Zionism

Life after “Life After Zionist Summer Camp”

June 21, 2011

It starts the minute I read the first paragraph. That feeling of vague anger and helplessness. Because I’ve been reading and thinking about this issue ever since I decided that Israel was something I needed to be reading and thinking about. And I’ve been experiencing all of the things that Benedikt did for the past ten years, maybe more.  In different stages.  In different places. The olives, the AIPAC meetings, the beach, the sunflower seeds, the 1967 maps, the rallies, ...

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Books: O Jerusalem

September 27, 2010

I’ve been gushing about this one for the past couple weeks on various social media outlets because it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.  It’s really rare that I’m be sad when books end, the way I was when Jonathan Strange+Mr. Norrell ended, but this is one case where I was. The book goes through, detail by detail, of the battle for Jerusalem during the war for Israel’s independence in 1948, from both the Israeli ...

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This Tu B’Shvat, I’m buying a donkey and a plane ticket to Haifa

January 28, 2010

Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish festival for the birthday of the trees, is tonight.   Since it’s been a while that I’ve been part of something Jewish (living with Mr. B does not count as doing something Jewish, although sometimes I try to pass it off as such,)  I wanted to celebrate, which involves planting trees and eating fruits of the Torah (pomegranates, dates, olives, and Bamba.) Unfortunately, we don’t have any Bamba and Mr. B hates olives in the same way ...

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Movie Review: Amreeka

September 27, 2009

Go see this movie. As soon as possible. Amreeka (America in Arabic) is the story of how a Christian Palestinian single mom, Muna, and her son, Fadi,  get a visa to go to America from the West Bank town of Bethlehem because it is clear that there is not much future in the territories for them. They arrive in snowy Illinois to stay with Muna’s sister and her family.  So starts Muna’s process of getting on her feet as an ...

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The Step-Motherland

September 9, 2009

I’m back from the motherland!  Well, not really the motherland, because I technically wasn’t born there.  But it’s like a motherland to me because Israel is the Jewish homeland or whatever.  So I guess you could say Israel is like the step-motherland because Israel gets custody of me every couple of years.  And only on the weekends. Anyway, the reason that I went this time is because A)I was in desperate need of vacation to the point  where I was ...

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