The news of the murder of the three kids is horrific. No qualifications, no rationalizations, nothing. The murder of children is one of the most horrific things imaginable. I found myself staring again at the pictures […]
Month: June 2014
Introducing: The Leftern Wall July Story Journal
Recently, I went for a run (which is something I do a lot, as I am training for another ultramarathon). While running, I listened to a podcast (which is also something I do a lot). […]
How Mentioning the word “Occupation” Sent Secret Tel Aviv into Mayhem and Panic
So, earlier this evening, as I was twiddling around Facebook, I had the idea of posting in Secret Tel Aviv, a Facebook group of 41,000+, mostly anglo-Jewish folks living in the Tel Aviv area. Most […]
Young Leftist Jews Standing with the Black South in 1964 and in 2014
Yesterday, I wrote a piece called “The Jewish Left is Alive and Vibrant” in the Jewish Daily Forward as a response to Jay Michaelson’s piece in the same paper, “Death of the Jewish Left.” In my piece, […]
War is Terrorism: Three Reflections on Silence, “the” Crisis & Hanin Zuabi
1. Break the Silence. The events of the past two weeks are raw, emotional, divisive- and there is a part of me that wants to keep quiet, to “wait until things calm down.” But that is not […]
How Moving to the Jewish State Made me Stop Wearing a Kippah
This piece is a very personal one, and one that I decided not to publish when I first wrote it, as a letter to two friends, almost three years ago. Now, with time forging a buffer between me, in the present, and the rawness of this experience then, I have decided I am ready to retroactively publish it, and to see where its resonances land. I reread this with a measure of sadness, and also with compassion for myself then, and also with admiration for those who are able to constantly hold the contradictions that I did not feel strong enough to hold, and also with relief that this is no longer a struggle that tears me up on a daily basis. Here is:
Fall, 2011
I woke up Thursday morning, the first day of Rosh HaShana, the Jewish new year, a time of renewal and rebirth and reawakening and reevaluating and re-being. I woke up Thursday morning, and I put on my kippah, and I looked in the mirror, and I thought to myself:
“What is this thing I am putting on my head?”
Why Ein Prat is more like the Hebron Fund than a group of teachers from Bat Ayin
I was recently asked by a few friends and colleagues for my opinion on studying at an Ein Prat program within the Green Line. The questions came to me as a followup to the post I’d […]
The Shooter from Bitunya Speaks*
In the third grade Liam stood on the top of the playtoy and Told the class my arms were skinny and Looked like like a girl’s, like Talia’s, and The next week I pushed his chest […]
The Leftern Wall 