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). […]
Category: Stories of Days
My Name [What It’s Been and What It’s Become]
My name has always been Moriel Rothman. Sometimes I’ve gone by Mori. Occasionally I’ve signed with my middle name, Zachariah. But as of last Friday, my name has changed: I am now Moriel Rothman-Zecher. As […]
Beauty, Joy & Gratitude
There is room for all of these as well, amidst all the rest, among all the rest, with all the rest. So much so.
100,000 (and top ten)
[An aside]: 100,000 page views on The Leftern Wall, as of this minute, at 9:48 AM on May 13th, 2014, since I started blobbing* on January 30th, 2012. That is a lot of human beings, […]
A Response from Morris, the Man from the Market
Wonders of Facebook, of small communities, of Jerusalem, of attempts at genuine grappling with experiences in public but love-based discourse: within days of posting my most recent blog post, “What To Do When Rammed by a […]
What To Do When Rammed by a Man in an Electronic Wheelchair Fundraising for 10 Needy Holocaust Survivors:
Just walk away.
Ok, um, guys, seriously we need to just walk away.
It is hot. I am confused. My shins pre-hurt. My stomach feels twisted and odd. Over the last three years of activism and direct actions, I’ve been yelled at, shoved, spit on, detained, whacked with a baton, cursed out, dragged, arrested and nearly urinated on, but this was by far the most upsetting and unexpected counterprotest I’d ever experienced.
I was standing on a kitchen chair when it happened.
All That’s Left: Creative direct action. Street theatre. In the middle of a sea of people in Jerusalem’s Machaneh Yehudah market at 2:40 PM on a Friday afternoon.
We are here, I say in loud American English, stepping up onto a chair.
(We are here), respond the other activists, the form inspired by Occupy Wall Street’s “Mic Check,” an eminently portable, eminently free, eminently intriguing grassroots type of Megaphone.
To announce that from this day forward, I yell, my assumed Voice of Authority growing louder and shriller.
(To announce that from this day forward), respond the others. Four of them are holding two large American flags in a V-formation, others are waiting nearby with flyers and cameras.
This piece of land belongs, I am only half looking at my surroundings. The other half of my looking is directed, somehow, at the space between my eyes and the world, a space that I’ve come to know as my “zone,” first experienced in theatre as a young kid, and later during spoken word performances as an older kid. It is a place of extreme focus and echoic silence. I’m in this. I am vaguely aware that we are people are yelling and that a crowd is growing, but I don’t or can’t or won’t pay much attention: I have words to say.
(This piece of land belongs!)
To Americans only, movement in the crowd, a flash of yellow, murmurs, raised voices. The flyer-ers have begun distributing. I later find out that All That’s Left member Daniel Roth (who is an superb writer, photographer and pursuer of justice) encountered someone who told him to give him all of his flyers, and when Daniel refused, the man took a half-hearted swing at him.
(To Americans only!)
Oy Vey: The Days When The Right Wing and The Leftern Wall Align
So. I subscribe to a mailing list called World Jewish Daily Morning Update. Mostly for the right-wing Op Eds and the charming framing the WJD gives to current events, such as: Today, though, it was […]
An Inter-Action
8something AM. Rain. On a sherut. The guy behind me, to his girlfriend: “Everyone in Tel Aviv are faggots. They’re all cocksuckers.” I am caught off guard, it’s early. There’s rain. It takes me until […]
Two Year Blobversary
It’s hard to believe that it has only been two years since I started this blog (or “blob,” as my friend’s grandfather would say), on January 30th, 2012. The first year of The Leftern Wall’s […]
Racism on the Radio: Ethnic Transfer Relay Races and Subsidized Discriminatation on the Farm
Driving yesterday, I turned on the radio. I don’t drive much, and don’t listen to the radio much. Maybe if I did, I would have been numbed to what I heard. But I don’t, and […]
The Leftern Wall 