Jessica Russak-Hoffman

So this happened!!! Thank you @JewishLibraries for choosing my manuscript set in Israel! It's based on a true story about mermaid sightings in Kiryat Yam. This story is very special to me. #jewishkidlit #WritingCommunity #jewish #Israel #mermaids

What does @MelatKirosCO think now?

Replies are having fun with eruv jokes...

Glad they talked the dog down.

Cocktail at an Israeli elections watch party in Seattle. (Does not reflect the feelings of the hosts, just their love of puns.)

Storming historic sites in Rome while waving the Palestinian flag is a little too much historical amnesia for me. An arc in history has reached the end. Shut it down. We're done here.

This is how I discover that no, I am not late to my kid's zoom shiur at his yeshiva. I'm an hour early.

In his letter urging Washington Gov. Ferguson to reject the tax credit, Chris Reykdal wrote that he's worried groups that distribute scholarships to religious schools will benefit from the tax credit, and accused those schools of discrimination. So if a Jewish school admits Jewish students or a Muslim school admits Muslim students, etc, it's discriminatory, according to Reykdal. Even though in the state, private faith-based institutions have legal discretion to define their educational mission, curriculum, and community standards, which allows them to restrict enrollment or give preference to members of their specific faith. Is his argument that religious groups can never benefit from tax credits? They can and do already, btw. Or is he more concerned that people will pull their kids from public schools, which are only at 60-70% capacity already. It's telling that Jewish groups that lean left, and legislators across the aisle, want the governor to opt in to the tax credit program. We can guess Reykdal's motivation here, but what is the governor's? The governor has until Jan. 1 to decide.

Seattle in October 🥰🥰🥰 The big dark is coming soon. Soak up the beautiful days.

I love it when my house smells like challah

My favorite thing about scrolling on tiktok is coming across a post of Daniella Gilboa getting her makeup done and looking happy and hanging with her friends. A reminder that Hashem performs miracles. That we saw miracles in our time.

So his group was in a closed military zone, where they were not allowed to be, in a foreign country? They were told to leave by soldiers whose job it is to keep citizens and tourists safe? He and his group were taken to a police station by bus, then safely released? I'm not disputing what happened or commenting on if it was wrong. But I am curious, for people criticizing Israel for giving its critics air time, or for people criticizing the IDF and police for detaining the group, what would you have done differently? Would you, as a commander, have instructed your unit to allow tourists to remain in a closed military zone, knowing they were only harvesting olives and likely not planning anything crazy, just to avoid the bad PR? Or would you have followed protocol? Even with a dozen of the tourists and activists making Instagram influencer-style videos?