CURRENT MISSION

impossible :)

ABOUT ME

We have been living across the world, believing life is a road and there is no reason to stop. We have met all sorts of people and have been hosted and hosted ourselves. People have helped us in need and we have done the same. We have done everything from gardening to high tech jobs. We love talking overnight about existential questions and we believe in finding truth through argument. When we were small, the world was different - and in the world where we lived people used to have less and to share more, however evil it might have been as a whole. We would like our children to grow up knowing to share and to love strangers.
Did you know that there is a special "loving hormon" in humans that makes us feel love when sharing a meal? (Michel Odent "L'Amour Scientifié"). Since our daughters joined us in this world, of course, life is different, but that is exactly why we believe that exchange with children is really great - for us, grown ups and for them. That is also why one of their "mother" tongues is English...

PHILOSOPHY

"The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender begginer; he to whom every soil is as his native is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love n one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his." - Hug of St. Victor, Saxony 12th c quoted from Edward Said.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We have kept our doors open, as our parents did once upon a time, for all the years of our life together. And we were never disappointed. We have myriads of friends all over the world and we think - there's never too many.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have had people coming over and staying for months and some just dropping in for a coffee. Our family and friends and friends of the family and friends feel free to come over whenever they want or can - and know it is just as if they lived with us. We believe that with mutual respect and consideration we can all have wonderful time and experience.
Can you believe: in the country where people had rarely more than 50 sqm per family of six my parents and their seven children hosted and have been hosted with great joy? It is a nice tradition to pass on through generations.

J: My impression of our chain-hosting is that of intense travelling. It's just another travelling mode. You're in your armchair with your mug, and the world, people, countries, colours, words, smells of dishes, move through your home... Guests rarely realize that they inevitably and somewhat unwittingly bring us more than they think they receive by having a couch next room.

Interests

Cultures (doesn't it include everything?), philosophy -ontological questions, politics (OMG, can we ever stop talking about that?), tango (dancing, listening), books, movies (severe addiction), psychology and alternative child rearing, Israeli politics (please, don't even start if you don't feel like spending a night over it)............etc etc etc

• arts
• writing
• books
• folklore
• dancing
• tango
• cooking
• coffee
• walking
• gardening
• politics
• technology
• movies
• traveling
• surfing
• history
• languages
• psychology

Music, Movies, and Books

I think that it was possible to name few when we were in our twenties. Since than the list became too long, but I'll give some hints.
Authors: Kurt Vonnegut, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Mann, Edward W. Said, Umberto Eco, Dostojevski, Sigrid Undset, Par Lagerkvist, Michel Foucault, Winnicott and soooo many more.
Movies, just directors ;)
Lars von Trier, Almodovar, Tarkovskij, Kim Kiduk, Mike Leigh.......................and also "afterlife" - japanese movie - we can't remember the director

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

life is amazingJ: a moment in my grey Soviet childhood, when my mom came from her impossible trip to the US in 1978, and when she opened her new tin American suitcases. I realized the world had colours. And I'm pretty sure Americans would know what I mean only theoretically.Something longer that epitomizes the CS:One stormy 1997 night I was waiting for someone in the Haifa Cinemateque square, on the top of Carmel hill. Clouds were ripping lamp posts, wind was tearing off my new coat. I spotted a solitary black silhouette approaching until I recognized this local homeless. As he passed by in the middle of empty plaza, we exchanged this momentary stinging and colder-than-night glance of two male strangers, fatally divided by class, age, circumstances and destinies... Five minutes later he emerged from a building behind my back. I knew it was him without turning my head. I heard him walking slower, stranger and I realized he was heading to me. Wrapped in my new coat, I was not going to turn around. I heard his steps in the freezing wind, getting closer, until he stopped - I watched his shadow - half a meter away from my back. I had to turn around - not in the least for my safety. He was holding two plastic cups of cheap but priceless hot coffee: one of them he handed to me, with another he walked silently into the stormy darkness and into my memory.

Teach, Learn, Share

We exchange knowledge on all subjects with pleasure, love learning (or teaching) new languages. I like cooking and can show you couple of things or would be glad to learn something new. Have been learning cooking in all kinds of settings - the best one, learing to stuff grape leaves in a palestinian village.J: I could teach you how one shouldn't cook, but too many people know it. A testified student (PhD) of unfeasible beautiful ideas of humankind, I could spend days in teaching and learning on utopias. Last half of the year have been writing on sexual utopia set in 2018, Jerusalem, by an odd Russian enthousiast whose in 1906 established Art Academy in Jerusalem I've graduated. And if while surfing on our couch you want to see a bit of Paris, don't provoke me about Zionist intellectual history. You'll return home not from Paris but from central Europe of the end of 19th c...

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Israel, Lithuania, Russian Federation

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