• The Long Road to Bethlehem Part Four

    +972, December 19, 2015 “I’m leaving.” I tell people in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. The words sound unexpected and foreign in every language, as though someone else is speaking them. While I’ve resigned from my post at the university and someone has already been hired to teach my fall classes, I haven’t given my landlady …

  • Old problems in Jerusalem’s Old City

    IRIN, November 23, 2015 Faten Ghosheh, a 33-year-old Palestinian mother of five, stands on the roof of her partially demolished home in Jerusalem’s Old City, the Al-Aqsa Mosque visible behind her. She recalls the moment five years ago when Israeli forces arrived at 5am to tear down the two rooms and bathroom that her husband …

  • Eat the breakfast of a king and the dinner of a pauper

    Roads & Kingdoms, November 16, 2015 One can learn much about labneh—that is, the version of the breakfast food that appears in Palestinian homes—through the word itself. Both the name and the substance labneh are derived from laben, yogurt. But it also shares a root with “block,” as in the substance used to build. And …

  • This is What the Israelis Really Want

    The World Post at The Huffington Post, October 23, 2015 It’s Wednesday night. I’ve just left the memorial for Habtom Zarhum, the Eritrean asylum seeker who was mistaken for a Palestinian during the attack on the Beersheba bus station. Zarhum was shot by a security guard and was then “lynched”by an Israeli mob. They cursed …