To grandman @ grandmacom.net 

 by Allison Kaplan Sommer 

(December 11, 1997) New technologies are revolutionizing 
family ties. Some relatives find they communicate better 
on E-mail than face-to-face.

 In the era of cable TV, McDonald's, Toys R Us, and catalog
 shopping, new immigrants to Israel can find nearly everything
 they left behind in North America. With one exception: family.
 While nothing can replace face-to-face contact, for a growing
 number of immigrants, the pain of separation is increasingly
 being eased by technology.

 For native Israelis, the Internet may be an interesting hobby or a
 useful information resource. But for many immigrants, the use of
 e-mail and the ability to send instant computer has become the glue
 that keeps families together emotionally when they are physically far
 apart.

 Chavi and Yisrael Feldman of Jerusalem have put their computer
 to maximum use to stay in touch with their family in Toronto
 from the moment they arrived here three years ago. Today, in
 addition to written E-mail, they regularly send computer-ready
 snapshots and videotapes through their modem, usually of their
 two children, Nava, three, and Ezra, 21 months. "It's very hard
 for my parents having two of their four grandchildren so far
 away," says Chavi, "so we try to take pictures or videos
 frequently and send them off through the computer. My parents
 rely on the pictures to feel like they are in touch with the
 children. When they do see them, they don't have to say things
 like 'My, how you've grown' because they see them on video so
 often." Feldman says her children are so used to the habit, that they
 have become consummate professionals when it comes to performing for
 the camera. "Yesterday I gave them a bath and we taped the whole
 thing, giving them cues like 'Don't forget, Grandma's watching; give
 her a kiss!' They waved, they danced, they put on a show."

 Baby Ezra has been mugging for the electronic camera since
 birth. He was born early, a few days before Chavi's parents had
 plane reservations to come to Israel. But that didn't stop them
 from experiencing the immediacy of his birth. "We took a picture of
 him five minutes after he was born. As soon as he could, Yisrael sent
 it through the computer to my parents. They printed it out and none
 of their friends in the US could believe that just a few hours after
 their grandson was born in Israel, they were able to proudly pull out
 a picture!"

 Electronic communication has been an integral part of Rona
 Michelson's life for an entire decade. When Michelson, a
 Jerusalem marriage and family therapist, was still living in the US
 and studying for her graduate degree, her five children started
 moving to Israel one by one, beginning in 1984. By 1987, she was able
 to communicate with them through e-mail and through electronic
 "conversations" using the "talk" commands on university UNIX
 computers. This old-fashioned form of what today is called "chat,"
 allowed each side to type one line at a time, then wait, and the
 other side would respond. The communication was vital - although
 sometimes the glitches were quite frustrating.

 "My son got quite depressed in his senior year in college - he
 really didn't know what he wanted to do with his life," said
 Michelson. "We would discuss his problems using the chat
 program." Her son had just written her a particularly troubling
 sentence about his emotional well-being when suddenly the
 telephone link disconnected. "I was so upset, I didn't know what to
 do, I thought my kid was about to commit suicide and I couldn't talk
 to him - I wanted to jump through the screen."

 The intensity of the life she was living online sometimes led to
 embarrassing situations as well. "I was sitting in the university
 computer lab calmly reading e-mail from my daughter, when I came to
 the lines, 'I met this guy Moshe, he's very, very nice. We've been
 out a few times and if things go on this way, I think we'll probably
 get married.'" Unable to control herself, she exclaimed in the middle
 of the computer lab. "OH MY GOD!"

 The computer connection became so important to Michelson that
 when her mother was in her final days in Philadelphia, while her
 children were in Israel, she packed up her large desktop computer and
 brought it to her mother's apartment. "My son asked me to do it. I
 knew I was going to go through my mother's funeral and the shiva. It
 was bizarre, but I felt that leaving the computer was like leaving my
 children, and I knew I really needed to communicate with them during
 that time."

 She says that many families find they communicate better on
 e-mail than face to face. "You process things differently when
 you are writing than when you are speaking. Nobody hears your
 tone of voice - sarcasm, for example. You get to say what you
 need to say without being interrupted. And perhaps, most
 importantly, you have a chance to take things back. You can
 write something, look at it and realize that it might upset the
 other person, and change it. If you say something, then 'take it
 back' by saying you didn't mean it, it's pretty difficult for the
 person to forget they heard it in the first place."

 In 1995, Michelson joined her children in Israel. The electronic
 connection overseas is now just as vital to her in the other
 direction. "I spend over half the year here, but my husband is unable
 to come because he is the only relative of his 88-year-old father who
 is disabled and doesn't want to leave the US. During the time I am
 here, my husband and I write each other twice a day except Shabbat."
 She says they can preserve the sense of everyday conversations with
 the snappy comments they send back and forth. "While it's not the
 same thing as being together physically, we are with each other in a
 narrative and emotional way," she says.

 One clear advantage of e-mail communication over the telephone
 is the ability to "speak" to a large group of people at once. This
 helps families who are flung all over the globe, stay involved in
 each other's lives. Adina Hagege, a mother of three who lives in
 Zichron Ya'acov, and her sister Aliza Greenstone, a student at a
 women's seminary in Jerusalem, are members of an extended family
 which uses e-mail to keep in touch. Greenstone, 19, explains that
 their mother is one of four sisters who lived in different parts of
 the US. "When I was younger we used to try to hold a family reunion
 once a year, but as everyone grew up and moved all over, it became
 more and more difficult. So my aunt decided to start a newsletter."
 Eventually, a computer-savvy cousin put the newsletter on e-mail. All
 the family members send him their news and he sends it out to four
 generations of the family - i.e., to more than 40 e-mail addresses
 every week.

 Greenstone says that at her seminary, Michlala Mevasseret
 Yerushalayim, all the students keep in touch with their friends
 and families using e-mail. The only problem is logistical: there are
 only two computers at the seminary, so the students must sign up to
 book a time slot for on-line time.

 Most people prefer communicating strictly through e-mail:
 writing a missive whenever it is convenient, sending it to
 another, who will read it and respond when he or she is able.
 Others, who prefer the immediacy of a back-and-forth
 conversation, will utilize various chat functions in the computer to
 have "real-time" talks with their friends and family. "I use America
 On Line's instant messenger quite a bit," says Reuben Taber of
 Jerusalem. "Essentially, you type back and forth with the other
 person. To find out if any of the people you want to communicate with
 are on line, you set up a "Buddy List" and are notified if they are
 on line the same time you are. The first time I messaged my in-laws,
 they were astounded that I knew they were on line. I told them that
 if you are good with a computer, there is no end to the things you
 can do."

 A year ago, Chavi and Yisrael Feldman were frequent users of
 the cutting-edge audio technology developed by the Israeli
 company Vocaltec, to have real-time voice conversations with
 their family in Canada. "It's a bit like talking on a
 walkie-talkie," Chavi says. "You say something, then you have to wait
 for the other side to receive it and answer." They rarely use it now,
 ever since competition was introduced on international phone calls
 and prices dropped dramatically. "The computer's great but I prefer
 the telephone," she says.

 For some, all this electronic family togetherness can be too much, as
 one Tel Aviv resident, who begged to remain anonymous, confessed.
 ("It could cost me my head if this was printed with my name.")

 "We often joke about the fact that our aliya was not so much
 motivated by Zionism as by the desire to get as far away as
 possible from our parental units," he says. "But now with free
 e-mail services in the United States offering unlimited access, all
 that's changed. My mother-in-law writes every day - even when there
 is nothing to report. Do they have e-mail on Mars?"