israeli culture (especially YouTube clips) that you think are relevant to Israeli society, even if you can’t translate them. While I’m American, I do speak Hebrew fluently, and it’s nice to have good pointers to Israeli culture (like popular commercials and shows like “Naor’s Friends”). I always impress my Israeli relatives with my knowledge of what’s going on in Israeli society (as opposed to just the political situation), and I really owe a lot of it to you.

I actually recently started a group blog for olim (like me) to practice our Hebrew, so in a sense that bridges the gap– here we are, English- (and Portuguese-)speaking olim, writing in Hebrew. On the other hand, the scope and quality of my Hebrew writing is pretty much limited to my pets and weekend plans, so not much insightful commentary coming from me there. Check it out if you’re interested– olimomrim.blogspot.com

In my personal blog, howtobeisraeli.blogspot.com, I try to write about lessons learned the hard way from my daily life as an olah chadasha– i.e., how to use an Israeli mop or avoid being a fryer. My main audience is Americans who are interested in moving to Israel, and I try to show what life is like for secular Israelis outside Anglo bubbles in Bet Shemesh or Jerusalem. It’s easy to believe from reading English blogs that most Israelis live in the West Bank and see Lieberman as too liberal (seriously). But I deliberately stay away from politics in my blog. I’ll try to add some of these links to my blog roll to bring a bit more balance!

At the same time, wouldn’t it be a good thing if more Israelis would read posts from Zionist American olim living in occupied territories? It’s easy to have great misconceptions about who these people are and how they see the world… I know I’ve become more open-minded through reading their blogs and understanding the deep sense of betrayal that these olim feel.

In answer to your questions, I do translate posts from the Hebrew blogosphere occasionally, but I don’t have the time to do it justice. This is frustrating, because there are so many fascinating conversations , and I’d love for English speakers to participate too. As for writing a blog in Hebrew…I’ve been thinking about it. But I write really slowly in Hebrew, and my spelling is horrendous. Not sure that my ego is up for the experience. So yeah, I’ll keep thinking about that…