Tidings Blog

Avigail Abarbanel is an Israeli-born psychotherapist who migrated to Australia in 1991. A few months ago, she and her husband moved to the Scottish Highlands where they plan to set up their counseling practice. I spoke with Avigail from her home near Inverness.  I found it refreshing and interesting to talk to a psychotherapist about a […]

  Lately, I’ve been curious about why some people become activists while others look on from the sidelines, unmoved by situations that a committed activist finds intolerable.We’re all against oppression and injustice and we all believe human rights are hugely important and must be defended at all cost—but not necessarily by us.. Others however hear […]

  What is it and who are the dark tourists? It seems that we humans are hardwired to leave our hearths and homes every now and then to discover what else lies beyond the horizon. So we turn into tourists or travelers, timid or intrepid, hewing to the known or smitten by the uncharted, more […]

Begging: a profession? a misfortune? a job? a scourge? a spiritual practice? an industry? a stain on society? freedom of choice? Like tipping, the subject of my previous post, begging creates an unequal relationship between giver and receiver, an unbalanced one-way exchange with the amount of money transferred depending on the generosity and intentions of […]

Full disclosure.  I don’t think tipping is a good thing and I don’t like what it does to people. I also believe that hardly anybody except for a few scattered bloggers will agree with me. Tipping is deeply embedded in American culture which means we have access to hundreds of books and articles about the etiquette […]

  You can’t make olive oil without olives and you can’t get olives without olive trees and you can’t have olive trees without land and you can’t get abundant harvests of olives from these trees without the farmers who know and understand them and who have tended them over generations.The ruthless destruction of any tree […]

For the podcast of this interview, please link here. Forbidden Cuba! Hidden by a veil of myths and misconceptions, romanticized, villified, desirable, tempting, waiting… Most Americans have never been to Cuba and many, many would very much like to. Others say they wouldn’t dream of visiting that communist country run by Fidel—now Raoul–Castro and his evildoers. […]

Just because you think you’re not creative doesn’t mean you aren’t! Water is H20, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, But there is also a third thing that makes it water And nobody knows what that is. D. H. Lawrence, The Third Thing Creativity is a word that is full of light, it glows and it pleases—people like […]

With love and in memory of Midge.  Requiescat in pace.  We miss you a lot. This is a personal story, based on conversations with my school friends from a very far away place and a very long ago time. Midge, Pat and I were children together at Woodstock, an international boarding school in Mussoorie in the […]

My parents had four passports between 1933 and 1972: Polish, German, Pakistani and Israel. I can’t imagine not knowing where my passport is.  When I travel I am as obsessive-compulsive as I ever get, exasperating myself as I check and recheck every pockets, bag and suitcase.  It amazes me to hear how careless people can be […]

About Hazel

Born to German Jewish refugee physicians in Lahore (now Pakistan, then British India) Hazel has lived, studied and worked in many places–India, England, Australia, Israel and the United States. She makes her home in the woods of the eastern end of Long Island, New York where she produces the art of leafages, the radio sounds of Tidings and writes about growing up Jewish in Lahore. Read more about Hazel…

About Leafages

"Credo" statement

Leafages by Hazel Kahan are made from real leaves, vines and tendrils interwoven with calligraphy, decorative pen and ink flourishes and imaginary Latin botanical names. Leafages contain a philosophical or inspirational thought, quotation or verse from sages, poets or religious texts. Some leafages are specially created for an individual, a couple or a family with words or leaves reflecting their personal narrative. They are available on the Leafages shop on Etsy although the supply is low right now, all my energies having been absorbed by the book I’ve been writing. Do come back soon when the shop will be full of new leafage abundance or contact me.