Equation

I dedicate my spiel to all immigrants, who care about their careers in America.

Just days away from July 4th, I want to write something patriotic... I don't want to question myself about my patriotism, I just want to write about
something really AMERICAN.

Equation is a mathematical statement that asserts the equality of two expressions. Today my talk about highly controversial and complicated
equation - employment one, where one expression is employers, another one is employees. One is hiring, another one wants to be hired.

Couple weeks ago I noticed a very challenging article on CNBC.
It's about new hiring effect. According to Eric Spiegel, chief executive in the US for Siemens, the German engineering group, "the problem exposed weaknesses in education and training in the US. Siemens had been forced to use more than 30 recruiters and hire staff from other companies to find the workers it needed for its expansion plans, even amid an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent." Finally, someone began to talk about education and training. O, yes, immigrants workers need to be trained and educated more than anyone else.
But who will provide training opportunities for us?..

Being an IT professional, I feel a pain of many workers who can not find a real job without additional training and education. IT workers must train and retrain themselves constantly. It feels like an endless, sometimes chaotic process: more you know, more you have to learn. Most of recruiters and hiring managers DO NOT care who will train and educate workers. From my personal experience, IT folks train themselves using many different sources such as free software, tutorials, videos, forums, books, local user groups. And I think, it's not enough nowadays. I was contracted with Siemens for 1 year and was surprised how they used to choose full-time employees and contractors. Moreover, I did not notice training classes for full-time employees either. Most of work was done by well-qualified contractors. As I was told, hiring contractors saves a lot of money for company. Therefore company tries to save money on training and education. I'm not surprised, Siemens used 30 recruiters to find a right people from OTHER companies for certain positions. Siemens is not only one company which choose cost over the training and education.
How to find a right company which used to invest into training and education?

It's quite difficult question for most workers especially for immigrants. We're looking for companies, where we can be trained, educated and accepted as an immigrants.
I'm not a first or last person, who writes about difficulties of integration into American life. I'm sure, that most of us are doing the best job as possible, but we still immigrants. What I know for sure, we need more attention than regular American workers, and we deserve it.
Is America still land of opportunity?

Is he Jewish?

Nowadays everything is possible. Yesterday one of my FB-friends pointed my attention to Mikhail Prokhorov bio-facts.
According to Wikipedia, "His maternal grandmother, Anna Belkina, was a microbiologist and was JEWISH"... I was quite shocked. Prokhorov is Jewish?.. He is. Actually not many Internet sites talk about it. Usually talks about Jewish roots of Russian oligarchs take a lot of space in cyberspace. I'm surprised only couple websites mentioned about his Jewish background. One of the English-based sites defined him as a "quarter-Jewish." I strongly disagree. If his maternal grandmother is Jewish, his mother is Jewish. Therefore he is Jewish. I know, he does not feel Jewish at all, but still it's a great pleasure to introduce new face to our tribe. Welcome a nice bachelor!

Pictures from Picnic.

US Senator Al Franken

US Senator Al Franken and my mom

Tourist Top Ten Destinations in Israel.

Old school

She is 90, he is over 80. They fall in love, and they met each other on www.match.com . After watching this episode on www.yahoo.com, I asked myself: "Is it even possible?" Yes, it's quite possible. It's old school, where people want to be loyal, committed, and honest with each other. They did not play new modern games, they did not call each other "partners", "soulmates" or "best friends". They actually want to be husband and wife. It sounds happy and cool, in their age it even sounds promising and healthy. It's really old school.

Watching this video, I reminded myself some wisdom words of rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who wrote controversial book "Kosher sex": "Singles today are immunized to real love. They date and date but rarely fall in love. And the problem lies not with a dearth of suitable mates but within. Their hearts are made of Teflon rather than Velcro".
Are we a teflon-made generation and love does not stick to us? What happened with old values? Even in modern times old generation finds a way to show their respect to each other. Are we raising disrespectful nation? Are we going down? How long will we go down? Where is a bottom?

Do we want to go up?..

She is the one and she is shiksa...

It happenned, shiksology became a science. A century ago it was not even possible, now it's quite popular. You have to agree, we live in a very different world. We worry about the future of Israel, but we face the major challenge, which hits hard Jews all over the world. Historically, for centuries Jews overcame "final solution" many times. How about this time... Is it "final solution", which slowly and silently kills future generations?

It's a good question for Jewish men. Do they want to marry Jewish women? Do they want to have Jewish family?
Are they READY? According to Rabbi R. Mermelstein (Rabbi@GunOwnersAlliance.com), "60% (By the way, this number was a lot higher in former Soviet Union) of American Jews marrying outside their faith of birth, and we are moving in a frightening direction." Yes, it's a harsh reality that we are moving closer and closer to a final solution. The last thing we need it's a manual how to run a final solution.

Of course, I realize, each of us has a right to read or not to read the book, and of course, each of us has an own opinion about idea of some Jewish men to marry shiksa. But, according to Amazon.com, some people think the book is helpful, mildly entertaining, funny and hilarious. Now, our final solution is funny. One of the reviewers wrote: "From the beginning, this book makes it clear that it will not touch upon the highly controversial issue of interfaith dating". It does not touch, it just guides how to do...

Father's Day

Сначала решила писать на английском, потом передумала. Вообще то я должна была писать о папе на идыш. Но так уж получилось, что русский мой первый язык. Папа очень любил идыш. Со своими родителями он говорил только на идыш. Папа вообще любил быть евреем, любил свою еврейскую семью, любил куриный бульон с мацой круглый год, любил еврейский юмор. Он любил быть мужем и отцом, любил заботится о нас, а мы о нем. По современным меркам я - везучая. Сейчас не многие могут похвастаться такой семьей, а особенно отцом.

Многие современные женщины настолько независимы, что совсем забыли о трационной семье. Традиционно в Америке празднуется день матери, день отца, но почему-то нет дня семьи. Можно иметь отца и мать, но совершенно не обязательно иметь семью. Все больше и больше мы слышим о "гражданских женах, мужьях и семьях." Теперь в моде "пробные браки" и "браки по расчету". Кажется, что все забыли о старом и очень мудром понятии семьи. Кажется, что все хотят быть вместе, но это только кажется...

Помню, когда была совсем подростком, распрашивала родителей, как они познакомились и, естественно, как они рещили создать семью. Папа всегда гордо говорил, что все решил за две недели и ждал маминого решения. Он любил рассказывать эту историю, но больше всего любил рассказывать как познакомил маму со своими родителями. Она сразу им понравилась. Теперь такие истории крайне редки. Историй мало, настоящих отцов мало, только настоящих разводов много. Потому в день отца, хочется пожелать всем крепких семей, а тем, кто ищет супруга и отца, хочется пожелать найти того, кто любит быть мужем и отцом.

World of opinions

Welcome to my world of opinions. Welcome to the world, where I value, take and respect opinions. Opening the blog, I asked myself: "Do I have to be opinionated?" The answer is YES. Nowadays opinions are everywhere. It looks like everyone has an opinion about anything. So, we live in a world of opinions. How do we choose a right one? By the way, can we live without opinion?

Today I'm talking about the article I really like and opinion I really value and respect. First of all, the author Joseph Farah is quite interesting person. He was born in America to parents of Syrian and Lebanese ancestry. He is an author, journalist and editor-in-chief of the conservative website
WorldNetDaily . Joseph is one of the most opinionated people about Middle East problems. Recently he published the article about history of Middle Eastern problem. It's important to say word "history".

Many people have opinions not knowing the history of the problem, and they take one or another side never learned about history. In fact, often propaganda does not care about history or presents history in its way. Real history forms a right opinion about present situation. Moreover it gives a power to defend opinion.
For sure, we need more historical facts, not myths. Winston Churchill said: "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." And I agree with him completely.
I don't know if author knew about aphorism when he wrote an article, but he takes us back as far as 5000 years and prove that Jerusalem is a holy place for Jews:
"In fact, the Quran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good reason.
There is no historical evidence to suggest Muhammad ever visited Jerusalem." I think, if we're talking about future, we have to look back and learn the history lessons...
Do we want to learn history lessons? Let me know...

First statement

This my very first entry. What should I say? How should I introduce my new venture? Why am I doing this? Who's going to read?
Questions and questions... I hope, my notes will answer on all of your questions. I would be happy if some of you will receive the answers
on your own questions. Here's a start. Here's my first statement:
"I'm here to talk about who I am. I'm here to be heard. Finally I'm here to find the best friend.
I'm intelligent and casual, friendly and liberal, spiritual, but not religious
I'm well-educated, personal-growth oriented and opened to new ideas.
In spare time I'm a blogger and a community volunteer-writer
(check my blogs "Cooking with Yiddishe mama" and "Dailywebnotes").
Love to share my opinion, help people to learn new ideas and explore world together.
I'm kind and supportive, loyal and caring, honest and sensitive.
I'm a great friend to have!
I like meeting new people, so please feel free to leave a comment. I'm looking forward to hearing from you."