War in Gaza

Palestine is not Ukraine

March 27, 2022

Gigi Hadid might be competent walking down the runway, but when it comes to expressing her views on international affairs, she’s in way over her lingerie.

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Israeli TV for my mom

February 28, 2022

My mother loves Israeli TV. She looks to me, her son in the Holy Land, for advice. So here are my top Israeli TV picks for mom.

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Meeting the enemy

July 7, 2019

“Why do you Israelis want to wipe us off the map?” The question wasn’t meant to be provocative. I was, after all, the first Israeli Zahra had ever met.

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About that Baka boom

May 28, 2018

I was in the shower when it happened: a boom louder than any I’ve heard since the suicide bomb at Café Hillel on Emek Refaim Street in 2003.

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Resilience in the Face of Uncertainty

November 30, 2014

When we made aliyah 20 years ago, did we come expecting that there would be war in our future? On a certain level, I suppose we knew that we were moving to a dangerous neighborhood and that conflict was probable. But we repressed that kind of thinking. You had to – why would we willingly […]

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Ireland, Identity and Avoiding Anti-Semitism

September 24, 2014

“If anyone asks where we’re from, say America, not Israel.” Those were the instructions I gave to my wife and children for how to minimize friction while traveling outside of Israel after a summer where protests bordering on (and sometimes overtly embracing) anti-Semitism raged across Europe. Our vacation – ten days in Ireland, hiking, drinking […]

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Wartime Unity at Hutzot HaYotzer

September 17, 2014

In a summer where nearly every large-scale outdoor event was canceled on instruction by Israel’s Home Front Command, the annual Hutzot HaYotzer International Arts and Crafts Festival in Jerusalem represented a desperately needed welcome breather. Now in its 39th year, Hutzot HaYotzer is the country’s preeminent place to meet talented local artists – nearly 200 in […]

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Fire from Below

August 23, 2014

With our nerves already on edge from the air raid sirens and the heartbreaking mounting death toll as Operation Protective Edge raged on last month, the thick black smoke billowing out of our parking garage did not bode well. I was about to jump in the shower when my son burst in and told me […]

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July 22, 2014 – The Day Everything Changed

August 10, 2014

July 22, 2014. Remember that date. It will be recalled in history books yet to be written as the day the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians changed completely. That’s because it’s the day that the war in Gaza transformed from just another in a series of “operations” to an existential threat to the Jewish […]

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Why’d You Want to Live Here, Anyway?

July 25, 2014

An article a few weeks ago in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz questioned why someone would ever want to make aliyah from a comfortable country like the U.S. Especially these days – with the murders of the Naftali Frenkel, Gil-ad Shear and Eyal Shach still on our minds, the revenge killing of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khaider stinging at our […]

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