A bit about me…

Welcome to my blog! I’ve been blogging since June 28, 2009. I am a technical writer living in Maale Adumim, Israel, with my husband, a microbiologist in the pharmaceutical industry, and teenage son. I am a Japanese-Canadian-Israeli, formerly Roman Catholic and Swedenborgian, and a convert to Orthodox Judaism.

I’ve been dabbling in photography since 2008. I currently shoot with a Canon 550D and an S95. Although I accept the occasional paid photography job (small events, portrait, and products), mostly I shoot for my own pleasure.

I’ve been making things since I was a child and am mostly self-taught. My mother was an art teacher and artist, mainly painting and photography; she wasn’t the crafty type, although she was a phenomenal cook. My father was an architect and my stepfather was a professor and jazz pianist. My sister continued the musical tradition, playing the French horn professionally until she retrained as a statistician in London, England, where she was born and currently lives with her husband and children. I played several musical instruments but gave them up after I started graduate school.

I knit, crochet, spin, weave, sew, draw, paint, do beadwork and calligraphy, tat, make bobbin lace and needle lace, do counted cross-stitch embroidery, blackwork, and paper cuttings, … but not all at once. I haven’t yet figured out a way to stretch 24 hours into 48! I walk, jog, and practice yoga, although I’m pretty undisciplined when I don’t push myself to go to class.

I have a BA and MA from the University of Toronto and a PhD from Harvard University in Second Temple Jewish Literature (Study of Religion, 1996). I edited several books on Dead Sea Scrolls, when I was Director of Publications at the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebrew University. The royalties, alas, do not allow me to quit my day job.

I can be reached at spindexr@gmail.com.