Asylum seekers mourn lynched Eritrean man

+972 Magazine, October 23, 2015 Hundreds of Eritreans and Sudanese nationals gathered in south Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Park Wednesday evening to mourn Habtom Zerhum, the asylum seeker who was shot and severely beaten Sunday night during a terrorist attack in the Beer Sheva bus station. They lit candles and wept. Desale Tesfay, 35, from Eritrea, …

The lynching of Habtom Zarhum: A history of incitment

+972 Magazine, October 20, 2015 An Eritrean asylum seeker was mistaken for a Palestinian during ashooting attack at the Be’er Sheva bus station Sunday night. Habtom Zarhum, 29, was shot by a security guard who thought he was a terrorist and then – as the asylum seeker lay bleeding on the ground – civilians kicked …

This is What Palestinian Youth Really Want

The World Post at The Huffington Post, October 19, 2015 It’s Friday morning and East Jerusalem is on lockdown, the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods cut off by new, hastily erected checkpoints — massive cement blocks manned by Israeli soldiers. In Tel Aviv, however, it’s the beginning of the weekend, and it feels like it. The streets …

How does Israel stop Palestinians from protesting?

Al Jazeera English, October 19, 2015 Israeli police came to activist Adan Tartour’s home in Jaffa at half past midnight on October 7, and pounded on the door. When the Tartours opened it, police said that they had an arrest warrant. Adan Tartour, 18, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was put under arrest for “suspicion of violence …

88 pieces made it into the ACCH’s biennial show

Broward Palm Beach New Times, September 15, 2015 The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a quaint yellow building with stately palm trees and well-landscaped shrubbery. Usually, it’s the art inside that’s controversial — not the politics surrounding the place. But over the summer, Jane Hart, who had been the curator for eight years, …

The Nameless Islands

Roads & Kingdoms, August 4, 2015 I’m in a kayak, alone and three months pregnant, paddling through jade water, trying to reach an unnamed island off the shore of Big Pine Key, Florida. The mangroves that have waded offshore—tangles of long grey legs topped with a mess of bright green leaves—point me towards a strip …

Presidential hopefuls in Ft. Lauderdale today; meet the underdogs

Broward Palm Beach New Times, July 31, 2015 Today there’s a presidential candidate plenary — that’s a fancy word for “big meeting” — in Fort Lauderdale, and five candidates are going to be here to speak at the Urban League’s national conference. Surely, you’ve already media-overdosed on Clintons and Bushes by now, so here are …

The long road to Bethlehem: part three

+972 Magazine, July 27, 2015 The New Year comes and passes. It’s January 2014 and I’ve been living in the territories for almost a year. But rather than becoming more comfortable in my new surroundings and feeling like my usual curious and adventurous self—I am the woman, after all, who has traveled some 20 countries, …

The long road to Bethlehem: part two

+972 Magazine, April 26, 2015 I was sold on the apartment. But my landlady wasn’t sold on me yet. We went upstairs and sat in her salon. Once a porch, it had been closed in with glass windows and offered a view of the hills surrounding Bethlehem. It was one of the few vistas that …