""Who's your father?" my father would ask when a friend came to our house to study or play. And I wanted to bury myself in shame, trying to drag her into the room and shorten the time my father spent investigating my childhood friends.
Years have passed, days have passed, my father is no longer with us here in the physical world, and I do exactly, but exactly the same thing to my children, my granddaughters, the taxi driver, the librarian - and even to the mohel who came to check on the new newborn (say Mazal Tov on the new grandson).
In the generation of iPhones and social media, it's rare to find people talking to people.
That is, we actually talk, on the phone, on the street, in a restaurant, at a circumcision meal. We look into each other's eyes, ask curious, caring, and interested questions. In short - we connect.
If you want to know something about the teacher, the principal, the bank, the medicine, the disease, etc., all you have to do is 'Google', and you immediately have the answers to all your questions. Even if the person who can give you information is right in front of you or a phone call away.
Sad, but probably true.
A study conducted in the US shows that people don't talk to their loved ones even once a week.
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She talked on the phone all day and part of the night. She had a small, old-fashioned, "not smart" one.
She talked and talked and talked. In such luscious Yiddish with a heavy Hungarian accent that immediately betrayed the Hasidism to which she belonged. Every now and then she would spice up her conversations with a few words in English, also in a heavy Hasidic accent. I wouldn't give her more than 30-35, and with each conversation the full picture became clearer.
Mrs. H is her name, in case she also has a seizure sometimes.
H lay in bed next to my daughter for the first 48 hours after the birth. Since she's not as tech-savvy as we are, her phone kept ringing and the ringing was old and annoying! We heard about how the birth was, what she had to eat, how she had a daughter after three sons in a row. She gave instructions to her daughters-in-law and mother-in-law one after the other.
In short, 14 children. Three married and mostly grandchildren, all boys!
I've never heard anyone talk so much... Honestly, I missed conversations like this where you go into great detail with three friends, two sisters-in-law, a mother, a daughter, and a sister, each separately, about the Parmesan they sprinkled on your vegetable omelette that you received as a 'Bikur Cholim' (Hospital Visit) ration.
We, my daughter and I, also did the same thing. Almost. Only in multiples of hundreds and thousands and with minimal effort... and without even uttering a single word.
With the swipe of an iPhone, I took a picture of the breakfast and uploaded it to the family group, Facebook, and Instagram, and within seconds, thousands of people were able to easily identify and comment on the color and amount of Parmesan.
""Remember life before the iPhone?" was the headline in 'Yediot America'.
Black on a newspaper tells the story of the death of the phone call. The iPhone has literally killed the phone. A study conducted last year found that a quarter of iPhone users in the US haven't had a single phone call in a week. All in texts, emails, messengers.
The voicemail message is gone altogether.
Her soul will be bundled up in the bundle of apps.
• Miri Shneorson – presenter, lecturer, and media representative. To book a lecture, leave your details: lp.770marketing.com/miri_shneorson
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