The Untold Story of Willy Rudolf Foerster – Japan’s Oskar Schindler
For nearly twenty years I was a regular visitor to the Chabad House of Rabbi Binyomin Edery in Omori, Tokyo. Never in my wildest dreams, as I walked there along German Dori, which means German Street, did I realize that Nazi secrets were hidden within plain sight. Stately European-style houses should have given me a […]
Welcome
Thank you for visiting my website. I’m in the process of updating and adding new features that introduce you to my twin worlds in Jerusalem now (top picture) and where I raised my children in Tokyo (bottom).
Sayonara Fritz Jacobi
Fritz Jacobi, who was always great at calling a scoop when he saw one, missed out on the best scoop of his life. The title Fritz could have chosen for this scoop: “Man Dies on Park Bench of Natural Causes.” Today I learned from his son Mike Jacobi that my dear first boss, a friend […]
Coming of Age in Jerusalem
Since moving to Israel, I’ve been working toward completion of a memoir about my transformational marriage and family life in Japan. That was when I had a different ending–or so I thought. It was tale about doing my best to root myself in a Japanese family and come out nearly thirty years later reconciled to spending the […]
Top Memoirs on My Summer Reading List
I love books about inspirational women who stand up for themselves, who speak up even when living out of their comfort zone, half way around the world from where they were born. With this in mind, I searched for memoirs that dealt with the themes of most interest to the Wagamama Bride, starting with falling […]
What the Go-Betweens Know
Marriage go-betweens traditionally offered advice — not rubber stamping. I regret that I didn’t do more to ask for advice. Our Go-between was largely ceremonial and added a definite touch of impressiveness. But what I needed more than anything was a primer in Japanese marriage—what would be expected of me. And through soul- searching to […]
Moving Forward with my Mother
Yesterday I found it quite distressing the shedding of the leaves on this small lemon bush –a tragedy I thought. Today I see heaven’s hand in all of this. Without the leaves I could better see the butterfly engaged in reading. Yes, reading! I couldn’t believe my eyes either when I saw the photo after snapping away […]
Digging into My New York City Past
Since I’ve been in Japan more than half my life now–thirty years it will be this September–the New York City that I know comes with the baggage of being a jet-lagged mother of two randy children whose idea of a grand time in the Big Apple is playing on the monkey bars in Central Park. Now that they […]
When Death is Like Rocket Fuel
What makes an epic memoir epic is the sad fact that people die. Here in my wedding photo the only man left is Akihiko in the front row. His uncle Susumu, his father Toshihiko, my father Carol, and my step-father Leon have passed. And now the latest and dearest family member, my mother, has gone […]
Happy Hannukah from my mother
I’m just six weeks into mourning the loss of my mother and my approach, at least so far, is to think of doing things that would please my mother,make her proud of what she herself accomplished in her 84 years, and even to do things that bring resolution to what she left unfinished. My mother […]
Farewell to the Mother of the Bride
My mother Adrianne Lebensbaum’s lifelong habit of voracious reading gave weight to her astute comments about everything I’ve ever written. The Wagamama Bride’s progress — and what was holding up its completion — peppered our trans-Pacific long-distance conversations to the point where she jokingly said to me over the summer, “Liane, I sure hope it’s done before […]
When a First-Born Japanese Son is Unlikely to Move Overseas
AFWJ is the acronym for the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese, of which I’m a member, even though – as the old Woody Allen joke goes: I would never join a club that would have me as a member. Despite my reluctance to join the AFWJ, I did finally break out of my introverted shell a […]
