The Tel Aviv Review of Books

“The Scholar and the Activist”

July 2020

There are two places.

In one place, “poetry ripens with the rice.” Red chilies dry on the roof, water buffalo wander the streets, a goddess is drawn from the mud. A bite of fresh mango is “a golden electrocution.” The heat is a “living, menacing being, roused, relentless, driven by its own autonomous moods.” A piglet on the run is “a streak of dark lightning.” There is a glut of dust and light…

Runner’s World

On the Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

May 2020

I  cannot stop thinking about Ahmaud Arbery. 

I find myself wondering if, as he set out for his run in late February, his knees were bothering him. Maybe his IT band was tight. Maybe he had a twinge in one of his calves. Or maybe it was one of those charmed, perfect runs in which every fiber of one’s body feels at ease, in which nothing hurts much, in which running is a sheer delight of forward motion, fresh air, sunlight, presentness, grace…

The Paris Review’s Daily

“The Upside of Brandenburg v. Ohio”

January 2020

The first time I met an aspiring white supremacist was during a class trip to a county career center in southwest Ohio. He was tall and had buzzed hair and told my friend Niquelle and me that he loved the movie American History X. He wanted to be like Edward Norton’s character, he told us, “but before the part where he turned all pussy.” Norton’s character is an American neo-Nazi…

Runner’s World

“Mind the Woods Trolls - How to Run 100 Miles”

October 2019

When you stumble out of the 96 mile aid station, the first rays of dawnlight cracking over the hills, you might find yourself on the brink of tears as you realize that you are going to finish this run, that there’s only one more bite-sized chunk to go, zero more cups of pickle juice.

And you might laugh through the tears welling in your bleary eyes, and then glance over to smile at the photographer crouched between the trees, and then realize that the photographer is not a photographer, but a tree stump…

Electric Literature

“5 Book Pairings to Help You Understand Historical Conflicts”

February 2018

Power and powerlessness are key elements of conflict — elements that, in some cases, render the word “conflict,” in its two-sidedness, something of a misnomer. On the political level, one cannot talk about “conflicts” like the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories or the US occupation of Vietnam without grappling with radically imbalanced realities of power and powerlessness. The word “complexity,” if mis-wielded, can deflect attention away from such power imbalances.

That said, “power” and “powerlessness” are not synonymous with “evil” and “good,” as certain simplistic strains of political discourse come close to claiming. The brilliance — the relief — of reading novels and short stories is that worthwhile fiction is not that interested in fairytale categories of good and evil, at least when it comes to characters: fiction is interested in that which is human. And that which is human is always complex…

The Paris Review’s Daily

“Writing Fiction in the Shadow of Jerusalem”

January 2018

I started writing fiction while a cloud of death and mourning hung heavy over Jerusalem. To be clear: death and mourning are always hovering in the air over Jerusalem. It is not a joyful city. But in this period, beginning in early fall of 2015, death and mourning were increasingly part of the daily reality of almost every Jerusalemite I knew, and were spreading elsewhere, throughout Israel-Palestine…

The New York Times

“Running with the Pack”

January 2017

I. Rattlesnakes

The trails were unfamiliar — I barely knew what continent I was on — and fear was gnawing at me as I ran through the craggy, tree-lined trails of Tilden Regional Park. By mile four, my thoughts were filled with bears, snakes, danger. Are there even bears in Berkeley, Calif.?

Four days earlier, my brother Jesse had been riding his bike home from these woods. At the intersection of Allston and Sacramento, an elderly driver failed to notice that the light had turned red. When I got the phone call, I was at home in Jerusalem, puttering around my kitchen…

Haaretz

“In the Rubble of a Palestinian Home, I Saw the Occupation’s Evil”

February 2016

When I visited Jinba with Ta’ayush activists last Saturday to help clear the rubble away, Hamudi looked at me, grinning: “So you’re not going to tell the other Jews to come destroy our house again?”



The Leftern Wall

On the Matisyahu Disinvite, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Discourse

August 2015

My main struggle is and will remain the struggle against Israeli occupation and apartheid, whose severity and scale more closely resembles the antisemitism of past centuries than the antisemitism of this one. But I also want to commit now, publicly, to doing more than I have done to push back against antisemitism, both blatant and latent; both when it intersects with the Israeli-Palestinian discourse and when it does not…

The New York Times

“Why I Won’t Serve Israel”

January 2015

“WHAT are you,” he asked, “a leftist?”

We were both wearing the surplus United States Marines uniforms given to prisoners at Israeli Military Jail No. 6.

“It depends how you define ‘left,’ ” I said.

“Don’t get clever with me. Why are you here?”

“I didn’t want to be part of a system whose main task is the violent occupation of millions of people.”

“In other words: You love Arabs, and don’t care about Israeli security.”

“I think the occupation undermines all of our security, Palestinians’ and Israelis’.”

“You’re betraying your people,” he said.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Me? Desertion”…

Religion Dispatches Magazine

“A Jewish Perspective on Reparations”

November 2014

Most of the homeless people in Berlin are Jewish. Some of them wear tattered black yarmulkes, their matted beards clinging to emaciated cheeks. Their eyes are sunken and glazed as they plead with German passersby for help. It’s like this all over Germany. The street corners and slums of every major German city, from Munich to Nuremberg, are filled with Jews struggling to cope with extreme poverty, many of them addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The same is true of German prisons: almost half of all incarcerated Germans are Jewish, despite Jews making up only 12% of the German populace. Recently, controversy erupted when a German police officer shot and killed an unarmed Jewish teenager from a poor neighborhood. In an online campaign to raise money for the policeman, some of the 78,000 supporters wrote messages telling angry members of the German Jewish community not to “act like animals” and pledged over 250,000 Euros to the policeman and his family…

The Berkeley Journal of Sociology

“Scores of Arabs Were Killed”

October 2014

In February 2014, I heard Israeli Knesset Member Merav Michaeli tell a story: Twenty years prior, she had been a host on Friday Live, a popular weekly television program. In the tradition of the upcoming Purim holiday, the program’s hosts had planned to dress up in silly costumes. But just after 5:00 a.m., an American-Israeli physician had entered the Cave of the Patriarchs in Israeli-occupied Hebron and opened fire on the Palestinian Muslims who worshipped at their Friday morning prayer, murdering twenty-nine people. When Michaeli had heard the horrific news, she had assumed that Friday Live’s festive Purim episode would be cancelled. To her chagrin, she had been the only one who thought so. After arguments with the producers, the channel’s president had been called in and had issued an ultimatum to the 29 year-old Michaeli: Do the show, or you lose your job. So Michaeli and her co-host had hosted the show, dressed in silly costumes, with a moment’s recognition of the massacre—intended as genuine but turned lugubrious by context and costume—and then continued the celebratory Purim broadcast as planned…

+972 Magazine

Interview with Taghreed El-Khodary

August 2014

“Ending the siege is not a “Hamas demand.” It is the people’s demand. Gaza is still under occupation—it is an open jail. Israel always says, “We withdrew, we gave them land to control…” I am always shocked when I hear this line repeated by someone on CNN. The borders are completely controlled by Israel, the sea is completely controlled by Israel. The airspace is completely controlled by Israel. The crossings are completely controlled by Israel, aside from one crossing, controlled by Egypt—and this is now closed as well.”…

Jewschool

“Clarification: I do not think Palestinians are more moral than Israelis”

July 2014

A story: Jerusalem Day, 2012. I am standing at the Damascus Gate, before the Israeli parade has made its way from West Jerusalem into the occupied parts of the city to celebrate “reunification.” I am watching two small demonstrations, separated by a small police barrier. On one side, there is a group of young Israelis, mostly teenagers. They are waving Israeli flags, and their veins are bulging as they scream “Mavet LaAravim! Mavet LaAravim!” Death to Arabs! Death to Arabs! On the other side, there is a group of young Palestinian men, and they are also chanting and waving Palestinian flags, their fists clenched and their shouts filled with testosterone, “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yehud!” A reference to an incident in the 7th century in which Muslims forcibly expelled the Jews of Khaybar. And I think: they are so similar. We are so similar. We are all swept up in self-righteousness, we are all afraid and violent and capable of wishing expulsion and death on the other side…

+972 Magazine

“Living Inside an Invisible Cage: Welcome to Nabi Samuel”

May 2014

There are only 10 homes left in the small Palestinian village of Nabi Samuel, just northwest of Jerusalem. The remaining families are fighting an uphill battle to continue living in their homes.

As its name indicates, Nabi Samuel is home to the proclaimed burial site of the Prophet Samuel. In the 11th century, Christian crusaders built a fortress and church on top of the tomb. When Salah a-Din conquered Palestine in the late 12th century, the church was turned into a mosque and the village of Nabi Samuel was built around it; layers upon layers. Then came the bulldozers...

+972 Magazine

“The American Occupation of West Jerusalem”

May 2014

What do you do when rammed by a man in an electric wheelchair who’s fundraising for needy Holocaust survivors?

ust 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 counter-protest I’ve ever experienced.

I was standing on a kitchen chair when it happened…

The Times of Israel

“10 Reasons the City of David Is Not the Wholesome Tourist Site You Thought it Was”

February 2014

The “City of David” is one of the most popular tourist sites in Jerusalem. It is a prominent destination for Birthright Trips, synagogue delegations, youth group visits and family vacations. And if you go on to its website you will find out:

Almost nothing.

That is to say: the City of David’s website if full of information. Information about opening hours, upcoming events, how to donate. Information about virtual tours, underground tours, Segway tours. Information about archeology. All of this information, presented on a backdrop of cool multimedia graphics, hip rock-infused videos, chintzy Judaica adverts, charming pastoral pictures, and testimonies from The Brown Family…

Sojourners Magazine

“Confessions of a Violent Peacemaker”

February 2014

I AM A conscientious objector, and I am drawn to violence. My attraction to violence is both innate and learned. When something frightens me, my hands clench into fists. When something angers me, I want to inflict pain upon that thing. But a person cannot inflict pain upon a thing, so I seek out those whom I deem responsible for said thing and my desire to inflict pain upon a thing morphs into a desire to do violence to another person. Since I was a child, I have fantasized about using violence to stop what I see as bad and thereby become good.

It is from this point—from these fantasies of righteous violence—that I begin this essay on my journey to principled nonviolence and conscientious objection. This is a story of change and choice, but it is not a story of transformation: I am who I have always been…

The Daily Beast

“What’s Wrong with the Discourse About Throwing Rocks?”

August 2013

The first time I saw a house being demolished in the West Bank village of Al-Khalayleh, I wanted to pick up a stone and throw it at the bulldozer. The first time I went to a demonstration in Nabi Saleh, the week after Mustafa Tamimi was shot at close range with a tear gas canister that ruptured his eye and his brain and ultimately took his life, I wanted to hurl a rock at the IDF jeeps. I did not know the family in the small Palestinian village whose house was being demolished because of arbitrary administrative Israeli policies—I only saw them standing there, watching silently, the smallest boy clutching a Spiderman doll almost as big as he was. I had never met Mustafa Tamimi—I only saw pictures posted on Facebook of a young man, about my age, lying on the road with blood pouring out of where his eye used to be. I am a proud Israeli and a religiously observant Jew and a functional pacifist. And the first time I saw a house being demolished, I wanted to throw a stone…

The Times of Israel

“The Shamasneh Case: How the Nakba Continues Legally in East Jerusalem”

May 2013

In Jerusalem, there is a family of ten people. They live in a small house on a quiet street, not far from the Jerusalem bustle of cars and tourists and hotels and diplomats, but removed, out of sight. The grandfather and grandmother have been living in the house for over four decades. Their son and their son’s children have known this house as home for their entire lives.  The house has a narrow staircase and a low door.

On Monday, May 20th, the Supreme Court will meet in its lofty Jerusalem halls, with their swooping marble archways and breathtaking high ceilings, to discuss whether or not this family’s home should be taken from them and given to members of an American-funded organization. This is a legal case- nothing more, nothing less. Israeli law states that a person who can prove pre-1948 ownership of property may take their claim to court and “reappropriate” their house (or may have their claim taken to court for them by said American-funded organizations). This is a question of law, the backbone of democracy, and upholding the law…

The Daily Beast

“Why I Refuse to Serve in the IDF”

October 2012

American Jews actively supported the civil rights movement. Or so goes the popular narrative in the American Jewish community. For the purposes of this piece, let’s call it “The Narrative.” The values that come along with The Narrative are values that have guided me throughout my life: values of nonviolence, values of anti-racism, and values of disobeying unjust laws. These values combined have led me to my recent decision to refuse to serve in the IDF.

As with many historical adages, there is truth to The Narrative. Most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was a friend and active supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rabbi Perry Nussbaum’s house and synagogue were both bombed in retaliation for his unfaltering civil rights work in the South. Two of Dr. King’s closest white advisers, Stanley Levison and Harry Wachtel, were both Jewish. So were Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, two of the three activists who were murdered, along with James Chaney, for their efforts to help black Mississippians register to vote during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Many of the white Freedom Riders and student pickets came from Jewish households. And the list goes on…

The Leftern Wall

“Why I Refuse: On God/Love, Nonviolence, and Israel’s Military Occupation of the Palestinian Territories”

October 2012

My name is Moriel Zachariah Rothman. I am 23 years old and live in Jerusalem. I lived for most of my life in the United States, but I was born in Jerusalem (and am Jewish) and have thus been an Israeli citizen since birth. As such, I am, like [most] other Israeli Jews, expected to serve in the IDF. I moved back to Jerusalem last year, and I recently received a draft notice from the IDF. After much thinking, wrestling and searching, and drawing inspiration from my community and from many who have made the same choice before me, I have decided to refuse to serve in the army.

Before explaining my decision, I want to acknowledge both my privilege and the fact that I am here by choice. As for the former, I am deeply aware of the privileges I have as compared to many other Israelis- privileges of education, of financial security, of light skin, of circumstance- and I thus want to make clear that I do not see my decision to refuse as making me somehow “more moral” or otherwise superior to my Israeli peers who chose to serve...

The Huffington Post

“Israel Is Not a Jewish State: On the Destruction of Susiya and the Expulsion of South Sudanese”

June 2012

At various junctures in the process of peace-processing, Israeli leaders have waxed righteous about the need for the Palestinians to “recognize Israel as a Jewish State.” This demand is absurd on many levels, from its implicit requirement that Palestinian leaders give their seal of approval to the maintenance of Palestinian-Israelis’ second-class status to its rhetorical slight-of-hand distraction from the fact that Palestinian leaders have already recognized Israel’s right to exist as an Israeli State. But there is also an even more basic absurdity to this demand: Israel is not a Jewish state.

Yes: Israel is a state in which people who are Jews are given more rights and privileges than people who are not Jews (let alone the Israeli-controlled West Bank and East Jerusalem, where the majority of non-Jews are barely given rights and privileges at all).

Yes: Israel is a state in which archaic, hyper-masculine and exclusionary readings of Jewish texts are wielded against women and non-Orthodox Jews, as well as against non-Jews.

But Israel is not a Jewish state in any value-based — or valuable — way…