Bonjour!

I was born in Jerusalem in 1977 and lived and worked there until 2010, so I’m not only 100% Israeli but a Jerusalemite to the bone. You can take me out of Jerusalem, but apparently there are parts of Jerusalem you can’t take out of me, and they come with me everywhere (the local slang, cheering for Beitar Jerusalem and all the rest). After 33 years in Jerusalem I moved to Tel Aviv in 2010, and from there to Givatayim. From 2016 to 2018 I lived on the island of Guernsey, where Victor Hugo (1802–1885) lived for 15 years (not by choice), and I even wrote a guide to the island called Guernsey: Everything Travelers Need to Know. From 2018 to 2019 I lived in Malta, and I got to write about it too. In December 2019 I moved back to Israel (I explain why in a separate article). The funny part is that everyone who meets me, anywhere in the world, thinks I’m French, so I guess some things never change…

I can’t quite explain it, but every time I go back to Paris (and I’ve been there more than 20 times), I simply feel like I’m coming home. An Israeli politician once said that what really matters is "life itself". I fully agree, except that for me "life itself" happens when I’m in Paris, and everything else is either a prologue or an epilogue. I’ve traveled a lot and seen breathtaking landscapes and cities full of art, attractions and great food. And precisely because I really have "seen the world", I can say that Paris is the one and only, and no other city compares.

I have a degree in French culture and a master’s degree in international relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but I never worked in either field (the only thing left from my studies is a sometimes annoying habit of philosophizing about everything). Since 2007 I’ve worked in the computer games industry in its various forms, specializing in B2B and B2C marketing. In September 2015, while I was traveling in Paris, my phone rang and a friendly headhunter made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: to become head of marketing at Eyecon, one of the leading companies in online gaming. The company’s offices were on Guernsey, so I left Israel and moved there for the next few years. In 2018 I changed roles and moved to Malta. In December 2019 I moved back to Israel, and I still work for Eyecon, this time from Playtech’s offices in Tel Aviv.

Since I opened Francophiles Anonymous, a lot of really good things have happened to me. Six months after the site went live, I was invited to host an evening of French chansons. I had never been on a stage before, and it turned out to be one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. That’s where I realized how much I love standing on a stage, explaining, talking with an audience, teaching and sharing. As I wrote above, my career is in marketing and sales. But since then I’ve also become a speaker on French history and culture, and since 2021 I’ve served as secretary of the Napoleon heritage center in Israel.

I put many hours into the site almost every day, and I enjoy it a lot. My dream is to one day devote 100% of my time to the site and to France and its culture. I’m in France two or three times a year, so my trips are a hobby and a nice way to meet people, not a living. That’s why the only way for me to earn a living from the site is affiliate marketing, for example sending you to booking sites for hotels, restaurants and so on. The site is free and will stay free forever, so I’ll never ask you to pay extra for something you wouldn’t buy anyway. But if you’re looking for restaurants, hotels or attraction tickets (always best bought in advance to skip the line), I’d be very happy if you booked them through my site. Anything you buy through me won’t cost you more than it would elsewhere (sometimes it even costs less), and I get a small commission on each sale that brings me one step closer to the dream.