Category: Personal

What’s Up With Failed Blogs?

I’ve proudly been on the internet for almost twenty five years. In the beginning, the barrier to entry to get a website – with a custom domain name and decent hosting – was incredibly difficult – and many people were pining to gain an unprecedented publicity with the internet. Once blogs became readily available, lots […]

Oy Canada! It's Official: Rafi Hecht is Now a Canadian Citizen

rafi-canadian-citizenshipIt’s official: after quite some time I finally became a dual United States/Canadian citizen. I moved to Canada in 2007 (married a Canadian girl and decided to take the plunge) and didn’t look back.

The process was actually a bit lengthier than I thought. First, one needed to live in Canada for 3 out of 4 years (now they’ve changed it: it’s 4 out of 6), pay $200 for an application fee (now it’s $400), pass an exam and interview exam and interview with an immigration officer.

The application was interesting in that you really needed to supply everything. It took a long while to get everything in order, from school records to ID photos to entries/exits, among other things. In the middle of the process was what was called a “questionnaire,” which essentially amounted to an application on steroids. The purpose of that “questionnaire” was to trip you up in causing you to answer different information than the application which could/would delay the process. I soon would find out that no one was immune.

I’m Now (Not So) Famous In Israel – Yediot Sefarim In Israel Stealing My Facebook Picture

Recently, a friend of mine pointed out that an Israeli media company actually showed Chutzpah by using my Facebook profile picture without my explicit written permission or consent, creating a fake Facebook profile “Yeshayahu Liss (ישעיהו ליס),” living in Tel Aviv Israel, and going forward with it. In the video ad for Yediot Sefarim, a girl […]

September 11, 2001 – a Personal Recap

In light of all the 9/11 testimonials, allow me to throw mine into the hat. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a bright, sunny Tuesday morning in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001. I was living in Flatbush at the time, had already gone to Synagogue for morning services, had scarfed down breakfast, […]

Seven Years in Graduate School

I am very happy to announce that after 7 gruelling years I finally earned my Masters of Science degree in Management/Information Systems at Stevens Institute of Technology. The fact that I pulled through after all these years shows a tenacity on my part in overcoming a major challenge, one that even I’m impressed about. Here’s how it […]